Sick Weekend

I have this theory that I think most moms have. And if they don't have this theory, I think they will adopt it once they hear it. Here it is:

**Moms (especially pregnant ones) should get some kind of pass card that allows them not to get really sick.

Am I right? I mean, I understand that people get sick. It happens. Colds, allergies, that kind of stuff. But I think that things like flus, stomach bugs, and viruses are just too much!

We have other people in our families to take care of!

Our son, Rigley, got a stomach bug on Thursday. He threw up a few times in the morning but by bedtime he was a-ok. We thought we were in the all clear. We had fun on Friday for a friend's birthday. We woke up Saturday to our daughter, Harper throwing up. Yuck! Ryan stayed home and I took Rigs with me to the gym so I could teach my class. When we got home, I started feeling it. I was in and out of the bathroom for a while and then I took what I think was a four hour nap. I'm so lucky to have such a good husband who fed the kids lunch and put them both down for naps while I was asleep. When I woke up I was no better. Long story short, there was more throwing up by Harper and me. We got the kids to bed, watched the new (ish) Batman movie (we're way behind on movies right now, more on that in another post), and went to bed.

I stayed home from church today with the kids. I think that we are finally on the mend. But yuck, right? Ain't nobody got time fo' dat!

*And yes. I'm pregnant!!! I don't think I've officially posted that on here yet. Due early October.

**I've been posting from our iPad. Does anyone know of a simple way to post photos?

***Also, I'm going to try to blog and instagram more and facebook a little less. We'll see how I do. My instagram name is abbyobell.

Lately

Things around here have pretty much been the same ol', same ol'.  

Rigs is doing his thing: being awesome!  He is at such a fun stage lately.  Talkative, smart, fun, crazy, goofy. 

Harper is having a blast at Preschool and Joy school.  I recently registered her for kindergarten.  I'm kind of freaking out a little bit.  I can't believe that my little baby is going to be starting school.  I hope that our little family is ready for this new stage of life.  We will be busy and life will be hectic, I'm sure. But I think it will be really fun!

Ryan is still working at Walmart.  Church keeps him busy, but it's good.  He recently subbed on a volleyball team that some of his coworkers play on. That's where the picture is from.  We went to the gym to watch his game and the kids started coloring together.  

I'm doing well too!  I teach two classes at the gym and I'm probably about to add two more.  I am loving the stage that our little family is in right now.  Harper and Rigs are literally best friends.  I know that it probably won't last forever, but it is the sweetest thing.  They play so well together.  Rigs things the world of Harper and she is so sweet with him.  

Testing

I am currently writing this post on our new iPad. Wahoo!!

I'll try to do a proper post later today.

Changes

 

We had some big changes here in church recently. 

Our units (congregations) were reorganized a little bit. With those changes, our little family has been put into a new unit. These new changes are mostly all good. We will miss some of our friends that we saw a lot at church, but we're excited to make new friends. 

The changes also brought a meeting time change. We used to go to church at 11 o'clock. Which was okay. My ideal church time as a mother with small children is 9 am. We will now be going to church a 1 pm. That is a tough time. The kids don't get naps and it feels late when we get home. It is really nice because we aren't rushed at all when we're getting ready for church and we have time to make and eat muffins for breakfast!

Something I've been hearing a lot lately is that change is constant. It's something we can always count on. So true.

2012 in a nutshell

It has been almost a year since my last post. Who has two thumbs and is a slacker? This girl!

2012 was an awesome year! I'm going to try to give a run down of our happenings with a few pictures in there.

I think the first big thing we did was go down to Texas in March (?) to go to our nephews' baptism. Ryan's brother has twin boys and they turned 8 and were baptized. It was really special to be there and spend time with family. I also got to spend some special time with my sister while she was preparing her house to be sold. We would get news of a showing and have to clean and leave the house in 15 minutes sometimes. It was crazy but fun! (Sorry, no pictures from this trip).

 Harper took swim lessons again this year. She loved them! She got really good at going under the water by herself and she can swim really well by herself with the help of floaties.

We went to the fair this Summer. One of Harper's favorite treats is cotton candy. We also went to the park A LOT! Rigs would spend hours on a swing. Every time I asked him if he wanted to get down and play he'd say, "No. Keep swinging."

Harper started preschool. She was so excited! This year we did preschool and a little joy school swap with friends. In our area we have full day kindergarten and I wanted her to get used to going somewhere every day of the week.

At the end of September I ran a Ragnar race. Other than carrying and birthing two children, it is probably the biggest physical accomplishment in my short life thus far. It was an incredible experience! I was able to have my dad, three brothers and a sister-in-law on my team as well as some friends. The friends that were on my team became closer friends and I made friends with the people I didn't know before. I am already very anxious to run another one. Who's in?

