Who's excited about Primary?

There were a few months that Brylee actually enjoyed nursery at church but for the past several months (like 6) she has wanted nothing to do with it. Her teachers didn't show regularly and neither did the other kids in her class. She was often the only child or one of two children in her class. I asked about her being switched but nothing happened with that. Well the last Sunday of December was wonderful. I was able to tell Brylee that it was her last time in Nursery! She was so excited!!! She didn't cry and force me to drag her to nursery and leave her there distraught. She went willingly. Now she is a sunbeam and so glad for it! She happily goes to Primary each week and sits with her class. Having Tucker and Hunter in sharing time helps her I'm sure. I'm just glad that she can be happy about church and there is no longer a battle after sacrament meeting :)

Ugh...but feeling blessed

Well here is a first for me...a post with no pictures. If you don't think you can handle it I will completely understand :)

After having a wonderful New Year's Day together, I warned Bryant I might not get out of bed the following day. I spent most of the next day in bed but by the afternoon, Bryant was starting to feel sick too and needed a nap. It was nap time anyway so Gunnar was out and the others were ready for a movie or Wii time so I got to lay on the couch more or less. I posted on our ward's facebook page that we were feeling sick and asked if anyone would bring us some dinner. We had a great response and dinner brought to us that evening. By the end of the evening we decided that Tucker should be taken to the doctor's office too. Bryant was well enough to take him and we found out that he had strep throat. As a result, I called the doctor's office Friday morning to schedule an appointment for the rest of the children to be tested for strep throat. Brylee's was positive in the doctor's office and Hunter and Gunnar came back negative but would be sent to the hospital to be "cultured." I then dropped the kids off at home with Bryant, who was having a hard time pulling himself out of bed, and I went to my doctor's appointment. I picked up my and Brylee's medicine and came home to pass out. Bryant left a couple of hours later to see a doctor as well. Someone checked in on us to see if we were feeling better and offered to bring us dinner Friday night. I was especially grateful! She even brought paper bowls and plates for us to eat out of because we had been unable to stand long enough to do any dishes and were completely out of everything!

Saturday was spent with all of us sitting in front of the t.v. most of the day watching movies or someone play the Wii. Tucker was feeling better because he had been taking the amoxicilan for over 24 hours and Brylee was just tired. Hunter felt miserable and just wanted to sleep most of the time and by the evening even Gunnar was starting to feel sick. Again a loving neighbor brought us dinner. I was so glad I didn't have to cook and because it was pizza it didn't dirty any dishes :) I had finally felt well enough to do a load of dishes on Saturday afternoon but it took awhile because I could only stand for so long before feeling tired. Saturday evening I received a call from the children's doctor's office confirming that Hunter did have strep throat after all and a prescription would be called into the pharmacy after an hour. I was so tired and I knew Bryant felt worse than I did so I again asked the members of my ward if any of them would be passing by the pharmacy in two hours. Someone willingly volunteered to go and get the prescription when it was ready! I was so amazed and grateful! The only hard task was then staying awake while waiting for the prescription to arrive.

We had plans to give a family a ride to church on Sunday but knew there was no way we would make it so we gave them the keys to our car and sent them without us. That family offered to make us dinner that night too! Bryant and I were finally feeling better by Sunday, still enjoying our afternoon naps. Bryant was able to return to work on Monday after calling in sick on Friday and Saturday and I was ready to care for the rest of the sick family.

I am so grateful to all the wonderful people in our ward and neighbors that brought us food and took care of us when we felt so awful. I am also glad that Gunnar didn't get sick until Saturday evening when I had the energy to help him feel loved. He never had a positive strep. Apparently, it is a rare for a child under two to get strep throat.

The final drama of this wonderful sickness came on Thursday as Brylee began to turn into a red person. It started with spots around her mouth that I thought resulted from not washing her face after eating but they didn't go away all afternoon and by the end of dinner the spots had spread to the rest of her face. By that evening her body was getting splotchy too. I took her to the doctors in the morning because I just didn't have the energy to go that evening. Turns out she was having a reaction to her amoxicilan. Nothing serious and does not guarantee that she is allergic to it. So we stopped the amoxicilan and gave her something else for the final days of her dosing needs.

Now we are all healthy and going strong :)

Sledding

It has been a really cold winter this year! It only snowed a handful of times in December and was just bitterly cold the rest of the time. We remained under average low temperatures for almost two weeks. It was rough! On New Year's Eve we let the kids play with sparklers. Thankfully no one burnt themselves this time! Hunter said he wanted to watch everyone else's fireworks too and I told him they would not be doing fireworks until midnight (it was 7:00 pm) and that he would be asleep. He said he wanted me to wake him up for it and I told him that I would be asleep :) Funny enough some people set off some fireworks at 7:30 after the kids were in bed but I did not go and get them.

The following day I was not feeling great but Bryant thought it would be a good idea to go sledding. This is something I have been wanting to take the kids to go do ever since the first snow fall on my birthday but it has just been too cold to take them all out. Well when Bryant volunteers to do an activity, I jump on board no matter what! We borrowed a sled from a member in the ward. She often boasts about how large it is and how her husband sits on it with four children. I wasn't sure I should believe her but it is an amazing sled made by her husband and we didn't have to worry about breaking it :)

Here are three kids getting a ride from the parking lot to the hill. They had to get off once we got to the hill because Bryant's shoes had no traction and he was barely able to pull the empty sled.

