17 months!

• he definitely knows how to throw a fit! If he doesn't get his way, or something makes him mad... he throws himself on the ground & throws a tantrum. Terrible 2's definitely come BEFORE 2!

• he is a huuuge daddy's boy now! I mean HUGE. I love that he loves his daddy & all... but what happened to my mama's boy?! :(

• he loves to give kisses ALL the time! he's been giving kisses for a long time.. but now he actually likes to! he does the 'smooch' sound, too! I think that's why he likes doing it so much... cause that noise is so fun to make (:

• he likes to sneak over to the pantry when I'm busy doing something and drink out of the dogs water....... like a dog.

• he's usually pretty independent & likes to play with his toys by himself, or with a 'friend' (Camden, Macy or Lilly, usually!) he's not really interested in playing with toys with mommy & daddy anymore!

• he has been going through clingy & whiney 'spurts' lately. one day he will be a fine, happy & play by himself... the next, he will be suuuuper whiney & clingy ALL day long! I wouldn't mind the clingy part... cause I like holding my baby (: but I can definitely do without the constant whining!

• and this whining I'm talking about... is a fake whine. like a 'uhhhhhh..... uhhhhhhhhh..... uhhhhhh..... ' X1000... if that makes sense?! haha. I don't know how to explain it too well (:

• he climbs out of his crib & pack n play.... just like everything else!

• he always sticks his hands in his diapers when he poops (not EVERY TIME, but wayyyy more then I would like! haha) and comes up to us, sticks his hands out to us & just stares. sometimes he'll say 'poop', but most of the time he just stands there. and it's not just if he hasn't been changed for a while (we always change him right when we know he's pooped... & that kid STINKS... so it's pretty quick that he gets changed!) he'll do it RIGHT after he goes! haha. I know, gross... but hey, gotta include everything ;)

• he's not the best nap taker anymore. I've had him on a nap schedule for a long time, one nap at 10 am, the next at 4pm & that has worked GREAT for us! now, sometimes he will lay in there for over an hour. sometimes crying, sometimes just talking to himself. not at any specific nap time, either. I thought for a while that maybe he's ready to go to one nap, so we tried taking out his second nap... but his attitude at night says differently! haha. so for now, we're still trying to do both... if he actually sleeps - great. if not - oh well. haha!

• he's not the most ideal toddler to take to restaurants.

• he says 'pa' for his grandpa Tabet.

• when you ask him what a bear says, he'll say 'raaawrrr'

• he flexes his 'muscles' with daddy & does his 'grrrr' face.

• sometimes when he see's Ryan, he'll say 'dada brummm!' he loves riding in his daddy's truck!

• he's still not saying mama, mom, mommy or anything along those lines! haha, sometimes he'll still call me 'BA' but that's even pretty rare. I dunno what happened to 'mama'... that used to be his favorite word! It was even his first (:

• he does know who mama is though. if someone asks him 'where's mama?' he'll point to me. he's pretty good at knowing who people are (if he's familiar with them)

• he loves to be outside! we try to go on walks when the weather is nice (& not TOO hot!) my mom got them a sandbox & he has been having a blast in that! He loves to draw with chalk & blow bubbles. he even knows how to blow bubbles by himself (:

• he loves to show off, but gets pretty shy at times!


I just love this little man & can't get enough of him! He is hands down the most amazing little boy out there! (:

Last night. . .

We did this. . .

FINALLY, had a photo sesh with Errin Andrus my most FAVORITE photographer ever.
Check her out, she's amazing!


I can't wait to see the rest in a couple weeks! (:

It's about time!

