we are loving it here!

okay, not really.  Allie and i are actually sitting in a hospital room for the second day.  Thus the reason i am actually blogging!  i never have time to blog, but for the last couple of days i have had nothing but time!  weird!  Anyway, here is the story:
Allie had a cough for a few days, but monday and tuesday it had gotten worse.  I knew we were in for a rough night wednesday night, so were all in bed by 8:00 that night...Allie woke up at 8:30.  I brought her to my room and of course didnt get much sleep.  I noticed while she was sleeping that her breathing was pretty labored and her heart rate was high, so i took her to the ER (thank heavens we have better insurance right now than we did a couple months ago or i probably would have thought twice).
When we got to the ER they took an x-ray and saw that she had pnemonia and decided to admit her.  they tried to put an IV in 6 times, let me repeat, 6 TIMES before they gave up and gave her an antiobiotic with a shot instead.  They have since been monitoring her oxygen levels and had to put her on oxygen last night while she slept.  She is doing a lot better today but they want to keep her one more night to monitor her oxygen levels while she sleeps.  I am hopning for a really good night and for my baby to get better.  But I also have tons of wrapping to do before Christmas not to mention the million other things that I am just going to have to let go that i wanted to do before Christmas.  Oh well.  I am glad my baby is better and my family is happy and healthy.  Maybe, during the next couple weeks I have off, I will have time to update my blog on everything

Family Pictures!!!!

 We FINALLY took family pictures!  The last time we had taken family pictures was when Brooklee was 11 months old and I was barely pregnant with Allie...so it was definitely time!  Brooklee is now 2 years, 8 months old, and Allie is 15 months.  It was kind of rough because it was hot and humid.  Brooklee was even giving us a hard time so I am really happy about how they turned out considering the circumstances:o)  Anyway, here they are!  

I LOVE this picture of Brooklee and Sam!  Brooklee LOVES her Daddy!

Brooklee was not happy to be taking pictures, but it made for a really cute pouty picture!

We actually got one of Allie smiling!

Thank you to my sister Sarah for taking the pictures!!!  It is really nice having someone in the family who can do it, or else it would probably never get done!!!!

No Privacy Setting?

I took my blog off of the private setting.  I saw someone post of facebook that Blogger was changing and all private blogs would be deleted on July 31st.  I have no idea if that is true or not, but I REALLY didn't want to take the chance.  So my blog is available publicly for a little while, at least til the 31st.  I just didn't want to take any chances!  Let me know if anyone else has heard anything about this please!

San Diego!!!

I have finally gotten around to blogging about our San Diego trip! Never mind that it was 3 months ago...at least I finally did it! We went to San Diego with my parents over spring break. The first time Sam and I went to San Diego we won a free trip through the chamber of commerce. Neither of us had ever been before and we ended up loving it. That has been our first choice destination ever since. This was the first time we had ever taken the girls and it was so much fun. We rented a little condo on Mission beach. The beach was about 100 yds one way and the bay was about 1oo ft the other way. It was awesome. So here are some pics from our little getaway....

Here is my dad and Brooklee at the beach. We couldn't keep Brooklee away from the water. To say that she loved the beach would be an understatement:o) My dad got wet a few times just running after her as the waves came up shore.

We took the girls to Sea World while we were there. Brooklee really liked all of the characters that we saw there.

Brooklee was soooo excited to see Elmo. My mom get a better picture with her camera that I will have to get eventually.

And of course Brooklee had to go on the Elmo ride and I had the privelege of going with her:o)

So right before our vacation Allie got a lung infection and ear infections. Brooklee also got strep so they were both on antibiotics the whole time we were there:o( And to make it worse, Allie had an allergic reaction to the antibiotic on the way to San Diego! So it was a rough time getting there. But we did it, and it wasn't too bad other than the fact that is was kind of cold and windy so this was Allie's home pretty much in the stroller the whole time. It is a bike trailor that converts to a stroller. It worked out perfect because it has a rain fly that we closed to keep the cold out. I love this picture of Allie looking out the window at the water:o)

It warmed up a couple of days that we were there and Allie was able to come out of the stroller:o)

I wrote Brooklee's name in the sand and she was so proud of it!

We went on the Seal Tour. It is a vehicle that can go straight from the road into the water. It takes you out into the bay to a few platforms where a bunch of seals sit out and sunbathe. Needless to say, Allie didn't see much of the seal tour:o)

Here we all are on the seal tour (Allie is asleep on the seat next to Sam:o).

Here is Brooklee by the "amphibious" vehicle (I guess is what they call it).

Sam and I on the beach at sunset (aaaaahhhh, cute:o)

Here are Brooklee and Allie in their stroller. They definitely had the life riding around in that the whole time. We stuffed it with pillows and blankets. It was awesome. All in all, the trip was a success considering the sicknesses we encountered right before leaving. Sam just went to San Diego last week for their Young Men's super activity and seeing the pictures made me really want to go again. Sometime soon, I hope!

My Baby Turns 1...AAAAAHHHH!

