Nothing Much

Not a whole lot is happening lately. I had big plans for yard work over Memorial Day weekend, but I spent it holding my sick baby. We found out yesterday that he has pneumonia. Can you believe this kid, getting pneumonia in May. He loves to be a rebel. His issues made it a little bit difficult to treat him. He can't have ibuprofen because of his kidneys so we are relying on Tylenol to bring his fever down. He also can't have breathing treatments because they are not an approved medicine for his heart. So we are just giving him antibiotics and we have to take him back to the Dr. in a couple of days if he doesn't improve. Dustin stayed home with him today. He is such a good dad. He loves spending time with Dalley. He also took the whole night shift last night so I could get some good sleep.
Also the big news at our house is that after 15 months Dalley finally has teeth. I was beginning to think he didn't have any in his head. His cousin Ira is nine months younger and was ahead of him in the teeth area. Now Dalley has caught up and he got four at once. They are not all the way in, but you can see the top two really well and the bottom two have barely broken through. I am excited to begin feeding him things that need to be chewed. This opens up a whole new world of food options.
On Sunday night we went to Jill's house for a BBQ it was fun as always. I like getting out of the house and letting someone else do the cooking and the dishes. Michael went to church with us and then came over after church. he was such a big help. Dustin and I were both tired from being up with a sick baby so Michael entertained Dalley while we took a little nap. It was just what I needed. He was so cute with him. I woke up a couple of times to Dalley laughing hysterically at something that Michael was doing to entertain him. I think I want to adopt a ten year old before I have my next baby.
Last week my babysitter told me she needed to quit. She was the best babysitter in the world. She really enjoyed watching Dalley and was sad to tell me that she needed to take a few months off. Her mom has had health issues and she needs to be free to be there for her. I understand why she had to quit, but it is hard to find a sitter as great as her. Dalley starts going to another sitter's house next week. She is in my Bunco group. She has four boys of her own so I think Dalley will like it at her house. He loves having friends to play with. I am also having a high school girl watch him a couple of days a week and having her do a little house cleaning. I am excited to get a little help. It is hard for me to stay on top of everything these days. Work is really busy we are in the process of funding our grant applicants. It is crazy during this time, juggling money and making sure all of the paperwork is filled out and everything. It is just nice to get a little extra help once in awhile.
So I have been babbling, that is all for now. I am headed to Alamo this weekend if Dalley is feeling up to it so I should have some pictures to post soon.

Little Bits of Information and Lots of Pictures

So it has been a long time since I have put pictures on here. I wanted to update from the last couple of months so that I won't forget.

At the end of March Shawn and Stina were moving to Oregon so we decided to go on a road trip before we left. So Shawn, Stina, Ira,me, My mom, Dalley, Luke, Kayce, Cody, Kate, Lukie, and L.E. left for a quick trip. We started out by going to the Glen Canyon dam then on to the south rim of The Grand Canyon. We then drove to Kayenta Arizona and spent the night. The next morning we headed to monument calley then on to four corners. We then went to Fruitland New Mexico where a brother to our great great great grandfather was buried and we met some of his descendants. It was neat to talk to them. We went as far as Cortez Colorado that night then the next morning hit Mesa Verde and then drove to Moab stopped briefly at arches National Park and came home. It was a lot of driving but it was fun getting to spend quality time with my family.

Shawn, Cody, and Dalley at Glen Canyon Dam

Dalley Looking at the dam
Dalley by the Grand Canyon

Shawn, Stina, and Dalley at Monument Valley, this is a $20 view

My mom and Luke's kids at Four Corners
Dalley at Ira Hatch's grave
This was really cute, Dalley was playing on the grass at the cemetery. Lukie came over and told me he thought Dalley needed a hug so he sat down and hugged him. He is quite a character
Mom, Kayce, Cody, Kate, and L.E. at the Spruce Tree house at Mesa Verde. Mesa Verde was my favorite part of the trip. I am so going back there. I think it is the North American Machu Pichu. Machu Pichu is one of the most amazing places I have ever visited, but this is the next most amazing I think.

Kayce and L.E. going into one of the cellars

This is one of my favorite pictures, he loves to wear his tiger costume to bed

Spaghetti O's are not for this baby

Daddy and Dalley reading tractor books

We bought Dalley a cute horse video game for Easter. He rides the horse to control the video game. He loves it. He likes it even better than his rocking bull he got for his birthday.

