Lucy's ER visit

Lucy had a cold all week and after 2 days of fevers and no signs of improvement, I decided to take her to the doctor to check her raspy breathing and sounds in her chest. The doctor thought she might have pneumonia and decided to send me to the ER for a chest x-ray and breathing treatments. Long story short: after 4 hours of waiting for the x-ray, breathing treatments, RSV lab collection from her nose, waiting for the doctor, waiting for the nurse, 2 blown out diapers, one small 1/2 nap, waiting lots more, and many tears later, we were finally on our way home. She maybe has pneumonia, but the doctor decided to not risk sending her home without antibiotics. So they gave her the double-whammy antibiotic shots in the thighs and sent us home with a prescription for the week. I was not stressed out about her sickness...yet, but wanted to make sure we were doing everything we could to get her back on a healthy track. She still doesn't feel well today and is very congested in her lungs. Her coughing fits have caused her to throw-up once today, but at least she slept all night long and has taken two good naps today. She was a tired baby. I took a few pictures of our time in the hospital.

Here she is shortly after going through triage and you will notice her "spilled" Tylenol down her front. She really hates drinking medicine and it is a challenge to keep it in.

Tired baby that really needs a nap.

"Torture Device"

Here she is in the restraining device they use to get the chest x-ray. It would be near impossible without this. The radiology techs probably thought I was not very nice to keep her in there for 30 seconds longer while I grabbed my phone to take a picture. "But I have to get a shot of this!"

Here's here chest x-ray. I love seeing her cute fat folds on her shoulders. If you know what you are looking for there are some areas of "clouding" that show something in her lungs. Maybe pneumonia?

Upon seeing her thighs right before giving the shots the nurse exclaimed,
"Now those are some good thighs!"

Waiting...some more...for someone to come and sign us out so we can go home.

Our late Christmas photo and letter

Dear Family & Friends,

(Merry Christmas) Happy New Year!

As you’ve no doubt noticed, we have a tradition in the Ward house. We do not EVER, for any reason, send out a Christmas card on time. We feel that sending cards on time (or heaven forbid early) is insulting to those few of you who actually want to read them. “Oh, another ON TIME card from the Wards!”, I can hear you say sarcastically. “They think they are so great…with their on time cards… (mutter, mutter)”. Wait, what was that? I couldn’t hear that last part, you kind of trailed off. Apparently, even my imagination needs to pay attention better when someone is talking. And so, now we get to the part of the letter where I vow that I will do better next year. Or I vow that I will continue to mail my letters with such heart-felt time-sensitivity that I will never offend any of my fellow procrastinators. Either way, at least there is a vow involved (which is better than a curse), and you’ll get your card either on-time or late. There: now that’s been covered.

Time Magazine recently ran a cover story calling the last 10 years the “Decade From Hell”. That seems a little harsh. Sure, we’ve had our share of ups and downs (I remember an extra crappy week in 2001 when I found out I was losing my job and Amy was pregnant with twins). But for the most part, the past 10 years have been wonderful. In 1999 Amy and I had been married 3 years, with no kids, and I was just starting my first “real” job including a relocation to Santa Clara, CA. In the 10 years that followed I have changed jobs 5 times, each time for the better. We bought our first house, improved it (read: much sweat), sold it, and bought another. We’ve lived in 5 different houses in 3 different cities: Salt Lake City, Santa Clara, and now Seattle. We’ve grown as a couple and as a family, now with four wonderful children. It’s hard to imagine how the past 10 years could have been any better. Maybe that’s just selective memory, because I know we’ve had some struggles, but that is the beauty of the human mind. With the exception of those few of you with photographic recall, most of us let the bad stuff fade, while good experiences tend to amplify over time to almost heroic proportions. So for all of you wondering what to do in 2010 I would say this: get out and make some good memories. They will be worth more to you as time goes on than any other thing. I’m going to try to take my own advice on this one also, but since I don’t even pay attention very well to my own imagination, there’s a strong possibility that I also don’t pay attention to my own hyperbole.

So with that in mind here are some of the highlights we managed to squeeze into 2009:

At the top of the list: we had a baby! Lucy Elaine Ward was born on June 20th. She shares a birthday with her Grandmother Bergeson (Amy’s mom) and so we thought she ought to share her name as well (her name is also Elaine). Little Lucy is already so full of personality at 6 months old. She loves people and “talking” to them. It reminds us of Sarah, another constant-talker. Lucy is also very happy, and is willing to smile at anyone who pays attention to her. She does not like to be ignored, however. Put her in the bouncy seat and walk away at your own risk. I don’t recommend it, although I continue to try this myself on an almost daily basis.

