Free Christmas Cards!!!

Its that time again. Time to start obsessing over Christmas cards. I had decided that I wasn't going them this year. I always spend about a week designing and redesigning our card. And then I'm never completely happy with it. Then I get them printed, search all over for envelopes that are the right size, etc.

Then I saw this post on my friend Samantha's blog : about Shutterfly running a promotion to bloggers to get 50 FREE Christmas cards. So I looked around their site. And I liked what I saw! How cute are these:

You can see all their cute designs here.

But it gets even better. Every year I make my mom a photo calendar. Again I usually custom make them. I know there are lots of sites out there to order photo calendar's, but with a family as big as ours, I like to be able to put everyone's picture on their birthday. It helps when you have 30 or so birthday's on the calendar. I've never been able to find a site that does that, so every year I spend about 25 hours painstakingly designing a calendar myself. I had decided that I just don't have time this year, so my mom wasn't going to get one. Then, while looking at the cards, I discovered that Shutterfly has redone their photo calendars and now has an option to put photos on the calendar dates! YAY!!! Thank you Shutterfly for saving my Christmas gift tradition!

Daddy is home!

I'm a slacker. But I'm finally posting something. When Jesse left for Afghanistan back in March we were told that it would be a 13 month deployment with a chance of switching out halfway making it only 6 or 7 months. Once he got there he was told that chance was about an 80% chance. I still wasn't going to jinx it and just planned on the 13 months. After about 3 months they told him that he would be coming home at the halfway point. Again I didn't want to jinx it so I kept on planning on the 13 months. In about August he started telling us he would be home in September. Again, I didn't want to jinx it, so I kept telling myself he wasn't coming home for a long time. Bad move on my part, I didn't accomplish ANY of my deployment goals.

When we finally got the official word about the homecoming we were told that he would be home sometime between Oct 1 and 4, and to watch for more information. I knew that wasn't right because the airshow was Oct 1-3, and Jesse had been told that they for sure weren't coming home during the air show. Oh, and this "first official word" came on Sept 28. They like to make sure you have no time to actually prepare for this stuff. And they send this "official word" via text message. Awesome. So finally on Oct 5 I got a follow up text saying that they would be there on Oct 6 at 9 am. Yay!!! As in, they gave us less than 24 hours notice. Typical for the Marine Corps. Then later that afternoon I got a call that they had changed it to 6:30 am and to be there at 5:30. So the next morning I got up at 4:30, showered, straightened my hair and was almost done getting myself ready and about to wake up the kids when I got a call saying, "They are going to be early, come NOW." So I rushed round finishing, took the kids in their PJs and got them dressed there. We stood around in the dark and cold, waiting...



They finally landed at 6:35- not early. But it was worth it.




My pictures are pretty low quality because my camera did not like the dawn light. Oh well.

Why Legoland is better than Disneyland

So when my mom, Caytie, and her boys came to town last week we decided to go to Legoland for one reason, none of us had every been! I don't know why, it was so much fun! I've heard a lot of people around here comment that Legoland is lame, its only for toddlers, its tiny, etc. I don't get it. Sure there aren't a lot of huge roller coasters, but I totally think its better than Disneyland! Luckily, my mom spoils us and bought me and the kids season passes while we were there, and they are the good kind that include the aquarium and the water park and free parking too! OK, so here is my list of why Legoland is better than Disney.
* Its cheaper, and closer to home
* You don't waste half your day in line to meet characters. There are a few Characters there; Bob the Builder, Legoman, Princess and knights, etc but I have yet to see a line to get your picture with one.
* The food is cheaper and FAR better.
* It isn't nearly as crowded, and the lines are shorter.
* The rides that do tend to have long lines have lego play areas that are gated in where kids can play while the parents wait in line. There is one gate where you get in line and another close to where you board the ride so your kids are close, and entertained and you just grab them before you get on. GENIUS!!!
* Instead of trading pins (which you will never have a use for again) you can build your own lego man in one of two stores at the park and if you see an employee with a cooler lego guy, you can trade them! My nephew got Indiana Jones from the guy who refilled his soda while we were there.
* They have TONS of play areas throughout the park. Everything from a Duplo village, to a splash park, to a build your own lego car and race it. Perfect for all age groups.
* They have a water park.
* They have an aquarium
* You don't have to go out of the park to go to the aquarium or water park, the entrance in inside the main park.
* Miniland USA- AMAZING!!! Seriously, there are a bunch of cities in the US recreated entirely of legos. With tons of details too, actual restaurants, stores etc in their real locations, people, funny situations, etc. Even Lincoln go spend an hour or so in there and be completely happy.

