It has been a long time since I have posted anything on my blog. A ton has happened this last month and I have a lot of catching up to do. I thought I would start out with this posting and then go back later and fill in with all of the other events for the month of March. (Steve's Birthday-Our anniversary etc.)
I have been struggling a little emotionally the past few weeks and I thought I would write in my blog to help clear my mind.
A lot of things have been going on that wear me down.... my neck STILL giving me problems (since SEPTEMBER!!!) the kids at school going nuts on us (naughty, naughty kids) , and just basically feeling cooped up in the house because of all the stinkin' SNOW. I can't wait for SPRING!!! Poor Howie has to put up with me!
For me, March seems to be a tough month to get through ever since the loss of our sweet granddaughter, Kaitlyn.
Every year at this time it brings all of those feelings of sadness and loss back to the surface. I sure love and miss her sweet spirit.
This year when March approached I was trying to think of all of the positive things that have happened in my life since that time, six years ago. Life is truly wonderful! Things have really taken a turn for the better as far as my life is concerned.
April invited me to come to the grave site to give tribute to Kaitlyn and send off pink balloons for the six year anniversary of her death. It is hard to believe six years have come and gone.
I was so happy to be there with them and I enjoyed the time spent watching the girls run and play in the WIND (it was an extremely windy day) I loved watching April with her cute family. They looked so very happy! Not a care in the world!!! It almost brought me to tears as I was taking some of these pictures with Shawn and the girls. I thought.... WOW! They are so blessed to have this cute family. Who would have thought things would be going so well for them.
As I sat there at Kaityln's grave that day I was remembering how sad and distraught April was after Katy died and Shawn left for the war. I remember feeling physically sickened as a mother because I could not make things better for her. I had to sit back and watch her suffer and mourn that loss. It is heartbreaking to see your own children struggle through life and watch them in pain when there is not much you can do to fix the situation. It literally tears at your heart strings.
It was nice to see the happiness in their eyes once again knowing that God had watched over them, comforted them, and blessed them with two healthy, beautiful, sweet, funny girls. I love and adore this family.
New Baby.....
Well a few days later April and Shawn went to the doctors to find out if their baby (due in August) was a boy or a girl. During the ultra sound they found that there were some problems with their little child. (they couldn't tell at this point if it was a boy or a girl)
I will never forget the feeling I had when April called me on the phone that day and said she needed to talk with us about the baby. She mentioned that there were some problems and she wanted to talk to us in person. I heard her voice shake and then I heard her crying as she said... "It's not good, mom ...... I just can't talk about it right now". I was just sickened. I could feel the pain, concern and disappointment in her voice and I was stuck at work with nothing I could do except pray. My mind was racing all day long wondering what was wrong with her little baby.
Later that night April came over with Shawn and brought the ultra sound video and as we watched she explained that her little child had many problems with it's small body. Heart problems (only two chambers), omphalocele (his intestines on the outside of his body) three spots on the brain, and possibly something wrong with it's arm. It was so sad to watch it's little heart beating, watch it kicking and moving around and know that he was a REALLY, Really sick baby. My heart almost broke. I was really worried for April and her emotional well being. I didn't want to watch her lose another baby. I thought if I was feeling that sad.... then I could not imagine how she must be feeling. So sad :(
We had a family fast that weekend and I basically just prayed that April would be able to handle whatever challenge God had in store for her. That she would be comforted to know what to do and that she would have faith that God knows best and will be there for her.
Shawn and Ape went in the next week for an additional ultra sound with some specialist. That day they found out that her baby has a chromosome disorder called Trisomy 18. (April has a lot of the details on her blog if anyone wants to check out more about it.) They also found out that their baby was a BOY!!! A little baby Barrett BOY!!!! Yeah!
Our "BLUE" Dinner....
We have a tradition in our family to celebrate the upcoming birth of a child with either a "Pink Party" or a "Blue Party" depending on what sex they find out the baby is. We have done this with each of our little grandchildren. Even though this little guy, with his many challenges, may never make it to birth we decided to celebrate it's life with our traditional family "BLUE" dinner.
