Jon & Emmalee Day Family: 2016

Sunday, November 13, 2016

Mr. Pants Turns 1!

Mr. Pants, Zach, Zachy Pants, Mr. Zachy Pants, Pants Man; this cute little bundle of energy has a lot of names around our house. I'm not quite sure how he first got his nicknames or why they seem to revolve around pants but it fits him. :)

It's hard to believe that a year has gone by with our little guy! He has been such a blessing and great addition to our family. I love all of my children with all of my heart, but I feel like with each baby I've been able to appreciate them more and more. Once you get used to the life of no sleep, no time to yourself, constant nursing and diaper changing, lots of crying, etc., it gets easier to ignore those things and just focus on how sweet and precious the baby is. They grow up fast!

Our Zachy Pants is such a mover! When he was in my belly, I made the comment (several times) to Jon that he moved more than the other two combined! Well, that has not changed on the other side of things. He is constantly squirming and wiggling around. He can climb almost anything (tables, chairs, pantry shelves, slides, etc., and does not like being snuggled or held for very long because he just wants to get down and crawl around everywhere! He is not walking yet- he is too busy crawling to think about standing still long enough to figure out how to take some steps.

I've been trying to teach Zach to give kisses for months now, and it has been very unsuccessful. No matter how I try to convince him, he will not give kisses on command. He will, however, give "bonks" on command. For some silly reason, he loves head bonks and will happily give you one if you ask! In an attempt to teach him an alternative to stop bonking his head on hard things, Jon also successfully taught him to smack himself in the head with his hand. Haha, the sad part is that it didn't take the place of bonking so now he just bonks his head on things AND goes around hitting himself in the head. And he thinks both are so funny!

He is still a bit of a pune-ster (aka- he's kinda small and puny) according to the growth charts. At his 12 month check up he was 5th percentile for weight and 55th for height. My pediatrican said that if you go off of the breastfeeding curve though (which he says is more accurate) he is more like 13th percentile for weight. He seems to be pretty healthy and developing on track overall! He's not saying words yet but he likes to scream and make noises and babble. We've got him to say "dada" a few time and sometimes when he's really sad he'll make a sound that sounds pretty close to mama. That's about it though.

He has got such a cute and funny personality that he is always bringing a smile to the room. He also has some attitude which is pretty funny. Sometimes if I wait too long to get him after he wakes up then when I come in the room, he'll crawl to the other side of the bed and refuse to come to me!

For his 1st Birthday we were actually in Orlando, FL on vacation so he spent his birthday at Seaworld but that evening we opened a few presents for him and had some birthday cake. Zach got his own giant cupcake. He enjoyed sucking the massive cone of frosting off of the top :)

Happy First Birthday Zachy Pants! We're so glad you're ours!

Sunday, October 9, 2016

A Visit From a Sister!

I LOVE visitors! I love spending time with family and friends, and since moving away from Utah we don't get as much of that as I would like. You can imagine how excited I was, then, when my sister told me she was buying airplane tickets for her and one of her little boys to come visit us in NC! YAY!!!! We were so excited! It was an extra bonus because Katie would have her cast of by then and she would actually be able to play with her cousin, which she was unable to on our trip to UT.

Becky and Rider came out for a few days at the end of August. We had so much fun! We drove out to Wrightsville Beach and showed them the ocean. The kids all had tons of fun playing in the waves. We went to our neighborhood pool a few different times, ate out at applebees, and played and chatted the whole time! It was great! We were so happy they could visit and the cousins could get to know each other better.

Me & my sis!

Wrightsville Beach

Best Buds :)

Cast Removal!! 8/9/16

We literally had to pin her down to get it off. She was freaking out!

After hearing, in the beginning, that Katie's cast could be on for several months, we were very excited to learn that we could get it off as early as 6 weeks! We called and set up an appointment with an orthopedic specialist in Raleigh while we were still out in Utah.

The doctors in Utah had told us that Katie could walk on her cast if she wanted. We tried and tried to get her to do that while she had it on but she refused to even try for the most part. The best we got was crawling and bum scooting. She did get pretty good at those by the end of six weeks though so it was nice not having to carry her everywhere.

