Crazy kids, Crazy weekend

We've had a little sickness at our house this past week or so. Mostly runny noses leading to coughs, but a few days ago I got a little concerned because Darren and Annie stopped eating solid food and weren't sleeping very well either. D, it turns out, had an ear infection :( and Annie just had a bug which led to a sore throat. So antibiotic for D but not A. Anyway, they were already feeling a lot better by Friday. Rick had a pretty bad cold including a cough, but he's feeling much better now too. Then this morning when Annie went potty she screamed and said it hurt. She couldn't actually go either. Then it happened a little while later again. So, since Rick wasn't feeling well anyway, he took Annie to the instacare during church and sure enough, she has a UTI. Poor kid. So now she's on antibiotics too! Luckily Carlyn has been fine and I hope it stays that way.

Onto happier things. Somehow this picture got left off my last post. Annie chose a pumpkin that is the perfect size for Darren (he thinks.) He tries to pick it up and carry it around any time we go outside. Here he is just hugging it. So cute.

The girls were invited to a Princess birthday party for our friend's daughter, Jensyn. This is Carlyn's Cinderella hair. I made a high ponytail and pinned her hair up but it didn't look complete without the blue ribbon. Her hair is so fine and limp that it didn't last long, but it looked so pretty at first. Gold sparkle spray and all.

This is her in her Cinderella dress. Nice expression, Linney. They begged for a little makeup, which I allowed and Carlyn was totally upset that she didn't have matching Cinderella shoes too. What is a girl to do?

I went to a baby shower for my cousin at the same time, so Rick took pictures. Annie apparently was throwing a huge fit when it was time to leave and he didn't get a picture of her except the back of her head. Oh well. She made a darn cute Snow White. I love my little princesses.

My Little Guy

I was noticing today how much more communicative my baby D is. Today he signed "thank you" for the first time. Later he was upset and I said I didn't understand him. He grabbed my arm and pulled and made some grunts so I got up and followed him. He pointed to the fridge and made another noise. I grabbed his sippy cup and said, "Is this what you want?" and he nodded his head. Wow! I was so impressed. I love it when they can communicate and tell you what they need or want. We have reached a new phase.

Also, I don't know what is up with him, I'm calling the dr tomorrow, but he's had a lot of really bad diarrhea lately. TMI? Sorry. Anyway, last night after he was in bed he kept crying so I finally went in, changed his diaper and tucked him in again. He was quiet for a minute and then cried. Desperate, I picked him up thinking that I really didn't want to nurse him again, but fearing that was what he wanted. But he was content for me just to hold him in the rocking chair. I rocked him for about ten minutes (he never lets me do that.) It was awesome snuggle time and he settled right down. Well, tonight his bottom is pure red again by bedtime and after I nursed him I turned him toward me for a snuggle. This is the part where he always pushes away and starts to play, but tonight he snuggled me back and started humming. I started humming and it was like he was singing with me. Oh I can't even begin to tell you how sweet it was. It was so special because I've rarely had any times like that with my little D.

Fun Stuff!

I almost forgot to put up these pictures of a family party a couple weeks ago. We had a great meal and a good time, but the highlight was the pinata for the kids. They were all cute and had plenty of candy and we didn't have any America's Funniest Videos moments (though there was a close call.)

Darren's turn-he thought he was big enough to do it himself, but couldn't hold the bat.
Carlyn whacked it really hard but it doesn't seem that way in this pic.
Annie didn't do too bad either.After choir practice for Stake Conference Saturday morning I came home to Annie throwing a fit, but she was supposed to be a waiter ushering me to my seat for breakfast that Rick made. This is our little drama guy. If I don't pick him up as soon as he wakes up it is DRAMA. He was even more mad because I decided to grab the camera instead of him.
We've been looking for a used upright freezer for some time now and we always call just after they are sold. This time KSL.com let me down and I found it on craigslist. We got a great deal too. I need to go grocery shopping to fill it up, but so far I just got ice cream with the kids. My friend Debbie from college and I have tried to get together several times in the last months. Every time we plan it one of our kids get sick. The same thing happened last week, but this week we got lucky. She came down on Thursday and the kids played, we ate lunch, and we all had a great time. I'm so glad that we got a chance to catch up more than by blogging. Our kids are pretty close to the same ages and they had a great time. They didn't want to say goodbye. Thanks for coming Deb, it was GREAT!
This is our jungle/desert where the kids had a great time playing.
Seriously, I took about 12 pictures of these guys and all of them are blurry! They are only a few months apart and were very cute playing together.
The 4 girlies. So cute! They are so much alike too. Reading my friend's blog I always think how similar they are and she says the same too.