Today was the day to get Bransyn's allergy testing done! His appointment was at 3 pm, & boy was I ready to just have it be over with already! The doctor came in & talked to us for a little bit, then sent a nurse in to do the testing. I have never seen an allergy test before, so I had NO idea what they were gonna do. I heard something about slits in the back & getting blood. So I thought they were just gonna take some samples of his blood & test it. I was reallly worried about how he would do & how I would do seeing that being done to my sweet baby. But she came in, got a marker & wrote 5 numbers across the top of his back. Then she had Ryan hold him with his back facing her, & me distracting him behind Ryan's back so that he would hold still. Then she got this thing that had 5 white round things on it in a column, and pressed it onto his back. Then she did it 4 more times, each with a new 'thingy' (I have NO idea what to call it! haha) Each white thing had a little needle to poke into his back, then a 'sample' of each allergy test came out & went onto each little poke on his back. So total, he had 20 pokes... which was like getting 20 shots! :( He did alright with it. Of course he cried, & tried to wiggle away. And as any mom knows, it is HARD to watch your child go through that kind of thing! I just wanted to cry with him, but I had to be strong & try to keep him holding still & distracted so that she could get it done as quick as possible. When she was done, she said to not let him touch his back. And that's ALL he wanted to do! I'm sure it still didn't feel too well, & was probably itchy, so it was quite the task keeping his hands away from his back!

This is what his back looked like after all the pokes! You can see the yellowish stuff on some of them, that was the 'sample' of each allergy thing. Then the ones that are red & puffy, means that whatever was on it... he has an allergy to.

They gave him a sucker to kind of distract him... but he chose a yucky one! haha, so he stuck it in daddy's mouth, before throwing it on the ground.

We jumped with him so that he wouldn't touch his back....

It was quite tiring, but hey... kept his hands away from his back!

About ten minutes later, the nurse came back in to wipe the samples off of his back & told us to still keep his hands away from his back so that he wouldn't scratch. The dr. still had to come in & 'read' the test to see what he's allergic to. A few minutes after she left, Dr. Pinna came back in to check. As soon as he looked at Bransyn's back, he said 'Oh yeah, he's very allergic to cats!' I'm pretty sure one of the cat tests was the 2nd one down in the #1 column. That one was REALLLY puffy & red! I guess there were 2 tests for cats & both of them had a reaction. He is also allergic to dogs, and showing signs of 'outside' allergy's as well, so like pollen & stuff like that. Dr. Pinna also said that he does indeed have asthma, and him being around cats & dogs is what's triggering it, making him cough & wheeze!
FINALLLLLLLLLLLLLY!!!!!!
We have some answers! As much as I did not want it to be asthma, I just knew it was! I'm just hoping that he will grow out of it like Ryan did. So now, we have to get rid of our cat & dog within the next 2 weeks, or else he will keep getting worse & it will cause some MAJOR problems for the boy. Which I really have no problem with. I think it will be good for Bandit to go to a new home, he just doesn't get as much attention as he needs at our house. And I'm good with getting rid of the cat! haha. But we do need to find them new homes, we aren't just going to take them to the pound. (Like Ryan wants!) And then we're just gonna have to make sure he's not around cats as much as possible. Dogs too, but more so the cats! The Dr. also said that it will take up to 6 months for Bransyn to be completely better from the cats. Which sucks, but now at least we know to not have him around them, so that it doesn't get worse! We will also continue doing his inhaler twice a day for the next 3 months. And that does seem to be helping him with the coughing & wheezing. He does still cough, just nearly as much and he hasn't thrown up from it for a while now!
I can not even begin to explain the huge amount of relief I have now! After 7 long months of dealing with this, we finally know what is wrong & I can stop stressing about it so much! Now we work on getting him better so that he can be a normal little boy & not have to deal with coughing all the time! (:



If anyone knows anyone that wants a dog or cat, let me know! (:

Little Escape Artist.

Well, my little monkey is at it again....
today,


he climbed out of his crib for the first time.

Then, when we resorted to his pack 'n play... he climbed out of that, too.




This kid has some serious upper-body strength.



I guess he did get something from me....
Now i know what I put my mom through.


At least he hasn't climbed to the top of the fridge, yet.
But I'm sure that's not too far into the future.

