I love having this little girl!

She makes me smile and laugh everyday. She is such a delight!

We tried something different with her hair today, it lasted about 15 minutes.

I bought this cute little straightener, it is tiny, so you can toss it in your purse and have for touch-ups, I guess. I don't carry a straightener in my bag, I promise, I just thought it would be perfect for Kyrie. It doesn't even get hot enough to do anything to my hair, but just the right temp and size for our little miss. I saw it one day at the store and thought it would be perfect for her as she gets a little older, but then thought what if they discontinue them or something, so I purchased it that day and have had it for awhile and decided to try it on her. It worked perfect for taming her tight little curls.

Day of the Irish

I love celebrating the little Holidays, I guess I somehow have to make up for not liking Christmas. The little holidays are so much easier and funner for me. Last year St. Patrick's Day was a huge deal (mostly thanks to Dusty's kindergarten teacher). Dusty made a Leprechaun trap, and on March 18th, he was already planning how he could make a better one for this year to catch that little green guy. About 4 months ago he told me he knew how he was going to make it. But since then, I guess he had forgotten all about it.

The kids started the day off with some green oatmeal with raisins and some green milk.
And for dinner we tried a new dish for the first time: corned beef and cooked cabbage. We also had parsley potatoes and pistachio salad. One of Hayden's teachers told me how they have this meal every year on St. Patrick's Day and I thought we should give it a try, so she told me how to prepare it. The corned beef was really different for me, it has it's own smell, texture and taste but it was yummy, especially with mustard! I had purchased a 4 lb chunk of the meat, and it shriveled up to only 1/4th of it's original size. I was shocked! There was not much meat at all from that 4 pounder. This picture is of Chris's plate and he got almost 1/2 of the brisket. We may try it again next year. I just have to try to get used to the smell while it is cooking.

I tried

I had this fun little idea to make some cute little cake pops to help celebrate St. Patricks Day tomorrow.

I don't know what I did wrong with the outer coating, maybe I over heated it or something?
This was my first attempt, funny looking and it slid right down the stick.

I made a second attempt with some more coating and WaLA! I did it! I made 3 cute cake pops, 1 for each of my children (SORRY CHRIS)! I had this idea to make a whole bunch and share with some friends and neighbors. But I guess they will get nothing, I quit after 3, it's just not my thing!

What to do with these? Maybe the kids will eat 1 or 2, maybe not!

A favorite

Playing cars has always been a favorite for Dusty, ever since he was teeny tiny he was making car sounds. If it is a form of transportation or has wheels, he loves it and can't get enough. He has a few hundred cars and I think he knows every single detail about every one, including which kind of tires they have. He spends hours and hours playing. Hayden plays as well, but I'm not so sure it is really his interest, I think he plays because his brother does, and sometimes his brother begs him to and he feels bad and gives in, and he is a pretty good sport about it.

On Sunday we sluffed church because of a couple of sickies. Chris was not feeling well and Ky had a cold, the croup, was cutting 4 teeth and had not slept much for 2 days/nights. Kyrie seemed to need to be attached to her mother for a few days, so that was my excuse to stay home. It was actually nice to be forced to sit back and relax a little. Anyway, so we stayed home from church and the boys played cars ALL DAY LONG! Seriously all day. They were playing before breakfast, and it was kinda a war getting them to bed because they still wanted to play - CARS! They took a couple of breaks to eat, but I swear they scarfed down their food and RAN back upstairs to their cars. I know it was serious though, they did have some cars that were unconscious, I guess that's why they were in a hurry.

They usually build a building or a garage or something, but this time they built a town. Here are just a few pictures of the town, and the few choice cars that were selected for the day.

I love listening to how they play. They pretty much play every aspect of life, they play "house" with their cars. Sometimes they race, sometimes they are families with babies, they go to hospitals, they get fed fruitsnacks! The babies have cottonballs to sleep on, there are security cop cars at the mall. The male cars go to work, and I have heard their boss, I'm glad I don't have to work there! Just recently I heard a mother car get a phone call from her child's Elementary school saying her child was in the nurses's office because he was dizzy. (I just got a phone call from our school nurse a couple of weeks ago for that very reason). The cars also go to jail, they play pretty much anything with cars, they play cops, doctor, cowboy, other than sports, I've never seen him line them up for a soccer game. I love how my boys play!

Bowling

A couple of weekends ago Chris decided to take us bowling, the kids have only asked and waited for like 2 years to go. They finally were able to try it out for the first time!
Almost a strike! Looks like a spare. Dusty caught on really fast. Hayden did better using a litlle magggigger thingy that he would set his ball on and gently push it off. It took forever for the his bowling ball to get to the pins, but at least it extended our fun!

Here is Dusty waiting for his 10 lb ball to come up. He wouldn't use the 6 lb ball they gave him, or even the 8 pounder, he needed to show off his muscles I guess. The boys both did really good and we all had bunches of fun (except for Ky - she was unhappy until she spotted another baby). And I won both games! I wanted to take a picture of the scoreboard to show the boys first bowling game, but my camera barely had enough juice to take the few pics that I did get. I also got a new pair of fun striped socks out of the deal, I didn't know we were going to go bowling and was wearing my flip-flops so Chris dropped me off at a store - I love fun socks!

