Summer Fun - First Weekend in July

June came and went...as did the rec classes I had signed my kids up for.  This means it is up to me to provide entertainment for the rest of the summer.

Obviously I was not thinking this through.

But I concocted a plan, and made a calendar of activities to get us through July and August.  My goal was to make this summer fun, without breaking the bank.  So the majority of these activities are cheap or FREE...which is my kind of activity!

I'm going to post once a week what we did, and ATTEMPT to get a picture of each activity...since my blog is also our personal family history/journal.  I realize this may be a snooze fest, but if you are having a problem with insomnia, you have come to the right place!


Because there are so many pictures, I am putting most of them on here small...you can click on them to see them larger if you feel so inclined.

SUMMER FUN - First Weekend

Syracuse Parade

We are lucky enough to have a front row seat in a SUPER shady yard, thanks to Marty's sister and her husband.  Addison was afraid of the fire trucks so Marty had to hold her, and Molly was tired so I was rocking her...which means we are limited to VERY few pictures.

Broken Finger

Brielle was outside practicing cartwheels, handstands and back bends and came in to get me.  She was SO excited to show me what she had been working on.  She did a back bend, and quickly hopped up saying "Ow!  I think the grass poked me or something!"  I asked her how that is possible, and she said "I don't know, maybe it's a dry patch of something."  I looked at her finger and couldn't see anything immediately, so we thought maybe she somehow got stung by a bee.  Within a couple minutes, her finger started swelling up really bad and it dawned on me that she may have broken it.  We went to Instacare (this was a Saturday) and they x-rayed it.  The doctor said there was no break, and wrapped her up to be nice.  But then Monday afternoon, Instacare called back and said that the radiologist reviewed the x-ray and saw a small fracture.  So, we went back in and had it wrapped a little better.  She'll have to wear the wrap full-time for a week, and then when we leave the house for another week after that.  Contrary to this picture, she was pretty excited about it all (I had just re-wrapped it and she was in pain when I took the picture).

Picnic in the canyon

We went and sat in a little campground on a river up a canyon (couldn't tell you what canyon it was...because I don't know...but it was by Huntsville.)  We went to pay the day fee, and the campground host told us not to worry about it since we only stayed for an hour and a half.  It was GREAT.  The experience taught us that 1. It would be easier if Molly weren't so little.  2. Our kids need more time in nature, they were bored and whiney for the first little bit, and as we were getting ready to leave suddenly were having SO MUCH FUN and didn't want to go. (There are a ton of pictures of this outing.)

Love my beautiful girls!

More fun to come!

Backyard Fun!

A pretty terrible picture of me (no makeup, no shower, etc.) but I sure love these girls!

Now, even though my family is going through a lot right now, I have to stick to my mother's saying: 

"We can't let life stop for the kids." 

As much as we would like to sit and sulk some days and feel sad and sit in our pajamas (like how I'm doing today for instance) we still have to keep things upbeat and fun for the kids as much as we possibly can.

That is when we turn to good old fashioned backyard fun.  I made Marty go and get a new bigger kiddie pool, because the ones we currently have fit 1, maybe 2 kids and it is getting ridiculous with 10 grand kids trying to all crowd into them.  So...he got a GREAT pool...AND double slip-n-slide, because he loves me, and we look forward to pulling them out many times this summer.

And by the way, my parents completely spoil the grand kids by hooking a hose up to a sink in the garage and filling the pools with nice, warm water.  What the heck is that all about?  I'm pretty sure when we wanted anything water related, we were told to go put a sprinkler on (making sure to put it over a dry patch of lawn, so we could help them out with gardening at the same time) that was hooked to the secondary water and to try not to drink too much of it...you know, so we would avoid contracting dysentery or something.

Anyway, without further ado...I give you a major overload of pictures to gander at.

Filling up the pool...Addison obviously thinks she's hilarious.

Swimming in the new pool for the first time.

Daddy joining them

So bummed this is blurry, but you can still tell how happy she is.

Claire jumping

Cute sisters

Brielle on the slip-n-slide

Marty showing them another way to enter the pool

Brielle was busy working on learning how to do cartwheels...it looks like she's break dancing.

Lounging in the pool

Pretty girl

Laying out to dry - plus a little indecent exposure from Claire.

More cartwheels

A perfect handstand....until she tipped over backwards and smacked her foot on the patio.

Crazy faces of Claire

Addison walked over and jumped on Marty's stomach while he was laying out...I love his expression

Crazy Brielle

So...there you have it.  Our fun time spent in the backyard.

You wish you were here, don't you?

Yeah, we pretty much rock.

My Courageous Brother

Always too cool for us...someday maybe he'll teach me his ways

I know my posts don't tend to be on the serious side, but I have to post what is going on in our lives, and sometimes it's not all glitz and glamour, contrary to popular belief.

Lately, life has been a roller-coaster.  As some people might know, my brother - Ben - is in his 5th battle with cancer at the age of 31.  It is scary seeing a family member so sick and enduring so much suffering.  It's terrifying hearing the medical professionals have grim outlooks for his prognosis.  And even though we all have faith, it is hard to not waver when things look so grim.

THANKFULLY, fasting, prayers and priesthood blessings really work, miracles happen and he is still with us, and slowly improving.  Still fighting the fight and pushing forward.  And while it has been sad and scary, it has made me appreciate how incredibly strong and supportive my family is.  We have experienced some amazing things together, and we are all moving forward with the plan to create very happy memories with each other.

Here is a history I stole from my sister-in-law's blog...hope she doesn't mind:

"Ben had cancer in 2002. Synovial sarcoma. It was a tumor in his shoulder that grew extremely fast. It went from undetectable to a grapefruit size within a month. He was diagnosed a few months after we were engaged and he started chemo the Monday after we were married. After chemo, radiation and surgery, Ben was free of the cancer. The chemo didn't seem to affect it at all and the radiation did not shrink it either. The surgery was the only thing that seemed to work. 

