Cookie Season Begins

Let the fun begin! This year was an interesting year for Girl Scouts. About a month before cookie season my co-leader was found to have stolen $700 from the Girl Scout account. This made the start to the cookie season very stressful. Not only did I have to work with the GS office to hand over all our records and figure out how much we were missing but I had to meet with the parents and tell them what had happened and make sure that they were still willing to let me be a leader. Since I no longer had a co-leader I had to figure out cookie season by myself.

This was the first shipment of cookies for our whole service unit. Emmy was home sick so Robb played cookie dad and went to help sort them.

Our little girl scout was determined to sell a lot of cookies! Since we don't live in a neighborhood anymore, door to door selling was a little bit more difficult but we did booths and she made a lot of phone calls. She ended up selling about 300 boxes.

Although, this was a stressful month for me trying to get everyone their cookies, trying to beg barter and plea for more of the s'more cookies (there was a national shortage) and collect money from everyone. The girls enjoy it and I had to keep telling myself this is the last year. I will be giving up the GS troop next year but another set of moms will be taking over and Abby will continue to participate.

Colorado Ski Trip

Robb and I used to go to Colorado every winter skiing and fell in love with the mountains and skiing. Since I broke my ankle I have never been quite sure if I would be able to ski or not again. Not to mention one winter I broke my ankle and the next we had Emmy so a baby puts a hold on vacations for a couple years. This year we had been tossing around the idea of going again and since the boys were 10 we thought maybe this would be a good time to take them with us. Since I hadn't officially put in for winter vacation we planned it pretty quick when I found out that I could bunch my days off together and make this work.  A friend that I used to work with has a condo in Granby Colorado that she was willing to rent to us and there were a couple ski resorts close. All the plans fell into place Bryce and Caleb were excited but nervous about learning to ski. We had asked Abby if she wanted to go but once she found out that it involved staying out in the cold for long periods of time, she decided it wasn't for her. Abby and Emmy stayed with Bob and Susie and had lots of plans of their own!

Since Bryce and Caleb had never been skiing before we decided that we would put them in 1 day of lessons at Winterpark and Robb and I would then have that day to ski and they would hopefully learn something. When we got there you could tell they were both a little nervous! Not to mention wrestling ski boots onto someone who has never worn them before is a workout! Once they had all their gear on we dropped them off with the instructor and hoped for the best. We went by the bunny hill several times that day and never saw them so I was worried but Robb was sure they were fine.

We had fun skiing for the day. The ankle held out even though it was a little painful. I was hoping skiing was a little like riding a bike and I wouldn't have forgot everything but I didn't so it was a great time.

Family picture when we picked the boys up at the end of the day. They didn't have very much fun since they didn't have them doing anything daring. I think they were hoping to be Olympic skiers by the end of the day. We took them on a couple runs after we picked them up from ski school. It was rough couple of runs. They had taught them the pizza stop/slow down which only helps you so much when you go on the real mountain plus they were tired.

This is Bryce after we had to carry our gear and walk in ski boots to the car.

I don't think I realized going on this vacation how fun it would be to just have the boys to focus on. Not that the girls aren't super fun to be with it was just fun having 2 kids to hang out with. We tried to do this vacation on the cheap so we had bought groceries and made supper every night. Everyone helped get the meals ready even though Robb declared the condo we stayed in a one butt kitchen. It did have a painfully small kitchen but was otherwise perfect for us. We were exhausted by the end of the day and we had a lot of time to watch some good movies together.

Day 2 We went to Granby Ranch ski resort. This place was a lot smaller/ cheaper which was a bonus but we had heard mixed reviews. It turns out that we loved it! It was super family friendly and actually having less runs made it easy to stay together and their just wasn't the crowd that Winterpark had. The first run of the day was a learning experience for everyone as we figured out who should stand by who to get on and off the lifts. It also took a couple runs for me to teach the boys the hockey stop instead of the pizza stop and once they learned that they were unstoppable. By the second day at Granby Ranch Bryce was going on Blue/Blacks and Caleb and I were going on the hard Blues. My favorite quote of the trip came from Bryce "I just did a Blue/Black I think that means I am a man now"! Funny kid!

We made it through the trip with no serious injuries. Robb and I were pretty sore especially me. My ankle was about done come day 3 of skiing but I pushed through so I could see the boys ski more.

I hope the boys always remember their first ski trip! It was one for the books!

