eight is great!

Elsie got baptized on saturday. It was a special day.
She had many family and friends come to say congratulations and we were so thankful to all those who came!

Jake teased a couple of days before her baptism that he was hoping her receiving the Holy Ghost might settle her down a bit :). It has just a little but we do love her spirit and energy and comedic relief she is to our family. Love and Kisses to you Elsie Jane! We are so very proud of you!

Three down, two to go!

Early Riser

Rhen has always been an early riser. He's up by 6:30 most days, sometimes earlier. In fact he went through a tiresome phase where he'd wake up at 3 or 4 in the morning, ready to go for the day. He'd refuse to go back in his room and throw a crying fit if you tried to make him. Of course we didn't want him to wake everyone else up so we'd have to get up with him. He finally got over that, but still wakes up early. Most days he'll walk into our room and put his face right next to mine and look at me until I wake... or he'll walk in and shove a cup in my face and say, "dad! get me juice!" Recently he's finally caught on to manners, so he shoves the cup in my face and says, "Can you get me some juice please dad?" That's been a nice change, but i'd still prefer other methods of waking me up. I really haven't used an alarm since he was born because I'm usually up way before I need to go anywhere.

This morning he was up again at about 6:30. Stacie's gone to girls camp so I was laying in the bed alone. Actually I think it's lying in bed isn't it? Lie-ing? Ah, who cares.

Rhen quietly walked around to Stacie's side of the bed. I could hear his shuffling little feet and thought it odd he wasn't right in my face as usual. I mumbled, "hey buddy, you sleep well?"

"ya, but i didn't have dweams," he said, though i'm not sure he understands what they are.

He crawled up the bed, onto my pillow and spooned my head and shoulders with his lanky little self, chin resting on my forehead. He wrapped his arm around my neck, hand on my chin, little fingers stroking my unshaven stubble. Then he gave a little squeeze and said, "You're a really good dad."

That made all the cup-in-face shoving worth it. I reached up behind me and hugged him for a minute, and then...

"Dad, I need juice."

Doesn't Hurt to Ask Questions

Putting Rhen to bed last night...

Rhen, "dad, can I have some more milk?"
me, "Sorry no, you'll pee the bed if you drink too much before sleep."

Rhen thinking...
"Dad, when i am done with this milk... If i cry really bad for a while will you get me some more milk?"

chuckling, "No, sorry buddy. No more milk tonight."

"but Dad?!"

Rhen, calm and with reasoned determination, "Well, when you were gone to wyNoming mommy gave me milk a little bit. But i wanted more so I cried really loud for long time and she got me more milk."

gotta love how the little ones figure out how to play their parents.

Threek

Tuesday was a 'mystery dinner' for activity days for Chloe. The location of the activity was a mystery so after driving around trying to find it, Chloe and I decided to have a dinner of our own instead. it was a fun date and Chloe was excited to tell me what a threek is, a fork with only 3 tines. As usual she was super hungry, but hardly ate. But it was just fun to hang out.

Stacie, The engine that could.

Stacie just ran the Ragnar this weekend with Spence, Josh, Jena, Chad, Nathan, Nicole, Melissa, Brett, Brian, Julia and Stacy. Most of you reading this probably know what the Ragnar is, but if you don't it's a relay race (188 miles or something) from Logan to Park City up and over all the mountains a long the way. She was nervous about it because she hasn't had a lot of time over the last few weeks to run hills. She had some really tough legs but ran it well. She was like a little choo-choo train plugging along at a very consistant pace no matter the incline. It was very impressive, but she won't admit it so I am.

Spence trained for 3 weeks and was pretty amazingly fast. He took the legs I planned on running before the nasty shin splints presented themselves. He did them better than I would have, and I was running for months beforehand. He has a natural gift for running I think. If you watch him run he looks completely comfortable like it's the easiest thing to run up a super steep hill. At one point after about 7 miles of running he grabbed a cold dewskie a bystander handed him and pounded it as he ran up a super steep incline. Classic Spence.

