I am finally back to blogging and there is so much to catch up on! After returning from our trip to Michigan for Christmas, our family has been plagued with one sickness after another, we've had numerous doctor appointments and after I finally recovered I have been in a MASSIVE organizational binge. Of course Christmas brought us home with even more toys for our already overflowing toy room and I am in the midst of a major overhaul. For the first time, I am boxing up tons of toys that the girls don't play with and since I have finally put together the organizational units that I bought before Christmas I am beyond excited to get things in order. Therefore, the blog has been on the backburner. I had hundreds of pictures from our trip and I just picked some to highlight the trip.
To sum up our trip in one sentence it was 10 days jam packed with fun-filled events (that left us all exhausted:), with a horrible day in the middle. I will tell the story of our trip through the pictures below. However, we had one horrible day (Dec. 22nd) in which Anna went to bed the night before feeling fine but she cried all night long. We knew she wasn't feeling the best because she cried every hour or so for 30 seconds and then would fall back asleep. We never checked on her because she kept falling back to sleep. In the morning when I picked her up out of the pack n play she was heaving and proceeded to throw up two times. It was evident that she felt HORRIBLE. All she wanted to do was sleep and so I decided I would hunker down for the day with her and she fell asleep on the couch with me. I figured she had a bit of a fever but didn't give her meds because she was puking and I frankly didn't want to wake her up to take her temperature. About an hour later she started smacking her lips funny and when I picked her up she was completely unresponsive with her eyes to the side. I could not get her to respond to me and I realized quickly she was having a seizure. I was at home with my mom and Emma (who thankfully was completely oblivious to everything and was watching cartoons.) I called 911 for an ambulance that didn't arrive for almost 30 minutes (volunteer firemen arrived in about 25 but they couldn't do anything without the ambulance. When the firefighters kept asking over and over "where is the ambulance?" it was evident that our poor baby was in bad shape!!!! Her symptoms gradually worsened as time passed. At first she was just lip smacking, then her arm was twitching and by the time she got into the ambulance her left arm and leg were violently thrashing and she was starting to foam a bit at the mouth. I rode in the ambulance to the hospital (where 3 people were in the back working on her - 2 EMS and 1 firefighter) and it was another 10 minutes before they administered meds and had the seizure stopped. This means it lasted a total of almost 40 minutes. Worst 40 minutes of my life. Sitting back and watching my beautiful baby lose control of her body and seize that long and not being able to do anything about it was unimagineable. Not sure how I made it through it to be honest.
We arrived at the Midland hospital and the ER MD said immediately that she couldn't stay at that hospital because they weren't equipped for a serious pediatric case like Anna's. So we stayed about 20 minutes and took the 2 hour ambulance ride to U of M Mott Children's Hospital, where it all started last April. We were comfortable going there because they have all of her medical records and we have a neurologist there that knows Anna. We ended up staying there for the day in the ER and they took a CT scan to make sure there weren't any structural changes to her brain. The results were normal and since she started waking up at the end of the day and more or less acting like herself they said that they couldn't do much more for her. Long day and we were more than happy to go home. We now know that Anna will be prone to seizure with fever (fever lowers the seizure threshold in kids who are prone to seizures) and we have to be extremely diligent about keeping a close eye on her temperature and giving motrin or tylenol ASAP at first signs of fever. We have to try to keep her away from sick kids (but seriously she can't live in a bubble and she has an older sister!) as well. We are prepared now and I refused to leave the hospital without rescue medication. We have a Diazepam shot to give her in case she has another seizure lasting more than 5 minutes so that we don't have to go through that long of a seizure ever again (just when we were really hoping to never see another seizure at all again:(. Anyway, the poor little girl literally slept for two days straight. She was wiped out!! On a positive note, she has completely bounced back. She is getting to be a pro at walking and occasionally tries to run! She is understanding more and more everyday which is so much fun to see. (She has had a relentless runny nose for over a week and I love the fact that I can wipe her nose and give her the tissue and say "Go throw it in the trash" and she does!) She shrugs her shoulders and puts her hand up to say "all done" whenever we are done eating or done doing other things. She also has one new trick that I am going to try to video tape and post later in the week. Stay tuned.
