Saturday, April 17, 2010

Temple Open House

Today we had the awesome opportunity of attending a special open house for the Gila Valley Temple. The official open house doesn't start until the 23rd, but today was a contractors open house-all those that worked on the temple and their families. This was such a neat experience. We went with Curtis' parents, grandma, and sister Sara and Darren. They have you start in the chapel next door to watch a special movie on the temple. Curtis and I were both surprised by the fact that the movie was made special just for our temple. For some reason we both thought the movie was just a general movie shown at temple open houses. So that was pretty neat to watch. Then we went on a tour of the temple. Cambree couldn't understand why we had to wear the special booties and kept asking when we would see the temple. We've been driving by for months and talking to her about it for months that I think she had a different idea of what the temple was. **as a side notes, on our way to the temple we asked Cambree if she knew who lived in the temple. She got really excited and said Aunt Lorene!! Thought that was funny. Its so neat to have these opportunities to teach our kids about the temple. It was absolutely beautiful inside. I'm very excited to start doing sessions in there in about a month.

After the tour, we went back to the church and they had a full on lunch for everyone in the cultural hall. It was all decorated and looked so homey. It didn't even look like a cultural hall. I feel so blessed to be able to attend this special occasion.

Here's some beautiful pictures taken by the oh so talented Curtis- he did pretty good huh :)



This is the corner stone. Curtis had the unique opportunity of doing a test run on raising it into place. How many people can say that?



Friday, April 16, 2010

Can I just say-what a week!!-its long

This week has been a very trying week for me. Sickness has hit our house and its not been fun.

After a couple nights of being up all night long with Brecklynn waking up every hour just to fall asleep immediately after holding her, I decided something wasn't right. I was figuring it to be an ear infection because she wasn't sleeping or eating. My throat had started hurting but I thought it was just a simple sore throat, which I tend to get time to time.

I had been struggling a lot with feeling terrible and light headed and dizzy. Then add a sore throat on top, things were just not fun. Wednesday I decided to take Brecklynn in to get her checked out. These decisions are always very hard for me because we still do not have insurance, so its always a concern that there will be nothing wrong and I just paid for them to tell me she's ok.

Well, we did get to see her new weight which was 16.4 pounds and she was 27 inches tall. They checked her ears-nothing. They gave her a strep test since I told them my throat had been sore. Of course, that had to come back negative too. I was so perplexed as to what her problem could be then. She isn't normally up all hours of the night like that. Something had to be wrong. She did have a pretty bad rash which turned out to be a yeast infection, but I still couldn't believe that would be our reason. So we ended up paying for our visit, for no reason like I had feared.

Thursday, my throat went from bearable to extreme pain. I was having to consciously think about swallowing and making sure I didn't clench my teeth together because it was causing a headache. My mom gave me some ideas of ways to try to relieve my pain. I tried the 3-2-1 combo and gargled it. It made my whole mouth numb, but of course not my throat. Brecklynn was still being a pill at night but was hoping the diaper rash was still the reason and we would eventually see some sleep.

Also Thursday was my jewelry party. I was so excited about it but with how I was feeling, it was taking everything out of me to keep a smile on my face and faking being happy. Curtis was awesome about taking the kids for the night. I really appreciated his eagerness to give me this time. The turn out was less than what I had hoped but it was still fun. I really appreciate those that did show up!! That night, after getting the show finished up, I headed home to find out Cambree was running a temp. Curtis had her in the bath trying to make her feel better. She was running a temp around 102.6. I gave her some medicine and put her to bed. That night, Brecklynn pulled her usual all nighter, but this time added a temperature on top. I knew about midnight, that I needed to cancel preschool the next day. Two girls with temps wasn't a good sign.

