Christmas

Henry thinks he kinda likes the bottle, maybe.

He definitely likes his Dad.

Occasionally these two get along.

I loved that Henry was just layed out on me.

Mobile Pictures

The cute leotard and leg warmers the Bowsers gave Park for Christmas.

Dally has decided that she never needs to get dressed again, she would prefer to just live in pajamas.  She doesn't care what clothes we put on her during the day, but she is VERY opinionated about what pajamas she wears, and will bring us a pair to put on her as soon as we get home.

Parker's pajamas she insisted on trying on.

No sooner were we done opening presents then Parker started begging to go use her gift card from Uncle Chance and Jessica.   We placated her telling her it wasn't open, but first thing the next day she insisted on going.

Dally chose some Minnie Walkie talkies that are actually pretty strong.  I have to follow the girls around turning them off because someone in the neighborhood has walkie talkies that they use regularly that Dally's Minnie Walkies pick up!

Dally picked out Snow White's House.

Park was very very excited about these princesses that she picked out.  A couple of days later we picked up a Cinderella castle on clearance and she has been playing with them non-stop since.

Henry and Daddy picked out this pirate ship which the girls promptly pirated from Henry and had a ball with.

Some more fun, random pictures.

Twinners.

My friend from PA, Emily, messaged me the other day to tell me she was visiting family nearby.  We quickly made plans to meet up to visit and see each others families.  It was really fun to see her and her cute kids, I wish we lived closer!

Daddy insisted Henry needed this.

Henry rolls all over the place now.  My favorite was the other day when I found him under our bed. 

Park got this princess dress the other day that she is in love with.

Surgery

When Parker went in for her physical for school the doctor was concerned because she didn't do well on the eye exam.  He sent her to get her eyes checked out and I guess (because he didn't mention it during the appointment, I only knew he did it when they called to schedule the appointment) he figured he'd get her ears checked as well and put in a audiology referral.  Well her vision ended up not being a problem once a licensed individual checked them instead of a family medicine corpsman, but we found out she was having trouble hearing out of her right ear (looking back we realized she had been asking "What?  What?" a lot in the last year but we chalked it up to normal 5 year old I'm not paying enough attention to know what you said the first time).  The audiologist could see that she had a fluid buildup and sent us back to family medicine for antibiotics.  The MD there couldn't tell anything was wrong but gave us the antibiotics because the audiologist told him to.  She took them and we could tell she was hearing better.  We went to see ENT to touch base with them and we were told that they wanted to continue following her, but if her hearing worsened that they'd recommend tubes.  She went for another hearing test a few weeks later and they showed that her hearing had improved, but they still scheduled her another hearing test that would be 12 weeks from the time she took the antibiotics.  By the time we got to the that third examine the beginning of December we could tell that she was back to not hearing well which the test confirmed.  The next day we went back to ENT and scheduled her to have a tube put in her right ear and possibly have her Adenoids removed.  During this time we also found out that Hank had new orders and had to report to 29 Palms by January 3rd.  Thankfully the surgery was scheduled for January 2nd, and he was able to be there for Parker.  The night before she was nervous and told some of the neighbors that she was going to run away (too bad the only thing close enough to our neighborhood to run away to is the hospital, ha), but she was really brave when it came down to it.

Pre-surgery waiting for the doctor to come talk to us.

Hank and I had made arrangements for our neighbor to watch Dally and planned to take Henry with us.  The morning of the surgery Hank took Parker to the hospital so they could be there by 730 while I finished feeding Henry and waited for Amberinna to come over to be with Dally.  Amberinna came on time and I was walking out the door when I realized Hank had taken the van with Henry's car seat in it.  So I left Henry and drove to the hospital.  One of the first things Hank said when I got there was "Where's Henry?" so clearly he remembered the plan, but he was more worried about Parker then he let on because he had no idea he had taken the car seat (which is ALWAYS in the van) until I pointed it out.  Thankfully we had time before they took Park to the OR to go back and get Henry.

They told us before surgery that if Park's adenoids were large and they needed to be removed then the surgery would take around 30 minutes, but if they were small and they just needed to place the one tube it would be about 10 minutes.  We walked Park to the door of the OR (which she was fine with, she kissed us and walked in like no big deal), then went to the pediatric waiting room.  Henry kept us amused for the first half hour or so while he rolled around on the floor and played with his blanket, but then he got tired and went to sleep so when they finally came to get us (45 minutes after we had dropped her off) Hank ended up staying with Henry in the waiting room while I went to recovery to be with Park.

They warned us that when kids wake up from surgery they almost always cry.  The nurse said that her biggest job is to figure out if the kids are crying from being groggy or if they are in pain, and that it could take a while for her to really wake up.  Park was really groggy when she woke up but she never cried.  She didn't like the IV (they placed it after she was asleep in the OR when they decided she needed to have her adenoids out, if it had just been the tube she wouldn't have had one at all), but she accepted a pop and some water, and mostly just complained about having to cough (totally normal).  When the nurse took us out of recovery and back to the room she told me that if my other kids had surgery it would not be this easy, that Parker had done exceptionally well and that she was very impressed with her.  

Daddy and Henry joined us in her room at that point, and after another 15-20 minutes they let Park get dressed, took out her IV, and let us take her home.  They had given her Tylenol in the OR and she complained of having a sore throat but that was it, she was ready to get out of there. 

When we got home Parker immediately had a yogurt and then asked for eggs and pancakes.  She was definitely feeling better.  She asked for tylenol once later in the day but other than that and going to bed early you would never have even known she had been at the hospital that morning.  She was thrilled when balloons, a bear, and some cookies were delivered from Grammy, Grandpa, and Uncle Ry.