Everyone else did great as well. Six of us were in one car and the other 6 in another so we only had everyone together for a few minutes during the whole 2 days. Josh and Stacy were in the other car so I'm not sure how their legs went, but their team always showed up at the exchanges earlier than we planned. Sounds like they had a great time too.

My Perceptive Wife

For years now I have had this little "soul patch" as it were under my lower lip. It's a pretty subtle expression of manhood since I am not a hairy man and just about the only place whiskers grow on my face is just under my lip. Even there it's sketchy.

Back in January I shaved it off. Figured i'd go for clean shaven look to mix things up. Today, June 16th, while consuming a Turkey Pesto at Great Harvest in the mid afternoon Stac looks at me puzzled and says, "Why did you shave your patch, I liked that!"

too much, darling, too much (the incredibles)

Just because you get a diagnosis and get treated, does not mean you are free from worry and stress. We come home and I have to be the home nurse, give her the meds, flush her line and worry about why she isn't eating and looking pale. Saturday was a rough day for me.
So when we returned home for the hospital we got the delivery of her medicine for her line. There wasn't any heprin in the delivery so I had Jake run out in the pouring ran to stop the van and asked about it. He said the new lines now days don't need heprin, so she should be fine. In the back of my mind I thought, I still need heprin, I wasn't feeling comfortable without it (heprin is used after a saline flush, through the line, to lock the line so it won't get blocked. It has called heplock). I just went with what he said. We did fine until saturday. Jake was out of town to wyo (of coarse this has to be the case). I pushed and pushed, and no medicine would go in, and no blood would come when I pulled back (which is suppose to). I was frustrated. I called ICS at primary and they asked if I had done this and this, and I had done this and that. It was inevitable I had to call home health care. I have not had awesome experiences with IHC home health care, the politics that go into health and insurance at times is a joke, but I needed some heavy duty heprin to unblock this line.
When the medicines were delivered the night we got home from the hospital a nurse from home health called and wanted to show me the how to care for the line. I told her I knew all the procedures and wanted to save her the time and energy to come out to my house to show me what I already knew. Well one thing I had forgotten was that I had to jump through their hoops to get medical care. I wasn't reminded of that on this night, I was reminded on saturday morning.

I finally got a hold of the home health care on call nurse. I told her my situation and she explained to me that Chloe was not in their system, there is nothing she can do for me and I would need to go the the ER to get her meds started. I explained that I should be in the system because they gave me drugs and were delivered to my house. Again she told me she couldn't come out to help because Chloe was not entered as a currant patient. I was being denied health care? The ER is 200g's, plus every time we go there we are sent down to primary because they either don't know what to do, or that Chloe is just a special situation. I didn't want to go there. I called ICS again and told them the home health won't come to my house. Jake was gone, was I going to have to go down to primary, get it taken out, put a new one in? Leave my kids here? Was she seriously not going to come to my house to help me get the meds started?

I told ICS nurse about the heprin situation, and she said some lines still do need heprin and some are different and I needed the heprin. She called home health care while I was waiting and calling Jake letting him know and taking care of kids and trying to push the saline through her line, and nothing happening with her line. I got a call back after a few minutes from the on call nurse, I heard her typing and she said "OH there she is." But you told the nurse you didn't need her the night you got home from the hospital, you said you knew how to take care of the line. YOu have to be entered in and sign all our paperwork to get our services." OK, yes, I did say those things but in my defense (which I did not inform her of) when she got out of the hospital as a bone marrow patient and needed home health I didn't have to sign all the papers, I had forgotten it has been three years since I have used home health, and to be honest I hated to admit we needed it again.

We got things scheduled and she would come then ironically right after I got off the phone with her, I tried the line again and got the medicine to go through, but slowly.