I think this picture is so sweet. He is in his car seat and we are on our way out to Alamo for my grandpa's birthday. He is getting so good at riding in the truck. he likes riding in Dustin's truck better than mine. I think it is because Dustin has glass packs so his vibrates more.

Dustin, Kate, and Dalley helping grandma make the bed.

Dalley with one of the chicks we got for Easter

One Saturday I was watching Dustin's nieces and nephews and they love playing hide and seek. We lost Dalley while we were playing and I found him hiding under my bed. He thought he was so clever.

Another clever move, he pushes everything he can find over to the couch so he can use it to climb up. This is when he was using his lion bike as a step stool.

One weekend Dustin's sister's families were going fishing so they invited us. We hauled our Rhino up to the reservoir and had a great time driving around and watching everyone fish. I don't have enough patience for fishing.

This was Dalley's first time putting his feet in the water. He didn't like it at first, but then we couldn't get him to get out. Even after we had put his shoes back on.

Dustin has some leopard skin pajama pants that are slicky material. Dalley looooooves them. he usually walks around with one of the legs wrapped around his neck.

My Handsome boys

Dustin and Dalley on the Rhino, going to get milk from the barn to feed the calves

These are our puppies Ham and Chiz. They climb up the rungs of the hog panels and catapult themselves into Baby Betsy's pen. Then they try to drink all of her milk. I think if they keep doing this they will soon be too fat to fit through the holes.

Dalley playing on his slide that Claudia gave him. He loves it and thinks he is so big when he climbs up the stairs

Dalley and Chiz

Dalley looking dapper in his camo and suspenders

So Dalley spent last week with my parents in Nevada. It was one of the longest weeks of my life. I missed him every day. We left Thursday after work to go out to Hiko. By the time we got to the ranch it was about 9:30 and Dalley was in bed. I went and peeked at him, but that wasn't good enough so I had to hold him. Big mistake. I didn't get any sleep that night cause he was up the rest of the night. I forgot what a light sleeper he is. He can't sleep through any kind of disturbance.

On Friday Dustin and my dad, with 5 Catahoulas in tow, went out to chase wild cows. They had a pretty successful day with the exception of Dustin's big black horse rolling over on him. He said it was his fault because they went up a really steep hill and it was too rocky for the horse to get very good footing. Luckily he wasn't hurt. He told me when he was laying there all he could think about was me telling him to be careful before he had left that morning. I am always afraid he is going to get hurt because he is such a knucklehead and isn't scared of anything. A couple of weeks ago he was helping my day de-horn a large yearling. He was holding the nose tongs and they accidentally let the steer out of the chute. Anyhow he held on to the rope until he had the steer laying down and then proceeded to tie him up with the rope so they could finish cutting his horns. He is definitely fearless or just a knucklehead.

Anyhow one good thing about Dalley spending the week with my parents is that my mom got him sleeping through the night. For the first time in 14 months we are now enjoying very restful nights. It is pretty much amazing.

So this post has taken me two days to complete, but I am finally done. I think I will try to keep up better so the next one won't be so big.

Update on the Sick Baby and other things

Dalley Bugs eating a stick

Dalley and Grandpa Hatch

So after all of the stress of Dalley puking everyday for two months and not sleeping I finally decided to quit going to specialists and get a simpler opinion. On Monday I took him to a P.A. at the Panguitch clinic. She looked him over and said we had two options. We could do a full MRI and other tests to find out what was wrong or we could do a simple test and just put him on allergy medicine and see how it goes. Our pediatrician had said it wasn't possible for this to be something as simple as allergies, but it kind of seems like he was wrong. We have had Dalley on Singulair for three days now and he is already a completely different kid. He is almost back to his old self. He has been happy, he hasn't puked in a couple of days, his eyes aren't running, no coughing or runny nose. He is also starting to get his appetite back. I think it helps for him to know he isn't just going to puke up everything that he eats. Anyway I think that we will be taking him to less specialists if this medicine continues to help him improve. Oh, and the most amazing part of it all is that last night he slept through the night in his crib for the first time ever. I didn't sleep however because I kept thinking his heart had stopped and had to keep getting up to check on him. I think that if this continues then I will start getting a lot more rest.

