Maggie's surgery

After having a terrible stomach ache for two days (and a fever, and throwing up 20+ times, and fatigue, and no appetite...), I finally took Maggie to the ER this week where she was diagnosed with appendicitis!  My poor, poor girl had to have surgery!  She was so brave with her overnight hospital stay and is finally starting to feel a little better today.  I didn't realize that the recovery would be so awful for her (I thought it would be like 2 days--duh): she can't lift heavy things or exert herself for the next 3-4 weeks!  No recess when she returns to school, no P.E., no ballet class...  She has been a trooper.  And, I am so grateful for the sweet people in the world who donate items to hospitals to give to sick kids.  Maggie came home with all kinds of fun stuff: two fleece blankets, flannel jammy pants, a new pillowcase, a couple of new dolls, plus coloring supplies and play dough and other do-dads.  Early birthday presents!

It was tricky to get her diagnosed.  I was reading stuff online before I took her in, and it said appendicitis symptoms in kids can vary greatly, that there are lots of other things that can cause bad tummy aches, and that appendicitis is much more common in children over 10 than under 10.  She did seem to be able to localize the pain to her lower right abdomen, and I asked her several different times to make sure she was consistent in telling me where it hurt.  I didn't know if I was being overly cautious by taking her in to the ER; however, I had to be quite pushy as a parent to have the urgent care doctor (I took her to the Urgent Care next door to the hospital before taking her to the ER) and the ER nurse that checked her in to take me seriously!  The urgent care doctor was just certain it was just a stomach bug ("most stomach viruses last 7-10 days"--whatever) and I had to actually ask her to push on Maggie's stomach to have Maggie tell her where it hurt.  Then she was like, "Oh, the pain seems to be localized in the lower right abdomen!" and sent us over to the ER next door.

The ER nurse that first talked to us said, "Maggie, why are you here today?"  "My tummy hurts."  "Have you gone poop today?" "No."  "Did you go poop yesterday?"  "No."  Then she turns to me and says, "Maggie is probably just constipated."  WITHOUT ASKING ME ANY MORE QUESTIONS LIKE IF SHE HAD ANY OTHER SYMPTOMS!  Then I had to say, "No, Maggie has had a fever, been vomiting, and has had no appetite...oh, yeah, and if you push on her stomach she will tell you exactly where it hurts!!!!"  Well, I wasn't that rude and forceful.  Ha ha.  Then after several hours of other tests, including an ultrasound where her appendix was HUGE, she finally had her surgery.  I must admit that I felt vindicated, like my mother's instinct was correct!!!!

Here's to my sweet, brave girl.  I love you.

Alan's Birthday and Tulip Festival

I guess grown-ups get the shaft with birthday pictures.  These are the only two pictures I took of Alan's birthday.  Ha ha.  I made stuffed pasta shells and yummy cheesy bread (at Alan's request) for dinner, plus Alan's favorite ice cream sandwich frozen birthday cake.  I love my hubby so much!  

We have been to the local Tulip Festival a couple of times lately (when the weather hasn't been rainy...) It has been pretty chilly!

Sweet Maggie

On a different matter, here is Jared playing his latest memorized song, the Star Wars Main Theme.  He has actually gotten even better since I took this video.  I am so proud of him.

Happy 3rd Birthday, Evelyn!

We recently celebrated Evy's 3rd birthday!  She has grown up so much lately.  For dinner we had homemade chicken noodle soup, homemade wheat bread, and berry jello, some of her favorites.  

Trying to show me three fingers

Evy's loot.  The magiclip princess dolls seemed to be the biggest hit

 Maggie gave Evelyn a couple of her old too-small dress-ups, and Jared gave Evelyn his penguin pillow pet that Evy has had her eye on for a while.  It was really cute to see his generosity with her.

 I made Evelyn's birthday cake a couple of days before her birthday because my Relief Society happened to have a cake decorating activity.  A really nice cake decorator came and shared her homemade frosting with us and helped me pipe the edging on Evelyn's cake.

Somehow I didn't video our entire birthday song, but this video is worth watching because Evelyn is just giggling the entire time, and she is so darn cute:

Evy in one of her new dress ups.  She is too enthralled with her star wand to bother looking at the camera...

