The unthinkable. Please pray!

This cute, spunky little guy is our nephew, Atticus. This is him on New Years Day, just over 2 weeks ago. (that's a balloon under his shirt)

He and his parents and little brother were out here for the holidays, visiting from Texas.

These three cousins had the best time, chasing, screaming, laughing and playing together.
We had zero indication that less than 2 weeks later, as we stand now, our sweet, super smart, super coordinated, incredibly witty four-year-old Atticus would be diagnosed with an
inoperable brain tumor on his brain stem.
Pontine Glioma (DIPG).
 Zero percent survival rate.

Our entire family is absolutely devastated to say the least. He just had the MRI last Friday and we have all been in complete shock. His health has gone completely down hill in just a matter of days. Chris and I have just been emotional wrecks.
 It is so unimaginable, it seems so surreal.  

He will start radiation on Tuesday, is taking steroids, and is doing one round of oral chemo, but that will be the extent of his treatment. It is in hopes to slow down the growth of the tumor and give him a few more months to live. It will hopefully help with his current symptoms of paralysis of part of his face, partial loss of vision and loss of balance and coordination so that he can hopefully gain back the ability to play sports again for a time and do the things he loves. 

Please include he and his parents, Cindy and Eric, in your prayers!
Visit their blog and read their heart wrenching story that is unfolding. If you are touched - which you will be - feel free to please leave them a note, even if you don't know them! I know that when I lost my brother 4 years ago  I felt like my world was crashing in on me. I still can't talk about it to this day it upsets me so much. And then when Parker had his head injury last year- we were lucky enough to only experience that despair for a short time, but I am telling you that the text messages, blog comments, emails, etc were what helped buoy us up on top of the many prayers offered in our time of grief in both of those situations.
And the grief this cute family below is experiencing is more than I can even fathom.
 My heart is so broken for them.
And for us.
Atticus has been such a bright light in our family.
He always will be.

You can visit their blog at: www.echansen.blogspot.com

To start from the beginning go here: http://www.echansen.blogspot.com/2012/01/how-it-started.html

Lexi is 3 months!

Our little Lexi is 3 months old! Actually, more like three and half months with my posting this so late. But in the picture she is 3 months on the dot.

She is truly the best baby! I just smother her squeezy cheeks with kisses all day!

She is super happy and smiles a ton. She loves to goo and chat with whoever will listen. Her hair is super curly straight from the bath and will keep the curl if I put a little mousse in it, otherwise it's pretty wild woman hair. I guess she takes after her sister. Who takes after me. :) The bedhead around our house is quite the sight. ;)

She has started sucking her thumb quite a bit. She loves to hold onto my thumbs and has the strongest grip. The last few nights she has slept from 12 am -6 or 7 am so I am relieved to finally be getting that much of a stretch of sleep! Her stomach is still bothering her quite a bit and the projectile vomiting is getting a bit worse. I feel bad and wish I knew what to do to help her!

She rolled over from back to stomach for the first time yesterday! It doesn't surprise me because she is such a strong little thing but it seems a little early. I was shocked to find her on her stomach. I'm not ready for mobility yet! :)
Don't grow up so fast on us Lexi!
We love love LOVE her!

To shine for Him each day

This little cutie patootie started her Sunbeams class at church a few weeks back!

It seems like we just hit this milestone with Parker, so it's hard for me to believe that my little girl is already so big! I had her wear a  necklace with her name on it the first day so that her teachers would be sure to get her name right. She has been three times now and has done a great job! As far as we know anyways. :) She goes willingly and she especially loves singing time. I have to wonder though if by the end of class this dreamer girl is off in the corner chatting away to her imaginary friend in La La Land and twirling for her imaginary prince.

 My Emmie...! Her attention span is pretty much non-existent...

It's crazy to me that I have TWO kids in Primary!

