Poor Benny

Pretty much this whole month someone in our house has been sick but poor Ben seems to be the winner. We thought he was on the mend but when I put him to bed last night he felt warm again so I gave him some ibuprofen and put him to sleep. Then he woke up at 1AM burning up and crying. I took his temp over and over and over and every reading was in the 104's. 104.4, 104.7, 104.5. His heart was racing and he was breathing heavy and he was complaining of a tummy ache. We decided to give him Tylenol to see if that'd get his fever down. But by 2AM nothing had changed. Since I'm still not completely over this stupid flu Kevin took him to the ER (It was torture not to be the one to take him, I sat up with my phone in hand the entire time. Thankfully Kevin sent me lots of texts.) The doctor did chest x-rays suspecting pneumonia but those came back clear. They couldn't find anything wrong with him so they came back home at 5AM. Today his fever is reduced but still not normal. All the kid wants to do is watch movies and play video games. Poor kid, I really hope he feels better soon! This house is ready to be healthy and have some fun again! 

Christmas in Bellingham

 After brunch at Ryan & Megan's we headed home to pack for Bellingham (the power was out so we packed by flash light!). The kids were so excited to be in Bellingham for round 3 of present opening. Ben was a trooper even though he wasn't feeling great. 

 Mama & Lauren

 Oma got Lauren & Olivia matching dresses. Olivia actually got a lot of outfits this Christmas, she is one lucky doll:) 

As the night went on I started to feel sick and went to bed early. Woke up the next day with the flu:( Fun times. But at least the kids still got to do fun stuff. Kevin took Lauren on her first ice skating experience. Sad I missed it but sounds like it was fun!

 she said it was harder than she expected!

 She's been asking us to take her ice skating for over a year. I think she pictured herself out there twirling around!

Ben sat with Opa and watched and seemed perfectly happy about that! 

Christmas Morning

 To add to our Christmas Eve drama (read post below) Ben woke up at 2 AM with a fever of 102. The poor boy was miserable. I got the pleasure of sleeping in his car bed with him until 5:30 when I finally snuck out. Lauren woke up at 8 rearing to go but we made her wait for him. Finally at 8:30 we woke him up so the poor girl didn't have to be tortured any longer. Doesn't Ben look thrilled? 

 She was so excited and he kept saying, "Don't talk to me Lauren." 

 opening her stocking

 checking out his broken race track from Santa (see post below)

 Checking out his new microphone, which actually works- yahoo!

 Our future Rock Star!

 opening gifts

 Ben's big pile!

 After we opened presents we headed over to Ryan & Megan's for a fabulous Christmas Brunch and more presents. The girls got matching dresses from Aunt Pam (their dolls got the same dress too!) and they were beyond thrilled!

I didn't get a lot of pictures, too busy having fun:) 

Christmas Eve

 On Christmas Eve we had a big group over that consisted of 16 adults and 9 kids! It was crazy but fun. Didn't get a lot of pics but I had to get a cousin jammie shot. Ben & Carsie were both on their way to getting sick:( 

 His favorite toy at our house and now he has one of his very own! 

 Just a snap shot of the craziness. Of the 9 kids, Lauren & Hadley were the oldest and the only girls!

 Auntie Meg even got off work early and was able to join us, always a bonus! 

If only the night ended there! After everyone left at around 9ish Kevin & I put the kids to bed and started on Christmas. As we were setting up the 2 microphones, the race track and "Cookie" the dog we realized we needed C batteries and a lot of them. Turns out I had 2 Costco packs of AA's but NO C's!!! So I run to the gas station at 10:30 and grab 3 packs of C's (paying a ridiculous price!) only to get home and realize I counted wrong and I need 2 more. So I go back to the gas station 5 minutes shy of them closing and get their last pack of C's. I paid a total of $20 for 8 C batteries- ugh! Anyway, we get the microphones working and then realize that the stupid race track is completely broken, doesn't work at all! By now it's 11:45 and there is nothing we can do so we go to bed and decide we'll tell Ben we are sorry Santa brought him a broken toy and we'll buy him a new one. 

Christmas morning rolls around and...Cookie the dog doesn't work either, totally broken and as we soon found out she is sold out EVERYWHERE, even on line. Needless to say Lauren is annoyed and plans to write Santa a letter asking him to not bring broken toys next year! Maybe next year Mama & Papa Elf will inspect them a little better prior to Christmas Eve;) 

Brother & Sister Gift Exchange

 Lauren and Ben always exchange the gifts they buy each other on Christmas eve. This year we let them do it in the morning since we had lots of people coming over that night. 

 not sure why Ben is 1/2 naked

 A Race Car- shocking! 

