Here comes Santa Claus...

Merry Christmas from the Rawlings household.
We had a great morning, the kids were all very happy with all their gifts.

















What I think is really funny...is that Samson liked Allison's present and Allison liked Samson's present!
The older girls are going to a Jazz game in Houston!!! I have never even been to a game in Utah. Hope all of your Christmases very just as merry.

I LIED!!!

I totally just checked the posted grades on Dixie's web site, I got an A!!! No A- for me yipee

Graded

(minus)

School is out for Winter break, yes it is true.
I got an A-, How about you?

Forgive me for the silly little rhyme,
its 7am and I haven't slept yet.

I am so glad this class is over.
It was worth 6 credits (that's a lot)!
I have one more class this Spring and then I
will graduate with my BSN!!!

Couldn't resist

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Disneyland is the BEST

So Alli and I had a blast at Disneyland last week. There were very few people there, the weather was awesome, it was so much fun. I think I gained 5 pounds on junk food. We saw a churro stand, we got a churro. We ate waffle-icecream-cones, delish. The only thing I always eat at Disneyland and didn't this year was the awesome bread-bowl clam chowder. They have this new meal for kids called the KIDS POWER PACK, full of great stuff: string cheese, yogurt, apple slices, gold fish, and milk/juice. That totally worked for Alli.
Allison was just barely tall enough to ride TUCK and ROLL, she giggled the whole time.

The Tikki Room is always a hit in our family. This is Alli making a face like this tree.The line for SPLASH MOUNTAIN, just the way I like it! I even got my very own log.Whooo Hoooo!!!!!!This is the line for Pirates of the Carribean, as you can see, Alli picked up on the whole, we follow the path and something cool will happen.


Meeting Minnie Mouse, she instantly hugged her, for like 30 sec, I had to peel her off to get a face shot. She did the same with Mickey. My mom took those pics on her camera. I love this place, I think I will always love it. I can't wait to start planning my next trip. As soon as Alli is 40" tall, we are so there.

Disneyland preview

Update coming soon!!!

Just got home from the BIG D, new pics coming soon.

HIPPA for BLOGGERS

Okay I too will be going private by the end of this month. I will try and send out emails to my contact list, otherwise--add a comment with your email address so we can keep on bloggin.

Adult Halloween Fun

Happy Halloweeny

Happy Halloween Everybody. I am the loser Mom who did not get her toddlers costumes. Here is some cute pics of the babes getting their faces painted at the church carnival.While I was taking Alli's pic, Sam decided to make his SPIDER look a little more scary!!!It is nice to have kids so easily entertained with just a LOLLIPOP!

Spanish Hair

I tried my hand at fancy hair for Alli, her hair is finally getting long enough to do stuff with. Here is my first attempt at what I will call- Spanish Hair. I always see little Spanish girls with their hair like this!

Kisses


It was super easy. I got these elastics for $2- for like 350 of them, so when she pulls them out and looses them , who cares? She was great to hold still for me too. What a good girl.

Boys will be boys

I laughed pretty hard the day I took these pictures. Boys will be boys. He tried and tried to take off his pants, then he settled with just putting his hands in and sucking his thumb.

So busy

I warned all of you how busy I was going to be, and it turns out it was all true. I promise to post soon, with pictures and everything.

Babies come when they want to!