Sooooooo glad to be done with Nursery for the moment. Emmie had such a darling teacher but I just can't handle the germ infested toys in that place.  And all the goopy toddlers that come and happily share their slobbery diseases. It's a sure ticket to a miserable cold, the chicken pox, stomach flu, RSV, pneumonia, pink eye... you name it.  I'm just not sure it's worth the gamble of bringing home one of the above stated miseries.

LOVE this twosome!

And this threesome!

Christmas Night 2011

We spent Christmas evening back at the Hansens.
It was great to be altogether with having Chris' brother Eric and his wife Cindy in town from Texas. Our kids just played and played and had the best time.

Family Picture

One of my favorite memories from the night was after we had opened some presents, and cute 4 year old Atticus (Eric and Cindy's son) went around the circle with a headlamp on and told everyone to "open wide". Upon examining each person's teeth he would say, "Ew, you need to brush!", or "You've got FOUR cavities"! I was nervous when he got to me but thankfully he told me that I'm a good brusher! Phew! That precious little Atti has got one big personality in that tiny body of his.

There was an extra special feeling in the Hansen home that night.
We didn't want to leave!
It was a great Christmas.

Christmas afternoon

 We spent Christmas afternoon at my Grandma Mimi's.
I think this is where I've been every Christmas during these same hours for the last 32 years.
As you can see, her family room is transformed into a present wonderland...and this picture only shows a small portion of it....

I think our favorite present of the year (among many great gifts) was not having my kids be sick and just being able to enjoy the day with family.  Holidays through the eyes of your kids is the best. Especially when they are non-boogery kids. That is an extra perk for sure.

They make everything so much more fun and it was a great day!

My sister in law, Kylie made the CUTEST fabric shoes for Lexi. What a crafty girl! She just whips these things out like Martha Stewart. I have several Martha sister in laws... it's nice to be surrounded by such talent!

All in all, it was a really great afternoon. Too much was given to my family but we are so grateful for everyone's thoughtfulness and the spirit of giving on this special day! My kids are so spoiled got sooo many nice things and are pretty much set with toys until they graduate high school.

One of my favorite moments was actually a gift given to my Dad by my brother and his wife...

It was a box that surprised us with the announcement, "It's A BOY!" with attached ultrasounds. SO cute and such fun news on Christmas! Kylie was just 16 weeks along and wasn't due for her ultrasound for another couple of weeks but they found out early.

Such a fun surprise!

Christmas Eve

Carbonite works! My pictures are restored. :) SO glad.
Christmas Eve....
We spent Christmas Eve at the Hansens where Aunt Marsha hosted an ugly sweater party.
I'm so glad to see people laughing about all these hideous sweaters people always seem to wear at Christmas. I mean seriously it's nice that we can make a joke of what we've all been thinking all these years of these ridiculous sweaters. No offense to anyone who truly finds them attractive.
Sure takes a lot of pressure off coming up with something cute to wear to that holiday party! :)

I bet you can guess who the lucky winner of the night was. He wears a turtle neck quite well doesn't he? Haha. We love Uncle Brett - he always has us laughing.

...and for some added excitement for the night...

we were lucky enough to receive a visit from the Big Man in Red! 

Christmas morning

Blogging just isn't working out so hot for me these days, is it?! Besides the fact that I have NO IDEA  how in the world my header picture and sidebar pictures suddenly turned skiwampus and resized themselves (blog hijacker is all I can come up with), I haven't had an operable computer for the last 2 weeks and have lost a bunch of my pictures!
AGHH!
 The good news is that we gave in and got a new laptop...well, kind of not so awesome because- really, who likes to be forced into spending that kind of money...but then money does grow on trees, right? Yeh. Bad news is (for me) that we had to wipe the old laptop which had all my christmas eve/early christmas day pics and Lexi's baby blessing photos. Supposedly they are backed up out there in cyber space, but it seems that they might not be retrieved until 2015. Thankfully, I did save a few from Christmas morning onto a disk before the computer died... and also Chris gave me a new SD card that morning so the rest of Christmas day is on a card that has yet to be uploaded so I still have all of those!
ANYWAYS, who cares, right? Here we go with the few I have! You know I'd have lots more to share if I could. :)

