This Little Family

Swine Flu

2009-11-07T04:59:00.000-08:00

Out for the count...

Stir crazy...

3 kids have it...

10 days in our house and counting...

SOOooooOOOO sick of it!

*It turns out that's what Makenzie had on Halloween that made it so she couldn't go trick-or-treating. She actually had it the Wednesday before and the symptoms disappeared for two days and then came back with a vengeance. Sorry to all the kids she was in contact with on Thursday and Friday before we knew what she had.

Here's a picture of the masks I made them wear around the house for a week so they wouldn't pass the flu onto me or Penelope.

And in the end here's one of the crazy effects of the flu that happened to our poor Makenzie....

Happy Halloween

2009-11-01T21:51:00.001-08:00

HOPE YOU ALL HAD A HAPPY HALLOWEEN AND LOADED UP ON TREATS!

(My friend Michelle made these adorable Halloween cookies for my bday this year)

We didn't get a full family photo this year because we weren't all in costumes at the same time. Makenzie and Kendyl got dressed up to celebrate at school on Friday. Makenzie had been looking forward to Halloween since last year when she discovered that she could glower and stare scary at people all day and it was okay since it was Halloween. She really freaked her teacher out last year and some of the kids in her class. In fact one of them just asked me a month ago if Makenzie really was a vampire because he was still scared of her from the previous Halloween!

By Friday night Makenzie began coughing and growing a fever and by Saturday she was way too sick to go trick-or-treating :(

A travesty for this little kiddo.
(She's even writing a story all about it- I have no idea where she gets her dramatic side from?) :)

Seth took Kendyl trick-or-treating and gathered up goodies for Kenz- while Makenzie, Pip, and I stayed home to pass out candy. Actually Makenzie stayed away from the candy for the most part (We didn't want her sharing her lovely germs) and Pip couldn't keep her hands off it! :)

(And yes, you can see we are the jerks that were cheap this year and passed out cruddy candy. I went to the store sure we were going to be the cool people and pass out the yummy kind, but it's such a rip off to pay $2.50 for just 14 little Butterfinger bars. No way! At least not this year.)

Seth and Kendyl had a great time, but in the end Kendyl got sick too. She was a little stuffy when she headed out but an hour or two in the cool night air was enough to send her spiraling down. She was officially very sick by 9pm that night *sigh*

Even with all the sickies we had a lovely Halloween sticking close to home and being around each other snuggling and watching movies. We usually fill the whole month with activities (especially the few days before Halloween). This year was MUCH MUCH more laid back, but still really enjoyable. Even the costumes were much more simple this year. The only ones I sewed were Seth's and Kendyl's. Makenzie's was simply strips of cloth for her mummy wrappings and Pip's and mine were one's from previous years. In total I think our family was outfitted for Halloween for under $40! That's a record! (I usually spend more than that on each costume in fabric alone.)

Here's our costumes...

Kenzie never fails to be creepy and Kendyl never fails to be cute as can be. Of course our little Pip is the sweetest little kitty around (sorry Tigerlily).

Since I made this Neil Diamond costume for Seth for our roadshow he decided to use it again, but this time he was a dead Neil Diamond. Lookin' good! Here Kendyl is showing me how to pose more scary.

Here's another shot of our sweet baby. We just can't get enough of her around here. She said her first word on Halloween- "uh-oh!" and now can't stop saying it. :) Toooo cute!

Hope you all had a very fun Halloween!

The Summer Do's and One Chubby Baby Coming Up...

2009-07-31T15:52:00.000-07:00

Well since it's been nearly 4 months since our last post I figure we are long over due. (Not to mention Hillory's constant reminders) :). I do have good excuses though- Since Seth has been home working on freelance it has been difficult to get to the computer. For a few weeks he's had his own computer, but I was so busy running that exercise competition that if I got a second on the computer I needed to update stuff for that. The last week or two I couldn't find any of our old files- believe me you don't want to get me started on that subject! I have wonderful pictures from April Fools tricks we played on each other till more current things, but I think I should start with a post showing what has changed the most in the 4 months of non-posting- OUR PIP! She's HUGE! and chubby! and cute as ever!

Kendyl wants very much to be a teenager and gets very jealous of Penelope's "woohoos" (what she calls them). She says it's no fair that Pip has bigger woohoos than her when she is older! We try to explain that Penelope is just so chubby that anything that can will hang over and poke out, Kendyl is not convinced. ha!

Next.... The glorious summer hairdo- lots and lots of cornrows and braids. We sat down one day and watched a couple of movies and got their hair up in nice little braids all over their heads. It was a dream not to brush through tangly hair everyday for a little while.

Of course braids make straight hair look very beautiful when you take them out and the girls were so excited to do so and here is the picture the wonderful frizziness. It brought back a lot of memories of me braiding my hair in small braids one night a week 3rd- 5th grade just so I could take them out the next morning and have these results. :)

Well I guess I'm back on the blogging train now that I have a computer to use and have located all my old files. It will be a little late, but I think I shoudld show our April Fool's Day fun around here. Afterall- it's Kenzie's favorite holiday.

Well, the dishes won't do themselves...or will they?

2009-04-08T13:52:00.000-07:00

Okay so I could have put this up a few days ago, but I wasn't sure if I wanted people to know how dorky I really am. Oh well, here it is anyway.... Before viewing this video keep in mind that we were nasty sick here for most of a week- thus the condition of my kitchen. Monday morning hit and I felt a little better and had my eyes open to what a truly big mess I had to attack around the house- starting in the kitchen. I looked at my dishes and thought, "Well they aren't going to do themselves, so get crackin' woman." and then I imagined them really doing themselves and thought how I could create that sort of a facade myself. I had Seth tape our camera to the top of a ladder and place it in the kitchen and every few dishes I washed I took a picture. Sometimes I had fun by opening cupboards by degrees and putting things inside them and closing them again and I pretended that the dishes had to travel down the counter to make it into the sink, or take pictures of the wash cloth in several positions around a dish, etc. In all I took 159 pictures to create this 13 seconds of "animation" and I think the next time I do it I will want to take at least 4 times that many pictures to make it even more convincing and fun. I feel a new hobby coming on. :)

The magical number is...

2009-02-05T13:27:00.000-08:00

429!

So that makes Jessica the winner whose guess was 425. Email me Jess (or call) :) and tell me some of your favorite candies and I'll mail that off to you and get it to you by Valentines Day.

btw- sorry I didn't post by the 3rd. I ended up getting sick and so did two of my girlies around here. I just got all caught up in that and forgot.

Celebrating Mile Stones and A Prize Give Away!

2009-01-27T13:06:00.000-08:00

On Saturday our little "Pip" turned 6 weeks old. She smiled her first real smile and she did it over and over and over again!

We were so proud and excited for her and I think she was pretty excited for herself. :) Here's some pictures we got of her during dinner last night smiling at Seth.

Along with that I finished my medicine for my second time of Mastitis. Here's a dessert with how we celebrated... It was to die for! It's extremely good and deadly. For the recipe click here.

The first time I got to the end of my medicine with Mastitis I made these cookies in honor of it being out of my body. :) Appropriate no? Cross your fingers it doesn't come back again. It's pretty annoying and very painful. Remembering to take the medicine every 6 hours is a pain in the pa-tooty as well.