Sooo....the most awesomest thing happened to me last night. I delivered my patient without the MD there. No it was not on purpose, yes I tried to make her wait, and everything turned out totally great. She was like 7 cm the last time I checked her and I started some pit. 2 hours later I went in to check her again and she was really hurting. Her water was still intact at this point so I check her...she is a 9 and this is not her first baby. RED FLAG. I need the MD now. And the MD is close-5 min away. I'm having her (the mom) pant and breath and I keep asking her "don't push, try not to push, just breath, we can get through this, etc" She is on her side making that primal grunt-the one just before she pushes the baby out- and I decide to take a closer look. I lift her leg and I can see head, and its getting bigger. She is not panting, not breathing, she is pushing, and that baby is coming NOW. I yell out, "We're having a baby in here." My troops arrive (Thank the G-man for other nurses) and we have a baby. Needless to say the MD walks in like 3 min later and the MD is not happy. This was my first delivery all by my self. I have assisted several but this was one was all mine. I have to brag just a bit-no lacs, thank you, thank you. I think it was a combination on me trying to hold the head in because I really did want the doctor there and trying to keep the delivery of the head nice and slow. We need no Va J J explosions with out the MD. I then checked for a cord, nope we were good. One good push for the shoulders and we had a baby girl. I waited a bit before clamping the cord. Then I let Dad have the honors of cutting the cord. We gave the baby to Mom and all was well. The coolest thing was breaking the Bag of Water. I had to break the membranes with just the head out, and then peel it around the head so that the baby could take a breath of air. Awesome. That was the best adrenaline rush I have had in like forever. I wanted to tell them to name her Nicole...I was that proud of my accomplishment. I didn't though, I do have some self control. This charging thing is going great. It has forced me to step up as nurse, and I like being that person. Not an hour later the same thing almost happened again (to another nurse), the head was out and the MD had to catch the baby with no gloves-barely making it into the room for the delivery. What fun.

Going BALD

Okay so I am not really going bald but I am NuTz! Everyone keeps giving me a hard time about updating my blog...so this is the boring post you get for annoying me. My computer has been OuT oF OrDeR for like a month-that is why I have no new pics. I prefer blogs with pics so I don't feel very motivated to post without them.

I started school this last (ummm) okay so I started back in mid August. I am crazy busy with it. I am in charge of the Flu Shoot Out, I am like the "go to person" between the college and the Health Dept. I have over 100 Clinical hours to do at the Public Health Dept sometime over the next month. I have 2 APA papers to write, a journal log to keep-which I am already 3 weeks behind on) and I have to do a "Community Assessment" project which is another 30+ hours. I hate school but I am so close to being done.

I went back to working full time in Aug. Three days really is a lot compared with only working two days a week before. I recently became a Charge Nurse (pay raise) which has added 2 additional meeting a month on top on the two I already had. I am due for like all of my recerts for work--ie, NRP, BLS, ACLS, MOMS, & AWHONN. I will be doing these over the next month and a half.

I am a mother of 4. With a 2yo and a 1yo. (Okay that is not new and I really DO like my kids!) Coorditnating all of their stuff as well as sitters around all of my stuff is like having 2 more full time jobs. Swim practice 2-3 times a week. Gymnastics once a week. And to think I want to put Alli into dance class...Mwahaha.

I am working on having another baby...not for me silly! This gestational carrier (GC) thing is a lot of work but at the same time feels incredibly rewarding. I have had tons of MD appts and have TONZ more to still attend. I also have to find 5 days to go back to NJ to get knocked up like the 2nd week of Nov. AND it's official...I don't have GC or CLaM--I know you were all so worried about that. Plus I have a PHAT uterus.

Then there is Christmas coming (and Halloween and Thanksgiving).

My life is CRAZY. Just to keep me sane, I have my next trip to Disneyland in the works. I love that place. Allison should be just tall enough for Gadgets Go Coaster in Toon Town. I have been donating PLASMA twice a week to save up some extra spending mula for this trip. You might say it is an obsession, I said MIGHT.

So if any of you have some free time you would like to donate to my dwindling supply I would greatly appreciate it.

Tagged

So Kamille tagged me with the "3 things" so here goes...

3 JOYS
1. watching my two babes learn something new.
2. pay day
3. laughing till it hurts (or you pee just a little)

3 FEARS
1. peeing my pants from laughing
2. not getting paid
3. disneyland closing

3 GOALS
1. finish school
2. Complete a GC cycle
3. survive the next 2 months

3 CURRENT OBSESSIONS
1. school
2. sleep
3. plasma

3 REGRETS
1. taking so long to get my BSN
2. Not saving money
3. selling my honda civic

3 FACTS
1. 25yo married female
2. G4 PARA1122 (!!!!!!!!)
3. Love Disneyland


Okay, so if you read this and need something to post about-consider yourself tagged.

How tough are you?

25

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Keep your buggery 5 year olds away from this NFM (Norris Fighting Machine)!
Chuck Norris rules.

