A dose of Warm Weather

I am really loving this warm weather we've been having lately!

Today we grilled up some hamburgers

& yesterday we had a picnic out on the grass... 

It's getting me excited about
all the fun we're going to have over the summer!

Bring it on!

St. Patrick's Day Fun

St. Patrick's Day was fun this year, although I think Skyler was a little disappointed in our Leprechaun this year compared to last year... The night before St. Patrick's Day, Skyler set up a trap in his room to catch a leprechaun, just like last year, and he even said in his prayers that night to "Please help me to be able to catch the leprechaun," but right before we tucked him into bed, he decided that maybe we shouldn't try to catch him or he might get mad & mess up his room like LAST year.  And so, we took down the trap.

But the next morning the kids woke up to their beds all tied up with yarn & a note from the leprechaun saying that this year he decided to set a trap for THEM!  The kids were a little stunned, but excited. :)  But then they ran all over the house trying to look for his gold (last year he left them some) & they checked excitedly in the fridge for a green treat (last year he left them one of those too), but they came back empty-handed & disappointed.  But luckily the leprechaun had at least thought to turn their milk green for breakfast, so that made up for some of the forgetfulness.  Whoops!  I guess he shouldn't start traditions that he doesn't feel like continuing year after year after year...

 Now that leprechaun's just got to figure out
what to do for next year...

Bailey's CRAWLING!

Bailey's now officially into everything around here!  Three weeks ago, the very day she turned 8 months old, Bailey finally started crawling.  She'd been rocking on her hands & knees for 2 months prior to that, but she's finally figured it all out.  It's funny to see the kids running ahead of her, grabbing all of their toys out of her reach.  And wow, it hasn't taken her long to figure out all the exciting places in the house to explore.  Her favorite, by far, is underneath the kitchen table where there seems to be a never-ending supply of crumbs!  It doesn't mater how much I sweep, there are always more produced at every meal.  The other day I walked into the kitchen to find both Bailey AND Kimberly eating crumbs off the floor together... It was such a precious site to see & made me reconsider whether I should bother with sweeping them up! :)

She now says "Da Da," "Ma Ma," & "Na Na" and is just such a happy & sweet girl.  She's pulling herself up on everything now too, so we're really having to be careful what we leave lying around.  But all-in-all, we're really enjoying this stage & hope we can keep her out of too much trouble!

My Latest Floral Arrangement

Just thought I'd share my latest attempt at floral arranging... I mostly love it, but still feel like it's lacking a little.  But without actually having taken a floral arranging class, and after spending about 5 hours trying to make it look this good, it'll just have to do! 

 The new view in the kitchen, including my new plate racks!

After living in our house for 2 years now, it's nice to see some of the details starting to come into place...

A Visit to the Emergency Room

Today was one of those days that turned out nothing like I had planned it, but in the end, I still found myself grateful... I had signed-up to take a class to get points to renew my teaching license, so had arranged for a lady in the ward to watch the kids until Laron could watch them.  But only an hour or two after my class had started (an hour away!), I got a phone call from the babysitter saying that Bailey had swallowed some little plastic yellow toy & was now wheezing and having a hard time breathing & what should she do?  After my heart sank at the seriousness of the situation & after feeling pretty helpless being so far away from my suffering little girl (but BEFORE my good hard cry & fervent prayer of desperation to Heavenly Father), we decided that she should take Bailey to our pediatrician & see what they thought we should do...

Long story short, she ended up at Primary Children's Hospital at about 12:30.  I only got a couple hours of my class in & Laron only got 3 1/2 hours of sleep before meeting me at the hospital with Bailey.  After lots of X-Rays & multiple doctors listening to her chest, they determined that the piece she had swallowed had gone down her breathing tube (her trachea) & over into the opening for her left lung.  We then said our good-byes & watched as she was walked into the operating room, hoping that they would take good care of our little Bailey.  They then put her to sleep with anesthesia, put a hollow tube down her throat, then sent down a scope with a camera on it (plus a tube to breath through) to make sure exactly where the piece was at.  They said depending on the size of the object & how wedged in it was, the procedure could anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour, plus recovery time.  But sooner than we'd anticipated, the Doctor was out showing us the culprit of all this trouble... Apparently what she'd swallowed was a tiny little Polly Pocket shoe!  But apparently it was a really easy to remove & not too wedged in there & not as far into the lung as they had thought at first, so things went as well as they could have. 

