This is what the girls were doing while I was packing to visit my family for a few days before Christmas. I think Tansy would put everything in the dress-up drawer on if I would let her. She actually ended up with more than this before she was done.


We got a lot of snow while we were at Grandma Olsen's house. Sydney was ready to go build a snowman as soon as the storm hit. She hadn't been able to before because the snow was too powdery. This snow, however, was wet, dense, packing snow. Tansy was pretty upset when I put her snow stuff on because it was so big. Once she got out in the snow, she got really happy and had a great time waddling around and patting the snowman.

We also had the kids put on a nativity play, but because of illness and weather, we lost four of our cast quite suddenly. We had to draft some others in quickly. Ben go to be a wise man as you can see in this picture of his awesome turban.

Christmas was great. All Sydney had asked Santa for was dinosaurs. This is a picture of her counting her new dinosaurs, which temporarily distracted her from further present opening. There were twelve, by the way.

Tansy was our meticulous present opener. Each one took a long time, but when we would try to help her so she wouldn't get frustrated, she would say, "No." She wouldn't get upset or anything. She just wanted to do it her way. Her long, tedious way, one square inch of wrapping paper at a time.

Zack got these froggy rattle slippers from Aunt Kim. He was hooked. We ended up opening most of his presents while he was napping since Tansy's gift opening made the morning take FOREVER.

But the greatest presents of all: the elepant and lion from Santa that were big enough to sit on. Sydney named the lion Asland (I can't convince her that there is no D at the end of Aslan) and the elephant Tika (from Barbie as the Island Princess, for those of you who are not up on your Barbie culture). The girls spent a lot of time on these on Christmas and pull them out quite a bit.

Now for the reason that I did not post on Sunday. On Christmas Eve, Sydney's cough got really out of control. When she coughs really hard, she throws up. That night she threw up in bed and told me that she had tried to hold the throw up in her mouth so it wouldn't get on her Christmas jammies. We had to change her pants, but these pajamas also had a pair of shorts that matched. Fortunately, she missed her shirt.

On the 26th, Tansy started coughing. The next day, Zack joined the party. I was pulling out every home remedy I had, but when Sydney still hadn't improved by Monday, I called the doctor. They ordered a chest x-ray that came back clear, so Tuesday morning we went in to get her checked out. The doctor concluded that she has Reactive Airway Disorder like I do and would need a steroid to stop the cough. He gave us enough to keep on hand for colds in the future.

On Tuesday morning at 4:30 a.m., Zack cough got really bad. He was coughing up a lot of stuff and working really hard to breathe. We took him in to the doctor as well and learned that both of his ears were badly infected. The doctor also said his wheezing sounded really bad. He decided to forgo the chest x-ray, because he felt fairly confident that it was pneumonia and he was putting Zack on an antibiotic anyway for his ears so he prescribed one that would treat both.

The longest stretch of sleep I have gotten in the last week is four hours, which felt amazing. This morning I was so tired, my hands and feet were tingly and I felt like I was going to throw up. I'm so glad Ben is out of school right now. I don't know what I would do without him.

Sorry, no pictures this week. We are in Orem with my family, and I don't have a way to load anything up.

On Wednesday, we had our ward Christmas party. Of course, Santa was there. Thank goodness they had him start seeing the kids at the beginning of the party. He spent so much time with each kid (which they loved) that the line moved SO SLOW (which we did not love). Ben and the girls were near the middle of the line, so when I realized how long this was going to take, I decided to hit the quick and efficient food line so that we could eat right when we sat down. Sydney actually sat in Santa's lap this year, which surprised and worried us a little. She has never let him pick her up before, and I knew she would be expecting whatever she asked him for. All she wanted was dinosaurs, which we had safely packed away in our closet already! Score!

On Thursday, we headed down to Utah Valley. We had originally planned on Friday, but came early to go to Jake's kindergarten program. This also meant that we were ahead of the storm that came through on Friday. Anyway, we drove down right after Sydney got out of preschool on Thursday, but had to stop to put air in a tire and gas in the van. We made it to the program, which was an very pleasant half an hour, and watched Jake sing all of his songs. Shortly before Jake's speaking part, Sydney had to go to the bathroom. We ran as fast as we could, but we still missed it. Emily played it back on her camera for us though.

We have been played hard with cousins for a couple of days, so we all decided to take a day off from each other today to get some rest. My entire family napped this afternoon so we have peace and joy in the house again.

Hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas, and I look forward to posting and looking at pictures next week.