Tummy Troubles

This little girl has had a rough go for about 10 days now. She had a bout of stomach flu that involved vomiting and a fever and she seemed to recover fairly quickly from that. It lasted about 24-36 hours. After 48 hours she was feeling good, eating and spunky as could be so she went back to daycare. It was that evening that we had people over for her party and she complained of stomach cramps, and had diarrhea and vomiting again. Her diarrhea lasted another 3 days and she kept complaining of terrible stomach cramps. She is a kid that is usually constipated so we have always given her Miralax to keep things moving. Since she had diarrhea we had stopped giving that for a couple days. At about a week in I was worried when she was continuing to complain of stomach pain and refused to eat. She had also had a couple odd stools that made us worried. After the baptism weekend I took her into see Dr. David. When he examined her he thought that her colon felt full of stool. He ordered an Xray and it confirmed what he had thought. This was very surprising to me since she had eaten almost nothing and had been having diarrhea for so long. He sent us home with laxatives and enemas and gave her 24 hours to poop and poop a lot or he was going to admit her with possible intussusception or bowel obstruction. We stopped at the store on the way home and bought lots of bribe toys to help us get through doing the enema. She was a trooper but she got through it but she informed me that she never wants to take "butt medicine" again! The conclusion was he thought that the stomach virus that she had was slowing her intestines down enough to cause problems and the diarrhea that she was having was actually stool making its way around a blockage. We were just relieved to have her feeling better!

Now she is back to the old Emmy we know.... Eating apple slices and Ranch!

Harper's Baptism Day

Robb and I were honored to be asked to be Harper Mae's godparents!

Thank you Megan and Lane for entrusting us with such an important job in your daughter's life!

Happy 3rd Birthday Emerson!

You have grown up to be such a spunky, smart, funny little girl! You act so much older than you are and really keep us on our toes! You love to play babies, dance and dress up, do anything your big siblings are doing and most of all you are a huge mama's girl! You love the shows Sophia the First, Daniel Tiger and The Grinch. You can run an Ipad as well as the big kids and App and Wifi are common words you use. You continue to be a terrible sleeper and we spend hours a week laying with you until you fall asleep. Your current routine is to get ready for bed around 8:30, in bed at 9 to read 2 books and then we set the timer. We usually set it for 10min and if you stay quiet and in bed then we come to lay with you. You usually don't fall asleep until around 10. Yikes, you can really tell you are a 4th child. Your favorite things to eat are gold fish crackers or snack crackers, chocolate, carrots and ranch) This year we have noticed you having some sensory issues or maybe you are just being difficult we aren't sure. You hate to wear anything tight, tags bother you and you can't find a pair of socks that you can keep on for anything. Shoes are also a big issue. So you wear a lot of super soft comfy things and we pretty much have stopped trying to force the shoes and sock thing and we are hoping that you will wear them when your feet get cold enough!

This year for your birthday you were still a little sick with the stomach flu so we had a pretty low key day just doing things that you wanted to do. You got to open your presents which you were super excited about! You got a lot of Moana stuff since that is your current obsession.

You had as much fun opening as you did playing with your gifts.

You had super crazy hair for your birthday and that's how you wanted to keep it.

We played with your new toys.

That evening even though everyone in our house was a little sick, except mom, we headed to Norfolk for a baptism the next day. Of course grandma and grandpa couldn't let you down on your birthday so there was a fabulous Moana cake waiting for you.

And gifts. I thought this picture was hilarious! I think grandpa threatened to steal your birthday gifts.

Birthday with Friends

After Emerson had participated in all Abby's birthday festivities she had decided that she needed a friend birthday party.She had originally wanted a sleepover but we discussed that not all of her friends could fit in my bed so we decided that we should probably wait until she sleeps in her own bed. Ha Ha

Poor Emmy had been sick with the stomach flu for a couple days before we had planned her party but she had been fever free for 48 hours and had went to daycare for an entire day and had been fine so we decided to go ahead with it. We had Brian, Jenn and Piper and Alex, Carlos, Remi and the new baby over. She was fine for the first part and had fun playing with the girls. We sat down and ate and that's when things got a little iffy. Poor Emmy started to complain of a stomachache and had diarrhea several times. We tried to play it off as just a little stomachache but I was starting to feel really guilty for inviting people over to our house of germs. Then her stomach pains got worse and she started complaining of "spicy butt" this is a term coined by Emmy for when her butt hurts or she has diaper rash. She is not shy about announcing spicy butt to anyone and everyone. Her and I ended up sitting in the bedroom most of the night while Robb entertained the guests and Abby kept the kids busy. I felt so bad that Emmy was sick for her party. We will try to do better for you next year Emmy.

Moana cupcakes! Moana is the newest Disney Princess movie and we love it!