Our Big Trip Part One: Indiana

After our last road tripping experience we decided it would be better to fly (even though it breaks the bank). Our car is still in need of a lot of work so we won't be going anywhere far in it until we can afford all of the repairs in need. On the way there we had two flights and they went pretty well. It was Jaxon's last free ride. Jaxon was done by the end of the day. It is hard for him to have to sit and play quietly for most of the day. At least we were able to sit near each other on both flights so that we could keep switching off holding Jaxon and Kailey.
We got into Chicago late and drove down to Lafayette, IN and stayed at my cousin's apartment. The next day (after sleeping in a bit) we went to a big park to have a mini-reunion with all of my extended family on my dad's side. Even though we only had an afternoon together I am really grateful that we were able to spend the time together. Most of my siblings were there and all of my dad's siblings were there plus 2 of my cousins. It was also great to see my grandparents. My grandpa isn't doing well so I feel the need to get out there as often as possible. (though I know once a year isn't often at all). It was so great to sit and visit and catch up with everyone. Here are some pics from Indiana:

This is my Uncle Chris, I am disappointed we weren't there long enough to go out and do Kareoke. That is one of my favorite things to do with my family in Indiana.

This is my great-aunt Jane and her daughter Sarah (my first cousin once removed??).

Here's all my kids and my brother Spencer's kids (Sammie and Carina) playing at the little zoo they had in the park:

Here's my family taking up the last car of the little train in the park. Jaxon kept trying to wander off anf get over to it so we caved and a bunch of people went on the train ride.

This is me and Grandpa:

This is me and grandma:

This is my Aunt Heather:

This is me sister Jessica with her new baby Jane, plus me and Kailey. Jane is 6 weeks younger than Kailey and if Jessica and I have anything to say about it, they'll be best friends some day.

After a mini-Pechin reunion we headed up to Michigan that evening to begin the Maple Family reunion. To be continued.......

The big reveal

A couple of months ago we started redoing the girls room as a birthday present. We did eventually finish the painting, but the details took quite awhile longer, and there are still a few things I want to do. But I thought I'd reveal what we've done so far. First a few before pictures, but not really, I am terrible at remembering to take the before pictures.
Here is Jaxon eagerly helping with the painting:

Here's Mckayla helping to paint:

Here's a before shot of their room without the toys in it (or all over the floor.)

AND HERE'S THE BIG REVEAL.................

Their little play area:

The closet with the new crown I made (from scratch I might add)

Here's the view from the door:

We'd still like to sand and paint their desks and paint the white craft cabinets with some fun colors and designs, but that will have to come later.

Happy Birthday Jake!!

Jake's birthday was July 9th. We were just going to have a couple of friends over, but you know how we are. It ended up being a gigantic birthday bash. After more and more people were invited we ended up having about 30 people over. It was a lot of work, but also a lot of fun. We had a taco bar plus homemade guacomole and salsa. I had a crockpot of shredded beef and one of shredded chicken, plus I made homemade refried beans and spanish rice. It is kindof funny that deciding to have mexican food can either mean a really easy, cheap, fast meal, or it can be a really expensive, long, complicated meal. This one was defineately a long one. I had to start cooking the day before. But it turned out really well. I have a bunch of pictures, but I can never get my pictures to show up in the order I want, so they are just random.
This is our friend Hana helping Jaxon take the first swings at the pinata. There is a little mexican party shop that makes awesome pinatas. We got this one and the girls decided to color it to look like Jake so that everyone could take a swing at him for his birthday:

Here is the cake I made for him. It is supposed to look like the Hunter UAV which is the plane that Jake flys for work. It was my first attempt at a cake like this and I couldn't have done it without the tips and advice from my sister Amber (thankyou Amber!).

This is Joey and Jaxon. Joey is a kid that lives across the street from us and he is so sweet to Jaxon all of the time. He just loves him. They are buddies and it is so cute.

Here is when I surprised Jake with the cake:

Here is Jake opening his presents:

This is a shot of everyone at the tables. We originally had it all set up outside, but it started to rain right when we were going to start eating, so we had to move inside.

