So, yes these pics are a little late, but hey, better late than never! We didn't do much that day. We hung around the house and got a few things done that we wanted to do. Later that day we headed over to my aunt and uncles house in Mesa. There we swam, ate lots of yummy food and visited. When it was time to head out to see fireworks we decided it was time for us to head home. Yes, we were bums this year, but when you have a 4 month old and a girl with a broken arm we thought the best idea was to head home and get to bed. It was a great day and we loved spending time with just our family and our extended family.
Happy 4th
No More Monkey's Jumping On The Bed!!!
Can you guess what the adventures of today where? Well, if you can't just think it's only something that would happen in the Larson home. Like I said a few posts ago we live on our toes around here and we are always ready for something to come our way. Well, today has to deal with Monkey's jumping on the bed one fell off and broke her arm. Yes, that's right. Our little Hollie was playing at a friends house this morning and she and her little friend where jumping on the bed and Hollie fell off and broke her arm. Can you believe it? When I heard I just didn't know wether to laugh or cry, so I chose to laugh. Yes, that may sound mean but, trust me my heart was broken, and that's just what I had to do do get through the moment. We went straight to Ryan's office, thank goodness he has an x-ray machine, and we took a couple quick x-ray's and didn't see anything major. The x-ray didn't come out to well because we couldn't keep Hollie still, but we could atleast tell that it wasn't a complete break. So, Ryan got on the phone and called a pediatric orthopedist who he has a repor with and thankfully they said to bring her right in. Her elbow area was really swollen and it looked like the radial head was dislocated, but we weren't sure. Hollie would not move it and didn't like ANYONE touching it. So, off we were up to Phoenix to see this ortho. We got in the office, filled out the paperwork and returned it. While I was waiting to get my cards back, I was holding Hollie, and next thing I know Hollie is throwing up all over me, herself and it hit the lady at the desk. Oh my heavens, I couldn't believe it! I froze for a moment and thought to myself no way, neither one of us have extra clothes and this poor lady behind the desk, then came the tears. There was this one women who was in the waiting room with her two boys and she got right up and helped me clean up. Bless her heart. I wish I knew her name because I would send her flowers. She was so nice and helpful. Well, after we got semi cleaned up we were immediatley back in a room. I guess if you don't want to wait at a doctors office very long just have your kid throw up and you will get back right away. Within 15 minutes of being back in a room the doctor was there looked at Hollie's arm and wanted to take another x-ray. He said he has never seen so much swelling and that led him to think it was not broken, but dislocated. After the x-ray(thank goodness for quick digital x-rays, we had them back and a diagnosis in 10 minutes)we could see that her humerous just below the elbow was fractured. It's called a lateral condyle fracture. It's not a complete break just a small fracture, but very painful! The doctor wanted to cast it but because it was so swollen he opted to put her in a sling for 1 week and have us come back next week to see what we should do from there. Keeping a 2 year old in a sling and not moving her arm is NOT an easy thing! I feel so bad for her and I wish I could take all the pain away. The doctor wants us to keep her in the sling 24/7 and treat it as if it was a cast. So, we are doing our best and to sum it up Hollie is getting everything the she needs and more. Can you say we are spoiling her? Yes, spoiling her rotten, but she deserves it. Lots of ice cream, chocolate, Love, holding her, giving lots of kisses. I have to say I love the moments where she just wants me to hold her and sing, I am a child of God and Popcorn popping. She tries to do the hand movements for Popcorn popping, but it's hard to do it with one hand. When she is on my lap she always tells me, "mommy, Hollie sad," it's so cute and just breaks my heart. She is such a good sport and one tough cookie. I am so proud of her and how she is handling this. I know it must not be easy for her, but she is doing a fantastic job! We are watching lots of movies and just enjoying hanging out.
Well, I can't say what will happen next, but as you know stay tuned and you will find out. Here are a few pics of our little princess. 
Our Cute Kids
Just a cute fun day with the kids. Hollie was making Ethan laugh and it was sooo cute. Ofcourse, the pictures don't do justice, but we did get some on video. I LOVE LOVE LOVE these days where Ethan is happy and laughing. It makes me stop thinking about everything going on and I just lay there and focus on both kids. I think how blessed I am to have these two precious children and how much I love them. They are the highlight of my day and I look forward to every new day and the adventures ahead.
