Happy Birthday Hannah

On Friday, March 26, Hannah turned eight and oh she has been excited for this birthday for months!

This was Hannah's year for a birthday party.  I have told the girls they can have a friend party every other year.  Even before Christmas we had decided that we were going to have a Noah's Ark birthday party.  A girl that I work with does these parties and they are so fun!  What did I like best?  The idea that I provided the house and she did the rest!

Friday morning started with Hannah waking up in time to hear her name on the radio.  She didn't win the prizes this time, which was alright because in her eight short years she's won twice.  Then the excitement kicked in or should I say the energy kicked in!

I picked Hannah and two of her friends up from school, which Hannah thought was a total treat.  Then we headed to pick up another friend.  The girl doing the party said she'd be at my house at 4:10.  Well, by 4:30 when she hadn't arrived yet I started to panic.  I asked my mom and Dave if they knew any games we could play with 9 eight year olds but as I really started to panic at 4:35, she pulled in the driveway.  I guess finding our house in Mendon is rather hard for some.  Oh well!  I was glad she had arrived.

All of the girls were here for the party when the party giver arrived and they were anxious to get working on their animals.  For the Noah's Ark party each of the girls gets to pick a stuffed animal and bring it to life with clouds (stuffing) and wishes.  All of the girls, including Nicole, were in heaven.  I hadn't planned on Nicole making an animal but she was just as old as the other girls and got right in and picked a kitty to make.  It would have broken her heart to tell her no so we went ahead and let her participate.  She did great!  She stuffed her own kitty with a little assistance from Grandma.

When the animals were stuffed, each of the girls were given a rainbow star to make a wish on and then place in their animal.  Then each girl was given another star to make a wish for Hannah.  They whispered the wish in Hannah's ear and then placed the star in Hannah's horse.  Grandma and I also got to wish on a star and put in Hannah's horse.  I wished Hannah the best birthday ever!  Later she told me that it had already come true.  Hannah was also given eight additional stars to wish upon and place inside her horse.  Once all of the wishes were made the animals were closed up.  Each girl was also given a birth certificate for their animal and gave them a name.

After all of the exitement over the animals, we sang Happy Birthday to Hannah with the cake that I decorated myself.  I was so proud of the way it turned out and was excited that I had finally found something I can do.  I was a little down a few weeks ago because I really don't have a talent.  Yet, the night before Hannah's birthday I found a talent.  I decorated her b-day cake with an awesome flower, which she LOVED.  The problem.....I forgot to take a picture of it!  Are you kidding me!  I realized it Friday night at 9:30 when there were only three pieces left.

While I was cutting the cake, Hannah opened her presents.  She got lots of fun stuff!  I can remember a clay art project, Zsu Zsu pets, a webkin and some other fun things.  She got a set of scriptures from Grandma Peterson with her name on them......a total hit.  She opened her present from us and it was a basket for her bike.  Then she went in the garage to see that she got a new BIGGER bike.....and it's PINK.....just what she wanted.  Dad did a great job picking it out!

I have to insert the story here about Ashley.  While we were waiting for Hannah to come out of school.  I asked Ashley if she wanted to know what we got Hannah for her birthday or if she wanted to be surprised.  She said I could go ahead and tell her.  I told her we got her a new bike and Dad was at the store right now picking it out.  I asked her if she knew what that meant.  It meant that she would now get Hannah's old bike, which is the size bigger than Ashley's current bike and Ashley has been riding it whenever she can and feeling awesome because she can ride the bigger bike.  She got the biggest grin on her face and threw her arm in the air with a huge YES!

Here's the whole gang!

And the whole gang with funny faces...........

After everyone left, Hannah was still on cloud nine and had thrown her arms around me many times indicating that this was the best birthday she'd ever had.  This made it all worth it in my book. 

