Happy new year

Elizabeth rang in the new year, kind of.

2014 is started, and it is time to put 2013 to bed.

(And time for all of us to go to bed, too)

Happy new year

Carolyn made it up until midnight, but I bet we will all be asleep in a few minutes.

May 2014 be the best year yet!

Altman girls

Char, ashley, becky, elizabeth.  On christmas day.

Lizzie and Mom

On christmas day, at the altman's house.

Cousins

A visit with katy, dave, and their kids while we were in cleveland.  Winking Lizard in Peninsula

Katy's children = perfect. 
My family = devil eyes. 

And, unfortunately, elizabeth had crazy devilish behavior while at the restaurant, too.  She is usually a mellow, laid-back, go-with-the-flow kind of kid, but not that day.  Clingy, whiny, throw herself on the ground.

Turns out she had double ear infection.  She's coming back, and will hopefully be back to normal in another day.

The altman family

The whole family, together in one place!

Dec 26 @ 1015am

Still sleeping, with no sign of waking.  That's what these two tired girls need.  We have had some late nights and no naps lately.  But lots of fun with family.

Merry Christmas Eve

Merry christmas eve from centerville, ohio.

Ready for take off. We are on our way

Fun in the snow before we go to the airport

Christmas in SLC

Merry christmas to RJ.  We rarely ever travel over christmas, so usually spend the holiday with RJ, our neighbor and friend.  We are sad to not be with her for the holiday.

Before we left town, we made a hearty bowl of vegetable soup and exchanged gifts with her.  Carolyn loves her new golden dress from india and the sparkly, spinning bubble want, while elizabeth has been busily playing with her new butterfly puzzle and has her new clothes on.  Thank you, RJ

We are now packing up, cleaning the house, and will be on our way to ohio soon. 

Homemade gifts from the girls were a bit hit.

Piano recital

Carolyn has just recently started taking piano lessons.  Her first piano recital was on Friday.  She (age 5) and her friend Oliver (age 6) were the youngest kids, by far, but both were excited to play.  About an hour before the party, Carolyn was really nervous and said that she was not going to go.  She said she was embarrassed because she did not know a 'real' song yet and she thought the older kids would laugh at her when she played.  She missed a couple of lessons this fall on account of being sick, so was not able to learn a christmas carol to play for the recital.  Instead, her teacher asked her to play her scales and a little rhythm pattern.  It amounted to all of 12 seconds, if even that.   And, instead of laughs, she got a round of applause and many people congratulating her for wanting to learn the piano at such a young age.  I think this was motivation for her to start reading music and learning  an actual song.  Unfortunately, even her beginner books are already over my head, as I have zero musical knowledge and know nothing about reading music, but I am trying to learn along side her.

The picture is of carolyn, oliver, and their teacher samantha.

Photos

Elizabeth's daycare recently brought in a photographer.  She set up a studio in the lobby of the center, brought in a 'vintage' wardrobe for the kids, did the kids hair, and even invited older siblings to come for the photo session. I had to do nothing; not even pick out a new outfit for them to wear.  Thank you, daycare! You made it easy for me to get a Christmas card photo this year.

Sisters and Friends.

The Tea Party.

A Cooking Class.

Pretty Little Girls That Enjoyed Getting Dressed Up.

Dear Santa,

Santa, I want a splat ball.  A book for my sister.  I will be in Ohio.  Thanks. Carolyn

Santa's helper

It's beginning to look a lot like christmas....

Toy prince, aka the nutcracker

Carolyn has always like nutcrackers, ever since watching the 'toy prince" on a tv show called Little Einsteins.  Her favorite cd is tchaikovsky's nutcracker suite.  Of course, she went wild when she saw this big toy prince.  She even started teaching elizabeth all about the nutcracker.

I bet she will be ready to see the nutcracker ballet in the next year or two. 

Now that is a gingerbread house

You may not be able to see the girls all that well, but the real photo is of what is behind them ..... an enormous gingerbread house.  It is in the lobby of a hotel downtown.

