Kate's 1 year old birthday

Kate's birthday was yesterday. It was sad and happy at the same time. I am sad she is not a baby anymore but excited to see her learn and grow. We had a small family party with my mom and Russ's mom. Kate wasn't interested in opening the presents, so Alyssa didn't mind opening them for her. Alyssa had a hard time yesterday. I think she was jealous. We made little cakes that were darling, the taste wasn't as great but still okay. Kate enjoyed her cake and dug in right away. So happy to have this girl in our family and I can't believe how fast it went.

Valentines Day

This year I decided to surprise Russ with a Valentines night get away. He had talked about it before but I kept saying I didn't want to leave Kate. After she had her tubes she has been so much happier and sleeping better that I decided to do it. We both love skiing and snowboarding. I found some really cheap tickets to Canyons on KSL and then booked a night at Zermatt resort in Midway.  My mother in law was kind enough to watch the girls. We had fun skiing at the Canyons. It is my favorite resort. It is so big that we never had to wait in line for the lift. There are so many lifts and runs that we could have skied a different run all day if we wanted to. We stayed on my favorite side of the mountain the whole day though. Now that I have kids I am more cautious. I wasn't wearing a helmet (which I will start to do, it is so much safer). Before I had kids I would fly down the mountain so fast. I still went a decent speed, but Russ wishes I would have gone faster. The day before at work, I was talking with my co-worker about people that died from hitting their heads skiing, so that was on my mind. It was a beautiful day even though the snow wasn't great. (We are snow snobs, since we can have the greatest snow on earth (literally)).  It was a great weekend!

Russ got me these beautiful flowers. I would love to have fresh flowers everyday if they weren't so expensive! 

Snow Snow Snow

Last week it snowed for 2 days straight. We got about 18 inches at my house. I was trying to build a small hill to sled down in my yard. We invited a friend over to play with Alyssa. They had a lot of fun. The hill I built was too tall for them to climb up by them selves. I tried building steps but the snow wouldn't pack down enough. I also found a cute thing on pinterest called Snow icecream. We got 8 cups of fresh snow, sweetened condensed milk and vanilla, stirred it all together and added toppings. It was fun and pretty good.

Kate the Great and her ears

Kate has been suffereing with ear infection after ear infection. This last episode was the worst. The fluid stayed in her ears and would get reinfected days after stopping the antibiotic. We did 3 courses of anitbiotics for 10 days each. The last one (Omnicef) is a great antibiotic and if it didn't work the only other option would be to get tubes. I checked her ears almost everyday. They never looked better. I missed almost a week of work because she was so sick. On her last day of antibiotics I was at work. In my office we have a few ENT's(Ears nose and throat) Doctors that share our space. They are only there a few times a week. I decided go down and talk to Dr. Hamilton and ask his opinon on Kate's situation. He immediatley said that she needed tubes. I went and got her from daycare and brought her into see him.(Benefit of working with Doctors) He said that both her ear drums were full of thick glue like pus. He said, "I can do the surgery tomorrow morning at 8 am" Russ is out of town so I was hesistant. But I knew if I waited she would be sick the whole time. I decided to do it. I was anxious all night. I was nervous because she had to go under general anesthesia for the surgery. I  know too much about medicine and the risks that it scared me. But he reassured me that she would only be under for 15 minutes at the most. We got the the surgery center at 730 am. My mom came for support and to watch Alyssa. The hardest part was handing Kate to the nurse when she was screaming bloody murder. The nurse told me that she calmed down and stopped crying in the surgery room until they put her on the surgery table and put the mask on her. She screamed but fell asleep quickly. The surgery went great. Dr.Hamilton said that her ears were really bad. When he cut open the ear drum that pus shot out because there was so much pressure. He suctioned out all the pus and then placed the tubes. Kate was fussy for a few hours. When she woke up from her nap she was so happy. She hasn't been that happy in months. I so glad that we did the surgery and now she will be ear infection free!!!



Waiting to go into surgery. They gave her a shirt that says Super Patient.



At home after surgery. Happy as can be! (Crawling everywhere too)





Weekend at the Cabin

Our friends parents have a cabin up by Kamas. They invited us to come with them this weekend since it was a holiday weekend. 3 couples came and their kids. The cabin is SUPER nice, fancy and spacious. We played lots of games, talked, went to an indoor swimming pool, went sledding and had a lot of fun. Alyssa played with Kate (our friends 5 year old). They had a blast and of course Alyssa is calling her, her best friend. She was also call her the "5 Kate" (to differentiate from her sister Kate).  The indoor swimming pool is in Kamas and is the nicest indoor pool I have ever been too. Weird that Kamas a tiny town would have such a nice facility... Kate LOVED it. She splashed and laughed, she didn't want me to hold her and kept trying to crawl in the water. Then she would lean back and try and float on her back. I guess she will be a natural swimmer. Alyssa also had fun, but wanted to wear a life jacket so she could swim around as she pleased.  We also went sledding, which was an adventure. We had to hike probably a 1/2 mile or more through 2 feet of snow (powder none the less) to get the the hill. Keep in mind we had 3 babies 1 and under and then a 5 year old and a 3 year old. We got there. Alyssa was kind of a chicken. She got snow in her face after her first sled and didn't want to go down any more. I convinced her and she went a few more times. The 5 year old Kate was fearless and loved it. The adults had fun as well. Here are some pictures from my phone, I forgot my nice camera =(

Kate and Alyssa playing dress up

Sledding down the stairs

Parker and Kate. Kate likes to touch Pakers, he is a little hesitant

Hiking to the sledding hill

Loving the pool

Before Alyssa got pounded in the face by the powder

Life according to my I phone

I take a lot of pictures with my I phone. I really need to transfer all of them to my computer. My phone just told me that I am out of photo space. Here are some recent pictures. Quality isn't great but not that bad for a phone either. I also take videos on it which is fun. The video here is of Kate and Alyssa. They did this for about 5 minutes before I started recording it so by the time I got my phone out they were both done. Kate would throw her sippy cup off her highchair and Alyssa would pick it up, over and over. Kate thought it was hilarious.

Alyssa helping put the candles on my cake

Russ made me a great cake, coated with oreo cookie crumbles on the outside

Alyssa's best friend came into town, we loved having play dates

Turning 30 =(

Kiss attack by Alyssa

Preschool science experiment, Dry Ice bubble, Kids loved it

Merry Go Round at Provo beach with Emma

Best jogging companion, she doesn't ever complain!

New interest in books, especially ones that have touch and feel

Bumper pads aren't recommended due to suffocation risks, so I often find Kate like this.

Sledding

We have had quite a bit of snow the past few weeks. Now that it is so cold, the snow will never melt. We have been sledding a few times. First time was with Eric, Noelle and my mom. It was the perfect day. The snow was new and it wasn't too cold. Alyssa was so brave and went down the big hills time after time. She never wanted help. She could have stayed for hours. The next time we went on my birthday up to Tibble fork. (this is up AF Canyon). I had never been there before. There was one very steep hill, it was sledding down the dam. We went to another hill that was big but not to bad. It was about 14 degrees. Alyssa was already complaining of being cold. She went down with us but wouldn't go down by her self. The next time we went back to our favorite sledding hill with her best friend Emma. This time it was 8 degrees. Alyssa went down one hill and then said she wanted to go because she was cold. We actually stayed almost an hour. Emma loved it and never complained but Alyssa was complaining the whole time. I guess 8 degrees is pretty cold. Hopefully it will warm up so we can go again and not be freezing.

Kate was a good sport and didn't whine about the cold