recital

Well I really didn't want my picture first, but I am too tired to fix it. So I had my first recital last sunday, it went really well and my students did a great job. Shari and I finished with a rendition of Sleigh Bells, which was really fun to play. I haven't played a duet since high school with my cousin Karli! I was soo proud of my kids. I love Brady's face in this picture, doesn't look like he is having fun? He played Jolly Old St. Nick, and Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. Man, I love that kid!

Brooklyn just looks so old and professional in this picture. She played Pop! Goes the Weasel and O, Christmas Tree. She did great!

the big 9!

Of course, December couldn't start without Brookie's birthday. She had a great birthday, and from her own mouth, " I LOVE my birthday being in the winter because when we go out to Denny's for dinner, I get to have hot chocolate with whip cream on top." So there you have it! She is a joy and we can't imagine life without her.

9 things about Brookie that you may or may not know:

1. The girl LOVES to read, she has read, Little Women, the American Girl series, half way through Little house on the Prairie (Farmer Boy is not quite as interesting as the other books!) tons of magic treehouse and pretty much anything she can get her hands on

2. She is a pack rat! She like to keep everything and stashes stuff all around her room

3. She wears size 12 pants, her legs are forever long

4. She is up to my shoulders now. I think she might get as tall as her aunt Mandy

5. She loves to get dressed up.

6. She loves to sing in the church choir, and comes with me EVERY sunday so she can sing.

7. She loves vegetables, even more than vegetables, RANCH dressing

8.She is a good friend

9. She is an awesome cook, she can even make Lasagna from scratch! Awesome I know, even better she loves it!

We love you our little Brookie!

Christmas Tree and Sledding

We are so loving all the snow up in the mountains, I am soooo glad the kids love the snow as much as I do, maybe it's because they all have been sledding before they are two! Here is Emree with her friend Isaac

We always have fun getting our tree, especially when it is snowing out

Emree and Beckett enjoying riding in the sled while we scout out the perfect tree.

Brady, just lovin life!

Where to begin...

Well this past month has been an emotional roller coaster. We have had some great times and a lot of... humbling times. We had a great visit with Jared, Gina & family, also Ezra, Lindsey and their family for Thanksgiving. We went sledding and ate way too much food, which is to be expected! We are so glad that they were able to come and enjoyed their company.
The Friday before Thanksgiving Chas went in for a MRI on his head because he still had not been feeling well since his visit to the ER a month before. We found out on Tuesday the 23 of Nov. that he actually had had a stroke. Then all the doctors and everyone was gone for the holiday weekend, talk about a very stressful and emotional weekend. We are grateful for the support we felt from our family that week while they were here. So the last month has been full of tests and more tests, dr's apts. etc. We feel we have learned a lot along the way and can recognize the Lord's hand in this hard time we have been faced with. It's hard to imagine that you can feel prayers from a long ways away, but it is true. We are truly grateful for all the prayers that have been offered in our behalf, and can feel everyone's love and support. We are so thankful for family and good friends who have spoken of their love and offered help. We feel so blessed to live in such a good ward where we have felt so much love and definitely know they are our family away from home. We are also deeply grateful for friends who helped us get into some awesome dr.'s in Boise. All in all we recognize the Lord's hand and are so grateful for the gospel, family and especially each other.
So I guess I should give kind of a time line on what has happened so far and the results they have found.
Oct 15- ER Visit
Nov 19- MRI
Nov 23 - Found out it was really a stroke
Nov 30 - Blood Work and echocardiogram scheduled
First week of Dec - Echo done, ultrasound of legs done
2nd week of Dec - Call to get some references and appt.'s with Dr.'s in Boise
Dec 12- Miraculously we were able to get in to see a Neurologist and Cardiologist in the same day,
Mon the 13. We spent the whole day going to various appt.'s. We stayed with some friends in Middleton, thanks to Jenny for watching our kids while we went to our first appt. Then we dropped the kids off in Kuna at my brothers house. And went to see the Cardiologist, he is an awesome Doctor he got us in on Tuesday for a Trans Esophogeal Echocardiogram, (I know sounds lovely eh?) ,then blood tests and then we finished off the day with an MRA (like an MRI).
Dec 14 - Spent the morning with Lindsey and the kids, did a little shopping and then went to the Hospital at 1:30, had to wait 2 1/2 hrs. then got the T.E.E done. Dr. said that definitely he has a P.F.O ( you'll have to look that one up if you really want to know, basically a flap that doesn't seal properly and lets things like blod clots through to go straight to the brain, hence the stroke.) So coincidentally, if that's what you want to call it, the Cardiologist and the Neurologist that we went to see are both on the stroke board there at St. Al's and they were having their weekly stroke conference with many other dr.'s the next day.

