Clean House!!

Now, you may be thinking that a post about a clean house is not blog worthy...and if that's the case... well then you really don't know me. Because an ENTIRELY clean house...is DEFINITELY blog worthy in my world.
We have been so all over the place since about...mmm....the beginning of Summer??...that our house has dearly suffered the consequences. It has not been completely clean since...well, I can't even remember.
Now, I don't do well with messes. They make me angry, and frustrated and grumpy. So, eventually we always cave in and clean. But, with a problem called "Gracey", we never get further than 1 or 2 rooms....1 or 2 loads of dishes and clothes. The house is always half clean.
Well, this time, we really got down and dirty. We cleaned the WHOLE HOUSE!! BOOM BABY!!
It was wonderful. I am so happy.
So, to document this momentous occasion...I'm blogging about it.
Including pictures.
Don't worry, i'll throw in a cute picture of Grace too. Just for giggles. :)
Would you look at that??? Clean dining room....living room. Ooh! Ooh! And you can see the floor in our bedroom!! The WHOLE floor!! There isn't even a basket of clean clothes waiting to be put away! Go me! Oh! And my desk?! It RARELY gets to be that clean. So nice.


And here is my adorably beautiful baby. She's happy the house is clean too. :)

And....another one. Because I can. And...she's too cute for only one photo of that smile. :)

The great thing about a clean house...is that when I wake up in the morning...I don't have to dread trying to clean my house with my ankle biter. Instead....I can focus on her, and me. And us having a good time together doing things that are way more important than cleaning...like having tickle wars and watching Shrek 4 1/2 times.

Getting Better...

On Saturday morning, Grace was still really sick. Her fever had persisted for over 7 days, as had her cough, cold and diarrhea. So we decided to go into the Dr. again. Just to double check that things were o.k.
They did a viral panel, which she HATED. We got the results back on Sunday and YAY! She tested positive for R.S.V. We lovingly passed this along to our neice Maya (so so sorry misty!!) and I may have also passed it on to Ellie unknowingly!! Ugh! I hate getting people sick!
We have no idea where it came from...but for now...I'm going to blame Caden. :) He was the only person sick at Christmas time (afte which grace got sick) and it makes you feel so much better to point fingers doesn't it?? Ok, fine, maybe not. :) I love you Caden!
But anyway, she tested positive for R.S.V.
However, R.S.V. really is just like any other common cold. Just about everyone has had R.S.V. at some point, they just don't know it because it was a mild case. We are scared of the diagnosis R.S.V. because we hear about all the kids in the hospital with it. BUT, the kids in the hospital with it have the RARE bad luck of having a more severe case of the virus. So, since Grace's condition was normal and nothing severe, they offered no extra advice, no medication. Just that we stay home and take care of her there, unless her condition worsened, and mostly, if her breathing became labored. So...we are at home, waiting out this nasty virus.
The good news though, is that it finally seems to be going away!! She has had it now for 2 weeks but it seems to be making its exit. She hasn't had a fever for almost 2 days, the cough is less persistent, the diaper changes are less frequent and disgusting...so this is good!! We are on our way back to our healthy girl.

Along with her health, her personality is also returning. She wanted to take a bath yesterday and was all smiles and silliness for me. So so sweet.

