Big Scare But All Is Well

Addison and I headed out a little before 8 this morning to run our errands - who knew the bank doesn't open until 9.  We decided to head over to Sam's Club to kill some time waiting for the bank to open.  I love going early during their business member's hours because they feed you muffins or cinnamon buns and juice.  Addison was sitting in the basket part of the cart eating a muffin and eating juice.  We were looking at kids books and I was ready to go and look at kids clothes.  I said to Addison - "we sit in the cart Addison" and she plopped down and picked up a book to read.  As I was pushing, she looked at me and said "Addison jumps" and she did just that - unfortunately she jumped over backwards out of the cart and landed on the cement floor on her head.  It was one of those horrible moments when you could see it happening and just couldn't get there fast enough.

She started to cry and I picked her up but she probably cried less than a minute.  She said "bad cart" and wanted to call and talk to her daddy.  When he answered she just started to bawl.  They talked for a minute and she calmed down and then she wanted to get back in the cart and have some juice.  We went about our shopping and were in the clothing section when she projectile vomited everywhere!  I called her dad and then her grandma and we decided to take her to the ER.  While I was looking for a store person to clean up the mess she threw up again - it was all over her, me, the cart, the clothing display, and the floor.  I started to rush out the doors of Sam's Club (the lady guarding the door told me I couldn't leave a mess in my cart of un-purchased items, etc - but I just apologized and left anyway).

By this point Oliver had arrived at Sam's Club and so we put her in our car and started to drive towards Primary Children's - only to be stopped by a train.  We waited and Oliver was sitting in the back with her - as we rounded the corner to get on the freeway she threw up again and her face went all cloudy and I called Oliver's mom in a panic!  She told us to call 911 and just get to the nearest hospital.  The freeway entrance traffic lights were still on and I looked at the dead stopped traffic on the freeway and we decided to let the ambulance take her because it would be faster.  Oliver quickly gave her a blessing and I pulled over on the freeway shoulder and waited the longer 3 minutes of my life.  As a side note - I would not be a great 911 operator and I found the ladies lack of urgency horribly annoying.  I also found it irritating that they took my name, phone number, and location before even asking what the emergency was!

The paramedics arrived at our car and we piled into the ambulance.  They assessed her, strapped her to a backboard with a neck collar, and took her vitals.  They felt that she was doing pretty well and weren't all that urgent about getting going.  I was on the verge of a melt down when the paramedic told us the best way to keep her calm was to be calm ourselves.  Somehow we managed to pull it together - because seeing your small child strapped to a backboard is terrifying.  They gave Addison a little beanie baby and she put sensors on the bear while they were putting sensors on her.  She didn't cry once - and they said she is the easiest pediatric transport they've ever done.  She didn't squirm, fight them, or wiggle - she just let them strap her in and drive her to Primary's.  

We spent 3 hours at the hospital and they observed her and, although she has a concussion, they feel that is the extent of her injuries.  We were discharged about 12:30 and have been spending the afternoon at home.  She is tired and just wants to watch shows but she did take a short nap.  She keeps complaining that her head hurts and saying "naughty cart" and "bad cart".  We are so grateful for the priesthood and it's power - the situation changed immediately after that small act of faith.  We are grateful for people that are able to remain calm and that Addison's grandma works at the U hospital and was waiting for us when we arrived.  Aunt Tasha came to visit and Addison was happy to boss her around from the moment she walked in the door.  We're grateful for all our family praying for us today - it made a huge difference!

We anticipate a few slower days and no more sitting in the back of the shopping cart!

Dirty Dash

Oliver ran the dirty dash this past weekend with a work team.  For those of you unfamiliar with this race - it is a 5k mud obstacle course.  They all dressed up like the minions from Despicable Me.  Here Oliver is before the race. 

Here
If you go to the youtube link I listed above you can see the first of three installments of the race.  This guy on Oliver's team wore a camera strapped to his chest and recorded the entire race.  Installment 1 is about 8 minutes long, but if you want to see Oliver's best shot, you can fast forward to 1:35 and watch til 1:50 - this is where Oliver goes from completely clean - to diving head first into a pool of mud.  The video is actually pretty amazing to see all of the course and the different obstacles from the racer's perspective.  If you want to watch the other 2 installments send me an email and I'll track down the youtube links.  The links are private so you have to have the exact link - you can't just search youtube. 

Here is the Venafi team after the race ended. 

And, because we should rename our blog "the life of Addison", I thought I'd throw in a picture of Addison sporting part of her dad's costume.  She loves to wear his "hat"!

Lentil Soup

Addison and I made lentil soup last week for dinner.  Addison had her own bowl of dried lentils, potatoes, carrots, onions, and celery that she was stirring at the counter while I was making soup on the stove.  She sampled all the vegetables - and spit every one out - and then she took the biggest spoonful of dried lentils to see what they tasted like.  YUM?

Not so much!

Just Another Outfit from Nana

My mom bought Addison this cute little outfit so we took a picture to send to Nana. 

Addison loves to sit on the potty!  She has gone in it a couple of times and asks to sit on it everyday.  I have no expectations in terms of when she'll be potty trained - for now I'm just happy that she's interested.  She's also pretty funny, because after she sits on her little potty she has to flush the big one. 

Zoo Tripping

Addison and I are very fortunate that a lot of our friends have zoo passes this year.  A few weeks ago we spent the morning at the zoo with our Aunt Holly and cousins.  (I missed the memo about the U shirts because Addison has a matching one and it would have been awesome had they all matched!)

One of the tigers was swimming and getting in and out of the water while we were there.  I hadn't ever seen that and Addison, as much as she loves water, now loves that tigers swim.  She is often found "swimming" her own tiger at home.

