No More Tubes

Beautiful Hannah ready to get her tubes out.

Hannah's ears have been hurting her for a few months and when I took her into the doctor last fall he told me her tubes had fallen out and that we should wait until January and see how she was doing. Well, January came and she still wasn't feeling the best so I took her back in. She had an ear infection and the doctor told us to see an ENT to see Hannah needed to get her tubes in.  When we got to the ENT he discovered that the tubes were in fact still in her ears, just hidden. One was blocked and the other wasn't doing anything any more. This made a lot of sense to me because I remembered when she got them in her ENT in Idaho Falls said they were permanent and would need to be surgically taken out.

Anyway, it was determined that we would take her to Primary Children's Hospital and have the tubes, that aren't doing anything anyway, out. Hannah was so excited to get them out, to no longer be in pain, and to be able to swim without them hurting. On Feburary 11th, my mom and Aunt Cindy came down to watch the little kids and I took Hannah to the hospital to get her tubes out. The doctor made it sound like it was going to take a long time, but she was in and out in a few hours. I took her home and she was even able to go to lunch with grandma, Aunt Cindy, and the other kids. It was a good day and she was very brave and very cute.

How in the world did this silly girl get so big.

Making Pizza

The girls helping to show off my first ever homemade pizza.

I've gotten this itch to try a little harder and be a little better mother. I know, crazy and sometimes exhausting, but I just keep feeling like I need to change how I'm doing things. One of the things I'm changing is how we eat. It's a very slow process, but I'm learning things a little at a time. There are many reason for this decision but the main reasons are financial (it's cheaper) and because I'm becoming more and more concerned about the food I'm feeding my kids. Processed food is so bad for us and though I grew up with it and have been eating it for years, I've decided that's not a good excuse to continue. So I'm learning to make things from scratch. It's intimidating for me, but I figure if I take it one step at a time I'll slowly get there. 

My first thing was pizza. I've always wanted to know how to make homemade pizza, but I have this crazy nervousness that keeps me from trying. I found a recipe on Pinterest that sounded pretty decent and just went for it. It took me a long time, but turned out pretty good in the end. I'll keep practicing and I'm sure I'll get faster.

They ate it so it must have been okay.

Dinner time and smiles all around.

Happy Birthday Old Man

Kenny and his presents.

Kenny's birthday was a little crazy this year. Kenny found out a few weeks before that he had gall stones and would need surgery to remove his gallbladder. By the time his birthday came he was in quite a bit of pain and was in no mood to celebrate. He did well to come downstairs and open his presents and eat his cake, but between having to still go to work and the pain he was in, there wasn't much happy in him. Lucky for him he went in for surgery 2 days later and it went very well. He had a little bit of a hard time waking up, but I guess that's normal for him. He went back to work the following Monday (the surgery was on Friday) and it took him about a week before he was really starting to do better. We're glad he was able to get all fixed up and now he's better able to enjoy his birthday presents.

While walking in Walmart a few days before his birthday, I
asked Kenny what he wanted. He pointed to the nearby
display of Pringles. So that's what he got.  :)

Kenny also got a nifty sound bar. 
(He also got a table saw to replace the one we sold years ago.)

The Science of Dissolving

Sarah's Science Fair poster

Can I just say that whoever decided to have a 6th grade Science Fair a week after returning from Christmas break either doesn't have kids or hates Christmas.Whatever the case, our elementary school held Sarah's Science Fair on January 9th. Of course, we didn't work on it at all over the Christmas break and not much between the time school started up again and a few days before it was due. This left us with A LOT of work that first week in January.

Sarah decided to do her project on "How Things Dissolve."  Luckily Kenny is much smarter than me, and he doesn't have the clouded mommy brain that I seem to not be able to kick, and he was able to help Sarah think through her project, help her design how it would look, and explain to her all that was going on. There's no way it would have worked without him.

Sarah at the Science Fair with her best friend
Addy (who broke her wrist sledding a few days earlier.)

Her finally project was pretty cool. She tried to mix 5 things in water to see which of  them dissolved or mixed. She learned about density and saturation point. Thanks to modern technologies (aka digital cameras and printed pictures from Sam's Club) we were able to take a number of pictures to show the different parts of her experiment.

