ice ice baby

Addie envisioned herself gracefully floating across the ice...it was really really really cold.
swinging in the snow.

So the snow has been great but today I started dreaming of a week on the white sandy lake michigan shores for the whole fam this summer. whos with me?

little girls little sled little hills

venturing down the miniature hill in the backyard.

and multitudes of snow angels!


January has had long days that never seem to end. Lots of time for snowmen, sledding, baking, and sitting in front of the fireplace.
Last night we spent the evening with mom and dad and Nate. dad and danny turned the basement into a movie theater and grandpa got to snuggle the girls while they ate popcorn and watched Evan almighty.
Mom and I organized her pictures and talked about how fast the year has gone by.
From Eva's first birthday, to Stephanie giving birth to Everett and Rachel having Elsie, to boatrides and picnics, and birthdays and cakes, and long walks outdoors. Pushing swings in the blazing sunshine and walking in the woods. Fall leaves, and pumpkins, and a beautiful Thanksgiving feast. The sparkle and lights of christmas and now we are here in January. And all of our memories from this last year, as a huge family, are in a delicious blur. And I want to tell you, my wonderful family, I love you, and I love that we share all this joy collectively.

p.s. and now I go about planning Eva's second birthday party
I'm thinking Sunday Feb. 15th.

gotta gripe

okay I still can complain about politics right?

why I'm troubled by 'bamas inauguration

point A: the fact everyone was freaking about the opening prayer dude being anti gay...

point B: the insane amount of media hype till I seriously expected the second coming to happen right during the ceremony

point C: the "poem" sounded like something I would've written in 9th grade english and everyone looked so bored to tears people were walking out enmasse while that lady..you could tell she was like so proud of herself she was ready to burst. It was just so sad it was funny. and what was with all the pauses....a....man....washes.....a...plate....a ...dog....bites....a...biscuit......a....lady....sews....a.......rip.......

point D: they got the swearing in totally wrong and they had to re-do it privately the next day.
The moment the whole of hollywood and America is waiting for and they botched it. Why do we keep believing that the gov't. can do anything well? So he actually wasn't the pres. from that moment.

point E: THE CLOSING PRAYER
that was so ridiculous. I seriously thought it was a joke that someone spliced in from the sixties. I just had my mouth hanging open in confused shock.
that was the BEST they could come up with. FOR REAL. like this sacred moment everyone is waiting for and they don't choose anything inspirational or patriotic or uplifting.



p.s. For his celebratory roe vs wade anniversary he's going to reverse a bunch of abortion laws bush put into effect. and this election was totally not about abortion...riiiiiiighhhht.

we're snooowwwweeeddd in

not really!

it snowed yesterday but we still went out and "busted our buns" at the ymca with Katrina.

I have some cute pictures but guess what? I can't download them and I have NO IDEA WHY. but they are precious frolicking in the snow pictures and snowman building pictures.

see who needs a camera. that last sentence was a thousand pictures.

so what else...Danny's home today!!! Hoorayhoooray! The only negative of homeschooling is that there is no such thing as a snow day. The good thing is she get's her daddy to be her teacher and they are currently snuggled up in the corner reading jack and the beanstack or something.

so far we are almost done with our second week of homeschooling....these are the things i like about it...

no rushing out the door anywhere!!

pancakes and smoothies for breakfast at 9:00 a.m.

snuggling in the reading corner and reading creepy fairytales

crafting up a storm

impromptu addie and eva play sessions

me relearning kindergarten...it's alot more fun this time around. I couldn't figure out what a can shaped block was called...I think it's called a .umm..I don't know. we use k12 curriculum and its been pretty easy to follow.

the crazy parts:

Eva hauling every toy into our school room while we are busy and setting up headless barbie displays.

Eva throwing schools supplies.

