Baby Blessing

Lars was blessed in church the first week in June. We were lucky to have Dan and Melinda in town. My parents drove in the night before and my brother Curtis and his family surprised us that morning by driving down from St. George. The Thalmans came and that was our group.

Ryan meditated and thought some beforehand about what to include in the blessing. He blessed Lars to grow and develop wisdom and courage. To have grit, perseverance, and resilience to meet the challenges of life. He blessed him to have compassion and kindness, to treat others with dignity and respect. He was blessed to act on promptings, to have a strong attachment to his sisters and to be obedient to his mother :), and to go with the ebbs and flows of life. He also blessed him to be a link between generations and with his family history.

It was a beautiful blessing, punctuated only by my dad's very loud cell phone that RANG in the circle during the blessing! It was so loud and distracting that Ryan forgot to bless Lars to be ridiculously good-looking and extremely successful!

June and Brody

Aunt Jenn and Lars

Brody and Willa - only six months apart and both four-eyes

Beckham-man, - THE sweetest boy you will ever meet

Don't judge me by this photo - it's pre-make-up and also pre what I was going to be wearing that day, I think!

Rebecca had a girls weekend that had been planned long before the blessing. Luckily her flight arrived in the afternoon and she was still able to join us for dinner that day.

I just love his little face here. It's a good picture of both of them.

 I went back and forth about what to dress him in. I definitely did not want to do one of those mini-white satin tuxes. Those are adult clothes, not baby clothes. I don't ever think they look very cute and usually they are just saggy around a tiny baby. I wanted something really babyish. There were some cute little knit outfits online, and Alyson sent me that cute blue and gray one that I posted a photo of earlier. It just seemed so hot in Las Vegas in June to put him in a knit outfit. In the end, I decided on this Aden & Anais cotton kimono. It was on Zappos, and Rebecca and Shannon had both got me other similar items for him to wear and I had LOVED them. The cotton is so lightweight and breathable, it felt summery to me. Plus, they just looks so sweet and innocent - perfect babywear in my opinion (and believe me, I've got opinions on what baby boys should wear!). We ordered this white one with the silver design for him and I loved it. I was worried the 3-6 month size would be too big, but he was already busting out of the 0-3 month size. I think it looked nice on him and I'm still trying and about to be failing at squeezing a few last wears out of it for him now. That's a hunka hunka baby!

With Dad

The Art Show

Degas Ballet Dancer

Willa loves Fancy Nancy books and I've been so impressed at the little facts and especially "fancy" words that she has learned and retained from these books! She loves the book Fancy Nancy: Artist Extraordinaire and one time at one of my many doctor's appointments there was a Monet print in the room and she asked about it and when I said it was Monet she chirped "he liked to paint outside!" She decided she wanted to hold an art show just like Nancy. In fact, the art show was a goal for several months and seasons, but we could never get the timing just right. Finally everything fell into place. Lest anyone think she is too much of a genius, in the end she decided to copy the art from the book because she was having trouble producing her own art that fit all the categories.

She made a sign on her door "Welcome to the Art Show"

This sign says "Free" and she had colored small little scraps that you could take as a souvenir.

Imitation of Gustav Klimt

Another Degas Ballet Dancer

Monet Tulips in the Sunshine

Money Tulips with a cloud covering the sun

There was also a Jackson Pollock, but I guess I didn't get a picture of it. It was all just so adorable and cute and she was very sweet as she welcomed you to her gallery and showed you the various works of art. I think this would be a GREAT summertime activity for a mom who is just a little more put together than me. You could have an art camp week where you study different works of art and then try to imitate the style. Willa threw it all together by herself, but with a little direction you could really make an event of it! She wanted to have people over, so we invited the next door neighbor kids to walk through. And luckily, that night Brandon and Rebecca were coming for dinner so they had a chance to see the gallery too. Unfortunately, I drew the line at refreshments, so that's why she drew the little souvenir scraps of paper.

Back Scratch Test

Towards the end of June I also had my back scratch test for allergies. It was a tricky test because they apply the strips on a Monday, then you return both Wednesday and Friday to read the results. And did I mention that you can't get your back wet the entire time? Yuck, especially with all this heat!! The doctor attached more than 70 allergens to my back. They outlined everything with pen in case things rubbed or got distorted. I debated posting this photo, but the process was so interesting to me, so here it is. As you can see, I've still got a lot of baby weight to lose.

So each rectangular area was a white strip that had allergens on it. They taped these to my back on Monday and I wore them on there until I went in on Wednesday. They removed the strips and read any early results. Then they sent me home to see if any new reactions started with the strips off. Then I went back on Friday for the final read. I'd heard it was a very itchy test. It was mildly itchy, but not too bad for me. The positive sites were definitely itchy, so if you were allergic to lots of stuff it would probably be pretty uncomfortable.

