Wild, Wild West

Last week Danny accompanied the young men and young women to the rodeo!! Where would they hold a rodeo in Southern California?? At The Pond in Anaheim, of course! This building is so crazy to me...in the past year we have attended a BYU basketball game, a Jon Bon Jovi concert, and now a rodeo all in the same building. And of course it is an ice hockey rink as well. Here it is in rodeo form:


We recently decided that we should take the children out individually once a month so we sent Jared with Danny. He was so excited! It's really fun that he is getting old enough to stay up late and enjoy time out with us. Outside of the event, they met a border patrol agent - the event was sponsored by them! Jared took a picture with him for Grandpa.


Jared always enjoys hanging out with the teenagers! The girls were decked out as cowgirls - I should have dressed Jared properly for the night!


Interestingly enough, Jared's least favorite part was how long it went. He told me that the boys had to try and stay on the bulls for 8.0 seconds. He also told me that he really wanted to go home when he started getting tired but Daddy said they had to wait for it to end (since they had carpooled and their car was at the church!). He also mentioned that unfortunately there wasn't enough room for him to lie down and sleep. Good thing there was so much action occurring:

What Do You Wake Up To?

I wake up to beautiful boys with bedhead...


and sippy cups...


and one girl requesting, "Chocolate milk, a gogurt, and a show."

Can You See 'Em??

Luke-portation

Here is a video of Luke's crawl now - I put toys all around trying to get him to crawl to the toys. Of course he crawled to me instead.



And this is the new crawl he's been trying out. Apparently he really IS Jared's clone - anyone else remember Jared's one leg creative crawling???

Our Belated Valentine's Day Week!

On Valentine's Day Dan and I went to lunch together at the Panda Inn and then headed to the King's game with Annette and Vanessa. It was a great game - although there was a little TOO much fighting for my blood. The King's tied it with 30 seconds left, which led to overtime, and eventually led to shootouts. Thanks to Allie for taking on our 3 kids!!!



On Wednesday night Dan went to mutual as usual. Shortly after getting the kids in bed, I could hear whispering outside our front door. I waited until it was quiet and then peeked outside. Our door had been heart attacked by the youth for Danny! They also left a nice gift basket with little gifts for everyone in the family! I think he was really surprised when he returned home.



Finally, Jared and Lizzie had a blast making Valentine's cakes and brownies with Vanessa. Jared made a beautiful heart shaped cake for Miss Grosso which he decorated with a "G" in frosting surrounded by strawberry whoppers - delicious! He also made mini cakes for Liz, Luke and himself. There was also a large cake for our family. Finally, there were also brownies in both a pan and ice cream cones. They were quite tasty too!

Here is a pictorial view of what happened:


And here are the finished products BEFORE we demolished them (Jared did bring the cake for Miss Grosso to her the next day at school):



Phew! What a fun week we had celebrating Valentine's Day!

So How'd Your Week Go?

Here's a peek into our week:


Yes, two children checked into the hospital in one week - actually 3 days apart. Lucas was first. On Sunday (Feb. 1) we discovered a lump on him. On Monday the doctor said it was an abscess and put him on medicine to try and reduce the size. By Wednesday we realized it wasn't getting smaller. On Friday (Feb. 6) morning Lucas was checked into the hospital and was in surgery by noon. The abscess was removed and a drain was put in place. This week was filled with washing the area carefully with soap and water, putting gauze over it, and watching for a fever. We had an appointment today (Feb. 13) with the surgeon to have the drain removed. He said it appeared to be healing very nicely. Luke's face speaks volumes of his opinion of the whole ordeal:


3 days after Luke's surgery, Jared wanted in on the action! He came home from school on Thursday (Feb. 5) with a fever and aching legs. He threw up that night in bed - you can imagine the wonderful adventure that was as Dan and I were already preparing that night for Luke to go into surgery the next morning! On Friday he had a fever and a headache. On Saturday he said his neck was bothering him. By Sunday (Feb. 8) his neck was visibly stiff. We called the nurse hotline through Kaiser and they asked a few questions. When he couldn't put his chin to his chest she told us to bring him in. Dan took off with Jared and I stayed with our 2 other children since it was close to bedtime. Long story short they feared he had spinal meningitis. He had a few vials of blood taken from his hand, had an IV put into his arm, and had a spinal tap! After tests came back negative for meningitis, he was allowed to come home.


I suppose we should be grateful Liz doesn't have a matching bracelet too. Funny thing is, she's the only one who would appreciate a new bracelet to wear.

Sitting Pretty

Luke's newest trick is to crawl over to something, halfway sit up, walk his hands around, and pop up into a sitting position. It's proving quite useful - especially when his older brother is about to attack!