September Recap

I turned 33. Look at the amazing lemon-raspberry cheesecake my mother-in-law made.

 

We went on our ward campout. The girls rode the zip line. Of course our batteries died before we could get many pictures. Here’s Abby ready to go:

 

 

And there she goes…..

 

Pictures of the girls. They really do love each other!

 

Bill had a work emergency so we put the girls in the car and drove to Roosevelt. Good thing the girls sleep in the car so well:

since it was a school night and we didn’t get home until 2 a.m.!

 

One morning, Abby decided she was a kitty. So this is how she went to daycare:

Shoes on her feet, shoes on her hands…

 

At the last minute, Sandy was switched to half-day kindergarten. I think that’s ultimately a good thing, but it made it difficult to figure out Abby’s schedule. It took us a couple of weeks, but we finally figured out a schedule that I think was inspired! I drop Abby at day care at 8, which gives me just enough time to run Sandy to school by 8:10. Then I park at home and walk around the corner to the office. I can get 2.5 hours of work done at the office before I walk to the school to pick up Sandy at 10:55. Then we walk home, get in the car and pick up Abby at 11:30. It’s working amazingly well!!

 

Sandy is doing well in kindergarten, but she did bring this paper home that made me laugh:

Check out the second line: apparently making capital A’s was too much work, so she decided to streamline the process….

 

This baby is in a great position – his head is down and I’m 34 weeks tomorrow. (It will be nice when we agree on a name and I can stop calling him baby!) Abby was feeling him kick and I was explaining to her where his legs were and where his head was. She asked why he didn’t fall out onto the floor and break his head. I looked at her questioningly and then she said, “Does your tummy have a floor?” So, I showed her this picture and we talked about how the baby stays in until it’s time and then he comes out…

 

Last night for Family Night, we went to the Seven Peaks Fun Center in Lehi. The girls got to try out rock climbing:

They had a blast, they both did really well. Abby didn’t weigh quite enough to come down on the tension rope, so she had a rope tied to her back so we could pull her down. Abby stuck with it and climbed all the way to the top:

Rotten things

We’ve had a great summer, but there have definitely been some difficult moments:

This is what happened while we were at church. Nothing was taken, there wasn’t anything in there to take.

We’ve had a summer full of car burglaries:

*In May, Bill’s car got broken into while it was parked in the parking garage at his office (which is just around the corner from our house). They got lots of equipment and tools. Then they came back and broke into it again (same car, same place). The second time, nothing was in the car – we hadn’t even finished fixing the damage they did the first time and we certainly hadn’t replaced anything (like the radio). Very frustrating!

*In July, my purse was stolen out of my car. Also at Bill’s office. The door was actually unlocked, I parked right in front of the office and just ran in to drop something off. Miraculously, though, I got almost everything back – even the purse. Three different people, in three different parts of the valley found personal items strewn on the street and called either me or the police and I got them back. Of course, the thieves racked up some big charges, but I reported it pretty quickly and the bank/credit card companies were really good to work with. I almost feel bad for them—several of the charges were to collection agencies.

Then, of course there was the broken window (above) on September 1. And, not burglary-related, but definitely car-related, we were just leaving on our trip to Canada when one of our van’s tires had a blowout. Although, I really have to count my blessings with that one: (a) Bill was driving, (b) it happened in SLC BEFORE we left, (c) not only were we in SLC, we were a mile from my in-laws house so Bill & Doug had the tire off in no time, and (d) we found a place that could put on new tires that night so we could still leave for our trip the next morning.

 

Then, we had an August of medical problems…

*Sandy & Abby got sick. Abby was better in 24 hours, Sandy was so sick that I took her to the doctor – she couldn’t even keep sips of water down – and they gave her Zofran to stop her throwing up. But after almost a week of being sick, she was so lethargic she would hardly even move so we took her to instacare. Of course, the instacare doctor was young and handsome and my lethargic little girl perked right up and started flirting with him. So I don’t think he believed it was as bad as it was. She started to improve after a couple of days, but it was another week before she was really eating and drinking normally.

*A couple of weeks later, Sandy woke up screaming and writhing in pain on a Friday night. I got up with her and after about an hour – warm bath, rocking her, rubbing her back – was able to get her settled back down. She was fine the next morning, but then Saturday night she woke up screaming and writhing in pain again. This time I wasn’t able to settle her down. So, Sunday morning I took her to instacare. Their diagnosis was bad gas. Apparently there was some sort of a bug going around that caused that because about a week later, Abby woke up with the same thing. Of course, by then I knew to give her chewable Gas-x.

