Angels Tee Ball

Ryan started tee ball this year! It was such a great season full of tons of growth we never expected. Shame on us, huh?  But truly, I thought this venture was going to end up like the soccer one did a year ago... sitting in the middle of the field crying while all the kids played around him. He was just too young. This year, he started showing an interest in the sport and with some nudging from our neighbors who were registering their kids, we decided to "see how it goes". We got him all the gear and Jason was super excited about the bright orange Mako bat he picked out for him. On his Angels jersey, he sported the number 5.

For about 3 weeks, there were practices 2 days a week. The coaches taught them the sport and the basics of hitting, throwing, and catching. Ryan, being one of the smallest on the team, really was behind in everything. But he is a super good listener and he takes direction well so he improved quite quickly.  Once the games started, the coaches commented on how far he had come since that first day. Daddy also practiced with him in the backyard daily.  It might have taken a little bribery (20 catches, 20 grounders and 20 hits on the tee = ipad time), but the practice really helped.

As the season progressed, the coaches had never given any game balls out to the players after the games until one day, a few weeks in, they did! And imagine my surprise when they gave that first ball to Ryan. I am a total sap when it comes to my kids that I cried (under my sunglasses). The coach even made a speech about him and why he deserved it. This kid was so dang proud. So was his Daddy! On the way home, he told the story about his first game ball and how it happened and what it meant to him. I just think what a cool thing to happen to a kid and how special it makes them feel to be recognized for a particular job well done. 

Here are some pictures I wanted to remember from this first season in little league. I wanted to make sure I included a picture of him batting, running, catching and throwing...and of course that game ball :) I think I covered all my "bases", hehe. See what I did there? ha!

The score board on Opening Day reflected the year: 2014

Ryan and his game ball against the Giants.

End of the season pizza party at Uncle Howie's pizza

Go Angels! 

I just have to say, Ry had the best coaches too. I thought they were very uplifting and positive with the kids. I loved how they pep talked them, gave them nicknames and high-fived them at every base. I even taught one of the coach's sons when he was in Kindergarten a couple of years ago. Ryan really seemed to enjoy the sport this season and says he wants to keep playing. We figured we will register him for Fall and Winter ball too to keep his momentum going. Hopefully, we will have some of the same coaches! Great players start with great coaches!

Doheny 2014

It has been almost 2 years since I blogged last! Wow! Too busy making memories I guess. Plus, with all the other social media outlets (i.e. facebook, Instagram, etc...) it seems that our life has been documented during that time so I don't feel so bad. But I digress! The title is Doheny 2014, so that is where I will begin again :)

Every year, it has become a family tradition to beach camp. This is the 3rd annual beach trip and we have found a (camping) home in Doheny State Beach. It is one of the only camp grounds with beach level access and some of the warmest waters in California. Not that California beach water is ever warm, but Doheny is particularly less torturous to ease yourself into :) I was only able to book us 1 night on the beach because apparently booking 6 months early is not enough, but we made the most of it. I was lucky enough to get us a beach front site :) and come December 1, 2015 at 8:00am I will be sitting at my computer with my mouse poised to click the beach front site I want for more than 1 day. ha!

Here are some pictures from our 1 night on the beach :

 I found a fun dessert on Pinterest called Campfire Cones. While I LOVE s'mores, I wanted to try something new and different. I took several items to fill our cones with: caramel bits (found at Walmart), chocolate chips, white chips, PB chips, marshmallows, and various chopped nuts. We wrapped them in foil and melted them over the campfire. A little tip if you are going to try this: make a "carrot top" on the top of your foil and over hang them over the campfire ring's edge so that you can grab them easier if the flames are high. Keep in the fire just long enough to melt. Now, melt is defined as the chips looking "wet". My husband was expecting to see liquid and kept insisting they weren't melting, then we ended up burning a cone trying to prove this.

 Ryan is doing his "happy dance". He kept his eyes closed the whole time. Cuteness a mama can't resist! He was happy dancin' for his campfire cones.

 As evidenced by the chocolate on her face, Allie loved it too.

 And not to worry, we did not forgo the s'mores in favor of our new dessert. We just had both! Calories don't count on vacation, right?!

 This was the view right from our tent. A beach front spot meant no one was blocking our view and the ocean was steps from our tent. It was also perfect for belting out your best rendition of "Let It Go" at sunset. So very dramatic! And it entertained our camping neighbors too.

 My nephew and Ryan are 2 of the baddest rule breakers around. tee hee!

 Our family. I used the flash because it was getting too dark. The ocean can no longer be seen but it is there! We are so freshly dirty from the camp showers. Do you ever really get clean when camping? I'll tell you the answer: you don't. ha!

 The next morning was spent on the day use side of the beach. These 2 had so much fun holding hands and letting the waves lap their feet.