We had a nice New Year's at a friends house in the neighborhood. We cooked dinner, played cards, had drinks, and watched the ball drop. Emma had a great time playing with their little girl Hannah and they went to bed late. We are excited to begin a new year and hope it brings all of you happy, healthy times!
We started the week with a quick visit to Lansing to visit Great Grandpa Bill. He has unfortunately had some difficulty with his health recently and is currently in hospice care. Family is trying to find the best placement for him - some days are good and some days are bad. He had a great time seeing the girls. If only Emma would have looked at the camera.
Grammy with the girls
Grammy with the girls
We then packed up and went to Nana and Papa's. Uncle Seth, Aunt Jenny, Kole and Sydney were there for the visit and Santa decided to make an early appearance:)
Anna is wondering what everyone is doing with those presents?
Snuggle time with Kole and Emma. We are so working on that thumb sucking thing right now - I fear it will be a very long process to wean her from it.
We then took a trip to Frankenmuth with all of Jay's family to the indoor waterpark for a couple days. It was so much fun and we also managed to do some shopping at Bronner's - I could have spent a whole day there. The kids had a great time visiting Santa all together!
Nana and Papa with the kids 
Not one of the 4 kids is actually looking at the camera. Really not a shocker to me.
Fun times in the waterpark
Emma and Kole on the kiddie slide
Anna was all smiles too! She loved the water and even went down a couple slides. Her favorite part by far was the lazy river where she just sat in our lap and enjoyed the ride.
Emma on the other hand loved the big slides. She wasn't scared at all and even went down them alone. By the end she even went on the scary covered, dark slides with us.
Uncle Seth and Kole. Love that Kole ALWAYS had this scared look on his face but would immediately ask to go down again. The kids had a great time.
Does it get any cuter?
Nana and Papa bundled up with the kids to take an outside walk around Bronner's to see all of the lights.
We then packed up and headed back to Grandma and Grandpa's. Emma loves the lego table and always wants to build a tower. After she went to bed one night Grandpa and I decided we would build her a tower even bigger than her. Of course we have Buzz Lightyear at the very top - "To Infinity and Beyond!" She loved it.
Emma loves to help in the kitchen. She couldn't wait to help decorate the Christmas cookies.
Anna was baptized at the Christmas Eve service. Unfortunately, she was exhausted still from her seizure and napped up until the service. Our pictures, therefore, had to be taken after and she just was not having it. She was so tired! We didn't get very many good ones. Anyway, she was absolutely beautiful and we are excited to have her baptized and part of God's family!
After the service we went back to Nana and Papa's to celebrate Christmas with the extended family. Here is Great Grandpa Jay with Kole and Emma.
Sweet Sydney was so exhausted from the day that she fell asleep eating dinner. How adorable!
Then back to Grandma and Grandpa's to sleep and wake up to Santa's special surprises Christmas morning. Here Emma is dumping out her reindeer food in hopes that Rudolph will land. Although Christmas is usually a stressful, busy time for us with all of the travel and busy schedules, it is so much fun to see how magical Christmas is through the eyes of a child. I pray it will forever be etched in my memory how excited Emma is for Santa and Rudolph and all the reindeer to come and visit her house. LOVE IT!
Out of nowhere Emma is super excited to write ALL the time. She can now do her name, all of our names ("mom", "dad", and "Anna"), and just the other day wrote "Love" all by herself without even asking how to spell it! She was excited to write Santa a letter and sign it all by herself.
Christmas morning
Emma's stack of gifts. She is one lucky girl!!
A family tradition of reading The Polar Express at Christmas.
The next day we headed to Lansing again to celebrate with our extended family and Great Grandpa Bill. Here he is with all of his great grandchildren. Emma, Anna, and Owen.
Emma sporting the silly hat that lights up and sings.
Grandpa Big John with the silly hat. Great pic grandpa!
Grandpa Bill with all four of his grandkids. My brother Ryan and I in back and our cousins Betsy and Evan in front.