And almost as big of news as Penelope smiling... I am off my blood thinner medication!!!! No more blood clot!!!! I had to be on it until Penelope was 6 weeks old. I'm so happy to not have to poke myself in the belly twice a day anymore. I always meant to take my containers of empty shots every time I went to the hospital for my doctor visits while pregnant, but kept forgetting. It's amazing to see that I did enough injections to fill 5 containers! Makes you wonder how many are in there right? Well why don't you make a guess. Now you can't quite do the math of 2 times the amount of days I had to do it because some are missing. I did turn a little into the hospital near the beginning and I wasn't exactly faithful of doing it every 12 hours once Penelope had come. I just kept forgetting. Anyway, make your guess and whoever is closest wins some Valentines Candy that I'll send you. I'll be sure to put in a liquorish rope so you can remember my big ol' blood clot that was the length of my leg. :) hahaha Disgusting!

I'll tell you the answer Feb. 3rd

"Brocolli Obama"

2009-01-23T11:37:00.000-08:00

Kendyl is in afternoon Kindergarten and so she could be home to watch President Obama's inauguration with me. I had her sit down while he was being sworn in and told her how special it was to see a new president come into office without there being a war over who would become the next president of our country. We talked a little about our freedoms and democracy. Anyway, today she told me something funny...

"Mom, you know how we watched the egg nog- eration a few days ago and you said it was special?"
"Yes."
"Well my friend Connor at school said he hates Brocolli Obama."

I don't think it's funny that these poor kids are taught this young to hate people/political figures their parents don't like. I just think it's cute that she thought it was called an egg nog-eration and his first name was Brocolli. Minor technicalities :) I'm sure she remembers that it's a special thing to live in a free country.

Flash Back Friday- "Dear Dairy..."

2009-01-16T10:06:00.000-08:00

Look at this lil' beauty that we found... my diary from 3-5th grade (most entries from 4th). This was so fun to find and see my handwriting and spelling and what was important or tragic to me at that time. It's been through better days obviously (the binding is completely detached and is held together by a single piece of tape on the back- Brilliant!), but don't judge a book by how it looks... it's got some gems in there. I love how I would title it with what I was going to write about complete with little drawings or stickers. Also I loved that a lot of the entries are "Dear Dairy" instead of "Dear Diary". Quite possibly my favorite thing about this are the entries every couple of pages that showed an alternate personality of mine- a evil streak you may say. I wanted to be sure that no one was reading this and so I thought that if I put in terrible insults, made up swear words, and death threats they would stop. Little did I know at the time it just made my little sister want to continue on. Below is a scan of some of the pages. In case you can't read it, I'll type it below the picture- spelling and all.

4th grade

Tony

Dear Dairy (diary),
I have a new friend. Her name is Tony. She has short brown hair, a ski slope nose, frickles (freckles), green eyes, and a long neck. Heres a pitchure (picture) of her.

-I love the arrow and a box where I was going to put a picture of her and then never asked for one so I wrote inside that I couldn't get one.

NEXT PAGE

4th grade

Stop reading now. If your not Karalenn don't pay atanion (attention) turn the page Karalenn and anyone that can read this. You are a very rood (rude), a nerd, ugly, and dumb. Farewell but (butt) head.

(Wasn't that scary?) :())

There are even better entries than those and meaner, but I'll save them for another time. If I get Makenzie's permission maybe I'll post some of her journal pages because they are just as hilarious. It's great to see how she writes being the same age as I was in this diary. I think Makenzie feels she can only write in her journal when she's completely ticked with me. So I love finding that puppy and reading through it. It's great for a laugh.

Happy Friday. Hope this brings back fun memories for you as well.

Kendyl's Newest Naughty Phase

2009-01-15T12:44:00.000-08:00

While my parents were here during Christmas to help out with the new baby and celebrate that time of year my mom worked on a lot of embroidery and hemming. She propped herself in that chair for many hours and required a lamp for more light. We dug around the basement and found this beauty. :) It may look like your "normal" 5 light lamp, but Kendyl found an opportunity to express herself. She was constantly putting them in different directions and shining them into our faces.
One morning she put them in this particular fashion and asked her grandpa if he knew what it was. A lamp of course. But no, he was wrong. It was THE "swear word". It took us a moment to catch on that she had arranged it to look like a hand flipping the bird. (Oh dear!) We asked her not to do that anymore which of course makes her do it more. Usually when no one is in the room. We will walk in and find the lamp flipping us off at different times in the day. She especially loves to make the lamp flip us off when she is angry at us. Could she be Passive Aggressive possibly? (btw- she learned about flipping the bird from Makenzie who apparently showed her one day so that Kendyl would know not to ever do it).
That's not all. She recognizes swear words anywhere and can pick it up from anything. We play a game where we will say certain sayings and ask what movie it's from. Whoever can guess it wins. The other day she asked us what movie this was from... "Son of a Buh Buh Buh... Don't worry dad. I wont say the B#%&* word." (By the way- the quote was from Home Alone! A rated PG movie- sheesh!) I think it's time for one of these....

A ClearPlay DVD Player.

Flash Back FRIDAY! Stick Arm Girl

2009-01-09T11:01:00.000-08:00

Okay. So we'll see how well I keep up with my new idea, but I believe I have plenty of resources to pull from to be able to share funny flashback memories and stories of the kids/our family on Fridays. I was going through an old binder where I write down funny moments and things the kids say and came across a great story that happened to Makenzie in first grade. What she did even inspired Seth to make the sketch below which I found in one of his sketch books this morning. I'm sure once Seth sees this post he will have plenty of complaints that I took a sketch that he didn't have time to refine or color etc. etc. :) So here's an exerpt from my memory journal of our kids...

The theme of this week's flashback- "Stick Arm Girl"

April 2007:

After school I was pushing Kendyl in a swing and watching Makenzie try something interesting a few swings away on her school playground. (Note: Makenzie wasn't paying attention to anything around her except what she was doing and so she didn't realize what area of the playground I was at) She had one arm inside her shirt and a stick poking out of her other arm hole. She was holding the stick from inside her shirt so that the divided end of the stick was proped against the swing chain. She was precariasly balancing in this manner and trying to swing when a little girl walked up to her.

Girl: "Hi, what's your name?"
Kenz: "Uuhh... Makenzie" (She grunted while not looking up because she was so focusing on her balance and it took a second to register what the girl had just asked.)
Girl: "I've never seen you before," she said in a tone like she was talking to a hurt puppy.
This made Makenzie look up at her in unbelief because we play there for at least 30 minutes every day after school and she knows most everyone. Then I saw the light click on in her mind as an idea dawned on her. A happy crocidile smile spread across her face as she said back to the girl, "Maybe you don't recognize me because I have a stick for an arm."
Girl: "Yah," she said as she stared at Kenzie's stick arm.
This made Makenzie even more happy as she said in the tone of a parent talking to a child, "Haven't you ever seen a girl with a stick arm before?"
Girl: "Na-uh"
Kenz: "Oh. Well, sometimes kids have to have stick arms when they don't have a real arm. My mom and dad gave me this stick arm so I could swing."
Girl: "ohhhh"
About this point I'd had enough and called Kenzie out of her happy pretending lie, even though I was thoroughly enjoying this inside and trying not to crack.
She almost jumped as she looked back and to the side and saw me.
Kenz: "MO-mmm!" She gritted through her teeth as if to tell me not to ruin her story.
I tilted my head, raised an eyebrow and gave her a look that she understood meant I was serious. She gave an embarrassed chuckle to the girl who was now explaining to another friend that had just walked up about stick arms. Then Kenzie took her arm out and chuckled and told the girl she was just kidding and ran away to find someone else to play with still holding onto her fun stick.

