thirteen years later...

Rob and I 'celebrated' our 13th wedding anniversary on Tuesday.  I use the word 'celebrate' loosely since Rob was hit with the flu on Monday and I got it on Tuesday.  I was thinking about all of the ups and downs we've shared over the last 13 years together, and feel very thankful that our journey together has mostly been filled with "ups."   I think I mentioned that we finally got around to decorating the walls of our bedroom--including some of my favorite photos from our wedding day:

Last week in my blog post, I wrote about how Liv threw up (just once on Saturday night), and then seemed fine--just tired and kept food down on Sunday morning.  Well Rob and I have been taking turns going to church since we've had someone sick for an entire month.  Our plan was for Rob to take the boys to Sacrament Meeting and then I was going to swap him in the parking lot so I could go to Primary--my turn to teach sharing time.  Well, Tosh gave his first talk in primary last week.  He did such a great job and was able to read the entire thing by himself while I held up different pictures of Jesus.  Rob watched him practice and made a comment about really wanting to watch Tosh give his talk.  We decided that I would arrive with Liv at the end of Sacrament meeting (I usually get to primary early to set up the room before Sacrament Meeting is over), and then Rob would watch Tosh give his talk (I was conducting and changed things around so Tosh could go very first) and then leave with Liv.  Well, I got to the primary room to set up and sat Liv on the floor at the front of the room while I started getting the room ready.  We had been there about 30 seconds when suddenly Liv (you guessed it) threw up all over the carpet!  I have never had a kid throw up in a public place.  It was madness.  I got her cleaned up and then sat her in the back by a garbage can while I scrubbed the mess up.  The Primary President was out because of knee surgery and the other counselor wasn't there the first hour of primary so I was sort of on my own, but I pulled it together and was able to get everything under control and cleaned up before the little kids came running in.  Most of the teachers told me (after church) that they would have had no clue about what had happened.  I guess my years of being on stage helps me hide how frazzled I feel on the inside sometimes :).  To wrap up the story, of course Liv never threw up again (thankfully).   I am happy to say our entire family is healthy (knock on wood) as of today!!!

Getting back to the week, it was overcast and rainy on Wednesday (I think?).  Tosh and Liv thought it was great that I let them put on swimsuits to go out in the rain, although the temperature dropped into the 60s so they were "freezing."  Tosh discovered that he left a toy water gun out in the rain and ran to grab it.  I thought this pic of him running back looks so funny--like he was pretending to be a soldier or something (he wasn't):

Cute Tosh with raindrops on his face:

The sun came out later that afternoon and our pool guy was here and fixed our fountains (we have had him replace all of our pumps and several thing on the pool).  The fountains haven't been turned on in about a year and a half maybe?  I don't think Liv would remember them ever working.  The kids were so excited to go swimming even though it had been cold that day and the water was VERY cold.  I got some fun shots though.  Burke was cracking me up and being very funny.  I have named the next few shots...

The Finish Line:



Singing in the Shower:



Guitar Hero:

Liv loves the water and didn't seem too fazed by the temperature:

Hewitt swam for a bit and then tried to warm up on the concrete.  I think this is such a cute photo--purple lips and all:



Each quarter Burke does a book report/project with oral report for his class.  This quarter he had to pick a Newberry Award winner, and chose the book "Holes."  I had read this with (to) him a year or two ago.  We went to the library on Thursday night and he had the entire book read before he went to bed.  For his project he thought it would be cool to make a Muppet-style puppet of Stanley (main character from the book) and then Burke will pretend to be a reporter and will interview Stanley for his class presentation.  Burke watched several videos on how to make a puppet and then we bought supplies on Friday night.  We worked on the puppet for a few hours on Saturday morning and Burke did a great job learning how to use a sewing machine.  I told him that using the pedal was similar to driving a car.  I love this photo of Burke working on the puppet:

We aren't quite finished yet, but meet Stanley:

This next picture says it all!  Look at Tosh's face when Stanley talks to him.  I love it!

Rob and I got a babysitter on Saturday and went out to lunch (we weren't able to eat anything on our anniversary much less go out) and to the temple.  When we got back the kids went swimming.  It was much warmer! I pulled out some new goggles and the kids were excited.

Tosh reminded us of Spider Man!

 Hewitt swimming with his new goggle mask:

 Liv got a little cold as you can tell...

 She was so excited about the "waterfall" and loved sticking her hand and foot in it:

"Spidey" jumps to the rescue (Hewitt is helping me write this now)! 

We ended up having a late(r) dinner after swimming and were finishing up around 7:00.  I asked Burke to check on Liv since I hadn't seen or heard from her in a while.  We laughed when we discovered her sound asleep right in the family room.  All that swimming will wear a girl out! 

