Blessed

Yesterday we had Emily's baby blessing. Many thanks to everyone who came and my sisters and parents who helped with the food and everything. My family had a fun time and I hope everyone else did too. My mom and dad were nice enough to let us have it at their place since ours is so tiny. We had Gwen's at our place and there wasn't any room at all for people so everyone left after only staying a little while. This was much better. We also celebrated my niece Kim's 5th birthday.

I found this super puffy dress at the mall and just had to get it. We're using white dresses for my little sister's wedding next month, but I had to get her a special dress just for her blessing. Gwen has hers so it's only fair this way.
Jonathan's father, who is currently serving a mission in Connecticut with his wife, Paula, was able to fly down for the blessing. It sure was great to have him here even if we didn't get too much time to sit and chat with him. The more time I spend with him the more I notice where Jonathan gets most of his traits. That's a good thing, because Jonathan's dad is a great guy and I'd love for Jonathan to be like him.

Gwen was extra grumpy yesterday for some reason so I had to get a picture of what she looked like most of the afternoon. She's trying to give up nap time lately and it was day three of no naps and I guess it hit her hard. She would cry over everything and kept getting into trouble especially with little Jami.

These balloons were a big hit. Grandma Buckholts had bought some decorations for Kim's birthday and all the kids had fun blowing up balloons and Sam showed how brave she is by popping them with her hands. I'm not sure I could do that as easily as she can. Mason though, is missing most of his teeth because he's 6 so his balloons were a bit on the slimy side.Here's the pretty dress that Gwen's Grandma Thompson bought her. She was so excited to wear it that she wanted to sleep in it the night before and cried and cried when I changed her out of it. Even now as she sits on my lap "helping"me type she's asking to wear her pretty dress.Birthday princess Kim opening the gift that we got her. Gwen learned that the problem with getting someone else a present is that then it's for them and you don't get to take it home. That's a hard lesson for a 2-year-old especially when it's Sleeping Beauty and she's your new favorite princess this week.Kim's mom bought her a yummy chocolate cake to share with everyone for dessert. I had told Gwen the night before about how we were going to celebrate Kim's birthday and eat birthday cake and I guess she remembered because when she woke up that morning she told me she wanted cake for breakfast. She didn't like it that I told her we didn't have any and she had to wait to go to Grandma's house later to eat cake.We had Jonathan's dad snap a photo of the four of us before we had to finally leave for the evening. Gwen and Emily are wearing their matching outfits. Emily screamed the entire way home (as usual) and Gwen fell fast asleep (not as usual) and had to sleep in her clothes. She was worn out, and frankly, so was I. I'm glad but a little sad that the blessing is over. It's a lot of work to put something like that together but it sure was fun.

Like a Vacation

The last few days have been so fun, it's like we've been on vacation. On Thursday we went with my two sisters, Laura and Heidi, and their kids up to Park City for some shopping. It was fun to get out of the house and buy some cute summer outfits for the girls. Plus, Jonathan needed new shoes and to replace some pants that wore out. Gwen had a blast with her cousins.

We've been to the park at least 10 times this week. It's all Gwen wants to do. It's quite all right with me because the weather has been absolutely beautiful and I love the chance to get out of the house. Jonathan has been feeling well enough to come along too. He should be 100% or near enough to that by Monday to start working on his job search again since every other job offer has fallen through, except for working for the census which doesn't start until April and only lasts 6 weeks. Oh well, at least he didn't have to ask for time off for his surgery or anything. Maybe it's a blessing in disguise, but I sure would love for him to get job to help pay for all these huge medical bills we've racked up over the last 4 weeks.

Yesterday (Friday), we went to Wheeler Farm. If you get the chance, you should go soon because they have TONS of cute little black and white lambs that are super fun to watch. They also have baby cows. Quite a few other families with kids Gwen's size were there. Gwen is not at all shy around other kids her size and she would go up to them and grab their hand and say "hi, friend" and then drag them after her all over the farm. Usually, the other kid would keep looking back at their parent for help but would be too polite or shocked to do anything but follow her.