I laughed so hard about this that when we got home I called Seth, my best friend from when I was a kid, and my sister. I loved how much that felt like something I would have done as a kid. It gets better though because the next day...

... as we were walking out the door to head out to school Makenzie spotted her wonderful stick on the porch (she left it there the night before because I told her she couldn't bring it in the house). Again a I saw a light brighten across her little face as she remembered yesterday's adventures with stick arms.
As she picked it up and walked a little with it she seemed to change her mind and turned to me seriously, "Mom. Kids shouldn't bring these kinds of sticks to school because they are almost weapons! A kid got expelled for bringing a pocket knife to school because it was a weapon."
Me: "Oh- I see, but what about all the kids who have to have stick arms at school?" I asked in feign sincereity. :)
She looked up at me with concern and then she realized I was teesing and her brows went down and lips tightened as she said, "Mooom!"
That made me laugh which made her laugh and she threw the stick on the front lawn. As soon as we got into the school we spied a happy little kindergartener (remember Makenzie was a big first grader when this happened). The kindergartener was holding a small stick and bouncing up and down. We then heard her shout to the P.E. Coach, "Coach Jimenez, look at my stick I found!"
Kenzie turned to me and sighed rolling her eyes and whispered, "Kids." :)

The Story (and song) Behind the Name- Penelope Calypso ALSO... some extra stuff

2008-12-29T02:38:00.000-08:00

Most of my pregnancy Seth and I disagreed on what Penelope's middle name should be. I wanted her name to be Penelope Jane because I thought she needed a simple middle name with a first name like Penelope and my mom's name is Jane. Seth wanted her name to be Penelope Calypso because he loved the way it sounded. I would joke around and call her Penelope Jane and he would say Penelope Calypso. We could not get the other to fold.

One day on his way home from work he made up a song about her using the name he liked and came home and taught it to the girls and even figured out the guitar chords to it. The rest of my pregnancy he would sing the song everyday and get them singing it too (okay so sometimes I joined in- hey, it's catchy). The girls sang it all day long even when he was gone and finally I had to admit defeat because now their hearts were set on the name Penelope Calypso as well. Yes, I know, he plays very dirty. :) He was sweet though because while in the hospital he filled out the paper work and put her name as Penelope Calypso Jane letting me win too. So Makenzie added the last part on the song using her new full name. She also made up the part about how much Penelope's mom and dad love her. It's very cute. Without further adieu... here is Penelope's song- performed by our girls.

In case you couldn't understand the words I wrote them here.

"Penelope Calypso, you make my heart go flip-so.
I don't know what to do. I don't know what to say.
Except that I do love you. Sure wish that I could hug you.
Perhaps I'll find a way. Today might be the day.

You've got a lot of love already, even more than Makenzie love's spaghetti.
And Kendyl loves you too, more than her free tattoo."

Kenzie's part: "Mommy loves you too. She'd give her life for you.
Daddy's next, he will protext you.
Penelope Calypso Jane, what a great name!"

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

I also made a little recording below of Makenzie and Kendyl telling us what they like best about their new little sister. We sure are having fun with her. It's wonderful to have two such helpful and happy big sisters who want to be little mommies too. I can't believe how easily this new little girl fits into our home- as if she were always here. It's been a very peaceful, quiet Christmas season and our hearts are so full of gratitude and awe for her- reminding us of another special baby.

Announcing...

2008-12-19T10:15:00.000-08:00

We went in last Saturday to be induced and after almost 8 hours of labor and 2 epidurals that didn't work, we got our little Penelope. :) She is such a sweet baby. It took a few nights to figure out that she might want to go to sleep before 5 in the morning- but she has now learned to take longer naps which means her mommy is less emotional and puffy in her eyes.

I wish I could thank the anonymous person who dropped off the little Santa hats and stockings at the hospital because it made me so happy to have the nursery bring her to me in this one night.

And we have to put this picture in because it's our girl's favorite. It looks like she is wondering whose hand is hitting her in the face. :)
A big thank you to my sister (Kristie) for creating that cute announcement at the top and Seth's sister (Hanna) for taking such cute pictures of our new little girly!

Making Fleece Blankets

2008-12-03T15:11:00.000-08:00

We had a few families over two weeks ago to tie some fleece blankets. Every year the UFA Uniform Firefighter Association has a coat and blanket drive for the homeless shelters in the area. These blankets are so fun and easy for kids to make and make such soft warm winter blankets that I wanted to make them. We did this for Family Home Evening the Monday before Thanksgiving and had a small lesson about being thankful for the many things we have and that a way to show gratitude was to give to others less fortunate. The kids loved tying the edges and knowing that the blankets were going to other children that didn't have a home. Of course they played around a lot too and snacked on pumpkin cookies, but overall I'm pretty surprised at home much work they put into it. Here's some pictures of our fun.

Makenzie became the "scrap monster". All the little pieces that were left over were tied to her in different ways. This was very helpful. :)

Here's a finished one.

And another. :) Good thing they tried it out to see if it was comfy. :) The Price's green one turned out great too. If you want instructions on how to make them you can look at this link here. There's absolutely no sewing involved and take only about 30- 45 minutes to make depending on how fast you are and how helpful little ones are around you. :) Keep your eye out for when fleece goes on sale and grab a bunch. I think they would make great little Christmas gifts too.

A Weekend Away, Twilight, and Christmas Lights

2008-11-23T13:48:00.000-08:00

A week ago Seth and I were lucky enough to get away for the weekend to Park City. (There really wasn't this much snow, but I love this picture) :)

Hillory and Grandma were sweet enough to watch the girls so we could have this last time to ourselves before things get topsy turvy with a new baby. Unfortunately my camera died 1/2 way through the trip so I didn't get pictures of the resort/spa we stayed in, but I found some pics online of it.

We had a great time being together without kids, exploring, relaxing and shopping at the outlet malls. One of my favorite things was when we went out on an adventure to find the hospital my great grandma Lennie use to own in Park City. She was a nurse there and ran it for nearly 15 years (through the 50's to 1963). It was built in 1904 for $5,000 and when my great grandma sold it in 1963 she sold it to one of the doctors for $60,000 who promised to keep it as a hospital, but sold it a year later for around a million and later it became a library. What I love about her is that she felt no anger towards him. She had received better offers, but chose him for what he promised. As far as she went, she felt she had done the right thing and what he did was up to his own conscious and so it didn't have any effect on her. I think she so cool to not harbor any hard feelings. I grew up with framed photos of the hospital on the walls of my home and heard stories about her, her hospital, and Park City through my childhood. My mom spent a lot of her younger and teenage years with my great grandma there. The building was white back in the day, but has been restored beautifully I think.

