Clint Black Concert

My sweet sister in law Chelsea won tickets to the Clint Black concert it Eagle Mountain, but they don't really like country music so they gave them to us. We had such a blast. I think dates we've had so much more fun on dates since we've had Clayson cause it's not very often that just the two of us go out. We had a lot of fun people watching before the concert. I think cheap country concerts are probably the best place to people watch. The music was really good. I think we knew almost every song.

We also had back stage passes. We're just waiting in line to meet Clint Black.

There was a photographer there taking pictures but we haven't gotten it yet. This is just the one we took with our camera. I'm not sure why I'm crossing my legs...it's not because I was so excited I peed a little. I'm pretty sure the lady that met him after us did.

We parked right by where they were shooting off fireworks so we just left during the encore and sat in the back of our truck to watch the fireworks.

Thanks for the tickets Chotz- We had so much fun!

Shooting

I ordered Clayson his own little hearing protection ear muffs on amazon so a couple weeks ago we decided we better go try them out. Devan's parent's have property down in Elberta, UT not to be confused with Alberta Canada. My parents came with my dad's arsenal and Devan's parents, his sister Lindsey and brother Dallin all came too.

Clays staring at the fire.

Aren't his little earmuffs so cute?... Gotta love those chubby cheeks

He didn't love the earmuffs, but he did pretty good. He was getting fussy while they were still shooting so I fed him and he slept for a while with them on.

Our Stay-cation

We were planning on going to Vernal this last weekend (I'm sure you're all green with envy). My cousin was getting married and we just thought it would be fun to getaway. I know Vernal may not sound like the most exciting vacation but we were excited. My parents were planning on going too, but Friday morning their dog got hit by a car. He survived, but he's in pretty bad shape. He lost one of his eye's and fractured a vertebrae in his back. He's getting better everyday, but he can't be left alone yet so they stayed home to take care of him. We decided not go either, but we still wanted to do something fun so we had a "stay-cation." In other words I made Devan stay home and hang out with me instead of hiking over mountains to find deer and elk sheds- that is not exactly the most kid friendly hobby. Friday night we had a fire and tinfoil dinners with our friends Spencer and Michelle and their little boy Kash. It was a lot of fun and Clayson loved the fire. Can you guess which direction the fire was in each of these pictures?

Clays in his cute little Carhartt coat Devan's friend Dalton got for him.

I just had to add this- Clayson in the same coat when he was about a week and a half old. My chunky little monkey is growing like crazy.




I finally got Clays to look away from the fire for two seconds to take his picture.




And we're back to the fire. He kept sucking on his coat. It was so cute. :) 



Saturday morning we went to a bunch of yard sales where we found this bed for $49. I know this is a horrible picture, but is is black metal bed and I LOVE it. It's a hundred times better than our last headboard which was oak honey colored and so ugly.



Saturday afternoon we had a barbecue at my parents house. My mom's sister Cory and her husband Wayne came too. They just had another little boy. His name is Miles and he is so tiny and cute. Finn is their other little boy and he's about 2 1/2. We had a lot of fun playing with him. He even pushed me and Clayson on the swing. Oh and to top it all off Clayson pooped all over his clothes- again. I'm pretty sure he just thinks it's funny at this point. It's hard to even care though when I see this cute little naked boy.




Sunday we went to my family's annual mother's day dinner. All the mother's get to sit at the table and be served by the boys. They make the dinner themselves and it's always soo good. They even watch the kids while we eat and visit. We had chicken, stake, and fish. They really out did themselves this year. And to top it all off my grandpa- Lloyd the florist- made flower arrangements for all of us. I forgot to take a picture of mine, but I will.



Miles, Luke and Clayson. Luke was born the beginning of January and Miles was born the beginning of April. I'm sure they're going to be little buddies. Clayson and Luke are already starting to "talk" to each other.



The Super Secret Softball team

Devan was invited to play on his work's super secret softball team. Apparently they hand pick who they want on the team. The guy who put it together is pretty hardcore. Anyways, so far most of the games have been rained out, but last week Clayson and I were finally able to go to one of his games. Needless to say Clayson enjoyed himself. This picture was taken after he pooped all over his clothes. I sometimes think he poops all over just so I'll take off his clothes.

Classic Clayson: naked and happy

Playing with aunt Cassidy. He recently found his bottom lip and he thinks it's pretty sweet.

Hangin out in the dugout. Dev played an awesome game by the way. He hit a home run and a bunch of other really good hits.

$2 wreath

I've been watching for ideas on a cute spring wreath. I came across this idea that's actually made from bed springs. I didn't want to spend money for bed springs so I looked up box springs on the ksl free section and sure enough I found several. I pulled out the springs and then I wired them together and then put glue on the joints. The only money I spent was on the fabric I used for the bow and the strips of fabric around the wreath. This isn't exactly the best pic. I took it inside my apartment with my cell phone but you get the idea. :)

Starting Solids

So I know everyone now recommends that you wait to start solids until six months, but lately Clayson has been blowing out of his diapers at least once a day and often times more. I've tried different brands and different sizes of diapers and nothing seems to help. A few people have told me that once you start solids it's usually not as bad. Clayson's pediatrician said it's fine if he starts single grain cereal especially since he's such a big boy. I was still planning on waiting til six months, but after he pooped all over three times in about six hours I decided it was time. He did really well. He swallowed more than what ended up on his face. He only took six or seven bites and then he was done, but I thought it was really good for his first time.

