And The Stars Aligned

We took some impromptu family pictures today. Driving to church, we passed this barn that I've loved ever since we moved here, and I said to Jason, "It's a beautiful day. Everyone looks nice. Let's stop at that barn after church and take a few pictures." My sweet, talented friend, Lesley, came along and brought her way nicer than mine camera and took these family pictures which turned out so much better than I expected that I'm going to be blowing some up and you may just see one on our Christmas card this year. Family pictures happen this effortlessly for us about, um, let me think, never. . . until now.

Guess who's in so much trouble. My perfectly photogenic kid, what are you doing?!? 

 And Miss Halle, could you please, for your mother, learn to someday look at the camera and smile? I would love that!

 We were questioning whether this old rope swing was really up for underdogs.

 This one's on here just for Jude's face. When no one else is ready, Jude's workin' it. 

 Family Favorite: Jazz Hands!

Happy Father's Day to Jase! This will be one we'll remember.

The Day of Gray

Gray turned 7 in May. I would say I can't  believe he's so old, but that's not true. He's always seemed so much older than his actual age. I sometimes can't believe that he's not older than he is. It was a fun day. The most exciting present that he got was this coupon that he's reading right now which says that he's getting his own room. I love how his face looks confused, but Halle's excited because she's already read ahead.

Halle and Nash are both gaugeing his reaction. Halle is waiting for him to catch on and Nash is waiting for someone to clue him in.

If anyone's looking for a present for a young boy, these Hexbugs are pretty awesome. They're little robot bugs. He got 3 of the mini bugs and this track and zipline. They spent so long watching them run.

Finally time for the Mario party. This may have been the most anticipated event in our house, ever. The kids would not stop talking about it. I'm afraid it might have been a bit of a let down after all the hype, but they still had a great time. I don't know what they build these parties up to be in their heads, but I don't think they ever live up to expectations.

I realized (again) how much I hate parties. I would be happy if none of my kids ever wanted another one. They are so much work and so stressful. A party planner would be my absolute most hated job, I think. Okay, maybe not worst. I can think of worse. Sewage treatment plant worker, submarine driver, mortician (sorry, Kelly). Those are worse. But, still. 

For a lot of the kids, this is the only thing they ate. I bet at least one kid threw up after this party.

Gray, bless him, wanted doughnuts instead of a cake. I was so happy about that decision. These are his three favorite flavors of Tim Horton's doughnuts. Boston Cream, Honey Crueller, and Strawberry Filled.

The kids loaded their own loot bags. We had these items plus a whole bucket of chocolate coins.

Gray planned this entire menu, including the little labels. These are some of his very favorite foods. Pulled pork sandwiches, homemade baked beans, and queso. Most of the kids wouldn't touch any of it besides the white rolls, chips, and candy. I felt bad for Gray. He was pretty frustrated that they wouldn't eat. I knew that was going to happen. Kids here are the pickiest eaters on the planet. I wasn't too worried, though, if they went home hungry. I wanted Gray to have what he wanted to eat.

Here's Anthony showing off Princess Peach's Punch (strawberry lemonade).

Tyler made himself a candy sandwich. This kid had to have been so sick after this. He didn't stop eating candy the whole time.

And here's another kids who didn't stop eating candy (and dougnuts) the entire party. Every time I turned around, he was eating something else.

Just a little plate of gumballs. Why not?

This balloon drop was a lot of fun. Jason decorated the gym. He did a great job. He was at the church from noon until nine that day. I felt so bad for him. It turned out to be a fun party. Gray was happy, and I'm happy because I have Nash's party pretty much planned. He wants a repeat of Gray's. And even though it's not til November, he talks about it almost every day.



Gray's School Journal

We had Parent Teacher Conferences a couple months ago. Halle and Gray both got great reviews. Gray's teacher let me bring home his journal to show Jason, so I had to scan some of my favorite pages from it. If you can't decipher 1st grade spelling, "afyou" here means "a few."

I love all of the details that Gray puts into his drawings.

Gray has always been incredibly observant. Sometimes to my chagrin. I'm amazed at how he drew the wrinkles on his face in the way that people really age. When I was 6, I probably would have just drawn random lines to represent wrinkles. I didn't start noticing the patterns of wrinkles until pretty recently; when it started happening to me. And I love the "loose skin" part. I hope he didn't observe that from me.



