Breakfast with Autumn and Chad

This morning, we welcomed some very dear friends to our home for breakfast. Autumn and Chad purchased a car on ebay from someone in NY, so they booked a one way ticket to JFK to pick up the car and drive it back to Utah. This might sound like an odd thing to do, but for them, it's just a lot of fun. This is their 4th car purchase and road trip from NY!

They took the red-eye flight from SLC and arrived very early. The seller of the car drove it right to them at JFK, then they drove to our house for breakfast. We had such a great morning, catching up with them and hanging out. Click on this link to Autumn's blog to see the pictures she took. I took lots of pictures, but once again, I'm having computer/camera issues :(

• My office computer completely crashed ... John's cousin Jose came over and diagnosed the problem: Hard drive is completely fried. We just ordered a new one, so once it arrives, Jose will install it and then we'll have to upload everything back onto the computer (oh my goodness, the thought of reconstructing my computer gives me major anxiety!). Thank goodness I've been backing it up to an external hard drive, but I'm nervous about retrieving it all ... I'm a little worried I only backed up my pictures and videos, not all my documents. We'll see. And sadly, my last back-up was in September or October, so I'm going to lose everything since then. I'm feeling very lost without my computer ... thank goodness John's laptop is still functioning!
• I left my new SLR camera at Maribel's house - duh. We always seem to leave something whenever we go to someone's house. I'll get it back soon though and download all the pictures on there
• My point-and-shoot camera has taken a beating and isn't working properly ... I can't get the lens to pop out when I turn it on. It seems like it was recently dropped with the lens open; this easily could have happened since Reagan often swipes my camera and isn't exactly careful with it. But since I didn't SEE her drop it, I can't fairly accuse her.

Last few days in Salt Lake (Tues-Fri, January 6th-9th 2009)

TUESDAY, January 6th
On Tuesday night, we went to dinner at our FAVORITE Chinese restaurant, Asian Star. Gary (the owner) always takes such good care of us there. This was the first night Reagan seemed to be back to her healthy, happy self.

Avery at dinner

The "big" kids - Makenna, Reagan, Blake and Alyssa

Makenna, Blake and Alyssa

Silly Larsen kids ~ Reagan & Makenna

The ENTIRE Family! I don't know why we've never done this before, but we never have someone else take a picture of our whole family. Luckily, we snapped one this time as we were leaving Asian Star. It's pretty amazing that our little family of 5 has grown to a large family of 14!

After dinner, my dad was swinging the grandkids ...

... and throwing Makenna up in the air

WEDNESDAY, January 7th

Avery stepped into the fridge and refused to get out! We all know how much Avery LOVES food!!

Camille brought her girls over because we thought we'd be saying "goodbye" and heading for the airport ... we ended up changing our flight from Wednesday to Friday to allow more time for Reagan to recover from her stomach bug.

Makenna, Avery and Samantha

Makenna, Avery and Samantha

Reagan finally woke up and joined the kids ... even though she seemed okay the night before, she went back to being listless and sick on Wednesday

Makenna, Reagan, and Avery giving them "loves"

FRIDAY, January 9th

By Friday, Reagan seemed to be doing well! Phew! It was a long couple of days with her being sick. I love the above picture of her, once again in her favorite dress-up dress!

Benee and Alyssa

Benee brought the kids over on Friday morning to say goodbye before our flight.

Reagan and Benee

Reagan and Benee

Blake was so annoyed with all the girls and their dress up clothes, so my mother made him this fabulous cape that is reversible, red and black!

Nana and Avery

My parents took us to the airport and everything went SO smoothly! We got right through security and when we got to our gate, the gate agent was more than accomodating, allowing us to get on the plane with Zone 1 to get the girls situated. We were slightly delayed to push back from the gate, but only about 25 minutes. Reagan sat in the window seat and spent that time watching the planes out the window and coloring. By the time we took off, she was getting very sleepy and she quickly fell asleep sitting up, staring out the window. I wish I could have found my camera to take a picture ... she didn't move from that position for 2 hours!!! Avery was a little reluctant to fall alseep in my arms, but she finally gave in as well and slept for about an hour and a half. With both girls sleeping, John and I both put on our headphones and watched the in-flight movie!!! The movie was called Ghost Town with Ricky Gervais, Greg Kinnear and Tea Leoni and it was really funny. I couldn't believe it. I'm sure it was a once in a lifetime kind of situation where we were able to relax and watch a movie while flying with a 3 and 1 year old! I felt like we were due, since our flight TO Utah was so long and painful ... the flight home was a quick 3 1/2 hours and it honestly couldn't have gone better.

