Worm in the house?

A few weeks ago it was raining here nonstop. For about a week. I walked through the kitchen to grab something and happen to look by the back door, and that is when I saw it....a worm. Yes, a real, living worm had somehow found its way into our house. Remembering how much I loved worms as a kid (yes, I was that kid that would pick up the worms and play with them) I quickly called the kids to come and take a look. Within seconds I was surrounded and the poor little worm was now a pet. The girls both took turns holding him and poking at him with a stick. I think even Camden got a turn with him. I am not so sure the worm was alive when we returned him to the lawn, but just think of the memories. :)

After they were done playing the worm, the girls asked if they could head outside to play in the rain. I told them of course! I used to be the mom that didn't want their kids to go out and get wet and play in the rain, but one time, I had had enough, and I let them do it, and they stayed happy and busy for an hour out in that rain...and that is when I realized it was totally worth the wetness. Plus...think of the memories!! They kept telling me how much fun it was to jump on the trampoline when it is wet, and how much higher you can bounce. In the top right picture, of the trampoline ones, you see Macie laughing so hard. She kept falling and thought that it was the.funniest.thing.ever!!!

4 months old

This little girl is 5 months old!! Crazy! She is such a joy to have in our home. We couldn't imagine life without her! She is starting to make some really fun noises. She enjoys playing on her floor mat and talking to herself in the mirror. She loves to sit in the bumbo and be wherever everyone else is. She rolled over for the first time a few days ago. She is chubby. She weighed in at her 4 month checkup at 14 lbs 13 oz.  (56%). She in wearing 6 month old clothes and is in the 54% for her height. Over the past few weeks, she has lost almost all of her hair. She is seriously balding for some reason at the age of 5 months old. Poor thing.

 Falling asleep in the swing.

 Hanging out with Dad while he reads the paper.

Here she is trying cereal for the first time. I love all of the faces she makes!

Tent Love

Camden LOVES himself a tent. This little guy cracks me up. At least 3 times a day he will drag this huge quilt over to me and go: "uh uh". Interpretation: "I would like a tent please mom!"  So we whip up a little something that looks like this:

 Simple, yes! He then proceeds to crawl into said tent

Once he finds the opening and crawls in....he sits, and sits, and sits.

 Seriously. Doing nothing inside.

 Occasionally looking up in amazement.

And at other times peeking out to say hi! He seriously loves these and I am more than happy to oblige and make him one, every.single.time!

The month of March

The month of March according to my phone.

 The girls wanted to have a sleepover, so decided to make their own beds on a bunch of cushions. I love the memories they are making together.

 Geoff went out of town for work for a few days and while he was gone Camden got SUPER sick. I ended up taking him to the ER  at 11 at night because he couldn't breath. He had Croupe. Why do things like this ALWAYS happen when he is gone?! Poor little guy. We are thankful for a good friend who was able to come and sleep at the house with other kids while I was at the hospital all night. We got home at 6:30 before anyone was awake.

 Camden thinks he is big and tries to wrestle Addie.  It is pretty funny.

 The girls playing outside with the leftovers of a science experiment we did.

 Little Brynlee on her Blessing day. What a beautiful little baby.

 My parents decided to surprise us over spring break and drove down to play for the week. It was a lot of fun!! Here is Grandpa Bradley with Brynn Brynn.

 And Grandma and Grandpa reading a story to the kids before bed.

We decided to take Grandma and Grandpa to the Water Gardens. Camden fell in the water....twice. Poor kid. So we had to strip him down. And it was not warm....

Easter 2013

Easter this year came rather quickly. It kind of snuck up on us. My parents decided to make a quick trip and come down and see us the week of Easter so that took most of our time. The girls had fun at the Easter egg hunts and Camden was just funny to watch. He would pick up an egg and then look at it, then throw it back down again. Silly guy. He occasionally would get one open and start to eat the candy inside of it. Here are a few pictures of the events.

 At the Ward Easter Egg Hunt. This was done at a local park. The kids had fun playing on the playground and hunting for eggs.

 After the church egg hunt, we headed to my aunt and uncle's house for an Easter egg hunt and a nice Easter dinner. We are soooo lucky to have Ann and Byron here with us in Texas. It is nice to be able to have some family here. The kids love them and they love the kids just as much! Our kids are totally spoiled by them!