To make a long story short (too late) the nurse finally came, did all the hour long paper work and went through all Chloe's medicine she wasn't on anymore (boy she was on a lot of stuff back then) pushed the heavy dose of heprin through, I waited two hours to settle and it works great now. Chloe is on the services of home health until she get her picc out, and I have heprin to flush it with. There is more stress to this story (little things going wrong) but if I listed it all this post would be too long.

Nothing is easy with five kids, but having this happen and doing it by myself was a little too much for me, but you can see from the picture her face is getting way better. I think she will have some scarring on her chin (bummer) but how much I am not sure. Her line is working and dressing was changed and now today I can breath.

ps my other kids didn't end up going to camp hobe because the form we need to fill out for them to attend asked specifically if they were exposed to chicken pox, and of coarse they have so I didn't want to risk going and being turned away, or exposing anyone else. Next year they will go.

the 411

While I was at the hospital I ran into one of Chloe's BMT doctors. She informed me that a lot of kids who take the medicine Acyclovir for an extended amount of time (which Chloe did, for two+ years) studies have shown that 6 months to a year after they have stopped taking them, they develop shingles (pretty ironic since Acyclovir is the drug to get rid of them). The doctor checked her chart and, sure enough, it is that time frame for Chloe . So that caused the shingles to break out and having a cord blood transplant, her new blood didn't realize her body already had the chicken pox, broke out when the shingles came. She had a pretty severe case I must say and that stinking infection wasn't helpful either. She got hit with three big whammies.
She feels lousy today, I can't get her to eat, the drugs make her stomach hurt and although the shingles are getting better they look like bloody scabs, so although it is getting better, it doesn't "look" better. I am hoping they don't scar. That would be another whammie, scarring on her face. Only time will tell I guess.

We would like to thank you again for all your prayers and thoughts on Chloe's behalf. We are very grateful for them and the comfort they brought to us when we were a little nervous about this crazy week we have had. I don't realize how stressed I feel until I get home, I've had a headache everyday since I got home and my body is worn out. So the prayers are much appreciated.

The good and the bad

The good...we are home!!

The bad....She can't go to camp hobe : (


She was really really sad when the doctor told her that. She has to be on iv antibiotics at home for 10 days and I think they do that at camp hobe. I think she will still be a contagious and we don't want to spread it to any immunosuppressant kiddo's. She will be able to go next year, but she wanted to go this year because her great friend Jocelyn is going to be a counselor. We were really done about it. Timing in life sometimes makes me wonder.

Funny thing, I posted the other day that I was so excited about Chloe wanting to do a craft, so I hurried and got something for her to do not thinking at all. Other ICS patients would not be able to use any of the crafts unless they were all cleaned. I choose beads, and took most all of them available so she could have a selection. Well we are now a proud owner of a crap load of beads. Our nurse said,"I don't wanna clean all those beads, why don't you just take them home." That is what we did.

So the good news...we don't have to buy beads for awhile

bad....we will be making book back chains, necklaces and bracelet and whatever else we can think of for a long time ; )
could be worse.


Good news...she got to sleep in her own bed

bad news...we have her space balls back for iv hook up every 8 hours, which brings us reminders of more stressful times.





Good news...her shingles are starting to scab

Bad news...they are starting to itch!


Bad news.... I forgot to hook her up after 8 hours like I was suppose to (shoot)

good news...we don't have to to a hook up at 3 am


I always need some down time when I get home from the hospital, I get into survival mode while at the hospital (be strong, be strong, it isn't that bad being in a small tiny room with a sick child and telling her she can't go to camp hobe, and telling her I don't know how long her face will look like that). When I get home, it all crashes down and makes me sad, so I mostly hibernate for a few days, and just breath.

day nine of the blasted virus

Talk of home today! We shall see after rounds, we are excited!




We will go home with a picc line for iv medicine at home and hopefully can take picc out on friday for oral meds. And if they are all crusted over, camp hobe on monday!

day 8 of this crazy virus= no fever!

No fever last night! Her swelling has improved, but her rash is still hanging on, not crusting over just yet. Bummer.

