Friday, February 26, 2010

Enjoying the Weather

 
I love when the days are nice and cool it reminds me of why we live in Arizona! These are some pictures of enjoying the outdoors!

Some are from the Riparian reserve behind the library on Greenfield and Guadalupe and the others are from yet another zoo trip!
  

We have a zoo pass and yes it is worth the money because we go all the time when it is nice out and you see a lot more animals too when it's not so hot!


Thursday, February 25, 2010

So Blessed

On Sunday January 3, 2010 we blessed Caleb Michael. 
Our family support group was a little smaller this time with only half of Mike's family and maybe a 10th of mine but it was a beautiful blessing none the less and that is the important part.

Caleb looked so handsome in his little suit. I'm just glad it still fit him because we were going to bless him in December but his outfit came in the mail the Wed after so we waited and thankfully everything worked out just fine.

I am so thankful that Mike is a worthy priesthood holder, I love hearing the wonderful things each of our children have been blessed with through the mouth of their father.



Friday, February 19, 2010

New Year

On New Years Eve we rented Terminator Salvation and G-force and had my sister Heather and her husband Matt and their daughter Kathryn over for dinner and then watched movies. I know it isn't a very exciting way to ring in the new year but we have three kids so what are you going to do! 

Anyway later that night when we went to bed (before midnight) we were just talking and then it struck midnight and boy did our neighborhood ring in the new year...like a bunch of idiots! They were setting off fire crackers like crazy. There was a group down by the park and we seriously heard a string of M-80's going for like 5 min straight! But that wasn't the best part, there was another group down the row of houses just behind ours and they were letting off ones that shoot up in the air right in front of their garage between the houses! I don't know if you recall or not but it was pretty windy that night and they could have easily set their house or somebody else's on fire! In fact we found fire crackers in our backyard! It went on like this for 20-30 min and then they were finally done, thankfully! I know I'm a party pooper but I didn't want these drunk morons to wake op my kids or set my house on fire but maybe that is just me! 

The next morning we tried putting on a movie for the girls and our DVD wouldn't work anymore it died, I think it was because both movies we watched the night before were about machines taking over the world and our dvd wanted to get in on that action. So anyway we ventured out to walmart and bought a new one which worked out nicely because of all the sales.

Then we on Saturday we decided to take a little trip to the zoo. It was a lot of fun to have Dad along for the ride, it is usually just me and the kids so it is extra special when we get to have Dad with us too. We even rode the train that takes you around the zoo. Here are some pictures of that trip. 

Our New Year started off pretty well and we are excited to see what the days to come bring!  

I know it's February but...

Here are some pictures from Christmas! (I'm still trying to catch up!)

Rory and Paige gave each other a gift this year they bought at the dollar store

Rory's "big" gift was a Barbie laptop

Paige's "big" gift was a princess scooter

This is the stocking line up at my parents house,(it's not even all of them, there are 28 total) They are all personalized and my mom knit them all, I guess that is why I felt like I had to make our own too

The 3 best gifts I could ever ask for!   

Thursday, January 28, 2010

All too Familiar (long post)

So my sweet little boy is sick...he has a cough, stuffy nose and an ear infection in his left ear. The poor thing can hardly breath so it is hard to eat and sleep. His little cry is so horse that it is even more pathetic to hear and then sometimes he has so much phlegm that he chokes on it and then throws up! This has been going on since Saturday night and like I said it feels all to familiar because about a month ago on Sunday Dec. 13th Caleb was sick too, sick enough we had to go to the hospital.
 At that time we was only 7 weeks old and as you may know if a baby younger then 8-9 weeks has a fever over 100.4 you have to take them to the ER because they can get sick so quickly since their little bodies are still so small. So anyway we went to church that Sunday and he seemed okay to me  and then later that evening went to dinner at my parents house and visited Mike's parents too but now looking back I think he was probably already warm at that point but he sleeps all the time and was all bundle up so I didn't think I need to take his temperature. I feed him at 7 pm and he went to bed about 8 pm then I woke up about 2am because he hadn't woken up to eat yet and I was staring to hurt so I went to check on him and at that point he was hot to the touch so I took his temp and it was 102! I called my doctor and they said because of his age and the temp I just need to take him straight to the ER so I woke up Mike and told him what was going on and he gave Caleb a blessing and off we went.

I went to the Mountain Vista hospital because it is not even a mile away from my house but from now on I know to just go straight to the Cardon's Children's Hospital on Dobson because even though they took us in there and started running tests which included a lumbar puncture!!! They ended up telling me that they were going to have to transfer us there anyway because now that the hospital is open they don't do pediatrics anymore and none of the other hospitals do either!  SO IF YOUR KIDS ARE SICK GO STRAIGHT TO CARDON'S CHILDREN'S!!! When they told me that I asked I could just take him but they told me know we had to go by ambulance, I guess because they had already put in an IV.
Anyway back to the ER visit they  put in an IV and had to take his blood and to do that they didn't attach the vile to the needle like they usually do they just squeezed it out and tried to catch it in the vile so my poor little baby's precious blood is just spilling out all over the table !!!!! Then they told me they had to do a lumbar puncture as well and suggested that I leave the room for that because it is very hard to watch, I took their advice on that one and stood out in the hall and it was hard just listening to it because I could hear him crying and couldn't do anything about it.
 We were they from about 3am till 8am when the ambulance came to transport us to the children's hospital. They asked me if I wanted to hold him and I said yes but then they just strapped me to the gurney and I just held him in my arms but I don't know why they did that because if we wrecked or even had to stop fast he would have just flown out of my arms!! Anyway we made it to the other hospital and got checked in but didn't see the doctor until about 2 in the afternoon.
While I was doing all this, thankfully Mike's vacation started that Monday afternoon so he got Rory off to school and dropped Paige off at his parents house and then had to go into work for the rest of the morning. My cell phone battery died shortly after I got to the ER so I was limited on relaying info but it worked out okay. Mike came to the hospital after work at about 2 just after the doctor came.