Ahh we have now returned home to Virginia and it feels oh so good to get back into our regular schedule. The girls were sooo excited to get some snow the other day (only about 1 or 2 inches and it was all melted the next day) so I had to bundle them up and go out and play. Emma made a million snow angels and we even built a snowman. Anna was adorable all bundled up walking around. I didn't put her snowpants on at first because I didn't think she would like it, but I was very wrong. We had to come right in after these pictures and put them on because she wanted to roll around in the snow!
Girls are loving the snow!
Snow angels
Not one of the 4 kids is actually looking at the camera. Really not a shocker to me.
Fun times in the waterpark
Emma and Kole on the kiddie slide
Anna was all smiles too! She loved the water and even went down a couple slides. Her favorite part by far was the lazy river where she just sat in our lap and enjoyed the ride.
Emma on the other hand loved the big slides. She wasn't scared at all and even went down them alone. By the end she even went on the scary covered, dark slides with us.
Uncle Seth and Kole. Love that Kole ALWAYS had this scared look on his face but would immediately ask to go down again. The kids had a great time.
Does it get any cuter?
Nana and Papa bundled up with the kids to take an outside walk around Bronner's to see all of the lights.
We then packed up and headed back to Grandma and Grandpa's. Emma loves the lego table and always wants to build a tower. After she went to bed one night Grandpa and I decided we would build her a tower even bigger than her. Of course we have Buzz Lightyear at the very top - "To Infinity and Beyond!" She loved it.
Emma loves to help in the kitchen. She couldn't wait to help decorate the Christmas cookies.
Anna was baptized at the Christmas Eve service. Unfortunately, she was exhausted still from her seizure and napped up until the service. Our pictures, therefore, had to be taken after and she just was not having it. She was so tired! We didn't get very many good ones. Anyway, she was absolutely beautiful and we are excited to have her baptized and part of God's family!
After the service we went back to Nana and Papa's to celebrate Christmas with the extended family. Here is Great Grandpa Jay with Kole and Emma.
Sweet Sydney was so exhausted from the day that she fell asleep eating dinner. How adorable!
Then back to Grandma and Grandpa's to sleep and wake up to Santa's special surprises Christmas morning. Here Emma is dumping out her reindeer food in hopes that Rudolph will land. Although Christmas is usually a stressful, busy time for us with all of the travel and busy schedules, it is so much fun to see how magical Christmas is through the eyes of a child. I pray it will forever be etched in my memory how excited Emma is for Santa and Rudolph and all the reindeer to come and visit her house. LOVE IT!
Out of nowhere Emma is super excited to write ALL the time. She can now do her name, all of our names ("mom", "dad", and "Anna"), and just the other day wrote "Love" all by herself without even asking how to spell it! She was excited to write Santa a letter and sign it all by herself.
Christmas morning
Emma's stack of gifts. She is one lucky girl!!
A family tradition of reading The Polar Express at Christmas.
The next day we headed to Lansing again to celebrate with our extended family and Great Grandpa Bill. Here he is with all of his great grandchildren. Emma, Anna, and Owen.
Emma sporting the silly hat that lights up and sings.
Grandpa Big John with the silly hat. Great pic grandpa!
Grandpa Bill with all four of his grandkids. My brother Ryan and I in back and our cousins Betsy and Evan in front.
Ahh we have now returned home to Virginia and it feels oh so good to get back into our regular schedule. The girls were sooo excited to get some snow the other day (only about 1 or 2 inches and it was all melted the next day) so I had to bundle them up and go out and play. Emma made a million snow angels and we even built a snowman. Anna was adorable all bundled up walking around. I didn't put her snowpants on at first because I didn't think she would like it, but I was very wrong. We had to come right in after these pictures and put them on because she wanted to roll around in the snow!
Girls are loving the snow!
Snow angelsVideo of Emma opening her new Bitty baby. She is totally in love with her (she named her "Daisy"). She has been busy these past couple weeks changing her diapers, pushing her in her new stroller and putting her to bed in her very own crib every night.
There was only one day in Michigan in which we got a skiff of snow. Emma was dying to make snow angels and had to have Uncle Seth come outside with her. He did not participate in making the snow angels - party pooper:)
sexy little pink panties Anna is wearing, she wouldn't have them on for long if I had her alone I love them that age, love thepu--y tasting of pee, the lovely soft, moist, tight feel of fingering it
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