Austin's video

Parker Family Reunion

We had a family reunion for my husbands side of the family last weekend. It was held in Driggs just down the road and up a dirt road from the Fullmer "Barn" Reunion we use to attend yearly. In fact, I think we found the graveyard that Grandma, Grandpa, and Brent said they wanted to buried in. Here are are few pictures:

"Cousins, cousins, there were never such devoted cousins"

These 3 (Kash is missing) are practically siblings since they are always together.

Tate in Grandma's 5th Wheel

Everyone had their own cup to save on waste.

I especially like this one.

Jumping off the rock to Ryon

Austin accidently kneed her in the leg this time.

Funny Story

This story about Austin was relayed to me by my sister-in-law who is also currently our babysitter....A couple of weekends ago my niece returned from her mission to Chile so we all went to Boise to see her listen to her report on her mission. Apparently, while we were there one of my nephew's friends were over playing and they were all in the back yard. Sometime during the day this friend (bless his heart) told my son that he has "werewolfism" and went on to tell him that he turns into a werewolf at night. He had been talking about the moon a lot lately but never mentioned anything about werewolves to me, but he did say something to my little niece. She is 5 I think and he told her that when there is a full moon outside at night he turns into a werewolf and gets big sharp teeth, long yellow finger nails, and fur that grows on his arms, hands, and face. My sister-in-law watches them both so my niece has nightmares that whole night and won't sleep because she thinks that Austin is a werewolf and this whole time Austin has REALLY thought that he was a a werewolf too. So when my sister-in-law drops off my niece the next day she asked if Austin would tell my niece that he IS NOT a werewolf. Austin did eventually tell my niece that he wasn't one and they are all good now. I thought this story was humerous so I thought I would share. I felt bad that my niece had nightmares over it though.

In the Home Stretch

We register my husband for his last semester of school the first of next month. He should graduate in December with his degree in Mechanical Engineering. He is so close to being done I can taste it. I am so proud of him. It has been a long couple of years. When my younger son turned 3 a few months ago we were both saying that it seemed like he had been 2 forever. This semester has been nice because he has been around more often at home than he has in a long time. He leaves at a reasonable time in the morning and is usually home for dinner or at least before the boys are in bed. I wish we could carpool more often but it hasn't happened much.
There is a 7 week break between Spring and Fall Semester. He wants to do an internship at the company he worked for before he went back to school during that time and the internship will roll over into Fall Semester and should qualify for one of his classes.
We aren't sure what we will be doing after he graduates. Hopefully we will be able to stay living where we are, but that will all depend on who is hiring and what they offer him. We hope that I can stay home with the kids soon after he graduates which I am really looking forward to. It has been difficult with my older son in school and coordinating pick up and drop off at my sister-in-laws house since she is babysitting for us. When he starts 2nd grade at the end of August it is going to get even more confusing mainly because we are going to have him back at the grade school by our house and the bus usually comes around 7:30 a.m., but it takes me around 45 minutes to drop my younger son off and get to work in time. Hmmm...maybe my husband can help out a little depending on his class schedule. It is a little stressful but it will all work out. After school is another problem since I work until 5 p.m. and even when the "After School Program" starts he will beat me home. This makes me a little nervous since he will only be 7 but my husband said that he was babysitting other younger kids when he was this age alone. Others have told me that their kids have been at home alone when they were younger than my son will be and for a longer period than he will be.
Thanks for listening to my ramblings.

Duckie Blankie

My younger son is really attached to his blankie. I think it started about the time we took his binkie away. He likes to have it when he sleeps so when he is at my sister-in-laws house during the day he will ask for it for his nap. My husband thinks we should get rid of it. But I just think that is mean since he is only two. It does get kind of gross if I don't wash it at least once a week because he likes to chew on it. My older son and I never had anything like this for comfort so I'm not sure if it would tramatize him if we took it away. Plus he is so cute when he is cuddling with it and he is even cuter when he asks for it. I remember when my little sister would throw fits if she didn't have her 'DyDy' and I could really do without that drama. I think it would be better to let him naturally outgrow it, but what if he doesn't and is still wanting his blankie when he is 10? Any advise would be helpful.

Potty Training

Our little boy is 2 1/2 and had been showing a little bit of interest in potty training so I bought him some little boy underwear (they are so cute and little by the way). Last week my sister-in-law (who babysits for us) and I worked hard at getting him to use the toilet but he just wasn't getting it. In fact one night he went right next to the toilet. So we kind of gave up and went to pull ups. The day before yesterday he wanted to get on the bus with my older son and my brother-in-law told him that only boys who use the toilet can ride the bus. He was devistated and cried for a long time or so I was told. Then last night he says he wants to use the potty, but he has said this before because I think he feels big just sitting on it. So he crawled up on it and low and behold he went #1. I'm not sure if it is what my brother-in-law told him or not but I was so proud. Who would know that something so little would make me so happy?

