Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving weekend at my parent's house.  Lots of food, family, games, our traditional Black Friday shopping.  Lots and lots to be thankful for.  I ended our stay earlier today with a nice visit to see my grandma in the nursing home.  Oh, and a Buckeye win was a plus as well :)  Enjoy some of my favorite photos from the holiday!

We got the girls up and got them ready to go early Thursday morning.  I made these turkey shirts for each of them from an idea from Pinterest.  I love how they turned out!  I'll post the instructions sometime later this week.

Love that Ella and hugging Hannah in this photo!  Hailee's face is pretty funny too :)

Leah and I made this turkey veggie tray.  This was another idea I got from Pinterest.  I have no idea when I became so crafty and domesticated but I kind of like it!  I'm hoping my craftiness continues on through Christmas as well!

Little Miss Ella

Ella and I made these turkey cupcakes on Wednesday evening to bring to my parent's.  Ella LOVED making these and talked about them for a week until it was finally time to make them.  I was happy with how they turned out too!

Me, mom, and my girls :)

Paul was proud of himself for helping with dinner by mashing the potatoes :)

Uncle Ryan photo bombing mine and Hannah's picture.  At least it's laughable :)

Everyone looking at the ads, preparing for the next day of shopping!

Hails loves Uncle Ryan

This is hilarious.  Ryan has a roll in his hand and the babies and dogs are all surrounding him, all wanting the roll.  I'm curious as to whom won...

We helped decorate the Denomme family tree yesterday.

H&H loved it!  I can't wait to do ours!

Ella hung all of the ornaments next to others that they "matched".  In other words, she hung all of the same ones next to each other.  Ha!

Me and the babes.

Now the Clark family goes in to full Christmas mode for the next month!  I am so excited for the holidays this year!  Yay for more fun times ahead!

Close Call..

Well, yesterday was not the exact day-before-Thanksgiving that I had planned.  Our little Hannah was coughing a lot on Tuesday.  She was up all night long (literally like 10 times) Tuesday night going in to Wednesday.  We decided at about 3:00am that Paul would take her to the walk in hours at 8:00am.  When I got Hannah up and started getting her dressed, I noticed her struggling to breath a bit, retractions in her stomach and neck from breathing, and some wheezing.  Respiratory distress.  Lovely.

Paul got to the Pediatrician's office.  They asked Hannah's symptoms.  They asked to see her belly and immediately pushed him up before the other 8 families already sitting in the waiting room.  The Dr. came back to see them and was concerned at how much Hannah was working to breathe.  They took her pulse oxygen level and it was 91.  Not good.  They did a breathing treatment, pulse ox still at 91, did another and it actually went down to 89.  Yep, Paul said he knew it was time.  They came in, took Paul and Hannah on the stretcher and off to Children's Hospital they went in the ambulance. 

On the other end of town, I'm sitting at home, with Ella and Hailee, about to lose my mind.  The wait to find out what was going on was bad enough.  Ella and I were in the middle of making some turkey cupcakes (Pinterest inspired, super cute, photos later) which I obviously had to put an end to.  I had to explain that someone had to come stay with them while mommy went and saw Hannah at the doctor with daddy.  That did not go well.  Ella started crying, screaming.  Then Hailee started crying.  The poor girls.  Help came to watch the girls and I was off.  I called a friend on the way to the hospital and thinking back on it now, she probably couldn't even understand me.  I was hysterical.

When I got to the hospital, Hannah was sitting there on Paul's lap.  Ok, this was not so bad.  If it were bad enough, she would be on oxygen (I guess she was on oxygen all the way in the ambulance).  She looked sleepy, and sick.  We went through meeting with the resident doctor, then another breathing treatment, then checking her levels more, then another treatment, then meeting with the attending doctor.  He said that she was looking much better, at this time she was playing on the bed, being her happy, silly self.  Her oxygen level was up to between 92 and 93 (still not great, they want it over 95) and her breathing was much slower with barely any retraction.  He agreed to let us go home after one more treatment.  YAY!  He said we seem to have a handle on things and what to look for in reasons to bring her back.  I sure didn't think once I got to the hosiptal we would be leaving so soon.  I didn't think it would be a two week stay like last time, but at least a shorter stay, maybe a few days or so like Hailee had last time.  The breathing treatments obviously helped.  We have an inhaler at home and are required to do them here once every four hours.  Hannah is also on some liquid breathing medication for the next four days.  Both doctors did say this is related to asthma.  She most likely already has it and these breathing problems are something we will have to deal with for the next few years with her.  The problems can come on fast, like they did yesterday, and can be mild or severe.  The thought of this happening over and over again makes my stomach turn.  *If you are wondering what I am meaning when I say "last time this happened", read this post from less than a year ago.

I just kept thinking to myself "Hannah cannot go through this again, I cannot go through this again, my family cannot go through this again".  I am thankful we are home.  It's been a rough week for other reasons as well and all I feel now is thankful.  Something somewhat major happens, and once again things are put into perspective. 

