Sick. Again.

Now it's camry's turn....again....to be sick. This time is with a fever. She's been acting a little off over the weekend and I thought, hmmmm, she must be feeling yucky. But then she'd act fine and then yucky, and then fine and so I took her temperature last night and it was 103*! And this morning after the tylenol had worn off it was still 102*. YUCK!! Then Claira walked down the hall and said, "Mom, my ear hurts," and was rubbing her left ear. What the heck!?!?!?! At least I can say that I have been blessed not to pick up any of these bugs yet, especially with my enbrel, but I know we aren't out of the woods yet. So, yes, we are sick again. Sick round number two. The whole fam is getting together this weekend for Heidi's baptism so we need to be healthy in just a few days!

This is what Gentry is over.

Her highchair. Like really over it. Can you tell??

I apologize in advance for her hair. After two naps, her cute little ponytail is completely ripped out and she looks a little crazy. :)

But seriously, this is what has happened the past two days when I've tried to put here in there. She just won't have it and she kicks and screams and now she gets to sit like this because I haven't found our booster seats yet.

It's really safe. And really clean.

She refused to let me feed her so I just let her go at it. And we reaped all the consequences of my actions. Thankfully, Than did the dishes tonight! He's the best!

Today was Famous Person day at the school. And I'm lame and forgot to take pictures of the kids before they left. Oh, I remember why I 'forgot'...it's because Penny puked all over the place last night! AHHHH, everyone's puking.

Here is miss Taylor Swift. Claira calls her Taylor fwift and we love it. We've done the curly hair trick where you wrap it overnight. We love that. http://familyvolley.blogspot.com/2011/10/trust-me-this-is-great.html

Here is Mr. Kobe Bryant. Pacen said it himself when he said, "I'd look a lot better if I had brown skin." You still look like a baller to me! I sure love that kid.

This is what a Hancock morning looks like.

Yes that is Claira's foot on Camry's face.

One by one they start pouring in our bed. Claira is a usual from midnight on these days. Gentry usually comes in at about 6 am....screaming for someone to come and snuggle with her. Than is almost always up or getting ready to get up and he often gets her for me. We snuggle and she falls back asleep sometimes or sometimes she just wants to make cute faces or play on than's ipad. Camry isn't in our bed nearly as often as she used to be but when she does come in the morning, it's always a crying conversation about who gets to lay next to mom. The problem is that I only have two sides and one lap if Gentry is being nice. Pacen will get into the mix, too, and we basically need an even bigger bed than the king we already have.

But hey, look who Camry is sleeping with....she loves that lady. :)

Sick kids...I"m over it!

I really am over the whole sick kids thing. And I really thought that we were literally (say it like chris traeger from parks and rec) over being sick and then Pacen came home from school on Monday and was like, "Mom, I think I need to sit down and watch a show because my stomach hurts again." I was like, "Don't think that you're fooling me boy! You are not sick...you are just learning how to work the system and I'm not falling for it!" and I sent him upstairs to do his homework and get on with our day. Well, about an hour later he was in the bathroom throwing up. And then he had a snack and threw up again. AAAGGHHHHH!!!! And then he fell asleep early and slept it off.

What is up with intermittent throwing up?!?! He was fine all weekend and we watched in horror as the San Francisco 49'ers gave up that playoff game.....I'm not even a niner fan and I was sick to my stomach over that one....we had a great saturday...we went to the mall as a family to do some necessary shopping for Than, we played at the house, I had my tennis class. Sunday was good. Did church, we got to see Emily and Roman and played with them all afternoon and then come monday he was sick again. I don't know what to make of it. He had to stay home from school today and he took it easy but was fine.

Does this look like a picture of a sick kid? :) I got him a new shirt from Old Navy (I had to reach 50 dollars so I could get free shipping and use my coupon code...hello!) and it has basketballs on it and he says to me, "Do you think that I can go outside and play basketball in my new shirt so I can see what it looks like when I play?" Sure dude. Whatever you need.

Luckily the weather was nice enough today that we could go outside and play.

Gentry is obsessed with the tramp. This is her jumping. Waving her arms up and down and walking all over. She is getting some pretty good balance out of it. :)

Camry also thinks that Gentry is a doll that you can toss around, and she's kind of right. Gentry loves all of the attention...most of the time.

