How We Survived January Through March

So I know I had pics of The Guthrie Christmas Party, but I can't find them, so I'll put those up later.

We had a pretty decent New Years and started off the new year pretty well. We're trying to eat healthier things, get more exercise and get more on top of life.

Here are some pics of our Superbowl Party.

I tried a new dessert. 

Craig was way excited about a wings recipe he found.

We cheered for the Broncos, but ended up depressed by the results. Oh well.

We enjoyed a fun Valentine's Day with the kids

And Baby S got a toilet brush. He's always running off with ours so I bought him his own, clean, toilet brush to play with. 

We took a quick trip to Southern Utah to enjoy a free Zion's Park Day with Craig's family. 

We all had a yummy lunch, and a fun time visiting with everyone.

This is the scene of the rock slide in Rockville that took out someone's house. So sad.

After we got back from Southern Utah we prepared fro Little H's eye surgery. If you haven't heard the story of his eye here it is(as short as I can):

Little H's eye started wondering last summer, so we started trying to figure out what was wrong. An eye doctor confirmed that he couldn't see out of his right eye. We then took him to a specialist who said to have him wear a patch. The patch was miserable for everyone. I mean it was so incredibly miserable. It was a whole hour of Little H whining, asking to take it off, throwing full body fits and it never got any better. We took him back to the Doctor, I was not impressed with him at all he made us wait for unreasonable amounts of time for unreasonable things. He said that he didn't know what was going on and the patch wasn't helping. So he recommended that we take him to another specialist that had more experience with kids. I like this doctor much better. This doctor said he could see a growth in his right eye, and to stop using the patch. They then had us take him to same day surgery so that they could put him under with anesthesia and get a good look at his eye so they could figure out exactly what was wrong. The verdict: A detached retina. And not even the one common in kids, it's the one usually seen in adults. So a surgery was scheduled to reattach his retina. This happened on President's Day. My parents had just gone out of town. My Aunt came over and 6:00 AM to watch our kids for us-- we are so grateful for our amazing family!!! This ended up being pretty stressful. The fact that it happened the week my parents were gone made it even worse. But we survived the eye drops, the kicking, the screaming, the doctor appointments and Little H always yelling at us because we put essential oils by his eye-- no matter where I put it or what I put on he says it burns rubs it everywhere, gets in his eye and screams(even with lavender). It was fun. Now we're in March and we had another appointment with both the surgeon and the doctor. They both wanted Little H to go under again so they could get another really good look at his eye and make sure everything was good, and get a really accurate prescription for him. This time we went to the Utah Valley Outpatient Center. I really liked the staff there. They were all incredibly nice. The verdict this time: Everything looks good and he has a small cataract that they will probably operate on in the next 5 or 6 months. They will also try to take the oil, used to hold the retina down, out of his eye to see if it will be OK on it's own. If they do take it out we'll be getting another new pair of glasses (this will be the fourth time we have had to change his prescription). I know I had pictures from his actual eye surgery but I can't find them.

February also found us attending a baby blessing for Craig's cousin's new baby girl.

 This cute boy stopped when I pulled out the camera, posed and said, "CHEESE!" Look at him carrying that cucumber on a fork. It was his best friend while at the blessing.

March found us getting a surprise visit from Craig's Sister, and her family, from Missouri

 Silly boy eats corn like he's a dog.

 The boys got all dressed up for their cousins

I hope they enjoyed their unexpected time at our house. We enjoyed having them.

Later in March my mom and I entered the 5K that was organized to help raise money for Sergeant Cory Wride. He was shot to death in Eagle Mountain by a man who had violated his parole. The suspect then led police on a chase that ended in Juab County, shooting another cop in the head along the way (who ended up in critical condition). Sergeant Wride worked for the Utah County Sheriff's office, where my mom works, so we felt close to the situation and I was excited to show my support in the run. My mom and the boys decided to join me. I was so impressed with those kids. Big H would not give up while we practiced, and he was so determined to run the whole race. He would fall down because he was tired and I would tell him that it was OK to just get in the stroller and he would say, "It's OK mom. I'll just catch up."

 Getting to the race was crazy. It was freezing and the wind was crazy up in Eagle Mountain. We waited in line forever to pick up our registrations, only to find that they were sorting everyone by first name, so I could only get half of them. I was told to wait in another line to get the others, which I did. Only to end up with raffle tickets. I was cold and getting irritated so I went to find Craig and the boys. I found Craig all distraught because he had broken our only van key trying to fix one of the tires on the jogging stroller. My mom met us there, and she waited in line to get registrations only to be told that it was the raffle ticket line(just like me). She told the person she wasn't waiting in another line because we had already done this twice, and this was where she was told to go. Well she finally got all the registrations after all that. Then we moved on to the key crisis. My mom wasn't sure she could run the race so she was going to just wait at the finish line. Craig had gotten a hold of a Kia dealership in American Fork that could get us a new key, so my mom said she would help Craig with that while I ran with the boys. Craig then called and said that he had left his license at home and would need it to get the key made. I got upset because I thought I would have to miss the race and go down to the dealership to show them my license. But my mom said she would take Craig to Springville to get his license and then take him to get the key, all while I ran with the kids. So this was the plan. We finally loaded on the bus about an hour after we had arrived at Eagle Mountain, and headed up to the start. When I got out of the bus the man who unloaded my stroller said a piece had fallen off. I went to observe the damage and found I was missing some pieces needed to put the handle back on. A couple people helped me search the bus and the ground, and we finally found all that was necessary. Finally we were ready to race. I jogged the whole way minus the times the kids wanted to switch riding in the stroller. We were in the back, but I was still sure proud of everyone when we crossed that finish line.

