Another ultrasound

We had a follow up ultrasound today to check out Baby Desh's kidneys.  She said the fluid is still there but hasn't grown at all so she said it is something we will have the pediatrician check after the baby is born.  For now, he is great!  And while she was there she snapped a couple pictures of his cute face for us.  He is looking pretty cramped in there!  And I think he has chubby cheeks already?  Is that possible?

The Teacher's Quorum

Josh is the 1st counselor in the Young Men's Presidency and has loved being in charge of the Teachers Quorum.  For one of their activities they invited the Mia Maids over for dinner at our house.  They all came early and cooked a nice dinner for them and then served the Young Women.  They all did such a good job getting the food ready and working hard for this activity.  Josh said they all had a great time together!

Keen and his treats

Keen is a boy that loves his treats.  I love this little pile of reese's pieces he has by him on the couch...

And also that he decided to hide them between his toes!  What a crazy boy!

Easter Week

Josh and I decided to try something new for Easter this year and see if we could make it a week about the Savior and not so much about the Easter Bunny.  I got this amazing idea from someone else but wanted to try it out - going through the last week of the Savior's life and celebrating all the things that he did before His Resurrection on Easter Sunday.  It turned out to be such a great and fun week in our family!  Our kids loved being involved and learning so much about Christ!  Each day represented something different and we hung our progress up on the wall - our Easter Timeline Wall!

Palm Sunday - we learned about Jesus' return to Jerusalem and the beginning of his last week teaching the people.  The kids cut out the palm leaves and hung them up.

Mad Monday.  This was a really fun day for the kids to act out.  We talked about Jesus and how he cleansed the temple of the moneychangers.  The kids got their stuffed animals and toys and took turns pretending to be Jesus and overturning the tables of money in the temple.  We also took some time and talked about the importance of temples and why Jesus was trying to keep it sacred.  The kids then each drew a picture of one of their favorite temples and we hung them on our timeline wall.

Teaching Tuesday.  Today was probably one of my favorite days of the week because we all studied the teachings and parables of Jesus.  We had each of the kids pick a different parable and draw a picture about it.  Then they each had some time to teach it the rest of the family.  I was so proud of them and the things they drew and taught each of us!  Rhen taught us about the 10 virgins, Liev taught about the Widow's Mite, and Keen taught about the parable of "the least of these."  It was so great to see that they understood the teaching of Jesus.  

Spy Wednesday was really a fun day for the kids too.  We talked about Judas and his plan to betray Jesus for the pieces of silver.  We cut out some silver coins from tinfoil and hung them on our wall.

I made a passover dinner for Passover Thursday.  Then the kids each made cotton ball sheep to hang up on the timeline.  It was really a fun day to be able to teach them about the passover dinner and how the sacrament was started this night with Jesus and his disciples.  It was a good way for them to understand that and why we take the sacrament now.  

Good Friday.  We watched a video about Christ being crucified tonight and it was very powerful and we had such a strong spirit in our home learning about it.  We then talked about how Jesus died for each one of us and how special that it.  We had each of the kids take a strip of paper and write/draw their name on it.  Then we put all those names together to form a cross to teach us that Jesus died for each one of us because he loves us.  It was a great way to teach our kids about the love of our Savior. 

Spirit World Saturday.  Josh and I were able to attend the temple this day and it was a perfect day to teach our kids about the temple and what we all can do for those that are in the Spirit World.  We taught them that Jesus visited the spirit world after he died and taught those that were there.  When our kids are older we are going to take them to the temple for baptisms on this day but for now Josh and I were able to go.  

Easter Sunday was the final day of our week and we talked all about the resurrection.  It was such a great week to celebrate our Savior and I know the kids learned so much and felt of His love.  

The Easter Bunny did visit us on Easter but it definitely wasn't the focus of our week which is just what I had hoped for.  

The Easter Bunny always hides the kids baskets and leads them on a scavenger hunt to find them.  It's a fun time for the kids!

And of course the annual easter egg hunt at Papa and Grammie's house - always such a fun time!

Happy Easter everyone!  We hope you had a week full of love for the Savior and felt His love for you!  

