Sweet sick A

It's been a week! A was sick all last week with a cold. Saturday night I started to get sick and thankfully stayed home from church with A to get some sleep. It was a good thing since I noticed A having a hard time breathing after I fed her around 11:00PM when I went to bed. She had a fever again and never seemed to be able to get her breath. The advice nurse had me talk to one of hte pediatricians in her dr office who told me to go right to ER - it sounded like rsv. Arter a long night there the rsv and flu tests were negative, they had given her a treatment and she sounded better so we headed home around 5AM. She didn't seem much better Monday and still had a fever so I took her to her dr office on Tuesday - 2 ear infections and some asthma drugs later we went home, just to end up at er again Tuesday night because she was breathing at 67 breaths a minute (50 is bad enough to go to er). They retested for rsv but it was still negative, her breathing didn't improve much but her oxygen levels were great, her lungs sounded great and she was flirting with the doctors like you wouldn't believe, plus her skin was a healthy pink so they sent us home and told us to not be suprised if we came back. That was what I wanted to hear! YEsterday she kept throwing up her antibiotics and didn't have much of an appetite but she seemed to feel better in the afternoon and started eating and kept down the antibiotics last night and this morning. She didn't sleep well but I'm hoping it was the ear infection and the total change to her routine (we're not usually up until 5AM and my nosy daughter didn't want to miss anything or any opportunity to show the doctors and nurses how cute she was so she was up!). So I think things are getting better. Luckily I have been through most of this with M's asthma so I knew what was wrong and what they would do, although M was 2 when she first started having problems and it was so sad in my little one. They said if A was 2 months younger they would have admitted her but she was just old enough and looked okay so we got to go home. The girls at home have been so good despite a lack of attention and energy from mom and Daddy has been wonderful letting me get a little extra sleep in the morning while Mg watches a video and he works from home. What a blessing. Hope everyone else is doing well and stay healthy!!!

We Love You President Hinckley

I heard tonight that our wonderful prophet passed away today. He was so wonderful! I'm so happy that he is back with his wife again! He has been our prophet since my senior year in high school and I got to see him several times while I was at BYU and when I went to conference...he is so wonderful. I love how the church website calls him "beloved" for that is so true.

My most recent memory of him was when he came to dedicate the Sacramento Temple. The day before the dedication the youth in our area put together a cultural celebration that included 12 choral pieces the kids sang. I spent the summer helping to teach the youth in my local area the music and it was such a wonderful summer. President Hinckley was there for the performance and for a special meeting just before. We were in the ARCO area (when the Sacramento Kings basketball team plays) and they invited all of the youth to sit on the floor of the arena (in costume) for the meeting that was being broadcast to the Sacramento area. When President Hinckley walked in the entire arena hushed and stood up. President Hinkley saw the youth and smiled and waved to them and they waved back with huge smiles. President Hinckley loved that so we waved his cane up in the air at them and they applauded and cheered him on. It was wonderful to see him connect with these incredible youth and to feel the energy in the room. I was so grateful to get to be there for that wonderful experience and I felt so much love for this beloved man. We will miss him!!

Pajama Day!

E was SO excited about her pajama day at school! They got to bring their favorite stuffed animal, too. Their 3rd grade buddies came and helped them measure their favorite animal and write about their animal and they had a special morning snack...hooray for kindergarten!

E made a crown and necklace and bracelet for Allie too and I'm told Allie had a lot of fun at school!

these are MY girls???

Obviously their aunt and grandma have had an influence in their life! (thank goodness!)

Our adorable baby

I love this little one!!! She is the first of our babies to actually like being on her tummy (she just has to be different!!!). She just squeals and coos and is adorable! Now she's learned to push herself up and look all around and she loves that.

She also loves to lay on her tummy with her arms up in the air. She'll just lay there with her feet, arms and head up moving her arms around like she is swimming. Then she'll put them down so she can catch her breath and then it's up in the air again! She's got great stomach and neck muscles!!! Here she is in a superman pose :)

Cute Mg

My little one does not usually like to take pictures which is why you don't see much of her...but here are a few recent cute ones...