Sunday and Monday in Salt Lake (January 4th and 5th)

After going to bed really late (because Reagan was so sick), I woke up early to make it to breakfast with Natalie and Jami ... we had already made plans and I didn't want to cancel, so I had to take Avery with me. It was a fun morning at the Cottonwood Market Street, except that Avery wasn't very happy to be sitting for so long, listening to boring mothers talk.

Natalie, a very tired Amanda, and a grumpy Avery

This is a horrible picture of me and it turned out really dark, due to the bright background, but I just had to post a picture of my cute friend Jami.

Sunday afternoon, my grandparents (my dad's parents) came over for dinner

Benee and Avery

It's always been a tradition for my mother to make won-tons on New Year's Day ... this year, it took a couple days for them to be made, but they were definitely worth the wait!

Sunday dinner with everyone except John and Reagan (who were downstairs in the basement being quarantined, due to Reagan's nasty stomach virus)

After dinner, we headed over to my aunt Collette's house ... I finally got to meet my cousin Amber's newborn daughter Hadlyn!! As soon as I held her, Avery was immediately jealous and insisted that I hold her too!

Hadlyn Collette Boyd was born on November 12th, weighing 4 pounds, 6 ounces. She came 6 or 7 weeks early, very similar to Reagan. She was absolutely precious!!

Grandpa Mann (my mother's father) was there and little Samantha walked over to him, offering her fist ... she's been trained to "give bones!" It was pretty funny because my grandpa didn't understand the whole concept :)

Doug, Hadlyn, Benee, and my Dad

Amber and Neal Mann

Camille feeding Hadlyn ... doesn't my sister look beautiful in this picture?

I can't remember what I took away from Avery, but she was obviously very upset about it. This is a funny age because she wants to explore and discover all kinds of new things ~ when I take away dangerous items or expensive/breakable things, she gets VERY upset and throws some pretty incredible temper tantrums! Rather than getting frustrated with her, I should just take pictures and video of her dramatic displays so we can laugh about them later :) Lately, we've been calling her the "drama queen" so often, that even Reagan calls her that!

Thankfully, Avery's tantrums are relatively short and she goes back to being her sweet self ... she was soooo cute with Hadlyn! She stood next to my mother for the longest time, hugging, kissing and loving little Hadlyn. I took so many pictures, but here are a few of my favorites.

Avery loves playing with baby dolls ~ she hugs them, squeezes them, kisses them, and drags them all over the house. She was desperately trying to get my mother to release Hadlyn so she could take her :)

Sweet cuddles

Giving "loves"

The other purpose of our visit was so that I could see Collette's newly remodeled kitchen and living room. It was all gorgeous! We also indulged in some delicious desserts.

My cousin Amber, her mother Collette, and my other cousin Molly (Molly is the little sister of my cousin Sara who lives in Brooklyn)

Cute picture of the Siebenberg Family and my dad

Camille and Samantha ~ When Sam gives her cheesie smile, she loves to show her teeth ... she can be such a little ham!

Grandpa and Avery ... Avery's poor little cheeks were so dried out from the dry desert climate

Sweet Makenna

Uncle David and my dad ~ I fell in love with this dark brown tile they chose for the floors ... it almost looked like leather and it gave the room such a warm, cozy feel.

MONDAY, January 5th

On Monday, I went to my friend Melissa's house for a playdate. We've been friends since 7th grade, so it was wonderful to see her!

I was so bummed that Reagan was sick because Melissa's little boy Andrew is almost Reagan's age. This little boy has already endured so much in his short little life ... he's already fought off a rare form of pediatric cancer! My heart goes out to Melissa for having the strength to watch her baby go through chemo-therapy ~ I simply can't imagine going through something so traumatic. Thankfully, all his recent scans have come back clean and he's healthy and thriving.

Our other friend Allison came over too and brought her youngest son Ashton, who's the exact same age as Andrew. Their two boys were so cute and played together so nicely. Allison and I have kept in touch over the years, but haven't seen each other in about 7 years! She was living in Kansas City, and then St. Louis while her husband Benji was completing medical school, and then his residency. We never seemed to be in Salt Lake at the same time, so we used email to stay connected during that time. It was so nice to finally see her in person and catch up!