 Although I cringe when I look at my image on this picture, I can't help but post it for the memory it contains... and maybe some motivation to change what I don't like;) What is special about this picture is how neither of us knew it was taken. Allie and I had been sitting there for some time letting the waves wash over our legs, talking, and pretending we were beached mermaids. It was a sweet moment. The lady who was sitting a towels length away from us was watching and leaned over and told my husband that he needed to snap a picture. So, he did. He did not even know if the pictures would come out as he doesn't know how to operate my "fancy camera". Luckily, every shot he took turned out and I didn't even have to edit them.

 The second night we went to my Aunt and Uncle's house. She has a home about 10 minutes from the beach we camped at, so it was like extending our vacation, with a chance to sleep in a warm bed, take a real shower and great company. Their hospitality was so incredibly amazing, I can't even begin to describe! 

During the day, we took a little day trip to to the Discovery Science Center in Santa Ana. So fun! As soon as we walked in, we told the kids that in this place, we can touch EVERYTHING! All I had to do was wind them up and let them go! Jason and I may or may not have spent over 4 hours playing with everything there too ;)

 The floating beach ball

 Nothing like pretending you are Elsa in the tornado machine just conjuring up some weather!

 This thing made smoke rings when you pushed on the table.

 When you make a wish at the coin pond, you wish with ALL you might...so it comes true!

 

 This exhibit was too cool. It would have been even cooler if it worked properly. They gave the kids wands and a scavenger hunt list. They had to wave their wands at each thing on their list. It was hit and miss with those wands, but the kids still had fun.

 Jason: "Hey, take a picture of me with the dino poop!" omg, he never grew up! 

 Little coins the kids earned for completing their missions.

 Hurricane tank!

 My favorite part of this place was the interactive grocery store. THAT was fun!

 Step by step Lego building stations.

There was so much more to this place, but I was too busy playing to take too many pictures. I couldn't believe when we left there it had been 4 hours AND we forgot to eat lunch. It was that fun, y'all! Either that or we don't get out much :)

Now that we are home, the washing machine is going washing all the campfire and sand out of all the laundry,  EVERYTHING is unpacked (go me!), the pictures have been sorted off the camera, and this blog post made, I can go relax for the day. Tomorrow has been declared "jammie day"! Then we will pick up on more summer fun that *hopefully* I will keep posting about.

And Up We Go

 Before you read this post, you should back up and read this post. If you already about what happened, then read on:

I fully expected Allie's follow up appointment from the pediatrician to go like this:

"Febrile seizures are fairly common in young children. It probably won't happen again, so no need to stress. Have a good day."

Or maybe I hoped and prayed with all my being that it would turn out that way.

As it turns out, there are 2 kinds of febrile seizures: simple febrile seizures and complex febrile seizures.  Simple febrile seizures are just that: simple. They usually occur just one time as the result in a high spike in temperature when a child is sick. A complex febrile seizure is a little more...well... complex. These seizures tend to start on one side of the body (like Allie's), happen more than once  (we are pretty sure Allie had 2), and occur in children who are a little too old to have febrile seizures.

Allie had a complex febrile seizure.

Last night, I asked Allie a few more questions about that night. Her story confirms for me that she did in fact have a seizure before I got to her.  She talked about how she used the restroom and then came back to her bed.

"I went to the potty and then I climbed up on my bed. I was just sitting here when I started wiggling. Then I went to sleep and when I woke up, I saw that I had thrown up on myself. So I tried to talk but I couldn't so I went to the wall and knocked like this (she shows me), then I ran to the door."

I said, "You ran??"

She said, "Yeah, like this." Then she shows me just where she ran and where she stopped. It was the exact place I found her when I came out of my room after the knock. So there it is, she felt the seizure coming on (the wiggling) and then she thought she went to sleep (the actual onset of the seizure).

So after sharing our story with the pediatrician and how the twitching started with the right side of her face and right arm before it moved to her whole body, he concluded that this was a left brain issue. Also, for about 15 minutes after the seizure I noticed the right side of her face wasn't moving when she talked or smiled. The movement was fully restored by the time we arrived in the emergency room.  To further explore this, they are going to set up an appointment to run an electroencephalogram (EEG). She has to be sleep deprived so as to induce seizure like symptoms in the brain. Sounds fun, huh? This will also mean I will have to be sleep deprived to be able to keep her up. Anyone out there ever have to go through this with young children? Any advice?

I also learned that Allie is just a little too old to have a febrile seizure. Generally, these kinds of seizures can happen from age 6 months-5 years, but are much less common after age 3. So this is a bit concerning.

She tested a very faint positive for strep throat too. Maybe it caused the fever? Who knows, but I sure hope so. She is on antibiotics just in case.