Swimming
Saturday we decided to take the kids to the pool. It was so hot that the water felt very refreshing. Hollie and Ethan both LOVED the water. Hollie was a little fish and loved going under water and then popping right back up. She was jumping/walking off the edge and would turn and swim to the wall. She didn't like any of us helping her because she was confident enough that she could do it all by herself. Ofcourse, we were right there to help her when we needed to. She was showing off all of the things she learned in swimming lessons and we were all very impressed with how much she remembered. Papa was especially proud of his little girl! Ethan also did a fantastic job and enjoyed himself too. Papa carried him around and he was so content and happy. Yes, I was a bad mom and forgot to bring the hat so we draped a t-shirt over his head and that did the trick. I will never forget the hat again!! It was fun filled day and we all enjoyed ourselves.
When we got home our little Hollie wasn't worn out just yet, so she decided to go and play in the splash pad for another hour and then played hard inside with papa and grandpa. Let's just say she slept great that night and woke up at 9:30am, I couldn't believe it. Hey, atleast she had fun.
A Weekend with both grandpa's
This last weekend was lots of fun. We had both grandpa's here visiting and the kids loved it. My dad is motorcycle papa and Ryan's dad is grandpa. It was so fun to watch Hollie interact with both of them and know who was who. I know the grandpa's had a blast. Grandpa made forts with Hollie and that has become her new thing. Motorcycle papa ran around with Hollie and I think by the end of the night they were both worn out. We loved hearing Hollie call their names and both of their faces would just light up and then answered her right away. We are so lucky to have such wonderful dad's who have become awesome grandparents. I am so grateful for both of them and want them both to know how much I love and appreciate ALL they do for us. Hollie misses you both and can't wait to play again. We had a weekend of fun, laughter lots more fun and a little bit of relaxation.
Swimming Lessons
Amongst our crazy life we have been trying to do a few fun things. Hollie had a few weeks of private swimming lessons with Rachel. Rachel used to work at our office and durring the summer she coaches swim team, teaches swimming lessons and also lifeguards at the Perry Pool. We had talked about putting Hollie in swimming lessons with her but in order for Hollie to be in her class I had to be in the pool also. Well, that was not going to work with having a little baby. So, I went ahead and put Hollie in swim lessons with Pam (a woman in our ward who teaches swim) because I didn't have to be in the pool with her. Hollie did great! There were 3 other kids in her class and the first few times she cried and then she was fine. That was 2 weeks of lessons and once those were over I received a call from Rachel asking if she could teach Hollie privately. Oh my goodness, I was so excited. I said of course, when do you want to start? Let me just say that Rachel was AMAZING with Hollie. Hollie loved it and looked forward to it. I couldn't believe how far she came along in 2 weeks with Rachel. I think a lot of it was that she knew Rachel and that she was one on one with her. Hollie now has no fear of the water and loves to go under and come right back up. She jumps off the edge, or shall I say, she just walks in. She kicks her legs and we are working on moving arms. I am so proud of her, she is our little fish. Thank you Rachel for teaching Hollie. We love you so much and are going to miss you lots when you move to Hawaii. Yes, we are jealous and will just have to come and visit.
Results
I apologize it has taken me so long to post Ethan's results. We received them last week and everything came back NORMAl. We were so releived that there was nothing seriously wrong, but we still have yet to receive answers. We are waiting for Dr. Shienkein to get back into town and we will have our follow-up with her and discuss what should happen next. Ethan still has some good days and bad days. Friday evening he spit up a little more blood but hasn't been fussier than normal. We have Ethan on cereal and fruit and he LOVES it! Saturday he had four bowls of cereal and he loved every bite, I couldn't get it in fast enough. We talked with our pediatrician yesterday and he really wants us to try Ethan on the Neocate formula and see if it helps his pain when drinking a bottle. We started that last night and I haven't seen any major results, but Ethan has been sleeping a lot more. We will give it a couple days and see how he does. Hopefully between the Neocate and the cereal our little Ethan will be a happier and feeling better baby. I have to say he is chunking up really fast. He currently weighs 17lbs and is growing like a weed! I am so glad that he is gaining lots of weight because if he wasn't I would be more worried. We love chunky babies and the rolls on his legs are just adorable!
What a Week!!
Warning, this is going to be a long post so, bear with me.
