Gingerbread House

Last weekend, we made our first gingerbread house as a family and the first for me ever. I had no idea that it takes hours to make with all the drying of the frosting before you can decorate. I also didn't know that once you mix the frosting, you better finish it cause it wont be usable in the morning. The result of these discoveries was a really fun night with Dave. He spent most the evening in the new building trying to fix leaks in the ceiling from ruining the new dry wall. When he got home, we spent the next hour and a half decorating the gingerbread house. It reminded me of one of my fondest memories-staying up till midnight carving pumpkins our first year of marriage. So now I add staying up till midnight decorating a gingerbread house to my list of all time greatests too.

About Time!

Since Halloween, many events have happened. I keep thinking after each one, I need to write a blog about this! And don't... So instead of one big catch up, I think I'll just let you know that Thanksgiving in Sac was wonderful-Riley got to 'play' with his one year old cousin Michael, and Emily is just perfect. They also like each other a whole lot. From here on, I'm going to try to post more often, even if it's not about anything real important. And definitely lots of pictures. Let see how it goes!

This is my favorite picture of Riley and Emily but I can't make a fancy of it due to the massive amounts of spit-up on Emily's pajamas and the peanut butter all over Riley's face and hands. Still my favorite though. Riley just loves to say hi to emily and make her happy.

Halloween

Halloween has to be my favorite 'holiday' besides Christmas and for that reason, I was very excited this year to have a child old enough to enjoy it. Riley decided he wanted to be Batman for Halloween and if you sing the theme song for him, he'll fill in BATMAN! at the end. Saturday morning I told him about trick or treating and we practiced it at our own door. Can't be unprepared! :) That night, we got him all dressed up in his batman costume. At first, he wanted nothing to do with the mask, but after a few minutes he decided you couldn't be Batman without a mask and asked to wear it. Halloween is Dave's least favorite 'holiday' and on top of that, he wasn't feeling good, so he and Emily stayed home and took a nap while Riley and I hit the street. Being home all day has the distinct advantage of knowing which houses are 'normal' and which ones aren't and we stuck to the normal ones. The first, was our next door neighbor Dan. Riley walks up to the door, knocks on it, and when they answer he gives a nice clear "trick or treat!" the neighbors thought he was adorable and promptly gave him 2 candy bars. He looked into his pumpkin with awe. "Candy Momma?" Oh ya. After a short talk on how we don't go into peoples houses when they answer the door, we moved on to the next house. We went to 5 or 6 houses on the street and he loved it. We carved pumpkins too. By we, I mean he dictated what he wanted his to look like and I did all the work!

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Crazy Hair and Birthdays

Riley celebrated his 2 birthday on October 1st and celebrate he did. Family came over and he got lots of presents and balloons and his favorite-chocolate birthday cake. He's my big boy now...2 years old...sigh...

In Emily news, we gave her her first real bath last week and washed her hair. She was so cold that we quickly towel dried it once she was out of the water. Here was the result.

Emily Charis Olsen

We would like to introduce Emily Charis Olsen into the family and the world. Emily was born at Renown Medical on Sunday September 27th, 2009 at 4:42am. Our angle of a little girl was born after about 2.5 hours of labor at the hospital. If giving birth we're an olympic sport Brandi would be a gold medalist. We (that's the royal "we") started having contractions about 6pm on Saturday as we were putting office furniture together with my Rents for the new office. We went home and got everything together. Riley went and spent the night with Grandpa Mark and Grandma Debbi. Brandi decided we had waited long enough and we went to the hospital around 2am. Which turned out to be just about the right amount of time, because the doctor was still putting on her over pants when the head starting coming out. Although painful we were grateful for a short labor. Emily was a great newborn. She slept well and eat well right from the first day. Brandi asked the pediatrician what was wrong with her, and the reply was "She is a normal baby". We have never had one of those, we didn't know. Thank you to everyone for their support and prayers. We will keep you updated as Emily grows and has endeavors of her own.

How the dresser knobs look normally

How the dresser knobs look after Riley walks by

And the Medical Bills Continue...

I have titled the blog this way because I'm currently feeling like we couldn't be in more debt so BRING IT ON! We're currently paying an absurd amount of money a month to the hospital for Dave's heart attack and also to my OB for the pregnancy and if that wasn't enough, last weekend we added a trip to the emergency room for Riley to our bills. But enough venting, this blog is about Riley. God is good right?

