Friday, April 25th

Here it is Friday already - the weeks sure do fly by. This week I have a little variety of pictures to share with you all. I hope you like them as much as I do. Of course I think my kids are gorgeous!!

In these few, the kids were playing outside. They both love to be outside, it's hard to get them back in the house. They were walking all over the big front yard. Olivia was trying so hard to ride her tricycle but our yard makes it so difficult for her.

Olivia absolutely loves to get all dressed up and be things like princesses, dancers, etc. She is always coming downstairs with funny get ups on. This one is one of my favorites to date.

Here are a few of Jackson from the week - he is into climbing everything - he uses his toys as stools and is constantly pushing chairs up to things so he can climb on them. Well I was unloading the dishwasher and turned around for a minute and found this:
In the next two pictures you can see how beautiful Jack's blue eyes are - I just love the first one:

Update on the Kids

Well this week has been full of appointments and other fun stuff.

Monday started out with taking Olivia to dance, she just loves going and has her next dance recital in June. This time she gets to wear a beautiful baby blue and silver colored costume. I just love the little girly costumes her teacher picks out for them. Next week are her dance pictures so she gets to go and get her hair done at the salon which she loves!!

On Tuesday Olivia had an eye doctor appointment to check on her eyes. In case you weren't aware, Olivia has two lazy eyes. They aren't really bad, in fact you would only notice if you spent a lot of time with her. When she is tired, sad, crying or concentrating really hard on something, her one eye will turn out. Well, I took her in and they aren't getting any better. The good news is they aren't getting any worse. The dr said that there is no rush to do anything about it now but chances are next year she will be referred to the cities (Minneapolis) for surgery. She is a perfect canditate and it will probably fix it for good. Then, she is also starting to become a little more far sighted than most kids so she will probably need glasses in the next couple years.

As for Jackson, he has now turned 13 months old.

He is really into going outside to play and climbing everything. The kid doesn't stop and I'm thinking it's a boy thing because Olivia was never like this. He will also eat and eat and eat. I swear he grazes all day long on crackers, cheerios, puffs and anything else you are eating. His belly is huge!! We have decided to keep him on the allergy medication zyrtec indefinately because it seems to be helping him feel better. I am noticing a big difference since he's been on it so I'm thinking his whole year of sickness is probably due to an allergy of some sort. Let's just hope it's not the cats.

How Can You Screw Up Meatballs?

I get so frustrated when it comes to cooking dinner. It has got to be one of my least favorite things to do and I am just not good at it. I have about 2 dishes that I make that people actually like: my baked penne pasta dish (which even my dad likes and to me that is amazing!) and my pasta salad. Other than those, I am just a dud.

Lately I have made it my goal to make meatballs. I love meatballs that you get at bridal showers and other parties - swedish meatballs, sweet and sout meatballs, bbq meatballs, etc. I thought, how hard can it be to make some meatballs and serve them over noodles, even I can do that. Boy was I wrong....

A few weeks ago I decided to google and find a great swedish meatball recipe. I even went really easy and bought meatballs that all you had to do was heat up, how on earth can anyone screw that up? Well I screwed up by adding all the ingrediants right away instead of adding the sour cream at the very end. I threw it all away and started over. I was so proud of myself when it was done...until I took the first bite - it was awful!! I figured how hard could it be to combine cream of chicken soup, milk and sour cream...there was also nutmeg in there and that is what I'm told made it gross. So now I second guess myself and wonder if I didn't put the wrong spice in them.

Today I went to the store and bought meatballs again and a JAR of sweet and sour sauce - Again, I cook it all up in the crockpot and go to take my first bite and it is so spicey that I can barely eat it.

I so give up.....

At least she likes to share, right??

Funny story about Olivia.

Yesterday she was upstairs in her bedroom playing with her barbie dolls. She was playing "wedding". The problem with that is she has many girl barbies and only one boy barbie and they all wanted to marry the boy. So, Olivia decided that her barbies are all going to marry the boy barbie and share the husband. Great, she's three and already into polygamy. Sigh.

Time Goes So Fast

I know I have already slacked on the blog but I had a good reason. Jackson was once again sick - bronchitis and double ear infection, Olivia has been busy with dance and preschool and my parents came to visit us last week. I worked two very long, very stressful days and was too exhausted to think about what I was going to write in my blog about.

Jackson is starting to feel a little bit better - he is on a nebulizer treatment this time around. Let me tell you just how fun that is - three times a day for one month I have to pin him down and try and get steam in his mouth while he is fighting me. 1 week down and only 3 to go. This poor kid - I swear he's been sick more than he's been well. At least he's a happy boy so he's still smiling but that's all he's ever known was to be sick.