Here is the Camden at Ann and Byron's egg hunt. 

 Macie hunting for eggs

 Addie hunting for eggs. Both girls found a HUGE egg with a toy inside and they were both sooo excited about them....unfortunately for them, those eggs were for the babies! HA!

Let's not forget little Brynlee. Saying Hi!

Ann and Byron and the kids after the egg hunt. I am pretty sure that Camden is eating some jelly beans that he took out of one of the eggs he found.

 Here is what the Easter Bunny left the kids. The girls got new pj's with matching baby doll outfits and Camden got a nice church shirt for summer. The Easter Bunny also hid eggs throughout the house which they got to find.

 Checking out the goods. And baskets full of eggs after looking throughout the house.

All in all Easter was really great this year. The kids had a good time and we were able to focus on the Savior and the true meaning of Easter. We are blessed.

Spring Break

Spring Break this year was a lot of fun! We were completely spoiled with BEAUTIFUL weather. It was in the 70's every.single.day!!! We were able to spend plenty of time outside riding bikes, playing traffic, hopscotch, chalk fun, bubbles, even squirt guns and sprinklers!!  The kids were great at sleeping in and the girls played together so wonderfully!! Makes me long for summer, but by the end of the week, we were all ready for  a schedule again!

The girls got out their beads and made "the longest chain EVER!!" It stretched completely across their room! They decided to pick it up and hang it on themselves as if it were a snake. Crazy girls!

I tried to do some type of project each day. It was what kept us all sane and happy. Since having 2 babies REALLY limits leaving the house EVER. We seriously did not leave the house the entire week, except to go to the park one day, which lasted all of 25 minutes because both babies were crying and ornery.

Here is Camden playing in Shaving cream...he loved it! And the girls painting with a shaving cream/glue paint that puffs up as it dries.

This project was by far our favorite!! We made some oobelek. SOOO fun and super cool. When you punch it it stays hard, but as you go in smoothly it is all runny and gooey. We all loved it and will deffinetly be doing this one again! Once it dries, it turns into a great chalk! So many uses!

And a few of the little man enjoying the great outdoors. He LOVES to be outside. He will go and grab his shoes multiple times a day and expect you to drop everything and take him for a wagon ride. Silly little guy.

And here is a cute picture of Brynlee. Geoff was bouncing her one night and this is how she fell asleep. So cute and funny. I don't know how that it is at all comfortable.

Brynlee's Blessing Day

Our little Brynlee got blessed yesterday. This is the longest we have gone with any of our kids. She is almost 4 months old. I was so worried that she wouldn't fit in the dress. Luckily she did and it makes me wonder how my other girls ever fit into it...it must have drown them! She is such a happy little baby that I thought for sure we would have no issues....wrong!! We had to wake her up to bless her and she cried the whole time. Boo! Luckily her cry wasn't too loud so you could still hear.

Beautiful little girl

Aunt Ann. Uncle Byron had to leave early to go and speak at a different ward.

A family picture. We were able to get ready a few minutes early before church and get a picture taken. I love Brynlee's face....her eyes look like they are going to pop out of her head!! HA!