*Sandy complains a lot about her stomach aching, and so we took her to see a pediatric gastroenterologist. He ran tons of blood tests – all came back normal – and had me chart everything for a month… I charted how her stomach felt on a scale of 1 to 10 three times a day, every bowel movement, etc. She definitely has a sensitive stomach – she has a strong gag reflex and once she starts throwing up, her stomach has a hard time stopping. She also gets motion sickness. Anxiety seems to trigger stomach aches. She had a stomach ache before school started until I took her to the store to pick out a treat to give her teacher on the first day. Then the stomach ache disappeared. So, I think we’ll just keep an eye on things – there’s a lot I can do to prevent problems: addressing her anxiety, not forcing her to eat things she doesn’t want to, chewable Dramamine for motion sickness….

*The blood tests that Sandy had done were sent to the wrong lab for testing. Despite my specifically checking where they were sending them. And our insurance didn’t cover the lab they were sent to.

*Bill has had heartburn for a long time and I have been trying to get him to see someone about it for most of our marriage. He finally went to a gastroenterologist who wanted to scope his stomach. Bill has a hiatal hernia and his esophagus was so burned that the doctor couldn’t see if there were any other problems underneath. So, he gave Bill a really strong dose of medication and wants to repeat the scope in 2 months.

And that would be how we spent $1500 in unexpected medical expenses in one month. And that is with insurance. Yikes!

August

We started out the month making a German Chocolate Cake for my brother-in-law’s birthday:

 

The girls’ daycare does the most amazing crafts. I don’t take pictures very often. But I loved this one:

 

A random picture of Abby with the new favorite stuffed animal at our house:

 

 

Sandy after she got her blood drawn. Notice the purple bow on her pink arm wrap. We took her to a pediatric gastroenterologist because she has been having some stomach problems.

Update: All of her blood tests came back fine. And after charting it for a month, I think it just comes down to (1) she has a sensitive stomach and (2) anxiety = stomach aches at our house. So, I think we can manage this and don’t need to go back to the doctor.

 

Another picture of Sandy with her kitty:

 

Bill took Abby to the Seven Peaks Fun Center on a daddy date:

Here is Sandy at a My Little Pony party. Notice the tail:

 

 

Abby loves books! One night we put the girls to bed and left the bathroom light on as a “night light.” Bill and I went downstairs to watch a movie and came back to find this:

Abby had decided to go read in the bathroom. I love that she took her mattress with her!

 

The girls at First Encampment Park:

 

 

We found these amazing swirled balloons:

 

 

Sandy’s first day of school:

Do you like the new door color? We finally painted it after a year of it looking like this:

 

 

A couple more pictures from the first day of kindergarten:

The tears for the day came from Abby, who was sad that she didn’t get to start kindergarten, too.

 

And we’ll end with a few pictures from a princess party the girls went to at Discovery Gateway:"

 

July

The 4th of July started with the traditional Buhler family party at Steve’s house.

The kids dug in the sand for money:

 

They also took a swing at a pinata, played games and had a blast with their cousins and extended cousins:

We ended the month with a trip to Canada. On the way, we drove through Glacier National Park. We stopped to take a boat ride at St. Mary Lake. It was amazing!

 

 

 

 

My sister lives in Canada, so we all descended on her for a family reunion of sorts. There were lots of people, including my parents and my brother with his family.

We had a great time! The girls loved getting to know their cousins. We got to see lots of fun things in Canada.

This was at Frank’s Slide:

This was at a waterfall in Waterton Park:

  We also stopped to look at the Prince of Wales hotel in Waterton Park:

The hotel staff were all dressed in traditional Scottish clothing:

Here we are pulling out of Canada. It was sad to say good-bye, what an amazing trip!

Happy Birthday, Sandy!

We celebrated Sandy’s 5th birthday with our traditional birthday pancakes:

 

Grandma & Grandpa Buhler joined us for birthday cupcakes another night:

 

Sandy has been begging for an umbrella. In fact, she bought one with her birthday money last year. We bought it on Amazon but it wasn’t well made at all. So, what she wanted to do with her birthday money this year was buy an umbrella. And I was very reluctant…until I thought of going to DI.

Both of the girls got an umbrella for $2 each. They were thrilled. I was thrilled that even if they break it was only $2 wasted. These umbrellas look well made, though, I think they’ll last.

The Princess Festival

Today we went to the Princess Festival at Thanksgiving Point.

 

The girls had a blast meeting the princesses:

 

When we checked in, each girl got a special princess story book that had autograph pages in the back for them to collect princess signatures:

 

Since we went in lieu of a birthday party for Sandy, we brought along a couple of her friends:

 

 

We watched a couple of shows and went on some quests with the princesses.

   

We took a carriage ride: