She has been spotted

Abby has spots. Do not worry, they are not contagious and don't seem to bother her too much, just an occasional scratch or two. It should be gone in a few days. The doctor says it is a reaction to her MMR vaccination. Great. As many of you know I have been on the fence the last few years in regard to the safety of vaccinations that are "required". So Abby only had her two month old vaccs and has been on hold ever since. At her 1 year well child I decided maybe we should talk to the dr (who of course is going to encourage them) and get her opinion. Well I decided maybe I should get the majors, polio, mmr, and a few like that. Well folks here we are with a rare reaction to the mmr vaccination. My thoughts can't help but go to the original reason why I was hesitant. It could have been a different rare reaction, one that won't go away and one that could have permantely affected abby's well being. It is a hard decision. I would feel terrible if my children got sick and died, when it could been prevented, but I would feel awful if my child got sick from the vaccination too...So we are now back on the fence.

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the time of year

We love this time of year! All the holiday fun and food. Thanksgiving was very nice. We help big grandma the day before preparing as much as possible, and eat our hearts out thanksgiving day. We had an extra special thanksgiving this year. We not only got to visit other grandma we spent some of it with Rich and Krista. Poor Krista had to sacrifice on my behalf and be in the hospital, and so we took her some dinner and visited. She is much better and my home, and I' sorry she couldn't spend it with her family in Utah, but I am glad we got to spend a little time with some of the people we love the most.
Cassie turned 6 on 11/19. Where does the time go!? We kept it very low key. She had birthday dinner, stroganoff, opened presents and had ice cream. She got some new clothes, & a necklace with changeable penants. She is so excited to finally be 6.
We have decorated the house and been listening to christmas music. I love it but when the kids want to listen to the same ones over and over, it makes me want to use the cd for target practice. We haven't put up a tree yet, that is the plan for this weekend. We visited Santa yesterday. Abby was super exited, until it was time to climb on his lap. She started to cry, but we arranged the kids so she would sit next to him and that seemed to make her happy. When the picture was done, she said bye and thankyou. It was pretty cute.
We have some of the nicest family. First Connie made all the girls scarves. Cassie got pink, Jessie blue and Abbie pink and white. They are beautiful. Then in comes Grandma Tina. She had made Ben a few hats when he was born and made one for me too. They came up to visit Krista and she brought some for the girls. They match the scarves and are super cute. Thankyou!!
Yep, its Ben, He is almost 4 months old! Jessie and Abby can make him laugh, we had the same problem when Abby was a baby, only Cass could get her to laugh. He still sleeps a ton, but he is growing like crazy.

tooth

Cassie lost her first tooth last night! She is so excited and I think she was suprised how little it hurt. I was trying to wiggle it back and forth, it didn't seem too loose, but out it popped, landing in my hair! She (and I) were shocked that it came out. She didn't cry even after Jessica told her it was bleeding (the typical reaction to any sight of blood is the 'my arm just got cut off' scream). The tooth fairy paid her a visit and she is excited about her dollar. She was showing everyone at school today and said her teacher was going to sing her a song. Another step to her growing up too fast!

A new name

As most of you know, as we have had our kids we have given them formal names, ie Cassandra and shorten them to cuter nick names like Cassie. Well Jessie got a trophy from soccer which has Jessica on it. She is starting ot read some and came up to me confused as to why they put somebody elses name on the trophy. So I explained the situation and she seemed to understand. I went to make a new chore chart the other day and she says "momma, can you put my real name on the chart?" I said "your real name?" She said "yeah, Jessica. and can you call me that too?" She is sticking to her request. Every time I call her Jessie she says "mom, my real name."

