Peace Even in Trouble Times

Wow has it ever been a long time since I have updated!! It has been so crazy over the last two years!! So much has happened that I have looked back and thought wow so much has changed!! We had a new addition that has been such a joy for me! We have moved twice. We have been building our home (final home) I might add!  Things have been up and down and Mikes job here.  It has been so crazy! Tucker has been playing ball and getting older by the minute!! 13 can you believe it?  Austin just turned 9 and had a science birthday party.  Bryson's is coming up in a week and he will be 7!!  What use to be my baby is now almost 7 CRAZY!!  Paisley will be 16 months in a week. Mike and I are feeling older and older everyday!  Gray hairs, bodies that don't work like they use to and weight that isn't coming off as easy as it use to!!  All in all life is good just really busy! At times I wish I could go back to when life was slower and simpler!!

Today I am writing because I was really having a hard time.  Tucker has been so excited to go on his field trip and was all but ready this morning and his principle called 5 minutes before we were leaving and said that the handicap bus they were taking had a brake blow.  So he didn't know what to do.   I think he wanted me to drive but I told him that I would talk to Tucker and let him know.  When I spoke with Tucker he didn't miss a beat he said I'll just climb up the stairs and sit in a seat.  I offered to take him and he said "Umm, I just thought I would go by myself."  Should I be offended?? :)  Honestly his dad or I have gone in the years past and he just really wants to be free and like everyone else that he wants to be independent. I am glad but I am sad at the same time.
So we went down to the school and they had him get on first. While all the others were in class.  So I waited there and told them how to get the wheels off and they put his chair in the seat next to him.  He seemed just fine.  I stayed awhile and then left.  My heart was heavy as I left the school.  I got home and was really struggling with it. I guess because I feel like if it isn't one thing it is another!!  I just want things to go smooth or easy for him for once!!  I was having this conversation in my head with the Lord as I was vacuuming and then my thoughts turned to my dad.  I then felt him telling me that he was watching over him and giving him strength. That every thing was going to be ok.  He would be fine.  I felt this incredible feeling that overcame me and I stopped vacuuming and started crying! :)  How grateful I was to have someone watching over him!! I knew then that he was fine and I could put it aside and get on with my day!!  I am now interested to see how his day went at the capitol!!  Sure love him so much and want him to have such a good experience!! Now that he is older and I can't protect him as much as I use to has been honestly hard for me!  I know that if I protect him all the time that he will never learn how to get out there and do things on his own!  Life is full of hard things that is for sure!!  How grateful I am that he has such a great attitude for all his hard things!! He is such a great example to me!!  How blessed I am to be his mom!!

Look at this can you believe how much older he looks!!??  We are now attending a new ward and he was nervous about it because he passes the sacrament.  The very first Sunday they asked him to pass and his eyes popped out of his head!! He was so nervous!! To say the least!  But he did great and I was so proud!! He always did the same isle in our last ward.  So they put him on the other isle in this ward and he did just fine! He is such a great kid!!   I know that all these hard things are making him grow and stretch which is good for him but hard for a mother!!  I know I wouldn't want it any other way!! When it is all said and done peace comes and I know that there is only one place that peace comes from!! How grateful I am for a Father in Heaven who watches over us and knows exactly what we need and when we need it!!

Well I hope to get a little caught up over the next few months and start fresh!! Hope to be back for good this time!! I haven't even checked on all my blogging buddies and I hope to do that soon too!! It is good to be back! 

Paisley Emma is Here!!

Our little miracle is finally here!! This special new addition to our family has been a long time and waiting!! We have literally prayed her here!! I know that if it wasn't for those prayers this sweet new little girl wouldn't be here!! I feel so blessed to be able to have these four children!! Her brothers every day three and four ( sometimes more) times a day would pray for her safe arrival and health and mine!! How blessed we have been that their prayers have been answered!! Not a day goes by that I don't think about that and thank the Lord for this new little gift from above!! She has been a great blessing to our family!!