I'm sure there are more reasons, but those are the ones I came up with in 5 minutes. We've had our passes about a week, and we've been 3 times. Today Savannah and I went for just 3 hours while Lincoln was at the drop in daycare and rode all the rides that he can't ride plus a few more.

Like Father, Like Daughter

Savannah came home from school today with a note that says she will be recieving an award at her school awards assembly next week. I was telling her that I was excited to come, and she said, "What's my award for, being awesome?"

Captain Obvious Strikes Again

I hear Savannah screaming and then Lincoln comes running down the stairs laughing which can only mean one thing. So I ask Lincoln "Hey whatcha doin?" His answer... "Bugging Sannie."

At least he's honest, right?

Thank You Captain Obvious

Lincoln walked out of the living room stark naked.
Me: Lincoln, why are you naked?
Lincoln: Take clothes off.

Yep, that explains it.

Summer Fun

Last night we went to a Lincoln Military Housing event. I can't remember what it was called, but it had a Hawaiian theme. It was really fun! The kids loved it! Here are a ton of pictures that I took, since I haven't posted pictures in a while.

Judge Not

In relief society today we had a lesson on not judging others. The teacher was a woman, probably around 60 years old. She has no children. Now I'll admit, I don't like this lady. There have been times before that I have not gone to class just because she is teaching. She makes a lot of "Holier than Thou" type comments both when she is teaching, and also when others are teaching. One time a few months ago we were sitting in front of her in sacrament meeting when the speaker (a mother with two autistic children) was talking about raising special needs children in the gospel, and this woman said (rather loudly), "If you can't control your kids then don't take them out in public." Plus there have been many times that she has flat out glared at me when Lincoln has been acting up, like even after I made eye contact, she just kept on glaring.

So anyway, back to the lesson. She said that she was going to give us three "provocative" situations and she wanted us to tell her how we would react. These are the three situations that she used:
1. There is a member of your ward who you know has committed a serious sin.
2. A mother who can't or won't control her children and they become a distraction during church.
3. You see a ward member out to dinner drinking a glass of wine.

I didn't hear the rest of the lesson.

It took all of my willpower to not raise my hand and say that I was extremely offended that she would place a mother who's children and being CHILDREN right up there with major sins. Last time I checked it was not a sin for your children to make noise during church. They are children! We are one of the few religions where children go to the main service with parents. Most churches offer nursery during that time, but I choose to believe that there is a reason that our church includes children during the sacrament meeting. I've always thought that it was expected that occasionally children will cry, shout, or otherwise make noise, and that this was part of them learning to be reverent. I certainly wouldn't think that it is a SIN on the mother's part if her children dare to make a noise.

Maybe I'm being oversensitive. I often feel inadequate in my parenting, especially when it comes to Lincoln. I have, in the past, chosen not to go to church because I feel judged by his behavior. I do often sit in the hall and completely avoid sacrament meeting because I know that he is not capable (and not through some failure in my parenting, but because he is a 3-year-old with special needs) of sitting still and not making noise for an hour.

Or maybe, I just need to realize that the lesson was on not judging. And while that woman may be judging me, maybe I am judging her as well. I have "judged" that she is pretentious and mean. Maybe she is just ignorant, and that is not my place to judge. Hopefully someday she will somehow come to inherit a set of 2-year-old twins with lots of energy, and then she will come to understand just how wrong she is. Or maybe not, but still it isn't my place to judge her only to forgiver her for offending me.

The Difference Between Girls and Boys

So we're driving down the road tonight, and the conversation turned to hockey. Lincoln said, "jiberish, jiberish hockey, jiberish jiberish KICK YOUR BUTT!" Then Savannah responded with, "Well I'll get more cheerleaders for my them, then we will HAVE to win."

Yep, that pretty much sums it up.