So now that the verdict is in the consensus was to go in and patch the hole. YAY!!! We now know the problem and that it is fixable. I can't even explain the relief that I feel, like a big burden has been lifted and I am so grateful for my Heavenly Father for all of the blessings he has given us this past week.

We are planning to go in the week after Christmas and he can have the hole patched. IT really isn't too bad of a surgery, he just has to be in there for 24 hours and then he can come home.

Again thank you to everyone for your prayers and love, I will keep you posted on the surgery and such. Especially thank you to my wonderful sis-in-law for watching all of my kids for 2 whole days!! We love you!!

Conversations

Here is a conversation between Brooklyn and Chas today.
"Brooklyn, how come you got so many math problems wrong? You need to take your time and get them done right. You're trying to hurry through and not double checking your work. Do you know why you should get all of these right?"

"Because you are my parent Dad."

I about cried I was laughing so hard. Chas is pretty much a math genius, who else knows how to figure out flow of water, and how to keep fish safe all by doing math calculations? But I thought it was HILARIOUS that Brooklyn could tap into that and think that was what he was referring to. In reality he was trying to get her to check her subtraction by doing the addition to see if her answer was right. I LOVE that she is getting older and is so much fun! (and her little sarcasm, she has such a personality!
Thanks for the laugh today, Brooklyn!

Halloween

Halloween this year was so much fun! We decided to do a theme and these are the costumes we came up with, can you guess the movie? Beckett decided to throw our camera down the hall, so the pictures are not great. A big shout out to Brooklyn, for being so excited for me dress up and so I actually did it, and I had a lot of fun. She is such a hoot! I love her!

Emree was the cutest Lucy!

Brooklyn made a great Susan, and Brady loved wearing all the gear for Peter, and of course our little Aslan. We had a great time!

Kasen and Layton

Chas, being the great guy that he is kept the kids for a long weekend and I got to go to Rexburg to see my sisters new little twin boys. They are so adorable, and so tiny, my biggest baby was 3 LBS heavier than her smallest little guy. crazy! I had tons of fun visiting, holding, shopping,eating, sleeping and all of those kinds of things. It was great to see so much family and enjoy each others company, let do it again soon!

Grandpa and Initial Point

My Dad stopped by for a couple of days on his way down to Rexburg to see Kayla and her little boys. It was so nice to have hime come, he doesn't get to very often, so we really enjoy it when he does. Beckett and Tacey chillin with Grandpa. While we were in Boise we went hiking up to Initial point with my brother and his kids, it was a fun hike, but man were there a LOT of flies, yuck!!

Now I have proof that they do like each other! If they are outside they can hang out and play all day long.

Family shot at the top of Initial point, we also went down to some view points along the snake river and had a nice picnic. We saw some guy reeling in a HUGE fish, he said he'd already been trying to get him in for over an hour, so after about 10 minutes we kept on driving, would've liked to have seen the monster!

Beckett waking up Emree one morning and ended up snuggling in bed with her instead, so cute!

Hells Canyon Mule Days

David in the background, cool animals! (sorry the pictures and explanations got all mixed up, keep scrolling down.)

Some more pic's of Chas' project, bank stabilization, Beckett wanted to see how it would withstand some wear and tear.

Ta-da, in all her finished glory.

and the fish live happily ever after...

We got to go up to Enterprise to the HCMD festivities, they were awesome! I could so live in this gorgeous little town. Every time we drive up there I get a little envious, well pretty much when we drive anywhere out in the country, but really this is a beautiful spot! We got to stop by one of Chas' projects up from Wallowa Lake and see all kinds of Kokanee salmon swimming up river, it was pretty cool! I love this picture of Chas and Beckett. We went to the parade and these beasts were defintely the hit. Look at how stinking huge they are. 6' at the shoulder, these were Ezra and David. The lady in the picture has 10 of these big guys, WOW! They were impressive!

Another year, another truckload.

I finally told Brady we had to get rid of his favorite blanket, it was beyond repair. This was his sad face... I have yet to make him another one, some day!

This year whenever we would go out and get wood, we would bring the kids' bikes so they could play until Chas had wood cut for them to haul, I don't know why we didn't think of this sooner. Going to to get wood is no longer a chore, but a great time! We love having lunch from the back of the truck even in the rain. Chas has lots of memories of getting wood with his Dad when he was young, I am glad our kids will have those memories too! This is one of our favorite things to do in the fall.

