Totally Bummed!

My little brother Cody and his wife Stacey welcomed a beautiful baby girl into the world yesterday afternoon. They named her Preslie Jane and she is oh so cute! Now, why would I be totally bummed about such good news? Well, we were supposed to be leaving today for California to spend Christmas with my my parents, my youngest brother Cory, and my brother Cody and his family but it looks like we will be staying here. Madi got croup on Friday and she has been sick every since. I thought she was getting better but last night she got worse! So, instead of going to California and getting everyone out there sick, we decided it would be best to stay here. That is why I am totally bummed!! Not only do we not get to be with everyone for Christmas, but I don't get to meet our new little Preslie. They will be moving up to Idaho in 2 weeks so we probably won't get to see them again for a little while. So, I guess I better go figure out what I will be making for Christmas dinner...

Hello Helmet Goodbye Plagio!

If you have talked to me at all in the last few months then you probably know that I have been going back and forth about weather or not to put a helmet on my little Mya. She has Plagiocephaly. Here is a quick lesson on Plagio that I found online.

What is Plagiocephaly?

Plagiocephaly often results from external forces applied to the soft infant skull.
There are actually three different types of misshapen heads. As causes of plagiocephaly are combined, it’s not uncommon to see heads that illustrate two of the deformities.

A parent’s first instinct is to wonder “what did I do to my baby to cause this?” Guilt is common, but there are many factors that can contribute to plagiocephaly and chances are, it was nothing you did intentionally. A baby’s skull is so soft and malleable until the sutures fuse around two years of age. For this reason, any external forces, whether during the pregnancy or in the infant’s daily life, can contribute to the head shape.

So, hopefully that filled you in a little bit on what is going on with her head. Of course all of those pictures are worse case pictures. Her plagio isn't as bad as the picture. You wouldn't notice it if I didn't point it out to you. We have been working on repositioning her while she sleeps since she was 3 months old. It just hasn't helped the front of her head as much as we would have liked it to so, she has some asymmetry in her face now. If the bones in your head aren't aligned then the bones in your face and jaw won't be. That is my main concern. Because, lets face it, she is going to have lots of red hair that will cover her head shape anyway right (fingers crossed). So we finally decided to just get the helmet and get it over with. The helmet holds her head in place where it sticks out, and leaves room for growth where it needs to fill in. They digitally scanned her head and made a Styrofoam head that they poured a mold on to make the helmet fit just perfect. It was pretty cool to see the scan come up on the computer while they scanned her head. She has to wear it 23 hours a day. I only take it off for cleanings 1 hour a day and to let her head breath. The Dr. said she will most likely have to wear it for 4-6 months. She just got it yesterday and she has been so good with it! It doesn't seem to bother her at all. We slowly make our way up to the 23hrs a day. Today she has to have it on 2hrs, off 1hr repeted all day. And then she gets it off while she sleeps through the night. By day 7 she will be wearing it full time. I am so happy that we finally decided to get her in the helmet, so I can stop worrying about it and we can just get it fixed already! Our insurance doesn't cover it and it is a $1,600 helmet!!! But, I am sure that most parents would pay anything to help their child. I would hate for her to notice it when she was a teenager and then find out that I could have fixed it! Talk about a guilt trip for the rest of your life! I think she looks cute in it. Next on my list is to decorate it so she looks extra cute!! We are so grateful that we have the opportunity to fix it! I'll keep you all posted on how it goes!

Happy Birthday Madi

So, Madi's Birthday was on a Sunday this year. We decided to just have a low key birthday. We went to church and then came home, had some lunch, and went on a walk because it was a beautiful day!

Madi had lots of fun chasing Seths car all around her favorite place in the basin behind our house. Mya just watched in her stroller while munching on a piece of watermelon.

We all had a good time enjoying our nice weather! After that, we headed home to put the girls down for a nap so I could get started on Madi's birthday cake. It was a lot of fun! We decided to have all of Seths family come over for birthday cake and presents after dinner. Madi was so excited to have all her cousins come over! Madi had a great time with everyone! Here are a few pictures!

I thought I would ask Madi this year what kind of birthday cake she wanted but I just kept getting answers like, a bath cake, a light cake, a mommy cake (pretty much whatever she was looking at at the time). So I gave up on that and just looked online until I found something that I thought she would like. I surprised her with it when she woke up from her nap. She really liked it, and all the kids had fun eating the cupcake cones.

She got lots of fun presents! Here is Seth putting together her new scooter!

We love our little Madi Buns so much! She is such a cutie pie! I can not believe that she is 3 already! How the heck did that happen?? She is starting to test us more and more as she gets older. Just reminding Mom and Dad that we need to step up our game ;) She is getting too smart! She loves to play outside and get dirty! She loves drawing on the side walk with her chalk, playing hide and seek (or "hide the sink" as she would say), playing "Not It" (tag) and playing school. She is so much fun to have in our family. Thanks to everyone who came over, sent birthday gifts, and called Madi on her birthday! She had such an awesome day! We love you all!

Halloween

I love Halloween time!! I love decorating my house, especially now that Madi can help, and I love picking what I get to dress my girls up as. I know that won't last too much longer with Madi getting older. I decided to make the girls costumes this year. My mom always made ours so I thought I would give it a try. One little problem with that is that I don't sew! I have a sewing machine and my mom showed me how to use it when she gave it to me, but I almost never use it. So, I had to watch a YouTube video and call my mom 3 times to figure out how to thread the bobbin and the machine. After that, it wasn't too bad. I sewed Madi a little Tinkerbell dress and Madi her and Mya some wings. I already had made Myas tutu. So this is what they ended up with.

