Creative Ways to Increase Fluid

Well, we've had an "interesting" couple of weeks. 2 weeks ago I had all three kids home ALL week because of GI illness. It was not the most fun, and I will not tell you all the "joys" I had. (most involve various types of cleaning gross things up) Ella never ended up getting sick, but Ethan and Livi were hit really hard. Finally we felt like we were back to normal this last week, and the kids resumed their school (YEAH!) and various activities. On Wednesday night Livi started throwing up (which she hadn't done the week before) and had some other fun symptoms, and we ended up in the ER again (I don't like the ER. We seem to end up there a lot, because my kids get super sick at night, and the nurses at Denver's Children Hospital tell me to go. So far every time we've gone there HAS been something wrong. Sorry, just feel defensive). After a thoroughly traumatic x-ray where Livi looked and felt like a baby stuck in a well, we found out she had gotten a bladder infection from all the GI gunk. Lucky baby.
So super long story to lead up to these videos. Livi was placed on a clear liquid diet for a day and was hating it. She didn't want sippy cups, and all she wanted was whatever I was eating (I took to hiding in the stairwell to eat). We took a break from crying and watching videos to give Ella a bath. Livi was in the bathroom with us, and pulled the stool over to the sink herself. After screaming repeatedly at me I finally turned on the water to let her play a little and here is what she did:

Thank You "The Rock"

A BIG thank you to Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson for your upcoming film "The Tooth-fairy." My kids have seen the previews and now I have the joy (and Eric has the chagrin) of these wonderful photos of Ethan and Ella dressing up like tooth-fairies (the backpack and pig pillow are their wings):

Cherub Hair

I guess I shouldn't be surprised, all the kids in my family have at least wavy, if not curly hair. Eric has siblings that have curly hair. My hair is wavy, but Eric's is straight, so I always kind of wondered what our kids hair would be like. I know things will change as they get older, but it's fun to take note now. Ethan has body in his hair, but not real curl. Ella has ram-rod straight hair. Livi...well, it's been too short to tell, until recently. I've noticed when she gets out of the bath that her hair has beautiful blond curls. I thought it was a fluke, just a trick of the towel, so today I tried putting a little product in her hair and these are the results: If you click on the photos you can see the sweet curls a little better. It was cute that even her ponytail was curly. Of course, as soon as I took the picture she begged to get up on my lap, and promptly rubbed her head all over my arm, taking out most of the curls. I guess she could only stand looking like an angel for 2 minutes.

Videos Back From the Abyss

I've been going through all our pictures and videos, copying things onto our external hard drive, and an online service (no, I'm not obsessive) since our computer keeps threatening to die a horrible death. As I was searching through all the videos I found a couple that I thought were pretty funny and submit them to you for your viewing pleasure.
This first video is from our trip to Disneyland over Thankmus. Mom, Dad, Livi, Ebby and I were waiting for the others as they went on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. Livi had barely napped all day and was a little slap happy. Poor Ebby is such a good little sleeper...

Next we have Ella and Ethan being silly. Okay, Ella is telling a story and Ethan is doing the silliest dancing ever. (technically this isn't long lost, it was today).

Last we have a video of Livi, who loves to help, but isn't very good at it...

Meeting Bentley

We got to spend Saturday with the Bagleys, which was awesome since we haven't seen them in a while with all the vacations and illnesses. We went to the zoo to see the new baby meerkats (so cute!) then came back for dinner and Melissa's yummy cookies. We were so lucky that they were able to bring their cute puppy, Bentley, who after spending hours cuddled up in a cave of pillows on the couch, finally felt comfortable to come down and play a little. Ethan gave him a passing pat, Ella actually would pose with him, but Livi was obsessed. She wouldn't actually pet him, but she wanted to be where she could look at him. When he got off the couch she ran over to Melissa's purse and started pulling things out and "giving" them to (ie throwing at) Bentley. Oh well, her heart was in the right place.

Putting On A Play

I thought those of you that knew me when I was little would like this one: The kids ran in and told me they had a play they had made up and they wanted me to watch it. I got the camera, and here you go, pay back for all the times I made my parents watch my homemade plays...

Girlier than Ella???