This one is hard to see, so I'll translate:
Blue is. . .
The water that rushes by,
The sky ever so high,
My jeans that are blue as can be,
and my shirt that is as cool as me.





April Fool's!

This is a motley crew. I drew these mustaches on with washable marker before I went to bed. I was laughing so hard, trying to be quiet. Jason and I also switched Gray and Nash in their beds, so they woke up in the wrong bed. They were a little confused. Halle said when she looked in the mirror, she thought, "Am I still dreaming?"

Toilet paper squares on the ceiling fan. This was so fun. It would be really fun to do confetti for a party, if you don't mind cleaning up a big mess.

I loved having April Fool's Day on the same day as General Conference. It gave us so much time to do tricks. Although, Halle was nervous all day. She kept asking if there were tricks. "Are there any tricks in the shower? Are there any tricks in the food?" She was slightly on edge. There were no tricks in this food. Unless being completely delicious is a trick. These cinnamon rolls, while not quite as good as my grandma's recipe which my dad makes every conference, they take about 1/6 the time, so for me, they're perfect. Yes, we like frosting.

Underwear all sewn together on one long string is hilarious, in case you're wondering. The kids were all so confused about what was going on when they pulled one pair of underwear out of their drawers and got 10.



A great Conference activity: building a Lego temple.



The Terrific Two's!

Our dear Judo Boy turned 2 last month. I can't believe he's that old. I still call him my baby. How long does that last with the last child? Two has always been my favorite age for my kids. They are so funny, so sweet, so cute, and getting smarter and learning more every single day. It's the funnest thing in the world to hear him talk and watch him interact with other people and the world around him. He is such a social little boy. He is constantly greeting people all day long. If he leaves a room and comes back 5 minutes later he'll say, "Oh. Hi, Mom." Like he's surprised to see me still standing there. I love to listen to him talk to the kids. "Ha-ey" and "Na". Gray he says pretty well. He cracks us all up. When he wakes up in the morning, it's usually Halle or Gray who get him out of bed. Jude expects them and yells for them: "Hey! Gray! Whe ah you?" This is my favorite picture. Jason took it one Sunday in the middle of their stair-catch game. He arranged them in the same order as the picture behind, but the posing was a coincidence. They've changed so much in exactly two years' time.

Everyone checking out Jude's presents. Jude nearly had a finger cut off when Gray was helping him remove some ribbon.

We had confetti pancakes for dinner, which were a huge hit.

You can tell he's the fourth child. This is the best picture we have of him with his cake. (You can also tell who was manning the camera). We never even got a picture of his Dora cake before it was torn apart. This was his favorite part, though. Playing with his characters in the cake. All in all, a pretty great day.



