Student of the Week

Kelsie was given the award of "Student of the Week" for the second grade at her school.

Here are some of the reasons her classmates gave as the reasons they chose her:

She gets her homework done
She's a very good reader
She doesn't say mean things about people
She likes to jump rope
She is nice to all people
She is helpful, kind, and smart

The reasons her teacher chose her:

She is a good example and very dependable.
She is a joy to have in class.
She is always happy and helpful.
She is a great student.

We are very proud of Kelsie!

Explanation

I'm behind on my blog and the rest of my life too...but I'm going to try to start catching up. So to start with an explanation...we are expecting a baby mid August. We are really excited (the girls are REALLY, REALLY excited) and I'm extra happy that I'm starting to feel a little better the last few days. I'm kind of afraid to say that because a week ago I thought I was "out of the woods" and started saying such and ended up on IV's the next day. But I think this is for real now!

The last few months have been really rough with the horrible nausea that comes with pregancy for me. A special thanks to all the people who helped me to make it: John and the girls for taking care of things around the house, My sister and neighbors for needed moral support and help, and most especially to my mom for coming every single week to clean the house, and cook dinner, and leave me with a sense of order and giving me the hope I needed to keep me going for a few more days.

We have a little less than two weeks until our 20 week ultrasound and we are counting down the days....

Build a Bear

For Christmas the kids got unstuffed Build a Bear's and a G.C. to buy an outfit for their bear when we went to get them stuffed. The girls were really excited to finally go to Build a Bear (but their mom was even more excited). This gift was for me. I have always wanted to go Build a Bear but couldn't bring myself to spend the money. But thanks to a great black Friday deal we got to have the experience of building our own bears---and it was worth every penny. The whole experience was so fun and totally catered to the kids. It was such a fun, memorable outing. And turned out to be one of the kids favorite gifts. Here are the girls picking out hearts and getting them stuffed.

Bathing their newly stuffed animals.

Carter wasn't too impressed by the store people's antics, but this red convertible for his bear really caught his eye!

Headed home with their kennels.

When we got home John was a good sport and made little houses for each of their bears.

Loving Cosmo

Introducing our bears: Kelsie's is named Sadie, Emily's is named Emily (but Emily says we won't get confused because she's changed her name to Sally and we are to call her that--Emily changes her name/identity a lot). Carter's bear has a BYU Cougars T-shirt and is named Cosmo, of course. :)

There's my sleepy baby with his bear. I didn't think Carter would care about his bear, but got him one so he wouldn't feel left out when we took our trip to Build a Bear. Turns out he is more attached than the girls. He feeds and cares for Cosmo all day and won't sleep without his "Cosmo Cougars" Bear.

Carter's Cast

We took Carter to Primary Children's to see an orthopedist and to get a hard cast on. Things are a lot better now. He feels better and can move without pain. It was really good to go to a pediatric orthopedist. She gave us good news which I really needed because Carter and I were pretty much to the point of despair by day 4 of the broken leg. She said he was going to heal fine, he only needs his cast for 4 weeks (instead of 6) and they gave him a little shoe to wear with his cast so he can walk and stand on it. That was really good news! He has no interest in walking on it yet. He is crawling all over and rolling to get to things--it's kinda like having a 6 month old again. :)

Tonight (3/13) Carter said the prayer and said, "Thank you my leg feeling better."

Another note on broken leg boy--he now feels that he and Grandpa Peterson have some great bond. He told me "yeah Grandpa hurt his leg too." (Grandpa walks with a cane and limp because of his injury in Afghanistan.) And somehow he recalls a Caillou he saw 3 weeks ago where Caillou broke his arm. He has been telling me about how Caillou hurt his arm and needed a big bandaid too. At least he feels like he's in good company!

Thanks to those who have come to visit him and let him show off his cast or chatted with him on the phone. It really cheers him up!

Broken Leg

This picture says it all. But I can hardly stand to look at it. Carter broke his leg on Saturday morning. He jumped off a toddler slide in our house (which he's done many times before) but he landed wrong and ended up breaking his tibia bone. He's been in a lot of pain and it's just taken the life right out of him. I've never seen him this miserable. The poor little guy is so sad that he can't move around. He can hardly stand it. We've been trying really hard to keep his mind off of it but after awhile of playing he'll say he wants to get down. He starts trying to move and then the realization hits again and he cries, "But I can't walk." It breaks my heart.

He has a soft cast and splint on right now and we'll take him tomorrow for a hard cast. The bone he broke is the weight bearing bone so the doctor says he needs to stay completely off of it. Normally they would give crutches---but they didn't think a 2 year old was going to master crutches so they told us we'll just need to haul him around everywhere. That's going to be interesting since I can hardly carry him anymore--he's such a big kid. I'm trying to think of some fun, new activities he can do while stuck on the couch so we can keep him entertained and keep his spirits up. It's going to be a long six weeks.

Ranch?

How do you explain to a 2 year old that horses really don't need ranch with their carrots? Carter insists that his "horsey needs ranch" every time he feeds him a carrot. :)

Happy Birthday Dr. Suess

Today is Emily's favorite preschool day of the whole year. She started asking me in October when it would be Dr. Seuss' birthday again because she loves green eggs and ham! She was ecstatic when it was finally March. We celebrate by making cat in the hats, decorating cat in the hat cupcakes, and eating green eggs and ham for lunch and reading as many Dr. Seuss books as we possibly can. Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!