Tiff Did It!!

If you remember, Tiff had one small cavity to take care of. Actually, a couple years ago she had two that she just wouldn't let us fix. The doc at the time, said she was too little and so were her cavities, so we could just wait and watch. Well, He ended up moving to a different office and so did I. We really like our new Dentist, Dr. James Keddington, right here in Bountiful. It also helps that Melanie works there, too!

Anyway, I just didn't want to make an appointment and try to trick Tiff into going. So I told Melanie to just call us when they had some down time. She called last week. I turned to Tiff and said, Melanie said she's ready for you to visit her at work, you ready?" She wasn't too sure, she hesitated. Then Beth, said "Oooh, cool!" and Tiff took the bait and was excited!

We got there and again she was cautious, but Melanie did great to ease her into the chair. Dr. Keddington and Melanie played with her squirting water and air, and the suction straw. It was small enough we didn't need any numbing, cool! So it didn't take very long. She did awesome!!

At one point she was complaining about the light being in her eyes. Good ole Melanie, quick thinking, went and grabbed some sunglasses! Did the trick just fine! When I asked him about the other cavity, he looked again and said there is no sign of the second one!

Yeah, for Tiffany, no more cavity bugs!!!

Christmas Eve Jammies!

We do the "you can open one present of 'Mom's choice' on Christmas Eve", tradition. Most of the kids have caught on, but not the younger ones. Therefore they usually get to open first.


Of course it's the Christmas jammies!




Then of course, we have to get some pictures in thier new jammies.

This is more realistic!! LOL

I'm trying to take a picture of the tree, this is only one of several shots I got. She wouldn't stop until she found out I actually got one without her in it!! LOL

Look at those muscles!!

It's fun to see the excitement of what are they going to look like on their faces, and the satisfaction when they like them!

I'm probably going to use one of these in my Holiday cards. (People who get cards from me know that it could be anytime in Dec or Jan! That's just the way it is!!) I just don't have a full family picture to replace last July. One of these will have to do.

Trimming the Tree

Even though we had our tree up the week after Thanksgiving, we finally got around to decorating it only two days before Christmas. In my defense, I'll explain!!

1. I just think the lights alone are so beautiful it really doesn't need anything else. And...

2. The kids are always bringing home ornaments from school, I let them put them on there. That usually sparks them wanting to make more ornaments at home to add to it too. If I decorated the tree before hand, the tree usually gets overloaded and just looks too busy. So if I don't put anything on it to begin with, then it's just right.

Anyway, the kids let me know they wanted to decorate the tree. School was out and I knew no more things were coming home so I said go right ahead!

Melanie decided she wanted to string popcorn. We haven't done that for a few years and thought it would be fun.

And sure enough, it was! It was a little scarey letting them use needles and actually do it, but the ones who were interested did great. The younger ones were very content just to eat the popcorn!

The tree turned out so pretty!!

12 Days of Christmas, continued

On the 7th day of Christmas, my true love (secret friends) gave to us...

7 swans a swimming!








On the 8th day of Christmas...8 maids of milking!











On the 9th day of Christmas...9 ladies dancing!








On the 10th day of Christmas...10 Lords a Leaping.
We figured there were gingerbread cookies in there, so they were the Lords a Leaping. It's a stretch, but it works!! I love the question mark on the paper. :)









On the 11th day of Christmas...11 pipers piping.

On the 12th day of Christmas....12 drummers drumming.

We had so much fun getting our gifts each night!

Aaron Has Turned 8!

Yesterday was Aaron's Birthday! What a way to kick off Christmas Break!!

We were so busy Friday night he didn't go to bed until just after midnight, so I wished him a Happy Birthday as he went to sleep. We had to go wake him up just before 11 o'clock!

He started off his day with his traditional chocolate chip waffles with icecream and chocolate syrup! Yum!

He opened presents, ate pizza and cake and played! What a day!

8 is a special birthday at our house for more than one reason. Not only do they get to be baptized, and get their Quads, but they are now old enough to take a day on the kitchen duty rotation. Aaron has been looking forward to this almost as much as the first! He's been coming in and helping others with their turns for several months!! Today was his first day! He's done a fantastic job! The excitement usually doesn't last very long, but with Aaron, I think it will last longer than usual! He just love to help!!

12 Days of Christmas

We have been selected to enjoy the 12 days of Christmas by someone. We have no clue by who, but it 's so fun to see what they are going to bring next. We are having such a blast, even though we're not done yet, I just had to post what we got so far!

On the 1st day of Christmas my true Love (secret friends) sent to me...

A partridge in a pear tree (We actually got 4, but we have been eating them!)








