Madison's hospital visit

Madison got sick on the 24th and continued to get worse all week. Friday I took her to the doctor because she just didn't seem right. She was borderline dehydrated, she was crying but barely getting any tears, she wasn't peeing much at all and overall she was miserable. So, off to the hospital we went to get her re-hydrated. She didn't perk up as quickly as we would have liked, although the doctor called to say that we could leave whenever we felt that she was good, so we ended up staying the night and not leaving until Saturday afternoon. She still doesn't feel good and she's still sick, but she is no longer dehydrated and we're hoping she stays that way. I'm so thankful that we live in a society where dehydration is fixable and not something that would have been a death sentence. It's amazing how much science has progessed in recent history.

This is her I get to leave so I'll be happy for ten minutes picture.

Madison wasn't so sure about all the noise and sharing her new bed, but Alexis and Drew loved seeing her.

Geography lesson taught by Drew

Here's little Drew man doing the states puzzle that he got from his cousins for Christmas. It's a little long, but it's amazing that he can name them and knows where they go for the most part. We're discovering that his little mind is a steel trap, put information in and it sticks. He can also identify all the letters of the alphabet!! We had one of Alexis, but the camera ran out of batteries in the middle of it and Drew kept throwing states at her and telling her what they were. It was cute.



It never fails, if I open my mouth and say something the opposite is bound to happen. I've learned to be more cautious with my statements but I didn't think that I would have to be this careful. Madison has been sick since Saturday night, we won't get into details, suffice it to say we've done a lot of laundry. Today I was talking to my mother-in-law and I told her that Madison was starting to feel better. I thought she was, she had broke her temperature and she seemed a little happier. Not three minutes later she lost all of the contents in her stomach on me and the floor, while I was on the phone. Poor little girl, it's her first true sickness and she is miserable, which means that not much is getting done other than holding, changing and washing. I love to hold her I just wish she wasn't sick.

Alexis was telling John that she was scared of the witch. No clue which witch or why she's scared but she is. When she wakes up and is scared I would say a little prayer with her, John was unaware of this. When she told John he reminded her how in Home Alone the boy is scared of the furnace but he tells it to shut up and then he's okay. So, she was really excited to tell me that she could tell the witch to shut up. She was so excited about this that for the next ten minutes all we heard was "shut up, shut up, shut up". I must say that she was telling us in what context she could say it, but she was excited to be able to use a naughty word.

I'm a big kid now

Drew just loves to be doing everything Alexis is doing, even if it is painting fingernails or wearing pink clothes. Alexis' friend Sara gave her some cute hand-me-downs (who doesn't love free clothes) and Drew fell in love with this particular outfit. He stripped down and put it on two days in a row. If you look closely you'll notice he's wearing Alexis' pink princess shoes as well. Alexis loved this dress and wore it for two days as well. Less you think that I'm a bad mom, I dressed both of them and they both at different times disappeared and came back redressed. Who am I to argue?
I told Alexis to brush her hair so we could leave, she decided to do her hair as well. She wasn't so excited about my redoing her hair before we left.
Alexis has a little friend who gets dropped off at our house to play while her sister is playing next door, they have a lot of fun and really like to play together. The other day her friend, McKaylynn, came over and instead of staying here she wanted Alexis to go play at her house (they live about a block and a half away, but you have to cross two streets to get there). Alexis had never been there to play before but I didn't think anything of it. I was finishing dinner up when I realized I needed to pick her up, so I called to tell them that Stephanie would be coming to pick her up in a few minutes. About five minutes later the door bell starts ringing over and over again. I figured Steph was being a brat so I ran to answer it and found Alexis and her friend standing there. I looked around outside and there was no adult. Yes, you guessed it, they walked home alone! She figured if it was time to go, she'd better get home. McKaylynn was so cute, she said: "Bye, I have to go home!" Don't worry I didn't let her walk back home alone. When I called her mom, she was shocked that they had left! It makes me feel better knowing that I'm not the only mom who occasionally loses her three year old. Alexis also assured me that they looked both ways before crossing the streets, too bad that didn't comfort me a whole lot.

Here's a funny picture of John at the Outdoor Show in SLC. His company had a booth and they were setting up a bear, John was having fun playing inside of it.

