Outside on a Sunny Day

Natalie was at Ryan's grandparents and Nathan was at school yesterday. It was such a nice sunny day I got the boys shoes on and put on their coats and we headed out front. It's always an adventure with the both of them outside but they love it. They rode on their little cars and threw the ball around. Matthew got out a plastic bat and a woofle ball. I tried to teach him how to hit the ball. We finally got out the t. But all he wanted to do was bop it. No swinging. I gave Michael a try and he swung at it but almost seemed board. Well maybe another day. It was nice to be outside anyway.

Natalie and Hair Bows

Natalie found the bows Lizzy made her for Christy's wedding. She was so excited. Mom look what I found. Oh Lizzy made those for you. "How very kind of her. "

Daffodils

Natalie and Isabel take ballet on Thursdays and whenever possible we let them play together after. This week Isabel came to our house to play. They played for several hours so nicely. I didn't hear one argument. The weather was so nice they played outside the whole time. I had to take Nathan to baseball practice so I loaded everyone up planning to take Isabel home after we dropped Nathan off. Halfway to practice I hear some commotion in the back. I look in the rear view mirror to se Isabel throwing up a lot of green stuff. Then she says something about Natalie and green. But I didn't understand. I assured her we would get it cleaned up ASAP and continued driving since there wasn't a good place to pull over. That round of throw up was soon followed by another. Isabel saying something about Natalie and green stuff. I asked Nathan what Isabel said. This time I hear her say "Natalie why did you make me eat that green stuff!?!" What did you do? Natalie starts crying and I cannot understand what she is saying. I finally make out he doesn't want to get in trouble. I quickly assure her she is already in trouble but need to know what she made Isabel eat. After a minute she gets out weeds from our garden. I ask if she ate any to which so replies no. (Sounding like no way why would you think I'd eat weeds.) I immediately call poison control. I tell them all I know. How many times has she thrown up? When did she last throw up? Twice. Wait did she just throw up again? Yes. Okay now three times. What did she eat? A weed says my four year old. When did she eat it? I don't know some time in the past three hours. And the questions continued. Well if she keeps throwing up an isn't acting herself you should take her to the doctor. Okay. I drop Nathan off at practice. I call Lizzy. I explain what has happened apologizing profoundly. She asks if I can just bring her home. I decide not to try to clean her up first because we have almost no wipes no towels or anything. So I didn't know what I would use to clean it up and with all the kids in the car I couldn't imagine taking them all in the store with me. So we just drove to Lizzy's. All the kids were glue to the movie including Isabel. She seemed fine but, I just didn't know. When she got out of the car she didn't look all that bad. I made a quick assessment of the back seat, not too bad and took her in. Lizzy was ready to help clean the van but I assured her it wasn't bad and I'd take care of it later. She gave me a bag of homemade banana muffins and we were on our way. the muffins were consumed before we passed imc. They were really good. When we got home I had Natalie show me what Isabel had eaten. She pointed to the daffodils just starting to come up. I text Lizzy with this new information and she said Isabel was doing good. No problems. I was very happy to hear that. I had a good talk with Natalie about not eating things in our yard or making our friends. I'd have liked to have heard exactly what happened. What did Natalie do that made Isabel think she had to eat the green stuff? I guess I'll never know.

Running

I got some new running shoes for Christmas and used them outside for the first time this past Saturday. I've been going to the gym for a few weeks but Saturday the weather was finally nice enough and Ryan was home so I was able to go running. I ran 4.4 miles. My knee started bothering me the last mile or so so I did some walking. By Monday it felt fine and I went back to the gym. Matthew loves my new shoes as you can see from this picture. I had a hard time getting a clear picture because he tries running in them too.

When I got home from work yesterday Natalie was hiding and I asked the twins where she was. Matthew pointed in her direction but Michael looked up and said "I don't know" it was really cute. I'm pretty sure that we hi first sentence. Later that evening I asked them where something was and this time Matthew says "I don't know." So I think both Michael and Matthew's first sentence was "I don't know." They are really trying to talk more and more. It is so fun. The weather this week has been and is supposed to be so nice. We are excited for warmer weather.

Boots and Cars

I gave the twins a bath the other day and couldn't find their pants. I dressed Matthew first and when I came out with Mike Matthew had Natalie's pink boots on. What a character! He loves to wear Natalie's boots.

Then they started driving their cars around. Then were so cute.

We found out last night Nathan will in fact be playing minors this year. He is going to be on the Twins. I think it will be a good year for him. We shall see.

Natalie said the funniest thing yesterday. On the way home from the gym we passed some kids playing soccer and she says maybe I should play soccer. Oh do you want to play soccer. Well I probably should since I know how. Oh I didn't know you knew how to play soccer. Mom, you just kick the ball it isn't that hard. (Spoken with attitude).

