Austin at 3.5

You have this beautiful passion for life and a big 'ol smile that gets me every time!

Austin you are three and a half! You are the sweetest little terror in the world. We are either laughing or fighting. It seems like you and I will forever be caught up in this power struggle. It all began when you were just a teeny tiny baby..... Your Dad laughs at us and says, "You guys are two peas in a pod." Although it can be rough at times, you are always making me a better person and I love you for that!

Every morning you come down after I finish exercising and we cuddle. I love that small amount of time when it is just us. Such a rarity these days!

You can be such a goof! We have some pretty cute early morning conversations about your dreams and reasoning for why you should be able to eat candy at 6am :).

Hugging Mom and thanking me for taking you guys on a cookie date. You were the whole reason we went on this little outing because you were being such a stinker and I could tell you needed some TLC. Obviously I was right ;).

You love to play with play dough and your imagination is growing!

You really struggle with preschool drop off and bed time when you know we aren't there with you anymore (even if we are just a door away). I have found that books help out a TON with helping you deal with these feelings. My favorite was Llama Llama Misses Mama until I found The Kissing Hand.... It's such a sweet story of a little Raccoon who is scared to go to school and leave his Mama so she kisses his hand and he gets to take her kiss with him in case he ever feels lonely. This is you holding my kiss in your hand while you read the book :). You take it with you everywhere and sometimes even have a panic attack when you think you might have lost it. At night you have me kiss both hands and fall asleep holding onto them. It makes me tear up every time.

Always the first to volunteer to help me in the kitchen! You don't care if it is washing dishes or stirring the batter. You love it all!

Making silly faces at me while we watch your sister throw her millionth tantrum that morning....

I love you Austin, thank you for being my sunshine :).

You officially graduated out of the Nursery at church and into Sunbeams! This was a big day for you! What made it even more exciting is that your Daddy is your teacher! I am super jealous that he gets to see your sweet self singing and learning. I just want to be a fly on the wall so I can see it all too! Dad says you are the most reverent kid in the class and you give very good answers to the questions :).

First day of Sunbeams and someone is pretty excited about it!

You love your Daddy so much and I am so glad you get to have memories together with him as your teacher :).

Always trying to pull your sisters hair.... This time caught on camera!

Milestones: Evelyne 19/20 Months Old

I absolutely adore your little feet! They are still so petite and you are just barely fitting into shoes I bought a year ago!

You are another month older and the "terrible two's" feels like it is just around the corner. You are also still getting your top molars (going on months now) so this could be part of the reason for your irritation. Whatever the reason, you are turning into a true diva! If someone even looks at you wrong you fling yourself to the floor and throw a tantrum. But no matter how long it lasts, you always become worried at the end that I have gotten mad at you so you look up at me saying, "Mummy I wuv yu" and you wait for me to say it back to you which lets you know that we are all good. Then you perk back up and life goes on as usual :).

You love to learn and do whatever your brother does. Your ability to learn by watching is uncanny. You get so mad if we don't let you do everything he does because you just don't understand how small you still are. You are my little shadow everywhere (as usual) but just within this past week you have started going into your room and doing things by yourself. I think that is mainly due to the fact that you see Austin doing that and you are his ever faithful steward. Whatever the reason, I love the peace and quiet it provides! Even if for five minutes ;).

You got your very first hair cut! Your hair was clear down to your little bottom and since your brother likes to pull on it all the time, it was all different lengths and messy. So I took you into the salon and you did so great! You just sat on my lap and took it all in! I was so proud of you and saved your little dark brown locks. Now your hair curls up and makes a cute little bob. You are and will forever be the most beautiful girl I have ever set eyes on! Your big dark eyes are so deep and mysterious, making me always wonder what is going on in that beautiful little head of yours....

Little Rapunzel! Most girls your age barely have any hair and yours is clear down your back! It's truly amazing.

Ready for your first hair cut!

The after picture :). Look at those sweet curls! I took you and Austin out for donuts afterward because you both did so good in the hair salon!

You constantly follow me around screaming "Mommy!! Mommy!! MOOOMMMM!!" and when I finally stop and say, "What Evelyne?!" you reply with a sweet "I wuv yu" :). It makes my whole day! Picking you up from daycare is even better because the second you see me, you come running into my arms screaming, "Mommy! Mommy!" and even after I am holding you and you have wrapped your tiny little arms around my neck you are still chanting "Mommy" in between kissing me. You sure know how to make a person feel loved.

