Busy Daddy!

 Scotty has been pretty busy with work lately, and just going to get busier with two months of ICU coming up.  Even though he is gone a lot we try and keep ourselves busy too.

  One thing we try and do is go visit Scotty as often as we can.  One of the kids favorite things is go to the playground in the middle of the hospital.  It is right by the cafeteria, so we get food and go play.  

 So with a nice weekend we decided to go visit him and get our first playground day for the year!

  It had been slow at the hospital all morning, but of course the second we go out and play there was a code so Scotty had to leave, but we stayed and played for a while.

 Here are the girls going on the slides.  Briony could not get enough of this slide!!  She could have played all day!

 We also like to go see him at night when we have enough time.  The kids LOVE going to the hospital to see him.  We take dessert, play Foosball and watch tv in the residents lounge.

Of course we do some fun things on our own too!

 Dance parties are a daily affair at our house.  The KIDDOS go crazy for dancing!  I am one lucky mom, they are pretty darn fun!

 Wrestling/Karate/ battles in the basement.  Another favorite tradition is to get Chic fil a,eat it in the car, then let them climb all over the car like monkeys.  We started this when I was pregnant with Briony.  One of the few things I could eat when I was pregnant with her, and the kids love it.  We always do it on a night when Scotty is going to be late or he is on call.  An added bonus is not making dinner, and no clean up!! 

 

 

  Like I said Monkeys!!

 At least once or twice a month on the weekends the kids love to have sleepovers in the basement.  We go and rent a couple of free movies at Family Video, add popcorn and M&Ms and these kids are HAPPY!!

We are in the last stretch of residency!  It is a little unbelievable these three years are about over, but we are ready to do some more of these fun things with daddy!!

Completely unrelated just had to add a couple of pictures of this little munchkin!!  She is the funniest little thing ever!  I am so lucky to have this little buddy of mine with me all day.

 She is getting so big and makes everything better!  Everyone in our house thinks she does no wrong.  Yes she can get a little feisty sometimes, but give her a little tickle or  play monster with her and it is over.

She is fast approaching two and I look back and cannot believe how fast she has grown up.  I do not blog nearly enough about this little one, so here is a few pictures!

Christmas 2013!

 Christmas so much fun!  Basically a continuation of how wonderful Christmas Eve was.  The kids were so excited and couldn't believe after waiting for so long it was finally here. 

 Here they are waiting their turn to go downstairs and see their presents!

 I love this picture!  Barrick had been talking about getting a 'REAL" green light saber for Christmas for months.  He talked about it everyday.  He was always reminding me that he didn't want a fake one like at the toy store.  Let me tell you, we stressed over this gift for months.  In the end it all worked out!

 With all things in our lives, whatever Barrick wants the twins follow suit.  They idolize that big brother of theirs.  So here are all of the kids with their favorite gifts.

 My cute little boys!

Last, these two little girls.  It has been so fun to see Briony get older and see their relationship change.  They are such good little buddies.  They will disappear and I will find them playing babies, barbies, or watching Tinkerbell. It has been so nice to see Lilly who has been in a boy world her whole life finally get a little sister to enjoy all those girly toys with.  

We had a fabulous Christmas spent together as a family. 

Christmas Eve.

 There is nothing better in my mind then a day at home with my family.  Add the fact that there was no fighting, lots of playing, laughing, good food, and just amazing quality time!!  That is how our Christmas eve, and also our entire Christmas break was.

We spent the day in our Pajamas, watched movies, played games, and had so much fun!  in the evening we had our sibling gift exchange.  Here they are waiting to give each other their gifts.

 

 Seriously look at these kiddos.  They are so much fun!

 A big group hug after opening their presents.  They were all excited to give their gifts.

 Then we finished off the night with yummy food and a movie party in their new Christmas Pajamas.  Such a memorable day.  I am so blessed!

The twins turn 4!!

 Liam and Lilly turned 4 the end of December.  Scotty was working a month of nights over their birthday but it still worked out great.  We had a primary kick off breakfast at church with breakfast and games.  Then we came home and played for a bit then woke Scotty up and took the kids to Chuck E cheese for their birthday.

 Here are the twins watching the show!

 Our table with our gifts and prizes.

 Chuckee was huge and a bit scary, but they loved it!!  Well all of the kids except Briony, she liked him as long as he was far away.

 Briony thought the show was pretty great!

 They got to take a turn in the ticket blaster.  The lady who was in charge was really nice she gave each of the kids the 1000 dollar ticket and made a really big deal about it.

 Lilly ended up having Barrick go for her.  She told us "I don't want my hair to get messed up!"

 Here are all the kids with Chuckee.  See what I said about Briony!

It was such a fun night and a nice break to be able to go and have a party all ready.  With all three older kids birthdays the week of Christmas it was a nice break to have somebody else do all the work!! 

My very favorite part of the day was Barricks homemade cards for Lilly and Liam.  We really are so lucky to have these two!  They are completely opposite but fit so well together in our family.  Happy Birthday you two!!

Barricks Birthday!

 Yes I know it is a few months late but here it is.  Barrick's birthday party was limited to one day in December.  The only Saturday Scotty had off work, and the only day it didn't interfere with ten other parties.  In planning it I knew it was a week after my surgery so I prepped and got everything done well in advance so I didn't have to worry about it.  Good thing I did because it was the same week I had all the complications from my surgery.  

