Superstar of the week

Really she's been the superstar of the past two weeks, but our little Peyton is potty trained! Okay, she may have slight issues with #2, but we'll get there. For the most part, she's done and doing awesome! She's even doing great at night, which is SO nice. It really didn't take too long, just staying home all last week and not going out at all, something that Kevin and the bank account were very grateful for!:)

Peyton is such a little firecracker, and she keeps me on my toes. Halli can be a little tomboy at times, but Peyton is our girly girl. I may not be the most girly girl mom, but I can appreciate it, and love to indulge it as well. We'll just need to work on some of her drama queen tendancies.:) She's a total momma's girl, which I love, (especially since her older sis is pretty taken with dad), and we love hanging out in the morning while Lexie sleeps, just me and little pee-wee. I am so grateful that I have this little girl who "lobs" me so much, and is also the worlds greatest hugger!

Put in my place

It was so beautiful outside today, so after dinner we all went out to enjoy the fresh air. Kevin and Halli rode their bikes and I took the two younger girls in the jogging stroller. I wore a tank top for our little run, and when we got back we took the girls straight upstairs for baths. As I was bathing Lexie, I was looking in the mirror, and since I was sleeveless, noticed that I had a little more arm than I wish I had. So I said to Kevin, "My arms are fat!" This was instantly followed by a little girls voice saying, "My legs are fat." She put me in my place, we then had a discussion about our "guns" and how strong we all are and how amazing our bodies are.

I am an example, and I have a wonderful body that lets me take care of these three precious children. I need to remember that. I'm just thankful that Halli put me in my place now, so that I can be more aware of just how much they listen to my every word, and just how much I can exaggerate things. I hope that I can teach them just how amazing they are and how precious their bodies are. (My mom did teach me this, but when you're skin and bones as a kid, it's hard to come to the realization that you now have to work at being skinny.) I know I'm not fat, I just wish there was a little less of me to love!:)

Valentines Day

I love valentines day. I never liked it when I was in high school or college, and I never really got into it until a few years ago. It's just so fun to make things special for your children. We did a small scavenger hunt this morning and the girls got a few new valentines suprises, they loved it and I had fun putting it together.

My amazing husband got me the most gorgeous yellow tulips, and bonus, they're potted, so we'll get to enjoy them longer.:) He's a wonderful man that has learned how much his wife loves flowers. Fresh, fragrant flowers that die in a week. He's spent many of our special occasions trying to come up with an alternative that would last longer, and I think he just found it. They're beautiful!

Another bonus we had today was my family. Minus my big brother and his family, everyone was here, and I loved it! We didn't do much, but it's so fun to have a houseful of people. The girls LOVED all the attention, and they'll be so sad when everyone's gone.

So, with all the people, all the candy left over from the baby shower, and more candy on top of that because of valentines day, I guess the girls got a hold of too much, and may have left a little bit laying around. Not a good thing. Especially when there's a baby in the house. I really wasn't going to give her sweets until her birthday....I suppose she had other plans.
The funny thing was that she did this in the middle of the family room...with about five adults sitting around her talking. What a sneaky little girl she is, and also a very happy one.

Happy Valentines Day!

ahhh...Freedom!

Today we went in for a check-up on Lexie, and we got great news. She is healing perfectly and is out of her harness, yeah! It really wasn't that bad, but it is nice not to have to deal with it anymore. We took it off and she stretched those legs out, I think she was pretty pleased to have it gone. We'll go back in another 3 weeks for another x-ray to make sure it's completely healed. For now, we're glad she can stretch, lay on her tummy, and roll again....though, we won't be doing any of those things on the bed. :)

Climbing up the walls

As I went in the kitchen tonight to make dinner, this is what I saw Halli doing in the doorway...

(She looks scared there, but she just wanted down and didn't know how to do it by herself, Kevin was right there to help her though.)

Some moms, okay, most moms might see this and think, "hmmm, that could be dangerous, maybe you should get down." You'd think that's what I would say too considering we've already got a baby with a fractured hip, but no, this is what comes out of my mouth, "I used to do that all the time as a kid, I would go to the very top and touch the ceiling." When I said this she was climbing just above counter height. You can see by the picture what a good influence I was. :)

After trying to climb a little I hear her talking to herself saying:

"Well, thats on tile, so it might hurt."

Then she leaves to go look for another doorway. She was right, I thought it might hurt to jump or fall down onto tile as well, so I could understand looking for another doorway. Then she comes back and I ask her what she's doing, this is what she says:

"I want carpet cause I wanna climb up and put my head down and do a flip."

WHAT? she wanted to climb to the top and do a flip down! Okay I may be a bad influence but I'm not stupid! We nixed that idea immediately and she was happy to comply one I explained that may not be too smart. She was content to just keep climbing to the top. You've got to admire these kids and their imaginations. I love that she feels like she can do anything, and I hope we can allow her to keep trying to push herself, and at the same time find a way to teach her how to know when to stop.