Everyone came dressed in blue.....
The house was decorated in blue, blue and more blue.....
Nothing too fancy as you can see.
Notice our beautiful (Paper) China and plastic cups.
And to top it- off a bed sheet for a table cloth
Oh well..... It's all I had! It worked!
The fun part is trying to think of "blue" things to eat for dinner....
I decided to set out some snacks to munch on first before dinner. My grandkids are hard to fix food for because of allergies and pickiness :) But they love munchies.....
Blue jello.... blueberry yogurt....blueberry muffins..... blue whoppers.....(you can't go wrong with candy!) Grapes.....I know aren't blue but I needed to stick something here that is healthy to munch on or I wouldn't be a good grandma!
Karah decided she still needed her Green snap peas to munch on even though they weren't blue. Everytime she comes to visit she asks for them.
Lyss has allergies to dairy product so she had blue mac and cheese without the cheese.
Luke loved the blue jello and the Green mac and cheese.... Blue food coloring with cheese turns a disgusting shade of green but he still ate it! Luke will eat ANYTHING!!!
Brayden by the way refused to eat anything....All this blue stuff was too weird for him I guess. He headed straight downstairs to play with the toys. I don't think he ate a thing all night. That is why he is not in any of these pictures.
As for the adults, we had Chicken Cordon "BLUE"..... (which by the way was the tastiest I have personally ever had. I got it from Sniders, a meat market in Holladay and it was superb! It was not breaded like most you eat. It was a huge chunk of chicken breast with the ham inside and I melted the swiss cheese on top after cooking. It was YUMMMMMY!)
We also had "BLUE" rolls....compliments of Howie.
He made these and they tasted great!
We had "BLUE Bonnet on it" ......
Blue cottage cheese and "BLUE" cheese salad dressing.....
The salad even had weird "BLUE" cauliflower in it....
HEY ASH....where did you find that RED salad dressing?!?
Hide it fast!!! We aren't having a girl here!
What are you thinkin'? :) :)
Eating all of this blue food kind of freaks out your mind at first, but once we started eating it was delicious. Our dessert was "BLUE Bunny icecream.
We had after dinner entertainment! Luke sang us songs. Ash said that he sings at home all the time "La La La....La La La....La La La..... Tyson had him sing for me. They had to bribe him with chocolate, but it worked. Yeah, I caught it on video. check out the video clip above.
Let the FUN Begin.....
Time to play with the grandkids......
We pulled out the bubble......
Bubbles alway entertain these kids for hours... We had a good time chasing around popping bubbles. Lots of giggles and laughter. That is magic to my ears. I absolutely love to spend time with these cute kids. They bring so much joy to my life.
I was downstairs watching the adults play on the Wii when I heard this uncontrollable laughter coming from the kitchen area. I had to go check out things. Howie had decided to pull out the balloons.
He is a crazy man and is always making the kids laugh.....
Howie is always rolling around on the floor wrestling with the kids. I have no idea how he gets that much energy. The kids LOVE IT!!! (video clips)
I love this video clip because you can see Lyss chasing after Luke for the balloon. She basically grabs him and tries to throw him down in the atempt to get to the balloon. When he gets to the balloon first, she tries to swipe at him but misses.... then she chases around the room to get him. If she was a little quicker Luke would have been decked BIG TIME! She is so funny.
Howie was smart to give each kid their own balloon to avoid any fights.
While the grandkids were playing around, the moms and dad played Wii. Ash and Ty brought over their new game and it was a lot of fun.
Such concentration.....
The girls have a nice seat to watch their Aunt Ashlee play.....
These girls ride around the house on Howie's back like he is their personal little pony or something.
Hang on.... Howie is going to turn into a bucking bronco!
Jack-Jack came up to entertain us on the recorder..... playing Book of Mormon stories as his mom sang along.
Lyssi has her Papa wrapped around her little finger. She can get him to do ANYTHING for her or take her anywhere.
She is always hanging on him or jumping on top of him.....
Grandma T's turn for snuggles.......
Papa Howie wanted to snap some pictures of me with the kids.....
I think it was his way of taking a BREATHER.....