One year passed. Then 3 years. Then we were at Ben's 5 year cure date celebrating his victory over cancer.

Fast forward to 8 years, just enough time for Sara to finish her education. Ben's tight breathing provoked a chest x-ray which showed a baseball size tumor in his left lung.

This was a big shock. How could it be back? It's been 8 years?

Over the next year and a half, Ben would suffer through multiple hospitalizations, 2 lung surgeries and would find another completely different aggressive cancer in his thyroid, which also resulted in a surgery to remove his thyroid and the surrounding lymph nodes. During this time as well as following it Ben would have multiple ER visits in addition to radioactive iodine therapy and more chemotherapy that he had previously swore he would never do again because of how traumatic it was. Cancer changes things.

Now we are looking into the hospital room where the doctors can't figure out why Ben has such severe abdominal pain, is swelling all over his body, can't breath and can't keep anything down. Call it divine intervention or just a smart doctor, an echocardiogram is ordered to look at the function of his heart. The echo technician quickly called down to the doctor that would read the report to make sure he didn't go home before reading it. Very shortly after, Ben's cardiothoracic surgeon came to the hospital room and stated that Ben needed to have fluid around his heart drained because he had cardiac tamponade, so much extra fluid around his heart that it was collapsing his right atrium. Left untreated this is fatal.

Following the drain placement, Ben felt "funny" in his chest but it was a good funny because he could now breath easier and he started getting better from then on. The pain in his abdomen subsided. The emptiness he felt after the draining was a result of a long process of fluid accumulation that was caused by the cancer in his lung, now encroaching on his heart and displacing it to the right side of his body. Additionally, the cancer has spread from his lung down through his diaphragm and into his abdomen pushing his spleen out of position and compressing his stomach.

And through all this we still have hope. We still have plans for our future.

We recognize all the prayers in Ben's behalf and know they have helped.

We believe that God gave us the ability to keep ourselves as healthy as possible as well as help cure ourselves. So we are going to do our part in trying to heal Ben and then leave the rest up to God. 

His will be done in all things."

So I guess, what I really wanted to post is how amazingly courageous my brother is.  Ben has endured more than I can imagine, and yet he keeps on going.  He is so kind and patient during it all, which just blows me away.  Even when we go to visit him, he asks about our lives, what is new with us and our plans for the future. He asks the kids about their summer plans and what they've been up to.  He doesn't like attention and people fussing over him, but he deserves some recognition for all that he has done!  

And his wife, Sara...wow, what an amazing lady!  She just never wavers and keeps plugging along, being Ben's 100% support.  We don't know how we all lucked out to get her in our family, but we sure are grateful!  

We just hope to have 1/2 as much faith and courage as those two.

We love you both! 

You want to know WHY I'm so tired?

To answer a fairly popular question:  "Mommy, why are you so tired?"  I give you my night, turned to morning...which unfortunately is not the worst night I've ever had, but it gives a starting point for understanding.

7:00 p.m.  - Molly goes to bed

7:01 - 7:30 p.m. - Fight epic battle with Brielle over getting her nasty loose tooth out once and for all.  (The new tooth has already come partly in and has made the loose tooth stick straight forward.  We referred to it as her snaggle tooth, because we are very loving parents.)  We come out victors.

8:30 p.m.  - Other kids in bed

9:00 p.m.  - Watch a few shows with the hubby

10:45 p.m. - Start getting ready for bed

10:50 p.m. - Molly starts crying.  Because she sleeps in our room, we have to wait until she is asleep to go to bed.

10:50 - 11:30 p.m. - Molly cries, we wait for a while and then settle her with a binky or back rub...lather, rinse, repeat.

11:35 p.m. - Remember I washed the sheets on our bed, but conveniently left them in the dryer.

11:40 p.m. - Hope we've given Molly enough time to be asleep, and sneak in with the sheets to quietly make our bed.

11:41 p.m. - No such luck.  She sees us and cries.

11:42 p.m. - Marty holds Molly while I make the bed.

11:45 p.m. - I surrender and feed Molly and change her diaper.

11:50 p.m. - 12:35 a.m. - Molly is wide awake from watching me make the bed and talks, squeals, whimpers and scratches her crib, keeping me awake...of course Marty can sleep through it.

12:36 a.m. - Brielle wakes up crying.  In her sleep she has somehow scratched a big sore she has, the band aid has fallen off and she can't find it.

12:37 a.m. - Go on a band aid hunt in the kitchen for another large size band aid...can only find small princess one, hope Brielle will be satisfied.

12:40 a.m. - Lay back down...apparently Molly wasn't asleep.  Give her a binky and re-cover her with blanket.

1:00 a.m. - Finally asleep.

5:00 a.m. - Marty's alarm goes off...which means I have to wake up in order to wake him up.  But then I go back to sleep.

5:50 a.m. - Molly is awake again to eat...but goes back to sleep after she's fed.

6:50 a.m. - Addison comes stumbling into my room muttering something about watching a show.  I get her back in bed - we don't get up before 7:30 or 8 in this house.

7:55 a.m. - Molly and Addison both wake up for the day...time to get out of bed.

8:15 a.m. - Brielle and Claire join the crowd.

From here we did breakfast, Molly down for a nap, I shower, Molly awake, do my Relief Society calling (sending out weekly newsletter), feed Molly, make banana bread, do my hair, get Molly down for second nap, feed older kids lunch, get Addison down for a nap, clean up from lunch, make myself lunch, sit down for some peace and quiet for about 15 seconds....and then the circus continued on a similar schedule.

So...does that answer your question?