Last Day

Today Grant worked in one of the satellite clinics for his last day as a nurse. One of the other nurses decided to throw him a little lunch party. I went down and took some food and got some pictures of Grant in his scrubs for possibly the last time. It was a fun lunch; he works with some great people.

My guess is he is using hand sanitizer in this picture--a medical person's favorite thing in the world.

The Latest and Greatest

Piper went through a phase of wearing my clothes, and now she is on to her latest trend. She wears all the clothes that she possibly can at one time. For instance, a couple of shirts, 3 dresses, a skirt, a pair of pants,

and a sweater on top to keep warm is a daily occurrence. If we have an emergency and have to leave our house quickly--Piper will be prepared. Laundry is about the same as normal because we can just take off the top layer of clothes, and viola--she's clean. She also has FINALLY started letting us put pretty things in her hair like clips and ponytails. Today's hairdo is quite the do that she came up with, but we sure think she is one pretty girl!

Movin' On Up

I sat down at a table because there was a newspaper opened. When I sat down to look at it, I saw this on the top of the page! I had no idea that he was going to be in the newspaper this month. We are very excited about this promotion.

We've known that it has been coming for some time, but it wasn't until recently that we were able to tell other people. This is why Grant has been going to school for his MBA. For this new position he has to hang up his scrubs for some fancy shmancy executive clothes. We took a couple of our dates to buy a new wardrobe for him because he hasn't gone shopping (besides for new jeans when his finally got holes in them) since Ben was about 18 months old. I had so much fun! He about needs a new closet for all these cool clothes.
Grant is going to miss nursing a lot. He loves interacting with the patients, but he hopes that he will still get to do that from time to time. He loves management, and he loves streamlining and making things better. Really he has had his hand in this position for awhile now anyway, along with his full-time nursing job, and being a nurse manager. So the way I see it is that he is going from 3 positions down to 1 (with a pay increase!).
I am so proud of him and thankful for all he does for our family. He is the best dad and the perfect husband!

'Tis the Season

It's that time of year again! Grant was itching to get outside and have a hotdog roast. It was fun. The boys enjoyed starting their own fires. The weather was nice, and we are now looking forward to have many more hot dog roasts this summer. Hopefully there won't be a long burn ban like there was last year. It was just a nice night to be out and enjoy good company.

Don't mind my nails---another fabulous manicure from my sweet Liddy-Pie.

Best Friends

Grant and I are lucky to have the best friends in the world who brought us these:

Surgery Day

Piper and I had to wake up before dawn in order to get to the hospital today. I am very glad that she is not one of my kids that has to wake up and eat right away because she had to go in fasting. When we got there, she was not happy. She really has quite the aversion to doctors.

My sentiments exactly!

They took us back to our {shared} room, and any time someone would come in she would start screaming at them. But then they sent in an angel! She was a Recreational Therapist. I am familiar with this field because it was one of the degrees within my major in college, but I never realized how truly wonderful these people could be. It makes me wish I would have done that major instead of my non-useful major. She brought in a coupon so that Piper could get a present when she was all done. And she brought in an iPad (do you hear that?--it is the sound of angels singing!). Really--it was a miracle (maybe I should back this story up by saying that yesterday I was in the hospital for Trevor's scopes, and I didn't realize how taxing it would be to have 2 kids, 2 days in a row, in hospitals under anesthesia with very little sleep both days).

They had her all ready to go back {finally} by 9:00. They put her in a bed and started to roll her away. She kept looking back and saying, "No! Wait!" It was the saddest thing. They kept her {kind of} entertained with the iPad.
They came and got me a half an hour later and told me that she went down fighting and came out of it fighting--that sounds just like Piper. But she did great. Once I got her, she just fell asleep in my arms, and after that the hardest part was trying to wake her up so we could go home.
She was a trooper, and she did beautiful. She hasn't cared one bit about her cast--although if people ask her about it then she suddenly starts crying that the doctor gave her an owie. We did stop at the store on the way home because I did not enjoy the fact that every time Piper and I went out together by ourselves it was always to the doctors--which she doesn't like. She bought an Anna doll because she, like all other girls, is infatuated with the movie "Frozen."

Derby Time

It's that time again. I love scouting. I love the program, and I believe firmly in it. I really think it is a great program to help raise boys to be men. However, the Pinewood Derby is about the worst idea that anybody ever had. Well, it's a great idea--I just wish we didn't have to participate.
Trevor finished his pinewood derby car from last year for this year's race. He didn't get to go last year because he was in the hospital (and I will be completely honest--I was kind of glad last year that we had an excuse not to be there). His car was stylish. It was very cub scoutish. But when we got there for weigh-in it was almost double the weight it was suppose to be. And Grant had to work late. And my kids were running through the church. And I had no idea how much graphite to put on the wheels. And I had no idea to where to even begin to take weight off so that he could qualify to race. And I've decided that since I made it through this night--I can do just about anything. With the help of DeWayne, we started to rid the car of weight until we finally got it to 4.9 ounces. Needless to say, it didn't look like this when we were done.

