1 year!

Oh the difference a year makes

I know it is hard to believe that Kamryn is now 1, in fact she is 1 year and 1 month old today! She was our little surprise, but, I can't imagine life without her. I never thought I would like the color pink, bows or anything frilly, but she brings out this weird super girly side of me. I love dressing her up and taking pictures of her. She is so fun and is such a happy little girl.

Fun Kamryn facts:
1) She loves to make her brothers laugh
2) She love to empty drawers, kleenex boxes, wipes anything she can get her hands on
3)She says "mama", "dada" and "hi"
4) I'm trying to teach her sign language, right now she can sign "more" and "milk"
5) She loves to eat, she would sit in her highchair all day and eat if I would let her.
6) She HATES green beans (just like her mom)
7) If there is a toilet that she can get to, she will be in it (so gross)
8) She loves music, whenever she hears music she dances
9) She is now 19lb 4 oz and 28 in long
10) She loves water, baths, swimming pools, anything she can splash in (see #7)

Merry Christmas!

So if you didn't get a Christmas card from us this is year, know that you are not alone. We didn't get our pictures back in time to be able to send out cards, and when I tried to take a few snap shots of the kids to send out...well lets just say that after over 100 pictures we have a hilarious reel of photos that we will never be able to do anything with except laugh at. So here is a late Christmas card from us, I know its lame, digital and all, but its this or nothing. We hope everyone a a great Christmas!

Halloween

Just a few pics of the kids in their costumes:

Fall

We had a lot of fun this fall, going to see the witches at Gardner Village and Cornbelly's at Thanksgiving point.

California Trip

For our family vacation this year we headed out to California. We flew in Sunday and drove down highway 1 where we stopped at Oceanside Pier. It was freezing cold, so we didn't go in the water, just walked down the pier and had lunch at Ruby's diner which is at the end of the pier, so it looks like you're having lunch in the middle of the ocean.

The next day we went to Legoland, the boys were SO excited for Legoland, I wished I would have recorded Karter's reaction when he first saw the Lego castle. We spent most of the day at Legoland, it was a bit rainy, so it wasn't very busy and we could pretty much walk onto all the rides. Although I have to say it was not my favorite amusement park, and I think we'll be skipping next time we go out.

Tuesday we drove back up highway 1 and stopped at one of the most beautiful beaches I've seen in Cali, Aliso beach. This beach has everything, beautiful sandy beach, awesome rock formations, tide pools, and even a playground and picnic area. We spend a few hours here playing in the waves and climbing the rocks.

On Wednesday we went to Disneyland. The weather was perfect and the park was not too crowded. Kamryn was so cute, when we walked in she pointed at everything and would squeal and laugh. We stopped at one of our favorite places to eat at Disneyland, Carnation cafe, for lunch. The food and service is great here and I highly recommend it. The boys got to ride everything that they wanted before we left. As we were leaving the parade was starting, so we stopped to watch it. Kamryn absolutely loved it. She clapped, danced, waved and blew kisses the entire time, that alone made my whole vacation.

Thursday we spend another day at Disney, the park was a bit more crowded, so we didn't get to ride on as much, but we stopped to watch the Jedi training and Keaton got picked to do it.

Friday Disney was packed, so we headed over to California adventure. Karter was too short to ride on most of the rides here, so I took him to play boardwalk games and everyone else went and rode the coaster a few times. Karter won 3 stuffed animals at the boardwalk games, one a a big Mickey.

Saturday was Keaton's birthday and the day we were heading home. So we went to downtown Disney first and got him some Legos at the Lego store for his present, then headed home.

All in all it was a great trip. Each time we've gone to Disney, it makes me want to go back again. We will now look forward to another trip when Kamryn is a bit older.

Catching Up...

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Get your own

So I know I'm way behind, so here is a little catching up...

Me: I started working a little more now instead of just 1 day a week I'm working 2. I got a new calling, I'm now the Assistant den leader to our 8 year old wolves. So yeah, I really have no personal time anymore.

Kurt: Kurt is still working at Costco, he is still the FE manager, so he's in charge of all the cashiers, and pretty much the building during open hours. We had a big BBQ with a bunch of friends for his birthday, we even rented a giant water slide for all the kids, it was a ton of fun.

Keaton: Keaton started 1st grade, he is getting so big and tall. He made the top reading and math class, which is great, except for all the homework he now brings home. And he started riding a 2 wheeler (without training wheels).

Karter: Karter now goes to preschool 3 days a week (yay!!) He loves doing his "homework" while I work with Keaton on his. This spring he started playing T-ball, although he was much more interested in the dirt than actually playing.

Kamryn: My baby is now 10 months old, I know hard to believe. She is such a happy girl. She's gone from crawling, to standing, to walking around things, she can even walk with her little push toy. She got her first two teeth and it looks like four more are on their way. She loves to wave and just started blowing kisses.

We spent most of our summer at the neighborhood pool. Lots of swimming and BBQs with friends. In August we had a Plothow family reunion up in Park City which was lots of fun. And thats about it...

Poor Sick baby!

