Valentines

The kids were at such a fun age for Valentines Day this year.  I think this holiday was made for Marissa, hearts and writing notes to people?  Pretty much the best things ever to her.

She had a party at preschool and made this little hat there, it is so her.

I showed Shane a few ideas for Valentines and gave him the option of making them or buying them at the store and he wanted to go with this one- he loved how they turned out but I'm not sure he realized how much cutting would be involved- it is one of least favorite activities.

And Marissa and Sadie's little friend from church had a Valentines party, so Sadie got to get in on the action too. She was SO excited for her own valentines party.

I got the kids each a book and a little box of candy to set out on Valentines morning but no picture cause I was in the hospital with Aaron.  But Josh made sure they got set out and stopped at Dunkin Donuts on his way home from visiting us to get them each a heart-shaped donut.  Simple pleasures of being a mom:).  And Josh and I postponed our traditional Valentines dinner til a few days after I got home.  I was on dinner this year and made steak fajitas, and Josh was on dessert and made a peanut butter caramel cheesecake thing and brought me a piece to the hospital.  I am glad we started that tradition, I think we have  both enjoyed it even more than going out, and discovered some great recipes in the process.

My Valentines Date

Two Fridays ago I had just been telling my sister how excited I was because it would be Josh's first weekend he didn't have to work since before I went to California.  I was looking forward to relaxing at home with the fam all together and had a few fun things in mind for Valentines Day.  Aaron had had a cold for a couple days but I didn't think much of it and he actually slept pretty well the night before.  But Friday night he really started going downhill- he was really congested and coughing and was working really hard to breathe.  We thought he would get a little better in the morning and tried a few things, but he was starting to sound wheezy and we talked to our doctor and decided to take him into the ER, and they admitted him for bronchiolitis.  He tested negative for RSV but all the doctors and nurses said he acted like a baby that had it and they treated it the way they would if he had it.  He needed quite a bit of oxygen to keep his saturation levels up, and they gave him steroids and breathing treatments and constantly monitored him.      

It was sad to see him so sick, but he was really in pretty good spirits considering, and it was kind of nice to be able to focus all my attention on him and spend some good time cuddling and loving on him, and the free meals for nursing moms helped.  Logistically it was difficult because of the 3 other kids at home.  It was a good thing that Josh had the weekend off, and his mom came to help out with the kids and stayed home with the girls on Monday, and Josh was able to use sick days for Tuesday and Wednesday.  Yep, we were in the hospital for 4 days!  Yikes!

There were lots of volunteers and people that came around with things like stuffed animals and books.  He was just starting to get interested in those things so that was fun to see, but I chuckled when they would bring my meal to the room and it would have a little coloring book with it.

Getting off oxygen while he was asleep was the last hurdle we needed to jump before he could come home.  I would sit and watch his oxygen levels drop the minute he fell asleep and think "no!! we have to go home, Josh has no more days he can take off!!"

But we made it home, and are so glad the little man is doing much better.

Mr. Fixer

The kids pretty much think that Daddy can fix anything, and most of the time they are right! I realized I never posted the before and after pictures from Josh's piano project so here they are:

Before:

 After:

 It took him a long time and a lot of work and I think he did a great job, we have enjoyed having it in the house.

His latest project was his iPad screen.  He had dropped it just right and it has been cracked and sad for at least a year but we didn't want to shell out the money to get it fixed because it still worked fine.

 Well, it started affecting the sensors or something cause it wasn't picking up the touch in some spots, so he did some googling and ordered a repair kit off of amazon.  He watched and followed along with a Youtube video that was over an hour long,

 and sure enough- he fixed it!!  It looks brand new, and only cost 20 dollars instead of 100!

Our neighbor always tells us Josh is the strangest doctor he knows because most doctors don't do stuff like that but Josh really enjoys doing stuff like that and it definitely comes in handy!

We Love you Grandma Elkins!