We had a good laugh and giggled at our movie last night. Clue. I loved the movie when I was little and makes me happy my kids like it too. And they quote their favorite lines just as I did. I have that movie memorized.

Here is a picture of her rash today. She is watching Tom and Jerry old school. It cracks me up, she likes the same movies now at ten that she did when she was four, five and six.


Last night Chloe asked me a great thing, "Mom, can I do a craft?" I say "Yes! You. Can!!" I know when she asks to do that she feels a lot better! I have tried over and over for her to do something other than lay around and watch TV. She didn't even want to paint the tech Tommy's fingernails! What little girl here doesn't want to put bright pink, orange or red paint on the guys fingernails here (ha ha)? One that doesn't feel good : (. However at nine last night she wanted to do a craft. It was a proud moment. I smiled big and went to rummage through and see what we could make. We ended up making these (below) to hang on her back pack for next year and her new school. She made three last night and just completed another!




The bad thing about getting a iphone off ebay and hacking into your service provider is if the battery dies you have to re hack it and I have no ability to do that. Last night I made sure it had enough juice (3/4 battery left) and this morning it was dead and now I have no phone. It is driving me crazy to be here with no connection with the outside world. Good thing I have a good ibook to read on the ipad. We are techno junkies! Have a good one today all who reads this and say a prayer for Chlo! Thanks

day 7 of this ridiculous virus

Showers fell so good!! Especially if you haven't had one in a few days, plus you have puss all over in it making your hair turn into dread locks. I convinced Chloe to take on this morning. She is pretty tipsy so we had a chair shower. The bath tub (which she would prefer) is communal so she can't use it. I washed and washed and washed her hair trying to get the dreads untangles but alas had to cut some off by the ear and hair line at her neck, we will have to get her hair styled after this is through.
She felt good after it and we put her hair in a braid away from the sores.

Although the sores look better, it is just taking forever for these buggars to crust over. The dermatologist was surprised when she saw they weren't scabbed over by now. Chloe's body just isn't like a normal kids, her body has gone through a lot and doesn't heel as fast. Her swelling has gone down a bit, but has a major headache today. The doctor finally came and answered some questions for me, I was a bit frustrated earlier when the dermatologist came and asked what the doctor thought, I said I don't know to all her questions. I wasn't told much by any of them (maybe I was told but it was Dr Lemons who was on this weekend and he could have told me answers, but his road runner mouth, and my slow brain, didn't mesh). A resident came in just now to help out with my questions and I don't feel as frustrated about it. I should be more frustrated with myself though, because I forget to ask the questions I have, the doctors would answer if I just had the right questions.

I am on a roller coaster of feelings. It is weird to be here, it feels like I have never left this place. But then I remember this will only be for a week or so and then we can go home. I stayed her for 2 months, I can handle it for 7 days. Then I look at her face and see how yucky it looks and feel sad. Like I said, roller coaster.

Tonight we plan to watch a little Clue and maybe even get some popcorn to go with it! Thanks Kins for the delivery!

day 6 of this nasty virus

We moved up to the fourth floor, our home away from home three years ago. It is weird, I have deja vu, then I remind myself it was much much worse then. It has brought back a lot of memories.
Our nurse back then, Kathy, came to visit us when she saw her name on the board, and said, No? Our chloe? Here? She came to chat, however chloe is in low spirits today. She didn't chat much back to her.



