picture tag

i thought this one was kinda fun from megan's blog. so here goes. plus it's quick... maybe one of these days i'll get around to kallee's tag ;)
Here are the rules:

1:open you picture folders.
2:Go to the third folder and pick the third picture.
3:Post it on your blog with the story behind it.
4: I am tagging everyone that reads this!since my picture folder is organized by year it took us back to 2003, and this picture was Christmas morning at the packer's. becca looks so young doesn't she? but still as cute as always.

LOOK

another maddie comment for uncle jordan:
nate and i were driving home from my parent's one night and we pulled into the carport, but didn't get out of the car because we were listening to the lyrics of a song, so we kept waiting for it to finish. well, from the back seat maddie climbed out of her seat belt and stood right behind the two of us, and said, "LOOK, Ryan and I are tired and we need to get out now."
LOL, we just cracked up.

recipe exchange blog

Check out my other blog.
It's a blog i've created to share and exchange recipes.
feel free to join in if you're interested or invite others who may want to join. all they need to do is email me so that i can add their name so they can post.
here's a link:
www.kissthecook3.blogspot.com

Blessings

Maddie said something so sweet the other day that i just had to share. Last week when she was feeling really yucky from her surgery there were lots of things to try to help her feel better. Nate bought her a fish that was ready at the house when she came home from the hospital, and balloons, and stickers, and coloring books. Whatever we could think of to keep her mind off her pain. Well one day she was really bad and I asked her if she wanted her dad to give her a blessing. She said yes and we gave her one and we also said many prayers with her in those next few days. It was a great learning experience for her about prayer. Then one day as she walked into the kitchen, she looked up at the fish sitting on the kitchen counter and said "Fishies don't help you feel better, only blessings." How sweet! How cool it is to be the mother and have the opportunity to teach my daughter how important blessings are, and how grateful i am to have a husband who holds the Priesthood and can bless our family with it.

I need your help! & Maddie's surgery

I need some ideas of things that maddie can eat for the next few days. I'm running out of ideas!!! We bought a bunch of popsicles and ice cream, but the freezing cold things kind of bother her going down. She wouldn't even eat jello for me today because it was too cold. She's been so upset the last two days because she keeps wanting to eat everything and when i tell her she can't she just cries. She even tried to sneak away with a fruit snack yesterday, but was caught. Anyway, i feel like i'm all out of ideas. ANYBODY? Also... is there anyone else who can remember how long their kids/or themselves were on medication? Every time i try to wean her, she gets in too much pain.
So, about the day of the surgery. Maddie did so well. I think she did the best because she didn't really realize what was about to happen. She was just going through all the motions. I know i probably shouldn't have lied to her, but oh well, it helped so much. What happened was... the week before she was freaking out every time i mentioned that she would be getting her tonsils out, so i simply dropped it by telling her that we would go and see the doctor and that she could tell him that she didn't want her tonsils taken out. (so see i didn't really lie, she can tell him whatever she wants, but that doesn't mean we'll do it) Anway, that helped her a ton. I still continued to tell her what it was like at the hospital so that she didn't have any surprises. I told her to look for all the funny pjs and hats that the doctors and nurses would wear, and that she would get to wear a cool gown. It made that morning so much easier for her, cause she just did whatever she was supposed to and didn't make a fuss about any of it. She was excited to have a new stuffed teddy bear they left on her bed... she loved the gown w/ tigers on it that she wanted to take it home... she wanted to ride out to the car in a wheel chair (i think because she thought it was cool), but when she actually saw it, it brought back memories of my grandma being in the care center with a wheel chair, so she changed her mind. She told me that those are for old people. haha, it made me laugh.... When it was time to go she stepped right into the wagon, and nate wheeled her down the hall to the operating room hallway. She was still very shy and didn't say much to the doctors or nurses, but I felt so much better to have her on her way with no crying or anything.
The morning went very smoothly, but the funniest thing was...... (and actually i shouldn't really say it's funny because it could have been very traumatic, but for maddie it wasn't cause she didn't dwell on it too much.) When the nurse came in to have us sign all the papers and such... she said "so we're getting our tonsils taken out today?" and maddie put her hand over her mouth in shock.... because she's so shy she didn't say anything, and then after the nurse left she didn't mention anything, so we just turned on the cartoons and went with it. Then after she came out, they wheeled her bed back to her room and when she saw us she started to cry because it hurt. then someone (don't remember who) said it hurts when your tonsils are out, and in her crying she stopped for a second to ask "did they take my tonsils out?" Luckily we were able to calm her down fairly quickly and we got her some medicine which helped and she was good. She's been doing really well at home as long as she has taken her medicine. Although she has been very needy and whinny.
k, so the other funny/lame thing that happened at the hospital was not from maddie, but from me......... i am such a whimp (?sp) i was standing up to maddie's bed to calm her down and help distract her mind from the pain for about 20 minutes or so after they brought her in and i started to feel light-headed. I didn't pass out, but i felt so close to doing it. I almost laid down on the floor because i felt it coming, and was trying so hard to avoid passing out. I had to put my head down and drink water and eat crackers to stop my body from shaking. It was so silly because there wasn't really anything that triggered it, other than the knot in my stomach combined with the hospital smell, and me standing up to maddie's bed. crazy, i know.
so, that about sums it all up. we're so glad that it's behind us.

500 Miles!

I'm honestly not trying to make a habit of this, writing right after Dixie does. Maybe her telling me about her dream caused some subliminal need for me to write every time she does. But actually I'm writing this now, cause she mentioned in her last post that she was going to write more details, so I'm hoping to get this in before her next one, so hers will be on top for a while.

I just had to share a personal milestone I hit today. 500 miles on my bike! Well, since I started tracking it anyway. I've got a little speedometer on my bike that tracks all my miles and other stuff. I started tracking it some time last summer when I started commuting to work. For your information, 500 miles is about the distance from here to Nebraska. Or Kansas, whichever floats your boat. It also happens to be about the width of Egypt.

Also, I've seen a couple weird things the last few days of my commute. On Monday, I saw not one, but TWO Walmart shopping carts on the side of my bike trail. And they weren't anywhere close to a Walmart. I kept wondering how them little guys got so far away from home!

And then this morning I saw an old dude walking backwards across a bridge. I think he was doing it for exercise or something. Just strange. But now I can't figure out if he was on the correct side of the road or not. You're supposed to bike on the right, walk/jog on the left. So I was on the right side of the road, about to cross over I-15 on the Church St. bridge. But he was on the sidewalk that goes across the bridge on the same side. Since his back was to me, I figured he was walking away from me, on the WRONG side of the road. (not that anybody really cares what side of the road you're on when you're walking) But anyway, I crossed the road so I could go across the bridge on the other side, I really wanted to stay on the sidewalk across the bridge, cause it's kind of narrow. So as I was passing him, I looked across the street, and realized that he was walking backwards.

So he was on the right side of the road relative to him, but he was walking backwards, so technically I guess he was on the left side of the road, relative to the direction he was walking. So which side was he on? I'm confused.

Maddie was amazing!

I don't have a lot of time, but i thought i'd let you all know that maddie did so good at the hospital that i was so proud and happy. She's in a lot of pain still, but handling it fairly well, and i'm just so glad that everything went so smoothly. I'll post the details another day, cause there are a few funny ones. (sorry i guess i always think my daughter is funny) :)