The cold from Hades

I have a cold. The mother of all colds. I am dying.. or maybe I just wish I was dying. I am pretty sure I look like this...
and I feel worse. Kaden was the first to have this horrid cold and it started last Tuesday. He is STILL hacking a lung, however the fever has subsided. The worst thing about having a cold while pregnant is you are not allowed to take anything! My doctor said I could take Tylenol Cold and Flu, I sent Chris to the store right then to get it and guess what.... it has been recalled!! Of all the luck, something went wrong with the latest batch and they recalled it. It wont be back on the shelfs til a new batch is made. Rotten.

I also get the joy of constant vomiting to accompany the the plugged sinuses, headache, sore throat, cough mixture. Did I mention I think I am dying? I might go write my will.

Hope your week is better than ours. And if you know what is good for you, do anything you can to stay away from this cold.

Kids

Taycee turned 2 awhile ago but we are just barely making it to the doctor. So here are her stats

Height: 37.2 inches - above 95 percentile

Weight: 31 lbs - 75 percentile

Head Circumference: 18.9 in 50-75 percentile

So basically she is big and is no where near being my baby anymore... WAAAA... good thing we have another on on its way.

The kids are getting so big so fast. I know I say that all the time, but it is always so true. I am always amazed at how fast Taycee learns and picks up on everything that Kaden does. She is a major stinker and has the attitude of a 16 year old. Her newest thing is to fold her arms glare me down and say "never, ever, ever!" when she is mad or doesn't want to do something. I keep trying to convince myself she is going through a normal 2 year old stage and that she won't be this naughty forever.... I hope.

Kaden is a crack up, he say the funniest things and is always making us laugh. Lately he has been really learning songs. He watched Madagascar 2 one morning and the next day at church I heard him singing " I like em big, I like em plumpy.... with somethin somethin" I ducked and pretended that I wasn't his mother. Last night in the car the song I got a feeling by Black Eyed peas came on and Kaden was singing the words. Today he was signing along with more words to a song I didn't even know. He might be my little musician.

Last Sunday in church he looked at me and said "Mom do you eat babies?" I said "no" he said "well then how did a baby get in your tummy?" I decided to go with the I eat babies idea.

They keep me on my toes and I sure do love them.

Dinner of Champs

This post needs to start out with an explanation of my current eating habits. I mostly eat grapes, apples, oranges and occasionally a chicken pot pie. That is it. That is what I eat all day every day. It is all I can stomach without it ending up in the toilet. Unfortunately for my kids, I have a hard time cooking anything that isn't a "put it in the microwave" meal. I usually can get by during the day with chicken nuggets and PB&J's and then when Chris gets home he makes them an actual meal with some nutritional value while I hibernate upstairs to avoid the smells.

With Chirs's qualifying exams the last few weeks have been a little rough, he is rarely home for dinner time so the feeding of the children is up to me. It has been sad. One night we had a 3 course meal of fruit for dinner because I couldn't stomach looking at anything else.

Thursday night I was feeling better than normal. *this doesn't mean I felt good... I just wasn't gaging at the thought of chewing. I decided I would use this time to make the kids a dinner of their choice. MISTAKE! I said to Kaden, "you can choose whatever you want for dinner tonight." He thought for about .2 seconds and said with incredible excitement "hot dogs with Mac and Cheese!" I gaged on the spot. I had prepared myself for all sorts of options.... but not that. I was expecting something more like pizza, spaghetti, enchiladas (which are normally his favorite) but instead he chose hot dogs... those things make me nauseous when I am not pregnant.

But I couldn't say no, he was SO SO excited about it. He was literally jumping up and down and telling Taycee they were going to have hot dogs. So I swallowed down the bile growing in my throat and went to work.

Kaden watched every move I made. Then he sat by the oven for the entire 12 minutes they were cooking.

We didn't have real hot dogs because I haven't bought them in oh... 12 weeks. So I made pigs in a blanket, which he thought was even better.

He was in heaven.

She was happy to have anything dipped in ketchup.

I ate fruit... but if dinner time could be this happy every night.... I might consider hot dogs and mac and cheese more often.

You Passed

I have to write a little post to congratulate Chris on his great accomplishment. On Friday the 7th he passed his qualifying exam for graduate school. Since Dec 27th he has pretty much lived at the school in preparation of this. It's kind of a BIG DEAL... and I am so proud of him. This isn't your normal every day exam, this is a 3 hour grueling from 3 different committees who are putting your last 6 years of knowledge to the test to make sure you are smart enough to continue in the Chemical Engineering PHD program. Any question is fair game, there is no forewarning of what they will ask, so you have to try and know it all, only 25% of people pass their first time... and Chris did it. He is my hero.

I can't say enough how grateful I am for him. A lot of recent events have solidified my gratitute to have such a great man by my side for eternity. I have never had to question his commitment to me or our family or the gospel. I have never had a doubt in my mind that he will always be by my side through thick and thin. He is the smartest guy I know and I have no doubt that he will always provide a wonderful life for our family.

Congrats Chris!! You did it!

2011

2011?? Really? Where did 2010 go? Does life always go by as fast as it is going by right now? I hope not. Our New Years eve this year was MUCH MUCH better than our last years New Years Eve which we spent in Primary Children's Hospital. I am not sure I ever put the story up but New Years Eve day... does that make sense?... I couldn't get Taycee to wake up and be responsive to me. She would stay awake for maybe 2 or 3 minutes and then fall back asleep, I called the doctor who was very concerned and told me I needed to get her to Primary Children's asap to check for brain problems. We spent the rest of that day and all through the night doing MRI's and blood tests and answering all sorts of questions. The final decision was that she has neural encephalitis. ( An infection of the brain) there was nothing to be done but watch her closely and wait it out. So our New Year rang in while we sat beside her bed in the hospital watching her every breath. Not hard to beat that, and this year we certainly did.

We went to a party at my moms house with most of her siblings. The game of the night was bubble talk and if you have never played it I highly recommended you buy it right now and play it at your next party. Many people left the table with headaches from laughing so hard. It was a great party with WAY too much yummy food.

The new year has already been good to us. The greatest accomplishment of 2011 so far is Chris passing his qualifying exam for Grad School, I will dedicate a post just to that topic because it deserves it.

I have loved not being in school and not having anything pressing to do. Taycee and I celebrated by painting our toes.

We also got to spend New Years day with our favorite family the Egberts. We love getting together with them and no matter what we do we always have a good time. We are so lucky to have such GREAT friends. Now if they could just hurry up and move to Layton our lives would be complete :D

We were putting the girls to bed and they wanted to play "fort time" in the play pen. Joc was throwing the blanket over the top and the ripping it off. They both found it hilarious. Cute Girls.

Hope you all have a Great 2011.