homemade train table

For Christmas Ethan got a train set, but it kept coming apart on the carpet, and he can't put it back together himself...nor can his big sister. So Daddy bought a board for it to go on. Then we decided to make it cute with an airstrip, river, pond, streets and helipad.and voila!

I love how it turned out.

funny car ride

I don't really know what was so funny this day in the car...

but we were all bustin' up!

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cute pic of Cassidy just for fun:

Merry Christmas!

one-two-three-four-five

Ethan can count to five, and it blows me away! We didn't even teach him; he just did it one day. And Cassidy can count to 30. That's not really new, but she wanted to show it off in the video, too. So enjoy watching my brilliant babies!

(turn off music on sidebar first)

A Happy Post

...okay, well it's mostly a happy post. I'll give the bad news first. My grandpa ("Papa") died yesterday. But it's not really bad news, because he wanted to go. He has been without my grandma for 15 years, and in lots of pain for the past few years. I will miss him, but I know that he is with his sweetie now.

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Onto the happy stuff...I am feeling better each day, and hope to be off bed rest soon, because I am going stir-crazy! Plus, if I can't get out of the house, I will need to hire someone to finish my Christmas shopping! I still can't laugh or pick up the kids, but I'm hoping that will change soon.

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We went to see Santa last week and Cassidy was very brave. She had rehearsed the entire scene with me prior, so she spouted off her list flawlessly. But, just as one child becomes brave, the next one suddenly is not. Ethan wouldn't sit on his lap, so Joel had to hold him. At Newgate Mall they let us take the pictures ourself (just fyi).

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Cassidy had her dance recital Saturday night. I was still quite sick, but I couldn't miss it! She did SO well! She is now the oldest and tallest in her class, which is so funny! She was in the very middle, and she was smiling and doing the moves full-out! It was nice to see her do well for once, so I can feel justified paying for the class each month!

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I hope you all have a Merry Christmas!

I'm still alive

That's the good news.

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The bad news?

I had another surgery. And I lost a lot of blood again (600 cc's). After the surgery, they said all was well and sent me on my way. I went home in quite a bit of pain, took a nap and woke up to a WHOLE HECKA TONSA PAIN all over my body, esp. the tummy and shoulders. I called my doctor in tears, and he said to come back in for a laparoscopy (a teeny camera that goes through the belly button). They found that I was bleeding internally (400 cc's), so they performed a laparotomy to suck it all out. I stayed the night at the hospital and got home today around noon.

I am doing better gradually, but am still in a lot of pain. I can hardly move and am on bed rest. I can't even lift my own baby, and it breaks my heart. I can't even laugh or cry without pain. So please, keep away the jokes and sad stories. But I know reading this must bring you down, and I don't want to do that, so here's a funny pic:

Have a great day! I really do appreciate all the love and support of my friends and family. You guys are the best!

In the spirit of Thanksgiving...

As you know from my last blog post, there is no baby on the way. In fact, the prognosis is worse than anticipated. Unfortunately, I lost so much blood during surgery that they stopped the surgery before finishing. They were hoping they had done enough to end the molar pregnancy. But, the ultrasound on Monday would prove differently. There are still some remnants of the pregnancy left, which means I'm still pregnant with no baby. They are hoping the rest will pass on its own, so I won't have to go into surgery again. Even if surgery is on the horizon, they will want to wait for my body to recuperate fully.

That being said, I want to point out the positives in the situation. It has been very rough, but somehow, because it is the season of Thanksgiving, I am constantly reminded how much I have to be thankful for. I have two sweet children who are the light of my life. I have a wonderful husband who honors his priesthood and provides for our family and takes care of us. I have wonderful family and friends who have done so much for us recently by babysitting, bringing in meals, or just cheering me up by coming to visit.

And I have the knowledge that my Savior has felt my pain. He has born my griefs and knows what I am going through. It is in Him that I find comfort. We all go through trials, and and all for a reason. We may not understand them now, but I know that we will come through stronger if we simply put our faith in the Savior.

Thank you again, for your prayers and support. This too, shall be but a small moment.

no baby

This has been a hard week, to say the least. I had just announced last week that we were having a baby. Monday was my first appointment, and unfortunately, when they did the ultrasound, there was no baby. They did some bloodwork tests to make sure, and it turns out I had a molar pregnancy. I won't go into the gory details, but it's not a safe pregnancy for the mother. So they scheduled me a D & C for Friday morning. They said I lost a lot of blood during surgery, so I was in the hospital a few hours longer than anticipated, but am doing much better now. It's definitely difficult going through this, but we are pulling through. We really are going to be okay. They say we can try again in 6 months (a little further away than we'd wished, but do-able). We thank you all for your support.

family photos

My brother-in-law took these pictures for us today and I just had to share! he only wore his glasses in a couple pics

awwww!

brother and sister

those are Cassidy's new boots from eBay...I love them!

this pose didn't work out too well:

Kieper Family 2009

tada!

