family comes to town

The weekend of Haylee's baptism we had some family come to town. My mom, sister, my Aunt ShaRee, Uncle Val, and my dad. My dad didn't come until Friday evening, everyone else got here Thursday afternoon so we spent Friday in DC at a couple of museums. It was FREEZING that day but we still had a fun time.

The fun started on the metro.

Sierra and Krissie

We stopped at the Museum of Natural History first. Haylee LOVES butterflies.

And this gives you a look at how long her hair is.

Pretty girls.

The peeps. Uncle Val, Aunt ShaRee, Sierra, Krissie, Haylee and Grandma

In front of a wooly mammoth.

My mom came up with the caption for this photo:

the dinosaurs among some older ones of their kind -lol

An albino squirrel! It was so cool! We decided he was from Narnia.

This is in the air and space museum, a cool thermal camera

Mom is hanging on! Yikes!

Haylee is going for a crazy ride!

And while we were at the museum one of my bff's Michelle was giving birth to this little beauty.

Avery Paige was born 4 days late!

I was so excited to meet her as SOON as we walked in the door from being in DC. Joe and I raced to the hospital to meet her! So excited to be an auntie again!

We are so blessed to have such great family and friends!!!!

Stuff in February...

Just a few random pics for this post:

Sierra looking fab at the Bishop's storehouse

HD turning 16, this is his genuine smile -he can't do it on command you just have to catch it! :)

We are big on the Olympics at our house. Haylee especially so I made her these "olympic pancakes" She loved it! I think we have a new tradition in our house.

HD and his date from the Priest/Laurel dinner dance -(a dance at church for 16-18 year olds) he didn't ask her they assign dates to give you an opportunity to meet new people. He really liked her though and asked her to the "mormon prom" that is being held next weekend. :)

That is my random stuff for February. :)

On their own...

I know I haven't posted in forever and sorry this post isn't coming with pictures but I have a cute story to tell well probably more than one and I really want to get them down.

But to catch up a bit first:

December: Christmas, presents, giving, recieving, lots of snow (way more than we usually get) and all that jazz of the holidays

January: warmed up a little, nothing too exciting

February: HD turned 16 and was ordained a priest, EPIC SNOWSTORM, Haylee's baptism. It was AMAZING! One of the times I have felt the Spirit the strongest in my entire life. HD did a great job baptizing her...a whole post by itself on that soon.

March: I had my gall bladder removed a week ago and OUCH! I am still very sore. I was really hoping to just bounce right back.

Anyway, my on their own stories:

Sierra spoke in church a few weeks ago. Her topic was choice and accountability. She did the whole talk herself and it was the first time I didn't look it over "just to check" she did a great job and had the congregation laughing at her candid teenager speak: "So ya know, just don't choose the wrong." lol she did such a great job.

HD has the craziest schedule of anyone I know and I know some pretty busy people he just made the baseball team playing shortstop and here is his daily schedule right now:

5:08am wake up for seminary

5:30am seminary begins

6:30-7:30am try to take a "nap" before school or finish homework from the night before

8:00 catch the bus

9:05-3:40 school -work REALLY HARD to maintain a 3.9 GPA

4:00-4:45 study hall

5:00-7:00/7:15 - baseball practice

7:30/7:45: get home

8:00 eat dinner

8:30 shower

9:00 do homework until 10 or 10:30

10:30 go to sleep for 6 and a half hours to do it OVER AGAIN THE NEXT DAY!

--there is no way on this earth I could keep up with the schedule he does. Well Monday night he came home and was exhausted and so frustrated. He had a ton of homework and hadn't slept well the night before. He could barely keep his eyes open so at 10 he called it a day and set his alarm for FOUR O'CLOCK AM to finish his homework before seminary. He was having a really hard time and I felt so bad for him. I re-set his alarm to 5:30 and let him skip seminary so he could get some much needed sleep. All throughout the day Tuesday I worried about him and how tired he was. I thought to myself 'I should have told him to pray' that is the best thing you can do when you need help. I didn't see him until about 9:00 Tuesday evening since Sierra and I were at youth activity at church. I worried as I drove home about how tired/frustrated he had been the night before. When I walked in I went and found him, he was like a new kid! He seemed energized, refreshed, and so positive. I said "you seem like you are doing great, I was worried about you all day. Why the change tonight?" his response "I said a prayer" ahhhh how I love those moments when I know that they are just amazing; these children of mine. The hard work sometimes pays off! Yay!