We wanted to go for a ride

I had some fun plans for the weekend, after just a quick visit at Gordmans and Sams Club, we were going to head home for some lunch and then a bike ride to the park. Dusty Boy changed all that, although we did still sneak in some fun rides! Here is the story: I will first back track a week, last Friday night he was complaining of a lot of chest pains and it started to hurt really bad so we decided to have him checked out at the ER. They found nothing cardiac related and suggested it was possibly due to chest wall inflamation from a virus. He recovered from the pain and had a good week. Well, yesterday I took Ky and Dusty with me to get a few things and a few minutes after walking into the store Dusty asked "why are my hands blue?" I looked and sure enough he had No normal skin color on his hands, they were completely bluish-gray, and so were his lips. I noticed he seemed to be breathing fine, so I just rubbed his hands for a few seconds and didn't know what to do. About 2 minutes later he was holding on to the shopping cart tightly and started screaming "I'm cold, my whole body is cold" and he instantly started acting funny and didn't make sense and then passed out. I was in a panic and didn't know what to think. It wasn't the passing out that scared me, we are very experienced at that at our house, but usually there is an apparent reason (we are wimps when it comes to seeing blood, stitches, hearing medical stories and even losing teeth). So not knowing what was causing this, and him having recent chest pain I asked an associate right there to call the ambualnce. The first responders arrived and loaded us up in the ambulance and pulled away. Chris and Hayden got there just as we were leaving and followed behind. At the emergency room they ran a whole bunch of tests, they did some blood tests, an EKG, a chest x-ray and because he continued to pass out, a brain scan. They pretty much found nothing (thank goodness nothing scary showed up!). But they wanted him to be monitored overnight and have yet another test done by the cardiologist. So they told us they notified transportation to move us down to PSL. So we were thinking they were finding someone to move us to a regular room, but we soon sound out that PSL is a different hospital and transportation would be yet another ambulance ride. Well, we got to our new room and got all comfy/cozy for the night. He had us really worried about his heartrate hovering at about 159 bpm when normal for him would be between 60 and 90 bpm. The nurses said it wasn't good, but it also wasn't critical yet. But it was too high for me to relax. I stayed in the hospital with him where we got some special bonding time between just the two of us. Chris was back and forth between home and the hosptial. After some ups and downs, a whole bunch of dizziness, cuddles and kisses (which Dusty didn't wipe off, so I had to take advantage of and kiss him bunches ) he is now doing much better. He was doing much better this morning and after a visit with the cardiologist, it was decided he didn't need the other test. Both the cardiologist and the pediatrician explained a reason for what happened and they both decided it was all caused from a virus. I don't know who's opinion of the rest of it is accurate, or if either, but I like the cardiologist's opinion better than the pediatrician's, it made the most sense to me so that is the one I am going with. He said even though Dusty felt fine all morning, his body suddenly recognized this virus and sent a message to attack, and it suddenly attacked in full swing. His body was then trying to create a fever to kill the virus and restricted the blood vessles in his extremities so that it could focus on heating the core of his body, causing the blue-ness, and shock- which then caused him to act funny then pass out. So that's the story! All of the nurses and doctors commented on how cute he is and of course I agree! I wasn't too fond of the circumstances that got us to the hospital and spending our weekend there. But I am greatful I was able to be there to take care of my little boy. I spent most of my time curled up in bed next to his dizzy and weak little body. One thing I thought was really cute was we asked about the prior chest pain being caused from heartburn. After the doc walked out of the room I described heartburn to him so that he wouldn't be anxious about really having something wrong with his heart. I then told him, "So heartburn has nothing to do with your heart", and he said "Well I know you didn't mean my heart really being on fire."

Anyway, I was so greatful later this afternoon when we were discharged and everything is fine. As we headed out towards the truck it felt like the day after he was born. It felt like I was a proud and brand new mommy getting to take my baby home from the hospital. I didn't have my camera with me to catch the rainbow of colors he turned yesterday. He started with blue and changed all shades of white, yellow and green (he said he was turning into an alligator). He also was dark red for awhile, but I liked the soft pink the very best. I kept asking him when he was going to turn orange. I finally did get a few pics this afternoon when Chris came to pick us up, but his color wasn't one of the rainbow. But we just really want to express our gratitude for all the good, especially for that of a little boy who is with is and doing well. We are greatful for the Gordmans associates, the medical field and all of our many family and friends. Our friends, the Roses came and got Hayden and Kyrie from the ER and cared for them all day, and our friends Larry and Trish helped out late last night and this afternoon as well. My visiting teachers showed up at the hospital at 8:30 this morning with a care package and stayed for a visit. We have recieved phone calls, messages and texts and they all have meant so much to us. Dusty came home to find some balloons, a toy and a movie from his daddy, and he just had a delivery from church. Some friends made him cards, as well as one from everyone in his primary class. All the way from Utah he also recieved kisses from Grandma and a noogie from Grandpa (which I had the pleasure of delivering).

It'a not a bike ride, but at least he got a ride. The nurse that discharged us said it's pretty quiet and boring at the hospital and said she was sure nobody would mind a cute boy in a wheelchair speeding down the hallways, so Chris gave the hallways a little excitement.
Here is Dusty with all of his letters from some primary friends. I am so glad to have our whole family back home and have Dusty on the mend. I think he has earned some of those special privleges and will have a great time the next few days.

love it!

Now that Kyrie can dress herself, I have more time for me!