Stress

I have officially become a blog slacker. I used to be so good at it. Well, the last few weeks have been beyond crazy at our house. It seems like every military wife I know says that every deployment has to have its crisis. Well hopefully ours is over with. I guess it was two weeks ago now, that one afternoon I decided to take the kids to the housing pool down the street after Savannah got home from school. It was a nice day, but shockingly we were the only ones there. The kids were both playing in the pool having a great time, and I was sitting at the edge of the pool talking to them while they played. I heard my phone signaling that I had a text message, and in what was not my greatest parenting moment, left the kids in the pool while I walked about 5 feet away to check the message and respond. When I turned around I saw that Lincoln had taken his floaties off and was floating in the pool. Now he was face up, and for a second I thought that he was just floating. Then I noticed that his lips were blue and his eyes were rolled back in his head and I panicked! As I was running to the side of the pool screaming, Savannah grabbed him. It took me probably 2 seconds to get to him and pull him out of the water, and to my grateful astonishment, he was breathing. Breathing, but limp and unresponsive with his eyes still rolled back and blue lips. Looking back, I must have been in shock because I just stood there not knowing what to do. Finally I took him over to the chairs and sat him on my lap and patted/rubbed his back while I screamed at him to cough. After what seemed like forever he finally started coughing and threw up three times. I still didn't know what to do. I decided that since it had been a while and he was still not responsive we needed to take him to the ER. (Looking back I have no clue why I didn't call 911 as soon as I pulled him out, but I really didn't even think of it)

So I rushed him to the ER at the closest hospital, which happened to be a children's hospital. I figured out that things weren't looking good when they took him back ahead of the child in front of us who had a compound fractured arm and several teeth knocked out, and the child behind us who had cranial swelling. They took his vitals, and they looked good. Chest x-rays showed "cloudy areas" which they told me meant that he had had water in his lungs, but it was mostly out now. Then they told me that he needed to be admitted overnight, but that my insurance would only cover an overnight stay at the military hospital. Lincoln would be going on an ambulance ride, and since I had driven him to the hospital with Savannah he was going to have to go alone.

So we waited until the ambulance came to get him, and then Savannah and I went home, changed out of our swimming suits, packed overnight bags, Savannah went to our friend Shane's house for the night and I headed to the other hospital. By the time I got there he was all settled in and had four doctors waiting for me so they could examine him and question me. They assured me that he looked great and we would be going home first thing in the morning. By the time they finished with him it was 1 am, and we were both exhausted. He went right to sleep, and I tried to sleep, but it was difficult because his alarms went off every 5-10 minutes indicating that his respiratory rate was too high. At 6 am they came to get him to repeat the x-rays. Seven doctors/residents came around 8 am and told us that we should be leaving very soon. A few minutes later our roommates left. At noon they finally came back and told us that they had decided to do an EKG and they wanted him to see a cardiologist before we left. At three a doctor came in and explained to me that his QT level was borderline on his EKG and they were concerned about that. A few minutes later a pediatric cardiologist and a regular cardiologist came in. After I answered what seemed like a million questions and a brief exam of Lincoln they decided that they weren't worried about his heart. Half an hour later we were on our way home with a clean bill of health an a follow up appointment with his pediatrician for a week later. It was mentioned several times by almost every doctor that saw him that they thought he could have had a seizure, but they just wanted me to watch him.


So we went home, thanked God that he was OK and went on with our lives. Lincoln seemed VERY tired for the next week, and had a ton of potty accidents but otherwise seemed fine. We almost didn't go to his follow up appointment because he was tired and I was ready to go back to normal life. We went anyway. When the doctor came in the room she said that she had read the hospital report, but she wanted me to tell her again what happened. I got to the point where I pulled him out of the pool, when she interrupted and said, "I think he had a seizure. I don't know why they didn't look into that more at the hospital." So she put in an urgent referral for an EEG, and also asked us to repeat his EKG in 6 months since it was borderline abnormal. She also said that she believed that she believes that when Lincoln stares off in space (which he has always done) and when he has his accidents that he may be having mini seizures. I left the appointment, went home and cried. Poor Lincoln already has enough issues in his little life, did we really need to add seizures? The next day I was talking to the other moms in the waiting room at his therapy and was surprised to learn that many other kids with SPD also have seizures.

We got a call Thursday afternoon that his EEG would be on Friday morning. I was told to keep him up until at least midnight that night and to wake him up at 4 am since he needed to be sleep deprived for the test. That night was torture! We finally arrived at his appointment at 8 am, and he was so tired he was to the point of being completely hyper. It took them 45 minutes to get him to sleep. But he did well with the test, and we were soon on our way back home with no answers. Today, 5 days later, we finally got a call with the results... his EEG was completely normal! But his pediatrician is still concerned and wants him to see a neurologist. I'm fine with that, I've always said that it is better to have things checked out and know they are fine than to just ignore them and hope they are. So sometime soon we will be doing that.