It has been a library since and is currently a Municipal Building. It has been moved from it's original location to Park Ave., but after calling my dad on my cell he was able to direct us right to it. It's just beautiful and so special to feel this connection to my mom's childhood. She use to play in that top room of the highest window. That's exactly where I would want to play too I'm sure. There was a plaque on there with no mention of my grandma, but mentioned other people who have owned it and it's history. My mom has sent them newspaper articles and proof of my great grandma's ownership and basically it has come to the point where they will redo the plaque to commemorate my great grandma as well if we pay them for a new one (about $1500) I feel this is worth it. I think I'll try to round up some funds from family to get this done. I just feel it's important. I feel a special connection to her because my mom loved her so much and spent her happiest years with her. She's who I was named after and I want to do this for her memory.

This last weekend was fun too, even though it wasn't quite as relaxing. :) A big group of 15 of us went to see the Twilight movie and out to lunch. I considered a midnight showing, but realized that I would probably sleep through it then with all the wacky things going on in my body with this baby. I went with no expectations so that I wouldn't be disappointed. That was the thing to do I think because I ended up really enjoying myself instead of getting angry that it wasn't good enough. Seth took the girls and some of their cousins to see Bolt at the same time.

The rest of the day we spent getting our house ready for baby Penelope coming and putting up Christmas lights. (We have to get the lights up a bit early here because if we wait till after Thanksgiving the roof is most of the time too icy to get up there at least that was the problem last year) Here's some pictures of that.

Of course some things the girls did weren't so helpful in getting ready for the baby like this...

I feel very blessed this time of year and am happy to be welcoming a new baby into our kooky, fun and crazy ways. Hope she's has excited as we are. ONLY 3 MORE WEEKS!

Why We Are Worn Out From The Month Of October

2008-11-03T11:42:00.000-08:00

Decorating:

It's always more fun decorating then taking down. Here's some pictures of our spooky decorations from this month. These pumpkins came out for parties and for Halloween night but spent most of the month on a special shelf in our house. We hung our 8 foot spider from our chandelier in our entry way and put webs all around him so it looks like he's coming down to get you.

Sleepy Hollow Night:

At the beginning of the month we went to an outdoor amphitheatre to watch the play of Sleepy Hollow. They had a lot of colonial activities to participate in. The girls loved the hayride best we think. (Here is a picture of Seth posing with Katrina Van Tassel, such a bloomin' lass)

Birthdays:

Seth and Karalenn both have birthdays this month. It was fun celebrating with family at Grandma Smith's house both times and on the night of Karalenn's bday the Willis' came and made dinner and dessert for her.

Kristen and Betsey flew in from LA to surprise Karalenn for her birthday because she turned the awful age of 30! (Sorry Kristen, I think you're eating chocolate in this picture, but you are in the other one we took too) :)

These are some yummy cupcakes that Makenzie invented and cooked for Seth for his bday. They were actually pretty good. All these years of experimenting is paying off. :)

We surprised Seth at work with a big candy gram and balloons for his bday and went out to lunch with him.

Thiller:

This was actually a lot of work and we had so much fun. We practiced all month and performed it for a Stake Talent Show on the 18th. There's a video of the performance a few posts below.

Parties:

We got together several times with friends throughout the month and made Halloween cookies and played etc. but here are some photos from the Halloween party that Kendyl had and the next day Makenzie's party.

With the older kids, we spent a chunk of time in the basement in the dark with a lantern telling add-on scary stories. Basically everyone dies at the end in all the stories. :)

I also played the guitar and taught them silly Halloween songs that you sing to regular folk songs using this great book. By the way- Gris Grimly is a wonderful illustrator.

Their other favorite part was wrapping each other up in mummies and timing them to see who's quickest. Afterwards instead of doing all the other games planned we just played in the toilet paper all over the backyard. Hailey was able to stuff half of it up her dress at the end. So silly. I gave them each a bag to fill up with tp and we ended with a "catwalk" showing off our costumes. They were hilarious with this. They all won awards for their costumes.

Witch's Night Out:

In October at Gardner Village they always decorate it so fun with dozens and dozens of ugly witches and have different events going on. We went with cousins and walked around finding all the witches and then another night Karalenn and her friend Janelle went for a late girl's night out shopping there. Everyone dresses up like witches and you wouldn't believe how crowded it is.

Pumpkin Carving:

Last week for Family Home Evening we carved pumpkins. They turned out very spooky if we do say so ourselves.

Halloween Night:

For more details about our crazy busy Halloween day and night look at the post below. We wear ourselves out every year with this holiday so that we can get ourselves to not be as spooky the rest of the year. It's the only way to be able to get ourselves to take it all down, sigh, and be done until next year.

Halloween

2008-11-03T07:00:00.000-08:00

The day started with a parade at the school for Makenzie. As you can see she is Wednesday from the Addam's Family and as she came up the isle she glared at people and stared right into their eyes loving being this character. Parents were talking about the scary little girl coming and pointed at her. What a proud moment for a mom. Since Kendyl is in afternoon Kinder, her parade was later that day. Kendyl didn't want to put on her costume yet, but still wanted to look creepy for her sister's parade so she attached a spider to her hair and put on a scarf that she made out of Halloween fabric scraps and Karalenn wore a witch's hat. :) To the right is Kendyl in her parade a few hours later looking like a cute little Corpse Bride.

The girls both had parties at their school that Karalenn helped at. She was running back and forth helping in stations and playing Halloweeny songs on the guitar. Here are their class pictures. This first picture is Kendyl's class and underneath is Makenzie's. Makenzie's teacher told Karalenn at the party that Kenzie had been creeping her out all day just staring at her. What a funny kid.

Right after school was our ward trunk-or-treat. And here's our creepy family. Seth is of course a most fabulous Frankenstein and Karalenn (in case you can't tell because most people couldn't :) is Igor.
This is basically what Makenzie walked around all day acting like. I wonder where she gets this from? maybe....

..... him? We have many many pictures of Seth in various Frankenstein-y poses.

At the trunk-or-treat party Seth got mostly two reactions......

The tough guys wanted to challenge him,

but mostly people just stared at him

like this- which of course made him

walk around more scary, staring at kids.

Here's a fun picture of some of our "red-neck" buddies at the party. They were hilarious. We decorated our trunk with pumpkins and candy and it was properly raided by little ghouls and boys.
After an hour we discovered something mischievous about our little Wednesday. She would come back to the car and pretend to check on how we were doing and then run off again. Well as it turned out she was actually sneaking and putting her stashes of candy in the back seat making her bucket empty again. Then she went around to all the cars and got MORE candy! Sneaky! That way people thought she was there for the first time- or so she thought. It's a little hard to forget that a creepy kid has come to your trunk 3 times! Look how proud that little stinker is. :)

After the trunk-or-treat party we went to a section of the neighborhood where most of the neighbors agreed to do a Harry Potter theme. There were 15-20 houses all decorated in some way to be Harry Potterish. For example there was an Azacaban, Ollivander's Wand Shop, Gringotts, The Daily Prophet, Umbridge's Office, Three Broomsticks, Platform 9 3/4, Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes, St. Mungo's Hospital, etc. It was amazing! They passed out Maruader's Maps of the neighborhood of a guide to find the different houses and marked the one's not participating in it in grey so you could know they were muggle dwellings. What a cool group of neighbors! Here's a collage of some of the photos from that.

