How lame am I? Christmas 2010

Before I start this post I must apologize.  I do not know what happened to Thanksgiving or all of December, but for whatever reason, I couldn't keep my head on straight enough to blog anything except the cards that I made, I know, lame.  And what's worse, I still haven't sent the cards out.  It will get done if it kills me though.  Anyway, we had a fun Thanksgiving at Randy's parents house.  They were nice enough to watch the kids for us again so we could have a little, quiet Anniversary, alone.  And of course we went went Black Friday shopping, again.  We also got to go see the new Harry Potter, which is funny since I haven't seen any of the movies in the theater, but it was really good.  We had a nice, quiet time together, I can't believe it's been 12 years.  Love ya toots.

Anyway, December happened and it was a mad dash to the end.  We had parties and parties and more parties, presents to make, get and send out, goodies to hand out and weddings to go to.  I don't know how we did it all or made it out alive, but it is now over and I'm able to breathe now, ahhhhhh!  Just to warn you, this is going to be long and have a ton of pics, but I'm just to tired to make it into a lot of posts, so it's getting done all at once.

The 1st weekend in December is the BYU family Christmas party.  This year we decided to simplify and not try to sit on Santa's lap or try for that matter to do everything they have available.  We did get to the craft area and the kids made some cute things.  I was able to get their pic in front of our usual spot.  Don't they look so happy?

 They each got to write a letter to Santa also.  I will be sad for the day they decide Santa is not real.  I love that magical part of Christmas.

 The following week, Randy got really sick and found out it was strep, lucky us.  So I quarantined him and bleached the house and luckily kept the germs at bay.  He was recovering still by the weekend which was our ward's breakfast and Nativity.  So I took the kids by myself.  My friend has better pics that I'll post later, but this is what I was able to get with my stinky camera before it died (which is going to be theme for this post, I dislike my camera a lot right now and can't wait till I can get my new one so I've been very unmotivated in taking pictures, but that's beside the point).  Micah was a Shepherd,

 Morgan was an Angel, and Mac (not shown) was the main Angel.  They had fun

 We made some gifts this year for various family members.  Here are the final products.

 We also made picture frames for grandparents, but I forgot to get a shot of it before sending them off.

 Tuesday before Christmas we got dumped on with about 12 inches of snow.  It was awesome, except for the part where Randy's car got stuck in the driveway and I had to dig and push him out.  It was great.    It was really pretty though while it lasted.  We got hit the hardest, Salt Lake didn't even get anything from this storm.  Unfortunately it melted by Christmas.  This has definitely been a weird winter so far.

 We were planning on leaving on Christmas Eve for grandma's since we were heading that way for a big extended family luncheon earlier in the day.  But plans got changed because Randy's sister Julie got her papers from the 1st Presidency giving her the OK to be resealed.  So she quickly scheduled it for Thursday, which pushed all of our Christmas preparations up a day (making things even more crazy around here), so we scrambled to get everything finished for us to leave Thursday afternoon so we could be there.  We let the kids open their gifts to each other, since we didn't want to take all of the gifts up to Gma's, which we found out later was a good choice.  Morgan and Micah got picture boards from McKenzie and Morgan.  They had fun making them for each other.  Mac and Malia got stuffed animals from from Malia and Micah.  They were really excited to be so secretive with each other.

 We got up to Gma's in time to eat dinner and get the sitter to their home to watch the kids to make it to the Bountiful Temple and be there for Julie and David. 

Malia had started to get a cold at the beginning of the week and I thought she was doing better Thursday, but by Christmas Eve AM she took a turn for the worse and I ended up taking her into Urgent Care to find out she had a double ear infection.  I felt sooo bad and a little irritated since she just had her tonsils and adenoids taken out, weren't these suppose to stop?  She was miserable just laying around, sleeping on everyone.  We got done with her appt and got meds in her in time to still make it to the huge family lunch (which I did not get pics of, go figure).  I probably should have stayed back with poor Eah.  Luckily she slept through most of it on Randy's lap while we visited with everyone. 

