Not the normal "1st Christmas"

I have neglected to post anything for quite some time now, and I apologize for that. I have really been meaning to get to it, but it just never seems to get done!
As most of you know, Jarrik's first Christmas was definitely a memorable one for us. As he was progressively getting sicker and I was pushing the nebulizer and Motrin in order to keep the low grade fever down, the nurse at Sanford advised us that we should get him to the emergency room as soon as we could. So, our Christmas night was spent in the emergency room, and later in Pediatrics at Avera. After much poking, prodding, swabbing, X-raying, and waiting, we found out that Jarrik had RSV and strep throat. The ER doctor told us that they would need to keep him over night for "observation." So, I went up to the Pediatric unit thinking it wasn't going to be so bad. How wrong I was. They had to give him an IV (which they tried 3 times at and was not pretty!) and he had to be on oxygen and IV antibiotics. When the doctor came in on his rounds the next morning, he said "Our goal is to have you home by New Years." Mind you, that would have been 5 days away at that point. I laughed and thought he was just joking. Wrong again. Thank goodness my friend who works as a respiratory nurse at Avera. If she wouldn't have been there, I don't think I would have understood what was going on to the extent. Since Jarrik had to be on oxygen, he would have to be in the hospital for 24 hours AFTER they took him off of the oxygen. I was defeated when I heard that. By that time, I was there by myself at night time since Craig was home with the other 2 kids and it was pointless to waste gas on coming down for an hour or 2 and then going back again. In the end, we ended up staying 3 nights and 2 days. It was long enough in my book.

Night #1

Trying to rest in the hospital crib.

Feeling a little better the next day.

After Grandma Nita and Grandpa Lonnie showed up he was the happiest little guy on the planet!

No more oxygen tube!!

 Mr. Jarrik is still not 100% as RSV can hang on for quite a while. We are still doing nebulizers and trying to get him breathing better.

He's Crawling!

 It's official...Mr. J Man is crawling! He has been scooting and army crawling for a few weeks now, but last night he did the real thing. He only goes a little ways while crawling and then reverts back to the army crawl because it gets him to where he needs to be quicker. Thanks to Mason's wonderful photography skills, we caught it on camera!

And so it begins...

As of this past weekend, our family has officially begun Christmas. Having such large families that live so close together has always been such a blessing to us. We very often get to spend time with not only our immediate family, but more often than that our extended family. The holidays do tend to be a bit of a struggle as we try to make it to all of the holiday celebrations. It has usually worked out pretty well, even when we attend 2 celebrations in one day. I have been getting a little nervous as to how it is going to go this year with 3 children (2 of which need to take a daily nap or things get pretty ugly!) I distinctly remember one Christmas when we were still living in Madison and how absolutely packed our car was when we left the very last celebration of the holiday season to go back. We literally could not see out of the back windows and poor little Mason had to sit with all the boxes and hope they did not fall on him! Just goes to show how lucky we are to have such wonderful family to shower us with so many gifts.

This holiday season started out with my family a week before the actual holiday. Although not everyone was able to make it, it was still a great day! We made it home in time for bedtime, but had to get a little playing in with all of our new stuff!

Jarrik playing with his cool "bug chain"

Of course she had to get some baby accessories!

"Skidoo" snowmobile Wii game

Mason and Dad playing with his new remote control car. Even though Dad was cursing uncle Kelly's name, I think he liked the toy just as much as Mase.

And Koryn running away, scared of the remote control car...

 This week also marks the beginning of the long awaited wrestling season. The first practice was last night and when Mason woke up this morning he was already complaining about how sore he was! I can't wait to watch him in action this year and see how much more he has advanced. I only hope I look back at this years from now and can still say that he is excited about the sport. Sometimes I think that I love it a little more than he might, but always hope that he will keep interest in it as he does so well!

Blessings

My life has always seemed to throw me extreme highs and sometimes extreme lows. There are the in-between times, but I think everyone can agree with the fact that the highs and lows stand out the most. It never ceases to amaze me that when I seem to have hit one of those extreme lows, something really great happens. I guess there is only one person thank for that :) along with my great family and friends of course. Today was one of those day. Just when I thought I didn't know what I was going to do, something great came along and reminded me to just look around me at all of my blessings.
Here are a few photos of the recent blessings that we have hanging in our house (courtesy of my talented sister-in-law!)


No frame yet, but you get the idea.




Our "Blessings"




Wall collage in dining room.



