Happy Birthday to You!

We woke up this morning with a fever and tears. She even covered her ears as I sang to her and did not want to be woken up. Who could blame her, it was 8:00am and she didn't feel good. She started with a 104 temperature yesterday. I thought it could be an ear infection because she wouldn't let me look in her ears. I had been really sick with a throat infection on Sunday and Monday. We had her two year old well check scheduled for this morning so I knew she could get checked out. We went up to the office while it snowed like crazy outside! Beautiful flurries came down for half the day but didn't stick. Turns out Hannah has a bad throat infection too, she has a high white blood count which means it is a bacterial infection and treatable with an antibiotic. Good thing, because Mommy is on an antibiotic too! She did great with her CBC but we opted out of getting an antibiotic shot because she was acting better and who wants a yucky shot on their birthday! We did gets lots of Sesame Street stickers!

While we waited on the pharmacy to fill her medication we went to the doughnut shop for a birthday breakfast! Hannah picked out her own doughnut, a pink sprinkle doughnut, 2 doughnut holes, and chocolate milk! She ended up only eating the doughnut holes and licking the sprinkles and icing off the other.

After a couple other errands we ran by Daddy's office where she got balloons! She loves the balloons and has carried them all over the house!

My friend and co-worker Irma made Hannie this totally precious Elmo cake! We picked it up from the office this morning and she talked about it all day!

We sang Happy Birthday and she blew out her candles!

Not only was the cake adorable, it was delicious too!!!

After a bath (to clean off the red icing!) we opened presents! In addition to a pink retro kitchen from Mimi and Pops, she got a lot of kitchen accessories!

Great Bubbe gave her this bumble bee!

Mommy and Daddy gave her this pink 4-wheeler!

We also took brother for a ride in the wagon.

Then Hannah took him for a ride!

Hannah Grace - 2 years old!

Wow!!! I cannot believe my little girl is 2! 2 years have gone by 2 fast! It seems like yesterday the love of my life was born. At the time, I didn't think I had or ever could love anything more than this precious little gift from God... I was wrong, I love her even more today! She is such a wonderful, well behaved, calm daughter that brings so much light to my life. She talks to us, uses 2-3 words, asks for things, can name almost anything, calls me Mommy and her Dad, DaDa. She loves to ask about Hudson, Mimi, Pops, Granddad, Susie, Jason, Bubbe, Parker, Ellie, Lillian, Betty, Phoebe, Daisy, and Abby. She giggles a lot! She can recognize and name the colors red, pink, white, black, brown, blue, red, yellow, green, and purple. She LOVES Elmo and can name all the characters on Sesame Street. She says her prayers, gives lots of kisses, loves to color, and is interested in everything we have or do. She still loves "doggy" and doggy goes everywhere with her. She loves to suck her thumb. She is learning her alphabet and recognizes a couple of letters. She can name any animal and the sound it makes. She loves shoes and babies and pushing around her baby stroller. She is very inquisitive and drinks a lot of milk! She is 90th percentile for height and weighs 29lbs (50th percentile). She can do a forward roll and loves talking on the phone. She can work and iPhone better than her Daddy! She can count to 10, knows all of her body parts and even some in Spanish. Hannah, we LOVE YOU!!! We love watching you grow up and cannot wait to see how much you grow and change over this next year!

Christmas visitors

Michael, Aunt Susie, and Uncle Jason came to visit!!!

Hannah adores Aunt Susie but was a little shy with Uncle Jason. We love you guys and really appreciate the time you spent with us! We also really enjoyed or special visit from Michael J!

What a difference a year makes! Hannah you were such a baby last year! Now you are so much a toddler!

Merry Christmas to All!

Traditions... We all have them. In my family, we used to go to Christmas Eve dinner at Wall Street, go look at lights, and then wake up to Santa, presents, and my mom would fix a breakfast brunch. Stuart's family has always gone to church, either gone out to dinner or eaten something quick, opened all gifts on Christmas Eve, and then had Santa and a fancy traditional Christmas meal on Christmas Day. Since we have been married, we have done a little of both... Church on Christmas Eve and presents with Yeager family, then Santa and presents with my family on Christmas day, breakfast with my family, traditional lunch with his, and a nice Christmas Day dinner with my family again that night. Since Mom has been gone, we won't continue those traditions with my family and since having kids, things have changed too. We want to have Santa at our house and maybe now it is my turn as "the Mom" to start cooking dinners and starting our own new traditions. As our kids grow up we will make some new traditions and continue and modify old ones.

This year, I cooked a nice traditional Christmas Eve dinner. We did not attend the candlelight service at church because the kids are so young and it was really really cold out and I didn't want to get Hudson out in the cold. I cooked an assortment of appetizers, a ham, twice baked potatoes, candied sweet potatoes, squash casserole, corn casserole, rolls, salad, and a pumpkin pie. Mimi brought over deviled eggs, some additional appetizers, green beans and cheese, and a pecan pie. We had a ton of food but it was very very good. We ate at my dining room table for the first time and ate with my china, Christmas china, nice silverware, and Christmas place mats my mom gave me after we got married. It was really nice to finally have the opportunity to use all of our nice wedding gifts! After dinner, we opened all of our gifts while listening to Christmas Carols. Mimi and Pops went home and this morning we slept until 11:30 (not sure how much longer my kids will let us do this) and woke up to Santa. I cooked a pot of chili and cornbread muffins and we have laid around all day playing with new toys.

