Lane, Jannica, Kobe & Ella

Since Ella is just about 18 months, and I used to update every month with Kobe, **First child vs Middle child** I figured I might as well update on them both now.

Kobe Dale

He is 3 years 10 months, turning 4 in a couple months. I can't find words for that astonishment. He is about 35lbs and 40" tall. He has started to move out of the "threenager" stage. He definitely still has plenty of tantrums but he is more reasonable and can talk through things. He is very snugly still and we love that! He likes Top Ramen "noodles" (drained with the seasoning and cheese melted), mac n cheese, oatmeal, smoothies, chicken nuggets, "cheese hamburgers," "peh-pony pizza," corn dogs, tacos and soup. He gets picky sometimes but it's so nice that usually he'll eat at least those. He loves watching shows. He earns time to watch "YouTube Kids" videos on our phones. It's not too often but if he's being good he can get a little screen time. He still loves cars, dinosaurs, monster trucks, books, playing outside, and playing hide and seek. He says, multiple times a day, "Will you play with me?" He is phasing out of naps; which is usually fine, but I do make him have a rest on my bed if he doesn't nap. He is learning his ABCs and can at least count to 13. He knows his colors. He is just now showing interest in songs. He is a very good helper, mostly when it's his idea. He is very routine-oriented so his attitude gets thrown off if he is not ready for change in his day. We love having him around! He's a silly little boy and loves being a part of our family.

Ella Leona

She is 18 months! She is about 22lbs and 30.5" tall. She has a Buddah belly that we all love! She has her fake cry mastered: mouth wide open, squints eyes, turns on the tears, opens one eye a little to make sure you're watching her. She has some major sass, that's for sure. BUT she is so smiley and lovable and knows how to turn on those dimples. She loves to follow me around and watch everything I do. She loves our attention. She has an opinion about everything. She's starting to get into all the girly things: dolls, jewelry, makeup, dresses, dancing, pink, princesses... It's pretty adorable. She has her front 8 teeth, 3 of her molars have poked through but still working on them, and the rest of her gums are bulged and terrorizing her. She's very sensitive so teething that prolongs is not our favorite thing. She loves waving at everyone. She refuses to say words with her mouth-- she signs words such as: please, eat, drink, help, and more. She has said many words once or twice but she just laughs at me when I try to get her to say words, and then if she doesn't get what she wants she screams at me. Her list of words she says or has said are: Mama, Dada, BuhBuh (brother/Kobe), Uh-Oh, UhUh (like 'no'), bahbah, bebe (baby), and dod (dog) **most common**, and she has said: Nana, Papa, teh-teh (thank you), pfvvv (please), wa-wa (water), kuh-kuh (cracker), buh-buhs (bubbles) and bah (bye). She's capable. I am to the point where I need her to talk. She probably won't stop once she starts, but I prefer it. She's definitely a picky eater. It is a daily struggle trying to figure out what to feed her besides her oatmeal breakfast. She is obsessed with her gummy vitamins, and knows the difference between them and fruit snacks. Two of my favorite things she does are 1. she takes her socks off and tickles her feet, saying, "teka teka teka," and 2. She waves at everyone and everything, and opens her mouth wide like she's saying hi. She's a cutie! Thank goodness she gets to start nursery tomorrow. She struggles during church. But we sure do love having her too!

While I'm here, I'll update a few other things... I had a follow up with Dr. Vejvoda the other day and received nothing but good news. He used the words "bomb proof" and "indestructible" in describing my fusion. This was news I never received from my first surgery. He said I can start running and doing whatever I want to do, and that he'd follow up at the year mark or a month after I have a baby (they don't want to do the Xrays while pregnant, obviously). Hallelujah! Lane remembered to ask for my screws that Dr. Vejvoda had mentioned at a previous appointment. This is what they replaced from my first surgery. That's about 40k in that bag! I'm tempted to sell them. I have been feeling great and have finally been able to exercise normal and do yoga and find what my body needs. I am so excited to almost feel normal.

For New Year's Eve we hung out at Blake and Kim's house. It was supposed to be a party but friends flaked and it ended up just being family; which was wonderful. We played Pictionary, laughed and ate. The boys watched for the firework that went off every hour.

Kobe started in Sunbeams as we started the new year! How is it that I have a Sunbeam already?! He is such a sweet boy. Every time we go pick him up from primary, his teachers tell us that he is such a good/sweet boy. He loves his scriptures that he received, and loves to tell us the stories about Jesus being born and about the "Lephites."

Ella is a little miss sassy pants, but her smile makes up for her "'tude."

I love having a little girl so I can do pigtails and play dress up and paint nails!