On the 2nd day of Christmas....two turtle doves!












On the 3rd day of Christmas...3 french hens! We had spaghetti the next night with garlic bread! (We only found 2 loaves and was wondering if we lost one somewhere, then realized these people are very smart to be thinking ahead, it could very easily get out of hand!!) LOL









On the 4th day of Christmas...4 calling birds! (hilarious!)












On the 5th day of Christmas...5 golden rings! (We thought we would get glazed donuts, but these were better!)








Last night, On the 6th day of Christmas...6 geese a laying!








We can hardly wait for tonight, what will it be???

This is our second year in a row, we feel very blessed, to have such wonderful friends and neighbors. We're really going to have to do it next year for someone else, if I can just remember to plan ahead enough!

Haircut

Kimberly has been bugging me for weeks, maybe months to cut her hair. I finally gave in and took her yesterday!!

We took off 11 inches to donate to Locks of Love! This is Kim's second time. I love it because it makes it easier to cut it off when it goes to a good cause. It doesn't hurt that they don't charge me for the haircut and style when it's donated, either!! I don't know why it's so hard for me to cut their hair.

She was so excited, can you tell!!

Old Testament for 2010

Every year I try to keep up on my SS and RS lessons and read the week before and at least have an idea of what we're going to talk about. Even when I have callings that take me away from these classes, I try. I usually start the year out real good and then get more and more slack as the year progresses, not real good.

I know we are supposed to read scriptures everyday. In fact we are encouraged to read from the Book of Mormon every day, as well as the book we are studying in SS that year. Sometimes it's really hard to make the time for all the reading it requires. So I keep trying to make it work.

Last year I was looking over my class member study guide for the D&C and Church History and was surprised to read the following on page 2 & 3...

"Contributing to Class Discussions

You share with your Gospel Doctrine teacher the responsibility to help the class be successful. Come to class prepared to contribute to the discussion and to share personal testimony, feelings, and experiences regarding the principles and doctrines being taught.

Suggested Reading Plan

...In addition to completing the reading assignment for each lesson, you are encouraged to read the Doctrine and Covenants from beginning to end during this course."

I know this isn't "new" we are supposed to come prepared to get the most out of the lessons taught. And I can't say I did a whole lot better than years before, but I tried, most of the time! :) But I did decide to take the "encouragement" to read the D&C from beginning to end during the year, seriously. I figured I could at least do that! How do I stay on track?

I decided to make a schedule to keep myself on track. I needed some flexibility, so I decided on a number of pages per week, instead of per day. It worked out great. I recently finished and it felt so good to at least accomplish that! But it was a piece of cake at 7 pages a week.

I looked on to this year. Oooooo! The Old Testament is a far cry from the D&C. I haven't read it from beginning to end since seminary! It has 1184 pages! I decided to bite the bullet and take the same challenge and just commit myself to reading it! So yesterday, I worked up my pages, it's 23 pages a week, just over 3 times the amount of pages from last year. It's going to take a little more determination and time, but I think it will be worth it, especially the obedience part.

I was surprised when I opened up my study guide and it didn't have the challenge to read it from beginning to end. I was actually disappointed!! It also starts with the Pearl of Great Price, the books of Moses and Abraham. I decided to go ahead and do it anyway. It's going to take some time and effort to keep up with the class, but since I will be ahead in my weekly reading it shouldn't be too much to refresh with the study guide questions and scriptures each week.

So, Now that I've made a short story very long, and to explain why I went to the trouble of telling you all of this... I want to challenge all of you to read the Old Testament from beginning to end with me this next year!

I'm going to put my reading schedule on the side bar of my blog to remind me where I should be every week. Follow along and let me know how your doing! Since the class starts with Moses and Abraham in the PofGP, if you haven't read that recently, read it between now and Jan 1st. It's only 42 pages long. Then start with Genesis on Jan 1st. My week 1 starts Jan 4th to 10th.

Who's going to do it with me? Come on, you can do it!!

At the Dentist!

Now that I have a daughter that works for our Dentist, I get bugged a lot to get my appointments made and kept! We also get the horror stories and get reminded at how important it is to brush and most importantly to floss our teeth!! I knew it was time to get my teeth cleaned and Tiff really needed to get in there too. I really didn't want to do it last month, so as soon as it was all over, she started in again!

