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.

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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. 

How life has been.

Life has been really good.  I am recovering really well from my brain tumor removal surgery.  I am physically feeling back to normal.  My hair is growing so fast at least that is what everyone keeps telling me.  For me my hair is  only needs to grow about 3 more inches or so and I will love it.  

Funny thing is right before my surgery, I remember looking in the mirror and saying I wish I could just shave all my hair off.  I think this was the Lords way of helping me get ready for all my hair to be shaved off.  However I do  LOVE short hair.  I like my hair about the length it is right now, however you can still see my scar and I don't like that so much.  I love wearing bows and headband I have made for my hair.  

Here are some cute pictures of me. 

Here is a picture of my eye's if you noticed on the first picture my eye is starting to move left.  I am super excited.  I thought that would take the longest to heal and it is healing quicker to heal than my left side of my face being not numb anymore.  What also makes me excited is that my eye does have the 6th nerve.  The doctor was never sure I did after I had surgery because he could not see the nerve.  Yea my eye is starting to move again.

Eli is getting so BIG.  He is now 16 months old.  He is starting to climb on everything.  He now running.  He loves to laugh.  I ask him to kiss me and he gives me a big hug instead.  He just got four molars in the back of his mouth.  He either moves or sleeps.  In other words he is a very, very active baby/toddler.  The other day I could hear him playing in the kitchen I thought he was playing with the dishes, like he always does.  I go in there and check on him and he had gotten somehow into the fridge and took out the eggs and broke all of them.  Not only that but he but some in his mouth.  Yuck.  Yes I had to take a picture.  Eli loves eggs and it looks like he enjoyed them raw too.  

The kids are just having fun together.  We went to a line dancing party that our stake had.  It was a lot of fun. Even Joshua lined danced.  It was a lot of fun.  Our stake will be doing it again in January.  The sports stake director is hoping to be able to have line dancing party once a month.   

The picture on the right is of the girls trying to tackle Caleb.  They had fun TRYING.  

Marysa has been super busy too.  She just finished playing volleyball.  She played really well.  I love watching her play volleyball.  She also sings in the school choir plus she has achievement days every other week.  She loves being involved in lots of stuff.  She is just getting bigger to fast.  She is one beautiful girl.  

 Caleb and Marysa are in there school Barnett's school choir.  They had a December choir concert.  I really enjoyed seeing them sing.  I like that they both like being in it.

Funny thing is that i was looking over the choir memeber's names, looking for Caleb and Marysa's name.  I looked and looked and I could not find Caleb's name at all.  I was really sad thinking that they forgot to put his name on the paper.  I finally found it and guess what it was the first name on the list.

Caleb and Marysa singing.

 Caleb has been busy.  He will be playing basketball soon.  He went to a team tryout.  The boys all show what they can do and than all the coaches get together and choose who they would like on there team.  Caleb did well at the tryout and 2 coaches came up to Caleb and asked him what his name was.

He also gave a oral report at school about Russia.  He did a real good job.  He did a power point presentation, which he did all by himself.  I am so proud of him.  He is growing up so fast.   My 11 year old is now taller than me.  I knew that one day he would be taller than me I just didn't think it would happen at the young age of 11.

I don't have any pictures yet but Caleb broke his wrist.  The brake is very small.  Azalea lost one of her front teeth.  Azalea is one smart girl.  It amazes me how smart she is.  She learns everything so quick.  I am sure she will be smarter than me by time she is  done with kindergarten.  

On Sunday Andrew and I where running a little late so we sent Marysa and Caleb without us to church so that they could save us a spot.  Josh and Azalea where not happy and took off running to catch up with them. Even though I told them no.   I wasn't happy about it but I did know that Caleb and Marysa would watch them.  I really couldn't chase them because I was outside with Eli and I could not leave him alone to catch them.  

Anyways Andrew and I get to Church a few minute after they arrived and I see Caleb, Marysa and Joshua out in the hall way.  I asked where Azalea was and they said in the chapel.   I walk in there and there is Azalea saving a row for us.  It was the 2nd row up front.  Not only that but she had the hymn book opened up to the right page that the congregation was singing.  Page 177.   I was impressed most of the kindergartners her age are still learning how to count to 100.  She knows how to count above 100.   Not only that she was on the right page.  She was also being really reverent.   

Wow,  life has been good.  I am so blessed.

Azalea turned 6 years old.

Wow, Azalea 3 days ago you turned 6 years old.   I am so happy I get to be your mother.  Your dad and I waited along time for you.  It took us about 1 1/2 to get pregnant with you.  That has been one of the hardest 1 1/2 years of my life.  I am so grateful that you came to this family.  We are so blessed to have you.  

You started kindergarten this past August.  You are doing really well.  You are learning to read and write so quickly.  You can already spell the words horse and bus.  You the other day wrote a note saying I like a horse.  You can count to 100 already.  I love that you love school.  

This picture was taken the day after you turned 6.  

