2016...

It doesn't quite feel like 2016 has started around here.  We started off the year in AZ with my terrible cold.  We got home and my cold was just as bad.  When I say cold I don't just mean a runny nose and a little sneezing, I mean nonstop sniffling, sneezing, headache, sore throat, coughing, congestion and just feeling awful.  The medicines I can take don't do a whole lot and I can't take anything to help me sleep so the nights were awful.  I just couldn't get back into the swing of things of being home even though the kids had to go back to school.  I was pretty pathetic there for a few days and Steve felt bad there was nothing he could do.

Kaley started feeling sick the Sunday we were driving home (the 3rd) and had a fever that night.  She ran a really bad fever all day Monday even with medicine in her with no other symptoms besides a little congestion.  That night it got up to 105 degrees according to our thermometer so we called a nurse line and they suggested  we take her to the ER since the fever was so high and she is so young.  Steve took her (since I was still feeling sick myself) at about 9:30pm while I waited nervously at home.  The tested for RSV and took a chest x-ray and everything came back normal, thankfully, and they ended up just saying that it was a viral infection, bronchillitis, and to just watch her especially her breathing, and sent them home about about 11pm (yay for our ER that isn't that busy so we aren't there for hours).  I was happy that it wasn't something more serious.  She was still pretty sick Tuesday and Wednesday and still wasn't great Thursday and Friday.  So she and I were both pretty pathetic until yesterday.

Steve woke up with kidney stone pain at about 5am Friday and it got really bad.  Thankfully he has some prescription pain killers left over from other times this has happened so we weren't worried about having to take him to the hospital but it was still very painful for him!  The even worse part about it was that he had an interview scheduled for 10:30am Friday morning here in Idaho Falls.  What bad timing!!  He put off taking the pain killers as long as he could because of the interview but I urged him to take some before the pain really got out of control.  So he had to call and see if they could reschedule his interview but they told him they didn't know when they would be interviewing again so they would call next week.  They weren't very sympathetic and that response made us lose a lot of hope for this opportunity but I guess we'll just have to wait and see.  I'm having to exercise faith that if this is the right job then it will work out.  It's just getting hard to not be impatient and let the stress of our situation and future overwhelm us.  Saying lots of prayers!

So far Abby and Preston haven't gotten sick, although I am sure it will come soon!  We are all hopeful that this first little bit of 2016 isn't an indicator of what is to come or we may be in big trouble!

I have some random pictures left over from the end of the year or just around the house that I figured I would throw into this post.

These first few are from our ward Christmas party.  This year they did a breakfast instead of a dinner which was a little different (and early!) but the kids always look forward to ward parties.

Kind of love her face even though she is so sad!

The few days leading up to Christmas Eve we had gotten snow everyday so it was quite thick and fluffy.  We all went outside as a family to play in the snow on Christmas Eve which Preston had been asking for.  This was Kaley's first time really venturing out in the snow and she lasted a lot longer than any of us expected.

This boy sure loves his sister and he sure loves playing outside in the snow, LOVES it!

When Christmas got closer Abby had changed her mind about what she wanted from Santa and started asking for an Easy Bake oven.  We had already done our shopping and that isn't the cheapest thing so we weren't sure how she was going to feel.  Well, Steve and Abby had seen this super cute little mixer that makes real little treats without any heat.  Santa (aka. Steve) with our gifted Christmas donations got this for Abby and she was so dang excited!  We had her wait until after our trip to try it out and she was so cute for the whole process.  

I love this picture.