Spotted Ethan

So last week we had a bit of a nasty surprise, a spotted Ethan. It started one Thursday afternoon. At first I thought it was nothing just a simple skin rash to something he had been around no big deal. We have had tons of those. So I threw him in the bathtub and waiting to see if it just went away. That's usually all it takes with him. By Friday morning this is how he looked. I don't know if you can tell from the pictures but we are talking head to toe spots. Even the bottoms of his feet were covered. Thankfully they didn't seem to be bothering him yet. I called the Dr and luck would have it they could see him in an hour and they wanted me to bring him in the isolation door. I love this feature of our Dr office. If your kid has a rash that could be contagious they have a special room with an outside door so you go strait in without having to go threw the waiting room just in case. Well it turns out Ethan is allergic to amoxicillin! Ugh. It can take up to a week for them to show a reaction and Ethan had just passed a week on it for his sinus infection. So they took him off that and gave him a new antibiotic since well he had an ear infection as well which I knew nothing about. We also got some pretty hefty allergy meds for him. By the time we made it home from the Dr office the spots had started to itch but one dose of the new allergy med cleared that up. The spot well they took almost three days to completely disappear. Did I mention I hate allergies?

All I want for Christmas...

This week I sat down with Ethan and had him dictate to me his letter to Santa so here you all go...

Dear Santa,

Bring me presents, please. I would like a red house and a car. Please bring a rattle for Danny. Mommy would like a race cars that go really fast. Please bring Daddy a new big table. I would like more games to play with mommy and daddy. I would like a new train that says chooo choo and a rock tunnel that's really cool. Danny would also like some chips. Oh and I would like paper and scissors so I can cut lots of things.

Thank you,

Ethan

Yesterday morning Ethan hurried down stairs and ran up to me to ask a very important question. "Mommy has Santa come yet?" I told him no that he would come tomorrow so after he went to sleep again and got up. Ethan responded with utter discusses "but I just did that!" 

Sledding with Friends

A few days ago some great friends invited us to go sledding with them. So much fun!! So here are  few photos to remember the day.

For some reason I can't insert text under these first three pictures or put them in the right spot. Blogger doesn't like me right now anyhow the first is Caleb so cute in his winter garb. The second is of Danny enjoying his first gingerbread man and the second is Ethan showing us his first gingerbread man. Ethan decided he would rather just eat the frosting so that's what he did, silly kid. After sledding we decorated gingerbread men and had hot chocolate it was the best.


Danny sitting in the snow because he couldn't move in his winder gear...poor guy.
Ethan with the runny nose we just can't seem to get rid of

"Charley Factory" one of Ethans best buds
The Bman going down full speed.

Trip to the dentist

Today was Ethan's first trip to the dentist. I expected crying maybe a little hysterics and all together an unpleasant event. What I got was a pleasantly surprise. Ethan was excited about seeing the dentist. He thought the cool glasses he got to wear while they looked at his teeth were great. He did everything they asked him to with excitement and a smile. The dentist told him how beautiful his teeth were and he just beamed with happiness. It was great! At the end he even got a sugar free sucker. The dentist said he was the most patient 3 year old they had ever seen. Some days I'm glad I have such an unusual son.

In other news we finally got all our christmas cards in the mail today. Every year our christmas card list grows this year we toped 75.  However next year I swear I'll be more organized and get them out way earlier. Ok so it's a good theory at least.

Snow Day pictures

Snow Day

So I've learned one thing today be careful what you wish for. Ok I wanted a little snow. Can we say overkill? So last night Ethan prayed for snow and I should have known right then that we were in for trouble. I don't know what it is but when the boy prays for something it just happens and in spades to boot. So this morning we woke to 6 inches or more on the front lawn. He was so happy. Once we found out church was canceled since it was still coming down we decided to take some extra time and enjoy a special family breakfast. Jared made pancakes and I made home made strawberry syrup while we listened to Christmas carols. The kids ran around like little crazy men and we had a wonderful morning. When we put Danny down for his nap the rest of us trekked outside into the snow. Ethan really loved it and thought it was great that because of the drifts we have spots that are deeper than he is (umm it had kept snowing not sure how much we got grand total but I'm going to guess a foot with really high drifts). We had a family snow ball fight which I think I might have lost and help daddy shovel the driveway. After our outdoor adventure we came inside and warmed up with hot chocolate. Then Ethan drew me some awesome pictures for the fridge while I did dishes. After that we decorated a little foam tree that I got for Ethan, also a big hit. 