Dress ups.

Lizzie likes dress-ups as much as carolyn does.  And, don't they look good? 

Delays

I unfortunately do not have any photos to add -- because the little tornado that lives in our house has taken the camera and hidden it.  I found the battery last week, but not yet the camera.  I am sure it is in a drawer or a garbage can.  Elizabeth never stops, and loves to pick things up, put them in drawers, move things to other drawers. 

Some updates:

Carolyn is still having vesicoureteral reflux (backflow of urine into her kidneys), on the right side only. She has had a couple of utis this fall, and one confirmed pyelonephritis (kidney infection) a few weeks ago.   By now, we have repeated all of the imaging tests to see what is happening insider her urinary tract, which are horrible but she survived and remembers nothing about them because we opted to sedate her.  We found out that the reflux is still happening on right side, the side that we did not fix as aggressively as the left side in may during her surgery.  Apparently, when they fixed the left side, it created a new pressure dynamic in her bladder, causing even greater reflux to emerge on right side that was not there previously.  So, we are back to daily antibiotics and already have the next surgery scheduled for january 9th.   The good news is that there is only minimal scarring on the kidneys.  Her bladder and ureters, on the other hand, are wrecked.  Hopefully, once the surgeries stop the reflux and therefore the repeat kidney infections, her body will be able to start healing.  She is on another med, twice a day, to help with bladder spasms and control.  Then, after surgery, we will continue to work with her urologists on the bladder issue.  I hate being on fever watch .... I cannot wait for surgery to happen.  I wish they would have had an opening to do it before Christmas.

On that front, we are coming to Ohio for Christmas.  We fly into Cincinnati on the 23rd, will spend Christmas eve with the utz/tangeman family, drive to Cleveland on Christmas morning to spend Christmas dinner with altman family.  We will be in Cleveland a few nights, and then return to Dayton for new year's.  We fly back to slc in the afternoon of January 1.  We cannot wait for the holiday this year.

Like most of you, we just got blanketed with a second snow storm of the week.  It is beautiful, but cold!

Steve is ready to install the heating system in our little house in the backyard, which means we will be able to work out there this winter, putting in floors and wall paneling, and cabinets and furniture.

Other than that, nothing much is happening in our house.  Every day seems incredibly busy, but that is just our normal maintenance mode with two working parents and two young kids.

And this is how th day ends....

In the other room ,carolyn read me books. 

We are thankful ...

... for all that we have. 

We love and miss all of our family and friends, but enjoyed our day at home with our neighbor RJ.

Carolyn's choice .... the turkey wing!

Don't trust this face

She threw all of her food on the floor.  Messy!

Thanksgiving chaos in slc

Happy pie day! From carolyn

Around the world .... and back again

Steve literally flew around the world this fall.  He started in SLC, went to Atlanta, and then to Johanesburg. From there, he went to the Democratic Republic of Congo to visit a mine site.  After that, he flew through the United Arab Emirates to Jakarta.  From Jakarta, we went to another mine site (somewhere in Indonesia) called Grasberg.  After that leg of the trip, he made his way back home through TaiPei and Los Angeles.  

Below are some photos from his trip around the world.  You will have to ask him about the significance or location of most of these....



The next post is a picture of the placemat that the girls and I used to chart his whereabouts each day.  Around the world.

Fall Fun

Fall is a fun time with lots of activities.  Some photos of what we did with ourselves on the weekends leading up to Halloween..... a morning at the farm, a train ride in Heber, walks through the gardens, bird shows at the aviary,



As for Halloween, Carolyn was Cleopatra and loved her costume.  Elizabeth was a duck, but hated her costume.  I think a friend of ours may have gotten a photo of Elizabeth in her costume, for the minute she kept it on.  I will have to figure out where it is and post her as a duck later.  I volunteered to organize the carnival at her school again, so it was a busy month for us.  Check out Carolyn holding both the tortoise and a small snake at her school carnival.