A fun week!!

We had a fun, busy week. We all felt pretty cooped up by the end of the week with everyone being sick, but we were able to get out a do a couple of fun things.

On Thursday we went to Cherry Creek Mall's breakfast food play place and the kids had a blast! Jace has never been there to play before and he was climbing all over everything. It was nice because there weren't a lot of other kids there so Katie and Jace were able to get on just about anything they wanted to.

Climbing the breakfast cereal.Can you find them?

We also had a get together at Golden Key Park with some friends from church. So many people are leaving and we wanted to do something fun one last time. It was so much fun...I didn't want to go home and have it all end!

The guys playing the washer game.

The girls had so much fun running around and squealing together. I think they are looking at a ladybug right here.

Jace had fun playing in the dirt and throwing it. What a boy!

A picture of all the ladies...what a great bunch of friends!

The ailments of Katie

Katie was sick again last week, along with Scott and Jace. But unlike Scott and Jace, her sicknesses almost always require nebulizers, albuterol, and motrin. Luckily this wasn't a bad one, and all she has now is a lingering cough.

Making a birthday card for Grandma Peterson while doing her medicine.

Jace kept Katie company while she had to do her medicine. She's actually quite willing to do the nebulizer since she gets to watch her beloved Disney movies during the treatments, which last around 20 minutes.

She also got a fat lip this past week. She was running on the sidewalk, missed the ledge, and fell flat on her face. Ouch!

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to my mom, Scott's mom, and all of the other mothers who read this! You're all wonderful! I had a great day today. Katie made me this bag with flowers in nursery. She was very excited and told me that I could have one of them on my birthday. When Scott and I called our moms, Katelyn told her grandmas - and grandpas and Uncle Matt and Aunt Emily - Happy Mother's Day. When I told her that we didn't need to say that to Matt and Emily because they weren't mothers, she said 'why?' and didn't quite understand. Birthdays, Mother's Day...a holiday is a holiday to kids I guess. Scott gave me a special day too. He is always pretty helpful here at home, but today he helped out even more than he normally does, getting the kids ready, cooking meals, and cleaning up afterwards. It was so nice! Then tomorrow he is taking me out to lunch at the Cheesecake Factory - yum! I know he thinks all these holidays are a little over the top, but I appreciate that he tries to make them fun for me because he knows I like them. I love being a mother...there is nothing better!

Another black eye...

Jace now has his second black eye in less than a month. He also has a rash on his chin and cheek (can't see it very well in these pics), a scratch on his jaw, an old yellow bruise on his forehead, and the day after these pictures were taken he got another bruise right in the middle of his forehead. I guess that's just how it goes when they start walking. He doesn't seem to mind though, and just keeps on going. He is cruising around pretty fast now and is quite fearless.These food storage boxes in our room are his favorite place to play, even though they are the cause of his black eye. We'll come into the bedroom and find him sitting on the boxes and smiling at us.
Jace has just learned to say hat (he says 'at') and thought it was pretty cool to wear one of Dad's. Don't worry, his ears really don't stick out like that. :)

Butterfly Pavilion

We went to the Butterfly Pavilion last Thursday - or Butterfly Damilion as Katie calls it. I have a list of things to do in Denver before we go and this was one of our stops. It was a little different than I expected, but we all had a great time! The butterfly room was my favorite. It was like a tropical rain forest with tons of butterflies everywhere! They were so beautiful to see up close, and sometimes they would even land on us. Jace loved the butterflies...I'm sure he wanted to grab and eat them. Katie was kind of stressed out by them, but by the end she was okay as long as they didn't touch her. There was also a bug room with huge spiders, ants, cockroaches, and other bugs (all in glass containers). Katie loved that area, but she refused to hold the tarantula one of the workers had out on display. I am glad I haven't seen any of those bugs in nature! In another room they had sea creatures. This was Katelyn's favorite area because they had starfish and crabs to pet with your finger. The last room was called Shrunken! and had huge moving pretend bugs, spiderwebs and beehives to climb on, and other fun activities for kids to do. We also got a souvenir - a butterfly ornament. It's a tradition we've started of getting Christmas ornaments at all of the fun places we go to. It's a great way to remember fun outings and trips.

The butterfly room was so hot and humid the camera lens kept fogging up, and the butterflies moved so quickly it was hard to get a good shot. This is the best one we got.

Katie looking at the butterfly food.

It was good we could get so close to the butterflies, otherwise I don't think Jace would have been able to pick them out.

Katie petting starfish.

This past month...

I know it's been a while since I last wrote, I just never remember to bring my camera to catch all the great moments in our lives. However, I do have some pictures of the last few weeks to document what we've been doing.

Scott and some of his classmates were honored on April 24 for their excellent grades and character by being invited to join the National Dental Honors Society, Omicron Kappa Upsilon. It is a pretty big honor and looked upon highly by dental professionals. I know that it took a lot of hard work, organization, and dedication to get to this point and I'm so proud of Scott for being able to balance church, school, and family so well. He has made these last four years some of our best, and while I'm excited to move on, I'm sad to end the wonderful time we have had here in Denver.

We hardly ever have pictures of just the two of us anymore so I had to post this one. I really like to make fun of Scott's purple 'necklace.' He is a little disgusted that the dental color is lilac. :) (Thanks for the pictures Mandi!)

