Santa Stopped by....

On Christmas Eve, we had a surprise visitor before the kids went to bed. The kids were surprised to see Santa Claus walk in our front door, ringing his bells and saying, "Ho Ho Ho!" Olivia LOVED it, Tagen wasn't so sure. As you can see from the following pictures, their reactions are VERY different.

Olivia rushing to the door when she heard the bells...

Greeting Santa partway. She had nothing but HUGE smiles for him.

Tagen saw him and stood in that spot for the first 5 minutes he was here.

She didn't utter a word or make a sound the whole time.

Still wary and checking him out.

See her wringing her hands? Her poor palms were so sweaty

when I held her hand to calm her down.

She eventually left her other post to hide under the counter and behind Brad.

I guess she figured he's a safe barrier between her and this big guy in red.

I did eventually get Tagen to walk over to Santa to give him his Jingle Bells,

but she wouldn't let go of my hand, and wouldn't get closer than a foot from him.

As you can tell... there was no fear for Olivia.

She sat on Santa's lap and gave him lots of love and hugs.

Santa asked her if she knew why we celebrate Christmas.

I was so happy to hear her tell him,

"It's Jesus' birthday!"

Santa saying one last Good bye from the door, to which Tagen yelled, "BYE!" and waved.

I guess she figured he was safe once he was on his way out.

It was a great surprise and I love that Santa took the time to come visit our house before his big nightly present delivery began. It's a great memory for our girls too!

Cast Away....

Tagen was able to FINALLY get her cast off yesterday. It's so nice to have her hand and arm free of that thing. She was funny when it was finally off... She rotated her wrist, made a couple fists with her hand and then right back to the position that her arm had been in for the last 4 weeks. She kept it in that position (and actually elevated a little) for the rest of the day not really willing to use her hand. But... Today, it's like she never had a cast on. She's using it just as much as before the fracture and seems thoroughly happy. The best was bath time last night. Even though her cast was waterproof, she cried whenever it got wet, so we kept it wrapped in a baggie during her baths. She LOVED not having to do that anymore!

Olivia's Preschool Christmas Concert

Olivia attends a wonderful preschool with an amazing teacher. Mrs. Wing has taught preschool for over 30 years and she still LOVES little kids. Each year, she has the classes perform at a care center. She teaches them each a different little instrument and they sing lots of Christmas songs complete with actions. Olivia LOVES it. She learned to "play" the triangle. I have a video of her performance, but can't figure out how to get it to upload to blogger. Trust me... it's completely adorable. So, instead of an amazingly adorable video, I'm going to post this picture of her not even smiling to remember the event by.

Naughty or Nice?

Olivia told me the other day she wanted to make a naughty and nice list.

She informed me she was in charge of determining who was to be on each list.

So, after much debating, here is her nice list...

(Our names surrounded by a couple trees and a big present for Olivia.)

I know her "G's" look like "e's" but she's getting there. She made me laugh while she was writing down the names. She immediately put herself and Tagen on the nice list. I asked her if anyone else in the family had been nice, and she said,

"Well, I guess you and Dad are nice when I obey." Then she put our names down.

I then asked her about Gracie and if she was going to be able to be on the nice list. She replied,

"No mom. Gracie isn't nice because she kicks you all the time."

I told her that was Gracie's way of letting me know she's okay and that she really was being nice.

It took a little convincing, but little Gracie finally ended up on the nice list.

She hasn't made her naughty list yet and I'm wondering who she thinks needs to be on it...

Working...

I have been looking for a part time job that I can work when Brad is home that will help bring in some extra money. Well, I interviewed at Lakeview Hospital over a month ago for a clerking job in the Emergency Department. I haven't heard anything back from them even though they said it would be a ten day decision. Well, I just got off the phone with a recruiter from Lakeview Hospital. Turns out, the E.D. manager wants to hire ME! I'm so excited. Not just for the little extra income that I'll be getting, but also for the chance to be out of the home again, to be associating with adults on a more regular basis and to be using some of my medical training again. Granted, I won't be hands on with the patients, but just to be around it and hearing it again will be fabulous! It's a PRN job, so I'll won't be on a regular schedule, just filling in where they need me, but it's still great! I'm so grateful for answered prayers!

What's In A Name?

(Just so no one thinks I consider myself the bomb and have to talk about myself in 3rd person,

THIS POST WAS WRITTEN BY BRAD for his family's blog)

Since there have been some asking, I thought I would tell you we have a name for chica numero tres.

It will be LEGEN- wait for it -DARY!

It will be monumental! It will be unforgettable! Okay, enough drama.

Her name will be Gracie Pearl Morris.

