Merry Christmas!

Gabe didn't seem to really care about opening things. He was pretty tame in the morning (which is actually a first for him).


Eva refused to open any gifts until she had ridden her new bike from santa. She had to ride it all over the house. She loves her bike!



Gabe just chillin' and getting ready to go open gifts.

We had our friend take a picture of us the night before at her house. We went over there for dinner. We had a great christmas and now we are just trying to ween Eva off of chocolate and candy. This should be fun...

Ward Christmas Party! Crazy, wild times.

Santa came for a visit at our ward christmas party last weekend. Eva was dreamily gazing at him after he gave her candy. She's the one in the middle with her butt sticking out. She stood like that looking at santa for quite some time. It was so cute.

Gabe on the other hand, was busy downing the drink in daddy's cup. He let both his hands free and just used his teeth to hold the cup. I thought it was so hilarious.

Bringing in the Christmas season with a bang!

Last saturday, a couple of my friends and I, drug our kids out in the cold to the christmas market they have downtown in Wiesbaden. We had a ball. Eva was eating a sour gummy strip and loving it. Gabe just looked bored. We rode on a huge farris wheel and I freaked out. It was taller than the one at lagoon and it scared the crap out of me. Eva was loving it as well as all the other million kids we piled in there.


We've even had a few snow storms. Eva licked the snow off my car, but I didn't get a picture of it. I was too busy laughing.

Ok, I was pretty dang proud of my ginger bread house. My friend Alisha made the actual house and I just decorated it. I'm still proud of it. I was able to get some candy on it before Eva ate everything else. She didn't seem to want to help me decorate it because she was too occupied eating the plethera of candy on the table.

This is what a real gingerbread house looks like! This is actually real too. It was downtown at the christmas market. Pretty awesome if you ask me. However, it makes mine look pretty dang pathetic.

Our fun thanksgiving

Here are some of my friends that were able to come to my house for thanksgiving. From left to right: Elaina Bishop, Lisa Terhune, and Erica Lott (the volleyball player from BYU). We had four adults and 11 children. My other friend Sarah was going to come over too, but she got the flu and was throwing up, so we just had her two girls over. It was such a nice thanksgiving.

I made the best turkey I've ever eaten in my life. It was so tender it just melted off the bone. We had my neighbor come over and carve it because none of us knew how and we had no men here to help out. I forgot to take a picture of the turkey before it was cut, but here's what it looked like after. Lisa made the rolls and they were just like mom's. They were fabulous. I made the turkey, two pies, stuffing from scratch, which I've never done before, and mashed potatoes with stuff in them. They were really good.

Our Studious Son

Gabe is hard at work learning his ABC's (of course, what he's really doing over there is looking for something to put in his mouth). I think it's so cute that he does this. As soon as he sees Eva over there, he crawls over to her and copies what she does. It's awesome.

Nope, apparently it never stops.

Ok, I took the kids into the doctor for their follow-up appointments. Just to get their ears checked out to make sure things were cleared up. Apparently Gabriel isn't the one I need to be worried about. Although, his rash apparently was an allergic reaction to the new meds he was put on for his ear infection. His ear did clear up though. He's on the mend. At least that's what the doc is sayin'. He's still quite fussy and isn't sleeping much, so I don't know what his deal is.

Eva on the other hand is not better. The doctor is concerned about her ears. Her right ear didn't clear up after the heavy dose of medicine and now she has an ear infection in both ears. She's still extremely congested and has a pretty bad cough. She also wanted a urine sample from Eva because she has been complaining that it hurts down there. So, I'm still waiting to see if those test results come back ok. The doctor put her on a different kind of medicine and now she'll have to get tubes put in her ears. I wanted her to have tubes in her ears a long time ago, but our doc doesn't like doing that. Now that she's had eight ear infections, she's finally agreed to refer me to an ENT. It's about time!

Life really bites the big one sometimes. But this too shall pass...hopefully.

Does it ever stop?

Here's my last week in a nutshell:

1. Wednesday the 5th, I took Gabe into the doctor to see if he had an ear infection. Sure enough, he did and was put on Amoxacilin. Not to mention he had a cold and fever to go with it. He had had a cold and cough for about two weeks up until that point.

2. Thursday, Eva's eye starts to get goopy and her cold starts to intensify. She starts to get yellowish-green stuff coming out of the eye, but it's not pink so I'm assuming it's just a cold that settled in her eye and is only viral so she won't need meds.

3. Friday, Gabe starts to get more fussy, even though he's been on the meds since wed. afternoon and his fever spikes to 103.5. Eva's cold gets worse and now the goop is in both eyes, but still not pink.

4. Saturday, Eva starts to complain about her right ear hurting and she gets fussier. Her nose is gross as well as eyes. But, eyes are starting to look a little better. Gabe's fever finally brakes, but he's still really fussy.

