And You Smell Like A Monkey Too...

This post could have been called a lot of things, like Pneumonia, or Jace's Birthday, or Craziness. But I have heard the above phrase a couple hundred times over the last few days and it is now burned in my brain forever. On Jace's birthday (don't worry...lots of pictures of the great event follow) I took him and some friends to lunch at Carl's Jr. since we weren't having an official friends party this year. They sang "Happy Birthday" to each other over and over always adding "And you smell like a monkey too" at the end. Unbelievably they never stopped thinking it was hilarious. Braxton was there and wants to by funny like the big boys so he joined in too. I think it will be a permanent fixture to the birthday song at our house now. I was about to say until they get older and don't think it is funny anymore, but Jace sang it to Tyler who is 24 and he cracked up, so it might be with us forever....anyways on to catching up for the last couple of weeks.

I will start with the pneumonia. Poor Tim is the one who caught it and it has been horrible. I have never seen him so sick. A week ago Saturday we had tickets to the BYU game against UCLA. I was so excited because it had been a busy week and it was going to be our first real date without any kids since we had Ashlyn. We were going to go to the game and then go out to dinner with his siblings at one of our favorite restaurants. So we head to the stadium and he goes to our seats while I go buy us some lunch. As I am standing in line I hear everyone going crazy because the team was playing great and I thought I would go up there to find Tim going crazy like everyone else. When I got to our seats however, everyone was standing and cheering and Tim was sitting down staring at the floor. I ignored my first impulse that something was wrong because I was determined that we were going to have a fun day together. So I squeeze past a dozen people to where he is sitting and give him his food. He didn't look very good but I told him he probably just needed to eat and get some energy. So he eats a little and then says he thinks he is getting a fever. I think, no the sun is beating down on us and you are just hot, you are not getting sick, we are going to have fun today. So I squeeze past the dozen people again to go get him some ice cream and a wet paper towel to put on the back of his neck. He eats a little and says the paper towel feels good, but still just sits and looks at the floor. After a little while he says he thinks he wants to leave at halftime. That is when I knew we were in trouble. This from the guy who not only watches every game live but tapes them to watch again later. And he wants to leave at halftime. Against UCLA. So I say (still trying to salvage our fun day together) just to rest and we will see how he feels at halftime but maybe he will feel better by then. We were packed around tons of people so I try to scoot over to give him as much room and air as possible hoping that will help, but a few minutes later he is throwing up in his lunch tray. Then I knew we were in serious trouble because he hasn't thrown up in 12 years. I fight my first inclination to climb over the top of everyone around us (I live in fear of seeing people throw up) and try to be as comforting as I can. So now there is no question, we are leaving, and it just so happened to be half time then. Unfortunately, that meant thousands of people decided to take a bathroom/food break at once and we were trying to fight our way through them to the exits. Tim looked so pale, I was so afraid that he was going to pass out and I would have to try and carry him out, or worse, he would throw up again and we would both pass out and be trampled by thousands of people. We eventually made it out and he laid in the grass while I went and got the car. I thought he would get better after we got out of the sun and he got to lay down but no. Then I thought he would get better after 24 hours, like most bugs, but he just kept getting worse. So Monday morning I took him to the doctor (along with all of our kids...it is a miracle that the worst thing that happened was spilling drinks all over a chair, they were especially rambunctious that day) and he had a chest x-ray and they found his left lung with fluid and junk it it. So he got 3 different antibiotics and has been slowly recovering ever since. I am so thankful he is getting better. I hated seeing him so miserable. He still gets tired pretty easily, but other than that is back to his old self. : ) We are hoping that it stays that way. I am hoping the next time we go on a date it goes a little better : )

So, between that and Jace starting preschool again, Ashlyn and Brax getting over colds, throwing my sister a bridal shower and Jace's birthday it has been a crazy couple of weeks. Jace had a great birthday. We gave him the choice of having a friends birthday party or going to Disneyland when we go to California for Elyse's wedding. He picked Disneyland, which in hindsight is really good because Tim felt pretty sick that day. I can't believe I have a 5 year old. Five sounds so much older than four. He is such a cute little guy and has seemed more grown up to me lately. Here are some pics of his big day.

Okay, this isn't his birthday and this picture is mostly for Tim's parents. Tim's mom saved all of Tim's Lego's from when he was younger and Jace has inherited his love for them. He LOVES to build all sorts of things with them and his skills have already far surpassed my one-dimensional building skills.
Here he is saying don't mess with me or my birthday badges. He got them at preschool and was very proud of them.

Here is is with one of his friends at lunch in the play place.

Jace chose this WALL-E cake that I think might go down in our family history as the ugliest cake ever, but he loved it, and that is what is important.

My mom and I took him and Brax to Build-A-Bear. They had never been but had a lot of fun. Jace picked a monkey and named it Benson. Brax picked a puppy and named it Puppy.

He got lots of fun presents including a few of these Jump Into Reading books. He is doing so good with his reading and has already gotten really good at a couple of them.

He was so excited that his Nana and Papa sent him a gift card to Target just like Braxton. He has been wanting this toy for a good 7 or 8 months and FINALLY got it.

He is also the proud owner of a new big boy bike. He was really excited that it had hand brakes and looked like a race bike. He is such sweet little boy and is becoming such a good help to me. Braxton loves him and wants to be just like him. We are so glad our little Jace joined our family 5 years ago.

Here are a couple of pics of our sweet little Ashlyn. The boys were playing patty cake with her and she was loving it. She continues to be such a good baby. We are so glad she is ours. I love kissing her chubby little cheeks. : )
Okay, I realize there are no pics this time of Braxton and yes he is still with us. Every picture I have of him in the last two weeks though he has his eyes closed, or he is looking away or he has a runny nose or something. So in case anyone was worried, no he is not loved the least. : )

Phew. You made it to the end of the post. Congratulations. I will try not to wait so long in between posts this time so the next one isn't so long. : )