Ketchup Mom

Today I made Kaden a ham and cheese sandwich for lunch. He ate about half of it and then said ketchup please mom. I must admit I thought that ketchup with a ham and cheese sandwich would be disgusting and ignored his request and kept on with whatever I was doing at the time. After he made this same request about 4 times, each with increasing urgency I decided to comply. I got out a small plate and squirted a small pile of ketchup on it. After I put the plate down in front of him he looked at me with the most annoyed look and said "MOM... hot dog???" oh of course silly me I should have known that when he was demanding ketchup with his sandwich he was really asking for a hot dog instead. Now I will know for next time. A few nights ago Chris and I were laying in bed with Kaden, I leaned over and gave him a kiss which he wiped off with the back of his hand and said "GROSS MOM" I almost cried. He is 2 for crying out loud.

Dear Kaden,
You are 2 years old. I am your mom. I am allowed to cover you in kisses all I want right now and you are not allowed to wipe them off or call them gross. When you are 20 we can discuss this matter again but for now this is the law.

Love,
Mom

Apparently kisses for Taycee aren't so gross

This is how they look at each other most of the day. This look usually comes before they are about to do something really nice like give a kiss or a hug or do something really naughty like steal a toy and tackle the other one to the ground.

My babies that aren't babies anymore.

Dear Taycee,

You slept in your own bed last night for the first time in a month. You didn't wake up once from 8 pm til 7 am. Thank You. Now if you will please do me one more favor and stop growing up. I am not going to have a baby for a long while sill so I need you to stay little and sweet and cute for a few more years.

Thanks!

Mom

This is the newest Taycee expression. She will throw her binki or her cup and then look at you with her hands up and say "where go?"

Love em'

This is Kaden sending me off to my first day of school. He really is a crack up these days. When he is suppose to be asleep but he wants to get up and play he will sneak to the outside of the door of whatever room we are in and throw things in to the room. I have no idea why he does this or what he is trying to accomplish but it is pretty funny. All of the sudden small puzzle pieces or binkies or toys will come sailing into our room from out of no where.

He has also started to quote movies. His new favorite is Happy Feet. One of the penguins says "I knew it" all excited with his finger in the air and then hangs his head and says " it was all a lie" Kaden does this several times a day. He finds himself quite amusing.

Kaden has also taken a liking to a small electronic cat. It is the kind that walks and makes noise. It hasn't had batteries for a very long time but Kaden carries it around and hugs it. He pets its fur and asks it if it is ok. Sometimes he will set it on the ground and say "come here kitty kitty" it is pretty cute.

First day of school... it is true, I am a student again. Full time. After one week I have decided it is do-able. Hard but do-able. My two energetic children take most of my day as it is.. adding in classes and homework make each day a juggling act. BUT I am doing it and I am enjoying my classes so that's something.

Sunday I decided to make Can't Leave em Alone Bars which are fabulous. I got out the white cake mix added in my eggs and oil and started stirring. As always I took a taste of the batter and immediately stopped stirring. The cake mix was not white... it was lemon. How in the world did a lemon cake mix get in a white cake box? Well I couldn't continue with my recipe because lemon cake definitly would not go well with my chocolate fudge center so I started to contemplate what I would do next. I couldn't make a cake because I had already ruined it with the eggs and oil I had put it. I decided I would invent something new. I opened my cooking cupboard and pulled out some flour and powdered sugar. Then I looked in the fridge and saw a can of whipped cream, this peaked my interest so I pulled it out as well. Chris was watching all of this with some curiosity wondering what I was going to make. What I did next about made his eyes bug. I shook the can of whipping cream and then squirted about a 6 inch pile on top of my cake batter. I really really wish I had had a camera at this time Chris literally about fell over. "What are you going to do with that" "You can't bake that now that you squirted all that whip cream in it" "What were you thinking" He thought the situation was quite comical. I told him not to worry that I had it under control. He said " what are you going to call them? Who in the heck thought that would work bars" he thinks he is really funny. I added some flour and sugar to my batter and decided to make them cookies. the problem was I couldn't get the batter as firm as I would have liked it so I decided to roll them in powdered sugar before I put them in the over. I slid a tray of 24 cookies into the over at 350 for 13 minutes and this is what came out....