I know I have been a slacker poster and I will try to get some pictures on here soon. And details of Haylee's baptism. It was AMAZING!

Haylee funny...

Our lesson in young womens on Sunday was making good use of our time. Since I haven't updated this blog in over a month I guess I am not making very good use of mine! One of the things we told the girls was to take at least 10 minutes per day to write in your journal. I use this blog as mine and I am not very good a writing in it so a quick Haylee funny before I get back to the chaos of the day...

A couple of weeks ago I was cleaning out the van and I had the back open I left it open to come in the house and get my purse -I had to take Haylee somehwere- and she went out and got in the van while I was in the house when I went out to the van she had a sneaky smile on her face and said "uh, the doors were locked in the van so I had to climb in the back." I told her I was pretty sure they weren't locked and she giggled and said "OK, they weren't I just wanted to climb in that way." I told her I wasn't mad that climbing in the back wasn't a big deal. I then proceeded to tell her that even though it was about somthing small she still shouldn't lie to me and that I would be more mad in the future if she lied and didn't just tell the truth right off the bat. She thought for a split second and then said "well, what's the big deal? I am just gonna get baptized in a couple of months." After I was done laughing I told her I was glad she got the concept of baptism but that that wasn't really how it worked - the time before baptism isn't a free pass to do whatever you like while you wait to be washed clean. She is a crack up that girl....

Funny #2 she said the prayer at Thanksgiving dinner at Joe's parents house, her 93 year old great grandma was there with us and somewhere in Haylee's prayer she said this "and please bless great grandma in her old age and that she will live at least a couple more *pause* years..." I was so relieved when she said years I was worried she was going to say a couple more hours so she could eat dinner or somthing like that...with Haylee you never know! :)

Funny #3 on our last night Haylee, Sierra, and I stayed up an extra hour or so with Joe's mom just having some fun girl visiting time and Haylee was sitting on grandma's lap and said "hey grandma, you have a beard!" when Joe's mom laughed and pointed out we all have some hair on our face Haylee said "well, you should shave" out of the mouths of babes I suppose! lol

We have been doing great. We spent Thanksgiving in Missouri and had an amazing visit with Joe's parents and his oldest sister and her family. The kids had so much fun. HD's highlight was driving Joe's old truck that he drove in high school. He was so excited! Sierra got to drive too but I think she better wait another year and a half before she drives again. ha ha ha...she was a little quick on the brake! Haylee got to drive grandpas tractor and had a great time helping feed the cows and playing with the dogs. It was a fun trip to the farm.

Hope you are all enjoying Christmas, we are loving the spirit of the holiday and getting all ready for the big day. :D
Merry Christmas to you all!

This girl....

is EIGHT! WOW! I can't believe it has been eight years! My sweet angel faced baby girl is now my sweet angel faced 8 year old! And she's my BABY!!! New rule in my house NO MORE GROWING UP! ~truth is I've been instituting this rule since she was three and it hasn't worked. *sigh* How blessed we are to have this sweet girl in our lives. Haylee is smart, sweet, precocious, fiesty, funny, and just amazing. I can't imagine our lives without her. I wish I could rewind the clock and do the last eight years over. Anyone have a time machine??? Let me know! Because I want to go back to this......This one is about seven months This one is when she was about one

She is around 14 months I think. LOVE this one!

And this one! TOO CUTE!

How could you not love that face!

Happy 8th Birthday our sweet girl!!!

The first day of school: even though it was almost three weeks ago!

It has been so long since I updated my blog! Everytime I get on here I think I am going to update more often but it doesn't seem to happen! Oh well, onward and upward right? Quick end of summer summary (saying end of summer summary makes me smile) :) Joe is doing great! He is fully healed and eating anything he wants! He saw the doctor for the last time yesterday and he said he is good to go. Hooray! Our trip to South Carolina was FANTASTIC! Seriously one of the best vacations we have ever taken! We spent everyday on the water, fishing, swimming, boating. It was so much fun! School started for the kids on August 24th. HD decided to go back to public school this year. He is LOVING every minute of it so far! He made the varsity soccer team and was voted one of the captains! They played their first game Tuesday and he scored the winning goal! He is doing well in his classes and somehow manages to get up at 5 am for seminary and I don't pick him up from soccer practice until 7pm! That kid is pulling a 14 hour day! He wouldn't have it any other way. Sierra and Haylee are both still homeschooled. Sierra is a freshman and really likes doing all of her school work on the computer. She is doing a high school transcript program through BYU. I love it because I don't have to grade her papers! She is doing really well. She also started seminary this year. She loves seminary but does not like the early wake up call! (I don't blame her!). Haylee is in third grade and loves school for the most part. She loves math and reading but is not too fond of spelling or writing. :)
Here are our slightly out of order pictures:

Daisy at recess on the first day of school.

