Alex's tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy

On April 19, Alex had surgery to have his tonsils and adenoids removed.
His tonsils and adenoids were enormous. They were causing him to snore, and they were affecting his speech and sleep.


This photo shows Alex waiting for his surgery at Children's Hospital. The hospital has special pajamas for the kids to wear rather than hospital gowns. I think we did a good job preparing Alex for the surgery, and he was a really brave little guy that day.

Here is Alex eating his first popsicle after surgery. He did really well that day. He finished off 8 popsicles before he fell asleep that night.

Another popsicle photo.

Now, a month later, Alex is doing really well. His throat has healed, and he's back to eating all kinds of foods. We're thankful that he had no complications or problems after the surgery. Already his speech is clearer, and he sleeps silently now.

Alex said his favorite parts of being in the hospital were eating all the bomb pops he wanted and being able to push the buttons on the hospital bed to make the head of his bed go up and down.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter!
We stayed in Minneapolis this year for Easter. We took the kids to a local egg hunt, had a great brunch and Easter celebration with our church family, and enjoyed a sunny Easter afternoon with good friends.

April Fools Day!

I tried an April Fools Day prank on Molly, Alex, and their friend Jerusha. Check out the video. :)

Alex at Como Conservatory

Every spring I love to go with friends to the Como Conservatory to see all the spring flowers. It just feels so warm and summery there. The kids love it too. Here are some photos of Alex with the flowers.

Alex and buddy Isaac

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Sneaky Alex

Alex can be kind of sneaky, and sometimes he steals things (from our house, not stores) like chocolate, snacks, balloons, bandaids, and whatever else he really wants. We're working on correcting this behavior.

Last week, Alex was acting REALLY tired all week. He was asking to be carried a lot, which isn't normal. He also begged to go to sleep without a bedtime snack or stories two nights in a row. He has never in his life asked to go to bed.
I thought he was just really overtired from vacation and probably having another growth spurt. Then Cory discovered an empty package of Children's Benadryl in Alex's favorite hiding place in our house. Yes. Alex had been drugging himself. The medicine in benadryl is the same stuff they put in Tylenol PM to make people drowsy. We had purchased the benadryl in Florida because Molly got a rash and has sunscreen allergies. Molly had been given 6 of the 18 tablets in the pack, so during the week Alex had eaten 12 of them. I'm thankful they were only Benadryl and not something that could have really harmed him!

Florida Vacation!

We took a family vacation to the Florida keys in March. We had a wonderful week away. We were able to stay at a huge beach house with several of our friends and spend time enjoying the sun. We are really thankful we got to go.

The photo above was taken on the airplane when we were about to leave for Florida. Molly and Alex had been on airplanes as babies, but they of course could not remember that. They were SO excited for this trip.

Here is a photo of all of the kids (excluding baby Nora). Our friend Sara sewed all the sundresses for the girls and all of the hats for the boys. Isn't she amazing?

Here is our family at the beach.

Molly and Alex had a great time!
Other highlights included a tour of a sea turtle hospital where we got to see around 50 turtles in various stages of rehabilitation, a date for Cory and I with our friends Laura and Isaac to Key West on St. Patricks Day, time in the hot tub and heated pool at the beach house, and lots of great time with friends.

No front teeth!

The other top front tooth fell out! Molly was SO excited! She took her merry time pulling this one out, too. She had a fun time showing everybody at church how her tooth was sideways and barely hanging on. Then it fell out!

Molly showing off her tooth and her tooth necklace.

Valentines

Molly had a fun time making her own Valentines. Her teacher requested home made ones if possible and no candy. Two thumbs up for that!

We made Alex's Valentines for his class, too. He had to make them for ALL the kids in his class (even the ones that go there on different mornings), so it took a while...

Alex

Funny Stories

Infomercial Girl

Molly has been known to quote commercials and things she sees on TV.

This morning, Molly and Alex were watching TV. Cory walked into the room and saw that they were watching an infomercial for Turbo Snake, a drain cleaning tool.
Cory watched it for a few seconds and said, "That looks kind of cool."
Molly said, "Do you want one?"
C: Maybe
M: You have to be 18 years or older to buy one, so you could buy one if you wanted too. If you order right now, you can get two long ones and two short ones for the same price!