On Monday, Zack had his four-month well-child visit. I am glad to say that on Monday, he was actually a well child. He weighed 16 lbs. 1 oz. and was 25.5 inches long. Sydney was 11 months old before she weighed 16 lbs. and Tansy was 8 months old before she was as big as Zack is now. He is currently going into some 6-9 month clothes, which totally throws me off because Sydney wore that size when she had her first birthday. Such a big, cute, cuddly guy.

On Friday, we found out that Tansy is allergic to penicillin. While I was putting on her pajamas Thursday night, I noticed about a dozen tiny, red spots on her tummy and back. I decided to check on them again in the morning, and this is what I found. I called the doctor as soon as they were open, and the doctor decided that he wanted to see her. Since there was nothing new in her environment, it was decided that this was linked to the amoxicillin she was on to treat her ear infection. Her ear had healed so we stopped the amoxicillin and started her on Benadryl and Claritin. By Saturday evening, she had totally cleared up. She actually got even worse than what you see in the picture. Poor girl.

We got our first good snow yesterday. The girls begged to bundle up and get outside late in the afternoon when the wind had finally died down. It felt like looking at a giant snowglobe every time we looked outside. We got several inches of very "fluffy" snow, as Sydney puts it. That means that it doesn't make very good snowmen, despite their best efforts. However, they did manage to get a snowball or two off and made snow angels. Sydney wasn't very happy that there were not gloves to fit her. She ended up wearing mine. Sydney is fascinated with making footprints in the snow. Who am I kidding? Sydney loves to make footprints in water, mud, etc. They came in cold and wet and ready for some hot chocolate.

Ben finished his finals this past week. He is officially on Christmas vacation now. It's fun to have him around more for a little while.

By Monday, the kids were feeling well enough to help decorate the Christmas tree. Sydney felt that if Grandma and Grandpa Olsen had their tree up, we should too. She is actually still in her pajamas in these pictures because she had been so sick all day. In fact, this is about the only time that day that she moved from the couch.

This is the decorated tree. Notice the abundance of ornaments around the bottom of the tree. There is one spot so heavily ornamented, you can't find a free branch if you wanted to.

After that excitement, we settled back into the business of being sick. The cold finally hit me on Tuesday. Sydney missed the entire week of preschool and couldn't believe that they would actuallystart without her.

On Thursday, I surrendered and took all of us to the doctor. The main reason for this choice is that, although it is difficult to really seen in this picture, Zack woke up with pinkeye. We were within a few doses of being done with the girls' eyedrops so I had thought we were safe. Nope. Sydney wasn't breathing very well either. It turns out that Sydney was still moving air well enough, Zack did have pinkeye, and all three kids had ear infections. Zack's were really bad. He said that mine weren't infected yet, but that I had better stay on my decongestant to make sure it stays that way. So far so good. I have five bottles of amoxicillin in my refrigerator. Sydney says they are peach flavor. I love our pharmacy.

Then Ben started coughing on Friday. Not fair! The thing that gets me through long, hard days with sick kids is knowing that my husband, who is impervious to illness, will be home at the end of the day. Not only is he noticably sick, but I saw him taking medicine! We're doomed.

The good news is that Super Saturday is over! Things went really well with only a couple of mishaps. We had a great time, but I crashed really hard yesterday afternoon when it was all over. We watched Elf last night, and I had the hardest time keeping my eyes open even though I love that show. Don't worry, I got to watch it again last night at 2:00 a.m. while I was up with a coughing Tansy. How's that for a silver lining?

We got to go to Grandma Olsen's house for Thanksgiving this year. All of my brothers and sisters were there except for Stephanie. The day after we got there, Sydney leaned over to me and said, "Mom, I haven't seen Andrea yet." I had to explain to her that Andrea lived in Arizona which is a lot farther away than Logan so she couldn't come. She got a little sad and said, "I've been waiting and waiting for her." Gotta wait until summer little one. We couldn't resist taking pictures of Matt, Zack, and Kyle - the three babies born in my family this past year. This makes 11, 12, and 13 for Grandma and Grandpa Olsen. We do what we can.

Tansy did all right for Thanksgiving up until Saturday. Friday night she came down with a cold that left her feeling pretty miserable. Saturday afternoon, she decided to stand on a small plastic chair, which fell over. She landed on her face on the tile floor in Granma's kitchen. Her nose is swollen and bruised and she has a fat lip with a blood blister. We checked for head injuries, but she escaped unconcussed. Then at 8:00 that night, I realized she had picked up pinkeye. We made a quick trip to the after hours pediatrician with Aunt Kim and got some eye drops. All in all, not one of Tansy's best days. This picture says it all. She usually hams it up for pictures, but she just didn't have it in her after all of that.

