Oh Man!

Where to start.. 

We had a nice Thanksgiving with Eric's family this year. All of his siblings were there, we were only missing Kyler. We had dinner at Becky and Greg's house so there was plenty of room for the kids to run and play. We took a family picture that will soon be out of date already, Sara's baby is due this month. The day after I went shopping with Eric's Mom and sisters, we found enough good deals to fill the back of Careen's suburban and Becky's van. Later that night we ditched all the kids and when out to dinner for Careen's birthday. I can't remeber too many details but it was a nice weekend with family.

December was super crazy and flew by way too fast! I actually got my Christmas shopping done by about the middle of the month so that was very nice. Lissa, Mom, and I went down to Ogden to help Cailee move back to Wyoming. It was a CrAzY trip! We also took Breanne, Hailee, and Kole, all I can say is I am not dying to go that far with that crowd again. We drove down a day, stayed a day, and drove back a day. We are glad Cailee is back around.. even if she's not glad to be. 

On Christmas Eve we went over to Lovell and spent the evening with Craig and Careen, Richard and Katie, Shane, Sara, and Keyanna, and Grandma, Great Grandma, and Grandpa Walker. We ate dinner and then the little kids but the Nativity together while Craig read the Christmas Story from Luke. After that we played a few little games and then let the kids open a few gifts.

 

While Brac was opening a few presents on Christmas Eve he kept muttering "please no more clothes, please no more clothes", typical boy! Breanne on the other hand was totally thrilled with everything she opened, even if she didn't know what it was. 

Christmas morning I was totally expecting Brac to be up around 6 or 6:30. Believe it or not I was the first on awake and it was probably quarter to 7, so I got up and put some clothes on and woke Eric up. We decided to wake the kids up so we could hurry over to Mom and Dad's. We woke Brac and Breanne up and they both just kind of laid there, so we asked them if Santa had come? Brac said he didn't think so, so we told Breanne to go look and see and she went and looked out the door and said no... I think they must have been still half asleep. Breanne went and looked again and finally got excited about what she saw. So we went out and opened presents.

 

Brac asked Santa for the Red Rock horse, I had to do some investigating to figure out what it was. He goes through boots like candy and we are hoping that these ones will last a little longer than the last pair.

 

Breanne was again very excited about everything, she was so cute when she opened everything!

 

Kole's first Christmas wasn't too exciting but he really enjoyed all of the paper! We got him a bouncer/excersaucer  and he really loves it! Breanne and Hailee were playing dress up with Breanne's new stuff, aren't they cute! Breanne loves to dress up and loves it even more when there is someone to dress up with.

We had a pretty uneventful New Years. A few friends came over and we played a game and we all went home before midnight, it was just a little too much for all of the kids. On New Years Day my kids and I, Lissa and Hailee, Mom, Jamie and her kids went to THermopolis swimming with Lorraine, Rudy, Payton, Mick, and Tyler Ann. The kids had a good time and the water felt great!

Eric's dad just got called to be the Bishop of Lovell Second Ward so his sisters came up for that. We are very grateful for the good man that Craig is and we are excited for him and his new calling we know he will be great! 

The second week in January Kole came down with croup, so I took him to the Dr. It happened to be on a wednesday but our Dr. has a new partner and she was in that day. They put him on a steroid to help with the inflammation and said to watch him, they also did a blood test on him because his soft spot was a little puffy and they wanted to rule out infection somewhere. The test came back negative but they wanted us to follow up with Dr. J the next day, so we did and he seemed to be getting better. Friday we went back to the Dr. and saw the assistant again because Breanne started not sounding so good and I wanted to be sure she wasn't getting croup or something too. They actually ended up doing a strep test but it was negative. Saturday Kole had some redness around his mouth and nose and between his eyes, I was a little concerned but wasn't sure what it was by that night it has spread a little but not much. Sunday morning it was worse, most of his face was red and the back of his neck and seemed a little puffy. We went to church and after sacrament meeting and Craig being set apart I took Kole and Breanne and went over to Lissa so to make rolls for dinner. The redness seemed to keep spreading, after dinner I decided to take him to the ER in Lovell just to make sure there wasn't something major going on, he wasn't running a fever but you could tell he just didn't feel good at all! We went up there and the Dr. looked at him a little bit and decided that it must just be an allergic reaction to the steroid. So he told us to give him benadryl and follow up with our Dr. the next day. Well needless to say he slept pretty good but still didn't look or act any better the next morning. We got and appointment with Dr. J that morning. When he came it he was like "oh my goodness!" He started looking at Kole and started telling me everything that was wrong.. Then he looked at Breanne and said she had strep. Kole had strep throat, a sinus infection, scarlet fever (caused by the strep bacteria), and was starting a little bit of a respiratory infection. POOR BABY! So needless to say we had a couple of rough days a head of us still but he is doing better. All of his skin peeled from the scarlet fever and it was very itchy but luckily we had some high powered antihistamine to help with that.  We had a little bout with a flu bug last week but we are all healthy today and hope that it stays that way for a while! 

Kole also got his first tooth just before he turned 7 months, Brac and Breanne didn't get any until they were 10 or 11 months, and is crawling all over! He is a very busy little man and gets into everything! I am not sure I am looking forward to him growing up anymore, I wish he would just stay little for a while longer! At his seven month check up he weighed 18 pounds and was 27 inches. He is a big boy! It is as tall and a least a pound heavier than Breanne was when she was a year old.   

Breanne loves to feed him things, even though she knows shes not suppose to... On Saturday she gave him some OREO's while I was trying to clean up a little bit, he really enjoyed himself though!