Playing

It has been quite a while since my last post and to be honest, there is no good reason for that. We have been in a pretty good routine every night with not many extracurricular events going on right now. We get home, make supper, take baths, and sit down to watch alittle bit of TV before everyone falls asleep. All in all, very normal! I'm afraid this will all change very soon as the holiday season is fast approaching and with it comes many more events. After that will be the long awaited wrestling season which will take up too much of our time!
Koryn and Jarrik are generally pretty good at playing by themselves and playing with each other. When we add Mason to the bunch, however, it isn't quite as kosher. Mason and Koryn just love to pester each other and it usually ends up with Koryn screaming (which she is currently doing in the background). One particular night as I was making supper, I caught the following pictures of Jarrik and Koryn entertaining themselves.

Jarrik loves to play the game of putting a blanket over his head. This scares Mommy a little bit, but it is so funny to watch him too! He gets the blanket over his head and then he lays there and kicks and gigles until he gets the blanket off of his head. (Simple game huh?)

 This is the face I get to see when the blanket comes off! He just thinks it is so funny!

 Koryn thought that she would make a bed for her brother and herself on the living room floor. She is pretty anal about her blankets being nicely laid over the top of her.

Peek-a-boo!

Who could not love this girl?!

This is Koryn's "ROAR" face! She likes to say "ROAR" and try to scare me, which I in turn do to her.

BOO!

Well, I know I am a couple days late but I just haven't found a time where I could sit down and write this blog post. I've said it before, but better late than never!

A baby bear with a brown nose, a little ghost, and Tony Hawk

As with almost everything, Halloween got to be quite a busy day for us. We did take the advantage of going to Grandma Nita's on Sunday night to show her our costumes so that we wouldn't have to travel down there when we actually went out Trick-or-Treating. Mason has his annual "Halloween Parade" at school that I went up to watch. Tony Hawk and I picked up the little kids and quickly got them dressed so we could go and take a picture at the local photography studio with their spooky background. Then came visiting Grandma's, eating pizza, and accumulating TONS of candy! One nice thing about living is such a small community is that the people really treat everyone so well. Each home we stopped at either had a pretty good sized ziploc bag full of candy, or else they gave at least 2 handfuls of candy to each kid. This proved to be a little bit of a challenge as our little ghost (who said BOO! to everyone) insisted on carrying her own trick-or-treat bag that ended up being almost heavier than her. We traveled around to the few houses in Lake City and then headed to a couple of friends at Roy Lake. Needless to say, we will have candy around our house for quite a while!

Roller coaster costume for the costume party

The muni in Lake City has an annual costume party which I have dressed up for only a couple of times since we moved back here. Well, my co-worker had a pretty good costume idea this year so I agreed to dress up with her. Cardboard, PVC pipe, LOTS of duct tape, and bungie cords made a pretty neat roller coaster costume. We definitely had a good time, but we only got second place (a big baby and his nanny beat us out for first!)

Loud noises and an old soul

It seems I am constantly trying to think of witty little titles for my blog posts. Unfortunately, I come up with lots of post ideas but somehow never find the time to sit down and write what was on my mind!

The other night I was doing my regular routine of trying to cram as many tasks into the small amount of time that we have when we get home at the end of the day. Among other things, I decided to make some baby food for Jarrik as I thought he was probably getting sick of the squash that he had been eating for quite sometime. Making my own baby food is something that was passed down from my mother. She made all of our baby food and I found many reasons that this would be a better way to go than buying the baby food from the grocery store, i.e. no preservatives and I know what I am cooking which doesn't haven't anything added to it except for some water. Anyway, I got the blender out and started blending some green beans up. Everything was fine for a little bit as I watched Jarrik's eyes get huge and then all of a sudden he made the horribly cute baby face that tells you they are scared and not liking the loud noise! It is awful to say that it was cute as he was screaming, but you know that face....just take a look.

The green beans got made and put into their ice cube tray for freezing. Maybe I should wait for Daddy to get home next time so there is someone to comfort him while I make more loud noises.

When it comes to music, I am not too picky. I really do like to listen to most everything, but find that I am a pretty old soul with  my first preference. I know there are a few that know of my music listening style, but to most this may be a surprise. It might also make you think I am a geek and never want to listen to the radio in my vehicle with me!

As we were on the way to some unknown destination at this time, one of my favorite songs came on the radio. I love to listen to older country so the song happened to be "Ya'll Come Back Saloon" by the Oak Ridge Boys. I know what you are thinking...loser!! Anyway, I was just singing along to the song (with it turned up rather loud I might add) and all of a sudden I look over and Mason who is just quietly sitting there kind of moving his head to the beat of the music. A little smile comes to my face as he sometimes hates the music I listen to, choosing to listen to Hip-Hop or Rock over what I like most of the time. Then I look in the backseat and Koryn is sitting there dancing along too! This almost makes a tear come to my eye...love those 2! I might add that the other day on our way to town, I was surfing through the radio stations and passed up a Johnny Cash song when Mason says, "No, Mom go back. That was Johnny Cash!" Ha I have taught him well!