First Day of First Grade

Hard to believe that Benson is on his 3rd first day of school already! We went and met his new teacher last night and she seems really nice. We forgot to check the class list to see who was in his class that he knew from last year. All of the boys that we ran into that he knew were in the other class, so he was a little worried that there would be no boys in his class that he knew. He seemed excited to try and make new friends though. It was nice to be familiar with the school and see lots of familiar faces as we walked around.

He was excited to wear his new clothes and shoes and use his new backpack this morning. I was going to take him to school this morning but with all the construction on the school, I knew it would be a mess so he opted to ride the bus. We know that 1st grade will be a great year for Benson!

All I Want for Christmas...

This last month, Benson has gone from this...


to this...


to this...


1st grade here we come!

It's great to be 8...

months old!



Jillian turned 8 months old on the 1st. And true to form this summer I am still behind. But here are a few things that have happened this month.

Jillian is a crawler! She started really crawling on Saturday, July 10th and man does it change everything. The crawling part is not so bad, but she started pulling up to standing on EVERYTHING less than a week later. There is nothing that she won't try to pull up on - her crib, stools, bookcases, couches, the dollhouse, the toliet, the bathtub, trash cans, kitchen cupboards, drawers, etc, etc. She falls several times every day and has a permanent bruise on her forehead. And still she does not stop. Lately she has started pulling up to standing on things like the stools in the kitchen and then going up on her tiptoes to try and bite/chew on the stool seat which is hard to do when you don't balance very well.


Jillian got her first two teeth on the bottom on Monday, July 26th. I could probably almost tell you the exact time they finally broke through because the difference was so noticeable. She really struggled with these first two teeth, I'm hoping the next ones come a little easier.


Now that Jilly can sit up and balance so well, bath time has become significantly more fun. She loves to hold her hand under the running water and to splash like a CRAZY fishy when she is laying down. She cries everyday when I get her out.


The fear of strangers/I really like my mommy stage is in full force. When we were in Oklahoma, if I wasn't around she would go to my family, but as soon as I walked into a room she would start whining and fussing until I would take her. Daddy is just as good as mommy most of the time still, thank goodness.


One day last month I noticed that Jillian's bottom lip was purpley-blue in color but since she has been getting so many bumps and bruises I figured she had just hit her mouth and it went away. Then a few days later I noticed it looking blue again and I started panicking and checking her fingernails and toenails and the rest of her body to make sure she wasn't turning blue from lack of oxygen. Everything was fine and then I watched her for a few minutes and noticed she was sucking on her bottom lip and realized that she was sucking on her bottom lip so hard that she was giving herself a lip hickey, for lack of a better word. She did this a bunch for a few weeks and then hasn't since.

First, Last, and Only

On Monday, we had some firsts that I sincerely pray will be the first, last, and only time our family has to experience any of these things!

First call to 911
First ride in an ambulance
Sabrina's first trip to the ER
Sabrina's first...and second IV
Sabrina's first MRI

The kid's and I were in Oklahoma for the past week visiting my family. On Monday we had gone to Tulsa to get haircuts and visit with some of our friend's from Broken Arrow. On the way back, I had been talking on the phone to Mike and was just saying good-bye as I drove into town when I looked in the rear view mirror and noticed that Sabrina had massive amounts of foamy slobber dripping down the sides of her mouth all over her shirt. I was confused and said "Sabrina, why are you so slobbery?" but she didn't respond at all. Then I started saying her name over and over again getting louder and louder with still no response, no movement or anything. I quickly pulled over into a grocery store parking lot and hopped out of the car and when I got back to her I noticed her arm jerking over and over again and I knew she was having a seizure. So I called 911. And the ambulance came and she was still seizing. And they took her out of the car and laid her on a gurney and they said she was still seizing. I had been on the phone with Mike and he knew I was calling 911 so he had called my mom and told her she needed to go find me to help with the other kid's so she showed up not long after the ambulance. I rode in the ambulance to the hospital and that was seriously the worst few minutes of my life. I was in the front so I couldn't see her and I didn't know what was going on. They gave her a bunch of Valium to stop the seizure and by the time they were taking her out of the ambulance at the ER she was starting to cry and I was so relieved. She was very confused and drugged and cried for quite a while. At first I couldn't understand what she was trying to say but then I realized she was saying over and over again "I want you to hold me mama" even when I was holding her. So sad! Her temperature was 100.4 in the ER and they diagnosed it as a febrile seizure. The crazy thing is that she had been acting fine all day, I had no idea she was sick. So after running a bunch of tests (which all came back normal, not even an elevated WBC count) and spending several hours in the ER, they sent us home. And by the time we left she was acting totally normal again, still nothing to indicate that she was sick. Mike, who was home in Manhattan, left while we were still in the ER and drove down to be with us.

