Tuesday, February 22, 2011

I am such a slacker! Here are a few pictures of what has been going on with us the past few months. I did it newest to oldest, which I always do so here they are:
So one day while we were staying at my parents house all of the boys wanted to take a bath in grandmas big bathtub (which they always get to, just have never done it with all of them in there at once). Anyway, Maisie wanted to get into there too, but you all know how that would have turned out :) but she got her turn after them. I just didn't show it because there's not as many bubbles as the boys had (if you know what I mean).






So for Maisies birthday we sort of threw a party for her and got Kris and Joe(even though he had been so sick that whole week) to go with us. I had bought this bowling deal from groupons months earlier, which is so totally awesome, anyway it was for up to 6 people 2 pizzas and 2 pitchers of drinks for $25. It was so awesome! And Kris is about ready to pop here with their 2nd child, she looked like she had a bowling ball under her shirt, which some kids next to us were making "light" of, anyway she threw a strike once and jumped higher then I can and I'm not pregnant. She is so crazy, but I LOVE her tons!!!



Don't you just love how my kids pose? They are sure not camera shy!






So santa found us this year at my parents house because he knew that we slept there so that we could wake up and talk with my brother from his mission. It was lots of fun and the kids didn't even ask how santa got there which was weird. I don't know if that is a good thing or a bad thing? Anyway, Maisie had so much fun unwrapping her stuff (and some of brothers too)!
So every year for the Vance side we always get together and have a fun time and Grandpa Vance is santas helper because santa is too busy. It's always fun, but here is my great grandmother on his lap. She is so funny!
So this year Kaden has had the opportunity to be in a preschool that our bishops wife has done for 20+ years and so we were really excited, well I think me more than him because she is so amazing, but anyway, here is their christmas program that they did for a retirement home and they had made some lap blankets for the people there too. It was lots of fun watching. Kids are growing up way too fast!




Here is Kaden when he had his lovely stay at the hospital. They were really awesome to him so I'm grateful for that!

Because Kaden had been in the hospital I didn't want him walking around everywhere and hurting his leg again, so I took Talbot out and me and some neighbors had fun (even though I wished that we as a family could be all together).
But we all did go to the city trunk or treat! Oh and I got my costume brand new (it was on clearance) for $7! That makes it even better! Kaden was his fire truck that he has worn for that past 3 years I think. Hey, as long as he'll wear it! Talbot was our little hunter, Kody was himself, and Maisie was a ladybug(curtesy of her aunt!)

So this next picture is from yw in excellence that we did. We as leaders just did the decorating because we were put in as a presidency just a few weeks before and there wasn't anything planned for it, so we just did it for this time. I took my christmas lights and we hung them up with tule wrapped around it and had it all coming together at the lighthouse that was made for us because our theme was Keepers of His Light. It was so cool.

So Kody and I went on one of his runs to California and on the way back for his reload they sent us this close to Kolter. Ya, if we would have had time there would have been some lunch or dinner involved. Kody tried to stop at his apartment that next week, but the truck is too big, no place to park and we didn't have a phone number to get a hold of him anyway, but it was fun to see. Kolter always talks about how there are so many rocks there. Ya, that is for sure! Anyway this picture that I'm in here, we are 104 miles away from Kolter. The other picture that we have is a sign that says Brothers 62miles and right underneath it it says Bend 104 miles. So my "brother" is in "bend" do you get it?














Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Our Family Horse Story

Just got done reading stories to the boys and then scriptures. We are in the part in 1Nephi 17 (the same chapter that we've been in for about a month now lol) where Nephi is building the ship and I started explaining to them the things that Nephi was telling his brothers about Moses and all of the things that Heavenly Father had done for the people of Israel. I told them that they can have their prayers answered and that Heavenly Father does answer prayers. Then I told them a story that happened to my family when I was about 10-11 years old. We were camping one year and it was down south somewhere (somewhere in southern Utah I think) and we were all of the way at the top of this mountain and we had just unloaded the horses and my dad had put hobbles on the horses feet so that they could walk around but they couldn't get away. Kinda like handcuffs for horses.
Anyway, the horses were wondering like they always do when we would go camping and we would just set up camp. Then we realized that one of our horses was gone. My dad starting whistling for him, but he never came back. We looked everywhere for that horse, he was such a terrible horse too, but he was our horse and all of us kids were heart broken that we couldn't find the horse. So we decided to pray and ask Heavenly Father to help us find the horse. Well, we had stayed there for about a week and couldn't find that horse. My brother Kurtis (who I think was 3 or 4 at the time) kept telling us to pray so we could find the horse. My other brother Kris( from what my dad had told me many years later) who was about 9 or 10 at the time kept saying that we wouldn't find that horse because he didn't believe that there was a Heavenly Father and if there was, why would he answer our prayer to find that horse. It's just a horse. My dad said that he told him that we were going to find that horse so that he knew that there is a Heavenly Father who does listen to and answers our prayers.
Well, a few days went by and we had packed up everything and was heading down the canyon. My dad and Kris were in the truck in front of us pulling the horses and me and my mom and I don't remember exactley where every one of the other kids were, but my mom and I were in the car behind my dad and we were pulling the tent trailer. Anyway I remember talking to my mom about not finding the horse and I remember her saying that we just needed to keep an eye out for him as we were driving down the canyon. Well I kept looking everywhere. We needed to find that horse. As I was looking out the front windshield I could see up a head of us some movement in a grove. Then I saw a bunch of sheep in this grove. I was a little disappointed that it wasn't our horse Wind. But then all of a sudden I saw him running, he was running towards my dad with the horse trailer.
I can't even begin to tell you the joy and relief that I felt to have found him. I was so worried that we weren't going to find him and that he would die somewhere out there alone. Well, my mom caught up to my dad and got him to stop and I can't remember if they had seen him too or not but I just remember all of us getting out of our vehicles and looking to our left up the hill a little ways and seeing Wind standing at the top. My dad got one of the other horses out to get Wind to come down to us, because they always seemed to want to stay together so my dad figured that if he got the other horse back that maybe we could get Wind to come down to us, because if anyone who knows horses, they see a rope and start running the other way and we really didn't want that to happen. But as soon as my dad opened the horse trailer Wind came running down and just hopped right in like nothing ever had happened. And he NEVER had been so easy to get into the trailer and he never had come right to us like that before.
That was the only place that we could have found him that day because as soon as you went any further we went over a cattle gaurd and there was a fence line that ran for miles in either direction. As soon as we would have passed that, the chances of finding him would have been zero unless he had jumped the fence. I remember praying as a family and thanking Heavenly Father for helping us find the horse. My dad years later had said that he was also very grateful because he just kept praying that we would find that horse to prove that there is a Father in Heaven to us kids. I am so grateful for the faith that my parents had. Many may think that it was a coinsedence that we were there and the horse there at the same time. I have no doubt that it was an answer to prayer.
My boys, as I was telling them that story, were so involved in what I was telling them. I never think that my kids would remember things like that or even care to know those stories, but now after I was thinking of it and praying myself and thanking Him for the chance to have shared that story with them in that setting, that I felt the love that He has not only for me but for all of those that have the responsiblility to take care of His children on this earth and that He entrusted me with these children and how awesome they are. They seem like they can't get enough of these kind of stories and the scriptures. I also felt that it was as if He was "saying Thank You, Thank You for reminding them of me, because you were just yelling at them and I really didn't want them to feel that way." Ya, I've really got to work on that one a lot more.
What an awesome responsiblitly we have in raising these children while we are here on this earth, even though some days it is a "home that is not a heaven on earth", which was that way just about 30 minutes before telling them the story, which made me feel even worse about yelling at them, I hate that. Oh well, I guess we just have to keep on trying right?

