1 year, 16 Teeth, and Two visits to the Emergency Room

Our little Cam man turned 1 year old last Friday.

He loves his bottle, soft blankets, giggling at his sisters and wreaking havoc around the house (i.e.  unrolling all the toilet paper, pulling out all the DVD's, pulling things out of cupboards and off of shelves, you know, typical 1 year old mayhem. : )

 He is busy busy busy. He army crawls so fast it looks like he's swimming across the floor. He's not walking but he pulls up on everything he can get his hands on, and knows how to climb up and down the stairs like a champ.

One of his big accomplishments this year was sprouting 16 teeth in 12 months.  8 on the top, 8 on the bottom, including 4 molars. Made for some rough nights and lots of drool, but I sure love that toothy little grin.

Despite all those pearly white chompers he still prefers mostly soft food. Baby food, yogurt, canned peas, canned green beans, bananas, mushy sweet potatoes and oatmeal are his go to favorites.

He is really, really, ridiculously good looking (gets it from his Dad) and even though he has yet to say any formal words, he fills the house with his adorable low belly laugh.

Besides sprouting lots of teeth and learning to climb and crawl, Cam has also given us a couple of scares this year. In September he had a febrile seizure that landed him in the hospital for 3 days.  Our doctor told us that from now on we'd have to watch him because a spike in fever, or a high fever over a sustained period of time could trigger another seizure.

We experienced that today when his fever spiked and his whole body began to tremble and seize. His lips and fingers turned blue and his skin became blotchy. I called 9-1-1 but this time I was able to stay calm (for the most part) and hold it together until the paramedics arrived. Cam's seizure lasted around 5 minutes but he didn't lose conciousness. He did throw up in the ambulance from the high fever and when we arrived at the ER his temperature was 106.

It was very hard to see our sweet little man in such a scary condition. Thankfully the doctors were able to get the fever down by layering Motrin with prescription Tylenol with codeine. They also discovered the cause of the fever, a double ear infection, and took care of that with a shot of antibiotics.

After 3 hours in the ER we brought our sweet guy home and he is doing much much better. I have an appointment with his pediatrician tomorrow and hopefully I can find out more about what we can do to prevent these seizures and also how best to handle them when they happen.

The good news is he's home and on the mend. It's been an eventful but wonderful 12 months, and now I'll end with a few cute pictures from last Friday's birthday celebration:

Didn't take him long to snatch the whole cake and ram it in his mouth.

Baby likes the Cakey

Happy Birthday little Cam!! Thanks for bringing so much happiness into our home!

Things are about to get Crazy Busy

I like being busy. I like having places to go and things to do. I like having commitments and responsibilities. It's fun, and I kind of think it helps me stay productive. It can also make me drop balls and run around like a mad woman, but in a weird way I kind of dig some of the chaos that comes with being busy.

That being said, things are about to get CRAZY busy over here, and the next 3 months are going to be a little intense! Let me explain the layers of craziness:

Layer 1

Taber works full time + has to go back on 3rd shift once a week+ commutes 45 minutes each way to work + serves as the 2nd counselor in the Young Men's presidency at church (which means lessons on Sundays, activities on Wednesdays) + is the father of 3 small children.

I work full time as a stay at home mom to 3 small children (which in itself constitutes crazy busy) + serve as the 2nd counselor in the Relief Society presidency at church (which means teaching, coordinating activities and presidency meetings twice a month) + sing in the ward choir.

Layer 2

Taber and I are both training for the DC marathon in March so we also have to fit in 30-45 miles of running a week. This is especially tricky with our long runs. Right now we are up to 16 miles, which takes us close to 2 and 1/2 hours to run. Next month we will have to run 19 and 20 milers, which will be 3 hours of running. Usually we would get a babysitter and do this on a Saturday but then there's layer 3...

Layer 3

Since we weren't busy enough ; ) I decided to try out for our Stake's production of The Savior of the World, which is a musical play that depicts the events surrounding the birth and resurrection of the Savior. I was shocked and excited to get the part of Mary, but they didn't have enough men try out and really needed more so they convinced Taber to be a part of it too. He is playing a shepherd in the first act and the apostle James in the second act. I think the play will be amazing but the rehearsal schedule is pretty demanding. From now until the show in April, we have play practice every Friday night from 7-9:30 and practice every Saturday morning from 9am -1pm.  Not sure how we will fit our long runs into this schedule because we don't want to be in play practice all morning and then leave the kids with another sitter to go run for 3 hours. I'll probably have to do some kind of baby-sitting swap during the week to get mine in and Taber might have to split his runs or do some in the early early morning before practice. 

So yeah, we kind of have a lot going on, especially because we're BOTH doing the marathon and the play, and someone needs to watch the kids, so it's a real balancing act to try and juggle it all.  

I know balls will get dropped and some things are going to be neglected, but as long as I keep these three munchkins at the top of the priority list, we'll get through it okay. 

I might not shower every day or get very much sleep. I might not make my bed or match all the socks or mop my floors or vacuum as much as I should. I might not have time to read and comment all my favorite blogs or troll Facebook as much as I like to ; )  I might feed my family frozen pizza or cold cereal for dinner during the week, but I know that it will be worth it in 3 months when we get to be a part of 2 big events that we'll remember for the rest of our lives. 

So that's what's going down at the Rigg household, let the craziness begin!

End of December Massive Picture Dump

We did a lot of stuff at the end of December when Naomi and Kevin were in town, but I am currently a little overwhelmed with all that is on my plate right now so instead of individual posts I'm just going to do a big fat picture dump to wrap up December. : )

Prepare for some serious scrolling!

