April Randoms

Jace started T-Ball and apparently this was like the highlight of the month according to my camera roll. Ha! I hardly have pictures of anything else. T-ball at this age is really quite entertaining. They play two innings and every member of the team gets a turn to bat until they hit the ball and then they all run the bases and switch sides. On the field, they all tend to run in clumps after the ball and sometimes manage to throw it to first base, but that's about it. Jace has had a few hits without the tee, which is fun. They've sometimes forgotten that he is a lefty, so they have him up there swinging right and that doesn't always go too well.

On the field, Jace tends to sit or lay around (telling me "This is what my coach told me to do, mom!" while the coach shakes his head no at me- Ha-- like I really thought you'd tell him to go have a good rest right there by the pitcher's mound). Then when he is running the bases, he usually sits on the base until someone tells him to go and then we are lucky if we get a trot out of him to the next base. Usually it's a solid walk. He's pretty funny. Maybe someday he will have a little more energy for baseball. If you ask him, though, he's really good at it and he really likes it (better than soccer).

His tball team is the Braves! Lucky!! My favorite team. And we found him this awesome Braves shirt at the DI to go with his awesome other get up. Now to find some baseball pants...

Actually standing on base-- wahoo!

Just you know, hanging out on the field. 

Good swing buddy!

Just a few pictures of Flor and Jace together because they are cute. Jace was helping her into school one day after we took her to the doctor. 

 We closed on our house! YAY!! We closed on our new house April 6, but didn't move in until the end of the month. This gave us time to get some painting done downstairs and to move things over slowly over the course of the month, which was nice.

Yay, home sweet home!

Evidence of our painting. Well you can tell I have been painting...apparently Devin is a much cleaner painter (and a better one) than me!

Drawing a picture for Jace's buddy Andrew from our old ward. He got his mission call and Jace wanted to bring him cookies and a picture. Andrew has been so darling with Jace. He has built him a paper airplane every single week that we have been at church since we moved into that ward. They are good buddies.

Bringing his picture and cookies to Andrew!

Hallie was selected as one of six students at her school to go have lunch with the mayor in April! They got picked up in city cars to drive across the parking lot to the city buildings (haha!) and the got to ride back in a fire truck. She was loving life. I just so happened to be dropping Mishell off from a doctor's appointment and we caught Hals on her way out. Way to go girl!

My mom came to our rescue once again this month. I called her in a panic about not getting everything done at the house we needed before needing to move in, so on a weekend that I worked, she came and helped Devin finish painting, she scrubbed baseboards, cleaned out the pantry, etc. She's such a good mom. We found a fun pizza place to go to that night and little did we know, but it was actually their last night in business! They gave us a huge free Pazookie thing for dessert, which was quite amazing if I do say so myself. Too bad that place doesn't exist anymore.

Jace can be the sweetest boy. He is really quite the character. He picked me this flower from the yard and brought it in to put in a vase. Love him.

After we moved into the new house, we took our first trip to the park down the street. We have an awesome neighborhood park with toys, a bike path, tennis courts, basketball courts, etc. It looks like a fun, fun place! We made Flor ride her bike there and she wasn't loving us for that decision. :)

Devin legitimately kicked Jace off this toy so he could dig in the bark first. HA HA HA!!

Just Mishell being cute. Like her earrings? We decided we needed to get her some girly stuff since she is kind of past wearing bows in her hair and she can't do much else with it. She has a whole bunch of these cute button earrings now to wear. 

And I guess that was the randoms of April!

Spring Cabin Trip

On a whim, Mari Ann organized a last minute trip to the Crapo cabin for Conference weekend. We had another (late) Easter celebration complete with the big meal and an easter egg hunt for the kiddos. As always, we ate too much, we stayed up way too late, and we played a fair few games. We had a blast. Thanks Mari for organizing it and Crapos for letting us come! 

Preparing our big feast

Egg hunt number?? I lost count!

Cute Brookie hunting some eggs and cute Devin hogging baby Luke

Mishell had just had her knee surgery, so she hobbled around the cabin and didn't get to hunt any eggs. Poor girl. 

Cabin time is always time for sleeping

This is a bad picture, but that's the grand Teton in the back there. Lovely view.

Hallie loves babies. Here she is playing with Luke

Cute girls!

And this is how we all felt on the way home!

 We loved getting to spend the weekend with family and getting to watch conference. My favorite part was the announcement of the Quito temple!!! How amazing will that be?! We hope we can go back for the open house/dedication. Good thing that is probably years down the road so we can start saving now!

Pregnancy update

So, here we are, moving along in this pregnancy. I am almost 26 weeks now and things are moving quickly. I had the big anatomy ultrasound at around 21 weeks and found out that baby is still a girl and everything looks very healthy. I am happy about that, of course. She is a mover and a shaker and kind of a funny little thing. At my last appointment, the doctor did the ultrasound (he does one every visit- kind of fun) and she was shoved up in one corner in a ball and had about 2/3 of the space left empty. Why? Who knows! 

Anyway, I have had a lot of growth in the last few weeks especially and am finally to the point where I think people can tell I am pregnant, not just chubby. I had the first person ask me this week if I am pregnant, so there's that. 

We are still kind of at a loss for names. Devin doesn't like anything I like but what do you know-- he doesn't have a whole lot of suggestions himself. So, she's Baby No Name Perry forever, I guess.

