Tuesday, March 6, 2012

February In A Flash

Another month has quickly come and gone.  We did some fun things in February that I thought I should take a minute to talk about.

One of Tag's best friends flew out for a weekend of fun.  Tag's Christmas present this year was Laker tickets for him and Matt.  On Saturday they spent a lot of time outside riding our 4-wheeler and using the snow plow on it to plow people's driveways.  After they were done with that, they spent about 4 hours sculpting an enormous Jabba The Hutt in our front yard.  They had a great weekend and it was so fun to have Matt come and visit.








Just a sweet sibling moment that I walked in on - Harrison reading to Lucy


Some friends invited us to stay with them at their family's cabin in Winter Park.  We seized the opportunity to take our family skiing.  Lily was a natural.  It took her all of 5 seconds to figure it out.  Despite all of my trying to prep Harrison before hand by practicing on the carpet and showing him many you tube videos of children skiing, I failed to mention to him how difficult the ski boots are to walk in.  That threw him for a loop and he just couldn't get over it.  We took him down the hill a couple of times, but I think we need to give him another year or so.  My friend, Carolyn, is pregnant so she waited with Lucy at the bottom of the hill while we all took turns with the kids.  We had a blast and I'm very much looking forward to skiing again soon.








 Harrison trying so hard to figure out how to walk in the boots!


Poor little Lucy was so tired.  She feel asleep in my arms just moment after this.  We took turns holding her during the skiing.  I can't believe how soundly she slept in the middle of the afternoon, outside in the cold.  

My friend, Carolyn, teaching her 2 year old how to ski. She picked it up really fast!

Here are two videos of Lily skiing.  The first one is hilarious because she runs into another person. Our little point and shoot camera is on it's way out.  You can tell from the pink in the video that we may not have it much longer :)


This was Lily's second run on the bunny hill.  Because she had only been down once before, I still felt the need to give her instruction.  As you can tell from the video, she didn't really need it or want it :)

Harrison being a goof ball.

Lily's school had a Fashion Disaster Day.  Here is Lily all dressed up for school.  She loved it.

Just another sweet sibling moment that I snapped a picture of.

On a cold, snowy day, the kids and I went to the museum for a little indoor fun.


I should also add a few things about Lucy, since this is the age that they do so much and change every week.  
1.  She loves to sing.  She'll walk around the house humming or singing all day long.
2.  She's made the connection that ABC's are actual letters in books.  She'll pick up a book and instead of pretending to read, she'll sing her ABC's.  Her favorite part of that song is "E,F,G", so we tend to hear that over and over again when she's looking at books and pointing to the letters.
2.  She's sassy.  There isn't much of an explanation I can give with that.  She's a little munchkin with a big personality.
3.  She loves going to nursery at church on Sundays.  After we have sacrament meeting (all the families are together) she knows that it's time for nursery and will start running to it.  She doesn't even look back to say good-bye to us.  Harrison and Lily sweetly hold hands as they walk to their Sunday School (Primary) class together.  So cute.
4.  She loves to be held and cuddled.
5.  When she's really tired she tries to put herself to bed by attempting to climb into her crib.
6.  She loves to be outside.
7.  She throws and absolute fit if I don't give her a few minutes to try to buckle herself into her car seat.  She's very independent and wants to do it by herself.

Harrison
1.  He wants to read just like his big sister so he sits and tries to figure it out.
2.  He loves anything Dr. Seuss right now.  Mostly the Grinch and the Cat in the Hat.
3.  He just moved to a booster seat in the car and feels like such a big boy.
4.  He likes to dress up in costumes: the grinch, superman, spiderman, a pirate, etc.
5.  When recently asked about learning to ski he said, "It freaked me out!"  He's becoming very articulate.
6.  He loves to play!
7.  He still loves to cuddle, too :)

Lily
I just asked Lily to say 7 things about herself and this is her response.
1.  I love to go on trips
2.  I like to color.
3.  I like to read.
4.  I like to write stories. (Her stories are so cute!)
5.  I like to cuddle with mommy.  
6.  I like to dance.
7.  I like parties.

Saturday, February 4, 2012

Where did January go?

Sometime after Christmas I think I blinked and then it was February.  Anywho, where to start.  It was just so nice getting back into our normal routine after the holidays.  