I had fun making them, and I was glad that they looked different then all the other Tinkerbells, and lady bugs we came across. We got a lot of use out of them. First we had our ward fall festival at a park. It was freezing cold!! So they had there costumes on for about 5 min and they were both crying so I ended up layering every piece of clothing in my bag on them. I ended up having to go back to the house to get a few more jackets and hats once Seth got there. Madi had fun trick-or-treating around every ones blankets, so it ended up being a good time.

The next day Madi had a Halloween party with some of her friends. We all planned a game or an activity for the kids and brought a spooky treat! It was a lot of fun.

On Halloween day it warmed up (thank goodness) so Madi didn't freeze in her little costume. We made it through our little neighborhood and she was done. So we came home and she had fun handing out our candy to the kids.

The next day was Madis 3rd birthday! So I will post about that soon!

Labor Day Weekend

So...here are a bunch pictures from our wonderful trip to California for the Labor Day weekend! We had so much fun playing with everyone! It was so nice to spend a whole day outside and not get too hot. I forgot how nice it is out there in September.

Madi enjoyed playing in the different tide pools. The guys went off and jumped and snorkeled by jump rock while we played with the girls in the water and under the umbrella. It was so nice!

They were pooped on the way home!! On Monday morning we took the kids to the Golden View farm to feed the animals. They have ducks, bunnies, goats, a pig, roosters, and chickens. There was a play ground next to the farm and Madi kept asking the whole time if she could go play on that. So after we saw all the animals we let her go play. It wasn't long before she had us all up in her "castle". She didn't want to leave!Chloe, being the older one, was nice enough to read some books to her little cousin Mya. They are too cute!!

Madi had so much fun playing with the side walk chalk with grandpa in the backyard. They played hop scotch and drew lots of blueberry cookies!! They had so much fun together.

My Mom and Dad were nice enough to watch all the girls while Cody, Stacey, Seth and I all went to the beach so we could play in the water on Monday. We had a lot of fun! Even though the waves were pretty lame. The guys had fun jumping into them from the shore, trying to do flips over them, while Stacey and I visited. We even watched some dolphins jumping around. We had such a fun time with you guys! Can't wait to do it again.

Tutu cute!!

Just some pictures I wanted to share of Mya in her little tutu!

She doesn't really know how to sit up on her own, so she tipped back and her bald head ended up in the grass. She wasn't a fan!

Birthday Weekend

This past Friday was Seth's 30th Birthday! We had such a fun day (even though Seth had to work) Since it was his big day I decided to be a good wife and get up and make him some breakfast. I totally would do this everyday, but he isn't much of a breakfast person, he would rather sleep 5 more min. then eat breakfast (I am the opposite... I live for breakfast) so, I don't know if this was more for me or him, but whatever, he liked it. Then after the girls got up and around, we went and got him some birthday balloons and a cute pink cupcake (Madi picked it out) from the bakery and headed out to his work to surprise him. Madi was so excited to give him the balloons, she did a good job and carried both the balloons and the cupcake in, without loosing either one, then yelled a super cute and excited "Happy Birthday Daddy" when she saw Seth! It was too cute! Then we kidnapped him from work and took him to Joe's BBQ for some free birthday lunch (can't pass that up). Later that evening our good friends Rachel and Levi came over and we ordered pizza and waited for my parents to arrive from CA. When they got there we visited and got the girls all situated so my parents could watched the girls while we (Rachel, Levi, Seth and I) went to Sun Splash for their "Night Splash" It was so much fun hanging out with just the adults. This is the first time, since we had Mya, that we have gotten to do something fun like that without them. We had such a good time!! And the girls had so much fun playing with Grandma and Grandpa (For the full story of the water park, go to Rachel's blog http://teamsugden.blogspot.com/) After the park closed we came home and had birthday cake and watched Seth open his presents! It turned out to be a really fun day. We love you Seth!!!

The next day was my Moms Birthday!! So we partied all day Saturday too. We started off her big day by going out to breakfast at the Cracker Cafe (best breakfast place ever!!). After that, we came home and Madi played a little game of living room baseball with Grandma and Grandpa.

Then we got all suited up to go up to Water Wheel in Payson. It was only 95 degrees there, as opposed to our 110 in the valley, so it made it really nice for hiking and swimming in the water! We had lots of fun swimming and exploring around the different rock, waterfalls and pools.

Dad taking a cat nap on the rocks

While we were there, I discovered Mya's FIRST TOOTH! I can't believe that my baby already is big enough to have a tooth!!..... It was so nice and relaxing up there that we stayed until the mosquitoes came out. On our way home we stopped for some Mexican food. Madi slept on the restaurant bench the whole time while we all ate (except Mya, she was too busy spitting raspberries and giggling at Grandma and Grandpa ) and then we headed home. Not without stopping at Nelson's Frozen Custard for some desert ;) We all were so tired when we got home but still had it in us to sing happy birthday to Mom and watch her open her gifts. It was such a wonderful weekend!!! Thanks for driving out to spend time with our little family Mom and Dad! We love you guys!