I'm pretty sure the kids have the best great grandma ever.  She has lots and lots of grandkids, and somehow she remembers all of their birthdays, spouses' birthdays, and kids' birthdays without fail.  She gave the kids each a gift card to pick something out for Christmas and the kids pooled their money and bought a big new set of tinkertoys to add to the old ones we've had for awhile.  They were SO excited to get lots of different new pieces to add to their projects and have been busy trying to build all the things on the directions.  Thanks Grandma and Grandpa Elkins, we love you guys!

2 Months

Well, Aaron is closer to 3 months now than 2 so I figured I better get this post up!  A few things about Aaron at 2 months:

-Weighed 13 pounds (65th percentile) and was 23.5 inches long (70th percentile) at his checkup.  So not behemoth like the others but decently big.  

-He went through a pretty fussy phase around 1 month but it seemed to start clearing up around 2 months so that was really nice.  He loves to lay on the ground and just look around and stretch out.  There are even times where he is happier on the floor than in our arms!  

-Our room isn't really big enough for the crib so we had the pack and play in there for awhile but he HATED it and wouldn't sleep in there, so we were doing the carseat and bouncer for awhile.  But we put the crib mattress in our closet on the floor to try it out and he almost immediately started sleeping better.  Then he started moving around a little too much for comfort, and we was only waking up once or twice so I felt confident enough to put him in the bedroom with the other 3.  4 kids in one small bedroom- yikes!  But it's really been going well actually, we'll see how it goes when he hits a sleep regression.

-If our memory serves right, he is our most talkative baby- we may be in trouble cause the others never stop talking!  But it is so cute now when he will just talk and talk to you and the kids especially love it.  Really, they love everything about him still, and he loves them too for the most part.

 Although I'm sure sometimes he's thinking, "what are they doing to me??"

Cousins and California

I'm so glad we were able to be in California for Bryce's wedding.  Everyone (except Josh :( ) was together for the first time in awhile, and it was so good seeing all the cousins together.  What a good looking family right?

I like this picture because it shows how much fun they had together.

   

 The weather was pretty good, the wedding was perfect, and we soaked in time with Grandma and Grandpa knowing they would be leaving for 18 months on their mission to Mexico City. Unfortunately, pretty much everyone got sick at one point or another (thankfully no vomit- just fevers and stuff).  It was a pretty exhausting trip for me with the kids being a little more needy and whiny and Aaron being pretty fussy for a lot of it.  And we brought a lot of mess and noise,

but I'm so thankful for all the aunts and uncles and big cousins and grandparents who helped us and put up with us:)

 And so thankful to be part of such an awesome family!

Flying Solo

My brother Bryce got married at the end of December in California and Josh couldn't get off of work so I braved the trip across the country with the four kids by myself.  My motto was "it may not be pretty but we'll get there!" and actually it went pretty well.  Santa brought the kids these little suitcase/backpack rollers and they were a lifesaver.  The girls were playing "airplane" on Christmas and were pretty excited to use them.

Josh drove us from his parents house to Chicago Midway airport the day after Christmas.  He helped us check our bags and then I felt confident enough that we could make it through security without him.  The kids were very good, and Sadie kept me in line- I bent down while the security line had stopped to put my id back in my bag and when the line started moving again she said, "Mom, you need to keep moving!!"

I didn't quite think through how late at night our flight was- we didn't get in to LAX until after midnight our time, and with a little wait and confusion about where Aaron's carseat was it was pretty late when we got to my parents house, of course with 9 o clock church the next morning!  But somehow we made it not too worse for the wear.  Aaron slept pretty much the whole time, which was great except then when we got home he was awake and I was exhausted.  The other hard part was that we don't all fit on a row anymore, so I sat with Aaron on one side while the big kids sat across from me.  One of the stewardesses was really helpful with them, Shane wasn't as helpful as I had hoped, poor guy was still not feeling great.

The flight back home went even better than the way there, and when we got off a guy with one little girl asked if that was my first time flying with 4 and I said it was our return trip, and he told me how well they all did and that he felt like everyone should have been applauding me as I got off the plane- ha!  I secretly felt like that too- we did it!