Although Avery was well overdue for a nap, she was a trooper and kept up with the boys

Update

I guess you could say it's all gone downhill since my last post. My poor little Reagan has been through the ringer. After playing in the snow, she seemed just fine. She did tell me that her tummy hurt and I proceeded to lecture her about how she was probably just hungry and she needed to be better about eating and how I was worried about how little she eats each day, blah, blah, blah. We bathed her, then put her to bed that night (Saturday, Jan 3rd) and about 30 minutes later, we heard her crying. John ran downstairs, since it's VERY unusual for Reagan to wake up once she's gone to sleep.

When he carried Reagan upstairs, I stood frozen, taking in the sight of my now messy little girl ... she was covered in throw-up and she was crying hysterically. I wasn't sure where to begin because it was just so messy. We finally got her in the bathtub again and got all the sheets changed ... of course, as soon as we put her back in bed, it happened all over again. She ended up taking 3 baths that night and threw up 4 times before I finally went to sleep at 2 AM. By 9:00 on Sunday morning, John said she had thrown-up another 4 or 5 times and she'd hardly slept. She slept most of Sunday and we had to keep her downstairs when my sisters and their kids came over that night for dinner ~ what a bummer that she couldn't play with her cousins!

By Monday, I was nauseous and feeling lousy in general. My sisters were planning on coming over that night, but I had to cancel because I felt so miserable. By Tuesday afternoon, Reagan was acting rather normal. We were so relieved because we were scheduled to fly home on Wednesday. My parents took us all to Asian Star for dinner to celebrate John's recent birthday and Reagan seemed to be feeling normal. She even ate some rice at dinner, a big step for her, since she'd hardly eaten a morsel of anything for almost 3 days.

On Wednesday morning, Reagan was back to her lethargic, whiny, sick-self. We were getting really nervous about flying with her. I decided to call Delta to see what our options were. To my surprise, they were very accommodating and allowed us to postpone our departure. It's a good thing, because the vomiting started again that afternoon ... she threw-up 4 more times, all within the time frame that we would have been 30,000 feet in the air, enclosed in a tight space with strangers surrounding us! I was so relieved we weren't on that plane!!!

So now it's Thursday and she seems to be doing much better. I'm still suffering with stomach pains and now a nasty head cold, but at least Reagan should be okay tomorrow on the flight home. We leave Salt Lake tomorrow evening and we'll be in Newark late. Here's hoping that all goes smoothly and that Avery remains healthy between now and then!

Playing in the Snow

Last night when we were driving home from Autumn and Chad's house, it was snowing pretty heavily and the roads were snow packed. When I woke up this morning, I noticed how beautiful everything looked outside with a fresh layer of snow. I took the above picture from my parent's front porch ... growing up in Salt Lake, I certainly took the beautiful, CLOSE mountains for granted. They simply blended into my surroundings and I had no idea how rare and special it was to live right at the base of such a large mountain range. Whenever I come home to visit, I now notice their beauty and grandeur.

We kept telling Reagan she could play in the snow, so today was the day we finally made that happen. Benee brought Alyssa over to play with Reagan and they had a wonderful time!

One thing I've been meaning to write about is that I got a new camera for Christmas!! My amazing friend Christie just got the brand new professional Canon and no longer needed her back-up Canon Rebel. Before posting it for sale elsewhere, she offered to sell it to me at a great price. John agreed to buy it for me for Christmas, which couldn't have made me happier! I've got a really nice SLR Canon camera from back when I took a photography class in college, but of course, it takes film ... totally impractical. I've been dying for a digital SLR so I could play around with aperatures, shutter speeds and ISOs. As everyone knows, I love taking pictures of my girls, but with my little point-n-shoot, I always have to use a flash, or they come out blurry. I want to be able to take more pictures using natural lighting to avoid using a flash whenever possible, so I really need an SLR. Anyway, this new camera is perfect for me. I don't plan on becoming a professional photographer anytime soon, but I'm excited about learning more so I can take better pictures of my little beauties. Nothing would bring me more pleasure than to be gifted enough to capture their personalities and charm in some quality photos. Today was a fun day to try out the camera, since it was sunny and we were outside. But I must say, it was really COLD!!

(Yes, I was also lying on my belly, flat to the ground in order to take the above shot!)

My dad was so cute - he came outside and helped them build a snowman :)

Soon after we came outside, Alyssa thought it would be funny to put snow in my hood. Apparently, Reagan was watching and thought it would be funny to do the same to Alyssa.