In Chris's words " THESE ARE AMAZING" He loved them. He ate about 15 of them before the night was over. I have decided to name them lemon puffs. So if any of you ever end up with a white cake box with lemon cake inside... give these a try. :) And have people around when you squirt the whip cream in... it makes for a great reaction.

January Blues

January seems to be a slow month for us. The rush of the Holidays is over, school starts and brings with it schedules and homework and stress. I lose my umph to do much of anything. If you think about it that is rather ironic considering that January is suppose to be the month of new resolutions and goals. I do have my new years resolutions... I just don't have the energy to do them.
I am suppose to be starting school this week again however I have been back and forth in limbo about it for a long time. We have been waiting on my financial aid to come through and today it did. A whoppin 787 dollars. Unfortunately that doesn't even come close to to covering the 2300 dollars tuition costs not to mention the cost of books. I do have the option of taking out student loans to help cover the cost, unfortunately I will also have to start paying those loans back in a year when I finish school. I am pretty sure in a year from now I will still be home with my kids and Chris will still be in the middle of his Chem E PHD which means we will be in no situation to be paying back loans. What to do.... what to do...?? I am not sure. So for now I am going to classes until I decide.
The kids are feeling my lack of energy and are trying to compensate by being overly energetic. Kaden spends most mornings running circles around me... literally... he puts his arms out like he is a plane and runs circles around me saying "run run run" as I am carrying Taycee trying to get breakfast ready. Kaden has started saying his own prayers... unfortunately they are completely garbled and I can't understand most of what he says. Every once in awhile I catch a Heavenly Father, grandma, Taycee Lynn, and Amen. It is pretty cute. He has also picked up on little things like saying "sure" when you ask him something or "of course". Yesterday when we were in the doctors office for Taycees check-up she ripped the paper lining on the table and Kaden let out a very exasperated "OH MY GOSH"
Taycee is still not 100% back to normal. She isn't sleeping well at night which means Chris and I spend most of the night trying to rock her back to sleep. She is also very very needy. She wants to be held all the time and cries over everything. That doesn't help with the no energy thing. I think the hospital must have traumatized her because she refuses to let anyone hold her or get close to her. Every once in awhile she perks up... it is usually over food. :) I made apple crisp the other night and Chris and I both had a bowl of it while sitting in the living room. She would walk back and forth in between us to make sure we were both sharing with her. Chris didn't want to share anymore so while she was turned walking toward me he tried to hide. She is one smart cookie, she wasn't fooled for a second. He tried this several times hiding behind couches jumping over counters... no matter where he went Taycee found him in seconds. She made him share with her til every last bite was gone.
This is what I came home to Saturday night after teaching dance..... Not exactly the welcome home present I was hoping for. This is a black sharpie marker all over my front door. If anyone has any great suggestions for taking marker off doors let me know. :D So far we have tried hand sanitizer, fingernail polish remover, WD40, and MR Clean Magic eraser ( All Internet recommendations). The hand sanitizer worked the best but also took the paint off.

Who could be in Kadens tunnel with their feet sticking out one end and their hands the other....

Oh its our 6'7" daddy.


The girl cousins at Mckells baby shower

Taycee was excited about something

She loves to cover her face/head with things and play peek-a-boo

This is Kadens new trick he goes to do a somersault and then lifts his arms in the air


Please tell me he will never be big enough to fit in this coat.

This is what happens when we have spaghetti

Taycee has recently decided she is big enough to feed herself... I am pretty sure I never gave her permission to get this old.

Here are some fun pics from Mckells baby shower. She is expecting a boy in February.

Latest Photo Shoot

Thursday I was able to take pictures of this cute girl for her Fourth Birthday. It was a crazy blizzard outside so we had to make do with a sheet as a background. There were so many cute pictures it was hard to pic just a few to post.

