International travelers!

Reece, Benson, and I went with some friends to Vancouver, BC to experience the Olympics. Unfortunately, we planned our trip too late to afford tickets to any of the Olympic events but we can say that we were in Vancouver during the Olympics! hehehe. We actually did almost nothing involving the Olympics because the Cauldron was blocked off and there really wasn't anything else to see---we were a bit disappointed but in good company! We did go to the Vancouver Aquarium which was amazing. Seriously, if was the best aquarium I have ever been to. We loved that and also loved driving around Vancouver. It seems like it's a sister city to Seattle--they look alot alike and are both Beautiful and surrounded by water!

Reece LOVES jellyfish! Benson LOVES turtles. He kept saying "tu-tule"
Dolphin show

A terrible picture of me and Brendee. :)

Katie and Reece

The only picture of all three kids together

Boys and cars...

This is Benson's favorite hang out area. He puts his red chair against the wall, lines up his cars, and watches all the people run/walk/ride on the Burke-Gillman trail. So cute!
I'm pretty sure I have posted enough entries this week to last me a couple months. This obsession is due to a husband who is super busy studying at night...if I don't have something to do my jabber jaws go into action and he can't get anything done.

Birthday Party!

This is what Reece's cake looked like right before his party.

He has spent the last two days snitching at it. Don't worry, I had cupcakes for the kids to eat! Reece, Jackie, Brayden, and Levi. They are all Best buddies.

They are showing off their frog puppets!
The excitement of eating your own birthday cake!
Levi and Brayden

Reece & Jackie

We had Reece's birthday party today! We spent the morning decorating (he spent the morning snitching at his cake) and then Reece waited patiently for his friends to arrive. We were happy to get 2/3's of the invitee's to show up. It seems like everyone is sick around here. We played some fun games, made Frog puppets (which were a HUGE hit...the boys had a blast drawing insects on the frogs tongues), ate Reece's frog cake, and then opened presents. Happy and successful birthday party!

Precious moments...

It's a rare occasion when Reece asks for food; until the pop tarts were invented! He has realized that he can have a pop tart anytime he wants--and he takes advantage of it. I just wish I could dip them in oil to add more calories and fatten him up! :) Benson LOVES food. I can't keep him away from it. In his dream world he would always have food in one hand and a car in the other.

Precious moment: Reece and Benson felt awful on Monday. While they were watching a movie I went outside and jumped our car b/c the battery was dead and when I came back inside this is what I found:
Two tired and sick boys cuddled together! My heart melted. I hope these two remain best friends throughout their lives. Brotherly love is priceless.

I'm starting to realize that it's not the big events that make life worthwhile--it's those simple daily moments I have with my family that make life so fun. Tonight the boys played balloon tornados with Spencer and our house was filled with children laughing, screaming, running, crashing, and lots of love. I don't mean to be so cheezy, but it's true, those are the moments I want to remember forever. I am a proud mom of three boys!

Happy Birthday Reece!!!

Today was a much anticipated day for Reece. His three best buddies all had birthdays within the past 4 months and so he has been WAITING for his turn. Unfortunately, the boys are still sick so we had to move his friend party to tomorrow (meaning even MORE pictures coming tomorrow!). But we still had a lot of fun. He woke up to a bike surrounded by balloons. We had breakfast, went on a bike ride, had quite time, made his frog cake (our tradition is we all make the cake together), played with the balloons ALL DAY, opened presents, went to McDonalds and brought home Happy meals (for the boys), and then had cake and ice cream! Reece was hyper the whole day--for some reason he was jabber jaws today. He had the funniest comments and stories today--mostly about things pertaining to science.
Here goes the mass of pictures:


Reece and his weather book. He was so excited you could hardly tell what he was saying.

Math book.

I told Reece he couldn't have gum until he was 4--this is him showing off his gum. I think he looks so grown up and handsome!

M




My little helpers. Don't worry, Reece didn't stick the whisks back in the bowl after licking it!

His new bike!!

Bath Time!

I LOVE taking pictures of the boys in the bath tub! It seems like every kid has a couple pictures playing in the tub with their siblings. Look how big the boys are getting. It's crazyness! I told Spencer the other day that our boys are no longer babies. They are true toddlers (this is not me hinting that I need a baby!). Most places we go my hands are empty (besides my Mary Poppins bag! Gotta love it!).

