S & C Literature Parade

 Each year the girls' school puts on a "Literature Parade", in lieu of dressing up in Halloween costumes.  The kiddos dress like their favorite book character and parade around carrying said book.  The girls loved it and I was grateful to be able to go see them, buuuuut for someone who is not crafty, is super cheap, and is somewhat of a procrastinator, this blows.  So, we had two Fancy Nancy characters.  Because, you know, we have lots of fancy dress up clothes.  Done and Done.

 

 These two chicks were so well behaved waiting for and watching the parade.

Sage

 I LOVE seeing the progress Sage is making at school.  Yes, she is still struggling to keep up with the rest of her class, but to me-she is doing so amazing.  Reading has started to click with her and she is so good at it!  I love finding little notes she writes for me all over the house. 
Top left pic:  her pet rock she designed for a rock project
Top right pic:  "On my voyage to America I would need food I would want to have Mom." 
Bottom left pic: "for Christmas I want a bubble bracelet and a bubble necklace and a frozen doll and dress that is white and that is sparkly and a hello kitty book"
Bottom right pic:  "remember to give me something because of my spelling test"

 Sage also started soccer!  She cried and pretty much refused to participate the first day.  I was out there practicing with her team, holding her hand.  It was awesome!  haha....After her pal Ginny got in town and joined her on the field the following week, she was a changed person.  They pretty much hold hands on the field the whole time.  Her team has 11 players, 8 of which are boys.  And they are 1st-3rd graders, and she is the youngest by far.  They have all played before and are very aggressive on the field, so she is pretty timid and just runs around looking lost most of the time.  It's super cute.  I will do a better job of finding a team more fit for her next year.

 Thankfully this field is at a school with an awesome park, so the other gals stay busy playing.

Charlotte plays {SOCCER!}

 Our first season of soccer!  

We have been looking forward to this for some time now.  After a few tears on her first day of practice, she has decided she LOVES it.  It's quite comical to watch these little five year olds on the field.  I thought I would dread spending my Saturdays at the soccer field, but I absolutely love it.  I love cheering them on and getting all excited when they make a goal.  I'm pretty sure I'll be banned from their sporting events when they get older.  Her team is awesome.  It's a bunch of cuties from our ward and we meet at our church building for practices.  We get annihilated at pretty much every game, but the girls sure don't know or care.  They are just happy to play!  It's so fun.

 I can't not take a few pictures of this baby.

the {Littles}

 Shari has started calling my little two "The Littles", and the big to "The Bigs".  It seems to have stuck, and I like it.  My littles are doing great.  Ivy is back to her happy happy self.  Smiling all day and walking around like a champ.  I pick her up and squeeze her about a thousand times a day because I feel like my baby is turning into a toddler way too fast.  It is devastating to me!  She has almost all her teeth.  At least it seems like it.  She's got four top and bottom, along with two top and bottom molars.  She seems to be teething all the friggin time.

 

Emery is my little side kick.  She loves to make and drink our green smoothie together each day after the girls are at school, and only occasionally spills it all over the place.  She has started to fight nap time, which I refuse to give in on.  I need at least an hour of quiet time during the day or I'm pretty sure I'd cry.  She stays in Sage and Charlotte's room (where she  naps) and plays quietly, but then is super crabby by early evening.  I don't get why kids don't just enjoy naps.  I sure would.  She is growing taller and taller every day.  My tallest by a long shot at this age.  She has started to say "I can't, I'm too sick", any time I ask her to do something.  Another new phrase that is amazing that she says all the time--"I'm so sorry mom".  She whips that puppy out anytime she does something she knows she isn't supposed to.  I can't really get mad when she is immediate with that, now can I?  She turns three next week and the freaks me out!  I love my little Em.

{Ivy's Surgery}

 Ivy finally had her surgery to "re-plumb" her insides. They trimmed extra ureter tubes, removed a "bladder" formed from those extra tubes, and reshaped her bladder.  It took about six hours and the nurse helping out was amazing.  He called me at the top of every hour to keep me updated on their progress.  We got to the hospital bright and early since she was unable to eat or drink prior to surgery.  She was so easy and happy and charmed everyone with her fuzzy hair.