After hours of parties and trick-or-treating Karalenn was BEAT! She sat on the porch and passed out candy while Seth and the girls went out for an hour more of trick-or-treating if you can believe it. They are nuts! :)
And no Halloween would be complete without a group of neighborhood teenagers causing a ruckus. At one point Karalenn went across the street to take a photo of her neighbors for them and while doing so a group that had just passed and got candy from her saw her distracted and ran back up to her porch raiding the rest. She may have been tired, but she had some fire left in her. She scolded them a good one and most of the kids gave back most of what they had taken.

We drifted off to sleep filled with way too much sugar and tired bodies. What a fun day!

Kendyl's Sick Day

2008-10-24T08:34:00.001-07:00

Yesterday Kendyl had a sore throat and stuffy nose so she stuck home with me. :) We went rummaging through my fabric scraps and bins downstairs to see what we could create and came up with these things. Makenzie joined in after she got home from school and was so happy that she continued creating til night. She has plans for her own little spooky box that she wants to make completely on her own and has a big pile of mess in the family room we aren't allowed to mess with until it's done. It's going to be a graveyard scene I believe. (Here's hoping she finishes today) :)

Kendyl's class had them cut out little "ginger bread men" figures that they were suppose to color, decorate, and embellish to look like their Halloween costumes. Since Kendyl is going to be the Corpse Bride this year, that's what her ginger bread woman looks like complete with her own grave stone and black roses. You may recognize scraps from their vampire costumes from last year, Makenzie's baptism dress, and even some from Kendyl's corpse bride costume. I love that she made her bald under her veil and drew her screaming.

Here's the details of our little spooky box. Makenzie opened new shoes yesterday morning and we couldn't just thow away a perfectly good shoe box. :) Before she left for school she helped us come up with the idea to decorate the box for Halloween. Kendyl had a little witch from McDonald's and I had scraps of black lined velvet from Seth's vampire costume last year to glue all over the box. We colored a small Tupperware in black and left stars and moons going around to glow with the battery tea light inside for a good witch's cauldron. Makenzie made this great little shelf for potion bottles which are actually just little beads. Add some lace trim to the top, glue a little spider to the shelf, add some fake webs, and voile you've got a spooky little room that the girls played with all night long. We really had a great time and nothing else got done for the day except meals made... so combine mess of meals and projects with no cleaning- I'm sure you can imagine what state our house was in that night. Guess what I'm off to do? :)

The "Thrilling" Weekend

2008-10-22T16:32:00.000-07:00

Since the end of August Kare has been teaching herself Thriller and then teaching others in the neighborhood the dance so they could perform it at the Stake Talent Show this last weekend. Here's a few photos of the group and a video of the performance. (She's in the cut up white dress with purple longer shirt/dress over it in the front to the right of "Michael"). Nicole's boy- Christian was in the dance too. He's just 7 and did an awesome job. You'll see him in the video. He's such a cutie. Her group had such a great time and it's a fun time of year to do this dance.

Seth also was a part of the of the talent show by submitting his Halloween family portrait that he finished painting just in time. Hooray! It's magnificent. The original oil painting is 3 feet by 4 feet! Here's a photo of it with his fancy blue ribbon, but it just doesn't do it justice for what it looks like in person. (He even added our little Penelope who is on the way).

Even cooler than dancing Thriller in front of a huge crowd was a surprise visit from Karalenn's friends Betsey and Kristen from LA. They flew in without her knowing and drove straight to her church where she was practicing at a dress rehearsal the night before. Kristen walked right into the room where she was dancing and took pictures of Kare's reaction.

She was so confused the whole night. hahaha Kristen and Betsey stayed with us Friday through Monday and had a great time hanging out, going to a movie and out to dinner, staying up late, and shopping. They had a great time being together again. Betsey bought them matching shirts because they are all prego. Betsey and Kare are due a few days apart and Kristen is due in April. Does anyone want to make a guess at what movie that line is from on their shirts?

We sure miss you guys!!!! Thanks for the trip!

That wacky tradition...

2008-10-22T16:02:00.000-07:00

A week and a half ago we had our first snowfall for the fall. So of course we had to keep up with that weird tradition that my sister and I made up when we were about my girls' ages.

Seth is such a good sport that he joins in too. Basically you have to run barefoot in the snow 20 consecutive steps and then you can run inside and put your feet in a warm bath tub. You can repeat it as many times as you like, just remember to fill up that bath tub before you step outside or you'll be sorry. I think when my sister and I first made it up we would just run and stand on the heater, but it became more fun to fill up the bath tub with warm water and rest for a while in between trips to the snow.

So like last year here are some of our silly pictures....

Princess Tigerlily even joined in this year. We let her go first since she had never seen snow before. She just sat and looked at it for a while, but eventually became brave enough to venture out. Our girls thought this was hilarious to watch.

Okay Kris... tag. You've got to show proof that you're still keeping up with this wacky tradition with your kids when it snows there. Love you! Anyone else can join in too. Comment when you do it and post it to your blog and we'll go check it out. I know I did this with my roommates in college and some of them still do it. My friend (Jessica) from high school use to do this with Krisser and me and taught it to her roommates too.

May through September

2008-10-17T08:24:00.000-07:00

Because I was so out of it for most of the summer I thought it was time to do a catch up. Yes, most of the summer was spent with me in bed and the girls at friend's houses in the neighborhood, but we did take some pictures and by August I was able to do a lot more so here it goes: from the end of May through September. (We'll post our Halloweeny stuff in a bit)

This was the last day of school for me teaching. I know I look silly. This wasn't my regular teaching attire. The last day is a whirlwind because we celebrate "Circus Days". Every class spends 8-10 minutes in each room with different circus activities and the teachers dress up like clowns. It was a really rough day for me with the emotions of saying goodbye and running out of the room to throw up every few minutes. The second picture is of me snacking all day trying to keep it together. :)

Two days later was Kendyl's dance performance. She was so cute on stage. It was her first recital and she did fantastic. I think her favorite part was wearing sparkly blue eye shadow and bright lipstick. We had to miss Adam's baptism (a cousin- my brother's oldest) because it was at the same time, but they had a swimming party afterwards at their hotel that we were able to join them.