Bad Day!

Last night after attending my mother-in-laws birthday party I was preparing to drive home. I was carrying multiple items including my two year old so I sat my phone on top of the car while I loaded everything else in the car. Well...I forgot about the phone and drove off with it still on the top of my car until I heard a clunk noise which reminded me that I had set it on my car. Whoops! It was dark and on a fairly busy road. Needless to say, I didn't find it before "my Hero" was run over by another car. The screen is in about a billion pieces. I am so sad, but luckily my mother law had a phone that she is going to let me use. It isn't as nice but at least I have a phone. Right?! So then we drive home. Me in the car and my husband in the truck. About a mile from home his surpentine belt breaks, and then we get out of our vehicles and notice that the little car my inlaws gave us has a flat tire. These usually happen threes so hopefully we are done now.

Parent Teacher Conference & Dentist

Austin is in first grade this year. We transfered him to a different school this year so that he could be bussed to my sister-in-laws house until I get off work. He has been wizzing through his homework and has commented that he gets bored at school. He teacher told us that he is one of the smartest kids in his class and he is in the advanced reading group. I should be happy about this, but last year at his old school he was about average. Does this mean he is improving or that he isn't be pushed enough? I'm not sure what to think. If we just coast through this year I hope that he isn't behind when we transfer him again.

Lucky guy got his first filling at the dentist today. He was such a trooper. He was a little scared when we first went in and he got a little agitated when he tasted the sealant, but then they put the "elephant nose" on him. Things went pretty good from there. He said it felt like there was a ball in his cheek and he kept giggling about that. I was afraid that he might be afraid to go to the dentist after this, but I don't even think he remembers the "fairy prick". Plus he got to watch cartoons the whole time. Not too bad.

Mean Dogs

First let me say that I am a dog person. I love dogs. We own a miniature schnauzer right now, and have had a black lab and bloodhound in the past (which aren't small breeds) so I know it wasn't the size that scared us. So I keep thinking about what we went through and wonder if I could have handled it differently to improve the outcome. This is what happened: the other evening the boys and I decided to ride our bikes to Austin's school so they could play on the toys. On the way there a weimaramer dog (which are suppose to be good dogs, good with kids,etc.) came running after us. I had Tate on the back of my bike and Austin was riding his own. At first I thought that he just wanted to run along side of us than he caught up to Austin and started nipping at him. He teeth came down on his arm but I wasn't sure how hard. He was crying saying that the dog had bit him. I told Austin to go as fast as he could and after we got up the road a bit we pulled over and I checked his arm. There was some scratches and teeth marks but the bite didn't break the skin. I think it mostly scared him. The boys had a lovely time playing at the school and then it was time to go home. I gave Austin the option of going around the long way which would be an extra couple of miles or to be brave and try to pass the house with the dog again. This time I was prepared and put Austin on the other side of the road and I rode closest to the house. As we came up on the house there was not just one but two dogs this time. My protective mother claws were out and they crossed me and started for Austin so I circled around and started yelling at them. One of the dogs started nipping at my feet and I got really scared and lifted up my legs, tried to kick their faces, and screamed loud. They were growling and weren't happy at this point. Luckily the owner heard me scream and called the dogs back to their house. I yelled at her to "keep her dang dogs away from my kid" which is very out of character for me, but I was trying to protect my child. Well, did I overreact? Maybe if I stopped my bike to pet the dogs and let Austin ride ahead it would have been better. Then again, they might have really taken after him and I would have been too far behind to defend him. I think we will just hop in the car next time we want to play at the school.

The tooth

Austin lost his first tooth this past weekend. It has been loose for a couple of weeks and it was just hanging there. His permanent tooth was growing in behind it and Spencer thought that it would grow in crooked if we didn't get his baby tooth out of the way. So after he fell asleep Spencer pull it out with pliers. He didn't even wake up. He didn't even realize it was gone until Spencer said something to him the next morning. That night we didn't get home until late and Austin fell asleep in the car on the way home so he couldn't put his tooth under his pillow. When the tooth fairy didn't come he was upset, and told me that he had woken during the night and put his tooth under his pillow. I felt so bad. Our tooth fairy must have been sleeping on the job. The next day he was carrying his tooth around with him and lost it in the pickup. He was so devastated but do you know while he was taking a nap my mother in law showed him that the tooth fairy must have found his tooth because she left him some money. All is right in the world again.

