Firsts.....

We are welcoming into our lives this 2012 a few firsts. We have experienced a few firsts since the beginning of the year, experiencing these things with our children couldn't be more grand!
*First visit to the Children's Museum-
We took a weekend, spent it with family and we had a grand old time! Brad and I and the kids headed off to Iowa City for a family fun day. We stopped for lunch and then headed off to the Children's Museum. We had heard nothing but fantastic reports from other families and were excited to experience it for ourselves! There was so much to see and do so we started weaving our way thru the numerous exhibits and hands on activities.

We had a great time, the kids loved it and it was a great place to spend an afternoon together!
*First Registration-
Last week I registered Danielle for her first year of pre-school! I keep telling myself this can't possibly be happening, she cannot possibly be that big yet....and my mind keeps telling me, 'but oh, she is!' It was quite the process. In November we submitted papers for Open Enrollment, on Brad's birthday we found out Danielle was accepted, but on March 1st we would still need to register. First come, first serve I was told. The Director shared with me that they usually fill up in minutes so I will want to arrive right at 7am to get a spot and then hopefully to get the school of our choice.
So the me and 2 kids in tow arrived at the Linn-Mar District offices last week at 6:30am. The parking lot seemed pretty open still, although I saw a couple chairs sitting outside the door, like a black Friday 'secure your spot', they weren't occupied, so since it was early the kids and I waited in the car for a little bit. About 6:45 I saw a couple other parents walk in and thought, 'ok maybe the line had started'? So I got the kids out and we went in. A friendly lady greeted me amongst the other parents and she stated, 'the end of the line is down there, would you like me to hold your daughter for a little bit?' I nodded her off with an, 'its ok' and proceeded to the end of the line. Looking ahead I saw that I was at least a hundred some people deep in the line, OH MY WORD! At 6:45 am! The line was half Mom's and half Dad's, only a handful of other children...(those people were smart). So Danielle snug in my arms and Dylan clinging at my hip, we waited and waited. The nice lady kept asking if she could relieve my arms, as she saw the discomfort on my face. I chatted with a Mom and then another Dad in front of me, the Dad was hilarious calling his wife saying, 'do you even know how many people are here?' I was thinking on telling my husband the same thing! I had no idea. So an hour and a half later at about 8:15 we got....the Golden Ticket!!!!!

That is pretty much what it was, the ticket to say we got a spot! We arrived to the Registration table over an hour later and the lady in front of me was so disappointed the 3 yr old Classes were all full and the waiting list had began, much to my surprise I was able to secure one of the last spots for the 4 yr old Class, which is just want we wanted! If I could have jumped and clicked my heels together with 2 kids in tow, well I sure would have. All of my tiredness and backbreaking pain had just went away, it was SO worth it! So our little girl is officially a Little Lion and we are SO happy! We will be getting an e-mail in the next few weeks telling us the school we got into. Preschool will be a first for our little girl this year and we are so very excited for her!
*First time Bowling-
This weekend we took Dylan bowling for the very first time. Brad's Mom had scheduled this way back at Christmas time and the weekend finally arrived. Dylan was very excited and had been anticipating for a few days how much fun he would have! We arrived at the bowling alley with Brad's entire family for a late afternoon full of fun!

Dylan had a lot of fun. Of course his two Uncles Nick and Tony had him all sorts of riled up! He enjoyed their help and Daddy's too with his first time sending the ball down the lanes. He did a great job and this is something that we will definitely do again soon! We rounded out the evening with a cook out at Brad's parents. By the time that dessert came, we were all exhausted and lounging around. Even Dylan was curled up in the recliner ready for bed! It was a great family evening and a very fun first for Dylan!
*First round of swim lessons with NO tears!-
We started swim lessons back up and thankful they went much better than the weekend before. This was our first round of lessons with NO tears! Dylan had literally an 'underwater' experience last session and it has taken him a long time to become our little fishy again. No longer is he afraid, we are SO happy to have our little fishy back!
This round of lessons he is in the Eel class, meaning a lot more structure and core swim principles are learned. How to tread water for example is something new and a first for Dylan. Thankfully his instructor, Ann Marie, is amazing and Dylan had a blast!

Dylan did a great job, loved learning new things and Danielle had a lot of fun too! Our water babies are back in full force, hooray!
**Sometimes firsts leave your heart empty**
Today an angel received her wings. My beautiful cousin Kellie was lifted up to be with God. She leaves a lot of empty hearts as her soul from us is gone, but her Memory and her full of life spirit will live on forever. She has left a legacy for her two beautiful little children, Lynzie and Kellen. She leaves behind a husband who will make sure her memory lives on forever. Her family was everything to Kellie, she had a heart bigger than anything I can explain. She wanted the best for everyone, she fought with all of her might and even in the end it was her doctor who said Kellie there is no more. Hearts are breaking and there will be many firsts for her family this year that will be very very hard.