Today is Thanksgiving.  I hope everyone reading this is thankful for the love and family in their lives.  Life is way to precious to take for granted.  Give your kid an extra hug today, tell a family member you love them, and your spouse how much they mean to you.  I know I sound all wishy-washy right now, but hey, it's 5:30am and after yesterday's events all I can feel is thankful.  The Lord puts us in these situations for whatever reason, to make us stronger, to test us, to help us depend on Him.  Have a Happy Thanksgiving today.  I will post photos later of my girls in their ribbon turkey shirts I made them and some of my other Pinterest inspired crafts and food I've been working on.  *I have no idea where all of this creativity came from either.  But we've sure had a fun week or so preparing for this glorious day!



Our sweet girl in her hospital bed yesterday.

A big day for Hailee and Hannah!

This past Friday was Hailee and Hannah's 18 month (adjusted age) developmental assessment at Children's Hospital.  We have been doing these once every 6 months since they were born because of their prematurity.  The therapists and doctors like to keep up with them and make sure they are on track and don't need any type of therapy or assistance to help keep their development where it should be.  I had been anxiously nervous for the past few weeks about this appointment.  As I know they are moving along nicely, I was expecting some sort of speech therapy or some other area that they wouldn't be completely caught up with. 

The appointment was over two hours long.  The girls each worked with a therapist and did lots of different learning activities, fine motor skill work, and other testing to see where exactly they fall on the development scale.  Both girls ended up doing fabulous and both of them graduated from the program!  I was SO HAPPY, to say the least!  When we got their scores from the therapist and doctor, they were all outstanding.  They wanted them to be at the 21 month mark, which is their actual age versus their adjusted age at 18.5 months.  Both professionals agreed that they don't see a reason to have either girl come back for a follow up.  We have some things to watch for at they continue to grow, such as starting to put words together within the next 4 months or so, and that they start to read by about age 5.  As for now though, they are on track.  They have come so far in the past year and a half and they are just amazing!

Spending a morning at Children's really puts things into perspective.  When our baby girls were born, we didn't know where we'd be today.  I am so proud of our two little preemies!  We are so thankful and blessed for the life we have been given and for our beautiful, healthy girls. 

High five in the waiting room!

Ok, that was enough.  Get me out of here!

The girl's graduation certificates :)

Halloween Fun

This Halloween was celebrated all week long!  First, we had planned to go to Boo at the Zoo last weekend and that plan was changed based on the weather.  Instead, we stayed in and painted pumpkins.  I bought some finger paint, glitter, and brushes and we let the girls go at it!  They all had so much fun! 

Just getting started..

Yes, they were in their jammies all day.  Isn't that what rainy days are for?

Ella loved the glitter!  Notice the blob of green paint and mound of white glitter.  We called it her "snow covered pumpkin".

Hannah having fun decorating!

And Hailee too!

Daddy showing off some of his artistic ability too.

Hailee making Hannah's pumpkin snow covered too.

Loving family fun!

Ella making daddy's head snow covered too ;)

Our finished products!

On Monday evening a friend invited us to Trunk or Treat at her church.  We decided to go based on the fact that I was pretty sure Trick or Treating would not happen on Wednesday.  We were so glad we went!  It was perfect for the kids.  All of the candy was real low to the ground so they could help themselves.  Each room had a different theme and different decor.  They were all really creative and cute!

Our Ariel and her fish before we headed out for the evening!

Waiting to start trunk-or-treating!

See, how kid friendly is this?!

They loved it!

The themes were great!

Hannah at a coloring station.  They had things besides candy too, like coloring, games, and

even face painting!  I was actually surprised Ella wanted to get her face painted.  She loved it!

Ella's preschool had a little parade and sang some songs for the parents on Wednesday morning.  I figured I'd dress Hannah and Hailee up for the event too.  It was so cute and we had so much fun!

Hannah and Hailee with their friend Parker waiting for their sister's parade to start!

Here they come! 

Ella!  She had her hand out waving to everyone the whole time.  Too cute!

Then we all went into their classroom and they sang a couple songs for us.

This was "Five Little Pumpkins" :)

Ella and her favorite preschool friends:  Addy and Ella!  Every day Ella tells me that "Two Ella's and one Addy played together".  :)

We did take Ella out to some houses for Trick-or-Treating last night, but not for long.  It was so cold and rainy.  Hannah and Hailee stayed at the house with Uncle Ryan and passed out candy.  They had fun eating their first ever suckers and Nerds.  I didn't get any photos, as you couldn't even tell what Ella was with her hat and big puffy coat on!

I took these couple photos before church last Sunday.  My parents got H&H these dresses and headbands for Christmas last year and they just now fit in to them.  These headbands are so over the top but just hilarious and so cute!  And what do you know?  They LOVE wearing them!  Ella even wanted one! 

How funny!

And cute!

I think Hailee looks so old here :(  My babies are getting so big too quick!  Big sad face mommy here!