oh, so funny!

Justin has a couple of websites that he spends--or as i call it wastes--a lot of time. Every once in a while he comes across one that is particularly funny:



sorry if you can't see it, but squint, it's worth it!




this one is just too good!

Rileyisms

Some of the cute things that Riley has said or done in the past few days:

~Riley has been super obsessed with princesses lately. She has to wear a princess dress every day. There is one inparticular that she is fond of--pink with white polka dots. This dress was dirty yesterday and to help console her--for it was a great tragedy--I picked out an everyday red dress. At first, this seemed to please her. But once she got it on she twirled around a few times she suddenly dropped into a crying heap on the floor. When I asked her what was wrong she looked up at me and said, "Mom it's not a princess dress, I not a princess." Apparently the dress didn't have enough material to make a large twirl, and therefore did not qualify as a princess dress.

~As many of you know, I collect Pez dispensers. Riley and I were looking through them the other day, when she picked up the Death Star--for those that are not Star Wars fans it is a little planet shaped ball--and said, "Look Mom, a Bakugan!" and threw it across the room. For those of you that don't know what Bakugan are--they are small balls that pop up into little robots that you fight with during a card battle. One of the ways to get them open is to throw them. Bakugan is Valen's new obsession.

~Riley was watching James and the Giant Peach. During one of the songs, James sings about himself in New York City, and calls himself by name several times. Riley was singing along with the song as best she could. The best part was when James would say his name, Riley substituted her name instead. It was hilarious listening to her call out, "Riley, Riley, Riley isn't it a lovely day!"

What a cute little helper

For Christmas my step-mom made the girls and I the cutest aprons in the world. Whenever I pull out a cookbook, Riley is at my side wanting to help, just so she can wear her new apron. As you can tell from the following photos she loves her apron, but is boycotting clothes.


You might be able to tell that we were baking with chocolate, which of course requires sampling.


She was born to pose and loves getting any type of picture taken.

Riley's First Build-A-Bear

So we've been to Build-A-Bear more times than I can count, but Riley has never actually stuffed an animal herself. She has a bear from the time that Valen stuffed her one--when Riley was just a few days old--but she has never done it herself. Everytime we go into the store she gets excited to play with everything, but never gets into the idea of stuffing an animal. But we are usually with Valen who is super crazy at the store and tries to shove everything in Riley's face, so we thought we would make a trip when Valen was in school.



This is the bear that she picked. Justin tried to talk her out of it--he thought it was the ugliest one there. He liked the wolf much better.


She really liked all of the buttons and how they lit up. She was really into the whole process--kissing the heart, jumping up and down, rubbing it on various body parts and the like.


We thought she would spend more time grooming her bear since that's usually what she does when we go into the store for Valen, but this bear may still have had some unwashed parts when we left.

This is Riley at the computer. She was more excited about that then anything else; she couldn't wait to press all of the buttons.

Not a very great picture, but with all of the people walking by and Riley anxious to get to the gumball machines, this was the best we could do.

When we told Riley that we were going to Build-A-Bear she was very excited and insisted on going upstairs to her room and getting her piggy bank down. When I told her that she didn't need to get money from her piggy bank and that I had her Christmas money from grandma, she insisted that she had to get money. She came downstairs with a penny in her hand, and very carefully put it in her pocket. When I asked her what the money was for she looked at me and said, "I need a gumball mom." I wasn't sure what that meant until Justin explained to me that there are gumball machines across from the store and they always get a gumball after going to the store. I think Riley was more excited about getting the gumball than the bear, so in honor we named the bear Gumball.

a new year's resolution

i haven't actually written down my resolutions this year, but i have stated out loud that i am going to try to be better at blogging. i can't tell you how many people are constantly saying, "well, did you put it on your blog?" i can't promise anything amazing, but i will try harder.

so one of my new favorite obsessions right now is getting good shopping deals. being college students--still--makes our budget tight. being an eco-nerd--is that a word--makes shopping a challenge, so when i find a good deal i get excited. my new favorite website is: www.hip2save.com

i highly recommend signing up for their newsletter. i have gotten so many good deals and i love it when my savings is higher than my total.



riley quote for the day: Dad! She's dropping babies!

