Easter

Easter Morning was spent relaxing in bed, eating candy, and watching General Conference on tv! Could not have asked for a better way to start such a beautiful day! After conference we showered and headed over to my sisters for a family Easter dinner! We had a great time and the kids (especially Tyler) had a blast doing the Easter Egg Hunt!!!

Easter Egg Coloring

We decided to take it easy this year on Easter Egg coloring and dropped in at my sister's house for the actual coloring process! It was hard enough just to boil the eggs and transport! Sari is much to big for those kinds of activities now, but certainly not Tyler and Ashlie! They had about 3 dozen between the 2 of them to color and they had a blast!!!

I am Handicapped Legally!!!

So I've been driving (or being driven around) for 2 months and I have discovered that getting in and out of the car can be quite tricky if you don't have adequate room on the side of your car :) So, after prompting from friends I finally made it to the DMV (with Craig's assistance) and got myself a Handicap Plaque :) Of course its only temporary, until the end of June, but still! So, I've been using it for a couple of weeks and have discovered it comes in quite handy! However, now that I have one, all of those handicap spots that are always open when you can't use them, are now full when I can! Oh well, grass is always greener on the other side :)

Face painting!!!

We went to a birthday party for my cousins twins who were turning 2. She had hired a clown who did face painting. Tyler was so excited for the clown to show up. He was first in line and wanted her to make him Batman. He was so excited!



Of course he had to make the "Batman" face :)


Ashlie was a Pop Diva :)

Response Magazine

This is a local magazine that gets published and mailed to the community monthly. It features stories all medical related. This month the hospital got a new trauma designation so they put a group of ER nurses, techs, docs etc on the cover and then there was a write up in the magazine regarding the new trauma designation. Craig was featured in both pictures :)

Tyler The Artist

Tyler has discovered how to create his own designs now when coloring. He hasn't always enjoyed coloring. It has only been in the last few months that he has really even colored in coloring books. He has always been much more into building with trains and blocks and things.

So it is cute to see him design little things now and give them to people. I think he learns that from Ashlie. She loves to draw us pictures.

Here are a few of Tyler's recent pictures!

This is a pictures of a house and sun that Tyler made for his cousin Ezra.


This is a rocket ship Tyler made for Dad.


This is a square Tyler drew for his cousin Isaac (he is 19 years old).


This is a picture of a heart Tyler drew for his cousin Josh (he is also 19 years old).

Ashlie is a Millionaire!

Ashlie is a Millionaire!!!



Well, at least she had read a million words this year! At her school once they have reached the million mark they receive a new t-shirt and a gift card to Borders, to buy new books!

Sari's Birthday Cake/Cupcakes

Here are some pictures of Sari's birthday treats!



She is too big now to do just one party with friends and family so we had the "cool" friend party on Saturday with a Twilight theme! I did Ice Cream Cupcakes with Twilight fondant pieces for the tops.



Then Sunday after church we did a family party and so I made a cake in the shape of her favorite horse she rides named Chester.

Happy Birthday Sari!!!

Today is my Sari bo Bari's 13th birthday! My goodness, where has the time gone??? It seems like just yesterday she was toddling around with a little pony tail on the top and her chubby cheeks! Kind of scary to think that in just a split second she has become a teenager!!!

When Sari was born she was only 5lb 13oz! So tiny! The newborn clothes just swallowed her up, we went out and bought some preemie stuff - which lasted her about 2 weeks lol! Once Sari started growing she didn't stop :) Craig is a little concerned that she is going to pass him up! And she probably will!

Our Sari is the sweetest thing ever! We love going to meet her teachers because that is the first thing every one of them say, "Sari is so sweet!" Sari is a very kind person, she makes friends easily and everyone always wants to be her friend. She is a good example to everyone (including me) of what a good friend should be like. She is very considerate of other peoples feelings and thoughts. Although sometimes the teenage hormones kick in at home and we have our occasional moments :)

Sari is growing up to be a beautiful young lady. She is strong in her beliefs and not easily swayed. She has high standards and values and lives up to them. We love having Sari in our family! She is the best first child anyone could ever ask for! I find at times that I sit and reflect on all of the things that I've done wrong in parenting her, then I realize Heavenly Father must have known I would make those mistakes so he sent Sari first. She is so forgiving and loving! Always quick to help in anyway she can.

Sari is a great big sister to her brother and sister. They are lucky to have her!

Happy Birthday to my first teenage daughter! May Heavenly Father bless our home through the teenage years that we all come out in one piece :)

Registered For Kindergarten

I am really not sure where the last almost 5 years have gone!!! Somehow they have just disappeared out from under me and now my sweet baby is a big boy! We just registered him yesterday for kindergarten! He is very excited, of course he thought he was going to get to go there today! He found a dinosaur book he looked at while we were waiting in line to turn in our paperwork. He thought it was pretty cool they had so many books he had never seen before. He is also very excited that he will get to go to Ashlie's school with her! So now we start the countdown til August 19th :(

Surgery Time

Well, many of you know that I fell during the summer last year and messed my leg/ankle/foot up pretty good. I didn't really know how much damage I had done until it just did not get better. I tore tendons, muscles, messed up nerves all through my foot, ankle, and up my leg. I tried multiple treatments hoping that one of them would offer some relief. Every step I took sent excruciating pain from the bottom of my foot all the way up my leg into my calf. After 6 1/2 months of pain I told the doctor I couldn't do it anymore and it was time to FiX my leg!!!