 The Doc didn't really tell us anything, just that we had to wait for the cultures to grow and see the results and because they didn't know what was causing it we were kind of on isolation so any of the staff that came in had to have on a gown, gloves, and a mask. Over the next few days we just had to wait, he was throwing up and was restless so he was awake a lot which if you know Caleb at all know that is NOT normal, the kid sleeps all the time and I kept trying to tell the nurses that but they just kept saying "oh he's awake and alert, that is good!" while I was thinking "No, it's not!" It was so sad to see my little boy hooked up to everything and cry in addition to everything else that was going on because he couldn't bend his arm because of the IV. So we were there till Wednesday afternoon and by then he didn't have the fever anymore and wasn't throwing up all the time so they finally told us that they cultures were negative and basically that they didn't know what had caused it but that they needed the room so they were going to let us go home.


It was all pretty scary at first but then just sitting around waiting got long and boring but they took good care of us and I am just glad that everything turned out okay. No if we can just get him over this current situation I'll feel a lot better especially since Mike, Rory, Paige & Kathryn ( my niece who will be with us for the next 3 months) are all sick too, it makes for one messy house and one tired mama! So here's to all your health ... I hope it lasts through the entire season!

  

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

A Yummy Find!


I found a "CALORIE FREE" salad dressing at Sprouts the other day and it turns out that is is actually GOOD! If any of you have tried the fat free ranch you know that it is not even worth eating you might as well eat your salad dry and the light isn't too bad but then again not great and I don't love the vinaigrettes so I was looking for an alternative to the fat free Italian we've been eating. So I was a little skeptical when I found this but gave it a shot anyway and now have a new brand of dressing to buy. It is called Walden Farms and it is calorie free, sugar free, fat free, carb free, gluten free, cholesterol free, and has no preservatives!!! We tried the bacon ranch and Mike even liked it! I'm excited to try some of the other flavors and some of their other products, they have almost everything ! You can check them out at waldenfarms.com 
Enjoy!!

On to December...a quick recap

Well of course we decorated our tree


and it had been 6 weeks so I decided to take Caleb back to church and he did wonderfully, in fact our first Sunday back he slept the full 3 hours which was nice but then I nobody got to see him in his cute outfit so I took a picture of it when we got home.


We did an outdoor movie and watched Up! in CC's backyard with our Hanchett family and it sure was cold but Grandpa did a good job at keeping us warm!


Rory had a Christmas program in her kindergarten class and the little boy she is standing next to is her "boyfriend" Miguel.


We visited Santa but only Paige wanted to talk to him Rory just wanted to wave to him.


Rory and Grandma Turley went to see the nutcracker. I think this has become a tradition, she went with her grandma Hanchett last year and maybe it will be my turn next year. They loved it and she even got to see her friend Sadie in the bathroom afterwards!


Then of course we did our annual decorating of gingerbread houses.



It was a fun filled busy month...more to come!

Monday, January 25, 2010

More from November


My mom's school did a parade on the last day before thanksgiving break so I took Rory over to be in it with her class. All the classes where supposed to show something they had been learning about in social studies and it just so happened that 1st grade learns about the pilgrims, so that works out nicely for the time of year. My mom made a Mayflower boat our of some boxes and had the kids walk around with that as part of the parade.

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Thanksgiving

Part of the joy of the holidays is that both my family and Mike's family live within 10 miles of us so we get to spend time with everyone. This year was Mike's families turn for dinner and we did dessert later with my family. I don't know where Rory came up with this but she got the idea in her head that she wanted to eat the leg off the Turkey and we let her so here are some pictures of our little girl trying to gnaw meat off the leg of this turkey.


Those of you who know me very well probably know I do NOT like eating things off the bone, it is too much work for such a little reward besides then you risk getting the stuff in your bite that you don't want to eat anyway so needless to say it is not for me and because of such Mike feels deprived that we never eat KFC! Anyway this little escapade must becoming from her dad because she certainly didn't get it from me.


Then once the other kids saw her doing it they wanted a go too so she held it out for her cousin Raiden, who is 2, to tear off a piece too!


Then of course football watching is part of the day so this is a picture of Caleb experiencing his first thanksgiving football fest with his grandpa but I think Paige was a little more into it then Caleb.


 In case you were wondering she is doing the "touchdown" signal! All in all we had a wonderful time and are ever so thankful for all we have!
 

Friday, January 22, 2010

Caleb at 3 months!

   
My little boy isn't so little anymore, in fact he is a whopping 15.8 pounds as of Wednesday the 20th which was his 3 month birthday. He is still such a good baby, he loves to sleep, eat, smile and goo ... what more could you ask for!

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Thankful for my Beautiful Family

    I know I haven't been very good at posting lately and I'd like to blame it on the fact that I have a new baby but it is mostly that I'm just lazy... so anyway I'm going to try and play a little catch up so be prepared for post overload the next few days!



    So in November we had our family pictures done by the wife,Cami Epperson, of a guy I knew in high school and she did a good job and saved us a few pennies but I feel guilty for not using my friend Liz who has done them the last 2 years and I always get so many great shots from her, love you Liz! So here are some of the pictures from that shoot!