One other funny thing:  When we gathered the kids together for family prayers before bed last night, Tosh asked what day he was born.  I said, "You were born on a Wednesday, Burke was born on a Monday, Hewitt was born on a Saturday, Liv was born on a Sunday, and Dad and I were born on Tuesday."  Tosh said, "No, what date was I born?"  Rob said, "You were born on May 30th--you know that."  Tosh said (in a shocked and very excited voice), "I was born on my BIRTHDAY?!?!"

So cute!  Sure love these kids of ours...





hitting 100

So it's been a couple of weeks since I last posted and it looks as though Blogger has changed it's format (we'll see how this turns out!). 

So LAST weekend, the older boys and I got out our roller blades and had some fun playing roller hockey in our backyard.  It is fun to watch them get better at new things.

We had them do some shucking for the first corn on the cob of the season.  We are getting watermelon and all sorts of summer foods here.

Tosh has been very ill--probably the worst in his life.  I mentioned in my post two weeks ago that his asthma was very bad and they suspected pneumonia (didn't do an x-ray).  Well, he caught the stomach flu on top of that and threw up from a week ago last Wednesday until Monday morning.  I took him to the doctor (again) last Monday and wasn't surprised when he weighed over 2 pounds less than he had the week before.  They sent me for an x-ray as his lungs were "a total disaster" to quote the doctor.  Yes, it is pneumonia, and we will need to do another x-ray in a week or two.  So, Tosh did a second round of antibiotics and steroid treatments.  He is finally doing much better. 

Here are some silly shots we took of the kids playing around last Saturday night:

Tosh had taken a three hour nap on the couch, but perked up to laugh at the kids making "static hair"

This is a cute dress that Liv's 13-yr-old cousin wore to Aunt Sue's wedding reception.  With her hair in a high pony tail she looked very "60's" to me:

Liv's different faces crack me up! What a ham she can be.

So, this week was our third week of having someone sick and me feeling "stuck" at home without taking the kids out to do much of anything.  Hewitt got the stomach flu and was home from school on Tuesday and Wednesday throwing up and with a fever.   I have tried to stay busy with a couple of easy projects so I don't go too crazy in my somewhat "Groundhog Day" life (where everyday feels like I clean the house and prepare and clean up meals over and over...).  I saw this cute idea on Pinterest and thought it would be perfect for the wall on Liv's room by her bed where I don't have anything.  Liv LOVES butterflies and I was able to make these (2 sided butterflies) with paper that I had on hand.  Turned out really cute and Liv loves looking up at them while she is in bed.

So it has hit the 100s already!  All of the kids were healthy enough to swim yesterday.  Rob even got in and said that the water felt great--cool and refreshing and not too cold.  I was so happy that Tosh was able to swim several lengths of the pool and never started coughing.  This second round of meds is obviously working!

I love these cute pictures of Liv just after she got out of the pool yesterday afternoon.  Unfortunately, she got sick and threw up about 15 minutes before I was going to pick up the babysitter so Rob and I could go out to dinner last night (Liv had a bit of a fever on Thursday, but then seemed fine on Friday and all day yesterday).   She had an ok night and is keeping food down, but is super tired.  Looks like today will be week 4 of someone staying home from church sick.

Yesterday morning, my friend Alecia and I (and her hubby, Rob) did the Pat Tillman 4.2 mile run.  I had been super nervous about it all week thinking I would get the flu and not be able to do it (or have it hit me during the race--can you imagine!).  My right knee has been hurting off and on the last couple of weeks--especially when I run any hills or incline.  My time from last year was 37:01 and I had a secret hope to beat my time, and told Rob a while back that I would love to get the time of 35 min, but didn't think that would be possible this year.  Well, I tried to push myself pretty hard (the race is in Tempe around Sun Devil stadium and it is lots of uphill running).  I was really excited when I looked up my time yesterday afternoon and saw that my official time was 35:18.  I have to laugh that while I am running any race I am thinking, "Why am I doing this?  I hate this!" but then as soon as it's over I am looking forward to the next race.  Strange. 

p.s.  Alecia and I have joked all year about the fact that when I sprinted at the end of the race LAST year, I got trapped (super crowded) and sort of cut her off on accident and ended up beating her time by ONE second!  Well this year she toasted me by almost a full two minutes!  She is trying to talk me in to doing a marathon in October.  I have no desire for anything like that... maybe someday (like when all of my kids are in school all day).  We will see. 

After I got home from the race we spent the morning cleaning up and vaccuming the house.  Burke put together this aweome 'bed' of pillows and blankets (that I felt like staying in all day, but didn't).  Here is a cute pic of all of the kids testing it out:

'hoppy' easter

So it looks like I actually have two weekends to catch up on here.

This is a funny picture I took of Tosh with some huge malted milk balls in his mouth. I've gotten used to his short hair again. Boy, it is nice not to have to chase him around with a spray bottle in the morning.

