Doug's Eye Surgery--PRK

Doug had PRK a few weeks ago. He was unable to do LASIK because he has thin corneas so this was his only option. For LASIK the cut a flap in the top part of your eye and fold it back to do the laser, in PRK they dissolve the top layer of your eye so they can do the laser! Crazy right. PRK is supposed to be more painful and take longer to get your eyesight where it will be.

We drove down to Salt Lake on February 11th to have the surgery done. I was expecting to have a blind husband the entire weekend. We dropped him off and two hours later picked him up. He said he could already see better than he could before without his glasses, and there was no pain. Here is the video of them doing his right eye: warning it is kind of gross if you don't like this kind of stuff, like me (I couldn't watch it all).

Doug says it felt nothing like what the video shows. He was just staring at a green light and it just got clearer and clearer as it went on.

Then he had to sleep with these on his eyes for 5 days...

So all weekend he could see great and there was no pain. Then Saturday night he woke up in pain and had to put ice on his eyes for a few hours. The next day he couldn't see great and Monday his vision was terrible, but he went to work anyway! Tuesday he had his follow up appointment and they said his vision was 20/40 which is legal to drive.

Our camera is broken so this is the best picture we have without his glasses, which he shot with his gun.

So for the next month he vision with continue to get better and better, hopefully! I guess we will see in about a month!

Jordyn'sBirthday

Jordyn's birthday was last Friday. We decided that because it was her first birthday away from home we should throw her a surprise party. She was surprised, but she was holding Michael when she was surprised and screamed right in his ear. Poor Michael I am sure doesn't like birthdays anymore.

First we had cake so James could have some before he went to bed. James LOVES birthdays.

We played speed cootie, which was a lot of fun, and the winner and looser got prizes. Jordyn was the ultimate winner, and Blake was the ultimate looser. Then we opened presents. Of course we had to to Heavy Heavy Hangover...

She actually liked the boots we picked out! Amazing.

And of course we discovered not long after the party started that Jordyn and I wore the exact same thing. Not planned, and would have been more embarrassing if it was just a plain black t-shirt.

My Goal This Year

Doug will be posting about his eye surgery later, probably when he can see well enough to type. Until then I thought I would post about what I've been working on, my goal for the year. First of all I have to say I love fresh eggs. My neighbors have chickens and they give us fresh eggs, and in my opinion they taste so much better!

Now what we've been working on this year is our food storage. Saturday we went to the Army Surplus store and got a few things for our 72-hour kits. Doug also bought me this hat (he says it's my Valentines gift) but James decided that it is his hat.

We have decided by the end of the year to have our 3 month supply and 72-hour kits ready to go. So when we got our tax return I used some of the money to buy some of our food storage. I don't know what we will do when we move to a house that doesn't have such a nice closet to store everything in.

The biggest problem we have found with our 3-month supply is remembering to replace what we have used since this is stuff we use often. So I found this idea on another blog and decided to give it a try. I closed and cut envelopes in half, then wrote the item on them and taped them to the wall. Then when you use something you put a strip of paper in the envelope. When you go to the store you can see what you have used and put it on your shopping list. So I taped these up on the wall behind the door and hopefully we will remember to use it and keep our pantry stocked.

I Lost the Battle

Sunday we had a Superbowl party at our house. Actually Tim had a Superbowl party at our house. The boys did a lot of getting ready. Here they are making fried mozzarella sticks. They also made Jalapeno poppers, chicken wings, and little smokies. Real healthy!

I set up the little TV in our room for James. He spent the time watching Up. He is not our social child.

Michael is finally learning how to crawl. He is almost 9 months old, and this is the only progress he has made.

Finally, I have lost the battle with Michael's hair. Doug has been trying from day one to cut Michael's hair. I have been doing everything I could to keep this from happening. He did manage to take a couple of chunks out of the back while I was not in the room, he heard me coming however so it looked really bad and of course I found out. So I have noticed for a while that Michael has needed a hair cut because it is getting in his eyes, but I haven't wanted to cut it because it is so cute and soft and I don't want to ruin it.

