warning...looooong post ahead!

well, it's about darn time! (i know...i can read your mind)

life snuck up on me, and had very different plans than i did...
so, let's start from the beginning...


about a week before christmas, we made a gingerbread house with the girls...1st time ever!
it was fun, and they really enjoyed it, even though i spent most of my time telling them to stop eating the candy, or we'd have nothing left to decorate with...





the completed house...this was a little kit that jackson picked up, and it was super easy to assemble...no baking for us! lol!


and i LOVE this pic of ashlyn peeking at the house...you can tell she's just waiting for someone to turn away so that she can snatch a gumdrop off the roof!





here's the impromptu photo shoot we attempted the night before christmas eve...
it totally turned into the photo shoot from hell!

i know the lighting is a little off, and the pics a tad blurry, but i attempted them without a flash because i wanted some of the glow of the tree lights to come through in the picture...
i took probably 30 shots, and the other 27 look just like these!
2 very frustrated, tired, fed-up little girls who want mom to take her camera and...well, you know!











jackson and jaden had a ball in the little bit of snow we had in '07...


















and, finally...this is where life threw us a curveball...
on saturday, january 5th, ashlyn was admitted to children's hospital with pneumonia...
she had been sick on friday, and i took her to walk-ins on saturday morning.
she was diagnosed with pink eye, strep, ear infections, 102 temp, and the BEGINNING of a pneumonia...all of which the doc prescribed an antibiotic for, and claimed that would take care of everything...

well, about 6 hours later, i noticed that ashlynh was having a lot of trouble breathing, and i knew that something was WRONG...
i tried to tell jackson, but he wasn't sure anything had changed from the morning.
i called my mom, and she told me to go with my gut...
so, i made jackson call his mom (she used to be a nurse for children's hospital) and ask her to come check ashlyn...she got there, picked her up, started crying and said, "you need to take her to the hospital NOW!"

that sealed it for me...
we loaded her up and raced to the hospital where she was admitted right away...

without going into all the details, the experience was NOT a good one...
ashlyn was there saturday night through tuesday afternoon, and we had nothing but bad experiences...{let's just say they are not going to pleased when they receive my survey}

so, here are some pics of my pitiful little girl on days 2 and 3 (after she was feeling a little more like herself)...
monkey and her balloons...{thanks so much mom and vicky}


her poor little arm wrapped up in her i.v.{she was such a trooper!}


checking out one of her respiratory therapists...


checking out pink...




once she was finally taken off of her monitors and i.v., we got to go show pink "nemo" and "dory" in the fish tank...{don't you love the gown???}