Chloe didn't feel super awesome today (but she still gives me that smile, and I didn't have to ask). Her face is more swollen and can barely open her left eye. She feels sad her face looks so different and wants this zoster virus to go away!
Last night she needed to get i.v.i.g. Her IGG levels were low. IGG levels are antibodies that body normal has to fight infections. She got her dose last night. Right when they hooked her up she immediately started violently shivering (which also hurt her back because of her LP the day before) and couldn't stop. Her blood pressure went up plus she had a fever, so we couldn't give her warm blankets. I was coming back into the room after telling her nurse about it, she informed me she prayed she would stop shivering. Such faith. That was a proud mom moment and a moment I can learn from. When things get hard, pray. The shivering subsided a bit until the nurse came in and reduced the speed of the meds which cause her shivering to stop.



she got her picc line in place this morning, it is a good thing too because another vein died this morning because of the antibody she is getting. She has had to get 3 IV lines (which by the way is the worst thing for her here, plus they had to do them in her hand, which is double worse). I have tried everything today to get her in a good mood, I even thought of dancing around the room, but lets me honest, there is not a whole lot of room in here and didn't want to cause injury to myself! She has had very low spirits today, until...




was given this doll. Her name is Gia and she is from Italy, has a book and a passport and had the cutest clothes!

There is the primary children's telethone going on this weekend (if you can donate, please do) so a lady came to the fourth floor and asked if chloe wanted one of these dolls that were donated to the hospital. She has said more words in the last 15 minutes than she has all day. Her spirits perked up right away and is excited to have her American Girl doll at home have a cousin from another country. They are very cute dolls. They also included the name and address of the individual who donate it, it made my chloe's day and I wanted to thank them for that!

We most likely will be here a few more days, all depending on how fast her rash heals. One of our nurses, Dave, said he thought most likely 7 days so that would put us around Wed or Thurs. We are praying it goes away faster so she can head to camp hobe on the 13th.

ps
The dolls are called Karito kid, they are very cute and they have a website just in case you want to check them out.

day 5 of this nasty virus

Even though she feels like crap this girl can give me a smile when I ask her to. Even if she is crying and I go to take a picture she gives me a half smile at least.

She slept pretty good considering her rash, the vanco meds they give her, gives her a side effect called red man, her head get red and irritated and hot. Although they pre med for that last night she was very irritable and antsy. She kept tossing and turning and moaning.
Her face has infection in it where the most of the virus is, it is puffy and her eye is pretty much swelled shut today. Her IGG levels are low (they are what help fight infection) so they are going to give her a dose of that today, and much to her dismay she will get another picc line. I lost track of how many of those she has had, at least a dozen. Because of her background and what she has gone through is most likely the reason why the virus is so bad. We don't know how long we will stay here, but the meds might take two weeks to give, so we will be coming home with the picc line in place. More dressing changes.
She just said irritated, " I have gone so long without any problems!" Chloe doesn't so things on a small scale, when she does something it is never half effort.

ps

Dear food prep worker man at Primary,

I was so glad to hear your happy voice this morning over the phone. After the years we have been away from here I heard the same, "Hey, and what can we do for Chloe-mae?." and "Is that all we can do for miss Chloe?" You brought a smile to my face to know you are still the happy guy as before. Thank you for always being cheery and for making me smile today.

Chloe Mae's mom

The good the bad and the ugly.

Today's been a worrisome one. So far as parents when the doctors at our local hospital had been unsure about a problem, the final diagnosis was less than desirable. So you can imagine that we were a little bit distressed with the unknowns on this one. When cancer came back last time it was painful lumps in her arm so we didn't rule out that it could also present itself as painful blisters on her skin. Stacie and I both had the same worries that it might be linked to cancer but were afraid to bring it up to each other.

After waiting for a couple of hours in the ER here we were suddenly bombarded with the dermatologist doctors, Infectious disease team of docs, oncology doctor, nurses, iv teams and nurse practitioners in our room almost all at the same time. And just then Jeff arrived from DC with Kinsey and Ben ( who graciously picked him up at the airport) to make sure we were ok. Thanks for coming guys, we sure appreciate everyones concern. We didn't get to visit much but Chloe smiled for the first time in days wen she heard Kinsey and Ben's good news. Jeff looked dashing in his business casual, probably just closed a huge deal in Washington cause thats how he plays the game. In the last hour she has had 6 or 7 blister samples taken, 2 or 3 iv attempts, a CT scan, exams by 5 or 7 doctors with their teams in tow, photos taken, and a spinal tap - or lumbar puncture as it were. And suddenly we have some answers.