You love your brother more than anything. Well, almost as much as you love your Mama ;). This scene at the grocery store had me in tears!

We had a fun little churro date yesterday and you were a big fan!

Scenes from a recent tantrum. I forgot to mention that after it is over you insist on holding every single doll, stuffed animal, and blanket you own while I hold YOU. That makes it very difficult! No wonder I have back problems....

I included this pic of Austin doing his preschool homework because it explains the next picture. It is the perfect example of you having to do EVERYTHING your big brother does! You would be lost without him.

Doing your "homework" hehe!

Austin is becoming more helpful around the house lately as he too is getting older. I asked him to get you a drink of water and THIS is what he came up with! You didn't mind in the least! (haha)

We have these toy chests in our living room and you love playing inside of them. Well, on this particular day you wanted Austin to play babies along with you so you made him stop running around the house playing Star War so he could feed your baby for you :). He's so sweet with you, even though he is also your constant annoyance. But you are getting him back nowadays so it all evens out ;).

Baking in the kitchen with Mama. These are my absolute favorite memories with you two!

Making us some homemade granola :).

Whenever we get in the car, we have a rock and roll jam session. Austin yells, "Turn it up Mom! Louder!" and you start kicking your little feet to the beat and clapping! It makes me so happy when I watch you two in the rear view mirror and hear your giggles :). This is another one of my absolute favorite memories!

The fact that you are giving the "rock on" sign in this picture makes my heart swell with pride!

Enjoying making a huge mess with Moon Sand on a beautiful rainy day.

Bubbles are your favorite but you make such a huge mess so it is hard for me! You insist on doing it yourself (of course) so I either have to just let you be or suffer listening to you kicking and screaming....

We were having a particularly rough day so I took you guys on a cookie date to Freeds Bakery! It made everyting better :). Nothing like a cookie to change the mood of the day....

You crack me up! Just look at "yo bad self"!

Yet another rough morning for you. Mom did my best to exercise while you cried and screamed around me. Story of our life this past month.....

This is a picture of what you have to put up with on a daily basis... That is your car underneath his. Your brother is so destructive and crazy but you love him for it! It's basically free daily entertainment. When he's not around you don't know what to do with yourself! If he is still sleeping when you wake up you purposely try to wake him up.

New shoes for the pretty princess!

Doing yoga with Mom. I love how hard you try to copy me!

But before long it always ends with you in my arms. Namaste :).

Taking a walk.

You started this horrible habit of playing with your poop while you are supposed to be sleeping. Every day, multiple times a day we were putting you in the bath tub and cleaning poop off of everything (AAARRRGGG!!) We finally started putting you in footie pajamas so you can't take them off to reach your diaper. So far that has solved everything but I'm not sure what we will do come summer...

The poop culprit.... :(

Snuggle day. My favorite!

You started doing this funny thing where you flop over off of your car and lay there until someone comes to your rescue. You're always coming up with new ways to make me laugh :).

 

Josh's Big Hospital Debut

My poor hubby :(

I guess I should get around to telling Josh's horrible hospital story. It was such a crazy time and I've been trying to get past it but it seems like we just can't get our family back to 100% healthy no matter how hard I try! It was Friday night three weekends ago when Josh woke up around midnight pooping blood. He claimed it was no big deal. The next morning I went about my usual day because he said he was fine. But he wasn't fine. By 2pm that afternoon he had passed out from the lack of blood and hit his head on the bathroom floor. It took forever for me to talk him into going to the hospital because obviously he wasn't "fine" but he finally consented when I started crying. Briana came to watch the kids so we could go to the ER.

We made a bed for Josh on the living room floor and all he could do was lay there. Austin was so worried about his Daddy and wouldn't leave his side.

Once we got to the ER, he admitted that this was much worse than he was letting on. He was hemorrhaging pure blood from his rectum and it was coming out every 30 minutes. Were in the ER until 11pm when they came and told us they were moving him to Med/Surg where we would be seeing a GI specialist and they would try and figure out where the bleeding was coming from. The CT scan showed that his colon was bulging with blood and they were too scared to do a colonoscopy because they might puncture the colon and cause him to bleed to death.

Waiting in the ER for some answers.

The next 4 days were a blur of doctors, labs, medications, and procedures. Originally they told us that their GI doctors were on strike so they would have to transfer us to another hospital but then a kind doctor took pity on us and our situation and "called in a favor" from his GI specialist friend. We were so grateful because I was literally going insane from bouncing back and forth between the hospital and home and having to drive to a hospital further away would have made it even more crazy! This was just one example of God showering his blessings down upon us though. We had so much help from my family with the kids and our sweet friends in the ward were there for play dates, priesthood blessings, meals, and basically anything else we needed! We were so blessed! 

