Newborn Twins...

This was a first for me...I did a twin newborn photo shoot this weekend. Well actually once on Saturday and since we only got a few good shots (because it was hard!), I went back today and got a few more.

They are my neighbors adorable babies...Jocelyn and Alec.

They are so sweet and tiny...two weeks old tomorrow.

Here are my favorites...

There is just nothing sweeter than a newborn baby...Well maybe 2 newborn babies :)

Ashton's first Pinewood Derby...

For the past couple of weeks Lars and Ashton (and Gunnar too actually:) have been getting cars ready for Ashton's first Pinewood Derby for scouts. They have had so much fun with it!

Last night was the Derby and it was really fun to go watch and see how excited all the boys (and Dads) got.

Here's Ashton and his car designed exactly how he wanted it...he worked on it every step of the way.

And the car Lars made for him and Gunnar :)

(and of course Shockey goes with us everywhere!)

They turned out pretty cute even if they weren't the fastest. Lars is already excited to make another one and figure out how to make it faster.

Ashton thought it was so cool that he got the award for

"Best Design"...

  He couldn't stop talking about it.
He completely forgot, or didn't care that his wasn't the fastest!

Can't wait till next year...and I think I want to make me a bright pink car :)

Surgery...

After this post I will be caught up:)

 

Nine years ago almost to the day...(January 19th, 2004) I had laparascopic surgery for my endometriosis, after trying for 2 1/2 years to get pregnant.

 

2 days ago...Friday, January 18th 2013 I had the same surgery again. (the closeness in dates wasn't planned at all...I just realized after I scheduled it that it ended up being almost exactly nine years ago...weird)

So here I am 2 days later feeling very sore, but being well taken care of by

Lars and Kelli, and being able to catch up on my blog.

 

Before deciding to do this surgery again I prayed a lot about it, and eventually felt a really strong peaceful feeling about it. Really that I was doing the right thing. So I went into it on Friday not really being very nervous at all.

Lars took me in at 6:15 that morning and we were home by about 11:00. It all went fine and Dr. Craig did find more endometriosis and cleaned it out. As well as flushed out my tubes.

When we got home I could hardly keep my eyes open...the painkiller knocked me out for a few hours, but then when I woke up, I really felt pretty good most of the day. Then yesterday I felt like I'd been hit by a really big truck...I felt horrible. My back, neck, shoulders, throat and almost my whole body hurt...so I mostly laid in bed all day.

Today it has felt quite a bit better...now my stomach is just sore and swollen around the incisions and I just don't quite feel like myself yet.

 

Anyway I still feel good about making the decision to have the surgery, and I am really just looking forward to feeling good again! It's been so long since I've felt good...Before Christmas. I just want to get back to exercising and not being sick!

 

I have to mention how cute and sweet Gunnar was when I got home from the hospital. Well really when he got home from school that day since I slept for about 4 hours after I got home. He couldn't wait to come check on me and see if I needed anything, then he spent the first few hours after he got home running back and forth from the kitchen to my room asking me if I was okay and what I needed, and bringing me things. He brought me two of his little webkinz to keep me company :) He just melts my heart. He loved it when I rang my little bell, so he could come running. :)

 



Piano and homemade Play-dough...

Like I mentioned before, Ashton just started piano lessons and is loving it so far! After playing Grandma's piano a lot the last time we were there, he has been asking me when he can start to take lessons, so I got busy asking around about teachers and finally found one. She had a couple spots open, so we went and met her one day after school. She lives about 3 minutes away. I liked her immediately and was excited to get him started. We originally were going to have him go on Wednesday afternoons at 3:45, but then found out that scouts is at 4:00 and he really didn't want to miss any of that. The only other spot she had open was at 7:45 on Tuesday mornings. I wasn't super excited about that, but the two times he's gone so far, it's been fine. He gets up and is excited to go and really it's less time at home one morning a week that he would spend fighting with Gunnar! 

We went and got a keyboard for him to practice on and I'm really hoping that he will continue to like it and be happy to practice. Time will tell, but for now I'm so glad he's liking it and it like so many other things seems to come so easy to him. His teacher says she can tell he has a good ear.

Moving onto play-dough...

This has been on my list to do for a long time and as we sat at home last Tuesday since Ashton didn't have school because of parent/teacher conferences, (and it was yet again freezing cold and horrible air quality outside!) I decided to get the stuff out to make homemade play-dough. Gunnar loved helping me make it & choosing what colors he wanted while Ashton practiced piano.

Then he had lots of fun playing with it for awhile.

 I love this happy face :)

Celebrating on Ashton's real birthday...

On Sunday...Ashton's real birthday Lars' family was still here for the morning then Ashton had his first church class after the Christmas Break. He was born on the Epiphany (what we celebrate as the day the wise men brought the gifts to Jesus), and this year it happened to fall on Sunday. So it was kind of neat for Ashton to have class on that day and learn more about the day that his birthday falls on.
After I picked him up from class, we went home and he and Lars went out in the freezing cold so that Ashton could shoot his new bb gun for the first time. I was sad I didn't get to see him do it, but I still wasn't feeling very well and it was SO cold out! So I made him take a few pictures...

Even in the freezing cold, Lars said he loved it and he did really well hitting the target!

While they were gone...Grandma and Grandpa Harry arrived to hang out for the day and celebrate with us.
It was fun to have them here all day and we just relaxed at home. They got Ashton this cool working ATM machine to keep track of his money in. 