This evening we had some great people over for dinner, the Dunns. They are awesome!!! So they have five crazy kids who get along great with our two crazy kids. He does computer stuff so has stuff to talk to Jared about. She is big into photography and scrapbooking! As a matter of fact she is doing the exact same thing as me with the photography thing and is working on setting up her own website and all that. Have to admit though she is a little better than me. Her sister is a big photographer in London and charges like $300 for a sitting fee. Needless to say we kinda hit it off and best of all I get to visit teach this person. So we've decided we are going to get together to talk about photography stuff once a month and call that visiting teaching...ok and I'll bring a message as well. So my goal of making a new friend this week I think is accomplished. Jared is trying to talk her husband into Friday night game night with the kids so me and his wife can go scrapbooking together. That would be really awesome but we'll see if it pans out.

Let it snow

Tonight it's coming down in big fat flakes as I sit here and all I have to say is let it snow! Christmas is almost here and I'm ready for my snow. I want to get up in the morning to enough snow to make a snow man with Ethan. He's been asking to do that every time we get a few flurries and I feel bad when I have to tell him that there just isn't enough snow. So tonight I hope we get all the snow they predict and tomorrow will be filled with snow men, snow balls and hot chocolate.

Twice upon a Christmas

So today has been just as insane as the rest of my week. Just to keep people up to date Ethan has a sinus infection and Dan has pink eye so we are just not happy campers right now. Thank goodness for drugs right now I don't know where I would be today with out eye drops, and . Anyhow tonight Ethan was going crazy since hes tired of being cooped up and beating on his brother. Danny was objecting strongly and as for me I wanted to pull my hair out. So I thought well I'll put on something for Ethan to watch and give Dan a bath. Well it sounded great at the time anyhow but turns out Danny wanted none of it. Once his hair was washed he wanted out in a bad way, so he climbed out with less than spectacular results. So I wrapped him in a towel and we tried to be in the same room as Ethan again but neither boy was having any of that. Then I tried putting Danny to bed (at this point he had been pretty much nonstop cranky/crying for about 2 hours) but he just objected even louder. So my solution? Mickeys twice upon a Christmas. I went downstairs and made popcorn. Then put in the DVD and got Ethan all situated. Then I grabbed a hysterical Danny from his crib and settled down on the sofa. Ethan holding our popcorn Danny leaning contently on my chest and a bowl of popcorn wedged in between the two of them. We turned off the lights and just cuddled on the sofa with our movie. After about 15 mins Danny was asleep and Ethan was burrowing in closer. I have to say I love moments like those. 

Christmas comes early

I must have been good this year because I got my first Christmas present today from my loving husband. What you might ask? A brand new IMac!!! It's really pretty. Silver with a supper thin keyboard. I love macs they are soo cool and now I have one all of my own. I'm looking forward to Jared being here so I can actually play on it. Right now all I can say is it looks very pretty and I can't wait to try out all my new programs.

In a small life update I took the boys to the Dr today and found out Ethan has a sinus infection so he's on med for the next 14 days. Should be fun since to get the first dose down him I had to sit on him and pry his mouth open...twice a day for 14 days this should be fun. He's going to love me after it's all over I'm sure. Danny has a minor eye infection that should clear up on it's own but if it's still there in two days I have a prescription for him as well. I'm glad I'm done with Dr visits this week...the boys teepeed the room with that roll of paper that they use on the examination table. Ethan's pediatrician think Jared owes me something expensive and shiny for all I went threw with them today. That made me laugh. It's nice to know that other people understand at least a little.