Also, I think part of the reason she's been getting better is thanks to her many naps. She has taken about three every day for the past week or so, and in some unusual places too. :)
We love her so so much and just think she is the sweetest thing. Sneaky yes. Shockingly defiant, yes. Dinosaur Tantrum thrower, yes. But so so sweet too. Yesterday I realized more than ever just how much I love her little face. It is so sweet and beautiful and I just love it. She completely abused this however because she did all sorts of mischeivous things yesterday and then she'd look at me with this BIG mischievous grin and those beautiful blue eyes, and when I'd say "that's not ok, we don't do that", she would giggle and say "okay", with the mischievous grin and eyes that say..."ok...I won't...at least not when you're looking...."
We love and adore her and are so glad she is getting better.
Topher's first day of school was yesterday. It seemed to go well. It was a long day, he didn't even get home until almost 6:30 and had left at 7:30 that morning. But, I think he'll do great. He is capable of so many amazing things and I'm looking forward to the semester more than I thought I could. After all, this is our second to last semester!!!
I just hope I can be the wife he needs me to be. I've learned that a lot of how Topher performs and does in school, is a result of the support I give him. Whether it me keeping Grace out of his hair, feeding him, getting him up in the morning, or getting him to go to bed, getting him focused on homework or just giving him pep-talks...I really do influence him a lot! Wow, huh? So, I hope I can be helpful to him as much as possible, and not be a detriment in any way.
Anywho...that's all for now...oh, unless perhaps you were wondering...
YES I DID WATCH CHUCK ON SUNDAY!! The season 3 premiere was on Sunday, and let me just say it has not budged as my favorite show ever!!! I also watched it again in its usual time slot last night. It is such a great show! I love it! And I highly recommend it to anyone and everyone. Mondays. NBC. 7p.m. Be there or be square. :)
Ok...there's my Chuck fan moment for you. :)
And BTW thank you everyone for your sweet comments last post. I didn't mean to sound down. But it was really nice to have all the thoughtful comments saying to keep posting what I want and need to write. Thanks so much. You guys are all great. :)
Lots of love
the Andersen Family

Don't Know Where To Start

I keep falling behind in blogging. Sometimes I wonder if I should just give up! Every time I post, there's a good five weeks to catch up on...so each entry is a re-cap rather than daily happenings... or for that matter even weekly happenings. Geesh.

The last post I did was talking about the end of October and all of November. The post before that was our entire summer in one post. I'm not going to go into a lot of detail because too many of my family members COMPLAIN. So. In short.

I put our tree up after our Thanksgiving in Preston Idaho with Topher's family.

This picture is from Nikolaus.

Finals happened. Winter Break came. We went to Temple square with Mum & Sam.

We left for Idaho on the 17th of December and stayed for a week. Did Christmas with them and a day after Christmas party with Sam's kids.

Christmas Day in Idaho. With our matching pj pants from my Mom.

We left two days after Christmas and did Christmas with Topher's parents. Then did Christmas with my Dad and family. And New Years was with the Andersen family.

I'm so sorry this is coming off very impersonal and uncaring. I am feeling pretty hopeless that I'm so behind in updating. This is supposed to be my journal in a way, and I hardly ever write!! And I sure don't write in my regular journal any more than I write here, so, Im just sad that I've done so poorly at making and keeping a record.

I need to be better. I hate New Years resolutions...but maybe this should be an exception and I should make a resolution to write weekly...or at least every other week. Who knows.

At the moment, Grace is sick. She has been since last Friday. She has a fever, sore throat, cough, cold, diarrhea. The whole works. We already went to the hospital, and she wasn't dehydrated, so, all we can do is take care of her at home. But that was Tuesday and it still won't go away!!! Our poor baby. The saddest part is that she tries to be such a trooper but it is so very evident that she is miserable. Oh well. This too shall pass. This is her snuggling her daddy with her two new stuffed teddies the nurses gave her while waiting for labs.

We, or maybe just I, am dreading Monday when Topher goes back to school. Its been so wonderful to have him 24-7 for the past 3 weeks. This semester promises to be even more work than last and that is too overwhelming to even think about.

Aside from Grace being sick...I was able to do actual PIG TAILS on her about a week ago. You may be thinking that this isn't blog worthy...ooooohhh but it is. She has hardly any hair, and what she does have is kinda wispy and not worth mentioning...but I was able to do pig tails the other day. I personally thought it was adorable. Took about 10 pictures of the back of her head.

Anyway. Not really sure what to mention. Too many family members complain about my insanely long posts...so I don't want to do another re-cap that just puts people to sleep. So. yeah. The Christmas holiday was fun, tiring, full of wonderful family, involved sisters, tearful farewells, good food and lots of driving as well as some relaxing.

I'll try to do better at updating more frequently. But as i've said before, no promises here. :)