Stake Music

Our Stake musical fireside was on Sunday and I played my harp. (It was a rough weekend for June to be sick since I had the stake fireside and also our ward's Christmas program that I was playing for. On Saturday, Ryan was setting up in the gym for the church party, I was playing for the choir rehearsal with a sick, feverish June on my lap as I played. Next year, no over-extending!)

I really felt the Spirit as I listened to the musical numbers. Our stake does a great job of putting this fireside together and there is a lot of talent. The only other stake fireside that rivals it was our stake in Bloomington, and I do have to say that Bloomington's would blow our one here out of the water. BUT, it's hardly a fair comparison since everyone participating in Bloomington was a grad student or a professor at one of the best music schools in the country. There was this amazing rendition of "Oh Holy Night" that left me in tears during the dress rehearsal and the real thing. I couldn't find it online, so I thought I'd leave you with two other great religious songs.

This one is "The Holy City" sung by Stanford Olsen and the MoTab. I love this song, I can't explain why.

This one is for my Latin friends. "Veni veni Emmanuel" by the King's Singers.

Santa and more

We all survived last weekend and managed to avoid the June Sickies 2.0. She had a lingering fever for a few days and just wanted to lay on my lap or nap in her bed the entire time. It was very out of character for her and I was planning on a doctor's visit the next day if she hadn't improved, but thankfully she woke up Monday and was herself again. After sleeping much of the weekend away, she was NOT sleepy for a Monday afternoon nap, though.

I took the girls to see a free Santa last week. It was pretty good, for being free. I haven't been a big fan of Santa photos in general, and think they're usually a waste of money, but then my friend told me how her mom put all their Santa photos in a giant framed collage and that it was really fun to see them age through the years. Suddenly, I'm a fan! I'm not fan enough to spend $17, though.

The photos turned out terrible, but it was a fun activity. Willa was very shy and nervous and very much wanted to sit on the bench next to Santa rather than on his lap. I was very proud of her for whispering that she wanted a Sofia dress when the big man asked. He was not the greatest Santa, though, and made a comment to me about hardly being able to hear her. Rude! June wanted nothing to do with him, and clung tightly to me. Santa made me sit on his lap, which I tried to decline, and will firmly decline next time when I have my wits about me. Hmmm, maybe $17 isn't so bad after all.

Willa has been playing so much better with June these days and it both warms my heart and makes things substantially easier. I love being able to make dinner to the sound of them playing together in the other room rather than whining at each other underfoot in the kitchen. They are getting very good at hugs and kisses. There is still some typical bickering going on and June is often the little rascal in these situations as she purposely teases or taunts Willa.

Here are some photos from Ryan's new office. We went to visit one day after June looked around the house and said, "Daddy, daddy?" I told her that daddy was at work and she said, "Come back!"

 

He doesn't work for Tropicana Entertainment. The firm name is above and the lighting was bad. If you want to know, shoot me an email. 

 June chillaxin'

I finally got around to getting a membership at the Children's Museum. We LOVE it and I only wish we had done it sooner. People who don't get memberships to museums or other similar places are crazy and here's why: it gets us out of the house, my children play instead of fight, it's a safe place, and it's something that engages them when they get bored of the usually library/park rotations that we have around the neighborhood. It's usually an amazing deal when you figure out how much one trip would cost. Now we can go as often as we want (several times a month, once we went three times in a week) and not have the pressure to stay for long periods of time. I know that some people are homebodies, but my kids gets so restless and they NEED to run around and explore a new space. If there is extra whining and bickering I know that we need to get out.

There is this adorable traveling exhibit right now of famous children's books. This is the snow angel from The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats which is one of my all time favorite books. I remember loving it as a child, and I love reading it to Willa now. "He walked with his feet pointed out like this. He walked with his feet pointed in like that." They had the footprints to walk in and a bunch of other fun things. They also had the coconut tree from Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. It had a really pulley/conveyor belt system thingy where you put the letters on the tree, they traveled up to the top, and then fell down. It's so fun!

I wrote too soon

Well, we got the surgery over with, but we did not avoid the flu! Ryan and I were out at his work Christmas party (which was held at the "Fantasy Suite" at The Palms) when our awesome babysitter Rilie texted to say that June had thrown up twice! Yikes! Poor June. Poor Rilie!