We had lots to do the rest of the night in preparation for Hannah's baptism the following morning.  Brownies needed to be made, the garage needed to be washed out for the dinner, the house needed the finishing touches, food needed to be chopped, etc.  I received a phone call from Traci asking if she could bring Hannah her birthday present tonight instead of waiting until tomorrow.  Traci had mentioned to me on Thursday what she was getting Hannah for her birthday.  She told me she had cleared it through Dave and he said it was alright.  I was a bit surprised he said okay and I knew Hannah would be in heaven.

Traci arrives and Hannah comes to open the present in the LARGE gift bag.  Out comes a box.  Hannah asks what is in the box.  It looks like some kind of cage.  Then comes a mason jar with an apple slice and bugs in it.  Hannah asks what they are.  They're crickets.  Then out comes..........a toad.  Traci gave Hannah a firebelly toad and you would have thought Hannah had been given the moon.  She immediately fell in love with King Harold.  He currently resides in her room and eats rather well.....accept for tonight.  I forgot to go get more crickets from Pet Smart today.  Better make that a top priority for tomorrow!

Once again Hannah informed us that this was the BEST birthday ever.  She has her own toad.  Note.....do not call it a frog......she'll inform you rather quickly that it's a toad.  I feel the pressure.  This thing better live for at least a month or she'll be devastated!

Happy Birthday Hannah!  You are such a joy to have in our family!  We love you!

Ashley's Preschool Program

Saturday, March 20, was Ashley's preschool program at the Logan High School Auditorium.

We all attended the performance along with Grandma Peterson and Traci!

You could tell the kids had worked so hard to practice these songs.  It was so cute!

Here's a few pictures prior to the start of the program.....

Here's Ashley showing us her flower that she decorated for the program....

Each student introduced themselves...........

Here's the whole group............

Here's one of the many pictures taken of Ashley singing......

Good job Ashley!  You were awesome!

Disney on Ice

On March 13, we headed to the Energy Solutions Arena in Salt Lake City for Disney on ice!  Grandma Peterson arrived in Mendon at 9 a.m., we loaded in the van, and arrived in Salt Lake for the 11 o'clock show.

Which cartoon show was the favorite?

CARS.........

The other shows were Little Mermaid, Lion King, and Tinkerbell but Cars won as our favorite hands down!  We loved Mater!!!

Going into the show it was sprinkling a little rain.  Not too bad though.  During intermission and the trip to the top for some popcorn and drinks we looked outside and saw it was snowing HUGE flakes.  Our walk to the car after the show was in the rain and snow.  Upon reaching the van we were drenched.  Nicole wasn't too sure of the rain running down her head.

We left Salt Lake and headed to Layton for lunch at the Training Table and then home for naps!

Nicole's Surgery

Today was the day for Nicole's surgery.  The day for tubes in her ears.

I think up until yesterday afternoon I was in denial that we were actually going to go through with the surgery.  Nicole was on the tail end of her cold.  She Still had a little runny nose and a bit of a cough.  I thought that they would cancel the surgery.  Boy!  Was I wrong!  At 3:30 p.m. when I found out the surgery was still going to happen, everything turned into a tornado and I sat in the middle wondering what in the world was going on.

Let the craziness begin........

I left the doctor's office and returned to Traci's to help get Hannah ready to go to JC Penney to have her picture taken in her baptism dress.  Thank goodness Traci was willing to start Hannah's hair!

Earlier in the day I had two phone calls from Logan Regional Hospital (LRH) needing information to get Nicole registered for surgery and to get information for the anesthesia.  I put these phone calls on hold until I knew for sure the surgery was going to happen.

At Traci's, I called LRH to find out what time we had to have Nicole there in the morning.  They asked if I had talked to the nurse for anesthesia.  I told them not yet.  That was my next phone call.  They left a message to have her call me because she was with a patient.

I went in to assist in getting Hannah dressed and ready so we could be to pictures at 4:40.  All of a sudden it dawned on me that I needed to figure out what I'm going to do with Hannah and Ashley.  They need to be taken care of while we're at the hospital dealing with Nicole.  I did not leave Mendon prepared for the girls to sleep over at Grandma's so we're going to have to punt.  I also didn't want to wake them up at 6 a.m. and bring them to Grandma.