Last Saturday Kamryn stared to have a terrible cough but other than that seemed okay, we were in Moab and figured she had a little cold and would get over it. But she just seemed to get worse and worse, to the point that we left late Sunday night. By the time we got home she had a fever, cough and was very congested. Monday morning we took her to her Doctor and found out she had RSV. At the Doctor's office she had a bit of retraction ( where it looks like they are sucking in on their ribs when they breath in),but not bad enough to warrant a trip to the hospital. Her doctor told me to monitor her for breathing problems , and take her to the ER if her condtion worsened. Each day she would have good times where she seemed on the mend, and times where I thought we should take her in. Wednesday a friend of mine, had me bring her to the clinic she worked at, and they suctioned her and checked her O2 levels which were good. So I took her home thinking she was oxygenating well and on the mend. Around 11:00pm Wednesday I fed her and then about 20 minuted later she started coughing so hard she stared vomiting and wouldn't stop. By this point she had only drank 12 oz the whole day. Then I noticed that she was retracting to the point I could see all her ribs on her left side. So Kurt and I decided we should take her up the Primary's to get checked. My mom drove up with me while Kurt stayed with the boys. When we got up there, her breathing was normal again and was Oxygenating well, but was still really congested, so they did 2 rounds of deep suctioning on her and ran a bunch of tests to make sure she didn't have another illness on top of the RSV. Luckily she didn't. We ended up getting released at 4:30 am. We now are going to have to take her to the suctioning clinic 1-2 times a day for the next couple of days. We are all exhausted, but doing well, hopefully she will be better soon.Finally asleep after a miserable night of being poked and prodded

Moab

Last weekend we took a quick trip down to Moab to see Arches National Park. I had never been there, it was so pretty and the weather on Saturday was perfect. We had a picnic at Balanced Rock, then hiked North and South Window. We started hiking Delicate Arch viewpoint, but Karter pooped out about 5 minutes into it, so only Keaton and Kurt finished it while the rest of us went back to the car. Then we went to Moab brewery for dinner and back to the hotel and let the boys swim, Kurt said the water was so cold, but the boys didn't care. Then we walked Main street and got ice cream. We were supposed to stay until Monday, but Kamryn stared to get sick Saturday, she was such a trooper while we hiked, but by Sunday she was just a wreak I told Kurt we needed to get home, so last minute we packed to car and headed home. (more on that in the next post) at North Window

Kurt and Keaton's view of Delicate Arch

Balanced Rock

Double Arch

Turret Arch

Jedi Karter turns 4

If you know me, you know I'm not a crafty person. I like things that are easy and low maintenance. But this year for Karter's birthday I decided I would give being creative and crafty a try, thank goodness for Etsy and people that are actually creative, and make things I can buy!I found some cute printables for the decorations and the cupcake toppers. I made his invitation using some scanned images. And searched the internet for some cute ideas.When the kids arrived they all got a lightsaber (made out of pool noodles and shiny duct tape) and either a Darth Vader or a clone trooper mask. Then all the kids went outside and dueled.After playing the kids came in for some "Han" sandwiches, "space puffs", "Chewbacca chips", "light sabers" (grape kabobs), Wookie cookies", and "Yoda soda" (Sprite & lime sherbet)

Then we opened presentsThen we had a Darth Vader pinata. Unfortunately it broke on Karter's 3rd hit, so none of the other kids got a whack at it, but luckily they didn't seem to mind.

We then sang "Happy Birthday" and had cupcakes
And lastly we played Lego Star Wars bingo. All the kids got a treat bag with a Star Wars cup, some Blox candy and Lego Star Wars Stickers. We had such a blast, and even though it was a lot of hard work, I may consider doing something like this again for one of the other kids...we'll see how long it takes me to clean up he house first!

Welcome to the crazy life!

People always say life gets really hard after the 3rd baby, boy is that true! There is barely time to post updates on this blog, in fact, at this moment I'm typing while feeding the baby!

So, lets see, what's happened since my last post? Kurt went back to work after his 5 weeks on paternity. Its been nearly 2 months, and I'm just feeling like I'm starting to get the hang of 3 kids; although I still haven't taken all 3 anywhere by myself yet...baby steps! I started back to work last week, pretty glad to be back. Its nice only working 1 or 2 days a week, but its hard having less days in the week to keep up with all the laundry, dishes and other messes.

Keaton lost his first baby teeth. That's right I said TEETH! On Sunday my mom noticed that one of his permanent teeth had just broken through, behind the baby tooth. The baby tooth wasn't even kind of loose. So Monday I called to dentist to ask about it. We ended up having to take him in that afternoon to have the two bottom front teeth pulled! Luckily he did awesome, not a whole lot phases that kid. He's pretty excited he got a visit from the tooth fairy and got $2!
In February Kurt and Keaton went out to California to visit Kurt's parents for the weekend. So Karter and I got to go have a mommy and Karter day, while my mom watched Kamryn. We went to incredible pizza and played mini bowling and went miniature golfing. It made my day, when he said that he wasn't even sad he didn't get to go to California because he got to have "such a special day"!Kamryn is now 3 months, its had to believe she's that old already, it seems like I just had her. At her 2 month check-up she weighed 9lbs 8oz and was 23 inches long. She's been sleeping through the night for nearly the last 2 months. She smiles all the time, and loves to blow spit bubbles and coo.

My Christmas Present

For Christmas this year I wanted to have the kids pictures taken by Skye Johansen. All the girls in the photo lab rant and rave over her work, and ever since I saw her blog a few years ago, I've been a huge fan. I just barely got the pictures from her. And I have to say I'm in love with them. I think they are one of the best Christmas presents I've gotten. So here they are...