In the meantime in the past two week I had a Scentsy party, Lincoln had his IEP evaluation last week which was almost three hours long and his most important developmental evaluation to date, Savannah has been sick, and we are house hunting. I'm ready for the calm now. Oh, and somewhere between the pool and the second hospital I lost my camera. I know I had it at the pool because I was taking pictures. I know I did not have it when I was searching for my valet ticket when leaving the first hospital. It was not turned in to the lost and found at the pool or the hospital.

Why Does My Life Seem to Revolve Around the Three-year-old's Schedule?

We are house hunting. I'm really hesitant to tell people that, beacuse I'm terrified that it won't work out, but we'd like to buy a house this summer. So my realtor called me today, and we were trying to work out a time to go see the five or six houses that I'm interested in right now. Monday is a holiday, and I don't want to have to take both kids with me (and the realtor is out of town anyway, I could go with one of his associates, but I'd prefer not to) Tuesday Lincoln has a follow up appointment from our hospital stay last week, no idea how long that will be. Wednesday he has OT then speech, then an orientation meeting at the new drop-in daycare center. Thursday he has an evaluation with the school district, which they told us could last several hours. Which means that unless we can see five or six houses in an hour or two, we can't go until Friday. UGGG!!! The last house I wanted sold within 5 days of going on the market.

I'm pretty sure this is payback because when they were babies I refused to be "one of those moms" who didn't do anything that required the to be out of the house or have any noise during naptime or bed time or baby's meal times.

Want to Win Something Cute?

First off, sorry to my friends who don't have kids or only have boys, this is for the mom's of girls, or mom's who like to wear flowers in their own hair, or really if you don't fit into either of those catagories, but you still like winning stuff- go ahead and enter Savannah would be happy to take the prize off your hands if you don't want it.

I found this great giveaway, so I wanted to share it. You can win three months of free hair bows, hair flowers, headbands, etc. Well, its one a month for 3 months. They are super cute! Everyone enter.

(Rebecca, I have this image of Callie with one of those big pink flowers in her hair, you know she needs one!)

Enter here:

Savannah's Spring Program

Savannah had her Spring Program at school today. I'm hoping that Jesse can see the video's here. She goes to a school that has both a French Immersion program and a Spanish immersion program. She is in the French program. Her class sang 2 songs, the second one was about a dinosaur, so they wore these triceratops hats. They were really cute.



Her class sang two songs. The first one was "La CooCoo," and the second was "D, D, Dinosaur."


Then the entire Kindergarten did 2 songs. The first one is in Spanish and English, the second is "Brown Bear" in English. I can't get those videos to load, but I'll try again tomorrow.

Disneyland

We decided that the one thing we really wanted to do as a family before Jesse went to Afghanistan was go to Disneyland. So we bought tickets, booked a hotel, took the kids out of school for two days, spent way too much money, and went. We decided that since we were only staying one night it would be best to go to California Adventure the first day since it opened later. We didn't tell the kids where we were going, and they were so excited when they realized it! I think every one's favorite thing at California Adventure was the Toy Story ride. It was also the only long line we waited in the entire two days. It was almost worth the hour wait,




We stayed a the Portofino Inn and Suites. I highly recommend staying there. For the same price I was finding for a regular room at most budget hotels, we got a kids suit which meant that we had a main room with a king size bed, tv, etc. and also off the the side another room with bunk beds, a pull out couch, another tv, refrigerator and microwave, etc. Plus it was walking distance to Disneyland. The kids thought that they were in heaven! We also met one of Jesse's mission companions and his new wife at a Romanian Restaurant in Anaheim. I was surprised to actually like the food, but it would have been a much more enjoyable experience if our kids weren't so worn out and grumpy.

The next day we went to Disneyland. As soon as we walked in Lincoln started asking for the pirate ride. I have no idea how he knew that there was a pirate ride, but we obliged. We ended up going on it three times that day, plus he looked in four different store for the "right" pirate boat hat that he just had to have. Savannah really liked the Haunted Mansion. Really though, they both loved it all.

Lincoln's First Day of Preschool!

Last week I got the most exciting call I've gotten in a long time. The preschool down the street called to let me know that they had a spot available for Lincoln. He had been on the waiting list since August! It is a military preschool, but instead of being on base, its at housing. He will be going Tuesday and Thursday mornings, which is perfect since he has therapy on Mondays and Wednesdays. The timing isn't great since we will be gone Thursday of this week, Jesse leaves next week, and in two weeks they are taking a month off for Spring Break, but hey, I'll take it!