One last ski day

Rease missed most of the ski season this year because of her pneumonia, but she did manage to sneak in a day at the very end of the season and had a great time with her sis, dad and Uncle Andy.  She is a good skier and loves it so she was thrilled that she was able to get a day in before the snow is gone.

These two girls have such a fun time together, especially when they're with they dad.  The love to ski and love to have fun!  I asked Josh how Rease and Rhen did at the end of the day and he told me that it was like skiing with the Tortoise and the Hare.  Rhen has gotten really confident this year and loves to go fast and Rease is more of a cautious skier.  He said he was constantly waiting for Rease and looking down the mountain at the same time for Rhen.  It was a perfect way to describe them - the Tortoise and the Hare!

Becker

Beck is such a fun little boy.  He has become my little buddy and I love to see his personality coming out as he grows up.  

He loves to grocery shop with me and this time I didn't have any more room in the cart so had to stack the soda around him.  He thought it was hilarious!

 Beck has recently figured out where the pantry is and that it has food that is easily accessible.  I am constantly finding him with a bowl of cereal, crackers, chips or whatever he can find to eat.  I am in trouble with all these boys and their appetites!

 Smiling for a quick picture and I love his cute little toothy grin!

 For some reason Beck loves to put shoes on.  He always tries to wear his brother shoes and today even tried mine on.  He figured out he couldn't walk very well in them though!

 I love this funny little guy!  He is so happy and quiet and loves to just do his thing.  He is such a fun addition to our band of boys and loves that he is getting old enough to hang out with Liev and Keen!

Beck and Uncle Andy

Beck and Uncle Andy have a special little bond.  Beck has always loved having Andy around and always welcomes him with a big hug and kiss when he walks in the door.  They hang out together when Andy is here and Beck just sits and watches whatever it is that Andy is working on.  He loves his Uncle Andy!  Andy told me that Beck is his favorite, but shhhh...I won't tell the other kids!

BYU game

The BYU basketball team played in the NIT this year and we had home court advantage so the games were at the Marriott Center.  I bought some tickets and took the boys with me to one of the final games.  We happened to be on the very top row so it was a long hike up and down the stairs every time they needed a bathroom break or a treat, but we had a blast!  They loved the game and loved dancing to the music during the timeouts.  We will definitely have to come to another game together next year!

Ninjas

These two boys are so funny and love pretending to be ninja turtles.  This is how they looked as they sat down for lunch today - I can't stand how cute they are!

Battle of the Books

Our elementary school does the Battle of the Books for students that are in 3rd grade or older.  It's a program that gets students excited about reading and then there's a friendly competition to see which team know most about the books that were read.  Rease was so excited to be able to be apart of it this year and she worked so hard reading all the books on the list.  3rd and 4th graders have a list of 25 books and 5th and 6th graders have a different list.  The kids are put into teams and each kid on the team is supposed to read 5 books and then as a team they should have all the books read before the competition begins.  Then as a team they are asked questions and compete against another team.  It's super fun and all the kids get so into it and excited!  I volunteered for one of the days of the competition and it was so fun to be there and watch the kids and their teams compete and know so much about so many different books.  It's a great program and I was so glad to be there and see the excitement everyone had about reading!

Rhen's report card

Rhen has loved 1st grade and is doing such a great job!  She is a smart girl and has loved learning to read!

Rease's report card

Rease is such a great student!  She has been working so hard this year and we are proud of her!

Rhen's 7th Birthday!

Our Rhenner girl turned 7 this year!  She has LOVED skiing this winter and told me that she wanted a skiing cake.  I wasn't sure how to do it and make it look good so I started looking around at some ideas.  I decided it would be fun to make a ski slope cake and ordered a few little props online.  I was excited to try something new!  The day I was ready to make the cake, the boys decided they wanted to help.  So they helped me mix up the frosting and bake the cakes.

 Then I worked on shaping the cakes and decorating it with the ideas that I had in mind.  This is how the cake ended up looking.  Rhen was so excited to see it and I had made some little signs with some of her favorite ski runs at Brighton and she loved it!  

 We took the cake over to Grammie and Papa's house to celebrate with Aunt Hayley since their birthdays are just a day apart.  Here are the two birthday girls!

 Opening presents for young kids is always the best part of a birthday.  Rhen got a few little things from her brothers and sisters and mom and dad.

