Cecret Lake

Carter had enough of seeing his older brother taking off on exciting hikes and wanted his turn. Earlier last month we ordered a kid carrier and after arriving I decided to take it out for a test drive. Carter and I headed out to Cecret Lake (yes, it's spelled right) at the top of Little Cottonwood Canyon in the Albion basin. Words and pictures cannot do it justice. The place is covered in wildflowers and I couldn't help myself taking a few pictures. The hike is only about a mile but we had to park at a farther parking lot so it added another half mile or so. The weather was great and Carter enjoyed every minute of it. He wouldn't share his crackers, though. At the lake there were Tiger salamander larvae that Carter kept calling fish. Angie was worried that I wouldn't see anyone up there and I would have a seizure. Little did she know that Albion basin sees about 20,000 people a year and the trail was quite crowded. I even ran into one of the ER doctors that I work with so Angie had nothing to worry about

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Amethyst Lake

Last year Zac and I hiked to Island Lake in the Uintas. This year I chose to go to Amethyst Lake out of the Christmas Meadows in the Uintas. The only difference was that it was twice the mileage. I knew Zac could do it and he was excited.

The hike started out with a gentle uphill and every time we came across a stream or mud patch to cross, Zac carefully took his time. After about two and a half miles the trail became very steep. The articles I read about the hike said that there was a gentle stream with postcard views along the trail. There were postcard views but the heavy spring rains turned the gentle stream into a roaring creek. It was beautiful, though. We trudged up the mountainside and soon Zac was spent. We finally made it to the top of the trail and it returned to a gradual uphill. Zac was getting pretty grumpy towards the end and we decided to not go to the lake and stay at the Amethyst Meadow instead. We were not alone as there were many Boy Scouts around chopping trees, having bonfires, and doing those things that Boy Scouts do the best.

We found out that there were a lot of mosquitoes in the Amethyst area. Despite DEET, we ended up with many bites. There were so many mosquitoes that they were getting into our food. The next morning we hiked to the lake and fished for about a half hour. The lake was very beautiful and we enjoyed seeing a memorable area after hiking so hard. We headed back to camp, packed up, and left for home. Along the way we kept leapfrogging with a different Boy Scout troop. Zac was really happy to know that we reached the bottom of the trail before they did. He was really tired, though, and I ended up carrying out his backpack toward the end of the hike. I was really impressed by his effort and I look forward to going hiking with him. As one of the Forest Service's crews mentioned, Zac's the professional hiker.

Moab

Zac was off track in May so we decided to venture down to Moab. We had never really been there before and had heard it was a good place for kids since there are lots of small hikes. Our kids love small hikes. Even Carter. The first day we were there it was cloudy and overcast and by the time we got to Arches it was raining a little bit. But we decided to hike on. We would find out later that hiking in the light rain is much better than hiking in the heat. We saw balanced rock
turret arch
the north & south windows and double arch all in the first day. The kids loved climbing up the walls at double arch, even Carter.
They were all easy hikes (less than a mile) and the it never rained more than a sprinkle. On our way back to our hotel there was even a rainbow.

The next day we were glad it wasn't going to rain but after hiking in the heat this when we decided we didn't mind the rain so much. We went to sand dune arch. The kids loved the narrow walkways, shade, and the sand. We then hiked to broken arch and on the way Zac and Abbi had fun looking out for lizards. Next was tunnel arch and pine tree arch with hopes of hiking to landscape arch (the longest arch in the world) but we never made it there. The heat had gotten to the kids and there was no going further. So we drove back to the hotel for a well needed nap and of course, the swimming pool.
We loved Arches and one day we'll go back and make it to landscape arch and even attempt to see the famous delicate arch. On our way home we stopped at dead horse point and were amazed at the view. Although you could have heard me say more than once "Stay away from the edge!" All in all we had a great exhausting time. Tom and I were pointing out all the different license plates from around the country and noticing all the people who didn't speak English. There were a lot of them. People come from all over the world to see this place and yet we are only hours away and had never been. So I guess we need to get out more.

Carter in his glasses

It's a boy..... of course.

Glasses?