God called home a beautiful soul. Kellie lost her battle with cancer after 7 years, she fought very very hard up until her last minutes and she taught us so much about life and how valuable it is. Hearts ache as she leaves behind a husband and two very little kids. RIP Kellie, you have left a wonderful legacy behind for your children to carry on. May God bless your husband and your children as their hearts are aching. You have been lifted up and now you are free. As hearts break, tears fall your memory will live on thru us all. We are greatful for knowing and loving someone as wonderful as you.~

Leap Day!

This day, February 29th, only comes around once every four years. When it does come around it is fun to recognize it in some way or another. A couple interesting pieces of information on why this day is special to us.....
*Today the Governor, Terry Branstead, designated today as March of Dimes Volunteer Day. Very special as we don't have to share this day with anyone else for the next 4 years ;-)

*Today was my Great Grandmother Englishs' Birthday, she would have been 28 years old, or 112!
    
       Dylan celebrated today at school by 'leaping' around with a few of his favorite critters! They did frog races and sang a few of their favorite hoppity songs for this Leap Day!

They sang the cutest song, we love this one at home!

Five green and speckled frogs,
Sat on a speckled log,
Eating some most delicious bugs, yum-yum!
One jumped into the pool,
Where it was nice and cool,
Then there were four green speckled frogs, glub-glub!
              SO cute, we sang this one on the way home and had a lot of fun singing & talking about Dylan's 'Leap Day'!
I love each day opening his backpack & seeing new masterpieces that are created each day. Today was a rendition of the 'Frog song'!

 5 Green Speckled Frogs sitting on a log. Love the creativity of a 5 year old!
We hope you enjoyed your 'extra' day this February 2012!~

{Laugh as much as you breathe and Love as long as you live}

That is the quote I have been holding onto all week long! It's been a little rough but we will get thru and we have. Our week started BUSY, that sounds so cliche and at times I feel like I sound like a broken record but this week that broken record continued to play.
Tuesday our sitter called me early afternoon with little peanut running a fever. Got her home, snuggled, gave a little Tylenol and she was doing good. Slept great and the next morning well we had a happy little girl! Perfect! Off we went with yet another crazy day and by 10am another phone call with a higher fever than the day before. This mama was puzzled. Not only does Danielle rarely run fevers but she had just been fine a few hours before! So I called the doc and got an apt. Picked her up, headed to the doc and then decided to run home for a bit. The docs verdict was, just a 'virus', after blood counts proved her to be otherwise 'ok'. I had a 3pm deadline to meet at work which my project hadn't been started, but I thought a warm bath at home and a bottle may rejuvenate my girl to head into work with Mom, plus no stroller or infant seat in my car, so we had to head home. Got home and sure enough I misplaced my house key, my door opener is dead, my husband was 2 hours from home and I was officially LOCKED out of the house! Just perfect! Thankfully I had a bottle that I fed peanut in the car and well trucked back into work. Little girl was a champ, not feeling good at all she clung on to my lap at work for the next 3 hours while I met my deadline. Headed to get Dylan and snuggled in at home because in the mean time thankfully my brother-in-law lives down the street and has our extra house key. Fever continued all day and broke that night, but sister was up all...night...long. Developed a cough and wouldn't sleep. So we stayed home. But not before we headed in to drop Dylan off and stopped by my work yet again for a few hours of 'must-do's.'
So Mommy life this week was a little challenging but we managed, thankfully! Thursday brought a lot of snuggles before we picked up Dylan from school. And one happy girl by that afternoon. TLC did her much good!
Friday morning Dylan and I headed to the Cedar Rapids Marriott for the March of Dimes, March for Babies kickoff breakfast! This was the first year we had attended and we were excited to be there! Ashley Hinson from KCRG was the emcee and there were a variety of speakers including Dr. Nau from St. Lukes and this years Ambassador Family, the Norris'.