In October, I was able to go to my big brother's wedding in Salt Lake City. The ceremony was beautiful and it was nice to be with family. All of my siblings were there. None of our spouses or kids were able to come. We really missed all of them, but it was also fun to hang out as siblings. It had been a long time since I had shared a fold-out sofa bed with my sister ;). 

 Halloween was great as always. We dressed up as the Flinstones. Perfect, right? This photo was at our church Halloween party. We were tending our friends' little monkey. We have a tradition of having soup with friends and trick-or-treating around our neighborhood. It was perfect this year because our friends' kids dressed up as dinosaurs. The Finstones and dinosaurs....get it?

For Thanksgiving we went to Texas. After making a lot of trips earlier in the year we decided not to travel to Georgia, which is what we normally do. My sister invited us to their house. We were able to stay with them in their awesome new house. It was a very nice, casual Thanksgiving. It was fun to cook with my sister and just laugh and have fun. We were also able to spend time with Ryan's brothers that live down there too. Unfortunately, no pics. Boo.

 Back in September I opened up my very own dance studio. I taught out of my home. I made a ballet barre out of PVC pipe and everything. It was great! After teaching for a little over a month, I started noticing that my kids weren't getting enough of my attention. My focus was also taken away from Ryan and our home. I prayed about it and received the answer that I shouldn't continue with the studio. I made the decision to finish the term (teach through December). The photo is from our final recital. I had 9 adorable students. Maybe I'll go into more detail about all of this in another post. (The picture reminds me of a Degas painting).

Yay for Santa! I LOVE our mall Santa. He is so so sweet and as the kids walk away he always says, "Santa loves you!"

Christmas this year was epic! My oldest brother and his family moved to Kansas City during Christmas break. So I told them to come to us for Christmas so they didn't have to spend it in a hotel. My parents also came. We had 12 people in our house for a little under a week. We had so much fun! The picture is of all of the presents overflowing onto the piano because we couldn't fit them all under the tree.

This year I'm going to try to just focus on blogging the day to day. Then I won't feel like I'm getting behind and get discouraged.

My apologies for the picture quality. My phone is my camera, yo.

84/16

Why is it that each day I prepare myself for after bedtime to get all kinds of things done and when the time actually comes I just collapse on the couch and veg? Today I got the kids to bed and proceeded to enjoy this little number:

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In true fashion of catching up. The next thing to share is about our sweet little boy. Every six months we get to go back down to Little Rock and Rigs gets to have check ups. There is always an ultrasound on the kidneys. At the beginning of December he had a new test done to check out his kidneys. In order for this test to be done he needed to be put under anesthesia. I always hate that part.  It's never fun to think about your child being put under. He was being injected with a dye and being scanned so the doctors needed him to be really still. Here are a couple of pictures before the procedure.

Playing around in his cute little scrubs.

He wasn't allowed to eat or drink anything that morning. He is trying to get his sippy cup with water out of my purse and he was a little frustrated.

After the procedure finally able to have something to drink. If you look at his ankle you can see the IV still in his leg. :(

The test that was done was to check his kidney function. When he was so super sick, his kidneys were what was affected* the most. They were so infected and so sick. Especially his left kidney.

The tests told us some news. Do you want to hear the good news or the bad news first? Well, since I can't hear you, I'll just choose. The bad news is that his left kidney is only functioning at 16%. The good news is that his right kidney is making up for it and functioning at 84%.

Long story short, nothing super serious. He is generally healthy. But because of the situation we will continue to monitor his kidney function. We aren't finished with Arkansas Children's Hospital and Little Rock just yet. The doctors and nurses said that this isn't anything that should keep Rigs from having a full and fun life. It's a good thing because this little guy sure loves fun!


*Did I use the word 'affected' right? Help me out friends. When are the proper times to use those words? (affected/effected)

Thanksgiving

 Thanksgiving this (last) year was great!

I only had a couple of pictures on my phone. I'm going to have to check my camera for some more. It was a fun filled week that we spent in Georgia. Our little family got there first so we were able to spend some quality time with Gigi and Papa Tom.

The biggest event of the week was my brother, Abe, getting home from his deployment in Iraq. Every day we heard something different about his arrival. We didn't know for sure until the night before. Tuesday night we were told that he would get home Wednesday night. So exciting! The kids made signs to bring. It was so neat to be able to be there. Abe was featured on two different news channels. (There is a link to one of the videos on my facebook page).

The great thing about this Thanksgiving is that we were all there. My parents and all of their five kids and 12(?) grandchildren. It was so much fun. There were so many of us that we had to set up tables in the garage for us to all be able to eat together.

It was such a fun week. One of the highlights for Harper is pictured below. Here in Arkansas, Harper is kind of surrounded by boys. Most of the kids her age in our ward are boys. She does have a couple of little girl pals, but it is definitely mostly boys. She was LOVING being around all of her girl cousins. They formed a Girls' Club. Below are photos of their little handshake/cheer. They would put their hands together in a circle and say "1-2-3...GIRLS' CLUB!!!" Precious!