 And a new bike!  She has been riding a small little bike for the past couple years and was so happy to get a new and bigger bike!  We love this birthday girl!

A few of my favorite things about our 7 year old Rhen:

1) Rhen loves school.  She has had such a fun 1st grade year and has loved learning to read, do math and all the many things that her little brain is soaking in.  She is such a smart girl and works so hard at what she does.  

2) Rhen is the silliest and funniest girl I know!  She is always messing around with Rease and making everyone laugh.  And she is so funny with the things that she says.  She is very matter of fact when she talks and says things the way they are.  That's not a bad characteristic to have!  One of my favorite things she has said lately: I was telling Rhen that I needed to take Rease to the store to buy some training bras and asked her if she wanted to come with us.  She said she would think about it and Rease told her she would explain what that means.  Later that day after Rease had explained what it was that we were doing and going shopping for, Rhen was talking to Josh.  He asked if she was going to go shop with us and she said, "no way!  I am not going shopping for bras with Rease!  I can not believe that my sister has The Puberty!"  She is hilarious!

3) She is the best helper around the house.  She loves to do little surprised for everyone and it usually has to do with cleaning up.  She'll clean the boys room for them and make their beds.  Or she'll help Josh clean up the kitchen and do the dishes while I'm gone.  Or she'll draw pictures for everyone and leave them on their pillows.  She is so thoughtful and kind and loving.  I love her so much for the person she is!  

Happy Birthday sweet Rhen!

7 year old stats from Dr. Erickson:

Height: 52.17 inches - 97%

Weight: 54.9 lbs - 70%

The Boys' Room

I can't seem to keep my boys under control a lot of the time.  They are busy every second of the day and lot of that time is spent in some sort of destruction.  Lately the target of destruction has been their room.  I already have limited their room to very few things for this exact reason.  They have their beds and a set of drawers in their closet to hold their clothes.  That's it.  Nothing else in there because I know they would tear anything else apart.  So what do they do?  Work with the few things they have and go to work.  This particular day they took their top mattress off and had a jumping party.  I was too tired to try and get them back on the box springs so needless to say their beds stayed this way for almost a week.

 The other thing they have discovered lately is tape.  My kids all love to color and draw pictures which is great.  But the boys recently found out that with tape they can hang up almost anything they want.  So they get ahold of the rolls of tape that float around this house and hang up everything imaginable.  Mostly it's pictures, but sometimes there's a book taped to the wall.  Other times their stuffed animals are hanging up.  Another time they taped up all their hangers from the closet.  Whatever they feel they want on their walls - tape is the answer.  I've decided that for now this is ok with me.  Walls can always be washed and painted if needed and this activity has seemed to grab their attention for hours on end.  So what we have is a well decorated room with colorful pictures and all sorts of things!

You may notice there is a smearing of something on the walls as well.  Before they figured out how to use the tape they had an alternative method to hanging things up.  Liev got a pack of glow in the dark stars for his birthday and immediately the tacky stuff to hang up the stars was lost.  One morning he came down and said "Mom guess what?  Toothpaste makes those stars stick to my wall!"  So that's what that is.  Toothpaste smeared all over the wall to hang up his stars.  Lovely.  The stars have all fallen off but I haven't had the energy to clean off the toothpaste yet.  So it just adds to the decor.  Only a boys room.

Then one night they got ahold of some sharpies and went to town on their room.  I didn't know anything was going on up there since they were supposed to be sleeping.  I discovered their artwork the next morning.  All I can do now is just laugh and try to keep my cool about it.  At this point, their room is trashed so what's one more thing.  They're boys.  

How can I resist these two cute faces?  Okay boys - do whatever you want.  

Sidewalk Chalk

We like to take advantage of a nice day when it comes around.  Today the kids were begging to go outside so we got out the sidewalk chalk and they went to town.  They had a blast coloring and hanging out in the sunshine!

Beck's a big boy

Beck thinks he's a big boy now and can sit up at the table with the rest of the kids.  He pulls a chair over and climbs up just like the others.  Most of the time he does pretty good but once in a while he makes a big mess with his food.  There's so much more room now to play around and throw his food!  Not sure if you're ready for the big table if this is the mess you make buddy!

Pneumonia and Rease's hospital stay

Our Rease has been sick for a couple weeks now.  It started out with what I thought was a cold.  She had a slight fever and started getting a cough.  Then she started to get really tired.  When she comes home from school and falls asleep on the couch I know that she is really not feeling good.  She usually doesn't want to miss out on anything by sleeping so when I found her on the couch with her coat on and wrapped up in a blanket sleeping I knew she was sick.  I kept her home from school for a couple days and she also skipped her ski lesson Saturday to try and get better.  By Monday of the next week though I figured she was fine and sent her to school again.  She came home that day and told me that she fell asleep in class and still didn't feel good.  Her cough was still lingering around but her fever had gone.  I thought she just needed a couple more days to get her cough under control and she would be fine.  So again on Tuesday I sent her to school - kids get colds and I figured she just needed to go on with a normal day and get back to her normal routine.  By Tuesday night though I could tell that she still was not fine.  By this time it had been almost two weeks that she had complained about not feeling good and all she wanted to do was lay on the couch and sleep.  And her cough seemed to be getting worse.  I let her sleep on the futon in the loft that night so she didn't keep Rhen up coughing.  I was started to get a little worried about her so I went up and laid by her that night.  She did spend a lot of the night coughing and I realized I needed to get her to the doctor. 

Wednesday morning I took her in to see Dr. Erickson and wondered if she may have pneumonia or something similar.  He did a couple tests on her including testing her oxygen saturation level and a lung treatment.  Her sat level was in the low 90s/high 80s and he told me that normal levels are between 95 and 100.  He told me that she definitely has pneumonia and that if her saturations were any lower then she would need to be hospitalized.  I was a little surprised to hear that but was glad she would be able to be treated.  So her gave her an antibiotic and kept us there for a little bit longer just monitoring her levels.  After about 30 minutes of her levels being right around 90 he said we were ok to go home but told me to keep an eye on her throughout the day and night.  If she started having a harder time breathing then he wanted me to come back and get tested again.  

 At this point I started to get pretty worried about her.  We picked up her antibiotic from the pharmacy and headed home to let her rest and try and get better.  I remembered that my dad has a pulse oximeter that he uses at the dental office when he works on sedated patients so I drove down there and borrowed it from him.  I figured I might as well keep an eye on her levels as much as possible.  That night and all the next morning her levels slowly dropped and stayed below 90.  Thursday morning when her oxygen never got above 90 I realized I needed to get her back in.  Dr. Erickson was out of the office that day so we saw one of the other doctors in the office and when she hooked Rease up to the monitor, she couldn't get her level above 86.  She immediately put her on an oxygen mask and told me that we needed to admit her to the hospital right away.  I was getting pretty nervous for my little girl once I knew that the doctor was so serious about it.  We had the option of going to Primary Children's in Salt Lake or the Riverton Hospital that has an extension of Primary's in their children's unit.  Luckily Riverton Hospital is right down the road from our house so that was a great option for us.  

 The doctor told me that Rease needed to be transported by ambulance so she got them called and on their way while Rease continued to stay on her oxygen in the office.  Once the ambulance got there, they were all so sweet to Rease and were very kind about getting her settled on the stretcher.  I could tell she was a little nervous to ride in the ambulance but I was able to ride with her so it was all ok.  

 She was already started to get some color and energy back with the oxygen mask on.  She had been so deprived of oxygen that her little body was fighting so hard just to breathe and function for the past few weeks.

 We got to the hospital and were in the ER for a few hours while they did all sorts of tests and x-rays on her.  One of the tests they did was a swab test through her nose and she hated that so much.  It did look really uncomfortable and I felt bad that she had to go through all of that!

 They took her down to the x-ray room for a chest x-ray to see where the pneumonia had settled and how extensive it was.

 You can see the cloudiness in the left lung in this x-ray - part of the cloudiness is her heart but near the bottom corner is where the fluid had settled and was causing the pneumonia.  

 Josh brought Rhen over to the hospital to see Rease and hang out with her for a little while before she got admitted to her room.