So as everyone knows, Bransyn has been having a bit of a coughing problem for the past almost 7 months & we have not been able to figure out the cause of it. I have taken him in to the doctor numerous times, trying to figure out how to get my baby to stop coughing, with no luck. Each time they thought it was, or could be, something different:

{These are all just the times they would allow me to take him in... not including phone calls to see what else to do}

Oct. just a cold
Mid. Nov. after 3 weeks of the cough not going away after the cold, ear infection
End Nov. prescription for a 4-day steroid to help the cough. helped for a few days, then back to normal
Dec. dr. didn't hear him cough, but said it might be croup since it was going around at the time -- definitely not croup
Jan. lungs sounded wheezy, could be asthma or bronchialitis, started breathing treatments with albuteral in a nebulizer
Feb. breathing treatments didn't work as well as it should of, started singular for a month trial

The singular did not change anything, and at this point, Bransyn is coughing SO hard, that he is throwing up daily. I called in to his dr's office to talk to his dr to see what I should do. And can I just say, I am NOT a fan of this office. I call & talk to the receptionist, explain what's going on & tell her that Dr. Smith told me to call & talk to her if the Singular did not work, so we could figure out where to go next. The girl says, 'Oh hmm, Well I don't even know what to do. . . let me send you to her assistant's (for lack of a better word... forgot what they called her!) line & you can tell her what's going on.' Okay, fine. If that gets me closer to talking to the actual doctor, then I'll do it. So I get transferred. It rings. & rings. & rings. Annnnnnd rings. Finally, I get to the voicemail & was about to leave a message when I hear 'I'm sorry, this person is not accepting any voice messages at this time.' (or something along those lines) GREAAAAT. So I call back a while later, hoping to get a different person. I do. I explain what happened earlier, & that I really needed to talk to an actual person. She says the saaaame thing to me, though & transfers me to another line. SAME FREAKING LINE I GOT TRANSFERRED TO BEFORE, after telling her what had happened the last time. So I call back, & by now as you can imagine, I was not happy at ALL. I got the same girl & told her, as nicely as I possibly could, (which was probably not very nice at all, really) that I did not want to be sent to any more voicemails that were not taking any messages, cause I definitely needed SOMEONE to get my dang message! She told me that she doesn't know why they aren't answering, cause they were in their office at the time. Um, does anybody know how to do their job anymore?! Seriously, redic. So anyways, she just tells me that she'll just write a message for Dr. Smith to call me back. Surprisingly, it only takes her about 2 hours to call back (I thought it wouldn't be til the next day, at least) She asked me questions about how his coughing sounded, when he coughs the most, ect. I told her about how he was now throwing up from coughing too hard & nothing was helping. She asked about a few other things so that she could, FINALLY, look more into it. (only took SIX months of this for her to do that, nice right?) Then she said that she wanted to get an X-ray of his chest/lungs to see if they could see any problems in there & she would have a requisition form waiting at the front desk in the office so we could take him in whenever we wanted. And also, she was going to see if medicaid would cover for him to go see an Allergy & Asthma specialist, so that he could get allergy testing. (agian... SIX months to do this?! I have been asking from the freaking beginning for a specialist!) So I decided that we needed to get him in for his X-ray ASAP, so after I got done babysitting that day, me, Ry & B all headed over there. Went up to the office, got the form & went back downstairs to imaging. Got him all registered, or so I thought. The stupid dr's office didn't put the 'reason' he was getting this x-ray. So imaging had us wait for them to call up to the pediatricians office to have them re-do the form & fax it down. (Can I just say LAZY?! This place was DOWNSTAIRS from the pedi's office. Hell, I would of even ran up there real quick to have them fill out one little part on the form.) So we wait. & wait. & WAIT. For over an hour. Finally, the girl tells me that they faxed the form back, gave it to me & told us to just wait for the tech to call us back. I look at the form to see exactly what it was they were missing, & in this little box on the side that was meant for the reason for x-ray, they had written 'cough'
...
...
...