Here's some pics of the swimming party. Kendyl spent all of her time near the stairs feeling safe and Makenzie and Adam were two peas in a pod sticking together. Kendyl actually put her head under the water a few times. That was a first. We were very proud. :) This picture was taken a few days later. If you look close enough you can see an i.v. going into my wrist from being in the hospital. I had been checked in with a blood clot, but had to stay a few days because of dehydration. When I got home I was hooked up to the iv for a while more and basically the whole time I was down our little kitty was taking care of me by sitting right on my leg or pelvis or stomach where my blood clot was- bless her heart. Needless to say I grew very attached to her- my little protector. Speaking of Princess Tigerlily (our kitty- her name changed from Princess Buttercup to Princess Tigerlily because the girls discovered her wild nature and thought she needed a tiger in her name but still wanted her to be a princess). She use to sleep a lot in this little plant when we first got her and a few days ago she tried to climb up into it again and didn't fit so well. She looked extremely put out, but was stubborn enough to fall asleep in that position. It's fun (and a little sad) to see how much growth she's done in 6 months.Along with all the help from sweet neighbors my parents also came for a week. It was so nice having them here. My dad spent almost all of his time playing with the kids or in the kitchen and my mom washed and folded about 12 loads of laundry and cooked tons of meals. It was so so nice. Here's a picture of my dad and Seth "being helpful" that one of the kids took.While my parents were here it was Kendyl's birthday. I'm so glad they could be here during that so Kendyl could feel like she wasn't shoved aside on such a special day. She woke up to breakfast in bed and family presents- as is tradition. She was most excited about her Barbie Mariposa as you can see. She picked two friends to celebrate with during the day- Halle and Megan. They are our little neighbors and are the cutest twins. We went to Artic Circle for lunch and played in the play land and then went to see Walle. Afterwards we had cake and ice cream. Halle and Megan's mom made this beautiful cake. Kendyl is really sad because we had just sang to her and then Halle and Megan blew out the candles while Kendyl was trying to think of a wish. We hurried and lit them again so she could make a wish and blow them out herself, but it took a minute to calm down- darn it. Finally she got the tears under control and that wish out. :)Some other visitors we had this summer were; my old roommate from Ricks- Sarah and her son Ethan, Seth's brother- Lyle and his family, and one of my buddies from LA- Nanette and her daughter Elle. Here's the picture of Sarah and I and our kids. It was so fun to sit and visit for a few hours. We were laughing and talking as if no time had passed in the last 10 years. I love those kind of friendships. She is due in just a few days. Good luck Sare-Bear.Here's a picture from the visit with Lyle and his family. Lyle is taking the picture so he's not in it. Hilly and the girls and Seth's parent's came for the visit as well and brought us dinner. (All summer they brought dinner Sunday night- so sweet) Please ignore how nasty sick I look. Here's the visit with Elle and Nanette. The girls spent most of the time under the trampoline having picnics and pretending. It was so fun to be with their old buddy. In the picture on the right Elle and Kenz are sad and petting our Tigerlily kitty because she had just run into a rose bush and her eye was bleeding- poor thing. Seth's sister- Hanna came and picked us up to take her to the vet because I couldn't drive yet. Our visit was cut a little short. :( Tigerlily can see pretty good out of that eye now, but does have a scar on her cornea. We nicknamed her One-Eyed-Willy and bought Goonies after that.Here's a picture of how pretty our yard looked on 4th of July. All summer people would sneak over while I was in bed and weed our garden and mow our lawn. It was so sweet. On the 4th the scouts went around and put flags in front of everyone's houses. I felt so patriotic. :) Usually the only flag we fly is our Jolly Roger.The girls had a lot of time on their hands this summer. Our house was completely destroyed many a time and not being able to stand for more than a few minutes at a time made it very difficult to keep up with them- bless their smelly hearts. Makenzie got very creative with cooking and inventions. Here are some pictures of some of them. This top recipe actually turned out pretty good. :)Luckily this wasn't a recipe to eat. It was a science experiment. You mash up an old banana and stick it in a water bottle, stretch a balloon and stick it on top, and wait a few days to see if it will inflate. Ours did a little bit, but mostly it just was stinky. :)This is a special invention for our kitty that Kenzie made up using a pizza box, an empty milk jug, a towel, teddy bear, and bowl. You cut a hole in the back of an opened pizza box and tape the opening of the milk jug through it. Next you put a towel inside the pizza box and put a bowl just under the opening. You can add a teddy or toy that your kitty will like too. This turns into a room for the kitty. She can sleep on the towel. You cut the bottom off the milk jug fill it with food. As the food runs low you can take the bottom you cut off and push more food through the hole into the bowel in the sleeping part. Very clever Kenz. :)Makenzie got a cute hair cut- chopping a good 6 inches off. She's been wanting to do that for a long time now. The last week of summer I was feeling better and could walk for more than 5 minutes, so we did the best we could to live it up. They had a swimming party combined with gobs of neighbors. Hanna and Syd came along too. I love the picture of Sydney guarding the slip and slide. She was a little worn and anti-social by this point so no one got to use it for a bit while she laid at the end of it. Hanna also took us up into the mountains so we could "hike" a little and play in some water. The girls had wanted to go camping so bad all summer and we just couldn't so Hanna was sweet and took up to a beautiful spot to play for the day. That night we set up our tent in the loft area and the girls watched movies and slept there. It was so fun we let them sleep there for the next 3 nights until school started. Unfortunately I couldn't find my camera on Kenzie's first day of school and so my friend Michelle took pictures of her, but hasn't got them to me yet. I'll add them when I get them, but for now here's some pictures of Kendyl on her first day. (Kindergarten starts a week after everyone else). She really wanted to wear that witch hat to school, but I convinced her that we could take pictures and she could just wear that near Halloween. She agreed thank goodness. At the school she found a familiar friend and they were so excited to be in the same class they held hands walking to class. She sits right next to a buddy from church so that was fun for her. The bottom right picture she is hiding her red embarrassed face because I had just kissed her goodbye. :) I think a mom is allowed to do that still in Kindergarten...This is a fun idea Kendyl did a few weeks ago. Remember her Barbie Mariposa? Well she used the wing flapping out tool so much that they don't attach to her barbie anymore. Instead of being bummed she has figured out something new to do with them... tape them to her backpack. That way she is Barbie Mariposa everyday. :) Believe it or not these pictures were taken still in September (the end of it grant you). I got in a fall mood when the air felt crisp one day and thought I'd surprise Seth with a mock "Thanksgiving" dinner. As soon as the wheels started turning and I had turkey cooking and realized I had stuff for mashed potatoes, yams, stuffing, green bean casserole, rolls, sparkling cider, and two pies I got really carried away. I made WAY too much food and so called in the reinforcements (The Willis Family). Since we had some Halloween decorations already out we named it our "Halloween Thanksgiving dinner in September" and feasted. Martha and I are due around the same time so we got a tummy bump picture of us at the top there. We decorated the table with eyeballs and a skull in different glass containers and used vampire, frankenstein, and witch goblets. Very fancy. :) We had a blast.
This last picture is from the end of September with my group practicing the Thriller dance. We started practicing Sept 6th and our talent show is tomorrow. :) We are dressing up like zombies and are pretty excited. I started learning the dance by watching tutorials online in August and then invited everyone in the neighborhood with fliers on their doors to see if they wanted to learn it. We had a pretty big group, but luck isn't on our side. I just got another call this morning of a friend canceling. That's the 3rd this week. :( We are down to 10 of us when originally it was double that. It has been really fun dancing and practicing though and it's kept my energy up through this last part of pregnancy and helped my blood clot to go away quicker so that's good now matter how embarrassing this might all turn out. haha

Makenzie's Guide to a Good School Year

2008-10-02T15:14:00.000-07:00

(By the way, I wrote this so so so long ago and planned to put photos up of their first day of school, but haven't been able to find our camera cord to upload photos since August :(- well today they got their school photos back and I figure that's as good as first days go. Hopefully we can find that cord soon so I can show pictures of summer fun, Kenzie's latest inventions, Kare and her friends practicing the Thriller dance for upcoming talent show, etc.)

In honor of the school year beginning I thought I'd post some of the tips I've heard Makenzie (big 3rd grader now) giving Kendyl (our new Kindergartner) for having a good school year and a good first day.

Tips in choosing a backpack:

*"Don't pick a pink backpack. Every girl in Kindergarten has a pink backpack."