This last week was one of the most stressful weeks I have had. It wasn't stressful because of lots to do it was stressfull because of my sweet little Ethan. I tell ya, this kid keeps us on our toes around here, literally. So, if any of you have been reading my blog you know that Ethan has had some problems with digestion and we thought the problem was cured with soy. Well, we were wrong. Ethan, back in May, spit up a little bit of blood and ofcourse, I feaked out, and we were in the doctors right away. Our pediatrician examined Ethan and said overall he looks good, but this is now out of my scope and we need to refer you to a pediatric GI. He gave me a name and number of a highly recommended doctor in the East Valley and when I called I was told there was a 3-4 month WAIT! Are you kidding me? My little guy is only 2 1/2 months and you're telling me I have to wait 3-4 months, I couldn't believe it.I said ya okay, and called my pediatrician back. To make a long explanation short, he put us on the "urgent" wait list, which was 3 weeks. Oh my heavens! I would think they would try to get a baby spitting up blood in a little sooner than that, but I guess not. A few weeks passed and we were doing good. Ethan has always had a hard time sleeping and is pretty fussy after he eats, so we figured as long as he wasn't spitting up blood we were okay. Ryan and I have decided to do some research on our own and we came across GERD's (Gastroesophogeal Reflux Disease, pretty much reflux)and we read it and said this is Ethan to a T. After researching out GERD's we figured this is just something we are going to have to endure through and hopefully he will out grow it. Well, just when we came to that conclusion Ethan decided on Monday he was going to throw a curve at us and spit up quite a bit more blood than before. Okay, so let me explain this blood. On Monday it looked like raspberry syrup with seeds. It was very strange, but we knew it was blood because Ethan is only drinking white formula. You could also see that his spit up had red streaks in it when normally it's white. Anyway, so I have to say at that point I was very stressed and worried about our little guy. This is just not normal and we need to get this figured out. Ofcourse, it was during lunch time and no doctor's offices were open. I did get ahold of the Pediatric GI office and they said they couldn't do anything for him because he wasn't an existing patient, I just don't get it. So, I called our pediatrician and had him paged during lunch and he had us come right in. I brought Ethan's onsie with me so they didn't think I was crazy and while we were with the doctor he called Dr. Schenkein (the Pediatric GI) and left her a personal "urgent" message to please call him back. So, home we went and we were to watch him closely and wait to hear when we could get in with this doctor. I have to say, all night Monday I just prayed and asked that we could please find answers for our little guy. Low and behold Tuesday morning at 7:53am I received a call from Phoenix Children's Hospital (Where Dr. Schenkein's office is) and they had us in at 10:50 that morning. Oh, was I relieved. We were at the appointment for 2 hours. Dr. Schenkein was awesome and I am so grateful for her and her concern for Ethan. She listened to us and gave us all her attention. She was very concerned about Ethan and wanted to get him in right away for an upper endoscopy. For those that don't know what it is it is where they put a scope (camera) down his esophagus, into his stomach and into the duodenum. They would be checking for ulcers, irritation and were also going to do byopsy's along the way to check for a severe allergy. She tried getting us in that afternoon, but scheduling wouldn't do it. She really wanted to do the procedure and so we ended up having to wait until Thursday morning. She tried everything to get us in sooner, but couldn't. So the procedure was scheduled for Thursday morning at 7:30am, we had to be at Phoenix Children's at 5:30am. Wednesday was a LONG night for us and I was so worried about Ethan. They were going to have to put him out using anesthesia and that worried me the most. You never know how a babies body will respond and the whole thing just broke my heart. I feel so bad for him and I just wish that he would feel better and not be so uncomfortable. The procedure went great. It took about 1/2 hour and we were back with Ethan before we knew it. I just have to say waiting in the waiting room for a 1/2 hour was hard and I couldn't imagine waiting longer. We did have a family that entertained us very well with their 2 year old TRIPLET boys, and a 4 year old brother. They had a brother Ethan's age in surgery. Oh, we sat there and counted our blessing that we have only 1 cute, sweet, energetic, talkative little 2 year old. Props to that couple, I just admired them and we had some great chats as the triplets where jumping on couches, taking pillows off, playing with the fire extiguisher thing on the wall and just being cute 2 year old boys, we loved it and thanks for the entertainment. Anyway, back to Ethan. We went back with him in recovery and he was screaming. That's when I began to cry. I was holding strong all throughout and