When my mom told me about it, I knew he would LOVE it! He was so excited to put all of his money in it and loves seeing how it kept track of how much he put in, and especially that it has it's own password that only he will know. However it was really funny after he set his password, I was joking around with him and said "I know what it is...it's 5555." I laughed so hard when he said "Hey! how did you know what it is?" I happened to guess exactly what he set it as. So he  immediately changed it :)

He spent part of the day putting together his new Harry Potter Lego set...
And he also loves his new hoodie I picked up for him while he was at class :)

After we hung out all day, we asked him where he wanted to go to dinner and he said he wanted a cheeseburger from Angie's, so that's where we went. Grandma and Grandpa had never been there, so it was fun. 

Ashton ate most of his dinner, as well as a little ice cream that came with it, then they brought him a huge cinnamon roll and sang to him for his birthday.

It's fun to celebrate your birthday for a whole weekend!

Ashton is 8!!

Wow...it was weird to even type the title to this post...8. Eight? Where does the time go?

It blows me away.

His birthday January 6th, fell on a Sunday this year so we had a party for him on the Saturday before. Nana, Papa, Aunt Shelley, Uncle Mat, Ali and Hunter all came to town to celebrate with us. Ashton had his first basketball game earlier in the day (which he was NOT excited about going to, but once he got there loved it). Then we had his party at the JumpZone...they had loved it when we got to go on Christmas Eve, so that's where he wanted to have his party. We kept it small and let him invite 4 friends plus Hunter and Gunnar.

He invited his best friend from his class this year Sam, as well as neighbor friends Tyler & Bowen, and another friend from school Hayden.

We let them all jump for an hour and they had a blast! Then we took everyone back to our house and opened presents and had cake, cupcakes and icecream. 

We started with presents...

We got him a small Hogwarts Castle set and a bb gun...

 So excited about this!

 I attempted to make an 8 cake and it turned out a little better than one I made a few years ago when Lars had been at his job for 8 years.

As well as some cupcakes to go with it...

Had I been feeling better I would have loved to do a whole Harry Potter theme for him, but it just wasn't going to happen this year :(

Oh well...he didn't care, blowing out candles is always fun no matter what the cake looks like!

Anyway it was a fun day!

Just so hard to believe my first baby is 8 already.

Eight quick things about Ashton at this age:

He is so handsome and is loving having long hair.

He is doing great in school and excels in every subject.

He must be kept busy or he gets in trouble at school!

He loves Harry Potter and is halfway through the 4th book!

He loves Legos and playing his DS.

He has started learning to play piano and is loving it!

He has also just started scouts and is so excited about that.

He is so strong willed and so stubborn, but we sure love him and are so grateful to have him in our family.

Happy 8th Birthday Ashton!

The rest of Christmas Break...

If I could sum up the rest of our Christmas break in one word it would be miserable. Sad, but true. After I started getting sick on Christmas, it all went downhill from there. I was really sick by the day after Christmas and was so thankful for Lars being home and for new Lego sets and other Christmas gifts to entertain the boys all day.

Thursday we had reservations to go stay in Lava and at that point if we had cancelled we wouldn't have been able to get our money back, so we decided to go ahead and go. I was still the only one who was sick at that point.

We got there early in the afternoon and checked in, then got ready to go sit in the hot pools. 

 Every year we've gone, we've gotten put in the same room...#6

They love to play in the little closet...

 Love these cute skinny legs in swimsuits and snowboots...

 It did feel good since it was so cold outside! But it was at that point that I could tell the boys were starting to not feel too well.

 They just weren't playing around and having fun like they usually do when we go up there. They were just sitting in the water, not looking very good.

So we stayed for awhile, then got dressed and went back to the room and got ready to go to dinner. Gunnar wouldn't eat anything, but Ashton ate all of his and seemed okay.

But when we got back to the room, they just laid around and were ready for bed. Not normal in a hotel room! They are usually bouncing off the walls till 10 pm. Gunnar zonked out by 8:00 and Ashton started running a fever not long after. 

And wouldn't you know we'd not thought to bring any ibuprofen for them, and the one gas station in town didn't carry kids ibuprofen! So Lars went back and got some adult tylenol and broke one in half and had Ashton take it. 

It was a miserable night...I was feeling even worse and the boys were feeling really bad too. We got up in the morning, packed out stuff and headed out by 8 or 8:30, didn't even stop for breakfast and poor Ashton threw up first walking to the truck from the room, then the whole way home off and on in a cup! Miserable!

It was a relief to get home on Friday and the 3 of us all laid in bed a lot of that day, and then we pretty much didn't leave the house for the next few days either. 

I just remember feeling horrible for days and feeling so bad for the boys too. And of course Lars...he didn't really get it until the last couple days of the break, but he didn't get a chance to get out and do anything the whole break. :(

We never did go to the doctor, but I'm convinced we actually got the flu this year. I don't think the boys have ever had it, and I can't remember having anything like it for years...maybe once when Lars and I were engaged.

Not fun! We totally spaced getting flu shots this year, but I also talked to people that had gotten them, and still got it as bad as we did, so who knows.

Luckily the boys were all better by the time it was time to go back to school, except for a little cough for Ashton.

But as I sit here typing this...3 1/2 weeks later, I am still getting over whatever we had!! I honestly have felt like it would never end. I did finally go to the doctor a few days ago and got put on an antibiotic just in case that would help get rid of it.

I coughed so hard I am pretty sure I cracked or at least strained a rib.

Oh well...at least it seems to mostly be over now. I think what's made it worse is that it has been so bitter cold and we've had such a bad inversion for so long this year, that the boys haven't been able to get outside much at all!

Usually we enjoy some winter stuff, but this year I am just ready for it to be over already. Too bad it's not anywhere close to being over!