A Letter to a Hero

Dear Beecham Research Laboratories,

Thank you for being intelligent, for spending the money, and I dare say being guided by the Spirit to develop new and modified medication that has saved countless lives. My little baby is finally getting better after a double eardrum rupture. Twelve hours after her first dose of amoxicillin she no longer has a ridiculously high fever (105 degrees!) or massive amounts of puss coming out of her ears... oh and she's no longer screaming incessantly. For this reason you are my hero right now! So from all the moms out there that have seen the awesomeness of this medicine, I say thank you!


Before


After


Ahhh all better!

Labels: baby, Erin, pictures, Zoe

posted by Erin at 9:58 AM 2 Comments

Spring was supposed to have sprung...

I was all excited to post about how warm it has been and how much fun we've had outside...





Bubbles are so much fun!





And then this happened...



All I have to say is that the girls better be grateful I hadn't packed their snowsuits yet... lucky kids.



"Seriously mom, you're still taking pictures? I thought we were going to play!"



"Oooooh. Snow!"



"I fell! And it's Cold! And I don't like it!"



"Ooooh snow!" (Gotta love a 2 second attention span!)



What do you do at the end of March with snow on the ground? You make a snowman of course! It was perfect snowman snow! But you really do need your gloves to stay on...



Or maybe you don't.



At this point Zoe was done... "But I don't want to make a snowman!"



While Aeriana was far too wrapped up in the moment... "Something doesn't look right. I don't think it goes there."



While Zoe did a little more of this...



"It has to go on just right!"



"Is there anything else in there? I think we are still missing something."



"Why does Aeriana always get to do everything?"



"OK fine, maybe this can be fun..."





And of course my little princess modeling next to the snowman; I seriously don't know where she gets this. Notice the serious face.



Hey I managed to get a smile!



Then of course the questions start now that the snowman is all done and his hat is on.

"Mom... why is the snowman not talking?" (yes that is what she asked me)



And on that note... Who wants hot chocolate!



"Mmmmmm... tasty!"



"What? I'm not tried I don't know what your talking about!"



All in all not too bad of a day considering there is snow on the ground and it's almost April.

Happy Springtime!

Labels: Aeriana, Erin, family, pictures, Zoe

posted by Erin at 10:01 AM 9 Comments

HAPPY ST. PARTRICK'S DAY!

We had an eventful evening last night and morning. We wanted to catch a leprechaun; those sneaky guys have candy and gold. Come on who wouldn't want someone like that? Aeriana was so excited!

We made a leprechaun trap to catch them. Glitter and all things green attract them. Didn't you know?



Aeriana so proud of her and Zoe's (but mostly her) creation.



The next morning we woke up to glitter everywhere and no leprechaun, but we must have scared him quite a bit, he dropped everything he was carrying. Poor guy.

Checking to see if we caught one!



Mmmmm. Green eggs and green milk. :)






All morning long all Aeriana could focus on was the huge mess the leprechaun made. Not that he turned our milk green (resulting in green eggs for breakfast) as well as our toilet water. No she was only concerned about the mess and wanted to clean it up. So that's exactly what we did. What kind of mother would i be if i said no to my child wanting to clean?





And of course after we were all done cleaning it was time to rest with a book.



You see this look... yeah I get the same one from Brett when I bother him when he's reading.



So lets review... loves presents and chocolate (just like Brett), can only focus on the mess (just like Brett), and when reading, which is often, do not disturb (I'm seeing a trend here). Is her being female the only genetic contribution i made? Oh well, maybe Zoe will be more like me.

Then again maybe not...



Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Labels: Aeriana, books, Brett, family, holidays, pictures, Zoe

posted by Erin at 10:29 PM 3 Comments

Chocolate?

You say there was chocolate here? I have no idea where it might have gone!

Labels: food, pictures, Zoe

posted by Brett at 3:56 PM 4 Comments

Happy Winter

Labels: Aeriana, family, pictures, Zoe

posted by Erin at 11:07 AM 4 Comments

A Good Weekend

There's no better way to start a Saturday morning than to have a special date with daddy... Dunkin Donuts (pink frosted with sprinkles, of course) and chocolate milk in our pajamas!


Then there's no better way to start a Sunday morning than meeting an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ.