And Ben got Lauren a Barbie car. At first she was kind of annoyed and wondered why he thought she'd want a car but once she realized Barbie could cruise around in it she got excited:) 

Just like Caillou

 Ben is my little baking buddy. He loves to help me and is obsessed with my new mixer. We were baking Christmas cookies and he said, "Caillou does this with his mom too, My just like Caillou". Well Benny, I think you are a lot cuter that Caillou and you definitely have more hair:) 

Snowflake Lane

 I told Kevin I wanted to do something fun tonight, something to get me in a Christmasy mood since I was sort of feeling grinchy this afternoon. So we headed to Snowflake Lane. Us and about 3000 other people! It was CRAZY! But the kids did have fun seeing the characters and getting a sucker. 

 They both got little glimpses of the actual snow but it was pretty hard to see from where we were. 

 Lauren loved the snow princess. 

Then we went to the new frozen yogurt place in Bellevue Square. They had so many fun flavors and they had a gf list, love places like that! We had fun trying lots of flavors and then settled on peppermint, which totally helped put me in the Christmas mood! 

After this we did a little shopping and then Lauren yelled, "I see Hadley" and I was like, sure you do. But what do you know? Hadley and her family along with the cute Conniff clan were right there on the corner. All Lauren kept saying the whole way home was, "That was soooo fun seeing Hadley." Even though she saw her last night and the whole weekend before, seeing Hadley is still way cooler than snow princesses, fake snow, drummers on stilts, frozen yogurt, and candy cane lolipops. Way to go Hads! 

This girl!

Today when I got home from the grocery store Lauren starting unloading my bags. When she found this pack of spinach she immediately ripped off the top and started shoving it in her mouth. Then tonight we had artichokes for dinner and she was over the moon. She kept saying I think my nickname should be "Artichoke Kok". If only we could clone those taste buds of hers! 

Their very own trees

 Lauren has been wanting her own Christmas tree for awhile. Today we found a 2 pack on sale at Target so I just couldn't resist buying them. We came home and made ornaments and stars for the top, they were SOOOO excited. The trees look pretty darn cute in their rooms and they are so proud! Worth every penny...I'm still working on convincing Kevin that they were a necessity:) 

Great Wolf Lodge

 Friday night Nana took Lauren, Ben, Hadley, Kevin & I to Great Wolf Lodge and we had SO MUCH FUN! We LOVED it, not a single complaint!

We didn't waste a second, we changed asap and went straight to the 84 degree water park! They thought of everything, had fun activities for all ages.  

 As you can imagine, Ben LOVED this part!

 Hadley Jane having fun!

 Ben & Mama

 After about 3 hours of splashing, swimming, climbing, jumping, and sliding we had worked up quite the appetite! We went to one of the fun restaurants in the lodge and Lauren was beyond thrilled because they had gluten free hamburger buns and french fries. She kept saying, "Great Wolf Lodge is the perfect name for this place because it really is so great." She then said that I should get a job there and she'd work with me so we can eat gf buns and play at the water park all the time. Pretty much a perfect life:) 

 The kid's meals come with wolf ears, so cute!

 silly kids

 Then we got to go see Santa and Mrs. Claus. The girls were so glad because they had both forgotten to tell him they wanted magic fairy dust. But later Lauren said to me, "Mom, I thought Santa could remember lots of stuff." I said, "right, he can." To which she replied, "Well then why did he ask me what I wanted, I've already told him everything but the fairy dust." I told her he was just double checking to make sure she hadn't changed her mind and she bought it...crazy to think we most likely only have a year or two left of her believing.

 Then they have pajama story time in the lobby (dinner took too long and we didn't have time to go change into our pj's which really bothered me because I wanted them in their cute Christmas pj's, but I let it go;)). 

 The story time stage with talking creatures. 

 Daddy & Benny

 The girls trying to catch the snow, so cute!

 The "snow" at the end of story time. 

 Back in our awesome room coloring before bed. The room was amazing, 2 bedrooms, 2 bath and very cozy fire place. 

 A super tired Nana, Mom, & Dad. 

 Had to get a Christmas jammy pic!

 Getting ready for round 2 of the water park. We were down there by 9AM right when it opened on Saturday! 

 This is the view of the main lodge room, it was decorated so pretty! 

 View from above the water park.

 The wave pool, which was SO fun! There was also a cool pool with different floating animals that you could climb on, the little kid area with a couple of fun slides, 4 really fun tube rides for "big" kids (Lauren went on all but 1 and only because she didn't meet the height requirement, the girl is brave!). I also skipped the "scary" one because I was too chicken, but my mom and Kevin said it was fun. 

So long Great Wolf Lodge, we can't wait to come back again!