We're just not normal!!

My kids don't seem to catch just the common cold. Some examples are here, here, and here. So I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when Hailey woke up this morning and she looked like this.

 So I got the boys out the door and headed to the doctor's office. He looked at her for a couple minutes and then told me that she would need to go to the hospital. He suspected it might be a type of abcess and may require surgery. I was totally shocked by that. ( I kind of forgot that sometimes my doctor tends to jump to the worse case scenario, he really likes to be cautious). He said that she would need a cat scan to get a better look at it.

I called Corey to meet us and headed to the ER. She did have to get some blood work and a IV, but she hardly complained. Of all the kids, she is by far the toughest. The other kids would have probably come unglued. She was even excited by the cat scan and told me how cool it was.

In the end, she has acute parotitus. Basically she has a infection, probably from a virus or possibly a staph infection, in the gland just below her ear. She had to have a course of IV antibiotics and will be on a pretty strong antibiotic for awhile. We will have to watch her, but I am sure she will bounce back quickly.

I am beginning to wonder what I am doing to my kids that brings on these weird things. Maybe we are just weird in general, who knows?!!

( looking a little tired after our long, eventful day)

Big 10

*Emery at 10 months*

*Is desperately trying to figure out how to crawl*

*she rolls to her destination and then sits up*

*gets into everything even without crawling*

*begs to eat whatever we are eating*

*is stil toothless*

*is a little lost when the other kids aren't around*

*has learned to throw her binkey out of the crib*

*loves to be outside, but doesn't like the grass*

*is so good natured and happy*

*is still smothered daily and totally spoiled*

BIrthday Wishes

Today our Grandpa Barlow celebrates his birthday.

We really hope he enjoys his day. We love you!!

Happy Birthday

The Party

The invitation

Excited guest of honor

The guests

Having cake and eating it too

Games, playing, and presents

When we decided to build our house, I loved that we would have our own neighborhood park. I envinsioned how fun it would be to have parties and family events there. That has not really happened. Since three of my kids have birthdays in June and one in January, it has not really worked to use the park. I told Hailey we were going to have a party for her awhile ago just so I could use the park. I let her invite a bunch of kids and we had a lot of fun. We played horse,horse pony, did a hat toss, and played a little bingo. She got a lot of great presents and I spent two hours getting all those presents out of their packaging. She is still talking about it and has started planning her next party.

A day to celebrate ( not for tax purposes though)

*Hailey's 4*

I always thought that I would have been perfectly happy just having boys. Little did I know how much I would enjoy this little girl. She is so much fun. She adds a little more drama to our household, but I think she's worth it.

{*Happy Birthday*}

(She is having his first friend party on Saturday. It's all the talk around our house.)

A whole lot of nothin'

Things have been kind of boring around here lately. Nothing really going on. School, playdates, work, more work, laundry, cleaning, more laundry, recleaning, diaper changes, and then repeat all of the above. That's just the way it goes. It doesn't make for good blog updates though. However, I wont let that stop me.

One of the things I love about blogging is reconnecting with people, or simply staying in touch with people. I am terrible about picking up the phone and calling anybody so I love that I can keep up through others blogs. I have tried to convince more of my family to blog, but haven't been too successful.

Another thing I love about blogging is that there are so many good blogs out there. One I recently started looking regulary at this one. I have learned so much from the tutorials.  Just look at the sidebar. I have learned how to make so much on Picasa after looking at the tutorial for making a blog header. But the one I loved was how to make your pictures bigger. So much easier. No need to edit HTML. Just change your global settings and life is much simpler. The best part is, the photo automatically goes where you want it, no more dragging it around and having to mess with all the extra space. (Maybe some of you already knew this, but I am a little slow with this stuff). Only thing is, since changing my settings, I can't find the spellcheck. If anyone finds it, please let me know, until then I just hope I can remember how to spell!

( I said I liked blogging to reconnect with people... I learned about the blog from this person. We went to college together and have since caught up through blogging. She recently had a traumatic turn of events, I am wishing her a speedy recovery.)

What a shock, this turned out to be another random post!! That's how I like it.

Just for fun...

Carter has won his latest battle. I couldn't fight anymore. I let him quit taking piano. It was interfering (not sure how to spell that, but since I can't find the spell check) with his busy social calendar. But Emery has taken over for him. The novelty has not worn off for her and she loves it.

Sometimes I just can't help myself

I have tried not to make the blog all about the baby, but when I get pictures like this, I just can't resist showing them.

I just can't get enough of her little face

Easter Weekend

Dyeing Easter Eggs

Easter Picnic in Snow Canyon

Easter Morning

Hailey has been telling us for weeks that the Easter bunny is very tricky. He lived up to that this year. He sent the kids on a treasure hunt to find their Easter baskets. Then they had to go find the eggs that were hidden all over downstairs. He brought them the movie "Up" and left them peeps. It's just not Easter without those.  The kids stayed in their PJ's all day, watched conference and played some mean games of conference bingo, ate peeps, and watched the new movie. It was a good end to a fun weekend.