Paige's Birthday

Paige celebrated her 3rd birthday last week. They had a party for her at the Monkey Island Fun Center in Lehi. We had never been there before, but the kids LOVED it. They had a ton of different blow up slides and bounce houses. Brooklyn was a little timid at first, but finally got the hang of it: 

My parents with Meg and Brynlee:

Brayden and Paige always have a lot of fun together.

And of course Brayden was doing all sorts of crazy stuff:

 My mom with Brooklyn and Brynlee:

 Josh and Meg:

 After the presents they handed out yummy cookies. It's hard to see, but the frosting was all over their mouths:

 Thanks Paige for inviting us to your birthday party!!!

The Cabin - Day 2-3

So besides our very scary beginning, we had a wonderful trip to the cabin. It's usually too much work to go up for only 2 days, but this time it went very smoothly and was not stressful for me. The weather was absolutely gorgeous. I didn't want to leave the 70 degree weather at home, but it made for a lot of fun at the cabin. The kids were able to stay outside for hours without getting cold. It snowed about 10 inches the 2nd night, which ended up being a lot of fun especially since the sun was shining after the storm blew through. Here's Brynlee after we got to the cabin:

 One of the funnest things the kids did all weekend was sled down the driveway and continue sledding down the hill. After walking back twice, they were all exhausted. So they figured out that one of the guys would go down on the snowmobile and haul everyone back up the hill. That made it a lot more fun and less tiring.

 Brooklyn did NOT want to go. After the first couple of times forcing her down the hill, she ended up havin a lot of fun.

Brayden and Boston lasted forever outside. They didn't ever want to come in. Here's Brayden after we finally got him in. I love those rosy cheeks!

He was pretty tired without his nap. He didn't fall asleep like this, but I found him "resting" for a few minutes.

So cute!

Brynlee and I spent most of the time inside. She did really well and slept great!

On Saturday night a foot of snow fell. That made for a lot of fun in the powder! The guys made this slide on the roof of the garage. They LOVED it!

Thanks Nick and Kesha for such a great time! We loved every minute of it (almost)!

The Cabin - Scary Night 1

Josh has been wanting to go up to the cabin all winter. With the new baby, I have been a little hesitant. Not because I don't want to take her up there (we took Brayden when he was just 6 weeks old), it's just a lot of stress getting ready to go. We could barely fit everything in the car last summer when it was just 4 of us, so I knew we would have to give some of our stuff to our friends (Nick and Kesha) to take up for us. Ironically, this was the easiest time I've ever had to pack everything and get ready. We've been up there enough times to know how to simplify everything and just take the bare minimum. Miraculously, I got everything to fit in our car and off we went!

We finally got everything and everyone snowmobiled into the cabin by about 10:30. The cabin was pretty cold, so we had the 4 kids sitting on the couch snuggling in blankets while they watched Mickey Mouse so we could get all the beds ready. Kesha gave the kids a bag of goldfish crackers to snack on while they watched. I'm borrowing what happened next from Kesha's blog:

"Brayden, Boston, Brooklyn and Easton were all sitting on the couch together huddled in blankets and eating goldfish.  Easton has a habit of putting something in his mouth, storing it in his cheeks and does this repeatedly until he has waaaay tooo much food in his mouth.  I heard him crying from the other room. I ran into the room to see what happened.  Easton had started crying and I think when he started crying, may have choked on his crackers.  All of the sudden, he turned blue - face was blue/purple and lips were.  His eyes were glazed over and he was not getting any air.  I panicked and started screaming.  My Grandpa Walker taught CPR at the Red Cross for years and years - he has shown us numerous times how to do it.  I definitely need more practice and it's time for another trip to his house and maybe a class or two to refresh my memory so if this situation happens again ... I can be calm and do what I need to do. 

Nick raced in and took over.  He was wacking him on the back.  Shantelle came upstairs and was so calm and helped Nick out with trying to dislodge the crackers.  Shantelle seemed to think he was not breathing for about 45 seconds but to me it felt like an eternity. I felt so helpless at that moment and thought I was losing my child up there ... we were too far away to call 911 or have anyone else help.  We had to do something and it wasn't working.  I was staring at his lifeless body, purple face, and rolling eyes and so many thoughts were going through my head at the moment.  Nick finally pounded his back and the crackers became dislodged.  Relief.  I felt like I had lived one of my worst nightmares of something bad happening to my child.  I am just glad he finally started breathing.  Nick and I spent the rest of the night watching his pale face finally return to normal. We just held him and thanked Heavenly Father that we still had him with us.  I know there were angels there that night helping us out in the cabin!!  I am so grateful for my little family and am realize that I take the most important things in my life for granted sometimes.  That next day, I definitely said "I love you" more and held the boys and Nick a little tighter!  I am glad that Easton is okay and stopped choking.  It was a scary situation."