The Party!!!

I saw the cutest idea one day for a "candy bar" or candy buffet. I thought it looked like the most fun thing ever, and just needed an excuse to do it. So I told my friend Allie, that if she ever had a baby girl, I was going to throw her a shower and I was going to do a candy buffet, cause she's the one person I know who loves sweets as much as I do. Well, she's due in about a month with her little baby girl, and saturday I got to throw her a little party!


I had the most fun putting it all together! I got to buy loads of candy and play with photoshop tons! The only thing that could have made it better was if someone else footed the bill...oh well, it was well worth it. It turned out wonderful, and she had lots of people show up to "shower" her with fun girly things. I also had so much help from people in the ward and Allie's family, so I was able to focus on all the fun stuff that I love, and they helped pull it all together.

The "candy bar"

yummy cupcakes, and a homemade stand, thanks Sean for cutting it all out for me!

The mantel, it says "isabelle"

Some hershey's chocolate bars with custom wrappers, they say "isabelle" as well.

So, thanks Allie for letting me do this for you, and huge thanks to her family for letting me take over! Huge thanks to my sister as well, she helped me out with Lexie and the girls this week while I tried to get everything put together. Luckily Lexie was a little drugged up and sleeping lots this week so I was able to get alot done. I had tons of fun and can't wait to do another candy buffet for a birthday party down the road, my girls seem to have as big of a sweet tooth as I do, although, that's probably not a good thing.

The always uninvited "split-second"

It always comes when you least expect it, and what it brings is never good. Sometimes the split second is life changing in the worst way, other times it may be a terrible accident, and yet other times it can be something that will disrupt your life for a little while, but then end and things can go back to normal.


This last split-second visited our home on sunday evening. We were running in from church and changing quickly to head to a family super-bowl get together. I took the older girls to change them and Kevin took Lexie while he went to change. He set her on the bed, in the middle, and went to the closet. He could see her from there, but she's turned into an expert roller these days. Right off the bed she went. That was just a split-second.


After an hour of her trying to sleep and repeatedly waking up screaming I took her to one of those 24 hour emergency rooms. We got right in and they took X-rays of her and a cat-scan. Since we didn't see how she fell or what exactly was hurt, they had to cover the bases. I had a feeling it was her legs and after waiting a few hours for radiology to review her scans, they told me that she had fractured her hip. This is an incredibly rare injury for infants to have so they didn't know how to treat it there and wanted her to be seen by an orthopedic surgeon. At 11:00pm we headed down to memorial hermann to be seen. Little did we know that we would be waiting in the emergency room down there all night.


We got to the ER and went back to a room by 1:00am and waited. They gave her some pain meds by 3, and took blood to get her labs done in case she needed surgery. We waited till 5am to see the ortho, but she didn't know what they were going to do yet. So we waited some more for her to consult with some other doctors. I was so nervous that she would have to have surgery or be put into a cast for 6 weeks. They both sounded like awful choices. Finally at 7am, she came back and told me that they were going to put her in a sling/harness. I was so grateful. It's still not fun for her and I'm sure she's a little uncomfortable, but of the options we had, this was by far the best one. After that, we waited until about 10:30am for the prosthetics people to show up with the sling and fit it to her. Lucky for us, while waiting in the ER we were blessed, all night, to be able to listen to the lovely sounds of people coughing and vomiting since we're in the middle of flu season. It was the longest night of my life.

Our happy and strong baby girl, this is what the harness looks like, no one can imagine it, including me, so I thought you might like to see just what it is.

Her legs can go back and forth, but not extend. She isn't moving her left leg at all though, she learned quick to hold it still!

At last, by noon we were up in our own room so she could be observed for 24 hours to make sure the sling fit right and wasn't bothering her too much. Luckily, the let us go early and we came home last night. She's doing amazing and is spending most of today catching up on all the sleep she lost, I'm sure the pain meds are helping her sleep a little bit better too. She's a trooper and smiles bunches, but she'll be sure to let us know when she's not feeling too good as well.

It was awful to be visited by that mean split-second, but we feel blessed that it wasn't worse than it is. I'm so grateful that it wasn't her head or her spine that were injured, and that she's handling things so well. I'm also so grateful for the priesthood and the fact that Kevin could give his daughter a blessing and in turn, give me the comfort that I needed. We are also so blessed to have such wonderful friends and family around to support us. Especially those that were able to come in the middle of the night so Kevin could go with me downtown. We are so grateful for all the words of comfort and all the help offered by so many of you, you have made this so much easier for us than it would have been.

We're just praying that she heals quickly and isn't in pain for too long. Thank you every one and I hope that pesky split-second will go on vacation for a really long time!

On a side note, this was the big news on sunday at our house, until Lexie fell that is, Peyton got a fun new haircut! I love it, and think she looks like the sweetest little doll! What a cutie!