Our Little Girl is Two

Seriously, the last two years have FLOWN!
Our spunky little princess turned two last Saturday. It's amazing to me to see how strong and vibrant she is. Unbelievable to me that she spent the first five days of her life in NICU as I see her run around like a maniac with so much energy.
Kathrynn really is a princess. She is a total girly girl - she loves clothes, loves dressing up, has to have her shoes on as soon as she's dressed, loves having her hair fixed up - the works. :) She ADORES her brother and I'm so grateful that they're such good friends.
I love our little girl and am so grateful for her!

Kathrynn's Birthday Party

Joe Boxer

The kids had fun with Steve's new boxing gloves. :)



I love this face. :)

A Beautiful Blog

I found this blog a couple of weeks ago and I highly suggest that you go read it, too. It's written by an amazing woman who was in a plane accident last summer - she has the most beautiful spirit and I love reading what she has to write. It really uplifted me this morning after another sleepless night. (By the way, we're on our way out the door to the doctor to find out what the heck is going on with Kathrynn.)

On the Mend

Well, we found the culprit of the rash. A new container of a certain detergent I'd been using for quite some time that didn't sit well on my little girl's back. This particular shirt tipped us off. She was trying to rip it off the entire day and I realized I had washed it in that detergent before switching back to Tide. I had been getting sick of the old stuff - it was making all of our clothes dingy, so I switched last week. We changed her into something fresh from her birthday party (more on that later) and she was miraculously better. She slept ALL night that night!
So, on Monday, I washed ALL of her laundry - clothes, bedding, blankets, towels, socks, etc. in Tide and no more crazy itching! Her back is a mess from all of the scratching, but she's feeling much better. The two of us have been catching up on lost sleep all week. Of course, now she has decided that she's above napping - like hasn't napped in WEEKS. I'm attempting to get her to take one now. We'll see how that goes. And, she gets really hurt feelings when it's time for bed, so I've had to hold her and rub her head and play David Lanz until she falls asleep the last few nights. Lots less mommy time, but I think I'll take that over getting 2 hours of sleep for the night.

First Sign of Spring

Sure, we got a foot of snow this week, but look what I found in the flower bed when it all melted!!

Baby Tiger Lilies:

Baby Tulips:

I can't tell you how long I've waited for this day. :)

To Sleep.. To Dream

I'M SO TIRED!

First off, I hope I don't sound like I'm whining about being a mom. I love being a mom more than anything and I adore my children. I'm just really really tired.

Let's just say that if you're female, and live in my house, you haven't slept a lot this week. The last 4 out of 5 or 6 (I can't remember any more) nights have been awful. Kathrynn has a rash on her back that is causing her a ton of discomfort and we just figured out what was causing all of this yesterday.

Kathrynn typically doesn't wake at night, but when she does it's usually very easy to get her to go to sleep. Not this week. A typical night starts with her going to bed easily, but is followed, several hours later, by a blood-curling scream that can only be comforted by holding until she falls asleep - which can take anywhere between 1 and 3 hours.

The first night I thought it was just a bad dream, but was floored by how difficult it was to get her to sleep. The second night I thought maybe it was 2-year molars coming in. The third night consisted of two 3-hour holding episodes with a 1 hour break for sleep between them. At this point I was still thinking maybe it was the molars and tried Infant IB.. didn't work. Then yesterday, I was getting her dressed and noticed a huge rash on her back (that a couple of days before was a dry patch on her shoulder). I called her doctor and the suggested Eucerine for her back, so I rubbed her back with it for like half an hour last night - let me tell you, SHE LOVED IT. But, then it came time for sleep. She woke up at 1 a.m., screaming again. I held her until 3, when she finally fell back asleep and put her to bed. Half an hour later, we were back up until about 5, then up again at 5:30 until 6 or 6:30. That last time I rubbed her back with more lotion and put her down. She slept until 10, so that helped a little this morning since she's decided she's anti-nap now, no matter how tired she is.

The problem here (besides the obvious lack of sleep), is that you have the GIRLS of the house sleep deprived. So, we have Kathrynn, who is being hyper-sensitive about everything because she so wiped out and me, who usually does EVERYTHING and can currently hardly function. Ugh.

Our wonderful doctor called this morning (she is seriously awesome) to check on Kathrynn and suggested Benedryl, which we will try tonight to see if we can get some rest in. Wish us luck! :)

Can't Help But Smile

Steve just emailed me the cutest thing in the WORLD. You can find it HERE. It's a "screen cleaner."

What a Gentleman

When I was in college, I dated a guy for the sole reason that he held down the button on the water fountain for me to take a drink. I'd never seen anyone do that before and it totally blew me away.

Well, the other day, we were in the church building and Kathrynn wanted to get a drink from the water fountain - it's a new found obsession of hers now that she's figured out how it works. Well, she stepped up on the stool, and what do you know, Joe held down the button for her. I actually gasped. He is a natural-born gentleman. He pushes his chair in when he leaves the table. He willing shares his toys with all girls (except Kathrynn.. sisters are the exception, I think). He even used to give his food - hand fed to her mouth - to his favorite little friend in San Antonio.

I'm so grateful my little guy is such a sweetheart. I REALLY hope it sticks - between his consideration for girls and his need to have everything neat and clean, he's going to make some woman very happy one day.

On that note.. there's a little girl in our ward who has had a crush on him since the fall. I didn't know that 4 year olds could hold on to crushes that long, but I asked her mom yesterday after watching her follow Joe everywhere and she confirmed it. She's still "in love" with Joe. That's how she announced it to me and Steve in church one day, "I'm in love with Joe." :)

The Night I Almost Peed My Pants

I had a fun little experience last night that will forever go down in laughable history.

I had put off taking the garbage cans out during the day and went outside at dusk to do it. It was a GORGEOUS night! Not even a chill in the air. So there I was all la-di-da down my loooong driveway with the recycling can when I see this car drive slowly in front of our house, pass the drive way, back up, and then pull IN to our drive way. Now, I totally am a fan of Ogden, but it doesn't come without fear, especially when it's getting dark and I'm out alone. So, my thoughts were: 1st - they're looking at the house next door (it's for sale), 2nd - Um.... 3rd - Oh Crap! I'm usually not that paranoid, but I didn't recognize the car and the way he passed and pulled back to pull into my drive when he saw me freaked me out. So, there I stopped dead in my tracks by our front porch stairs as the car pulled up to me. The window rolls down and this HUGE guy leans out and says "Hi." (By the way, I can't see jack when it's getting dark..) I respond, very nervously, "Hi..." and he replies with "Is your husband home?" "UMMMMMMM..." At this point I had backed up completely up the stairs with the recycling can between me and the car and, depending on the next question, was ready to make a run for it. Then he leaned out his window a bit more, and said "It's Gary." Ugh! Gary is Steve's friend who he goes boxing with (one of Steve's new things that he LOVES!) and he came by to see if Steve would go to the gym with him. I proceeded to tell him how much he scared me and led him into the house.

The irony of it is that Gary is a police officer, so I couldn't have been more safe! Steve thought it was all very funny and came home from boxing with some good self defense tips for me to use next time I'm in a 'questionable' situation. :)