Lasts and Firsts

Last jumps on the trampoline, before we took it down for the winter ....  SUPER fun!!

First Christmas Cookies of the Season -- and yes, they are pink and purple, two colors that are still favorites of the five-year olds in our family .....

First field trip I was able to attend with Ella and Zoe, and their Kindergarten Class -- The Children's Theatre's AMAZING presentation of The Wizard of Oz!!

Zoe drawing sketches of the characters from the Wizard of Oz, before the play started .....

Ella drawing sketches ....

The whole production was brilliant.  Each of the main characters were our favorites for different reasons (photos taken from the Children's Theatre Facebook page -- cameras were not allowed during the performance):

The ruby slippers, oh my!!

But the colorful munchkins were our favorite favorite ....

... and of course the Good Witch Glinda, her glittering gown, and how she floated in the air was truly magical ....

.... but maybe the funnest surprise was that Toto was a real dog -- we all really liked that part : )

During intermission Ella told me she had a headache and didn't feel well (you can tell she was starting to feel punky in this photo):

She sat on my lap during the bus ride home and around 11:30 that night started to throw up -- a lot, on and off for most of the night.  The girls had the next day off from school and Tom had taken the day off too, but Ella had a rough day (it was very, very hard to leave her in the morning -- only way I was able to do it was knowing they were with their dad), lots of vomiting, diarrhea and a high fever.  When I got home from work she was just waking from a long nap and felt (and looked) even worse.  Our doctor had us bring her to the ER at the Children's Hospital where we spent a very long night and she was treated for dehydration; and after quite a few tests, blood draws, shots and an IV we were told she had a bacterial infection.  The next day she had to get two more BIG shots in her legs -- you would have thought the world was ending.  But she got through it, and so did Tom and I (I really thought shots were supposed to get easier as kids got older -- NOT).

First hospital visit in a long time -- first IV in a long time too.

Not fun at all.  Zoe was a very supportive and loving sister (she was on the 'support team' again) and Ella, despite going through the ringer, was truly a trooper.  She didn't complain once (except for when she screamed louder than I thought was possible when she found out she needed to get two more big shots, when she got her big shots and whenever she would think about when she got her big shots).

Four days later when she started to feel a little better, she even smiled for me while eating her starcicle : )

And that's all for now .....  I continue to be behind in everything ....  but I feel such joy in my heart for so many different reasons -- healthy girls that are happy, smart, fun, funny, silly, liking Kindergarten and doing well in school are two big reasons.  Having a husband that understands (though he, along with me, still wishes we had more 'us' time these days), and is super helpful with the girls (their hair even looks cute when he does it) and around the house (he has become a fabulous vacuumer .....) is another big reason.  I also have THE BEST family (love, love, love my parents, my sister, brother, sister-in-law, nieces and nephews and have so much fun with them), my friends are rock stars (even though I rarely see them these days, they are the kind of girls we can pick up where ever we left off) and for my blogger friends -- I still stop by your blogs as often as I can but my lack of time cuts into how often I comment.  So even though it doesn't seem like it I still feel in the loop : )  And the comments left here always mean SO much to me : )

More later ....  lots of fun updates ready to be written up!!