We thought we should remove ourselves home, taking time first to eat a cupcake each. The cupcakes coordinated with little gift bags. You got a gift bag that coordinated with the color of filling inside the cupcake. Ryan and I both ended up getting a yellow cream center inside. I was a little disappointed that we were each getting the same thing, until we opened the gift bags and found $50 cash inside each one. Saweet! It's nice working for a bigger firm :).

So, we hauled home and poor June had a fever. Rilie was a champ and is definitely the #1 babysitter in the history of the world. She kept everything clean, had the dirty clothes and trash from cleaning up wrapped in separate plastic bags. She managed to get Willa to bed and was holding a clean, but sick June. We told Rilie to wash her hands, take a shower when she got home, and wash all her clothing. Then we paid her a nice, fat amount for working under pressure. I hope she doesn't get sick!

The family who watched June while Willa was in surgery had the stomach flu about five days ago, but a good 48-72 hours had passed since they had been sick so I thought she was safe. Plus, it was a very clean home and I know the mom is on top of things. I'll just chalk this one up to fate and Ryan's family's weak stomach genes. Crossing our fingers that the rest of us don't get it!

Post-op

We avoided the stomach bug so far and had the surgery without incident. It was so short and simple, they said they could have done it in the office except it would have been very painful. So we had to go through the whole hassle of the hospital just for a little gas sedation. They didn't even need to do the IV sedation. It made we wish that we could have just stopped in at the nearest dental office instead of the hospital and have had them sedate her :).

Since the surgery had been pushed back, her arm had healed a lot more than  it would have if we had the surgery earlier. That meant a Christmas surprise of only a soft splint on her arm and no more hard cast! To celebrate, Willa was finally able to put on her Rapunzel dress that Bridgett got her for her birthday and that she has never been able to wear.

Surgery is always a pain and having a toddler wake up with anesthesia is no joke, but I am also so grateful that it was such a minor thing. We were at the children's hospital this time and it was sobering to see the new baby next to us going in for a five hour heart surgery . We got to leave the hospital just as they were starting on her. It definitely made us feel very grateful.

Ta da! Rapunzel dress at last!

Rollin' with the homies

This amazing new park opened up a few miles from our house. It is amazing and has all kinds of playground equipment that I had never seen before. My friend took this photo and it cracks me up. I love Willa's little arm up on the side of the car. Rollin' with the church homies, for sure.

That photo is unrelated to the current stress of the moment. I've got a dirty kitchen downstairs, a million things to do, and I'm a little stressed, so of course, I'm blogging.

Willa is scheduled to get the rods out of her arm tomorrow, yay!! It was an ordeal to schedule the surgery, she should have had them out last week, but since we were changing insurance with Ryan's new job, we pushed it back a week to give the doctor's office and hospital time to process it all. Then, the nurse called and said that they were moving her from a Tuesday 9 a.m. surgery to a Thursday 11 a.m. surgery. Of course, you can eat or drink anything eight hours before surgery, so Willa wouldn't be able to have anything all morning. Has anyone had a toddler who deals well with being hungry? I sure haven't. I was tossing and turning all night worrying about how I would deal with Willa when the day came. I was worried she would sneak food or just have a huge fit. Plus, June would be eating and it would be really hard for Willa. So I called the nurse and begged in my nicest voice explaining what a monster Willa would be if she had to wait that long for the surgery. So, the nurse nicely called around and switched the location of the surgery so now it is in a different place but at 8 a.m. Apparently, it's hard to schedule something at the end of the year because they are crowded from people meeting their deductible. Thankfully that was all settled. 

THEN, this morning a mom in our preschool co-op casually mentioned on Facebook that her daughter woke up with the barfies at 3 a.m. Since Willa had preschool with this girl at their house just yesterday, I am a stress case. I'm so worried that she's going to get it and we're going to have to cancel the surgery. There's nothing I can do about it now, so of course I sit and stew. I need to do some relaxation to calm myself. June got the stomach sickies and we had to cancel our Utah trip, so now I know from experience that bad things can and do happen! Hopefully, everything will go well, but for now I'm just stewing about Willa's behavior tonight and if it was the norm or if it seemed like she is coming down with it. That's our news! Hopefully you'll hear a happy surgery story tomorrow.