New Moon

How can you have any more fun than getting together with 30 of your friends to go see a midnight show of a teeny bopper film? It was so fun and the movie was pretty great except I couldn't handle the way Bella was gasping all the time, maybe the cold Forks air is making her asthma flare up! Get that girl an inhaler. It was good friends, lots of giggling like teenagers and even some 3 a.m. breakfast afterwards.

So to recap...
$10 for a ticket to New Moon
$5 popcorn and Diet Coke
$5 pancake bites at Denny's
Leaving the house at 9 p.m. and getting home at 4:15 a.m. for a 2 hour movie--priceless.

Happy Birthday Princesses

Happy Happy Birthday

May All Your Dreams Come True

Happy Happy Birthday

From Grammy and Pap To You!!

Locks of Love

The girls have been growing their hair for 4 years to cut for Locks of Love. They thought it would take until they turned 12 but amazingly it only took until they were 11.

So, for their birthday they cut it off to donate. They ask that you have at least 10 inches, they prefer 12 inches and Helen gave 15 and Mary 14 so I think we are covered!!

The end of the crib

It is that time for us, after 11 years of almost constant use, the crib is ready for a break. This has been a fantastic crib for us. It is my crib from 40 years ago and both my brothers also slept in it. It was a lovely green shade with lead paint when we got it from my parents to use for the girls. It also didn't meet the new safety standards for width between posts. We stripped it, varnished it and Brad added spindles we had custom made to match so it would meet safety standards. It has held every one of our children. Helen and Mary shared it for the first 6 months of their lives until they got too big to share and then Mary used it for the next 18 months while Helen used Brad's old crib, Griffin used it for 3 and 1/2 years and Lewis has graduated to a big boy bed at the age of 3. It has been fantastic and I love that it was my crib too.

Girls crib in our room when they were first born without the extra spindles attached yet--note the wires which are hooked to the babies and their monitors to check their breathing and heart rate. Both girls are in the crib.The crib in Griffin's room in our Pleasant Grove house with his matching bumpers and blanket made by our fantastic friend Michelle Rich and the new spindles attached.In Lewis' room, we used the same bedding and bumpers. Now it is time to say farewell until we need to pull it out for grandchildren in 20 years.

The beginning of the end....

"My want the baby bed." This lasted about 30 seconds and turned into....

"My help Daddy"

The end....

No more crib, just the big boy bed!

Funny Lewis

Today I was at the church with Lewis helping set up for a dinner based on the 100 Dresses book. There were 3 women-Tori, Veronica and me decorating 10 tables 80 chairs. Veronica had her 2 children Diego and Anysia there and the 3 kids played the whole 4 hours we were there.

Lewis and Anysia had a great time overflowing the toilet in the nursery, flooding the floor, and getting themselves drenched. Diego didn't get in on the toilet action but he and Lewis had lots of fun playing with trucks and running around the whole church building.

We were there for about 3 hours when Anysia hit her limit and melted down. Her mom decided she needed a break and took her to the store to get some food for the kids leaving Diego to keep playing with Lewis. About 15 minutes later Lewis finally realizes that Anysia is missing so he comes and asks....

"Where Dora go?"

I was killing myself laughing!

On a side note Griffin and Diego are closer in age and have played together before with Griffin calling him "Go Diego" the whole time.

Happy Halloween

This year we were all pirates. The boys could still wear their outfits from last year and I found the girls outfits on clearance for $4 each. SCORE! We had a fantastic Halloween. We had the school carnival the week before, a trunk or treat on the Wednesday before and then we were off to Flagstaff for the real deal.

Note the difference between the costumes in these pictures. Flagstaff (above) 40 degrees and Phoenix (below) 70 degrees. No long underwear and gloves in Phoenix!


Here are the girls learning to play gin rummy from Paps before going out trick or treating. He's a great teacher and the girls learned pretty quickly.

Aunt Amie did the girls hair when we were in Flagstaff. She did 'pirate' hair for them and it looked fantastic! Mary had ringlets in both of her ponnies and Helen had lots of braids tied in knots for ponies--which you can see in the gin rummy pictures. The hair lasted 3 days after Halloween so Aime did a fantastic job! Thanks.

Here we are pulling Aleksia in all directions because we love her so much and want to spend time with her! Get the bee!!

Our halloweenie family

Here are my parents with the grandkids. Brax is a scarecrow on his bale of hay. You can't even tell that's a wheelchair! Everyone that came to Grammy and Pap's house had to do a trick for Brax before they got their full size candy bars. It was pretty fun.

Griffin's surgery

Griffin had a little surgery today which will keep him out of school for at least 3 days and off his bike for 6 weeks. (He can't straddle anything so use your imagination on what had to get fixed!) He did really well and everything turned out fine. He has 1 big incision and 2 tiny ones that have to heal but have the stitches that dissolve so we won't have to go back to see the doc for 6 weeks.

He couldn't eat or drink anything from midnight last night on so this morning he kept asking "Don't you feel sorry for me?" I kept saying "Nope, it's so you don't have problems during your surgery."

Helen and Mary were asking me if Griffin could die from his surgery so I told them there is always a risk so that's why we have been praying for him and for the doctor to do his best. Griffin walked into our conversation right when they said the word die and let's just say he has asked about 100 times since then if he is gonna die. SWEET!

Pre-op--happy as can be to miss school and play the DS!Just out of surgery and contemplating throwing up just to make things fun. Luckily he didn't and kept his juice and ice chips down so we could leave within 30 min.Wheelin out--can't use legs yet! And more than just a little groggy still!

The ride home, the DS lasted about 2 min and he couldn't even pick a movie, he decided to "look out the window until he could decide."

When we got home I carried him up to bed--all 58 lbs and 48 inches of him-- and he has been there ever since watching movies and sleeping off and on. He has mentioned at least 5 times that some people die when the get anesthesia but he was lucky and didn't die. I guess it was a relief to him!

When Brad got home Griffin told him he "REALLY NEEDED" 3 McDonald's cheeseburgers--2 for tonight and 1 for tomorrow's lunch, so Brad rushed out to fulfill his big boy's wish and got him 3 double cheeseburgers which Griffin promptly ate in 10 minutes. Yes: 3-DOUBLE cheeseburgers! He said his appetite really needed them. I wonder if he was hungry or something. He had a yogurt, a banana and some Carnation Instant Breakfast chocolate milk only 4 hours before but apparently he was still a little famished!