Nathan's Dream

Nathan came home from school the other day with this report on the leaning tower of Pisa.

A New Start

So since my parents are in Italy serving a mission they are doing really well keeping blogs so we are all up to date on how and what they are busy doing. I love reading them. I figured a good way for them to keep up on how and what we are doing would be for me to start keeping my blog again. So here it goes...

We just returned from a lovely weekend in St. George. The weather was ideal (low 70s) and we loved being outside. We were so happy the Homer's were able to stay with us. We, the kids, went to the park by our condo a few times. It was the first time I have ever taken Matthew and Michael to a park. They stayed in their stroller for awhile and then wanted out. At first they just wanted to play football with Nathan and his friends. But once they got a go at the slide that was it. All they wanted was to slide down the slide. It was quite a chore trying to keep track of both of them at the same time. I know why I haven't taken them before.

We also went to Dixie rock and let the bigger kids climb around one afternoon. They of course loved it. The pool was closed for cement work but the jacuzzi was open. The kids put their feet in the water but it wasn't warm enough outside to be in swimsuits, next month it will hopefully.

It seemed like every place we ate at while we were down there offered free ice cream sundaes with their kids meals. My kids both enjoyed that.

The day before we left SLC Michael woke up from his afternoon nap not feeling well. You could just tell. We wanted to be held and his breathing wasn't quite right. I called and made an appointment to have him looked at. Dr. Wagner did an initial assessment, low fever, clear ears and couldn't hear anything in his lungs but because his breathing sounded so labored did a breathing treatment on him and then listened again. This time she heard the crackle of Bronchiolitis (Bronchitis for infants). Apparently sometimes the airway is so constrictive that you there isn't enough air passing through to hear the crackle. He received another two treatments while we were there and then we were sent home with instructions on how to give him the treatments ourselves. We are now the proud owners of a nebulizer which we hope not to need again but glad to have it just in case.

Michael was a new person leaving the doctor's office. But about two and a half hours later he was back to wanting to be held and struggling to breath. Problem was the nebulizer had not yet arrived. I called twice before I was finally connected with the driver and did receive it 25 minutes after speaking to him. If it had taken much longer we were headed to the hospital. Once again after the breathing treatment he was back to himself. That was the worst of it, probably because we could give him a treatment at the first sign of struggle. That night he slept until 6:00 and then needed another treatment. He got one every 4 hours for the next couple days when he was awake. He hasn't had another since last night. He seems so much better.

It is interesting to me that the same virus that caused a cold in Natalie and Matthew turned to Bronchiolitis in Michael. It seems some people are just more susceptable than others. The doctor described it by waving her hand in front of her face and saying here it's a cold then down a bit around the throat and said if it travels here it's croop, and then a bit lower accross the chest and said here it's bronchiolitis. So he was no more contagious than Natalie and Matthew had been with a cold it just presented itself more sever in Michael. We'll be glad to get spring here and have wellness in our home again. We are tired of being sick.

Baseball season is here. While in St George we found out Nathan was supposed to be at try outs. He has always played up in baseball and we had planned for him to try out for the minors. Since we were in St George and he didn't try out he has been put back on his Pee Wee team. Ryan talked with someone who said they will see what they can do but we will probably be in Pee Wees again. I hope it works out okay for Nathan. I feel so bad we missed try outs. But either way practice starts this week and games will start in a couple weeks. Our evenings will once again be consumed with baseball. But we wouldn't have it any other way.

Matthew's latest trick is climbing out of his highchair. He swings his legs over the side and then drops down. He is a little monkey. He is starting to repeat words like Michael does. It isn't as clear but he is trying really hard. Michael can say about anything you say. He'll repeat it. It's is amazing how quickly time goes.

Last night for FHE we had a lesson about Love. Several Christmas' ago Ryan's cousin had given us an FHE notebook with lessons created to go with Pres Hinkley's Standing for Something. While cleaning out my office I came acrossed it. It has some great lessons in it. Anyway this one was from that notebook. So nice to have something already prepared. Nathan and Natalie's favorite part of FHE is the game. We continued our Monopoly game we started a couple weeks ago. It looks like Nathan is going to lose. I'm not sure why it is so hard to teach children how to lose gracefully. Or win gracefully for that matter. We need lots of practice here. We are a bit competative in our family.

Christy and I are signed up to run a 1/2 marathon in June. Lizzy is supposed to run it too but they changed the date on us so I'm not sure she will be able to. I hope so. But Christy and I are doing it regardless. I'm looking forward to warmer weather so I can run outside. I hate the treadmill.