As everyone has probably already heard, Riley broke two bones in his left leg on Father's Day- of all days. Riley asked to go to the park and Dave and I thought it would be fun. We went to a new park that we hadn't been to yet and it was great. Riley and I decided to climb up the ladders to the very top so he could climb through some tunnels up there. In order to get down, we could maneuver back down the ladder or go down the slide. Of course, we went down the slide. What kind of trouble could a 7 month pregnant woman with her son on her lap get into on a slide? So down we went, with Dave meeting us at the bottom. When we got to the bottom of the slide, Riley starting crying hysterically. We assumed it had scared him a bit, but when the crying continued for over an hour, we began to worry. Riley has always been really good at telling us when he is hurt and where he hurts so we asked him if he was hurt and he said no. He settled down, but after another hour was still not himself. That's when we noticed his ankle. We had taken his shoes off to help cool him down from being so worked up and noticed that his ankle was twice it's size and turning blue. We packed him up and went to the emergency room. X-rays showed his main support bone in his leg with a small break and the small bone next to it almost completely broken and hanging on by a thin piece. They gave him morphine for the pain and stuck him with an IV until the Ortho could get there. The Ortho put him out completely, adjusted the bone and fitted Riley with a black cast going from foot to upper thigh. We got home from the hospital at 2 AM.


The first day home was a nightmare. Riley was so sleep deprived that 5 minutes after he would fall asleep, his body would give a huge jerk which would wake him up and make him scream and cry as the jerk would cause him major pain in his leg. We had him sleeping in our bed because we had to monitor his swelling all night and so no-one got any sleep. The next day, after a call to Riley's incredible RN, we switched him to serious amounts of Motrin which made the pain go away, which made the jerking not hurt him, which meant he could finally get some sleep, which stopped the jerking. It was still about another 3 days before he was semi normal.


Riley has had two x-rays since, and his leg is doing well. He has an appointment three weeks from Monday to have his cast removed which is not too bad. We can't go swimming or play in the water AT ALL and his start of Gymboree has been canceled, but we're finding things to do. The cast has added a good ten pounds to Riley and I can't carry him more than a few steps, but we have found very creative ways to make it work! He is now crawling all over the house with his cast and can walk on it if he's holding onto something while he moves. The best thing though, is that our bright-eyed son is back, and for that we can't be more thankful.


In other Riley news, he has officially moved into his 'big boy' bed and is doing VERY well in it...now. Since this blog is already too long, I wont tell you the stories about it but after implementing a 'time to get up' signal for him, he has no problem staying in bed and LOVES his big boy bed. Here is a picture of him with his cast and also in his bed. I'll try to get a video of him crawling with his cast and post it too as it's really quite funny to watch. :)

Our Little Hockey Player

Budweiser Horses

The Budweiser horses came to town last week so Riley and I took a little field trip to see them. It was amazing really. Each horse had it's hair done a certain way and a huge amount of straps and stuff to put on them. Budweiser really takes care of their horses! Riley loved seeing them and made horse sounds the whole time.

Easter

Riley opening his Easter basket

Coloring Easter eggs.

Dave and I had as much fun as Riley did!

Easter egg hunting. All Riley cared about was getting them open so he could have the candy inside!

We've also updated our pictures-click the link on the left to see.

Finally Having Time for a Blog

It seems like it's been years since I last did a blog and today I'm making myself sit down and get it done! A lot has happened since we last logged on although I'm sure you have all already heard about most of it already.

First thing to tell you about and I'm SURE you already know-we are going to have another baby! He/she is due September 22nd, which is 3 days before Riley's due date was. Go ahead and laugh...it IS pretty funny. I'm personally hoping for at least a week between the two so that birthdays are a bit easier to plan! So far this pregnancy has been worse than the first but by no means bad. More nauseous, much more tired, and the usual. We got to see the baby two weeks ago and it has all it's fingers and toes, a heart where it should be,pumping a million miles a second and really looked like a little baby already. We are very excited. In about 7 weeks we can find out what the sex is and are seriously considering it this time around.

Dave and I both got hit with that nasty cold/cough thing going around. Riley had it the easiest with only a couple days not feeling like himself. I slept every afternoon for a week and finally got over it after about 8 days. Dave on the other hand, got the worst of it I think possible. He was sick the same time Riley and I were but just couldn't kick the coughing. It went on for about a month and I was threatening him to go to the doctor when he suddenly got worse and volunteered to go himself. The doctor told him he had no idea what was wrong with him-some sort of bronchial/pneumonia something and gave him antibiotics and cough syrup. Dave missed two days of work he was so sick(unheard of). A couple nights later, he woke up with terrible pains in his chest and numb arms and hands. We immediately went to the hospital, where they ran tests on him that came out saying that he had a very small heart attack. They transferred him to the main hospital. A special thanks to my in-laws who met me at the hospital at 3 in the morning and took Riley home with them so I could be with Dave. I don't know what we would've done without all their help!