And guess what, we had a lucky winner!!! I'm VERY allergic to Benzocaine! On Wednesday, that site was already bubbling and blistery.

 Benzocaine is a topical anesthetic. The doctor started reading a list of items it is in (stuff like Orajel or Hemorrhoid cream). I started getting excited because I remembered the spray they gave me in the hospital but I couldn't remember the name. I texted Ryan and he replied that it was Dermoplast. I gave the doctor the name of it, and turns out that Dermoplast is 20% Benzocaine!!! Answers!!! It was so thrilling and exciting to know what caused the reaction! And now I can know what to avoid in the future. I almost skipped down the hallway after the appointment. I was so happy. The doctor was really happy too. I had two other good reactions and two other trace reactions to the items. There is a scale to measure. So the Benzocaine caused the most severe reaction and got a certain number, the others were less. The weird thing is that two weeks later I was in Utah swimming and had an itch on my back. When I was changing, I looked in the mirror, thinking it was a mosquito bite, and it was a very clear little square! So I called the Dermatologist's office and emailed in the pictures. I was still in Utah, but we made an appointment for me to come back in when I got home. I was mainly worried that it was a totally new reaction.

When I went back, they checked the photo and the site with all the photos they took of my back. They determined it wasn't a new reaction, but rather one of the "trace" reactions had developed into something more. Apparently there can be delayed reactions and the doctor said this was the longest delay he had ever seen.

The doctor gave me a printout of everything I tested positive for and a list of common items that these things exist in. I can also go on a certain website and type in one of the substances to get a complete list. It was all just fascinating to me! Isn't modern medicine wonderful! Now I can continue to live without wondering if I'm allergic to every little thing.

June!

School started again this week, so I guess it's time to catch up posting about our fun summer. We actually had a short summer this year because the school district wants to be on a schedule where the kids finish the term before Christmas break. That means they need to start in mid-August. Next year, we'll also get out early, in May, I think. But it made this summer about two weeks shorter than normal as they adjusted.

In June we swam a LOT. It was very hot. If I remember correctly, Vegas had its longest consecutive run of 110 degree days or higher since the 1960s or something. Hot, hot, hot. Honestly, I didn't mind it so much. We ran any necessary errands in the morning and then just swam. Once or twice I thought it might be fun to go somewhere in the afternoon and I almost always regretted it. You get so overheated just going in and out of the car in that heat! But if we got our stuff done in the morning and hung out at home during the worst of it, then it seemed okay. I also have to say that our house is a good 5+ degrees cooler than the rest of Las Vegas. It's a little up on the hill and feels not nearly as hot sometimes.

After experiencing our first full summer in Las Vegas with our own pool I can definitely say that having a pool is the best thing EVER!!! People who say they don't want a pool are crazy, in my humble opinion. We really didn't get the cabin fever we've gotten other years because we could always go out in the pool. On really hot days, I would think back how in the old house we would have just been cooped up the whole day. But here, the girls still might get two, three, four hours of active play in the water. I love having a pool so much!! To be fair, our house is a lot bigger too, which definitely helped us from getting cabin fever as bad too.

I don't know if I've mentioned it on the blog, but our ward has a couple of extremely wealthy families in it. The Relief Society held a little swim day at one of the houses to mark the beginning of summer. This one pool was incredible.

 These pictures are out of order - but let's not forget that June's preschool had a little water party for the very last day of school. She really liked Ms. Braun and Ms. T, I think she will like her new preschool even more. Three days a week with five other little girls. She starts in two weeks.

 At the beginning June, Willa had another piano recital. She got another trophy for passing her Musicianship Level 2 exams - both written and playing. She had to identify and play more major and minor scales and pentascales. The written portion was quite tricky, especially for a six year old! And she got a second trophy for using her talent to serve (she played the opening prelude for Primary one week), and they also get a medal at each recital. These are all very precious items to her.

 Rebecca had a birthday and we got to celebrate at Dan and Melinda's new house! They bought a house around the corner from us. And while they aren't technically "moving" they are enjoying time at the second home now and then and we enjoy having them close.

 Love this picture of Brandon and Lars.

 One of the extremely hot afternoons I dragged the girls out and shouldn't have. We wanted to try out a new Shaved Ice place and decided to stop by the library too. It was too much. Then the Shaved Ice was very good, but not kid friendly - meaning the coconut flavor actually had bits of coconut in it. So then, to make up for that disappointment and because it was so hot, we threw that away and got an ice cream cone there, but Willa also didn't like that flavor... It was a hot and disappointing afternoon despite the smiles.