This is an outfit that Lane got in China 12 years ago on his mission, for his niece, Faith, whom he hadn't met yet. It got passed onto Ella!

Snapchat filters with Gran

Always looking out the window, wishing they could play outside

Ella and her neighbor friend, Hazell. Sports Gymnastics open gym is a good way to get wiggles out in the long winter.

Soooo Britt is pregnant! She announced around Christmas time. Then she texted me one day with an ultrasound picture of two little blobs, saying, "Call me when you can." I gasped and called her immediately! TWINS?! What?? Twins don't run in our family! (My mom has a set of cousins, I guess). Then she found out they are a rare (1/10,000 births) set of identical twins called, "Monoamniotic-Monochorionic ('MoMo') twins," meaning they share the same sac, but also share the same placenta. This puts them at high risk because multiple things can happen such as their cords tangling, or one taking nutrients from the other preventing one to grow properly, etc. As you can imagine, my sister is totally stressed. She was basically told there's a chance one or both might not make it. To ensure both babies have a fighting chance, she is having biweekly ultrasounds, and will be admitted as an inpatient at 24 weeks to be monitored 3 times a day until the babies come and then the babies will be placed in a NICU. They won't let her go past 32 weeks! So add the stress of their living situation and the stress of Mike working full time and having to find someone to be with her kids every single day. Times like this I wish I lived closer so I could be of help! Ugh. We're all praying for her and those sweet babes. I had the opportunity to go to one of her appointments with her and see them wiggling around in there! Experiences I wish I could have more often... She just had an appointment and she currently has two healthy baby girls!!! About 17.5 weeks! We're getting there! Reagan named them when she found out there were two... Zoe and Punzel (like Repunzel?), haha. I can't wait to meet Zoe and Punzel!

The kids love spending time with Granny Ella. Lately her mind isn't very strong so in some ways she has the mentality of a toddler...so she and the kids get along great! What 87 year old still gets on their hands and knees and plays with little babies?! This gal. Then again, what 28 year old still does? We love having her around.

Kobe had sharing one day at Preschool, and he shared one of his (supposed) favorite books. He "read" it to the class and they were all engaged. It was pretty cute.

Since we were unable to go to California to visit my family for our Thanksgiving, or for Christmas, when I was strong enough I was able to go with the kids at the beginning of February. We got 3 day passes to Disneyland, so among my kids getting sick with sinus infections, and the rain, we crammed our hours into playing there! "You kids WILL have fun."

Ella was terrified of the characters. She shook her head and cried when we approached and then would smile and wave when we walked away. So that's why she's not in many of them.

Devin and Matt had us over for dinner one of the nights. They are such cool uncles. They got the kids some toys and coloring books, and made delicious meals and dessert for all of us. And we got to use their jacuzzi, so that's always a plus.

This was the start of Ella's sinus infection. She had a fever and screamed for 3 hours while she was with Oma and I was with Britt at her doctor's appointment. Poor baby. And poor Oma.

Ella got her first haircut! She wasn't a fan. And she was sick so she extra wasn't a fan. Just bangs.

Kobe was terrified of Zipper the night we got there. And then all of the sudden they were best friends. He kept saying, "hims is mine. I'm taking him home in my suitcase."

We missed Britt this night, but it's hard to get us all together so often when they all live 40 min apart and she has her own kids, but we had fun doing Trevor's sketchy homemade masks! It created lots of laughs, and it worked nicely....and then Ella threw up, so the fun was over.

Kobe started feeling it. I had taken Ella in to the doctor the day before and I should have just gotten Kobe checked. He wasn't totally infected like Ella but his ears were on the verge of infection and we were flying home the next day, so I'm glad I got him checked.

And then we still took them to Disney. But guess what! I'm typing this a week later so we all survived!

We had fun most of the week we were there! My poor mom caught everything that we had. Fever, sinus infection, ear infections... we'll laugh about it later. Along with that, we can now laugh about our nightmare adventure home...

