Happy Hearts Day!

Anna meets Eagan

We went down to Eagan on Saturday
so we could be at our niece's baptism.
It was a wonderful celebration with the our family
and Steph's family in honor of little Rylee.
It was also a lot of fun to bring Anna to Community of Joy
to meet our old church family.

It was our first time trying to get out of the hourse to "be somewhere"
at a certain time with 2 kids. We BARELY made it in time....

This is a picture from this morning...
it was the grand opening of Grandma Larsen Daycare
as Steph went back to work today.
All three of us adults were in tears at one point...
but it sounds like Steph had a good day! (and so did Rylee!)

Ellie's getting much better at taking pictures.
Here's her newest masterpiece.
We'll be on our way back to FF tomorrow night -
we'll meet you half way Daddy!!!

Bye Bye Wallaby II

Anna went in for a blood test this morning (well, not by herself - we hired a chauffeur) and her numbers came back at "12." So no more Wallaby II to deal with. We can just pick her up when we want to without having to maneuver her around the tubes or unhook her. Yay! Life is simple again...when it comes to Anna...but when it comes to Ellie we have a 102 temp and possible diarrhea...

Hanging Out

Lights! Camera! Post!

Anna meet "Wallaby II"..."Wallaby II" meet Anna.

Well, Anna's jaundice number yesterday was 15,
so we had to go back in this morning to get checked again.

Today, it's 17.2.
Our adorable little yellow squash now needs to hang out
with Wallaby II (a UV machine).
Wallaby II is supposed to help break down
the bilirubin that has built up in her system.

Tomorrow we go in again,
and then visit the pediatrician so they can look at her.
I'm looking forward to the bill for "looking at her."
We'll see.

Sledding...and melting Dad's heart

Well, we finally had a beautiful Winter day on Saturday (before I got what might have been the flu - see previous post). I (Tim) took Ellie out to go sledding down the hill by the Hillcrest football field. As we started walking there, Ellie looked up at the sky and saw the moon even though it was the middle of the day. I'm not sure if she was confused or just excited that she found the moon, but every few feet we would stop and look for it. It was taking a while to get to the football field, so I thought I'd cut through to the Seminary, hoping we'd find a little slope, but we didn't find anything that would work.

We continued to walk across the parking lot and I started to feel bad for her, wishing we had gone straight to the football field. I would turn around and see her in her snowsuit, hat, mittens and boots, trying to keep up with me. I'd ask her how she was doing. "Good," she'd reply in a quiet voice distracted by her surroundings. I'd ask her if she was cold. "Yeah," she'd answer looking up at me with her pink cheeks and red nose, but with a smile on her face. Then she'd ask where the moon was, turning around and looking up at the sky.

We walked a little bit more and I started to worry that she was getting tired and not having any fun. I promised her that we were almost there, pointing out our destination. I pulled her on the sled a little bit more and then without noticing, I pulled her through a patch of mud. She got her mittens dirty and then rubbed it on her face. I asked myself why I didn't just go straight to the football field. Why did I cut through to the Seminary, when I wasn't sure there was even a hill to sled down? She's gotta be getting bored just walking around a parking lot and I'm sure she's cold.

I helped her up and brushed the mud off of her face and mittens. I apologized to her, but all she wanted to do was find the moon, again. As we started to walk again, I asked her how she was doing and if she was cold.

She looked me right in the eyes and with a big smile she answered me, "Ellie happy."

At that moment I realized that she didn't care that we weren't sledding down a hill. She didn't mind the walk. She wasn't concerned about the little bit of mud on her mittens. She was just satisfied hanging out with Dad and looking for the moon that happened to show up in the middle of the day. I didn't need to entertain her, She just wanted to spend time with me.

We did finally reach the hill and went down a couple times together and the video below is Ellie going down the hill by herself for the first time. Then she saw some snowmen off in the distance and we had to check those out. I lost my winter boots during our move, so I was in my tennis shoes. My feet were getting pretty cold, but I was having too much fun with her to care. I was happy too.

Headin' Home

We came home Thursday morning.
Then we ran out to Target to grab some things we forgot.
I only mention that because it's the first time
I got yelled at by a Target employee.
She thought I was pregnant,
so I told her that I had had her "the day before yesterday"
and she instantly started yelling (among other things),
"Put your credit card in the machine, I gotta get you back into bed!!!!"

Ellie was just checking...not sure for what, but she was just checking.

Anna met Bestamor (Grandma Mathiesen's Mom).

And here's Auntie Steph...wasn't it just yesterday that her baby was that little???

The strapping men with the lil' ladies.

Last night the mommies wanted to have some fun with the little cousins.
Rylee is now almost 6 weeks old...so they will be good friends!
See how they are already linking arms?
They're actually crying because we told them
they couldn't skip arm in arm into the living room to play.

Also, in the picture you can tell that Anna's a bit yellow.
I took her in to have her checked again
and it turns out she's having a bit of a jaundice problem
(like her daddy and big sister).
We'll be heading BACK to the doc tomorrow to check again,
and talk about what to do.


ALSO...Tim has the stomach flu.
Yippee.
Please pray that this awful bug doesn't make it's rounds
through our newly expanded family.