Azalea is 7.

Azalea turned 7 on November 17th.  She had a great birthday.  I am so grateful she is my daughter.  Azalea was a long awaited for.  It took me  two years to get pregnant with her.  She is everything.    She has one of the kindest hearts.  She knows when I am sad and will write me "I Love you Mom " notes.  

Today I took her to get a present with the $10 dollars her Grandma and Grandpa Tolman gave her for her birthday.  We went to the dollar store.  She was so kind.  She bought something for her brothers and sister.  Even our cat Lady.  I told her she didn't have to, that the money was hers and to get whatever she wanted.  

Azalea said that she wanted to get her brothers and sister something.  She amazes me.  

Azalea loves butterflies.  She loves all animals.   When I took her to the dollar store today she picked out a nest with fake eggs in it.  She loves, loves animals, bugs.  One of her favorite animals is a snake.  Her absolute favorite animal is a horse.   

                                                        Azalea's eyes are beautiful.

This picture was taken at Devil's Garden.  She loved it.  She ran all over the place.  The rocks where huge she would just run and jump.  At times it scared me so much.   She was in heaven.

I took her and Joshua up Santaquin Canyon.  She loved being there.  Again she was all over the place.  We spent about 3 hours up there and she never complained.  She loves being out doors.

She collected so many leaves this year.  She loved every leaf.  She sees their beauty.

I am so blessed to be her mom.  She someday's drives me crazy, but she is forgiving, she is kind, she is helpful, she shows compassion, and she is amazing.   

Eli, Oh Eli

Eli LOVES the kitchen.  He could spend hours there.  He loves pretending he is making dinner.  He likes pretending he is cleaning the dishes.

A couple of days ago he was pretending to cook.  He likes opening the oven and putting dishes in there.  We are trying to teach him how to be careful around the oven.

Later that night I started dinner. I tuned on the oven.  Eli is really careful when the oven is on.  I was getting dinner ready so I could put it in the oven.  After a while I turned around and saw flames in the oven.  I opened it up and realized that there was 2 plastic containers in the oven.  Eli must have put them there earlier during the day.  It scared me and I told Marysa to take the kids outside while I put the fire out.  Our house smelled like burnt plastic for a long time.

This is what happens when your 2 year old plays in the kitchen.  These plastic containers are destroyed. 

We watch Eli really carefully when we are cooking.  He loves to watch us cook so he is always close by.  But when we are not cooking in the kitchen he pretends he is cooking.  

                      So I will need to check the oven from now on when I cook.  One day Eli will be a great Chef.

Brain tumor year anniversary

My one year anniversary for my brain surgery to remove my brain tumor was on September 15th.

I am doing a lot better than I was a year ago.  I am still having a few side effects of the surgery though.  The left side of my face is still numb.  Yet it is hurts all day everyday.  It feels like you do when you go to the dentist and get numbing shots in your mouth.  At times it feels like when your hand falls a sleep.  It mostly feels like I have a really tight pulling mask on the left side  my face.  If a bug lands on face I don't really feel, but my face all of a sudden freaks out.  It starts tingling.  Even typing about my face right now it is starting to tingle like crazy.  

My left eye still has problems too.  I do not get tears in that I when I cry.  However when I exercise my eye will get tears in it.  However when I exercise my nose on the left side will just run and run and run.  I can't feel it running because I can't really feel that side of my face.  So I know my nose is runny as soon as it hits my mouth and I can taste it.  My vision in my left eye can go from bad to good to bad to good all day long. Thank goodness my right eye has perfect vision.

The good news is that my left eye can move.  Right after my surgery my left eye could not move to the outside   It could move to the inside .  Now my eye moves in both directions.  My eye lid is still a little droopy but it is a lot better than it was a year ago.  

I do have a indent in my face on the left side.  Most people seem to not notice however I noticed it all the time in all the pictures of me.  My left side of my face looks Skinner than the right side of my face.  

My hair has grown.  I am no longer bald. 

This is what I looked like a year ago.  This is the first picture I took of myself. I have taken quite a few of myself over the last year.

This is just a fun picture I took of myself.  I look pretty cool, don't I.  

