BOISE!

After spending 2 days in Utah,  Doug flew straight to CA to work for a week while I spent the next week and a half visiting my family in Boise. Doug came back and spent the remaining 3 days there with us. We had a blast as usual!!

Averi is still obsessed with my mom's ponies. She would go out every morning and feed them or just visit with them. They loved her too. They would come over to her from across the pasture just to see her (and be fed!). So cute!

 

Here she is actually riding one. I think she enjoyed petting them more than riding them. 

My mom made a special bubble recipe and her and Averi used wires to blow huge bubbles. Didn't work quite as well as we had hoped but Averi still had tons of fun. She loved doing anything as long as it was with Grandma!

Me, Maria, and my mom took the girls to the YMCA to swim one afternoon. They had fun but they have somewhat of a love-hate relationship so it didn't last too long :)

Just the cutest picture of Averi with a bouque.

My Brother Casey's birthday was while we were there so we went to the cemetary to take some flowers to him. Here's Averi and Kenley walking around out with Aunt Bonnie.

My mom fell asleep like this with Kadence so I just had to get a picture ;)

Maria and I took the girls to get pedicures (they just got their nails painted) and it was the cutest place ever! They had these cute little butterfly chairs with mini dvd players for the girls to watch a movie while they got their nails done.

Between the licorice, candy, and movies, I think they had a pretty good time...oh and the pedicure!

After getting our nails done, we went to U-Swirl and got some frozen yogurt. Mmmmm!

Grandpa hanging out with Baby K

One afternoon I took Averi over to Maria's house to play with Kenley. They had fun playing with her toys and cool play-dough set.

Having a bonfire in the back yard. Too bad we decided to get creative by making "tin-foil smores" and ruined all the chocolate. haha!

We had a little surprise baby shower for Maria at the Cheesecake Factory. It was just me, my mom, and Kristy. We took Averi, Kenley, and Kadence with us and our neighbors aparently weren't too impressed with their behavior. Haha!

Perhaps one of the highlights for Averi was the Fairy Tea Party that my mom hosted for her and Kenley. They got to wear these adorable dresses, play games, and eat yummy finger snacks with their "tea".

Here is my mom putting the "fairy dust" on their hands.

Visiting the ponies

Playing Ring Around the Rosies

The main event!

Another one of Averi's Favorites was riding the horse with Grandpa. She was pretty nervous to get on but once she was on, she was all smiles!

Waiting for my dad to get the horse.

This is one of my favorite pictures. She is actually using the reins and she thought she was pretty cool :)

After a while, I went inside while they rode in the pasture. I was hanging out with my mom when the doorbell rang and we answered it, only to see this:

They came all the way up to the doorstep :)

On Mother's Day, the men hosted a pot luck dinner at the Cobb's house complete with dutch oven cooking and a ice cream buffet! I always love get-togethers at their house. So fun!

I love this picture. Tyler reading to Averi. What a sweet boy.

We also went to my nephew Zac's "Senior Stud" night. It was pretty funny ;)

Maria and I took the girls to the Science Center one afternoon. Here they are on this chair thing that you could pull yourself up on using a pulley and then fall back down. They loved it.

Blowing giant bubbles

Averi could have stayed in the Science Center's mini grocery store all day. It was way cute.

So I realize that I dont have many pictures of Kadence. Well that's because she did a whole lot of this:

Oh man she is so cute I wanna eat her,... but I won't!

Utah Trip - 1st heat

So I am finally getting around to documenting our trip to Utah and Idaho back in May. We had blessed Averi in Boise when she was a baby so we decided to bless Kadence in Salt Lake this time around. We caravanned with Maria and Kenley the eleven hours to Utah and surprisingly the kids (Kadence included) did really well. Besides a meltdown or two about getting back in the car after a gas fillup, Averi was a great traveler. And Kadence pretty much just slept and ate the whole time. Yay!

This picture is really dark but here are Doug and Kadence all ready to go to church for Kadence's  big day. She wore my blessing dress from when I was blessed and it even came with a bonnet. She was so cute in it I just wanted to eat her up!

Kadence all buckled in and ready to go!

Kadence with Aunt Jody. Her and the fam drove up that morning from Logan to be there. What troopers!

Kadence all dolled up! It doesn't get much cuter than this! :)

Nammy and baby K

Averi fell asleep like this on Payton. She loves those girls!