SERIOUSLY?!
They had us freaking wait over an hour, while we watched about 6 people that came in AFTER us, be called back & be finished with their x-ray before he got in. For them to FAX a paper 2 floors up for the word 'cough' to be written on it. SO beyond ridiculous & irritating!
Needless to say, I am switching his pediatrician. I'm sick of them being so inconsiderate & not ever knowing what to do. Or even taking the time to actually LOOK INTO SOMETHING, to help my baby... you know, what they SHOULD do in a situation like this.
So anyways. We get him back there & get him ready for his x-ray. They got me & Ry some 'suites' to wear, to protect ourselves. Then they said to take his shirts off, & lay him on his back on this flat, black square thingy. TOTALLY not what I was expecting! haha, Bransyn did SO well! He just layed there & held still while they got the first x-ray. Then they had to get one from the side, so we turned him onto his side & he didn't like that too much. He cried, but still held still. Then we had to wait for a sec for the tech's to make sure they both turned out okay, which they both did! I am so proud of how well Bransyn did! He is such a brave boy! (: So they tell me that his pedi should be calling me the next day with the results. So the next day I am waiting alll day for the call. I figured I wouldn't get it until later afternoon, since they didn't get the x-ray done until late afternoon the previous day. Well, no call. AT ALL. So the next day, I decided that I was not even gonna wait for them to call me, I was calling in. Well I call in & once again... have to leave a message to have the Dr. call me back. Moooooore waiting. (can you tell that I was VERY sick of waiting at this point?! ha, for realll)
She finally calls me back & told me that they did find some inflammation in his lungs, which would most likely mean he has some kind of a virus, or asthma. Okay... not the first time I've heard that! Then she tells me that she did get him a referral to Dr. Pinna, an allergy & asthma specialist & I just needed to call & make the appointment! So I called & got him not one, but two appointments scheduled. Medicaid actually won't cover the visits, unless we have a consultation with the dr first. So I had that scheduled for Friday, the 9th & to have allergy testing done on the 13th. Well, they called me yesterday & let me know that they had a cancellation & could bring him in that day! So of course I told them yes & headed over there right after I got off work. We met the Dr, which... I must say was as hyper as a little kid after drinking 3 soda's! haha. I dunno, maybe that's just how he is... but it was a little strange. Funny, but strange! haha. He asks me a few questions to find out more about what's going on. Then he listened to his lungs & said that they didn't sound the way they do with asthma, or bronchiolitis. (the way they had before, when they didn't sound 'perfect') He said that they sounded more like he had some kind of infection, but an infection would not of lasted this long. He decided that we should try an inhaler on him. Since he had albuteral in his nebulizer & that didn't help, he decided to try something different (I forgot what it's called now!) We will do that once in the morning & once at night, right before he goes to bed & see how it works. He still has his next appointment on the 13, & I'm hoping that even if this helps, they will still do the allergy testing because I really feel like he needs it, so that we can find out exactly what the cause of his coughing is! But I am still hoping that this stuff will help anyways, because it is SO sad & hard seeing my baby always coughing & miserable. I just want him alll better!
I guess we'll see how things go on the 13th, though!

Easter Bo Beasterrrr 2010!

We had a pretty good Easter this year!

Bransyn's basket, slip 'n slide, chocolate bunny, outift, swim trunks & shirt & pj's!
In his basket: Easter dog book, coloring book, crayons, 2 things of chalk, kite, frisbee, Kool-Aid 'Jammers' a little bunny, a couple different kinds of Candy and $5 (:

My mom got us all a little baggy of goodies & chocolate bunny's. Then she got me & my sisters each 3 things from Bed, Bath & Beyond & some swedish fish (:

The basket I made for Ryan, cause I'm so nice (: haha


We started the day out at our house, with an real Easter egg hunt for the little boys! Although I 'hid' all the eggs really easily, haha! They both did really good, saw the eggs & started picking them up & putting them in his basket. But then when they learned that there was candy inside of the eggs, they would find one then open it for the chocolate! haha So after a while, they were done before they got all the eggs picked up! (:

C&B in their bunny ears!

haha, found some chocolate!

Lookin in his basket to see what Mr. Bunny brought him! (:

"Tschoes"
(& a chocolate face!)

Bunny brought some moneys for him! (:

After the hunt & basket fun, everyone had some breakfast then got ready to head to Kanab for the family Easter party! Me, Ry & B left at a little after 11 so that we could get there on time.... cause of course, mom is ALWAYS late! haha So we got there BEFORE lunch for a change (: We had a really yummy lunch. Bransyn got to draw on the window with the big kids (they got some special markers that are meant for windows) & then we went out & jumped on the tramp with our little man! He had a BLAST!