I took Carter to the eye doctor at Primary Children's today. We had been there 6 weeks ago for his follow up appointment after his eye surgery. At that appointment Carter's eyes were still crossing when he was looking up close at things but were straight when looking far away. The doctor was hoping that after some more time they would straighten out and start working together. So that is why we went in today. Carter was acting extremely shy and wouldn't even look at the nurse or doctor. He covered his eyes as soon as the doctor entered the room. I finally had to force his hands down so the doctor could get a look. He didn't get to look long (because of the shyness) but long enough to tell me that his eyes haven't gotten any better. I wasn't that surprised but it's disappointing knowing that after all the trouble of the surgery and such his eyes still aren't working right. So the doctor gave us a prescription for glasses. Bifocals to be more exact. If Carter was farsighted at all it would help them correct the crossing (don't ask me why but that's what the doctor says) but he's not so instead they'll try giving him bifocals. I didn't get a lot of hope out of the doctor's comments that this will work but it's really the only other option besides surgery. It's the only thing we can try. I asked the doctor how the bifocals help the eyes to uncross but he didn't have much of an explanation besides "They just do." So we stopped at an optical place on the way home and they didn't even carry glasses small enough for a 2 year old. The eye doctor said to get cheap ones because they're going to break and we'll be back there before long to get new ones. So I guess we'll try some place else. I really don't know what I'm doing ordering glasses for a 2 year old. Which ones are best? Which ones don't make him look like a nerd? I have no idea how we'll keep glasses on Carter. He would barely keep them on in the store. He has sunglasses and won't wear them. This is going to be a challenge. I asked the doctor about that and he said to just keep trying to keep them on him and if it's impossible then he has some eye drops to blur his vision unless he has the glasses on. Aaaah! We'll see.

Birthdays

We've had a couple birthdays around here so I blog about them before we have more. Abbi celebrated last month and we had a fun day. We started the day by opening a few gifts (by request of the birthday girl and by suggestion of her brother) and then we went to the Draper temple open house. I thought that would be a memorable thing to do on her birthday. The kids thought the bus ride was the best part. The baptismal font was their favorite room. Carter even loved walking through the temple and it really wasn't that crowded since it was a weekday morning. That evening for her big celebration we went to Chuck E. Cheese with her 3 favorite girl cousins.
They had a fun time there. And of course she was excited to open more presents and eat cupcakes.

Abbi is finally 5 and on her birthday she shyly asked me, "Do I have to get shots today?" For the past year she hasn't wanted to turn 5 because of the shots you have to get to go to kindergarten. There have been many tears shed over this subject. I informed her she didn't have to get shots that day and it was a relief to her. But we're going to have to face that one day in the near future.

The past 5 years have gone so fast and it was like yesterday she was my pretty little baby girl in the hospital with a bright green bow (the hospital put it on her and I requested they change it to a more girly color- who puts a bright green bow on a newborn girl?).
But now she's all grown up, won't wear certain clothes because she doesn't like them, takes forever to find clothes she likes at the store (reminds me of me years ago), and definitely likes any clothing with sparkleys on them. Abbi is a sweet girl that often lets her older brother has his way because she's okay with that. She's a very independent child and has no problem doing activities on her own. She loves art projects, etc. We have drawings all over the place from her. Abbi loves preschool and being with friends. She's even looking forward to kindergarten this coming year (once we get past those shots). She's already reading books from preschool and has impressed me by how well she can do. Abbi definitely is the little princess around here and loves all things girly.

So this past week we celebrated Carter's birthday. He turned 2! Where did those 2 years go? Although he could really care less what we did that day we wanted to do something special. Zac and Abbi had the day off school so we took the kids to the farm. We always need a good trip to the farm during spring anyway.
But this year Carter was more into it and loves seeing all the animals and even feeding them (if we could get him to keep his hand there long enough).
Carter even got to ride a pony this year.
Afterwards we went to Carter's favorite Noodles & Company (okay, so maybe that's mom's favorite) and the kids always love the mac & cheese there. Yum! (Doesn't he look so cute eating his mac & cheese?)
Then it was home for a nap and that night we celebrated with elmo cupcakes (or pancakes as Carter called them) and exciting presents (what do you get a 2 year old that's the third child in the family?). Carter loves songs and he loved singing "Happy Birthday" with us. He actually prefers to sing it "Happy Birthday to Carter" instead of "Happy Birthday to you" and he really gets into singing it. He's still saying "Happy birthday to Carter". One more kid that loves birthdays.

