Busy Month

May was a pretty busy month for our family. It started off in the hospital with Reuben, and included camping, birthdays, graduations, and a baptism (if we include the first few days of June...).

Livi's birthday was the 15th, and we went to her cousin's house to ride horses for a party. Then we had everyone over for cake and ice cream a day later. Tricia made a pretty creative birthday cake at Livi's request: it's a sunflower. She got a real camera for her birthday and has spent the last three weeks taking pictures and videos of everything around the house. We try to make her ask permission before she takes pictures, though.

Reuben was released from the hospital at the beginning of the month, and I've been trying to take pictures of tim ever since. Seems like most of the time he's asleep or crying, but we did manage to get a couple pictures of him in a quiet moment. He even posed for the camera a little bit. He might as well get used to it. He has been healthy ever since he left the hospital, and has been back for two checkups with the doctors since. Everything is normal and we're very happy to have him home with us.

Anna graduated from Kindergarten the last week of the month. We're so pleased with all the hard work she put in this year. She's really grown a lot and we love her. She was so excited to graduate, and will really miss her teacher, Mrs. Rico. We told her she could walk over to Mrs. Rico's house whenever she wants to though, since she just lives across the street.

Jarom and I went out with some of the boys in the family for a "fathers and sons" campout over Memorial Day weekend. We went with Grandpa Wayne, Ben and Bryson, and Uncle Dallin. In case you can't tell, the picture here is Grandpa and Jarom getting ready for a ride on the ATVs. We went out to Vernon Reservoir in the west desert (although we didn't end up camping at the reservoir-it was pretty crowded). It was pretty windy, but that didn't stop us from having a good time.

And then just this morning Olivia was baptized and confirmed. We're so pleased with the beautiful and smart young woman she is becoming. She makes some great choices and is learning to be a great help around the house. We love her so much and are happy she chose to be baptized.

Update on Reuben

It's been a long week. Tuesday afternoon, the nurses noticed that Reuben's breathing was shallow and quick, and that his oxygen levels were low. He was already on an IV to keep his blood sugar up, so they added some oxygen and took some x-rays. They decided that he needed some treatment with a CPAP machine, to keep his lungs open for the oxygen to get into his blood, and they put him on antibiotics. They monitored him closely for the next 48 hours to watch his progress. It was hard on Tricia-she couldn't hold him or have him in the room, and he couldn't eat.

From Tuesday until Thursday he was on oxygen, antibiotics, CPAP treatment, and the dextrose IV in the ICU. We were able to go down to see him, but he couldn't leave, obviously. He slowly improved, and by Thursday, he was off the CPAP treatment, and mostly off oxygen. The antibiotic treatment went through last night, and he's still on the IV, although it's a very low dose and he could probably come off it any time.

He still struggles occasionally with his oxygen and breathing. Sometimes he comes out of it on his own after 30 seconds, but sometimes they put him back on oxygen to stabilize him. They've taken x-rays again this morning, and we're just waiting to see what the doctor says today. We were hoping to be able to bring him home, but we're not really sure right now.

Here are a few pictures, and I'll post another update as things move along.









Update: The pediatrician and respiratory therapist decided this afternoon to put Reuben back on oxygen all the time, and keep him in the ICU until Monday at least. He is off the dextrose IV, and has finished the antibiotic treatments. They'll monitor him and see how his breathing improves over the next 36 hours and then decide what to do.

Reuben Wayne

Tricia started having regular contractions this morning about 1:30am. She let me stay asleep until 3:00, though, before she decided it was time to go. Grandma Dianne came over to stay with the kids (all still sleeping) and we got to the hospital around 4:00. Once they had decided that she was serious about today being the day, they admitted Tricia into Labor and Delivery. By 7:00 she was ready for an epidural, which made things much more comfortable, even though it slowed things down a bit. But by 10:30 the nurse thought she was ready to deliver, so they called in Doctor Willis. Once he came, things went pretty quickly and Reuben was born at 10:52am. He was 10 pounds and 3 ounces, 22 inches long. Baby's blood sugar is low, but other than that everything is fine and both mom and baby are recovering. I'll upload a photo or two as soon as I get home.

Tulip Festival

We take the kids out every year around their birthday for pictures. This year, I took Liv and Anna to the Tulip Festival at Thanksgiving Point. Tricia isn't really into walking around for hours at a time, so she took Jarom over to Grandma's house for the afternoon. Here's a sampling from this year:

Garden Boxes: The Saga Continues

Not a whole lot to report, except that the boxes are both built, and now filled with dirt. That completes the construction phase...

Easter at Grandma's House

Planter Box

We have a couple of outside projects planned this year. Today was the first Saturday I've had free for a few months, and it was also nice enough weather to be outside. Instead of going on a photo excursion (which I would have enjoyed more), we decided to work on a few of our projects.

First we dug up all the sprinklers on the south side of the house. Then we changed lawn heads for risers with shrub nozzles on them and got everything put back together. When we start watering, we're going to shut those ones off and let the lawn die on that strip. Then later this fall we'll tear it out, till it up, and put some gravel along the side of the house with some shrubs. Today was just the first step.

Next we built the first of two planter boxes. They are after a design Tricia found on a blog she enjoys: Pioneer Woman. We probably could have done both if we hadn't been working on sprinklers all morning instead. Oh well, I suppose we'll have to finish the second another day. A quick trip to Lowes netted us everything we needed: lumber, garden stakes, and water/rust-proof screws.

First we cut the 2x6 boards into the sizes we needed: 8' lengths and 4' lengths:


Then we pre-drilled holes on the 8' lengths:


Once all the holes were done, we built the first layer of the planter box:


Once it was all put together, we carried it over to where we wanted it to end up, and started staking it in place (and attaching it to the stakes with 2-1/2" screws). This is were we did the leveling and squaring up. Once everything was nice and level and square, we were almost done:


The second layer was pretty easy, because everything was already in place. All we had to do was put the boards up and attach them to the stakes:


And in the end, we have our first planter box:


Tricia is thinking about growing some herbs in them. You'll have to ask her which ones because I don't know. But it should be a fun summer, growing something useful and hopefully tasty. Thanks to Tricia's dad for letting us borrow his truck for the trip to Lowes. Thanks to Brian for letting us borrow his miter saw (which made cutting the lumber about a three minute process instead of thirty minutes with my hand-saw). Stay tuned for updates on the progress of the plants and food at the end.