Thomas has just turned 4 and is excited about life and the prospects his future holds. Principally the collection of Transformers and Bakugans. If he were to take even 10% of the energy he invests in thinking about Bakugans and Transformers into the effort of cleaning up the ones he already has we would have a spotless house. But alas, that is not the way of the daydreamy 4 year old and his room is often covered in his “collections” as he wiles away his time thinking of new Bakugans he should have. He also loves his baby sister Lucy and can always get her to smile by jumping around madly in front of her making crazy sounds and calling her Lucy Bucy. He sees more of her than the twins do (since they are at school all day) so it has been fun to see him form such a special bond with his sister.

Sarah and Megan are almost eight and are enjoying second grade…in separate classes this year for the first time. They both are doing well, and although it has been more of a challenge for Amy to keep up with two different classrooms and teachers, it has paid off for the girls. We are seeing more independence from both of them, and they have created some of their own friends. They remain very close to each other at home, though, and spend hour after hour playing together. Watching them grow up together, it is hard to imagine them not together since they are such great companions to each other. They both got glasses this year and a couple of nights ago at dinner Amy asked them, “Have you ever tried on each other’s glasses to see what it is like?” Without missing a beat, Megan begins nodding and Sarah quickly answers for them both: “Of course. Megan’s seem the same to me, but she thinks mine make things look weird.” Megan keeps nodding. For some reason I thought it was funny that they had done this on their own at some point, and had come up with the same conclusion. Megan continues to love “girl stuff” and loves to sing, but increasingly only in private. She did, however, sing in a trio in Sacrament meeting this year so there’s still hope. Sarah loves school and facts and is the peacemaker in our home. She has also inherited my love of reading and the only thing she likes more than books is telling us about the books, which she does in great detail.

Amy is great and always keeps a log on the home-fire. This is not as easy as it once was, now that we’ve introduced a 4th child into the mix but she manages to do it all somehow. And I still occasionally bring home bacon for us to eat. If you want to help us bring home even more bacon, please buy a book at Thriftbooks.com!

So, 2009 is gone, thrown over the edge of the cliff into the forest behind our house like our Christmas tree. But, like our old trees, it never disappears completely. As I chucked our tree into the abyss, I noticed last year’s tree still visible in the undergrowth, all the pine needles gone, with some sort of child-crafted fern wreath placed on it from a few months back when the kids had been out there playing. The past may fade a bit, but we always love to revisit it. I think maybe I’ll line up all the old trees in a row so we can watch them age gracefully and remember all the fun Christmases of the past as they get older and older. Or maybe I’ll just think about doing it, but never actually get around to it. That’s probably more likely.

Happy 2010!

Love – The Wards, Mike, Amy, Megan, Sarah, Thomas, and Lucy.

Merry Christmas from the Wards

Merry Christmas from the Wards.

She's Here!

Megan's practice spelling test

This is Megan's practice spelling test that we did last night. She was having a really hard time with her home work and I had to correct a lot of mistakes. Megan gets very frustrated very quickly when things aren't perfect and many tears were shed. But we got through it and this spelling test was the last thing.

The tradition is that the girls draw a happy and sad face on the bottom and then they "self-grade" the test and circle the face that describes the test the best.

But I guess neither "happy" or "sad" really described how she felt after all the tears and drama so she gave herself a third option.

Sean and Mom's visit

We were lucky enough to have a visit from my mom and brother Sean. While they were here we did a few touristy things. Neither of them had visited Snoqualmie Falls, so we headed up there one evening.

Sarah and Megan my little beauties.

We tried to take a quick family photo, but Thomas didn't want to be in on it. Here's a funny series of the event: "Come on Thomas...we want to take a picture."

"Fine. But I won't look up."

"Ok. I will look up, and I will lift my shirt up so you can see my great abs."

This was the only photo with his face in it. It really made me laugh when I downloaded all the photos and saw what transpired.

Sean, Thomas and Mike - "Boy Power"

I slowly walked to the lower view point, pregnancy slows me down a lot, and was rewarded with an even better view with a rainbow.

At one point I couldn't find Mike and the kids and was rewarded with a perfect photo opp. They were waiting for me all posed on this giant rock. Kids just love big rocks they can climb on.

