Have a Happy Feverish Birthday Party

When I was about 7 or 8 months pregnant I thought to myself, "I think we will just do a small birthday party for Hannah with her grandparents and not invited to whole countryside." Boy was I ever glad that I did. Hannah's birthday was officially on Friday. She also managed to develop a fever that day too. I debated about canceling the party but thought everyone would filter in through out the day anyway so why don't we just have dinner and cake. So that's what we did on Saturday.

I spent most of Saturday going from holding one kiddo to the next. Finally some grandparents showed up and the kiddo holding was distributed across more people. I preheated the ovens to cook the pizza. As the rest of the grandparents started showing up the house started to fill with smoke coming out of both ovens. We had to open a bunch of the doors and windows. Apparently you should clean your ovens more often than never. If they get bad enough can I just get new ones? Wouldn't it be nice to have one with a door that shuts all the way?! Someday Erika, some day.

So when the house filled with smoke I wasn't burning a pizza but I later succeed at doing that. While everyone ate I fed Helena. Oh, the life of a mother. Is this why some moms get so skinny while raising kids? No time to eat a whole meal at once and by the time you get back to it, it's either cold, you're no longer hungry, or it's time for the next meal. I wouldn't have it any other way.

After dinner Hannah opened some presents. I think her fever had reached about 102 degrees by now. She refused to open any present that were in a gift bag. If it was wrapped no problem. Destroying paper is great fun for a two year old, even a sick one at that. So Daddy and Mommy finished opening the presents in the gift bags. I even had a cute little outfit to put on Hannah but it ended up being a lazy clothes birthday party. Shoot, with all of the kiddo holding that went on through out the day I didn't even have time to paint my face.

At this point I should taken Hannah straight to bed. But what about the cake I worked so hard on? Papa Randy held Hannah, I lit the candle, and we sang "Happy Birthday" through all of the screaming. I'm going to blame it on her not feeling well and not the fact that her favorite character Strawberry Shortcake was on fire.









Disclaimer: Mom I know I said I wouldn't put any more pictures of Hannah on here where she wasn't happy but these are the only pictures I have of her not blowing out her candle on her cake. If there were some happy ones I would have posted them.

Here's what Helena did for most of the birthday party while her sister was so upset.

Did she blow out her own candle? No. Did she eat her cake? No. Did she enjoy her birthday party? I don't think so. Sometimes while we are driving around in the pickup she says, "Birthday soon?". To which I respond, "Birthday all done." She starts to sing "Happy Birthday." I finish singing it to her and then she's happy!

Hannah's 2 Year Check-up

Hannah had her two year check-up on Monday. She weighs 26 pound and is 32 inches tall. The doctor is always traumatic for Hannah even if it's not her appointment. She cried at EVERY prenatal appointment that I took her to when I was pregnant with Helena. A couple of days ago I finally figured out why. The girl has got an incredible memory!

Hannah was with me and I opened up the closet that has all of our games in it. She really never gets to see in there. She pointed to Scrabble and said, "Mema Mary play with it." "Yes" I said thinking nothing of it. Then she pointed to Boggle and said, "Uncle Mike play with it." Keep in mind she has only seen her Uncle Mike 3 or 4 times in her lifetime. At this point I called my Mom (aka Mema Mary) and asked her when the last time that we played Scrabble was. She reminded me that it was at Christmas. Hannah was 20 months old and hadn't looked in the closet since! I think we may have played Scrabble for 10 minutes before we determined that our brains were shot and it was far too intellectual for the evening. She remembers something what we did for 10 minutes 4 months ago??

Occasionally I go to Staples to pickup office supplies. Hannah usually goes with me and maybe we talk about that we are at Staples. I think she sat in the pickup with Mema Mary once and pointed out the letters on the sign. The other day she was into our CDs and DVDs when she brought me a Staples brand CD and said "Staples movie." She hoped that we could watch what was on it and I was shocked that she made the connection.

So, Hannah, I probably owe you an apology. Your doctor and I end up chuckling in the exam room because you act like being there is such a big deal. You tend to cry the ENTIRE time we are there. Apparently it is a big deal to you. I'm sorry that you have "remembered" your doctor visits (and the shots) since you were about 4 months old. Your doctor never gets to listen to your heart beat or your breathing. However, we are confident you are doing well based upon the protests that are coming out of your mouth. Your doctor has never been able to do an abdominal exam but we just have to trust that your insides are just fine. He can't look in your ears or touch your feet. I hope and pray that some day you can be the tough little girl that you are at home and we can get through a doctor appointment (even mine) with flying colors.

Meeting the Requests

I have had a request to post more pictures of Helena and to take a picture of her in a cow outfit that Hannah wore when she was about the same age. Here's to killing two birds with one stone. If you would like to see the picture of Hannah click here. By the way Helena is six weeks old today and doing very well. So well, I'm not sure how much longer she will fit into this outfit because she is getting so long.

Happy 2nd Birthday Hannah

Daddy is the Hero Today

Yesterday was an absolutely beautiful day here. As they said on the news today, April can be kind of funny. It is supposed to be 80 degrees today and there's chance of snow by the weekend.