In the midst of trying to get everything done before leaving, we forgot some crucial items for Christmas, like our stockings and Sunday clothes, so after the lunch, we ran back down to our house and grabbed the forgotten items and really wore out the kids by this point and they crashed in the car on the way back to Gma's

 That evening, Malia perked up a little after giving her Ibuprofen and  another dose of antibiotic in her.  She was ready to party a little. 

 They were a little excited to open their jammies.

 Can you tell?

 We got them in bed around 9ish and they slept in until 7 AM, which is amazing for us since they are usually up around 5 or 6. This year I woke up at 6 thinking I heard them, but it must have been someone else's kids, so I went back to sleep till 7.  They got into their stockings pretty quick.

 They all got their own toothpaste which Morgan thought it was deodorant, don't even ask.

 They were all really happy with all of the Silly bands they got.  Santa was really generous with them this year.

 We got breakfast in the oven and proceeded to tear through gift after gift.

 Gma and Kristi were pretty proud of themselves in finding this toy.  It jumps and coos and is a delight to have around. . . not.

 The tree before it got torn into.

 Santa got them each a pillow pet, which they were very excited about and Malia got the double stroller she had been telling everyone about.  Since Christmas, she hasn't taken her hands off that stroller literally.  You can see her hand marks on the handles.

 I took a lot of shots of Eah, just cuz she kept doing crazy things, like watching intently while Randy was opening her Silly Bands.

 Morgan had fun playing her cousins new DS, something that will probably never end up in our house. 

 Micah enjoying his Buzz.

 Mac got the new Diary of a Wimpy Kid and finished it in a couple of hours.  She said it was really good.

 And since Malia got her new scooter from her birthday stolen this fall, she got a replacement scooter.  Hopefully this one will last a little longer.

 It's been a whirlwind of fun around here and even though I haven't had time to breathe, I really enjoyed it this year.  I love my kids and my family and am soo grateful I have them around to help celebrate these special times.  I wanted to get a pic of our tree before I took it down.

 Oh and a couple of big surprises for Randy and I.  His parents gave us a new flat screen TV, totally unexpected.  It really caught us off gaurd.  We've been very patient about getting a new TV till he's done with school, so when they brought this out, I wasn't ready for my emotions.  Thanx again you guys, we (meaning all of us, including the kids) are having a lot of fun with it. 

 Other news was that after my grandma passed away, my dad was able to pic through a lot of her furniture for my bros and sis.  We did a little drawing to see who would get what and I am now the proud owner of one of her big oak tables with 6 chairs.  Randy's dad helped us haul it out of my brother's house and set it up Monday night.  It is such a nice addition to our family.  We don't have the plastic chairs anymore and when we have company, we have another huge leaf to put in so we can all fit at the table, instead of half at the table and a few at the kids table and  more at the card table.  I'm soo excited for this, it really is a gorgeous/sturdy table.  And now I will always have a piece of my grandma with me.  This was the table in her kitchen where they ate when we weren't around.  I have pics of them sitting here drinking their coffee, or with my kids.  Man I miss my grandma.

The other amazing news came while we were Skyping with my lil bro Jon who's on his mission.  Almost all 9 of my bro's and sis's, minus Andy who's in the Middle East right now, were there.  It was so much fun to see everyone on Christmas awesome to see Jon and hear how his mission is going.  He has a baptism next week which we are all stoked about.  But that wasn't the news.  Unfortunately I can't post it until after this weekend, but trust me, as soon as I am allowed to, I will be screaming it from the roof tops, because this is news we all have been waiting for, for years.   So stay tuned.

This is a special time of year. I love Christmas, I love my family and the traditions we have. I love that Jesus Christ was born and that he lived and atoned for everyone.  How lucky are we to live during a time when the gospel has been restored and we are able to have to knowledge of Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father and the gift of repentance and forgiveness.  Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!!