I left Traci's with Dave keeping the two youngest and asking him to contact the registration department to get Nicole registered for the next morning.  It worked out great that he had to come to Traci's to fix something.  I drove off with Hannah at 4:38 for pictures and told him we'd meet up at my mom's.

After pictures and dinner in town, Hannah and Ashley were left behind with Grandma and we went home with Nicole.  Luckily, Ashley went to Traci's yesterday morning in her pajamas.  Hannah, well she ended up wearing a house coat of my mom's to bed.  I was very thankful that Hannah and Ashley had great attitudes about staying with grandma and being willing to "go with the flow."

Before putting Nicole to bed, Dave gave her a blessing, which was quite a workout.  She DID NOT want to stay on the stool and she DID NOT want Dave's hands touching her.  Good times!

My alarm went off at 5 a.m. this morning.  That's just WAY too early in the morning.  Dave and I got ourselves ready and got Nicole out of her bed at the last minutes and took her straight to the van.  After dropping school clothes off on my mom's doorstep for Hannah and Ashley (again......I was totally unprepared), we arrived at the Surgical Center at 6:30 a.m.

At the Surgical Center, we got all of the paperwork signed, Nicole's weight taken, her pulse and oxygen level checked, her temperature checked, and we were back in a room ready to put her in the gown, hat and socks.  At first, she did not want anything to do with the gown.  After she realized there were kitties on the gown she was all over putting it on.  The socks were OK and she did great with leaving the hat on.

We had some down time while were waiting for her doctor and the anesthesiologist so we started taking pictures of Nicole (she took a few of herself too) and then she drew pictures.  When people started entering the room, she knew something was up so she hunkered down in Dave's arms.

The anesthesiologist took Nicole from us at 7:30 a.m.  This was the part I had been dreading.  I didn't want to hear her cry.  To our amazement she did awesome!  She left without a tear.  That sure made it a lot easier on mom!

The doctor tried to get it set up so we could watch the surgery on TV.  It did not end up being an option so he recorded it for us and gave us a DVD of the surgery.  We haven't watched it yet but we intend to.  Should be interesting!

The doctor came in a little before 8 a.m. and said she was all done and the surgery went well.  He informed us that there was a lot of puss/infection build up behind her ears.  The surgery was something that definitely needed to be done.  Kids with that much fluid behind the ears are usually down to about 50% of hearing.  Poor girl!  We have to make sure we are aggressive with the antibiotic ear drops so all of the infection drains out.

The OR nurse stopped by also to tell us that Nicole was so cute!  She said when she got to the OR and found out that everyone had a hat on like she did she was all smiles.  As they went to put the mask on her with the gas to make her fall to sleep, she asked for her mom (made me feel good).  The nurse told her I'd be there in a minute and she said OK and then was to sleep.

I was chatting with Hannah on the phone at 8:05 and they brought Nicole to us.  She was NOT a happy camper!  They explained to us that for the kids it's like they are trying to wake up from a nightmare and they can't.  She was inconsolable and cried for quite awhile while lying in Dave's arms.  They had the pulse meter on her big toe and she was not happy about that.  She was trying all she could with her other foot to push it off.

Finally, Nicole fell to sleep in Dave's arms and the two of them caught a nap for about 20 minutes.  The next thing we knew Nicole woke up and was totally fine.  She had 1 1/2 cups of apple juice.  Walked to the nurse's station for a Cinderella sticker and said she wanted to go home.  We were discharged around 9:30 a.m.

We had to stop by Kmart to pick up Nicole's ear drops and we were in Mendon at 10:30 a.m.  Since then she has been on the go.  You'd never know anything happened today.  I did get her to take a break for a nap but other than that she's been non-stop.

I'm glad it's over.  Maybe it was better that I was in denial up until the moment because then it all became crazy and I didn't have much time to worry.  Again, I am EXTREMELY thankful that I took her in to be checked.  With her giving us no signs of anything being wrong I have no idea how we would have ever found out.  She must have either gotten use to the muffled sounds or she has a really high tolerance to pain.  Either way I am glad she is on the mend now!