My beautiful little baby Allie turned 1 Year old on Saturday, May 28th! I cannot believe how the time has flown and I have absolutely loved every second of it! I haven't taken her in for her year check-up yet so I am not sure of her stats as of now, but she is a chunky little monkey and we love it! Our nickname for her is squishy :o) She is getting around everywhere by crawling (she is stinkin fast!) and walking along furniture. I'm thinking she will be walking in the next couple of weeks. As of today, she has 2 teeth on the bottom, 2 on the top middle, and the 2 on either side of the top ones are working there way out (which explains the grumpiness lately:o). She loves to eat (go figure:o) especially whatever we are eating. She is not much into baby food, she likes things that are more solid. She is down to just a few bottles a day and I am planning cutting back on the formula and switching to whole milk in the next couple weeks.

Allie is such funny little girl. She fake laughs ALL the time, especially when other people are laughing. She loves her big sister so much and has the most high-pitched squeal whenever she sees her. They fight over toys a lot because Brooklee is so used to having whatever she wants, but now that Allie is older, she is holding her own! It is so hilarious to see them scuffle over a toy! It's funny how fast they learn! I think I am in for it with these two!

Anyway, we celebrated Allie's birthday on Friday, the 27th. We had our family over for dinner and cake and it was a lot of fun. Here are some pics of her big day...

I had to put this picture in :o) It is just a classic Allie face. I was trying to take a picture of her and at the last minute, she came after me trying to grab the camera:o)

It is so hard to get a picture of Allie looking at the camera and smiling, so I just have to get candids when other people make her smile.

Here is my cute little girl laughing at the kids on the hammock!

She was so funny opening presents! She loves paper (she especially likes to eat it) so she tore open the presents and played with the boxes...who cares about the toys, right?

I made Allie her own little cake and let her dig in. Despite what her facial expression says, she acutally liked it, for a little while anyway.

Here is a picture of her standing up on her own. She balances really well, she is just a scaredy cat about moving her feet on her own.

Here is our Allie-gator stealing someones cup.

And last but not least, here is Brooklee enjoying the cake at Allie's party. She usually has a hard time with other people's birthday partys, but she seemed to get that this one was for Allie. She stills asks me at least once a day if it is her birthday yet. We have a long 5 months ahead of us!!!

San Diego?

So I haven't blogged in an extremely long time. It doesn't mean I haven't tried. I have sat down a few times and picked out pictures to upload and then wait for hours only to have it say there was some kind of error. In other words, I have been extremely frustrated with blogging. Not enough to stop because I love keeping it for our family journal. I guess I try to upload too many photos at one time, so I decided to start with one. This a picture from our family trip to San Diego that we took over spring break. It was a wonderful trip. I want to write more about it but that will have to wait until I have more time. This picture was take at the mormon battalion. It was an awesome place to learn about the history of the church. The girls enjoyed it too. They had recently renovated it and made it extremely kid-friendly. It actually almost has the feel of a show at Disneyland in a way. They also have a place at the end of the tour where the kids can pan for gold and learn how to make bricks and pump water from a well. Anyway, I hope I am able to load more pics of our trip the next time I try, but until then, at least I have posted something:o)

We'll Start With...

We'll start with Halloween and Thanksgiving. I keep having so many difficulties trying to upload pictures. I meant to just do it all at once, but I guess this will suffice:o) Not to mention its not even in order. But, oh well, what can you do!

Here is Sam and Allie at the stake center in Snowflake on Thanksgiving day. My Dad's side of the family had a "Merle Rogers" Family Reunion in Snowflake for Thanksgiving. When my grandma was alive, we would all meet at the church for dinner every other Thanksgiving. We would come out from California and everyone else would make an effort to get there as well. It fizzled after she passed away. A couple of years ago, my sister decided to organize a family reunion, and we all decided we would try to have a reunion every 2 years. We'll see if it keeps up:o) I have more pics from Thanksgiving, but they were ones that didn't upload correctly. They, along with Christmas pics, will have to wait til the next post. We better not hold our breath for that one either:o)

Here is a pic of Brooklee waiting for Daddy to come home from work so that we could go to our ward trunk-or-treat. She was so excited. She called him at least a couple of times before he left work.

Here is the fam at the ward trunk-or-treat. I guess Allie wasn't a happy camper. Brooklee sure was. She was in candy heaven!

Here is another one that is out of order, but it is Brooklee waiting for Daddy outside. She was getting so impatient. I was able to get her to strike a pose.

And here are our cute little girls ready to go trick-or-treating. They had fun, or at least Brooklee did. Allie is usually pretty content, so she just had fun observing the festivities:o) It was fun to have Brooklee finally be old enough to get excited about a holiday.

Stay tuned and hopefully, sooner rather than later, I will post again about Christmas and updates on the girls. I have got to be better about Blogging. It really is our family journal. Heaven knows I don't scrapbook or keep any other type of record, which is why this is so important. Hey! I guess I do have a new years resolution I might be able to keep! We shall see:o)