Valentines Day and Beyond!

Wow is February almost half over?!?! This month is FLYING by!

First up is Valentine's Day: Here's a slide show of the kids on Valentines Day. Just a bit of background. We really don't celebrate Valentine's Day. But this year I found a blog post that mentioned about making Valentine bags a week a head of time and than through out the week you can make a Valentine for anyone and just drop it in their bag. Annika had a blast with this! So each of us made a bag (well mommy and Annika made daddy's bag). I did find out that through all of this Van LOVES glue sticks. :)

Next up is some pictures of the kids from the other day! It was a day filled with fun and excitement!

First up: We started the day out with some painting. We were making some streamers for spring (although I didn't get them finished, which may not be that big of a deal since we expecting A LOT of snow this week).

 Next up: Puddle Jumping (for 1 hour). It was a pretty nice day about 40 degrees (a heat wave considering what we've been having). Quite a few pictures in this section...

Poor Van....he got Annika's old boots! Don't worry we won't put him in her pink ones when the time comes! :)

 

Annika is looking older than her almost 4 years in this picture! She's growing up!! 

Watching Annika!

 

Stomping in the puddles!

FUN!!

Trying his hardest to stomp!

After the puddle jumping came the lunch and cookie baking! Chocolate, Chocolate Chip Cake Mix Cookies.

The BEST part of helping!

After that came naptime for the kiddos and a quiet time for the mommy (I might of even taken a nap). ;)

Isn't she just sweet?!?!

After that we spent another hour outside puddle jumping and delivered some of our cookies to the neighbors!


Last but not least is a video of the Van-man. I'm completely suprised with how much he's picked up in the last couple of months. We found out a few nights ago that he can count to 5 on his own (9 w/ some help). But today I was working on the computer and he was sitting at my feet playing and I hear, "like a diamond in the sky." So here's a video of him singing the rest of it!

Well I think that about catches you up with what's been up us at the Stertz House hold!

All is going well with David, he is keeping pretty busy. His days are filled with working at church, meeting with people, classes Thursdays, and working on the house (when he's not doing the other things). I'll update more on the house on Monday or Tuesday.

Me, well....not much has been up. I'm struggling with headaches (sinus stuff). This pregnancy seems to be so different than either Annika's or Van's. I wasn't sick with either of them and am thankful that for the most part my morning all day sickness is gone! I have a doctors appointment in a couple of weeks (I'll write more about that after I have it). :)

Whew...that was long! The kids are officially in bathed and in bed! ;)

I hope this finds you all well! Have a great Sunday!

Sunday's Best!!!

GO PACK GO!! 

It was a happy evening in our house tonight!

 Thought I'd share the kid's Sunday Clothes with you! ;)

The back of Van's shirt:

Annika's First Trip to the ER!

Very early this morning (4am) Annika woke up crying. I was on the couch sleeping (that's another story). But I had heard her crying and heard her go into the bathroom. I went to check on her (now she usually wakes up in the night to use the bathroom, than goes right back to bed (how do I know this?? I hear her run back and forth as our room is right below parts of both of those rooms). But she usually doesn't cry. When I got into the bathroom she was drinking water from the faucet "like daddy" (tipping her head and drinking it from the stream of water). She than told me that her throat hurt and she was making a funny noise. I had thought well she has a frog in her throat (by the noise she was making). I told her try and clear her voice and she came to me and I rubbed and patted her back. Than I realize that the noise she was making wasn't that noise at all but was her gasping for air. I ran down to get the lamp from our room (of course I can't find a flashlight anywhere), so I got the lamp and looked at her throat. Her airway was almost completely blocked by her tonsils.

I went and got David up and asked him if we need to take her in. He said to call the hospital and see if there was anything we could do for her. The nurse said bring her in (she was a bit worried that she was gasping for air) and said that the cold air might help some.

So off David and Annika went. David called me and told me that she had calmed down some and that the cold air did help. That she was breathing easier.

They got to the ER and the doctor ran a strep test on her (came back negative), she wasn't running a fever or anything like that. So he looked again and said both her tonsils and adenoids were very enlarged.

The prognosis....tonsillitis. They didn't give her anything in the hospital (the swelling went down some on it's own)

She was just fine when she got back from the hospital at 6am (wouldn't go back to sleep so she laid on the couch and watched a movie and was up and jumping around after the movie.

They gave her some medicine to take for the next 5 days (the first day it was 5 ml and the 4 days after 2 ml). The side effects basically flu symptoms. :( She has the medicine once a day on an empty stomach. She had her first dose at 9:00 am she was up and jumping around still playing with Donovan, no problem. By about 10 pm she felt like she was running a slight fever (I believe it's gone now and it wasn't much of one), but she was complaining of an upset stomach. We watched another movie (it just might be a movie day). ;)

She's now napping (didn't argue at all when I told her it was nap time and fell asleep faster than ever). She must just be wore out.

We head back to the hospital after her meds are all gone and go from there. Sounds like if she has one more flare up they will take the tonsils and adenoids out.

I took this picture about 2 hours ago (a bit blurry but you can kind of see the back of her throat and how swollen it is). It was a bit worse on the left side (looking at the picture) when I laid her down for a nap but she didn't say anything about it.



She has a raspy voice right now and wheezing and coughing a bit, but doing much better!


And because no one wants to see a picture of the inside of her throat without her cute face! Here's a picture of her in a skirt that a sweet lady I met made for her! It's such a fun twirly skirt, but an upset stomach stopped the twirling for today, but I'm sure it will get much more twirl out of it in the days to come!

Busy Busy Busy!

Happy Birthday Aunt Jenny!!

Facebook wouldn't let me post these on her wall....so I posted them here!! :)

Here's the Van-man (he was getting tired). ;)


and...

Here's Miss Annika



Happy Birthday from all of us in MN.

Van's New Shirt...

What we've been up to!

We've been pretty busy around here, but thankfully things seem to have been slowing down gradually. :) We've gotten back into a schedule after we got back from all our holiday traveling.

Our biggest schedule change has been at nap time. Before it was that both kids would lay down at the same time and Van would for sure fall asleep and I was lucky if Annika would.

Now Van goes down at about 1 pm. At which time Annika and mommy find our way to the couch and work on Annika's school work. She just finished up her first set of paces and is well into her second set now. She was VERY excited to finish her first set. We spend about 30-45 minutes working on school work than it is time for Annika to go take a rest (and mom to have a bit of free time before Van wakes up). Van usually wakes up around 3:30 and I usually leave him in his crib for 15 minutes (so he can play on his own). I than get him up and spend some time with just him and mommy. Annika has usually fallen asleep by this time and she tends to sleep until 4:30pm when I wake her up (she only takes about an hour long nap). Both kids go to bed later in evening (between 9:30-10pm) which works great for us because they both tend to sleep until 8 am which gives mom a little bit more free time in the mornings.

Both Annika and Donovan are doing really well with this schedule and it gives me some a lone time with both of them at different times (even though my alone time is cut short in the afternoons). But I do not mind it.

Other than that not much else is going on. Here's a few photos from this past month.