Another great blessing after four kids this one was the only one I was able to be awake for and see and hear her. I have had four c sections and because of my bleeding disorders (two) I have had to be put asleep. My amazing Dr. was going to see to it that this last and final baby I would be able to see her and be awake for the birth of our final child. What a blessing that was!! I was so grateful to him for working so hard to make that miracle possible!! That was truly a special moment for me!! I don't remember seeing the others for the first time at all!! I do remember Tucker. I got to see him from a distance for a minute and then in an incubator with the Life flight team and I got to touch him through the hole was all. It was a day or two before I ever got to hold him and the other two I was so drugged I don't remember even seeing them. So for me to be able to hear her right away and experience it all brings tears to my eyes still even now! She was so beautiful and she cried out before the Dr. even suctioned her. I think she did that for me to let me know she was out and I was able to hear her!! :) Dr. Vered did such an amazing job!! We discovered that my uterus was completely open and that the only thing hold her in was the amniotic sac. So there again another miracle!! With my two bleeding disorders that could have been very bad!! While he was in there trying to put me back together my left ovary was bleeding pretty bad and so he had to take it. So now I am short an ovary. He tied my tubes and well we are so very lucky things turned out so well!! I feel so blessed!! We knew there was one more child and sure enough this little blessing and miracle came! Faith is one of the greatest things we have!!

So she has been a little sweetie every since she got here!! I have this wonderful friend who came to my house a week after she was born and took these amazing pictures of her!! I love every single one of them!! She did such a great job!! So I thought I better post them and let some of our family see her!! :)

She is so patient with her brothers always wanting to hold her and hug her!! Both Bryson and Austin keep saying "I just love her" :) She is so lucky to have so much love from these three boys!! I just know that she is going to have them wrapped around her finger!!

How sweet is this cute picture?? She is so precious!!

So blessed and she is a joy !! Exactly what I have been waiting for!! I can't wait to see what a beautiful young woman she turns out to be!! I will be so excited to take her shopping and to hear about all her dates and ups and downs!! To see her one day choose a special someone to marry and have a family with!! I am so excited to see this sweet girl experience life and find joy in it just as I have through all my children!! How blessed I am!!

It's a girl!!!

Oh man I am so excited to have this little new addition to our family!! Even more exciting is that it is a girl!! Oh how I have needed some girl time around here!! I have loved every minute of my boys but boy oh boy am I excited to go shopping and to dress this little thing up!!
I honestly couldn't believe what I was hearing when he was saying it!! It felt so surreal!! The boys kept saying "no it's a boy." :) I don't think they knew what to think and kept on saying things like "now the house is going to be full of barbies and lipstick!" :) I just smiled, it was so fun to listen to them interact with each other about receiving a sister! I think they will love every minute of her and she will be well taken care of !! We have had three ultrasounds and they all confirmed that it is a girl!! (I had to make sure I mean I have had three boys and didn't want to get rid of all these boys clothes if it was a boy.)
I see the boys now saying cute things about their sister and I just know she is going to be more than loved!! I am going to have some great helpers!! I love these three boys so much!! What a lucky girl I have been for the last 12 years to have been the only girl and be so spoiled!!
My birthday was last week and they really spoiled me!! They all picked out sweet little cards and each one gave me a piece of jewelry!! Tucker gave me a beautiful Liahona necklace and Bryson gave me a pink watch he said I could wear in the shower with some earrings. Austin gave me earrings also and a beautiful locket necklace. Mike was sweet and we went on a date for an entire day!! We saw two movies and he took me shopping to get some maternity clothes. He was great!! It was a wonderful weekend. My family all went to dinner and we had cake and ice cream, my sister in law made and it was delish. I was so blessed to have my family around me!!

Probably the greatest gift given, is the gift of this new little girl!! We have four months left and I am in a bit of a panic. We are still in our rental with no room for her and still trying to see what happens with Mike's schooling and whether we will be here or move somewhere else. Meanwhile contemplating lots and houses to work for Tucker. By the way thank you all for your ideas and kind words!! We are so blessed to have so many wonderful people in our lives!! We are really hoping things will fall into place when it all comes together!! Thanks for your love and support!

Building a new home for Tucker~~~ HELP!

