Awesome Alden

This is very random but if I don't write it down somewhere I will forget and I want to remember it.  This past  Monday, Dallin came home from school early because he got his eye scratched with a pencil some how and the nurse thought he might need to get it checked.  I asked the school receptionist if she would get a message to Alden to not wait for Dallin after school since I took him home early.  She is usually an extremely on-the-ball lady, she does her job amazingly well, however, she was trying to talk to someone else and her phone was ringing so she apparently forgot to tell Alden.  So, anyway, after school Alden waited and waited for Dallin in their normal meeting spot and he started to get nervous cuz Dallin didn't show up and Alden didn't know why or what to do, so right as he was about to have a little panic attack my friend, Amber, walked by and saw Alden looking worried and standing alone.   I happened to see her earlier when I went to pick up Dallin & was chatting with her briefly, explaining I was there to take Dallin home.  She then called me just to make sure that was true and that Dallin didn't come back to school later in the day and then explained to Alden that Dallin wasn't coming and to go ahead and go home.  So Alden left school.  I was outside to pick him up and when he got in the car he said he didn't know what to do and so he said a prayer in his head and as soon as he finished Amber walked by and told him.  Very small simple thing but I am so glad for things like that so that I feel like my kids are gaining a testimony and know what to do when the need help.  Alden is such an amazing boy I am so proud of him!

Sweet Baby girl!

Our sweet Lila Belle had to have surgery today.  It was so sad.  A little mini "c-section" they called it because of how the incision was made.  She had reflux between her bladder and kidneys that needed to be fixed.  She is such a trooper she did a great job.  She wanted to help push the bed down the hall before they took her back for the procedure and all the nurses and everyone we passed thought that was the cutest thing ever.  She gave mom, dad, Gma Janice and Papa Steve all a tight squeeze and kiss too.  She is just the sweetest little angel.  The nurse has a nursing student shadowing her up on the floor we are staying on and she had to go get one of her nursing school buddies to show off how cute she is.  It is so sad to see her looking so little and all hooked up to her IV and stuff.  She has been so amazingly good today, super drugged up, though I am sure tomorrow won't be as good.  We love her so much and hope she starts to get better real soon.  We will be at the hospital for 48 hours. Thanks to Tara for staying with the boys and to everyone else who is helping to carpool and set up play dates and everything else while we are down here.  We appreciate all the support and prayers!

Happy Birthday times 3!!!

So as most everyone knows, I have the most amazing mother-in-law.  She is absolutely fabulous.  I am so lucky to have her because I know so many people who really dislike their mother-in-law.  She is so fun to be around.  People always are complimenting on how fun and happy she is at church and stuff and I totally agree.  She is a great teacher.  She is a wonderful mother and grandmother.  Very patient and caring.  The kids all adore her.  She is so kind and thoughtful she always is willing to baby sit or offers to come fold laundry or help out however she can.  We all love her so much and hope she has a great brithday! 

The Marble's have a thing with sharing birthdays too because Janice had 2 of her own children on her own birthday!  Talk about birthday celebration! Is that crazy?  We think it is so fun. (I don't know how well they liked it growing up though).  Uncle Mike her first baby was born on her birthday and then she had Aunt Kim the 3rd out of 5 kids and only girl on her birthday again!  Mike is very caring and willing to help out all the time.  He is a great big brother and I know Scott has always looked up to him.  The boys think he is so fun.  Yesterday when we walked into papa's house (their birthdays are February 2nd, I am a day late posting) Mike was over there and Lila pointed and said "Mike".  It was so cute I didn't know she even knew his name.  Mike is a fun grandpa and we are glad to have him as a brother/uncle and friend.   Kim is a great aunt.  She is fun to be with and the kids love playing at her house.  We have a lot of fun hanging out with her and her family. In fact it was her and Glen that set me up with Scott those many years ago.  Kim is a great mom, I hope her children realize how lucky they are to have such a wonderful mother.  She is always so kind to my kids too.  My favorite characteristic of hers is how nurturing and caring she is.  She is always very sweet and nice to everyone's kids even neighbors.  In fact the other day she drove some random kid on the street home from school cuz they had fallen on their bike.  She let the kid use her cell phone to call their mom and when the mom wasn't home she packed her up in her car and brought her home.  She is a great freind and sister.  We love you Grandma, Mike and Kim, Happy Birthday! 

happy birthday sandee!