It was a fantastic morning with my sweet sweet boy. We are very much gearing up for this years walk and starting to get things in order! It was also emotional watching videos and having Dylan ask questions, as those seem more frequent these days. But it felt oh so good to hold him close, kiss his head and give thanks that we have these precious babies to squeeze every day.
             Saturday morning brought the first round of swim lessons for the kiddo's for this session! We were all SO excited. Dylan had his new Spiderman swim shirt and trunks on, Daddy & Danielle were ready to glide thru the water and I had my camera all ready to catch these precious moments on film! We arrived and each went to get the kids ready. I for a brief moment placed Danielle on the bench, with one hand on her I took my other hand, opened the locker to hang up our bag and I heard the most horrible, 'thud.' My girl had fallen head first and slammed her head into the hard ground, while her feet were still being held by my hand on the bench. I screamed, picked her up and finally about 2 seconds later she began to cry. I quickly grabbed our things, ran to the front desk and pleaded for someone to grab my husband and son from the other locker room. We needed to head to the ER and FAST. Head injury's for anyone are serious but especially with Danielle and her history of hemorrhages at birth. I couldn't even talk amongst the tears but mustered up, 'she feel we need to go to the hospital NOW.' I feel like the worst...mom...ever, and still do. I nearly wanted to vomit I was so upset and couldn't believe that happened in less than a split second. We know that the two hospitals in CR don't handle head injury's so we didn't mess around and headed straight to the University. I called the on-call doc in the Neurosurgery dept and told them what happened, they were going to notify the ER that we were on our way. Driving 85-90 trying to slow down for speed cameras it took what felt like an eternity to get there. I finally calmed down and so did my husband and very concerned Dylan, and thankfully Danielle had quit crying when I put her in the car and she smiled and talked all the way to IC. Her Daddy's eyes were on her non-stop. I'm so glad we were all together this day.
     We arrived and were rushed in immediately. The immediate tests by the ER docs showed Danielle to be just fine, thank god. The suggested a CT but didn't really want to expose her to the radiation and we didn't either. So we suggested an MRI and they obliged, but stated that sedation is hard to get on the weekends. Totally fine by us because we prefer no sedation anyway and I can console her for the scans like I usually do. After the scans the Neurosurgeon came in and told us the scans were fine, he reprogrammed her shunt and we go the all clear to head home. Our little concerned brother waited so very patiently in the room and rubbed her leg and asked if she was ok, as you can see he didn't want to leave her side. He was such a good boy for us. Danielle was happy the entire time, we had x-rays which she didn't like too much but for the MRI she was calm and we held her and gave her all he snuggles she wanted and very much deserved. My heart was breaking and every time she smiled a little piece of my heart mended that is for sure. We had the most compassionate ER staff, they listened and trusted us and did exactly what we wanted, we could not have asked for anything more. And the best news of all was our little girl was a-ok, happy tears flowed and flowed.

We headed home and home never felt so good. We are so lucky and fortunate she is ok, not any minute can be taken for granted. A couple other things during the week were very difficult as well. Making us realize even more that each moment is never to be taken for granted nor is each day to be expected, each day is a gift and it is to be cherished.
      We continued with our plans of a nice family dinner last night. We headed to Coralville to Iowa River Power Restaurant for a fantastic family outing. It felt so good to sit at a table with our loved ones which we are blessed to have around us. Our dinner, as usual, was delicious!

It was a nice quiet evening, much deserved after somewhat of a chaotic week. It was nice to chat on the way home with my hubby as we had two tuckered out kids sound asleep in the back seat.         

And in other news..... we have something NEW that has been added to our family. No, its not a baby, and no, its not a pet either, its a new vehicle to add to our 'fleet'! We had been discussing since last fall on the thought of getting a car for Brad to drive to work. It is only a short time during the summer months that he drives a work vehicle and the rest of the time he drives his truck and carpools with a co-worker who lives in Alburnett. So we've had our eyes open and with the rising cost of gas, yet again, spending $200- a week in gas we were finally fed up! Brad's truck was surprisingly getting 18 mpg which is awesome but driving 188 miles per day you still need gas more than one-2 times per week. So this car came in and I snagged it up, called Brad and said, 'honey, I bought you a car!' So this weekend we brought it home and I have to say it is kinda cute. I would have NO problem at all toodling around in this to run errands if I am kidless for a few hours. It is a 4 door so if we need to put a child or two in the back seat it is very do-able.

 It is a '99 Saturn and is in superb shape. A 60 yr old woman owned it and has kept up with all of the maintenance, which can be hard to find these days for a 13 yr old vehicle with 103,000 miles. And it looks nice, no damage, the interior is nice and it's not too much of a, you know, 'ghetto mobile'! HA! So the Saturn is Brad's new ride as much as he would like. If he wants to take it he will, if he wants to 'truck it' for the day he will leave it home. But kinda fun to have something different around that will put about $150- a week back into our savings account. And that.....feels SO good!
      So today has been spent mostly relaxing and getting ready for the week. The morning started with some quiet reading time for all of us.

And also reminiscing of all of these good family times we've had, we are praying for many, many more to come!

Because life is precious, oh so precious. So remember....

