Two Years Old

Katie turned two on Friday! I can't believe how fast she is growing up! We have really enjoyed her sweet spirit in our home. She is at such a cute stage of life. She talks like crazy and is very expressive when she talks. I wish I could video tape her every day so I could catch those expressions on tape. Unfortunately, every time I try to tape her she just smiles and says "Cheese!"

She still loves babies. She can't get enough of them! Anytime we go somewhere and we see a baby, she says "I want to hold him!" She almost always has one of her baby dolls in her arms. It is so cute to watch her talk to them. When we left the hospital, we told her to say goodbye to the babies she was playing with. As she set them down, she hugged them, patted them on the back and said "It's Ok". The nurses got a real kick out of that.

Katie always loves to go places. I can't ever leave the house without her saying "Katie coming". She refers to herself in 3rd person all the time and she knows how to get what she wants. If she wants something, like gum, she will tilt her head and smile as she says "Katie wants just one gum, please, please....pretty please". Who can resist that?

We are so thankful that she is recovering from her surgery and that the doctors were able to fix her. She got an infection after her surgery and has to be on an antibiotic and she REALLY doesn't like it. Every time I try to give her the medicine, she covers her mouth and tries to run away. The other day I told her it was time to give her the medicine and she started crying and said "I'm sick of it!" I was laughing too hard to be able to give her the medicine. We celebrated her birthday at McDonalds because she said she wanted to eat chicken and fries and go down slide. She is very good at playing by herself. She will sit and play with toys for a long time. I love to listen to her being the mommy to whatever she is playing with. Sometimes I just watch her and think how lucky we are to have her. We all love her so much!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today I was able to go into Kyson's Kindergarten class to help with their Thanksgiving Feast. Each child is suppose to bring in a finger food like pretzels, marshmellows, cookies, olives, popcorn etc... to share with their friends and then they all eat together while listening to music. They all had a great time and it was so fun to watch Kyson with his friends. I love Kindergarteners! They are so sweet and everything is so fun to them! One of the little kids said "This is the best Thanksgiving dinner I have ever had!"

Football in the snow

We were all so excited for the first real snowstorm of the season. We sat around and watched it snow and listened to Christmas music.

Then Jadon and Jaxon decided to take Jenny outside and play football. They had such a great time. They came in once their gloves were all wet, got new gloves, then went back outside.

They stayed outside for quite a long time. When they came in, they had red cheeks, wet hair and clothes and big grins on their faces. It's so much fun for me to watch my kids have fun together!

Katie's home!!!

This is Katie after we first checked in to the hospital and got her hospital jammies on. She was so excited because she was being allowed to have her binky. At home, she only has it to sleep. She was very pleasant and calm all morning as we waited to go into surgery. We gave her a drug called versaid, which makes her very out of it but not asleep, right before they took her off to surgery so that she wouldn't freak out as they took her away from us. she was in surgery for 4.5 hours. It actually went by pretty fast. There were a lot of people in the waiting room that were very interesting.

Here is her incision. The little tube coming out of it is called a stent and is too drain urine out of her body. It will be left in for two weeks.

This was taken when I was allowed to be with her in recovery. It was so good to see her and be able to kiss her sweet face!

It took her a while to wake up and when she did, she wasn't very happy. She cried about everything. When her binky dropped on the floor, she cried like someone died. Tears streaming down her face and loud sobs. She had a horrible night! She cried a lot and would only sleep if I was holding her. So, I sat in a rocking chair and held her most of the night. In the morning, they switched her from morphine to lortab and she did much better. She slept for 3 hours.

When she woke up, she got out of her bed and was walking around. She was talking and playing. It was great! She wanted some chicken and fries so we got that for her and took her for a ride to the cafeteria so we could eat lunch together.

She was thrilled when we took her to the playroom! She immediately found the babies and started playing with them. She had a great time. Since she kept her lunch down and was up and playing, they decided she could go home. We were really surprised that she only had to stay in the hospital for one night!

When we got home, she saw some salad in the fridge and she wanted it. She was shoveling it into her mouth as fast as she could. She showed it to grandma and said "Look at this salad Grandma, it's cute!" Everyone laughed and we were all happy to have our cute little Katie home!

Katie's surgery

I am feeling a little anxious and nervous as Katie is scheduled for surgery tomorrow. She has urinary reflux that is going to be repaired tomorrow. She is having surgery at Primary Children's and will be in surgery for 4.5 hours. It makes me nervous to think of her being cut open and I won't be there with her. The thought of leaving her with total strangers and trusting them to make her feel safe makes me sad. I'm sure we will get through all of this and she will be fine but I will feel so much better when it is all over and I will be able to hold her.

Kierra playing Volleyball

We have finally found something that Kierra loves. We have always felt bad that the boys are so involved in sports and haven't been able to find something that she has an interest in. Well, she loves volleyball. She signed up with Kamry, Kayla and 3 of her friends. They have had a great time together. They have an AWESOME coach and have really improved throughout the season. I just wish they could keep the same coach. The problem is that his son, who was on the team, is a year younger than them and next year they will move up to the next age division. I just hope they will continue to play together because they really have a great time together!

The 3 K's. Kayla, Kierra and Kamry. The coach had a horrible time dealing with their names. He wanted them to use their middle names but that didn't work either since 2 of them have the same middle name. He finally got use to their names and we have one game left.

Jake in Harmony

This was Jake's first year in Harmony and he was our only child who decided to do it this year. Sometimes it was a bit of a challenge getting him to school an hour early for practice but it was worth it! the theme this year was "Let's sing America". I love patriotic songs! Jake did a great job. He did especially well signing The Star Spangled Banner. They had a special performance on Veterans Day. It was touching to see the kids sing in honor or all of our veterans. I was happy to hear that he wants to keep doing Harmony because I love to watch my kids perform.

Yardwork at Grandma & Granddad's

Recently I decided that I was going to go to my mom's house once a week to help her with whatever she needed done around the house or yard. This week she needed her raspberry bushes trimmed down. Dale thought it might be a good service oppurtunity for our kids, so we took them along to help out. It only took 10 or 15 minutes to cut back the raspberry bushes so we decided to rake their leaves.

The kids needed a little bit of encouragement to get working. Just like when I was a kid, my mom tried to do what she could to make it fun for them. She kept bringing different yard gadgets out that the kids thought were cool so they were more excited about working.

Jake and Kyson loved picking up leaves with the big claw like grabbers and Jadon loved playing with the blower they have.

They ended up being pretty good about working and we filled up 7 big black garbage bags with leaves. The sad thing about it is that next week the grass will be covered with leaves again!

First Piano recital

Tonight was Jadon, Kierra and Jaxon's first piano recital. It was also their teacher's first recital. She has been teaching Jadon for 4 years and has never had a recital. This year I decided to ask her why she doesn't do recitals. She says she has several students who refust to play in front of people. I told her that's exactly why they need to do it. I guess I guilted her into because she decided to have a recital. Jadon, Kierra and Jaxon all did a great job and it was fun to watch them play on the beautiful grand piano. After it was over, I asked their teacher if she was glad she had the recital and she said she was. Maybe that means we'll get to do this again next year.