Apparently she has something in the same viral family as shingles. It's called the Zoster virus, but whatever you do don't count on that spelling as accurate. She has had chicken pox before, but as most of you reading this are aware she had a bone marrow transplant, which kinda makes it like she hasn't had chicken pox. So once you've had the chicken pox, you generally don't get them again but you can get shingles - in the Zoster family - and the zoster virus can be dormant in your body. So here is the theory: Chloe has had chicken pox so her body had he zoster virus dormant. Since she has had a bone marrow transplant her body also thinks she hasn't had chicken pox - cause she has an unvaccinated baby's chord blood as a transplant. So when the Zoster virus presented itself, they think the body reacted with chicken pox as well. Yeah, she has both. Zoster and chicken pox.

It's pretty rare to have both at the same time and she has some other side effects they were concerned about. They did the lumbar puncture to make sure there were no signs of meningitis and a CT scan I think to check for the same and internal swelling around her neck and brain because she was complaining about pain and her face is quite swollen right now. Everything was clean on both tests.

Blood tests came back looking great so we're very thankful this is not related to cancer returning.

Protocol is to keep her here for a few days or 7 so they can give her intravenous meds which work better, and let it run it's course. And since she has such an odd case and circumstances each team of docs want to keep an eye on her.

Consider yourself updated and thank you all for your concern.

Poor Chlo-pants

What we thought was simple shingles virus is suddenly much more serious. Yesterday she had a bunch of blisters:




We took her to the doctor and got her on some antibiotics as quickly as we could thinking it was a variation of shingles. Today the blistering is a little bit out of control.



Sorry for the graphic pics. I'm writing now because We're bored in the Primary Childrens ER waiting for a doctor to come and check out this rash. Docs in Logan sent us here so we could get faster answers as the labs in Logan can't get test results as quickly. So far the doctors in the ER down here aren't quite as fast as those in Logan. The antibiotics are not working and the docs in Logan have ruled out the virus that causes shingles, just haven't ruled anything IN yet. Sounds like a rare case of something that's not very desirable at all. Poor Chloe seems to get all of he junky illnesses in our family. She is miserable as you can imagine and can't wait to not have blisters all over.

Thanks neighbors for helping us out with our other 4, again. We sure appreciate you.

Eyes Like the Sea After a Storm

i devised a sweet plan this week and didn't shave at all so that Saturday I could trim out a sweet Wesley stache (Princess Bride style). Stacie didn't appreciate it. At all.

Mommy's Girl

Layla loves her mom. Alot. The last few days Stacie has been really sick but for Layla, no one else will do. Sometimes it's not that she needs anything from Stacie, she just wants to be by her. The smell of mom right next to her must make her happy. Today, I was trying to give Stacie some resting time, but Layla really wanted into the bedroom to see her. She snuggled right up next to Stac, and then she was happy. Later she grabbed Stacie's iphone to play Talking Karl. She thinks Karl is pretty funny as you can see.

Soccer

Chloe and Elsie's first year in soccer was short but sweet. They have gotten better over the past few weeks and had fun being part of a team. Elsie has a tendency to lose focus, wander around and daydream when the action moves down the field away from her position. But, when she remembers she is in a game she's a fast runner and getting to be a pretty good fullback.

Chloe takes the game a little more seriously and sometimes gets her feelings hurt if the other team scores. She's a tender hearted girl. At first she was really timid and afraid of getting into the action, but lately she's gotten more aggressive which has been fun to watch. The pic below is what I saw while I was watching. She drove to the goal but unfortunately couldn't pull off a shot. Seems like such a small thing, but after all Chloe's been through it's really neat to see her out on the field playing with all of the other kids. She and Elsie both had a lot of fun and want to play next year too.