So, on January 28th we fixed it :) My doctor was able to isolate the issues and determine what he needed to fix during the surgery. He made one incision about 3" long on the back of my leg down near my ankle and lengthened a tendon. That is what was causing the pain in my calf. You can't see the that incision very well in this picture. The second incision was on the side of my ankle and down the bottom of my foot partially that was 5" long. Here he was able to find the nerve that was trapped inside of a traumatized muscle and covered in scar tissue and free it up. He said he had estimated he would have about 2-3 locations to free up but once he got into the surgery he found 6 different locations where the nerve was trapped. In fact, on my first post-op check up he graphically described how he had his index finger shoved as deep into my foot as it would go to allow him to free up that nerve (that explains the foot tenderness!). Here are pics from my first post-op visit.



On my second post-op visit (2 weeks after surgery) you can tell the swelling has gone done significantly and I'm getting lots of pretty shades of yellow. This is just before the sutures came out. Slightly painful, extremely nerve wracking lol! Only got light headed once, of course the doc laid me back so that helped :)


Doc has given me an excellent prognosis. He says everything went great in surgery and he is extremely pleased with how it is healing! Now, if I can only survive the recovery period. Absolutely no weight bearing on this foot or leg - that means crutches and a fun knee scooter :) It also means lots of family chipping in helping out. I can't begin to express my gratitude to my kids, Craig, my parents and my sister for their countless hours of service! AmAzInG!!! So, for now, I am doing good. Just able to start driving again (for very short distances). Hoping to attempt to take the kids to school for the first time in 3 weeks this week. I will keep you posted as there are new updates!

Ready for Church

Among some of the many Christmas gifts, they each received new church clothes. Ashlie and Tyler decided to have a mini photo shoot before church :)

Christmas

We had a great Christmas this year! It was really fun to get to spend time with the girls and really talk about the true meaning of Christmas! Even Tyler was able to begin to understand a little that it was about the spirit and not the presents!

Craig was able to be home with us this year on Christmas morning, last year he had to work :( Here are a few pictures of the kids on Christmas morning.

Tyler got a train named Diesel that he has really been wanting. Then him and Dad got a remote control helicopter to share :) They've had lots of fun with that and amazingly enough it is still in working condition!

Ashlie got a puppy with her own carrying purse that barks, whines, and eats :)

Sari got an Ipod shuffle - now her cell phone battery lasts longer :)

Christmas Eve

At our house we have the tradition of the kids being able to open one present on Christmas Eve. Mom or Dad get to pick the present and for some reason it always ends up being pajamas :)

Here are a few pictures of the kids opening their Christmas Eve gifts :)

Dog Bread House aka Gingerbread House

Tyler resorted to referring to our gingerbread house as a dogbread house once again this year. Our dog's name is Ginger is what we finally figured out last year!

Once again Sari was too big to participate in the making of the gingerbread house, but Tyler and Ashlie had a blast!

We were smart and waited until Grandma was here one day to help us :)

The gingerbread house remained standing for 2 whole days despite the many little fingers constantly finding something to nibble on. And then Tyler was true to character and helped in the final cave in of the roof. That didn't stop the eating though :)

Christmas Dance Recital

These are just a couple of pictures from Ashlie's dance recital. She does tap, jazz, and ballet. For ballet they did a portion of the Nutcracker. Ashlie was thrilled because she got to be a mouse :)

Christmas Piano Recital

Both girls are still taking piano lessons and are doing great. Their instructor just raves about their progress and talent! Both are very good but Ashlie just seems to have this enthusiasm about it. If she learns all of her songs her teacher gives her before her next lesson she will turn the page and start teaching herself the next song. And she loves to sit down at the piano and just blast through all of the songs she has previously learned.

This year as one of Ashlie's practice songs she was given The Twelve Days of Christmas. She passed it off the week before the recital and Craig and I could not be more pleased! That is one of those songs and that just keeps on going! And she is supposed to play it 5x every day. When I realized she had it memorized I told her she only needed to practice it 2x each day until she passed it off. That afternoon after her lesson she came bouncing out to the car so excited!!! Her teacher asked her to play that very song as the prelude music at the recital which was still a week away! UGH!!! (After speaking with her teacher on a different matter she told me how excited Ashlie was that she could play the whole thing memorized perfectly and so she had to fit it in the recital somewhere!)

So we were able to enjoy the "Twelve Days of Christmas" for a few more days! She played it perfectly at the recital along with her other 3 pieces that were specifically chosen for the recital.

Sari also did a fabulous job. We found a new book with some extremely hard Christmas pieces and Sari did a great job. Just to brag a little, her teacher told me that Sari is probably the best student she currently has, including her own daughters :)

Making Cookies with Auntie

I decided to be brave so I invited my sister and her 3 little kids to come over and make sugar cookies :) I scrubbed the table all nice and clean and threw out the flour and they had a blast. Sari wasn't very interested until the very end, then she had a good time too! My nephew Mikey (just turned 3) lasted the longest. In fact my sister told me just the other day he was asking about cookies again!

Brooklyn waiting on her dough


Tyler smashing his lol

Ezra playing in the flour with Sari in the background

Mikey getting ready to make a tree

Ashlie


Sari finally getting into the spirit :)