Touch a Truck

Matt and I went on a date Friday night, always a perfect way to start off any weekend. We went to a BBQ place we've never tried and loved it. We got a babysitter for the girls but were only gone about an hour and a half so Matt would have some time to spend with the girls before they went to bed. Saturday we went to Touch a Truck which was a fundraiser for the Princess Alexa foundation. Alexa is the little girl that passed away from cancer in our ward a year and a half ago. It was held at a local high school and had a lot of different trucks and things for kids to sit in and honk the horns, etc. They even had the red truck from Twilight but being the fanatic I am, I didn't take any pictures of it. Em, I'll read the book eventually.

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The girls got to say hi to the princesses.

The girls were about as tall as the tire was thick on the tractor.

Sienna climbed up and got to honk the horn on the BIG tractor. She thought it was so neat.

She's so tiny in this huge machine.

When we're not out running around the girls are usually inside building towers. They are both getting pretty good it too.

Synchronized Sliders

The girls and I had the best day we've had in awhile. We woke up to beautiful weather and for the first time in over a week, it was sunny outside without a cloud in the sky. It rained all day every day last week and is supposed to rain the rest of this week too. We decided to take advantage of this perfect 80 degree morning and went to the park, just the three of us. Later we made Uncle Bryan a cake and went swimming with some friends.

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The girls eating breakfast together at the park.

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Trying to figure out how to get to the other side.

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My first born monkey.

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My second born monkey.

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Sadie getting ready to go down the slide. There is a funny story behind Sadie's skirt missing but we'll save that for another day.

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Weeeeeeee

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Sadie peeking around the corner.

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She climbed up from the bottom to the very top. She is such a little animal.

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Doing a train together.

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The three of us going down the slide together.

This video is for Grandma and Nana mostly. Sadie can say slide clear as a bell. It is one of the words that she pronounces the best but she refused to say it on camera. She just watched the video with me and heard me asking her on the camera to say slide and of course she said it loud and clear.

Getting Closer

I remember being really young and wanting to grow up and learn to decorate cakes. About a year ago I decided to act upon this childhood dream. I now feel like I am getting very close to be able to stand on my own. Until now, it has only been a hobby and I have used Matt's co-workers as guinea pigs. Maybe one of these days I can turn this into a money-making opportunity but for now I am just having fun. I hope that I can continue to improve my skill level as well as learn how to make things easier along the way. Here are a few pictures of the latest cake that I made. Thi is my first cake that was completely covered with fondant.

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Nubulized

Last night was a long night without much sleep for any of us except for Sadie. Sienna woke up about every 30-40 minutes without fail. She was coughing a little bit but for the most part she seemed well in terms of being healthy. This morning I noticed that she was wheezing a little bit and her heart beat was very rapid. I decided to skip gymnastics and I gave her doctor a call. The nurses were very concerned about her wheezing and had me bring her in immediately. When they hooked her up to the lung monitor, it said that she was only getting about 93% of her oxygen to her lungs. The doctor told me that this was on the border of where they get really concerned. After being hooked up to an oxygen machine Sienna started breathing much better but her lungs still sounded 'tight' to the doctor. They decided to hook her up one more time to a nebulizer but this time with medicine and not oxygen to see if that would clear her up even more. The doctor told me that they are only allowed to test her three times in the office and if she wasn't clear they would send us to get her a chest x-ray and if it was cleared after the in office tests, they would send me to the Emergency Room for more testing. I didn't understand why if she did clear up they would need to send us to the ER but then again, I am not a doctor. Luckily, after the second treatment Sienna sounded great and was getting close to 100% oxygen in her lungs. The doctor decided that we didn't need to do more testing and so he just sent us up the street for a chest x-ray.

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It definitely wasn't enjoyable watching Sienna have to go through this but I am so grateful that things weren't more serious. I am also so proud of Sienna for how she handled everything today. I remember when they put an oxygen mask on me while I was in labor and it drove me crazy.

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Concerned little sister. I was also very impressed and grateful for how easy and well behaved Sadie was during everything today.

To keep the girls distracted in the doctor's office I let Sienna take a bunch of pictures of us.

Silly Sadie making her crazy cheese face.

Sienna was such a trooper. It's a good thing she doesn't completely lose it when she has to wear this because I have to do it to her at home for the next seven days. I even have to wake her up in the middle of the night to do it. By the end of the week, she only has to do it once every 12 hours but today and tomorrow it has to be every 2-4 hours and gradually goes down from there.

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Still waiting until we can go home.