Isn't Camry pretty???

I had to take a picture of Camry with her lady and tramp stuffed animals to help me remember why our kids are going to have some sort of issues later in life from being ridiculously spoiled. When we were at the mall on Saturday, we let the kids go to the disney store. We never go to the mall because it's sort of far away and we have really awesome shopping in downtown wc, but the disney store is at the mall and my kids are obsessed with it. And since Than was there (I would never do this on my own ;) ), he was a softy and said that they could choose a toy as long as it was 10 dollars or less. Camry had been in love with this little lady stuffed animal since the moment we walked in the door and that was her choice. But, the problem was that she "needed" a tramp animal to go with her lady, but together they were more than 10 and claira wanted a lady too. She was all stressed out and didn't know what to do (her life is full of REALLY DIFFICULT decisions!) and then came up with the idea that Gentry didn't have a toy and that Gentry would really love to have the tramp stuffed animal. Than was like, well, do we let her work us like that or do we need to be tougher and I said, the girl does have a point! Gentry probably would be devastated if she didn't have a toy too. :) And we let her be a spoiled rotten brat and brought home a lady and a tramp that have been very loved. But at least she had to critically think about how she could manipulate the system to get what she wanted! And Gentry actually does really love that tramp so all is right in the world.

This is Claira in her awesome 5 dollar byu shirt that I found on oldnavy.com! She loves it!

Last night we had our FHE on how our ward works and people are serving all of us and sacrificing their time with their family to make sure that we have good lessons and activities and how we need to be thankful for our Bishop and primary teachers and we wrote little thank you cards to a few of them. I think it was good to do so that they can recognize that their dad is gone a lot with the young men's organization but that there are a lot of other people that are also gone doing things for them and that they are all serving Heavenly Father as they serve us. And I just took this picture because my girls are constantly coloring and that coloring box is almost always sitting on our table. And you can see that my house is not even close to decorated with my shelf sitting on the floor. Gentry likes to arrange her toys on it though so it's not a complete waste!

This is what Gentry was doing while they were coloring. Being absolutely crazy with her monster hair and her obsession with unloading the dishwasher. She insisted that I put on those tights and she was quite proud of her outfit.

This is her new favorite game. Playing with the box of cars and then sitting it in herself. She has does this over and over again the past couple of days and it's just funny. She loves to dump and fill the box and it's cute. And yes, I had done her hair and she pulled it out and I left it like that for the rest of the day. And then she wanted to put that baby bow in her hair and looked even more crazy.

Oh, and this picture is what I walked into this afternoon when I came downstairs. They had used all of the cushions and blankets and made some sort of swimming pool and were judging dives or something. Who knows. Those kids are crazy. The bucket is from Than making 'flour bombs' for young mens. You fill a nylon (like from payless) with flour and then tie it and it makes like a water balloon out of flour and they played capture the flag with them and that is how they tagged people. I guess it was a hit and was surprisingly a really large mess. Go figure.

More Sickies.

It's not so bad being sick, huh?? :)

Today Pacen stayed at home since he was sick again last night. Yesterday was not a fun day for me. Pacen came home sick from school and eventually threw up. Camry came home from school and a few hours later just kept saying that her stomach was hurting and so we were all hanging out in the bathroom for a couple of hours. Gentry was not a fan of that. But claira was so cute in trying to keep her entertained. And then today, Claira's best was playing with Gentry! I thought that that was sweet. Pacen's best surprisingly was getting to watch tv all day and play computer with a blanket on. Hopefully it's all behind us now and we can be healthy! Oh, but while Pacen was sick last night he watched the debate and we told him about Mitt Romney and how he's a mormon just like us and today he turned on the TV and was like, "Mom, get down here! It's mitt romney and a bunch of people are cheering for him and they're all waving american flags. It looks awesome." And then he told me how someone said that Newt Gingrich hit a homerun last night at the debate and he was very concerned about it. Papa Walt would be so proud. :)

And I liked the way The Hunger Games ended. (Don't read this if you haven't read it!) But I was a Peeta fan all along and I wanted her to end up with him so that made me happy. I thought Katniss was a little too depressing for me, but that is YA lit for you, right? But I'm ready for the movie to come out! I watched the trailer once (or twice) today and I think it could be pretty good, but I won't count on it.