The worst day

Wednesday early morning I got up to feed Kadence and thought she felt a little warm. I had her burrito wrapped though so I didn't think too much of it. I fed her, loosened her blanket a little and put her back to bed. Around 8am she got up again and I brought her downstairs and laid her on the couch. Doug came over, kissed her head and said "She feels warm" not really thinking anything of it either. I grabbed the thermometer and took her temp. It came back as 102.7 and my heart sank. I am so scared of fevers and with a newborn I was just sick about it. I called my pediatrician's office and they couldn't get us in for an hour so I just took her to the ER. Her temp was 103 by then. They immediately started running tests and gave her some tylenol. They put a catheter in and collected urin. They tried to collect blood with an IV but the 18 year old girl (or there-abouts who I don't even think was a nurse) couldn't get the IV in her tiny veins. Kadence was bright red and screaming louder than I had ever heard her scream. Her fragile body was burning up and as I laid there, hunched over her trying to provide what comfort I could while avoiding the sight of the needle peircing her skin,  my tears were soaking the bed and I couldnt help but imagine how Heavenly Father must have felt as he watched his only son on the cross. They finally gave up on the IV and colected blood from a heel prick. Then the doc came in and managed to get an IV in and had to perform a spinal tap to test for menengitis. Luckily he wanted me to leave while he did so. I went to the cafeteria and called Doug to fill him in on everything. He was still home with Averi and neither of us were really sure how serious Kadence's condition was. I headed back to check on her and was stopped by the front desk lady. She asked me to sign a few waivers and informed me that they couldn't figure out why she was crying so much. No mother wants to here that. I followed the sound of my screaming baby back to her room. They were just finishing up the spinal tap and unfortunately I saw all the blood and mess from the procedure. I wrapped her up again and held her. It took her about 20 minutes to really calm down. When I laid her back on the bed for the next nurse to check her, I noticed a petichiae-like rash covering both legs. The doc came in and looked at it. He said "This is bad news. This is a sign of infection for sure. Scary stuff." They ordered an ambulence to come and transport us to Phoenix Childrens Hospital (mainly just because her IV was already in and they couldn't let us drive her there with it in). I called Doug and finally broke down telling him that I needed him there. He came in right away and gave her a blessing while we waited for transportation. We finally made our way to PCH. Doug went with Kadence in the ambulence and I followed in our car. I prayed most of the way there. There in the car, mid prayer, I was reassured that Kadence would be fine and that everything would be okay. I then began to pray for faith. We got to the hospital and she was still very hot. Her fever was still around 102 and she was obviously uncomfortable. They did a nasal swab and checked her out a little more. Dr McCleod came in and talked to us a little bit and informed us that we were just waiting for lab results at this point. The main suspicions were menangitis, Strep B or Strep Initus (sp?). She battled a fever for about 3 days. The Tylenol would kick in and it would go down but then it would wear off and her temp would go right back up again. By Fri they had gotten some lab results and everything came back negative. The Doc took a look inside her throat and decided that he thought she had Herp Angina which he described as like having chicken pox in the back of the throat. The next day they got more results back and they came back positive for Strep Pneumoniae which is a bacterial infection in the blood and can be treated with antibiotics. The doc then changed his diagnosis to that. By Saturday she wasn't fevering anymore and she seemed pretty much back to her old self.  Late that night though, her IV went bad and they had to put in a new one. Two different nurses tried and failed. They called the IV team in and around midnight, they were able to get it in. Since they had already blown through so many of her veins and were running out of good ones, they decided they wanted to put in a Picc line (a longer term IV with a catheter that follows the vein up towards the heart). On Monday afternoon they had to give her general anesthesia and they put it in. Luckily there were no problems and everything went great.

Kadence is still in the hospital until Friday night just to finish out her ten days of antibiotics and then she can come home and we can resume life. I am SO grateful for my beautiful and healthy baby girl. She brings me so much joy and I am eternally grateful that I still get to have her in my life.Thank you SO much to all my family and friends that prayed and fasted on her bahalf.

 I am also grateful for Phoenix Childrens Hospital. It is really an awesome place. I loved all the nurses, all the PCTs, and one of the two doctors I saw ;) That place is so amazing. They would come by and give everyone free hot chocolate every day, and twice a week a book cart would come around and anyone who wanted, could come take a book free of charge. Not to mention, all the free snacks and cable tv :) Once Kadence was feeling better, it really wan't too bad being there!

My friends Poiette and Ami came to pay us a visit one night and for some reason the hospital made them wear all this protective clothing. Pretty funny.

Proudfoot's visit!

My sister Maria and her little family took a road trip through Arizona and we were so glad that we got to have them stay with us for a few days. Averi and Kenley got along pretty well and were much more interested in each other this time as compared to prior visits. It will be so fun to see their friendship evolve.

Here is Kenley meeting and holding baby Kadence for the first time.

 Sunday afternoon Doug and I took them to Estrella Mountain Ranch to walk around the pond and feed the ducks. Here they are checking out the fountain and the fish.