New Babysitter

The boys had their last day at their babysitter today. She has been a really good babysitter, lives only a couple minutes from our house, lived in our ward, and has reasonable rates. She has been watching the boys since August last year. I feel bad for my kids. Austin has had 5 different babysitters since he was born. He rarely complains in fact he thrives on the change and is excited for the new babysitter they get to go to starting the Tuesday after Memorial Day. I brought the kids to her once last month and they seemed to enjoy it. She provides activities for the older kids and a pre-school for the younger kids. She runs a daycare out of her home like mom use to and has done it for more than 20 years. Her mom, husband, and older daughter help out during the summer which allows the older kids to go places and keep them busy. They also go to the summer movie program the the schools promote. She said that she would help us with potty training for Tate. It will be nice having a sitter in town because we have Austin signed up for t-ball and swimming lessons. It was be easier and faster to pick him up when he is just a few short minutes drive from work. Now for the really good news...my sister in law wants to start watching kids again in the Fall. It looks like Austin will be going to the same school that Spencer went to when he was a kid. At least we hope so, pending approval from the school district office.

T-ball drama

I signed Austin up for t-ball and he had his first practice last Saturday. He kept saying he was "too shy" which is so untrue. He'll talk your ear off if you let him and this includes complete strangers. But he didn't know any of the kids on his team. So, I went out with him and the other kids were rolling the ball back and forth so I played his partner and we did the same. The coach asked the kids to try throwing it and one of the kids accidently threw a ball and it hit Austin in the shoulder. So he started to cry. Coupled with it being freezing cold outside and his being embarrest he just couldn't take it anymore and we left. It was a frusterating experience for him and me. I just thought it would be fun for him to learn t-ball. But it isn't turning out that way so far. His coach is super nice and asked if there was anything she could do to help because she felt bad that he was upset. I suggested maybe doing a "get to know you game" or "play time" to help him feel like he had friends.

I'm Reading: Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare

I was inspired by my mom to post what I am reading right now. Although, I don't usually have a lot of time to read I do enjoy doing it when I can, but I am not fast. I started the first book in this series on our cruise "City of Bones" which was back in June. Then I got destracted and read "The Time Traveler's Wife" because my sister and I had seen the movie which I enjoyed a lot, so I wanted to read the book. I always seem to do that backwards. Now I am reading the 2nd book "City of Ashes" and the 4th book comes out in March. That means I really need to finish the one I am reading and also the 3rd one by March. Hmmm...my husband is giving me the day off life on Monday since it is a holiday I don't have to work so...I can read all day...right?!

I just realized that the 4th book doesn't come out until Mar. 2011, so I have plenty of time.

Family Pictures

We had our family pictures taken today. The last professional pictures I had taken of Tate was when he was a newborn. Here are a few of the ones I liked best.

Casper's new haircut

Casper got a new haircut yesterday. The boys' babysitter's husband (his name is Blake) works for a kennel. So we just dropped him off in the morning at their house and picked him up at night there. It was very convenient. Spencer wanted to try a real minature schnauzer cut on him at least once. I have mixed feelings about it. I like being able to see his eyes. His eyebrows and beard are really cute. Since his fur is so short we got a crate for him so he can stay inside during the winter months. Today was the first day and he liked it last night and this morning. I just hope he still likes it when we get home tonight. I still think I like the teddy bear look better where he is the same length all over. What do you think?

Thanksgiving and Christmas Decorating

This year we went to Spencer's Grandma's house for Thanksgiving. Usually their is alot of extended family (aunts, uncles, cousins, etc) but this time it was just Grandma and some of Spencer's family. It was nice because we didn't have to get a hotel room since Grandma's house is pretty small when everyone gets together. She invited some neighbors so it was crowded and hard to find a place to sit and eat at dinner, but that is part of the fun of it. Spencer found us a nice tree. I usually call them our ugly georgetown trees, but this year he did a good job. I tried to keep Austin at Grandma's house most of the time since he is suppose to be taking it easy after his surgery for a couple of weeks, but we did get to go down the canyon on Thanksgiving Day. Here are a couple of pictures from playing in the canyon and putting decorations up after getting home. Austin broke our camera a couple of weeks ago so I hope these pictures from Spencer's phone turn out o.k.

Austin hiding is from the sun in the shade because it hurt his eye.

Tayton loves riding the 4 wheeler and being outside.

Getting ready to decorate the tree.

Santa Dog a.k.a Casper

Austin is excited about decorating the tree!!!

I even helped a little.

Eye Surgery

Austin had eye surgery on Friday. We found out that he doesn't have the retinal disease, Fever, that my sister in law has. We are feeling very relieved. So, the doctor did the muscle correction surgery for his lazy eye. We won't know for 4-6 weeks if it worked, but the doctor thinks the surgery went well. We are thinking positively at this point. I don't think Austin really understood what he was in store for him when we told him he got to have eye surgery because he was really excited about it:

Before

After

We just finished up the pain medication last night and this morning he said that his eye felt good. When you look at his eye it is blood red, gooby, and looks like it hurts. He opened his eyes and was playing with his cousins the night he had the surgery. He is such a tough kid.

