Friday, April 25, 2014

Easter

Our Easter this year came in the midst of a wonderful spell of giardia for me (another story for a later post)... so this neighborhood Easter Egg hunt was about all we did this year.  But the kids LOVED it.  

Alex was just fascinated with opening the eggs and eating what was inside. 



Claire was blown away by how many eggs there were. 









We LOVE our neighborhood. I would bet a million dollars that we live in the best location on earth. Best. People. Ever.  

Happy Easter!  May we remember Him and the reason we celebrate. 

Because of Him we can live together again with our families. Because of Him we can be better. We can serve. We can love more fully. We are so blessed... because of the Savior, Jesus Christ.

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Giardia and Family Pictures

I try to do family pictures about every spring and fall, whether it's me and a tripod or a fellow professional... this time, being as big as I am right now, I didn't want to deal with doing them on my own. And as much as I don't love that I'm a whale in these (33 weeks pregnant), I want to remember this time and these kiddos as they are right now. They change so quickly.  

I also like to try new photographers and we couldn't have been happier with Kali Poulsen Photography!  Even with Alex at that impossible stage where he wants nothing to do with the camera and doesn't listen or obey:) At least he's not crying!

I'm amazed that I wasn't crying in these...sheesh. These family pictures came at the tail end (pun intended) of my Giardia (or E. coli... we'll never really know what exactly it was) spell. These were taken Saturday evening and Wednesday I had just been in the hospital. Tuesday night hit me hard (out of both ends) for about 8 hours straight... the most violent and non-stop I've ever had. And the most painful stomach cramps. My body wouldn't let me have a single drop of water or it would start again. So by morning, I got up to throw up again and passed out, hitting my head on the tub and landing on the floor. Amazed I didn't hurt myself worse or the baby. Ben took me to the hospital and they sent me to labor and delivery to monitor baby since contractions had come more regularly with the dehydration.  They gave me 2 liters of fluid and some anti-nausea medicine and sent me home. They said it'd be knocked out that day but took a stool sample to test just in case. We called the next day and they had lost my sample... awesome! So I had to send another one in on Friday (not in shortage though). 

After laying in bed not able to move for 4 days (except to run to the bathroom, which I sometimes made in time and sometimes didn't....) I was finally up for taking these pics. But literally the moment they were done, I was out again. Almost went to the hospital again in the middle of the night and Ben was leaving the next day to New York for business. Amazingly, Sunday night was the best night sleep I had and Monday I felt brand new (which was miraculous as I had the kids by myself for 4 days).  The results came back that there were white blood cells present, but because they didn't test it until Friday and Saturday (after 4 days had already gone by) some of the others were negative and inconclusive...  I am positive it wasn't just the flu. I know I caught something in Cancun and it just needed to run its course.  Who knows. Just glad it's GONE.

Anyway. Enjoy the pictures (while trying not to imagine what I was dealing with at the time... sorry) :


































Love this family of mine.

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Cancun

What a perfectly-timed trip. We loved every minute. We had absolutely nothing planned which meant  all day in the sun, swimming, playing beach volleyball, reading, relaxing, and eating. 





Yes, Cancun water really does look like this. 

I only had my phone as my camera for this trip and I didn't take very many pictures. Glad we took the ones we did!


Sunset walks:




We stayed at Sandos Playacar in Playa del Carmen (about an hour south of Cancun). It was a great resort with lots to do. We loved it (and the price - thanks to our love of timeshare presentations... ha).


We had such a great time!