11 Months of James Murphy.

Old blog post catch up!

I can't believe it is just one month until the big birthday. James has grown in leaps and bounds this last month.

This month James started pulling himself up all the time. The first time was against the bath tub, which means we're in for it!

It's starting to warm up, which means swimming time! James is not thrilled.

He is SO busy now! Always getting into things. He can rip open DVD cases so fast. And if you can't find him, he's probably in the bathroom unrolling the toilet paper as fast as he can.

He's also getting SO funny. There is just something so hilarious about how he acts when he's trying to be funny. Like he thought this red nose from the Walgreens initiative was so funny. It cracked me up!

(That is also his Dwight hair.)

He's starting to test Cora's patience. She tries SO hard to be nice to him and not get mad, but he tackles her and takes her toys. Poor Cora.

Church with this age is... "fun". I'm basically keeping everyone from stepping on him and keeping him from killing himself.

James LOVES his babas. He has this weird tendency to arch his back and drink it upside down. 

If he sees me pulling out the formula he screams! Like buddy, it will be just a few seconds. I don't even warm it up anymore because he freaks out!

Jamers. I love you! ONE MORE MONTH.

Yosemite trip.

So with the Yosemite half marathon, we spent a few days in Bass Lake and Yosemite with the Giullians and Dallin and Krystel.

Our cabin was an Airbnb, and it delivered! It was a great cabin that overlooked the lake, as you can see.

 Two of our cheerleaders.

 James liked all the attention from the big boys.

 How is that comfortable? 

 Angel boy.

 Mother's Day Picture.

 A highlight was getting to see Bubba! She is happy and doing well in Puerto Rico.

 I had to drive home late Sunday night to go teach my final lesson for student teaching early Monday morning, and met up with everyone else in Yosemite. It's hard to describe the beauty of coming around the corner and seeing El Capitan and Half Dome just sitting there.

 Cora enjoyed the dirt.

 Yosemite chapel.

 Gates to the Valley. It's stunning. And national park 11 for us!

 James had Luis wrapped around his finger.

 Charlotte is a tiny angel!

 Cora asks to hold Charlotte every chance she gets.

 One of the perks of the Airbnb was that we had kayaks we could bring down to the lake. Cora had a blast! Maybe James can try it sometime when I am not so afraid of him throwing himself out.

It was a fun weekend, we'll have to do it again!

Yosemite Half Marathon.

Since I can't sleep, might as well catch up on blogging right?

To back up, I heard about this cool company called Vacation Races about a year and a half ago. I saw they had a new half marathon through the Everglades, and signed up. But then that was when we went to Ecuador, so I decided to change it to the Miami Halloween Half instead. 

However, since I was following the page on Facebook and still got emails from them, I saw that they had a lot of interesting races. When we moved here, I saw the Yosemite half marathon. It was the same day as Ashlee and Luis' wedding (and I was 8 months pregnant), so it wasn't going to work that year. But I decided that would be my comeback race in 2018. This was before I signed up for the End of the Trail half that I did in February.

So when the price opened up in August, I told Brandon I wanted to do this and he agreed that it would be fun. So I signed up, then he said "Hey, I think I want to run this too!" Obviously the only way that would work was if we had someone else to watch the kids, so we invited the Giullians and made it a 5 day family trip. Megan and Luis wanted to run it (Ashlee initially considered it then got pregnant.) Then the craziest thing happened! I was telling a few friends about it one day at lunch, and THEY said they wanted to do it! Then Dallin and Krystel decided to take us up on our invitation to come since they have an internship out here and Dallin signed up! By the time everyone who wanted to signed up, we had 12 people!

I was hoping to be done with WGU by now, but it obviously wasn't in the cards with everything that has happened. So it was a little stressful training for a half while student teaching. But I got the long runs in and a few runs during the weeks leading up to the race.

The night before, I made sure to designate one person to be in front of each child, and gave them instructions. Moms are still moms, even when they are running half marathons at unholy hours of the night. We had to get up at 3:30 for the race. I ate a little bit of bread, but was overall too nervous. They had hot chocolate at the start of the run, which was AMAZING because it was freezing.

Here was our crew! 

These were the girls I ran with. They would always be able to find me in a crowd with this jacket. 

The first 5 miles were rocky trail on a fire road. Lots of hills, and you couldn't move too fast because you would turn your ankle. Someone actually did sprain their ankle, apparently. That was kind of tough, but then the next 5 miles were all downhill. We FLEW through that portion! Ran it in less than an hour, which was 2-3 minutes per mile faster than normal. I had a goal of running it in less than 3 hours, and a stretch goal of less than 2:45. I felt AWESOME after mile 10 so I decided to run ahead to try to make that stretch goal. 

That did not last long. My body was like a car out of gas. I was literally just lurching along trying to get to the finish line. My friends eventually caught up, and weren't even mad that I tried to beat them. 