When the time came to get the cast off, I was a little skeptical it would be healed and wanted to wait awhile longer. We were told that the doctor would be able to xray it in the cast, though, and if it wasn't healed they would just leave it on. Not so. They wouldn't do that and said they needed to cut it off to xray and if it wasn't healed they would just re-cast it. I hated that idea and wanted to just leave it on a few more weeks, but I was persuaded it would be fine so they went ahead and cut it off. Katie screamed her head off. So did Colton. So did Zach. It was a bit of a mess. In all fairness, the saw they used was SUPER loud. The x-ray'd it and said it was mostly healed and that it wasn't in any danger so they could leave the cast off but if she wouldn't walk on it after a few days to bring her back in. I was really nervous but she didn't want to at all at first and it still seemed to hurt her. Finally, after trying many different methods, I was able to bribe her to try walking with the grocery cart. She did pretty good the first day, and then regressed.

I implemented some water therapy of my own and took her to the pool several times the next couple of weeks and got her kicking around in the water. I really think it helped! I also used some more bribes and encouragement and gradually she got better and better! We figure it took about 2 months for her to be back to normal with no limp. We're so glad we are done with that saga and hopefully we don't repeat it anytime soon!

The night her cast came off. Standing all on her own!

Taking a few steps!

8/17- First time venturing out for a walk!

Utah Trip July 2016 (and a broken leg)

Every year, since we moved away from Utah, we have looked forward to our annual summer trip out to the West! We excitedly look forward to seeing family on both my side and Jon's, seeing friends from college and high school, eating at all of our favorite restaurants, getting to go out on dates and go to the temple easily with lots of babysitters around, taking a break from job and other responsibilities, and finally getting to enjoy fries with some fry sauce! In a way, it's our chance to re-charge for the next year out on our own again.

It was quite a blow when, literally 10 minutes after we arrived at our first destination in Utah, Katie broke her leg :( It definitely changed the tone of our vacation. We were not able to do a lot of the things we were hoping to and we were definitely not able to relax very much with a sad, injured, and immobile 3 year old demanding lots of time and attention. It took some effort to not let it get us down too much and ruin our vacation, but despite the extra hardships (and doctor's visits), we still managed to have a pretty good time visiting family :) Here's hoping next year we avoid any injury or illness!

How she broke the leg: Jon's sister, Amberly, had picked us up from the Salt Lake Airport and driven us to her house where we were going to pick up the car we were borrowing and then we were going to drive to my sister Becky's house for the next few days. We got to Amberly's and went in the house for a few minutes to relax before making the 1 hr drive back to Becky's house. The kids asked if it was ok to go outside with their cousins and play. It had been MAYBE ten minutes when the kids came back inside carrying a screaming Katie. They said they had been jumping on the trampoline and all of a sudden she fell down screaming. She was acting like her knee hurt so we thought she had just hyperextended it or something. We also thought she was possibly overreacting because she was very tired from an early morning and lots of travel. When she didn't stop screaming after a few minutes, though, we decided we better take her in. The first Instacare was pretty useless and didn't really do anything for her or give us any diagnosis. They just said to take her in to Primary Children's Hospital in SLC for a sedated xray if she didn't get any better soon. That sounded pretty extreme so wrapped Katie's leg in some ace bandages and drove up to Becky's. We watched Katie most of the day and that evening, when she still wasn't acting any better, Jon called around and was able to find out that the Layton Instacare would do a non-sedated xray for us. So, we took her back in, got the xray (through much tears and screaming), and found out she had a buckle fracture to her right femur. They put her in a splint and made us an appointment to get it caste at Primary Children's the next week. The nurses probably thought I was nuts because I kind-of laughed when they told us it was broken. But, seriously, I just couldn't believe our awful luck! Our 3 year old had busted her leg- 10 minutes into our long awaited vacation! Not to mention, at 3 years old, she had now broken both of her femurs! Here's to hoping she never breaks a bone again!

Left: Katie 2 months old, broken left femur. Right: Katie 3 years old, broken right femur.