Olivia, girlier than Ella? Not possible, you may say, but I think we are headed in for a lot of trouble when these two are teenagers. I don't know if it is having Ella as an example, but Livi is caring about pink, clothes, dancing, jewelry, and all things girly, at an age WAY before Ella exhibited these "opinions." When we were at Disneyland Livi picked out her own pink, frilly outfit. I thought it was a fluke and put it back, but she kept picking it out over and over and over. A couple of days ago I was holding Livi while I picked out her clothes after a bath, and she was adamant that I pick these clothes: A pink shirt, jeans, and a tutu. I tried to take a different shirt out of the closet and she nearly threw herself out of my arms with the temper-tantrum she threw. I didn't grab the tutu originally, even though she made herself clear, so she went back for it. I gave up, and let her wear the outfit she wanted.Just a side note, she loves to play with my mixer, and now when she finishes a bottle she grabs it, takes it over to the sink and puts it in for me. What a good "helper."

Growing UP and Moving Down

Well, the kids are no longer able to share a room. They were fighting all the time, complaining about each others things in the room, and Ethan was keeping Ella up at night, and Ella was waking Ethan up in the morning. We decided we need a bigger house, so we started doing a budget and determined that wasn't possible. So onto plan B. We got the basement bedroom cleaned up, moved out a lot of the clutter, and voila, Ethan has his own little suite. Not only does he have a closet bigger than mine and Eric's, he also has an attached bathroom. Not a bad set up, except that it's icy cold, he needs to sleep with a heating blanket, and it dark as a cave, but he doesn't seem to mind. I let both kids decide what they wanted as "themes" in the room. Ethan picked transformers, and Ella picked (surprise, surprise) princess'. We went online, picked out vinyl (thank you Ryan for the ebay gift certificate!), picked out paint colors, and got started. After basically an entire week of working hard (and all day everyday of the new year weekend) we have basically got two rooms the kids LOVE. I still have fabric to make somemore "fancy decorations" as Ella says, so if anyone has ideas I would love some!

Ethan's 7 !!!!!!!!!

I can't believe my Ethan is 7. He seemed to enjoy the day, it was definitely fun filled. We started out early (and I do mean EARLY) by opening gifts and having pancakes. Here is Ethan hugging his "grimlock" transformer (that transformer has officially had more voluntary hugs than I have from Ethan). Joan and Alan got Ethan cute card that included an Iron Man Mask that Livi kept trying to put on. Our gift to Ethan was a bike, hoping that he will want to ride it without training wheels, but the first words he said when he saw it was "where are the training wheels?" Eric convinced Ethan it would be fun to go to Cabela's so we all went. The kids loved seeing the stuffed animals, and buying stuffed animals (toy ones, not dead ones). Surprisingly the kids and I were done before Eric was, and the kids were pretty hungry, so we had the snack of champions: fudge and chocolate milk. After Eric finished up we headed over to Pizza Hut for lunch, where Livi ate more than anyone else. She kept trying to steal Ethan's pizza, and Eric's chicken wings. I ended up putting the leftovers on top of the car while I buckled up kids, and yep, forgot them up there. Yeah for me. We headed home where Ethan, Ella and I went to see the Chipmonk movie while Eric took Livi home to try and let her sleep a little more. Ethan loved the movie (7 year old boys seemed to have written the movie) and we came home for cake. Ethan wanted a chocolate cake with "pidgeotoe," a pokemon, on it. I tried making a template to stencil on icing, but it didn't work so I had to freehand the picture, but Ethan seemed to like it anyways. We love you bud, and can't wait to celebrate each of your birthdays in equally unique ways!

Globetrotters Practicing Ballet

Eric received Globetrotter tickets for Christmas. The show was on January 6th, the week of Ethan's birthday, so the boys went together for a guy's night. Ethan ran in after the "game" and couldn't stop talking about all the funny things he saw. In fact he was still talking about it today. As exciting as the show was the below is what he looked like through the whole show.This is the second time the guys have gone together and "Globbie" the mascot is always Ethan's favorite. (a close second was when the players got "pantsed" and also when they were ballerinas).
Eric needs to learn not to take pictures that go right up the nose, but at least Ethan was smiling.

Funny Pictures

Yep, this is how Livi prefers to sleep

Bubble baths rock!