Empty Promises

That is what I am all about, empty promises. I promise pictures and then I don't deliver. Oh well. If you know me at all, you know that I hate loading the pictures off my camera. I hate Photobucket even more. I am not quite sure what happened to that site. It used to be so easy and quick to use and now it just royally sucks. On to brighter things....

Ella got her ears pierced. We took her to Claires a week ago and amazingly the same girl that pierced Tara's ears was there. Her name is Tara too. She agreed to do Ella's at the same time with the other worker girl. Ella was so extremely nervous. I could tell she wanted to back out, but I encouraged her to follow through. I stood behind her holding her hand as she squeezed all the blood out of it. And this is the face I saw when I came around front after the piercing was done:

We'll definitely save that one for the wedding slide show ;)

We had a fairly good Labor Day weekend. Nothing too exciting. I did make this awesome fruit salad. I bought Kiwis for it and when I cut into them discovered they were yellow kiwis. Weird. I wanted green ones. The yellow ones just looked like they had gone bad even though they tasted exactly like green ones. The little sticker even called them yellow kiwis. The fruit salad was easy and yummy and quite pretty if I do say so myself:


Ella, Coryn and I went shopping yesterday and let Coryn pick out her birthday presents which I am hoping she'll forget about before her party. We were at Toys R Us and she picked out the cutest flip flops.

Her feet are so adorable. She was so excited to have shoes like her Sissies. She kept saying "shoes get". How could I not buy them for her. She is going to be so spoiled.

And just for good measure here is a picture of Ella and Tara and the rest of the family on their first day of school. They are loving it, their new friends and their most awesome teachers(I am seriously in love with them).


At least for today some promises have been fulfilled ;)

Not quite sure where July went

I really am a little baffled about what happened to July. It was a whole month and it is just gone. Like that. I am hoping August sticks around a little longer, but since we're already halfway through the month, it doesn't look like that is what is going to happen. I think this means that I am getting old.

To recap where July went in no particular order(I think):
*More settling and projects at our house
*J.R. to Boulder for two weeks
*Ella turned NINE! Holy crap that sounds old!
*We celebrated the 4th with our new neighbors(who rock BTW)
*Follow up appt for Coryn and her eye is all better
Did I mention that Ella turned nine! That is another sign that I am old. She'll be driving before I know it.

August has started off with a bang as Tara turned seven. Seven doesn't sound nearly as bad as 9. We celebrated both of the girls' birthdays at the roller skating rink. Amazingly I skated at both parties and am still alive with all my tendons and muscle tissue intact.

This weekend we begin our BIG landscaping project at our house. Eric Reisner(God bless him) is coming over to help us. J.R. is just excited at the fact that we will have a bobcat here that he can play with. Every man's dream...playing with heavy equipment and dirt.

I have officially turned into a big nerd. I blew through all of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight books in a week so that I could go to the big book release of Breaking Dawn. It was fun hanging out with all the prepubescent screaming girls that were there. My friends and I felt a bit out of place. I don't care though. The books were great. I have been intrigued by the author and her Mormonism, which shows in the writing of the books.

I'll come back later with some pictures of the quickly disappearing month. Bye for now.

Quite the week

We have just gotten through a really rough week. I know that the only thing that got us through in one piece was the prayer support that we had and FELT all week long. It was amazing and that doesn't really fully describe it. It started a few weeks ago when Coryn started this eye rolling thing. At first I thought that it was something that she was doing to be funny. She would be smiling and look up at you and her right eye(always the right eye) would roll back into her head and sometimes bounce a little bit. It became obvious to us pretty quickly that it wasn't something that she was controlling and it started happening more frequently. I called the doctor on Friday June 20. They wanted us in ASAP. We got there and she was doing the eye rolling constantly. I realized standing there that they were very concerned about this. Especially when other doctors were invited in to offer suggestions as to what it might be. Our doctor called a pediatric opthamologist who we went to see on the following Monday. He did a full eye exam and determined that her vision was fine, but was concerned about(here is where the week gets bad) a brain tumor!! He mentioned those two words several times. By the time I got in the car to go home I was a mess. I called our ped on the way home to ask about a CT scan that had been ordered. I was bawling while talking to the nurse. She said that they too were concerned that it might be a brain tumor! We got the CT scan set up for Wednesday.

My parents offered administration for her and we gladly took them up on it. My brother in law(and his family) and father(and mom) came and together as a family we prayed for the health of our little girl.

We waited two long days for our CT scan. On Wednesday we arrived at Children's Mercy Hospital. She needed to be sedated for the CT scan. It was traumatic watching her get her IV and I kept thinking to myself that I did not want the hospital to have to become a part of our lives. That afternoon the drama of our week ended when we found out that her scans were clear. Our ped office was so relieved. Carrie, the nurse, shared with me that everyone at both of their offices had been praying for us. That touched me beyond belief. How amazing in our time of need, that perfect strangers are out there praying for you.

We are still not sure what is going on with her eye, but it is hardly even doing it anymore. That is a huge relief to us. We are hoping it was some fluke thing, but do have a follow up appt with the eye doctor on July 15.

I am so lucky to have three healthy kids and a most wonderful husband, but above and beyond that, I am lucky to have a family that believes in the power of God. I am so thankful that we had him by our side through this. I can't imagine not having him to turn to in our times of need.

The girls and I

Lisa Carlson took these pictures of us. I love the girls! Their personalities really came out in them.

More overload

Just a few more pictures to share :)

Ella's Baptism

We had Ella's baptism on Saturday(the 14th) at our Church Family Camp. J.R. baptized her and it was very touching. He said her heart was racing as he held her hands to her chest before the big dunk. The baptism itself was held at the swimming pool on the camp grounds. She was confirmed by my father and assisted by J.R. in a service following the baptism. These are a few pics from that. Sorry they are on their side. I need to figure that out.

It's about time! The house!

We have finally pretty much gotten settled. I still haven't taken pictures of the lower level, lovingly referred to as the man cave. I'll try to do that before Ella graduates, but here are a few pics to give you an idea.