Happy Easter!

I really love Easter. I love Easter candy, I love Easter colors, I love Easter candy, I love dying Easter eggs and having egg hunts, and did I mention I love Easter candy? Yes, as much as I tell myself to stop eating chocolate because it makes Jack cry more and I am still trying to lose the baby weight, I keep popping those dang Cadbury chocolate eggs into my mouth! They are much too hard to resist. Oh well... (I am eating some as I type this!) I guess I must not be too serious about loosing the weight yet! 

We were lucky enough to spread our Easter activities over two weekends. The first weekend we spent with the Webster family. We had hamburgers and hotdogs for lunch with lots of yummy food to go along with them and then we dyed eggs. I have always loved dying Easter eggs and I still get excited to do it with my kids. I sometimes think I should boil a dozen eggs for myself to color! After dying our eggs we went outside for the egg hunt. The kids had a blast looking for their eggs. (each child had a different color to find) Watching them hunt for eggs always reminds me of how much fun I had doing Easter egg hunts at my Grandma Case's when I was growing up. After the egg hunt we sat outside and visited for so long long that everyone eventually got hungry again and we went for round two on the grill and the salads. It was a great day!

Dying the eggs...

Waiting for the big hunt...

Enjoying the sunny day!

The next weekend we spent with my family and had another fun filled day of Easter activities. We started out with the egg hunt and the kids were again going nuts looking for their color coded eggs (grandmas are smart these days and want all their grandkids to get the same amount of eggs/candy/money). After their hunt we had a delicious dinner of ham and all sorts of good salads, then we broke out several boxes of egg dye and went to town dying eggs. We had glitter, rollers, stickers, tye dye, you name it and we probably had it! It was a mess, but a fun mess, and we all enjoyed spending the day together.

Treasures were found

Eggs were dyed with care

Grandpa thinks this is funny...and obviously, so does Jack!

It was a great day! 

The kids woke up Easter morning to find their baskets downstairs and then they went on another egg hunt (this one hosted by the Easter bunny) in our backyard. We visited my grandma and grandpa Case in the afternoon and went out to Kathy and Denny's for the evening. It was a fun filled day of candy, eggs, and family. I am so lucky to have two wonderful families to spend holidays with. My kids enjoy their cousins on both sides of the family so much and we love being with everyone and spending time with our amazing families!

This is my sweet grandma Case. We love her so much and I am so glad she is still here with us. I have so many fun and happy memories of spending holidays at her house. I am so glad my kids have been able to spend a little time with her. 

 

Jack was letting my grandpa hold him and was showing off for him. He was being so funny with his grunting and yelling. My grandpa was really enjoying Jack and that just doesn't happen very often with my grandpa! 

Happy Easter!

My 5 year old really loves me!

I remember my mom telling me years ago that her favorite age for her children was 5 and 6 years old because they love their mom so much. Pretty much mom can do no wrong. Well, lucky me, I am finding that to be true with Sam! Every day in school he makes me a picture or a card with me and Sam on it and he puts hearts all around us. The cards usually say "I luv you mom. Sam" If I come to help in his school class he gets so excited and smiles and waves and starts telling his friends, "that's my mom! that's my mom!" It just melts my heart! Sometimes he will just hug me and say "my mom" with a happy little sigh. Ahhhh....this is definitely love! Sadly though, I know this "mom is perfect" stage won't last and he is sure to be embarrassed to have me at school one day.....but, I am going to enjoy it while it lasts and keep hoping it will last for just a little longer...

Aren't I the luckiest mom?!

This is a card Sam made for me. It says, "I love you Mom. Its from you. Sam" I think he wanted it to say "its for you" He is such a sweetheart!

This is our house with mom and Sam downstairs and the rest of the family upstairs. He always smiles and laughs when he shows me that only the two of us are downstairs together.

He can roll!

Its official. Jack is now a roller. He has been trying for weeks and today he rolled from back to tummy and then back again.....several times I might add! What an amazing baby boy! I can't believe he is already six months old. He is growing so fast! I already miss my newborn. He was my little angel baby. But it is so much fun to see his personality developing. I am looking forward to all the milestones that happen in his first year. It is such an exciting time for him (even if he doesn't know it!) I love watching my kids discover new things and develop new talents. I suppose the sleep deprivation can be overlooked.....for a little while anyway! 

Mom said it would happen...

Of course it would be Ben!

 Ben and the bathtub had a rumble and the bathtub predictably won. 

Can I say I told you so? How many times did I say not to stand on the edge of the tub? Obviously not enough.

This is round two for Ben and stitches. He got four stitches in his eyelid this time, but he was so brave. He didn't cry at all. He said he didn't cry because he is 4 now. I was very proud of him! When we got home from IHC Kidscare at 10:30pm he told me the doctor was a poop. I told him I thought the doctor was very nice, which he was. He was a great kid friendly doctor. Ben said, "Well, he put stitches in my eye, so he is a poop!" 

Very logical thinking!