On a good note, I have to tell you about my favorite thing about Jackson. He is such a sweet boy. When I am in the kitchen cooking or putting dishes away or anything, he will spot me and all of a sudden come running and throw his arms around my legs and just give them the biggest hug. I just melt everytime he does that, he is such a little lover. He is constantly giving what I call "Jack-y kisses" you know those slobbery ones with the open mouth. Then, this weekend, Olivia taught him how to throw kisses - that is the cutest thing ever!!

As for Olivia - what I absolutely love about her is her imagination. We went to Walmart last week and she absolutely fell in love with a small Aerial doll set. I caved in and got it for her and the whole way home and at home she sat with that doll set and reinacted the entire "The Little Mermaid" movie. It is absolutely amazing to sit there and watch her do that.

Photo Fridays

I am going to try and remember to post some pictures on every friday and describe what they are. That way you can see what the kids are up to during the week.

This is last weekend - it's not that often anymore that Olivia will acutally sit still and let you take a picture of her. She is growing up so fast, I can't believe she's not a baby anymore. She will be four next month and is growing up to be such a beautiful little girl.

In this one, Olivia is helping me make dinner. I have been trying out new recipes because we are tired of the same old dinners. Here we are making burittos. They turned out so good!! Olivia is putting the cheese on top.

We finally got some nice weather so the kids would play outside in the early evenings. We even ate dinner outside a few nights while Trevor was working late so they could play. Olivia was so happy to be outside.

Jack has really taken a liking to playing outside - he is all boy!! He loves to just walk around the yard and play in the sand table. He was so happy to be out in the sunshine!! Here are a few cute pictures.

I'm not sure why but I got this picture purely by accident but I just LOVE it - I don't know if it's the expression on his face or the way he seems to be falling off of the picture or what - but I just love it.

Some Nice Weather....Finally

The weather has finally been getting nice enough here for the kids to go outside and get some fresh air. It's been a long winter with many nights hitting negative forty degrees or colder. The days here in the middle of winter get that bad as well. It is just depressing and staying indoors all winter makes the time pass by so slowly. The kids and Trevor are loving the warm weather and the sunshine. Trevor took the kids for rides on the four wheeler this weekend and they LOVED it!!

Here is Olivia and Daddy going around the yard:

And now it's Jacks turn - I was a little nervous but he turned out to absolutely LOVE it!!

This week was really the first time that Jackson got to go outside and play..He is just getting over being sick so I didn't let him play long. He just kept walking on the front porch back and forth and giggling and smiling:

The Karvonen Family

When the kids and I went to Michigan last month, we had a wonderful time. What made it so much more wonderful is my brother flew home and was home for the first week of our visit. It was the first time in YEARS that the whole Karvonen family was together - I think since Andy's graduation. So, the kids got to know their Uncle and Olivia and Jack had a great time playing with him. We took lots of pictures and really got to catch up. It felt so great to have family around - I really miss that living here - it gets to be very lonely. Anyway, here are some of the pictures we took of the original Karvonen Family.

And one with just us three kids

And Here's one with all of us and Jackson and Olivia:

Getting Back to Normal

Well it seems like the illness has finally started to leave our household. Jackson is starting to feel better although he is still quite crabby and full of a rash. His fever hasn't come back and his drooling seems to have slowed down. While he had that fever, he drooled and drooled, I swear I changed his shirt and bib about 100 times a day.

Wednesday I went into work and then I started to feel bad. I was holding a dog during an appt and I almost passed out. Then, we were doing surgery on a dog and I almost passed out again so they sent me home. I came home and took some tylenol and slept for three hours. When I woke up, my throat was sore and I felt very weak and icky. I went to work on Thursday and just kept alternating tylenol and motrin and that seemed to help.

So, we are all finally feeling better. We went out to dinner last night and grocery shopping and it was nice to be out in this beautiful weather. It has been in the high forties here which is wonderful. Almost all of our snow is gone and the sun is trying to shine. I am so ready for some warm weather!!

Tuesday, Olivia and I are going to Grand Forks because she has an appointment with a dermatologist. She has a nasty case of what I think is dry skin all along the backs of her knees and legs and it's miserable for her in the winter. Now that the weather is warming up she isn't complaining as much so we'll see what they have to say about it.

Roseola

Well it turns out that my sweet little baby boy has Roseola. Roseola is a viral illness in young children, most commonly affecting those between the ages of 6 months and 2 years. It is typically marked by several days of high fever followed by a distinctive rash just as the fever breaks.

He started with the fever and then just as that was breaking, the rash started. It is horrible, it started all over his bottom and privates and now is all over and on his face. He is miserable and just a mess. He isn't eating well or drinking well and is just laying around sleeping when he's out of energy. If I can get some pedialyte down him he's ok for a little while but you can see how fast that wears off.

Please send get well vibes little Jack's way - he is really miserable. Trevor is going to take the day off of work tomorrow and stay home with the kids so I can go to work. I am the only vet tech they have so I can't take anymore time off since I just took two weeks off to go to Michigan.