Clue

My girls like to hang out with their mom sometimes and watch old British classics, especially Addie since she getting older and gets all emotional about the love stories. They also like to play Clue.

Tonight Stacie was sick in bed and Thursday's are no electronics night at our house; Chloe thought we should play a game - Addie decided it'd be more fun if we played it with British accents like the movies. There were lots of dreadfully awful accusations and overly dramatic statements made so it was a bit more exciting than usual. I was impressed with their skills, even Elsie can do a pretty good accent.

Chloe finished the game with a comment that sounded as if it came from a stout, seasoned woman serving warm beer at an Irish pub. And she knew exactly what she was doing. She's got a knack for it, that girl.

Stroll Through the Park

Rhen and Avery taking a stroll. I don't have much to say about this picture, i just thought it was cute.

Everything is better with Bacon

Chloe and I took a trip to Wy last week which turned out to be a lousy day due to horrible weather, cancelled drywall delivery, a basement almost flooding (problem solved), a finger almost broken and very muddy, wet shoes and clothes. Despite all that, and thanks to Chloe, it was one of the funnest trips. She was a great helper and good company.

We just about had some bacon on the car-b-q when out of no where these pigs strolled out on the road somewhere in Ovid. You wouldn't expect to see wildlife in a big city like Ovid, but we did.

new blog

I have a new blog. It is to get some of my creative energy out and have fun with the things going on in my life, and also with building a new house I wanted to document it. Whenever Jake has taken Rhen to our property in Star Valley he has called it the house in the trees. So my blog, mylifeinthetrees.com begins. You can go check it out, or not :).

Destroyer of Self Esteem

Tonight I was reading Rhen some books before bed. After reading several pages of Curious George, Big and Small I started making up my own big and small comparisons.

Me: "Dad is big, Rhen is small. Dad's shirt is big, Rhen's shirt is small." Rhen was in agreement until, "Dad's muscles are big, Rhen's are small"

Rhen: "Whatever. Yours is like a barbie dad."

goings on

not too much has been happening at our house lately. Either that or too much has been and that's why we haven't blogged for a while. It's Sunday and I had some free time tonight so I figured I'd write a long post about the last month. That way when we're old and can't remember anything we can read back about what we did in January of 2011. Anyway, here are some things we did:

I took Rhen up to do some skiing last week. He did great, but was a little more interested in riding up the lift. He thought that was pretty cool. Yes that is a picture of a cruiser around his neck. His sisters were making necklaces and he really wanted his own necklace. I gave him a lanyard and he wanted a picture of a cruiser in it - i was very proud. I think it's better than pink and purple beads.


This is Rhen taking it easy on the hill thinking about going on another lift ride.

Stacie's been skiing more this year than she has since we got married, which is nice because she is learning fast and getting much better. Not that she wasn't good before, just sayin. She hasn't been able to go for a long time because every year we were able, she was pregnant or had a newborn. It's been really nice to have her up on the hill with me and the kids. One of these days maybe I'll get her out in the powder after a nice storm. Chloe loves skiing, Elsie and Addie are thinking about it. I think if Justin Bieber were to show up Addie would enjoy skiing a bit more. For right now she is unsure about being out in the cold for so long voluntarily

Speaking of Bieber fever, I tease Addie about Biebs from time to time and I guess Rhen decided he'd join in. Yesterday i was playing with Layla on the floor and Rhen came running in with his hair wet and combed down over his eyebrows and he says, "hey Dad, Check it out! I made a Beiber!" Pretty cool.

Rhen started to affectionately call Layla, "Lay". It's pretty cute. If she's crying he'll sweetly say, "don't cry Lay. it's ok."

In January, we celebrated Chloe's bone marrow birthday, and then a week later her real birthday. Since she had two birthdays, she wanted a Pazookie instead of a cake for one of them (thanks for the pan Eskelson's/Whites! it gets alot of use). Chloe is down to checkups every three months, which we are really enjoying. We had a visit last week and she is doing great. Everything looks wonderful and we are so grateful. Another exciting event was that Addie got braces as you can see in this pic. Chloe got some kind of mouthpiece aparatus which is a prelude to braces so we have those bills to look forward to.