All in all a lot of things were learned.
1. Don't procrastinate. We were up with Sarah until almost 11:00 the last night trying to finish her poster. I had told her numerous times in the weeks before it was due to start on her report, but she never did. She learned a valuable lesson and I learned not to let her get away with not working.
2. Sarah learned a lot more about dissolving and how it all works. Kenny explained some things that were even foreign to me so she definitely learned more than she was planning on.
3. A hard lesson she learned was if you want to do well in life you have to put in the time. Sarah was so disappointed that she didn't win anything during the Science Fair. We had to explain to her that those who won worked on their projects over the entire month they were given. They put in the time and created a good project. She learned that waiting until last minute may get the job done, but not done as well as it could be done.

At the Science Fair

Making Pottery

After sleeping most of Christmas Day I finally got up and showed my face late that afternoon. We gathered our stuff up and headed home that evening. The kids had a few gifts waiting for them at our house that Santa had left and we had family gifts to open. Being that it was late and I (and Dan still) didn't feel great, we did a quick second Christmas without taking any pictures (oops).

One of the things Hannah got was a pottery wheel. She desperately wanted to try it so on the 30th we opened it up and she tried making a cup. It was kind of hard to get the hang of and it took a lot of patience, which was something I was lacking that day. She did pretty good, but it just didn't turn out to good. We really need to try it again now that life has settled down a bit. The important thing is she had fun trying.

Christmas Day

Christmas was anything but fun for me this year. Just before bed I started to feel sick and ended up spending most of the evening in the bathroom. It didn't get any better as morning approached and the kids started getting up. Not only was I not feeling well, but poor Dan was having issues also. He had nasty runs and was going through pull-ups really quickly. The poor kid couldn't even make it up the stairs to see what Santa brought. I came upstairs to watch the kids and Kenny stayed downstairs to help Daniel. It wasn't what we wanted for Christmas, but it was what it was. Dan was finally able to make it upstairs after a few minutes and he managed to feel better for most of the day. I was so glad he was able to play with his toys. I didn't last nearly as long and just after Daniel came upstairs I had to go back to the bathroom followed my many hours of sleeping. I pretty much slept through Christmas which wasn't fun, but it was much better than being awake and sick. Luckily while I was asleep Kenny took some pictures so I could see the fun the kids had.

The kids trying not to look as they walked in. We were so late coming up due to
sickness and when we did come up we just let the kids come all at once. It wasn't
tradition, but under the circumstances it worked.

Hannah excited to see all her new toys.

Ben liked his helicopter and Nerf gun.

Gracie's new snow set.

Hannah's Figit dog.

Sarah with her Furby Boom.

Dan finally made it upstairs. (Notice the mis-matched, non Christmas Jammies)

Gracie showing off the half eaten Santa cookies.

The kids playing with and exploring their new toys.

Daniel finally feeling good enough to play with his new toys.

Sarah and Alli really enjoyed playing with Alli's new Barbies.

Goofy Adam. I love his static hair.

The kids really enjoyed the tube in all different ways.

Gracie relaxing.

Fort style was a huge hit.

Christmas Jammies and Such

Waiting to open jammies

After the wonderful Nativity put on by the kids and the other lessons we had on the birth of Jesus it was time to open Christmas jammies and get ready for bed.

Opening their jammies.

Gracie loved her Smurp jammie.

Sarah and Ben. They're getting so big.

My goofy little girls.

The little boys showing off their new jammies.

After opening jammies we let the kids play a little Duck, Duck, Goose.

Dan chasing Hannah in Duck, Duck, Goose

While playing Duck, Duck, Goose someone thought they saw Santa.
There's no way it was Nikki's boyfriend Tanner.

Making reindeer food.

Throwing the reindeer food out on the grass for the reindeer.

Nativity Program

The Nativity Cast

The kids put on a Nativity program for everyone to enjoy. It was very cute watching them all do their parts and see how excited they were.

Adam as a shepherd boy.

The angles keeping a close watch.

Joseph (Dan) helping lead Mary on her donkey to Bethlehem.

Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus and the star/angle

The Shepherds

The Wise 'Men'

Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus

Watching the Nativity

Aunt Karen read a book to the kids about the stable Jesus was born in.