School!

The kids were soo excited to start school this year. I wasn't, really.. maybe a little bit, but I do miss that they are both gone all day now. Brady is just getting big too fast, and Brooklyn, well I have started to accept the fact that she is no longer my baby girl. Being in first grade just seems so old, but he loves it and is so excited! I love you kids!! Have a great year!

Long time coming...

Well I thought I better catch this blog up as it is getting to be a daunting task, and I don't know where to even start, but here goes.

To finish off our trip over to Cottage Grove... the kids had a great time swimming in the lake, a little too cold for my taste, but lets face it I only swim if it's very warm! We always love going to Jared and Gina's and have such a great time. We all went on an awesome bike ride around the lake, that was one of the highlights. We had to do a little back to school shopping of course and stayed up late laughing and watching movies.

ER

Well after a crazy week I decided I would post about some things happening around here, mainly because I am feeling very blessed and thought I better write about it.
Last Friday as I walked into my friends house (she was watching the little ones, so I could go to Brady's class), she tells me that her husband is taking Chas up to the Emergency Room from work. At first I thought she was kidding, she proceeded to tell me she didn't know what has happening, but she would keep the kids until I could come back and get them. I am so grateful for my wonderful friends who I can always count on!!!! So I rush up to the ER meet Chas and a couple guys from work and they tell me what is happening. Vomiting, disoriented, passing out, dizziness, weakness, so I am starting to worry a bit. What the heck is going on? He was fine when he went to work! and that was only 2 hours ago. So they get us into a room quickly, which was so nice, usually it's not so quick around here. They had to pry the garbage can away from him, he wasn't willing to let it go as he was still throwing up. I tried to talk to him and get him to respond, he mumbled a bit, but that was as good as he could do. So they did CT scan, EKG and pumped him full of all kinds of things. 3 meds to try to get him to stop throwing up, and 2 different ones for the pain in his head.
OK so now I am really starting to get worried. Sitting there in the hospital makes you feel all kinds of humble real fast. You quickly realize that is doesn't really matter that you didn't get the dishes done before you walked the door, doesn't matter that there's a table full of tomatoes ready to be canned, oh well, none of that matters now. As I am sitting there while Chas is trying to sleep I really thought about how menial most things in life are, while the things that really matter are looked over. I thought of this quote, which I love "Distractions don't have to be evil to be effective." I've thought of that alot the last couple of weeks. It is so true!
Anyway come to find out Chas had some freak thing happen. They told him he had a sinus infection which did something to his middle ear which caused all the dizziness and vomiting and stuff like that. So not really a major thing, but it has made us do some major self reflection. I am so grateful for him and what a great guy he is, I won't get into all that mushy stuff, but am really glad he is ok.
Thanks to my great friends who kept my kids and made us dinner and came to the hospital to check on us. I feel blessed to have such great friends!! So here is a shout out to you!! Thank you all!!
And of course for my wonderful husband, thanks for sticking around for a few more years!!!

Don't ya wanna just snuggle them!!!!???

Two weeks is going to seem like forever before I get to go and love on these cuties! Congrats to my sister Kayla, they are so adorable!! Let us know when they both have names!!!!

I'm going there some day....

I LOVE the Portland temple, it is one of the most beautiful temples in my mind. We got to take the kids there and walk around the grounds and talk about how important the temple is and enjoy the spirit there.

McNary and Bonneville Dams

I think everyone around here thinks we now only visit our house and actually live somewhere else. I swear we have been up, over, down and around this summer and anywhere, but home. But we did have a great trip over to see Jared and Gina. We always love going there and are glad they make the time for us to visit. We left on a Thursday about noon and stopped at the McNary dam and also the Bonneville Dam on our way over. It was nice to spend a little part of our trip with just our family and do some fun things with the kids. They loved seeing the salmon swimming up the fish ladder at the McNary Dam through the huge glass windows. And of course since that is part of Chas' job at work he loved seeing it too. Then we drove on to the Bonneville Dam where they have all kinds of fish ponds, a fish hatchery and some beautiful gardens and flowers. There is a sturgeon pool, and there are some 6 foot long UGLY sturgeon fish in there. But it was pretty cool when they would swim right past you and you could see them face to face. It was an awesome place!!! I have decided some of the free stuff you can find to do is better than paying to go see something cool! You just have to do a little more research to find it.

Breakfast...

This is how breakfast ended up today, Beckett loves Cream of Wheat, and gets it all over, his hair, his face, everywhere. So instead of dripping it all the way to the bathroom, this is what happened. Gotta love that he can still fit in the kitchen sink!