30 December 2010

27 December 2010

Happy Holidays!

 On Christmas Eve we went to Hop2it:
Lots of fun!

 Decorated some cookies for Santa:
 Too bad we forgot to leave them out for him! :)

Then got to open our Christmas Jammies!
Sweet dreams....

 Christmas Morning:
The flower and the frog:

 We hope everyone had a safe and Merry Christmas!

23 December 2010

Help someone in need

The Ferguson family of Mendon lost two of their sweet sons on Saturday morning in a tragic car accident. The family's basement flooded the same night and they have no medical or life ins., as they are self-employed. The out pouring of generous people donating things is making what has become a very materialistic season very meaningful. There are so many great people out there, and it truly just takes a whole bunch of people doing a little to make a HUGE difference.
There has been an online auction put together, 100% of the proceeds will go to a Wells Fargo account on their behalf. Bidding starts 12/24 and closes 12/28.

I can't imagine what this sweet family must be going through right now.  There are so many people in need this holiday season. It is Christmas and funds are tight for a lot of people, but if you, or anyone you know can donate, it would help this family out tremendously. Please take a minute to look at this blog/auction, and if you are able, place a bid!

You can read the news story here.

21 December 2010

Remember this?

Kaleb decorated Jenna's face while we were headed to the grocery store:
It happened again: this time she did it herself...
And yet again, I guess she decided she needed to see how she looked in blue rather than purple:
I better get better at putting the markers away, at least it has always been washable!

20 December 2010

update

 Jeff's birthday was on the 8th, if he wasn't before, he is now officially OLD! ;)

The kids had fun helping decorate a little (a whole happy bday sign!) and get things ready
Sorry, I didn't turn some of the pictures, so you'll just have to tilt your head to the left :D

 Kaleb wanted a picture of him touching the cake, so Jenna wanted to touch it too :)
 The Birthday Boy and his Princess, we tried to get Kaleb to join them, but he informed us: I'm busy!!
 There is a house in Hansen that puts up lots and LOTS of lights, and they have a camel! I guess they normally have a bucket with candy canes and stuff you can feed it, but they didn't this night. It was still fun!
 Jeff tried to get Jenna to touch the camel and she would have non of it!



 Tried to get a picture of Kaleb and I...guess i need to be more specific and mention that I would like one of us BOTH smiling, not him yawning :) Oh well, ya get what ya get, right?!


 Jenna loves to play with blocks. The other night I looked over and was like, Jenna, what's up with your pants?! She just kept on playing, Jeff lifted her shirt up with his foot, and her diaper was missing too. It had fallen off into her pants and we don't know if it pulled them down or if she did, she didn't seem to mind!
 One of her 2 year pics with her Giraffe, she is getting way too big!
 Sometimes Kaleb will ask me to take his picture, and then he does this:
Lovely


Lately the kids have wanted to sleep together, it is pretty cute !
We may need to invest in a bigger bed if they keep it up though. They don't make it clear through the night, they both toss and turn too much to be together in a twin bed!

I am SO excited for Christmas I can hardly wait! I have all the presents bought and wrapped--so this year I can actually go to bed rather than stay up all night wrapping presents ! I love how excited my kids get when they get to open them, it just keeps getting better!

04 December 2010

Swiper

Jenna and I were finishing eating dinner when she all the sudden says: "you hear dat? it's swviper the pox"
and continued to go on about what he was going to swipe, it was pretty cute so I had to try to recreate it!
my memory card got full, but you can still see the cuteness!

01 December 2010

Bloopers

We got some good ones this year ;)















These are just a few of the hundred's Brittany took.  We did actually get some decent ones...but those are on the Christmas card- if you want one leave me your address! If you don't want to leave it in the comments email it to me at: erinlarsen12 at gmail dot com.

