Finger Prick Pass Out

Yesterday I took Emma and Reese to get their well checkups and man, am I glad I left the other 3 home with Dad! Little did I know that Cade passed on, as he calls it "The Wuss Gene", to Emma. Haha.

There we were, just got sat down in the back room after doing an eye check and getting the height and weight of both of them. The nurse said, "well, there are no vaccines for either girl due so that's good." The girls smiled and were so happy about that! Then she had them sit up on the table to take their blood pressure. After that the nurse said, "We do check cholesterol levels in between ages 9 and 11 so we will do a quick finger prick for Emma." She looked at the nurse like "I'm not sure what that is, but I think I should start getting worried." The nurse explained what she was going to do and tried talking to Emma the whole time it was going on. Of course Emma couldn't focus on any of the questions she was asking because she was panicking at the nurse taking blood from her body (even if it was just a few drops).

The nurse finished and said the girls could sit back on the chairs if they wanted while she went out to run the cholesterols test. Emma and Reese sat on the chair next to me and we talked for a minute. I asked Emma if it hurt and she said it was much worse than getting a pokie (what we call vaccines) and she hates getting shots more than anything on this earth. Then she said, "Mom, I want to sit by you." So she sat next to me on this tiny chair made for one. A minute later I said, "Are you doing okay?" and then looked at her. She all of a sudden became completely white and then her body started convulsing and her eyes rolled to the back of her head. I opened the door and said, "Can I get someone in here please and make sure everything is okay??!" The doctor and nurse ran in while Emma was completely lifeless in my arms. Then about 10 seconds later she opened her eyes and sat up and said, "Whoa, what happened? Why are all of you staring at me?" I asked if she was okay and she became white again. She remained coherent after that but the nurse got some juice for both girls to sip on and allow Emma to recover in my arms.

While Emma was recovering Reese asked, "so it that going to happen to me when I get my finger poked?" I said, "well, I think Emma got Daddy's genes. Hopefully you got my genes and you'll be just fine." Reese then said, "What's the difference between your pants and dads?" HAHAHA. I tried not to laugh in her face. I tried to explain that these were different kind of genes and not "jeans." She said, "Oh, I thought you were saying that Emma grew a lot a so she is now wearing Dads pants!" Oh, man, I didn't think this situation could get any funnier!

Poor Emma. It took her a solid 20 minutes to recover in my arms. The doctor came in and talked about what happened and that it's nothing to worry about for the long term. He gave me a print out of the actual condition called "vasovagal syncope." When I told Cade he said, "Wow, I had no idea there was an actual term for the Wuss Gene!" Apparently its a real thing where you body gets triggered with blood and passes out. Who knew???

Oh, man. That was definitely the funniest doctors Appointment I have ever been to! And again, I am SO glad I didn't have 3 other girls there (especially a one year old) to juggle while Emma was recovering for 20 minutes!

Good times. We will just pray that Emma never gets diabetes because having to prick herself multiple times a day would do her in!

I was most impressed with Emma's ability to laugh about it and tell all her friends and classmates and teachers. She laughed and thought it was hilarious. What an awesome response. Instead of being embarrassed she turned it around and made the best out of it! I love my Emma.

Valentines Fun!

Valentines is becoming such a fun holiday- even Cade thinks so- which is HUGE for him! 

Cade and I usually do dinner and massage each year, but this year his work gave us a stay at a resort in Park City and so we had Hailey from our neighborhood watch the girls for 24 hours so we could have a fun overnight stay and day together. It was amazing. We had amazing food, an incredible spa experience, went to see "Little Women" at the theater (almost by ourselves), hot tubbed and played card games together. It was a much needed 24 hours and all thanks to Fishbowl! 

It has become a tradition for our family to do a "love" dinner for Valentines. We make heart-shaped pizzas, do chocolate fondue and open up our notes to each other in our envelopes. I love easy traditions that bring us closer as a family. Traditions- big and small- are so important and the girls (and me!) look so forward to them. 

Nora's Valentines box was awesome this year. All her idea! Nothing says I love you like a taco! And Nora loves her tacos! :)

Reese has a cute Valentine named Justin. Well, even if she didn't want to have a valentine, he sure wanted to have her as his! So cute. He gave her HUGE sized candy and a long note and a love maze :). I think she said she gave Justin a random candy that Kenzi had. Oh, dear. Second grade crushes :). 

Lucy's 4th Birthday!

This year all the girls got to have birthday parties with their friends. I knew that the only friends that she really cared about was her two cousin Sophie and Andy. So we decided to have a mega play date birthday extravaganza was just her two cousins. She had the best time of her life! They came over to play for a while and had dinner. Then they went to Kangaroo Zoo for almost 2 hours. SOOOO many giggles the entire time. She absolutely LOVES her girls cousins and can't get enough of them. I am so happy she will grow up with girl cousins her same age. None of her older sisters will have that. Boy cousins, yes, but its just different. Lucy is lucky :).

Some other things about our Lucy Ann:

-Her favorite thing in all the world is playing pretend WITH others. With mom, with her sisters, sometimes with Dad (if he'll be serious during the play, which he rarely is haha). 

-Lucy does not like being alone. Occasionally she will close the door to her room and play for a bit, but mostly she needs to be where others are. She likes being around and playing with others.

-She likes to sing at the top of her lungs and is in tune almost 100% of the time. She has a great singing voice.

-She likes eating pancakes, apples, applesauce packets (her FAVORITE), go-gurts, and all fruit. 

-She failed the ear pressure/screening test at the ENT so she has no graduated from that office yet! She has to be off dairy for 3 months and get retested. Being off dairy hasn't been super easy for her but we are making do! (I make her own "special" non-dairy go-gurts now)

-Lucy is full of SO much energy and brings a lot of excitement and joy to our family. She LOVES her sisters so much and can't get enough of them. She does get extremely sad when they don't want to play with her because she just loves them. 

-She also LOVES wrestling with Dad after work, eating lots of popcorn during movie nights, playing with barbies, and going to preschool at Ms. Jill's (even though it got cut short with the pandemic this year :( ). 

We LOVE our Lucy so much and the addition she is to our family!