She spends most of her time dressed up...and usually several dressup outfits throughout the day...did you know TinkerBell likes to read scriptures? (and play with Lego's...but it's really hard to pick up big sisters in the car with wings on!)

She still enjoys A - especially showing her toys. Mg is learning about babies - we've finally taught her that A likes baby toys not Mg toys, now we're working on teaching her that A only needs 1 -2 toys at a time...she likes to fill up the swing or the bouncy seat or the ground around A with toys. As you can see here A is being taught her alphabet at an early age! We're just pleased that Mg likes A!!!!

E quote...

I still don't remember her funny from the other day but she provided us a laugh during dinner last night....

"Mommy, do I have any allergies?"
"No"
"Oh, I wish I did" (said with a very sad face")
"Why?" (said with a big smile at daddy!)
"Because some of my friends at school have allergies and I wished I had some, too"

:)

Family time

Here's the last of the Christmas pictures for now...enjoy!

We did an improptu family picture at my sisters house...it turned out great considering a lack of planning!!!! :) Thanks again little Bro! (click on the picture for a much better view...my sister and her family are on the right, my little bro's wife is next to me and their little baby is growing in her tummy and my little bro is right behind her)
Isn't she beautiful! Great job again little bro!

M at Kangaroo Zoo - we went with my whole family and everyone had fun!!!
Daddy chasing E down the slide!Yes, even the big boys had fun! There was an obstacle course and my husband and little bro just had to race...I understand my bro was winning until here at the end when my husband bounced him off the ladder and claimed a last minute victory! (and somehow the only two to come home with burns on their arms were the big boys...go figure!!!)

The girls in their matching Christmas dresses - thanks mom!!
little A. Marie with Great Grandma Marie :)
Daddy's parents finished their movie theater room while we were there!
Hooray for homework time!! Since we left a week early we had lots of independent study work to do...and a mother in law who is a teacher and had fun helping them!! Thanks Grandma!
New Year's Eve party


Daddy's new little niece's baby blessing...and all the cousins on the bed!

We love you all and are grateful for the wonderful Christmas we had together!

Cute girls!

So here are some more pictures from Christmas...our little A's first pictures smiling (taken shortly before we left)

We got to see Sister Sun while we were in Utah!!!! (She was a senior missionary who served in Davis her entire mission teaching the Chinese people)


I love this picture...sweet E has alsways enjoyed just sitting and looking at her scriptures and she has been so thrilled that she got new ones for Christmas and now she can even start to read them with us!
These two are such great friends!!
Mg with her cousin - Daddy's youngest sister's daughter (did you follow that?). The little girls all got Tinker Bell costumes and had so much fun!
Off to take care of my little baby - she is sick and miserable and it is so sad!!!!! Look for more to come soon!

A picture

Hm, that last post needed a picture. Here's a fun one - I was right in the middle of finishing dinner for us and for a neighbor who had just had a baby but Mg needed a diaper change - she'd been having tummy problems and needed a little diaper cream so I quickly changed her diaper and then ran back to finish dinner before it burned. Apparently I left the cream on the couch...and this is what I found.

The picture does not show how COVERED she was...and you can't just wipe it off since it repels water! I love 2 year olds...oh wait...she 3 now. I guess someone forgot to tell her!

Recent Moments

I've been formulating a post for the last few days, mostly funny quotables by my kids, but now I've forgotten the one that started my thinking by E!! A couple of entertaining things....

Daddy had a great time playing ultimate frisbee with the guys from church Saturday morning. He told me that he had some fabulous dives and didn't even hurt anyone! Apparently he has a habit of going after frisbees without paying attention to who is around him and has really banged up some people (now I know why we couldn't play raquetball when we were first married!). He pointed out that he doesn't hurt his friends when they play computer games. Talk about rationalizing!

I was changing Mg poopy diaper. She told me it was stinky and that it was her poop...not M's but Mg's poop. No idea where that came from but I'm glad we clarified!

