St. Patrick's Day

For St. Patty's Day I wanted to take pictures of my girls in a patch of clovers but alass I couldn't find any :( so... I took pics in my mom's backyard instead...

Jena did not appreciate being set on the ground and I couldn't get her smiling despite Jane's best efforts.

Time and Time Again

So this title refers to how often poor Jena has been sick these last few months. Mostly it has ear infection after ear infection. Her usual disposition is something like this...

But it is not uncommon to see her looking something like this...

Then a couple of months ago I took her to the doctor after she woke up looking like this...

Turns out she had a terrible sinus infection and was placed on her third antibiotic in three months. And after that she was once again looking like this...

A month later (almost two weeks ago) I get a call from her daycare saying they had a confirmed case of whooping cough in her room and all of the babies now needed to be tested and put on an antibiotic. So I went that night and had her tested. She didn't test positive for whooping cough (Thank God!) but it turns out she had yet ANOTHER ear infection, her fourth in four months and also an upper respiratory infection and was once again put on an antibiotic and a steroid AND her oxygen was so low at that point that she had to have a breathing treatment.

Thank goodness we went in to get her checked out for whooping cough because I would have otherwise had no idea that she had the infection. She JUST finished that antibiotic last night and this morning I woke up to her looking like this...

I FREAKED out!!!! I took her in to the urgent care and as it turns out Jena is allergic to "sulpha" medicines which was the last antibiotic she was on. They gave her that rare antibiotic because it is the one they use for whooping cough and at that point the test hadn't come back to say she didn't have it. She has this rash now on her whole body and is on a new steroid and Benadryl and of course yet ANOTHER antibiotic because the ear infection is STILL THERE! Lord help this baby! And I have to say this through it all she has nothing but smiles to give.

Jena's Valentine Photo Shoot

 I did a quick photo shoot with Jena in her Valentine t-shirt my mom made. The girls are also going tomorrow to get portraits in the full outfit, including skirts my mom made them but I thought I would share these a little early.

 When Jill saw I was taking pictures of Jena she tried moving in on her photo shoot. Here you can see a lock of Jill's hair as she was hoisting herself on the couch to sit in front of Jena.

So, of course, I had to get a pic of Jill even though she's not dressed for the occasion and doesn't have her hair done. She was happy to oblige me with a smile!

After I had Jill dressed in her shirt I did another few pics of the two of them...

SNOW day!

So we woke up Friday morning to a beautiful snow scene. After the COLD icy days earlier in the week it was so nice to have fluffy, soft snow and the temperature was in the high 20s- definitely bearable. First we decided to walk over to the park across the street. Here it is from our house.

There is our house. It looks so pretty covered in snow.

Then I decided to try my hand at snow angels.

Later in the morning we went down to the pond in our neighborhood for some sledding. (see videos below).

To finish off the afternoon we made a snowgirl in our backyard. Jill and Jane helped me fill buckets and dump them on our forming snow person.

Jane got a little silly with the buckets.

Here is our finished snow girl. Pretty small but bigger than last years!

After our snow girl was built Jill says, "I cold. I go in the house." So I thought she was ready to go inside but instead she turns around and does this...

What a great snow day!!! Thanks so much Mother Nature!

Sledding!!

Jay had the fantastic idea to take the girls down to the duck pond by our house and sled down the hill. He took off the trash can lid and headed down to scope it out. He was gone for almost an hour. So we donned our ski wear and went sledding. Here are some videos...

Jane's Wedding Day

Jay and Joanne Sparks request the honor of your presence

at the wedding of their daughter Jane.

(Just please ignore the mess in my living room!)

First Snow (ice) of 2011

Happy Snow day everyone! We felt lucky to have an extra Saturday in the middle of the week today (and the verdict is still out about tomorrow!) Here are a couple of pics from the ten-fifteen minutes we spent out in the cold- and I mean COLD!!