Slumber party to remember

For the past few months we've been talking about a huge sleepover extraviganza!  We wanted to invite over the adorable Taylor girls, Madison and Reagan and make pizza, watch movies and top the night off by making PJ pants.  Well, last night we FINALLY did it!  We had a blast!  I honestly think I could adopt these two extra girls and keep them forever!  They are amazing!

The girls showing off their cool new pants.  I was up until after 1am finishing them and doing the pizza dishes.  Looks like it was a success though - the girls LOVED them!

The big girls showing off their custom pockets.

We made some cute little personal pizzas for the girls to eat.  They loved decorating them.  I loved that they couldn't complain about what they were eating for dinner - they made it :)

It was a fantastic night and a huge success!  Yes, we are dealing with a bit of orneryness today - but it's worth it.  Thanks for the fun night girls!  Love you! xoxo

After Christmas celebrating

The day after Christmas we decided to go spend a few days with my family in St. George.  What a blast!  We played games, did puzzles, went swimming and ATE!  Great food mom! :)

Even Chlo started getting into the "grown up" games.

The girls helped grandma with a 500 piece puzzle.  I was super impressed with their patience with it.

My dad got this picture and I thought it was hillarious!  My cute future SIL was eating carrot cake with a fork right in the middle - she was shown this was okay by me, my dad and Justin.  Just funny to see it in picture form.  Love you Amber :)  On Monday Dave was watching Jaylee so the rest of us could swim for a bit longer - he lost her for no more than 2 minutes and found her in the pantry with her hands in the cake eating off the frosting.  At least she knows what she wants :)

The girls adore all of their aunts and uncles and Heather is no acception.  They had a blast spending time with her.  As a matter of fact Jaylee was super difficult and Heather could still make her laugh.  Go Hez!

Justin, or Bean, is SO tallented!  He has this skill of being good at pretty much anything he does.  He was playing the piano and Jaylee Loved it!

 I honestly would have never guessed that Dave would have liked the Bop It as much as he did.  He played the dumb thing for hours!  Must be due to mob wars withdrawls :)  I know what he's getting for his birthday.

My dad is amazingly good with all of my girls!  They all adore him as well.

Jaylee was showing off her cute new Christmas slippers to grandpa.

The girls in their Matching Jammies - yes all of them are looking at the camera and their eyes are open!

I totally wish they had these in my size!  What could be better than a pair of PJ's with the Eiffel tower on them???

Even though it was like 40 - 45 degrees we still totally loved the heated pool!  It was hard to get the girls to get out! :)

Grandma and Grandpa even enjoyed the water - I love my mom's face in this picture - she was really into getting grandpa off that toy! :)

She got him!  Carlee was trying to help :)

Jaylee loved the pool too.  I love this swim suit on her :)

She was so sad to have to get out that she got her fleece and pink milk and watched us play.  If you look close you can see the kids in the pool playing with G&G.

Dad heated up the hot tub for us to enjoy too.  What a fun few days!

Thanks for such a great mini-vacation!  I've decided after the nasty, snowy drive home I'm ready to move down there :)

Love you

Christmas festivities!!!

The girls were so excited to have their own little ranch this morning I think even Mitzy enjoyed the horses.

Chlo and Carlee have been BEGGING for these horses for over a month!  Can you tell Chlo was excited???

Carlee was just as excited.  Jaylee, on the other hand, was mad because she couldn't come out before the sisters.

Dave totally cashed in on the gifts this year - his one big surprise was an authentic Utah Football Helmet.  LOVE IT! :)

The girls got Dave some GI Joe swords for Christmas - to be honest, I think this was Dave's favorite gift.  He knocked ornaments off the christmas tree, hit the celing fan and poked several bums :)

Jaylee LOVES her horse who is named "puppy" since that's what she is always calling it.  Thank you to those who helped make this gift happen, you know who you are :)

Santa Setup.  We were lucky enough to get a quick shot of the girls stuff after "Santa" came.  We were so excited!

Spending Christmas eve with my family is always incredibly memorable!  This year was NO different.  Chlo and Carlee were SO excited for their body pillows from G&G Jackman.  Grandpa even made the pillow cases for them!  Last night Carlee said, "mom, I love grandpa".  Melts my heart!

For part of my parent's gift this year we did them a warm fuzzy jar.  From Thanksgiving to Christmas the girls did over 200 service items which each was represented by a fuzzy.  G&G thought it was pretty cool :)

The girls showing off the adorable jammies from G&G Nelson for Christmas Eve.  They LOVED them.  Jaylee was (and still) isn't feeling great so she was sleeping in the back room.

