Not for the feint of heart

This is JD's hand post op. About 20 years ago, the doctors found a growth in JD's finger while doing an x-ray on his broken wrist. It turn out to be a benign tumor that had grown into the bone. They replaced the bone with a bone graph from his hip. 3 years later it came back and they replaced it with artificial coral. Fast forward 15 years and it came back yet again. This time, they took bone from his wrist and replace the wrist bone with the coral.

He is doing better now, but for the first few days he was in a lot of pain. Loratab became his best friend, he is trying to come to off it. It still hurts, but he's doing better.

I on the other hand am still trying to recoop after this crazy week:

Sunday: JD's mom had a family dinner for us. Afterward JD and I moved a big desk since we knew he'd be layed up for a few months. While carrying the desk upstair part of it fell off and landed on my foot, leaving a huge bruise and me barely walking.

Monday: Get up at 7am. Take Halle and Carson to the neighbors house, take JD to TOSH with Easton and Avery. Start JD's processed, at 8:15 walk the kids over to school. At 11:30 Stacie picks up little kids and waits for JD to wake up after surgery. 1pm get JD home and into bed. 5:30 girls dance, Pam picks them up and the boys and feeds them. 8pm everyone home in bed.

Tuesday: I take kids to school. Later Easton has game at 5:30, Avery 7. Pam drove the boys to the girls game, since I being the coach had to get there early.

Wednesday: Deep breath. Easy school, dance, scouts, dinner, bed.

Thursday: I had to be to a work training at 7:30. I left at 7am. My neighbor Carrie borrowed my van and took my kids and her car pool to school. Then came back and got Carson and took him to play group and then brought him home. After school the kids walked to grandma's house and waited for me to pick them up. My prayers were answered and the heavens open up and rained and rained. No games, hallelujah. Just Halle's soccer game.

Friday: Training at 7am. Kids get mixed up in the shuffle of the week and don't get pick up for school, so JD drives them. (ignoring the "do not operate heavy machinery while taking this drug" warning) Another neighbor picks up preschooler and take them to school and then brings them home too. My sister picks up the big kids after school and brings them all lunch. My sister in law brings dinner and we eat, happy it's not fast food again.

Saturday: Traing at 7am. Pam picks up family taking them to Halle's soccer game and brings them back. JD falls to sleep after taking his meds. Kids fend for themselves for awhile. Pam comes back and takes the kids to run errands to let JD sleep. I get home and Pam helps clean my kitchen and make dinner.

Long story short, thank you to all of those who save me this week, Pam, Stacie, Carrie, Arlene , Miki, Jenny and everyone for the well wishing.

It does take a village to raise a family. Thanks my village!

....Again the parent of the year goes to......

Announcing for the second year running the parent of the year goes to.....ME!

This is an honor to have been selected for this coveted award and accept it graciously.

This beautiful Sunday morning, my wonderful children allowed me to sleep in until 10:30. This not an unusual event seeing that I work until 4 am most days, but to have my hubby sleeping until then too, was not common at all. This would be great accept that church started at 11am. Well, we jump out of bed and I rush to get the 2 little ones ready, whilst fighting with Avery that she cannot wear the spaghetti strap summer dress to church. JD showers and gets ready while I finish Halles hair and put on Carson's shoes. JD and Avery are now fighting that she cannot wear gym shorts to church either. She slams her door shut, to try yet another outfit. By this time I am still in my robe and it's 11:05. JD rounds up the kids and I hear him yell everyone get in the car. The door shuts and the house is instantly quiet. I assume that I am to follow when I am dressed.

I finished getting ready, taking more time than usual do to my sore foot (more on that on a later date). 20 minutes later I head out the door.

I attend my 2 classes and meet the family at sacrament meeting aprox one and a half hour later. Halle asks me where Avery is because she never showed up to class. I start thinking of all the places she could have gone to ditch primary when JD looks at me and says, "Didn't you bring Avery to church?"

So, to may a long story short, we went to church and left Avery home by herself for 2 hours without telling her where we were or anything.

Mother of the year is a great title to hold.

Office with a View

I have finally done it! I have gotten that office with a view I've always wanted! The only bad part is there's nothing to see at 2 am!

but......look at my fancy set up. See what I do for my job. That screen tuck back for occasional use is in fact my work computer. Notice the provisions for my night of hard work......popcorn, diet coke, scandolous book, laptop to digi scrapbook, remote for the tv, not sure what to do with tape and scissors (maybe JD will wake up taped to the bed :)

I have been working at Jetblue for 5 years this month and am loving the benefits of working all those crappy shifts so that now I can pick what ever shift I like and because of that, spend more time blogging than actually working! Yeah Me!

Play Group

Play groups are an essential part of life. I wish I would have figured it out with child number 1 & 2. Once a week my wee little boy gets to go to someone elses house with 4-5 other little boys and reek havoc on that poor mothers house. They play, they run, they laugh, they run, they have a snack, they run, they do a project, they run, they scream and then run and scream and run and scream.....Get the picture. But once every 5 weeks it's our turn to play hostest to these adorable little monsters. Today was one of these days.