Monday, November 15, 2010

Life and we'll leave it at that

Well, just a brief hello to everyone and a quick update. Yes I am so terrible at doing this, but at least I get to keep up on ya'lls blogs. Anyway, Maisie is growing up real quick, like most kids do. She has Talbots stubborness. Way more than he ever did at that age. I'm really in trouble. She even has the boys trained. Anytime she wants something they'll get it for her. And if there is something that they want that she has and she knows it and they start to get close to her to take it away and she will just start screaming. But as soon as they will back away and let her have whatever it was that they wanted then she'll just keep playing like nothing ever was wrong, but as soon as they try again she is all sorts of mad again. I am in real trouble.
As for the rest of us, Talbot we found out has an allergy to cashews. We were getting ready to walk out the door to go to church and I was so excited because we were actually going to get to church on time(and we have church at 1pm, how lame is that). Anyway, Talbot comes in and he looked all nice and dressed up. We had him in Kadens church suit cause he had grown out of it. And it had been a while since Kaden had worn it so we pulled it out and put it on Talbot. Anyway, he comes in just a sneezing. I have never seen anyone sneeze like that before. One right after the other and he just didn't stop. Then he started rubbing his eyes and his face started to get kinda red like a rash and then he started getting hives on them, and on his hands but not really anywhere else. I didn't know that he had eaten anything and so I thought that it might have been from the dust from the suit jacket (ok, it wasn't dusty, but it hadn't been worn for a few months so it was sorta dusty) so we ripped that off and then his shirt cause it just kept going. Then I thought that he might have sprayed some of Kodys cologne in his eyes or something, which wouldn't have been the first time. And he kept saying that he didn't. And he didn't smell like it. I asked him what he ate and he couldn't tell me. I knew that I had to get some benedryl in him soon cause I was afraid that he would start having a hard time breathing because we had just found out that month that he has asthma too. So I'm trying to figure out what dose to give for the benedryl (while debating with myself whether or not we should just take him to the doctor) and I asked Kody "was there anything that you know of that he could have eaten" (as he has been holding him this whole time helping me figure out what was happening to him). And he said "well he was eating some cashews". Well, that would have been nice to know like 10 minutes before that so I wasn't trying to figure out dosing and what was going on with the poor kid. By the time we got the benedryl in him his face was all swollen and his eyes were almost swollen shut. Poor kid. He looked like Quasimodo from the Hunchback of Notre Dame, just without the hump on his back. One eye was swollen more than the other. Anyway, so we kept him on benedryl and went to church, missed sacrament meeting, but made it for the rest of the stuff.
Later that night we were at my in laws and Talbot was on a chair waiting for everyone so we could eat and he started to swell up again and was sneezing and getting hives again. So I gave him some more benedryl. Anyway, all of the family had been talking about what happened that day and I don't know where my father in law was when we were talking about it but he looked over at Talbot and said "what's wrong with his face?". Really? Poor Talbot just kinda looked at me like "is there something wrong with my face"? I just had to laugh. My father in law makes me laugh, well most of the time anyway :) . So anyway, that is how we found out that he is allergic to cashews. I took him to an allergist that also deals with asthma and turns out that the cashew thing and asthma thing is a lot worse than I had thought. I have to carry around an epipen with me now for the cashew allergy and had to get a nebulizer along with inhalers for the asthma. Poor kid.
Well, I finally got used to that (a whole week of it) and Kaden then ends up in the hospital because he couldn't walk on his leg. They kept him over night and pumped him full of antibiotics and stuff and then sent us home the next day with the iv still in and I had to give him the antibiotics through the iv for a few days. Then the day after he is done with the antibiotics he can't move his arm. I at first was like, ok whatever, but I was talking on the phone with my mom on the way home from willard after trick or treating and I was telling her about his arm and that I was going to see if we have to go back into the doctors again. Well, I guess that Kaden didn't like that idea, I had asked him just before that to lift his arm up and he would only do it so far. After he heard me talking with my mom, Kody turns the light on in the car for a second. I said "what are you doing". Kody said that he saw Kadens arm up and he then asked him why his arm was