He must be exhausted after all of the wrestling around with the kids.....
When we get together you can often find Brayden off by himself creating some new invention. He is so cute. He loves to play with the toys.
After about an hour of working on this toy he came to show me. He kept saying "Grandma T take a picture of me. I am saying Cheese!"
Here is a cute video of him describing how his invention works.....
For this party I had bought new Blue sippy cups. We had made blueberry punch with blue ice cubes. Well.... all night long the kids would take drinks from their cups. I had no idea how blue this made their tongues until I saw Lyssa laughing with Papa Howie.
It was so blue that even her tonsils and her uvula (the hangy thing in the back of her throat) was blue. She kept sticking out her tongue and then we started laughing so hard because her tongue is so long!
Crazy Tongues.....
It soon turned into a contest to see who had the longest tongue and the bluest tongue.....
Silly girls......
My handsome husband with these crazy little lizards....
Brayden was in the running for the longest tongue but.........
His dad won hands down!!!! I swear Ty's tongue can lick the bottom of his chin. NO KIDDING! I was laughing too hard to capture it on film. By the time I got my camera ready again, Tyson did this little "dainty" tongue thing. I guess he didn't want people on the internet to know his special talent. I said I was going to post it and he must have gotten shy! It is unbelievable!
Howie sitting back wondering what kind of family he married into. A big bunch of NUTS!!! Hey he fits right in perfectly!
VIDEO....After Karah had realized that their tongues were blue she thought it would be funny to go around and lick people, maybe thinking that the blue would smear off on them. She successfully attacked many of us but when she got to Howie it was a bit tougher to even get close. This video clip shows his strategy to avoid her "LICK". She was pretty determined to get him, and at the end she pushed his head aside and held it tight so that she could "slime" him. I love watching these girls play with Howie. I especially love in this clip how Lyss is just creeping up along the top of the couch to give him one of her famous hugs. Very sweet!
Playing with Papa Howie.....
Giggles, giggles and........
More giggles!
Magic Carpet Rides......
We have another tradition in our home. Each time the kids get ready to leave to go home they get a ride around the hardwood floors on a blanket.
I guess Lyss heard that it was time to go and when I went upstairs I found her sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor on a blanket. She was ready to go!!!!
They each take turns getting spun around on the floor. It is seriously a great way to sweep up all of the garbage from the parties. It gives the floor a beautiful shine at the same time that we are playing! That's my type of work!!!
My friend, Susan made me this blanket which is actually a "Quillow". It folds up a certain way and becomes a pillow. The pocket section was perfect for the kids to stick their feet into during their ride. We have never used this blanket before but it worked out GREAT!
Here is Luke and our new Grandson on their ride together! It took both Howie and I to pull these two little ones. :) We didn't want April's new baby to feel left out of all of the fun!
The kids also love to be swung in blankets. In fact the girls alway beg us to take them out to the car in the blankets and we swing them around out in the front yard before plopping them into their car.
Howie Swinging Lukie.....
Hang tight little guy!
One more thing we found they really love is to be drug up and down the stairs in the blankets. This works out perfectly in our home because we have PLENTY of stairs. Here is a video of Ash dragging the boys. For some odd reason the video is turned to the side and I could not figure out how to rotate it back to normal. I decided to post it anyway so you can see these cute boys with their mom....Doing Howie's Job hauling them up and down the stairs.
Well it was a wonderful night getting together to celebrate this new little life. We are all so concerned for him and for April and Shawn. We wish them the best and pray for their well being. I love my daughters with all of my heart and only want the best for them both. They are my life!!!
I am so happy that my girls have each other and that they live relatively close. They can be a great support to each other in the individual trials that they both face. With Tyson being out of work and now the problems with the baby, I hope they can rely on each other and draw even closer together.
And as for my sweet little grandson.... I hope and pray that I may be able to someday hold him and hug him if only for a moment. I am so happy to have the gospel in my life and to know that families are eternal. You really grow to appreciate that concept even more when you lose a little child or other family members. I know our grandson's fate is in God's hands but I can still have HOPE!
Please pray for April.....
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