He was super excited about starting. We did a quick orientation and tour before school started this morning, and he didn't want to leave after. When I came back to pick him up a few hours later they said that they had an "interesting" first day with him, and that he's "VERY independent." They did say that he was willing to cooperate once they explained that he had to earn his outside privileges. I'm not quite sure if that's a good thing or not. At least he didn't throw a fit or hurt another kid, right? He had a great time though, and is excited to go back.



Oh, he does this thing lately, that when I tell him to look at me for a picture he puts his hands on his head. I'm not sure what that is about, but I think its cute.

Daddy/Daughter Dance

I'm so far behind on my blogging. I keep saying that tomorrow I'll scan the rest of these pics and blog about it, but that never happens. So I'm blogging it with just the pictures I took, and hopefully eventually the others will make it on here.

Way back on Feb 20, Jesse and Savannah went to a Daddy Daughter Dance at the Armed Forces YMCA. Well, they threw it, but it was at the Marriott in Downtown San Diego. It was a formal dance, with the Daddy's wearing their most formal uniform. Savannah insisted that she wanted a gold dress, which is quite hard to find this far past Christmas. We finally ended up ordering a gold flower girl dress off ebay.

They had a great time. They ate dinner, took professional pictures, did a fun photo booth where they could put on whatever they wanted from a dress up trunk then take pictures, and met some new people. They did not dance.

These are the pictures that I took before they left. The ones from the dance are much cuter, I'm sure I'll get them scanned eventually.

I Think God is Trying to Teach me Something.

Jesse and I have what several people have called a "strange relationship." We almost never disagree on the important stuff, yet we manage to argue about stupid mundane stuff all the time. Last month when we were in Utah Jesse made a comment that he wondered when they would rebuild the Ogden temple. I of course told him that they would never rebuild a temple. It seemed irreverent to even suggest it in my mind. We argued back and forth for a while. A week or two after we returned home Jesse sent me an email with an article from the church. They had announced that they were rebuilding the Ogden Temple. Of course, they aren't actually tearing it down, just rebuilding the outside to make it look less spaceship-y.

Then on Thursday we went to the beach. I saw a sign showing the tsunami evacuation route, laughed, and said, "Ya right, like a tsunami would ever hit Southern California." Of course that one started a debate. Well, wouldn't you know it, just two days later that very beach is on tsunami watch.

So as I see it, there are two possible lessons to be gleaned here. One, I need to learn to stop arguing with my husband on the dumb little things. Or two, I need to get better at doing research to prove my side of the argument. I'm tempted to go with number 2.

You know what's really fun?

When you are up at 10:30 at night watching crappy shows on your computer because your three-year-old is on the couch still not asleep and you walk into the kitchen and step in a puddle. Then when you look down you see three little poops and realize that you did not just step in water. And even worse, the culprit is laying bare butt naked on your couch and has clearly not had his butt wiped.

Yep, its been one of those nights. Earlier Jesse came down to tell him goodnight, and he screamed, "Daddy go bed!" and pointed upstairs. Then when I went to turn him on a new show (because I'm at the point of letting him watch TV to fall asleep, because at least then he actually goes to sleep eventually) and he yelled at me, "Get back on 'puter!" Clearly we need to establish who is in charge here.

I did get several cute pictures of him tonight though. They all look like this. Someday I'll get payback.

10 things I won't miss about working

With Jesse leaving, I can't work anymore. I've only been a working mom since September, but much to my surprise I've loved it! I'm really fortunate to have a job that I actually enjoy, and I get to work at night and on weekends so I don't have to put my kids in daycare or anything. So, here is a list of 10 things that I won't miss about working...

10: Missing stuff because I couldn't get the night off work.
9: Coming home to find that Lincoln took 173 pictures like this while I was gone.

8: When a customer asks if we carry something, and when I tell them no they stand there and stare at me like its going to change my answer. Seriously, you'd be shocked how often people do that.
7: Having to listen to coworker drama. Seriously, I don't care that you filed a restraining order against your husband last week and you are back together now.
6: Leaving the house with my kids crying, or worse when they see me put on a red shirt and start crying.
5: Dealing with ornery or rude customers.
4: Getting off work at midnight, taking 2 hours to wind down enough to sleep, then geting up with the kids at 6 or 7 and taking care of them all day until I go to work again that night.
3: Having to go to work on nights that I just really want to sit at home and do nothing.
2: Coming home to find pictures like this (yes that is blood)

1: Missing out on time with my kids.