Katie and Jace chilling out before one of our daily walks. The kids love riding in the stroller. I don't blame them...it looks quite comfy!

Here are some of the great girls (and their kids) I go walking with almost every morning - Jessica, Tifani, Jill, and Liz. Susan and Monae were missing that morning, so when we're all there we have a pretty large group. We get lots of caravan and parade comments from walkers and bikers as we go along the trail. I think people are amazed to see so many double strollers! I'm sure we are quite a sight...I laugh at ourselves every once in a while when there is a traffic jam or when we all pull over in unison as a biker passes by.
Walking with everyone is something I look forward to every day. Not only do I get exercise and the kids fresh air, but I get some much needed social time with people who are in the same situation as I am. I've learned so much from these ladies, and I admire and love each one. I know I always bring this up, but I am going to MISS everyone so much!


We went to the zoo today. It was perfect weather...not too cool, not too warm. It wasn't very crowded and almost all of the animals were out. Jace has started to love looking at all the animals, although he can usually only see the fish because they move around a lot and elephants because they are big. Anything just sitting will not be found. Katie's big on the elephants, giraffes, and zebras. The zoo is not complete unless we see those three things. Today we almost had a poop bath by the hippo above. It backed right up against the wall, and while going, slopped it's tail from side to side, smooshing and flinging poop all up into the air. I have never seen anything like it! It was so gross, but also really funny. Luckily we came away clean. Hopefully Katie won't be talking about the hippo with poop on it's bum for too long.

My Birthday....Sort of

Well, my 26th birthday was on March 28. I wasn't wanting to do much. After a while birthdays aren't that big of a deal. And I had already gotten my birthday present from Scott...a night out to see My Fair Lady at the Buell Theater here in Denver. Eric and Erica, who were up visiting, were so nice to watch our kids so that we could go! Thanks you guys!! The play was long, but so good!! It was just like the movie and the cast did great. I would love to see it again! So I had a great gift and just wanted to enjoy some ice cream and cake on my birthday with my family. However, like many things in life, things never go as planned. This is a picture I took myself of me with my cake that I ate alone on my birthday.Let me just say that I actually wasn't too disappointed. I was more worried about Katie, who was in the hospital with Scott. This was the first day of about 6 that she spent in the hospital during the following week. We'll start at the beginning...Katie started out with her usual cough and breathing troubles. We werent' too worried because she hasn't been getting very sick lately and we haven't had to use the nebulizer and albuterol for several months. We were hoping that she was growing out of her respiratory problems. Well, she continued to get worse, so I took her in to her pediatrician's office, expecting them to send me home with instructions to get the nebulizer back out and start her treatments. Unfortunately, 3 hours later I was still at the doctor's office with a tired, sick girl and a hungry, mad little boy. After several nebulizer treatments that didn't work we were sent to the emergency room with Katie on oxygen. Scott met me there and I took Jace home to go to bed. Poor Eric and Erica who were there to visit were starving and bored, so I sent them off to dinner, put Jace to bed, and ate my cake.
Katie was able to come home the next day (Saturday) because they thought she was doing a lot better. We were able to get this cute picture of the kids with Eric and Erica. I felt so bad that we couldn't do anything while they were visiting! But they were so great and were fine with going out and doing things on their own.
So...Katie did okay for a while. We kept her home from church on Sunday, but that evening she started doing badly again. She really struggled to breathe. It was kind of scary! Scott took her in, they tested her, didn't know what was wrong, and we decided to take her home so she could rest comfortably. They sent us home with instructions to call if she got worse. She did, and Scott had to take her in again at 1 in the morning. They decided to admit her and she was there until Thursday morning. They diagnosed her with RSV. For most people, this is just a cold, but for a few unlucky people, it gets into their lungs and causes respiratory problems. Since Katie is prone to getting respiratory infections, this was kind of a given. We are really hoping that she doesn't have asthma and grows out of this soon!
I felt so bad for Katie at the hospital...she was on oxygen the whole time because she couldn't keep it up on her own, and they had to wake her up every few hours to give her a breathing treatment. But despite all this, she did great and had fun playing with some new toys and watching lots of movies. The doctor's and nurses were great and we had a good experience at Children's Hospital at St. Joseph's.
Scott's mom came up to help us out, and Scott and I took turns staying the night at the hospital with Katie. We were so grateful to have Yvonne's help. I think it kept us sane. I wish I had pictures of her with the kids, but the week was so crazy I forgot to get the camera out when we were at home!
Katie is doing much better now and we just finished her breathing treatments today. The picture above shows all of Katie's get well cards. Lots of family and friends helped us out and we really appreciated all of the support...meals, phone calls, fun things for Katie...it was wonderful! We are mostly so glad to see her getting better and not have to work so hard to breathe. Having sick kids is definitely one of the hardest things about being a parent.
Jace also got sick, they think it was probably RSV too, but not nearly as sick as Katie. His was more like a cold, although he did get a high fever and a rash. Scott is also a little sick, as well as Eric and Erica...sorry you guys! But we are out of the worst and glad to have life going back to normal.

Some other great new...Scott passed his dental board exams!!! HOORAY!! We are so glad to have that over with and now we can concentrate on what lies ahead. Good job Scott!!!