Ice-Blocking in the backyard for Parker's BDay.

My poor, deprived "city kids" didn't even know what ice-blocking was.

Why didn't we think of it sooner??

Family Pic, etc

4th of July on Grandpa's Farm

The brothers who used to (wait a minute, they STILL do) torment me. ;)

Grandpa gettin' in some swinging with Logan

Parker's Robotics Camp

His team's robot...

They designed and built it themselves!

Parker's team scored the most points of any round, and was way ahead of their closest competitors going into the championship round. Parker scored the most points of any operator in one round, by getting the most balls into the cylinders! Sadly, their robot got ripped apart by another robot, and they we'ren't able to fix it in time to finish the competition. But had their robot worked...they would have won by a sizable margin. Maybe next year!

Addison's Baptism

We're proud of you Addie!

Spring Break in Zion Canyon

Warning: Picture overload

I can see why they named it Zion National Park---

Although, I'm not sure I would think of it as "Zion" if I had lived there as a pioneer!

Beautiful---YES! Unforgiving---DEFINITELY!

#3 Logan

Logan turned 3 this month. It's crazy to think back to that day in Manila when I had him. It doesn't seem that long ago.

Logan HAD to have a football cake---and it HAD to be chocolate! His famous saying around here is, "I want to grow big like Parker so I can play football!" One day I told him that he was getting SO big. He got really sad and said, "No I not! I not big enough to play football yet!"

Big or not, we're so glad we have him!

That would NOT be my Whitley in the cereal drawer AGAIN, would it?!?

Jr. Jazz

Addie and Lily played Jr. Jazz b-ball this year. They did great for their first time! Addie even scored once or twice, and Lily came really close. They were the only girls on a team full of boys who have obviously been playing their whole lives! Addie was a good head taller than most of the boys.

They were both G.R.E.A.T. little defenders!! The kids they were guarding could N.E.V.E.R. get the ball. We felt kinda sorry for them! In fact, they were both so good at it that they even defended their guys when they were supposed to be on offense! Addie and Lily would stick their hands all up in their faces---and you should have seen the confused kids who were trying to guard them. Hilarious!! Way to confuse the defense, girls! ;)

Note to Brett: Next year we need to teach them about offense!

Lock Down

Today the schools here were locked down because of a shooting threat. I could hardly believe it was happening here. It was terrifying! I started to panic when I couldn't get any information about what was going on.

I decided the only thing I could do for the kids was to pray---and worry---but mostly pray!

And then I gratefully remembered that Brett had already asked for protection to be with the kids this morning. I'm so glad we took the time to say prayers together as a family before school. I'll be honest, more often than not that doesn't happen at our house (and rarely without someone ending up in tears or a tantrum). I think it will become a priority now.

The all clear was issued in the afternoon, and the kids came home without knowing much of what happened. But I'm still a little dazed and shaken by the whole thing. It's a scary world sometimes!

Whit's surgery, Part 2

On January 25th, we took Whit to Primary Children's for surgery. She was scheduled at 10:30am, but we waited around until nearly 12pm before they finally came for her. The poor girl was starving. She had only had 1 bottle of apple juice at 7 am, and she was tired of waiting. It was also her nap time, which didn't make things easy. So they ended up giving her Valium to make the hand over go more smoothly...which then makes coming out of anesthesia more difficult. Handing Whit over to the Anesthesiologist was one of the hardest things I've ever done! I cried.

The surgery lasted about an hour. I could not concentrate on anything the entire time. I just prayed and prayed, and asked for angels to be with her. I did not want her to be alone! I felt like I got a minuscule glimpse into what our Heavenly Father must have gone through while the Savior was suffering. How difficult it is to watch as a child suffers!!!

After the surgery, the doctor came to talk to us. He told us that he tried to stick a prob into the hole to see how far the tunnel went, but it would barely go in. He knew it was long because it was leaking, so he thought that was very strange. After trying a few times, he decided to just cut her open and figure it out that way. He was shocked to not only find a tunnel (fistula) going to her right tonsil, but in the middle of that tunnel was a rather large cyst. It was completely unexpected. Usually there is one or the other, a tunnel or a cyst, but not both. He was able to remove the cyst and cut all of the tunnel out...and also remove her right tonsil. It was good that we did the surgery so soon, and got the cyst removed before it got any bigger!

We were supposed to be able to see Whitley 30 minutes after surgery was over. However, it took nearly 3 hours for her to come out of the anesthesia! It was nerve-racking having them tell me that they couldn't get her to wake up. Every 30 minutes they would give us an update. And every time it was "She's not waking up yet". After waiting 2 1/2 hours post surgery, they informed us that they HAD to wake her up--which they don't like to do because it can affect all sorts of things--but she wasn't coming out of it on her own. I was beginning to freak out a little at this point! They had to put wet rags on her face...and even then, she wasn't really waking up. They finally let me back (even though she wasn't fully awake) after about 3 hours of waiting....and I had to stop myself from running! The nurse didn't even have to ask if it would be Brett or I going back (only 1 of us could go). She just said, "I know mom needs to see her baby, let's get you to her!"

When I saw Whit, she was completely swollen. She had a huge bandage wrapped all the way around her neck. I started to cry because seeing her with all the cords and monitors brought back so many memories from the NICU. The nurse quickly handed her over to me and told me that Whit's stats (breathing, heart rate, etc.) kept dropping really low because they had woken her up. She needed me to keep oxygen by her face (Whit wouldn't let them strap it on her) while she was waking up. The monitors kept going off for her breathing, and every time I thought back to the NICU monitors. Whitley would wake up and pull at the cords with such anger one second, then she would be out the next. The waking up was not going well!

It took quite awhile, but finally Whit stabilized enough to let us go to a room with the oxygen. Those first few hours were horrible! The poor nurse kept rushing in and out as the monitors went off pretty steadily...she earned her pay that day! She was very sweet and understanding, and offered to sit with Whit so I could have a break. But I was not going to put Whit down for a second! I ended up staying the night, and Brett slept at the hotel. I got about 30 minutes of sleep the whole night, but it was all worth it when at about 2 am Whit started smiling and playing. She really wanted to run, but they had the IV in her foot....and she was still flying pretty high from all the drugs! She was a crack up! I should have thought ahead and videoed that part!

Whit did much better than expected (once they got her to wake up, that is!). [You can see her stitches in the picture above.] She's such a trooper to have had to go through so much already in her little life! And while she's developed a pretty healthy fear/hatred of her doctors over the past 15 months, I don't think there's any other lasting effects. For that, we are grateful!

And we're just REALLY glad it's over!!