First Instacare- Jon randomly ran into our friends from NC whose little girl had an infection.

2nd Instacare

After the second Instacare- splint in place.

Xray of Femur- Kind of hard to see, but it is just above the knee.

Clinton, Utah: At my sister, Becky's, house in Clinton we were able to spend a lot of time visiting and playing with her two cute boys. She borrowed a wagon from a neighbor and we were able to pull Katie around a bit and even go to the Clinton Days parade. It was lots of fun! I LOVE parades and have really missed them since leaving Utah. The kids also thought it was tons of fun and I was really proud of how Colton and Becky's boys collected and brought candy over to Katie in her wagon! I even got to catch up with my old roomate Mimi who met us for the parade with her family! Becky and I also took our family's to the Dinosaur Park up Ogden canyon. That was lots of fun and Becky even made us a picnic! I also got to meet up with a couple of my other sisters (Pam, Kristi, Becky, and I were able to make it) and we had a fun sister's outing getting pedicures and going for Zupas! Becky made us lots of yummy food while we were there and before we left we all went out to the absolutely best pizza buffet ever- Pizza Pie Cafe!! (Sidenote: It's possible a very good thing we don't have all my favorite restaurants around or I might be very fat!) My good friend Kristen from Iowa also stopped by Becky's house while we were there to visit and brought her boys and new baby girl! It was so fun to see her! Sometimes its hard looking back at all the amazing friends we've had to leave everytime we move. :(

Cousins :)

Waiting for the parade!

Feeding ducks at the Dinosaur Park

Poor girl really wanted to go on the slides with the other kids.

Day and Browning kiddos. So, so photogenic :)

Herriman, Utah: We spent about a week at Jon's sister Amberly's house in Herriman. We always love spending time there and hanging out with his family. Jon's parents even drove out to Utah from MN and were there while we were so it was lots of fun to get to see them! Pretty much every day we while we were staying in Herriman was a dinner and hangout/party at one of Jon's siblings houses. We even did a combined 70th birthday party for Jon's parents one of the nights! There are lots of cousins to play with on Jon's side and the kids really enjoyed all the craziness :) We also got to go to a movie with many of Jon's siblings and spouses and go to Applebees for Late Night Appetizers after!

More cousins!

Such a sweet picture with Grandma!

These two totally don't look related... haha

Clifton, Idaho: The kids always love going up to Idaho to visit Grandma and Grandpa Rider and all of their animals! Colton became Grandpa's little helper while we were there and followed him everywhere helping him do chores, work in the garden, and feed animals. He loved it! He kept asking, "Where's Grandpa? When is Grandpa feeding the animals? Don't let him go without me!" Katie enjoyed us pulling her around in the wagon and finding weeds and corn shoots for her to feed the horses. She also like eating fresh apricots and apples from the tree! My good friends from highschool, Loni and Lindsey, came to visit me in Clifton! It was so fun to see them and we talked for hours! They are for real my kindred spirits :) I miss those girls tons! While we were in Clifton we were able to take the kids to one of the Rodeo Parades in Preston. Again, we had a fun time and the kids loved it! Friday night of that week we went up to a lodge my family had rented in the mountains about 15 minutes from my parent's house for our Rider Family Reunion! Everyone was able to make it! It's the first time all of us have been together in a few years and it was fun to see everyone! The main downsides were that it was super hot with no air-conditioning, the stairs in the lodge were a bit treacherous, and turns out that it was kind-of infested with mice. Luckily we didn't find that out until we were leaving or it would have been a lot less fun. We had a nice time playing a few games and doing some activities with the kids. Again, Katie had a hard time not being able to run around and play with the other kids but she handled it pretty well considering. Saturday night, after most people had left from the reunion, Becky & Isaac, Catherine, and Me & Jon all went to the Famous Preston Night Rodeo. It was pretty fun to get to go again although we seriously had the worst seats ever. We had a decent view of the arena, but we were right over the shoots and there were no isles next to us. We had to climb over like a million people to get to our seats and once there we didn't dare leave to go get food or go to the bathroom or anything. It was real bad. Regardless, we still had a good time :)