*"Don't pick a backpack with any picture on it. It's cooler to have it just be a design or one color." (Guess Kenzie wasn't going to use her "I love Troy" High School Musical backpack from last year in the 3rd grade. HSM is sooo second grade- sheesh mom)

*This first and second rule can apparently be overlooked when the Kindergartner really likes sparkly pink barbie backpacks. (Kendyl wasn't buying into these rules.)

*"Try to find a backpack with secret compartments that could hold a jet pack or like 15 laptops or something." (hmmmm) (Well after 30 minutes in the backpack isle at Walmart Makenzie finally found a backpack with a secret compartment in the inside big enough to hold some pencils. It was pink and had- you guessed it- a picture of some cute big eyed animal on it. When asked what about her first and second rule of backpacks she said that it was more important to be able to hide stuff in it. So I guess this one should be rule number one.

*Tip from mom about backpacks: Write your phone number on the inside of your child's backpack and not outside or else a clever little boy who sometimes walks home with your daughter may memorize it and call her afterschool. (Um- I don't think so. Maybe when she's 20.)

Things to Remember on the First Day:

*"Lay your clothes out the night before so you can get dressed in the middle of the night if you wake up. Pick clothes that show your kind of style, kinda fancy, but not too fancy- so all the kids will look at you and know that's your kind of style."

*"Listen to the bell at recess because if you are just having fun swinging for a long time and don't listen then you'll look around and see just big kids all around you and when you go back to class your teacher will be mad because you were at recess for an extra hour and she couldn't find you. It's really scary when that happens, but if your teacher sees you were scared than she wont get too mad and then it's kinda cool because you don't get in trouble and you got to play for a really long time, but don't really do it, because it's still scary." (This happened to Makenzie last year) :)

*"Don't go in the bathroom unless you look at the picture by the door because if you are just trying to go potty really really fast and run in a bathroom it might have boys standing up in there." (This happened to Makenzie last year too.)

*"Try to sleep the night before even if you're excited or else you might be so tired that you'll fall asleep on your desk." (Kenzie actually fell asleep on her desk this year and had to be helped to the office for mom to come pick her up, but not because of lack of sleep. Clever mom gave her half a dosage of Benedryl for her itchy mosquito bites from the night before. Benedryl makes mom hyper- it has the opposite effect on Kenzie and most people we've come to learn.)

How to Have a Good School Year:

*"Make sure mom makes you a lunch everyday and doesn't forget." (More like make sure you don't forget to be responsible and grab the lunch on the counter waiting for you time after time so mom has to go back to the school an hour later to bring it to you. Tip from mom: Make your child put their lunch in their backpack right in front of you so you know it's there. Also give the school some extra money for hot lunches just in case. Forget about teaching your kids responsibility. haha)

*"When you walk to school and home look on the ground a lot and see what cool things you can find like rocks and chunks of wood and string and sticks that make a V and wire and plastic and stuff so that you can come home and make cool inventions out of them. Hide them in a cupboard in our playroom or mom will throw them away when she sees them on the table." (Too true.)

*"Don't loose your library book and don't turn it in and forget that you did and think you lost it so you don't let yourself check out a new book for months and months and look all over the house and be sad because you can't find it." (This happened last year as well.)

*"Don't tell lies to your teacher and say that a different kid did something when really you did because that's double trouble." (This happened to Makenzie in 1st grade)

*"Sometimes it's fun to spray Halloween color spray in your hair before school so you can have cool colors and it's not just the same hair color as always. Then the kids will look at you and say, 'Wooa!' " (Kenzie did this probably 5 or 6 times last year, but we just looked in the school guide book they sent home and realized it's against school rules- oops.)

Well with all these tough/humorous lessons our Kenzie has seemed to learn from and all the advice she was giving Kendyl you'd think Kendyl would have been more scared for starting Kindergarten, but not so. :) We hope these tips help your cool grade schoolers as well.

Not really the most fun way to wake up...

2008-08-26T10:27:00.000-07:00

A few days ago I woke up to a phone call that went something like this...

Neighbor: "Did Kendyl make it home yet?"
Me: "Huh? (I look at the clock) It's 7:30 in the morning."
Neighbor: "Kendyl was just at my house seeing if my kids could play."
Me: (Shooting straight up in bed) "What?"
(Door shuts from down stairs and scampering little steps run into a room upstairs and try to shut softly to Kendyl's room)
Me: "She's home. I'm sorry. She's dead meat." (hang up)

Me: "Kendyl!"
(no noise)
(phone rings again, Makenzie is just waking up and walking in my room and gets the phone)
Kenz: "Yah, she's right here."
(Oh great)
Me: "Hello"
Different Neighbor: (in a very very scratchy voice) "Hi Karalenn. Is Kendyl home yet?"
Me: (through gritted teeth) "Just now."
Neighbor: "She was just here seeing if my son could play."
Me: "I'm very sorry. I just woke up and didn't know she had left the house." (since she usually sleeps til 8ish)
Neighbor: "Yah, I just woke up too... because of Kendyl."
Me: "Uh, right. Uh... sorry about that. Have a good day."
Neighbor: (laughs and hangs up)

Me: "KENDYL FAE HIPPEN! GET IN MY ROOM THIS INSTANT!"
(Kendyl comes out of room pretending to be just waking up, but fully dressed down to her shoes)
Me: "Were you just at Dylan's and Bart's house?"
Kendyl: (looking shocked) "How did you know?"
(nice)
Me: "I was just talking to Bart's mommy. YOU woke her up!"
Kendyl: "oh."
Me: "Did you go to anyone else's house?"
(Kendyl then proceeded to name about 4 other neighbors. One on completely the other side of the park at the end of our street and a few houses up about 1/4 of a mile away. She told me they were all gone though so I didn't need to be mad.)
(Grrrrr. Knowing that she must have been out since about 7 to hit all those and was waking them all up too.)

(It is about this point as she is talking that I am looking around my room and seeing the disaster in there. My bed is completely blocked in chairs and boxes and bins.)
Me: "Were you trying to trap me here?" (pointing to the mess everywhere)
Kendyl: "No. I was building you a fun fort in your room this morning, but you wouldn't wake up and play with me."

Okay. So I'm not really sure what time this kid woke up to do all this to my room and make her social calls, but I do know she will never do it again. Our "little talk" lasted quite a while and her punishment will help her remember as well. After she left my room and shut the door I started laughing and had to call Seth at work to tell him all about it. Makenzie was still in my room and was very confused why I was laughing when it looked like I was about to breath fire the minute before while I was talking with Kendyl.

I'm sorry if you are one of our neighbors that she woke up. :)

We're Having Another Girl!

2008-07-28T11:10:00.000-07:00

Well Seth will be even more out numbered now. :)

We are excited to have another little girl in our home come December. Did I mention we were due right on Dec. 25th. ug. I'll have to be induced a week or two early though since both of my other girls have come 6 days early and I can't have her within 24 hours of my Lovenox shot. So we just have to plan for a little earlier- which of course we don't mind.

The good news for me is that I have finally won out of my favorite name. Since 6th grade I have been claiming "Penelope" as my middle name since I didn't have one. With my pregnancies with Makenzie and Kendyl I begged for the name Penelope and Seth would make fun of me. This time around Seth has really warmed up to the idea and likes it now. So hooray for me. :) He has also decided that Pip is a good nickname for Penelope and says he will call her that. :) I think I'll call her Penny Lane.