My handsome baby boy (with glasses)

So Ethan has been going cross-eyed quite often for the past few months. Our pediatrician told us we needed to see an ophthalmologist to get it checked out, because we don't want his eye to go lazy. So we made the appointment some time ago, but they were booked out until mid-September. We finally had his eye appointment and it turns out he needs glasses. Ethan would hardly hold still for the doctor to see in his eyes (plus he kept squinting them shut). This means the perscription Ethan has is not as accurate as it could be, but the doc says it should still help. If he keeps going cross-eyed, though, we may need to have him wear a patch over the good eye to strengthen the bad one. I am just heartbroken. My little 18-month-old needs glasses! Oh, and the doctor thinks Cassidy may need them, too. So we have scheduled her an appointment for November.

The saga continues...I never realized before, but optical centers carry VERY FEW (if any) eyeglasses for babies! So Ethan had two pairs to choose from (the other four pairs were pink). And one of the two pairs would not stay on his face for a split second. So really, we had no choice in the matter.

We were very scared when the glasses arrived, thinking he would NEVER wear them in a MILLION years! He had thrown the hugest fits just while trying the glasses on. Well, Joel sat down with him and a handful of mnm's and just kept popping the things in his mouth and cheering. Ethan was distracted enough that he eventually forgot about the glasses on his face. So now that is our strategy. He gets an mnm every time we put his glasses on, and he gets some thoughout the day for keeping them on. He does pretty well. He'll usually go about 20 minutes before prying them off. But then he needs like a half-hour break once he does pry them off, because he will NOT let them back on!

It takes one handsome baby to make glasses look good!

He's still cute as ever!

{lucky for us}

back in the habit

Okay, so I know it's super-lame to post pictures of scrapbook pages on a blog, but I was so excited that I am finally scrapbooking again! During school my excuse was that I was too busy teaching, but once I was done teaching my excuse became that I was so far behind, I didn't know where to begin. Well, I finally found a fun place to begin...our Disneyland trip! Thanks for getting me to scrapbook, Sheila! It was a lot of fun!

Those of you who know me well know that I love to scrapbook (although I'm not amazing at it...don't look too closely!) and that when I do it, I do it A LOT. So here's hoping I can catch up the last year of scrapbooking, and if not, at least I have these pages of Disneyland! Fun fun.

*I promise not to post every single scrapbook page, don't worry!

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So what's a blog post without an update?

Cassidy is now in pre-school and loves it! She gets so excited, and knows that she is a big girl now. When I ask her what she learned in pre-school she always talks about the toys she played with, and then after much prying, will add something about abc's or coloring:)

Cassidy took swim lessons over the summer (and failed). I didn't know that was possible.

[She wouldn't stick her face in the water.]

She loved every minute of it, though! Next year we'll prep her a little better on the whole face-in-the-water thing.

We went to Lagoon, but Daddy had to work until 5. So it was me and the kids, which turned out SO much harder than I thought! Then Daddy joined us after naps at home.

A few weeks ago we joined my mom and dad at their condo and had fun swimming, playing racquetball and hiking at the ski resort. That hike was killer.

That is all the most recent happenings around here!

Princess Party

Cassidy just turned 4, and since she is so in love with princesses, she had a princess birthday. She got 2 princess dresses (one homemade, one not) and a bunch of princess toys and books. She loves her new Belle dress and wears it every day and everywhere.Check out her cheesy grin:

dancing like a princess:

The homemade pink dress I so lovingly made for her out of curtains (with the help of my friend Cassie). Yep, that's right. Curtains. I thought she would love it and wear it everyday. Not the case. She largely prefers the Belle dress, much to my dismay.

Cassidy's "Princess Party" with her friends:

We played the "poison apple" game (hot potato):

Cassidy got spoiled with princess presents:

The girls played "stick the princess sticker on the castle"

(my rendition of pin the tail on the donkey.)

Then the girls played freeze dance and danced like princesses:

Then they decorated wands with sticky jewels:

Showing off their wands:

Happy Birthday!

Blowing out the candles:

Cassidy had a fun fun princess party with her friends, and she talks about it all the time!