After all the kids took their shots at the pinata Jake finished it off. These pinatas are really hard to break, and it took Jake awhile to get it open. We didn't have a blindfold, so we put a reusable shopping bag over all of the kids heads. It was very entertaining.

Here's Mckayla who decided she would dress up and play cheerleader for everyone who was hitting the pinata:

Jake and his look alike pinata:

My friends Hana and Ashley with the spread of food that we had. Thanx girls for all of your help!!!

I think Jake had a great birthday. I wanted him to know how much we love him and appreciate all he does for us. He sure is loved by his friends as well. As more and more people heard about his birthday they wanted to come and be a part of it. He is the best husband and father in the world and I love him a ton. I hope you had a great day hun!

Scorpion Update

I know this is a freaky picture, but I thought it was cool to show. Scorpions really do glow under a blacklight. Jake has been going around the house at night and hunting them. They are really easy to spot with a blacklight. You can see one 10 feet away if you shine the light on them. These are a few of them he's caught: (though I think he should just kill them.)

I am pretty much healed up. I am still itchy only on the two sting areas. We had the pest control come out again for free because they have a guarantee. The guy did a real thorough check of the house and as he was spraying one of the baseboards in the hallway one jumped out at him. I just said, "Told ya so!" But we haven't found any in the house since that time, and Jake has been looking really hard for them. All the ones he has caught have been outside.
We got these glass "scorpion safe" bowls that you put under your bedposts to keep scorpions out of your bed. I kindof feel like it is a company that knows you will do anything to feel safe, so it could be a total scam and we wouldn't know. Supposedly scorpions can't crawl up glass surfaces, so if you make sure your bedding isn't hanging down on the floor and your bed is pulled out from the wall they can't get into your bed if you have these things under the posts. I don't know. We're willing to try anything. I think all we really bought is peace of mind, but it's better than nothing.

Happy last-minute Independence Day!

On the third of July the elders quorom (the men's group in our church) was in charge of hosting a dinner dance for all the adults in our church. Since Jake is in the preseidency in our elders quorom we had to help put it together. It was kindof last minute considering that only a couple weeks prior the bishop had asked the quorom president how the dance plans were coming and he was totally clueless that there was supposed to be a dance. We got back form our Tahoe trip the week before and didn't know about it until the Sunday before it was supposed to happen. Anyways, we took over the decorating and the desserts. I thought that given the short notice the decorations turned out really great. Too bad I didn't take my camera with me to the dance! After Jake and I spent 2 hours setting up the church with very little help it started, but only about 30 minutes after it started the power went out! It was a real bummer. At least we all got to eat. The power was out in that whole area of the city. We did go outside and continue dancing in the parking lot for a little while, but we ended early and took down all of our hard work in decorations with flashlights. It was still fun to dance in the parking lot though.

This Fourth of July we decided to host a party. It was pretty last minute as well because we had only been home from our Tahoe trip for a week or so, and by the time we thought to have a party a lot of people already had plans. Also we were pretty busy with the dance that was only the day before. But we had a few friends come over in the afternoon and swim, then we had an early dinner outside. It turned out really well. Summer parties are pretty easy with a pool. I don't feel like I have to do much entertaining aside from the food. We just say "go swim" and everyone has a great time. Here is our decked out backyard, I reused some of the decorations from the dance:
This is us at the fireworks. We went and parked in the parking lot of Jake's work. It is right across the street from the park where they do the fireworks show and they only let employees in to watch from there. We sat with some work friends and it was really fun.
Here is Kailey at the party. She loves her bumbo! She will sit in that thing all day, but she won't do swings or bouncers. I just thought this picture turned out ultra cute.

Here are a bunch of people in the pool:

I have to end by saying how grateful I am to live in this country. If you haven't ever read the book 1776, you should read it. It is a nonfiction account of that year, but is written like a fiction. It really made me feel like this country could only have come to be with the help of our God. The outlook of the independence of this country was so bleak from every angle. After reading that book it leaves you wondering if we really did win the war. I just feel like there is no way that we could have won independence without divine intervention. I am grateful for the freedoms that we enjoy in this country, and I hope to be more involved in my community in the upcoming year. We will see.