My family has the tradition of using the pipe bells every Christmas.  It always turnes out silly and we have a great time.

Yep, the annual bingo game!!!  This year was amazing!  Thanks so much mom and dad for the awesome prizes!  Even my girls got to play this year.

The girls showing off their winnings from Bingo - Jaylee was finally awake, but not too happy.

Jaylee has been pretty miserable and a terror to deal with seeing as she's so demanding and impossible to console.  Poor thing.  We FINALLY got her to drink some water and eat a few, well a lot, of crackers.  Thanks Keebler :)

This picture is priceless to me - one that I wish Jaylee had been awake for.  I am so blessed to have both sets of grandparents still alive and kicking.  They were all there on Christmas eve with us.  Aren't they SO cute?!?!?

There is nothing I love more than my beautiful girls!  Thanks for the picture Becca :)

Nate and Becca were an awesome addition to our nativity this year - the narrator and the pianist.  Great job guys!

I had to throw this in!  Becca had me for Christmas this year and this is part of the gift she got for me.  When I saw it, I cried!!! After having one of the worst weeks I can think of, and after topping it all off by falling down the dang stairs last night, with Jaylee mind you... She gave this to me!  To be honest, it was the hightlight of my Christmas!  It is the most adorable jewlery holder ever, but instead of jewelry it had lots of amazingly nice things Nate and Becca thought about me.  I cried :)  I'm actually tearing up right now!  Love you Becca!  You knew just what I needed right when I needed it!

This is one of my favorite pictures of the night.  The annual nativity.  This year all the singles and kids were included.  Justin and Amber were Mary and Joseph with their little baby wrapped in toilet paper.  Chlo and Big B were the shepherds (Brian has always made the best shepherd!) And Heather and Carlee were the angels.  There was serious time getting costumes ready and the acting was quite spectacular.  What a fun event!

Dinner!!!  As always there is more food than anyone could ever even want.  It was amazing!  I'm not a shrimp fan, but most of my family is - this is truly a highlight for them.  Nate even went the extra mile and made some coconut shrimp - yep, he's amazing!

I had to get this picture of Heather.  Isn't she spectacular?!?  She doesn't like her picture taken so I had to sneak this one.  Love you Hez!!

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Big B got to sit with the girls at the counter for Christmas dinner. The girls love Brian so much, it's quite a treat for them.

Christmas Eve day, the girls decided to decorate their gingerbread house. This year I let them do it themselves.  I think it turned out great!  Way to go girls!

Wow, What can I say about Christmas this year?  It was so exciting, eventful, fun and even tearful.  Thank you everone for the fun, food, family, laughter, gifts, tenderness, silliness and love.  I'll never forget the Nativity with Brian's wig, Heather's tutu, Justin's pocahontus top, and Amber's pregnant belly.  Brian and Nate even serenaded us with a little kooky Karaoke! What a treat - you guys should go professional for sure :)  Grandpa sleeping laying next to Jaylee so she could relax and sleep.  Grandma helping Carlee play bingo for the first time. Of coarse, Becca's gift as well as the other amazing things we received.  Grandma Marsh coming to see us on Christmas day was so awesome! Talking to Julie on the phone and hearing all about their first real Christmas with a baby who sort of got things... :)  Nothing better than hugs and catching up with the Great Grandparent's either!  This Christmas will be remembered for years to come!  Love you all!  XOXO

As if things couldn't get more exciting...

Crazy Jaylee eating her oatmeal with a straw!  Works better than a spoon :)

Jaylee loved the new experience.  Thanks for the straw McDonalds :)

Carlee was playing with a few of our boxes and Jaylee decided she wanted to join the fun - she grabbed a box and threw in her fleece blanket, grabbed her pink milk and jumped in herself.  Cute!

Yep!  This is us in the ER AGAIN!!!  2 times in a month for one kid is just 2 too many :)  She didn't like all the monitors on her or the big ace wrap protecting her IV - she seemed better once I told her it was pretty :)