My snowflake Christmas China

Dinner table

Hannah's place setting

Mimi and Hannah

Pops and Hudson

Hannah loves her Doctor Bag

Hannah enjoyed opening presents but got worn out and overwhelmed. Every time we would open a present she would want us to "open it" as it take it out of the box, all the dang twisty ties off, etc., then she would want to play with it and not continue opening gifts. We finally made it through all of the gifts.

Hannie loves her new tricycle and is learning to ride it!

The kids will also love their new wagon!

Brother got into the spirit! While Hannah opened all of his gifts for him.

Then this morning, Santa came! Santa was busy last night un-twisty tying and opening almost everything due to the learning experience of last night. Still she was so overwhelmed by the volume of gifts that she didn't even want to look at everything. She just wanted to play with Elmo.

She showed Hudson some of his new toys

She helped us clean up with her new vacuum cleaner. Once she had moved on to playing with it there was no going back to unwrapping. We still have several wrapped gifts waiting for to open from Santa but she has been too busy playing with her new things to want to see what is in there. She still has to open her gifts from my family later this weekend and a birthday on Tuesday...

We wish you a Merry Christmas, we wish you a Merry Christmas, we wish you a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!

And Hudson too...

AND FINALLY, On the FIRST day of Christmas...

Hannah and Hudson wore matching Christmas jammies for Santa!!!

On the second day of Christmas...

Hannah wore Christmas Night - Nights

On the 3rd day of Christmas...

On the 4th day of Christmas...

Do you hear what I hear?

Our Christmas Tree

With it's gate... Although it has a gate (and now has presents) Hannah will bring me an ornament or pick and say "uh oh"! She loves turning on the tree!

Do you hear what I hear? Hannah likes to listen for airplanes! When she hears an airplane or what sometimes is a loud car, she cups her hand to her ear and says "airplane!"

Hannah's Christmas party at school. She had to miss school Tuesday but was well enough and non-contagious to attend her party Thursday. They decorated cookies but Hannah just licked the icing off of hers. The other kids just stuck their spoons into the decorations and ate those.

My Sweet sweet friend Wynne brought us some Christmas cheer! She brought these precious cupcakes! How thoughtful are the Elders! And we loved the cupcakes! Hannah ate 3 the first night. (What kind of mother lets their child eat 2 chocolate cupcakes and one strawberry cupcake after she had eaten her dinner???)

Miss Priss 2009

My baby turns 2 next week!

Sick, Sick, Sick

What a yucky week! I haven't posted because I have been busy taking care of sick kids and then myself. My last post last Sunday I posted about Hannie having a fever. I woke her up Monday morning before I went to work to check on her. She was still febrile despite Tylenol and Motrin every 3 hours. I couldn't get it down below 101. Her cough sounded terrible and was down in her chest. I brought her with me to work and so she could be seen in the walk in clinic. I may have mentioned before that I do not rush my kids to the doctor and usually by the time that I do, they are pretty sick. Sure enough, she was wheezing (which she has never done before) and had an ear infection. Yep, RSV! I have worked extra hard and been overly cautious to protect her from RSV for the past two years! After working in pediatrics for 5 years I know about RSV and I have been determined to keep my kids from getting it. I know that it can predispose them to Asthma later on the down the road and Stuart had asthma as a child. I know that as a newborn born during winter she could have ended up in the hospital. I know the cough and snot that goes along with RSV. I know that RSV is a just virus, just a cold in adults, but not good for babies. Hannah being (2 weeks short of turning 2), it isn't that big of deal. Its really not so much RSV in her but more of a cold. She will fight it off... I now have to worry about HUDSON! Great! Hannah has been on antibiotics, steroids, and breathing treatments. She never acted too sick but has had a hard time getting over this. Of course, she coughs all over her favorite little brother. So Wednesday I brought him in. I wanted someone else to look at him. I thought his lungs were clear, he wasn't coughing much, and was breathing just a little bit fast. Hudson having RSV is bad for multiple reasons. RSV is really a lot of mucus that gets into the lungs and causes mucus plugs and difficulty breathing because their lungs are so small. Due to Hudson's (possible) prolonged QT syndrome, he cannot take certain medications, primarily medications he would need if he had RSV (breathing treatments and possible a macrolide antibiotic that would cover a pneumonia). So, I took him in Wednesday just so that someone else could see him. Like I said earlier, I tend to be very laid back because I see so much that I don't want my kids health to fall between the cracks and them end up so sick before they get treated. Thankfully, the second set of eyes agreed that he looked really good but tested him for RSV just to be sure. He is POSITIVE. But thankfully he has done so well. I thank God because I have seen hundreds of cases of RSV in the past 6 years and Hudson is very atypical. He has had some boogers which have actually seemed worse this weekend but his lungs have remained clear!!! No fever, no ear infection - yet (knocking on wood here), and has been his general happy little self! Thank you God for not needing breathing treatments, not needing hospitalization for oxygen, for not needing an antibiotic! Thank You.

So, while the kids were getting better, Thursday night I started to feel kind of bad. I went to bed and woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't swallow. My right side of throat felt like there was a golf ball size razor in it! Ouch! My lymph node on the right side of my neck stuck out the size of a ping pong ball. I was miserable. I had a tonsil abscess! I felt so bad, I couldn't take care of my children! I spent two full days in bed without eating or drinking! Two Rocephin shots in two days I finally started feeling better and today I am feeling much better. My lymph node is still enlarged and painful but my tonsil is much smaller, less inflamed, and free of pus. It is terrible being a Mommy and being sick. I don't remember the last time I was sick... Definitely before having kids and definitely when I still had my mom around to take care of me.