New Look

Cassie and Jessie have been begging for haircuts. They both wanted super short, like up to their ears, but their Dad said shoulders is the limit. So Cassies has some layers in it, with side bangs and Jessies is a straight cut with straight bangs. They seem to like it and it will be easier to brush and keep clean. I almost cried to see Jessies hair on the ground. As for Abby she is still stuck with scarecrow hair :).

pumpkins and smiles

Yes, we have a smiler on our hands. He has been smiling for a little over a week now, but it is hit and miss. He also has to build up to it. Krista tried for a while yesterday, but she had to leave without seeing the fruits of her labor. Just a few minutes later the smiles started coming and we got this picture. All I can say is look out ladies!
The girls carved their pumpkins yesterday, mostly by themselves. It was time consuming, but they are proud of them.

Lately

The Baby
The Outfit So adorable. This picture does not do it any justice. Thank you Other Grandma!!
The Blessing
My first day of Kindergarten
Being a helper

First Day

Cassie officially started kindergarten this last Wednesday. She was very anxious, crying a lot because she didn't want a new teacher, afraid she won't have any new friends... any way the second she walked into her class she turned to me and said I like my new kindergarten! She likes her teacher and all the fun things they are doing; coloring, playing, hunting for the gingerbread man, sitting on the rainbow carpet and just being there. She is also excited because she gets to ride the bus home. She looks so tiny coming of the bus... makes you wonder how she got to be in kindergarten so fast.

We also took Ben in for his 2 week check up. He is growing well. He is now 20" long, a 2" gain since birth and weighed in at 7 lbs .03oz. Yeah!! You'll be happy to know he didn't get any shots this time... that fun starts at his next appt.

Jessie starts preschool this next Tuesday, she is so excited and cannot stop talking about it. I know she will have a great time!

Abbie is talking more and more each day. Our favorite has to be when she says "tank you."

Proud sisters

I think that these pictures speak for themselves.

The baby is here!

It seemed as though all odds were against us, but we did it, we had a baby boy! I was induced Monday morning and a few hours later, bada bing, Benjamin Henry had joined our family. 6 lbs 7 oz and 18" long, he is just a little peanut! The girls are so excited and cannot seem to get their fill of him. We had a very good experience with the dr, nurses and hospital. We are grateful that everything went so well and that Ben is healthy.

Good old summer time

A Brief summary once again of what we have been up to...

We had a great fourth of July. BBQ, firecrackers and swimming @ big Grandmas.

We went camping with our ward to Zion's camp. Also a lot of swimming and playing
~Swimming, swimming, and more swimming.
~We are helping Big Grandma with blueberries, which are delicious!
~Enjoying the heat wave (not really but lets keep positive here). It got 94 in our house a couple days so we set up camp at big grandmas and stayed there 2 nights. It was nice.
~Cousin Alexis stayed with us for 2 days. We watched the blue angels (from afar), swam, roasted marshmallows and played. It was good to have her.

~We went with the ward playgroup to Lake wilderness which was a blast. We swam again,
had a picnic lunch and played with friends.

~Cass and Jess got bikes so they can learn to ride with out training wheels. They are both pretty timid so it may take a little work. Jer and I also got bikes from a friend and it has been fun riding around with Abby in her seat on the back.

~Did I mention swimming?
The rest of the summer looks like we will be enjoying some more sunshine and waiting for the baby to get here. Just 3 weeks left! We are so excited.

Busy?!!

Well.... we have been busy lately. Time is going by so fast! I will try to give you an idea of all the fun that we have been having since the sun decided to shine around here, which has been a couple months now. We spent time with cousins, roasted marshmallows with Rich and Krista, working in the garden,





we are "working" for big grandma catching tadpoles, we went to Ocean shores (which was so much fun), Cassie finished preschool and is excited for break and kindergarten!,we picked and froze strawberries and made jams, we have been swimming a couple times a week,and just having fun. Jer and I were able to be a host family for youth conference and we loved it! The girls stayed with other grandma and grandpa and had a good time too.
We hope to have many more adventures this summer. We hope you do too!