Dr Visit gone wrong

So this afternoon after several really bad coughing fits and a lecture from one of my sisters I decided to call my Dr's office. Luck would have it that they could see me today in less than an hour from when I called. So I packed up the kids and off we went. Danny ended up falling asleep right before I got there so I figured my hopes for a peaceful wait were pretty much out the window. I managed to get inside without waking him up but receptionist asked me a few questions and the sound of my voice talking woke him up. Now it probably wouldn't have been to bad if I had been called back when I was suppose to but we ended up spending almost an hour waiting in the waiting room. This is not a Dr office equipped to handle kids mind you...no toys just magazines and a very pretty Christmas tree with glass ornaments. Ethan was very taken with the Christmas tree and had to go look at it. Danny followed and tried to take ornaments off the tree. I retrieved my children and tried to distract them with the cars we had brought along. This did no work at all. I tired to read the a story we brought with us. This also did not work. Ethan discovered the older gentleman sitting with his wife in the corner and proceeded to ask me all kinds of questions about said man. The one that sticks in my memory is "Mom is that my grandpa?" To which I told him no but it was probably someones grandpa. Ethan then wanted to go see the older man who just smiled and laughed. Thank goodness for people who enjoy crazy kids. Danny then discovered the radio in the waiting room and all its wondrous buttons. I then tackled the task of removing Danny from said radio which involved a whole of screaming and crying. I'm pretty sure half the waiting room suddenly started to shift away from us at this point and I can't say I blame them. Next came the water cooler. Ethan got him self a drink which was fine but then Danny had to explore. Several drinks of water for both boys latter I was ready to hog tie them. Ethan seeing my temper rising decided this would be a great time to start playing with the tree again resulting in the rearrangement of several items while I delt with Danny. After getting Ethan under control again Danny decided to crawl under the chairs. Fishing one kid out from under the chairs the other decided to take advantage of my distraction to run around the whole room giggling hysterical. At this point I was pretty sure going to the Dr was a bad idea no matter how sick you are. Ethan then made a tunnel out of the chairs and had Danny chance him threw and around it. I merely tried to catch the two of them and looked totally ridiculous. Danny then decided to push chairs around the waiting room. After fixing the chairs I was on the verge of saying you know I just can't deal with this and I'm going home to my bed and my Pajamas and cartoons when they finally called me back. The nurse who called me back was great and had it not been for her I'm pretty sure I would not have made it threw the visit. She was very understanding of the fact I had two boys who did not want to be there and were bored out of there minds. So Ethan got to take my temperature, and blood pressure. Which shockly was elevated and my heart rate was up as well. She then had Ethan help her with a few other little things she had to do. Ethan got to go get stickers for being such a good helper and he was so proud of himself. After the nurse left and we had to wait in this little room for the Dr the insanity returned. Danny tried to get in the drawer with all the needle stuff in it. Ethan pulled the stirrups out of the table. Gold Fish crackers were spread over all the floor etc. When the Nurse practitioner came in (in hopes of getting me out of there sooner) she had a look of complete horror on her face. She tried to talk to me about other health issues while I was wresting with the kids until I said look can we make this as quick as we can we need to get out of here. Ends up I have bronchitis. I have never been so happy to leave a Dr office in my life. I never want to have to take my kids to the Dr with me again!!! I can't wait until Jared gets home from Japan.

Let's play ball

Tonight I was pleasantly entertained when the boys decided to play baseball in the house. I probably should have put a stop to it but it was just so dang cute that I couldn't. Ethan had found a small plastic baseball bat and a tiny ball that matched. They both went to other toys but kids will be inventive when they want to do something. Ethan taught Danny how to throw the ball to him. So Danny would pitch and Ethan would hit the ball, then they would both chase it. Then they started switching batters so Ethan would pitch for Danny etc. This went on for about 45 mins. It made me glad I have boys. Not sure if this whole playing baseball inside thing though will work in another few years. I see lots of broken windows in my future.

O Christmas Tree

Yesterday I finally decided there was never going to be a great time to put up our Christmas tree, I just had to pick a time and do it. So the middle of the day with both boys running crazy I drag our 7 ft tree (it might be 8 ft not sure) out of the basement. With Ethan asking five million questions and Danny trying to climb my leg I somehow managed to get the thing together. I have to admit though I was rather sweaty and more than a little irritated at this point. I trecked back downstairs and managed to find one of the boxes labeled Christmas in the jumbled heap we call a basement and hulled it up stairs. Much to my surprise it contained a few ornaments and lots of lights. On the tree went the lights. Danny thought this was the coolest thing and tried to pull them off again. Bright shiny things that blink who wouldn't want to play with them? Ethan on the other hand couldn't wait for me to stop playing with the lights so he could hang something. Thoughts of duck tape started running threw my head but I somehow managed to suppress them. Ethan started hanging ornaments and Danny started taking off ornaments which lead to a lecture from Ethan about how we are suppose to treat ornaments. This part was rather amusing. I discovered the ornaments that I really wanted to put on the tree...the ones I had made when Ethan was Danny's age, weren't there so I went down stairs to find them. At this point our tree has been but together for all of five mins keep that in mind. By the time I return for the bowls of our basement box in hand total chaos had descended. Danny had knocked over the Christmas tree and broken an ornament (separate events). Ethan started screaming that Danny has broken his Christmas tree. I want to go hide in the basement. Deciding I just couldn't take this I carried one crying child in each arm upstairs and we had some chill out time. After tempers has settled a little we returned downstairs and fixed all the damage. Our Christmas tree doesn't seem any worse from the whole ordeal thank goodness. We now have nothing but kid friendly ornaments on the tree and the boys love it. Ethan has proclaimed our tree beautiful and that's all the matters tonight. Hopefully it will be the only time this Christmas season our tree falls over but I'm not holding my breath on that one.

Oh Christmas Tree How Lovely Are Thy Branches...