Those last 3 miles were BRUTAL. There were rolling hills the entire time, and everyone I talked to said they were awful. Brandon even said it was more mentally taxing than his 2 a day football practices in high school. Having friends there pushed me through to the end!

 When we crossed, we checked our time. 2:57:55! We DID IT!

So proud of all of us. Dallin ran his first half in 2:02 which is AMAZING considering he signed up a month ago, Brandon beat the elusive 2 hour spot, Megan did 2:19 on an upset stomach, and Luis did 2:28 4 weeks after Ashlee had baby Charlotte.

Just before this picture, I started feeling REALLY sick. I forced my way through a smile (Because YAY we actually ran the same half marathon!), then ran to the bathroom. 

I tried eating 3 goldfish and had to spit them on the ground because they were not going to go down. When I got back to Brandon he said I looked like death and was severely hypoglycemic. I needed sugar, and thankfully he had an apple in his bag.  Instead of taking the shuttle back to the car, I walked very very very very very slowly back to the car that Ashlee and Krystel drove over. After an apple, a hamburger and Coke from McDonald's, and some Scotcheroos I was on the mend. But that was kind of scary since it's never happened before, and embarrassing since I had just run one! What the heck happened??

We figured out that there were a few things. 1) I didn't eat much before the run. Not even a whole piece of bread. and 2) since this race company is cup free I already had water in my water bottle belt. So I didn't get any Gatorade. Normally I'll have a little Gatorade in my halfs, but I didn't think I'd miss it! And finally 3) It was a big change. 5,500 feet elevation at the beginning, 2,000 feet elevation drop, and lots of hills. Nothing I was used to.

So future Camille, just so you know- Take the Gatorade, eat beforehand, and for the love of Pete FIND PANTS THAT WON'T ALLOW CHAFING! Holy Hannah. It was a tough half, but we are hooked. Next up, St. George Marathon in October! Unless I am crazy enough to sign up for something else first.

Cora's ear tubes.

Cora has always been a healthy child. So when she got an ear infection in December, we didn't know until she told us her ear hurt. We brought her in to find out that both ears were infected and her right ear drum had burst. I felt awful! That is so painful! 

After a round of antibiotics she said her ears felt better, but we went to the followup a month later just in case. 

Still infected. Another round of a stronger antibiotic. She got sick and checked out a week before her followup, and they were STILL INFECTED. But at the followup they had cleared. Thank goodness!

I'm not even kidding, five days later she woke up crying and saying "My ears hurt". I thought "Well GREAT." 

Brought her in, sure enough infected again! Just for reference, her ears were infected for 2 years straight (Minus 5 days or so).

This time my pediatrician made a referral to an ENT. They scheduled it for 2 months later, just before her birthday.

 Cora insisted on wearing her Mulan dress and blanket as a cape. WHATEVER.

When we went to the ENT, he did a test that showed her ears were totally coated by mucus. He performed a test on her ears and they did not react to air being blown. He said "This isn't going to go away on its own, she definitely needs tubes". Which made my decision easier! He said her tubes would help her hear 25-30% better.

 Her surgery was scheduled for May 1, we had to be there at 8:15 AM. The night before we went to Yogurtland for family night and Cora got a little bit of EVERYTHING.

 She wasn't allowed to eat after midnight or drink anything after 4:15 AM, so I fasted too so she didn't see me eating in the car. She brought her baby and Bun Bun. I felt like I was bringing a lamb to the slaughter.

 She was not happy about the hair net.

 Knowing Cora needed to go back and go under anesthesia was gut wrenching to me. I tried to explain to her that she was going to wear a space mask that smelled like marshmallows (her scent of choice), and I thought I'd get a wave or something when they brought her back. Instead I got this:

 I stood there trying to be strong for her as I heard her screams for mom fading in the background. But really I just wanted to run back there and help her. And it was such a fast procedure. It was 10 minutes before I could go back. She was freaking out but not awake. She was "hulking out" and fighting off her nurses and had this bizarre cry that hurt me to hear. But she calmed down immediately when I got her. We sat there for about half an hour as she napped and I tried to convince her to take off the gown and put on clothes. She would barely lift her head off the chest and shake it "no". But I finally got her to put a shirt on... pants? Not so much. Again, WHATEVER.

 As we got ready to leave she barely whispered "Can I have a Popsicle?" And the nurses got us one. As we were leaving her head whipped around and she said "Mom, did you hear that?" So it seems that it was effective! In addition, I only had to turn the volume on the music up about half the volume I did on the way there.

After some Chick Fil A french fries and a nap at home, she perked back up.

You never know how lucky you have it until something like that happens. Even though she was only out for 5 minutes and she was never in real danger, it ripped my heart out. I cannot even imagine the fear and sadness parents feel when their child has something worse happen. Some of our friends have had major health challenges with their kids, including major surgeries, and I understood the tiniest bit of what they felt for just a second. Bless them!