One afternoon while the girls were in school, Sean and I took Thomas to Lake Wilderness Park to feed the ducks and geese.

Thomas always wants to eat some of the bread so I have to be carefull to not bring too old of bread.

I love Sean's smile.

I liked this shot with the beautiful lake and trees in the background and Thomas' bright hair shining in the sunshine.


Uncle Sean was very good at pushing Thomas on the swings. I'm too tired for that these days, so we were lucky to have Sean around to come at Thomas' every beck and call.

On the last night Sean was here, my mom decided to stay home and rest, we decided to really pack in the fun. I had never been to see the Ballard Locks and neither had my kids, so we went to check it out even though the big salmon weren't going upriver right now.
Here we are in front of the locks that the boats travel through.

In this shot you can see the locks the fish swim through.Here are the locks down below. We were able to see some of the baby Steelhead Salmon traveling from Lake Washington back to the Puget Sound.

I thought these "waves" needed to be photographed.

After we left the locks we headed over to Seattle to go to the Mariners/Giants baseball game. My kids have never been to a game and were pretty excited. At least they were when we finally got off the freeway and found parking. It took us 30 minutes to travel about a mile, and another 45 minutes of driving around looking for non-existent parking. We finally found a garage that wasn't full and cost less than most of the lots we had driven by 25 times. Needless to say, we missed the first 3 1/2 innings. Probably not a bad thing considering the game went 12 innings and I had to leave early with the kids during the 8th.

A quick family shot before we headed home.

At the game enjoying some "baseball" food. Hotdogs, peanuts, popcorn and cotton candy. Thomas only had cotton candy on his mind. He had to be really patient while we got the "dinner" food done first. Boy was he happy when his dad finally went to get the cotton candy.

The girls were a little hyped up on cotton candy. Megan went from really rowdy and bouncing off the "walls" to crying because she was tired. Fits her personality quite well. Sarah was fine and didn't complain. Thomas actually started to tell me that he was ready to go home and go to bed. This coming from a boy that never wants to take a nap and never admits when he is tired at bedtime. "Never admit defeat!" I was able to hold him off for 1 1/2 innings. And then we were out of there. 10:00 pm is officially too late for them. The big boys didn't get home until close to midnight and I know my kids were besides themselves with exhaustion and tears when their heads finally hit their pillows at 10:45 pm. Fortunately they just remember the fun the next day.

I was so glad to get a chance to visit with both my mom and little brother. I don't get to see them as often as I would like, since I haven't been able to travel for most of this pregnancy. We had a great time relaxing and hanging out with a few activities thrown in. Mostly I just enjoyed chatting with them in the evenings after the kids went to bed.

Fun! Fun! Fun! Miss them already. :(

Father & Son's Campout

This was Mike and Thomas' first year at the "Father & Son's Campout". They were both excited and talked about it for weeks. Thomas was so pleased that it was for the boys only. Both Megan and Sarah had already had their "Daddy-Daughter" dates a few weeks before and now it was Thomas' turn. He had absolutely no problem saying goodbye to me...sigh...and could not wait to drive away. My poor mom's heart felt sad seeing his little bed empty that night, but I felt happy that he was bonding with his dad. Here they are...ready to go!

I shot a little video right before they left.

Thomas and Mike camped next to their friends the Howell's. Here he is with his buddy Carver.


It got into the 30's during the night and after shoving Thomas back into his sleeping bag several times throughout the night, Thomas finally had to climb into Mike's bag to warm up at 6:00 am. Little squirmy 3-year-old boys don't know how to stay tucked into a sleeping bag. This was something I worried about, but Mike took great care of him.


They went for a bike ride in the morning, after a very early wake time...much to Mike's enjoyment.

They also had a chance to ride horses. Thomas was pretty thrilled to ride his own horse. He hasn't done this for a few years, and I am sure doesn't remember the last time. Mike led him around the pasture.

Right near the horse pasture was a tractor doing some work. This proved to be even better than a horse and Thomas had to get a better look.

I like how Mike framed this shot. Thomas is all about the tractors and trucks. Loves them!

My boys arrived home around lunch time and Thomas was too tired to help unload the car. That's the part of the fun he didn't want to be too involved in. I'm sure as the years go, Mike won't let him get away with only carrying in one thing. I am glad they had fun, that no one was burned in the campfire, and made it home safe. Boy do I worry. :)