I saw this tutorial for making a kite the other day and wanted to try it with Hannah. Her contribution was to decorate the paper before I turned it into a kite. It was very simple and I already had all of the stuff around the house. I was able to keep it up in the air better than Hannah is in this picture but I'm sure the several feet height difference that I have on her makes a difference.

When we moved here there was a swing set in the yard. We spent a year or so mowing around it and then decided to move it out since we didn't have kids. We were given a little kid swing so I took Hannah "out back" to the swing set several times this winter and spring. She noticed her swing the other day when we were feeding and has been asking for it ever since.

She managed to talk Daddy into bringing it back into the yard for her. I would have to say that she has one of the tallest swing sets in the area. I think that her Grandpa used to swing on this set so it's been around for awhile and I don't think it's going anywhere soon. Maybe she'll be able to talk her Daddy into attaching a slide to the side of it some day.

Once the swing set was in the yard my kite was long forgotten. I did eventually figure out to put her swing at a height where she can get herself in and out so I don't have to run over there every minute while I'm feeding Helena.

She doesn't know to give anyone a "thumbs up" but I think she's giving her Daddy her approval for a job well done.

A Belated Happy Easter

We hope you all had a Happy Easter! Ours turned out to be a pretty full day. Hannah and Helena slept in while I stayed home with them and Daddy went to the sunrise service. I would have liked to have gone but I knew the girls needed their sleep if the rest of the day was going to be bearable. When Daddy got home Hannah got to dig into her Easter basket. Not long after that we had breakfast with Papa Randy, Lynn, Uncle Jared and Cousin Wyatt. We were lucky enough to get to go to some friend's house for a community egg hunt. It was Hannah's first year hunting and she was very serious. I think she was a little bit unsure of all of the people and then once we got going she took her hunting job very seriously.

Here she is opening the egg that she found. It took about a half a dozen eggs before I could convince her to toss the egg in and go look for the next one. She was apparently more concerned about the quality of the items inside and I thought she needed to be worried about quantity. We would have been hunting all day if I hadn't convinced her of the latter.

Whooho! Hannah found a gold egg with some money in it. I guess it pays to hunt the perimeter of the area.

I think she really just enjoyed sitting on the 4-wheeler. Uncle Jared and Papa Randy had been taking her for rides so she thought she needed to go after the egg hunt.

Helena got to go too but she spent most of her time sleeping in her car seat next to Daddy.

I really did try to dress her up for Easter. I figured there was no point taking her dressed up the the egg hunt because she would just get dirty. I was right. By the end she was sitting in the driveway playing with rocks with her cousin. When we got home I put her in her Easter dress for lunch. That lasted for about 20 minutes and then she was running around saying "dress off, dress off!" Oh well, I got one picture before the dress came off and her hair was wrecked.

We spent the rest of the day eating lunch with our family and visiting. The guys went out shooting and the gals played with the kids.

A Little Work & Some Easter Fun

It is a beautiful day here today. It is expected to be in the high 60s. OK, for here that's warm and the fact that it was only breezy and the wind wasn't blowing tons of dust around was a welcome change. Our alfalfa field is on the edge of the Basin, and not out in the middle of the old lake bed. One of the joys of having a field on the edge is you get to pick rocks after it has been harrowed. We took the opportunity to get out of the house and went and helped Daddy.

Hannah loved picking up the rocks. Daddy had made some piles in the field and Hannah immediately caught on to picking them up and putting them in the back of the Gator. I guess we should enjoy her willingness while it lasts because picking rocks is not one of the most desired jobs around. You can see the excitement on her face in the second picture as she takes her rock back to the Gator.

We came back inside for a little Easter egg dyeing. We made the same recipe last year and they turned out completely different. I think I like them better this year. Hannah helped put the eggs in the dye. I couldn't seem to get her to put them into a different color once they had been in one color. I had to finish them by putting them in other colors. Her favorite color these days is yellow and most of the eggs seemed to end up there.

Hannah discovered that the shell cracks when you bang the egg against your head. She then found that the shell peels off and there's stuff inside. Needless to say we had one casualty that we didn't get to dye. I did however find out that I did a good job of getting them hard boiled.

Here's the recipe for the eggs.

1 c. hot water

1 Tbs. oil

1 tsp. vinegar

1 tsp. food coloring (I added food coloring paste until I like the color because that's what I had)

Make the above mixture for each color that you want to use. Dip the egg in the dye for a few seconds, remove, and pat lightly with paper towels. Repeat until you like the effect.

Precious Girls

Two Weeks Old (Tomorrow)

Helena had her two week check-up today. She will officially be two weeks old tomorrow. Wow, time really flies when you have two to take care of! Her appointment went well. She weighs 8 pounds 13 ounces and is 22 inches long. It looks like she grew 1.5 inches in two weeks. This is not very likely but is still possible. Someone probably measured wrong somewhere along the way. One doctor walked by when she was on the scale and commented that she's a big 2 week old baby. I guess I'm getting to see the flip side of things. Hannah is petite and Helena seems to have gotten some of the bigger genes. She seems to be happy and doing well.

A Little Over a Week

Helena is a little over a week old. Here are a few pictures that we have taken since we have been home. Things are going well here. Hannah loves her new little sister. She is working on patiently waiting for something when Mommy can't get it right now. Otherwise we have been having lots of good company coming around to visit.