This experience affected the rest of our weekend. We couldn't help but think about all the what if's had we not been able to dislodge the crackers. I couldn't get the sounds of Kesha's panicked voice out of my head all weekend, and still can't. It's hard to watch your worst nightmare unfold right in front of you. I was deeply impacted by that night and it was a good reminder of how precious life is. I'm having a really hard time with Brooklyn right now as she is going through a dramatic terrible two's stage. I am trying to be more patient with her and am trying to enjoy every moment, everyday.

Grandparent Day

Brayden had a special grandparent's day at preschool last week. Josh's parents picked him up and got to spend and hour with him. It was fun to see how excited Brayden was to show them everything that he's learned. Afterwards they took him to lunch and brought us some lunch as well. Since his class was only 1 hr and it was SO nice outside, we decided to sit outside and play on the grass until they came back.

 I love how babies are on the grass. They just don't like to touch it!

 So cute!

 Of course everyone had to get in the picture!

 Brayden with Steve and Kay:

Poor Girl

We feel extremely blessed that we have never had any type of emergency in our home. We've never had to drop everything and head to the ER, Instacare, or our pediatrician. Well that all changed last week. I was home with the girls while Brayden was at preschool. Brynlee was on the floor having her tummy time (which she LOVES) while I was opening the mail in the kitchen about 10 ft away. Next thing I knew Brynlee was screaming, which is very rare for her.  As soon as I turned around I knew exactly what happened. You see, Brooklyn loves to help out and mimick what I do. I am always flipping Brynlee over to her back, so naturally she tries to do the same. I've caught her a few times as she is rolling Brynlee over. The problem is that Brynlee's arm gets stuck and twisted while she attempts to do so. Each time I try to teach Brooklyn that she shouldn't try to roll her over...only mom does it. Well, this time she succeeded. I picked up Bryn and knew something was hurting. I tried for about 45 minutes to get her to calm down, which she did a few times. But as soon as I would move her she would start screaming again. So we quickly loaded up, still in pj's and headed off to get Brayden. My sweet mother-in-law met us as the pediatrician's office and took Brayden and Brooklyn to get some lunch since they were way hungry and ornery. The Dr. checked her out and luckily nothing was broken or dislocated. Unfotunately, she did sprain her shoulder. It was SO sad to see her hurting, but I was very relieved it wasn't anything serious. The Dr. basically said to be really gentle and let her start using her arm at her own pace. She slept the majority of the day, but when she was awake she wouldn't move her arm. It was really tricky to nurse her since she winced and cried every time we moved her. Here is how she spent 2 days. It's a good thing we had borrowed my sister-in-law's boppy 2 days earlier!

On the second day she started moving her arm a little bit, and by the 3rd day it was as if nothing had happened. She still winces on occassion, but she's back to her normal self.

Grandma's 80th Birthday

Last Sunday Josh's grandma celebrated her 80th birthday. She had a stroke last year and we're not sure how much longer she'll make it. It was fun to have everyone together to celebrate. Here are all the great-grandkids (except Aaron and Isaac in Washington.)

 Little Mckinsley and grandma. I love this picture:

 We had a mini photo shoot with Brynlee and Mckinsley. I'm so excited that these 2 are only 3 months apart. It will be so fun for them to play together!

 I love this little girl!!!

 This is a good picture to see how long Mckinsley is. They are the same length!!! Brynlee is long, but Mckinsley is off the charts long. It will be fun to see how they each continue to grow the next year.

Laundry

This post is solely to remember to NEVER let your husband leave his clothes in boxes for 6 months. When we moved here most of his clothes were in boxes somewhere in the garage. I finally found them and let him know he could get them anytime. Fast forward 6 months...he finally got his boxes of clothes out and boy did they smell like storage! They were all wrinkled and had quite the odor. So I spent 3 days doing about 15-20 batches of laundry to clean his entire closet of clothes (he has about twice as many clothes as I do!) You owe me BIG time!!!