Costco

I love shopping at COSTCO! I love that the carts have two places
so my kids can both sit up high. I love that the carts are so big.
I love sample day, my kids especially love "sample day"
so they can eat while we shop.
The produce is generally fresh.
You can return anything-if need be. Alli loves having the receipt signed when we leave.
They always draw some fun smiley face for her.
Costco doesn't even interfere with nap time! Samson totally fell asleep sitting up in the cart.
Yes, that is my arm propping him up, his little head
kept nodding and bobbing- like when you fall asleep
in church. Costco is the best.

It's a zoo out there!

On Pioneer Day I took Alli and Sam to the zoo. It was great, we saw zebras
and giraffes. Tigers and bears...oh my. There were elephants and even a
WHITE Alligator. Yes it was really white. Here are some pics.

My Little Artist

Allison took it upon herself to color on everything the other morning
while I was "napping" on the couch. I woke up when she tried
to color on MY FOOT!

Some of the other things she took advantage of are:
her ball,


some of her books,


Samson,
herself,
her dolly's head,
the COUCH,


the kitchen table,
and much, much more.

The couch was a beast to clean, it came out pretty good thanx
to some carpet cleaner I used. Needless to say, we now keep all
pens, pencils, markers, crayons, highlighters, any writing utensil
out of her sight and her reach. If she can see it, she can most
likely figure out how to get it.

These are all of the spots on just one of our couches that I spent the
day cleaning. When will I ever learn? I just can't have nice things with
4 kids living in my house!

Warning: Bilateral Ear Infections Suck

Both of my babies have been so fussy this week. We went to see Mike (Dr. Marsden)
today (Thursday...I have not slept yet) and low and behold they both have an
ear infection in both ears. It is kinda funny that they are fussy in different ways.
Allison has refused to eat since Monday. Samson has the nastiest slimy drainage
from the right ear...hmmm you would think this would be a great indicator that
there would be an infection in that ear. Anyway they both have oral Abx and Samson
has some lovely gtts (drops - in nurse lingo) for his "snotty" right ear. Those gtts are
freakin $$$- for this itty bitty little bottle! I have to say that Samson is such a trooper
though. He also had his tear ducts probed (yes, both sides) this morning.
Hopefully we wont be dealing with eye infections every other week from here on out.
Dr. Hendrix preformed the "surgery" and said everything went very smoothly.
I really liked his bedside manner.

Just FYI:

After you take your kids swimming, always dry out their little ears.
Dr. Marsden (the ENT) recommends a few gtts in each ear of a solution that is

1 part white vinegar and 1 part rubbing alcohol

Another thing that I read said to use a blow dryer (on a cool setting) for just a
few minutes pointed at each ear can help dry out the inner ear and
prevent swimmers ear.

Trip to SLC

So I took the babies up to SLC a few weeks ago. It was full of family
get togethers. On Sat June 7th, the women on my mother's side all
got together at the Lion House for a luncheon. We do this every year
with the Grand-daughters of Brigham Young Association. Yes we are
all decendents. I am a "3rd Great." All of my Aunts (moms sisters)
made it. All of my neices that are old enough were there too.

On Saturday night I met up with my old man...I mean my Dad.
My Grandmother that lives in West Virginia had made a finale trip
out west to see the family. Funny thing (at least to me) happened...
I asked her what year she was born, "1925" she said...then she went
on to say "I know how old I am, 82! and I know I may not make it our
here again." Here is the punch line...Wouldn't she be 83?

Oregon Coast Vacation

Okay-Sorry it took so long for me to update and get pics from the trip on here.

Seaside was beautiful the first 2 days we were there.

They had record highs in the 90's and the beach was wonderful.

I fought with Samson to stay out of the
sand but he won.














I loved this picture of Allison, she has such a cute little toddler body. She loved the water until a wave knocked her down.

This is the only picture of the four of us. I need to work on that and get more family shots. This is like the trail end of the "Oregon Trail" made famous by Louis and Clarke.

We went to several AQUARIUMS, most had a "touch pool" that allowed visitors to feel sea creatures. Alli was nervous at first but she liked the green ones.

This is Gleneden Beach. The sand here was course and rocky. You can tell by our clothes that it was cold here.

I love the look on Allison's face in this picture. She made this face everytime a big wave would roll in. I think she didn't want to get knocked down again.