Christmas Card

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Shutterfly Fun

Hey all,

A friend of mine had a link on her Facebook account to get 50 free Shutterfly greeting cards if you are a blogger, so I figured, what the heck, might as well try it. My friend swears by Shutterfly and has used their services a lot.  For instance she has made really cute books through Shutterfly about each of her kids.  However  I am new to shutterfly so I can't really tell you if it is good or bad, but hey for 50 free cards, I am willing to give it a good try.  I'm actually kind of excited to see what kind of creation I can make.   I am going to use these free cards for Christmas this year.  I wasn't really sure if I was going to send them out this year, but with this killer deal, I might as well.  Here are the links, go for it, try it, what's the worst that could happen.
http://blog.shutterfly.com/5358/holiday2010-blog-submission-form/

Here are some links to different products and services they have.  Happy card making!
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My dad was helping fix and organize things at my grandma's home in Cali and along with it, inherited her old car. So he had to drive it home to Michigan and of course had to come through Utah, so we were able to have a quick visit with him at my brother's home. It was fun, the kids always love see their grandparents even if it is for short time.

Kirsten's new party trick is to make a silly face, so I was trying to get her to do it for one of the pics, however it took about 5 shots to get her to do it and by that time my kids had been holding that face for too long, so this was the best that we got.
Thanx grandpa for taking time to visit with us.

Crazy Hair

It was Red Ribbon week last week and last Friday was Crazy Hair Day.  One of the things McKenzie really wanted to do was cut her hair before Crazy hair day so that it made it even crazier.  I actually wanted to try and make an attempt at crazy hair, so I went to the party store and bought every color of colored hairspray, cuz I never have it when I need it, and let the kids choose what they did.  Mac wanted  kind of a Shrek thing going on, only with 3 ear instead of 2.

 I'm not creative enough yet with hair, so I tried so weird twisting pony tail things with Morgie and sprayed it Cougar white and blue.

 Micah liked the Cougar theme so we striped him up.

 And we got one more day of nice walking to school in and got a crazy hair shot of everyone.  Man, I'm ready for spring to come back already.  I wasn't finished doing my outside walking.

The Hair is Gone

I finally caved and let her do it.  McKenzie has been begging me for sooo long to let me cut her hair and I convinced her to wait till after Halloween to do it so she could put it in a ponytail, (cuz let's face it, 50's girls did not have A-line hairstyles back then).  With all of the chaos of Malia's surgery and . . . pretty much that, I couldn't even think of anything else.  But Thursday, she soooo kindly reminded me again, and I got my friend, at the last minute, to show up at my door with a hair supplies in tow, to surprise Mac with a cut.

 I love her hair short I do have to say.  She had exactly 10 inches, just enough for Locks of Love.  We were going to go with Wigs for Kids cuz apparently the other charges for wigs and Wigs doesn't, but they need 12 inches and I just couldn't put up with 2 more growing inches.  1 was hard enough.  We'll see if she will let it grow out again.

 Thanx Brookie for helping us out.  You da Bomb!

Going Under the Knife

The day finally arrived.  Big changes were coming to such a small little girl, and we were all excited for the end results.  For the last year and a half, Malia has had a lower than normal voice and been getting sick a little too often for our comfort.  After talking with her pediatrician at her last well child check up, he referred her to an Ear, Nose and Throat doctor who scoped her and said her adenoids were almost covering her nasal passage and her tonsils were not much better.  She gave us the info we needed and we decided to get them both removed.  We knew something was wrong and it needed to be fixed or there could be serious repercussions later down the road.  So we scheduled 1 month ago for today.  We really didn't talk to her about it until about a week ago when we attended a "Pre-op Hop" to help kids who are prepping for surgery could get themselves acclimated with the surroundings and equipment that was going to be used on them.  Amy her helper was amazing.  She was really thorough, gave her a doll to decorate, instruments to test out and even gave her the mask that they were going to use on her so she could practice at home.  She was actually excited to go and use the things she had been practicing with.  Last night, we went out to eat at IHOP because it was going to be the last real meal she was going to be able to eat for a couple of weeks and she wanted hamburger and fries AND juice (go figure).  We wanted to have her voice on record to see if there was a difference after she healed so we videoed her at IHOP.  However, she had way to much sugar yesterday and so she was acting really goofy and making her voice higher for part of it, oh well, we tried.