My poor Halle tried desperately to find a friend to go play with, but alas no one was home so she braved the house full of boys with me. The little men played blocks, sword fighting (not the bathroom kind, thank goodness!), hid all the pieces to connect four (still missing a few actually). At the point they seemed to be ready to burst the confinds of my house, I fed them a quick snack and shewed them out the door. We went on a walk. Owen refused to give up the Bob the Builder helmet and protective eye wear, he's hilarious.

We learned how to cross the street by looking bothways. They looked like bobble heads as they crossed the street looking back and forth as fast as they could.


I made them do little tricks like walking backwards and doing summersaults as we went. Afterward we rode bikes and wrote on the side walk with chalk.

Such a fun day! Now 5 more weeks of bliss!

7 Wonders of the World......Grand Canyon...check

JD has a fascination with the seven wonders of the world. In all honesty there's a dozen different list as to what these wonders really are. So, we have compiled the lists to the ones that we want to see. So far we've crossed the Redwood Forest, Igasu(?) Falls in Brazil , and now the grand canyon from our list.

We started the road trip by going through Zion's national park. The kids thought it was a cool place. Carson loved the tunnels that the road goes through. We stayed in Page, AZ as the Glenn Canyon Damn is one of the few places to cross the Colorado River. The next morning we drove to the south rim of the Grandy Canyon.



The grand canyon is an awesome sight. I was amazed at not only the depth of the canyon but the expanse from rim to rim. There are plateau that stand alone in the middle of the canyon a thousand feet below the rim, but still a thousand feet up from the river. A sign told us that a indian tribe lived on one these plateau. It's unfathomable that a person could reach a place like that without a helicopter. I thought that the canyon would be more colorful. We came to learn though, that the canyon changes colors during the day, depending how the sun is hitting the rocks. For the best colors go during sunrise or sunset, not high noon like we did.

I have 4 children and therefore had 4 very different reactions to the canyons. Carson was by far the funniest. For our first sight of the Grand Canyon, JD went to the rim first to video everyone's first reaction. Carson was running down the path, straying off it from time to time, giving me a complete heart attack knowing there was a shear cliff around. But as he came bounding down the the edge of the trail to see the canyon he froze, his eyes bugging out. We tried to get a picture at the edge (which is fenced off to prevent falling) but Carson refused to turn his back to the "big hole" as he came to call it. I picked him up and carried him the rest of the walk looking around. The entire time he had his face buried in my neck chanting over and over, "get me out of here, get me out of here." Once he was safely back in the car, he refused to get out again. Holding on to his car seat buckles when ever we turned off the car.



Easton thought it was cool, but that it only required one glimpse to get the jist and he spent the rest of the time in the car watching his crazy little brother.

Halle liked it but was nervous about the heights and hated the cold breeze that was blowing.

Avery was enamoured with this world wonder. Her and her dad stopped at every turn off to get every vantige point of this masses canyon. She had no fear of the edge and was constantly being told to back up. I could see her in years to come jumping off cliffs with a parachute strapped to her back, she looked like she wished she could fly off the side.

Here are some cell pictures and fuzzy Avery pictures of the Grand Canyon.










After we had our fill of the "big hole," we headed off to Las Vegas. We decided to take Route 66 detour. Carson loves "Cars" the movie and it was fun to show him the sign and there is a town that looks just like Radiator springs.

Our March Madness.....

March was full of crazy fun for us. It started with loosing our battery to our camera. I was forced to use Avery's digital camera which works great. That is as long as she hasn't messed with the settings....which she did, so forgive the fuzzy pictures, it's all we have.

We started with baskeball in full swing. Both Avery and Easton were playing. Saturday mornings consisted of running from one gym to the other. The kids had a great time and it's amazing how much they improve over a few short weeks.






We had a birthday celebration for grandma Pam. The kids love her so much. The minute she walks in a room all of them get this goofy grin on their face and they are purely happy to see her. She is the best grandma a kid could ask for. She takes the kids on activities all the time, makes Mickey Mouse waffles, plays games, read books, grows pot (I mean plots) for their own vegie garden and most of all NEVER runs out of patience.




Baseball and Softball both started. JD is coaching Easton and I'm coaching Avery. Our weekly schedule is about to explode. We run from one practice to another and back again. Then we mix in 3 dance lessons, 2 swimming lessons, scouts, school, work, a visit from JD good friend Travis and his daughter Emma and spring break (seperate post for that) and we get total madness.

Chasing a Cure Carnival

I'm helping put together a carnival to benefit my neighbors little boy who has luekemia. There will be magicians, bounce house, cake walk, a silent auction, boutique vendors, food and fun.

We need donations for our silent auction and volunteers, if you're interested let me know.

Follow Chase's story. It's the Hunters