$2,000 Teddy Bear......

This is Brinley's new teddy bear that only cost around $2,000 and maybe even more! I am used to buying her babies or toys at garage sales for .25 cents but we thought we would splurge a little bit with this one. It all started one quiet night when I thought Brinley was fast asleep. She had come out of her room to go to the bathroom and then had gone back in her room. Everything was quiet for a while but then I heard some banging on the wall and thought she was reading books but felt like I should go and check on her.

I was furious when I found a First Aid Kit Brian had made as a scout completely dumped out with band-aids stuck to and antibiotic cream smeared on the library books. Sterile bandages were opened and wrappers were everywhere. I was so mad that I just picked up piles of things and put them out in the hall to clean up later. As I went to tuck Brinley into bed again I noticed two empty pill wrappers (the kind you have to push individual pills out to break the seal) and a bunch of white broken up pill pieces on her bed sheets. I frantically started collecting the tiny pieces and empty pill wrappers. I couldn't tell what type of pills they were because the back wrappers were ripped. I had an idea to go and check the pile I had put in the hall and ended up finding about 8 more pills still connected together and read on the back that they were Actifed. There was a total of 4 empty pill wrappers and I collected about 1 pill in crumbs. So she had eaten 3 or 4 of them. I kept trying to ask Brinley how many she ate and what happened but she knew something bad had happened and that I was very mad so she just kept saying, "I not tell you!."

I tried calling my Father-in-Law who is a doctor but he was camping so I called poison control and they told me to take her to the ER right away. Brian was at school and I didn't really want to take her there because the kids insurance is still through a Utah company and we don't have the money and I didn't want to take her there and have them just monitor her because I could do that from home. Brian finally got home around 11:00 p.m. and we got hold of a doctor in Heber who said she should be fine if we just monitor her from home. So about midnight I listened to her heart and breath rate again but this time she had a very distinct arrhythmia. da-da, da-da, da-da, dadadadadada, da-da, da-da is the best way I could describe it. After than I kinda freaked out and decided to take her to the ER but I was just going to wait in the waiting room in case she was the 1 in however many that actually go into cardiac arrest.

So once we got there the triage nurse asked the ER doctor about the situation and came back and said she really needed to be seen to make sure everything was ok. Of course by the time we got checked into the ER and I listened to her heart again the arrhythmia was gone. They just monitored her and did an EKG. Of course everything was normal and there were no problems. While they monitored her for a couple hours Brinley and I chilled in the hospital bed and listened to Phantom of the Opera on my iPod.

Now that I was a little more calm we had a nice conversation:

Me: Did you think those pills were candy?

Brin: Uh-huh

Me: Did they taste good?

Brin: Uh-huh

Me: How did you get them open?

Brin: I just bite with my teeth (chomp chomp)

Me: How many did you eat?

Brin: (holds up several fingers) one

We finally made it home about 4:00 a.m. and collapsed in bed. I was so glad that Brinley was ok and that everything turned out to be fine. I am a little worried about how much the bill will be! $2,000 could be an understatement! I know that I would not be able to live with myself if something would have happened and I didn't take her into the ER. I could have just waited in the waiting room until the effects wore off but I guess its worth the money for the piece of mind that everything is ok with my sweet and more often than not mischievous Brinley!

"I remember the teddy bear the best and I remember the band-aids. Cause I ate a pill."

More Visitors

Brian's older sister Jamie stopped by with her family on their drive back to Utah from Wisconsin and slept over. My kids were in heaven with all their cousins. Matthew was excited to have some boy cousins come and play ball (4 cousins younger and the 4 cousins older than Matthew are all GIRLS! ). Brinley was all smiles playing with the girls and reading stories to little Anna. All of her babies are now all named Anna. We tried having the 3 girls all sleep in Brinley's room but they couldn't go to sleep together. We could here them giggling and banging toys up there when they were supposed to be sleeping. We finally had to separate them even though I am sure Brinley was having the time of her life. It was so much fun for us and our kids to play with their cousins!

Just for the record....I think we have had more visitors living in Colorado than we did in Salt Lake City! Caitlin and Brinley

Caitlin, Brinley and Ashlyn

Brinley reading stories to 6 week old Anna.

The Freak Show

My Mom, my sister Alisha and her baby Brooklyn came out for a couple of days and then took Kenzie back home to Utah. We had so much fun! My Mom brought a suitcase full of Grandma Sycamore's bread for us to eat. Colorado doesn't sell it! So now I have a freezer full of yummy bread as well as good chicken and corn from Costco thanks to my Mom!


Our days were few but eventful. We went to the Denver Zoo, swimming at the rec center, to the park, watched a movie and just enjoyed watching the kids play.