His first round of stitches was two months before he turned three. He tried jumping from his horse to the train table and missed. He cut his lip on the edge of the table. For this one we had to go to Primary Children's Hospital because of the area the cut was in. It was an awful experience! They had to give him a sedation and they said 90% of kids calm down with this sedation and 10% get more aggressive. I just knew Ben would fall in that 10%, and he did! The nurses that were trying to hold him still kept saying how strong he was. I already knew that from all the times I had to hold him down getting shots! 

I am so glad getting stitches this time around wasn't as traumatic as the last! Although.....I doubt this will be my last experience!

Ben's 4th Birthday! March 14, 2009

I can't believe Ben just turned 4! We moved to West Bountiful when he was 10 months old and it just doesn't seem possible that over 3 years have gone by. Of course, I haven't aged a bit, but my children are sure getting big! Sam has been counting down the days to Ben's birthday since there were 10 sleeps. He has been so excited for Ben's birthday and it has been really fun to see Sam enjoy Ben's special day just as much as Ben. He is such a good big brother!

Ben had a very fun and busy day on Saturday March 14th. After lunch we had a few of Ben's friends over for a wild birthday party and then later that night we had family over for another fun and wild birthday party. (Yes, those Webster and Leary families can be pretty wild!) By the end of the day I was pooped, but I think Ben had a really good birthday which means it was a successful day! Phew! (I tend to stress about birthdays and wanting to make them perfect....can you say perfectionist?!.....not a good trait!)

We sure love Ben and he is such a cute boy. He is really cute to his baby brother Jack and is very good at making him laugh. He is also a really good friend to his older brother Sam. If someone ever makes Sam cry, Ben sticks up for Sam and becomes very protective of his "brudder". We love you Ben! Happy Birthday!

Oh The Messes We'll Make!

I do understand that children make messes. I have also come to understand that little boys make messes quite frequently....pretty much hourly in our case! But.....do all boys make these type of messes?! I have to admit that as bad as this mess was, I was impressed with their creativity. They were making a potion. I am just glad I found them before they dared each other to drink it!




Now, even though I thought they were creative and I even thought this was funny, I told them to sit on the naughty mat while I cleaned it up. I would have made them clean it up, but I think that would have just made more of a mess! So here they are enjoying their time on the naughty mat. And really and truly, Sam was not mad.....he was just posing because he thought the whole thing was hilarious. And I guess it was kind of funny. Kind of. Where was I during the potion making time? Upstairs feeding Jack of course!



There must be something about the month of March. I was going through our pictures and found this creative little mess from March of 2008. I remember that Jonas did not find it funny that I was taking a picture of the mess. He said it was showing Sam and Ben that I thought it was funny. Well, I did think it was a little funny. I was mad because it was a bad water mess which could cause damage. But....it was still funny.....a little. But yes, they did get in trouble for this!



Most recently I found them in the downstairs bathroom with an entire roll of toilet paper wrapped around Ben and Gus. I'm pretty sure Sam was the wrapper. I briefly thought about taking a picture, but it was 9:00 pm on a school night and I thought they were in bed. So instead of taking a picture (which now I wish I would have) I got mad at them and took them to bed. Where was I during all this? Feeding Jack. Where was Jonas? Doing his antibiotics. Sam and Ben are very smart. They know when they can get away with the most. When mom is feeding Jack and Dad is hooked to IV tubes. Smart little critters!

Miracles still happen...

Our family had a rough 2008 with Jonas being so sick. It all started in April of 2005 with his diabetic doctor finding a low white blood count and continued through 2008 with a trip to the Mayo Hospital in Arizona. He was diagnosed with autoimmune neutropenia which he takes shots for three times a week to keep his white blood count up. He was then diagnosed with mycobacterium kanasaii, which is a rare type of lung infection. He spends one and a half hours every night doing his IV antibiotics. He was also diagnosed with CVID, which is common variable immunodeficiency.  He receives an infusion of IVIg once a month to keep his antibodies up. He also has pancreatic deficiency and takes enzyme pills daily to help control that. He is also a type 1 diabetic and manages his diabetic pump daily. Whew!

Can you imagine having to deal with so many illnesses and not knowing what the doctors are going to tell you next? His CVID doctor recently told us Jonas had come very close to his end. When he saw Jonas in May of 2008 he didn't know how he was going to be able to help Jonas and it really scared him. But our amazing dad and husband pulled through and we couldn't be more proud of him! He went through some pretty dark times over the last year, but he is doing so good now and we are so grateful for him and his willingness to keep moving forward. He faithfully does his antibiotics every night, even when he gets home from work at 1:00 am! I would probably just skip them for the night and go to bed. But he is so determined to get completely better and he isn't going to risk anything to have a set back.

We are so lucky to have Jonas in our lives. He works so hard for our family and is an amazing father to our boys. It is so much fun to have a healthy dad in our home again! Our prayers and the prayers of our family and friends were answered when Jonas started to get better. Miracles do happen!