We've enjoyed hot chocolate on cold days

I found Lucy rockin' out on my bed with Lily's MP3 player

We got some pretty devastating news regarding Lily's heart - followed by good news.  First, we were told that Lily has something called Intramural Right Coronary Artery or Anomalous Aortic Origin of Right Coronary Artery (AAOCA).  It's best known for causing sudden death in junior high/ high school age kids who compete in sports.  We were all sadden by this news knowing it would change a lot of things for Lily.  The doctors gave us the option to have an MRI done just to confirm the new diagnosis.  Because of Lily's age and because it is a cardiac MRI she would have to be put under for about 2 hours. We went ahead with the MRI.  Lily's doctor called me late that night (about 2 weeks after the original diagnosis) to tell me that they were in fact wrong.  Lily doesn't have AAOCA.  Kerrie was emotional on the phone, telling me this is the best news she's received all year.  She even said. "This is a miracle!"  They've diagnosed 6 kids with it in the last year and Lily would have been number 7.  It's a serious and very rare diagnosis.  Kerrie and I rejoiced on the phone together, so happy for Lily.  I love that we have a doctor who can celebrate when she and her colleagues are wrong.  

The reason they believed Lily to have the defect is because her right coronary artery is in the wrong place and comes out of the valve in the place where this defect usually occurs.  From a regular echocardiogram it looks exactly like AAOCA.  She just barely misses it though and isn't at risk of her artery being squished from the inside wall. Phew!

Lily was so excited to get an MRI and be put to sleep.  I got some silly pictures of her playing around.





Waking up :)
What a great kid.  I sure do love her a lot.

Yesterday, I got a call from The Children's Hospital asking Lily to take part in their annual fundraiser for the Heart Institute.  It's a fashion show at the Air and Space Museum on Friday, April 13th.  Lily will get to pick out a new outfit and have her hair done.  9 News covers the event.  If anyone would like to come, we would absolutely love the support and of course it's for a good cause.  It's $65 a ticket. I believe that includes lunch.  I'll get more details out soon.

Thanks to everyone who kept Lily in their thoughts and prayers while we were going through that difficult time.  We are so grateful for the good news!

Monday, January 2, 2012

The Stocking Were Hung By The Chimney With Care . . .

Here is one big, long holiday post.

I can't begin talking about the holidays without dedicating this first part to Marilyn, my mother-in-law, who hand knit our stockings.  She has been working on these for awhile and this is the first year that we have a complete set (my mom included).  If my house was burning to the ground and I had time to go back for a material possession, I believe these stockings are at the top of my list.  I love them so much!  Thank you, Marilyn!




Tag and I made some good friends when we first moved to Colorado.  Everyone is scattered now, so I like to gather us together during the holidays for an annual Christmas party.  It's fun to stay in touch with good friends.  Thankfully a friend picked up my camera and snapped a few shots because I completely forgot.  I wasn't going to post any, but some of these ugly sweaters are just too good!

Susan (up front) and Jessica (in the back wearing the brightly colored sweater) tied for first place in the ugly sweater contest.

The pink fuzzy sweater came in third.  It was pretty bad :)


These are the fun treats we made for the kindergarten teachers.

The kids and I attended Lily's Christmas pajama party at school.  They got to decorate cookies.




We ventured out to Bass Pro to see Santa.  I did't scan the pictures right - bear with me.  Lucy was terrified.  It was so cute!



A friend of ours played Santa for the kids.  They loved it!  Thanks, Nate.

 Christmas Eve
I look forward to our dinner all year.  The kids helped out in the kitchen and we all sat around the table to enjoy our crab and lobster feast.  After we ate, we opened a new pair of pajamas, another fun tradition.  Then, we made cookies.  Just before bed we read The Grinch Who Stole Christmas and Tag read the christmas story from the Bible.












 Now it might seem unfair that Lucy was left out of the cookie decorating activity.  However, scroll down and read all about her bout with vaseline which will enlighten you as to why I wasn't about to sit her down in front of a bowl of icing.






Christmas Day



The only thing Lily asked Santa for was a hula hoop.  She got one and surprised us all by being really good at it.





Lily is now a pro at the hula hoop and can do it for long amounts of time :)

My mom got Harrison an air swimmer.  What a cool toy!  Naturally we named him Bruce.  Bruce can air swim all around the house.  He even made it up into Harrison's bedroom.  




Sledding

Nona and Tag crashing into each other.





snowball fight with daddy


 Lucy and Harrison squished and Tag and Lily crashed behind us.


Lily catching air off a jump







We took the kids to see the zoo lights which were really impressive.  The zoo was covered with thousands of lights.  Even though it was cold, we had a blast.


We had a great Christmas and are very grateful that my mom could come out and spend it with us.  We love this time of year to celebrate the birth of the savior and to reflect on all of the many blessings in our lives. 

We got to ring in the new year at a friend's house.  We played games and ate good food.  I took my camera, but forgot to get pictures.  I'm excited to see what adventures 2012 has in store for us.