One Sick Little Baby

Two and a half weeks ago, Jason went to Houston for a training. He decided to take a detour to Utah on his way home for his Grandma Clark's surprise 80th birthday party. While he was gone, all of the kids got a little cold. Just a runny nose and cough. Jude got it on Thursday. By Friday afternoon, he had a fever and he was seeming quite a bit sicker than the other kids had been. Saturday morning, he was very lethargic, and he was breathing quickly and sounding like he was having a hard time getting enough air. I was having a hard time deciding what to do with Jason being out of town. I was a little overwhelmed to think of taking him to the ER with its reputation of long, long waits. I wasn't sure what to do with the other kids. I was talking to my friend, Melissa, on the phone and asked her to listen to Jude's breathing because he was making me nervous. She has two boys with asthma who often get very sick and she immdediately said, "I think he has pnemonia. You need to take him to the ER right away." When she said that, everything just clicked and I kind of started to panic. I felt like I needed him to be seen as soon as possible. Our good friends who are in our branch and live on our street (thank goodness) volunteered to watch the kids while I took Jude in. James gave him a blessing before we left. As Jude laid on the couch for the blessing, his little chest was sucking in and his stomach was pushing out so far with each breath. His entire body would shake each time he breathed. I knew he was sick, but I really had no idea how sick he was. It makes me sick to my stomach now, looking back, how bad it could have been if I hadn't been prompted to take him in when I did. At the ER, I was so scared, I couldn't even think of Jude's birthday to tell the girl at check in. She just stared at me like I was an idiot as I first fumbled for his birthday and then took about a full minute to come up with his birth year. I could not think. There were nine groups of people there ahead of me, but as soon as I sat down they called Jude's name. At first I was relieved to avoid a six-hour wait, but then I realized that being called first meant I had the sickest child there. The first nurse I saw, who took his vitals and checked his oxygen level, just said, "He is a sick little baby." That scared me. His oxygen was at 72. It's supposed to be in the high 90's. As they were taking Jude back, my friend Lina showed up. I had left a completely hysterical message earlier, asking if she could watch my kids while I took Jude in, and she showed up to be with me. I was so grateful. When they got Jude back in the room, he had eight doctors and nurses all working on him at the same time. That's when I started realizing just how sick he was. I was trying so hard to hold it together, but it was the scariest experience I've ever had. It was horrible to watch them stick him with so many needles and have him alternating between bawling and falling asleep. Each new thing they would do to him, he would look over at me and say, "Mama." I felt so bad that I couldn't do anything to help him. Sometimes I wanted to tell them to knock it off, even though I knew they were doing everything to help him. In that first hour or so, he had an IV put in (which took so long for her to find a vein in his chubby arm), blood taken from his other arm, fingers pricked for blood two or three times, a catheter to test his urine, a suppository, x-rays, and various sensors attached to his toe and chest, all the while having to keep a breathing mask over his face which he really hated. After all of this calmed down and Jude was finally stablilized, they told me that he would be admitted to the pediatric ICU for at least 24-48 hours. That's when I finally stepped out to call Jason and completely broke down. I didn't know how I was going to do this without him.

I didn't have my camera the first day, so I didn't get any pictures of him when he looked truly pathetic. This was Sunday when he was starting to look quite a bit better. He wouldn't move that IV arm at all. He played with these toys like this for about 20 minutes and then was so exhausted he promptly fell asleep. At this point, I remember telling Jason that I couldn't imagine Jude running around and laughing or even smiling again. The first couple days, he never smiled.     Until. . .

Sunday evening when he got to eat his first meal since being admitted. He had jello, chicken broth, apple juice and water and he devoured almost every drop. After his meal, he was smiling and laughing and being silly. It was such a relief to see him acting much like his old self again. I missed that smile so much. We spent most of the next couple days sitting in a chair together. My butt was numb from so much sitting. Most days, I don't sit at all until the kids go to bed. 

I was very happy on Monday when they moved him up to the main pediatric floor. He had been off of any oxygen for a day and his oxygen level had stayed near 100. They had pretty much decided that it was a viral pnemonia that he had. They took him off of two of the antibiotics that he'd been started on. There was one more that he'd finish at home. On the upstairs floor, they gave him this darling little pack of toys to keep. It was great, since he was starting to go crazy in there and was sick of all of the stuff that I'd brought for him.

I was trying to introduce Jude to his new dinosaur, "Doug," as the tag says, but he wanted nothing to do with him. He pushed Doug away and is patting Mickey on the head. Granted, this is the Mickey that he himself picked out at Disneyland. He loves his Mickey.

Awww, Doug might just make it in after all.

There's only so much tv an almost 2-year-old can take. We had some much needed play time rolling the ball and truck down the hill of his raised bed.

He hated this sensor on his toe. I felt so bad the first day because he kept lifting up his leg saying, "Toe-y." When I finally mentioned to the nurse that it seemed to be bothering him, she checked it and said it was on pretty tight and she switched it to the other foot. It had left a pretty deep indention on his toe. Poor Jude.

I'm always happy when Jason gets home from a trip, but I don't think I've ever been as happy to see him as I was this time. He got home Monday night at midnight. Jude finally got to come home Tuesday at about 2:00. It was such a long, stressful, scary weekend. I'm so grateful that it's over and everyone is healthy again. I'm also incredibly grateful for all of the amazing friends who helped us take care of the kids and bring in food while I was at the hospital with Jude. Everyone was so willing to help. It's hard for me to ask people to help, but in this case, I had no other choice. I feel so blessed that we have so many great friends here who took care of everything. We love you all!