(Elder Christofferson came to our Stake Conference meetings this weekend; an absolutely incredible experience.)

Labels: Aeriana, family, food, pictures, religion, Zoe

posted by Brett at 8:04 AM 8 Comments

Happy Halloween

Hope everyone had a Happy Halloween!

Labels: Aeriana, family, holidays, pictures, Zoe

posted by Erin at 4:48 PM 8 Comments

My Kids Have No Chance

At 2 1/2, I've already screwed Aeriana up. When she was littler (more little??? less old???) I would tell her I had a secret for her, bring her in close to hear a whisper, and the growl loudly and suddenly to scare her. She laughs when she's startled so it was great fun for all of us.

At this point though, Erin is regretting my actions (though I still think the result is funny). Now the exchange goes more like this:

Me: Hey, Aeriana you wanna hear a secret?
(Aeriana comes close)
Me (whispering): I love you.
Aeriana: That's not a secret!!!
(pause)
Me or Aeriana: ROAR!!!
Aeriana (laughing): That's a secret!!!

I really wonder how long it will take her to realize that a 'secret' is not a loud, startling growl. Oh well.


Now I've started on Zoe... this is way too much fun to not propagate.

Labels: Aeriana, Brett, funny, Zoe

posted by Brett at 6:36 PM 4 Comments

Life as a Princess

Isn't life great when you can be a princess and a doctor and torment your sister all at the same time!

Labels: Aeriana, pictures, Zoe

posted by Erin at 5:54 PM 7 Comments

Big Girl

We've had a big night with Zoe. First she started saying 'dadada' more clearly than she has before, and is now quite enamored with the sound. Then, as we're feeding her the last bottle of the day, I ask her if she wants milk, at the same time clenching my fist in the ASL sign for 'milk'. Zoe looked at me, then looked down at her right hand, and quite deliberately made the sign for milk. Then she did it again. I gave her her bottle, a few moments later she took a break, and when she was ready she made the sign again.

Way to go Zoe! We're so proud of you!

Our little girl is really getting big.

Labels: baby, Zoe

posted by Brett at 10:22 PM 6 Comments

Apps We Like

My brother asked me for a list of apps for the iPad that we would recommend; I was part way through the email when I realized that there were probably others who might be interested as well.

We tend to gravitate toward free apps, and for many of the apps listed below we actually have the "lite" or "free" versions because we like the app but not enough to pay money to do more with it (we also will sometimes use the iPhone version rather than the iPad version of an app if it's cheaper - app purchases can add up quick). There are also a number of paid apps that we were able to get for free during a special discount period (using the three websites below); finally some are apps which Erin or I thought worth the cost and purchased the full version (I've added an asterisk before the ones we actually paid money for). We do have plenty of other apps, but these are our "recommended" ones; we also really like some of the native apps - but I don't think you'll need any help finding those.

Sites with Free App Notifications:
freegameoftheday.com
freeappaday.com
freeappalert.com


Now, on to the good stuff...

Aeriana's and Zoe's Apps:

*Wheels on the Bus (Zoe's Favorite)
I See Ewe (Aeriana's Favorite)
I Hear Ewe
Toy Story Read-Along
*First Words Deluxe
Baby Piano
Doodle Buddy
*5 in 1 Kids Pack HD



Erin's Apps:

*LDS Scriptures for iPad
LDS Hymns
Gospel Library
*Angry Birds (Erin's Favorite)
*Carcassonne
Fare City
Harbor Master
Mega Jump
*Pinball HD
BioDefenceHD
Labyrinth2 HD
Babo Crash
Alarm Clock
Epicurious
iRewardChart


Brett's Apps:

Flixster
*AirVideo (Brett's Favorite)
iBooks
Dropbox
Dragon Dictation
Sentinel 2
Tap Tap Radiation
Tap Tap Revenge 3
iMahjong HD
Quaso
Befuddled CE

We're definitely on the look out for more great apps, if you have any recommendations, let us know in the comments!

Labels: Aeriana, Brett, computers, Erin, movies, religion, Zoe

posted by Brett at 3:45 PM 1 Comments

Still Playing 'Catch Up'

So I have officially been an epic failure when it comes to blogging. But I'm honestly going to try better ... again... And yes i realize i have said this before. Sorry... But I'm almost up to present time. :)


Aeriana and Zoe are the best of friends, and I love it. They play and giggle together all the time and Aeriana can always get Zoe to smile. I mean look how Zoe looks at Aeriana you can just tell she thinks Aeriana is the coolest.


We had a big snow storm and Brett got to work from home one day and they even closed the office the next day! It was awesome! The car was crazy stuck in the snow and we don't have a shovel, so Brett dug the car out with our ice scraper. Yeah... it took him forever. But then I made him hot chocolate to make him feel better. :)


This is a snow man that Aeriana and I had made a few hours prior, when it was only snowing a little...




This is later after it snowed a bunch more. Poor snow man got buried...


My good friend Crystal lives right up the street from me, she took the kiddos out while I stayed inside with the babies. (She had a little girl (Lillie) two weeks after Zoe was born, and Rebekah her other daughter was a month after Aeriana. We like being prego together, what can we say.)


It's hard to tell in these two pictures but Aeriana was having a blast picking up the snow and throwing it in the air.


This is Zoe and Lillie chillin' inside. I love Zoe's face, it says, "Seriously, you licked me. I can't believe you just did that."


We have a baby that loves the bumbo. :) It's awesome! (Aeriana hated it.)

Zoe was super sick for about a month. It was so sad super high fevers and she had a horrible time breathing. She's all better now, but it took her forever!


One of Zoe's favorite things... Eating her giraffe and staring at herself in the mirror.


Speaking of giraffes, Aeriana has a giraffe too! And a pooh bear! And Bubblegum! And her Blanket! - all of which she wants to sleep with every night. I think she's going to be one of those kids with a million stuffed animals on her bed where you can't even see the bed, but they swear it's comfortable.


I tried to curl Aeriana's hair... It didn't work. I think she would have to sleep in the curlers over-night and there is no way they would stay in her hair with the way she sleeps (which is every which way). Any idea anyone?


We started doing a cousin exchange this year and Aeriana got her very first laptop from Evie. She loves it! At first she would walk up to it and say "No, no!" thinking it was mommy and daddy's laptop, but once she figured out it was hers she couldn't put it down.


Here's Zoe being the happy baby that she is... happy but loud, man this kid can make noise! Currently her favorite noise making technique is blowing raspberries. (and yes i know this toy got recalled... I sent it in, no need to send the parent police after me.) ;)


Aeriana loves to read and her favorite book is Dora! Well, she loves anything Dora really. She's obsessed!


But obsessions sure are handy when your friends come into town and you want to play games (yay Agricola!) and not be bothered by a two year old. :) Notice Aeriana in the background... yeah she's watching Dora.


And sometimes Dora is just great, but Aeriana has lots of energy and needs to move around a little while she watches... sometimes she decides to undress herself.


She's starting to realize that undressing, and attempting to get re-dressed, can be fun... and the results can be rather interesting.

Anatomy of an Early Morning Wardrobe Change:

Pants removed - check!
Diaper 90% removed - check!
Pants inside out - check!
Both legs stuffed into a single pant-leg of the pajamas - check!


This is Zoe's favorite position, she does this all the time and the picture just doesn't do it justice. She arches her back in this really weird way just so she can look around and see what she wants to. She tends to use this most often when Dora is on the TV; being placed on the floor facing directly away from the TV is no problem for a master contortionist.


This is her other favorite position. Pacifier and foot!


Here's Aeriana having fun with friends. Hanging out watchin' a movie. Three peas in a fleecy-blanket lined pod.


Zoe, super comfy and totally relaxed... (this mastery of relaxation makes her daddy proud).



I love the bed-head and I can hear Aeriana as a teenager saying "Mom what do you want from me, I just woke up?"



Aeriana got her first hair cut. It was much needed she was starting to look mullet-ish. And I would have none of that!


Pierson and Aeriana hand in hand at the mall. She loves to hold other kids' hands; it's so cute, we see her walking down the halls at church with one of her friends hand-in-hand all the time.


And last but not least! Happy birthday Brett!!! I love you!


Well, that was another long post but no need to worry, there is more to come!

Labels: Aeriana, baby, Brett, Erin, family, holidays, pictures, Zoe

posted by Erin at 5:26 PM 4 Comments