The Sick Room

My family room has now officially turned into an infirmary.

Last weekend, Lana started to get a cough. By Tuesday night, it was horrible. Rylee stayed home from school on Tuesday because she said her ear hurt. Of course, all day she acted fine and I was ticked at her for missing school. Then Wednesday, she says she still doesn't feel well and that her ear really hurt. Lana still had a nasty sounding cough and I was honestly more worried about her. I thought she may have bronchitis or something. So Bill stayed home for the morning and took the two big girls to the doctor while I stayed home with the other two kids.

Boy did I get to eat my words. The doctor looked Rylee over and said she looked fine - ears and all. But then for some strange reason, he decided to do a throat culture on her. Wouldn't you know it, the girl has strep. So he does a throat culture on Lana too. Nope, no strep. She just has a bad cold and we just have to keep doing what we are doing. So after being mad at Rylee for "faking it" she has strep after all. She kept saying, "Mom, it's weird. I walked into the doctor's office with an earache and I came out with strep." What a goofball.

Lucky me, the doctor told us to keep Rylee home for the next 36 hours. So we set up camp in the family room.

And just for added fun, Kate and Hayden are both coming down with it too. Hayden is being a trooper through it so far and just wants to play. But Kate is so sad and clingy. Poor baby. This is her yesterday morning just sacked out with her blankie on the floor. Look at those sad little, glazed over eyes.

Give her a little bit of chocolate milk and she perks up a little bit.

Rylee and Lana have wanted to sleep out in the family room for the last couple of nights. Rylee loves the recliner and Lana loves the couch. So we put the humidifier between the two of them and let them inhale those lovely menthol vapors all day and all night.

Notice Lana's two boxes of tissues propped on the back of the couch. She insisted on them just in case she runs out.

Keep your fingers crossed that I don't come down with their gamboo just in time for them to get their energy back!:)

Happy Birthday To Hayden

Hayden's birthday was this past weekend. He was so easy to buy for this year. He loves anything "Cars" and so a "Cars" theme, it was.

When he woke up, he was already wearing one of his presents. You see, the boy goes through so many pairs of pajamas. He loves to wear PJs all day and he changes them so many times that the night before his birthday he had no clean PJs. So he got one of his presents early. He LOVES his new "Cars" jammies.

Here he is opening a present while Lana anxiously waits to give him another one. She couldn't get him to open them fast enough. He obviously wasn't complaining.:)

He got some more "Cars" toys and "Madagascar 2" on DVD. He LOVES that movie. It is on constantly at our house now.

He also got another pair of PJs. This is the video of him opening those and a "Cars" toy. He is so funny when he sees the box that the PJs were in. He says, "Clothes," because he knows we always wrap the clothes in that kind of box. But do you see any disappointment on his face when he realizes it is clothes? Nope. He is so easy to please. He loves to get anything - even clothes. He's just like his daddy that way.

We also found him one of the old school Big Wheels. He loves that too! I just can't wait for it to warm up outside so he can really ride it.

The highlight of his day was when his cousins and grandma came over for cake and ice cream. Notice the change of PJs. As soon as he was done opening presents, he had to put on the Mickey Mouse ones. :)

He had the greatest birthday ever just getting to spend time with his best buddy, cousin Brielle. He LOVES her to death.

Finally, he got to dig into his cake and ice cream. He carried around a plate for an hour before everyone came over because he was so excited for cake.




This picture of Hayden and his cousin, Isaak, cracks me up. Something in this picture does not belong. Yep, Hayden looks so funny with a binkie sitting next to his baby cousin. It's so cute though. They are binkie buddies!

Happy Birthday, Buddy! You are such a fun boy and we love you to pieces! I just can't believe you are already a big three year old. My birthday wish for you is that you just stop growing and stay the way you are right now.

Oh Man, I Have To Do THIS Chore?

Usually my cleaning day is Monday, but it really drives me crazy lately to clean on Monday. My kids make messes faster than I can clean them up and it takes me all day to get it done. So I cleaned last night instead. Wow, was that easier! It goes much faster if you can clean after kiddos are in bed! It was so nice to wake up on a Monday morning and have the housework almost done. All I needed to do was vacuum and finish laundry - you can't very well wash sheets when the kids are sleeping in their beds.:)

As I started vacuuming I realized that I REALLY needed to clean my carpets. And guess what? I had time to do that today since the rest of the cleaning was done! (Can you tell I was excited that it was done this morning?) I started cleaning the carpets and decided to take the cushions off of the couches and vacuum in there as well. You never know what treasures you'll find in there. No, I'm not rich. I didn't find money in there - just a bunch of skittles. Nice.

When I took the cushions off, I realized they were kind of goobey (I know that isn't a word, but it's the best way I can think of to describe it.) So me and my lazy self decided to just flip the cushions and deal with the goobs another day. I flip them and, oh crap, I've already done that trick. That means I have to actually clean the buggers. So an hour later ta-da!



Aren't they purdy? (No, that front cushion isn't stained. I did have another cushion leaning up against it before I took this picture and it messed up the pretty cleaning lines it had on it.)

And while I was busy cleaning the cushions, the kids were in the other room keeping themselves occupied by lining up about a thousand cars on the back of the couch and then jumping on the cushionless bugger. Hey, whatever keeps them happy.


So you can now come visit my house and I won't cringe when you sit on my couch for fear of what may stick to your bum when you stand up. :)

Wow, my life is boring when I am blogging about cleaning couch cushions. Note to self: Must.Get.Hobby!!!

Rylee's Big Day

Saturday was Rylee's big day!

