Joshua's sleepover

We've had fun during this break from school and "normal" life. Dusty has been home from work for a couple weeks and of course Joshua is on holiday break from school. My best girl friend, Tyrell is still on maternity leave so we've been having playdates galore! Tyrell's little girl is Joshua's best friend. They've been the best of friends for the past 3.5 years (or is it 4.5?)

I think I've already mentioned that Joshua and Kirstin thought they were married for awhile after Dusty and my wedding since they walked down the aisle together. Here are a couple pictures of them at the wedding..








Anyway, Kirstin stayed the night a couple nights ago and they had a blast. We picked her up and brought her here. They played their Nintendo DS's together and then settled in to watch the movie Hook.




Poor Kirstin woke up when the babies got up. joshua is used to the girls waking up early and it doesn't phase him any...

see...




I LOVE this picture of them! I hope they stay the best of friends for life. MAYBE.. just MAYBE, Kirstin will end up being my daughter-in-law!

We now have 2 walkers!

Samantha has been walking pretty well for about a week now. Addison had shown interest in walking first, a couple months ago, but has never really seemed comfortable with letting go. Today, she let go and walked about 4 steps. Within 5 minutes she was almost running from one side of the living room to the other!!

Both girls love the attention they get when they walk. We cheer them on all the way! Go baby girls!!

Merry Christmas!

We had a wonderful holiday. On Christmas Eve we went to Dusty's cousin's house, where the whole family gathers. We had a great time. I don't have pictures but I've been promised that some will be emailed to me. One of the cousins dressed as Santa and passed out some gifts to the kids and candy to the adults.

He didn't phase the girls one bit. They seemed so over the whole Santa thing =). Joshua, however, stared him up and down. He got his gift, hugged Santa and then came over and whispered to Dusty and I "that is NOT the real Santa" We asked how he could tell..."look at his shoes, those are real people shoes NOT boots"

oh my goodness..details... we just laughed and explained to him that Santa was already busy on the other side of the world delivering presents to children that are asleep right now so he had to send his helpers to visit people over here. He bought it.. for now anyway.

The kids made out like bandits there, thank you Pam, Tina and Nancy!

After there we headed to my dad's house for our traditional Christmas Eve get together. The kids were so well behaved all day. I'm so proud of them all. Here are some pictures to sum up our evening at Bampa's house.











Christmas morning was great too. Joshua was in AWE at the gifts Santa left. The girls didn't understand but they certainly enjoyed playing. Aunt Dena and cousin Arika stopped over to give the kids gifts too. It was nice to see them on Christmas. Thanks guys! Our living room was trashed!!

Guess what Dusty and I did today (the day AFTER Christmas) ? We took a trip to Target for toy organizers!

Santa Claus

We actually went to see him at Joshua's school about a week or so ago. I've had a hard time getting the picture to scan. It's terrible quality- not sure what is wrong with my scanner.

The reaction was pretty much what we expected. Addison was pretty much fine and Samantha wanted out of there!! Joshua doesn't look thrilled either but that's probably because he had to kneel down. After the picture, he was able to climb up on Santa's lap and ask for a remote control car... WHAT?! Why is this the first I'm hearing of THAT! Oh boy...scrambling around for a remote control car....wish me luck!

So much to catch up on...birthday parties, illness, waterparks..

Whew! It's been awhile.

This will be a quick run down of what has been happening here. Joshua turned 6 years old on November 26th! What a big boy! To celebrate, we took him to a local indoor water park. This year, we took along his best friend Kirstin. He lovingly refers to her as his wife.

See, when Dusty and I got married almost 2 years ago, Kirstin was the flower girl and Joshua was our ring bearer, so they walked down the aisle together. For awhile, they thought they were actually married to each other. Cute!

So anyway, Kirstin stayed the night with us the night before and we got up early and headed to the water park. It was an awesome time. For the first few hours, there were only about 10 people in the entire place. Even at it's busiest, there were maybe 30 people. Both kids had a blast. We bought a waterproof disposable camera. The shots came out TERRIBLE! I don't recommend them AT ALL. Save your money. At least I have some pictures on my cell phone that came out OK. We're having some problems with our computer right now, so I can't share any of those pictures.

A few days after we went to the water park, we had the girl's 1st birthday party. I have those pictures already uploaded so I can share some of them. The girls had a great time. I was afraid they might get overwhelmed but they didn't. They ate up the attention!















The following weekend was their actual birthday. The poor girls got sick almost immediately after their party. I believe the next day. They were puking and Addison had terrible diarrhea. It seemed to get better and then get worse again. Finally, on their birthday, I couldn't take it anymore. I called our doctor's after hours phone number. She called back almost immediately and said that Samantha needed to go to the ER due to excessive puking and lack of wet diapers. She said we might as well take Addison in too.

Addison threw up in the waiting room. Luckily they got us back pretty quickly. We waited for maybe 10-15 minutes. Samantha was running a 103.5 temp and Addison's was 99.6. They gave Samantha some motrin and then took us to their beds. Samantha didn't last long in her bed before a nurse came and moved her to her own room. She needed more attention. They were really concerned for her. She ended up getting a cath to check her urine, which came back negative. They also had to give her an IV. That was HORRIBLE!. They also did some bloodwork. Her white blood cell count was really high so they knew she had some sort of infection. Because the level was so high, they ended up doing a spinal tap. That, too, came back negative, thank God!

We were sent home about 7hrs later with a script for amoxicillian. Addison was released after about 2 hours. She was fine, just a virus that needed to work it's way out of her system. We had a follow up 3 days later with our doctor. The girls showed definite improvements but still weren't 100%. They both had lost a pound each. We go back in 2 weeks to complete their 1 year well baby exam.

Today, both girls seem to be 100%. They are back to their normal happy selves.