This is another picture I took.  In this picture you can see my staples.  I had about 35 in my head.  Which by the way because the left side of my face is numb it never hurt having 35 staples in my head.

                                       This picture was taken about a month after my surgery.

This is about 2 months after my surgery.

This picture is about 3 months after surgery.

                                                   This is about 4 months after surgery

This picture is about 5 months after surgery.

This is about 6 months after surgery.  My left eye is starting to look better.  It isn't drooping as much.

I think this is where I like my hair the best.  If I wasn't trying to grow it out to see if I will look good in long hair this is how short I would want my hair to be. 

This is about 7 months.  My eye is starting to look a lot better. My hair is starting to get long.  Ha ha that is long from being bald.

                                              This picture was taken about 8 months.

This picture was taken about 9 months after surgery.

This picture was taken at about 10 months.

This picture was taken at about 11 months after surgery.  I was finally able to pull my hair back in to piggy tails.

This picture was taken about a week after my one year anniversary date.  I can now pull my hair back in one pony tail.  My hair is still in this I really hate it phase, but hopefully soon I will really like having longer hair.  

So overall I am doing great.  I have had a lot of up an downs.  I am able to do everything I want again.  I can play basketball.  I can have a baby if I want too.  Which I do.  In fact I was pregnant but I miscarried about 6 weeks ago.  I was only about 5 weeks pregnant.  I can do anything I want. I am excited that even though I look a little off now and my face hurts still.  At least I am still alive and I can do anything I want.  What I a want to do is be a good mother and wife.  And play basketball and one day become a professional photographer.  

Eli the Chef

Eli is a great Chef, in the making.  He loves to play in the kitchen.  He can play in the kitchen for hours if I let him.  Last week he helped me make muffins.  I put the pouch in he add the water and he stirred it.  He was in heaven.  I helped him put the mixture in the muffin pan.  He also helped me carry it to the oven.  

This morning he made eggs.  I was surprised.  I had put the pan and the eggs on the stove.  Turned around for not even a minute.  When I turned back around I saw that he  was messing with the egg carton.  I told him to stop messing with the eggs.  I looked over at the pan and noticed that he had put an egg in the pan. The reason he was messing around with the egg carton, was because he was putting the broken shell back in the egg carton.    I than grabbed the camera and asked him to put an another egg in the frying pan.  I than of coarse took pictures of him making eggs.

                            This is a picture of the first and second egg Eli put in the frying pan.
                              The first egg he put in is perfect.  There was no even one shell.

               Here is the first picture of I got of him putting the egg in the frying pan.
                       Eli was standing on the ground and could not see inside the frying pan.   After this picture I         went and grabbed the stool so that he could see into the frying pan and also so he would not burn himself,             because the stove was now on.  

Here is Eli hitting the egg on the stove top so the egg can crack.  I never taught him this.  Yet I know he learned this from watching me and Andrew cook all the time.  If we are cooking Eli is there watching us.  He is cracking the egg just like his dad does.  

I think I let Eli crack like 6 eggs.  He did a great job.  He new when it was time to stop hitting the egg on the stove and to open the egg over the frying pan.  He also new not to put the shells in with the eggs. 

    Here is Eli stirring the eggs.  He knows that the frying pan gets hot so he makes sure he doesn't touch it.  

Eli cooked better than I did this morning.  He cracked  a lot of eggs open  and I cracked one open.  Guess what there was egg shells in the egg that I cracked open.  Eli only had one egg where he got egg shells in it.  I know he will be cooking better than me by time he is well today two years old.

Andrew's side family reunion

Here are a few pictures of Andrew's side family reunion. 

I took over 700 pictures.  So hopefully I will keep adding pictures. 

This is just a quick post of things we did.   

We went to the Natural History Museum in Salt Lake City.

Here is a picture of Azalea Dressed as a Butterfly.  She loves butterflies.

Picture of Eli Looking into something.

                                                                  Picture of Caleb.
                                             

My kids playing with their cousin's and the museum. 

We went to Bryce Canyon Nation Park

It was so beautiful.  

My family picture.  My kids are getting big so fast.

We also went to Devil's Garden in Escalante , Utah

Dear Danette,

Please post something on me. You have so much good to say and show.