Last weekend was beautiful. I had Dustin's sister's kids all day Saturday. It is fun for Dalley to have other kids to play with and he had a good time following them around. On Saturday night we went to Jill's for dinner. We had a great time. It has been too long since we had done that. On Sunday, after dinner with Dustin's family, we loaded the rhino and went to the reservoir. We had a good time riding around the shore watching the fishermen. We even let Dalley take his shoes and socks off to wade in the water. The only problem is that we couldn't get him to put them back on after that. He loved it. That night Jill and Mike's family came to our house for a bar-b-que. I love cooking outside and hanging out on the porch. It is my most favorite thing. When I was in college one of the houses we lived in had an amazing porch and we would spend our whole summers out there talking. We even moved a TV out there to watch movies sometimes.
Anyhow Tuesday Dustin brought Dalley a Dogie calf home to raise. We steal a couple bottles of the milk from that can't go to the creamery from the diary everyday and he seems to be doing well. I wanted to name him but Dustin doesn't like me getting attached.
Wednesday night I had a steak dinner for work. It was at the big indoor arena in Panguitch so Dustin brought a horse so that he could rope when it was over. After dinner I took Dalley out to watch Dustin rope. We were back by the chute watching and every time somebody would ride by on a horse Dalley would lift his arms for a ride. Everyone that came up had to load him on their horse and take him around the arena. We finally had to leave so that they could get some roping done. That kid already loves riding, he can't help it, it is in his genes.

Well I am going to try to post some pictures from the last couple of weeks soon. I just need to get them downloaded.

Sick Baby

The last couple of weeks have been a blur of no sleep and a sick kid. About five weeks ago Dalley started getting pretty sick. He had a bunch of different things going on; diaper rashes, tons of mucus, a really bad cough, puking, diarrhea you name it he had it. We took him to the clinic here in Panguitch and they told us he had a double ear infection and put him on an antibiotic which just made all of his symptoms worse. Then two weeks ago we went up to Primary Children's to take him to his Nephrologist. She looked him over and said his kidneys look good, but we need to find out what is wrong with him. She tested him for all sorts of things from Cystic Fibrosis to abnormal thyroid. She had us pretty stressed out for a week waiting for the test results, but finally we found out that all of his labs came back normal. This was good and bad news. Good because it meant he didn't have those things wrong with him but bad because we still don't know what is wrong. I took him to his pediatrician last Friday and he decided that Dalley has a disorder called cyclical vomiting and that we need to go to a gastro enterologist. We can't get in to see him for at least 5 weeks so I am no farther along than when I started and still quite tired from the lack of sleep we have experienced the last five weeks. We had Luke and my dad give him a blessing so I am hoping we either find out what is wrong with him so we can start treating him or he just gets better. The poor kid has been poked and prodded enough in his short life.

Ryan's Farewell

A few weeks ago was Ryan's mission farewell. He was called to the Colorado Denver mission. The whole family was there to watch him speak. I was so impressed with him. He did great. It was the first time I had ever heard him say that many words at once. He is such a quiet kid. I know that he is going to do great. My mom and dad took him to the MTC the following Wednesday. He has been gone a week now.
The bright side to the weekend was that we were able to get the whole family together. It was great. I had a really good time hanging out with all my nieces and nephews, but especially Crystal and Alyssa. They were a lot of help with Dalley.
On Saturday morning I got Dalley ready and let him spend as much time as he wanted outside. He hasn't been able to do that before then because it is always so cold here. We went and fed one of the baby calves and then we hung out with one of the colts for awhile. Dalley loved every minute of it. Then when they got all of the cows in from the pasture we went up to help them brand. Dalley loved it. We even let him ride one of the smaller calves. He thought it was quite alright. i was amazed that he didn't even get scared.
After they got done branding my mom and I took all of the grand kids up to the Schofield Cemetery to see my grandparents graves. Then I left Dalley with my dad and mom and Luke Ryan, and I took the kids up to the Mt. Irish petroglyhs and up to Logan City. I can't believe I had never been there before. They were some of the best petroglyphs I had ever seen and they are like ten miles from the ranch. We will definitely be going exploring there again.
On the way home I had Crystal, Alyssa, Tifnee, and Kate in my truck and we spent the whole ride telling funny stories and jokes. It was funny. Tifnee who is only four told the funniest jokes.
It was a great weekend. i am going to miss my little brother,but I am so proud of him for his testimony and his dedication.

