January & February 2014

Before I start into January here are a couple more pictures from my phone from December.

Ashton asked if he could go outside to shovel and when I looked outside awhile later he was shoveling the snow from the driveway onto the car. Not quite what I thought he was going to do with the snow but he thought it was cool.

December 6, 2013

 This age is so much fun but they also like to get into everything and Olivia loved getting into the fridge at work. Olivia must have been hungry because I caught her taking a bite out of a stick of butter. Yuck!

December 20, 2013

Later that night after a Costco trip I found Olivia climbing in the box of baking goods I had bought. She kept piling the nuts on top of her lap and thought it was so much fun to play in.

December 20, 2013

It took me a minute to remember what we did for New Year's. (Which is why I need to be better about blogging) Were at my parents eating dinner and shortly after Olivia broke out in horrible hives all over her body. I've never had issues with any of my kids so it scared me and of course insta-care closed early being a holiday and I didn't want to take her to the emergency room and hit my deductible on December 31st unless I had to so we watched it carefully. It didn't go away for a few days but eventually it did. She hadn't had anything new to eat and her pediatrician said sometimes kids get a virus that will give them hives. But on January 1st I ended up going to the insta-care because I had  had an eye infection for over a week that wasn't getting better and needed to get antibiotics for it. So it wasn't a very eventful way to ring in the new year but it was still fun and we saw a movie later that day.

January 4th on Eli's first birthday we all went up to the grave to release balloons. The boys had picked out some toys to put on his grave. Ashton wanted to get him a "soft pillow to lay on". It was a cold day but also clear skies with the sun shining bright.

 We miss Eli and are grateful that we'll see him again!

This was Kaleb's first time playing basketball and he loved it. He always plays basketball with his friends at recess but we hadn't ever signed him up since it's in January and after the holiday's it's nice to have a break from hectic schedules but he loved it and wants to do it again. Olivia and Ashton loved running around the loop up where the parents sit. So at least they can run around during the games and get their energy out.

 January 4, 2014

This was a Saturday night ice cream run to Cold Stone. Olivia might need her own bowl next time, she loved it!

January 11, 2014

 The Sunday before Ashton's birthday we had cake and ice cream. He wanted a cake with Lego guys on it so he picked out all of the Lego's from their collection that he wanted on his cake and we washed them and put them on the cake. He loved decorating his own cake.

January, 19, 2014

Kaleb bought Ashton a gift with his own money and spent hours decorating his wrapping paper. This was one of the sides of the present with R2D2 on it. He decorated every side of the box.

 Olivia enjoyed eating her brother's birthday cake!

This is the present Kaleb bought Ashton, a Marvel Agent P.

The next day Ashton opened his other presents at my parent's house.

Olivia enjoying her first margarita, non-alcoholic of course. :) One of our favorite Mexican Restaurants, La Cocina, has free margaritas 3 days a week and the boys, and now Olivia loves the Strawberry margarita's.

January 25, 2014

 A week after his birthday Ashton had his tonsil's and adenoids removed. For about 6 months he kept waking up most nights and saying he couldn't breath. We knew that Kaleb and Ashton both had big tonsils but after asking about Kaleb's at a doctor's appointment a couple of years ago he told us how they don't really take them out much anymore unless it affects their sleeping or other serious issues. Kaleb has always snored loud because his tonsils are so big. So with Ashton feeling like he couldn't breath and when you listened to him sleep he would almost choke when he was sleeping and it would wake him up his doctor said to take him in to an ENT doctor. He started by saying that just because they're big they don't always take them out unless there are other issues and that they rate the size on a 1-4 scale, 4 being the biggest. He then looked in Ashton's mouth and said, "Wow, that's a 4+ they're basically kissing eachother." After discussing his sleeping issues he said once it gets to that point it's not worth keeping them in and we decided to take them out.

Side note but when Ashton was between 2-4 years old he would constantly store food in his mouth and not want to swallow it. Eventually, even if it had been 30 minutes later he would go and spit whatever it was in the garbage can. At the time we thought he was just being stubborn and it drove us crazy but we now know it was because it was hard for him to swallow due to his tonsils. 

I was the most worried about keeping him hydrated after surgery (Matt and I had our tonsils out and we remembered how it was eating after) and so we let him pick out popsicles and other soft foods before his surgery and he had no issues at all eating after. I was really surprised at how much he ate. I think it was because we had all sorts of goodies to eat that we usually don't have on hand. He slowed down how much he ate around day 3 and 4 but that was it. I was also worried about pain and him not sleeping well and the first night home Matt and I couldn't believe how quiet he was when he was sleeping. It was silent in his room and he slept the whole night and hasn't woken up at all since his surgery. I heard people talk about how it also helped their child with learning because they were finally able to concentrate after getting a good nights sleep but didn't think that it would affect Ashton. Ashton always struggled learning his sight word lists at school and as crazy as it sounds it was a day and night difference in his reading and attention span when doing homework. I truly didn't think it would change anything other than his sleeping habits but I guess he really wasn't getting a good nights sleep and didn't realize how much it was affecting him. We're so grateful he was able to get them out and that everything went as smoothly as it did.

The doctors in surgery wrapped up his Perry he took with him with a hand bandage, mask and hair net. He thought that was pretty funny.

  

I didn't take out my camera much in February but the boys had fun making Valentine's for their class.

Olivia loves playing on the boys computer. She puts on their headphones like a necklace and pretends to play games with the mouse and keyboard. Just wants to do what her brothers do.

February 21, 2014

Kaleb and his friend Thomas placed in the top 5 for the school spelling bee and so they advanced to the school district spelling bee the following month. They are in 4th grade, the youngest grade that can compete so we were proud of how well they did. Kaleb took 4th place and Thomas took 5th place. We didn't study the word lists very much but after learning that the district spelling bee would have grades 4-8 competing we knew we had to practice. 

 February 24, 2014

 

After the spelling bee we noticed a flyer for Murray wrestling and practices started that night. Kaleb had done wrestling before but said he didn't want to do it so we took Ashton that night to practice and to sign up. The next day Kaleb changed his mind and wanted to do wrestling too so they both ended up doing wrestling over the next month.