When they finished and let us in to see her, she was pretty out of it.  She would try to open her eyes but was just to darn tired.  She threw up and dry heaved several times over the next hour in recovery, but they assured us that was normal and due to being heavily sedated for so long. 

 Once we got settled in her room, we pretty much stayed put for three days.  She was a sad, sad baby.  She didn't sleep for about 72 hours.  Literally!  She would take a 15-20 minute cat nap during the nights but it was pretty torturous.  I felt so bad for her.  She couldn't hold anything down, even though we weren't feeding her.  She was getting pumped full of fluid and meds through the IV, but anytime they tried to give her sips of water, milk, or medicine, she would immediately throw it back up.  By the third day she was starting to eat applesauce and hold it down.  We went on a few walks in the wagon.  They weaned her off the IV and sent us home.  The third day they also had the coolest Halloween party for all the sick kiddos.  It was amazing.  They had hundreds of costumes, and you could take as many home as you wanted.  Pumpkin painting, games, free books, socks, hats, etc.  I stocked up! 

 This was day four, at home.  She slept in my arms almost all day and night.  She could hardly keep her eyes open and she and I lounged together all day.  I felt so bad for her but at the same time was loving getting to snuggle on her so much.  She went back to throwing up everything, including her antibiotics and pain killers. 

 

After a few days of being miserable, she seemed to really perk up.  She was holding down her bottle and attempting to eat.  We took her to church with us and I remember calling Clint at work on Monday telling him I think we wore her out because she seemed to be not feeling well again.  By Wednesday of that week, I knew something was wrong.  She had a fever that wouldn't go away, she wouldn't even look at food or drink, and she was totally limp and lethargic.  I could barely get her to hold her own head up.  Her doctor and I had been playing phone tag and on the last message I got from him, he let me know that she should be getting better at this point, not worse.  So, we took her to the hospital where we learned that she had a urine/kidney/blood infection, and had developed a heart murmur from the infection.  So after a long expensive ambulance ride to Cardon's at midnight, we settled in again for another long few days. 

 Clint and I took turns this go around with her.  Whoever stayed got zero sleep and I was starting to loose my mind, so he took a day off work and stayed Wednesday night and Thursday.  I took his place Thursday night and Friday, then he spent the night with her on Friday.  This was Friday afternoon.  She was starting to perk up and smile!  I also gave her a sponge bath and pretty much burned this shirt.

 After taking the girls to gymnastics and picking up some Chick-fil-A for dinner, we ate together in the cafeteria and got some good smiles out of her.

 Going home Saturday afternoon!  I love this smile.

 That Saturday was super busy with soccer games and our ward trunk-or-treat.  So I took kids to soccer games while Clint was with her at the hospital, and by the time he got home it was time for me to get kids dressed and ready for the party at the church.  While I took the older girls, he took Ivy and went to get her prescription filled.  FIVE pharmacies later, and after talking to her doctor, we learned that her medicine was very uncommon and not carried in most pharmacies.  We were also told there was nothing they could replace it with.  So at 11 that night, Clint drove back to Cardon's where they filled the RX for us.  It wasn't cheap either. 

We kept her home Sunday thru Tuesday and just let her catch up on sleep and start to eat normally again.  On Wednesday we went in super early again for her little outpatient surgery to have her stent removed.  It only took about a half hour in the operating room, and after about two hours in recovery, they let us go home.  It was quick and painless and she was SO much happier!  Literally within hours of getting home she was walking around, happy as a lark-and eating a ton of food!  Such a relief.  We will follow up with her pediatrician and then the surgeon within a few weeks, and then a repeat VCUG and ultrasound in a month to make sure everything is running smoothly and healing fine.  I am so grateful for the doctors and nurses that have taken such good care of her and helped her to heal up.  Also so very thankful for our moms!  My mom and Clint's mom both saved us over the few weeks we were there.  They each took time off work to help with the other girls.  We would have been scrambling big time without their help!  

We love this little Fuzz so so much.

Beginning of October

 Quick trip to yogurt jungle after gymnastics and before dinner?  Sure.  Why not.

 FUZZ.

 My view when I try to pee:

 Sage had a nasty ear infection and a quarter sized piece of wax wedged in her ear.  Whoops.

 Listening to General Conference in our tent with this chick blowing bubbles at us=we may have heard 1 talk.