This was the first year that they didn't tell us exactly how everyone placed....they only told the top 4 places. And that was brilliant. However, we do know that Trevor did not come in last place. And for that I am thankful. He came in 2nd for many heats that he did, and that was wonderful. He came away happy, and I came away surviving the night without crying (at least the tears didn't fall from my eyes), and I didn't give up and go home early. The pinewood derby is suppose to teach the boys life skills, but I am pretty sure they created it to teach me life skills (either that or to torture me).

Huffin and Puffin

Ben was invited to go on a 10-mile hike for scouts today. We thought how much fun it would be to go along. We discovered that 10 miles is a long ways. I would much, much, much rather run 10 miles than walk 10 miles. When you walk, it goes on FOR-EVER, or so it seems. Piper enjoyed her trip in the stroller. Lydia enjoyed walking for about 15% of the time. Karmin was such a trooper and walked almost the whole way, but at one point we did manage to squeeze all 3 in the stroller. The boys were totally entertained by the other boys.
We had the role of bringing up the back and making sure nobody got left behind. There were 3 boys that had to be prodded a bit at the 7 mile mark, but they finally made it and started to beat us. It was fun and it felt good to go, but it sure was a long ways.

 I think this hill almost got Grant :) Just teasing, he was just taking a "break."

 And we lost them:

Piper

I've looked at the following pictures 1,000's of times, and have never noticed anything wrong. She's the cutest kid ever, right? Do you see anything amiss?

Well, we were sitting in church a few weeks ago and Ben leaned over and told me that Piper couldn't straighten her thumb. At first I laughed. That just sounded silly. But then I realized he was serious. That right thumb doesn't straighten. He said that it had been there for awhile. I went through a bunch of pictures to see how long it was going on, and figured out that she was born with it. The funny thing is that the week before we discovered this, I told Grant that I thought Piper was going to be a lefty--even though she showed a preference for her right hand when she was younger. However, I think when she has to do fine motor skills--like coloring--she has to use her left hand to grasp. 

It is called congenital trigger thumb. I had never heard of it before, but I guess it is the most common hand deformity---luckily one that can easily be fixed. I took her to an orthopedic surgeon today, and a simple surgery is required to fix it. So by next week, her thumb will be straight and she will be able to give us a thumbs up!

And then there was this...

Piper has enjoyed wearing other people's clothes. Her latest shirt that she has worn is this pink shirt of mine. It has words on it, so she calls it her "YU" shirt (meaning BYU--although it is  not). She has worn it for 3 days now. I was talking to Heather on Friday, and she asked me if we would be able to get it off of her for my grandma's dinner that night. I confidently said that we would of course be able to get it off. I did,

for that night, however this morning was a different story.
Piper had a hard time waking up for 9:00 church on daylight savings day. So she wasn't in the mood to be discussing what dress she was going to wear to church. In the end, we had to compromise. We would put a dress on her, and then put the shirt over the top. Luckily she let me put on a sweater over the top, to make it blend in a little more. Then she added the helmet. Oh dear...
At least she let me put on church shoes this week for church--rather than her tennis shoes like normal weeks.

Birthday Dinner

We got to go to Texas Roadhouse for my Grandma's birthday last night. I always love seeing my family.
This evening was a bit tricky though. Grant wasn't able to come because he was home feeling pretty miserable. So I took comfort in the fact that there would be family there to help me with kids--plus we were going to the loudest restaurant known to man--so our noise wouldn't be noticed. We enjoyed the night. Karmin enjoyed rocking out to the music--playing air guitar all night. Piper enjoyed jumping on my lap. The boys enjoyed being embarrassed by their sister playing the air guitar. It was all going well. My aunt Dona helped me survive being a single parent for the night. But then all of the sudden, out of nowhere, Karmin felt really sick. We had to pack it up and call it a night early. But luckily before we left, we got to enjoy seeing my Grandma get in the famous saddle and be sung Happy 40th Birthday to her. That was cute! She is a trooper.

ALOHA!!

The kids decided if we can't go to Hawaii--why not bring it to us. It was a welcomed site with all of this snow we have outside. The picture doesn't do it justice--they had white sand, and crabs crawling around. They had sea shells, a lamp (simulating the sun), and Hawaiian music playing. Lydia was the luau girl. It was cute. Now if we could just really go to Hawaii...

Raider-Mater

This dog. What do I even say? He fits in well with our family?
He got an infection in his foot about a month and a half ago, and it just isn't going away--actually it has gotten worse. So I had to take him back to the vet today. And now he has the cone of shame!
Poor buddy. I hope we all make it through this!