Maria, Averi, Kenley, Mike

 

Since Averi knew her way around a little bit, I think she felt partially responsible for Kenley. She took her hand and led her through all the palm trees. Just look at them. I mean really.... Could they BE any cuter????

 The beginning of another LONG outlet shopping trip. They are smiling because they don't know what lies ahead :) We were there for most of the day and did score some great deals. The boys were good sports. We will just leave it at that ;)

 Here they are at the mall's splash pad which I'm sure was the highlight for them. They got soaked and loved every minute of it.

 Doug and Mike after going shooting.

We took them to downtown Tempe and walked down Mill Avenue to look around. We saw no shortage of interesting people! Anyone seen the soda can lid guy?  Here we are at the Tempe Beach Park.

Afterwards we went to Teds Famous Hotdogs and ate, yep you guessed it, hotdogs! So Good!

Despite Maria being 7 months pregnant, we went on the hike to the "waterfall" up in the White Tanks. It was actually her idea! It was really fun and a great way to get a feel for Arizona landscape.

 Even though it wasn't super hot yet, the girls loved to swim in the kiddie pool and could have stayed there all day I'm sure! Here's Averi giving Kenley a bear hug. So stinkin cute!

 Averi does this thing lately where she just sits down in the pool and hangs out with her head under water and looks around. Then she will come up and tell me what she saw. What a goof!

I don't have a pic of it but Mike and Maria were super nice and took us out to dinner on Wednesday night to the Saddle Ranch. It was De-Lish!

Mike had to fly out to work on Thursday morning at like 5am. Since I am always up at 330am to feed Kadence I decided to go along. Maria and I took him to the airport and then went to the Waffle house for breakfast on our way back. Mmmmm! 

On Friday Doug and I (and kids) caravanned with Maria and Kenley to Utah so that we could bless Kadence in his parent's ward that Sunday. We totally lucked out on the drive. Both kids were really good. Kadence just slept and ate the whole time and Averi just watched her movies the whole time. And lucky for me, Doug didn't mind driving the whole time so I got to sneak in a nap :)

All dressed up!

Aren't baby dresses just the cutest?! I have aquired a number or adorable dresses (mostly from Mom) in tiny little sizes which considering how fast babies grow, will only get to be worn a couple times. I figure I better at least document how cute she looks in them so more people can adore them :)

This one has the tiny matching shoes which she doesn't really like to wear, but oh well!!

Fat girl in a little dress! I love this one. It is satin and is just SO sweet.

This one is probably my favorite. She wore this one for her baby announcement pics and it has sweet little rosets all over the top half as you can see.

And of course, her blessing dress. This is actually mine from when I was blessed and it has the cute matching bonnet. She also wore those adorable pink booties which I am in love with as well.

I will be posting a couple more soon but this is all of them so far :)

This is  just a cute  pic of her smiling. She loves to socialize lately as well as be cuddled. I love to do both with her so it works out great. Both doctors that she has seen have commented on how cuddley she is. But I guess maybe that's expected since both were female :)

 Chillin in her swing with her life-size binkie.

Napping on Mom's bed with her favorite big sister.

 Averi fell asleep like this on my bed with her baby one day :)

Moms to the rescue

After Kadence was born, my mom came out for a week to help out. Then after she left, Doug's mom Nancy came out to help. It was so fun to see them and of course it was great having all their help with the day to day things. I was able to have quite a few much needed naps :) Averi was in heaven for two weeks with all that attention she got! She definately loves her grandmas!

Averi and Grandma playing with her doodle pad

Averi helping make cookies. She loves doing that, especially with Grandma!

Kadence and Grandma

Kadence gets her first bath. Averi was quite interested. She hurried over to her play room and got her little chair to stand on so she could see better.

Nice and cozy

Me and the babe

Kadence fell asleep on me like this and I thought it was just too cute to not get a picture of.

Averi getting Nammy all ready for the pool with her sun hat and goggles.

Averi swimming with her best friend Ezra. The other day she actually prayed by herself before going to bed. Even though I couldn't understand most of it, I did hear her say "I love my friends". It was just so precious. Then the next night I heard her mention Ezra in her prayer. haha. So sweet.

Averi opening gifts from Nammy. Averi is such an expressive gift-opener. She gets so excited, I love it!

Averi loves to help out with baby Kadence. Here she is giving her some toys to play with :) Her self designated jobs lately are putting the binkie back in her mouth, and getting the diaper and wipes down for me when I am changing Kadence's diaper. If I am lucky, she will also throw the dirty diaper away for me.

I weighed Kadence the other day for her one month mark and she was 10 pounds 4 ounces. She is my little porker (compared to Averi anyways). I love it. However, I have to actually be careful when I pick her up that I dont pinch her back fat :)

I love this picture. Such a precious little girlie.