Addie crying about how phonics is boring

ringing in the new year early

so I think we were cursed for ringing in the new year at 9:30 p.m.  There's probably some karmic rule that says if you are too lazy to stay up till midnight at least ONE night a year than your whole year is destined for misery.    

we and many other friends with little kids all thought it very sneaky to start the new year celebrations at 5 pm and ring in the new year around 9 and everyone can be snug in bed by 10.  perfect planning....but so far 2009 has brought...

a broken down car

a new car

a broken down car that miraculously now drives and we sold it ...I guess that's good luck

a scary trip on an ambulance with Eva

a first week of school

3 horrible colds

 a double ear infection (Eva)

2 bottles of antibiotics

 

an Adelaide throwing up all day

one fall down the stairs with a possible broken big toe (graceful me)

 and a partridge in a pear tree 

This is Danny leaving a post. Amelia has at times teased me in public. It's kind-of like "who can be funnier." Well once right after a jab, probably something to do with me being weird or something, I responded with something like, "Who's weirder, the weirdo or the woman who married the weirdo?"
This of course has brought much laughter, especially from missionaries who do not know how to take us.
We were out with Katrina and Nathan this past week when a couple of photo-ops came our way. It all reminded me of Amelia's jabs and my comebacks.

Enjoy.I know that this picture was used in the last blog.

The Weirdo

And the woman who married the weirdo
You make the call.

FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   

Addie is now officially a homeschooler in Kindergarten!!! 
                                  ..just had to throw this pic in
Monday was our first day and we are using Ohio virtual academy.  We made danny's old "weight room" into our school room and so far so good!  It is really simple and fun.
We decided to start late....she is just one week from the age cut off for kindergarten and we decided to start in the middle of winter but Addie still dressed like it was August...

what the.....

When Addie was a little toddler one of the first things she said was....

"what the.....?"

Today has been a "what the...?" day.  

I will say before I start we bought a new car yesterday.  It's a white Honda Pilot and it's my crazy mom vehicle.  I'm now an insane large vehicle driving mormon mom.  And we will be paying it off until the end of time.  So oh well.  Now danny keeps hinting that he wants to fill it with loads of kids....hmmmm.

anyways...there is a really scary baby doll sitting here on the floor and it for no reason whatsoever keeps saying "I love you" .  well it has a button that you push and it says " I love you"  but no one is pushing the button.  I'm afraid.

Back to today....So we dropped a large chunk of our future cash yesterday on a new car and this morning I was laying in bed thinking to myself..I'm not sure why but I was thinking.."Wow Eva is a really healthy baby.  She's never had to go to the dr. for anything except her shots and stuff."  So I was probably being very prideful and thinking I was such an awesome mom to have such a hearty little child and needed to be struck DOWN.

Because within ten minutes Eva was running down the hall and I heard a very loud CRACK.

She had fallen and slipped on a blanket and was screaming.  She hit the back of her head I guess. I picked her up and figured it was just like any other time she had cracked her head on something.  When I picked her up her eyes totally rolled back in her head and and she went limp.  I started like yelling and screaming "Call 911!"  She went unconscious for about 2 minutes.  She was white and her lips were turning blue.  I didn't know if she was even breathing.   I've never seen anyone pass out like that and it scared me like crazy.  I just held her and tried to get her to wake up.  Danny called 911 and they sent an ambulance and police and everything.  

The scary part was I felt so out of control and I felt like just a little bit of what it feels like to have a really bad tragedy happen to my child.   It was such an unpredictable thing and I never would think something like slipping on a blanket could knock her out like that.   Danny and I were both thinking the same thing....you never know what could happen and there is nothing we can do sometimes to save our kids from tragedy and only God could intervene one way or another.

After a couple minutes of being unconscious she started crying and the paramedics put her with her head strapped into her carseat with tape.  The funny thing is she totally stopped crying and just had this look on her face like...I really did it this time.  I'm in big trouble!  I rode in an ambulance for the first time in my life.  The paramedic dude kept telling me about how his toy fox terrier just set the world record for # of puppies born in one litter...9.  Congrats.  She also got a pink teddy bear on the ambulance she's been toting around with her the rest of the day.

by the time we got to the E.R. she was looking better and her color was normal.  They checked her out and said she had a concussion but didn't want to do a cat scan unless she starts like having seizures and throwing up and stuff.  They said kids can pass out for up to 5 minutes when they hit their head!   

All I kept thinking was how quickly a tragedy can happen and how grateful I am that she is okay.  She is seriously a daredevil and has been jumping off of things all evening.  How quickly she forgot.  I'm appreciating the small stuff though like hearing her say...doo doo doggy (translated chilly doggy)

watching her run with my cell phone laughing while she prank calls people....

handing me pen/printer paper scrawled pictures

removing her diaper for the hundredth time today....

 

I'm thankful.