And Bryant was able to fit on the sled with all four children!! Bryant went up and down the hill several times with the children while I mostly took pictures and waited at the top!

Gunnar died after one run...not really but he enjoyed the ride laying down because he kept falling over when he would try to stay sitting up.

Each of the children got to ride alone with their father. Bryant teased them by letting the sled get super close to the lake. It was amazing how far the sled would take them after the hill was gone!

After sledding we played for a little bit at the park. Everyone had lots of fun!

Christmas!

I was so excited for Christmas this year, I had such a hard time sleeping. I woke up soooo many times in the night and was constantly disappointed when only a half hour or hour had passed. My sister Michelle did a lot of cleaning back in September or October and saved a couple boxes of goodies for us. I didn't have to worry about finding anything for stockings and many of their gifts were the result of her generosity!

Tucker was the first one awake a little after 7. I was so glad to get things going! His stocking was stuffed with matchbox and hotwheels cars and books

Hunter woke up second. He had some cars but mostly play-doh tools and books

Gunnar and Brylee woke up about the same time. Gunnar got play-doh tools a couple of cars and books too

Brylee got some play-doh tools and shoelaces that lace through pictures and beads and books

Gunnar quickly understood how to open presents :)

Brylee with her stash. Thanks to her birthday practice a couple days earlier she was a lot faster at opening presents on Christmas morning.

Hunter was excited to open this big present. It is a small box of Legos in a large box with packing air bags from Amazon. Upon opening the box and seeing the air bags, Hunter began freaking out that someone was going to take the bags. He started reaching for them calling out: "Mine! Mine! Mine!" It took a minute for him to calm down and understand that the "real" present was the Legos and not the packing material. It was a moment I was sad to have missed on video.

Bryant didn't think he was getting anything for Christmas and was presently surprised when he had 4 gifts to open, not to mention the one that just arrived and I am using to make this blog post :)

After opening the backpack, Brylee tried to give it to Tucker because he is the one in school and uses a backpack. She was super excited once she understood that it was for her.

Gunnar loves his Legos. We are now the owners of Mega Blocks, Duplo, and Legos. I never thought I would have all three but Gunnar truly loves these, Maybe I will get rid of the Mega Blocks...

Brylee loved playing with her princess castle that we scored at a yard sale earlier this year with Gunnar's legos

Here are the kids playing with all the new play-doh toys. We now have to keep all the toys in a box and the play-doh in another container because we have so many toys! No more waiting for a turn with the rolling pins or extruders!

One of Bryant's gifts was wax paper. It may not seem exciting but now he is able to glue the parts of his rubber band airplane together!

This is the Lego airplane Hunter got in the box of packing material. He is so funny. Gunnar still loves to get up at the table and stand on chairs and climb on the table. But at least he looks cute most of the time

Brylee's 3!

Brylee is three!!!! She was so excited to open up her presents. Thankfully, everyone else in the family was happy to watch her, especially knowing that Christmas was only 4 days away and they would get to open presents too! 

This is a new baby Mormon! On our journey home from Arizona, Brylee took her baby doll into a gas station when using the bathroom. The rule is normally no toys out of the car! Bryant and I both noticed that she had it and figured we would be able to remember this one time that Brylee took her doll in. Well she left it in the bathroom stall at Beaver because she was so excited that she could get on and off the toilet all by herself! We didn't realize that the doll was left behind until after stopping for the bathroom in Fillmore and her requesting her "Mormon" It was a rough ride home and a rough couple of nights in our house without Mormon. So I took her to the store and they had this baby. It is slightly bigger than Mormon but the same in all other respects. I was able to purchase it without her realizing it (It was a miracle). She was super excited. I have a video of her opening it with her astonishment at it being a baby doll and then being the one that she wanted. She just kept saying over and over that it was the one she wanted. It was a perfect gift moment. (oh and the video isn't loading so it is on youtube instead see it here http://youtu.be/SYFeTqLsImc)

She also received a bag full of doll stuff. She spent at least an hour taking care of her baby after opening presents.

Her birthday money from Grandma Debbie arrived in the mail a day or two later and we went to the store and got the stroller she wanted to go with her doll. She is one happy girl!

December

December was mellow time for our family :) We finally got snow on my Birthday! It was the best present ever! I had lots of fun shoveling snow around our circle. The children were also super excited to go outside and play in it.

Here is a random picture of Brylee. My children have started wearing two pairs of pajamas to bed at night. I still think it is too warm at night but we are all figuring out how to sleep comfortably at night :)

Final Days

After being busy, busy, busy for 5 days it was nice to relax for a day before heading back to Utah.

Tucker and Hunter discovered Beyblades and decided that they should be called Dato-blades. Not sure where they came up with the name but they had fun

Gunnar enjoyed playing with his cousin Maelee's toys too!

We had lots of fun being able to spend time with family but the trip was too short! It is hard to believe that it will likely be another year before we make it down to the valley again! Oh and we loved all the warm weather on our trip. I packed mostly shorts for the kids this time and only one pair of pants. It was marvelous!