Stacie distributed some hugs throughout this month as mothers tend to do. This was one. She gives good hugs.


Stacie has also turned into a running machine. She runs most every day and has started capping the weeks off with a 10 miler on Saturday, just for good measure I guess. I run to the fridge when I am hungry, and figuratively I 'run' to the post office occasionally. I haven't capped anything off since that broken sprinkler pipe last summer.

My brother Jeff and I hit a Manchester United game a few weeks ago. He is a huge fan and has really been wanting to catch a game in person so I decided to tag along cause it sounded really fun. It was. I wish I had made arrangements to take Stac with me. I definitely owe her one since she was stressed out with 5 kids while I was galavanting around with Jeff. Oh and Man-U won very comfortably. It was an exciting game and way better in person than on TV.

We cruised through the countryside to catch a church meeting in Preston. The countryside was beautiful as always. Jeff drove that 1.2 liter Skoda compact like he owned it.

We got there just in time for sacrament meeting to start in Preston and had a wonderful experience there. Pretty hilarious actually, but thats for another posting. The temple next door was beautiful as expected.

Then we strolled around the Rievaulx Abby ruins in the rain. It was a very memorable trip and always fun to spend time with Jeff and try and gain a little of his wisdom.


Layla started to walk this last week. She doesn't like it enough to keep trying until she gets it, but she'll take a few steps here and there and loves to stand on her own. She also started dancing - or trying to while keeping her feet planted. It's pretty darn cute.

In between our regular daily duties we've been taking many trips up to WY to work on or check in on our remodel project we have going on up there. We're getting a hefty new roof that should hold up better than the old one, so that is pretty exciting. We also just got a pretty sweet new flight of stairs welded in. It's been challenging for the guy framing up the addition/remodel as we've had a combined snow total of 120" that has had to be shoveled away. It'll be months before we're ready to start finishing things off, but we're on our way.



Well that pretty much sums it up for now. Maybe we'll start posting more regularly, or maybe not. It's the unknowns that make life more interesting.

a favorite thing, christmas decorations

Thanks to addie and her creative photography, we got some good action shots plus pretty great shots of the final product this year.

crazy cute kids! We had so much fun putting the decorations and being together and drinking egg nog.

Rhen was very helpful putting the decorations on and very good at not pulling them off this year! Yay.

This last picture is our after thanksgiving family dinner. After we had a wonderful dinner at grandma's we had one again on sunday at home. Both were delightful.

The Rhen-man is three

Rhen had a fun birthday, cake, balloons, pizza and toys. What more could you ask for? Just look at that smile, that says it all. Here he is wearing our family birthday hat, each year we add a trinket to the hat and they get to sport it while we sing to them. For his birthday we are going to add a horse from his birthday cake.

It is very ironic, since Rhen is lactose intolerant, that he loves pizza. We take off the cheese then he eats the peporoni and bread and dips it into the ranch dressing. YUMMMM

He saw this little tractor and horses and "guys" as Rhen calls them. He wanted them on his cake. He was to anxious to wait to play with them so I got them out for him to play with them the day before I made the cake. The next day I made the cake and went to put the horses and guys on it and couldn't find them, he searched most the day for them. He wanted them on so bad and was so glad to find them and ran to me when he did and said, "put it on the cake!!"

ode to Jake

Since Jake wrote such sweet poetry to me, I thought I would reciprocate the guesture, although I am not nearly as poetic with the english language.

Jake is like the Patagonia Nano Puff Jacket

Durable, good looking, well worth the exta cash and always in style. Light weight, yet warm. It protects you from the wind and rain. In any element you just want to have it around. As unpredictable as the weather is, it wraps around you to make the storms bearable and comforts you to were you never want to take it off.

Love you Jake xxXOOooXxO