It's raining for the first time all year. It's been fun to listen to it all day and drink hot chocolate and make soup.

My sister, Emily, is here with baby roman. And now I can document on my blog that she is pregnant again!!! And they are pretty sure that they are having a girl!!!! Woohoo!!! Yeah for girls. We get to hang out and shop and it'll be awesome. Erin was also planning on coming but work got really busy and she has to reschedule. :( The kids were sad. They wanted to know the exact date she was rescheduling to, but we haven't set that yet. Claira was all excited at dinner because she could have Erin and Daisy watch a movie with her. It was like the absolute best scenario that she could ever think of to have Erin AND Daisy hang out at the same time. I thought that was funny.

Than is on the phone right now with DirecTV and just asked them if he could just have the upgraded sports package for free since he's been a customer for so long. He'll ask anyone just about anything and usually gets what he wants. But, alas, he didn't get it. Than just said, "I love friday nights on the phone with dircTV, it's awesome." We are living it up tonight, baby!

Since I've been home, we went to a scout rock climbing activity with Than, had a fun dinner with the Jackson's and Jones' and Monday, Tuesday was me teaching preschool and getting everything back to normal at home. Today was Wednesday and Camry came home sick and eventually threw up and now seems to be back to normal. Funny story is that while I was rubbing Camry's back on the bathroom floor, our contractor friend was over doing an inspection with the city inspector. I had just sent Pacen out with a friend to go the park. Ryan comes in to tell me what the inspector guy said, then Camry starts throwing up and it grosses Ryan out and he goes upstairs and has to answer the door and it's the inspector guy holding Gentry because Pacen had left the door open and she had gotten out and was walking on the sidewalk. WhAT!!!??!? It was one of those afternoons. But then it ended with lots of TV watching and snuggling with Camry and trying to finish the last book of the hunger games. DON'T tell me how it ends. I already know I'll be disappointed and even contemplated not reading the last one, but I had to see what the disappointment would be all about. So, if I had set a new years resolution to read more, I would already be be doing it! I think by reading these two books I've already hit the number of books I read last year. :)

My Washington Trip

So, I guess to give you the background of this post, I should go way back to 2003 when Than and I decided to move to Michigan. We moved out there so Than could work with Sid and Brad and Neighborhood Gold, a company that no longer exists these days. It turned out to be a great move for us and without it, we would never be working for Zinch and living here. But then, we felt good about it but had no idea where it would take us. And while we were there, we lived right across the way from Sid and Rian, and Rian and I quickly became friends. She taught me what I know about sewing and we cooked together and played games (some ending a little heated :)) and just had a great time until they moved back to Utah. And while we were there, we also made quick friends with the Darrington's. Spence invited us over to teach us a new game...The Settlers of Catan....and we all became addicts and we would go over and play after they put their kids to bed and it was just a fun time. Seriously, I learned a lot of awesome parenting skills from heather and really aspire to be a mom like her. So we were all friends for a short time....Rian first moved away, then Heather, and then lastly me but we formed a strong friendship in that short time. Such a good one, in fact, that both of them were there when Pacen was born. Like really, right there. They were my doulas. :)

I was nine days early and didn't know that I was really in labor and so I sent Than off to work. He had an pretty important appointment three hours away and I figured that he'd have enough time to do it and come back even if I was in real labor but I was wrong. Very wrong. After being persuaded by my mom to call Heather and have her get me to the hospital ASAP, I did and after a few minutes of her timing my contractions 3-4 minutes apart she was like, get in the car now. I remember on that drive that she had to stop to get gas and she was apologizing over and over again. You could really feel every bump in those awful michigan roads and I was able to walk right into the hospital and while I was at triage I was like, why aren't they making me a priority?!?! I was having some pretty intense contractions and she said it was because I was handling myself too cooly and it didn't seem like I was in that much pain. Turns out that I was to a 6 and I was really having a baby. Luckily for Than (not for me!) I had a pretty long labor with Pacen. I pushed for two hours and 45 mintues and I really needed Heather and Rian there to help! Rian came to the hospital straight from work because she was too distracted and ended up staying the entire time. So, it wasn't like some planned thing, Oh I want you guys in the room with me when I have the baby, but it just happened and I wouldn't have had it any other way.

