Christmas Cheer!!

Ok, so our house is so filled with presents, I am beginning to despair of ever having it clean again!! :-) It's unbelievable how much stuff comes with Christmas for a family of seven. We had a wonderful Christmas though. TONS of good food and tons of presents and so much fun hanging out together!! Our favorite parts were singing Christmas Carols for our neighbors, acting out the nativity scene (Lindsay was Mary, Nathan was Joseph, Emma was an angel and one of the innkeepers, I was an inkeeper and a shepherd, Jeff and Noah were sheep, and Jerry was the narrator), and of course we had a blast opening all of the presents!! Here are some pictures of the happy occasion. (Please forgive the crummy photography. We just got a new camera that we were so excited about, but are having the WORST time figuring out how to get the coloring on our pictures to turn out accurately. Aaaaarrrrgggghhhh)

I just had to put up both of these pics of Noah. He was hamming it up for the camera, and they turned out so CUTE!!

This is my new favorite picture of Jerry and the boys. I just LOVE it!

Some individual pictures with Santa and Mrs. Claus

Here are just some random Christmas morning pictures!

I know this post is super long already, but these are just some cute pictures of Nathan and Noah in their matching blue hats!

November News

We had such a wonderful Thanksgiving at our house! We haven't stayed home for Thanksgiving the last few years, but things have been so hectic and busy around here lately that we decided to stay home and have Thanksgiving ourselves. It turned out to be a really great four day weekend. We made a huge dinner even though it was just our family, and with a 22lb turkey and 6 or 7 side dishes and 6 pies!! So we got to eat leftovers all weekend and just really enjoy the down time and delicious food (if I do say so myself)!! Too bad we can't have Thanksgiving every month! :-)

We had a great Black Friday too!! Jerry stayed home with the kids and I went out at 4:00am to hit all the great deals! We were able to get the majority of our Christmas presents in one crazy seven-hour shopping spree!

On the down side, this month Nathan got an ear infection, so it was back to the hospital for us -- huge bummer!! He had to go back in to get his ear tubes reinserted and his adenoids taken out. Meanwhile the antibiotics wouldn't get rid of the infection--they were just holding it at bay, so he had to keep taking them until the surgery so that the infection wouldn't worsen before he was able to have the operation done. Anyway, on Tuesday he had the surgery and it went well. There was a lot of infection built up behind the adenoids and they were very enlarged, so it was really good that we were able to get them removed. He has a terrible time waking up from the anesthesia, so he screamed/yelled/cried for about an hour after he woke up, but by that night he was doing great and back to his normal chipper self! He doesn't seem to have any pain or discomfort from the surgery and actually was able to go back to school today!

The only medication Nate has to be on right now is ear drops twice a day (thank heavens - no more antibiotics) but he HATES getting the ear drops put in. It feels funny as they are going in his ear and he swears they hurt even though it isn't supposed to. Anyway, here he is after getting the drops in his ear. He has to lie still for several minutes to let the drops soak into the ear.

Speaking of ear infections, last week Noah went in to the doctor for a well-check and he had a pretty severe double ear infection (I was blaming all the grumpiness on teething . . oops). So they put him on amoxicillin which seemed to be working to help the ear infection, but after being on it for a week, he broke out in hives all over his whole body. So, evidently he's allergic to penicillin. Good to know for the future. Right now he is still bright red and splotchy all over, but we are hoping since we stopped giving him the antibiotic yesterday and have had him on benedryl pretty steadily that he will get over it quickly and be back to his adorable little self soon. Just a few pics to show how bad his reaction was . . . scared me to death!

Day one he just had a few splotchy dots, we weren't too worried and we didn't take any pictures. But, here he is in the morning on day two.

Evening on day two:

This morning when he woke up (day three):

I'm a little frightened about what he might look like by tomorrow morning. (HOPEFULLY BETTER)

Anyway, in general we're all doing pretty well, and everyone is growing up so fast! And, we can't wait for CHRISTMAS!!! Hope you all have a wonderful Christmas holiday!!!

Here are a couple of pictures of us decorating Gingerbread houses. We went caroling and took them to our neighbors/friends for family home evening this week.

Halloween!

Here are some pictures of the kiddoes at Halloween! We had Stitch, a bride, Eyore, a turtle, and Koda (from Brother Bear).




Ready to head out to the ward Trunk-or-Treat


Noah made a very cute Koda

Our little turtle!


Lindsay really got into the whole Stitch character, She kept saying "Hello" and "Trick-or-treat" in her crazy Stitch voice!

Nathan being a super-cute Eyore! He loved that his costume had a button in the hand he could squeeze and it would say "I'm Eyore . . . Thanks for noticing me."

