No More Annie's Playing on her Bed

Annie is our sweet little princess, she is also a Klutz!!!! Annie has always been the one who can fall walking in an empty room. On Tuesday afternoon she was playing in her bedroom and had set up all her My Little Ponies on her bed and was entertaining her self. She dropped a pony off the side of her bed and reached over to get it and fell and hit her face on the metal bed frame of her bed. She ended up not needing stitches but she still had us worried. We are really fortunate out here to have made some really nice friends. One of them Kim, has a little boy Conner, who is in Charlie's class at school and does Karate with him is an emergency room nurse. She was so kind and came over and checked Annie out for us.

I am sure as the kids get bigger there will be lots more bumps and bruises, but knock on lots of wood,we hope it doesn't happen too often!

plight of the first born

So earlier this week we were watching an old rerun of America's Funniest Home Video and the kids asked if we could make movies like that. John & I quickly felt that guilt you have when you realize that you haven't even dug out the video camera once for your third child and you only have a few short videos of your second - but is been so long she doesn't even know you have one. Well this inspired us to dig ours out and we have had fun this week video tapping the kids.

It was also fun to go back and watch old videos of Charlie (and the few of Annie). It is amazing how quickly he has gone from being our little tiny baby to the big boy he is now. Not to mention how much I think his sister Audrey looks like him.

We had a great week, everyone seems over whatever ailment hit our house and the weather , while still cold has been clear and beautiful so we have spent time outside and at the park during the week. Yesterday as I was vacuuming my car Charlie pulled the girls up and down the street in their wagon. It is so nice to live in a neighborhood where I didn't worry about it at all. I would go out to check on them every few minutes and more often than not, the kids would be stopped and talking with a neighbor who was walking by.

We have a free day today so I am not sure what we are going to be doing, we talked about running some errands and spending the day together which can always be fun. Tomorrow Tim, Tash & the girls are coming over for dinner and to finally exchange our Christmas presents with each other - seriously someone has been sick since Christmas (& they got home from Spokane). It is always fun to watch the cousins play together, especially all 4 little girls.

Well, I think the children are hungry and want breakfast!

Time Flies

It seems like the girls just got over ear infections the week of New Years and now they have some sort of flu bug. Audrey had it first and is better, but she spent 3 days curled up in my lap. Annie is perking up today after being under the weather since Saturday and tonight before dinner Charlie was curled under a blanket shivering so I think he is just coming down with it. We have been very lucky this year that everyone has been so healthy. It seems like we are making up for it this month!

I went to a bridal shower for my friend Diane this weekend. She is going to India next month to get married. I am so excited for her. She is going to have a traditional Hindu wedding ceremony. I can't wait to see all her pictures and hear about her trip.

Charlie did the funniest thing last weekend. John was on the computer and Charlie comes walking in talking on the telephone. This is the conversation as John hears.

Charlie: "I would like the animal magazines and stickers. No, you don't need to talk to my mom and dad, I have money. I will give it to you and you send me the animal things."

Apparently Charlie saw an infomerical for a kids magazine and decided he wanted it. Being the smart boy he is he paused the TV show he was watching, wrote down the number and decided to call it himself. I didn't even realize he knew how to use the phone!

We also went of a fun drive 2 weekends ago now. We ran to Jackson to run some errands and on the way home we saw a bunch of cars driving past us covered in snow so we decided to head the opposite direction from our house. About 25 miles from where we live is a town called Pine Grove (it is up off HWY 88) and it was covered in snow! We didn't realize we lived that close to an altitude that would get snow. But we stopped and let the kids get out and play in it for a few minutes. It was great until they realized their sweatshirts really weren't warm enough. Even Audrey thought the snow was neat though and loved feeling it fall on her face.

Audrey has learned how to say "AHHHNNEEE" it is very cute as she will walk around looking for Annie and calling her.

Other than the kids being sick, life is going well. Charlie signs up for Tee-ball this week. John and Dante are going to coach his team so it should be fun for all three of them!

End of Christmas Break

Well we are almost to the end of Charlie's first Christmas break. It has been a busy few weeks for us. The first Sunday Charlie had off for his break I took him to Kaiser as he had been coughing non-stop all morning (he had been coughing for a month or so at night off and on with out it turning into anything). At Kaiser the urgent care Dr. told us he has asthma that presents itself by coughing (he doesn't start wheezing and loose his breath). Well, the next day was Christmas Eve and Charlie woke John and I up at 3:00 am having a coughing fit that wouldn't stop. I took him to the ER where he got a breathing treatment luckily he was fine and he hasn't had anymore.

Both girls have had bad colds with runny noses and double ear infections over the last week so we have stayed close to home. We were going to have Tim, Tash & the twins over on New Year's Eve for a game night and slumber party but between our girls being sick and the twins being sick also we called it off. We spent a quiet night at home - and celebrated New Years on East Coast time!

On New Years day we finally broke in Audrey's wagon and took the kids to the park. Annie and Audrey love the swings and I think they spent most of their time in them.

Yesterday everyone seemed to be feeling better and I took the kids to a fun bounce house place that they loved in Galt. Even Audrey loved jumping on the inflatables and playing with all the toys they had for toddlers. Annie must have gone on the carousel 25 times and Charlie loved getting to play on all the arcade games.

Today I was going to take the kids to the movies but we were hit with a nasty storm in Northern California. Our power went out around 8:45 and didn't come back on until after 3:00. Luckily it did come back on, our newspaper is reporting that over 50,000 Smud customers in the Sacramento area will be without power overnight. I spent the day finding all our flashlights and candles just in case. About half of our back fence blew over during the storm, the kids would run up to me as a new section would fall and tell me about it. So with the weather this nasty we just hung out at home and the kids spent the day playing with all their Christmas toys.

Next week life gears back up in full force. Charlie goes back to kindergarten and Karate and Annie goes back to preschool and Ballet.