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"Stupid Little"

It's always fun to hear things you say repeated back. Alex is good at doing this to me. :)

Yesterday I was playing Super Mario Brothers on the Wii with Alex. At one point, he went too fast, which made me fall off the screen and die. I had been big with fire balls, but since I died I had to come back little. I said, "Alex, slow down. You made me die and now I'm going to be stupid little again."
A minute later there was a question block with mushrooms (to make you bigger), and when I got one, Alex said, "There. Now you aren't stupid little anymore. "

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Sweet Tooth

I gave the carpool girls some gummy worms on the way home the other day. They were all talking about candy and how they liked it. One of them said they had a sweet tooth.
Molly said, "My grandpa has a sweet tooth. He likes candy a lot. His sweet tooth is silver or gold because he ate so much candy."

Actually, it's silver because of a baseball injury (is that right, Dad?) when he was a kid, but I think it's funny Molly thinks that one must be his sweet tooth. :)

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Door Alarm

Molly noticed that our fridge is equipped with a door alarm. When activated, the fridge will beep if the door is left open for more than 3 minutes. Molly didn't know that was what it was for, though.

Molly read "door alarm" and pushed the button to activate it. Then she told Cory, "Look, Dad, I turned the door alarm on. Then if we have robbers they won't be able to steal our food. If they break into our house and try to steal our food, we will hear them." Ha!

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Ice Cream

We found out this week that Alex definitely needs to have his enormous tonsils and adenoids removed. The doctor told Alex he'd get to eat a lot of popsicles and ice cream after the surgery.
Yesterday, Alex and I met some friends at Ikea. Some of his friends were going to get ice cream after lunch, and he asked if he could have some too. I told him he could if he ate his lunch. Well, Alex did not eat his lunch, so as we were leaving the cafe I told him he wouldn't get ice cream. He said, "But Mom, the doctor told me I am supposed to eat lots and lots of ice cream." Nice try, buddy. :)

Snow Fort!

We have a snow fort in our front yard!

Molly and Alex were working to make it a little larger on the inside.

Molly crawling out of the snow fort.

Cory got in to help them clear out extra snow. I think he was having a pretty good time. :)

Snowball Time!

I bought these red snowball makers/throwers on clearance at Target last March. Molly and Alex never got a great opportunity to use them until now because the snow has been too fluffy or too icy, etc. Today it is sunny and 30 degrees (balmy, right?), and they FINALLY got to make snowballs. :)

They LOVED how quickly they could make snowballs and throw them at each other. Here Alex comes to get Molly with one.

Perfect snowball!

I love the look on his face. Hee hee hee.

Another Missing Tooth!

Molly lost her third tooth (first one on top) a couple of weeks ago! She suddenly looks so much older, and she likes having the hole in her mouth where her tooth one was.

Yesterday, I told her I needed to get a few more photos of her with her current smile before the other top middle tooth falls out. It is really loose. As a side note: I never realized how many adults are kind of freaked out by loose teeth. A LOT of people have trouble watching Molly wiggle her tooth, and, if it starts to bleed, then even more people are grossed out. Interesting.

Alex's Art

I LOVE Alex's drawings. The people he draws are about the most adorable stick figures I've ever seen. :)

One day he wanted to write the names of some of his friends.

Alex found this pony sticker and decided he wanted to make a picture for Molly. He said he wanted it to say "Birthday Party Fun", and he asked me to write those words down for him on paper so he could copy them. I love how at this age they don't really understand that we only read from left to right. I love the guy with the hair/beard. :)

Original art by Alex, who digs in our craft drawer and glues random things on paper.

Alex's obsession

Alex is completely obsessed with Super Mario Brothers. He plays it both on our wii and on his DS, and it seems to consume 90% of all of his thoughts.

Alex talks about Super Mario Brothers all of the time when he's not playing it. He gets so excited when he beats Bowser and gets to a new world. One night, I got home when Alex was getting ready for bed. He ran downstairs to tell me all about how he and Daddy beat some part of the game. He was going on and on, and I decided it was time to capture it on video. Alex can talk and talk and talk about Super Mario Brothers. It's pretty funny. :)

January fun

Silly faces and happy kids in new pajamas they got for Christmas!

Alex love legos!  He built a lego house with a little help from Mommy

Christmas in SD (catching up)

My side of the family. Merry Christmas!

Alex with Uncle Nick

Tyler with me

Grandpa took the kids out sledding and to play in the snow. He's pulling Alex on a sled in this photo. About 2 feet of snow fell over two days, and the kids LOVED playing in it!