Smoke Breaks

Around Christmas I was thinking rather smugly to myself how lucky we were not to have gotten sick this year.  Fate came back to bite me in a big way.  We have been hit by croup and brochiolitis.  According to WebMD, croup is a harsh, barking cough and bronchiolitis is an infection of the bronchiols, the small air passages in the lungs. Basically a fancy way of saying that my two children were kidnapped in the night and replaced with grumpy versions of Wheezy from Toy Story. 



We have been in quarantine for roughly 10 days now and the isolation is beginning to get to me.  Because my happy, smiling husband doesn't come home from work every night to break up the monotony, I start going crazy if I don't get out of the house pretty much every day.  With the exception of trips to the doctors office and the occassional errand run, we have been hermits. I have seen "Sesame Street: Learning About Letters" ballpark, 30 times, and the other day I caught myself looking up characters on Sesame Street on Wikipedia.  No joke, the voice behind Elmo is actually a big black guy (not that there's anything wrong with that--just surprising.) The scariest part is that I'm beginning to actually enjoy not leaving the house for days on end.  The next thing you know I'll be the focus of a 20/20 special about the lady who hadn't left her house in 20 years and was found six months after her death surrounded by hundreds of cats.

Luckily, we don't have any pets and I get to spend my days hanging out with two of the cutest wheezers I know.  They've been really great sports about the whole thing, but I now know what it's like to have newborn twins.  Exhausting. I spend most of my days rocking or holding one of both of them (they've been really miserable) and most nights trying to get them to sleep--I'm up about every 2-3 hours. 

Every four hours we have to take a "smoke break" AKA nebulizer breathing treatment.  It's a fancy machine that produces a mist that the girls breathe in to coat their lungs and help them heal.  Roughly 40 minutes total to get both girls done (and trust me, it's not easy keeping them still that long).  There's also getting the yucky prescriptions down, changing bedding and pajamas when they throw up, and extra baths to help them sleep better.  Thankfully our hard work is beginning to pay off; we have our fourth and (hopefully) final doctor appointment tomorrow and with any luck he'll give them a clean bill of health so we no longer have to take smoke breaks and can join regular society again.  And that would be swell.  In fact, I might even break out into song...

Marry Me

A little something I made to tell Dallas I love and miss him.


ps please try not to notice that my looks have gone downhill since we got married--I've had two kids. :)

Creed's Thoughts

If you know me, you know that I have been a lover of  "The Office" since way back when.  I was talking to my mom about blogging earlier and I remembered this hilarious clip from "The Office." Check it out.



Here's to hoping my blog isn't one of those better left in a Word Document.

Sidenote: I saw a guy at my nephew's blessing that could have been a stunt double for Creed. Pretty awesome.  

World Travelers

Dallas likes to make fun of me because before we got married, the only places I'd ever been (with the exception of a school trip to New York) was Boise and Utah.  The last two weekends the girls and I took a couple of roadtrips, one to Utah to see Dallas' parents, and one to Boise to watch the State Boys Basketball Tournament.  When we got home, Dal said that Amaya and Oaklie have now been everywhere I've been :)

 Our first stop was Layton to visit my wonderful friend Kristin, her husband, and their adorable baby boy.  Of course, I forgot to take any pictures, so you'll have to use your imagination to picture the wonderful time we had.  I had a serious case of dry mouth and chapped lips by the time I left because we just sat around and visited for hours!

We then traveled south to Highland and saw Grandpa and Grandma Abrams! Amaya and Oaklie were super excited to visit them and Aunt Tiffany and we had lots of fun.  Amaya was especially intruiged by Zoey, their little dog.  She loved to watch her run around and play, but she would freak out if the dog got within 10 feet of her.  She is still talking about the "ruff ruff" and how she's "shhhh!" sleeping. haha.  Tony and Jackie spoke in church that Sunday and shared a great story about Dallas and read a letter he sent home from basic, which I had never heard.  It was really cool.

I did a terrible job taking pictures, but I got a few.

Aunt Tiff. She's a freshmen in high school in Utah and such a fun auntie!

Grandpa Abrams

I got home from Utah and I was super ticked I didn't take more pictures, so when we headed to state I went to the other extreme and took TOO many pics!

I've been watching Nathan play ball since he was just a wee lad playing Rigby Youth Basketball.  It's hard to believe that the same kid now towers over me and is going to be filling out his mission papers in a few months!  When we heard their team made it to state, we knew we'd have to make the trip to Boise and watch. 

