He's a mover...

This picture is a little blurry. That's because Henry is crawling...everywhere!!

Nothing is safe anymore!

What a trooper...

On Tuesday I took Henry in for his 9 month well baby visit. He wasn't exactly well (cough & congestion), but I already had the appointment. He's now 22lbs 6 oz and 29 inches long. While we were there our doctor decided he needed to get checked out a little further. They did a breathing treatment there in the office and then sent us (Henry, Mo and I) over to the lab for an RSV test. This involves saline up the nose and then vacuuming it back out. Then over to the hospital for a chest x-ray. I can't remember any of the other kids having a chest x-ray before. He was a trooper, didn't make a peep. I had to grab a picture:

Then we went back to the doctor where she decided he needed to be on breathing treatments every 4 to 6 hours (closer to 4 the better). He puts up with it:

We were at the doctor yesterday for over 3 hours, then we went back today. He does not have RSV or pneumonia. She thinks he might have asthma. We going to continue with breathing treatments for the next 24 hours and then on an as needed basis. We're hopeful that it is something that he will grow out of. Tonight I ended up having to take Emma to the doctor. She was having some pain while going potty. She's fine, but it did make me feel like I was living at the doctors office. If I have to take another child to the doctor this week, I'm done!!

Oh the places we went....

Saturday was one of those-see how many places we can cram into one day, kind of days. We were out the door at 7am. This meant all 6 of us were dressed and 4 had eaten breakfast (Emma & I ate in the car). We made it down to the LA temple by 9:10am. I think this was a record and if not, very close. I was able to go in and do some temple work before N8 went in for our Stake Chapel session at 10:45am.
Then the kids and I were off to Target to shop and wander. I had never been to this particular Target and was pleasantly surprised by how clean and well stocked it was. There was a McD's in the same parking lot with an indoor playland so that's where we stopped for lunch.
After we were done I got back on the I10 intending to head back to the temple and just wander the grounds but I saw signs for the beach and on a whim decided that we had enough time. I payed my $8 parking, pulled the towel out that we had under Henry's seat and headed out to the water. I got my work out for the day! Carrying Henry across the sand just about did me in! But the kids loved running up to the water and waiting for the waves to come in.

Henry loved tasting the sand!

This was his first time to the beach.

Then it was back over to the Temple. We spent a few minutes in the visitors center drawing pictures and emailing them to Grandma Handly before N8 was done.

We then started our marathon shopping excursion. We started with a Trader Joes that was close by the Temple. I was pleasantly surprised that parking wasn't a mess (they had parking on the roof), but they didn't have everything on our list. Then we drove up to Lancaster and went to Trader Joe's again and found the rest of what we were looking for. After that there was Sport Chalet (trying on backpacking backpacks for the kids), Costco, Dinner (at Baja Fresh), Sonic for drinks and Vallarta Supermarket for our cheap produce. We pulled in at home around 9:15pm.

I was extremely grateful for the lack of traffic in the morning which allowed me to go into the temple before N8. This made the rest of the day possible. I was also grateful that the temple wasn't as busy at the time I was in there allowing me to do more temple work that I am sometime able to do in this amount of time. I am also grateful the all 4 kids were relatively well behaved most of the time. They enjoyed the temple grounds, beach, shopping and eating and put up with the drive.

We are blessed each time we make the effort to go down to the temple making the sacrifice of time and money to get there. Each time our children see the importance that N8 and I have placed on temple attendance.

Swing Your Partner!

Part of the 3rd grade Social Studies/PE program is Square Dancing! Today Mo, Henry and I went to go see Bud swing his partner round and round! He was super excited about it!


Here he is with 2 of his best buds:

By this time Mo was done with the square dancing and ready to go home and play Lego Star Wars!

Henry on the other hand was enjoying himself!

N8 couldn't make it because he was attending "Donuts with Dad" in Emma's Kindergarten class:

Mother's Day...

This year for Mother's Day we headed over to the Hall's for a yummy dinner. The kids played, the parents visited. It was fun and restful.
N8 and Emma grilled up some veggies:



Here's are the Mothers:

Muffins with Mom...

Kindergartners get to do all sorts of fun things. Especially when you have great teachers! When Bud was in Kindergarten I missed Muffins with Mom. It was while N8 was in Hawaii and Mo and I went along. But my mom was here and when with him:

On Friday it was Emma's classes turn, she was SO excited!

We colored a picture on the table:

They sang us a song:

and Emma's teacher Mrs Lusher read us "I'll love you forever"-there were tears!

It was great and Emma loved it! On Friday it's Donuts with Dad. She is obviously SUPER EXCITED!

A cooling trend...

Our house was build around 1982 or 83. Many "features" of our home are original. This included our AC/Heater. We decided it was time to replace before it decided to die in the middle of our extreme summers!

They had to bring a crane in to get the old unit off and the new unit on.




Unfortunately I had to pick Emma up from school in the midst of this. So all of the pictures of of the old unit coming off.
But here's the new one on!

And here are the kids + the Hall kids enjoying the new cool!