The Rest of the Craziness that was March!

Play song, "Clocks" with this post

As busy as January and February were... March was even busier! With 16 appointments in all this month, 3 days consisted of more than one appointment spanning from Orem to Salt Lake! I guess we had to play catch-up with so many-  follow-up post surgery with orthopedics, cardiology, dental, cranio-facial, ophthalmology (cute girl got some new glasses too!) and a bunch of therapy appointments! 

We also had mission celebrations and birthdays! So here's a rundown in pictures (mostly via instagram:)

Sporting our tired eyes at her ortho appointment (we were up all night)

We found out at this appointment that we could slowly wean off the wedge :)

 First standing since surgery.... had to start slow...

Thought this was cute.... this was her reaction to the Emergency Broadcast Alert coming on during Sesame Street

We have enjoyed crazy Utah fashion weather in March! Started out with some crazy snow storms and cold temps, then the next week this ^ Led to many, many walks to the parks near our home!

 Been a lot better at home-cooking and baking :) Above is my made from scratch Chicken Pot Pie with some individual cheesecakes, and below is a really yummy diner style meatloaf with parmesan crusted asparagus!

We went to my good friend Marci's little boy, Levin's 4th birthday party

Opening the present we got him :)

 Opening his wagon from his grandma

And the big gift from his parents.....

 Was a hit.... naturally

 Here's Steve and Em playing with the bubbles from her treat bucket

 And little Brighton coming out to watch

She loves bubbles of course! 

Saddest thing ever! Did this to her myself after we left the party when trying to tighten her car seat (socked her in the mouth), the scratch you see is from my thumbnail, plus she got a fat lip, and bled from three other spots inside her mouth :(

So to make up for that, we took her to a nearby park (we were in South Jordan at the time)

This was a cool park, I had fun playing too ;)

The next day (Sunday, which was Steve's actual birthday) was when all the mission craziness occurred! First my cousin Sam came home from Cambodia, so Em and I (we let daddy sleep in since it was his birthday after all!) went back to South Jordan to hear him talk in church at 9 am (and mind you this was the day daylight savings started :P). But I'm so glad we went, he gave an excellent talk and it was fun hanging out with everyone afterward....

I was especially glad to finally meet this little guy!

 That's my cousin Russ holding his new pride and joy, Everett!

Awww!

Naturally, everyone wanted their turn to hold him! I claimed him first though since it was my first time seeing him!

 Great-grandpa Wilde with Everett

Great-Grandma Wilde with Everett and grandpa with his pride and joy Dexter ;)

 But Everett is better!

 Aunt Jen with Everett

And uncle Mitch with Everett

The open house had a great turnout!

 And the missionary Elder Elder himself! Yes, his last name is Elder, so really in the mission field, his dad, his brothers have all been known as Elder Elder! A little shell-shocked still, living in Cambodia for 2 years can certainly do that to someone I'm sure!

 And Em taking it all in

 My cousin Quin was playing around with Russ and Lindsey's older boy, Hunter.... Em thought they were hilarious!

 Telling mission stories

 Listening to mission stories, Quin Elder, his wife Melissa and Sadie Elder

And the happy kitchen help! The missionary's parents are in there, that's his dad Bob, to the left of his brother Craig, and his mom Debbie is behind the counter (she's there a lot!)

Welcome home Sam!!

This was me showing off how proud I was of my little bug! We had just gotten back from her cardiology appointment where she laid still for over 40 minutes while they did an ultrasound to look at her heart.... which looks great by the way! Meant that the need for a sedated echo was not necessary! They don't see many 4 year olds able to do that!

This was Em's first ever St. Patrick's Day card from one of our favorite families the Bowens!

And a St. Patty's Monster!

 Giving hugs while waiting for Daddy's birthday dinner

 At dinner

At Daddy's Sunday birthday dinner at Grandma and Grandpa Peters (Em had a sleepover with them the night before!)

 Em did amazing at her dental appointment and checked out with great healthy teeth, so she got to pick herself out a balloon :)

I also let her pick a little something at the Disney Store when we went to shop for a birthday party.... always surprises me that she likes the Lotso toy when she yells at him when she watches the show! And FYI, the toy actually smells like strawberries ;)

We (Steve and I) also saw Hunger Games that Friday (the 23rd).... needless to say, we loved it! Even Steve, but only I read the books! No pictures sorry, but we did have a HUGE group with us, my mom and her friend Cindy, Lacey and her hubby Tyler, Lacey's mom Dora, Abby and her husband Moises and my friend Ashley who brought two friends with her, but I forgot their names! We also had Parent/Teacher Conferences and I helped run the book fair before that! Gotta say that PTC is much less crazy when you're not teaching!

The next Saturday was a bit crazy too (what day hasn't been busy this month really??!). We went up the canyon to Vivian Park and South Fork to take some family pictures... here's a few that we liked the best!

 This one got quite the buzz on Facebook! I take credit for the posing... though that is ALL EM! But Steve set up the camera (it's of course on a tripod with the timer set)

 Em and mommy

 Em and daddy

 Happy Em.... she did not like being so near the river bed for some reason... so once again her mom had to make quite the fool of herself for some smiles ;)

OH and in case you're wondering, both of these of Em are 2 different photos merged in photoshop. One was taken of Em with normal settings, and then the camera in the exact same spot with all settings the same except the shutter was set lower to get the water to look like that. More of these to come next month :)

After we got back into town I headed straight to Steve's parent's house since his mom had asked if I could help Steve's youngest sister get ready for a dance (do her hair and makeup). We ended up crunched on time, but I think she turned out beautiful (not that she's not always beautiful, but it is always nice to get really dressed up once and awhile)!