I found myself

so this past month has been an interesting one. if i were to take the time to write everything i would be here all night and i really want some time to watch the next episode of Lost. so i will just hit the highlights.

we made it through the first part of December with little or no problems. we were excited for the Christmas season. we decorated the house, finished shopping, made christmas cards and planned our treats. then disaster struck. about the second week of December i got hit with an extremely bad case of vertigo that literally left me bedridden for two weeks. after several days without improvement i went to the hospital hoping to find relief. all they did was confirm that i had vertigo and pump me full of all sorts of drugs, which did nothing for me. although justin tells me that valium makes me do funny things--thankfully nothing will be posted on youtube. after getting out of the hospital i went to several different doctors and found out that in addition to the vertigo i also had a hernia, which he put back into place for me--not a fun experience. i slowly got to the point that i could function by myself--up to this point justin had to help me do EVERYTHING. the poor guy had a lot to deal with. at one point, not only did he have to deal with me, but Riley had a double ear infection and Valen had the stomach flu. i don't think justin ever wants to deal with throwup again. by Christmas i was mobile and self sufficient, but not really better. we did have a wonderful Christmas morning. this was Riley's first Christmas where she understoond what was going on and was excited for presents. we don't do santa at our house, nor do we use wrapping paper--two subjects for another post--but she was excited for each present and was a little put out when we finished. then she realized she got to open each of the packages and boxes and play with the toys inside, and that took the rest of the day. Saturday morning Justin took me to the airport and i flew, by myself to Utah for my brother's wedding.

travel log: buffalo to detroit--flight was short and did not cause me to throw up. i was able to eat and keep down an expensive smoothie and bagel. detroit to kansas city--some trouble getting back on the plane, but again the flight was good and no sickness. kansas city--flight was cancelled so i had to stay the night. i also found that i lost my wallet with identification and debit card, which meant that i had to cry to the security guards to let me get through security. i did get to stay in a nice hotel all by myself and had two free meals. my step dad teased me when i told him that i ate a hamburger for dinner. i told him that since i didn't drink all the stress of my drove me to eat meat. kansas city to salt lake: a good flight, again without sickness.

i had a great time in salt lake and it was wonderful seeing my family and watching my brother get married--i only cried a little bit.

the trip home was uneventful--unless you count the delays i experienced in detroit, but i made it home safe and sound.

for New Years we had some wonderful friends from Salt Lake/San Francisico visit us and celebrate the new year.

now with valen in school and justin preparing to go back to school reality has settled in and we are slowly getting back into a routine--mean mom undoing all of the fun nice things that dad did while i was sick and gone.

as i said before it has been crazy but there are several things that i have taken away from this experience:

~i am grateful for a husband that was willing to drop everything to take care of me and the kids.
~i am thankful for summer graduation.
~i am thankful for all of those that helped us out while i was sick. i was amazed at how many people were willing to help us--babysitting, dinners, flowers, hospital visits, get well cards, phone calls, thoughts and prayers just to name a few.
~i am thankful for my health.
~i LOVE my cell phone, weekend minutes and texting
~i love seeing and reconnecting with friends and family.
~i LOVE food--the weight loss was nice, but eating is better!
~i really do enjoy being able to clean my house.
~i am grateful that the Lord teaches us through disappointment, trials, heartache and sadness. it makes all those happy moments that much sweeter.
~i am grateful for the detroit airport and their lost and found services, and the honest person out there that found and returned my wallet and made it possible to find myself twice in one trip.

I wish I would have brought my camera. . .

So Thursday night, or should I say, early Friday morning, was a very interesting time. It was around 12:30 a.m., and I was just headed to bed. The girls were asleep and Justin was on his way home from the school. Just as I lay down Riley started screaming and coughing. I ran into her room to discover her sputtering like she had just thrown up. I climbed into her bed to check for throw up, but couldn't find any. She continued to cough and her breathing was very labored. By this time, Justin had come upstairs to help me. He had turned the hall light on so we could see better. Neither of us could figure out what was causing her to have such labored breathing. Then, Justin picked up her sippy cup--it is a small Thermos with a plastic straw. Justin noticed that the top had been chewed off. I asked her if there was something in her throat. She opened her mouth and then began to claw at her throat. She still couldn't breath very well, and Justin and I began to freak out. He went downstairs to get a flashlight to check her throat. When we realized that wasn't going to work, I suggested calling an ambulance. We pulled her out of bed and took her downstairs to watch a movie until it came. By this time we were frantic and she was calming down. She wanted to lay down, but we told her she had to stay sitting up. We didn't want to risk having her choke on whatever was in her throat. When the paramedics arrived they checked her breathing and agreed with us that there was something in her throat, and that she needed to go to the hospital to have it checked out. So Riley and I got on the stretcher and they put us in the ambulance. The driver asked us if he could use the lights and the sirens. I told him sure. He was afraid the sirens might scare Riley, but the exact opposite was true, she thought they were awesome. She liked looking around the ambulance and thought the little finger monitor was cool. She liked the little red light. She was somewhat disappointed when the ride was over. They took us in the hospital. By this time Riley was completely calm and her breathing was somewhat normal. It was still a little off, but she was doing much better. In fact she was chatting and pointing out interesting things. They took us into the waiting room, since it no longer looked like an emergency; she was thrilled when she saw the TV. There was no rush to get us in anywhere, which was fine with Riley, she liked watching the George Lopez Show. She was a little upset when they took us into our room. She brightened up rather quickly when she saw a get well balloon in the room. "Look mom, happy birthday to me!"
For the next several hours we sat in the room watching the Disney Channel, which was exciting because we don't get that channel at home. Several nurses and/or residents came to check on her and decided that she needed and x-ray. She loved the elevator ride up to the room, but was not excited about the x-ray machine itself. When we walked in the room the machine was resting on the table. The technician moved the machine up and then moved the table up. I told Riley that she had to lay down on the table so that the big camera could take her picture. She yelled in response, "No mom! I don't want it to squish me!" I explained that she wasn't going to be squished, she was just going to get her picture taken. She didn't like the idea of me leaving the room either, but she made it. After another exciting elevator ride, we went back to our room to resume our TV watching. By this time I was exhausted and Riley was totally wired. She was running around our room, balloon in hand, and going crazy. Finally, the doctor came in and told us that the x-ray was inconclusive, because if she did swallow a plastic piece it wouldn't show up on the x-ray anyway. So her diagnosis was that Riley had croup. She said the only way to test the theory was to give her something to drink. If she could drink it, then it was croup; if she couldn't drink it, she had something in her throat and they had to put some fiber optic something or other down her throat to check things out. So, they offered her the juice. Riley was so excited for that juice box. She drank half the box in one gulp. The doctor concluded that it was in fact croup and recommended a steroid to help the swelling in the throat. When the lady that we hadn't seen before came in to give Riley the medicine she noticed that there were pictures of cake on Riley's pajamas. She asked Riley if she liked cake and if she would share a piece of cake with her. Riley "took" a piece of cake from her pajamas and gave it to the lady. Several minutes later the nurse showed up. When we first got there, Riley wouldn't even look at him, but when he came in and said that he wanted a piece of cake too, Riley wasn't sure what to do. She looked at me and then down at her pajamas and found a Popsicle and "gave" that to him. He ran out of the room yelling, "See, I told you she would give me something too!" Shortly after that we were discharged. We called Justin for a ride home. They had taken us to Women and Children's hospital, which for those that know where we live, is a good twenty minutes from our house, so we had awhile to wait. Riley and I sat by the automatic front doors and waited for him. Riley was still pretty wired, even though it was approaching 4 a.m. She would run past the door, which would open, laugh and then run over to me. When Justin finally showed up he drove right past the doors. We ran outside to wave him down. I was afraid he hadn't seen us and was going to keep on driving. Riley started crying and said, "No daddy, come back. I want to go to Riley's house!" Then we realized he was just turning around.
Riley talked the whole way home and told Justin about her balloon, watching cartoons and riding in the elevator. When we got home I told Riley that she had to go back to bed. She said she wasn't tired and didn't want to. She wanted to play or watch something downstairs. Again, she insisted that she wasn't tired. I told her to climb in bed and try to sleep. Thankfully she slept until 11:00 a.m.

Even though this was one of the longest nights of my life, and I was afraid that some terrible thing had happened to my daughter, I still found several moments that seemed magical in a way: my first ambulance ride, which I got to share with Riley; watching Riley run around her hospital room in her pajamas and rain boots, with the balloon in hand singing "Happy Birthday;" watching her excitement with each room we went into--"Look at THAT mom!" All of this made me realize how great my life really is and how grateful I am for the things I have and oh how I wish I would have brought my camera to capture it all!




p.s. the only other time that we went to the emergency room with one of our children was when Valen stuck a peanut up her nose. she later sneezed it out and there was no harm done. apparently my children don't know how to have a real emergency. . .thank goodness!