18 weeks

20 weeks

22 weeks

25 weeks

Mishell's Surgery

We have been blessed to have a Shriner's Hospital for Children so close to us. Flor went there and now Mishell has been greatly served by going there and meeting with their expert doctors. Mishell has a small issue of having one leg longer than the other, which means that she has somewhat of an awkward gait. The orthopedic doctor we meet with at Shriners felt it was significant enough that we should operate and help give her a chance of leveling her legs out. So, Mishell went under the knife on March 29 to stop the growth in her right leg. Since she is about at the right age to hit puberty, she should have some growth in the coming years left that will give her left leg a chance to catch up. The surgery itself was outpatient, but sounded pretty painful. Essentially, they took a drill and drilled a hole through the growth plate in her knee in her right leg. The xray images show what looks just like a screw or drill bit going in there and the doctor described doing it 40 times on each side to get the hole all the way through. Poor Mishell! The surgery was done on an outpatient basis and the surgery itself was only about an hour and a half, but by the time it was all said and done, we were at the hospital most of the day.

My mom was kind enough to come stay with the other kids (it was spring break that week) so I took Mishell early in the morning. She couldn't eat or drink and she was really nervous about the surgery. The first doctor to come in was the anesthesiologist and he was incredible with her. He took a lot of time explaining everything to her and made sure that an interpreter came in to help her understand in Spanish. When he found out she was from Ecuador, he was so excited because he has been there 12 times on medical missions. He pulled up his scrub top to show Mishell that he was wearing an Ecuador t-shirt! She was so excited to see this. He could see that she was nervous, so he had them give her some medication to help relax her. That totally did the trick because the next thing we knew, she was out, even before the official anesthesia. 

After surgery, she took some time to recover and had to be able to eat before we left. Devin came and had lunch with us on his break. Mishell finally woke up enough to eat something and then took a test run on her walker before they discharged us. She was pretty sleepy the rest of the day. The next few days we took it easy and she recovered quite well and quickly. She only used her walker for a few days and then was weight bearing again (Until later--I'll get to that). 

Trying to get a good picture when you've had medication to make you loopy does not go well...

Trying to stay awake long enough to smile

And...she's out.

Looking like a grandma with her walker :)

Oh this is only relevant because it is the only picture I have to show that Aunt Kirston brought us dinner and dessert one day and kept us company for a few hours. It was so incredibly sweet of her and we loved having them. A neighbor also brought us dinner after the surgery. People were so thoughtful! 

Everything went fine with Mishell's recovery until about 3 weeks later, when on a Sunday all the sudden, Mishell became non-weight bearing again on that leg. The knee also swelled up HUGE. Devin and I thought we would wait until Monday to see if it got any better. We could not tell what had happened and she denied having any falls or other accidents that would justify that kind of pain and swelling. Monday was no better, so after work I took her to the instacare. The doctor there freaked me right out of my brain and told me that she had a big infection and basically said we were dumb for not getting it taken care of earlier. He told us to go to the ER at Primary Children's immediately, where she would likely need IV antibiotics. This was the same week we were moving and having Mishell's sealing, so I was freaking out. I was imagining hospital stays and having to cancel the sealing, yadda yadda. Well, we went to Primary's and spent a solid 6 HOURS in their ER just to be told that there was likely nothing wrong with her knee. She was seen by 3 residents and one doctor and no one had a good explanation for what was happening. The last resident asked when we were following up with her surgeon (friday and this was monday night), so she sent us on our way and basically said "I don't know what's wrong, but she will be fine until Friday." So, lo and behold, the first guy freaked me out for nothing (although no one tested her for an infection at Primarys regardless-- needless to say I was not that impressed with them. Can't wait to get the bill.).  The orthopedic resident who saw her at Primarys assured us that she knew her surgeon from Shriners and would call her and let her know what happened so that we could follow up sooner if needed. Well, we went that Friday and the surgeon had heard nothing of it. The knee was still swollen quite a bit, but she too could not explain why or what had happened. SO-- that was kind of a big waste of time (and I am sure money-- again can't wait to see those bills!). She is back to normal now, so I guess we will chalk it up to a freak thing.

So that's the tale of Mishell's surgery. Hopefully that other leg catches on up now!

March Randoms

Here are a few miscellaneous picture from March. I will try to remember what is going on in each! HA. 

This is actually from December, but I have no idea how it just appeared in my March photos. It's a gem anyway, so it's going on. This is from the Rassmussen 2016 Calendar that Che and Landon made as a gag gift during their company's Christmas party last year. (Maybe I have never mentioned that Devin now works for Rassmussen Landscapes? It's been over a year...but ya know. He loves it and they are a great company to work for) Isn't Devin such a hottie?

During my sick days, Jace often made me lunch. What a cutie.

Just because, I guess?

This is sideways, but it's a picture Jace drew the day after our ultrasound revealing that the baby is a girl. He had been pretty sad, so the effort to draw a picture of the baby (and for the baby as he says) was pretty good of him. She is the one in the middle with all the excellent hair. The others are Jace and Devin if I do recall correctly.

First haul of many of baby girl clothes from thrifting. Yes please.

Jace started t-ball this spring, so when he saw this helmet at the DI, he had to have it. 

He finished this picture all by himself. It took days of effort. 

Two girls, just because they are cute.

Hallie, oh Hallie. She told us all month long that she wanted us to go to "author's night" at her school. She was so excited about it. So we went to find out that Hallie had written and illustrated a book she called "A birthday present for Mishell: A family." She wrote about how we met Mishell the week of her birthday and how she got to come home to stay with us on her actual birthday for the first time. It is about the most darling thing I have ever seen. Hallie is a thoughtful one. She had been working on it for months and didn't tell us about it until the surprise at author's night. 

Mishell and I got to go to the Women's Session of General Conference with our amazing family and then out to smoothies after. We love them and this tradition.