the weekend

About a month ago Jeremy's mom called and offered to watch the kids so we could go out of town for our birthday weekend. So we took her up on it. She also let us use their time share. Another bonus!!! We went to Squim (it's just south of Port Angeles). The Hoood canal bridge is closed and so we had to take the long way. Not a bad thing, it took longer yes, but it was a beautiful drive. We kept busy, we watched a strong man competition, went to Victoria,seen a movie, slept, went to the Olympic game farm, its a zoo type park, if you haven't been its pretty cool. You stay in your car and drive through. You can buy a loaf of bread to feed to the animals. You drive through the elk, buffalo, zebra and llama pastures. They will come right up to car and eat the bread out of your hands. They had bears that you can toss the bread to. They had a rhino, lions, tigers, cougars, wolves and even a baby bear. We will be going back, next time with the kids. We finished our trip by taking a walk along the Dungeness spit. It was fun to spend time together eventhough we missed the kids.

The girls had fun with Grandma and Grandpa too. They went to a hawaiian themed girls only party! They went to a BBQ, got to go to grandmas and grandpas ward, and they got to play with their cousins. They were tired when we got them home, but they can't stop talking about the fun things they did. So thank you again Cherie for the amazing birthday gifts!

Its Official

Well for those of you who may not know we are expecting our 4th Baby. Today was my first appointment. I was procrastinating, I wanted to find a new dr. Our friend told us about one in Auburn so I gave him a shot and he seems wonderful. He gave us a due date of Sept 1st! Yeah! We are excited and Jessie asked me yesterday, Mama are you pregnant? Cute to hear such a big word come out of her mouth. They are excited and Cassie told me to ask the dr for a baby brother. We will see.

Little Walker!

Yeah! Abby has decided she would like to be a walker. Nobody was going to rush her and she is still more than cautious. She is starting to say a few things too, she is saying dog and duck along with mama, dadda, uh-oh and gamma.

Stinker-itous

Our little Abby has been fighting a cold lately. She was sick last week, runny nose, sneezes and ear ache and this week she is Congested, and has a cough. I always feel so bad for little kids who are sick. It is so sad. We were hoping that it was productive sickness, like getting more teeth, but no signs of any new ones. Bummer.
Along with her cold she has picked up a case of stinker-itous. Her symptoms are, limpness, back arching, flailing of the hands, feet and rest of body, and oh yeah, screaming that will pierce your ears. She is impossible to please and has no idea what she would like. We are trying to keep her at home as much as possible so other kids will not catch this horrid little bug (or witness her in action).
We hope she will be back to our sweet little Abby soon!

Sleep the night

Cassie and Jessie have been wanting to spend the night at other Grandmas for quite some time now and it has been hard to coordinate schedules so it would work. They were able to spend the night on Friday. They had a blast! They watched a movie with grandma and grandpa, made popcorn (with grandpas popcorn maker, its a tradition they have whenever they go over), watched some more cartoons from what I have gathered, read two stories. Jessie told me one was about some girls at camp whose tent was leaking. Cassie and Grandma enjoyed some time together chatting, while Jessie and Grandpa dozed off. In the morning Grandma made pancakes and yellow eggs, and Cassie told me, "Grandma is a very good cooker." And to top their fun off Auntie Alissa painted their finger nails. Jessie said on the way home, Mama I forgot to say thank you to Lissa for painting my pretty nails. So all in all the girls had a fun time and we hope Grandma and Grandpa did too!

A Good Book

I read a really good book over christmas and wanted to tell all the ladies about it. First a little background. Jeremy loves to listen to talk radio. One day I got in the van to run errands and his station was on. The show that happened to be playing was Dr. Laura. I had never listened to her before, but I found myself intrigued by the advise she was giving her callers. She adverstised a book of hers and next thing I knew I was at the library checking it out. It is called, The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands. Super good book about how to let our men know that we love them and to show them we appreciate them. Not that we don't, but this book gave me better insite on how women and men are different and how to relate better to him as a man. I try to remember the things she suggested and our relationship seems to be better than ever. I hope you will read it. I enjoyed it and hope you do too. PS... she is very opinionated, but if you are like me, let your guard down a little and really try to have an open heart and mind.