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We went straight from our doctor's office to a radiology center down the street to get Sienna's x-rays done and both of the girls fell asleep before we arrived. I was already anxious about the x-rays and kept trying to prepare Sienna by telling her that we had to take some pictures of her bones. Now that she had fallen asleep I was extremely nervous that she would be more prone to a melt down but I was wrong and she did awesome. I couldn't even keep the girls awake to walk into the building so as soon as I got through the front door I laid Sienna on a bench in the waiting room while I filled out the paper work.

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Sadie was snoring so loud and got all sorts of comments. The lady at the desk told me that she didn't know how long the wait would be and that I had someone in front of me that had already been waiting for a half an hour. I wasn't too worried about the wait since the girls were sleeping anyway but they called us back within about five minutes. The nurse taking Sienna's "pictures" was great and made it so easy. I was so relieved when I realized that Sienna just had to stand on a stool and didn't have to be strapped down or anything confining like that. What a morning, but it is over and we are all doing great. I didn't let myself stress out or worry too much about everything going on and early on I was overcome with a comforting feeling that things would be okay. I am just praying now that this is only a one time thing and isn't going to turn into asthma struggles or anything like that for the rest of her life. Oh, and they have already gotten back to me with the x-ray results and everything looks normal!! I feel very blessed and grateful today.

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After everything was finally done with the doctors we met Matt for a late lunch. It was a great break for Sienna to see her daddy and she was able to deliver her orange cake to Cara. Sienna helped me decorate this cake last night for a friend at work.

Keeping Busy

Who doesn't love three day weekends?? We sure do around here. We had a great weekend of playing and working together as a family. Matt talked about the BYU game and re watched highlights a countless amount of times. Monday we went out to breakfast as a family again so Sienna could order more bacon. We went somewhere different and it was twice as much money and half as good. After breakfast we stopped by the store to pick up some paint and came home and painted the girls' room. We had lots of color samples chosen out but we decided on lime kissed which is a very light green, so light it almost looked yellow when we first painted. After the paint dried the green showed up a lot better. We're very happy with how it turned out and I am always amazed at how much a little bit of paint adds to a room. We took a break from painting and went for a swim next door. Matt and I also started a puzzle over the weekend. We love doing puzzles and it has been a long time since we've worked on one together. Overall, it was a fantastic weekend and I am so happy that there are only 3.5 more days until another one.

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The girls playing around during the BYU game. They are so close and I think Sadie pesters Sienna much more than Sienna picks on Sadie. Today at Costco a lady asked Sienna if this -pointing to Sadie- was her little sister and Sienna said, "yes, I am two and Sadie is one." Then she leaned over kissed her arm and gave her a hug. Obviously, that isn't how they always are together but it was so sweet.

We watched the BYU game with some friends while Matt was at the game. Sienna loves their puppy, Joe.

Sadie was keeping her distance from Joe because he has knocked her to the ground several times and jumps all over her. She loves him, just from a distance.

Today was week two at gymnastics for Sienna. She was dancing around before class.

Here is a picture of her swinging on the rope that I wasn't able to get last week. Today Sienna's teacher wasn't there and the substitute did things a little differently. Sienna did fine with the changes but I prefer the regular teacher's style much over how things went today. Everything was a little chaotic today without structure. One of my favorite things last week was how Miss Renee made them line up on the tape to walk from station to station. Today they all just ran around like crazies and didn't take turns very well either. I was proud of Sienna because she remembered what Miss Renee had taught her from last week and waited patiently for the teacher to call her name.

Tricia watched Sadie for me so we could go this morning so Sienna and I decided to pick up donuts for everyone on the way home. We all ran some errands together and then Joci got to come over and play. I put Sadie's leotard on her so she could be twins with Sienna. I think this picture is absolutely beautiful of both girls.

Please ignore my foot in this picture but I thought it was too sweet not to post. This is Sienna's best friend Joci. They fight over things here and there but they make up well and have so much fun together. They started fighting over something and I said that Joci would have to go home if they didn't stop. Sienna got upset and said, "no, Joci doesn't want to go home" and Joci said, "No, I want to stay with Karin and Sienna." Even when they're arguing or want the same thing, they both do really well if you talk it out with them. This morning Sienna found out that Sadie was going to Tricia's house instead of Sandy's and questioned going to gymnastics at first because she'd rather stay and play with Joci. Soon enough they'll be in a class together.

Here is a picture of the girls' room. It looks yellow in the picture but there is a lot more green that now shows up. I'm really pleased with it and like the contrast of the purples and pinks in their room against the wall. I'm excited to do a couple more things in their room and finish up.

Sadie was sleeping when I went in to get a picture of the room and I couldn't resist getting one of her too.