an ER visit

This week Geoff was out of town. He goes out of town 2-3 times a year. I was a little terrified for him to go out of town and know that I had to handle all of the kids by myself for 4 days. It was a little overwhelming to think about. On Monday and Tuesday I am pretty sure I was a little grumpy. Just thinking about him being gone was making me feel overwhelmed already. By the time he gets home around 5 each night I am sooo ready for some help. Camden is usually a crying mess at this point and just wants to be held. Brynlee is usually hitting her "witching" hours where she cries off and on and just wants to be held. Lunches have to made, I am usually trying to get dinner started, etc. So thinking about doing nights alone, was just plain exhausting. However, I new that if I put my mind to it and didn't think about things to much, then we could do it!! So, Wed., Thurs, and Fri. went off pretty well. We were on the last leg before Geoff got home. Then Friday night hit....Camden had been acting totally normal all day. I knew that he maybe was getting a little sick, but it seemed as though it was going to be very mild and just a little cold. He had no runny nose, no fever, no coughing....just when he would  cry, you could hear that deep cough maybe developing. Knowing that he might be getting sick, I went upstairs around 10 to check on him. He sounded just fine and was sleeping soundly, so I went back downstairs to feed Brynlee. After feeding Brynlee and talking to Geoff on the phone for a bit, I went back upstairs to check on him. It was about 11 now. I had told Geoff about how when he cried you could just tell he was getting sick and said to him "I bet you he wakes up in the morning with croup." Well...little did I know that when I walked into his room at 11, he already had it. When I walked in, it kind of woke him up a little and he was trying to sit up. Every time he would breathe, it sounded just awful. He truly was struggling and you could hear it. It was pretty scary. Geoff was still on the phone at this point and he could hear him through the phone. So, I got out the nebulizer and gave him a treatment to see if it would help. It didn't. So I called Geoff back and told him that I think I needed to take him to the ER. We discussed who I should maybe call to come to the house and be with the rest of the kids. She was called and on her way. When Tami got here we talked for a minute to see what she thought and to discuss which hospital we thought I should go to. The poor little guy at this point was wide awake just trying to breathe. We left the house about 11:45 and went into Ft. Worth to Cook Children's. I thought for sure that he would fall asleep in the car since it took us about 15 minutes to get there, but he stayed awake the whole time. I could just hear him trying to breathe the whole way there. It was just so sad. We walk in the ER and there is a nurse right outside the check in station. Before anyone even listens to him They all say, "wow, he is not doing good...he has croup." There were several other people at this point in the waiting room, but when they were listening to him breathe, they took us right back, ahead of everyone else there. We were in a room getting breathing treatments for him within 5 minutes of us being there. When we walked into the room, they already had a respiratory therapist in there with things set up just waiting for us. It was quite impressive. I don't think that I will ever go to another hospital for my kids. They were great!! We got there about midnight and were there all night long. He had the breathing treatment, which helped alot and then they gave him some steroids to help open up his lungs. They were supposed to start working about 6 hours after he received them and should last about 3-4 days. They also did  a flu test on him and a normal exam to check his ears and such. This little guy was awake almost all night. Only sleeping for about an hour from 2:30-3:30. It seems as though every time I would finally get him to sleep they would walk in and do another test, or give him some medicine or whatever and it would wake him up almost immediately to where he would just start screaming all over again. Every time someone touched him, he would scream. Every time he screamed, he started sounding awful again and would struggle to breathe. That one hour that he got to sleep and was left untouched he actually started to sound quite a bit better. They were going to keep us all day at one point, but luckily the little guy cleared up just in time for us to leave before they admitted him. So we got home right around 6 A.M. It was a very long night. I got zero sleep and then had to do all of the kids by myself the next day. It was absolutely exhausting to say the least. But we made it through!! I am just grateful that it was not more serious and that he never fully developed the awful croupy cough that comes with it...he just couldn't breathe.

Here he is finally asleep on my lap. This is a bad picture. I was trying to send it to Geoff and it was taken on my phone with no flash. Sorry. 

 This was right before the Dr. wanted to check his ears. I decided that we have quite the feisty little guy on our hands after this experience. He is one tough kid. As the Dr. was trying to check his ears he was kicking and screaming as hard and as loud as he could. It took 3 of us to hold the poor kid down just for this. Later when they did the flu test, there were 2 male nurses doing it. The one was doing the test, the other was a 6' guy about 230 lbs and was in general a tough looking guy. It took his entire body on top of this poor little dude to hold him still enough to get the test done and the sample that they needed. He was NOT very cooperative. Then again, he had been up all night and didn't feel well and couldn't breathe.

 

The month of February

The month of February according to my phone.

 Another nice day with more playing outside. The girls are washing rocks.

 Brynlee was having some tummy time and puked. When I rolled her over this is what I saw. Poor baby.

 This little dude loves his car. What a cheeser.

 All 3 of my girls. Love them so much.

 A Valentine's Day breakfast. Pink, heart shaped pancakes.

 The girls checking out their Valentine's.

 Such a sweet picture of Addie with her dad.

 I decided to finally get crafty again after having the baby. Here is the final product!!

 The girls just hanging out on the bars upstairs. Such a great toy!!

 Sweet little Brynlee cuddling with me. This is the best feeling ever!!

 The girls are trying to color and Camden is taking over and ruining everything!

I was making some vinyl signs and the girls wanted to help, So I wrapped them up in all of the extra vinyl as I weeded the sayings out.