Waiting, waiting, waiting for her turn to see one of 5 specialists at Cranio-Facial Clinic

Even though her feet go over my head these days, this is the position all three doctors want to see her mouth by.... needless to say, I got kicked in the head a lot! This is also the impending appointment we got the recent bad news

And sporting her new glasses that she loves.... and because of the price, so do we!!

And we actually just picked up the sunglasses today (since they weren't ready at the same time)

Same frames as above (only ones we found there that worked), but with a tint on the lenses

To finish off the month, we had LDS General Conference and we watched the Saturday afternoon session with Steve's family

My caption for this picture read, "Boredom (picture of Em), technology and sleeping... this is what conference is all about in this day and age! 

After conference was over, we decided that with the beautiful day it was (temps in the 80's!) that it might just be the best day to take Em's Easter pictures.... so we headed up to Salt Lake to do it. I wanted some cool, eclectic scenery, so we tried Trolley Square first.... with no luck! Em was already starting to get grumpy, so we just settled on Liberty Park and it went pretty well, other than it was really, really windy!! 

 As sad as it is, this was probably my favorite of the shoot! This is to show all those of you who claim you've never seen this girl cry or haven't seen what would be considered a pretty "normal" healthy meltdown for a girl her age.... I would say that it is not a daily occurrence, more like weekly. But this one in particular was when I had to run back to the car to grab something real fast... and she stopped almost the second she saw me coming back!

Just these two for now, the rest will appear in a slideshow probably on Easter :) 

I had to bribe her a few times so she would smile, and this was her reward afterward

Liberty has an awesome playground! Complete with special needs swings (which were sadly occupied for most of the time we were there), but you can see them on this post

Then we decided since we were already there, we may as well check out the new City Creek Center..... which is amazing!! Hands down the best shopping center I've ever been to.... and I've been to a lot all over the place (including Europe!). We did probably go at one of the worst times, seeing as the Priesthood session of conference had just let out and there was literally hundreds of thousands of people there! There were even lines to get into some of the stores.... that's right, I've never seen that before!! But because they'd reached maximum capacity, you had to wait in a line for people to leave! The new Disney store was the busiest! 

This was after waiting in line for a few minutes, but still once inside it was really hard to get around! 

Top picture is Em hugging a "Fozzy Bear" (from the Muppets) in the Disney Store.... the one she showed the most preference to, and I don't know, she may be surprised come Easter morning ;) Next to that, was our view while we waited in line to get into the Disney Store, and this place really is spectacular with a stream running through it, half of the place is outdoors, half indoors. The fountains below were the highlight! The one on the left was a lot of fun to watch, and then the one we're standing in was a lot of fun too! 

Sorry, the sound doesn't work real well.... we think the mic on Em's iPhone is shorted out :/

And this was hilarious!! Em is usually terrified of characters like this, but we're really trying to work up to a trip to Disneyland... so we're trying to expose her as much as possible! And actually she was really brave with this bear! Wish we'd gotten the first high five on video, because she boldly slapped his hand when he held it out without hesitation (which was surprising!), but then pulled it back as quick as she could and she looked so surprised like she couldn't believe she had done that! But then she gave him a few more high fives and "knuckles" as well.

I've also had a lot of fun editing more pictures for the Different iz Good Facebook page

This is a fellow ch18 girl named Sofia! She is amazing, actually has a full monosomy of ch18 (meaning she's actually missing the whole chromosome), it is mosaic though (meaning that it only affects a percentage of her cells). Her parents were told that she'd likely not even live to term and if she did, she'd be a "vegetable" (many of us are told things like this sadly).... but look at her at age 6 riding a horse all by herself! She also talks and walks!! Go Sofia go!!!

Also, I've become quite passionate about helping this sweet little girl and her parents out! She was attacked by a family dog last summer, and both their health insurance and the dog owner's home owner's insurance are refusing to pay... so they are doing all kinds of things to raise money. There is a donate button on their blog (click on the picture to be directed to their blog.

The picture at the top is of some of the bows we've bought from her mom. Both her mom and her aunt are selling them and %100 of the money is going to pay for their medical bills. I know that bottom picture is quite graphic, but it will show you how bad her injuries really were.... and how remarkably this girl has healed! the picture next to it was only 4 days later! But still, she needs more help, or she might lose the vision in her left eye altogether :( She received over 200 stitches, had emergency neuro-surgery and had to have a metal plate placed near her eye because the bone damage was too significant. The doctors thought she would need to be in the hospital at least a week, and she was able to leave after only 2 days! I've met this little girl and she is so sweet and deserves help! Please consider donating, or you can go here to look at some of the cute hair clips you can purchase! They're also selling and auctioning off some other items, like pre-made Easter baskets! 

We also started some private feeding/speech therapy, which I'm pretty sure we can credit for the recent return to speech! No pictures yet, and we have to wait for more appointments once we get a swallow study (kind of standard, even though she's had a couple before that all had normal results)... so more on that next month :)

So..... I think that's it! Told you it was a crazy busy month!! Bye-bye March!