As far as a health update I am doing so much better. I went on my first grocery shopping trip last week and did fine. My blood clot doesn't hurt so much, but I can still tell it's there dissolving because my leg feels tired after walking for a bit. My morning sickness is so much improved!!! That's what I'm really really happy about. I'll discover things that I should not eat after it's too late right when I start feeling cocky about feeling better. Like on Friday I had a mint and my stomach hurt for 2 hours afterwards- ridiculous. I can't really complain though because it's like night and day from where I was 2 months ago. Life is slowly getting back to "normal" just in time for summer to be over and the kids back in school in 3 weeks. :( Oh well, we'll try to live it up while we can in the small doses we can.

2008-06-29T18:25:00.000-07:00

There's a bit that has happened this last month that those around here know about, but we might as well catch everyone else up. June 3rd was our 9 year anniversary. We had reservations at the Anniversary Inn (for the pirate ship room) and at a yummy restaurant in Salt Lake. Seth's sister Hillory was babysitting overnight and we were set, except... Karalenn's left leg kept bothering her. It had been hurting for two days and it got the the point that it seized up on her and she couldn't walk. She called her doctor and described the pain and explained that it was swollen and purple. She was sent immediately to the E.R. because she had the symptoms of a blood clot.

Sure enough, the blood clot was enormous and filled the entire main artery of her left leg from her foot up to her thigh. The baby is okay. It was amazing that it hadn't dislodged and gone into her heart or lungs with how long it had been there (considering all the walking around without going to get it checked out). She was stubbornly trying to get through the anniversary celebrations and was a bit irrational with pregnancy-brain, thinking it was some side effect to anti-nausea medicine. :) In fact, while in the E.R., after giving her a shot of blood thinner and pain killer she wanted to hurry and get out of there so they could still celebrate. Much to her dismay she was admitted to the hospital to stay for two more days. Part of the reason for the two day stay was for dehydration. She had lost a lot of weight and was so sick she couldn't keep anything down for weeks before it all came to a head. She was hooked up to an i.v. to help bring back some nourishment and was instructed how to give herself blood thinner shots twice a day (which she will have to do for 6 more months and then after the baby comes she can take pills).

So instead of this...

We had a special room like this for our anniversary. We called it our "hospital themed room", but Seth did draw an excellent pirate ship on the white board across from the bed. :)

...and instead of dinner reservations at a fancy restaurant we had this. :) YUM!

We returned home on Thursday, but had to go back in on Friday because the blood clot had spread to her pelvis and abdomen. She was sent home with strict orders to stay in bed and not go down the stairs. A nurse began coming every couple of days to change her i.v. and Karalenn stayed in bed while sugar water pumped into her for a while. Our community here chipped in like we've never seen. Friends came early in the morning to help our girls get dressed and fed and took them for the day until Seth got home from work. People dropped in every hour and a half to bring up more snacks for Karalenn to her bed and change her throw up pan (yuck!!!!!!). People have sneaked into our house and cleaned it, mowed our lawn, weeded our flower beds, and brought books and movies. Makenzie and Kendyl have been in heaven playing with their friends every day and can't wait to hear who they go to each day. What a blessing to have them not stressed out along with us. :) We can't describe how amazed and humbled and grateful we are! It has been an especially enormous blessing to have family close bringing in meals and helping. Karalenn's parents came this last week and just left today. It was so wonderful having them here as they helped in only the ways that parents know how.

Every week gets better. Kare can go down the stairs now and wander into her garden outside. It doesn't scare her to give herself shots in the stomach anymore. In fact, it's quite the highlight for Makenzie and Kendyl to watch it happen every morning and night. We have been so blessed to see the blood clot ease as quickly as it has. She can still only walk for a few minutes, but that's amazing for how long she was suppose to be on bed rest. She is learning to not push it. :) Which, if you know her, is extremely hard to balance and a bit frustrating. The more circulation and activity she can get the better the clot can break up. She hopes that within a few months she can join her walking group in the morning again. What we are most grateful for is the blessing of the morning sickness decreasing so much that she could take her i.v. out (literally- she got fed up and pulled it out after the nurse took an hour and a half looking for a vein that would work):) and it is still decreasing to where most of the day she is well. This is such a miracle!!! Her other pregnancies she has been sick about 8 months of them. That is what we were expecting this time, but hoping and praying for less. We have been grateful for your prayers and she has received many priesthood blessings to get through this time. It's wonderful to see miracles in our lives.

She went for a check up on Friday and the baby is still doing well. We were excited to find out that we get to find out the gender in a week and a half (July 8th). Some of her blood tests have come back and we've discovered that she has a condition called (get ready- it's long) Methylenetetrahydofolate Reductase Deficiency or MTHFR with the c6777 mutation and A1298c mutation. That clears things up right? :) Now we don't quite understand it ourselves, but the best we could gather from her specific type is that it is very rare and comes from a gene mutation that she gets from both sides of her family and makes her prone to heart attacks, strokes, and blood clots. Pregnancy and birth control can trigger it more easily. Isn't that exciting? It's okay though. We aren't scared or sad or anything like that. We wouldn't have even been able to discover it had she not been pregnant and got the blood clot. Now we know that she just needs to be on blood thinners the rest of her life. This could be as simple as baby aspirin (hopefully not shots), and it will protect her better than had we never found out. The doctor called the conditions for discovering it "the perfect storm", so we are grateful for the blood clot while being pregnant after all so that she could take the right blood tests to discover it. There isn't a lot known about it and it's pretty rare, but we feel we are in good hands.

We would still appreciate your prayers and thank you for those offered already. I'd like to take this time to sing you all a song that sums things up pretty well...

You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both, and there you have the facts of life, the facts of life.

(I've just read through this and think that I should mention that Seth has an odd sense of humor of writing things that don't sound like jokes, and most people don't understand that he is being funny- refering to his "Facts of Life" theme song above. This tendancy in him makes it a little embarrassing when he writes on our family Christmas cards. :) But you gotta love him. ~Karalenn)

That's it for now. We'll talk to you again soon and let you know if it's a boy or a girl when we find out.

Kenzie's baptism

2008-06-03T09:46:00.000-07:00

I have a minute to post some pictures and talk about Kenzie's baptism a month ago. It was such a special event. Aunt Kristie flew from Seattle to come give a talk on baptism, Aunt Hillory and her two girls (Cadi and Reni) sang "A Child's Prayer" beautifully and Grandma Smart gave the closing prayer. Seth baptized her and all the priesthood holders in the family that were able to be there helped in confirming her with the gift of the holy ghost. It was so special and peaceful and happy.

Here's a before picture with daddy.

We took a family picture too and Kendyl as you can see was feeling a little left out of the focus of the day so Seth had her and him take a picture all by themselves too. What a smart daddy. :)

Here are all the people from our family and Kenzie's friends that came (except Joe and his two youngest- Jack and Sam. They were sitting out in the car because it was a little long for them) :)

The first pic is your regular smiley one and the second is probably more true to all of our personalities. Thanks for coming everyone!!!

Afterwards we had a big brunch at our house and that was so fun sitting and talking with everyone for a few hours.

Last of all, here are some of the sweet pictures my sister took the next day (Sunday morning) of Kenzer with her fancy hair do and gloves. :)

We're sure proud of you Kenzie and the work you took to make this decision for your life. She really did work hard to gain a testimony this last year and we're happy for her and her diligence.