Then after the rest of my verrrry late family got there, they got everything set up out front for the little kids egg hunt. Ha, yes, yet another one for this boy! He's a pro now ;)

Most of the little kids with Grandma, waiting to start! (:

Daddy likes to throw him in the air... a little tooo high!


After the little kids were done, we went into the backyard for the bigger kids egg hunt. Bransyn & Cam wanted to play on the swing set, so Ry pushed them! Cam kinda didn't know what to think, but B was lovin it!

This boy loves slides (:

Bransyn chasing the dog, chasing his daddy! HAHAHA!


After everything was done, it was time for the babe to have a nap. So we put him down & me & Ryan went on a walk! (:

When we got back, we just kind of hung out with the family while Bransyn slept. Then when he woke up, we got everything ready to go & headed back home!

Since Mr. B got some chalk in his basket, we played outside with it for a bit before it got dark (:

Hope everyone had a good Easter! (:

Coloring Easter Eggs

After the egg 'hunt' at the park, we came home & put Bransyn down for a nap & boiled some eggs! When he woke up, we got everything set up for his very first time coloring Easter eggs!

Mommy showing him what to do!

He thought it was easier to just stick his hand in there ;)

All of us dying eggs!

After a while, I just got him a little glass bowl & poured some dye in it for him. That was a lot easier then him dealing with the cups! haha

An egg I did with Bransyn's name on it! (:

{& that is a cracker in his mouth... & a look on his face like he is trying to poop! haha}

Playing with the eggs.

All of our eggy's! (:

We all had a really good time doing them! It was only me, Ry & B that did them. My mom was taking the pictures & Ash... just thinks she's too cool to color Easter eggs ;) haha. Amanda & Bryce were supposed to come over so B & C could do them together. So we decided that we would just start & just do a couple while we waited for them. Butttt, after waiting about, oh almost an hour... they called & said they weren't coming. HA. & by this point, Bransyn was DONE. So I just stuck all the leftover eggs in the cups & let them sit. haha. It was really fun, though! I dunno what Bransyn was thinking at first, he was just kind of giving us weird looks like 'whatttt the heck are you doing?!' haha. But then he really liked putting the eggs in the cup & seeing them turn colors! I haven't colored Easter eggs for quite a few years, so it's nice that I have my own child to do it with now! Next year will be even better when he kind of knows more of what's going on, & can decorate them more! (:

Easter Egg Hunt!

Today, Bransyn had his very first Easter egg hunt! But before that, he got his Easter basket from his Tabet grandparents! (:

Of course, he HAS to have one of daddy's hats on! haha

He got 2 shirts, a book & some candies! (:

Having some breakfast before the big hunt!



After he was done eating, we headed back down to Ivins to go to the park. We got there & it was CROWDED! I didn't know there were SO many people in little Ivins! haha

Ry & Bransyn waiting to start!

Playin'

After it started, Ryan took Bransyn out & B started picking up eggs like a pro! He knew exactly what to do & actually got quite a few eggs (: The whole thing went REALLY quick though! Like literally lasted about 25 seconds. But I think the only reason for that was because the age group was 4 & under. Like seriously, how lame! There is a HUGE difference between a 1 year old & a 4 year old. For one, they're much faster, and two they are more aware of what's going on & how to do things. I definitely think that next year they should only do 1 & 2 year olds. AND make sure every parent isn't out there grabbing eggs for their child! haha (which was a rule, but apparently ADULTS can't follow rules anymore. B picked up every single one of his eggs & put it in his basket by himself (: )

Showing grandma all of the eggs he got! (:


After that was over, they had a couple of inflatable slides & a 'train' that we took Bransyn to play on!

Just went through the 'obstacle course' & going down the slide with daddy!

Went down the big slide with mommy (:


Then we got to go on the little 'train' ride! At first I wasn't gonna have him go on it, because I didn't think that I'd be able to go with him & there was NO way I was sticking him on there by himself, haha. But they ended up letting parents go with little kids! (:

We had so much fun!
It was definitely fun to do with him & can't wait til next year to do it again! (: