Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was a big day for us.  We were going all day long and finding lots of fun things to do with the fam!  Started out with a trip to the bowling alley.  We rented 4 lanes to accommodate all of us and we had a great time!  The kids especially loved picking out a new color of ball every few minutes.  We ended up with a whole tray full of balls by the end.  

We got together that evening for our traditional Christmas Eve program.  Hayley got the costumes for the nativity scene all ready beforehand and they were a hit.  The kids all looked so darling!  And they all played their parts perfectly.

We sang songs together with Trisha accompanying us on the guitar.

Read Christmas stories.

Had our talent show.  Liev sang Jingle Bells Batman Smells, Garrett showed us some soccer tricks, Wyatt did some tumbling, Chad and Max showed off his standing, Rhen taught us the letters in sign language and Rease sang "All I want for Christmas."

Grammie passed out gifts to the kids - she was the hero of the night!

Great Grandma Losee spent the evening with us and we loved having her.  

And all the kids got new jammies - such a cute group of kids we have!

After the night was over, we all headed back to our own houses to get ready for Santa to come.  Our kids were super excited to get to bed so Santa wouldn't forget to stop at our house.  We'll see if he shows up!

Christmas cards from the girls

The girls each made us Christmas cards at school this year.  I love these darling homemade cards - they are a mama's favorite!  Merry Christmas to you too my little darlings!

Brothers

I usually go check on the kids before Josh and I go to bed - just to make sure everyone is ok, lights are off, blankets are on, etc.  Most nights lately I have found Liev and Keen like this...

Liev dumps all his sleeping stuff into Keen's crib, jumps in with him and they fall asleep side by side.  It's the cutest thing.  I'm sure they do their fair share of playing before they actually fall asleep, but that's ok.  They are good little friends these brothers!

Breakfast with Santa

Dad's ward put on a breakfast with Santa this year so we tagged along.  It was such a fun morning with pancakes, eggs, bacon and all.  The kids loved going in their pjs and talking with Santa about what they wanted for Christmas.  This is a picture of our gang - and Hayley about ready to have her triplets!

Letter to Santa

Rease wrote her own letter to Santa this year.  She was very insistent that she write it so she could say just what she wanted to say.  Turns out she really wants Heely's.  We'll see if Santa gets her letter in time!

Playing in the snow

We had our first big snowstorm of the season and the girls couldn't wait to get outside and play in it.  We probably got close to 10 inches of snow and it was perfect snow to play in.  Rease got home from school and her and Rhen went right outside and played until Josh got home from work about 2 hours later.  They had a blast!

 And made such cute snow angels!

What a boy

I can't get over the crazy hair that this boy has.  Every time he wakes up, he has a different hair-do.  Not to mention a booger nose.  But boy do we love this kid and all his craziness!

All I want for Christmas is my 2 front teeth

Rease was so happy to be able to sing her song for Christmas.  Her class had a performance and one of the songs they sang was "All I want for Christmas is my 2 front teeth."  She had her 2 front teeth pulled just a few days before they sang and she was so proud!  Josh thinks she is growing up too fast - but she sure looks cute with this big space in the front now!  

Leader in Me award - Rease

Rease received the "Leader in Me" award from school this week.  Her teacher wrote a little note on the back of it to explain what she has been doing to receive this.  Rease works so hard at school every day and loves to learn.  I'm so proud of her and her good work!

Laundry Chute

One of the things Josh wishes we would have put in our new house is a laundry chute.  But I think we have something that works just as good.  There is a cut out from the loft that looks into the kitchen - perfect place to drop laundry from and drag into the laundry room.  I started dropping the girls' clothes from there one day and the kids thought it would be fun to lay underneath and have the clothes dropped on them.  Now they think it is a party every time I do laundry.  Keen especially thinks it is hilarious.  So glad my kids are easily entertained!

Letter from Miss Melanie

Rhen has the best teacher in preschool.  Miss Melanie wrote this little note to Rhen and sent it in the mail.  Rhen was so excited to get her own letter and then even more excited that it was from her teacher.  Miss Melanie has been so great this year and teaches those kids so much.  Rhen has been learning the letters in sign language and knows that alphabet up to letter N right now.  She also comes home every day singing a new song that Miss Melanie taught them.  We are so proud of Rhen and her hard work in school!

Mr. Liev

I got a new phone and wanted a picture for the background.  I told Liev to stop and smile for me to take a picture.  This is the smile he gave me - cutest thing ever!  He is the best boy and loves to have fun.  I'm glad he still has time for smiles and kisses for his mama!

Saturday morning breakfast

Breakfast during the week is usually a crazy time.  The girls are getting ready for school, the boys are running around and mom's tired.  So most days we usually have cold cereal or once in a while I make hot cereal.  But breakfast on the weekends is a real treat cause Josh usually makes something really delicious.  The kids' favorites? French toast, pancakes, buttery crepes, omelets.  Whatever they ask for, he is usually happy to make for them.  This particular Saturday he made the kids an Orange Julius to go along with their breakfast.  They, of course, think he's the best and had fun modeling their orange julius mustaches.  They really do have the best dad - no question about it!

Rease's Report Card

Rease's report card for term 1 of 1st grade.  Her teacher says she is doing excellent and reading at an upper 2nd grade level.  Love this girl and her hard work!

Finding a Christmas Tree

We always try and find a Christmas tree as soon as Thanksgiving is done.  We don't do anything fancy like cut it down ourselves, we just go down to the closest tree lot and find one that way.  It makes it easy and the kids love being a part of finding the "perfect" tree.  

 This year we decided to get a really tall one since our ceiling in the family room is much taller than we're used to in the other house.  This is the one that we all decided on.  I worked on putting the lights on the tree for a good 4 hours.  Finally, after 20 strands of lights, it was ready to decorate.  The kids helped with the decorations and Rease even made some of her own to add to the tree.  It turned out great!  Josh keeps making fun of me because I put so many lights on, but I think it looks better that way.  I told him he could do the lights next year if he's going to complain!

Boy are we excited for the Christmas season!

Staff Infection

This month has been an interesting one to say the least.  We've had a few things going on with my extended family but also a big thing that happened close to home for us.  The first week of October Josh had a sore ankle that he couldn't walk on very easily.  He didn't know what he did to hurt it but it very quickly got worse and within a day his whole left ankle was swollen and he wasn't able to walk on it at all.  Over the next couple weeks it continued to get worse and he went to a couple different doctors to find out what was going on.  One doctor thought he had gout and did a bunch of tests that came back negative.  He didn't give us much advice on what to do or how to take care of the pain and swelling.  We saw another doctor who said that we needed to see a specialist to find out what was happening.  After 3 weeks or so of trying to figure it out we finally got Josh into see an orthopedic surgeon.  He squeezed him in as his last patient on a Friday afternoon.  He extracted some fluid from Josh' ankle and tested it for infection.  He called about an hour later and told us that he needed to get Josh into surgery that night - he had an infection in his ankle that needed to be taken care of right away.  So Friday October 25th, Josh went into surgery at LDS Hospital.  We didn't realize how big of a deal it was but Dr. Gorman let us know after the surgery that it was a really big deal and they were going to take every precaution to make sure the infection was taken care of.  He said that when he cut into the ankle, there was tons of infection and pus that gushed out.  He was really glad to catch it when we did.  So were we.  They tested the fluid that they extracted and found out that it was a staff infection.  So Josh was in the hospital over the weekend.  He got PICC line put in which is like a long term IV that is placed in the upper under arm and leads straight to his heart.  We were instructed to administer IV antibiotics for the next 4 weeks through the PICC line.  Home health nurses came weekly to draw blood and the pharmacy truck came and dropped off all our antibiotics and supplies for the week.  It was craziness at our house.

 Four days later we went back to Dr. Gorman for a post op visit.  This is one of the incisions...

 And this is the other incision on the other side.  Dr. Gorman took one look at it and said he didn't like the way it looked and wanted to go back in a clean this side out.  He wanted to make sure there was no infection left.  So Wednesday October 30th we were back at LDS hospital for another surgery.  Everything went well the second time around and Josh was in the hospital for the next 3 days and then came home and spent the next week and a half in bed trying to heal.  He was in a lot of pain and it was hard to get him comfortable.  He was able to work a little bit from home but pretty much just took it easy.  It was craziness at our house.  We basically did all we could to just hold on.

 After that things started to get better.  This is November 4th.  Looking better.

 November 8th.

 November 11th.  So much better!

 After 2 months of no pressure on that leg at all Josh did lose quite a bit of muscle on the left side.  He was pretty bummed to take his cast off and see this skinny little thing.  I'm just happy he's getting better!

Today, Josh is doing much better.  He is starting to be able to put pressure on that foot and ankle and that is good progress for him.  The last time we went in to see Dr. Gorman his nurse was talking to us about how glad she is that the infection was taken care of in good time.  She said that many times staff infections end up in amputations.  We are so glad to have had the great medical help we did and that Josh still has a left leg.  

The girls were very concerned for their dad and Rease really wanted to bare her testimony in church about how she  knew Heavenly Father was taking care of her dad.  She wrote this down Saturday night before fast Sunday so that she could practice.  She is the sweetest thing and is such an example to us.  

 After 2 months, we are so glad to have Josh feeling better.  And so grateful to a Heavenly Father who is truly watching out for us and our family.  

Thanksgiving 2013

This year we had Thanksgiving at our house.  We were happy to host and glad to have room for a group to come over and spend the day.  Josh's parents came down and spent a couple days with us and helped us cook Thanksgiving dinner.  

Rease helped set the table.

 And we had a delicious and relaxing meal with our family.  The guests: Andy, Jeanie, Alma, my mom and dad, Garrett and my cousin Trisha and her family.  Just a small group but we had a great day together.  

We had lots of food and mostly had fun being together!  I'm really thankful for family and that we can be close to so many loved ones!

Potty Trained

I have been putting off potty training this kid for so long.  Every excuse in the book; I don't want to do it while we're moving, the girls are getting ready to start school so I'll wait, the holidays are coming up so maybe after that, etc.  But finally he just seemed like he was ready.  He would always tell me right before he went in his diaper, so I knew he could recognize the act of going to the bathroom.  So one day last week I put a pair of underwear on him and he hasn't looked back.  He literally trained himself in one day.  He still wears a pull-up at night and naptime just in case but he's doing great!  I guess it pays off to wait until they're ready.  So easy!  And so cute in these little undies!

Decorating Cookies

We had some new neighbors move in on our street so the kids wanted to make cookies for them.  They LOVE decorating cookies so that's what we did.  I made some Thanksgiving sugar cookies and let them frost and decorate them all.  The neighbors enjoyed them and the kids had fun making them all pretty.  

15 months

Keen is about the busiest kid I've seen and it just into everything all the time.  His hair is always a mess and I can't keep it tame, but I love it.  It's just like he is - crazy!  But he is darn cute and gives me kisses whenever I ask for them.  And that's all a mom could ask for from a 15 month old kid.  Love this boy!

15 month stats from Dr. Erickson:

Weight: 27.22 lbs - 83%

Length: 33.26 inches - 95%

Head: 19.2 inches - 89%

Sneaking Cookies

We slept over at mom's house one night and early the next morning I heard Liev get up and out of his bed.  He usually comes in and finds me as soon as he's awake, but this day he didn't.  I heard him for a minute then all was quiet so I figured he went back to sleep.  I got up about a half hour later and found Liev and Keen enjoying some hidden treats.  Liev had gone down to the kitchen and found this package of cookies that someone left for mom and dad, decided he wanted them and took them back up to the room to share with his brother.  No wonder they were so quiet!