I confess, maintaining a blog requires a lot more effort than I always have to put into it!  Then, once I got behind, I kept procrastinating because I didn’t want to play catch-up.  Now, two and a half months later, I’ve had to sort through pictures on my camera and cell phone to help me remember what’s been happening since my last post.

These first four pictures are from when Rachael and her family came to visit around Christmas.  I can’t recall if it was before or after Christmas, but it was definitely toward the end of December.  After tallying up the votes, bowling was the winning activity.

The Group

Hazel

Veta

and my Gemma!

This is a picture taken by Danny one night when he was left at home
alone with the girls.  It's lucky Gemma had fallen asleep, or she would
have been having a fit that she didn't have a controller, too!

To the right is a picture of Veta.  Again, I have no idea when it was
taken, but she is certainly pretty in it!

Hazel was so nervous about getting an IV placed!  The doctor told
her that it would be in and over before she could count to three.
She was so dehydrating from her sickness, however, that it took
the nurse two tries to get it in, and the whole time Hazel was saying,
"One, two, three!  One, two, three!"  If she hadn't been so distressed
and miserable, it might have been comical.  My poor baby girl!

The next two pictures are more recent; February 1st, we took Hazel to the emergency room.  She had been sick for four days with vomiting and such, but we thought it was just the stomach flu that was going around.  However, when she started complaining of abdominal pain on the fifth day with no sign of getting better, we decided to take her to the hospital.  At first the doctor thought it was appendicitis since she was exhibiting all the symptoms, but after many tests it was determined that she had mesenteric adenitis, which is basically when the lymph nodes around the appendix get infected.  Unfortunately, the only thing to be done for it was to just wait it out, but on the other hand it meant no appendectomy!  Hazel was feeling much better two days after her hospital stay and was perfectly able to enjoy Veta’s birthday on February 4th.  

Veta did an excellent job keeping Gemma entertained while we waiting
for Hazel to come back from her x-rays.

I have no date for these next two, but I’m guessing they were taken sometime around the Super Bowl.  Gemma has decided that she prefers Ethan exclusively (if I’m not there) when visiting Grammy’s house, and will allow only him to feed her and rock her to sleep.  Happily, Ethan doesn’t seem to mind taking care of her and does a fabulous job keeping her occupied.

 Hazel also does a fabulous job helping take care of Gemma when I’m not around…and even when I am!  She wanted to give Gemma her nap on this occasion, so we gave her Gemma in the rocking chair.  Hazel sang “Old McDonald Had a Farm” a couple of times, and Gemma fell asleep.  I am so lucky to have so many willing, capable helpers!

Here we have Veta and a few of her friends getting
ready to jump into the pit.  It looks like they were
also throwing the foam blocks at one another!

Today (technically yesterday) we had the annual joint birthday party for Veta and Hazel.  I decided to host it outside of our home this year because both the girls had so many friends they wanted to invite.  We were able to get reservations at Randy’s Tumbling and Xtreme Fun – a family owned and operated gymnasium with a trampoline floor, a foam block pit, a rock climbing wall, and lots of space to run around in.  We had such a great turnout!  The most popular feature was the ledge and foam pit combination.  There were three different ways to climb up to the ledge.  Once you reached the top, you would jump into the foam pit, which was a good ten feet below.  Veta loved jumping from the ledge, but Hazel decided it was too scary and settled for running down the 15ish yard long strip of trampoline and launching herself into the pit that way.  Despite all the rambunctiousness, we had only one injury.  After an hour and a half of hard play time, we did cake and ice cream, followed by presents.  It was all so much fun, we may have to have our party there next year, too!

Getting into the foam pit was extremely easy - getting out, not
so much!  Regardless, Hazel and all the other kids managed it
more times than I could keep track of.

I was rather disappointed with the pictures from the party; I discovered too late that Gemma had been playing with the camera and, of course, messed up the settings to where the date was applied to the pictures and the resolution was turned extremely low.  She had also left her little fingerprints all over the lens.  All in all, most of the pictures turned out very blurry, dark, and spotted, which is why I am only able to share two of the many that were taken.