Resolution Fail

OK, so my resolution thing didn't work out so well. I've taken an almost 2 week break from blogging. Really, that isn't very long, except than less than a month ago I made a goal to blog every day. I lasted about two weeks, half of which I was on vacation. Epic fail. But, I have a good reason. We found out that Jesse is leaving in March to go to Afghanistan for a year. Blogging just didn't seem like as much of a priority after that, besides which I wasn't really in a cheerful mood after that news.

Cars, Airplanes, and Rockets- Oh My!

Its 11:42 PM on Tuesday. This is my Tuesday entry even though, it probably won't be finished by midnight.

When we first moved to San Diego two years ago (the first time we moved here) I started taking my kids to Free Tuesdays at Balboa Park. Every Tuesday a few museums are free to locals. We haven't been since moving back because I figured that Lincoln wouldn't enjoy it. This week I decided to try it with him since two of the free museums were the car museum and the air and space museum. We also had dentist appointments today, so I figured we would only have time for one. He chose airplanes. He loved it! He pretty much ran through yelling, "Oh cool!" over and over. It was so much easier only having one kid to chase after. We made it through the whole museum in fifteen minutes, including the gift shop where he suckered me into buying him a spaceship. So I took him through again. After that we still had time before we had to pick Savannah up and head to the dentist so we headed to the automotive museum. He wasn't impressed. To be honest, I was quite surprised to see that the air and space museum was full of families, and the car one was full of old men. I thought it was cool, but we stayed about five minutes. Then we headed over to the playground because he had about twenty minutes to kill. We've never been to the playground there, and it was awesome! Definately going to be a regular thing for us now. The greatest part was that a little boy asked Lincoln to play with him, and he did!

Utah Part 2

I really should have blogged all of this sooner. It's already becoming a blur. Friday morning Jesse wanted to go talk to a National Guard recruiter, so my mom and I took the kids and did some baby shower shopping. We managed to hit the fabric store, Carters, The Children's Place, and a boutique in a little over an hour. One of Jesse's Young Men from North Carolina is serving a mission there, so we took him and his companion out for lunch. Lincoln fell asleep on the way home from the shopping, and Savannah was tired and grumpy, so my mom was nice enough to take them while Jesse and I went to lunch. After lunch we went to hang out with Jesse's family for a bit. His mom had gotten a bunch of those long skinny balloons, and a book about how to make balloon animals, so we all tried our hand at it. I hate to brag, but I was awesome! We had to leave their by 6, because we had made plans to go ice skating, since that was the one thing that Savannah really wanted to do while in Utah, but no one ended up going. So Jesse decided to work on his homework, Savannah stayed with him, and Lincoln and I went to a basketball game to watch my adorable little sister cheer. She is the cutest cheerleader ever! After that we finally went up to the cabin. And let me tell you, I've been hearing for months about how amazing this place is, but it was even better than I expected! Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures.




Saturday was baby shower day! My friend Jessica is having a little boy in March, and my friends were throwing her a shower in the afternoon. Jesse, my kids and the rest of the family headed up to the Mountain Dew Tour at Snowbasin, while I headed down for the shower. I had to do a bit more shopping while I was "downtown" as well. I made it back up to the cabin with about an hour to spare before all the girls in my family headed to Mimi's for a baby shower for my sister, Cherilyn. It was such a good time with the girls, and I finally got to meet my newest nephew, Griffin!



Sunday morning, my dad was speaking at their stake conference, so Savannah and I went to that with my mom and Christon. Its always great to hear him, he does a great job! After that was our family dinner and monthly birthday celebration. My family has an insane amount of birthdays in January. We were celebrating for me, Jesse, my sister, her husband, two nieces, and a grandma; all with birthdays between Jan 2-Jan 19! It was so much fun, just about the whole family was there.


Monday we decided to take the kids sledding. I was really hesitant after reading what happened to Sharon on her blog, but we went. Savannah was really afraid and would only go if I went with her, and only on one of the sleds. Lincoln loved it, and even went just him and Noah (who is 1) a couple of times. Unfortunately I thought that I had forgotten my camera so I didn't get any pictures. After that we went to my parents regular house to dry every one's clothes and have some hot chocolate before heading down to Fat Cats for some bowling and pizza. That was a lot of fun, but we decided that with 6 kids 3 and under, that maybe we ought to hold off on the bowling for a bit.

Tuesday morning we got up and left at 4:30 am. It was a really long drive. About half way home I started to feel sick, and by the time we got home and I took my temperature it was 102 degrees! The kids didn't have much to play with in the car, but they were great and Jesse was a trooper to do pretty much all of the driving and kid wrangling even though we drove through a bunch of crappy weather. I can't wait to head back in a few months for Easter!