February Happenings

Now that March is nearly over, I figure I'm way past due to update for the month of February.  Here are some pics and quick happenings from that month.  These may or may not be in order.

One lazy Saturday morning the kids put on a fashion/talent show.

Gotta love this little cowboy.

Rapunzel?

This girl can sure hula hoop - she just keeps going, and going!

Kaylee is the little piggy ;-)

This girl loves to wake up early (4:30) and help Daddy pack his lunch and help Mommy fix his breakfast.  She either has to go right back to bed or take a nap after lunch when she does this.

We have thankfully had a much healthier winter this year (compared to our first winter here) but we finally had our first bad bug go through our house this month.  We've had some minor sniffles before, and this one really wasn't that bad, just not feeling like themselves for a few days.  Once it got through everyone we were ready to get out of the house again and return to our schedule.  We spent lots of time building marble towers...

...and playing with Lincoln Logs.

Trysten informed me that his cowboy had a rocket - here he is flying ;-)

The big girls finished up their basketball season - it was a good learning year, they enjoyed it.

I don't know what's going on with Brailee's hair but I just love this picture of these two.

And these ones, too - they love each other (but do have their moments of course!).

We celebrated Leap Day by filling out information sheets and creating a time capsule - it will be fun to open up in 4 years and see how they've changed.  We also celebrated with a Leaping picture....

...which the kids wanted to do over, and over again!  Yes, I let my kids jump off the couch - just for one night ;-)

First Brailee stated that she was actually an owl, flying, so she'd say "Whooo, whooo!" as she'd jump...

...sao then Trysten decided he was a train and said, "Choo, choo, woooo!" as he jumped ;-)

January Re-Cap

So I'm not very good about staying up to date - I might just do better at a once a month update!  Here are a few things that happened in our family during January.

Brianna had a couple of friend birthdays to go to - here she is dressed up for a Rock Star b-day, she won a prize for her costume ;-)

And as always, she has to be a goof!

Kaylee had a dress-up day at school, it was 'Injured Day' - I was so worried someone was going to report me ;-)  I took a pic before school - I guess she was acting like a zombie.

That day after school she got her hair cut - chopped a few inches off and added bangs and a feather.

I was in charge of Mommy Preschool one day - I had a lot of fun stuff planned because it was also Chinese New Year that day.  Unfortunately only one kid showed up, and she was late, so we did most of the stuff on our own.  We wore red, did a ribbon dance (made from pencils and crepe paper streamers I had on hand), and ate our fruit snacks with chopsticks.  I also made fortune cookies - our letter for the day was N so the fortunes in the cookies just had Nn on it.  Our assigned shape and number for the day were rectangle and 12 which worked out perfectly as we talked about Dominoes.  Brailee liked doing math facts with them.  Here she is gluing her 12 dots onto her Dominoe.

Ribbon Dance

Chopsticks

Brianna got glasses this month - she was so excited when we found out at her yearly eye appointment - and even more excited when they finally arrived.  She just needs them for reading and schoolwork.

This big guy had a birthday - can you guess how old he is?

I love the smile on his face as we sang Happy Birthday.  I went super simple on the cake - crushed up some cookies to make dirt and added some toy construction vehicles - he loved it!

As he opened this present from Gma and Gpa DeVries he was so excited to see 'Poppers' - my kids love to jump on these and pop them.  He was also excited to see the presents too.  With each present he would open he would say, 'Ooooh' and then it was usually followed by 'I love it!'  Even the new church shoes he got received a hug and 'I love them!'  He's easy to please!

Love this little guy.  Sometimes he's super cheesy...

...but when he pulls this face, watch out!

I love how these two get along (most of the time).  They have fun together while the older two are in school.  I weighed them the other day just before they jumped in the bathtub and they were both exactly 39.4 pounds.  It really doesn't surprise me that they weigh the same even though she is 2 years older.  Trysten (3) is just solid and Brailee (5) is a lot thinner (and about a head taller.)  Trysten's height is in his upper body and Brailee's is in her legs.  Such cuties!

Thanks for visiting!

Birthday Girl

Brailee had quite an eventful week - not only was it Christmas and her first ER visit, it was also her 5th Birthday!  I'm so glad she was feeling better in time for her big day.  The day before I took her to get her hair cut and she wanted a feather in her hair.  Here she is as we were leaving the salon.  You can't really see it in the pic but she ended up with yes, a PINK feather - surprise, surprise!

I had wanted to hold a birthday party for her but I was hesitant to invite anybody if I was just going to have to cancel due to her reactions.  On Thursday since she was clear we decided to go for it.  She insisted on having the party ON her birthday so it was really short notice but we gave it a try.  We actually had a pretty good turnout - two of her friends and their families were able to come over from R-ton so that worked out great, so glad they made the trip.