Yesterday Doug decided he was going to cut it. It took a lot of coaxing but I managed to talk him into using the longest setting.Here he is with his new hair cut. I love that you can see his eyes better, but I miss the long hair.

8 Months

Michael is 8 months old! It doesn't seem like it has been that long. He loves "playing" with his big brother. Usually this is James showing him how he is doing things wrong, but Michael just loves the attention. Yesterday in the bath James started spitting water out of his mouth, and Michael thought it was the funniest thing in the world. He would laugh, then try repeating the noise his brother made. It was pretty cute.

Michael also loves to eat anything we are eating. A lot of time if I am feeding him and eating something myself he gets really mad because he wants my food instead of his. He also loves graham crackers. He can find a graham cracker from anywhere in the room. We tried putting a graham cracker out of reach to see if it would motivate him to move, but he just pulled the blanket so it moved to him.

Some other things Michael does:

• rolls over occasionally
• sleeps a ton, usually wakes up on his tummy
• tolerates tummy time if Mom or Dad are not in the room
• loves his puppy Scout and his Zoo toy
• gives cute kisses (open mouth)
• sucks his thumb

Potty Training

Potty training James has been a non-existent activity in our home. I have no expectations of him being potty trained before he is 3 and I am hoping that he will be by the time he is 4. James has absolutely zero interest in using the potty, and Doug and I have often said that Michael will be potty trained before James. I actually think he is afraid of it. One time he pooped in the shower, and he was afraid to take a shower for a long time because of the "brown yuckies". So for Christmas we bought him a "big boy potty" hoping to spark a little interest. No such luck. Mostly he likes to use it for a hat.

So today I decided that I was going to get him to go on the potty. I know once he understands what the potty is for he might actually like it. So I stripped him down (no protest there, he loves to be naked) and put him on the toilet. He got right off. I wasn't going to give up. I decided that if I was just careful in watching him I could catch him in the act and put him on the toilet. So I followed him around all morning, nothing. Finally Michael woke up from his nap and I went to get him. While I was changing his diaper I thought maybe I could make James jealous by putting Michael on the potty. So I did. He loved it!

But James didn't even care that Michael was sitting on it, in fact I don't even think he noticed. So I took Michael off, the seat stuck to his bum. When I grabbed it, it was all wet. Sure enough when I looked in the potty there was pee! So I guess we were right that Michael will be potty trained before James!

Food Cubes

So I am pretty proud of myself, and thought I would share. We have decided to make our own baby food for Michael. I tried it once for James, but decided it was just too much work. But in an attempt to save money we decided it would be worth the work this time. Plus it supposedly tastes more like the real food so they are more likely to eat the food when they are older, I guess we will see on that one. One thing I did notice with James was that he loved the bananas in a jar, but would not eat a real banana. So awhile ago I made a bunch of baby food and put it in the freezer. The problem I noticed right away was that my freezer containers were much larger than would be practical. I would have to get 1 out at a time and that meant he would be eating the same food the entire week.

So the other day while I was searching for baby food recipes I came across this site that kept talking about "food cubes" and I thought what in the world is a "food cube?" A little digging around revealed this wonderful idea: Freeze the baby food in ice cube trays. Each cube turns out to be about 1 oz. So you freeze the food in cubes then transfer them to Ziplock bags once they are frozen. Genius!

So of course I ran right out and got some ice cube trays and spent the past couple of days making food cubes. It worked perfectly! I made chicken, carrots, yogurt, green beans, peas and sweet potatoes. Now I just have to pull out a couple of cubes and he has a complete meal!

Now for your viewing pleasure. James loves my new MacBook (as do I). The great thing he loves is he WebCam. He loves talking to Grammy and Grandad (who also have a Mac) and seeing their "funny faces". Yesterday Grammy was busy so he had to be content with James (photo booth). He is hilarious. This is "two James"

This is tunnel: