Frigid, that's a good word

Main Entry: frig·id
Pronunciation: \ˈfri-jəd\
Function: adjective
Etymology: Latin frigidus, from frigēre to be cold; akin to Latin frigus frost, cold, Greek rhigos
Date: 1619
1 a: intensely cold b: lacking warmth

The weather has warmed up a bit but for some reason for the last couple days I can't seem to warm up. I feel chilled to the core everyday. Who knows, maybe I'm getting sick but this feeling is making me crave warmth. A warm beach somewhere with the sun shinning but just enough of a breeze to keep you comfortable, that sounds perfect right about now. So who's going to join me!?! Oh but since it was my idea it gets to be your treat!!! Still interested? :)

Tear ducts Fixed???

Monday night the girls and I went up to Idaho and stayed at my brother’s house because Allison had an appointment with an ophthalmologist Tuesday morning. Most already know that Allie was born with plugged tear ducts in both eyes. There hasn’t been a day that she hasn’t woken up without her eyes glued shut from the yucky goop and all day long her eyes water and look like she has been crying. We tried massaging the ducts and warm compressions and eye drops and nothing helped. We held out making an appointment to get the ducts probed because Emmie was born with the same problem but it cleared up on its own. Allie’s eyes were way worse though and she was always miserable and had raw red skin around her eyes so we decided it would be better for her if we just went through with the procedure. So at the doctors it went as follows; they strapped her to a surfboard looking thing and strapped her arms and legs down with Velcro bands. Then they set her on a nurse’s lap while she held Allison’s head in place. Then the Dr took a tweezer-like instrument to dilate the opening of the duct. After it was open enough for him to see he took a long bendy needle and put it in to the opening to unblock the clog. He was talking to me the whole time and put me at ease telling me everything he was doing as he was doing it. He said that most kids have a blockage at the top or the bottom of the duct and Allie was blocked at both places on both eyes! Poor thing. Also on the left side he said he was a little worried because he felt some resistance while he was moving the needle back and forth and said that the bone had started growing into the duct area a bit. He said that there is still a 90% chance that the ducts will be fine and stay open but if there are problems, especially with the left side, we will have to come back in in 3ish weeks and redo things with a larger needle and if that still doesn’t take we will have to do surgery to put tubes in her ducts that will stay in for about 8 weeks and then be removed. After the procedure they handed her back to me and she was such a sad sight… she had blood coming out of both nostrils and her tears were mixed with blood. She just melted into me whimpering and it broke my heart!!! So keep your fingers crossed for a success this time around because we don’t want to have to do this again. We have already seen drastic results in just a few days so we are hoping for the best! She still needs an antibiotic/steroid ointment put in her eyes twice a day but after that is done she should be better.

Dresses

When I was in Oregon for Christmas we were at the mall and I saw these dresses and absolutely fell in love with them. (thanks mom!) You have to see them in person to really see how pretty they are. They change color from greenish to blueish and then have different shades of brown dots. Well I finally let them wear them to church on Sunday so I had to get a couple pictures. Of course we were running late, Emmie didn't want to cooperate and Allison was tired and just wanted to go to sleep, but we got a couple ok shots.










See what I mean about not cooperating








You can still see the tears in Allie's eyes from crying and wanting to go to sleep but she was still a good sport about it

Happenings of the week

My mom came last Sunday to visit us for the week and we are oh so sad to report that she left today. It was so much fun to have someone to bum around with and get us out and about each day. Emmie was funny with her, Emmie knows she isn't supposed to eat in the living room but grandma would eat crackers on the couch each day and Emmie would pretend to get on the phone and call the police on grandma and tell them to come and pick her up. lol I think the first time it happened my mom was a little taken back and offended by the fact that Emmie would want her grandma hauled off, but eventually she joined in and would tell Emmie she was going to be going with grandma since they were both sneaking food. I don't know where this obsession with police has come from but whenever Emmie does something bad and we tell her she will go to time out if she does it again she always asks if we are going to call the police to take her away. We have never threatened her with it so I don't know where she picked it up but I guess if the scare tactic works maybe we should pick it up :) Also when my mom was here it was nice to know that Allison doesn't just save her crazy attacks for me. She does this thing where she will grab my neck, face or whatever she can get a hold of and dive bomb me with kisses. It is so dang cute but a little aggressive at times and can end up hurting when she has such a tight hold on you. But she wouldn't share this attack with anyone but me until my mom came. It was nice to get a break every now and then and let her share her sweet slobber with someone else since she does this to me every time I hold her now. I wish I could have gotten a better picture of it but our battery was dying on our camera so I couldn't get a good picture of just how cute it is. Maybe I will have Darren try and take a picture of her doing it to me. Mom mom got Emmie a bunch of fun little toys while she was here but it's amazing the kind of fun that you can have with just a couple bucks spent on some crazy tunnel thing and an empty room...

Also this week we had our friends Chad and Ashleigh come and visit for a few hours with their little girls Jayden and Ryleigh. It was fun to see them for a short little bit. The girls played dress up while us girls watched and the boys talked health and homeopathics and what not. Then we went out to dinner. I didn't get many picture of the girls since they didn't really want to stay still long enough to snap a shot but here is a cute one of them putting thier shoes on.Here are another couple pictures of the girls from this week...
Emmie looks so happy in this picture it is actually a little creepy.

Allison had her first driving experience this week and did pretty well staying on the car

Having fun with the cousins

Last weekend we went out to ice cream with Darren's brother Dan and sister in law Jen and all their kids. They all had a blast getting messy and hyping up on sugar. It was fun to sit and listen to them laugh while goofing around with each other. After we ate we went back to Dan and Jen's and played games. It's so nice to be able to live around family and enjoy their company so much. Here are a few cute pictures of the kids at the ice cream place.

This is Rachel, Hailey, Emmie and Joe (Abby was at the other table since she was tired)They are all such goofballs

Rexburg Temple Open House

While living in Rexburg we lived right down the hill from the temple and got to see it out our window each day and see the progress of the construction on it. Also our church building was right next to it so every Sunday we would get an up close view of it. Emmie would constantly talk about it and tell us how she wanted to go inside. When we moved in December we were pretty bummed that the construction wasn't done on it so we could take her through, but we decided to make a special trip back up so we could take her inside. Darren had to go out of town for work training last week so I went up to Idaho with the girls while he was gone and stayed with my brother and sister in law for a couple days and then Darren joined us on Friday night. Friday we spent the night with my old roommate Becky and her husband Travis in Idaho Falls and then all of us went to the open house Saturday morning. The temple is beautiful and it was so awesome to be able to take Emmie through it even though I'm sure she probably won't remember it. Sorry Becky I know you didn't want me to post pictures but I liked the group shot of us all and the one of us together so I couldn't resist. Forgive me :)
This picture cracks me up, Darren's eyes are totally closed and I am making a really strange face. The sun was so bright in our eyes it felt like they were going to burn out of our heads. Travis, Becky, Emmie, Darren, me, and Allison standing at the back of the templeAwww so cute. Old Roomies!!!

Blog overload!!!

Sorry all, I know it has been forever since I last posted but man, we have been so dang busy. So here is the recap of what our last month has held for us. If you don't care just keep scrolling. So December 14th Darren had his last final, we picked up our UHaul after his class and then started filling it that night with the help of his brother and sister in law that were nice enough to drive all the way over from Wyoming to help us move. We could have never done it without them, they truly saved us! So the next morning we finished up packing and then cleaned the place and took off that afternoon for Utah. The sellers of our house were nice enough to let us move our stuff into the garage of the house even though we still had yet to sign closing papers (that was a nightmare all of its own) so we got to Utah that night and the boys unloaded the truck (thank you Dan and Dave for your help there as well) That night we stayed in a hotel just to try to sleep in and regroup from all of the late nights we had been pulling with finals and then packing. We then stayed the next night at Darren's brothers house and then flew off to Oregon the day after that. We spent a couple weeks at my mom's house and celebrated Christmas there and just spent time with family. We also had the stress of the house hanging over our heads. In a matter of a couple weeks we found out our mortgage broker sucked had to fire him, hire a new one, redo everything we had already done with paperwork and what not, redo an appraisal on the house (ouch being out $400 sucked) create the most precise paper trail of all our finances ever known to man, and ask the sellers if we could extend past our date of closing since we had to start over with a new person. It was an absolute nightmare and we were so stressed and cranky the whole time. The new mortgage person we found was a life savor though and if anyone is buying a house anytime soon let us know. She was amazing! So we finally got to sign papers the day after Christmas. After all this Darren's parents got back from their visits with family and we went to stay with them for a week. Then on the 5th of January Darren, Allison and I flew out to Fort Lauderdale to go on a cruise with my mom and step dad and some other family. That same day Emmie drove to Utah with Darren's parents and stayed a week with Darren's brother Dan and sister in law Jen while we were gone. (thank you, thank you, thank you Jen) The cruise was so much fun. Darren and I are normally the type of people that like to look around a lot when we go to new places and see the sights but this trip was all about eating and relaxing! We went down to a few places in the Caribbean and some of the ports were really nice but we really enjoyed being able to take naps (which we couldn't even remember the last time we got to take one at the same time before this trip) and eating the most absolutely AMAZING food. Darren and I would get multiple entrees and appetizers and deserts each night at dinner, we would hit up the midnight buffet and gorge ourselves at lunch each day. Needless to say we didn't spend much time in bathing suits this trip! We came home pounds heavier but it was a nice trip after such a nightmare of the last month. The day after we got home we got the keys to our house and brought our luggage from our trip in and began to feel the overwhelming stress again of thinking about cleaning and unpacking. We still have so much to do. We didn't want to move anything in until after we could get the carpets cleaned and scrub the place down. So little by little we have been cleaning away and the carpets got cleaned today. On top of this the girls are both sick and oh so cranky. Emmie has a really bad cough and runny nose and Allie is so congested she can hardly breathe. She is such a sad sight! Her eyes are watering and all gooped up, her nose is running none stop and since she can't breathe through her nose she is drooling everywhere. Oh the insanity of life! So there is the LONG recap of what has been going on with us. I will try to update more often and post pictures of our developing house. Most of our work is the unseen stuff so there won't be much to show. Mainly we are scrubbing the heck out of this place, getting and installing new blinds and getting and installing a washer and dryer. So pretty boring stuff right now since we are now too poor to furnish this place and make it look nice. For your viewing pleasure after this monster of a reader blog here are a few pictures of our month.Emmie playing on our packed boxes Allison packed up and ready to go Emmie would only look at Santa But Allie seemed to like him My niece Abby and Emmie making gingerbread houses. (thanks Becky for getting her on a sugar high, I think Emmie ate more than she decorated) Making sugar cookies with mom on Christmas Eve Twister with the cousins Darren and Allison on my parents balcony on the ship Allison ridding the towel elephant Hot and sweating in Tortolla (our ship is in the background on the far left)

My mom, stepdad, Allie and I on the water taxi. Can you tell how dang hot it was there?

This is how Allison spent most of the vacation, attached to me on a front packDarren and I at dinner one night