They ruled out ulcers and finally by day 4 made the decision that it was Hemorrhagic Colitis; an infection of the colon that had eaten through the intestinal lining and caused him to bleed out. He was not able to eat or drink anything for those 4 days and he was on heavy doses of IV antibiotics. We both took work off while he was there which only added to the stress. Someone needed to pay for all this stuff and Josh was out of Paid Leave so he was having to take those days unpaid!

Once he was released, the bleeding had stopped but he was still in pain. Sadly he had to go to work the next day and his jerk of a boss made him make up all 40 hours of work in just 3 days! That didn't help his health any. He was a mess. Which left me alone to take care of everything and everyone. I too became a mess but there was nobody there to help or care. It was a very bad week. Oh and did I mention that the night we went into the hospital Austin caught the stomach flu that Eve had just gotten over the week before :(..... So I would spend all day with Josh, catch a couple hours of sleep in the crappy hospital chair, run home to help with the kids early morning and clean my house of all the puke Austin had created, shower, run back to the hospital to be with Josh, and then run back home to help with baths and bedtime. Oh and don't get me started on my whiny Mom and sisters who complained the whole time about what an inconvenience this was for them. I found myself giving my Mom a massage and begging my sisters to have a little compassion on top of it all.... it was awful.

Now that we are on the road to recovery I can't help but feel so extremely grateful to be out of that hell. We are back to focusing on Christmas and all the fun that comes with it! Josh still isn't completely healthy but he is doing better!

I also have to mention that we had a ghost in our house all throughout this time. I'm pretty sure it was Josh's Dad. He showed up a couple days before and scared the crap out of me because I couldn't help but feel like there was someone trying to tell us that something bad was about to happen. You see, we have a decorative lantern in our bathroom on a top shelf that has never been used. It required batteries but I only wanted it for decoration so I never even checked to see if it had any. Well, one day I walked into the bathroom and someone had turned that lantern ON! The kids and I were the only ones home and it was way too high for either kid to reach. Someone had literally flipped the switch underneath the lantern to ON! Then, the next day, someone unplugged all the plugs from our TV and X-BOX upstairs in our room! We knew someone was definitely trying to tell us something but who was it and what were they trying to say? Then, while Josh was in the hospital and my Mom was babysitting, My mom watched someone turn the volume on the baby monitor from low, all the way up to the highest setting!! Then it gets even more spooky. I called my Grandma Wiegel from the hospital to give her an update on Josh and her caller ID showed "Benjamin Investments" instead of Ashly LaFeber. Benjamin Investments was Art's PC company. It was right there and then that I knew it was him stalking us and it didn't surprise me at all! I suddenly understood that he was trying to warn us that something bad was going to happen to Josh and he was trying to help my Mom while she babysat by making sure she could hear the kids! Such an Art thing to do! He was always overprotective while he was alive so it doesn't surprise me that he is watching over us like a crazy ghost now that he is dead..... Apparently he felt like his job was through once we got home from the hospital because we haven't had anything crazy happen since.

Pretty crazy week huh! 

My sweet friend in the ward took Eve to church with her family because Austin couldn't stop throwing up and my Mom couldn't handle both kids. It was such a blessing! How cute is this picture?!

Even Grandma Helm helped babysit! She also came and spent an entire day with us in the hospital. It was a group effort for sure!

The first day we were all back home, Josh went to work while the kids and I did nothing but relax and watch movies by the Christmas tree, enjoying being a family again. It was so comforting to be together again! It was just sad that Josh was the sick one and he was the one working thanks to his stupid jerk of a boss :(

When he finally came home the kids were ecstatic! They jumped into his arms and were smothering him with kisses!! It was so beautiful to watch.

The next day I asked Austin if he wanted to get out of the house and go to Cooking Class but he said he would rather stay home and make pancakes all day... apparently we weren't done being home together as a family yet :). That was just fine with me!

Of course Eve caught some kind of respiratory virus that day she went to church and it has gone through every single person in our family. It's just one sickness after another! So cuddling has become an every day occurrence around here...

I am so grateful to be home. I am so grateful Josh is alive (I forgot to mention that the doctors told us he was lucky he didn't end up in the ICU). I am grateful for the help from friends and family, even if it wasn't always given without strings attached. I am just plain grateful we are back to our typical life again! God is good and we have been blessed :).