Cool stuff we did with the Hanks fam:

Imajine That Indoor playground

This place is the bomb. Indoor jungle gym, bounce house, soft climbing playground, play kitchen, play grocery store, puppet show theater, costumes, instruments, craft room, etc.... The kids had a blast.

Mr. busy body loved being set loose in there too.  

Look at that face, I am seriously smitten with this kid.

Boston Children's Museum

When you have small children the highlight of Boston is usually the children's museum ; ) 

(Taber had to stay home with Brinley and Cam since Brinley was still really sick that day.)

 Hanks fam in Bean Town!

 Hours of entertainment for the kiddos (and Kevin)

Teya and auntie Naomi

Lily and Auntie Becca

Hula hooping! After a little practice Teya was rockin' it!

She also discovered the joy of jump pictures : )

Kevin bought me this book at the gift shop. I seriously have no idea why...

The boys had a man-cation day where they went candlestick bowling and saw Mission Impossible 4.

And Naomi and I had an afternoon out for shopping!

Teya practiced modeling for my new camera. After she saw this picture she said, "wow, I look so grown up!" It made me a little sad when I realized she is right : (

Uncle Kevin doing some modeling with Teya.

And me modeling my super stretchy fish lips. (yeah I got skillz ; )

Chuck E Cheese

On the day they left we did one last hoorah at Chuck E Cheese

 The girls and the Mouse

 Kiddie Rides! 

 They have a new virtual roller coaster ride that all of them got a huge kick out of, even Cam. 

It was so much fun having the Hanks family here and we are just so so happy that they made the effort to come out and spend Christmas with us. LOVE YOU GUYS!!

 Celtics Game

After the Hanks left, Taber and I got to go to the opening game for the Celtics

It was fun to be there opening night and soak in all crazy excitement in the atmosphere.

Good times, great date night, and that's it for December!!

Someone gets a little excited about Christmas over here...

And that someone is miss Teya Rigg.
You will witness it, at the end of this post, but first a quick Christmas recap:

This year Christmas was extra awesome because my sister Naomi and her family came out from Chicago to spend it with us.

The girls loved having their cousins around for a week and it was cute to see them all in their matching pajamas on Christmas morning.

Matching sisters Teya and Brinley!

Matching sisters Becca and Naomi!

The girls showing off their new shawls that Grandma Karen knitted for them.

Taber and Cam on his very first Christmas!

He loved crawling through the wrapping paper and playing with everyone else's presents : )

Uncle Kevin made Taber this sweet frame for his Hartford marathon medal and bib.

Taber made all my Christmas wishes come true and got me the DSLR camera that I've been drooling over for years.  (do you like how this picture was taken with our old camera and is all blurry? it was definitely time for an upgrade!) I took over 300 pictures the first day I had it : ) I still have a lot to learn to unleash the camera's real potential, but I'm excited to start taking better pictures.

I made Taber 2 blog books to cover all of 2010. Each book covers 6 months and is just under 200 pages long. It was a labor of love that took me many many hours to finish, but it's always worth it to see Taber and the kids pouring over the books and smiling over the memories.

Happy Taber with a little piece of our family history.

So now I've made blog books from 2007-2010. I just need to make 2 more to catch up on 2011 and I'll finally be up to date : )


The highlight of Christmas though was seeing the kids get so excited about everything.

I don't think I've ever seen a kid more excited about Christmas than little miss Teya.

She was so pumped up that she literally screamed/shouted every word she spoke for the first 20 minutes of opening presents.  Brinley was still a little sick from the night before but Teya managed to stir up plenty of excitement on her sister's behalf over her presents. You have to watch this video to witness the intensity of it. And prepare yourself for the 1:16 minute mark when the excitement reaches fever pitch. This is Christmas magic at it's best!

Christmas Eve 2011

We started Christmas Eve off bright and early with a chilly but fun long run. Taber, Kevin and I are all training for the DC marathon in March so it was awesome to be able to run together. 

We ran 13.1 miles on the Applefest half marathon course in Hollis. We wore Santa hats and got lots of honks and waves from all the warm people in their cars watching the crazy runners freeze their tooshies off. Good times I tell ya, good times ; )

Later that evening we invited some friends over for a Christmas Eve dinner and nativity with the kids. We made Cafe Rio sweet pork and Zesty chicken and had a tasty taco salad bar.

After dinner Darby read a book about gingerbread men to the kids to prep them for gingerbread man decorating!

She brought each kid their own personalized homemade gingerbread man with their name stamped into it. She also brought frosting and lots of fun things for them to decorate with. Darby is amazing!

 The kids had a blast decorating their little men.

 When they were finished we gathered everyone up to act out the nativity. Teya's little friend Mia was Mary and she was the most precious and sweet Mary I've ever seen. She really got into the part and held the little baby with so much tenderness. So so sweet.

We had quite a few more girls than boys so instead of 3 Kings this year's nativity had 3 Queens. Teya, Sophie, and Brooklyn (not pictured) Who was actually a Fairy queen with wings. 

Soon it was time to change into jammies and get ready for Santa! 

Teya and the Knutson girls in their Christmas PJ's.

And Cam and Austin working the red and green stripes.

 Brinley had matching jammies too but sadly she missed out on all the festivities as once again she was hit with a horrible round of the sickies. She threw up several times right before everyone showed up and then she passed out at 4:30 p.m. and never woke up the rest of the night. Santa felt so sorry for her that he threw in a few extra presents the next day. Poor sweet girl : (