23 November 2010

Loving Holland

We have had a bit of a rough month, and it has been stressful to say the least.
November 3rd was going to be such and exciting day, but turned into a pretty crappy one.  We went in for an ultrasound for baby #3 at about 10 1/2 weeks. The kids were with us, and Kaleb was so excited to see the baby in my tummy!
The ultrasound tech was doing the ultrasound and asked if I was sure I had my dates correct. We knew we were definitely not off on the dates.  We had been trying for a while, and had been on fertility drugs for a couple months. When you have been keeping track of stuff like that, you know your dates! Anywho....she didn't say much the rest of the time and then said she was going to go show the pictures to a Dr. and they'd be in. My heart sunk. The PA came in and said that it was a "non-viable pregnancy".  There was a gestational sac, and a yolk sac, but that was all. The baby did not continue to grow after about 6 weeks. Kaleb kept asking when we'd get to see the baby- how do you explain to him what is going on? We were told to go home and wait, if nothing had happened within 2 weeks I'd have to go in for a D&C.  Seriously? How do you go home and just sit around waiting to have a miscarriage? I suppose I've done ok, but that isn't something that is very easy to deal with.  We were coming back to Logan that weekend so I called and made an appointment with my Dr. there, to kinda get a second opinion. I'm so so glad that I did. He was so kind, and reassuring and helpful. We were able to "take action" rather than sit around and wait. He even called me a week and half later to see how I was doing!  One ER trip, several phone calls, and a few more appointments later, I think things are finally starting to look up as far as that goes. Now we just have to figure out where we go from here as far as getting our next sweet spirit here.

Tis the season for colds and all that kind of fun stuff. It hit Jenna especially hard last week. On Sunday we ended up taking her to the Physicians immediate care clinic because she was coughing  a lot and seemed to be having a hard time breathing. We gave her a breathing treatment and got some prescriptions to go home with and thought we'd be doing good.

She did not like me holding that thing in her face at all
She zonked on the way home

Hanging out at home, trying to get Jenna to eat a popsicle 
so that she would stay hydrated

When we got home we gave Jenna her medicine and just tried to relax and take it easy.  As the night went on we got more and more worried about Jenna's breathing. It seemed to be getting worse, not at all better. We decided to take her in to the ER to get her checked out a bit further.  It was not a fun night.  They decided to put an IV in to get her some fluids and draw some blood at the same time. She did not like that!

She is telling me to take it out here, I wish I could have!
If her Dora cup left her hands at any point 
she would FREAK OUT!!


We went and had a chest x-ray done, which was also very fun :)
She would not stand up so we had to lay her down, but she just wanted me to hold her so I had to hold her down on the table to get it done.  They did 2 x-rays, then she went to look at them to make sure they turned out good, and one of them didn't so we had to re-do it. Then we could go back to our room.

Jeff took Kaleb for a walk while Jenna was getting the IV and he got 
some stickers, then decided to stick them ALL over himself!
Not really sure what they were doing, but at least they were having fun!
Trying to get a little bit of sleep. We would last like this for a couple 
minutes, then something would wake her up and she'd start saying "get up.
get up. get up" So we'd stand til she fell back to sleep then try laying down again.

Jeff got a couple cat naps sitting on the stool.
Kaleb started out like this:
  Then we put the chairs together to make a bed, and he zonked!
While we were getting the x-ray's and waiting, Jenna tried pulling her IV out a couple times, and was moving her wrist a lot. So the line got plenty kinked.  When the nurse came back in she tried to straighten it out, with no luck. So we had to take that one out and put another one in by her elbow. Lots more tears. They put a little board thingy on so that she couldn't bend her elbow, but it didn't do any good. she kept on bending it like nothing was there.  So they wrapped it up and Jeff and I would hold it straight for a while. Once she finally fell asleep it wasn't too big of a problem!
Her poor little arm all wrapped up:
Such a sad baby girl :(
Standing time
owie

We finally got discharged at about 3:30 AM. We had to go stop by Norco to get a Nebulizer and Walgreens to get the medication. We got home just after 4 and Jeff crashed to hopefully get a couple hours of sleep before heading off to work at 7:30.  Jenna and I have spent several nights on the couch, without much sleep. It really starts to wear on you. To top it off I got a cold too, so I haven't been the most pleasant mom or wife lately. Lucky for me I have a great husband who is supportive and reassuring. I have family that helps me with me kids when I am at my wits end. I have great friends (like Natalie, Lexi, Lainee and countless others) who are great examples of remaining positive when things get though. They could always be worse. I am grateful for every thing that I have in my life. I love it and wouldn't change it for the world. Even when we do hit a bit of a rough patch, we get through it with the help of The Lord and our family and friends.

I found this great story from this blog, and wanted to share:

c1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved
I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......
When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."
"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."
But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.
The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.
So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."
And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.
But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.




Holland is wonderful, there are so many, many things that I love about it and am so glad to be here!