She was so excited to be baptized and confirmed. We didn't have to be to the church until about 3:00 in the afternoon, but Rylee woke up at 6:00 and came in to wake Bill and I up. When we didn't hop right out of bed, she got all upset and walked out of our bedroom saying, "You need to get up! We have my hair to do and everyone to get ready for my baptism. UGH!" Bill and I rolled our eyes and went back to sleep for a few minutes.

The time finally came to get her ready. Once she was ready, I could just picture her singing, "I feel pretty, oh so pretty..."



We were all excited for her, so we decided to dress up for the occasion. ;)



And Bill was ready to baptize and confirm his first baby girl!



We had to get a couple of the classic shots that you always take before a baptism. The one of daddy and daughter outside the church before changing into their white clothes.



And the pictures of Rylee and her daddy all dressed in white before the program began.





Rylee thought it was so much fun to walk around the church house in her bare feet. Silly girl. The baptism and confirmation were wonderful. So many people came to support Rylee on her special day. It meant a lot to me to have so many people there to make Rylee feel so loved.

After we left the church, we had a little get-together at our home to celebrate the day. Rylee wanted baked potatoes, so baked potatoes it was. (I wasn't complaining. Those are SUPER DUPER easy!) We had so much fun having so many good friends and family members here that afternoon.

Thank you to everyone who came and supported Rylee. She felt so special and loved all day. Her baptism day was everything she had hoped for.

Welcome Back, Dear Friend

A couple of weeks ago, our computer decided to die on us. I was freaking out, hoping that we wouldn't lose all of our pictures because I am a lazy sucker and haven't backed anything up yet. (Yes, I have learned my lesson and I will be backing everything up now!)

To make a long story short, we called a few different people and didn't know what to do about the dumb thing. I knew I wanted to try to get it fixed to save pictures and my iTunes stuff. My sanity would be shot without my dear iPod. :) Our good friend let us use his laptop in the meantime so that I wasn't completely shut off from the rest of the world (thank you SOOOO much, Jeremy) and it was Jeremy who talked to a guy at Staples about our computer. He said he happened to work on our specific computer a lot and that he would look at it. So we took it in to take a stab at it.

Okay, our original plan was to buy a laptop (approx. $550) and send the tower away to be fixed at HP ($200.) We had our computer at Staples for two days, and the guy gave it a tune up and said he couldn't find anything wrong with it and charged us $14.99. He seriously spent some time on the darn thing and said that if it acts up again, we can bring it back in and he will look at it again, but it should be fine. So far, so good. It is running like new. We were ready to spend about $800 on computer crap, but we got away with $14.99! What a deal! And we didn't' lose anything on this computer! I am so excited! Now I know why they say, "Staples, that was easy."

Now, I can breathe a sigh of relief and get back to my normal life. I can blog again! (Okay, I could have with Jeremy's computer too, but I was so afraid to screw up his computer!)

My life can get back to normal again....Well, after tomorrow it can. We have Rylee's baptism tomorrow, and she can't wait! So stay tuned for pictures!!!

Happy Birthday To Our Sweet Girl

I cannot believe that Rylee has turned eight. She is thinking that she is so big now. She HAD to have this dress for her birthday. She wanted it for Christmas, but I already had her Christmas dress picked out, so we got it for her birthday. She LOVES it. As soon as she put it on, the twirling started. You know that your little girl is still somewhat little when she still likes to twirl.

She was so excited for her birthday today and just had to get dressed up in her fancy new dress that she got. She decided how she wanted her hair and woke up in plenty of time to get all pretty and open her presents before school. We put her hair in curlers, painted her nails, got her dressed in her pretty new dress, and she was all primped and pretty for school.

And, she had plenty of time for pictures, of course. Here are a few of the favorites.

She is so proud of her "dangly" earrings. That's why we took this picture:

She was all smiles before school (well as much as she dared smile with that adorable toothy grin!) I can't believe that I have an eight year old. I couldn't be more proud of her. She is such a good kid and she is so excited to be baptized in a couple of weeks.

We love you, Rylee! Have a happy birthday, sweetie!

Her Creative Juices Are Flowing!!!

Lately, Rylee has been on a major creative kick! She will color and draw, play play doh, make posters, write in her journal, sing songs, write stories...anything creative lately.

Here are a couple of the recent creations:

She made a boy and a girl out of play doh that she got for Christmas. I was amazed at the detail that she thought to put on her creations.

And it has rubbed off onto her sister too. Lana now likes to create play doh people.




Another thing that Rylee has created is a song. She LOVES the guitar that she got for Christmas and she has been singing away with that thing. On Sunday night, she put on a little show for our family and my sister's family. If I would have known how stinking cute it was going to be I would have recorded it. I need to have her sing her song again so I can record it.



Anyway, she wrote this little song and these are the lyrics, written exactly as she wrote them (because I think the punctuation and spelling are so endearing!)


Mabie I'm too yung. Mabie I don't fit the job well. But I can still be...a little rock star. Case theres no rule theres no law. I can do what I think is cool. So I can still be a little rock star. It doesn't matter if I don't sing in shows. I can at least sing for one person. Or even my hole family. Case there is no rule there is no law. I can do what I think is cool. So I can still be...a little rock star. I could show evry one what it's all about. Of being a rock star. Just think about it having your own band. It would be as good as it can be. I would love to be...A little rock star case there is no rule there is no law. I can do what I think is cool. Mabie I'm too yung. Mabie I don't fit the job well. But I can still be...a little rock star.


Now tell me that is not too dang cute! I love that girl and her little creative personality. I'm glad she inherited that gene. I have no idea where she got it, but I hope it grows and flourishes as she grows up. I wish I could do what she does. She amazes me all the time. Her current goal is to write a book and illustrate it and find a publisher. Maybe instead of being a "little rock star" she could be a famous children's author! ;) Stay tuned...