Taycee in the Hospital

This is the morning that Taycee woke up and was responsive to us!Just waiting to be dischargedSo happy to be going home
This was taken this morning. As you can see she is back to her crazy silly self.

Major Bed Head

Christmas 2009

The annual Christmas Eve Nativity Reenactment
Our matching Christmas Jammies!!

Hunter didnt want to be left out so I made him some tooSisters
Hugs... love Hunters face

My family

Christmas Morning

Kaden LOVED opening presents

Best Buddies

Getting pretty snug in the snuggie

Santa Baby

Loving Grandma Clayton

Snuggle

Kaden was so proud of this tower he built

We are home!

We are home and Taycee is doing well. There was no final consensus on what was wrong. They were going to do a spinal tap but since she was awake and happy they decided not to. We are keeping a super close watch on her to make sure her symptoms don't return and as long as they don't we can keep her at home. I have to take her in for a follow up appointment next week just to make sure everything still looks normal.
Thanks to everyone for you prayers and support. I have had so many calls and texts of concern and love I haven't been able to return them all. Please don't think I am ignoring you, I just lost track of who I did and didn't call back.

I do have lots of pictures from Christmas... I am hoping to get them posted in the next few days.

Thats all for now

Taycee's Hospital Stay

Hello to friends and family, I thought this would be the easiest way to tell the Taycee story. Monday night while in St George Taycee was walking and took a spill. She slid head first into the couch and hit her head pretty good. She cried for a bit and then threw up about 10 minutes later. After that she seemed fine, we checked her pupils and they didn't seem dilated she was acting normal and happy. The next day she was extra sleepy and threw up a couple of times. We decided she must have the flu and kept a close eye on her. That night she threw up pretty violently for a 1 year old but again seemed fine afterwards. Wednesday we drove home from St George and she slept most of the way. When we got home she was fussy and threw up again, she seemed extra fussy afterwards and we had a hard time getting her to sleep. She fell asleep around 9 pm that night. The next morning when I got up she was still sleeping which was very strange because she is always up at 7. I went in and checked on her and she seemed fine. I started into the regular day activities and she continued to sleep. I went in at 10 then 11 then 12 but couldn't seem to rouse her. I started to worry that maybe she had more than the flu. At 1 I forced her to get up and tried to feed her some cereal. She was extremely lethargic and fell asleep in her high chair while I was feeding her. I decided to call the doctor and see what he recommended. After explaining her symptoms he told me I need to take her to Primary Childrens for a Head Scan because he was worried about head trauma. I called Chris who headed home and started to get myself and Taycee ready. Luckily we have great family and Chris's sister Lisa was able to come and watch Kaden who was taking a nap.
We got to the ER about 2 oclock and the testing began. We talked to about 6 different doctors had blood work done, urine collected, a Head CT and abdominal x-rays. Everything came back mostly normal she was a bit dehydrated and a bit constipated but nothing that explained the extreme lethargic behavior. Even through all this testing and poking she slept. We figure she was awake about 2 hours the entire day. When she was awake she was fussy and groggy. She wouldn't smile and she just laid limp in our laps. It was so sad. By the time they were done testing it was 8 oclock and they decided to admit her to watch her overnight.
It was a long night with lots of different tests and nurses. They had to wake her up every 2 hours to make sure she would wake up. They gave her an enema and so we spent the night changing a lot of dirty diapers. All of the doctors had different theories about what it was. They mostly agreed on neuro encephalitis which is basically a virus in the brain that they hoped would pass on its own. About 7:30 this morning Taycee woke up and smiled at us. It was the most reassuring thing I had seen or heard all night. She has been fairly responsive this morning and even ate a little pancake. She is still under observation and needs to be checked out by several doctors but if she continues to stay awake and be our sweet happy girl we can go home tonight.

Thank you so much for all of your love and support. We have been overwhelmed with love and phone calls of concern.

Hopefully a few more hours and we will be in the clear.