Emma's first visit from the Tooth Fairy

Emma lost her first tooth on Dec. 15th--three days before her 6th birthday!!

And the tooth fairy didn't even forget to visit!

Mom's Cancer

I got home from my Thanksgiving travels on Wednesday and my Dad called me and told me that my Mom had Cancer. My dad asked if someone could get a blog started for her. Here is the link, my dad keeps this pretty up to date with how her treatment is going and how she is doing.

This is what I posted on Dec. 9th:

Here is a little background or as much as I know at least. I came down to visit for Thanksgiving this year arriving the Saturday before. My mom had a Doctor's appointment a few days after I got there, it was a follow-up visit for a bump on her neck that she had been taking antibiotics for. The doctor said that it should be removed since the antibiotics were not helping. The surgery was set for the day before Thanksgiving. My mom was in and out, and ready to host Thanksgiving dinner for about 50 people.

Here she is Thankgiving morning making cornicopias (sugar cones stuffed with candy) with the grandkids.

She was told it would take a week to get the results back from the biopsy. I guess she was trying not to worry anyone, but she never once gave the impression that she was very worried about it, even though I am sure she was. She was happy and bubbly just like always. On the Tuesday following Thanksgiving I asked if she had heard anything yet and she said they called that day and scheduled a follow-up/test results appointment on Thursday, and added with a laugh that it must not be very good if they can't give me the results over the phone.

I left on Wednesday and got a call Thursday morning from my Dad, he could barely get the words out...my mom had lymphoma. I couldn't believe it. He said they have an appointment with the oncologist the next day. That was a rough 24 hours.

On friday we found out exactly what we are dealing with. She has Diffuse large cell lymphoma (non hodgkin's). They said it is treated successfully in 70% of cases...good news. She is getting a CT PET scan today to see if the cancer has spread to anywhere else in her body. We are praying that the cancer will not be anywhere else. She will get the results back tomorrow, and we will know more of what to expect.

8 is Great!

Isaac turned 8 this month. Gabe started out the day by giving him 2 pokeman cards...how nice Gabe.

A little later he opened his present from Grandma

After church the next day, we had time to break open Grandma's gift and Isaac had so much fun...Eric-not so much. Eric's words "the makers of this toy hate children and the parents who raise them". The general idea of the toy is that you put together the skeleton and then build the outer casing and then pour in a mixture that hardens up making the body of the dinosaur. It sounds alot easier than it was. I was laughing at Eric trying to show Isaac how much fun this was. I think the main problem was that there were tons of tiny pieces and elastic and all sorts of stuff and the instructions had a couple diagrams and thats about it. You just kind of had to figure it out.

Even though it was kind of a pain, Isaac sure thought it was cool and still has them displayed in his room.

Next we had birthday cake and he opened his presents from us.

Isaac wanted blondies for his birthday cake, but of course he wanted it decorated as well...Eric helped Isaac turn it into a dinosaur landscape complete with a volcano made out of brownies.

When He blew out the candles it looked like the volcano was smoking...Isaac thought it was really cool!

Happy Birthday Isaac.

You are such a fun tender hearted ball of energy. You have an incredible imagination and you are a great artist. I am glad that I was chosen to be your Mom!! I love you.

Festival of Trees--Happy Birthday Mom!

For the past few years I have been able to go to the Festival of Trees in Utah with my mom and sisters. I love going and I think I will always try to go down for it. The Festival is always the first Tuesday after Thanksgiving and my Mom's birthday is the 2nd of December. This year they happen to both be on the same day. It is so nice to be with the girls!! Here are a few pictures:

We went to Texas Roadhouse and since it was my mom's birthday she got to ride the bull.

Yoga Baby

We finally caught Meg doing her Yoga exercises.

She was downward dog all over the place when we were in Utah for thanksgiving. But every time I tried to capture it on film she would stop and look at me.

This is Meg doing upward dog.

Kids Pics by Jacki

My sister is a great photographer and took some real quick photos of my kids for me. I got there late so we were running out of daylight, but she still managed to get at least one good shot of each of my kids. The one of them together was a bust because my little Elijah was crying in every shot.

GABE

ISAAC

EMMA

ELIJAH

MEG

OUR KIDDOS

Jacki made this photocard for me on photoshop...She is so talented and creative! Thanks again Jacki!! I love it! I was trying to get one photo of all the kids and just get a photocard from a store or something, but since the group shots didn't turn out (because of one child that shall remain nameless) I asked Jacki if she could throw something together.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Thanksgiving

While Eric was gallivanting halfway around the world I visited my family in Utah. It was so much fun. The kids missed a week of school, and I had to drive all 5 kids by myself, but it was so nice to stay and see everyone and relax. I was a little worried because I got a taste of what the drive could potentially be like when we decided to take the kids down to Chuck E Cheeses for Veterans day on Nov. 11th. The drive is just over an hour and Meg screamed the whole way down and the whole way back. I was dreading the drive after that but it went really smoothly. Meg was fine, and the road were great there and back so it was perfect.

Here are some pictures of our time in Utah:

My Mom had a cute little activity for the grandkids to do. They filled ice cream cones with candy to make them look like cornucopias.



Here is Meg getting to know her little cousin Cannon She was really after those shiney overall buttons!!

Elijah was a little slow to warm up, but Grandma eventually found the way to his heart...Cars.

I took alot of picture of my little Yoga baby. She was always standing on her head and toes in a big upside down V shape also known as "downward dog" in Yoga. but all got was the "upward dog" Yoga pose.