Christmas 2013

This was the first Christmas with no Legos...well almost no Legos...they did use money from Christmas to buy legos, but Darrell and I didn't buy any for them.

Sarah received veterinarian kit which she loved especially for the stuffed puppy.  I made them all round up their stuffed animals and they were each allowed to pick 4.  I'm not sure I will ever be forgiven, but they were everywhere.  I don't even know where they all came from.

Derek has really no other toy aside from Legos, and this year he really wanted a Nerf gun, so of course we got 4, so he could play with friends.  He was very excited about that.

Darrell bought Emily and Sarah little doctor coats.  We are not sure why Sarah was so disappointed.  She loves it now though.

And...my gift.  Darrell has wanted to buy me a new ring for years and I have said no.  I still said no before Christmas, but he ignored that. So here it is.  It is very beautiful, and I do really like it:)

Emily took a ballet/tap/jazz class in January, so this was leotard was purchased for that.

Emily's big present was a doctor kit.  She loves to give check ups to all of us.  She has collected quite a few more things since Christmas from Darrell also.

State Fair - Oct 2013

We went to the state fair twice this past October.  I had another post several months ago about the one with Darrell.  This trip as with my sister Stephanie and my sister-in-law Hailie and their kids.

My girls can never pass up a merry-go-round:)

Emily LOVES to be dizzy.  She can spin around for minutes and not get sick.  She and Sarah went on the tea cups.  Emily controlled the spinning.  They were going so fast, the attendant said he could slow it down if I wanted him to.  Sarah looked like she was going to loose her stomach contents.

It was a very warm day, and there was a part of the fair that was indoors with kids activities.  It was a relief to be out of the sun for a while.

Probably the most fun part of the adventure was the petting zoo.  The petting zoo was very clean.  My favorite animal was the little baby wallaby.

ITP - Jan 2014

On day in January Sarah woke up and I noticed her legs looked bruised way more than normal.  Of course kids fall and get bruises, but this was a little excessive.  Emily had been learning to ride her bike and falling a lot so I had her come in so I could compare their legs.  Then I knew it wasn't normal because Emily's legs looked fine.  I sent pictures to Darrell and he wanted her to come in for some blood work.  She was very brave for her blood test.  What he and the other physicians said was she had ITP (short for Idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura)  Basically a rare auto immune reaction to a virus which causes platelet counts to drop...thus the bruising, because her blood cannot clot normally.  Normal platelet counts are above 100,000...her results came back with a count of 9,000.  Since there was no active bleeding we just had to watch and make sure she didn't injure herself seriously.  We would't let her do anything hardly which made for a very sad girl:(  She has since gotten better.  The bruises have all gone and she is now happily jumping, running, and riding her bike.  Such a very odd experience but luckily short lived.

The one on the right looked like a "smily" face on her arm

She not only had these bruises on her body, but she had spots in her mouth and on her tongue.  Her gums were red too.  She like being excused from teeth brushing for a few days while her mouth healed:)