5. Saturday evening: Eva goes to bed at 8:00 and wakes up at 10:30 and litterally stays up all night until 5am and sleeps until 7:30. Gabe wakes up at 5:30 for good and is fussy...still, even though he's been on meds now since wed. Eva cried most the night while she was awake.

6. Sunday, I'm running on no sleep at all and Eva starts to complain even more about her right ear. So, we stay home from chruch and wait until my friend is back to call her. I decided to ask my friend Natalie to watch Gabe while I take Eva to the hospital to check on that ear. I would have waited until monday to go see the doctor at the health clinic on base, but I couldn't because it was a training holiday on monday and veterans day was tuesday so the clinic would be closed until wed. I wasn't waiting that long. So, Natalie takes Gabe and I take Eva in to see the german doctor, which by the way is always an experience. We wait two hours to finally see the doctor. She gets very annoyed that Eva is crying so she barely even looks at her. No one bothered to check Eva's vital signs or temperature. The doctor took two seconds to look in her ear and says, "yes, she does have an ear infection but we aren't going to perscribe anything because it doesn't look too bad. But we will give her some antibiotic eye drops for her eyes." Ok, her eyes had looked a lot better by Sunday and I knew she didn't have pink eye. She didn't need the drops. She needed an antibiotic for her dang ear infection! The lady was extremely rude and short with me. I could go on and on about this dang visit, but I won't. Just know that it was much worse than what I'm even saying. Especially since she tried to give Eva a sepository instead of syrup for the pain, even though I told her Eva loves the stupid syrup and would be much better with that. But, doctor refused to believe me until she saw the struggle between myself, the nurse who was administering the sepository, and Eva.

7. Sunday evening: I take Eva with me to go pick up Gabriel from Natalie's. She tells me he was really fussy the whole time I'm gone, but no fever thank heavens. Then I go to put his PJ's on and discover he's got a rash. I figure it's just a heat rash.

8. Monday morning I have a feeling I need to just see if the clinic was open by chance and get a second opinion about Eva's ear. Not to mention the rash on Gabriel had spread and gotten worse. It turned out that the civilian doctor was working that day and had one slot open. I took both kids in even though I only had an appointment for Eva. The doctor freaked out when she looked in Eva's ear. She said if I would have waited one more day, Eva's ear drum would have ruptured. Her ear was buldging apparently. So, she put Eva on some heavy dose of Cefdinir, which is a much stronger antibiotic I guess. Then the doctor actually asked me if she could look at Gabe too because he didn't look good. She said he was dehydrated and if I didn't push more fluids on him, I would have to take him to the hospital that night and get an IV in him. Gabe hasn't been eating much since he got sick. She also said his rash was an allergic reaction to the amoxicilin and that his ear infection still hadn't cleared up. So she perscribed him some Azithromycin.

9. Tuesday, things are beginning to look up. Eva's eyes are looking all better. Neither of them have fevers anymore. Eva still has a cold, but she's not complaining about the ear. Gabe seems a little happier and he's now eating the rest of his bottles. Still not much baby food, but bottles at least.

10. Wednesday I'm beginning to even see the light at the end of the tunnel. Things are looking up. I can begin to get ideas of actually walking outside my house.

11. 5:00am this morning.........Gabe wakes up with this horrid rash. He seems to be happy though. Eva's still doing pretty good even though she woke up from 1-2:30 crying a lot last night and then was up for good at 5:30. Her cold is still gross, but she's pretty happy.

12. 10:30 pm: Gabe woke up about a half hour ago screaming. He's been up ever since and now he's wiggling really funny. I'm keeping him up to keep a closer look at him. He's kind of starting to freak me out a little.

13. See ya later light.

Our Crazy Rash Boy!

Can you guess what kind of rash this is? Let me know when you figure it out. I'm still trying to guess. You might have to click on the pictures individually to see the rash.

Pictures from our night out trick-or-treating

Elise, Eva and Nathan out trick-or-treating. Eva has a crush on Nathan.


Gabe and Wyatt. These two were due two days apart, but Wyatt was five weeks early. It's so fun watching the two of them grow up together. I just wish we weren't moving away from them.

Eva fell asleep before we even left to go trick-or-treating. She was so excited, she wore herself out. It was so funny. She was using the hood (the head of the frog) for a pillow.

Gabe is Bob the tomato from the veggie tales. Isn't it cute?

Halloween party pics

These two girls are my neighbor girls. Their mom Sarah is my really good friend. Eva loves these girls. Notice Eva on the floor.


This was at our ward halloween party. They had the kids line up for a costume compitition. The little gilr in the joker's costume won. She's way cute.



The little boy in the army outfit kept shooting all the other kids with his gun. He definately had the right cotume for it.

Eva was telling me to go away in this pic. She was too busy watching Dora to look at the camera. P.S. She's a frog. You can't really see the head of her costume real well. I have more pictures coming. I'm taking her trick-or-treating tonight. These pics were from last weekend. And I promise to get some of Gabe.