Emma was a beautiful Bride. She was so excited because I let her pick out any make-up that she wanted and we put it on thick (of course that is the MOST beautiful way :-)

Pictures of foster children

We got a letter a few days ago that stated in no uncertain terms that it is completely against the rules to have pictures/information about foster children on the internet. (even blogs) So, I've gone through and removed the pictures of our foster son, please note that I am not using his name (such a bummer) and am trying to follow the guidlines. We don't want to get into any trouble over such a silly issue.

So, when you see that there are no pics/information about the aforementioned foster son. Please don't assume he is gone from our home, or that we no longer love him! He's still here and we love him more than ever. :-)

Our Hospital Stay

For those of you who heard Emma was in the hospital, but didn't hear the whole story . . .

Last Friday Emma started to get sick. She was pretty exhausted, running a low fever and complaining of stomach pain. I thought she had the flu, so we just waited it out. But she never started vomiting or showing any other symptoms, and the fever and stomach pain just kept getting a little worse and a little worse. By Sunday we had ruled out the flu, but couldn't figure out what was causing the fevers and the stomach pain. Her fever was up to 103 degrees, and was only coming down to 101 with Tylenol. So, about 11:00 am I ran her into urgent care and they couldn't figure out what was wrong either, but decided she was dehydrated and told me it was a possible ruptured appendix. So, we sped to the emergency room (our first ever ER trip) where they rushed us into triage right away. Then, we sat there for 4 hours while they tried to decide what was wrong. By this point her fever was up to 104.5, and she is just laying in bed, not talking or playing or sleeping, just laying there and almost completely unable to walk on her own. Can I just say . . . . SOOOO SCARY!!

Finally they took a 2nd urine sample and determined that she had a urinary tract infection which had most likely spread to her bladder/kidneys/bloodstream. So they started her right away on an IV antibiotics. Since the fevers weren't responding well to tylenol and her white blood count was pretty high, they admitted us into pediatrics. We stayed until Tuesday morning when the fevers started to stay under 100, the white blood count was down by 1/2 and she was getting back her energy. Then they released us with a really strong antibiotic that she gets to take for a week.

Now she is back to her normal self (happy, talkative, busy, eating and drinking, etc!) What a relief that it was a fairly quick fix with no surgery required! Thank heavens for antibiotics! When the doctors were talking about her elevated white blood count, people were throwing around words like kidney failure, burst appendix, and even lukemia. You cannot imagine how thrilled we were to hear urinary tract infection.

Just a couple of notes . . .
1) Trying to nurse Noah while he was at home and I couldn't leave the hospital (Emma got nervous when I wasn't there with her) was not the most fun I've had in my life.
2) So grateful for my friends who showed so much support when I was falling apart (Jen even came and cleaned my house and cooked, and frosted my birthday cake while I was gone!)
3) Thank goodness for my Mother-in-law who rushed up from Fresno to take care of the kids while we were stuck in the hospital

And, on the funny side. Emma kept hearing people talking about her kidneys over and over, and finally she was starting to get really scared, and kept asking me "Like Archie?" (that's our cat's name), but I couldn't figure out why she was talking about Archie and what he had to do with anything. Finally I figured out that she thought she had a "kitty infection." She thought she had a cat inside of her and that's what was making her so sick. Poor kid. She was relieved to hear that a KIDNEY was part of her body, not an animal!

So anyway, we are happy to be home, and happy to have life back to normal, and most of all happy happy happy that Emma is ok now!!

Trip to Nana and Papa's House!

Last weekend we drove down to The Dalles to spend a few days with Nana and Papa! We had so much fun, and the drive really wasn't that bad. We left wondering why we don't make the trip more often (life just seems to get in the way). Anyway, we got some really great pictures . . . so prepare for the deluge!


The girls were old enough this year to take turns riding and leading Santee.

Here is Midnight star (Lady's foal who is about a year old now) giving Emma a kiss! I love this picture of my dad! It was so great to be there with him and see for myself how great he is doing since his surgery. He is back to his old self now!!




Hiking the mountain with Papa in search of the horses

Lindsay riding Socks by herself!



Emma riding Socks by herself!







Nathan riding Socks by himself!


Papa leading Lindsay and Emma at the same time. Emma is on Scout and Lindsay's on Socks.




Roasting marshmellows by the campfire. Finally we have a couple of pictures of Nana . . . I don't know how she managed to avoid the camera all weekend, but luckily we did get a few shots of her!











I can't believe I didn't get a single picture of Noah on the horses, but here he is playing on the floor at Nana's house.



Lindsay, Emma and Nathan playing with the puppies

There just really isn't any place like my parents house with all the animals and the mountains and the trampolines and, of course, Nana and Papa!