Here is our attempt to get three cousins (under the age of 4) to all look and smile at the same camera at the same time and ignore all other distractions.  We were mostly successful!

Here is, in my opinion, the least high maintenance cousin!  He is three weeks older than Addison but so much more chill and easy going.  He is content to do what everyone else is doing...maybe he'll rub off on Addison one day.

My sister tried taking about 25 pictures of me and Addison in front of the giraffe exhibit.  The hordes of school children proved much too enticing and Addison did not look at the camera once!

At the end of our visit we were exiting past the metal elephant.  My sister took Addison and Aiden over to have a look and they were both directly sprayed by the big singing hunk of metal.  Addison went back to the zoo less than a week later with our neighbors and cried when she saw the elephant and wouldn't go anywhere near it and insisted that they carry her until they were far away.  She'll grow out of it - and it was actually kind of funny in a "I'm a mean mom for laughing at my kids" kind of way :)

Hill Air Force Base Museum

About a year ago I was working in Ogden and happened upon a flier that talked about the Hill Air Force Base Museum - it didn't say much - but it did say that admission was free and that's about all a mom needs to know.  The flier has been hanging on our fridge since then - and Addison and I finally made plans with our friends to go and check it out.  It was everything I hoped for and more.  These are pictures of us by their outside plane display and they have 2 huge indoor hangers with about 10 times as many planes inside.  The kids can't climb in and out of them - but it was still really fun to walk around and look at the planes and various exhibits.  They have real fully assembled planes that date from the beginning of flight until present as well as uniforms and other interesting exhibits.

It was totally worth the drive and we'll definitely go again!

Everything's A Seat and Stool

Lately, Addison has been using everything to sit and stand on.  This is her cereal bowl as a chair - and the drum you see on the right side of the picture is her favorite step stool!  Yesterday she tried to put her bowl on top of the drum and then stand on it - safe? YEP!

Family Yard Working

We've been doing a lot of yard work lately as a family - and Addison loves it!  She has her own rake, shovel, push broom, watering can, etc.  She isn't particularly helpful yet - but she's cute and makes it really fun!

Whenever we head to the shed to get something else she is always running - her favorite expressions are "hurry hurry" and "fast fast". 

Grandma and Nana didn't even coordinate their clothing purchases - but Addison matches wonderfully thanks to their continual generosity building her wardrobe. 

The Rest of Easter and the Egg Hunt

Here are a couple other pictures of our amazing egg dying!  If you missed why I'm so smart you can re-read about it here.

Our church service started and ended before Mass on Easter morning so Addison and Oliver watched video vignettes about the Savior while we were waiting for everyone to return so we could have the egg hunt.

Here are pictures from the hunt - Addison really started to understand the point of the egg hunt this year and every progressive hunt was more and more successful.  The best part however, was when cousin Aiden was hunting for eggs.  His family kept pointing out eggs but he wouldn't pick them up - when asked why - he said he didn't want "real" eggs he only wanted the plastic kind.  Leave it to a 4-year-old to appreciate the good stuff!

It was a great day!

The Entire Family

My entire family was able to make it to the Oregon Coast for Easter weekend and we thought we'd take advantage of the rare occasion and get a picture.  The truth is we took hundreds - but this is one of the better ones :)

Quite the Climber

Addison is becoming quite a climber.  In case you don't get to see us very often I thought we'd share the play by play!  

(Most of our posts are for Aunt Emily and Uncle Taylor - but if you feel so inclined to enjoy all the tiny details of Addison's life than that's okay too.)

Easter Baseball

When we got back from our ocean activity Addison took a nap, put on warmer clothes, and was ready to play with all the boys in the family.  They were playing baseball in the backyard where we were staying and they were all kind enough to acquiesce their serious game to let her play too.  Here is how Addison's baseball game goes...

Bat (never mind we're holding the bat backwards)

Wait for dad's pitch (having given up on the bat)

Run the bases

Collect the bases (because it makes no sense to go from one to another)

Keep circling the bases

End up on every base - because that's just better than one base at a time!

Gotta love a game of Easter baseball - I'm sure there will be many more to come (and Addison might even learn some more advanced rules as the years progress). 

Second Greatest Place on Earth

Second only to being home with my family - the Oregon Coast is my favorite place on earth.  Despite the fact that we live in Utah - Addison has been to the coast three times since she was born!  My mom lives just over an hour from the coast so it isn't too far to go when we pop into town.  I have great memories of the coast and it has been fun creating new ones with Oliver and Addison.  This is from Easter weekend (April 7) and we played on the beach just outside of Mo's for an hour or so.  Surprisingly, we had a windless beach and weather in the upper 60s.  It was perfect!  Addison was very serious about her sand castle building.

 

She wasn't fully captivated by the castle though - she was much more interested in swimming in the ocean in April.  She is a total water baby!  She would run straight for the waves and not stop.  She loved jumping and splashing and getting wet.  She even went completely under the "freezing" water and loved it!  Oliver had to keep a close eye on her because every time he would resume working on the castle or start heading back from the ocean she would be running right back in.

I just love her face in these next two pictures.

Here she is post ocean swim - and she still kept heading back out for more.  The cold water and heavy clothes didn't bother her at all.  Had I anticipated that she wanted to swim I would have brought her swim suit - maybe a sopping wet fleece provide some insulation?

This is the only picture of Addison and me that day at the beach - we are flying our kite.  It really didn't keep her attention for very long. 

 

Also, interestingly, there were hundreds of lady bugs on the beach that day.  Addison loves "bugas" and we had fun watching them.  They were all over the sand and logs and rocks and everyone down at the beach.