SAS Sisters (Sienna Anne Shumway & Sadie Adrianne Shumway)

Matt is going to the BYU vs OU game tonight at the new Cowboy Stadium so we decided to go out to breakfast as a family. We decided to join the elderly at Cracker Barrel for some good home cooking. Our waitress came to take our orders and Matt said, "I'll have the apple french toast meal with bacon" and then was cut off by Sienna with, "and I'll have chicken and french fries WITH bacon." We all started to laugh and Sienna ate lots of bacon.

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Sadie is learning to communicate pretty well too. She has a handful of words that she knows but she mostly points and nods. This morning she was nudging Matt into the kitchen and pointing to the fridge. He opened it and asked if she wanted some watermelon. She nodded her head no and pointed to her milk. When her milk was all gone, she shook her cup at us while making a somewhat grunting noise until we got her more. She understands most everything we say to her and is learning how to respond better every day. Her favorite words right now are, "bear, juice, pow, moo (when we ask her what a cow says), ruff ruff (for a dog), and kitty." She can also sing Row Your Boat and give you pow.

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Another one of my favorite things that Sienna does is say the most random or silly things. When we ask her what she said she'll respond almost embarrassed or shyly, "I don't know." Lately, Sienna has been making up words and also throwing church lingo around. The other day we were all sitting around and I don't remember exactly what Sienna was saying but she was telling us something and then said, "and the Holy Spirit." Matt and I were boggled and couldn't think of where she came up with that term. We have talked to her about the Holy Ghost but never referred to it as the Holy Spirit with her. Later we realized that she sings, "I Love to See the Temple" and in it is the line, "to feel the Holy Spirit...." A few days later the girls and I were playing and Sienna was reading a book and shouts, "I love my Book of Mormon." I told her that she was reading Mary Had a Little Lamb but she insisted it was her Book of Mormon.

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My girls are angels sent from Heaven. I love spending time with them and goofing around together. Even though they are the SAS sisters and come full of attitude and have their moments, they are so very special and full of love. Both of them love to snuggle and give hugs and kisses. Sienna since she was born has had such a loving personality. She truly cares about others and gets sad when they're sad. One of my favorite things that Sienna has done since she was very young is randomly she'll make eye-contact with me and as soon as she notices that she's caught my attention, she'll say, "hi mom" in a very sweet and soft voice then she'll either blow me a kiss or tell me that she loves me. She does it to Matt too. Sadie also randomly gives kisses. I'll be sitting down or laying on the floor and she'll come lay on top of me and give me a big loud, "mwwwwwwwwwwwa!" I know that my girls are here at this time for a reason and have wonderful things ahead of them. I am so grateful, blessed, and humbled to be given the opportunity to raise these special Daughters of our Heavenly Father.

Sienna Time

I enrolled Sienna in gymnastics for a few reasons but mostly so she could have her special time to do something fun with mommy. It is also really important to me that I get to spend one on one time with my little buddy Sienna. We dropped Sadie off next door and headed to her first class. On the way to the gym Sienna said, "I'm going to gymnastics with new friends!" She was so thrilled for her special day to start. Her coach's name is Miss Renee and does very well with the kids. I have been debating putting Sienna in dance or gym for awhile but I am so glad that I waited until now. There were some younger kids in her class that didn't quite understand what was going on and couldn't communicate very well. I think this is the perfect time for Sienna because she both comprehends and gets excited to do the different activities. It will also reinforce habits like listening, sharing, and taking turns as well as improving Sienna's coordination and self confidence. Most importantly, it is a something special and fun for Sienna to have as her very own.

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Sienna putting her shoes in a cubby before class started.

They started off class with every child jumping on their own floor trampoline. Sienna is listening to her coach and jumping with her hands on her belly.

This is when Miss Renee yelled, "FREEZE."

Sienna sitting on the mat with her friends waiting for her turn to play with the rope.

The kids got to push the rope and catch it. Sienna even sat on the rope and swung over the foam pit. I was so proud of her for trying it and not getting scared.

The kids are instructed to go one at a time on all of the rotations. They also walk in a straight line behind their coach from one station/activity to the next. Sienna did very well at listening and picked up fast on what she needed to do. This picture is of Sienna bouncing down a long narrow tramp to the foam pit. I think this was probably her favorite part of the class, she loves to jump.

Sienna doing straddles on the bar. She also learned to do a pike and a tuck.

Doing a front roll down the mat during one of her rotations.

Sienna doing the bear crawl across the bars. The class is once a week for 50 minutes and the kids get to try so many different exciting things at the gym. (I should have taken a picture of the gym, it was awesome.)

While Sienna goes to gymnastics, Sadie prepares for the circus.