Fun and Not so Fun!

So my goal was to stay better up to date after spending an entire day working on updates. Then I got sick - SIGH - and the updates all stopped!

For the last week I have been the sickest I ever remember being. Last Saturday I was fine, went to work, then an extra dance practice, then I cut Matt's and Kory's hair, made dinner, etc. I was putting the girls to sleep when it HIT me. I don't remember having anything hit me so hard and so fast in my life. In a matter of just a few minutes I was SHAKING like crazy, I couldn't get warm and I was in tears I felt so CRUMMY. I went to bed at about 8:30 as soon as the girls were in bed. I only got up to feed Lukas through the night and then the next day I stayed home from church and was in bed ALL day long. I determined that it was probably mastitis, so Kory called my midwife and got some antibiotics for me while I slept. I started them that afternoon and thought I would be on my way to being better in no time. WRONG! I spent all day on Monday in bed, I kept Kortnie home from preschool and she helped with the boys so that I could take it easy. I felt terrible, but I had a meeting at my work that evening and felt it was important to attend (They recently cut everyone's hours and I wanted to make sure that I was there in order to hear anything that might relate to what has been happening.). I came home and crashed. Tuesday and Wednesday I was in bed as much as possible. With four kids it is pretty hard to spend all day sleeping, but I did the best I could. Thursday, was a hard day. It was Kory's BIG Birthday. I wanted to celebrate with him and make it special, but because I had been so sick all week, I was not very prepared and did not feel much like doing anything. Still I woke up and made him a birthday breakfast, then we went to his mom's house to visit with her and then I made a nice dinner that night. It didn't seem like much, but physically it was hard to do. 

The Birthday boy with his new fathead.

Look at all those candles!

Friday I was starting to feel better, but it was a LONG day. I was still not feeling great, but I had to be a mom and I had to go to work. This Friday was the first day of my new schedule at work. I am now only teaching one 3 hour class. It is nice because I have Saturday's off, but not so good for the budget. It is also hard to keep anyone's attention for 3 hours - even I was bored. It is going to be an adjustment. 
Saturday was another long day. We had our review for the dance studio where I teach. I have five classes this time and they all did great. The girls also had their performance. They did a great job.

Here is a picture of me and my girls before the review.

It has now been nine days since I got sick and I am still not 100% better but I am on my way (or at least I hope!). 

POST OVERLOAD!

Okay, so I spent all day updating my blog, but I am all caught up! I completed 18 posts counting this one. It feels so good to be all caught up! I need to dedicate more time to posting and hopefully I will be able to stay more up to date!

6 months and Growing

Lukas turned six months old on January 6th. He is growing so fast and getting so BIG (okay still small, but big to us!)
Stats -
15 lb. 3 oz. (10th percentile)
26+ inches (50th percentile)

Development Growth

Learning to splash in the water. He finally likes his bath!

Sitting up on his own. Trying to clap!

Making faces and blowing raspberries!

Crawling! Mostly he moves backwards, but is just figuring out how to move forwards now.

 I also just gave him his first hair cut. You can't tell the difference in these pictures very well, but you can in person. His hair wasn't real long, but it was very uneven and so I was trying to even things up.

My boys before the hair cut.

My boys after their hair cuts! So handsome.

Potty Training

So my first goal for the new year was to try and potty train Holland. So on New Years Day I took him to the store and he got to pick out his own big boy underwear, a potty chair, and candy that he would get when he went potty.

Potty training started first thing Monday morning and Kory was home from work to give me extra help. He was about 50% the first day and 75% the second day. Ever since the second day he has only had a few accidents. He is still not telling us all the time, so he is more "mommy" trained than potty trained, but he is doing AWESOME. He has even stayed dry the last few nights - which for us is a big deal!

Day 1 - Sporting the new "car" undies!

Welcome to 2011

For the New Year, Kory and I went to an '80s party at his brothers house.

We had fun getting dressed up.

And even the girls joined in.

We celebrated by eating pizza, playing games, visiting, and of course dancing the night away to great hits from the 80s. It was fun to ring in the new year with Kory's family and the kids were glad they got to stay up late and join the fun.