See...not my most glamorous labor. :) I've learned to look a little better with each one. :)

So, we have some history, me and these girls.

I love their kids. Like really love all of their kids. Here we are in the Livonia Dairy Queen that was right next to the family video that we frequented often. The little boy in this picture is now in the 6th grade and was telling me how 'boss' 6th grade was and how he has a girl that likes him and he likes her. Weird!

This is right after Heather's fourth baby was born. They moved shortly after that. :(

And this is just a cute picture I found of Pacen while I was looking for these other ones. He was such a cute baby boy!!!!

Here is Rian with Pacen. I think they were visiting the MI after they moved. They moved right after I had Pacen but luckily we see them fairly often because of work.

We had a great vacay to Nags Head, North Carolina.

Oh the simple times with just one little baby to take care of.

Rian and Sid came to the temple with us when I started the temple work for my dad. Funny thing is we lived right across the way and we came out wearing the same dress. We just went in our matching outfits. Funny.

These pictures make me laugh. This is before either of us had kids and I really barely knew them. Right after we moved out there was the big east coast blackout and it reached our town. We had just stocked our cupboards and all of our food was going to be wasted, so we hopped in their car with all of our perishable food and headed to west MI and camped somewhere out there. Good times. I believe we are standing in front of Lake Michigan. It's so beautiful out there.

Sooooo, now with our trip. Spence contacted Rian and me in October asking if we would be willing for him to fly us out for Heather's birthday. Ummmm, yeah!!!! I said I would as long as that what she would really like for her birthday and she wouldn't say, "That'd be great, but what I really wanted was a new camera!" So good thing she didn't say that!! :) All of us were too busy with the holidays and trips to hawaii and cabo and cruises that we had to plan for the beginning of January for our trip. We are all spoiled brats! When it finally came, it was awesome and I'm so glad spence had this idea. It was awesome to reconnect and get ideas from each other and really feel rejuvenated to be better when we got back. I left on Friday morning and we really didn't have any plans. We shopped around with Heather and hung out at her house and played with her kids for a while, then we were off on our own. We ate Thai food for dinner, found our hotel (with a little trouble!), tried to hit the hot tub but it was waaaayyy too cold, and then fell asleep by 11 because we are tired old moms!

The next morning was glorious because I didn't wake up until 8:50 am!!!! That was worth the trip in itself. :) We didn't really have any plans but we had a fantasic day. It started with a glass blowing class! Well, it wasn't really a class per se, but more of a glass blowing experience. It was pretty awesome.

We were all pretty amazed at the process. It was HOT in there.

Rian got to inhale and exhale to make her dish which turned out pretty awesome.

I had no idea that I could make that face.

I made a dang awesome egg for a secret someone unless when it gets shipped to me it's too awesome to give away. :)

Heather made an apple to remember Washington and our visit.

This was the freaky pierced helper lady.

I almost didn't post these pictures because i look so strange....really, really not flattering of me, but pictures don't lie, people.

After our glass blowing adventure we decided to go antique store shopping but made a pit stop at snoqualmie falls which was huge! I wan't expecting that.

A pic from rian's iphone.

I will say that I am already soft when it comes to weather! I don't think I ever could really stand the cold, but now I'm just a wimp.

The rest of the day included shopping, going through Heather's closet and throwing away at least 50% of it, and then taking her shopping at Banana Republic and forever 21 (don't judge...she needed some 10 dollar skinny jeans!) and finding clothes that make her look like one hot mama! She has had six kids and you would never ever guess. It was so fun playing stacy and clinton and throwing clothes that we thought were cute in her dressing room. We played bananagrams late into the night and didn't really go to sleep until well after 1 am discussing all the trials life has thrown at us in the past few years. I had a really great time with those girls. I have been blessed to have great friends no matter where I've lived and have kept up close relationships with most of them. Than stayed home as was super mom over the weekend. He took the kids to a high school basketball game on friday night and went to Oroville on Saturday and had to do church all by himself. What a trooper! The kids were happy to have me home and I was happy to see them. Just the perfect amount of time to reconnect with old friends and then it was back to real life. What a great weekend.