Jayna's Birthday and A Fun Weekend (LONG)

MY LITTLE GIRL IS 4 ALREADY!!

Jayna is 4!! I cannot believe it! Time flies. It is so bittersweet having your child get another year older. I am excited to see her growing up and becoming her own little person, but at the same time I'm scared that my baby is growing up so fast! Only other moms can understand where I'm coming from!

4 CANDLES ON BLUES CLUES CUPCAKES!

We had an AWESOME birthday party for her on March 21st. Daddy and Uncle Robbi put on a "Blue's Clues" show for her...and they went all out! It was so cute! They played blues clues to find out where we were going to go for her party (which was Chuck E. Cheese's). I got it all on video and also took some still shots, but nothing compares to the real thing! I hope that Jayna never forgets it! Here are some pics of the show:

A CLUE A CLUE!!

"WHERE SHOULD WE GO, BLUE?"

UNCLE ROBBI WAS A GREAT BLUE

HANDY DANDY NOTEBOOK

THE KIDS LOVED IT!! O AND THERE'S ME IN THE BACKGROUND

"MAIL TIME!"

JAYN DIDN'T KNOW IT WAS UNCLE ROBBI!!!

All the Ritter family was there, along with the neighbors Felicia, Vince and kids, and my Dad ("Candy Grandpa") and my brother Jason. It was such a blast! Jayna got an enormous amount of gifts. I don't know where I"m going to put them all! I'm going to have to get rid of some of her old ones. Its actually kind of hard to do because most of them she still plays with. She's always been really good about playing with all of her toys. But something's gotta give haha. Especially since in a few months she'll be sharing a room with little Sissy.

SOME OF THE GUESTS

READING HER "MAIL (IT'S NOT A CARD ITS MAIL MOMMY) AND OPENING HER PRESENTS

RENAISSANCE

On March 22nd we went to the Renaissance Festival. It started out "iffy" but ended up being a lot of fun! Carmen, Stephen and the girls, Robbi, Brittany, Britt's mom,and Titus, Jason's parents, and our crew all went together. We started off going to a couple of shows, which were honestly a little lame. The first one was a firewhip one, and that's all he did...crack a whip. He did light it on fire at one point but that's about it. I guess I'm not too easy to entertain..haha. When that show was about over, we went to get those famous Turkey Legs that everyone talks about. They were good! Jayna ate an incredible amount! I couldn't believe it!! She absolutely loved them

SONJA WASN'T TOO HAPPY AT THE SHOW

The next show was a bird show, which was interesting because of the different birds that were there (eagles, vultures, etc), but again, not too thrilling. Xander and Sonja were not very entertained either. It was kind of frustrating. We tried going to a sword swallower's performance, and those 2 would not have it. At that point I was ready to go home...and it was only like 1 o'clock. Luckily, things got a lot better. W.e took the kids to the petting zoo, and then went to get a drink. On the way to get a drink, Xander fell asleep...thank goodness! He was so grumpy.
From that point, things got a lot more fun. We went through a story-book museum, then went to the jousting tournament. Unfortunately we had to park the sroller for that and so Xander woke up. he was pretty grumpy for most of the tournament. Finally I gave him some ice to crunch on and he perked up some.
Next, we took Jayna rock climbing. She has been dying to do that. I was a little nervous because Jayna was by far the youngest one in line. I thought maybe she'd back down once they hooked her up. Myah (her older cousin who is 7) went right before her. Jayna was determined and took off climbing right away. You could hear people in the crowd commenting on the tiny girl who was climbing so well. Daddy and I were so proud...especially Daddy. He was grinning from ear to ear. She got about half way up (15 feet or so) when she couldn't quite reach the next rock comfortably. The guy tried to pull on the rope to help her to reach it, and it freaked her out. She started bawling. They quickly helped her down, and she calmed down really fast. They gave her the $5 back and told her it was HER money, not ours, and she should buy some yummy chocolate. That made her really happy. We are so proud of our brave girl.

SHE WAS READY TO CLIMB!!

LOOK AT HER GO!!

Jayna bought chocolate covered strawberries and we went to catch up with the rest of our family. They were watching another show. A guy with a big unicycle was on. Robbi got called on stage, which was exciting! It ended up being a super cool show. The guy juggled with Robbi over a pile of guys (high stress for Robbi haha!) and then got up on his super tall unicycle and juggled torches that Robbi lit. It was really fun to watch someone we knew up there, and I think it really made Robbi's day too.

ROBBI'S 15 MINUTES OF FAME

Next we took Jayna on a jousting ride that had a horse on a cable and swung from one side to another. A guy jumps on at the end of the ride to slow it down (all the rides are manual). Jayna loved that ride! When the guy jumped on her horse, she said "hi, my name is Jayna (she's not shy at all)". The guy was tickled pink and said "hi, Jayna...I'm Jake". It was so cute.

JAYNA AND JAKE

We did a little bit of window shopping to kill time before the final jousting tournament. There is a lot of shops! I had no idea! The final jousting tournament was fun! We got ice cream and sat down with the rest of the family. Jayna and Xander were yelling and cheering away. Our leader, "Jet" was really loud and fun.

The rest of our family went home after that (5pm), but we decided to stay until closing time (6pm) so that we could leave and go get dinner and then have the kids fall asleep on the way home. We went to a few more shops and decided to buy the kids a souvenir each. Jayna got a princess wand and a big flower to pin in her hair. Xander got a sword. It was so cute when we got it for him. He thought we just handed it to him to play with, and he was all ready to put it back. We had to really talk him into taking it away from the shop. He was so excited when he finally understood it was now HIS sword. It was precious. We didn't get Sonja anything...there just wasn't anything for babies really.