We had tossed several names around. Carrie was leaning toward Payton, and I was liking Riley. Carrie had even thrown out the name Grace a few weeks back, it just didn't stick. But we went to the Temple on the Saturday before Thanksgiving to do a session. The name of the woman Carrie was doing work for happened to be Grace. She said, "I keep getting drawn to that name. I need to think about it." I half-jokingly threw out the name Gracie. Little did we know that all through the session both of us were being bombarded with the name. I swear someone was shouting it at me, because I couldn't even focus on the session. In the Celestial Room afterward, Carrie came straight to me and said, "I think we're supposed to name this baby, Gracie." I was like, "I know!! You got it too, huh?" It was just one of those moments that happens only in the Temple.

It's all very fitting, since Gracie was Carrie's nickname growing up, and Pearl is her Grandmother's name.

So there you have it - Gracie Pearl. A fitting namesake.

Carrie's due date is February 9th, but doc has already told her she'll most likely take her at 38 weeks, which puts us in the last week of January.

If all goes to plan, we will have this baby on mine and my Mom's birthday, (Jan 26th), to carry on a very special tradition.

The Cast...

Here it is.... The new cast!

Tagen was able to get her hard cast today. When we took off her splint, we noticed a pretty nasty bruise on the inside of her wrist right where the break is. I was also able to wash her arm and hand before the cast went on. She LOVED that. I'm pretty excited about this new cast. It's thinner than her splint, so hopefully her shirt sleeves will fit over it AND it's water proof! That means normal baths again. As you can tell, she got a hot pink cast. I figured since we are expecting more pink in our immediate future, we might as well make the most of it everywhere. She's back to not using her left hand at all, but I'm hoping that's just until she gets acclimated to the hard cast. Now we just need to make sure she doesn't use the new cast as a weapon when Olivia makes her mad. We just might end up with more broken bones if she does.

Our Thankful Turkeys...

For FHE this week, I wanted to teach Olivia and Tagen about the meaning behind Thanksgiving. So, I found a cute idea on the internet and quickly made the cutouts and got everything ready. We talked to Olivia about being grateful for our many many blessings and she told us some things she is grateful for. We wrote them down on the tail feathers and she glued them onto her turkey. Then we hung them up to remind us throughout the week. Very easy, and very age appropriate for my little family. Here they are....

(this is also our last "cast free" picture of Mater for the next few weeks...)

Olivia is sure to tell everyone that she talks to on the phone about the Turkeys we made. She loves to pick out which one is hers and tell me about the things she's grateful for. I guess it was a lesson well learned... or at least, enjoyed by her.

Broken Mater...

Look Mom!

Broken and proud of it!

Tagen and Olivia have a game where they pull all my couch cushions off the couch and line the floor with them. They then proceed to jump from one cushion to another. Well today, something went wrong in the landing phase for Tagen. I had just walked out of the room for a second when I heard a different cry from her that just kept getting worse. I ran back into the room and found her face down on the cushion. I rolled her over expecting to see a bloody mouth or something and Tagen instantly grabbed her left arm. She continued holding it and crying for the next half hour. I knew something was wrong because Tagen doesn't cry about stuff for that long. She's pretty quick to get over the pain and move on. When her fingers started swelling, I called Brad and told him I was taking her to the doctor. So, an hour later and two sets of x-rays later, we have a broken Tagen. She has a buckle fracture on her ulna bone. Once the brace was on, she seemed to do much better with the pain. She's going to be sporting this brace until the beginning of next week and then we'll take her back in and get a cast put on it. She's our child that will keep us on our toes looks like... and with all her experience this early in life, I'm really going to push her towards medical school when she's older. She'd be a fantastic doctor that can truly empathize with all of her patients!

Take Two....

We had another ultrasound today.....

100% Girl.

Looks like Brad only knows one recipe.

More pink in our future.

Taste Test....

Yesterday while Tagen was playing she climbed up on my counter, grabbed the bag of Banana bread muffins and did this....

(forgive the grainy picture, it was taken with my phone...)

Apparently she had to taste test each and every muffin in the bag to make sure they were all edible. I though it was pretty cute how she lined them all up after she had tasted them. And that little bite out of each one is SIMPLY ADORABLE.

Halloween 2010

Because Halloween fell on a Sunday this year, we did our celebrating on Saturday. We were able to spend the day together as a family and kept it fairly low key. We were able to carve our Jack-O-Lantern, dance some jigs and go Trick-or-Treating.

Here's yet another picture tale of our activities....

Olivia and I drew the face on the pumpkin

and then it was Brad's job to carve it out...

Olivia did get to help pull out the guts,

but she quickly stopped because she didn't like the smell.

Both girls admiring Daddy's handiwork.

We had some Halloween music playing and both girls decided to dance to it....

Olivia REALLY got into it....

See?

After the rainstorm stopped, we got the girls into their costumes.

Here are my two little pieces of Candy Corn.