Carter is the sweetness in our family (yet he did just hit the terrible twos). Carter loves songs. I mean he really loves songs. He can sing all the words to several songs- I love to see the temple, Popcorn popping, I am a child of god, The abc song, and many others. And it's about the cutest thing you've ever seen (although I am biased). He also knows all his letters and can tell you which letter is which. He somehow picked that up from watching Super Why on PBS. Thank you PBS. We were amazed the first time he did it. Carter also loves books. He could read and read books and never stop. He goes to bed every night reading books. He has several of them memorized and can read them to you. Carter is a talker. He jibbers and you can't really tell what he saying but he has something serious to tell you. He also says a lot of things that make sense and communicates pretty well. He even has a knock knock joke he tells all the time (Knock, knock- who's there?- Ewho) Yet he's quite shy around people he doesn't know. That may be a challenge in years to come. Carter loves outside and could spend hours exploring out there. He's glad for the nice weather and wish it would stay. Carter is just an easy going sweet child.

Picture Princess

This post is to enter a contest that Abbi is "over the moon" about. The chance to have a photo shoot in pretty princess dresses- a dream come true. I still remember her 3rd birthday photos where she realized how fun it was to be photographed by a real photographer and she never wanted to stop. The contest is for Shabby Apple who have the cutest dresses and Abbi would love all of them. You can see a dress she would especially love by clicking on little girls and girls dresses from shabby baby. So here's our entry for our picture princess Abbi.

Under the Knife-Again

For those of you who haven't noticed, Carter's eyes started crossing a few months after his first surgery. His ophthalmologist tried to correct it with "patching," but surgery soon became unavoidable. We took Carter up to Primary Children's Hospital on Wednesday. He needed to fast and they told us initially that he couldn't eat at all during the day of the surgery. Then we found out that his surgery wasn't scheduled until the middle of the afternoon. We didn't want to deal with a toddler who would fast for 20 hours. They agreed to let us feed him breakfast and he was fine the rest of the day until we hit the waiting room. We tried everything to distract him but each time he ran back to Angie's bag, looking for food, and saying, "eat, eat."

According to the ophthalmologist the surgery went very well. Carter had a difficult time in post-op, but after two rounds of narcotics we finally realized that it wasn't the pain that was bothering him. It was the blood pressure cuff, IV, and the rest of the cables attached to him. Hopefully this will be the last of the surgeries. As Angie and I walked the halls at Primary Children's, we felt very fortunate and blessed that of all the illnesses and diseases that we saw there, only one of our children had a disability limited only to his eyes. We empathize for those parents who have children with far more serious disabilities and feel that they are those who have been chosen for such a difficult situation.

Playing catch up

Long time no write huh? The truth is I haven't wanted to blog because I just haven't wanted to do much of anything lately. I'm not too fond of this time of year and would rather just crawl in a corner and come out when the sun does. But I must play catch up a bit and get back into this blogging thing.

We had a nice Christmas. Tom's parents came to town for the holiday and that made it extra fun for the kids. Santa arrived safe and sound with plenty of things to put smiles on faces.



Carter wasn't too into Christmas and after awhile started hitting the presents when we wanted him to open them. His highlight was getting socks in his stocking.


After recovering from the holiday we're now just trying to endure the cold and yuckiness. Carter is bumping his head anytime he gets and has had some massive battle wounds. First he tripped and hit the banister of our stairs with his eye.

And as soon as that healed up this past week he somehow knocked over my parent's piano bench and landed on it with his face (yet no one knows what really happened since there's only a 3 year old witness).

This picture doesn't really do it justice as it's the worst bump and bruise I think any of our children has ever had. It was a traumatizing experience for me as a mom because we I first found him the two places where he hit were so big, bulging, and blue that he looked deformed and I thought he had cracked his skull open or something. But now it's just a pretty bruise and he's alive.

Carter is a bit of trouble but so sweet too. Carter loves loves loves books especially ones with baby faces in it. A couple weeks ago I picked up a book and discovered he could read it all by himself by just looking at the pictures. So sweet!(just tilt your head to the left as I can't get it straight)