We went on 2 final rides to finish off our day. The first one was a huge slide- it was really fast and Jayna didn't want to go on it again..haha! There were teenagers coming off of that slide scared, so I was pretty proud of my girl for even going on it the first time. The final ride was a huge (like 20 feet tall huge) rocking horse. I took Jayna and Xander on it. It was manually rocked by 2 teenagers that seemed exhausted!! I felt kind of bad making them rock us, but my kids really wanted to go on that thing all day. It was actually a little scary for me! But I'm afraid of heights!

CLIMBING THE HUGE HORSE..YIKES

IT WAS FUN!!

By the end of that ride it was about 6 o'clock, so we headed out. We stopped at the Jack in the Box in Apache Junction on the way out. Because of the Festival, they were out of French Fries, chicken, and milk shakes. It was kind of a bummer! We got egg rolls and mozzerella sticks instead of the fries, but they charged us extra...dumb!! After dinner we headed home. The kids fell asleep on the way and that concluded our eventful weekend!

WHAT A DAY!!!!!

All in all it was such a great weekend! One I will never forget!

Sonja is 1 month

My baby is a month old today...wow that went fast! I haven't written in the blog about anything happy for a long time...I'm overdue!

Sonja is such a sweet and precious little girl. She is a lot more easy going than the other 2 were at her age (knock on wood), and seems perfectly content watching her family from a distant or cuddling up close. She has amazing big blue eyes and the prettiest little complexion. Yes, I am in love :). Her big sister absolutely loves to help dress her, feed her, change her diaper, and hold her. Big brother wants to help too, but he hasn't quite learned what "gentle" means yet. Still, he helps give her a binkie and attempts to rock her to sleep. Sibling love is such an awesome gift.

Sonja's first real smiles started today. She just woke up for the day, and I was holding her talking to her when all of a sudden she breaks out in a big toothless wide grin. I thought maybe it was gas, but then she smiled again...and again. I had Daddy come downstairs to look, and she smiled at him too! It was so amazing! I have been waiting for an interactive moment with her for a long time!!It is so rewarding when it finally happens!

A week ago, Sonja rolled from her tummy to her back- she was on the couch though so it was easier. On the floor she can almost roll, but her little arm gets in the way. She is also holding her head steady. The other day I was on the phone and Sonja was crying. Jayna, trying to be a big sister, went to pick her up. I kind of freaked out, but realized that Jayna did a pretty good job and Sonja held up her head just fine. I still let Jayna know that she definitely cannot do that again, but it was a pretty cute moment. Jayna is totally my little helper. She wants to do anything she can to be a "big girl". I love it! I can't believe she turns 4 in a few days. Time flies WAY too fast!

Xander calls his sisters "sisis" and "baby sisis". He always wants to do what big sissy does, he really looks up to her. It is so cute. And he loves to try to take care of baby sissy, but it's kind of dangerous! haha.

Sonja Jordyn, I love you so much. I am so happy that you are hear and safe and healthy. I am excited to watch you and Jayna and Xander grow up together.

Wednesday Update

Sonja isn't getting well quite as fast as we had hoped. It looks like we will very likely be here thru Friday. The nurses have been deep suctioning her, which really helps because she is just too little to be able to cough up the phlem by herself. They have also done a breathing treatment, which didn't really seem to make any difference.

We are just waiting this thing out...she doesn't seem a whole lot better, but at least she's not getting worse

Praying For Sonja

Our poor little baby is in the hospital at 2 weeks old. She has RSV and Pneumonia. She caught the RSV from Jayna and Xander, but it is just going around like crazy this time of year. I am here at the hospital with her now. Jason took the night shift, bless him, and I am taking the day shift. It is so horrible to watch your child go through anything, much less a newborn having to spend days in the hospital. We have awesome family and friend support, and lots of prayers going up for her.

I took all of the kids to the doctor Monday morning because they have all been sick, and the baby was starting to cough and that worried me. I had their Auntie Carmen come and help me because bringing 3 kids under 4 to anything is insanity (haha). The PA was the one who saw the kids. She started with Jayna- she has 2 ear infections and was given steroids to help with lung inflammation. Xander was next- he has 1 ear infection, was also put on the steroids, and also a breathing machine. He's pretty sick, I am so sad I can't be there with him now. Last she looked at Sonja. With how young she is and the fact that the PA thought she heard some wheazing in her lungs, they sent us straight to the hospital. That was totally unexpected for me. Sonja just barely started coughing Thursday evening, so I just assumed they would put her on antibiotics and send her home like everyone else. The kids went home with Carmen and I headed to the ER.

5 hours and numerous tests went by. Blood, urine, and spinal fluid (horrible) tests were conducted. An x-ray was also taken, and a snot test for RSV. The x-ray and the snot test revealed that she has RSV as well as pneumonia, and the spinal test told us that she had bacterial pnuemonia (vs. viral). We finally were given a room at 6pm... almost 6 hours after we arrived here. And here we are, having Sonja hooked up on antibiotics and monitors. It really is heartbreaking. I just pray that everything goes smoothly and she heals extra fast. I want to bring her home and get home to my other babies.

Last night I brought the older 2 kids' medicines to them. They are with aunt carmen and grandma and grandpa. I was relieved because they wanted to stay there, they didn't even cry to come with me. I am so thankful that they love it at grandmas house. It would be so hard if they were in an unfamiliar place.

Anyways, that is all the information I have for now. I am sitting here with Sonja trying to have a Lord of the Rings marathon, for lack of absolutely anything else to do! I have never seen them before, so I may as well.

****The pediatrician just came in. Said she is "safe"- meaning nothing is life threatening, and that all of the other tests came back negative. So were are soley dealing with the RSV and pneumonia. Thank goodness.