Snow

(This is all of the snow plowed off our street. There is a big fountain behind it)

I know living in Utah I should be used to snow by now, but I'm never ready for the first really big snow of the season. Well at least the first big snow we've been here for. This morning Brandon called to let me know he had taken my car to work. Needless to say, I hadn't looked outside yet and didn't realize Brandon had to get to work on unplowed streets with at least six inches of snow on them. Well another six inches fell during the day and Brandon had tons to shovel when he got home. Brylie wanted to get bundled up and go outside with Brandon. Beckam and I were smart and stayed where it was warm.

Rediscovered Quiet

Today I realized the house was not quite as filled with noise and it took me a second to figure out what was missing. The coughing is gone!!! The incessant, repetitive, tag team coughing has stopped. For two weeks our house was constantly filled with the sound of either or both of the kids coughing and it has now gone away. There have been some quiet moments today that I didn't realize how badly I missed. My kids are finally better and I couldn't be happier.

In Quarantine - Enter at your own risk!

I just finished reading a family members post titled Breathing Again and I wish with all of my being I could say the same. Our house is in a bit of turmoil right now. Having two sick kids at the same time is not fun and more draining then I could ever imagine. The day after Beckam's four month check both of the kids developed a cough. I thought it was just a cold, but because Beckam's wasn't sounding that great we took him to the doctor's on Saturday. Everything seemed just to be a normal cold with both of the kids. But then Sunday and worse on Monday, Beckam was inconsolable and wouldn't eat. We took him back to the doctor's on Monday and he had double ear infections and bronciolitis (or so we thought). Brylie still seemed like everything was fine. That night after filling three prescriptions and getting the medication in him, Beckam was coughing so hard that he threw up twice. We'll we took him to Primary Children's ER and he was diagnosed with RSV. After getting home at 2 in the morning and a few hours of sleep, Brandon's mom Jill took Brylie for the day so I could concentrate on Beckam. Well Brylie came home not feeling to hot and by six o'clock last night was complaining that her ear was hurting. We tried to give her Tylenol but that didn't seem to touch it, so Brandon took her to urgent care. She came home with a diagnosis of an ear infection and bacterial pneumonia. Needless to say we've had fun at our house today. I do want to say thanks to everyone for their concern and for the offers of helping, but my warning to you is I have two contagious sicknesses in my house right now, so enter at your own risk. And on top of the sicknesses you'd have to try and maneuver around the Christmas stuff that is still out and everything else that has been dragged out in the last week. You do what you can to make your sick kids feel as good as they can and everything else falls by the way side.

Beckam 4 month stats

Beckam had his four month check-up today and it was confirmed he is a big boy. He's about 4 1/2 months old right now, weighs 17 lbs 8 oz and is 26 1/2 inches long. So in 4 1/2 months he has gained about 9 lbs and grown 6 1/2 inches. That puts him in the 95 percentile across the board. The doctor was nice to not bring up how much bigger he'll be then Brandon and myself if he keeps growing this way, but she did say he was as big as babies 2 months older then him. I wonder where my biceps of steel are? All I have to show for lugging him around all day is an aching back and tired arms at the end of each day. Well and a boy who prefers his mommy.

Christmas in Las Vegas

(Just a warning...This is going to be a long one.)This year we spent Christmas in Las Vegas, and as I write this listening to the snow plows plow our street, I really miss the place. We started out for Las Vegas Friday afternoon and driving through a snow storm, slick mountain passes, and construction, finally reached Las Vegas. We got there a little bit later then planned, but were happy to get there. My family immediately took the kids, so Brandon and I got a couple of minutes to recoup and unpack the car.