Baby Tristan

Carrie had her baby, little Tristan, and both are healthy and doing just fine! He is adorable. I love holding babies, especially ones that I didn't push out!! I would love to be on this side of the bed and be able to take the baby home! Oh the wishes we have.

A few quick funny stories. First, Drew was biting me, not maliciously he was doing it oh so slowly just testing his boundaries. He's done this numerous times over the last few days. When it started hurting I flicked him on the forehead. He immediately stopped biting me, grabbed his forehead and said "ow don't hurt myself, ow." I tried explaining that biting hurts people and he shouldn't bite people, but he wasn't listening, he looked at me, and said "don't hit me. That hurt myself." It was sad and funny because he couldn't get his pronouns right, but you aren't supposed to laugh when disciplining right?

Second, Alexis absorbs things a little too well. I tell her things like: "you have to get your hair done or people will think you look like a rag-a-muffin." There's nothing wrong with saying such things and it helps to get her to do what is socially acceptable, although not always. Anyway, today John came out of the bathroom and she says: "Your hair looks silly, will your friends at work make fun of you?" Then I took them to John's work while I went to class and I packed a lunch for them. When we got there, she and Drew wanted some baby food, so I opened some up for them and let them have at it. Alexis started whispering to us and we couldn't hear her so she whispered a little louder: "Don't let daddy's friends see me eating baby food." I thought only thirteen year olds were so worried about appearances, but I obviously helped that process jump forward a little.

Madison is starting to get into the crawling position. I'm somewhat apprehensive about her starting to crawl because it means more work for me. More vacuuming, picking up the little tiny toys, baby gates and locking cupboards. I guess everyone has to grow up sometime, although it happens too fast with little ones. She's already seven months!

I am still getting used to my hair, but it has some big advantages: I can go to bed with it wet, I don't have to spend forever drying and curling for it to be done, the kids can't pull it or get stuff in it and I don't have a big pony in the back that hits the couch every time I lean back. One fun thing I've found with this hair cut is people's reactions, and they run the gamut. Today in school I was walking down the hall and I heard someone say in a rather loud voice: "WHAT DID YOU DO?" I of course turned to see what the heck was going on, and it was directed at me! A guy from bio lab last semester was walking in the opposite direction and noticed the new do. I was surprised he recognized me, a lot of people don't. John asked if he liked it, I don't think that he did based on the response, he repeated the same phrase at least three times but they got quieter each time. I know I shocked Carrie when we went to see the baby (she said she liked it) and poor Rob wasn't sure what expression to wear. A guy at church made a very loud noise for lack of better wording and then followed it up with: "Did he know you were doing that?" I don't think he liked it either. I have gotten a number of compliments though, they just aren't as entertaining as the comments from those who aren't impressed with it.

While planning our California vacation, we couldn't decide if we wanted to drive down to San Diego to do Sea World or not. At first I was all for it and John didn't want to and then we flipped sides of the fence. Finally, I confessed that I didn't want to go to San Diego because they might have an earthquake and it would fall into the ocean, completely ludicrous I know. I knew it was irrational and if he really wanted to go I was willing to, but I just didn't feel good about it. We obviously decided against it. But, I was partially correct. On our way to California, they had a medium sized earthquake right where we were supposed to be driving through. So, I had the earthquake right, just not to the right magnitude. (Side note: Costa Rica (john's mission) got hit with a hard one while we were on vacation.) Then on the way home I kept getting antsy and I told John that even though it was ridiculous, I felt like a deer was going to jump in front of us. Guess what. . . about ten minutes later on the side of the road we saw a family of deer just standing there. No, they didn't jump in front of us thankfully. So, why am I posting these you ask . . . because when I have one of those little nagging feelings I want to be able to come back to this and show John that he should listen to me more often. In other words, I want to win a discussion and this is my little tool at some point, even when he thinks I sound crazy.

John speaking here. Any man knows that he never ever actually "wins" a discussion with his wife or significant other. And in the event that he does "win" the discussion, he really in essence still loses if he is sleeping on the couch. I am getting wiser in my old age.

Side note: If John is sleeping on the couch, it is usually by choice. No, it's not because we fight. He usually asks to sleep on the couch when Madison or Drew are having a really bad night, ie sickness, and he has to get up and go to work. Honestly, who goes to work and actually works now days?