I couldn't sleep because of my throat. So about 4:30, I headed to Walmart in attempts of finding some kind of relief. I bought theraflu and chlorseptic spray. I tried them both immediately after getting home. It was so frustrating to realize that they weren't working either. I called my mom about 6:00- probably scared her a bit, but asked her what she thought I should do. She told me what I had already thought, but I guess I needed another confirmation. I needed to go back in to the Dr. This was such a tug of war decision for me with the last Dr. visit being such a disappointment and $200.00 out for no reason. I did as my mom said and said a prayer and I did feel like it was right to go even though I was still leery of the outcome. We got in and they immediately took a strep test on me. The Dr. came in and said it was positive. I was actually relieved. Then he said that Brecklynn's previous strep test probably was too early to see the right result. He looked at her throat and she did have it, along with Cambree. So I was right to going in. He looked at my throat and said he could tell it had been there awhile because my glands are so swollen. So now there's at least a glimmer of light in the future. I'm ready to say good-bye to this week and hopefully hello to a happier, healthier week.

Here's some pictures from actually the week before, but because of my terrible week, they never got posted.

Here's Cambree showing Brecklynn how to stand. This is all Brecklynn likes to do and Cambree is more than happy to oblige.

Brecklynn's first tooth. She's had it for awhile but this is the first time its been visible to the camera-so had to take a shot :)

This was last Sunday. Notice both of their objects in their hands. They refused to get rid of them


Ridge refused to take out his drink until it was finished, but still posed for pictures.

And of course my little model showing her moves.







And my little cutie Brecklynn in her little yellow tutu.

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Easter Fun

This was a fun Easter this year. The kids were older and understood everything!! I had fun getting everything ready. Curtis just kept laughing at me for all the stuff that do for these holidays, but to me, its not a holiday without these things. They each got little goodies in their baskets like a stuffed rabbit, coloring book, crayons, little finger kite, etc, and a new outfit.

I hid eggs all over the house- where I could :) It was egg city. Ridge was of course the first awake. He couldn't wait. So Curtis went and woke up Cambree. She was dead asleep. Curtis shook her awake and told her that the Easter Bunny had been there and he said she shot right up and said "Ohh, I want to go see him, hurry"!

Love his face :
True bed head



In between conference sessions, we went to the Allen's for a big easter egg hunt. Here is most of the group.
Cambree found all her 12 eggs-she was proud
Miss Morgan-it was her 12th birthday!!!
Sweet Ol' GG

Cousin Matthew with the 'twinners'
And of course a shot of the twinners!
I had to post this for Sara- I LOVE this face and he does it a lot!!

Oh Cambree....

Easter Fun-Coloring Eggs

On Friday- for Good Friday we had time to color eggs. It was so much fun. They were so excited to do this. Cambree kept wanting to dump the eggs in different colors making them UGLY colors. She loved it!! Ridge just wanted to keep touching them.



After they dried, they put stickers on. This was way fun for Ridge cause they were CARS!! Cambree's of course was Princesses.


Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Easter Party

Today was our preschool Easter Party. For some reason, I was so stressed over this, but it went actually pretty good. Besides being a huge workout and sweating like crazy by the end, it was a lot of fun.

I made these little hats for each kid. The ears were a bit floppy so I had to keep fixing them throughout the party. We'll have to fix that for next year.

All the anxious kids.

Each kid brought 10 eggs-there was 140 eggs to hide. It was a lot of fun to watch.




This is one of crafts we did. Easy cutting project and they decided on putting the bow below or above to make it a girl or boy.

Another craft that was a lot cuter than I thought it would be. I saw this on another blog and wanted to give it a try. Kids loved it!

This is something we did earlier this week. Kids took home a blank egg to decorate and brought it back to decorate our Easter Tree. Looks pretty festive huh? I love how my door doubles as a bulletin board.


So all my stress was really for nothing. It was a lot of fun and kids were kept busy. Now on to the next Easter fun!

Du West Concert

On Monday evening, we went to Tucson to go to my brother-in-law Lan's Dental Office Open House. In honor of it, the country group Du West performed a private concert for those that attended. We went and it was way bigger and better than we ever could have expected. We've loved this group for a long time and Brad is from Thatcher and is Lan's good friend and a good friend of the family, so it was neat to get a picture with them. For some reason, Cambree freaked out.


Here's the man of the hour, Lan- his Dental Office is gorgeous!!


Here's a shot of the group that showed up. We heard something like 500 showed up.


Ridge sport'n the Du West shirt

April and Quinn enjoying the concert





This place was great. The kids ran forever. They LOVED it!!




These kids are so funny together!


It was a great night. Congrats Lan! and thanks Du West for the awesome concert.