A Nightmare Come True

I had a very scary night on the 4th of July. We were tired after a long Independence Day, and we crashed into bed as soon as the kids were in bed. Kailey woke me up at 3am so she could eat and I had fallen back asleep with her lying next to me in our bed. At 4am I woke up again with a searing pain in my right arm. It was like a fire inside my arm and went all of the way up to my shoulder. Jake says he woke to me moaning and he thought I was having a nightmare. I wasn't fully awake, and I wasn't sure if I was dreaming the pain or if it was real. Then I felt a terrible pain in my right leg as well. That woke me all of the way up. I could feel that there was something in the bed but I didn't know what it was. I was thrashing around shrieking from the pain and trying to get away from whatever it was. Jake grabbed me because he thought I was having a bad dream and he was trying to wake me up. I can't relate what happened next because everything was just a reaction, there was no thought involved. All I remember is that the next thing I knew I was on the floor holding Kailey and was in terrible pain and Jake standing over the bed ready to kill the culprit with a shoe.
He had discovered a large Arizona Bark Scorpion in our bed.
For the first couple of hours I only felt the burning pain at the two sights I was stung: my right upper under arm and my right thigh. Jake got me some ice and we called the poison control center. They told me that I should only go to the hospital if I start having severe muscle spasms or siezures. I was hurting and feeling funny, but I was told that I just had to wait it out and it would pass in a couple of days. There was no way we could go back to sleep. We were so paranoid and I was hurting a lot. We checked all of the kids beds and started researching on the internet about what we could do. When I finally fell asleep again I kept waking up feeling like someone was trying to smother me with a pillow. I called poison control again and she said it's very normal for my throat to swell from a scorpion sting and it could be causing the trouble with breathing. She said I shouldn't go to the hospital unless I start wheezing because they wouldn't do anything for me until that point. I only had the trouble breathing when I was asleep. So I just gave up on sleeping and went out to watch TV and get my mind off of things.
After the kids got up I got them some cereal, but I found that I couldn't stand for more than a minute without getting really dizzy and light headed. Then my entire face went numb like I had just gotten out of the dentist office. I couldn't taste hardly anything and had a difficult time swallowing due to my swollen throat. When
Kailey woke up I found that I had no milk to give her. My body had stopped making breast milk (or was making very little milk) and Kailey reluctantly had to take a bottle.
I lay on the couch for the rest of the morning, drifting in and out of sleep and feeling very delirious. I knew that I was awake, but at times my vision was cloudy and I was light headed so it seemed like I was dreaming. We don't have church until 1:00, and at that time I was feeling okay after laying down all morning. I still had a lot of pain in my arm and leg, and I was still pretty numb in my face, but otherwise okay. When I was in the shower the hot water on the two stings hurt so bad. I felt a creeping sensation underneath my skin in those two places. And when I got out of the shower I had a patch of goosebumps just on those spots. It was weird. We went to church, but during sacrament meeting I went into a cold sweat and started feeling very dizzy. So we ended up getting someone to help give me a blessing and then leaving. After laying around and drinking water all day I felt much better that evening, though my milk still hadn't returned for Kailey.
Now aside from being very paranoid I am doing pretty good. My milk came back in today and Kailey was so happy it was funny. I keep looking all over the house and under beds. I had a very hard time falling asleep last night. It is crazy that something that small could have so much power. We are so grateful that it was me who was stung and not Kailey. She was laying on my right side in between the two places where I was stung. The scorpion would have had to go right past her to sting me again. I feel like she was protected and that night we immediately had to pray to God and give thanks that Kailey was not harmed. Scorpion stings can be fatal to small children. It makes me scared because I feel so vulnerable. We already get the house sprayed regularly and we don't know what more we can do. It certainly was a scary experience, but all is well. I am just left today with a little numbness, some tingling and two big itchy red spots.