Olivia wore Tagen's costume when she was two and when she found

out I had planned on Tagen wearing it this year, she was determined that

she was going to be a candy corn also. Thanks Mom for making another costume for us!

Done with the obligatory pictures!

"Let's go get some candy!"

Those were the magic words! This was pretty much the scene all night....

Tagen tagging along behind Olivia as they approached each door.

We couldn't keep up with Olivia and Tagen was just content to wait until all the other

kids had their candy, then she'd walk up to the door and hold out her pumpkin.

It didn't take her long to figure out that she likes Trick-or-Treating.

The Great Pumpkin Search!

We were able to go out to Pack's Pumpkin Patch again this year to select our pumpkins. It was a lot of fun. Olivia ran from pumpkin to pumpkin trying to find the "perfect Jack-O-Lantern" and Tagen was pretty content to sit down and play in the dirt.

Here's our picture tale of our "Great Pumpkin Search....."

Olivia is off on the mighty search!

Tagen trying to figure out what everything was....

"Mom! I think this is it!"

"I like this one, Mom!"

Ah ha! The Great Pumpkin has been found!

Tagen's happy place... In the dirt!

They loved riding in the wagon....

Mostly.

Look at the concentration on her face....

That is HER pumpkin!

Getting situated......

Of course, you have to do the obligatory hay maze while you're there...

Tagen wouldn't venture too far without Daddy at hand.

We're finished! Let's go pay for our pumpkins!

It's a............

Well, we had our ultrasound today. I thought that at 24 weeks, there would be NO question on what gender this baby would be. Guess I was wrong! The first shot we were able to see when we started the ultrasound was a bum shot. I thought "Great! Let's get this figured out!" Well, things weren't very clear... The ultrasound machine isn't that new and up-to-date, but I still thought we would be able to tell quickly. After lots of shaking and poking around, our little one started moving around more. The baby is healthy and everything looks wonderful. So, Dr. Fillerup went back again to see if we could determine if this is a He or a She. After lots of wondering, she said, "Well, I can give you a 70% positive answer.... This baby is a GIRL." I feel so bad for Olivia who was DETERMINED that her little brother was in my tummy. I also feel bad for Brad who is going to be completely and totally out numbered... still. But, I am really happy to have a healthy baby who is growing right on schedule. We are going to do another ultrasound in 4 weeks to see if she is any less shy and to determine if "she" really is a she or if she turns out to be a "He!" But, in the meantime.... at least I have lots of girl clothes already and I know that Brad and I make dang cute girls!!!!

Fire Station Tour

Last week, Olivia's preschool class had the opportunity to visit the Fire Station. I think I've been looking forward to this more than she has. It was different being on the "other side" of the tour. I'm only used to giving the tour, not receiving it. Olivia was sure to make sure the firefighters knew her mom was also a firefighter. She had lots of "stories" she would share with the firefighters. Things like... "When we had a fire at one house, we had to put lots and lots of water on it." It was pretty funny to hear her tell the stories like she had actually been there.

The class watching the firefighters explain about the Fire Truck.

Little Miss Tagen along for the tour.

I love this picture.

The kids were watching to see how fast

a firefighter can get dressed in his turnout gear.

All the kids got to take a turn sitting in the Engineer's seat of the Truck.

Here's her preschool class. They are a bunch of cute kids!

Once Bitten, Twice Shy....

Almost two weeks ago, Olivia came home from preschool with a nasty bite just on the inside of her knee. I was surprised at how quickly it got red and raised. I drew a line with pen around the initial redness to see if the redness would spread through out the week. Olivia never complained of any pain or itchiness from the bite. But by that night the redness had already spread beyond the drawn circle, and had doubled in size by the next morning. So... we were off to see our favorite pediatrician. I'm pretty sure that I'm paying Dr. Judd's yearly salary with all our visits this year, but at least it was for a different patient this time. He took one look and felt the warmth coming off the bite and immediately prescribed an antibiotic for Olivia with the warning it might be worse before it gets better. We have no idea what bit her, but if you ask Olivia and her friend, Emma, "it was a spider that's really a snake."

The second day.

You can see where I drew the circle around the original redness.

This was the third day of the bite.

I was really concerned when the redness started streaking down her leg. This picture doesn't show it very well, but the original circle of redness had turned a nasty brown/black and the middle lump was extremely hard to the touch.

Thank goodness by the fourth day, it looked like one massive bruise and has gotten better every day since. In fact, you can't even tell anything was wrong now, but Olivia is very concerned about the bite coming back. She was really good to take all her medicine and has been heard in many prayers asking Heavenly Father to "make sure the bite doesn't come back EVER!"

It was just another crazy day in our life. I'm glad this turned out as well as it did and that no hospital visits, surgeries, or even IV therapy was needed. Now I just need to watch out for those "spiders that are really a snake."