So... as if this week couldn't get any more exciting or busy - it did!!!  Monday was Candy, Tuesday was Family Christmas gift delivered and Supporting Madison on her TV spot, Wednesday a good friend from CA was visiting and coming to hang out.  Yea, all of that was great until today.  I don't like to do this because it's not my style or really my way of thinking - most of the time... But I'm going to vent.  We've been working on getting Chlo's blood sugars for her diabetes under control for a long time now... it's been so amazingly hard!  She isn't consistant with anything we've tried.  Last Monday we had an appointment with her doctor and he decided to take the "bull by the horns" and figure this thing out.  LOVE IT!  He is so great.  Needless to say this meant a phone call to him every night for a week!  No big deal right?  WRONG!  Her blood sugars, instead of getting better got worse!  I was up testing her at least every few hours if not more and she kept dropping to the point of having to be fed several times.  Yes, so after not sleeping for almost a week the doctor says the solution is to admit her to the hospital for them to regulate her... Yea, I have my own opinion on that... we won't go there.  Needless to say, I'm exhausted!  Tonight my plan was to lighten up Chlo's insulin just for the night so I could sleep... Yea, all that changed today.  It started out pretty normal besides the fact that Jaylee was acting a little bit off.  She seemed fine yesterday minus the 4, yes I said 4, poopy diapers.  This morning she decided not to eat or drink really anything... strange for my child.  She was super ornery and wouldn't let me put her down.  After a bath and some hard core coaxing to play I gave up and put her to bed.  She was in her bed for about an hour when I heard her moving around and moaning - I went in to get her and there she was, in her bed having a seizure... what in the???  I ran into her room and picked her up!  Grabbed the phone and immediatly called 911.  Think I freaked out Chlo a bit - dang!  We probably had 8 paramedics show up to help us out.  By the time they got here she was out of the seizure but screaming.  Her poor little body felt like she was burning up.  After examination the paramedics decided it was best to take her in to test her to make sure she was okay and recomended she go in the ambulace just in case she had another seizure.  What a mess!  I called a few friends but no one was around.  This is where the tender mercies kick in - One of the paramedics who came is a dear friend, as a matter of fact she was the one who helped with Chlo's seizure 4 years ago - it calmed me down quite a bit to see her here to help - not only that but my friend from CA pulled up just as we were looking for someone to help out with Chlo and Carlee.  She knows how to take care of diabetes and is one of Chlo's best friend's mom!  Couldn't have been better!  We left Wendy with the kids and took off. (thank you Wendy!  I owe you forever!!)  On our way to the hospital I called my sweet sister to ask her to come out and help - as I was talking to her Jaylee started to have yet another seizure.  I coulnd't watch - the paramedic called out to the driver to call in for help - she needed more hands to get this under control.  At this point I was beyond freaked out!  It was just a seizure but this wasn't looking good - we stopped and picked up help and we were off - sirens, lights and all.  By the time we got to the hosptial I was a mess!  Fortunatly I have the most amazing family and my parent's and Dave were there waiting.  They took Jaylee in and immediatly hooked her up to several machines.  They wanted a urine sample but had a hard time with the catheter - they tried 4 or 5 times until it finally went it!  Poor kid! She's going to be sore!  When the talked about doing and IV I told them they only had one shot at that one. :)  I was so thankful that Dad, Dave and my amazing brother Brian were there to help give me and Jaylee blessings!  Yep, another tender mercy! :)After several tests and a long wait she seemed to be fine.  She was eating and drinking and even smiling again.  All her tests came back okay but one which we'll get results for tomorrow.  They sent us home!  Happy Day!  Speaking off, for a large part of the ride Jaylee sat in the back and just said, "happy, happy"  So cute!
Tonight I feel so blessed to have such amazing family and friends to support us!  This "event" makes me appreciate so much more not only my girls but the talented people around them who help us take care of them.

Christmas time activities

Carlee and Chlo had a great time playing outside at Grandma's house.

Carlee was pushing Jaylee around on G&G's furniture - Hillarious!

The girls had a BLAST playing with G&G!

Chlo LOVED singing in the microphone - she has an amazing voice!

Heather and I were showing off our awesome muscles by adding some chocolate "Tats"  Thanks Hez - think you're the one with the muscles! :)

One of our many fun holiday activities is making candy together as sisters.  This year was no different.  We all even borrowed Heather's T-shirts to be sure no "good" clothing would be ruined. :)

Don't you love the Chocolate messes?

Carlee had her Christmas singing program for Preschool.  She did a wonderful job!  I was way impressed to because for the first time EVER she actually sat on Santa's lap and DIDN'T cry :)

Jaylee on the other hand... Maybe next year! :)

This is Madison and her friend Meagan who won the High Five on KSL this last week for a Christmas service project they did!  It was so fun to see my little friend, neighbor, and babysitter get recognized!  If anyone deserves it, she does! :)  Congratulations Madison!  We love you!

As most Christmas's are - we're crazy busy over here!  It's been so great!  Between the parties, candy making, even being on TV!  Can't complain! :)