Good Friends

Jared is back from DC and I have two sleeping boys AND it's only 8:30. I think I'm in heaven. :)

Right now I am grateful for great friends. There are some friends you don't see every day. People you may go a month or more between conversations with but when you do find the time to talk it's like that gap was never there. There are very few people I can put in this category of friends so I'm grateful for those I have. Other friends come and go but these few will always be there I know. I think you know who you are so thank you.

Tonight a friend called and we got five whole mins to talk just the two of us about life and it was so great. You think five mins isn't much but with her kids and my kids trust me it is. She the one person who I can truly swap insane kid stories with because her kids do a lot of the same type of things. In the end we both just end up laughing and enjoying each other. Pam your the best.

Crazy funny facts:

Jared took my keys and his to DC with him this week....perhaps a small part of why I'm so happy he's home.

Ethan is scared of his own snow pants and will cry when he has to put them on

Daniel is learning more and more words after telling him I would pick him up in a min he shook his head no and said quite clearly NOW

Kitchen Amusement

So as of late my boys have been rather obsessed with our kitchen. I'm really not sure why but they always seem to be playing in the pantry these days and finding new and interesting things to do. So here are a few things my sons have done in my kitchen over the last few weeks:

Daniel discovered onions. At first he was rather puzzled by them. He tried rolling them across the kitchen but they don't roll as well as balls. So they can't be for rolling. He then tried to bounce the onion but that didn't turn out that well either. Peeling off the outer layers turned out to be somewhat amusing. He must have decided that since nothing else seem to be working it must be for eating so he chomped right in. He turned to me with the saddest face in complete shock before breaking down in heart wrenching sobs. I don't think he'll be biting into any more onions anytime soon.

Ethan discovered paper towel rolls. At first he decided to see how tall he could stack them but every time he got up to 5 they would fall over. Which was rather amusing so he would laugh like a loon. Then he discovered an even better game, human bowling. He lined all the paper towels up in a row and used himself as a human bowling ball and knocked them all over.

We've also learned that potatoes are not just for eating. The boys discovered the potatoes the other night and after taking every last one out of the 10 pound bag they were in they loaded them in there little dump trucks and hauled them all over our house. I'm still trying to find them all.

The boys also decided to make me breakfast the other morning. It was really a sweet thought and I love them for that. They beat me downstairs the other morning so they decided they would just make breakfast. They pulled out my biggest pan, two huge spoons and a box of cereal. By the time I made it down stairs they had emptied the box of cereal into the pan and where about to add the milk. I am very grateful I made it downstairs before that happened.

So there are just a few of our kitchen amusements.

Goals

So I've decided to that there is no point in waiting around for the new year to set a few goal. I also figure if I have them in writing I won't forget about them (or pretend to) and maybe it will give me motivation to actually get them done so here are my life goals right now:

1.) Try to help someone every day...this actually has been a goal sense stake conference and it's worked out pretty well so far.

2.) Read my scriptures every day...ok I'm a looser on this one so I have lots of room for improvement

3.) Loose 30 pounds...ok so that's my big one but I've decided for each 10 pounds I loose I get something special but I haven't figured out exactly what that will be yet so if anyone has suggestions send them my way. I am considering a night away at a spa if I make it to 30 though.

4.) Get to bed by 11...ok this is actually on Dr orders and I've been bad about it again so I'm going to try to get back in the habit.

5.) Eat better...ugh I'm suppose to be on a low sodium low fat diet also Dr orders but the last few months it has flown out the window.

6.) Get one date with my husband a month.

7.) Get to the temple before the end of the year. I haven't been well in almost a year ugh I need to make this a bigger priority!

8.) Remember to enjoy my children they won't be young forever

9.) Make one new friend every week

10.) post on my blog every day. I've noticed when I take the time to record something about my day I feel better about life in general which is always a good thing.

I think 10 is a good number so we'll start there and if I manage to get threw those I'll have a whole new list come the new year.

Tooth Drama

So a few weeks ago Danny hit me in the mouth with a 5 pound dumbbell. I was talking and turned around and he handed it to me, right in the face. Teach me to pay better attention to my own child. At the time I didn't think it did any damage but it sure hurt a lot. Then about a week and a half ago he nailed me good with a headbutt in the mouth. The result well a whole lot of pain but again I thought it was fine. However the next night I went to bite into a roll and got a shooting pain all the way up my tooth. All I could think is this is not good. Well to make a long story short the next day I went to the dentist. A few X-rays latter it was confirmed that indeed Danny had managed to chip not one of my teeth as I had thought but three of them. Right now there is a little bit of a question about me being able to keep one of the teeth (my front tooth!) but for now things are looking good. With this type of trauma it can take up to a month to know the whole extent of the damage they say so it's a wait and watch thing. So now I have a grand total of 4 chipped teeth in my life. Sucky! I think I need to invest in a face mask.