You may ask why I titled this blog "The Freak Show".... well, that is what we called ourselves when we went in public. I had my two little kiddos running around everywhere, Alisha had Brooklyn (1) and she is also 8 months pregnant and then we had my Mom and Kenzie. It all started when we tried literally 4 or 5 times to take back a Redbox DVD. The machine was broken for 2 days! After trying and trying to return the DVD we decided to try a different Redbox. That one was broken as well! Everyone in the car would laugh as the person trying to take the DVD back would walk out, yet again, with the DVD in hand. The other funny part was that it was one of the most boring movies I have watched this year. Everybody fell asleep except for me and Kenzie and we just didn't want to go to bed.

We ended up going swimming and then decided to go to dinner because I had coupons for 3 free kids meals. I had forgotten to bring a change of clothes for my kids so they were in their swimsuits and I also forgot diapers for Matt so after he peed on me in the restaurant (swim diapers don't hold pee...did you know that?) I had to go to the car and put an old diaper on from the day before.

So yeah, we are just getting started. We sit down and everybody is just in this small room eating their dinner. We show up, all of us half dressed with screaming kids (Brinley bit her tongue, Matt was hungry, and Brooklyn was tired). Everybody in the restaurant just stared at us, who knows what they were saying! So after 1 hour and 10 minutes our food arrives. Our waitress told us that the kitchen was backed up.....however, we started noticing everybody around us that had come after us was already finished with their meals....hmmmm. Come to find out she forgot to put our order in. So here we are with our screaming, tired, hungry children and the pizza she brings out for them is missing the cheese on half of it and the peperoni's were black. Yum.

Next, she brings McKenzie's pasta dish that was supposed to come with no green peppers. My Mom started to look at it and saw that there was green peppers in it. The waitress says, "No, those are peas." (This was after she had told my Mom the pasta dish was her cordon bleu???) Sure enough, there was a bunch a green peppers in there!

Not only that but the waitress charged us for the drinks that were included in the kids meal coupon, charged me for the wrong size pizza, and then to top the night off Brooklyn has a MAJOR blowout that gets all over her and all over Alisha. We couldn't stop laughing. My Mom fixed the bill, Alisha went and changed, and I attempted to pick up food, napkins, silverware, etc off the floor. The best part was that, after several wrong turns, we found a Redbox that would accept our DVD!





This was Brinley's favorite animal because it was one of the only animals that actually did something.....this one knows how to pick its nose AND eat it too! Yuck! It must have made a lasting impression on Brinley though because she told Brian it was her favorite part.

Fun with Kenzie

My little sister McKenzie came out and stayed with us for a couple of weeks. It was so much fun to have her here. The kids LOVED having Kenzie around to play with. We did lots of things like go to the park, watch the fireworks, go to city party's for the 4th, the Children's Museum, Elitch Gardens, swimming, and the stomach flu! Here are just a few of the things we took pictures of. McKenzie is a fabulous Aunt and Sister!!!

Copper Mountain

One day we went up to Copper Mountain and rode the tram up the mountain and had a little picnic. It was beautiful up there! Brinley was a little scared at first but then realized it was pretty safe and had a lot of fun. Matthew was being really wiggly on the way down and luckily we only lost a shoe rather than a little boy. The partol had to bike down and get his shoe for us.

A lady also gave us a free ticket to ride the paddle boats. All of us piled into one boat and went around a little lake with a fountain in the middle.

It took longer than we had realized to get up to Copper Mountain but it was really fun!

There is this huge tunnel that goes through a mountain and both on the way there and the way back home, when we were in the tunnel Brinley wanted to get a picture of the tunnel. She love it. She kept saying, "Get my camera, I need to take a picture."

Casa Bonita

We went to Casa Bonita one night and ended up staying for 4 or so hours. Casa Bonita is a fun restaurant with divers and whole bunch of other activities. We ate dinner in a cool little booth where we could see the divers jumping into the pool. The kids thought it was so cool. There was a really fun haunted cave thing that we went through and then we walked around and looked at all the themed areas and watched several of the diver shows. They even had a pinata!

Trip to Utah

Me and the kids took a quick trip to Utah to pick up my sister McKenzie who stayed with us for a couple of weeks. My Dad and brother came out and stayed with us for a couple of days while my Dad went to a real estate conference and then we all drove home to Utah with them. Then me, the kids and Kenzie flew back home.

T and Matthew listening to music.

We got back to my Mom's house late one night. I brought the kids in and laid them on the couch and they just stayed there and didn't move a muscle!

Matthew loves candy (just like his Dad)!! He ate a sucker and then tried to clean himself off with a napkin but it didn't work so well.

Brinley and Great-Grandma Gale. I just LOVE this picture.

Our plane was supposed to leave around 10:30 p.m. which was late as it was but it ended up being delayed an hour and half. It made for a long wait and a late night. Thankfully my Mom was able to get a security pass to help me out.