Since her episode, she has been like nothing has happened. The doctor kept her our of school for the remainder of this week so she has been happily playing with her brother all day. I am glad she is happy and carefree. When, besides childhood, are we ever this carefree? Never. And I intend to let her enjoy it. I will be the one doing the worrying for her, because that's my job :)

Seizure

Allie had a seizure last night. I keep debating whether I want to re live this story right now on our family blog, but so many who care for our daughter have called, texted, facebooked, and I thought maybe it would be therapeutic for me to just retell it now. The images of what happened are all I have been able to think about all day, maybe it's delirium from being up half the night, who knows?

So last night, Allie seemed perfectly normal. In fact the last time she was sick was a month ago and she just had a cold. She ended up giving it to all of us, but I was the last one to be sick and that was the end of September. About 3:30 AM, I heard her crying in her room. I quickly went to her and she was just sitting there in her bed distraught over being alone in the dark. That is what she kept saying "Oh, no, I'm all alone in the dark!". I walked in and I think I startled her. At the same time, I think she was just super glad to see me. I said "You are not alone any more" and I laid down with her. We both fell asleep for what seemed like a while, but when I went back to my bed it had only been 15 minutes according to the clock. So I laid in my bed with my eyes closed, but my mind wouldn't shut off. I remember thinking about the next days lessons for my class and some prep work I needed to do. Then my next thought was "Why can't I shut my mind off?" I heard Allie get up and use the restroom. I remember smiling to myself that she got up on her own without coming to tell me first. She still, to this day, no matter how many times I tell her that she does not have to ask, asks me to use the restroom. I made a mental note to myself to tell her in the morning that I had heard her and that I was proud of her for going all on her own.  I debated getting up and telling her but I thought that it would discourage this new found independence.

A few minutes later there was a knock on my bedroom wall. The wall that the head of my bed is the same wall as her room. We have used this signal before if she needed us, so I got up and she was standing in her door way. She had her mouth open like it was full of something (throw up maybe?). The front of her night gown was wet, and there was a few drops of drool on the floor. I asked if she threw up but she couldn't answer me. She just kept her mouth like it was and drool was just falling out of it. I rushed her to the toilet, quickly tied her hair back and asked her if she need to still throw up. When she would answer me it was like she was trying to talk with a mouth full of water. I kept telling her to spit out what was in her mouth and she would lean over the toilet but drool would just fall out. She couldn't move her lips to spit at all. I decided that maybe whatever was in her mouth was so gross she couldn't spit, so I filled a cup up with water and told her to spit like she was brushing her teeth. When I handed her the cup, I noticed she was trembling pretty bad. Still nothing. I went on a search for where she had thrown up in her room. I couldn't find anything.  Since the bathroom is right across from her room, I could see her standing there and I just kept asking her questions but she would not answer me in any language I could understand. I started to get frustrated with why she wouldn't spit out what was in her mouth.  I took her to the sink and even gave her tooth brush so that maybe she would feel like it would be easier to spit. Nothing, and more garbled mouth full of water talking. I got out the thermometer and took her temp. It was 101.5, nothing I hadn't seen before, but I needed to get her some motrin. I took of her wet night gown. I called for Jason telling him that Allie had a fever and had thrown up. He got out of bed quickly and when he came into the bathroom, I told him how she had something in her mouth and wouldn't spit it out to talk to me. Right then she started acting like she was chewing something. He told her several times to spit it out. Nothing. Once I saw the chewing motions I started to put it together in my head: excessive drooling, garbled speech, chewing/almost twitching motions with her mouth... I said "Jason, do you think she had a seizure? Or is about to have one?" He said that I should call 911. As soon as he said that I started to cry/freak out. I went into the kitchen to call because that is where I get the best cell service (no home phone here, but that is changing soon after this!). When I was on the phone with 911, Jason yelled "It's getting worse!" I came around the corner to see him holding her in his arms. I looked at her face and screamed what I saw to the dispatcher. The whole right side of her face was twitching. Jason told me later that he picked her up because her right arm was jerking around on it's own and he didn't want her to fall. She had a total glazed over look on her face. They told us to lay her down. As soon as Jason did, she really started to jerk around. Her eyes were open but she was not there. I was crying and trying to tell the dispatcher what I was seeing but it was really hard to stay calm. Then she started to vomit so Jason quickly put her on her side. A few seconds after vomitting, her eyes looked normal and she wanted to get up. It seemed to be normal and she looked confused as to why she was on the floor. I ran and grabbed a pair of jeans because I was only wearing an XL men's T- Shirt and (thank goodness) remembered a bra. I ran to open the door for fire fighters, they got there so quick! Of course we have a fire station across the street from us so that is probably why.
They said that she probably had a febrile seizure. I had heard of that before but I thought they only occurred with high fevers. She was 101.5, she has definitely had worse and NOT had a seizure. They said it wasn't about how high the fever was but how quickly it went up. Allie was able to answer all questions asked by the medics. When I told them the story of how she got up and knocked on the wall to alert me when she couldn't speak, they were very surprised. She was very brave. They strapped her to a gurney and I got in the back of the ambulance with her. She told me she was excited to get to ride in the back of the ambulance. Jason had called his mom and she got there right when they were putting her in the truck. Surprisingly, Ryan slept through the whole thing even though his room is right next to his sisters and his door was wide open. Jason's mom stayed with Ryan and followed us to the hospital. He got there just a few minutes after us. They got us in a room and vital signs taken. The doctor came to see us pretty quickly. He pretty much told us the same thing the medics did and ran a urine test. While we were doing some waiting, I asked Allie lots of questions to see what she remembered. I asked her why she didn't call for me and why she knocked on the wall instead. She said "Because I tried to call you, but my voice wouldn't work". Oh that just breaks my heart. :(

We got home around 10 am, so exhausted. After talking to my mom and rehashing the whole thing with her, I think Allie may have had 2 seizures. I think she had one in her bed alone and vomited then when she came to (kinda) she had enough sense to get me to her somehow, but couldn't speak. Then I think she had another one in front of us. That is just my theory though. That would explain her strange speech and drool. I read a lot about it online and it seems it is probably a one time thing, but we are following up with her pediatrician tomorrow. I still have lots of unanswered questions. Her fever has also been really hard to pull down even with doubling motrin/tylenol and baths. She seems happy and has played with her brother all day and eaten normally. I just can't get her fever below 100. I called the pediatricians office but they say waiting until tomorrows appointment should be fine. I am really nervous to sleep tonight because she still has that fever.

Thank you to everyone who called, texted and posted messages of reassurance and prayers on facebook. It means so much to us! Please keep us in your prayers and that it doesn't happen again. EVER.

Backyard camp out

My summer vacation is just about up and I was thinking about how I need to catch the ol' bloggy up on our summer happenings.  In early June, we decided we needed to get the tent out and finally clean last years grime and dust out of it before our 2 upcoming camping trips. We were pretty sure the kids were going to do fine on our trips but we also knew they would be totally stoked to camp out in our back yard! So camp out we did! We made it a full day of fun too.  First we spent time cleaning out the tent really well, then played in it after it was dry.

Later, Allie and I went to the store for some supplies like Hershey bars, marshmallows, and graham crackers. We ended up getting a few extra items to make some things I saw on Pinterest. One of them was marshmallow shooters.  Such a fun and eaasssy project. Seriously entertained my kids for a full 30 minutes. And that's saying something! We cut the bottoms off of paper cups and balloons. Then we stretched balloons over the widest part of the cup and tied off the balloon.  Last step, put in a marshmallow, stretch the balloon and let 'er fly! Boy do those suckers fly too! I only gave them one marshmallow to use over and over (until it became to sticky) to make it easier to keep track of. When you have an ant problem like mine, you take no risks.

For dinner, we barbequed of course! And ate outside in true camping fashion. The kids had the tried and true camping favorite: hot dogs! 

And the adults had steak! Yum! Look at that, Jason even cut my meat for me :) Love him!

After dinner, we played this fun game called "Squirrels Scramble". There are no pictures of this because I was too busy playing, but I do want to remember how to play...in case we ever forget :) Basically, each player is a 'squirrel' and one person is the 'squirrel catcher'.  Each squirrel is to pick a tree to stand at. We don't have trees in my backyard, so we improvised with lawn chairs.  When the squirrel catcher yells "Squirrels Scramble!" all of the squirrels run to find a new tree (must be a different tree), while the squirrel catcher tries to catch the squirrels. If you are caught (tagged), you become the new squirrel catcher. Our kids just ate it up! And our dog did not know what to make of it. We must have tripped over her a thousand times, which made it more fun! We played until we were good and sweaty and then made s'mores. No fire pit here, so being the improvisers that we are, we used the bbq.

 

We all ran inside to wash off the sweat and chocolate and slip into our cozy jammies.  Then we *tried* to make glow bottles for the kids but it just didn't turn out right. They looked NOTHING like this and leaked all over, even after hot gluing the lid on.

The glitter clumped up and the water leaked, so we just tossed them. I had fun taking low light pictures of them though before we tossed them.

We ended up just handing the kids the glow sticks and saving the rest for a future camping trip. After that, we retired to our tent to watch a movie off of Netflix. We watched Rango, but never did finish it. We all fell asleep pretty quickly. Our dog slept right outside our tent door all night and protected us from.... skunks? Opossums? lizards? That's about as wild as it gets in my back yard.
The next morning, we woke up bright and early and got ready to go to Disneyland! The fun just never ends here :)

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