Sandee is one of my favorite people.  She is such a wonderful friend aunt and great sister in law.  I am so glad we got to be neighbors for so many years because she is absolutely wonderful.  She is so willing to help out other people (especially me).  Always helping me decorate my house, helping me scrapbook and make any other sort of craft, letting me borrow eggs and stuff all the time, making cakes for all my kids birthdays, bring dinner over.  Awesome is a great word to describe her.  I miss living next to her, but I am so glad I got to so that we were able to become such good friends.  Sandee is just amazing and I really admire her for her caring heart and her friendly personality.  Happy birthday sandee! we love you.

Happy Birthday Elena!

Happy birthday Elena.  We think you are awesome and we are so glad you are our aunt and sister in law!  Elena is so fun to hang out with.  She is a happy peoples person and she amazes me because she is never scared to try different things from real estate to stand up comedy, photography, you name it if she is interested in it she will learn about it and get into it whole heartedly.  She has taken some amazing pictures of our kids that I absolutely love. She is just fun to be around.  I will always remember the "kitty" game we played were she climbed up on dads lap and purred trying to get him to laugh.  We love you and hope you have a wonderful birthday!

Uncle Brent

My dad's brother Brent passed away yesterday.  He had been sick for awhile from some kidney issue he had.  We knew he wasn't doing good but it is still sad when the news comes that he has passed on.  I am very grateful that Aunt Darla was so inspired and generous to host a family reunion before his death.  He was a great man.  He was a great uncle.  I have many memories of hanging out with his family and being at his house.  That is where we always stayed when we were up visiting family.  He married a beautiful woman who is so sweet and kind.  They have raised an amazing family with the most wonderful children that I am so grateful I know.  I love them all so much and am so grateful for the examples they have always been to me.  They are all so kind and gracious and have such strong testimonies.  We have been praying for Uncle Brent and his family for a long time now and I am sure we will be keeping Aunt Laurie and the rest of the family in our prayers for a long time.  Jennifer wrote on her blog about how they have all been comforted so much and felt such a peace during the difficult past few days they have had with him.  I am grateful for that.  I am grateful for the knowledge that families are forever and that one day we will get to see him again and that he will be reunited with his children and grandchildren that he loved so much.  I think everyone knew that about him that he just loved his family and thought the world of them.  It was so fun to see him as a grandpa, he just seemed to adore those sweet kids.  I am sure there is a wonderful reunion going on in heaven now as he is welcomed by his dad who died over 30 years ago as well as other family members.  We will all miss you dearly Uncle Brent but we are so glad for the memories we have, and as Jenn said the world truly was a better place because you were in it.

January 2011 Family Pictures

 Sandee helped us take a few quick pictures since we somehow never seemed to have actually gotten anything scheduled.  I wanted pictures for a Christmas card but never seemed to find time to do it then Christmas came and went so we just decided to get the pictures taken anyway since the last time we had them done was when lila was only about 6 months or so.  I think it is impossible to actually get a picture that everyone looks good in though.  These are a few of my favorites.

Dallin's belated 7th birthday party

 Poor Dallin has a birthday that is a week before Christmas.  It kind of makes for a hard time to ever get a real party for him.  This year we promised him he could have a party but since we were out of town on his brithday we ended up not being able to celebrate until New Year's Eve.  We headed on over the Peter Piper Pizza for a fun party.  He had a really hard time narrowing the guests down because he really wanted all of his cousins there but we finally got him to narrow it down to his Marble cousins (purely out of convinience since we all live so close) and 3 friends, Hunter, Caliber and Ethan. 

 He got his own personalized pizza and a decorated table with more coins than we knew what to do with!

 Aunt Sandee made the cupcakes.  I don't know what we would do without her, she supplies the cakes to all of my parties since I am so untalented in that area.  She is so awesome!