Haylee opening her new ice cream cone eraser
My fabulous sign in our classroom

Haylee outside at recess

Sierra at recess...5am is starting to get to her!

HD before school

a closer look

Sierra's first day at BYU

Okay peeps, that about does it for today anyway. Haylee has been writing a composition while I've been updating and I have had to listen to her complain the whole time! ha ha I better give her some more structure and look over what she has. She has written almost a whole page and just said to me "this is going to be more of an ESSAY than a compositon" she is so funny. One more Haylee funny...we watched the Presidents speech on Tuesday and when he came on tv she said "I thought the president was black" I was cracking up! She has seen him before but has never paid that much attention I guess. I explained to her that he was bi-racial. It was so cute.

Take care everyone and happy almost fall!

An update....it's not short!

Well it has been a month since I blogged and most of you know how Joe has been doing and all the chaos that went along with his injury just in case you haven't heard the news this is the latest and greatest. July 8th Joe had reconstructive surgery to repair all of the damage that was done. Before the surgery the plan was to put two titanium plates in his face to hold the bones together -one on his orbital bone (above the eye) through a cut just above his eyeborw and one on the zygoma (below the eye) by going in through the lower eyelid (not fun) and to make an incision at his hairline on the left of his head to repair the cheekbone. The day before surgery the doc told us the front of Joe's cheekbone looked like cornflakes so they were probably going to go in through the mouth and explore the area to see if it needed a plate also. After surgery he ended up with three plates and incisions above his eyebrow, in his eyelid and in his mouth between the gums and his lip. The removed some loose pieces of bone that were just "floating around" in there (ew!) and put in the three plates. The surgery went very well. The worst part was that they had sewed his left eye shut so the lower eyelid wouldn't droop and to prevent infection. When Joe came around he couldn't open his right eye either -it was too hard to do that without wanting to open the left one which caused him pain when his eye was moving all around SO they patched his right eye which meant he was blind. Very unexpected and so disorienting for him. I had my hands full those next couple of days. Haylee got really sick too. She was running a fever of 103 pretty much the entire day of his surgery and a couple of days after. There was no way I could let her get Joe sick so she lived upstairs and he lived downstairs. The night of his surgery I was running up and down getting her what she needed and taking care of Joe on one of my trips upstairs Haylee said "Mom, I have been trying not to call you a lot because I know it must be hard taking care of TWO people especially when one of them is upstairs and one of them is downstairs." she was so cute and SO GOOD to just rest and watch TV while I took care of Joe. 2 days after surgery Joe got the stitch out of his eyelid and was able to see again pretty well, he had some double vision which was normal but that cleared up in a couple of days. Besides the follow up doctors visits which all went well, that brings us to now. He is STILL on a soft foods diet!!! Until the 22nd of August so three more weeks, SO NOT FUN!! He is so tired of eating the same food all the time we are trying to find new things he can eat but it is pretty limiting since he cannot chew AT ALL per the doctors instructions that even micro movment of his bones can cause the healing to take longer/not go exactly right. His face gets sore if he talks and/or laughs too much but all in all he has done well. It was very, very hard for him to be blind. Joe is a mover and a do-er and HATES sitting still he is also extremely independent and hates relying on anyone, even me. We made it through and I am so grateful to our friends who are like family to us. I have never felt more supported in my life. The guys Joe works with and their wives are some of the awesomest people I know. They were here every day when he was so laid up just chatting and keeping him in good spirits, they went to the store for me and offered to do anything else they could think of. I am so, so, so grateful to them.
Tomorrow we leave on a quick trip to South Carolina. We are going to meet some friends at a lake there for some fun in the sun and relaxing. I can't wait!!! It has been both the longest and quickest summer I can ever remember! Hope you are all having a wonderful summer too! Happy August!!!