Julia... our Sweet Jewelsie Bugaboo

Last week our Julia got sick, very sick. It was so sad. The picture below shows a bit of how she felt... but it got worse than this, much worse. She had the croup, which can cause high fevers but her fever kept going up, and on the 5th day (saturday) it went up to 105.5. I didn't believe it, so I took it again: it was right. I called the Dr. and he told us to take her to the Phoenix Children's Hospital ER. He told me they would need to do testing to find out what was wrong because the croup shouldn't last so long and shouldn't cause this high of a fever for so long. I hung up the phone and cried.... 2 weeks prior I had been in with Eliana to the dr. and he showed me the mortality rates for the flu by month, this year. Julia hasn't had the flu shot so that's all I could think of, I know, probably sounds a little or a lot paranoid, but I still couldn't help think of it. She was so so so sad looking and burning up. We gave her more medicine, Christian and Charlie gave her a blessing and we headed to phoneix. By the time they got us into triage and hour and a half later, her fever was down just a little , to 104.5. They gave her more medicine for her fever and then poked and proded, taking urine via catheder and blood out of her sweet little hand so they would have a line in her if they needed it. They did a neck x-ray. They treated her croup with a breathing treatment and steriods. They said all the testing turned out well and that her virus was just abnormal but that she should be fine. We left the hospital at 3:30 am. Sunday was a hard day... she cried much of the day. But by Monday afternoon she started to bounce back. Today they called and said the urine culture came back positive, so she has a UTI, which explains the high fever that wouldn't go away (although it did after Sunday).

Even though she was so sick, she was still so sweet. She slept with us a few nights (which she has never done before) and when she was thirsty, she'd ask for a drink, I'd give it to her and she'd say "thank you mommy." every time, not kidding, in the middle of the night, when she was sicker than sick. What a sweet girl. Yesterday I sneezed, she said, "you okay mommy? " Sweet. Sweet. Julia is our Jewel . I feel SO SO SO blessed to have her in our family. We love her so much.

This is her tonight. This is more like our little Jewel!

Oh and I read a very sad but uplifting story about a family that lost their 8 week old baby to pertusis. I read it and cried. Life can be SO HARD. I felt even more grateful for my girls and their health, grateful for our Heavenly Father's plan and my knowledge of it. Life truly is a miracle and God is GOOD! If you want to read that story (be prepared to cry) click here and start reading the posts starting after Dec. 24th.

Do you know who this is???

Last weekend I did a wedding. I was hired by the bride's family here in Arizona. Her now husband, Dave, is from Utah so I didn't meet his parents until the wedding day. Below is a picture of the Bride and Groom with the groom's parents. We met at the temple before the wedding and I did all the portraits including some family portraits etc. I was trying to figure out why I recognized Dave's mom. I knew it was church related so I was thinking back to our ward in AF Utah or my mission in Utah. But they are from Bountiful... not near my ward or mission. I couldn't put my finger on it, until I got home...... So do you know who she is?????? I am curious to know how many people (who are members of the church and read this) will recognize and know her name before reading below..... am I the only one who wouldn't know?

So when I got home I picked up the Ensign to do a little reading and flipped through and saw a picture of Dave's mom. Yes, that's right , it's Sister Margaret Liffereth, the 1st counselor in the primary general presidency. I traced back through the day hoping I hadn't said anything dumb to her. I hadn't. I had been myself. I was then grateful that my actions are generally in line with my beliefs. That was a good feeling.

Eliana's 5 year Old Portraits

I did Eliana's 5 year old portraits yesterday. Here's a little info about Eliana these days.

I often call her El or L or Elle and she loves it and so do I. She is fun and funny and adventurous. She LOVES I mean ABSOLUTELY LOVES to ride her bike. She LOVES her friends. She loves Star Wars and even has her own light saber so she can play star wars with Dean. She loves to run, jump and climb. She is very passionate about things which leads to a bit of drama. She is determined and strong willed. She loves her little sister Julia. We love Eliana and are so glad that she is a part of our family.

I love this picture but can't decide which way I like it better... color or old school vintage b/w.



















Julia came along of course. I didn't really get any great shots of her but here are a couple of fun ones of her and a lollipop.

December

I attempted to get a picture of the two girls together for a Christmas card with no luck as of yet. Here's a cute one of Julia though.

One of the reasons I haven't gotten a good one yet is because Eliana LOVES to make STRANGE faces when I get my camera out!

Here is one of them together that's sorta okay... but they are both making weird faces.

So for now no Christmas cards or new years cards... maybe I will do cards on another upcoming holiday.

We celebrated Christmas a day early so that we could be in California for Christmas and still keep our own traditions at our house. We made homemade pizza and strawberry lemonade for Christmas eve dinner.

Eliana got a bike from Santa and was SO, SO excited. She loves to ride her bike EVERYDAY!

Julia got a bike too, which she loves also and calls MY BIKE... she also got a baby doll.

Our Christmas morning, trying out the bikes . Eliana just wanted to ride and not have me take a picture.

We went to California and had fun with all the cousins and Christian's parents, siblings and spouses. We hung out at the Whites and ate lots of food. We went to see some lights on a street called thorobred in Rancho. For a few more California pictures, click HERE.

December 10th

Eliana's 5th birthday was on December 1oth, the same day we closed on our new house. I took cupcakes to her preschool class.

In the evening she opened her presents. She loves her new keyboard.

Her other favorite gift is her Star Wars tag book. She loves Star Wars almost as much as her Daddy.

Because things were so crazy with moving etc. I took Eliana and her friend Emily to see the Princess and the Frog in lieu of a birthday party. They dressed up as princesses and had lots of fun.

November at a Glance...

At the beginning of November we took a long weekend trip to California.

Eliana and her cousin Morgan are best buddies! They had so much fun playing together on our trip to CA.

Christian and I left the girls with his parents and went to the beach for the night. The beach is still my favorite place!!

Eliana finished her gymnastics class that she took through the city. She loved it!

We stayed home for Thanksgiving and had our friends Mark and Leah over. We made these fun turkey head bands a few days before.

Julia loves to get into my mascara... I have been better at keeping it far out of her way as of late.

Halloween

Yes... this is late, very late, but the grandparents need to see the girls at Halloween still.

We went to a pumpkin patch in Gilbert a few days before Halloween.

Julia even held still to get her face painted!!

For Halloween, Eliana dressed up as Fancy Nancy and Julia was a cute little witch. It was very difficult to get them to hold still and not be crazy, weird (Eliana).

Julia was not about to hold still....

Eliana with Emily at the Ward Party.

Eliana at the preschool party.