Me again... It's sad. you know you're not a newly-wed anymore when getting to sleep downstairs on the couch is a great reward!

Family vacation

This post is forever long and it took me an hour to put together. Please be forgiving if there are grammatical errors or my thoughts don't flow smoothly, it is 12:44 am and I am oh so very tired. But, it is done and now I can worry about other things, like sleep!

John went to the electronics convention in Las Vegas for work on Thursday, and I took the kids and walked around the Venetian to kill time until lunch. Alexis was so enthralled with the gondolas and that people were in them, she HAD to ride in one. I thought I might be able to put it off by distracting her, but it was not to be. So, after we did lunch we all trucked down to the gondola offices and bought two tickets. I took Alexis, Drew and Porter Mills (John and Jessica's little guy) on a ride. You can see the video at the end of this blog. They loved it and people were taking pictures right and left, Alexis was ready for it as she was waving to the people who were saying hi and posing for her pictures.

John had to go back to the convention after lunch, so Jessica and I took the kids to see the tigers at the Mirage. It would have been a great thing had I planned a little bit better. First, I forgot that Madison needed fed, how do you forget to feed your kid? Anyway, I thought I was brilliant because I found a tram that looked like it went around some gardens or something so we hopped on and I started to feed. Well, the tram went across the road and over to Treasure Island and back, thats it. So, I fed Madison while in public over a busy street with people streaming in and out of the tram. Ha, at least she didn't pull the blanket off, which I had to borrow from Jessica because I didn't pack one. I know, I wasn't on it like white on rice. Then, when we got to the habitat, it was freezing so I had to go buy two hideous towels to keep the kids warm. Oh it was fun trucking four children ages 3 and under through a couple casinos and across a few streets, but it could've been so much worse. It really was fun and we were able to see a baby dolphin and a baby leopard. We also saw a lion spraying his territory, Alexis thinks he was spraying water, we won't tell her the truth until she's much older. John met us as we were heading back towards the Venetian and he posed for this picture for us!

I love the Blue Man Group, so we had to get this picture.Day two we went to Disneyland! This is us waiting for the Nemo submarine. I was not impressed with it at all. The kids didn't seem to love it either.John and Drew getting ready to go on the Matterhorn ride. Both kids rode, they both liked it but didn't want to go on it again. Their favorite ride as far as we can tell was Pirates of the Caribbean.
What a cute picture huh? This was the teacups which weren't anything special, but I loved the picture.We did lunch at Ariels Grotto, it is super expensive, but watching the kids get so excited to see the princesses come to their table was priceless. Alexis really wanted to see Belle, but Belle was not there that day, so we had to go find her elsewere.
This look is worth whatever the cost, in my opinion!
Don't they look so happy to be in Disneyland?
(For those who didn't know, I chopped my hair off, really chopped it. It is now as short as or shorter than John's hair. It is nice to not have it getting pulled and nasties getting put in it but I doubt I'll keep it, I like long hair.)
John rewarded Alexis for being good in the grocery store one day and she saved the fact that if she's good she gets a reward for just the right time. As we were leaving Disneyland she asked us if she had been good, we told her she had. She promptly replied: "Then I get a toy huh?" We had planned on getting souvenirs anyway, so why not? She got princess figurines, she calls them Polly's (courtesy of Mary next door who owns Polly pockets) and Drew got Pluto who he had to sleep with. Day two Alexis pulled the same little bit and refused to go to sleep until she had her baby Minnie Mouse doll (she didn't whine, she just wasn't going to sleep until we got to the hotel she said because she wanted to make sure she got her toy) with the blanket that doesn't come off! Yes, we bought it and Drew got Disney character Polly's, yes he calls them Polly's. (She stayed up until midnight Utah time to get stuffed animal! We were amazed and we're suckers we know.)The beginning of day two in Disneyland.