I asked M what she had for a snack at school and she told me crackers. I thought she was going to take peaches so when I asked her about it she told me that "the peaches had changed in the little oranges so I decided on crackers instead." If I put myself in the cupboard can I change things on me too? I love magic cupboards!

I wish I could remember E's funny!!! She is loving being back at school and loves to read and is really starting to take off on her reading. It is exciting!

A. continues to need WD40. She loves to squeak when she is really excited...it is adorable! She gets this big grin (which with her big cheeks takes a lot of work!) and just squeaks away! She can roll over and actually likes to be on her tummy and is just too cute. Her sisters still really enjoy her.

I got the house clean. Every year we come back from Christmas and I have to reorganize at least one area of the house. This year I pretty much rearranged everything in the girls room, the playroom, one of our closets and a portion of the kitchen. Of course the rearranging is the fun part, the cleaning up afterwards is not. But Daddy took the girls on a 2 hour bike ride Saturday afternoon while A slept and I finished everything (without being interrupted - it was WONDERFUL!!!), we ate dinner and while Daddy gave the girls their baths I swept and vacuumed upstairs, after they went to bed I finished the downstairs and then went to bed. Of course Sunday morning things were already messed up but at least all the deep cleaning was done and life is good. We're so blessed to have a great life!

Time together

It was So wonderful to relax and spend time together!! Here are a few highlights...
My girls were introduced to "High School Musical" They had several fun parties with their cousins and LOTs of playtime together!!

Gotta love the chocolate fountain
My parents got a Wii as an early Christmas present to themselves (so we would have time to play it all together). We all had SO much fun! Who would have thought that I would be playing video games with my parents! And getting beat!! Or that I would BEAT my husband!!!! (that was the best part!). My parents play a mean game of tennis...I'm warning you!!

Daddy of course loved playing his parents xbox 360 - he and his dad even beat one of the games together!! (we were told we could all sleep much better since they saved the universe for us).
It's not a real trip to Grandma's without plenty of beauty time!

Hooray for family time!!! (Little A is crying...more to come later!)

Christmas

Everyone had a wonderful time and we all feel spoiled - thank you all!!


Hm, someone got her first makeup set.
They won't be going out in public much!

The girls are getting into Breyer horses -and each got a stable...glad it came with assemblers!!

Snow!

The girls were SO excited to get to play in the snow!! They had fun as much as possible!!

Their first snowman at Grandma Ahlstrom's

Grandma Ahlstrom has a sledding hill in her back yard - the girls helped Daddy and Uncle Mark most of one morning forming a hill that turned at the bottom and had a jump in the middle - it was lots of fun!!!
E going down"I'm going to get you!" a snowball fight with Grandma Mosher and Aunt Sara (who was so excited to see snow, too!)
E's snow angels

Mg and cousin Alli going for a ride - thanks Daddy!

We're Back!

We had such a wonderful trip! It is great to be with family. We drove back on a Monday and sent Jon and the girls back on Tuesday so it has been a long rough week...I was SO happy when I could finally vacuum and sweep my house after everything FINALLY got put away!!! It's the little things in life! Not being one that likes to talk much :) I thought I'd share our trip with you with tons of pictures. I'm still missing a bunch of pictures that are on other family member's cameras but there's still plenty..hope you enjoy over the next few days!

Loving Utah

Okay, I wish it was warmer... :) But we are loving every minute with our families. We ended up leaving a week earlier than anticipated due to upcoming storms that we didn't want to drive in. Luckily the kids teachers were WONDERFUL and came up with a last minute independent study plan for the girls and Jon has tons of writing to do which can be done anywhere thanks to the wonderful invention of laptops! The bad part is that we came here at the tail end of a cold, traded cold bugs with my sister's family and then picked up another one...I AM SO TIRED OF HEARING COUGHING!!!!!!!!! Even daddy has been sick most of this vacation :( But we had a wonderful Christmas and we're safe and happy with family. We'll be staying here until Monday so we can be here when daddy's new little niece is blessed this Sunday. I'll get pictures up when I get back...we love you all and hope you had a wonderful Christmas!!!!!!