Love your husband

Heart ache

Yes, here I go again to write about something that is hurting.  I have been thinking about why I have been so sad for.   At this moment my heart aches.   I wonder if  ourselves can bring up feelings from the past.  I just realized that 8 years ago on the 11th of March I found out that my baby had died.  Yes I was only 14 weeks pregnant but my baby had died.  On the 18th of March I delivered to me a prefect beautiful baby.  My heart was so broken.  

Yes,  I maybe crazy, but Andrew and I started trying to get pregnant again.   When and if I do it will be my 9th pregnancy and hopefully my 6th child.  Yesterday I found out I wasn't pregnant.  My heart aches.  I have had feeling that another child is to come to our family.  I have had these feelings come right before I found out I had a brain tumor.

I remember thinking why I kept having these feelings that a child was to come to our house when I new something was wrong with me.  I had this thought that came to me was yes, something is wrong but you will get better fast and this spirit will still come to you.   About 2 weeks later I found out I had a brain tumor.  So even though we have only be trying for the last 3 months,  it feels a lot longer than that.  I had to wait while I recovered from my brain surgery.

Anyways it still makes my heart ache.  I wonder if I am feeling more heart ache because of two things not being pregnant and remembering the loss of my 2nd miscarriage.

I am off to play basketball.  That always seems to help.

I am feeling broken.

I feel so broken.  I feel sad.  I feel anger.   I feel hurt.  I feel pain. 

Yesterday, was hard.  Oh it was so hard.   I feel like I am nothing special.  Like I am worthless. 

We are to feel so good at church.  We are to feel peace.  We are to feel loved.  No I didn't feel any of it.  I felt stupid.  I felt that the church doesn't want me.   I feel the church doesn't need me.  I feel the church sees me broken.  I feel the church does think I have potential.  I am useless.  I am just not really needed. 

I guess I should tell the story.  The story is just me.  The story is my thoughts alone. 

I have out of young women's for 14 years now.  For the last 14 years I have been in relief society.  I have never been called to serve in Young Women's or Primary.  I did serve in nursery for about 6 months.  I am starting to wonder why the Lord doesn't want me  to have any of these callings.  It so breaks my heart when I see others in them.   I get jealous, when women younger than me are called as presidents in these callings.  Crazy I know.  Yet that is how I feel. 

I have heard well you have a large family, little kids.  Maybe this would work if every mother with little kids wasn't allowed in primary or young women's.  So what I  must also suck at being a mom. 

What really got to me was seeing how this lady in my ward who just moved in became a teacher in primary and is able to be a girls camp director.  She is like me as in she had kids.  It hurts.  I don't want it to.  It does hurt.    I makes me feel like I am just  not good enough.  I must be broken.  I am not strong enough. 

What also happened is Andrew's primary partner moved.  So I was asked to sit in with Andrew while he teaches.  Anyways that Sunday I sat with Andrew's  class during primary time so that Andrew could go to priesthood.  The next day Andrew get a call and he is told that he is being released.   He was told that they want us to take the Family Relations class during Sunday school.  

One I feel like Andrew was released because the didn't really want me in the primary.  Two because they must think that Andrew and I have a really bad family relations.  I have already taken that class once or twice.  

A while back someone in Sacrament meeting was talking and was saying that when he became a I think it was a elders quorum president he felt over whelmed.  Than he said but I knew the Lord saw potential in me.  You know the thought that came to me was.  There is your answer you are not becoming anything because the Lord sees no potential in you.  Yes that is answer that come in sacrament meeting.  I know it was most likely satan.  But still. 

I feel like everyone sees me as broken, as worthless, as not good at anything.  That is how I feel about myself.  I wish I didn't feel like that at church.  But lately that is where I feel it the most.    I just want to cry.   I know I should still go yet I hate how I felt yesterday.   I am not sure what to do?   Maybe I really am broken and I really do not have any potential. 

I feel like I am at war with satan.  I feel it.  I feel it strongly at church.  I know that satan doesn't want me to go to church.  He might win.  I am getting tired of the war.  I did not like how I felt at church.  Look at how powerful satan is.  He made me feel  awful at church.  As of this moment he has won.  I may not go to church.  I don't want to feel that broken anymore. 