Tosh's asthma has been horrible this past week. We've been doing albuterol treatments with the nebulizer and took him to the doctor on Friday to get a steroid treatment and antibiotics. I guess they listened to one part of the lung to determine pneumonia and the doc said the he sounded like that (bad) all over his lungs. He isn't contagious or anything, but what a challenge to keep him down and not running all over the place (especially when he feels fine other than a tight chest). He has thrown up from coughing so hard a couple of times... he seems to finally be doing a little better today. While I'm talking about sickness, Liv had an ear infection this week as well. Looks like one of her tubes has fallen out... I'm sure hoping she won't need them put in again!

Last Saturday after General Conference, the kids decided it was warm enough to swim (too cold for me, thanks). Here is Hewitt's first flip of the season:

This is the only shot I got with all four kids:

Liv inherited this swimming suit from her cousin--it's about the cutest thing I've ever seen:

I ran some errands by myself last Saturday (bliss) and when I came home from the store, I hardly recognized the young man that came out to help me carry in groceries... I guess that Burke was asking Tosh how he liked his hair cut while they were swimming and then requested the same! Burke hasn't had his hair buzzed since he was three years old! He got a good reaction from me :). Here is a shot of Burke at the piano (a common thing these days). He works really hard at all of the songs in the "Star Wars" book and is really getting pretty good.

Hewitt has made a couple of Power Point presentations at school this year. He came home the other day and asked if he could make one on my laptop. This has pretty much become his new obsession and what he tries to spend most of his time doing. He has created over 96 pages, some with sound and animation. He started out writing about himself and his interests and then started creating a book with characters, etc.

A big highlight of the week was having Rob's sister and her family here with us. Aunt Sue and Uncle Zach are beloved by our kids (Tosh never left Zach's side once) and we had so much fun with their twin 10-month-old boybies, August and Kiefer. They are crawling all over the place and such cuties!

I was pretty horrible about taking photos while they were here, but here is one that we took on Friday morning before they left:

Sue and I covered some canvases in paper for Liv's room (I had previously painted something on them, but the paper flowers are way cuter). This was a fun and fairly easy project thanks to Sue's instruction.

Rob and I finally got around to hanging some things in our bedroom after living here for 2 1/2 years... Thanks again to Sue and Zach for giving their input on where things should go (Sue made that cool ceramic guitar by the window for Rob last Christmas).

I took Burke with me on Saturday morning for my run. He biked next to me and we did about 4 miles or so. It was so much fun, and I'm hoping he'll want to go with me often.

That afternoon, we dyed Easter eggs and then went to Mesa to attend the wedding reception for Rob's cousin's son (Jordan Fisher). We were in and out of the Fisher's house pretty quick (not used to taking four kids to a wedding reception). We hit the dessert table and then got out of there before Liv and Tosh could start jumping on the trampoline and climbing on their jungle gym :)

Fun with eggs:

At the reception (from Rob's phone at dusk):

We had a quiet Easter. Especially for me since I stayed home from church with Tosh. Here are some shots of the kids during the egg hunt:

Tosh found the golden egg!

In addition to candy, the kids got some Nutella, swimming noodles, and the new "Muppet Movie" for Easter.

The other night Burke was talking about his upcoming birthday and told me that he wanted the Muppet Movie and an ice cream maker for his birthday. He is SO my kid!

This next photo of Hewitt with the fake grass on his head makes me laugh. I didn't even notice he had done that until I looked back on my camera!
No cute Easter picture of the four kids this year... but I did snap some of Liv looking 'fancy' before church just like she likes. It was kind of nice to prepare Easter dinner and dessert in a quiet house yesterday afternoon while Tosh was resting and everyone else was at church. I tried a new chocolate cake with a yummy frosting/filling made with cream cheese, brown sugar and whipping cream. YUMMY! My cousin Bob joined us for ham dinner with his dog Carmella, of course.

Friday, was my mom's 71st birthday. I think of her everyday, but especially with her birthday and Easter this weekend. I sure hope that they have chocolate cake in Paradise :)

This next week also marks the one year anniversary of my mom being diagnosed with cancer. I feel like I have been on some sort of emotional roller coaster this year. I have felt so many different things including grief, sorrow, gratitude, and peace. In general I haven't really felt like myself for awhile and I miss that. I was talking with Rob yesterday and was trying to put my feelings into words and it's as if my heart doesn't have room for as much happiness or joy that I can usually feel-- like there is too much sorrow in it's place or something. I know it takes time.

I am grateful for supportive friends and family members--especially Rob for his love and patience with me. I know I haven't been easy to live with. I also want to express my gratitude for the gospel message of love and peace and the wonderful promise of the resurrection. I believe that the Atonement of our Savior is real and know that things will all work out.

Happy Easter!