 Laugh as much as you breathe and Love as long as you live.~

Cooking up some fun...among other things!

These past few weeks we have added a new Sunday ritual! Along with our family fun craft Sunday we have also had a bit of fun in the kitchen! Dylan has shown some interest in preparing his meals, especially on the weekends when things aren't so rushed like they occasionally are during the week. He likes to pull his stool along side Mom, or Dad and get his hands in the fun!
With Valentines day in the horizon last weekend, how appropriate to cook up some chocolate deliciousness!

He had a lot of fun learning to measure with the measuring cup, pouring in of course and using those arm muscles with lots of mixing! The best part of course was tasting the yummy chocolate brownie at the end after it was all cooked, yum!!!
This weekend well we made something kinda fun. Looks can be deceiving let me tell you, but how cool is this.....VERY cool if you're 5!

 He had a lot of fun poking the hard spaghetti noodles thru the hot dogs, pouring them in the boiling water and about 10 minutes later seeing the finished product! How did those noodles stay in those hot dogs anyway, he asked! And then what are noodles without a little butter and Parmesan cheese?! Well obviously hot dogs don't taste too bad with those toppings either because this meal was a HIT!

Something I always remember my Dad telling me at a very young age, 'honey I'm going to teach you how to cook in case you marry a man who doesn't know how.' Well thankfully my husband does know how, very well actually, but 90% of the time I find myself in the kitchen cooking up something new! Something I learned from my daddy, and now even if its something new and really good....well, a text picture message sent to my Dad with my new concoction is something that does occasionally happen ;) So with Dylan learning a few fun things in the kitchen at a young age, well just a little different kind of bonding time now on our Sunday afternoons, I love every bit of it!
Our craft day last weekend consisted of making Valentines! Dylan had 17 Valentines to make plus a few we put in the mail to the kids little friends as well. So it was a fun afternoon with scissors, glue, glitter and stickers!

And well now the snow has melted but before it did, a couple weeks ago we made time for some outdoor fun in the field of white! Sledding super fast down the hill in our yard and even making it ALL the way down to the fence! Lots of giggles and 'oh yeas' with some big high fives on this day!

And we cannot forget about quality play time as siblings! Both Brad and I are extremely proud of Dylan and the amount of interest he has shown in his sister over the past couple of months. There was always a bond before, as siblings naturally have. But these past couple of months, on a daily basis he tells her he loves her, when she gets in the car after daycare he asks her how her day was, and wants to play with her and interact with her non-stop at home and let me tell you.....he makes her smile! Just yesterday Dylan had a morning out with his Daddy and Danielle and I were at home. Brad called me on the phone and Dylan wanted to talk to me, so I was talking with Dylan, and holding Danielle and she heard Dylan in the background so she started to babble a bit. I asked Dylan if he wanted to talk to his sister and he said, 'yes', so I put the phone to her ear and he talked to her for the next couple of minutes and our little girls face had the biggest smile from ear to ear, she was giggling and looking all around for his voice. It....melted....my....heart! SO precious! I wish I would have recorded Danielle's reaction. The camera is always around at home and capturing play-times like these on film are priceless to us too!

And another bit of fun.....well Grandma Holub works with a nice man at Rockwell who makes fun trinkety things. This just so happens to be right up Dylan's alley, an M&M dispenser. Well Grandma knows what Dylan loves so she gave this to him for Valentines day and it is perfect. It dispenses just the right amount of M&M's for our little guy (2) and when he is good, this is used for rewards. You know things that happen as a parent that make you really proud, well like big poops on the potty and dry nights and even taking a dish to the sink after supper without having to be asked. So that is what our M&M dispenser is used for....when we can keep Daddy's choc-a-holic paws out of it ;-)

Most of our weekend days have been filled with fun things and activities that I listed above. And some quiet reading time too for all of us. Dylan loves to sit on the floor and line his books up in order of what he wants to read next. He is SO anal and likes everything just perfect! See for yourself!

Danielle has been trying some new fun things out at therapy and playing with a few of her favorites at home.

This is a new rainbow swing that she seems to really love.

 Pom Poms, they put an instant smile on this little girls face!

 And a new scooter Barb has had her on at therapy, a new sort of independence....

 sister gets it goin'!!!!!

And I just LOVE how sisters mind says, 'well if your going to tickle my feet brother'........

 'then I'm gonna put em' right on top of you'! And he doesn't care one bit! Love them to pieces!!!

February, where in the world have you gone?! We're not complaining other than the times spent with our little ones goes by way too fast! But Spring, yes, spring is just around the corner. Without a doubt we have had one beautiful winter, but with March just around the corner, Spring Fever is definitely filling our house really quick!~