Madelyn is 2

My Madelyn monster is 2 already! A week ago today, she turned 2. I can't believe it! The day after her birthday we got to see the doctor for her 2 yr. appt. and her are her stats...
Weight 28 pounds (68th percentile), height 36 1/4 inches (96th percentile).
A story to share about Madelyn...
We went to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple open house with Nick's family and once you get to the sealing rooms, a couple took us in the sealing room and talked about the significance of being a forever family and as they were talking Madelyn ran round and round in circles around the alter, taunting the other kids to chase her. We tried to take her out of the room, so we wouldn't ruin the experience for the others there, but the couple talking told us to let her stay. Anytime we'd try to catch her or ask her to stop, she would scream. It's pretty hard to embarrass me, but I was thoroughly embarrassed!
What she's up to...
She's talking like crazy and saying 4 word sentences for the most part. She's always surprising us with the words she knows too. Right now we're learning colors and starting to work on our ABC's. Currently the two colors she gets right every time are pink and orange. She now loves being an older sister and adores Luke. Everything he does is SO funny to her. She is always saying "please", "thank you", and "you're welcome." She and Andrew are taking advantage of the lasting warm weather and jump on the trampoline every chance they get. It's so nice for me to be able to have them outside so I can get stuff done around here. I love how they play together and most of the time get along. We love our Madelyn and couldn't imagine life without her!
Here are some pictures from this summer. Enjoy.

Andrew's stats...

Here are my little man's stats: Weight 43 lbs. (91st percentile), Length 42 1/2 inches (90th percentile), the doctor couldn't believe he just turned 4 because of his knowledge (props to his preschool teachers). I wanted to share a little story about Andrew and how awesome he is. Last week I had to give Madelyn a bath because she made a mess while eating. I put her in the bathtub and went out to finish doing the dishes. I know this is not normally a safe thing to do, but Madelyn is so loud constantly, I know she's okay. Anyway, I asked Andrew to go in the bathroom to keep an eye on her, so he did. I could hear them giggling like crazy and thought once I was done with the dishes I was going to find a huge mess in my bathroom. I went into the bathroom and this is the scene: the tub drained and rinsed and Andrew in my closet with Madelyn picking out clothes for her and saying "Okay Madelyn lets go get your diaper on now." I couldn't believe it! He actually put her diaper on and tried getting Madelyn dressed too, but she would only let him do the diaper.I gave him the biggest hug and sang praises to him the rest of the day. He has started to even get Madelyn and himself breakfast in the morning. He gets bowls and spoons and pours the cereal and milk, too. What a kid! I love my Andrew.

Andrew is 4!!!

It happened, my little Andrew turned 4 on Sunday. When he woke up I explained to him that he was no longer 3, but 4, and he jumped up and shouted "hooray"!!! I then showed him the cars cake I had made (I stayed up till about 1:45am making), he had to look at it twice he was so excited. He wanted to know if his friends were going to come over and play, but I told him we were going to have a friend party when he turns 5. When I took him to Sam's club on Saturday he got to pick out a present for himself. He ended up picking out a math/numbers work book. He loves it! He also gets a bike, but we're not giving it to him until we celebrate his birthday this weekend with my family. I can't believe he's 4 already, where did the time go? We haven't had his 4 yr appt yet, so I'm not sure of his stats, but I'll post them soon. He's really into drawing pictures and spelling words. His imagination is going crazy, we have Andrew's art everywhere, it's even spilling into Grandma and Grandpa Nielson's home.
Here are some pictures from the party at Grandma and Grandpa Nielson's...we have video too, but I don't have it on the computer yet.

Don't you love how Luke adores Andrew?
He was following his every movement.

He also adored the cake =).

Luke's Blessing

I just wanted to post that we are blessing Luke this Sunday, July 5th. The sacrament meeting starts at 1pm and after the meeting we will be having a little luncheon at our house. We wanted to invite friends and family to please come! The meeting house address is 3930 South 6000 West in West Valley City.

On another note, yesterday was our 5 year anniversary, so we took the kids to the place Nick proposed to me and took some cute pictures. Here are some of them for your viewing pleasure!

Madelyn's head meets a sharp corner

Today it was 12:55 PM and we were in a rush to get out the door. I (Nick) was packing stuff up in the kitchen and Madelyn comes cruising in at full speed with her new dress shoes on. They don't have any traction really, so she slipped and hit her head on the outside corner of our cabinets. I picked her up, and gave her a hug, then realized that her head was bleeding. The cabinet had cut her head pretty bad. My church shirt got a lot of blood on it, and so did her dress. The cut was about an inch long, and looked pretty deep. I dropped Sonja, Andrew, and baby Luke off at church, and I took her into the instacare. It seemed that 3/4 of the people there had the swine flu, as I saw a lot of masked faces. Madelyn got four staples and didn't cry (but they did give her local anesthetic gel before doing the staples). I am impressed with how tough she is! These pictures don't really do it justice because the blood has been cleaned up, but you can see the little staples at least.

Mom update #2

My mom had surgery yesterday to ablate the cells in her heart that were causing the ventricular tachycardia and atrial fibrillation. It looks like the surgery was successful and she is recovering well. We got to take the kids yesterday and visit her and she looks good. The doctor came in and said that as long as everything looks good, she can come home today. We're just waiting to hear from my parents today about what happens next. Thanks so much for all your prayers!

Mom update

I just wanted to write down what's going on so far. My mom wasn't feeling well (pain in her arm and chest) and so she made an appointment with her family prac. doctor and when she went in they hooked her up to have an EKG (I think) and found she was having a heart attack right then. The doctor called to the nurse to call 911 and he threw 2 asprin at her and gave her nitroglycerin. The hospital was only 1 block away from the doctors office but since she had driven herself to the appointment they had to wait for the ambulance to come and drive her the 1 block to the hospital. Last night they transferred her to the University of Utah Hospital because the American Fork Hospital isn't quite equiped with what they needed to test her. Once at the U, they found that her heart was not damaged from the attack-probably because of the speed in which she received treatment. This morning between 2 and 5 am she kept the nurses busy running into her room because her heart rhythm is all over the place. When I went to visit her at noon today they said the problem is probably being caused by the atrium and not the ventricles which is "better" scenerio wise. When I left her, she was being taken to have a treadmill test, which we weren't too happy about because she was having problems just laying in bed, with oxygen on and meds in her system. So that's the news for now. I'll update once we know more. Thanks everyone for your prayers and well wishes!