They ran more tests on Dave the next morning and found out that he didn't have any clogged arteries at all. What a relief. They said the whole thing was caused by that virus and that it had affected the outside of the heart, and his nerves which made his arms go numb. When I asked what the difference was in feeling this and a real heart attack they said, "nothing...so if it happens again, go to the hospital right away!" Dave came home the next day and has been back to work this week. He is still coughing, but slowly getting better. God is good...

We celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary at the beginning of the month. We went to Edge Lake again and did absolutely nothing. The water was amazingly low! The day we left, it starting letting down buckets of snow which was a wonderful way to end the weekend.

In Riley news...he is growing so fast! He loves to try out new words which is quite funny. The other day he got into something messy and I said, "Good grief!!" And without missing a beat he said, "Gooo GEEE!" in the exact same exasperated tone. He loves sesame street and whenever it starts he runs to the TV and as soon as he sees the characters he starts yelling them out, "ABBY!!ELMO!!!COOKIE!!OSCAR!!!GROVER!!!BIG BIRD!!! EERRREE(ernie)!!!" It's hilarious. Two weeks ago we had the scare of our life when Riley came crashing down 8 stairs. He was at Aloryn's birthday party, and was at the top of the stairs when he decided it was no big deal and he could get down them all by himself! He cried, I cried, it was awful. He's OK though and I waited a week or so before telling Grandma in order to save off another heart attack! :)

Riley Update

"Look Mom, I got into the drawer and got the oatmeal out all by myself!"

A new use for an old bathtub.

"Check out my new Elmo slippers!"

Hangin out with Dad

Being tortured by Dad

"I don't want my shirt on!"

Our Sick Boy

This last couple weeks, Riley has been down with a pretty bad cold. It tended to transform his whole face into a ball of 'pity me!' and Dave and I most deffinetly did. Look at this face and tell me you could keep from giving him whatever he wanted!

Decemeber

December was a wonderful month with Riley getting to experience Christmas for the first time. He was too small last year to really care, but this year it took him about 5 seconds to realize that under the wrapping paper was a toy and to tear it off as soon as possible. Of course, every piece of wrapping paper he tore off had to either be handed to someone or else he had to put it into the garbage box before he would tear off more. Right now, Riley is in a time where everything has a place and his favorite thing to do is put things in it. He gets a bit confused sometimes though...like when I found the remote control in the garbage can in our room and the rest of his food in the trash ALONG with the bowl it was in.
We started off the month by going Christmas tree hunting which was very fun. We went up north and could go a lot higher than usual do to the lack of snowfall up to that time. Riley had no idea what the tree was for but loved walking around outside. We found the perfect tree.
As is tradition, we went to my parent's house for Christmas Eve and then over to my in-law's house for Christmas morning and day. Riley was not only introduced to presents but to Saint Nicolas Rolls ( a gooey cinnamon zesty wonder) which he loved. He has also learned some new words for the season. Anna (Santa) which Riley will tell you says "o o ooooooo" (he loved to ho ho ho when he saw Santa), noman (snowman), noooooooo(snow), and whenever he saw Christmas lights he would say, "eeeeeewwwwwwwwwww iiiiiiiyyyyyyyy liiiiiiiiiiiiii" (ohhh pretttty liiiights) Meagan who works with us taught him the ohhh pretttyy part. Oh and I can't forget "caca" (Christmas and Christmas tree)
Riley's favorite present this year was Elmo Live. Grandma Debbi wrapped it in wrapping paper and then stuck her finger through to push the button on Elmo's foot that made him talk. Riley came running around the corning when he heard Elmo and tore the paper off as fast as he could. We got Elmo unhooked from the absurd amount of safety wire holding it in the box and first thing Riley did was give Elmo a big hug. It was the cutest thing ever.
Dave and I had a great Christmas too. Dave surprised me by getting my paintings framed for me (not painting I made, just had) and Dave got some cooking classes which he is very excited about, among other things. It was a great month and I have to say I'm very sad to see it go. It just didn't seem like the Christmas season was long enough this year. BUT here we are, starting a new year and who knows what's going to happen.