Reece turns 4 tomorrow!
Benson turns 2 in a month and sleeps in the bunk bed with Reece.

This was our first picture. They both are thinking, "OH NO...it's mom again with her camera. She's a crazy lady!"

Little Update:

REECE: I thought we were going to make it through the winter with no Emergency Room visits--but I was wrong. We had to take Reece in Saturday morning because he was at the start of another asthma attack. Luckily-I listened to my instincts (and my Mother calling me every 5 minutes telling me to take him in) and got him some care before it went to south. Its amazing how fast his asthma can go downhill. A couple hours of waiting can be the difference of a 5 hour visit verses a couple days visit. Anyway, his oxygen was at 91 and he was super lethargic and pale. They got us right in, gave him some dexamethasone (super strong steroid which helps with the inflammation) and put him on a continuous albuteral treatment with oxygen for an hour. After 4 hours he was back to normal and was flying his new car through the ER dodging all the nurses in his path. Luckily Dad gave us his I-touch to play with--Reece was happy as a clown and all is well. His asthma is still bothering him, but I'm sure within a couple days it will be gone.

Benson: Benson's BG's have been horrible for the past 7 months. About 2 weeks ago I started losing hope that it would ever get better. I have worked so hard to figure out his body (I check him 11-13 times/24 hours) and it seems like once we get it somewhat working, then he goes through a growth spurt and we are back to ground zero. I have waited to post our news because I didn't want to jinx it and I wanted to make sure it wasn't a fluke--but I can officially say we have figured him out and for once in his life and his BG's are under control. His averages have mostly been in the 200's until now. Check out his new averages:

7 day avg: 149

14 day avg: 159

30 day avg: 187

The only unfortunate news is that every day he has atleast 1-2 hyperglycemia's in the 40-50's. So we will have to make some more corrections and hopefully they won't make him go high again.

Happy Day! Our boys are doing very well and Reece can hardly wait for his birthday party tomorrow! I'm sure I'll have lots more pictures and updates about that!

Reece wonders...

Dr. Reece Ivan MillerSanta gave Spencer & Reece a skeleton for Christmas!

The latest from Reece:

1) He saw a picture of a kidney in his friends book today and said (in a very sophisticated voice), "mom, that's a kidney". He knows his organs better than I do!

2) At the beginning of the week we were talking about where our food goes after it leaves our mouth. This is how our dialogue went:

Reece: Mom, where does out food go after it goes through our mouth?

Juliann: It goes down our throat, into our stomach, through our colon...

Reece interrupts: no Mom, it goes through our intestines first and then our colon

Juliann: oh ya, you are right. And then it turns into poop and out it comes (there is no beating around the bush--we just get to the point!)

3) Reece and Spencer had a stomach bug last week and so Reece was fascinated about what was happening in his body, why he was throwing up, and how was his body going to kill the stomach bug? So next time you see him, ask him how to kill a stomach bug! With a little prompting he will tell you that the antibodies in our blood which are good guys will kill the bad stomach bug and then you won't throw up any more. For the remainder of the week if he didn't want to eat something he would say, "oh, I can't eat that because I have a stomach bug and it will make me throw up". Little stinker!

4) He is OBSESSED with Hurricanes, Tornado's, winter storms, volcano's, and floods. That is ALL we talk about on a daily basis. It amazes me how action-packed my boys are. They are fascinated with anything that has action in it. It has been fun to see the "boy world"--girls and boys are wired COMPLETELY different. I can prove it!

Coupon crazy lady!

Last week I FINALLY figured out the whole coupon craze (with a lot of help from my mama!) and got a KILLER deal!! I was pretty pathetic during the whole process. As I was filling up my cart my heart was racing a million miles a minute (for some reason I thought someone was going to tell me I couldn't take that many) and then after I slowly filled my cart I started walking toward the cash register. At this point I almost wet my pants--I was so nervous they were going to shoot me down. Fortunately, I saw the self-checkout line was empty and took the opportunity to not present myself in front of an Albertsons employee and quickly checked out! I was SUPER PROUD of myself & I didn't wet my pants or have a heart attack.

Here was my deal:

5-Captain Crunch cereal boxes

3-boxes of oatmeal packets

6-Life cereal boxes

11-boxes of granola bars

TOTAL: $104.94

subtract all my coupons plus taking advantage of Albertsons sale

=$10.00!!!

WHOA BABY!! True awesomeness!