Alexis and Drew thought it was so funny that Cruella thought that they were dogs and that they might get spots. Alexis let her know that they were kids and not dogs, so they are safe for now!
Daddy and Drew on the Dumbo ride. Alexis was a mad woman with her Dumbo driving skills, she was up and down as quick as could be, I thought I was going to get air sick.
John took Alexis and Drew on the canoe ride and they really liked it. They sat on a bench seat in front of John and they each had their own oar. Drew promptly dropped his in the water, John was able to fish it out, and he didn't drop it again. From what John says they are pretty good at it!
While waiting in line to see Belle, Alexis' favorite princess (at least during this trip), the kids were getting so bored, which translates to whiny and rambunctious. To occupy them I told them that if they pushed on the rocks a magic door might open! It worked for about five minutes!
If you look closely at Cinderellas lap you'll notice a leaf. Now princesses as a general rule do not play with leaves, but when Prince Drew picks one especially for you, you are required to put it on your lovely dress no matter how dirty it is! While in line Drew found leaves and developed a fascination with them for the rest of the trip. While Alexis was talking to Cinderella, he went and found a leaf and gave it to her. It made everyone laugh! He kissed her hand goodbye as well.
Alexis was finally able to meet Belle. Can you tell she was so excited?




Day three we had to leave the hotel so while I packed John took the kids to the pool. They loved it and if it were warmer in Utah and not such a hazard, we'd get one!After we left the hotel, we drove down to the Newport beach and took a whale watching tour. We saw a whale, which was heading the wrong direction and would only come out of the water a tiny bit, not enough for a picture or for the kids to see. Oh well, they had fun and it was nice to have them contained for a little while.
She's not camera shy at all.
The last day of vacation we went to the aquarium at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. It was worth paying for and we all enjoyed it. John and I really loved how intricate all the details were. A lot places try to do a theme and only get partially there, but when Vegas does it, it's amazing! I loved seeing the jelly fish, which is what we are in front of in this picture. It's amazing to watch them move and see every part of them.

The kids loved all the sea life, but they especially loved the sharks. And, the sharks couldn't eat them that was a fabulous bonus!

I even got the nerve up to touch a Manna Ray, Alexis wasn't as daring and the boys had already done it before so it wasn't anything new to them.

The first video is of the water park they had at the hotel. This big bucket fills up with 155 gallons of water and then dumps it every few minutes, it was pretty cool. The next video is of Drew dancing along with the people in the food court who were putting on a little dance. It makes him look really silly, but it is so funny. The last one is of us on our Gondola ride.

Two-fer

First - Alexis had the letter "m" show and tell yesterday and we were talking about how Minnie Mouse starts with m and the sound it makes. When we had finished our discussion, Drew, who happened to be in the bathroom, pipes up and says Pluto mom. I responded with the usual yes, you got Pluto and Alexis got Minnie huh? And he says: "Pluto starts with "P" p p p p Pluto "P" huh mom." I was amazed that he got that all on his own and that all of our alphabet working is paying off!!

Second - Yesterday Alexis was being a brat, yes I just called my kid a brat. She didn't want to eat any of her dinner she wanted to go play with Mary next door. I told her that if she didn't sit down and eat her food I might have to ground her. I then explained that grounding meant she wouldn't be able to play with her friends for a few days. I figured that she would get the point and that it was fairly clear what I meant. I was so very, very wrong. She turned around and in her I'm in charge voice said: "They are my friends mom, not yours." I busted up laughing. Oh, I can't wait until she is really thirteen I can only imagine the fun we'll be having!

Too Chicken for the Chicken

These are the types of pictures we get when Alexis gets a hold of the camera. Isn't she such a great photographer?

Mary from next door came over and helped the children put makeup on. Alexis didn't want to open her eyes for the picture because you wouldn't be able to see her beautiful blue eyes. Drew on the other hand didn't think there was enough blue on him and when they weren't looking he pasted it on.

This is one of the gifts Madison received from Gma & Gpa Hakes. As you can see, she absolutely loves looking at herself. She is holding a ball while doing this, so maybe there is some hope that she won't be a complete priss.

Gpa Hakes had tickets to see the D-league Flash but didn't feel well so we were able to go. The kids loved it and Alexis threw a fit when we tried to leave. They had a place to make signs so you could cheer on the team, our kids just had fun coloring! One of the Flash dancers asked Alexis if she wanted to go out on the floor and do the Chicken dance. She went, but that was the extent of what was going to happen in front of other people. When he starts to turn and look up in the air, she's following the blimp that is dropping coupons. She really was upset that she didn't any either time it went through the crowds. Not a great video, but what do you expect we were laughing too hard.