The kids each made their own owl cupcakes - I found the idea HERE but used what we had on hand in place of some of the recommended items.  I didn't have coconut to tint, and I only had hard life savers instead of gummy ones for the eyes, but it worked.  I still had some gummy orangle slices from the Angry Birds party that we cut up for the beaks again.  Gpa T and Gma Shelly gave Brailee an Ice Cream Sandwich maker - we used it to make some Italian Pizzelles (waffle cookies) that worked perfectly for the wings!

Here she is with my sample owl.

Here is Brailee and her owl.

After they had their goodies, the kids played for a while and then we headed to the Dinosaur Museum.  She held hands with this friend almost the entire time.

Trysten got really into it this time.  That is until he remembered the toy/play area that all the kids had found.

That night she opened gifts with the family (I always request no gifts from friends who come to my kids parties so we didn't do gifts then)  Anyway, I was going to make her an apron before Christmas but found this fun set at a great price online so I ordered it instead.  You can tell she loves to help me in the kitchen - she got lots of fun kitchen related items for Christmas and her birthday.  My mom sent her a fun Mom and Me cookbook that she is excited to try.  It arrived on Wednesday and Thursday morning when she woke up she told me she had a dream that we made bread from her new cookbook ;-)

We sang to her so she could blow out some candles since I forgot to do that at her party.

Here Trysten is trying to help again ;-)

Christmas ER Visit

In my 10+ years as a parent I have NEVER taken a kid to the Emergency Room - I've been pretty lucky.  Well, that all changed on Christmas Day.  Here's how it started.

***

On Friday night just before bed, Brailee mysteriously got a fat lip and a couple of hives around her mouth.  I gave her some Benadryl and sent her to bed.

Saturday morning she woke up with a few more hives on her torso (the lip was fine, though).  I gave her some more Benadryl.  She flared up again at least one more time later that day so we did more Benadryl before bed again.  Sunday (Christmas Morning) she woke up with a swollen upper lip.  She was thirsty when she woke up so she took a drink of water and immediately threw it up.  We got some crackers and some more water in her and she kept it down this time.  Luckily she felt okay to open presents then after some breakfast we gave her some more Benadryl.

More views of the swollen lip:

She started to get worse so we decided she would stay home from church so it was just me and the two older girls that went.  By the time I left she was covered from head to toe in hives.

I worried about her all through church - I didn't like how it kept getting worse and worse as soon as the Benadryl would wear off.  I felt like I should take her in to the ER but didn't want to be an over-reacting mom, either.  I talked to a couple of friends at church (some with medical backgrounds) and they helped me trust my gut and realize it really was nothing minor.  By the time I got home from church she was clear and feeling better, but as soon as the Benadryl wore off it came back the worst I had seen it yet.  I gave her some more Benadryl and a soda bath to relieve the itching but this is what her back looked like:

We knew it was time to take her in and we couldn't wait any longer, and the ER was our only option.  David gave her a blessing and then he stayed home with the rest of the kids while I took her in.  She was so good at the hospital.  She took her 'Pink Ploodle' that she got for Christmas (it was the only thing she asked Santa for) to keep her company.  She never whined or cried and she let the nurse and doctor do what they needed.  They never discovered exactly what caused the reaction - it may have been something viral or it could have been a food allergy, though she hadn't had anything new lately so we have no idea what it could be.  They recommended she avoid peanuts/peanut butter for a few weeks, but I was really skeptical since she has eaten it almost daily for the last four years.  They gave her a steroid to help with the hives.

Since no stores were open because of the holiday, we had to wait around for them to find some meds for us to take home.  She played with her 'ploodle' and the iPod for a few minutes.

Then she fell asleep.  We finally got some Zyrtec and the steroid and we were good to go.

She was starting to feel better that night after we got home.  She put on a little show for us...

Gpa T and Gma Shelly gave her a smoothie maker for Christmas (yes, a real one - she loves it!) and one of her friends gave her an apron.  She couldn't wait to use them both and make some strawberry smoothies for everyone.

Here is what she looked like the next day - still spotty but no new hives.

Once the Family Practice that we go to opened again on Tuesday, we went in for a follow-up.  They confirmed my thoughts and told me it probably wasn't peanuts/peanut butter since she did eat it so often and never had shown any other signs.  They said maybe after 4 or 5 exposures maybe but not hundreds of exposures.  On Wednesday she had one more flare-up on her hips/thighs but after a quick dose of Benadryl it finally completely went away and all the spots did too and she's been good ever since!  If it happens again then we will end up doing blood work to try to figure out what's causing it.  For now it's still kind of a mystery!

***

It was definitely an memorable Christmas but I'm just glad it wasn't any worse.  It was really the best kind of ER trip to break me in, but I don't look forward to ever have to take one of my kids again!