Today we went to the Gateway mall in downtown. Firstly, I HATE this mall. I hate it every time that we go but Jonathan loves it because it reminds him of the outdoor malls in California. Okay, outdoor malls make sense in Southern California but not here. I hate that you have to pay for parking, I hate that it's always either too cold or too hot, but they have super fun things like Discovery Gateway (aka the Children's Museum) and the Clark Planetarium so I give in a couple times a year and go to this mall.

As soon as we parked at the mall, Jonathan and I discovered that we both thought the other one had grabbed the diaper bag. This meant that we were all the way downtown without diapers, wipes, my wallet, and the million other essentials in that bag. You'd think that at least one store in a mall with, oh, I don't know, 40 stores would sell at least diapers, but nope, not a one. Well, we decided to brave the no extra diaper situation until nap time - 2 1/2 hours away. We started with lunch and Gwen wanted "chicken butts". That's her new favorite ever since eating them with her cousin Noah on the day Emily was born. A few days ago I was asking her what she wanted for lunch - her current favorite was pizza and that's what I was making so I thought I'd ask her what she wanted and look like super mom when I magically had it all ready. Well, Gwen responds with "want chicken butts" instead and I'm stumped. I have no idea what she means until she explains, "Noah eats chicken butts." I start to think, when did Gwen last eat with Noah? Oh, that's right, when she went with Noah and Aunt Laura to Chick-fil-A and had chicken nuggets, okay got it, chicken nuggets = chicken butts. Now she wants them for every meal.

After lunch and checking the diapers - Emily's getting soggy but not poopy and she's out cold, Gwen is still dry, we decide not to go to the Discovery Gateway, which was our original plan, and head to the Clark Planetarium since we've never actually been to it. Gwen actually had fun looking at all the different things there until she paused in her play and got The Face. You parents know the one I'm talking about. The one that means you have to find the nearest bathroom for a stinky diaper change. Remember, we don't have any extra diapers, but also remember, Gwen was very nearly completely potty trained 4 weeks ago until the baby was born and she decided that it was funner to wear diapers. So, we remove the offensive diaper and clean Gwen off as much as possible - my deepest apologies to the employee who has to change the garbage in that bathroom because it was particularly stinky and I usually put those ones in a sealed baggy. We explained to Gwen that she couldn't go peepee in her pants until we made it home. That's when Emily woke up screaming. Breastfeeding is not very conducive to going out in public since some people are sensitive to the whole issue. I'm more relaxed about doing it since I found this awesome lightweight drape that keeps everything completely covered. If you have issues with that, then that's more your problem than mine. Guess where I keep that awesome drape though? Yup, in the diaper bag, at home. Without it I was stuck feeding her in the bathroom. Totally gross, but you do what you have to, I guess.

After we got all the kids loaded into the car and drove around their totally confusing parking structure for 20 minutes we realized that neither of us had any cash to pay for parking. Emily started screaming again and Gwen wanted chocolate and/or to get out of the car. Jonathan went to find an ATM and I kept driving around the parking structure with the screaming, whiny kids. It was a blast. Okay, it made me want to cry, but I'm super tough, right? Instead, I cranked the radio and muttered about how mush I hate this mall. Well, Jonathan found two ATMs that wouldn't take our debit card and I found a dollar in cash in the car - which was the amount we needed to pay so we could leave that wonderful parking lot.

Well back to the original purpose of this post, which was to say that it really has been a fun couple of days and you have to take the bad with the good. I think at times that I miss my job and can't wait to go back, but I will miss having these weeks with my family as we get used to and hopefully better at being a family of four. Okay, now here's some pictures, because what would a post from me be without them?

Happy 1 month birthday to Emily! I like that we have the same color of hair right now. It's all falling out and will probably come back blonde like her big sister's did, but now it's reddish blonde just like mine.During our Park City shopping trip we got matching shirts for the girls and decided to do photo shoot yesterday in them to mark Emily's first month and because they looked so cute. Taking pictures of both of them was harder than I ever thought possible.See what I mean? It's hard to get them both looking decent but they're both super cute anyway.