 After a couple hours we finally did make it up to our room and got Rease all settled in.  With it being an extension of Primary Children's the restrictions up on that floor were pretty strict.  No one, even siblings, under age 12 were not allowed.  So Rhen got to hang out for just a few minutes before she had to go home.  Rease was exhausted though and once we got settled and had her dinner, she was ready to sleep.  They had her on 2 liters of oxygen and were working hard to keep her oxygen level at 95.  The 2 liters barely did that and they kept her on that all night and into the next day.  The nurse told us that they would start to taper off the oxygen slowly but for now they wanted her to be able to rest and just get better.  Rease finally had the first good night's sleep that's she's had for a while and was able to get some good oxygen for her little body.  We had so much help from our kind neighbors and friends with the other kids and Josh and I took turns staying with her at night.  That first night I went home and picked the rest of the kids up and we all slept in our own beds while Rease and Josh were at the hospital.  The next morning, I farmed them all out again and switched spots with Josh while he had to go to work for a few meetings during the day.  I was so glad to be able to be with Rease and hang out with her while she was there.  

The second day they started Rease working on some breathing exercises and told her that the big key is that she needed to start taking deep breaths to be able to clear out the fluid that had settled in her lungs.  They had her do lots of different blowing exercises to help with that.  This machine was one that she had to suck in and hold her breath as long as possible.  This was probably the hardest thing for Rease.  She hated doing it because it hurt her to suck in and made her cough really hard.  But the nurse kept telling her that was what they wanted and the coughing was what would break up that fluid.  We had a goal to do 10 different breathing exercises a day and mark them off when we did them.  Even though Rease hated it, she was a good sport and made sure she got all of them done.  Between the doctors and nurses coming in and all her exercises she was doing, she did a lot of sleeping as well.  I was so happy to see her resting and trying to get better.  

 Rease also had a lot of visitors and notes sent in.  Greg gave her this cute little bouquet of flowers.

 Papa and Grammie came to visit and hang out with her for a while.

 And even though Rhen couldn't visit, she drew this cute picture for Rease and had Josh bring it over for her to put by her bed.  She's such a good sister!

 She had a visit from our friends the Chalks and this cute note for Taya Chalk who couldn't come and visit but wanted her to know they were thinking of her.

 And the Hammers were so great to help out with the other kids while we tried to juggle our time at the hospital with Rease.  Izzy sent this note with Melissa to give to Rease with a cute little stuffed animal.

 After that first full day in the hospital the nurse told Rease that the next step would be to get up and walk around.  Since she had a respiratory illness they wouldn't let her leave her room yet but they wanted her to be up and about in her little room.  They gave her lots of activities to try and do but the one thing she really liked was drawing on the window with dry erase markers.  She sat with Josh and did this quite a bit that day as a way to get out of her bed and be up for a while.  It was a really cute and fun idea.  That day they were also working on getting her oxygen tapered off and had gotten down to a little over a liter of oxygen by the end of Friday.  It seemed like it was good progress.

 Saturday morning the nurse came in and told us that Rease was given permission to walk around the halls of her floor as long as she kept her mask on.  She also got in the shower that morning and we got her all clean and feeling better.  We took a few walks that day around the hospital and I could tell that Rease was starting to feel much better.  Her oxygen was down to about 1/2 liter and she was doing really well.  Saturday afternoon the doctor came in and said that if she could get off oxygen completely then we could go home that night.  I was excited about that after being there for 3 days but I could tell Rease was a little nervous.  She didn't want to go home and get sick again. I told her that the doctor would not let her leave if he didn't feel like she was ok to go home.  She seemed to be ok about that and said she would do her best to keep up with her exercises so she could go home.  

 After a long afternoon that turned into a late night on Saturday, she was able to get off her oxygen and the doctor finally came in a cleared her to be able to go home.  She had made so much progress and was finally off her oxygen and happy about it!  She was released from the hospital Saturday night about 10:00 pm and we were all once again back under one roof.  We were so happy to have our Rease back home and mostly happy that she was so much better!

I feel so lucky to have had such good care for our girl.  I broke down a few times while we were in the hospital feeling like I was a terrible mother for letting her get this sick without getting help.  I was so grateful though that we did get her in and that she had amazing care!  Mostly I'm just grateful to be Rease's mom and to be able to take care of her and be with her while she was sick.  She is one special soul and I'm glad she's doing better!