A Little Life (February)

February was a better month. I was still sick a lot of the time, but was able to get up and do a little more. It was good timing, because Katy was really hoping I could go to the zoo with her for her kindergarten field trip. We made it, and she had a good time. But it was seriously intense chasing a bunch of low-attention-spanned 5-year-olds around when I had been laying in bed for 3 months. And Shawn was not that impressed that he mostly had to stay in the stroller, but it was the only way we could keep up with them!

We also made it to the IDEA Museum in February once or twice, to get some use out of the 6-month membership I bought on Groupon in December. We luckily ended up going one Saturday when they had a special members-only activity with all sorts of fun things outside. Snacks, mermaids in a lagoon, dress-up, bubbles, story time, and crafts. Of course, the kids' favorite "craft" was decorating graham crackers with frosting and all sorts of extras.

One of the excitements of the month was the stackable unit that our landlady had let us use in our rental stopped working. (it no longer used heat in the dryer part) Someone in our ward came and jury-rigged it, but it burned through the new wiring in a bout 3 loads... so we decided we were done with that. The probable repairs were going to be a decent amount, so we made our first real appliance purchase (I know, we've only been married over 10 years...) and bought a washer and dryer! Pretty crazy. Not quite as crazy as the gymnastics they had to do to get them both in that little space, though. :) We were very grateful to have a working dryer again!

Jaina had a rough month. Towards the beginning her allergies got really bad. She has them from time to time, and there are seasons she does much better if she takes something daily, but this was kind of a sudden onset thing, and she started wheezing. This child has never had a wheezy breath (that I've noticed) in her life! It progressed quickly, and we even tried taking her into Urgent Care that night. But the wait was like 3 hours, and Jeremy said most of the people there were on death's door, which we didn't want any part of, so they just came home instead. We rubbed essential oils on her chest and feet, and diffused them in her room, and hoped for the best. She slept mostly okay, but was still pretty wheeze the next morning, so we we took her in to our pediatrician (who we're way more comfortable with than a random urgent care dr) and they got a her a nebulizer and she did a treatment right then. We did several treatments for just a few days, and it cleared right up. She hasn't had a problem since. It was so random! We now have a cute penguin nebulizer though, so... And then towards the end of the month she was the first one to come down with a random virus that was 4-5 days of high fevers (we're talking up to 104º several times, which is when I start trying to bring it down just a little!) and like one random throwing up episode. Katy caught the same thing a week later, and Shawn after that (without the throwing up, thankfully). Reilly seems immune to a lot of the things everyone else catches, thankfully. :) We took Jaina in (again) because her throat hurt a little, and after 2 days of high fevers, I wanted to rule out strep, which was going around. Thankfully, that wasn't it. Just a long-lived virus!

Jeremy pretty much spoiled me on Valentine's Day, and because I was pregnant, (but not super sick still) my favorite gift was these awesome hazelnut chocolates that normally were like $20+ on Amazon that he got because he bought something else? I think. Anyway, hands down the best chocolates I've ever had. Sometimes I daydream about them. :)

Other random happenings? The Phoenix Marathon came through right by our house (about half a block over). I always love seeing the runners. Even the not-so-fast ones are so inspiring. Like they almost make me cry. The dedication and training and stick-to-it-ness that has to go along with running a race of that length is awe-inspiring. I am not a natural runner. But I'd like to do a 10K and aspire to do a half marathon some day. (At Disneyland, of course. I need extra motivation, haha)  And then, a picture of me, 15 weeks pregnant, and not doiong even any 5K's in the following year, pretty much...

September and October

Catch up. Haha. Like that's even possible. I enjoy each of our children, and my life is good, but I get frustrated at how I can't live this life and also keep up on documenting it. But I can't just stop trying. It's too important to me! So I do what I can here and there, and when I catch up on some family videos, or family scrapbook, or individual scrapbooks, or my blog/journaling, it does bring me joy. So here goes.