Sydney also came down with the cold as well as a cough. She kept me up most of the night with her coughing, gagging, sneezing, sniffling, insert your own disgusting sound, etc. We decided to head home early today since none of the kids was up to going to church (Zack has a mini version of the cold). When we got home, we realized that Sydney has pinkeye too. It has infected both of her eyes and she is coughing so hard, she throws up (thus the bowl). Don't get me wrong. We had a great break to prepare for Ben's last week of school and finals. We just didn't come out of it very well. Hope everyone else enjoyed their Thanksgiving!

Tansy has taken a great interest in the dishes. She insists on helping me unload the dishwasher. Every time I open the dishwasher, she rushes into the kitchen and starts handing me silverware. She also picks up our heavy dinner plates. She hasn't dropped any yet, but judging by the coordination her head wounds display, it's only a matter of time.



She also loves to try to undress herself. It is not uncommon to find her with her shirt like this. She hasn't figured out how to get it off, so we don't have a streaker. . . yet.






Sydney finally got to be the VIP at preschool last week. She has been waiting for this all school year. To be clear, the VIP gets to hold the flag at the front of the class for the pledge of allegiance, stand at the front of the line when school is over for the day, and bring a snack for the class on Thursday. I know - big stuff. She would ask me every week who the VIP was and be so disappointed that it wasn't her. In September I made the mistake of telling her that she might be the VIP in October. Imagine her reaction when she brought home the October calendar and wanted to know when it was her week to be VIP. I told her that she wasn't on the calendar this time, but she would be next time (there are only 11 kids). She said, "Or maybe never." She wore her preschool shirt in honor of the occasion of her first day of being VIP and wanted a picture.

Tansy has decided that she can use the computer now. She hasn't done anything too disastrous, but her random mouse clicking and keyboard pecking has me constantly worried. I actually had to shut the computer down because everything was frozen once. I've got to watch this girl like a hawk. If she isn't on the computer, she's coloring the dining room floor, climbing on the table, or terrorizing the fish.

Zack is just a little bundle of chubbiness. He is so happy almost all of the time. Don't know what else to say. He just likes to spread his happy baby smiles around.

We are all looking forward to a much needed vacation this week. Ben is finishing up another semester at Utah State, and his job ends on Monday. The kids are dying to see their Grandma and Grandpa Olsen. Everyone is ready to unwind a bit and have a great time. Hope everyone's Thanksgiving is great.

So, here are the long awaited Abshire family Halloween pics. Zack is in camo, so if you can't pick him out, that's why. Sydney was excited to be a witch, Tansy was a super-cute puppy, and Ben was just stylin'. I wore a really long blond wig with a cowboy hat and lots of makeup. I had one little girl ask if it was my real hair. I had to tell her no. She seemed disappointed.

Ben and I went to an ROTC Meet and Greet this week, so we had to get a babysitter. I have a weird quirk that Ben really mocked me for this time. When I have someone coming over who has yet to witness the disaster that is the usual state of my house, I clean up. Shocking, I know. Actually, the funny part is that I will intentionally leave a few toys out to try to make it look like I didn't clean up and that my house looks like this all the time. Please tell me I am not alone in my strategy to fake people out. Everyone who reads this post has seen what a horrible housekeeper I am so I don't mind confessing here.

I've also been trying to recruit people for an Informal Book Club. I think people are afraid of the pyramid scheme feel. It's like a recipe exchange, except with paperbacks. You just pass one of yours on to the person listed on the back of the paper, make six new copies, put the address of the person who sent it to you on the back and give it to six friends. If it keeps going, you get up to 36 books. You all know how I feel about books. If anyone wants to do this, I would really appreciate it.

I've got Little-Miss-Molar, I mean Tansy, begging me to pick her up. We have been trying to get her to say "please" lately, but it is really not working. Whenever I say, "Say please," she launches into a HUGE fit, screaming at the top of her lungs, throwing herself on the ground. The very request to say "please" makes her act like she is suddenly possessed by demons. I have never seen anything like it before.

Sydney has gotten an attitude. If we tell her she can't do something, she starts crying and tells us that we are hurting her feelings and being mean. When we continue to tell her she can't do something. She runs to her room, slams the door, and starts screaming all the bad words she knows at us (i.e. "you stupid, stinky mom"). Harsh, I know. Actually, I usually end up laughing because these are really the worst words she knows.

Zack has developed these two fat rolls near his armpits that are so much fun. If you pinch them, he laughs. He has does this funny grunting sound when he laughs. It's strange, but cute. That seems to sum up our whole family, so I guess it's appropriate.