Some days I am sure Heavenly Father loves me.  However some days I feel like he may love me yet he sees no potential in me.

Maybe I should not have written this.  But I feel so broken.  I am hoping that someone might be able to help me.

Life

Wow, it has been 2 months since I wrote on my blog. 

Not exactly sure why I haven't written on my blog for 2 months.   Life is busy.   Life has been hard emotionally for me, the last few months.  I have good days and I have bad days.   I think I am just getting tired of having eye problems and the left side of  my face is numb yet it hurts all day long.  It feels like I have been hit in the face.  It feels like it does when your hand is a sleep.  Most days are good, but some days I wish I could just stay in bed and sleep all day so that I don't feel the pain anymore.   The pain is just getting worse, which is good.  It means my 5th nerve is starting to heal.  It heals slowly.  I heard it can take about 2 years fully heal.    The good news is if you look at the picture just below you can see that my left eye fully moves now.  Remember how for a few months after my surgery the left eye would not move.  It moves, it fully moves.  Bad news is that my eye still doesn't tear up, and I mostly still can't feel if anything gets in my eye.  I can feel when my eye burns or feels really puffy.  I do feel blessed that my eye's movement is good.    So now that I have complained let me show you what has been going one.

Azalea at school had a kiddy 500 day.   The teacher told us that we had to make something that moved.  It could be a bus, car, train, jet or a horse.   It had to be something that moves.  Azalea wanted a horse.  So Azalea and I made a horse, she loves it.  It turned out so cute.

Azalea named her horse Lily.   It looks like Lily was taking a break to get a eat.


Azalea loves showing off her horse Lily.

.

Lily must be so hungry.  Azalea is helping her eat.

Caleb played basketball these past 2 months.   He did pretty well.  He was the tallest on his team.  He has a lot of fun playing.

His team won there last game by 26 points.  This was really good for his team.  His team usually lost by 26 points.  He did well.  He scored 2 points.  Rebounded really good.  He passed good.  I sure love that he likes basketball.  Basketball is my favorite sport.  I love playing it. 

I canned chicken.  It was fun.  My sister and I both canned chicken.  My mother in law was wonderful and got me a pressure cooker for Christmas.  Canning the chicken was the first time I had used the pressure cooker she got me.   My family like canned chicken.  It is nice to have especially when you are in a big hurry to cook dinner. 

Eli turned 18 months on February 20th.  I can not believe he is 18 months already.  Time sure does fly by.  Eli is a handful.  He is a mommy's boy.  He loves watching his dad and I cook.  He loves playing in the kitchen.   He loves it so much it feels like it is going to be a great chief one day.  He isn't really talking yet.  He babbles all the time.  He really hasn't even called me mom yet.  He says ma ma when he wants a drink of milk.   He points to a lot of stuff and if he wants to go somewhere he tries to pull be up and once I am up he pushes me to where he wants to go. 

Josh is Josh.  He loves to Josh you.  You know joke with you.   He is one handsome boy.

We went and bought us a trampoline.  Okay I went and bought us a trampoline.  The kids love it.   It is a good thing that this years winter has been so mild.  Some days here if feels like spring outside. Which makes it so the kids can jump on it.  The trampoline came with a netting around it. 

All the kids love jumping on it, even Eli.

 

Marysa looks like she is hitting Caleb in the face.   She didn't it just looks like it.

This is a picture of Marysa falling back on the trampoline.  What I love about this picture is that she looks headless. 





Marysa loves to play basketball.  I waited to long and I wasn't able to sign her up.  She had played volleyball and so we signed Caleb up first we had just enough money to sign him up.  I went to sign her up once Andrew got payed again, but it was to late.  They said all the teams where full.

Marysa fell in love with it the first time she ever played.  One night my stake had a open court basketball night so we went and played and she fell in love.  For someone just starting she is doing well.  She is shooting good.  She loves to dribble.  I see a great basketball star in her.  I love that she loves it.   

The question is:

Does the short hair look cute on me? 

 

To end this long post I want to show off my cute fabric hair bow that I made and my very handsome 18 month old son Eli.