Happy Valentine's Day!

Dale has always been good about doing something for his girls on Valentine's Day. Usually he has something sent to them in the mail but this year he decided to take them to build a bear. He was sick on Valentine's Day so he did it today. He checked Kierra out of school and took them to pick out their own bears. I wasn't there so I can't write about everything they did. Katie looked at the pictures with me and she said in this picture the lady was blowing air in her doggy.

Kierra washing her monkey

I assume Katie had a great time putting all the information into the computer. She named her doggie "giggles".

Kierra and Katie with their new stuffed animals. Katie was very excited about the toy cell phone she got for her pet. I am happy that Dale took the time to spend some time with his little Valentine's!

Finally some relief!

Katie has been sick with a bad cold for almost a week. She has been miserable! She has a bad cough, runny nose and a fever. Last night she woke up and was crying and rubbing her ear. So in the morning we took a trip to the doctor. Sure enough...ear infections! She DID NOT want the doctor to touch or look into her ears and cried the whole time. She was pretty sad the whole way home. Luckily, we got an antibiotic to help her feel better. She fell asleep holding her medicine on the way home. When we got home she took a 2 hour nap in my bed and is doing much better tonight. Hopefully she is on the road to recovery!

It's great to be eight!

Thursday was Jake's 8th birthday. We have been so busy celebrating for the last 3 days that I haven't had a chance to blog about it. The night of his birthday we went out to dinner to McDonalds. The next day he had his first birthday party.

He invited 4 friends to a swimming party. We also went back to our house for pizza, presents and cake & ice cream. Jake loves to go swimming. He loves to put his mask on and go under water. I think he had a great time at his party!
There wasn't really a time when all the boys were together in the water so I wasn't able to get a picture of them until after they got out and got dressed.

The next day, February 12th, was a very special day. It was Jake's baptism. Unfortunately, he didn't feel very good. I gave him some cold medicine to help him feel better but it made him kind of out of it. I hope he remembers this day. It was so neat to have his whole family there to watch his dad baptize him.

After the baptism, we went out to Mountain Mike's to celebrate his baptism, birthday and my mom's birthday. He was born on my mom's birthday so every year since that day I have taken a picture of them together on their birthday.

Jake is one of a kind. He is very innocent and sweet. He is very smart and has an amazing memory. He reads on a 4th grade level and is doing very well in school. He loves to play the Wii, a little too much. He gets very excited when he's playing and jumps up and down the whole time. Even when he is watching someone else play, he is jumping up and down. His best friend in the world is his brother, Kyson. Except for when they are at school, they are together. They play Super Hero Squads, the wii, jump on the tramp and color together. They both love the computer but like to be together when they play so they will take the laptop downstairs by the desktop computer and set them up together and play the same thing at the same time, side by side. I am so thankful for their relationship! Jake likes to be nice to people. He is frequently sharing things with people. He is very easily distracted and has a really hard time paying attention to someone who wants to have a conversation with him. But he is picking up a lot more than anyone ever thinks he is. We have been reading the scriptures every night and he is doing a great job following along and is excellent at reading them aloud. I am so proud of him and everything he has accomplished. I am so thankful that his sweet spirit was sent to our home. Happy Birthday Jake! I love you!

Puppy Love

Katie and Jenny. Katie loves her dog! I'm not sure Jenny loves her but she is amazingly gentle and tolerant of everything Katie does to her. Katie will hug her, lay on her, shake her paws, pull her tail, try to brush her and grab her face and say "Jenny, don't!" Jenny just sits and takes it. She never tries to bite her or even run away from her. It's true what they say about Golden Retrievers. They are great family dogs!

Playdates

This is Jenny's friend, Zoey. Our friends got her a few months after we got Jenny and she's finally gotten big enough to play with Jenny. They have had 5 or 6 play dates and it's the greatest thing ever! They will run around with each other and totally wear themselves out. After about an hour or so, they are worn out and sleep and lay around for hours. Both families love it! Now we just have to teach Jenny how to get to Zoey's house by herself!

No more binkie!

Yesterday when Katie woke up she told me she had a hole in her binkie and we needed to throw it in the garbage. Without even thinking about it, I told her to go throw it away. Ever since her surgery we have been talking about how she is a big girl and we needed to throw her binkie away. We just haven't been strong enough to do it. I decided that since SHE threw it away, I would just go with it.

I had her skip her nap so that she would be really tired at night and go to sleep quicker. She didn't cry at all because Kierra was in there with her when she went to bed. Today, for her nap, was another story. When I put her down she started looking for her binkie and I reminded her that she threw it away. She told me to go get it out of the garbage. I told her the garbage man took it away. She started crying and saying she wanted to go see Dr. Snow to get a new binkie. (That's where she got her last binkie) I left her in her bed crying and told her to go to sleep. So sad. She cried for over half an hour. Dale and I took turns going in to talk to her. It was so sad! I am so mad at myself for not taking it away when she was a little baby, like I did with the rest of my kids.
One of the worst things about letting her have a binkie so long is that she really hasn't formed an attachment to her blankie. So we are putting her to bed with nothing to comfort herself with. I just wanted to scoop her up and hold her until she went to sleep. Fortunately, I know that is the worst thing we could do for her. I hope she gets use to this quickly because it breaks my heart to hear her cry like that.

Haircuts

This week Kierra, Katie and I all went to get our hair cut together. This was Katie's first real haircut. I have cut her bangs a few times but this was the first whole hair haircut. She was really good. Kierra got her hair cut into a cute little bob and I just got a trim.

It was fun to spend the time together getting pretty!