Funny Girl

I was pulling out the larger sizes of clothes for Lauren and the warmer clothes for Morgan and Shannon today. I was trying shirts on Shannon and putting the rest back in the box when two pistachio shells fell into my lap. I asked Shannon to please throw the shells away for me while I go upstairs to put the "new" clothes away. As I walk up the stairs, I observe Shannon, with her shirt off, places the empty shells on her chest like "Ariel sea shells"! I thought this was pretty funny seeing as how all my girls have this fasination with putting "shells" on their chest at one point or another. She then proceeds to dance in the living room! FUNNY! Those of you who have seen our Erin's interpretation of "seashells" on home video can get a better idea of what I'm talking about.

Busy day

Derek had his surgery on Tuesday and all went well as far as I can tell. I didn't get to talk to the surgeon because I was at home asleep because I didn't sleep well the night before and I had to take Lauren to Primary Children's for a renal ultrasound. I didn't want to run off the road so while Derek was in surgery I went home until I got a call that he was in recovery. Luckily, Mom was able to come down to help me with my crazy schedule. I got Derek home around 12:15pm, got his perscriptions, and headed out to get to Lauren's appointment at 1:30pm. To add insult to injury, I sat in the waiting room with Lauren for almost an hour because they didn't get her name back to radiology until I mentioned we had been waiting for a while and everyone that came after us had gone in already. Not happy! But Lauren did great! She played with a toy while they looked at her kidney and bladder with U/S and then we did her VCUG. I was expecting her to scream bloody murder (because that's what Erin did as an infant when she had hers done), but we gave her a sucker and she forget everyone and everything around her! She went to town! They put her cath in and strapped her legs together and she seemed completely unaware, until her bladder was so full she was in pain. They waited a while for her to urinate into the cath, but she would only do spurts. We were still able to see that she has reflux into the right kidney (so now I have to take her to a urologist). After waiting so long they finally took out the cath and untied her legs. As soon as her legs were free she "assumed the position" lifted her legs and let 'er rip! When she was done she put her legs down, feeling much better! She was such a good girl! It was a busy day! Luckily I got my apple sauce canned the day before because I have no time now!

Will it ever end?

We went camping with Derek's family this weekend, which was a joke! First of all Derek is already in pain, but wants to do something "fun" with the girls. Well, the girls were having a blast until Erin was stung in the eye by, we are going to say a bee because we don't know for sure. We didn't have any benadryl in our emergency kit; boy that tells you what kind of nurse I turned out to be. We did have some ice so I made her sit for a spell with some ice to her eye which she complained about endlessly. This picture is not too bad. The next morning, for church, it looked a lot worse! She looks like she's been in a knock out fight!

We took our motorcycles up with us and Derek wants so badly to ride and thought he might get away with riding the girl's bike a little, but I made him get off after I took this pathetic picture. He wasn't very happy with me as you can tell. (I made him smile in one for me).


Over all the girls did have a great time and
got very dirty! Derek slept most of the day Sunday and was still tired when we went to bed for the night. It may be a while before we venture out again.

Kids conversations

I overheard Morgan and Erin chatting in the back seat of the car a couple of days ago. Morgan was saying to Erin,"Respect. It has to mean something doesn't it?" It was funny hearing Erin try to explain it to her.
We were watching the women's water polo on tv during lunch and the girls were in awe because they don't touch the bottom of the pool while they play. Erin saw one of the girls go down and come back up and was saying "she got water in her nose!" I explained that they have learned to blow out their nose while they play so it doesn't get in their nose. Erin explained that she had to plug her nose whenever she goes under water. Morgan piped up "I can blow out my nose under water!" Erin excitedly said " Morgan can blow out her nose! She could go to the Olympics!" Boy, if that's all it takes to get to the Olympics, sign me up!

Three down, One to go!

Shannon is finally potty trained! Derek and I told her if she stayed clean and dry in her underwear for a week, we would take her to the zoo and she did it! I think Erin and Morgan are just as excited or more so than Shannon. (Lauren couldn't care less) But they have been great sisters in helping her along. They cheer her on when she has a success and help her get on the potty when she has to go and I can't get right to it! It was funny because while we were doing the "two steps forward-one step back" routine, we would bring up the zoo and Shannon's response was always " yeah, I can go see the bears and the lions and the zebras and .....". It would get frustrating because she had the idea in her head, but wasn't incorporating it. But now she is working on the night time stuff and she's made some headway. She wants to wear the underwear to bed, but she is still unpredictable. Maybe she's like Morgan was; wet when she wore the training pants, but managed to stay dry with underwear. I'm not sure I'm ready to try that yet. So hopefully we have only two more years of buying diapers. One can only hope!

Since Derek has been laid up for awhile, I've had a lot more to do and less help to do it. Well, I made lunch for everyone last Sunday along with mini vanilla pudding pies. But before the girls could eat their pies, Derek made them say 5 "great" things Mom does for them. They came up with the usual "she cooks for us, she buys us things.." not really what he was looking for so he urged the girls to really think of SOMETHING! Morgan got a big smile on her face and said "she teaches us the gospel" and sits back as though she just made the greatest comment. Derek said that's great now expound on that. Morgan looked at Derek confused at this reponse and said" But Dad that's all we can possibly know!" I almost had pudding coming out of my nose!

New cousins for the Kobe girls

May 1st, Lauren and I flew out to Omaha to visit the newest additions to the Kobe clan. Adrienne Jolene and Sophia Elise Smith are twins born April 22nd. They are very cute and very easy to tell apart. Adrienne is on the left and Sophia on the right and I bet you all can tell who is in the middle! I can't believe that Lauren was that little only 3 months earlier! Lauren did pretty well on the airplane ride out there. She was making friends with everyone especially the lady sitting next to us. At first Lauren wasn't sure whether to cry or laugh at her, but she quickly warmed up. We were in Omaha till the 6th and Lauren got very used to having Mom all to herself. Elise and Trevor had a dinner to go to that Saturday and took the twins with them. They dressed them up in dresses that were a little big still and then wanted to put on some head bands that were given to them by a friend. This friend made them and they were cute, but looked funny on the girls because the flowers stuck out so far from their heads so we put it on Lauren and took a picture. She reminds me of the queen ant from A Bug's Life! We also gave all the girls a bath the same day so we took their pics before their baths. Lauren was getting cream for 3 months and it shows. How cute! It was fun to see everyone, but we are glad to be home!