Anyway, yesterday was our day! We had to take Nattie Bug with us because there was no one at home to watch her. I don't know if you remember all the trouble we've had with Tiff at the Dentist. It got to the point where she wouldn't let them even clean her teeth. She did great! Of course Melanie had been priming her for weeks. She would brush her teeth and talk it all up. So when they took her back, Mel was there and talked her through and helped with the whole thing. Tiff just has one small cavity we've been watching for a couple of years that is now big enough, yet small enough, we need to take care of it. We'll see how it goes, we're hoping with Melanie at her side assisting the dentist, she'll finally let us fix it!

When it was my turn I put Nattie on my lap so she could watch the whole thing. She seemed quite fascinated! By the time we were done, she wanted a turn to get her teeth cleaned too. We figured we would only get her in the chair, but to all of our surprise she let the hygienist (our friend and neighbor) count and clean her teeth. When it came time to polish them, she was quite leery and wouldn't let her. But by that time Mel was done with her patient and came over. She said, "she'll let me brush her teeth!" At first, Nattie wouldn't, but it didn't take her long and she had her giggling and laughing. Dr. Keddington had to come over to see what all the fun was about! We got almost a whole cleaning out of her! He said her teeth look great!!

So, I decided it's not such a bad thing to have a wonderful daughter to remind us to take better care of our teeth and keep me on my toes about making and keeping my appointments at the Dentist!

Thanks, Melanie!!

Eternal Roses

I HAVE THE BEST FAMILY, EVER!!!


For two weeks I have been "finding" these eternal roses, one at a time, from each member of my family. They tell me that these roses are actual roses treated in something to make them last "forever".

As beautiful as these roses are, and I love them, they pale in comparison to what came with each one. Attached to each rose was a letter of love and appreciation. It has totally caught me off guard and I've been crying a lot as I've read through the letters, drawings, poems and even an original song from all my children including my mom and my dear sweet hubby!

On the last day I was presented with a solid gold rose for the center and another beautiful poem to go with the bouquet they had been building for me! Every time I look at it, I can't help but be reminded of the outpouring of love that came with each one!

All I can say, is that...

I HAVE THE BEST FAMILY, EVER!!!!!!

Happy Birthday, Tiffany!

Tiffany turned 5 years old almost a month ago! She was so excited to finally be 5 and get to go to school! I had to burst her bubble and tell her yes, she's 5, but she still has to wait until for the new school year to be able to go. It took her about a week to be convinced!

We let her open her presents early in the morning before most of the kids left for school, so she could enjoy them all day!

Then she had her favorite traditional chocolate chip waffles with ice cream and chocolate sauce for breakfast. Dad went and got her a kids happy meal for lunch with a my little pony as the toy! For dinner she chose pizza, of course! She's not much of a cake eater, so she chose brownies and ice cream!

She chose not to take her nap, so she was too tired to stay up late (another tradition).

I can't believe she's 5! She's so smart and really needs to be in school. She's such a little sponge! She bugs me to do "homework", so she's learning not only to recognize but to write her letters and numbers pretty good, already. I'm afraid Kindergarten is going to be boring next year!

It's Over

I went to the doc yesterday and had yet another ultrasound to make sure everything was clear and I am in the clear. I'm glad to report that although it was bad enough, it wasn't as bad physically, as he said it would be.

I am surprised at the emotions that erupted as I left the office. I am so glad to be on this side of it all, I can only go up from here...and yet it was a hard day for me. I'm grateful for the holidays to help to divert my thoughts to happier things!

Thanks again, for all your kindnesses and prayers, I really appreciate it.

"What To My Wandering Eyes Should Appear...."

A Billboard with a familiar face!!

My beautiful niece works for American Express and last year was selected to be a part of a customer care promotion. Her photos and quotes were selected and used! Every once in a while she'll come into work and find a newspaper on her desk with her picture on it! Then the other day, she was told she was actually on a billboard on I-15! (southbound just before 3300 south exit)

When I found out Doug was going that way, I had him look for it and take a picture. When I took the picture to her this weekend, she said, "hey, that's my quote!"

I wanted to put this on my blog because I wanted to take a minute and say what a wonderful person she is. She really goes way out of her way to do her best to please everyone around her, within reason, of course. She also knows when it's getting to be too much and has to pull back. (I think that's harder than the first.) Her efforts often go overlooked and I just wanted her to know that I do see and appreciate all her efforts in all our behalf!

I love you, GG! Thank you, ever so much, for just being YOU!!

Jon's Bday!

I'm way behind and thought I better get posting!!

Jon turned the big 21 in October!

It was no spectacular day, he really didn't do much, it was a sunday, but he didn't have to go to work! We had two special dinners in a row for him, Sunday was lasagna and Monday was Enchilada Casserole. Sunday we made him brownies, and Monday we made him Reeses cheesecake bars!

