Birthday Celebration

Saturday the 3rd of April was Brooks' birthday. It was also the Priesthood session of conference. It's a family custom of ours to take the whole family after the session and go out for dinner. This year we decided to kill two birds with one stone and celebrate Brooks' birthday at the same time. The grand kids and girls and I left early to guarantee our reservation at Texas Roadhouse and the guys caught up with us after the session. While we were waiting for our table, Brynly started crying about her ear hurting. Kara and Phil decided that they had better just go home since Bryn couldn't settle down and feel better. (side note, Kara took Bryn to the doctor today and she has double ear infection and swollen tonsils) Jaxon wanted to stay with us and so the rest of us had a nice dinner together. Just as we were finishing up, Jaxon managed to flag down the waitress and tell her that it was his grandpa's birthday and that his grandpa wanted to sit on the saddle and have some ice cream. Shortly after that, along came the saddle and a bowel of ice cream! It was entertaining but the picture I took is really poor. I only had my phone and it was dark. The other picture is of the new wedding band that I gave to Brooks. He has now decided that he wants to start wearing one and since the original has disappeared, I got him a new one. Brooks also has the largest (diameter) fingers in the world and they can't size the ring that large and so we had to order a larger one. We'll see how often he remembers to wear it and how many times he misplaces it. Kind of like his cell phones.

Both photos are pretty fuzzy. I don't know why I struggle sometimes with the camera.

Ready for Easter

Today the grand kids and I colored Easter eggs. I decided that I might need a little help so I recruited Kelsey and then Kara stayed when she brought Jaxon and Brynly down. Molly was here also but Jessica couldn't come because she was working. I had bought four different kinds of coloring kits. One was supposed to put sparkles on the eggs but it didn't, they looked the very same as the regular colored ones. I had another kit that kind of made the eggs look marbled and then I bought some egg tattoos. Wednesday I drove to Ritewoods and bought two flats of minis so we had plenty of eggs to color. I also bought some extra whisks. You place the egg inside the whisk and then a small child can check it all she wants without making a big mess. It went really well and kept every ones attention the whole time except for Molly. Next year Molly will be ready. Of course I forgot to get pictures. I could kick myself! The kids were great and Kmart had all of their Easter stuff on sale so I picked up some cute buckets for the kids to take their eggs home in. We'll probably make this an annual tradition unless the kids want to do it on their own. Fun times!

April Fools!

I am in shock! My husband tried to play an April fools joke on me. Thankfully he was unsuccessful. I was getting ready for bed and of course, due to my aging bladder, I was going to use the toilet before getting into bed. As I walked toward the toilet, I thought I saw something on the side of the bowel. It was plastic wrap!!! Brooks had put it over the bowel and even taped the plastic to it! I could hardly believe my eyes. This was something I would try. I'm really glad I noticed the wrap before it was too late. In our 30 years of marriage, he has never tried anything even close to this. What a surprise!

It's Really Official!

Yes that's right! Kelsey and Brady are having a boy! I really thought that they were having a girl. In fact, it has taken me a few days to get used to the idea. I honestly don't care what they have as long as it is a healthy baby. (brown eyes would be nice for a change) We are really excited to get another grandchild. The first few have come rather slowly so it will be fun to have another baby around.

Still getting older!!

I am sooooo tired.

Harlem Globetrotters and other Stuff

It's time to catch up again. I just had to put this first picture up. At work we have a dry erase board that we use for several things. ( I won't go into detail) A short time ago Kara and Jax and Bryn came to visit me at work. The kids like to come and get some juice and a cookie and if Suzette is working also they like to go and visit her. While they were visiting me, Jax decided to draw a picture of Brady on our board. If you look closely, he even has a belly button. My coworkers have really enjoyed it and so we have left it there. We're talking about getting Jax to draw us one for St Patricks day in March. Since it was a picture of Brady, I decided to snap a picture of it with my phone and send it to him. I didn't realize Brady had red hair and such big ears. These next pictures are of our family jaunt to the ESA to watch the Harlem Globetrotters last Monday night. We started with dinner at Rodizzio's and then went on to the game. I think everyone had a good time. I snuck a few peeks at the adults and they were always smiling and laughing. It was also very entertaining to the kids. Jaxon asked if it was a real game or just a for fun game. Brynly enjoyed the music to dance to and Molly was perfect even though she looked like she was about to fall asleep when the game was over.

This last week Brooks and I have been fortunate to spend a lot of quality time at the hospital together. Apparently I don't get enough time there while working. So to explain....Last week Brooks was having some pretty severe heartburn at bedtime on Thursday night. He had taken tums, prilosec and tagamet and still wasn't getting any relief and as a result, he decided that he would sit in the recliner for a while. I decided that I would go to bed since I needed to get up early to go to work the next morning. I could hear him most of the night walking around the house trying to get some sort of relief. At 3 AM he woke me up and said that he couldn't deal with the pain any longer and thought that he would just drive himself to the emergency room. I said no way and got up, combed my hair, put on some clothes and then we left. Once we reached the ER I knew that as soon as I said that my 52 year old husband was having chest pain, they would jump on it. So, to make a long story short, after two EKG's, numerous blood tests, IV morphine and a nitro drip, the ER doc decided to do an ultrasound and call our primary care MD. The ER doc, after the ultrasound of the gallbladder, was leaning more towards a gallbladder attack. No surprise to me but no one had asked me except Brooks. Please understand, Brooks and I never really thought that he was having any cardiac problems but we knew that he would have to go through the protocols anyway. Once our primary care arrived and did his thing, it was decided that Brooks would be admitted to ICU for the day and night to follow up with some additional tests and then be discharged the next morning. A general surgeon was called to consult as well. During all of this excitement, I arranged to be off work for the day and then off to the ICU we went. Poor Brooks went through the gamut that day. Along with the stuff in the ER, he also got to experience a HIDA scan, an endoscopy and another ultrasound of his gallbladder! Now Brooks is really a lightweight when it comes to narcotics and so he can't remember much of this day. By Friday night, the surgeon was in to visit and stated that he would remove the gallbladder the next Thursday. Before our primary care would clear Brooks for the surgery, and because he has an extensive family history of cardiac problems, Brooks had to go to Salt Lake for an exercise stress test. This we did the following Monday since we were going to be there for the Globetrotters that night. Brooks passed with flying colors and then had the gallbladder surgery on Thursday. He is doing great and looking forward to getting things back to normal!

Weekend with Molly

This past weekend we got to tend Molly. Kade and Jessica drove to Vegas to the Garth Brooks concert. I hope they had a good time but I'm sure we had the better. This gave us both a chance to really get to know Molly. What a delightful child! I thought for sure we'd have her crawling before they got home but she is still doing the army crawl. Our nights were a little sleepless but we didn't mind when you wake up to such a cutie and she always went back down easily. Brooks even cut out of church early last Sunday and I think he was pretty darn happy about it. I did find out a few things about myself during this time. I'm not as young as I thought I was, and I'm not in as good of shape as I thought I was. I discovered that as Monday rolled around my legs were a little stiff and I wanted to take a nap really badly the whole day at work, but by the end of the day, we were missing her and ready to see her again.

Our phone is her new favorite toy.

Watching football with grandpa. She seriously watches.