Dallin got a new bike for his birthday.  He was very excited to have a bigger bike since he thinks his is too small and babyish cuz it has spiderman on it.  Boy do kids grow up fast Alden was totally fine with character type stuff in 1st grade and Dallin wants nothing to do with that kind of stuff.  Anyway I hope he had a good birthday. Dallin is a wonderful help with Lila and a great kid.  He is lots of fun and we are so glad to have him in our family.

Christmas Day Evening

 After getting a good nap in we headed over the spend the evening of Christmas with the Marble's.  The brothers were very excited to give their dad a new remote control airplane.  I think it use to be a hobby of his.  My amazing Aunt Kim helped us out with the other gifts we gave them; a "Marble" name board and a "grandpa's scoreboard" to keep track of all the grandkids.  Of coarse they spoiled our whole family like usual. The kids can always count on that.  In fact when using Santa won't bring you any presents as a threat the kids didn't even care their response was "so papa with get us something."

We had another cousin gift exchange.  It was really fun and all the kids did a great job.  They got some really fun presents for each other.  The adults did a white elephant exchange too, which is always a blast.

We had to test out the sparklers too just to make sure they worked for New Years Eve!  We had a wonderful time and it was fun to be all together, we are starting to get to big to do that very often.

Christmas Morning

 We had a really nice Christmas like always.  The kids are spoiled rotten and I got a little carried away getting Lila things since it was all girl and different for a change. 

 The boys faces walking into the family room.  They were so excited to see that Santa Left them a wii a cool red one.  They each got a different color controller in their stocking too.  Alden got a guitar so he could start learning how to play.  Dallin and Alden both got roller blades and Brig got a Chalkboard/easel thing.  They got tons of other presents but with the wii I think they pretty much forgot about everything else.  They have a one track mind. I love the picture below with them just staring at the wii in awe it was pretty funny. 

 Lila got a kitchen lots of things for her babies like highchairs/rockers and a cute car that she loves.  She would hardly come out to open something up and then get right back in it.  It was really funny. 

 She did find time to turn the easel into a jungle gym though.  The kids each got to buy a gift for one of their siblings and it was fun for them to pick it out wrap it and try to keep it a secret until Christmas.  I think they all did a great job picking out gifts for each other.  We had a really good morning and with the wii being so popular Scott and I were able to get a really nice nap in!

Christmas Eve at the Thurston's

 We had a lot of fun at gma and gpa house on Christmas Eve.  The kids got to dress up and do the story of Christ's birth.  Lila was a cute angel for about 2 seconds before ripping the costume off. 

 We had a great dinner with lots of yummy food.  After the nativity story Uncle Dallin read the kids a cute Christmas story "Twas the night before Christmas" is the tradition but the book he read was that story with a twist and it was really cute.

 The kids got to each pick a cousin to buy a present for. I think they all had fun shopping for their cousins and they all got to open them at the same time.  Then we played the "right/left" game and the kids got
to open up their present from gpa & gma.

 They all got jean blankets BYU style with their names embroidered on the edge. They were really cute and the kids all love them. I loved Brig in the picture below cuddling up with his newly unwrapped blanket. The adults had a fun white elephant exchange too, we got rid of the dreaded singing cowboy and the autographed picture of chad to Dallin this year and we have been warned to "beware" of next year!



 After all the goodies we could eat we headed over to the temple lights.  Jordan Bluth was the guest singer for the program and so it was supper crowded.  We like him in the forgotten Carols that he does every year so it was kind of neat to see him singing at the temple although I could have done with out the huge crowd.  After the temple the kids got to open up their pj's and then we headed home so Santa could come. 

Happy Birthday Grandpa Brad!

Today was Grandpa Brad's birthday.  The boys had fun guessing how old he was. Alden was the closest, Brig thinks his daddy is older than him (ha ha he doesn't quiet get age stuff yet!!). The boys had fun playing Wii golf and bowling with gpa for his bday. We also enjoyed yummy oatmeal cake and ice cream.  The grandkids all love grandpa so much and have so much fun with him.  I love the example that my dad is to everyone around him.  We enjoy the "BTBits he sends us daily.  We love that he expects the best out of us.  We hope you had a great birthday grandpa and a great year!