Here is a picture of you just minutes after you where born.  I think this is such a cute picture.   You where 9lbs even when you where born.

Here is a  picture of you a day after you where born.    

                                                          Here you are at about 1 month old.

                                                Here you are at 6 months old.

Here you are at a year old.  I think your little brother Eli who is 15 months old looks so much like you when you where one.

  Here you are at 2 years old.

                                                        Here you are a little over 3 years old.

                                                         Here you are at 4 years old.

Here you are a couple days before you turn 5.

Here you are about 1 week after you turned 5.  You had your hair cut because you had cut it. 

                  Here  you are at 5 1/2 with even shorter hair because again you had cut it . However no matter how short your hair is you always look beautiful.

Your fifth year of life was a little difficult for you.  At 5 1/2 years old you had to have your appendix removed.   You did so well though.   You recovered quickly so you where back climbing and jumping off everything.

You had a great birthday this year.   I love you so much

Happy Birthday Azalea.

Halloween 2011

Halloween 2011 was really fun.  It pretty much went from Friday October 28th to Monday October 31st.  We went trick or treating 5 different time.

On Friday October 28th we went trick or treating at Payson Market and on Saturday we went trick or treating down Payson Main street.  We went with Amber and her kids.  The kids had a lot of fun.  We also went trick or treating on Halloween with Amber and her kids in Amber's neighborhood.  That was lot of fun also.  Look at all the fun the kids had in the above picture.

Saturday night on October 29th we had a LDS ward party.  The party was so much fun.  There was a ward soup dinner.  The soup Andrew made was the first soup all gone.  Everybody loved it.  There was also trick or treating down the halls.  There was also a room where they dyed your hair.  Even I got my hair dyed.

On Monday Halloween Day.  I first went to the kids school and saw the Costume parade.  It was outside and it was kind of cold.  It was really cute though.  What was even cuter is that the 6th graders walked with the kindergartner's so Caleb walked with Azalea.  Than after school Andrew's work had a trick or treating and the kids and I went there it was so much fun and the kids got tons of candy.  As I mentioned earlier on  Halloween night we went trick or treating with Amber and her kids.  

So by trick or treating 5 different times, we ended up with a lot of candy.  I mean a lot.  Oh how I love Halloween.

So below are pictures of my kids in there costumes. 

I took all of the photo's below of my kids about 2 weeks before Halloween.  It was a lot of fun.  I think I did a great job.  I am falling in love with taking pictures. 

Caleb is an escaped prisoner. 

Marysa is Alice in wonderland.

Azalea is a Witch cat.

Joshua is a skeleton.

Eli is a baby devil.

Since this post is one week past Halloween that means today is November 7th so I would like to say Happy 30th birthday to my twin sister Amy Shetter and Amber Murray.

I had a brain tumor.

I had a brain tumor.

It was a large tumor.  It was 5cm x 5cm x 5cm.

It was on my 5th cranial nerve. 

I had an MRI done on September 12, 2011.  I had one because I had been having the left side of my face go numb once in awhile for about 60 seconds each time.  Also because since I was 8 months pregnant with Eli I had vertigo all the time.

I found out in the late afternoon of September 12, 2011 when someone called from the doctors office telling me I had a large benign tumor and that I had to go to their office the next morning at 9:30.

At the meeting they told me I had to go straight to the ER in Provo at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center.  Because that is the quickest way to see a neurosurgeon.  

He told me that I would need surgery right away.  I enter the ICU on Tuesday September 13th and had surgery on Thursday September 15th 2011. 

Here are some pictures of me right after surgery. The surgery lasted about 7 1/2 hours.

Here are some pictures of my family that visited me right after surgery. 

It includes my mom, dad, sister Amber and my husband Andrew.

Here are some pictures of me in the ICU.  I do not remember talking on the phone with some one.  I don;t remember sitting there watching tv .  I don't remember taking a picture of myself.  

Here are some pictures of me that I remember taking of myself.  

I had 35 staples in my head.  

 It was a month ago today that I had that brain surgery to remove my tumor.  I am starting to feel much better.  However 2 of my nerves need to repair and that can take about 6 months.  So my 5th nerve needs to repair and so that means the left part of my face is numb.  Also cranial nerve number 6 needs to repair and so my left eye doesn't move and so I see double every now and then that will also take about 6 months to heal.  Also my left eye lid is having trouble and it droops and it will take time to heal also.  My scar is healing also.

I have had so much help.  The people in LDS ward brought me dinner for 2 weeks straight.  They have come to help me clean.  While I was in the hospital the ward helped clean up our yard.  They did  a lot of work in the house to make it look nicer.  They took out carpet and put new carpet in.  They painted walls.  They put tile we had bought in our bathroom.  They finished a lot of work that Andrew and I never finished because we ran out of money.

My mother in law has helped out a lot too.  My sister Amber also has helped out a lot to by watching my kids when I need her too.  Andrew worked from home for 2 weeks.

I am so grateful for everything everyone has done for me.  I am also thankful that people love me and that they keep praying for me.