After they left the girls were pooped and had a nice rest on the couch. Playing wears you out!
Later we went to the library where they had tattoos at the children's desk instead of stickers. Love Annie's? I wanted to dress her in biker chic clothes today. Its awesome!
Carlyn's is a pirate octopus reading books. We finished the day with a quick trip to the store and ice cream cones. D is a pro.
This is what we do when Carlyn is at preschool. They really do love each other.
A neighbor that Rick did computer work for gave him just the right amount of peaches to make a peach pie. I used my mom's recipe and it was fabulous! Delicious.

All About D (a little late)

I just realized that I didn't really make a post for Darren during the month of August except on his birthday. Well, I want to remedy that situation now with a couple of my favorite pictures of him his first year. He's loud and exhausting to keep up with, but he's sure fun and a great part of our family. We love you, little D!

My Baby is 1!

Last week my parents were in Park City for a couple days. We went to walk around the outlets with my mom and the kids had fun on the playground. Here's D on the slide
This is Darren on his birthday. He was mad that I was taking a picture instead of picking him up but finally decided to smile for the picture.
Mom and Dad left Park City Friday so we just had a party with them and Grandma Hilton at McDonald's. I got him to hold up his finger to say he was 1. He was funny about unwrapping and was sure he was going to get in trouble for ripping the paper. Annie was happy to help.
Cute cake! Thanks Macey's!
This was the present. He was scared of the noise, but Annie showed him what to do.Saturday we had a party for him at the park. Mathew, Lindsay, Belinda, Josh, Grandma Linda, Maureen, Delenn, & Grandma White were all there. We had Costco pizza, opened presents and had cake. It was great! This was the present from us. I got it off of KSL.com. Love it!
I let the girls choose a present for him from the dollar store. Annie got him bath toys and Carlyn got him a little basketball. He loved the firetruck that he's sitting on so much that it was hard to get his attention on anything else.

Gma Linda gave him a cute fireman outfit too and Gma White gave him this vacuum. Notice that he's still sitting on his firetruck.
He was not your typical boy digging into his cake. What's done there is what Rick did and D freaked out. He let Rick feed him a bite or two then stood up trying to get to Daddy.
In the process he dragged his foot across the top of the cake and that was the most damage done. He really didn't like the frosting on his hand.

Dude on the run...almost

We have now moved into a new phase (well, new with Darren at least!). He is now on the move. He has been slowly crawling for a couple weeks but this last week he kicked it into high gear. If motivated (i.e. open door, I'm not looking, sees my phone, etc.) he starts crawling with a turbo boost. It seems that he doesn't like to hurt his knees and he crawls stink bug style sometimes. He also pushes with one foot underneath him. It is funny to watch him. But I can't get anything done because I'm always stopping him from doing anything dangerous or sweeping his mouth out.

Unlike my girls, he went straight to pulling himself up. This kid seems ready to run. I can't believe how adept he is at pulling himself up and even starting to walk around the furniture. It took a couple months for for the girls to try, they were a lot more cautious.

Little D

Today Darren was into everything! He still isn't crawling per se, but he sure gets around. Mostly he does push ups and rocks back and forth on his hands and knees. I only have blurry pictures of that though. I guess he's going to bypass crawling and head straight to standing up to furniture. He sat up from laying a few days ago too. I did help him the last tiny bit in standing up to this, but he did most. At this age it is amazing the difference a day can make. Or a week. Then he found his way over to the DVDs. He was laughing and having fun pulling them off. Afterward he looked through them like he was choosing which to watch. It was really cute.