Learning the Hard Way

As I have said previously we are in between Austin and Emma needing a nap. When Austin doesn't take a nap he goes to bed great and sleeps for about 11 hrs. Same for Emma. Without a nap I have to work hard to keep them awake around 4 or 5, and they don't go to bed until 10. Austin has been throwing-up since we stopped napping, so we are going to back to napping to see if that improves.
Anyway, today they were being extra loud after I put them down. After about an hour I heard knocking and went to check on them. Emma was standing there almost in tears saying "Brudie made mess...". Now I love children's books and we have TONS. Someone had taken all the books and stacked them around and on top of Emma's bed. Austin confessed. I told him how disappointed I was, then he smiled at me. I went on to explain if he did not want to respect and take care of his toys then maybe cousin Clayton would like them, or some other little boy or girl. That took the smile off his face and the tears started to fall. I warned him if he treated his toys like that I would take them out of his room, a consequence that I will follow through on. He apologized quite profusely.
The meanwhile Emma laid down in my room to take a nap and Austin was in charge of cleaning him room before he could come out. At first he cried and pleaded with me to help, I told him he had to help first and clean-up some before I would help him. It took him a good 45 minutes to make progress, then I hopped in to help. We cleaned up all the books, then Emma had to be persuaded to help with the rest. After about an hour and 45 minutes total we were finally done. Austin and Emma were so proud, I was proud they took a hard lesson and made it in to a good thing. I know that this will happen again, but I think they handled it really well with no major melt downs, and made good choices in the end. They are really awesome kids..

True Love

We were on our way home from dialysis yesterday and Austin threw-up all over himself and his car seat. We stopped at our friend Grandma Karen's to pick up Emma, by this time Austin had fallen asleep. It is a short drive to our house and Austin had woken up not in a good mood. Emma was very concerned asking, "Brudie okay? Brudie sick?". Austin is never happy about Emma playing Mommy, he get's down right agitated. After I re-dressed Austin it had escalated and Austin refused to speak to Emma. Emma started to moan, "mmmooooohhh, Brudie won't talk to me....sigh" with a pout. She was pretty upset. I love how much Emma loves and adores her brother, he is one lucky kid.

Best Friends

Our kids fight all the time, but they have their shinning moments and when push comes to shove they are best friends, and love each other very much. We went out into the the front yard to water the grass and jump through the sprinklers (aka sprinkles). We have some big flexible sticky plastic called Tagaderm from the hospital that we used to cover his dialysis catheter. The only draw back from using this is it can hurt to take it off. Austin was first scared to go all the way through but after I showed him (I had to demonstrate fully clothed) he was unstoppable. He even tried to help Emma go through, holding her hand and coaching her. Emma would try to psyche herself up to go all the way through, then she would run around the outside of it and proclaim "I did it! I did it Mommy!". The sprinkler was cold so I don't blame her!
Austin and Emma love the show the little Einstiens. The main theme to this show is to help others, and their favorite episodes show the characters rescuing someone in trouble. A frequently heard phrase is "To the rescue!". One of them yells "help me, help me!" and then the other runs to the rescue. The pictures show Austin rescuing Emma then hugging her. They also ask each other "are you okay? are you okay?" when they are done. It is really their first pretend game all on their own.
Micha is staying in Emma's room so she is sharing with Austin. They love it and we do too until it is time to take a nap or bed time. We are still trying to figure it out. They love to play instead of rest so they are always falling asleep late and it throws everything off. I also think they are approaching not needing nap. They can make it till about 5:30 or 6 with out a nap then will fall asleep, if I could just get them to make it till 7 then we would be in business. We will keep working on it.

Baseball and Brellas

Austin LOVES to play baseball and more recently water balloons. Everyday when Ben comes home he want to do one of these. It is fun to have activities that are just with Daddy. Emma loves her Little Mermaid Umbrella (or brella). Whenever it rains she asks for it and wants to go outside whether or not she has he PJ's on. She throws a fit when we we put it away, we love how she finds such joy in the simple everyday things.
We have a new friend staying with us. Micha Brown from Ben's hometown of Moses Lake. He is doing a internship as a film major through Hallmark Studios for 5 weeks. We are glad that we could help him and our kids love to hang out with him (we do too). They both always say prayers for Micha, it is quite adorable.
We have some great news, Austin has grown nearly 1 1/2 inches in 8 weeks. No joke! That is an amazing amount of growth in such a short amount of time. The Dr's were really surprised, and are pleased with his progress. Austin will most likely shoot up after the transplant but there is a chance he won't, and since he cannot be on growth hormones a year post transplant, having this much growth before his surgery is awesome. Those shot hurt and and I hate to give them, but it has already paid off big time.

At the Carwash!!!!

Our friend's Albert and Michelle in Thousand Oaks had an awesome car wash. We were amazed how may people came through and how many people came out to help. Some people knew us from our last ward and some didn't but heard about Austin and wanted to come and support our little guy. I think that almost 75 cars came through and they did such a great job washing that people would come back around and give an extra donation. Austin and Emma got in on some of the action and enjoyed themselves. They both LOVE car washes and talk about them all the time so this was a real treat. Thank you to everyone who came out to support us, especially to Albert!

Disneyland and Reunions

My Mother-in-Law Diane was so kind to come down to visit us while Ben had to go out of town for business. We went to the Aquarium of the Pacific and we went to Disneyland! The kids loved both. They either ask to got to the "quarium" or to Disneyland every other day.
Disneyland was a huge hit. the kids did really well. They took naps in the stroller and there was hardly any fighting and no melt downs, which was amazing since we were there from 10:20 am to 9 pm. They loved every minute of it. We met Diane's sister and her niece, husband and kids. It was great to see the Bullocks, and to wander around the park together.
Diane was also able to see her best friend Mary Winterton who was visiting her sister Diane that lives here in town. Mary has been in Korea for the past 4 years with her husband Lyle for his work and Diane hasn't had the chance to catch them when they would visit state side. They came over to dinner with Mary's sister Diane and Mary's daughter Lisa came too, we were happy to oblige.