Poor, Tired Gabe

We were eating dinner the other night and I looked over and found Gabe dosing off. So I said, "Hello Gabe" and he immediately piped up and gave me this funny wide awake smile.

After another second, I turned my head and he started to stare off. He kept giving my friend Laura this really dirty look. It was hilarious. He was just staring her down. Then he slowly started dozing off again. It was funny to see how fast he went from sleep, wide awake and happy, to mean and staring, then back to sleep.


And this is how it all ended. Isn't he cute?

Fall fun continued....

I thought these geese were fake when we first drove by them, but they're not. I just thought it was so funny to see them purched there. There was a gray cat sitting right next to one of them but I couldn't get the picture in time before it jumped down. They are on a wall of some beautiful german house up in the vineyards.

Some random town not far from Mainz, Germany.

Can anyone see the gargoils? They are totally awesome! There were three different sun dials on this chruch too.

Enjoying the beautiful fall weather in Germany

Answers to Gilly's "Tag"

1. Favorite TV shows to watch:
a. Grey's Anatomy
b. Top Chef
c. Project Runway
d. The Office
e. So you think you can dance
f. American Idol (especially the first few episodes)

2. Things that happened today:
a. woke up at 4:00 because my stupid cell phone was running out of battery so it was beeping.
b. woke up again at 4:20 because Gabe decided to be difficult and wake up for good, bright eyed and bushy tailed.
c. got the kids ready, packed a bag, and drove to the airfield to go work out. I dropped the kids off at the daycare and I went and took my favorite class-Zumba.
d. Came home, got a quick shower, fed the kids, packed a new bag, drove to my friend's house and we all went swimming for three hours.
e. came home, changed, ate dinner, got the kids ready for bed, played with them on the floor, read a little from my awesome book, and now typing this.
f. what a fun life I lead huh? Kids, kids, and more kids.

3. Favorite places to eat:
a. this little german resturaunt at the top of a mountain in Eppstein Germany. It has the best stake in the world!!!
b. Hubbland-an awesome greek restaraunt in Wurzburg Germany.
c. Cafe-Rio
d. Z-tejas
e. the Cheesecake Factory

4. Things I'm looking forward to:
a. Hans coming home!!! in one and a half months!!!!!
b. Hans coming home
c. Hans coming home
e. meeting my goal weight. I'm half way there!
f. Hans coming home

5. Things on my wish list:
a. Hans
b. Hans
c. Hans
d. Hans
e. new clothes
f. new body to go with those clothes
h. to go back to school and get a degree
i. a maid

There you go Gillian. That's fun. Did you catch the theme going on in this? I MISS HANS!!!

Happy 2nd Birthday to Eva!

I can't believe it was already 2 years ago that Eva was born. It doesn't seem like we've had her for that long. I'm still feeling the pain from her birth. :) This smile was when we were all singing happy birthday to her. She was loving the attention.

She's totally lovin' the fire. (of course, she wouldn't put her bread down either)

Blowin' out the candles.

Havin' a taste test first.

Ugggh. I'm so full! But it was totally worth it!

Our fun this week.

This is Eva's sacred blanket. I was in the other room for a minute and came back in to discover that Eva had gotten out of the tub, found her blanket, and climbed back in with it. She was so happy. I was going to take a picture of the water after the blanket had gotten completely submurged, but I was too embarrassed at how brown it became. She never lets me wash the dang thing, so I was kind of grateful she put it in there with her. At least it got washed...sort of. Of course, I had to get her out of the tub because it ended up making her more dirty than before she got in it. Then she freaked out because I wouldn't let her drag her "B" everwhere around the house soaking wet. I had to eventually hide it from her while it was drying because she kept trying to get back in the tub to get it.


This has got to be one of my favorite pictures ever. Too bad it turned out a little fuzzy. A couple things about this picture...I'm a bad mom and let them watch "educational" TV shows. hee hee hee. This is how I found the two of them the other day. She has clothes on under that soccar jersey, but she just loves that big shirt. It actually belongs to the neighbor girl who is eight, so it drowns her. She borrowed it for PJ's one night and that was it! She fell in love. She where's it around the house over her other clothes. She won't play dress-up with all the cute little tu-tu's she has, but she loves this dang thing. What's wrong with my girl? Then, the fact that she's using Gabe's belly as a pillow? She's a total nut. What's even funnier is that Gabe loves it! She sits on him when he's in his carseat and I hear him laughing his head off, not crying that she's on him. He loves to play with her hair too. It's so cute. They really love each other. They sat like this for quite some time that day.

These two pics are of them just chillin' together again. And, of course, it was while they were watching dora. Eva has really gotten into Dora the Explorer. Are any of your kids into her? I think she also has a major crush on Diego. Gabe just rolls over next to her and hangs out. How do you like all the folded laundry I didn't put away for two days? It just sat in the living room for two days until I was tired of refolding it because Gabe kept destroying the piles.


Doesn't she look so grown up? She's changed so much since Hans has been gone. It's crazy how much she's grown.