All though it was crazy and I was on narcotics, It worked out great!  Yes the invitations didn't get out and our good friends who braved the crazy winter storm that day, and didn't stress when they got a frantic texted picture of Barricks invitation showed up and made the day a hit.  Don't feel bad if you were invited, technically nobody was.

 We had a polar express themed party with tickets that got a whole punch with each activity we did.  We started out with decorating cupcakes, breakfast and a hot chocolate bar.

 Lilly loved the cupcakes.

 Briony was just happy to be included with all the big kids. 

We then went to pin the carrot on the snowman.

 We also did a Santa pinata.  Yes it was probably the ugliest Santa.  It was originally a black bearded pirate that we used last year for birthdays and tried to make look like Santa.  Pinatas are expensive, and I did not want to buy another one.

 We did some snowball games and had a snowball fight.  Sorry to our pal Ike for the closed eyed picture, this was the only picture we got of Liam.

 Of course getting ready for presents.  He got some many great gifts!  Thank you so much to all of our friends!!

And of course the cake.  Barrick informed me that it didn't have a star.  I tried to make one out of fruit roll ups, but if you know me well you know I am not that creative:)

We are so lucky to have our little Barrick boy in our family.  Happy sixth birthday buddy!

No Good, Very Bad, Awful Couple of Weeks!

The Tuesday before Thanksgiving I had a surgery to have a cystoscopy with Lithotripsy to remove two large kidney stones.  I had things all set in place and ready to go, Scotty had half the day off to take me and bring me home from the hospital.  (Don't worry even though he wasn't seeing patients he got a bunch of training done at the hospital while I was in surgery, work for him never stops!  Poor guy).  Plus I had the kids all at different friends houses who were wonderful enough to watch the kiddos for us.

  The surgery went well, and other then the fact that I had a hard time coming out of the anesthesia (which I always do) things were great.  I went home a little sore and had wonderful friends show up and take my kids Wednesday so I could get a little more rest because Scotty could only take the day of surgery off.  The rest of the weekend was fine, off and on pain but nothing terrible.  The thing that made it the hardest is the stint they have to leave inside so you can pass any residual stones or fragments.  So I was looking forward to Monday to have that removed because they are very uncomfortable!

Well Monday came and I had it removed and felt like a different person, so much better!!  I was planning on going to the gym the next day because I had the okay to get back to working out.  Scotty happened to be working a 30 hour shift this day so the kids and I had a great night we got a lot of cleaning done and watched a fun Christmas movie.  Then after I put the kids to bed I started having some pain in my kidney which was totally normal, then it went from a little pain to EXCRUCIATING pain.  Pain I have NEVER experienced before.  I have a high pain tolerance so to feel like this really scared me.  It was so bad I couldn't drive myself to the ED so I called Scotty and the residents he was working with were nice enough to let him leave for a couple of hours to take me to the hospital. 

 Well, after pulling the stint out it caused my ureter to spasm and close off some basically making it feel like I was passing kidney stones, but it was constant.  I was then in pain like this until Thursday, and by Friday was feeling somewhat better.  Well to say I was in a drug induced state is an understatement, Percocet, Morphine, Motrin, and many more, made for a very long week! 

 On top of being in the worst pain I have ever been in Scotty had to work two back to back 30 hour shifts which basically left me all on my own. I honestly cant remember a lot of it, I am so sensitive to narcotics so it is all kind of a haze, but here are the highlights.   Two huge Lilly bloody noses, the kind where she walks down from her room and tracks blood from the upstairs corner of the house down the stairs and into the bathroom on the main floor. 

You also know it is bad when the Pajamas she is wearing is those that belong to a friend and I was forced to pull out of the return bag because you have no clean pajamas for her to wear. (Sorry Kristi, I did get all the blood out)   

 Also Briony got some stomach bug and I woke up to a very happy smiling baby but went to get her and she, her bed, and the floor outside of her crib was covered in throw up.  Another day Briony woke up in the morning and I got her out of her crib and she was playing in her room then I heard crying and she came downstairs and had an explosive diarrhea that was dripping out of her diaper as she like Lilly walked from her upstairs bedroom down to the main floor.  So to say our little Bissell was put to good use is an understatement. 

 We also had nasty colds, with goopy eyes, fevers, soar throats and a lot of sleepless nights.  Add two kids with asthma and a lot of breathing treatments and it is no fun!   

 This kid was the only one not affected.  Thank goodness. 

 Liam and I are going through the cold right now, no fun!!

 

But with all of these terrible things I cannot tell you how blessed I was.  When you don't live by family times like these are stressful but you are also reminded that the friends that we have  are our family away from family.  I cannot tell you the number of people who helped out.  Driving my kids to and from preschool, Liams speech, bringing dinner, getting Barrick on and off the bus, taking my kids and watching them so I could rest or go back to the ED.  Sleeping at our house and helping me get the kids ready in the morning.  I could go on and on.  I am truly blessed to have such amazing friends.  For all those that did help I had that many more text or call and ask to help out.  It really brought me (and my mom) to tears to see how many people stepped in and helped me during a really difficult time.  So to all of you THANK YOU so much we are so grateful for each and everyone of you.

 

To end on a positive note, on Scottys post call day he made ginger bread houses with the kids.  They had such a good time!  I was present but very drugged up so I don't remember much:) 

 

 Here they are with the finished product.  To say our kids have personality is an understatement.  They are a little crazy but that is how we like it!

 Close up of the house!

You cant forget about the S for Stewarts.  (Barricks idea).

 

So even though these past two weeks were bad, like everything in life the hard times pass and you look forward to good things!  (like Christmas and fun parties)