Here is my dad out back of Windmill Ridge the day of Ryan's talk

Ryan goofing off with the kids

Britnee and Lukie are always glued to Ryan whenever they see him. They would get a little jealous so most of the time he carried both of them.

Crystal by one of the petroglyphs

Alyssa and Kate

The sign by the petroglyphs

All of the kids in the back of the truck coming back from the cemetery

Dalley riding the 4-Wheeler with his grandpa and great grandpa. They are laughing at him because he was getting impatient that they weren't driving yet.

Ryan and My Grandpa bringing the cows in to brand

Dalley with Little Joe, Luke's horse

Dalley petting a calf on the table

Dalley and Dustin on Homer

Dalley's first calf ride

Nobody's Happy

This is an e-mail I recieved that I thought was funny and true

Dalley's Birthday Weekend

Last weekend was special because of two major events. First my little brother Ryan went through the temple and second Dalley turned 1. Because the St. George temple was closed Ryan decided to go through the Manti Temple, and since they were coming up I planned a birthday party for Dalley. It was soo much fun. Luke and Kayce came on Friday evening with their kids and we had a good time visiting and playing at the park. Then my parents and Ryan arrived and we had dinner. The next morning everyone got up and went to the temple. Shawn and Stina met the family in Manti and Celeste watched Ira while everyone was with Ryan. I think her and Ira are best friends now. Then everyone came to Circleville and we had a birthday party for Dalley. I was so nervous that there wouldn't be enough food. Then people started cancelling on me so I was worried there would be too much food. In the end it all turned out perfectly. Because mine and Dustin's nieces and nephews were coming we planned a pinata for the kids. It was a success. I think the kids really had a good time and then at the end of the party I gave all the kids treat bags that I had made. We had about 30 people there, i don't think it could have gone any better. I love my family so much and I am so thankful for all of them to make an effort to spend time together. I put a lot of work into feeding everyone all weekend and providing beds for them and they all were very appreciative.These family gatherings are becoming few and far between and I am so glad that they all feel that it is important to participate instead of letting other priorities get in the way of spending time together.
On Sunday everyone got up and went to church then they left. My house felt soo empty after having so many people there. I can't wait to host another family get together at my house. We are thinking on having everyone there for Christmas.
I just want to say how proud I am of my baby brother for making the decision to go on a mission. He is such a good and obedient kid and he is a really good example to me. I am thankful my kids get to have him for an uncle.
I also want to say how much I love my baby. Yesterday was the anniversary of when we actually got to bring him home. I remember how happy I was that day a year ago and how we couldn't wait to leave the NICU. Driving home with this little baby that was on oxygen and a heart monitor scared me to death. But today he is a happy healthy kid and the joy of Dustin and my lives.

Here are some pictures of the awesome weekend:

Kate on the swings at the park
Dalley and L.E. sharing the baby swing. They are only 4 months apart

Dalley LOVES the swings

Luke road on the twisty slide with all of the kids. He even convinced me to go down it a couple of times and it was pretty fun. We have a fun park in Circleville.

Dalley catching a ride with L.E. on the walker

Buckaroo Ira and Calamity Jane

Dalley's horse cake that Jill helped me make. She is very talented at cake decorating

Jill decorated this sheet cake so we would have enough cake for everyone

This is the cake we let Dalley dive into. He had a great time playing in it. My dad drew the horse head on it for Dalley

Uncle Shawn, Aunt Stina, Aunt Celeste, and Cousin Ira at the party

My brave husband holding the pinata. We didn't use a bat because we thought that would be too dangerous so we just had the kids punch it. It was really cute watching their faces as they balled up their fists and punched as hard as they could

Ira chilling in the walker after the party

Kate showing us some of her dance moves

The belt Uncle Allen made Dalley for his birthday

Dalley on the rocking cow we got him for his birthday




Yesterday was Dalley's one year checkup. I was kind of nervous about it because he is so skinny. He is 17 lbs and 31" long.I was afraid that they wouldn't think he was healthy. The Dr. told me that he is healthy, he is just going to be a skinny kid. I was relieved to hear that. They have stressed me out about his weight since he was born. He was so good when he got his shots so after the Dr. we went and bought him a new slide. He thinks it is pretty fun.

Dalley in his new PJ's and hat. This kid loves hats. He has pink eye that is why he looks so miserable.

Playing on his new slide