When they finally said that I could go back & join Bailey in recovery, my heart broke as I saw her all hooked up to IV's & oxygen monitors, frantically crying & with tears running down her cheeks.  I felt so privileged to be able to hold her & love her & thought I might never let go of her!  But then they switched us rooms, let Laron come back with us & gave us a bottle to feed her (her 1st in over 9 hours!), which Bailey readily ate up.  Her poor voice sounded even worse then before & was all terrible & raspy, almost like a croup-sounding wheeziness.  They said because of the tube going down her throat & irritating things, she could sound like that for up to a week... Poor girl!  After we were discharged, at about 6 pm, Laron left straight for work & I went home to round up the rest of our kids. 

But wow, what a good girl she was through it all, especially considering all she'd gone through that day!  Just about EVERY nurse or doctor we met commented on how happy she was & how cute she was!  Maybe they don't receive very many babies there, or maybe they could feel of her special spirit like we can...  Either way, we're just glad to have her safe & sound & to have been blessed to be able to take her home with us! 

Here Skyler & Kimberly are holding the tiny, little Polly Pocket shoe!  It must be only about a 1/2 inch long is all, but it sure caused a lot of problems today (and it's going to COST us a lot too!).  When we got home that night, Skyler started crying & said, "But how's Bailey going to eat now Mom?"  I explained that she was fine now & would be able to eat again like she always did.  "But you said there's a tube down her throat!," he responded pretty anxiously.  Apparently he'd been listening more than I'd realized.  It took a little explaining & I think he mostly understands, but he can't understand how Bailey could be all better if she still sounds so bad still.  Me too I guess.

But what a blessing it is that you are in our lives Bailey & that you're OKAY!!!  Life is so fragile!   It's so easy to forget what a blessing it is to have these little ones in our homes until something goes wrong & you're forced to put your trust in God & realize that we're not in as much control as we often think we are. I don't know what we would do without your smiles Bailey?!  You brighten up our lives & remind us that there is still good in the world.  And we thank you for that. :)

Happy Valentine's Day!

A BIG thanks to Grandma for the super cute Valentine's outfits!  Such a blessing to be surrounded by those that I love...

A Trip to Idaho

Over the weekend we took a last-minute trip to Idaho Falls to visit McKay & Kajsa's new house.  We also stopped by the falls in front of the Temple there & went on a nice little walk along the water's edge.  So pretty!  And after that long drive we definitely all needed a break!

Grateful

I'm feeling particularly grateful today... Mostly because the last couple of weeks are over with!

 

First of all, our van had some problems over Christmas, which continued to get worse a few days afterward & ended up with us needing to replace the fuel pump, filter & be without a van for about 2 weeks.  So I'm grateful to have our van back again, instead of trying to squish our 3 kids into the back of the car.

We also had our heater not working for about a week earlier in the month.  Laron was determined to fix it himself, which he amazingly was able to accomplish after a couple of hours on the internet researching & then waiting for a couple of days for the part to come in.  Part of me was glad he was resourceful enough to save us the money to figure it out himself.  Part of me wished he would've just paid someone to come fix it, because I was the one stuck at home with cold kids wearing coats all day, watching them warm their hands up on our little electric heater. After spending one night at my Mom's house to keep warm (while Laron was working) & after a couple days of complaining, Laron finally went out and bought us a Kerosene heater, figuring that would also help us be more prepared for emergencies.  That kept us quite a bit warmer, but it put off some fumes, so we had to keep a window cracked open, which always made me a little nervous.  So I'm also especially grateful for a working heater this winter!  It's one of those automatic features in our lives that I don't really pay much attention to normally, but after living in 50 degree weather for a week & having to wake up early to start up the heater so the house was warm when the kids woke up, I'm SO grateful for automatic heat!

The last thing I'm grateful for is being healthy.  We've also all just recently gotten over being sick, one-at-a-time of course, so I'm always grateful to have those type of weeks behind us!  It's amazing how much a working vehicle, working heat, and working health can affect your life...  So here's to life going well!

Swimming with Grandma & Papa

Yesterday we went swimming with Grandma & Papa for their annual work swim party. Laron was working, but with my three brothers there as well, we had lots of hand to help out...

The highlight of the night was the slide!  Papa first asked Skyler if he wanted to go on it & he was totally NOT interested.  But we couldn't keep Miss Kimberly off of it!  She would've gone on it all night if Papa would have been up for it.  That girl has no fear & isn't afraid of getting a little water in her eyes.  She definitely was showing Skyler up!

After lots of persuading, Skyler finally decided he'd give it a try, as long as Papa promised to hold him up at the end of the slide so he didn't get water in his eyes.  And surprisingly he loved it!  He only went a couple times, but he was glad he finally got the courage to try it!

What a fun night full of smiles & memories!

Starting the Year off Right

Before school started up again, we decided to have my brothers come spend the night & hang out.  We made Gingerbread houses, had a treasure hunt for our lunch, watched a movie & had a sock snowball fight.  Thanks for coming over boys!  We'll have to do it again sometime!