I was dreading the trip home starting the day before, knowing how sick my kids were, and knowing that there was a winter storm in Wenatchee, and they were receiving a foot of snow and lots of freezing rain. I knew my flight into Wenatchee would get cancelled. I had a nervous pit in my stomach all night and day before our flight. As we were preparing for takeoff from Ontario we saw that our flight into Wenatchee was officially cancelled, so luckily I texted Lane and he booked us a hotel while we were in the air. This flight was at 6:15pm, so we landed in Seattle about 8:45pm. There was a woman sitting next to us that was heading to Wenatchee as well but she booked a spot on the shuttle. We found out that she worked with Lane's aunt for years, knew Lane's family and mutual friends, and even lived down the street from them for a while. My kids magically did wonderfully on the flight (thank you, antibiotics!). When we landed, this woman, Jeanette, said the passes were now closed, so the shuttle was no longer an option. Lane was going to try to come in the morning, so I told her that if she could get a room at the same hotel we were staying at, or even close, she could catch a ride home in the morning. She walked with us down to baggage claim, and continuously searched for and called hotels, all of which were booked. I called the hotel shuttle and said I can catch the last one by 10pm. In this time, I waited for my baggage. My kids were exhausted and not feeling well. Ella was crying and wanting to be held. An hour and a half later I finally got my baggage, missed the last shuttle, and Jeanette still didn't have a place to stay. I felt that I got to know her enough, so I offered for her to stay in our room. I warned her that I didn't know how many beds we'd have or what kind of room, and that my kids were sick and may cry all night, and that she may be on the floor. She hesitantly and graciously accepted my offer, so she helped me down to the curb and paid for our taxi to get to the hotel. None of us had eaten so while I got the kids ready for bed she went down the street and grabbed us some Burger King. For a situation that could have been completely awkward, it was great, and I am so glad I met her. She was a wonderful lady and I'm glad we could help each other out. So...I could have slept well but Kobe did karate in his sleep so I was awake worrying about getting home. Passes were still closed in the morning and they were going to "check" them at 10am and update on when they may open. Jeanette headed to the airport in hopes to catch the morning flight (I thought no way she'd get on, nor would it land). Well she got on, and it was one of two flights that landed in Wenatchee. Meanwhile, Lane and I frantically tried coming up with game plans. He suggested the train; so I would have to figure out how to get myself, my kids, my stroller, and our luggage to the train station in downtown Seattle while it was pouring rain. A taxi would cost a fortune. I didn't know about Uber and car seats. The low cost monorail option or bus option from the airport would put us a couple blocks away from the station, but I would struggle pushing the stroller and my luggage all the way to the station. At 10am the pass update was unforgiving. Lane booked us a bedroom on the train. Great plan! I was actually looking forward to it once I could get myself to the station. I went downstairs and asked the manager at the front desk what he might suggest we do. He saw the stress and exhaustion in my face and he offered to personally take us to the station. He lives down there and they had enough people at the desk so he said he was glad to do it. I thought at this point, heck with car seats, as long as he could fit all our stuff. It wasn't the most legal or safe of seating situations, but he got us to the station. I stepped out of the car, got the kids out, got the stroller out, and this man (Brian, from Ramada Inn in Kent **shout out!**) started to get our bags out, and two couples came out to the curb and said, "Are you on the train to Wenatchee? We were too. They just cancelled it." ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!! I felt completely defeated. What was I supposed to do? Luckily Brian was still there. I was in downtown Seattle where I wasn't familiar with my surroundings. I called Lane right away, and luckily he answered and quickly booked us a hotel in downtown Seattle (thank you, modern day technology). Brian smiled and said he would take us to our hotel. I gave him gas money and couldn't thank him enough. We got to our new hotel and Lane said they were going to do a pass update at 4pm. So I took the kids swimming and grabbed dinner, found a market to get milk for Ella. 4pm turned into 9pm. I was asleep by 8:30pm. Lane just decided he'd watch and come over in the morning. He woke up and saw that it said the pass was open so he jumped in the car and reached Cle Elum, saw a bunch of semi trucks parked, checked the app and realized it just said "Eastbound" was open (the direction towards Wenatchee). Next update...9am. I turned on the TV for Kobe, put Ella down for a nap, desperately turned to Facebook in search of someone traveling Eastbound, and finally started crying. I was in fight-or-flight mode up until that point. Next update was supposed to be at noon. I asked the front desk if we could extend our checkout to 2pm at least. And then I didn't know what to do. We had a few options of getting home but ran into either not having car seats, or not being able to fit our luggage, or someone not being able to get back to the west side. FINALLY at 10:58am I got a text from Lane saying, "open!" I started to relax. I took the kids down to the pool. Lane called about and hour later and asked me to open the door to the pool. Every muscle in my body relaxed and I breathed. I only write all these details to this adventure because it was just insanity going through it. It's okay to laugh about it now. We survived. It definitely could have been worse. Lane's a champion.

Anyway, now we're home and praying for snow to go away so we can have our sunshine and sanity.

Ella immediately went back to wanting more than her 2 vitamins a day. She knows where they're at so she throws a fit until she gets one.

Valentine's Day, Lane made me breakfast and chocolate covered strawberries, with roses, before he left for work and before the kids got up. I took Kobe to school and Ella and I went and got some Valentine's Day decor and their Valentine's (because I sucked this year). I decorated for our Valentine's steak dinner that Lane made for us and his parents.