Anyway, here is a picture of him with his bday brownies. You can see he thinks he's too old for these kind of pics anymore. Oh well, I took it anyway!

A few days later we went together and picked out a workout bar for him for his bday present. I've tried to get a pic of him on it, but it just hasn't worked out yet.

Happy Birthday, Jon!!

Still Waiting

I think I am finally coming to grips with the idea of losing our sweet miracle just when we found out about it. It's been hard waiting for this to happen, I started to wonder, did he make a mistake? I still feel pregnant, could we get another miracle? I guess the longer I went and nothing happened, the safer I felt that it might not happen.

Wednesday I had our two bishopric counsellors come over to visit and see how we are doing with all this. I talked more than I intended to, but in the process I got some good advice. Bro Olson shared the idea that We have to just keep going with what we do know. Heavenly Father is the only one with all the answers, and we are not expected to act on pieces to the puzzle that we don't have yet. It's easier for Him to guide something/one who is moving, than to actually get them moving in the first place. I need to be "moving" or doing what I can do with what information I have, and keep praying for and have faith in the answers or guidance that will come along the way. He called them course corrections. It made good sense to me.

So Thursday morning, I decided to finally get some more information and did some reading and as I did, I just knew it was over. I didn't stop hoping completely, but I somehow "knew" and over the weekend came to accept it. I've had some tender moments, as friends and family brought me flowers, cards, put their arms around me, and just dropped me notes online or phone calls, to let me know they were praying and thinking about me.

I called my doc yesterday because I decided I needed to know what his plan of care for me was and I hadn't heard from him in two weeks. He was surprised it hadn't happened yet, and suggested I come back in. He did another ultrasound and found a large empty sac. The baby has been reabsorbed by my body, but I still have to shed the lining and sac. (I am so glad I came to the conclusions I had over the weekend!) He strongly suggested, again, a D&C because it was twice the size they usually let go naturally. I've decided to refuse the D&C for now, because I kind of need things to happen naturally. I really asked him the tough questions I should have asked two weeks ago about what to expect and how it will happen. I feel more confident in myself since now I don't have to wonder "is that the baby?" I know it's all placental and sac tissue. So I here I sit and wait.

So at this time of year, I am especially Thankful for my many, many blessings. For my loving family, for my knowledge of my Savior and Heavenly Father who love me and help me so much!

With Heavy Heart...

It is with very heavy heart that I have to tell you that I went to the doc today and the baby hasn't grown at all and we couldn't see any heart beat. He said I should miscarry anytime in the next two weeks.

Doug said not to give up until it happens, I'm having a hard time.

Please forgive me if I don't post for a little bit while I get a handle on it. :(

Thank you for your prayers.

Halloween

First I want to throw this pic in because I thought it was cute... For our YM/YW Primary Carnival we all went as jack o lanterns! It was about a 1 1/2 weeks before Halloween and we weren't ready with costumes so we went through the box and went with a theme. (Jessica, You can appreciate this one!)

A few years ago, I think Kim was our baby, We made these fun costumes! It was great because I just bought a whole bolt of orange felt and made all the smocks then let the kids each design their own face. They drew them and cut them out of newspaper to get them just the way they wanted them. Then I just traced them onto the felt and let them arrange them and sewed them on. If you've counted, yes, there was enough for Doug and I to wear one too, I'm not sure why we didn't get a pic of all of us, but it was fun and easy to keep track of all of us at the carnival!!

We have had a sad week as far as sickness goes. Each one of the younger children from Emily down were experiencing symptoms or were full out sick with fevers, coughs, sore throats, head aches, etc. So I was very skeptical as to whether we should take them out trick or treating. By Saturday, no one was full out sick, just the residual stuff hanging around. So it wasn't an easy decision. We finally came up with an alternative! (unfortunately at the last minute, but that's better than nothing!) It took us a little bit to get set up, so we got them all dressed up and put in the new Tinkerbell movie while we got the house ready....

We decorated the house and bedrooms and had them trick or treat throughout the entire house! How fun could that be? You ask??? Well, we have three floors of rooms we used and had the bigger kids all dressed up giving out the candy and treats. Some of the rooms were obstacle courses and "pick one out of the box" kind of rooms. We had Halloween sounds on every floor, and we turned all the lights out and gave each one a flashlight. Some of the bigger kids (including Doug) really got into it by trying to scare them as they came to their doors, switching where they would come out! They could go to each room as many times as they wanted, as long as they went to another floor before coming back. They could split up and go at their own pace.

Believe it or not, they were done before we ran out of treats!

The biggest kicker, was that they had so much fun, they want to do it this way again next year!!