April Video

Here's some random video of our month!

The Park, Easter and the Attack of the POLLEN!

I took the kids on a walk around the park and Nicole insisted on bringing her camera and making us say cheese every five steps.

The weather in the morning is amazing! We go to the park almost every morning and run around for a while. I can't wait to have a backyard so it's not a field trip every time I want them to burn some energy.

Michael will still run in front of swings, so I just have them swing like this unless Jim is with me for better crowd control :-)

Nicole and Michael are together 24 7 and really play well together-which is such a blessing!

The flowers are blooming on the trees and everywhere I go I just can't get enough of the "popcorn popping."

So pretty!

Robin and Mike threw the 2nd annual People-with-the-same-age-kids Easter Egg hunt the day before Easter. Michael was TOTALLY clueless and just ran around with a big grin. Nicole emptied some of her eggs of jellybeans on the lawn and the kids would bend over and eat some as they were going by. Ick!

Happy Easter girl!

All business for Michael as he gets the rollercoaster car ready for another run!

Michael was eating the jellybeans off the lawn, but it is hard to see in this pic.

Nicole decorated some Easter Eggs at night with daddy. She put EVERY single sticker from the page on her eggs!

For about a week, enormous amounts of pine pollen blanketed the area with the worst amounts of pollen in 25 years. Our cars looked absolutely disgusting- I had to use the window spray to even see out the winshield and each morning the dew would streak the pollen and then more pollen would accumulate during the day...oh it was gross. Even after going to the park for an hour, there was a new light dusting of pollen on the winshield (and even on the stroller)! News shots of the air around the area looked like the smog in Phoenix it was so thick! Thankfully, a rainstorm Thursday night cleaned our cars and the air. We'll have a beautiful summer!

Random Fun Sweet Pics and My Medical Phenomenon

Nicole's tower of canned food!

Jim is so good with Jacob and can always calm him down! He gives Jacob lots of tummy time too. When Jim plays the guitar, Jacob always quiets down and listens, it is SO cute!

This pic is from when the kids were playing with Grandma Ostler!

They loved drawing with Grandma outside and I was amazed she could keep them on the front sidewalk.

Sweet Jacob. At his 2 week appointment he had finally reached his birth weight and some, he is 7lbs 2oz (20%), is 20.5in (50%), and his head is small just like the rest of our kiddos, 13.5in (10%).

I have had a crazy last week and a half. 10 hours in the ER with literally every test they had short of a bone density exam to figure out why my side and back were in such pain that only several doses of morphine could make bearable. I even got a CT contrast scan where I had to drink this nasty stuff even though I hadn't eaten in 24 hours, and then have the wierdest flush feeling as the machine sounded like a space shuttle taking off while I had to hold my breath so it could take pictures. They never did figure it out or why my white blood cell count was to 25k-an extremely high count, but gave me Augmentin to treat the only thing they couldn't rule out with tests- Endometritis. Neither the ER doc or my OB, who both have 20 years each in their field, had ever seen someone have that so far out from delivery. Usually it is the day or two after and only when they've had a traumatic delivery or c-section and they can deal with the pain and everything right away in the hospital. Instead I was at home thinking I was a postpartum wimp...and had chills and a fever along with intense pain. Horrible nausea was what finally made me go in to the ER. Robin and Mike (Nicole's bff's fam) were SO amazingly nice and watched our kids last minute for the entire time we were in ER- which was the entire day. The funny part of this whole experience was when they asked me what my pain was on a scale of 1 to 10 and I could honestly say it was only a 9 because I remembered when Michael was born and it was absolutely that screaming kind of pain and since I was just kind of crying from pain and not screaming I figured it was only a 9. I think Jim thought I was crazy not to say 10. But hey, at least I got the morphine.

So now, 10 days later, off the crazy painkillers, done with my antibiotics and back from the doctor...I am back on the road to recovery. Jacob was an angel and only woke up once the last two nights so I got a couple 3 hour stretches of blissful sleep! I don't know what I would do without kind people bringing us dinners and watching my kids while I went to all these appointments and stuff. As self-sufficient as we all want to be, sometimes there is nothing better than being taken care of by friends when you simply can't do it all.

The past few days, I have felt good enough to do some crafts with the kids and do their preschool and that has been such a joy for all of us. There's nothing like feeling more like yourself! Nicole is making a butterfly with craft sticks and Michael is coloring! He has to use colored pencils because he will eat the crayons.

Here is some video of the kids with Jacob as well as a couple days of preschool fun.