I was so grateful to my mom for helping us get into the race, and getting me a cool shirt to wear. I even made some for the boys even though all of us had jackets on the entire time. It ended up being a good experience even with all the hardship. I'll probably post a little more about it on my other blog, just in case this long winded version wasn't enough ;).

Just a few more things.

The boys. . .and I. . .and Craig. . .have come down with Frozen Fever. The kids love it. We all love it. I was so excited to bring him the CD, and we play it all the time and sing the songs. We sing them in grocery stores, around the house, on walks, etc. Little M has started saying, "No mom, I'm going to sing it!" So I have to hold back and let him sing his little heart out. So cute!

Happy St. Patty's Day from us! We made fun shirts and ate Corn Beef, Cabbage and Potatoes for dinner.

The boys, especially Little M, love electronics. Here they are all watching a movie together (no one was screaming, no one was yelling, they were getting along and having a good time).

The boys love cooking! Here they are proudly eating the eggs they all made, with some assistance from me. 

And here they are displaying the rolls the made last Sunday when I made some bread dough for cinnamon rolls. They were so excited about it!

Big H loves airplanes and anything that has to do with science and scientists. He keeps telling me about how he's going to be a scientist that builds airplanes someday.

Strawberry boy! I'm happy to find my kids will usually make healthy choices. They love apples and bananas, and this boys loves strawberries and blueberries.

These are pictures of our family that the twins drew in Primary. I adore them!

Our Christmas Vacation

Now that we are well into February I thought maybe I should finally sit down and write about the holidays.

We kicked off the holiday season with a crazy trip down south. We took some family pics and enjoyed some time with everyone. It was super wonderful to see the family but this trip ended up being a bit more than we could bare. Baby S threw up on the way down. His skin turned kind of ashen and I was in the back checking his pulse and breathing every 15 min or so-- I can be kind of paranoid sometimes. Craig and I were completely wiped out. Everyone wanted cleaning done before the week of Christmas so we had spent that week working our butts off. Then we woke up early the Saturday before Christmas to drive down. We got a hotel Saturday night but staying at a hotel one night doesn't always mean rest, especially with 4 young kids. Then on Sunday we stopped to make a few more visits. We were supposed to drive back that night but my mom called and said there was a big storm up north. So we got a hotel for that night. Everyone in Craig's family was getting sick, and the illness did not spare us. Big H was up all night throwing up, and Little H started in the morning-- That's what I get for forgetting my On Guard. With illnesses and staying an extra night we were low on clothes, so we did laundry and bought some things to get us through the extra day. Then in the morning we had to go and buy some towels and puke buckets for the ride home. We thought about visiting some more, but Craig and I agreed we should just go home. We were exhausted and still hadn't gotten a good nights sleep to recover, and now everyone was sick. Big H and Little H threw up the whole way home. All the kids wore diapers because it was coming out both ends. We got home and we all took naps, then when we woke up Little M started puking. It was miserable. The next day I was sick in the morning and I went without eating and drinking all day in hopes that I could avoid throwing up again. Our van was a horrid mess and, since we hadn't been able to spend much time together as a family, we decided it was well worth the investment to take it down to the detailing car wash. 

On Christmas Eve we threw together a Polar Express Adventure for the kids. We decorated the van and drove the Spanish Fork's festival of lights. Then we drove up the canyon where we ran into Santa-- we never really saw him because everything went dark-- and he left a special gift for the boys, two My Little Ponies movies. 

 

Then Craig and I stayed up until 5:00 in morning helping Santa with Christmas-- this is what happens when you have absolutely nothing wrapped prior to Christmas Eve.

Needless to say the boys had a great Christmas!

Little M is way into Planes.

Little H's favorite gift, by far, was his kitty. He LOVES kitty's!!!

Big H showing some of his gifts. He really like this Iron Man ornament, and I about broke his heart when he broke it and I told him I wouldn't buy him things if he couldn't treat them nice. He hates to be irresponsible. I spent numerous hours apologizing and telling him he was a good kid.

 We weren't sure if we were going to pull out this Trampoline for Sammy-- because we had so many other things already-- but he wasn't really into his other gifts. I'm glad we did because he was so happy when he saw it.

The rest of Christmas was spent with family.

Sometime after Christmas we went up to Temple Square with my parents. I haven't been up to see the lights in years. In fact, I think the younger half of my kids haven't ever even seen the lights.

We stopped at Deseret Book to see the Candy Bomber display. Monty was constantly disappearing while we shopped, and each time we found him back here playing with the display-- don't worry it was meant to be played with, but I just wasn't meant to deal with the fear of turning around every 5 seconds to find that my child was missing.

When it got dark we headed over to see the lights.

Everyone is tired, cold and hungry. And everywhere to eat is so, so busy. We ended up at California Pizza Kitchen-- by the way don't go to California Pizza Kitchen, huge rip off!

I was super thrilled to find that Macey's brought back the Candy displays. Macey's bought ZCMI, and ZCMI used to have a tradition of putting up candy displays in their windows every Christmas. I was sad when the tradition stopped, but now it's back. It was very hard to get a good look though.

The rest of our holidays found us celebrating the New Years, and enjoying some much needed, but kind of nerve racking, time off.