We try to take family pics once a year. Taegan decided to give himself his first hair cut 5 minutes before we walked out the door. I can't say it was entirely his fault. Chris had just finished shaving his face and he left the shaver on the bathroom counter. He saw Taegan had grabbed the shaver but he couldn't stop him in time. I was a little bugged but it was pretty funny. I ended up having to shave more of his hair to blend it better.

This year we decided to be a little more festive because Taegan is getting older. We put up house lights for the 1st time and Taegan helped and drank hot apple cider. We also went and cut down our first real Christmas Tree.

Brandy made these for the boys and Taegan has enjoyed wearing them around.Taegan has been doing very well potty training. This seat obviously didn't work for us because Taegan kept putting it on his head and calling it his hat.

In Parowan visiting grandparents and playing in the snow.

Kadence was more interested in the snow buffet than sledding, so she sat in her sled and dipped her hands over and over.

It is our tradition to look at lights on the trailer. The kids did better than I thought they would and stayed on the trailer the whole time.

Grandma
Aunt Kamrie

UPDATE ON TAEGAN

He went off of Flovent in August and Started throwing up again the first part of December. He is scheduled for an EGD in January. He still wakes up screaming most nights. I have been cooking him new things. Story of my life. I'm not really a cook but I'm learning. It is definitely time consuming. Some things turn out o.k. Others like these cookies didn't work too well. He loves meat. Since he can't have any beef of chicken he eats a lot of pork and turkey. He asks for meat breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Biscuits and gravy.Luckily he likes muffins. I make him banana bread muffins and Zucchini muffins frequently and freeze them. He dips them in applesauce. Most breads are dry and fall apart but these hold together and taste o.k.

The Best Time of Year

Muzzleloading in Sept. We are so lucky to live in a beautiful place with mountains close by. I didn't get out in the hills as much as I would like but I guess that is what happens when you have kids.

Getting Ready for the Rifle Hunt. Taegan loved helping us reload.

The rifle hunt was a big dissapointment this year. We saw a lot of does and fawns and a few little bucks. It was nice to spend some time together out in the hills.

For Halloween we went to G + G Michels. Taegan loved riding on the lawnmower w/ grandpa and seeing all of the deer in the backyard.

We stayed at a Cabin in Pine Valley for a couple of days. The boys loved it and had plenty of room to run around.

Flovent Results

I can see that many people are searching online about Flovent. I did the same thing when I was trying to decide whether to use it or not but after learning how bad his esophagus was in May I didn't feel like I had a choice. I still don't know a lot about it but we did put Taegan on it for 2- 3 months and here are the results.

Here is a pic of Taegan's esophagus back in May.

Here is a pic of his esophagus when we did his 6th EGD in August.

As you can see the Flovent did it's job. He didn't have any eosinophils. I don't know exactly what to think about it. I'm glad his esophagus got a break but after talking to both of his GI's we have taken him off of flovent and the eosinophils will just return so I am assuming in a few months I will be back to where I was in May. I guess we will see.

Here is a pic of his stomach. Even though we took him off a prevacid after doing the PH probe after seeing the amount of bile in his stomach his doc said to put him back on it because his stomach looked irritated. Even while being on Flovent Taegan did still throw up on AVG of once a week for the 2-3 months and he tells me his tummy hurts daily. Most of the time it is right after he ate. A few times he would throw up right after telling me his stomach hurts.

He is getting old enough now (almost 2 1/2) that he is starting to realize what is going to happen to him. He fought me for awhile and cried and didn't want to put his gown on. The cute nurses gave him some stickers to distract him.

Besides EE life .....

Kadence turned 1 and weighs 17 lbs. I didn't even attempt to take her in for pictures because she is very antisocial to strangers and I knew she wouldn't cooperate at all. So I attempted a couple times to do some myself and she didn't cooperate w/ me either but here they are.

Here is Brandy, Daxton, Taegan, and Gina. Gina is a wildwoman on a tube.

Learning to wakeboard. I can't decide if it's worth being so sore afterward.
I'm starting to feel old.

We'be been camping a couple more times. I don't know what we're going to do all winter. Hopefully we'll get more sleep and rest up for next summer.

Drinking out of Grandma's empty coke cans.