up. He said he can get it high in the air now. So Kody turns the light off and we just keep driving down the road and Kaden starts to cry. I turned around to see what was wrong and he still had his arm straight up. I asked him what was wrong and he said that he couldn't get his arm to go back down. Poor kid. So we don't know what it wrong with him. In the hospital they thought that is was an infection in the hip because he had had an ear infection just about a week before that and he was allergic to the medicine so I didn't give him like the last couple of days of the antibiotic, so that is what they were thinking it was, but then with the arm thing they have no idea, so they are sending us down to primary childrens to see a rhuemitologist? Sorry don't know how to spell that one. Anyway, so we will see how that one goes.
So Friday the 12th I took Maisie into the doctor because I figured that she had an ear infection, which she did. So more antibiotics. Hopefully she isn't like Kaden and is allergic to 4 different antibiotics like him. The only side effect so far on this one is that she has red poo. Yes red. I freaked out at first, but then read the information stuff they give ya for each med, and it said that that could be a side effect. Interesting.
Well, that has been the last few weeks for us. It sucked and medical bills suck, but it could be way worse. As I read your blogs and see the medical things that some of you go through all of the time, I hope you know that we think about you and pray for you and I really enjoy seeing the updates of everyone. I should be a lot better at it. I have often wondered why we've had to go through this stuff. I already know that there is a Heavenly Father and I have no doubt about that, so why does it have to all come at once? Then my mom helped me remember how I had gained my testimony. There was a lot that we went through as a family between all of the "could have been deaths" ,like the time down south which was supposed to be a joy ride turned into a hell ride with dirt roads turning into slick roads with cliffs everywhere we turned because it had started to snow like no other and then loosing the transmition at the same time (which if I remember right my dad put dish soap in where the transmition fluid is supposed to go so that we could get out of the canyon?), then there was all of the medical things like Kris falling out of the tree breaking his hip pelvis and femur and then Kuris getting a third degree burn on his hand just a few weeks after that and having to have skin grafts (while Kris was still in the hospital because of the fall) , while half of our house didn't have power and the roof leaked like no other. Or the time that the wheel came off (all at different times) of the jeep and the truck and the trailer, or starting the trailer on fire because of brakes not working right or the horse almost falling through the floor of the horse trailer, or having the horse trailer coming off of the hitch as my dad was driving down the road and it flipping and my dad not even knowing it because of a huge camper they had on the truck. Luckily the horses were ok. There was many many more things like all of these things that happened, which I ought to take the time and write them all down, I could certainly make a book out of that. Anyway through all of those experiences I had come to know without a doubt that the gospel is true, that there is a Heavenly Father who loves us and our Savior, our brother, that sacrificed everything so that we can return to Heavenly Father lives. As I prayed and thought about all of that I had come to realize that yes, I do know that there is a Heavenly Father, and my kids do too, but through these things they will be able to have that firm testimony that they need to withstand those things of which the prophets have testified of that are coming to past all around us in these the latter days. I just hope that in all of the bustling of these trials and life that I will remember to teach my children, like my parents did, that Heavenly Father does love us and that everything that we went through could always have been worse, and that through those things we see the little miracles that take place in our lives everyday.
I am so grateful for all that I have come to know and for a loving Heavenly Father who does give us these trials so that we can prove to him and ourselves that we can do these things. I am so grateful to my parents that taught me the gospel daily, even when there was those times that as Elder Bednar described in a conference talk about their family gatherings "mom he's looking at me, mom she touched me" or my personal favorite that Elder Bednar said "mom he's breathing my air!" Oh good old times and in those things I am grateful for! Love you all!

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Kids and doctors

Hospitals, doctors and iv's oh my! Hopefully I will update here soon to show our last 3 week adventures of kids and doctors and/or hospital stays :( poor kids.

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