Spring Break Trip to Goblin Valley

We had a fun spring break this year.  I finally sprung for a pass to Thanksgiving Point, so we went there two days in a row.  Then we took a little trip to Goblin Valley.  We stopped and spent a night with Alan's sister Amanda and her husband Todd and their kids on the way.  It was super fun to hang out with them.

This is the second spring break in a row that we went to Goblin Valley.  Our kids loved playing in the "goblins," and I had fun trying some new hikes that we didn't do last year.  ("Fun" is a little bit of a relative term for someone who is 26 weeks preggo...)

We stayed in one of the yurts again this year.  Totally rocked!--especially when it rained one of the nights we were there

 The first day we hiked a trail called Carmel Canyon, which was short but pretty cool.  We also hiked with Curtis cousins to the top of a butte by our campground.

Jared is mid-cough in this picture.

 Jared had had a pretty bad cough for 2 1/2 weeks before this trip.  It developed into an ear infection while were there.  Poor kid.  I had children's ibuprofen to give him for pain, but he had to wait until we got home Saturday evening for a prescription.  He was a trooper.

Evy all tuckered out.  Doesn't look very comfortable.

Maggie, Uncle Matt, and cousins exiting a little tunnel

Nice, Jared

 That evening we spent some time playing hide-and-seek and other games with cousins in the goblins.  The kids had a blast.

The next day we hiked Little Wild Horse Canyon, which we did last year, too.  It was such a fun hike for everyone.

Jared and Maggie with cousin Scott

 Some great views of the wind-y and skinny canyons we had to climb through.

 Our final morning we hiked to the Goblin's Lair, a big cave.  There was a cool mini-cave inside that you could explore for a bit.  I'm glad we brought flashlights.

At the top of Goblin's Lair before we hiked down

Alan in the mini-cave

An attempt at a family photo.  I'm in hardly any of these pictures, ha ha, which is probably a  good thing considering my growing belly 

It was such a fun trip and we are looking forward to going back sometime.

Big Changes for Evelyn

Evelyn and her favorite kitty, Snowy

 It's about time we had a post about big things in Evy's life.  About a month ago we tried unsuccessfully to move Evelyn from her crib into a "big girl bed," and also to her new, bigger bedroom.  Well, then we decided to paint that room before attempting to move her again.  It had been chocolate brown.  Here is a before picture from 5 or 6 years ago, when it was Jared's room.

Here are the "after" pictures.  I also bought a couple of new decorations.  Thanks to Alan who did like 95% of the work.  I helped with prep work, corners, and touch ups.

We also put in some regular blinds instead of the mini blinds that had been in there before.  It looks so much better to me!

There is just something so cute about seeing a little girl sleeping in a big bed for the first time.  Evelyn had a hard time in her bed for about two nights, and then she was good to go.  She also loves the new yellow paint and now thinks that yellow is her favorite color (she always wants yellow shirts, yellow socks, yellow bowls, etc.)

While we were on a painting roll, we used General Conference weekend to paint the nursery, too, now that Evelyn was officially moved out.  I guess I finally felt more committed to do some repainting now that I knew we were going to be having so many little girls in our family.

Here is the before picture:

Here is an "after" picture:  We did mint green on top of the molding and a light coral underneath.  (I didn't want it to be TOO girly.)  :)  I still need to hang up some things on the walls.

Now, this week (after all our camping trips are over) we are finally getting Evelyn potty trained!  I was going to start later this week, but yesterday morning she woke up and asked, "Mommy, can I wear big girl underwear today?"  What a request!  I cancelled all my plans yesterday so I could stay home with her and work on it.  She has been ready for a while but I was feeling so crummy with morning sickness and we also had some camping trips planned, so I put it off.  Now she has been doing so well so far.

I'm so proud of my big girl!

Here is just a random photo of piggy tails.  I can't get over how cute she is!  

Easter 2016

We had a very fun Easter. We were having an egg hunt with the Curtis cousins in the evening, so Alan and I didn't bother planning our own little hunt.  However, I did give the kids their hollow milk chocolate bunny--a tradition from my childhood.  

Evelyn's yellow Easter dress was mine when I was a girl--it already is too short for her.  Maggie wore it three years ago, too.


All of the rest of the pictures are from the egg hunt in Grandma Curtis' backyard.  We also had a lovely ham and potato dinner with some of the aunts and uncles and cousins, but I forgot to take pictures.

Jared's favorite face to make for pictures lately

Fun with cousins!