Saturday was the Las Vegas Bowl so the whole day was planned around getting to the game on time. My mom and I did some last minute Christmas shopping in the morning and got home in time for Brandon, my dad and I to run out the door for the game. I was really glad I bought a coat during the earlier shopping excursion because it did get a little cold. But to hear Brandon tell it, you would think we were on the verge of freezing. Granted I was in a big coat, my dad was in a coat and gloves, and Brandon was in a sweatshirt. The game was good, but there were definitely some plays that shouldn't have been made. In the last minute of the game one of these such plays seemed to have cost BYU the game. With the less then desirable temperature, Brandon and I were ready to leave the game just 30 seconds early, but we are definitely glad we didn't. The ending was phenomenal and BYU won.
Sunday night the Christmas festivities began. My sister was the last one to get in to town Saturday night. This year was an "on" year so the entire family was going to spend Christmas with my parents. When we're all together, with siblings, siblings in-law, and grandkids, we have 15 people. My parents hadn't decorated their tree yet (my sister wanted to help) so my brother with wife and kids came over Sunday night and we decorated the tree. Brylie helped for about 2 minutes and then decided playing with her cousins would be more fun.

Monday was Christmas Eve and the chaos really kicked in. I had to make an emergency trip to Joann's for something I had come up a little short with and then a trip to Best Buy with my dad. I swear every year never to shop on Christmas Eve again and every year I seem to be out shopping again. That night Dahl traditions came out in force. My sister Cari wasn't such a slacker as myself with getting her post about Christmas up, so I'll be using part of hers here.

"We did the traditional acting out of the Nativity scene, which has been taken over, in large part, by my parents' grandkids. (Thank goodness. My older siblings (this would include myself, Stacy, were shouting mutiny at the thought of having to don the innkeeper or shepherd outfits.) My five-year-old niece Kristen, who was thrilled at getting to dress up and cradle the baby doll, played Mary, and she was accompanied by her three-year-old brother Joseph, who was, of course, Joseph. The rest of the cast included my dad as the narrator, me as the innkeeper, Lindsay and my one-year-old nephew Benjamin as shepherds, Shelby as the wise men, my two-year-old niece Brylie as general stand-in/used to be angel, and great sport brother-in-law Brandon as the angel once Brylie had called it quits. (He even put on the tinsel halo. There must be a special place in heaven for Brandon. Seriously, though, some day I'll get to see that part of my life again and I'm going to rejoice. Brandon the angel. Sweet.) It was quite late after the play, but some of us stayed up to watch the Dahl family standard, Muppet Christmas Carol. Then we headed to bed and waited for Santa Claus.

Time out for my favorite memory of Christmas 2007: My nieces Kristen and Brylie are the cutest little girls on the planet, and no yours are not cuter so shut up. :) Brylie stayed at my parents' house over Christmas with her parents and baby brother Beckam, so we had a lot of time to hang out. Well, Brylie's mom (otherwise known as my sister Stacy) was trying to teach Brylie why we really celebrate Christmas, that it is really a day to commemorate the birth of our Savior and is not all about Santa. That statement translates into for two-year-old as, "It is Jesus' birthday," and to Brylie, birthdays mean balloons, cards, and birthday cakes. Therefore, Stacy and Brylie went out and bought a bag of balloons, a birthday card, and a Funfetti cake mix for Jesus' birthday. My siblings and I helped Brylie blow up the balloons and I helped her write her card, and then it was time to make the birthday cake. She was really looking forward to making Jesus' birthday cake, so when it was finally time she was really excited. I poured the mix into a bowl and then had Brylie help me crack the first egg, but she didn't like how messy it was so she let me do the last two eggs. After that she helped me pour in the oil and I put the used measuring cup into the soapy water and told her that next the cake needed water and turned around for a split second to get the right measuring cup. I turned around just in time to see her pouring a small amount (less than 1/8 cup) of soapy water into the cake batter. A bit of craziness ensued as people realized what had happened, and my poor Brylie was mortified and started to cry. I felt so bad because she was just helping me, so I tried to repair the damage by having her help me make funeral potatoes later, but she lost interest in that as soon as she found out that we were, in fact, making funeral potatoes and not birthday cake. Once the cake was cool enough I took Brylie out and we fulfilled another Dahl tradition of putting money in birthday cakes (she left a few craters in the cake, but no one minds) and then we frosted it in a lovely mint green completely-unlike-boogers-no-matter-what-my-dad-tells-you icing. Brylie was so adorable, ripping the top of the cake to shreds in her birthday cake vigor. After dinner we all went out and lit three birthday candles (one for each of my older nieces and nephews) and, because Brylie wanted to, sang happy birthday to Jesus. Some of my siblings seemed to think that this was sacreligious, but I can't help thinking that Jesus didn't mind at all. It helped Brylie relate to what was going on. And because I know you want to know, the cake tasted fine, and no one burped soap bubbles." Thanks Cari for letting me borrow your account. We also chose stockings and because of the shear number of people, only the little kids got to hang them by the fireplace.