Other Exciting Things That Happened in September:
* We went to a 9/11 thing in downtown Mesa with Jeremy's dad. The kids enjoyed seeing the firetrucks and climbing around on them. It was really still too hot too bit out even at 7 PM, but it was nice to do something different.
*A lot of our Weech family was in town at the same time (even Nicole and Carlee) and we got to celebrate my nephew Hudson's first birthday. Always fun!
*Jaina decided to try tumbling this year instead of dance, and her classes (Monday afternoons) started.
*Shawn starting learning how much trouble he could get into if employing our tall stool to climb up to reach things.
*Shawn and I went to Makutu's Island with Carlee and Nicole for their toddler time. It was crazy, but fun.
*I finally took the box of t-shirts I have been hauling around for 10-15 years and cut them up and turned them into a blanket. One side is mostly high school, and the other side is BYU and some stuff we've done since we got married.
*We got a new vacuum! This was very exciting, since our previous one is one we got for $50 (highly recommended though) when we first moved to Iowa. It just was NOT picking stuff up anymore. We got a Shark from Sam's Club, and it was amazing what it managed to pull out of the carpet in it's first day or two on duty.
*Reilly and I got a chance to go to one of Spencer's football games down here at Phoenix Christian. They hadn't had any really close games yet that season, but it was a really tense, fun game (that we thankfully won). Reilly usually goes to bed by 8:30 though, and he was dragging by the time it was over around 9:30.
*Reilly turned 9 and had a fun friend party at Mesquite Groves Aquatic Center. They had a blast, and there was very little planning/clean up for us. Win-win!
*We got to spend an evening checking out the Supermoon Lunar Eclipse, and went to our friend's house, the Shoemakers, to check it out through their fancy telescope.

October: 

Great, awesome month. 

Early in the month we used our POGO passes to take the kids to a Diamondbacks game with Jeremy's dad and sister. Fun, but they usually go a little late when our kids are used to being in bed by 7 and 8. Riding the Light rail is always fun though, and they loved exploring Chase Field.

We took advantage of October break and of the (very large) nest egg I'd been saving up, apart from our budget (by selling things we didn't really need and by doing a painting for my dad) and went on our first real family vacation since we went to Disneyland in early 2013. One of my best friends helped make it possible by offering to let us stay in her family's beach house near Carlsbad. It was a great trip! My friends and their families joined us for the first two days, and it was so fun to be all together and to enjoy the beach! In October many of the places around San Diego do kids free deals. We took advantage of that to visit Legoland (the kids had been dying to go - we had fun, but I don't see repeat trips in our future) and the San Diego Zoo, which was awesome. We also went to the Mornin Battalion visitors' center and stopped to see the San Diego Zoo. Our AZ Science Center membership hot us into two big museums in San Diego, and we checked out Balboa Park the same  evening. It was a busy trip, and we wore ourselves out a bit, but it was fun.

In true feast or famine style, we got some nice pictures of our whole family together on our vacation, then also finally got some official family pictures taken by Debe Jorgensen. We did them at the Mesa Arts Center, and they turned out amazing! It was a good choice to do them outside instead of in a studio, which I think would have been a disaster with our busy group.

We finished up the month of October by celebrating fall and Halloween several different ways. We had dinner and did a fun pumpkin patch with Jeremy's mom, Ashley, and Chloe, and the kids got to pick out pumpkins and do a Halloween craft at home. We carved/painted pumpkins for a family night activity. Then the day before Halloween the two little kids and I did trick-or-treating on Main Street, and we did some regular trick or treating Halloween night, as well as dinner at Chipotle. But I'm glad we did the other stuff earlier, because Halloween night was one of those "expectations vs. reality" nights, and it was a little rough here and there. Especially when Reilly ended up home throwing up instead of going around the neighborhood, and Jeremy was wiped out after several days out of town and didn't feel up to much gallivanting and celebrating.