Back to the Blogosphere!

So I guess it's time to resume blogging. :O)

We had such a great time spending Christmas in Utah! There was even plenty of "white stuff" to make it feel like Christmas. I don't even know where to begin.

The first big "event" I guess you could say was Mia's blessing. We had the rare opportunity to bless Mia in my parents home on a Sunday evening surrounded by family from both sides. Mia is just the cutest thing ever! We are loving her fun little personality!

My brother & sis-in-law were there as well so cousin AnnDee was anxiously waiting to play with Easton (and man did they play!). We also got to meet Saidee (my sister's baby) for the first time. AnnDee just loved having 2 babies around to take care of.

As is tradition, we spent Christmas Eve at my Grandma Jensen's house. This year we even played a little Christmas version of Fear Factor. After all these years I finally got a pie making lesson from my Grandma Frei. We were up at 6:00 am Christmas morning baking away. Coconut Creme is my favorite! The whole Christmas experience was super fun having Easton and AnnDee around. They made sure to leave some peanut brittle and milk out for Santa and an apple for the reindeer. He he he. They had way too much fun on Christmas morning opening presents. After presents we made a visit to our Grandparents and then headed to my aunt and uncle's for breakfast (this is tradition also). It's been a good 4 years since I've been at this breakfast and I think I ate enough scones to make up for all that time. It is one of my favorite things about Christmas at home. We really enjoyed spending time with the family and were all sad when our short 7-day trip came to an end. The kids were pretty good on the airplane on the way home. Easton is still singing Jingle Bells and asking to go to Yaya's house and play with AnnDee.

In my true fashion I took way too many pictures but will include some here in a slide show.

Merry Christmas!

We hope you all have a wonderful Christmas!

(Christmas card 1 of 3 - I was having too much fun in Photoshop!)

Elf Yourself!

This year's version of Elf Yourself is much improved. It even has a few different dances to choose from. Here's the "Orchard jig 2008!"

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

We can't wait!

We are on the 7-day countdown for our Utah trip for Christmas. Hooray! We are so excited to go! Easton is also anxious to open his presents from mom and dad before we go. I caught him peeking around the tree other day. :0)

Mental Health Day

I am writing this post especially to thank my wonderful husband for allowing me to take a "mental health" day yesterday. After our past few weeks I really needed this! In the morning we finished hanging our Christmas lights (I know it's a little late - we were procrastinating because it involved both of us getting onto the roof and me giving Scott a boost up to the very top eave which is sooooo stinkin' high). Around noon we had a bite to eat and then I was off. Scott stayed home with the kids while I headed to the outlets for some shopping. I meant to only be an hour or so in order to catch the 1:50 showing of Twilight but I was having such a great time and finding so many great deals that I passed it up. Hopefully I'll still get a chance to see it in the next 2 weeks or else I very well may be the last person on earth who has not seen it. :0) From the outlets I went to another shopping area and looked around until my 5:00 massage at Massage Envy. It this is not a little bit of heaven on earth then I don't know what is! The only bad thing was that it wasn't longer! After my massage I hit Petsmart for some crickets (we have a leopard gecko) and then got to go grocery shopping all on my own. I actually got to take my time and actually wander around and look at things. Such a great feeling as that has not happened for a very long time. I think I got home at around 7:30 or 8:00 completely refreshed. I called Scott a number of times to make sure he was holding up alright and each time he said everything was just fine. When I got home he had even cooked dinner and made me a cute note that was taped to the door from him and the kids that thanked me for all that I do as their mother/wife. It was so cute and a surprise. Thank you honey!!! Love you!

On the mend!

Over the past 2 days Mia has done a complete turn around. Thank heavens! Her appetite came back and she stopped sleeping all day. The congestion in her nose went away and all we have left is a cough and a tad bit of chest congestion. Just like the doctor said, there would be a really bad day at the peak and then things would start to improve. The doctor saw her today and said everything looked good though she did lose some weight from not eating for 5 days. Thanks to all of you for your concern, well wishes and prayers. We really needed them! :0).

When it rains, it pours!

What started as Easton getting a cold about a week and a half ago has snowballed into a series of events that I would like never to happen again as long as I live (I wish!). It goes a little something like this. . . . Easton has fevers for 2 days/nights, can't sleep and cries all night long. I get no sleep. Fevers go away and are replaced by congestion, wheezing, and a horrible cough. Easton cannot sleep very well. I get very little sleep. We go to the doctor and he has an ear infection along with the cold. He gets antibiotic and a steroid for his breathing. Scott gets pneumonia and starts medication but it doesn't work. Has to return to the doctor a week later for another round. He also picks up a head cold in the process. I get very little sleep. I start to get a sore throat and vision-crippling head aches. Feels like a head cold. All the medicine in the cabinet was not helping. Tried to stop by an urgent care on 2 different occasions but it was so busy that I never stayed. Very little sleep. Are you seeing a pattern here? After 6 or so days, Easton is feeling better and starts sleeping all night again. Hooray! I get the 24 hour stomach yuckies. Scott has to stay home from work because I cannot even function to take care of the kids. Then, I get better, Scott is on the up & up, and we're just dealing with Easton's cough when little Mia decided to get congested. When it started it was just in her nose but enough to make it so she was really bugged by it. Had to keep her elevated at all times. Again, no sleep for me as we spent most of the next few nights in the recliner. Mia's condition progressively worsened to the point where I thought she was going to quit breathing on me. She was sleeping constantly amidst choughing and choking and crying. She went from eating 4 oz. every 3 hours to about 1 oz. ever 4-5 hours. She also had some pretty good fevers off and on for a few days. Crazy stuff! Long story short, last night we were advised by our doctor to take her to the MUSC Children's ER (an equivalent to Primary Children's for the Utah crowd) to have her evaluated. Turns out the poor thing has RSV! It is so heart breaking to see how sick a little infant can get and there's nothing they can really do to help as far as medication goes because of age. They can do high-powered suction up the nose but that's about it. Once we got there they had her hooked up to all these monitors and even had me put a little hospital gown on her. Who would have thought they made them that little!??? Another concern with fevers in babies under 6 weeks is sepsis, or infection in the blood. Lucky for Mia, and us, because the RSV test came back positive so they decided not to do the sepsis work-up which would have included blood and urine samples and a spinal tap for cultures. We got away with just a urine sample. Easton prepared me a lot for what went on last night but if they ended up having to stick a big needle in her back I just might have lost it. :0) So again, I'm here not sleeping and writing on the blog. I'm camped out by Mia to make sure she pulls out of her coughing spells and continues to breathe. They say that it takes about 6-7 days to run it's course. Hopefully this is all over sooner than later and we can all be back to normal and sleeping . . . . peacefully. :0) Otherwise our Christmas presents will be a "paid" stamp on all our doctor/hospital bills from the past 2 weeks!

ARTSCOW

I was recently introduced to a FANTASTIC website that does custom printing, photobooks, and a million other things. **http://www.artscow.com/** Now that I have ordered a number of things I can say for myself that their print quality is AMAZING! I've made 2 8x8 hardcover photo books, our 2009 family calendar (15 copies), our christmas cards, and have ordered a number of prints. I love it so much that I must share with all of you! It is free to register. Upon registration you are automatically given all of these credits for free stuff. You only pay shipping (the company has a center here in the US however the main headquarters and print orders come out of Hong Kong). Fabulous deals! They have a program on their website to help you create and design your stuff. Or if you prefer to do it your own way, you can create in Photoshop or another program and upload to Artscow as .jpeg's to use. Check it out if you are interested in an easy way to make cute stuff (great for personalized Christmas gifts) or are looking for an online print place with great quality.