Grandpa Jeff holding Sabrina right before they sent us home. You can see the 2 IV's in her left arm. She did not even cry when they took them out, including when they were pulling off all the tape which looked like it would hurt.

On Tuesday afternoon before we left to come home, we took Sabrina in for a Brain MRI which also was normal. She was SO good during the MRI it was ridiculous. You have to lay perfectly still for those things a lot longer than I ever realized. She slept through at least half of it but laid perfectly still for the other half. So on the way back to Grandma's house we stopped at Braum's and she had a scoop of strawberry ice cream in a cone. She ate every last bit of that ice cream cone.


Tender mercies/blessings/miracles -

• My cell phone was not working on Monday. Jilly had been playing with it that morning and it was unusable all day. Except for the drive home from Tulsa, it all of a sudden started working and continued to work until I sent Mike a text message from the ambulance telling him that Sabrina's seizure had stopped. Then it quit working and hasn't worked since.
• We were in town when it happened, not on the road between Tulsa and Bartlesville.
• We were literally a 3 minute drive from my parent's house so my mom and sister got there shortly after the ambulance. I didn't have to worry about my other kid's at all. Which was especially comforting since I think I scared Benson and Grace to death with my reaction.
• My dad was on his way home from work when it happened and arrived at the ER before we did. It made me feel better knowing that he was there.
• Because we were in Bartlesville, my Uncle Ryan who is a doctor was there with us in the ER which was so comforting because I knew he would make sure they took good care of Sabrina.

We are so grateful that Sabrina is ok, that nothing more serious was wrong, and we are especially grateful for the help and blessings that we received. We sincerely hope that this will be a first, last, and only experience of this kind!!

Rx for Rough Times

So the last month has been...interesting (read: challenging, hard, not so fun) for our family. On July 6th, we found out that Wells Fargo Financial is closing all its stores. Which means as of the beginning of September Mike will not have a job. (We will have severance with pay and benefits for a few additional months.) We are not sure what the future holds for our family at this point, we do have some opportunities/options that are starting to materialize which is probably why I finally feel up to recording this experience somewhere permanent and public.

Four years ago this month, we were faced with a similar challenge. I was six months pregnant with Sabrina and Mike was laid off the day we were to drive out to Utah for my sister Kathleen's wedding. But while we were in Utah, he got a call from Wells Fargo Financial which turned into a job about six weeks later that has given us many opportunities and growing experiences over the last four years.

When I was a freshman at BYU, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland gave a talk in October General Conference that touched me. Because at the time I was having a hard time adjusting to being away from home and the pressures of college life. I thought my life was pretty hard (little did I know...). And over the years as challenging times have come, I have often read this talk for encouragement. One of my favorite quotes is this:
"Even if you cannot always see that silver lining on your clouds, God can, for He is the very source of the light you seek. He does love you, and He knows your fears. He hears your prayers. He is your Heavenly Father, and surely He matches with His own the tears His children shed."

My faith has increased as I have looked back over my life and recognized the blessings and the help that have come before, during, and after the challenges.

Shortly before this latest challenge, a new Mormon message appeared on our church's YouTube channel, Mormon Messages. I have been watching this video (Good-Things-to-Come) and reading Elder Holland's talk quite a bit lately. I know that what he says is true. I know Heavenly Father has a plan for our family and that he will continue to bless us and watch over us. So stayed tuned for the next chapter in the life of the Richards' family.