Ok Everyone!! I need your help! I have been researching, trying to find a program that helps with the cost of putting elevators in your home. There is all kinds of programs to help if you have a church you need one in, or if you have become a quadriplegic and need one put in your home, but to already have an existing condition there has been nothing so far. I have been so frustrated wondering how this is!! This is the story of these poor children's lives. I don't understand!! It is the same way medically when you receive any service there just really isn't much help. I have been so very proud of Mike always working so hard to provide for our little guy who is now almost 12!! He works two jobs so we have two insurance and he just started that three years ago. Before the medical bills were piling up and it was hard to keep ahead well really, we never really have been. But he still has done an amazing job!!

I will never forget in the beginning, the first 4 or so years of Tucker's life. Mike was going to school and we were on medicaid and SSI. WOW, I was never so glad to get off those things!! I know they are beneficial in many ways but at the same time they took up soooo much of our time and there was so much red tape to go through it was unbelievable to just receive some help!!!!! It was so very stressful for both of us!! So frustrating for sure!! We were so tired of battling for everything and getting very little help!! It is amazing to me how much we have paid over the years for his medical care and try so hard to keep up on top of i,t but fall short all the time!! Mike works in the ER at Pioneer and there are soooo many people who have no insurance and get great care and never pay a dime!! Yet you pay your bill 80% and are making payments for the other 20% and they nail you every time and can't take anything off. Mike has even offered to pay the majority in full if they would deduct some and NOPE still want full. Yet it is this nonprofit organization. Oh man this wasn't suppose to be about medical care!!! :) I could honestly go off forever about our issues, I try to smile and ignore, but that is not what this is about. :)

I am just exhausted in trying to provide all that Tucker needs, working your butt off, only to come up short every time!! We are trying to build a new home for Tucker and we have had the Hardest time finding someone who wants to build with us because they are afraid to build something like that and be stuck with this home that they then can't sell. Also it can't be a regular home, it needs larger hallways, bigger doorways and doors, a way to get up and down the stairs, ramps, and the kitchen modified so he is more independent. Along with the bathroom needing to be larger with a roll in shower. I want so badly to provide these things so he can gain more confidence and not depend on us so much all the time!! Well to put an elevator in costs 20-30 thousand. That is a lot and you try to decide do you need it that bad. But when it comes to your freedom, yes you do!! He has always crawled up the stairs and well he is no longer doing that. I knew there would come a day when he didn't want to do that, I just thought it would be closer to 14. We even have his basketball hoops downstairs in hopes he would want to go down, but he would rather not.

I guess I am writing this post in hopes that someone may know of program somewhere, where you can get some help or something or even some ideas. We are so up for anything right now!! We want Tucker to be free as everyone else feels in their own home!! I wish at times it was as simple as going around all the homes that are available and picking one you like. That would be so refreshing!! Instead I am thinking, can I modify this and how much extra will it cost, is it going to give him what he needs or be a road block for him. I keep thinking the Lord gave us this child and we can not provide the very things he needs. I often wonder what I need to learn that I am not already learning!! Life is full of trials and challenges and usually I try to embrace them the best that I can, but when it comes to your child it is so hard!! I often think I would give anything to trade him and have it be me in his shoes!! I would love to make his pain go away!! Even with the knowledge of, trials make you stronger, and give you valuable lessons!!

So in writing this post, if any of you know of a program that helps, or have any ideas what has helped you or whatever please let me know!! We would love any advice anyone has!! Thanks in advance for all your help and support!!

Easter pictures

Sometimes I wonder why we bother trying to get the kids to sit still for a picture, I think I took 20 or so and these are our best. Pathetic I know!! These boys are so much fun but boy are they a handful!!!

I think these three boys need the presence of a sister to kind of balance things out, don't you?? I am getting really anxious to see what the Lord has in store for this next one!! We find out in four weeks what we are having and I am excited either way but sure would like these boys to experience their life with a little sister running around. Too much testosterone at times and it really feels unbalanced!! When I told them we were going to have another one they didn't believe me they thought we were joking. Then I said wouldn't it be fun to have a little sister and Bryson said no way. Then Austin said yes. Then Tucker said Austin you want a sister who carries barbies around and wears lip gloss. I just cracked up!!! I thought is that all he sees girls as!!?? Wow, I have some teaching to do!! Hopefully they will get the full experience!! :)

Life with these three is so much fun!! All the pictures were like this and not one where it was serious!! So that is the memory I have for this Easter. How was yours??