Look who's rolling

He started rolling from his belly to his back a while ago, and he occasionally rolls from his back to his belly when he's on soft surfaces like the couch or our bed. He's been trying to roll from his back to his belly on the floor for a while now, but he couldn't quite make it over his one arm. Yesterday morning he finally made it over! It's been so fun watching his determination. I was so proud when he finally got it. :) 

We had an appointment with his pediatrician and his cardiologist last week and they always call him the little miracle baby. They say patients that have had heart failure usually experience failure to thrive, but as you can see that is obviously not the case with him. He was between 85-90% for weight and he's doing all the things a normal baby at his age should be able to do.

Playtime with Dad

Clayson loves playing with anyone who will pay attention to him, but he especially loves playing with his Dad.

Playing airplane- I think this is his favorite game. Of course his dad is the best at it.

My two favorite boys

Feeding the Steeds

We went to feed the mules at Bill's on Sunday, and you can't tell from these pictures, but Clayson loved it. We fed the baby pigs too, and he was all sorts of excited watching them eat. He thought are mule Jack was pretty cool too. He just kept staring at him. The only reason he's not to excited in these pics is because he wanted to keep looking at the animals.

Bedtime Scare

Lately sometimes Clayson will fall asleep around 8:30 or 9:00 at night if he hasn't had a very long evening nap. He has to take his medicine at ten so when he does fall asleep early I have to wake him up. I usually just keep the lights low and be really quiet when I put his pajamas on and then I give him his medicine and feed him and he goes right back to sleep. Well the other night when I was putting his pjs on Devan came in and blew a really loud zerber on his belly and this was the result:

No worries- it took awhile but they did eventually make up.

Clayson's blessing

Clayson was blessed March 6th with his cousin Luke. Luke wasn't feeling too good so we weren't able to get any pictures of them together but he's our little man in his blessing outfit.

Clayson's birthday buddies. He shares a birthday with my brother and my grandpa.

Gotta love those chubby cheeks

...And that chubby belly

Clayson threw up all over both their suits. Well at least he waited til after the blessing.

Skiing the Beav

My family goes to Logan every President's day weekend and goes skiing/snowboarding on President's Day. My mom was nice enough to watch Clayson for the first half the day while I snowboarded then we switched off and she went the second half the day. We had such a blast. Devan was very patient with me even though I don't have the greatest snowboarding skills. It was such a fun little trip and it was nice to get away.

Clayson rockin his bear suit

Clayson's stay at Primary Children's Hospital

This was Tuesday morning. By this time they had put a tube down his throat and sedated him. He could still move around and wake up, but he would get so upset when he'd wake him they tried to keep him asleep as much as possible. It was so sad seeing him trying to cry. He would open his mouth and try but no sound came out. They started him on one medication that day trying to keep him from going into SVT- that's what it's called when his heart rate shoots up. He went into SVT three times that day. It was so scary seeing it happen but all of the doctors would come in and they gave him a medication that restarts his heart to get it to beat at a regular speed. They said it would take a few days for the prevention medication to get all the way through his system so we just had to wait it out.

This picture was taken on his third day at the hospital after they took his tube out. It was a little scary when they took it out because his throat swelled up and he couldn't breath very well. They did several different things and after several hours he was able to breath on his own and they let us hold him. I can't even describe how good if felt to be able to hold him after all he had been through. I always had to fight back the tears the two days before when I'd walk by other babies rooms and hear them cry and see their parents hold them. It took a day or two for his voice to get back to normal but it was just so good to be able to hear him cry.

This picture was taken several hours after his tube was taken out. He wouldn't hardly let us put him down once we were able to hold him again. I sure didn't have the heart to make him keep sitting by himself in the little examination bed. It was so sad watching him when he had his tube in. We couldn't hold him and he would just pull away anytime people touched him because most the time they were poking him or taking his blood pressure or some other thing that made him uncomfortable. It got to the point where the only place we could touch him to calm him down was his head.



This picture was taken about the time they started him on the first medication to try to prevent him from going into SVT. They tried it for a few days and then doubled the dose but he just kept going back into SVT. Those few days were by far the worst. At first they would just give him a medication to restart his heart and then they decided to try doing vagal exercises to get him out. The only two that worked were suctioning his nose/mouth to try to get a gag reflex but eventually that stopped working and they had to put an ice bag in his face. It was miserable to watch. I usually would just try to watch the monitors and not him when they did it. Friday night Devan had gone home to get a few things and my mom had stayed with me.  He went into SVT and they had to do the ice bag three different times and it still wasn't working. I usually held it together pretty well and didn't cry too much but I just lost it that time. He kept looking up at me while screaming at just had this look on his face like why are letting them do this to me. After that Devan told them that we needed to figure something else out because there was no way that we'd be able to do that to him once we had him home. Sunday morning they decided it was time to start him on another medication. They were hesitant to start him on it because it has a lot of crazy side effects, but they decided the benefits outweighed the risks.  He had one or two episodes right after they started him, but once it was all they way through his system he quit having them. Once he's about four he should be big enough to do the procedure to completely get rid of the problem in his heart, until then he'll just have to take medication.



This was when they moved him from the PICU to the normal floor. He hadn't been out of his room for over a week. I thought he might be fussy because he was kind of hungry but he just looked around and cooed the whole way to his new room.

He really started smiling and cooing while he was in the hospital.

This kid hated his hospital bed. I can't say I really blame him because they were always doing mean things to him when he was in his bed. Once he got his tube out we usually just held him all day long, and I ended up holding him most nights too. Both his grandmas came up everyday so we just took turns rocking him.



Clayson just chillin in the rocking chair. By the last day or two we were there he was feeling pretty good. We're so grateful for all of our friends and family who were so supportive during that difficult time. Everyone up at primary's was absolutely wonderful. It was a hard thing to go through, but we're so very grateful for modern medicine because without it this little guy might not have made it. I would definitely not choose to go through something like that again, but it definitely made me more grateful to be blessed with this sweet baby boy.