The next morning was Christmas and that is pretty much self explanatory. My brother, sister-in-law and kids came over early so all the kids could experience Santa presents together. After the running of the kids completed and Santa presents were admired, many more presents were opened, wrapping paper discarded and kids overwhelmed with the morning. Someday I'm going to have to keep track of how much wrapping paper my mom goes through for Christmas. We had a great day and everyone got way more then they needed.

December 26th brings day after Christmas shopping for my mom and I and this year my sister Cari and Brylie joined us. We had a blast and were back in time to get ready for family pictures. The family picture experience was our normal experience with Brylie not wanting to participate and screaming when we tried to get her to do anything. I'm hoping some turned out for my parents sake. We left the next day and had, compared to the trip there, and easy trip home. We've been going non-stop since and fondly remember our slower paced time in Las Vegas.

Here is Brylie using one of her favorite new toys. It lets her play on the computer all by herself. Thanks again Gram and Grandpa.

Christmas Card Family Pictures

The time is once again here that we try to get a family picture done for our Christmas Cards. Well I kept putting it off until the perfect time, the kids perfect moods, and perfect weather. Wouldn't you know it, the three never happened at the same time. So the other day I got the kids dressed and headed down to Brandon's work just to have a quick picture taken so I can get the cards out. Of course I'm not going to show the one(s) that made the card, but here are a few of the many rejects.




Just know when you get your card that you got the best out of the bunch and we tried. And Viv, I still want you to take some family pictures. Ones that I'll want to frame and display rather then crop, fix, and then hide away.

Deck the Halls...well at least the tree

I must confess I got started late this year with decorating for Christmas, and with only a week to go until we leave for Las Vegas, I'm not going as all out as I usually do. One thing that will never be looked over is the tree. We finally pulled it out and let Brylie be the first one to put ornaments on.

We just left her alone for about an hour and this is the lovely result. She had so much fun!!

I was tempted to leave it like this for this year, but my years of hearing "Don't bunch the ornaments all together." and "No holes!" got the better of me. After she went to bed, or so I thought, I started rearranging the ornaments. Well we have a few big bells on the tree and she heard those. Before I knew it I heard in a very accusing tone from the top of the stairs , "Your taking them all off?" I quickly explained that I was putting everything right back on and Brylie seemed fine with the result when she got up in the morning. She is also fine with the idea that the tree is now ready for presents to be put under it.

Rolling Boy

Yesterday Beckam rolled over from his front to his back for the first time. He was a little surprised by it, but smiled as soon as he realized he was o.k. He must not have been to keen on it though, because when I tried to get him to do it again for Brandon, he wouldn't have any of it. Oh well, we'll keep working on his rolling abilities. He's growing so fast!!

Festival of Trees

Christmas is a great time of year and along with it come many activities for the family. A few days ago we were invited by Randy and Viv to go to the Festival of Trees. All of the proceeds go to Primary Children's hospital, so on top of it being something fun to do inside, it was for a good cause. Brylie was really excited to go see the trees and after walking around there were quite a few that she wanted to take home or at least play with the stuff underneath them. I would have taken more pictures of the spectacular trees, but we had our hands full with Brylie wanting to play with the trees, Beckam not wanting to sit in his chair, and the stroller. (It's a lot harder to go to things like this with two kids, and there were two of us to handle them.) They also had performances there and Brylie really enjoyed the dancers. She even boogied along in her seat with them. I'm trying to convince her to try potty training so she can go to dance class. We spent a couple of hours at the festival and still didn't get to see everything. As we were leaving there was a little kid area. I don't know why we hadn't seen it sooner, but we had just enough time to let Brylie get in the big bubble. Luckily Brandon got enough tickets for her to do it twice. We had a great time going to the festival and it will be something we will do again.