Our family Vacation 2011 Spring Break!

We all were in such a need of a vacation and some family time in the SUN!!! We also have been very sick of the cold grey weather we have been having this spring!! We needed some sun so we headed first to sunny Arizona, where the skies are blue, the sun is bright and warm, and the palm trees are beautiful in the sunsets!!!! I absolutely love the place and would go at least once a month if I could!! :) I think I have got most of the family hooked on it also!! :0 They were loving the warm weather and swimming. One of their favorites is the warm weather at night even when the sun is down. To me it is a magical place and brings me so much happiness when I am there! SO blessed to be able to go!!

We went to the Temple while we were there and of course it holds a special place in my heart!! I love being on the temple grounds so many memories flood back from my mission!! It is so beautiful there!!

This is new I don't remember seeing this there.

The boys liked the petrified wood, the cactus garden and the reflecting pool. We walked around the temple and layed in the grass and watched the palm trees sway. Oh just talking about it makes me want to go back, I am already missing it!!

After spending two days in Arizona swimming and relaxing, we headed to California. This is a picture along Long Beach. We took the kids to see the ocean and they had a blast playing in the sand and water!! It was so fun to watch them enjoying themselves!!

This man is so hot with his shades, standing on the beach!! How blessed I have been to have him in my life!! So blessed!!!

WOW! HOOTTT!! :)

Having some fun!!

Cars is still being worked on but we did get to take our picture with Lightening McQueen and Mater!! :)

The boys loved this! Especially Bryson!!

Woody and Jessie!

The boys stood in line to get a picture with Woody and one person before us they switched and Jessie came. Boy were the boys disappointed!! Mostly Bryson he stood there for the picture but the minute we turned he was in tears!! He wanted Woody. So I found out when Woody would be back and we came back and were one of the first in line!! He was so excited to meet Woody!

Can you tell he is much happier in this picture then the one above!!?? :)

Mike and Tucker rode this ride twice!! Tucker loved this ride!! He wanted to go again and well Mike said twice was all he could handle!

Lots of tired legs!!

Nothings better than ending the day with Mickey!! Bryson was very excited to meet Mickey also!! He thought everything in his house was soooo COOL!! He was touching and sitting on everything!!

The other favorite thing was talking to Crush the Turtle and going to the BUGS LIFE SHOW. I think thought the boys really liked seeing the TRON Lazar show and dancing. It was pretty cool and well the music is fun also. But when it was all said and done we were ready to leave and couldn't wait to go to bed!! Best times being with your family in a magical place!!

Pictures of Tucker On Our Vacation!

Tucker Loved Az. even though it was hot. It felt so great considering we had just came from snow. It has been so cold it almost seems like it lasting longer than normal so we were all so ready for some sun!! He LOVES to swim and is amazingly good!! I was so proud of him!! He would go to the bottom and get pennies in the 5 foot area!! He really can swim good!! I get so nervous watching him that I make sure Mike is watching him instead of me!! It just stresses the heck out of me. He does fine and really hasn't had a problem but it still scares me. I like the other two with their floaties!! Much easier!! Tucker kept saying "mom you worry too much!!" He is right but I can't help it!!

Catching some sun!! After we swam we went to Organ Stop Pizza. It is such a fun place to eat pizza. The boys really liked it and wanted to go back. This guy is on a stage with an Organ and it turns around and around as he plays. You can give requests and he does a great job at trying to get to them all. It is amazing to watch and listen!

Tucker also liked the Beach. We went there before we went to Disneyland and the kids loved just being on the beach listening to the waves, being in the sun and digging holes in the sand.

Tucker even dug a pretty big hole!!

Seaweed Oh YUMM!!

Can you tell I am having fun??:)

We wish this ride was already done!! When we went there in Dec. it was being worked on as well! Who knows when it will be done! It sure would be fun to see that one and the Tron one finished!! The boys would have loved both of them!!

This ride was Tucker's favorite ride!! He rode it twice with his dad!! California Screamin. It really doesn't even look that fun to me!! :) Tuck also likes the Big Thunder and the Toy Story shooting ride. He was able to ride that one twice in a row because the guy was so nice!! :) Fun times!