Emily has started to look a little different since her birth. She's loosing her cute red hair and really looks like a little old man sometimes.Jonathan's mom loves to do puzzles and I think Gwen has inherited this trait. We now own at least a dozen puzzles and do them each a couple times a day. It's the first thing she does in the morning and usually the last thing she does before bed. She's good at them too. We've had to start buying the harder ones like this 25 piece one without the scene under it like some of her other ones have.Emily will eat just about anything when she's hungry.Our future weather gal. Actually, her favorite part was just being on the TV. Watch out for her on American Idol in 16 years or so.She's so photogenic. I could take her picture all day.

Tonsillectomy!?!?

So, we went to the ENT doctor on Monday afternoon to see what he thought about Jonathan's crazy tonsils. Four times over the last year, Jonathan has had tonsillitis bad enough to require antibiotics and steroids to get over it. He typically starts with a cold and then starts to run high fevers and gets big swollen tonsils and bad sore throats usually lasting 10 - 14 days. Well, the ENT took one quick look in his throat and declared that his tonsils were chronically infected and needed to come out ASAP. I was thinking that meant in a few weeks or months, but no, he meant today - three days after our office visit. That meant that I got to spend the last few days using my nervous energy to clean my house and argue with Gwen. All that worry seems to be for nothing, thank goodness, because the surgery is over and Jonathan is doing fine. He's on some good pain meds which make him all lovey and dopey. Aunt Heidi has Gwen for the day and baby Emily is doing okay but for some reason has suddenly forgotten how to poop and is extra grumpy because of that. Hopefully this surgery will keep Jonathan from getting so sick in the future and will be worth the pain he goes through over the next few days.

Girls Only

Today was the first day that I got to have both the girls all to myself for a few hours. Jonathan got called to substitute at Mom's school for the art teacher and we can't pass up a chance for him to earn some extra bucks these days. He loves substituting which is excellent since he wants to be a teacher some day and it pays pretty good for what is required of him. Looks like he probably won't be able to do it for a while because tonight he got a call from a temp agency for a job making boxes or something down in Draper from 6:00 am to 2:30 pm Monday through Friday for the next six weeks. He won't like it as much, but we really need for him to be working a steady job right now while he's not in school. We're not even really sure what the pay is but it's more than sitting around playing video games or walking the dog, that's for sure.

Anyway, back to today, it went pretty good if I do say so myself. I didn't even have to resort to Elmo or Cinderella. Emily picked up Gwen's cold and is really stuffy lately. She hasn't started to run a fever or anything and seems a little better already today, so we probably lucked out and it's not a big virus like RSV or anything. Well, Emily's cold means that she's extra spitty and needed a bath so first thing this morning, we showered and gave the baby a bath. That was quite the undertaking since Emily hates baths and Gwen loves them. Gwen kept trying to dump water on Emily and Emily screamed her head off the entire time. After baths I fed Emily while Gwen ran around naked and I tried to bribe her into getting dressed by herself - she can do it just not when you need her to. Once everyone was dressed we packed up and went shopping for some things I needed around the house. Emily slept the entire time in her car seat and Gwen actually stayed close to me in the store, amazing. After shopping we tried to go to the park to play. It's been really, really windy lately - like hurricane windy. We lasted about 20 minutes at the park before I gave up and we went home for lunch. After lunch Emily fell asleep again and I was able to get Gwen down for her nap without too much trouble. That meant that I also got a nap and by the time we woke up Jonathan was back home. So, how about more cute pictures?

That's my super cute little one. She really doesn't like laying down flat with her stuffy nose so we propped her up on a pillow for her nap yesterday.

Gwen had fun at the park today even though at times I thought she just might blow away in the wind. She didn't want to play at first and told me "wind cold, Mommy, stop it." I told her I would if I could, but I wasn't quite that powerful.

I found the most out-of-the-wind spot for Emily to hide in while we played. She slept through the whole thing but woke up once she was back in the car - go figure.

Oh yeah, I need to hear from some of you. We're thinking of doing Emily's blessing on March 29th. That's when our fast Sunday is because of General Conference. The other option is to do it May 3rd, the next fast Sunday after GC. Let me know if you have a strong opinion for either date.