Nate is not only a great basketball player, he's a phenominal person.  Amaya and Oaklie adore their Uncle "Nee" and Nate stops by our apartment several times a month to play with the girls. It means a lot to me that he makes such an effort to see them because with their daddy gone they love and need the extra boy time.

We had tons of fun cheering them on! Go Trojans!

The little chunkers in the top right corner are Oaklie and her cousin Paxton.  Come on Oaklie! You really need to pick it up on the weight gain!

My lovely sister Hailey, Kory, and Pax.

The huddle before Game 1

Oaklie was our little dancing fool at the games. Sorry, I had the camera turned the wrong way.

Nate won Amaya this bunny in the quarter machine after his last game and she just loves it! She kept that bunny in a death grip for two days after we got home.

We went swimming at the hotel after and Nate threwAmaya up so high she almost hit the rafters!

The drive home.  Is there anything more precious than a sleeping baby?

Of course, we got home and all got sick.  Thankfully, I've got a paramedic for a sister-in-law to cheerfully answer my questions at 11:00 pm.  We're feeling better now but we're quarantined to our house for a few days. 

Now I've got to brag a bit about my baby bro.  Each year they have an all star team in East Idaho.  They choose the best seniors from each school to play in an All Star Game and Nate was selected to play this year!  It's tonight but we didn't get to go because we've been sick :(  Nate and Megan Olaveson won the three-point contest during halftime of the girl's All Star Game.  Way to go! The guy who was commentating on the game online said this about Nate, "Clark can get up the air. He might not be very tall, but boy he can soar!"

A little update on Dallas.  Of course, he was bummed to miss seeing his parents and Nate's games, but we're also getting super excited for his two week leave in June! It can't get here soon enough! There's an old saying that "no news is good news" and that's definately true of the news coming out of Baghdad.  Nothing too exciting, which is great. Dallas has been working less and less as more power is handed over to the Iraqi Army.  Today he worked for 30 minutes, went to the gym for 2 1/2 hours, and talked to us for over an hour.  Pretty tough life.

I guess the guys in Dallas' section tease him about being super hard core, and they made this movie poster making fun of him.  Pretty funny if you know Dallas that well.

Here's the cool flag Dallas got.

I am very glad we're not taking any more road trips anytime soon because I am EXHAUSTED!

Our Little Ladies

Our girls are getting so big so fast! Amaya is now 1 1/2 and Oaklie is six months old! Time is just flying by.  I took Oaklie to get her six month pictures taken by the wonderful Brianne Serrano and she took some of Amaya and me. As always, they turned out great! Brianne has been our photographer since Amaya was born and I have absolutely loved our pictures every time! She is great with kids and really efficient and they always turn out beautiful!

I wouldn't exactly call these "family pictures" because we are missing one very important member of our family.  I am SO excited for the pictures we will all be taking when Dallas gets home!

Our little girls are growing like weeds! Here's some updates:

Amaya is a full blown toddler--and boy can she light up a room! I can't believe how big she is! She was 26 lbs at her eighteen month appointment and is getting taller all the time. Amaya is talking more each day.  Oaklie used to be "Oh", then she was "Oh-ee", now she's "Okee".  Pretty impressive! I love being able to hear what is on Amaya's mind, and she loves to tell me all about it.  Her favorite things to talk about are dogs ("Ruff-ruff"), Dad, Jesus, Grandpa (Bam-pa), and Uncle Nate ("Nee"). 

Oaklie is now six months old! It's amazing that half a year has already gone by.  She's growing too but she's still a little shrimp at 14 lbs 15 oz.  Her baby cousin is about to pass her up! At her appointment she was in the 26th percentile for her weight and the 97th for her head, which made me laugh pretty hard.  Dallas' nickname was "Fat Head" when he was little, but I couldn't bestow a nickname like that on sweet little Oaklie.  She must have lots of brains in there! :) Her personality gets bigger every day.  She loves jumping in her jumper and laughing at her sister.

I heard this quote when Amaya was a baby and I just love it.

“A baby will make love stronger, days shorter, nights longer, bankroll smaller, home happier, clothes shabbier, the past forgotten, and the future worth living for."

This is definately true and I can tell you that it's DOUBLY true for two little ones! We love our little girls to pieces and love watching them grown and learn!