A Very, Merry Christmas!

Christmas was so fun with the kids this year!  I think it was our funnest yet!  We were super busy going from place-to-place (5 Christmas parties in 3 days, plus our own Christmas morning & church), but we all had fun... 

Laron surprised me with this homemade pie holder 2 days before Christmas, because he said I'd be needing it for the next day... I make a lot of pies for family parties & things, and am always stressing out about how we're going to transport them all safely (we've had a couple bad experiences!), so this was a fabulously thoughtful Christmas gift!  I tried it out the next day to take pies to the Pace Party & it worked wonderfully!  The only problem with it was that it weighs 51 pounds!  It's a good thing I'll usually have Laron around to carry it for me.  Thanks again honey!

We started out our celebrations by eating breakfast at my parent's house on Christmas Eve.  After breakfast we all did our "string" & openned presents.  They spoiled us all, as usual!



That afternoon we headed to Laron's Mom's in Provo.  However, we experienced some unexpected car problems on the way down, making us a couple hours late.  Sorry everyone!  But at least we were able to pick up one last-minute present on the way down: a chicken for Grandma!  That made quite a reaction at the party!  But she was thankful nonetheless.

This year was our first Christmas morning we've had at our own house, just with our family... And it was SO fun!  I only wish we could've had a little more time do enjoy it before rushing off to get to church & then on up to Evanston.  I think we'd only openned up like 3 presents before church, because the kids had been so excited to play with their new presents, which we were fine with encouraging.  But we experienced a few tears over leaving our unopenned presents behind, so Laron let them each bring an additional present with them to open up on the way to Church...

And then we were off to Evanston, Wyoming to go visit Laron's Dad.  The kids always like going up there and seeing the animals, so it was a good way to end the day.  After so much rushing from place-to-place over the last few days, it was nice not to have to hurry off to anywhere else that day & just relax... I'm already looking forward to the kids openning up Christmas presents next year!

Kimberly's 2nd Birthday!

Well, our little Kimberly just turned 2 this last week!

What a fun age! (MOST of the time!)

She wanted to start off the day by openning presents... She LOVES dogs!

These two kids might be smiling now, but they sure fought a lot today over who got to play with the new toys... I'm hoping Christmas will be better.

After dinner we headed to Salt Lake to see the lights at Temple Square. When we got there & saw all the people, Skyler said, "Wow! Did all these people come for Kimberly's birthday?!"  Then we headed over to the Church History Museum, to get a little warmed up & to check out the new kid-friendly Book of Mormon exhibit. Super fun!

And then back out for a few more lights. Our favorite part of the night was racing each other back to the car... Kimberly especially loved that I was racing too & kept telling Laron, "Race Mommy! Race Mommy!" She also really loved seeing all the horses around pulling carriages. She loves animals!

Then we headed over to Grandma & Papa's house for more presents & cake and ice-cream (and to pick up Bailey!).

Kimberly did well at TRYING to blow out her candles, but we had to hold up the cake a little closer to her for her blows to accomplish anything...

And like usual, she was SPOILED with presents!  Happy Birthday Kimberly!  We can't wait for another year of fun with you!

6 months old!

Well, Bailey is officially 6 months old now! Some days I still can't believe she's already this old & then other days it feels like we've had her forever!

At her 6 month appointment, Bailey weighed 17 lbs, 1 oz & was 26 inches long, so she's doing well! In fact, Kimberly had her 2 year appointment on the same day & I was surprised to realize that Bailey's only got another 8 pounds to be caught up with Kimberly in weight! But Kimberly has always been in about the 25th percentile & Bailey's been in the 75th percentile...

Over the last month, Bailey has made TONS of progress developmentally... And I think the Christmas tree may have helped her progression! I can't believe how well she can maneuver herself around! It's been fun to watch what just a couple of weeks can do for a little baby...

She now is rocking on her hands & knees,  going up on her tip-toes (or doing push-ups),

& sitting REALLY well!  Even the doctor was extremely impressed with her abilities for being only 6 months old!  So Bailey's new favorite is Kimberly.  She pretty much just starts laughing as soon as she sees her lately!

I've also started putting a few headbands on Bailey lately, contrary to Laron's no-headbands rule. I never used them with Kimberly, but I'm getting tired of the stuck-on bows falling off & we got a few headbands passed down to us in the last batch of hand-me-downs, so I decided to try them out (without asking for permission, I might add!).

She brings fun to the room everytime she starts bounching herself on my lap, everytime she grabs a handful of Kimberly's hair when she gets too close, everytime she pushes herself backwards across the room, & she brings a yell of excitement from the kids everytime she wakes up. Well, we feel super blessed to have Miss Bailey in our lives & can't imagine our lives without her!