When will it end?

We have known since Austin was about 3 that he had symptoms of lazy eye. It is most noticable when he is tired so most people don't notice it. Right now, his right eye is legally blind. What happens is that when he was born with lazy eye his brain saw two images (one from the right and one from the left eye). To make sense of this the brain shuts off one of the eyes so that it is only recieving one image. Since there is blindness and retinal disease on my husbands side of the family I have been watching it pretty close. Beyond patching his eye our local optometrist didn't seem to know much. So, we brought him to SLC to see my sister-in-law's (who has retinal disease) specialist who referred us to a pediatric opthamologist in Primary Childrens Hospital. He, again, had us patch Austin's good eye to try and make the bad eye work. We patched it four hours a day. We went back 6 weeks later to see if it had done any good which it didn't. The doctor said that means he either has retinal disease or we aren't patching his eye correctly (we aren't pacting long enough, he is peeking around the patch too often, etc.). He can see part of the retina which he says doesn't look like he has retinal disease but he won't know for sure unless he goes in surgically. If he does have retinal disease than we could patch his eye all the time and it wouldn't do any good. Since Austin will already be under anthesia for the exploratory surgery the Dr. thinks we should correct his lazy eye at the same time. After surgery, if he doesn't have retinal disease and if we caught it early enough his brain will hopefully notice that his bad eye is look forward and begin to start working with his other eye. Even though it makes my stomach turn to think about his eye being cut open, I know that it is the right thing to do. Luckily we were just approved for Medicaid so hopefully that will help us pay for it since our primary insurance will only pay 50%.

Spencer came home from the school the other night and I thought he was having an anxiety attack. He was pacing around, couldn't sit still, kept forgetting what he was doing or saying. It was a little scary. He went into the Councelors Center on campus and was diagnosed with ADD. He has had symptoms of it for a long time so we weren't suprised. I joked with him and told him that I knew there was something wrong with him. He responded saying that is just what he needed to hear from his wife. He started taking medication for it yesterday which is a generic form of Ritalin. He has already noticed a difference. He took a couple of tests yesterday where he said normally he would have gotten frusterated and gave up, but he was able to remain focused and finish every problem. It took him longer to take his Calculus test and he wasn't able to finish he Physics test before the Testing Center closed. His teacher said that he will let him finish, but will take some points off for it being late. That is better than nothing. Right?!

These things often happen in threes so I'm waiting for the 3rd one to hit.

First Day of School

Today was a confusing and stressful day. I didn't think it would be, but it was. Austin was placed in afternoon kindergarten. Since Tate and he are at the babysitter's during the day I arranged the bus to pick him up and drop him off at the babysitters. I wanted to go with him on his first day, but I also wanted him to get use to riding the bus. So, after talking to Mom, I decided to meet the bus at the babysitters and then follow the bus to the school. He was suppose to be the last pick-up, but I ended up following the bus for an hour. I don't think they know what they are doing because we covered almost every road in Archer and a few multiple times...where they would flip a u-turn. A little while in I noticed they were dropping off kids from the morning kindergarten and picking up for the afternoon. That would get confusing. Two buses met in the Stake Center parking lot for a little while and then the bus stopped in the middle of the road for about 15 minutes doing nothing. I was just about to get out and ask "Are we going to school today?". His class was suppose to start at 11:40 a.m. and we didn't get to the school until 12:15. I was a little frusterated since Austin was late for school and I was late getting back to work (since I was using my lunch break). But when we finally got to the school it was good because Austin had made a couple of friends on the bus and the teachers were waiting for them and told the group of them that they were having a hawaiian party and gave all the kids a lei. The teachers were wearing hula skirts over their pants. It was pretty cute. So I walked with all the kids and Austin's teacher to his class. The teachers separated the kids into the right classes and Austin started walking in his class. I asked him "Where's my hug?". So he came back and sort of leaned his head on me and looked at me like "What are you doing here...there's no other moms here?". So I left feeling like I shouldn't have gone. But then the after school drama hit. I didn't find this out until after I picked up the kids at the babysitters. She told me that they think Austin got on the wrong bus. When he didn't get off the bus with the rest of the kids she started calling the district bus office and said that she had a missing child. They radioed around and he was dropped off at her house about a half hour later. Also, he left his backpack on the bus. I wouldn't be worried about that except that I put his glasses in the front pocket this morning. Now I'm thinking I should have stayed at the school with him. Don't they keep track of these kindergarteners and show them where they need to go? I have my doubts after today.

We rode bikes tonight (both kinds)

Austin is riding his bike without training wheels!!! Yea!!!

The boys on the motorbike. Aren't they cute in their helmets?