More Heat Escapes

Boating at Sand Hollow. The kids did better than I thought they would do but in 105 degrees didn't want to get wet.

We went camping at Panguitch Lake. It was nice to be in a good temperature but we traded that for lack of sleep! Camping with kids.... I hope they get use to it.

Taegan crying because he doesn't want to share the swing.

Aaron + Brandy came visited for a day w/ us. I'm so glad Brandy and I have kids so close. They entertain each other but also get into more trouble when they are together.

Mustard

I just had to put on here a little bit about mustard. Taegan's blood test results came back and they confirmed it was mustard that caused his lip to swell. According to the numbers mustard is the 2nd highest allergy to him behind peanut. I had never thought about mustard and after looking online a little I was surprised at how common it was. Not that all of the info online is 100% accurate but from what I found most people with food allergies are allergic to mustard and it is the 4th most common food allergy. I was surprised and thought if this could help anyone else I would post it but to most of you it is probably useless. I also wonder why none of his docs mentioned it to me in the last year. So on top of worrying about garlic in any spice or flavoring I guess I can add mustard to the list.

Besides mustard here are some pics of what we have been doing lately.


Of course the water parks. It's been so hot we've tried to get out in the mountains more.

At Baker


At Enterprise Resevoir fishing and catching frogs.





Taegan is enjoying dragging Kadence around like this. She likes it to. No wonder babies have bald spots.


Chris installed a Cobblestone Job. Taegan is becoming a very good helper.
Can't miss the Fireworks.


Panguitch Lake

PH Probe

I had to post some other pics first.

We were working on the backyard and Brandy + her kids came over to "help."
The boys and their shovels.

11:30 One Night last week. I had already been up w/ Taegan and he cried again and I took my time getting to him. He had accidentally closed the door and the AC was on and he couldn't open it so he was throwing up in the dark. I felt guilty after for not rushing to him when I heard him crying. He cries a lot at night and most of the time I don't know why. I shouldn't have carpet in his room.

PH Probe
Don't let the pics fool you. It wasn't all fun and games. I was glad Chris was home because I felt sick watching this being done in the hospital.

These adult wrist braces were the best they could do. We went to Wal-mart and bought different ones that worked better.

We were told if he puked it might move the tube out of position so the test would be over and we needed to tube in for 24 hrs. That was a big concern to us since he pukes and gags easily. He didn't eat a lot that day and pretty much only ate liquides. He refused most of his bottles. We tried really soft textures and the first bite he almost threw up. He had extra popsicles that day.

By the afternoon he was so sick of the arm braces being on we told him if we took them off he couldn't touch his nose. I was shocked at how well he did. He knew he didn't want those back on. We heard "nose" all day long. He was so good he didn't even attempt to itch it himself and he let us do it.

The worst part of this was when Taegan would try to sleep. He tosses and turns a lot so I watched him during his nap and had to continually move the computer and chord. When it was time for bed that night I decided to put it in w/ his zip up PJs and that worked so much better. We didn't have to worry about the chord getting wrapped and pulled out but he was up every 10 minutes crying because he was tossing and turning and we put the arm braces back on because we didn't trust him in his sleep so no one got much sleep.

We pulled it out ourselves at home and were told it hurt coming out. That was nothing compared to the dang tape. He had quite a bit of tape on his body, all down his back, neck, face. He bled in some parts and screamed a lot.

I'm SO glad this test is over with. I haven't heard from Denver but his Pediatrician said that he doesn't have any reflux so we are now 100% it is EE. We were 99% before but this was one last test to rule out other factors. Hopefully I can take him off of his acid medication he had been on for 1 1/2 yrs.

Allergic Reaction

We decided to go have dinner at Oak Grove Sun night. We had just finished cooking and started eating dinner when Taegan said "lip" a couple of times. I noticed it was starting to swell up so we threw everything into the car and headed back to St.George. It took us 50 min. to get there but we got back a little quicker.

We have no clue what he reacted to. All of the food he had should be safe and he has had it all before. The nurse at the clinic thinks it was a strawberry even though he has had them many times and has passed pricks to them. I will talk to Taegan's allergist and see what his opinion is. After talking to our allergist his opinion would be mustard so we will prick him for that and see.