30, 32, 33, 34, 36, 37, 38, 39...30!

Ava can count to 30 again and again and again and again... She counts up to thirty, then skips 31 & 35 goes on through 39, and then next is...30! she repeats this multiple times until I start giggling and she starts giggling and Zoe starts giggling, and then we're all laughing too hard to count any further! :D

Here is another map Ava made at school. This time she even wrote in the names of all of the countries! Ava has really learned a lot in school this year. Her favorite activities are in anything creative and artsy. She has even been told by her teacher that she needs to explore other areas too, because she would spend her whole day creating masterpieces, or "making art" as she refers to it. She also loves writing and has been adding captions to her art lately. I admire her persistence in writing, she just sounds out word after word and keeps going, she fills pages with words without asking how to spell a thing. Another new interest is Spanish. She got a magazine with some Spanish words in it and will pick it up daily and say, "I think I'm going to learn some Spanish for a little while." I'm going to need to brush up on my Spanish or she'll pass me up!

slip slops & flushies

Do you speak Zoe? She's come up with some good ones lately...
slip slops...flip flops
bataenoes...tomatoes
sohluh!...have you seen Up?...Squirrel!
magnetnoodle...magnadoodle
slum...thumb
flute...fruit
flow flake...snow flake
flushies...slushies

i wanna soak up the sun

We love the sun! What an awesome day for a walk to the park. We picnicked and played for hours! It gave true meaning to the word "Sunday" :)

30

On the 9th I celebrated 30. Jamie, Ava, and Zoe gave me a gift card for a massage so I snuck that in after work. I went out to dinner with my two favorite girls and then we did our typical Friday night movies and popcorn. They even let me choose the movie since it was my birthday. :) Oh, and Ava wanted me to bring her somewhere so she could buy me flowers. Isn't she the sweetest thing? This is what she picked out.

eggs

The girls had fun dyeing eggs at our house...















...and at Grama Donna and Grampa Jeff's



We had fun snuggling up to watch a movie on the big screen too

Grampa brought Ava and Zoe to the butterfly house. Ava had fun putting her sticker on her nose!

...and looking for the eggs that the easter bunny hid at our house too. They had money in them!

recovery day

Zoe ran a fever every other week, first one starting on her birthday, so we rescheduled her party to two weeks later. Then she had a fever that evening too, then again two weeks later, and again...and again. The first one Jamie brought her in to the doctor and they ran every test (blood, cath, xray, flu, strep, etc) and then told us it was something viral. :( The next two we let go, thinking why spend another $500+ (we have a deductible plan) to hear that it's just viral again. The 4th one, only lasted one day, and the 5th one I decided to bring her in again because I couldn't believe she had a fever again! All of them were about 101-102 degrees except this last one went up in the 104s. The doctor said it sounds like "Periodic Fever." We had to do more blood draws to rule out some other ailments (which all came back negative). Basically Periodic Fever is when they get a fever periodically every set number of weeks (anywhere between 2 and 6 weeks) and then it just keeps recurring without any other symptoms other than swollen tonsils and sometimes sores in the mouth. It resembles strep throat but isn't and it can last anywhere from 6 months to years! I had never heard of this before and its only been classified as an actual disorder since the late 1980s.

My first thought was...I'm going to have to quit my job! I can't take off every 2 weeks! The doctor said since it isn't contaigious, she can write a doctor's note to daycare saying she is able to go, but when Zoe is running a fever she just wants to be held and doesn't want to be held by just anyone. Since the tylenol & motrin weren't keeping the fever down, the doctor gave us a prescription for prednisone (a steroid). Apparently the treatment for periodic fever is either steroids or a tonsilectomy (which works in 90% of cases). One of the side effects of steroids is "irritability"...yeah right...that's putting it mildly! I decided steroids were out...tonsilectomy is going on the agenda! When we went to ENT for her consult visit (and we pried her mouth open) the doc got a quick look and said, "Yes, she is definitely a candidate for a tonsilectomy and adenoidectomy." She had surgery on March 15th. Everything went fine, and the insurance deductable is definitely met for the year! Now we're hoping to be in the fortunate 90% that it works for! :)




Here she is sleeping the day of her surgery. She slept most of the first day, then went back and forth between being happy and crabby (can you blame her?) the rest of the week.

montana or bust

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We went to visit Jamie in Montana over Spring Break. We drove through quite a bit of fog as you can see on my mirror (it froze on). His brother Ben came with and helped out with the girls (and had fun fishing too!). The car ride was happy...grouchy...and sleepy. When we finally got to Great Falls, Ava and Zoe were SO HAPPY to see their daddy! The got started with some fun daddy-play as soon as we checked in to the hotel...wrestling, tickling, and zerbits! Zoe got into my lip gloss..."I look pretty mommy?" We checked out the dams on the Missouri River, the one in the picture is Black Eagle Dam. We fed fish at the trout hatchery. When Jamie was working, Ben and I brought the girls to the Children's Museum. We had lots of fun in the pool...proof is in our chlorine-faded swimsuits! I learned how to make spawn sacs and became quite proficient at it...it was kinda fun! Ava, Zoe, and I met Jamie and Ben in the town of Craig (in the Big Belt Mountains) one afternoon. They went fishing and we had a picnic lunch. We stopped up to Holter Lake before heading back to Great Falls.

We're looking forward to seeing daddy again this weekend!