Cousins, Cousins, Cousins

When Sarah came for our reunion, we got to visit in Vidor for a few days. We lined the babies back up on the couch and took their 6th-ish month pictures :)

There they are in age order, again. Notice the two little "bookends". Since Bryn is too mobile, Katherine held her for the pictures. Thanks Katherine! Aaliyah was feeling a little sluggish, and those boys sure are charmers!
Roman, Ella, Bryn and Ethan
Khalil (pronounced Ka-lel)Khalil with his Uncle Johnny- so sweet.

Melissa was so nice to let us swim in their pool while they were on vacation. In between (distant) thunder and rain, it was lots of fun!


This is Travis's baby, Aaliyah. Isn't she precious!? her shirt says, "Social Butterfly" and lately she's had to be, sweet girl. After my reunion I took her and her brother, Khalil, home with me for 5 days. Their mom was in a car accident, separate from Travis's, and she broke her leg and collar bone, so our family has loved taking care of them.




The next day, Lia (aka Olivia's BFF), got to come for a few days while her mom was at Girls' Camp. Brandon came too- which made Travis and Khalil really happy!


Brandon and Lia were such big helpers with all the babies. Can you believe we had 9 kids for a few days! (4 of which were in diapers- lol)

This is probably the only "sleepover" our kids will ever have, since we don't do sleepovers as a rule. They look cozy, huh?

Katherine, Travis, Brandon, Bryn, Olivia, Lia, Aaliyah, Ella, Khalil- say that fast! Or just say, Livy, Lia, Aaliyah, Ella, Khalil :) Quite a tongue twister huh?:)

Poor Aaliyah was not feeling well when we got here, and she got worse. Before we took her home, she had been to Dr. Packard's office twice- finally being sent to the hospital for a chest x-ray: pneumonia. The original plan was for Monica to take all four of the kids home after camp, but we had to take them home a day early. Aaliyah was admitted to Baptist Hospital in Beaumont (she's home now, but with lots of breathing treatments, etc. and Khalil is on breathing treatments too.)

We had fun having so many cousins come visit and we're glad Aaliyah is feeling better.

Ketchup

One day, a few weeks ago, I was working out in the living room and Ella was in there playing. Halfway through, during the 30 second break, I stopped to blow my nose. Ella was watching me and she said, "You're nose walkin'?" She cracks me up!

Anyway, I realized there are a lot of things to blog to ketchup on... Here are some highlights:
I trimmed Olivia's hair; she wanted it to look like Ella's. Katherine and Travis had their LPM recital and we took pictures until our battery went dead- sorry! Johnny finished this semester for college so we took the kids out to eat at Cheddar's to celebrate. Last Friday, my mom and my sisters Rachel and Marianne, and Marianne's baby, Ethan, came to visit! It was sooo much fun and we loved getting pictures of the kids all together.

Well, enjoy the show!

I fell down!

This past weekend was our Stake Conference. (For those of you who don't know- Stake Conference is a meeting that all of the congregations in an area meet twice a year.) Since we live two hours from the Stake Center, we decided to go stay with my family for the weekend. We drove down to Vidor and the kids were having a great time. My sister, Marianne and her baby came and we decided to go to a resale shop. We left the babies and kids, etc. for about an hour. I called Johnny from the store and he said Ella got hurt and we needed to take her to the ER. ?!??!? I drove up to my mom's house, Marianne got out, Johnny loaded Ella up and I gave my mom Bryn's bottle. Since I wasn't there Johnny told me what he thinks happened... No one was watching at the time... Ella was playing with a little metal doll chair by the back French doors. Somehow she was trying to stand on it and fell on the tile floor, and got cut right under her left eyebrow, about an inch wide and pretty deep. My uncle Pete was there and helped Johnny bandage her eye and stopped the bleeding. (Most of my family has weak stomachs for this sort of medical attention- sorry Sarah if you're feeling whoosy!)

We waited for a while at Baptist Hospital, but the Physician's Assistant that was there was really nice and gave Ella five stitches. A male nurse helped hold Ella's head and Johnny and I held Ella still, while she was wrapped in a sheet. She screamed and cried and as we tried to comfort her, she yelled, "I fell down!" So pitiful! Neither of us cried, we just felt so bad for her. I didn't have my camera with me, but my phone has a camera, so I was able to snap a few shots for keepsakes. (Is that okay to say- maybe not keepsakes, but so we'll remember...)


For a few days afterward, she would say out of the blue, "I fell down". She's okay now. Only, she won't climb onto anything without having help to get down. She's much more cautious now and nobody blames her! Luckily our kids aren't accident prone- hopefully they'll stay that way!

It was a fun visit otherwise... We loved seeing Marianne and Ethan and my parents and Rachel and their dog Little Jerry and everybody else!


Here's a picture of Ella from this morning, she was making a mad face- but it didn't last long. I'm taking her to Dr. Packard's office to get the stitches removed tomorrow.