She realllllly wanted juice. 

 Grandma was even able to come down to help out with the rest of the kids so Randy and I could be with Malia the whole day.  (can you see a theme here with the juice).

 We were scheduled to be at the hospital at 7 AM and since we weren't going to the one right down the hill from us, we had to be up at 5:30.  We were a little tired.  But she is still smiling.

Eah and Mom before surgery.

 

I just had to get one more vid. of her beforehand, cuz who knows what was going to happen after.

How quickly it can change though.  Here she is about 20 minutes after she came out of surgery, man that anaesthesia was not her favorite.  She was thrashing and wailing and gnashing her teeth.  It was sooo sad to see her like this.  Her doctor said that her tonsils were actually worse than what she thought.  That when she went in there, they were "kissing" which meant they were actually touching each other when she was laying down.  So it really was good we decided to do both.

Such a sad little girl.

 She didn't do well in recovery, she could not keep her O2 levels up above 88 and wouldn't drink anything.  The meds that were in her body was just making her act weird and she just wasn't really "there" for a long time.  So, because they needed beds for other surgical patients, they transferred us up to the Pediatric unit to finish recovering and try drinking juice and eating Popsicles.  It was nice to not have people on top of us and have a little privacy.  She slept a lot and whined a lot and ate and drank very little for a long time.  We watched Marley and Me and tried to convince her to drink something.  She eventually got her footing and walked around a bit and we found the playroom.  At which point we realized she needed more pain meds and gave her the option of drinking her meds and getting the IV out or keeping it in and getting the meds put into her IV.  She really hated that IV and probably would've done anything to get that thing out.  So she took her meds and proceeded to spit it out, so we tried a different med and she drank it up.  She was soo happy to be free of that stupid tube.  We went down to the playroom again and gave her a different juice and got a few sips out of her.  It wasn't until this person

 showed up and convinced her that the sooner she drank her juice the quicker she could get out of there (which she apparently didn't hear the 50 million times before that was said by me and Randy and every other nurse out there).  Thanx a million Andrea, you Da Bomb!!!! 

She had fun with the play room toys, especially anything she could push around.  The wagon soon became the big hit.

 And of course I had to get the backside hospital gown shot.  It was too perfect.

 Sorry I couldn't resist another one.

 So after 7 hours of absolute fun, we were able to go home.  She made out like a bandit.  In the surgical wing, Amy brought her a quilt made by the Project Linus group along with a stuffed duck (which by the way worked wonders in recovery, she loved having it rubbed on her skin).  Then in the Peds unit she had a fleece blanket, beanie baby bear, sippy cup and pillowcase waiting for her. Andrea brought a new baby doll for her.  Oh and of course Grandma had to spoil her a little get her a Fur Real puppy, Toy Story 3 and have the kids give her a new Barbie.  Maybe she'll want to have surgery again, hopefully not.

The crazy thing is, she almost seems back to normal.  Her post op instructions told her to be on bed rest the next 3 days and light activity after that, HA!  That's not going to happen.  She wants to eat real food sooo bad and has no desire to sit still, cuz she knows if she does she will fall asleep, and of course who would want to do that?  We caught her with a stolen bag of Cheerios trying to stuff her mouth.  This is going to be a trying 2 weeks.  I'm just grateful she has done so well, except for the little hiccup recovering.  I'm so happy we got it done now when she can recover quickly and not when she's a teen or older and completely miserable the entire time.  I'm grateful for amazing technology.  Which reminds me, I need to get my Grateful Turkey up and going for the month.