Sharp Family Christmas Party

 The night of the 26th was the Sharp family Christmas party. We had a turkey and ham dinner, a talent show and then presents. It is very much like Kory's family party but just smaller in number.

Holland listening to Uncle Matt share his new computer program.

Daddy and Lukas

Jess, Koko, and Bella

Breanna, Skylar and Ammon

Uncle Mike reading his book "Rusty Saves Christmas"

The Rich Families musical talent.

The Ramirez Family sharing the good and bad of Christmas.

Grandma Ann getting ready to sing "Baby's Boat" My mom usually sings Hardrock, Cocoa and Joe, but this year found the music to a lullaby she used to sing to us and so she sang that.

After the talent show it was time to open the presents. We all loved our gifts! It was a great night.

Christmas

Christmas Eve we spent the night at Kory's Mom's visiting and playing games with his family. Then we came home to finish up our own family traditions.

We let Santa fall into the chimney.

We opened up our Christmas Eve Pajama's.

And we took our family photo in front of the tree.

The next morning the kids woke up and came in our room. We have a family prayer together before we come out and open presents. Then we line up in the hall way from youngest to oldest.

Lukas opening his first present.

Holland got TRUCKS!

Kortnie got a walking puppy.

Skylar opening her MP3 player.

Then we all had breakfast together. I made biscuits and gravy, and cinnamon rolls.

 The rest of the day was very low key and we enjoyed hanging out as a family. We played with our new toys and watched Christmas movies. It was a great day. 

The Denos Family Christmas Party

We have a huge Denos family Christmas party every year the Saturday before Christmas. We have dinner, a talent show and presents from Grandma Denos.

This is Lukas with his cute little cousin Alina Joy. They are only a month apart. I love Lukas' huge cheeser in this picture.

Kortnie wanted to take a picture of herself so I helped her out.

Marching Time. Before the kids get to open their presents they follow Grandma Denos around the room in a fun march. ALL the grandkids participate, even those with kids of their own.

Skylar marching with her cousin Tyson.

Ready!

Set!

Go!   Grandma counts down from 3 and all the kids go crazy.

Holland showing off some of his loot.

All the kids at the end of the night.

 It is always a fun night. This year we had a great time, but we all really missed Kory's Dad. It was not the same without him.

Tis the season for....flooding?

 December 23rd started off as a great day. Skylar was off track almost the entire month of December and we hadn't had a lot of opportunities to do very many fun things. The kids asked if we could make Christmas cookies and I thought it sounded like a lot of fun. So they helped make the dough, cut out the cookies, and then it was time to decorate!

Holland did more eating than decorating!

Hard at work.

The finished product.

Enjoying the fruits of our labors.

Adding the little details.

Well that night we decided to go to Temple Square to see the lights. We were all getting ready and Kortnie needed help getting her shoes. Kory went down to help her and found that their floor was soaking wet. We checked all over and could not find where it was coming from, but we did find more wet carpet in Melodee's room.  Thankfully we have great neighbors. They let us borrow fans, a shop vac and a carpet cleaner. We were able to pull everything out and get the fans on it right away in order to save everything.

The girls room while we were drying the carpet.

This is what our hallway looked like for about a week as we waited for the carpet to dry and then for it to be re-installed.

Another angle of the girls room. Our neighbor had big disaster relief fans and we told us to put them under the carpet to help it dry.

A shot of Melodee's room. She got lucky and it only affected the corner of her room.

We still never found out where the water came from so we are a little nervous that it will happen again. It was not a fun experience and I don't want to repeat it. December ended up being a crazy month full of sickness including a stomach bug, the flu, colds, strep throat, and vertigo. Then we all got healthy and had a flood, but with all that I feel very blessed. Our blessings include the fact that Skylar was off track the whole month so she didn't have to miss any school while she was sick. Kory has saved plenty of sick time for work so even though he had to miss a lot we never went without pay. We were always sick during the week and fine on the weekends, so we were still able to attend all of our holiday parties. We were also blessed with help installing the carpet. A job that would have cost a minimum of $150 only cost us $40 because a guy at Kory's work came and did it for us. On top of that we did not have to replace the carpet or pad thanks to neighbors. I am very grateful for our Heavenly Father watching over us!