then I broke. It took him probably a good hour to come out of the anesthetic and then I was able to console him. It was so hard. I cannot explain it in words except it just broke my heart. All I did was hold him, give him lots of kisses, talked to him and sang him songs. Oh, it was hard, but I couldn't have done it without my other half. Ryan, I love you so much and you were and always are my strength. Thank you for being such a fabulous, loving, husband and father. I love you lots. By 9:30am we were in the car headed home. We were so glad that we didn't have to get admitted and that Ethan was good enough to come home. The results of the upper endoscopy where that they saw irritation, a few red dots in the duodenum that they biopsied and they also took a few other biopsy's. Last minute the doctor decided to do a flexible sygmoid oscopy (like a colonoscopy)and take a few biopsy's there also. We have not received any results back and are hoping to get them back this week. So, I guess you can pretty much tell what I did for the days following. Ethan and I sat on the couch watched movies and tried to sleep. I ended up watching sad movies that I didn't know were sad and that didn't help the situation, but that's okay. I just got to cry more because I obviously hadn't cried enough. Our sweet Hollie had a fun week at the Skousen's house (KC's in-laws). Oh, I don't know what I would have done without them. Thank you so much for being there for us and playing with Hollie, I know she had a blast because she continues to talk about Dallin, Jeffrey, Kathryn and Kimberly. You taught her lots of good things and Ryan and I swear she matured and grew 2 feet.
As of today Monday, June 23rd Ethan is doing good. He has his moments, but he is sleeping now and that's a good thing. Sleeping during the day has been challenging and he LOVES waking up between 4:30 and 5:00am!! Yes, the Larson's like to start Early so don't feel bad if you call us at 7am, our morning is already half way over, haha. Oh, I just love him and I enjoy those moments where I can hold a sleeping, peaceful baby.
Oh, some good news to add to this post. Ethan, who doesn't like laying on his back, decided on Saturday morning to roll from his back to his stomach. We are so proud of him and are glad that he is still growing and developing normal. He is right on track with his sister. And.... we also went to the juvenille court to sign our petition to adopt Ethan and it's looking like it will be finalized the end of September beginning of October, HURRAY!!!!!! We love to share that exciting news.
This is just for me, but I want my sweet little Ethan to know how much I love him and how grateful I am for him. I couldn't imagine my life without him. He is the little man that we have always wanted and complete's our cute little family. I love you Ethan and I promise we will get you feeling better soon.
A fun weekend at the River
This last weekend we went to the river with friends of ours from California and we had a BLAST!!
We arrived Thursday evening and stayed till Sunday. It was a great and much needed vacation. There were about 20 of us and the weekend was full of relaxation, chatting, catching some sun, volleyball, boat rides, wakeboarding, tubing, jet ski's, trampoline fun, go cart fun, and just plain old hanging out. I could probably go on and on about all the stuff we did, but all I can say is we enjoyed it. Hollie had the time of her life along with Brooke and those two were just the cutest girls ever and can I say very loved. They both loved the water and the trampoline. I tell ya, between the two girls I think that trampoline got plenty of use, they LOVED it! Ryan took Hollie on one of the jet ski's and at first she didn't know what to think and once she was on and going fast the girl LOVED it. Her famous words all weekend were, "boat fast". It was cute and she loved going fast. I have to say that our little Hollie is beautifully tanned. With that olive skin she browns perfectly and her mom is a bit jealous. I did get some sun and I am grateful for what I got.
Ethan did good while we were there. There were many people to help hold him and love him and a few teenage girls that just loved him. The weekend was just perfect. I don't know what else to say because I pretty much summed it all up. Thank you Donny and Renee for such a wonderful time, we love you guys TONS!! Here are some pics, enjoy!
Hollie and Brooke. Aren't they cute in their matching suits?
Ryan and Hollie on the jet ski
I love this picture of Ethan. He LOVED the boat and the second we were on he was out like a light. I have the same picture of Hollie in the same place except she was 6 months old.
Hollie loved driving the golf cart around with Daddy
This girl loved and lived in the water. She may not look like it but she did, I promise.
Okay so what Hollie is holding in her hand (below) is a hot dog. We had hamburgers and hot dogs one night and Hollie had finished her hot dog and everything on her plate. After she had eaten everything I find eating her SECOND hot dog!! She must have climbed on the chair and helped herself to another hot dog. I couldn't believe it, our 2 year old ate 2 hot dogs!!
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