This was actually taken of my threesome a few weeks before Christmas. There were much cuter ones, but this is the only one I have saved. And no worries. Parker got a haircut soon after this picture. The gel bill to keep his hair that high is a costly one. Plus it reminds me of a polygamist... the higher the hair the holier. He's looking pretty holy in that picture if you ask me... :) Still cute, but holy cute. And for the record, I'd take the holy high hair over the undone, ungelled, ragamuffin look on this blondie any day.;)

Christmas morning...
Waiting to go in the basement to see what Santa brought!

The big reveal!
 We unfolded our sectional so that everything would fit.There is one more tent and tunnel that hook onto this but Santa opted to not put it up to avoid having to stuff the tree into the tent
 Not to mention the claustraphobia problems.

Emmie got her longed-for doll house!

 She was so enraptured with it, she did not want to be bothered with opening her other presents!

Oh the time and money we could have saved if only we had known...

She ended up having to open the majority on the morning of the 26th because we ran out of time Christmas morning...our schedule is a tight one on Christmas! 

Parker's big requested "SURPRISE" from Santa was this Toy Story Imaginext play set. It's actually a Landfill and sanitation truck.

 What?

 Every kid dreams of getting their own garbage wonderland, right? It's actually pretty cool. Really!

We LOVE Imaginext toys!

25 points if you can spot the baby.

There's our Lexi, smiles and all.

 I LOVE this happy girl!

 As for Chris and I.... Chris got the Star Wars bluray extended edition set (guess who won't be watching it with him...I know, such a good wife but come on... Star Wars?), and I got spoiled with a new KitchenAid mixer (YAY!) AND my first IPOD to name a few. That's right. Between that and getting my first smart phone a few months back...watch out! Michelle's going all high tech.
Eeee not so much seeing as how my blog looks these days...
Christmas morning was the best and we feel very, very blessed!
Not to rhyme or anything.
For real though, we had a wonderful day and I'm so grateful for our family. We have three awesome, healthy kids, we live in such a great community and the beauty of our surroundings amaze me, Chris is blessed to work in a steady field with a job that he absolutely loves, and most of all we are so grateful for our knowledge of the gospel and the tremendous blessing it is in our lives!

Blessing Day

Soooo... it's been awhile.  Between new baby, dealing with the huge mess that ensued post the flooding of our basement bedroom,  Lexi's blessing day, and all that accompanies the holidays and the  preparations to go with them, it's safe to say that I pretty much didn't sleep between Thanksgiving and Christmas...(stay tuned...I even have proof of that here in minute). I've never ever been so tired in all my life.
But that's okay. We made it through it all and the kiddos stayed pretty healthy so that is a huge thumbs up compared to last Christmas!
Unfortunately, when I finally felt recovered enough to blog this week, my laptop with all my pictures on it is having major problems...and using it is a complete no go. But the good news is I was able to save a few pics onto a disk (long story) so I do have a few I can share until when and if I can get the rest of my photos recovered from the last month.... SOOOO - I am forging ahead before I get even more behind in documenting my so called life. First things first and here we go with
LEXI'S BLESSING DAY!

She was blessed on December 11th (9 weeks old) and it was a super cold, but beautiful sunny day. This has been my kind of winter so far... hardly any snow!

Our three kiddos.

THREEEEEE.

I LOVE having three kids.

LOVE.

We're not into having these functions be larger than they need to be, so we try to keep them on the small side by just inviting parents and our siblings and their spouses (and grandparents of course). Even at that we had a grand total of 23 and we're grateful for their support! Unfortunately, all my pics of our guests are on my dying laptop. Hopefully I'll be able to retrieve them and post them here soon (for my own recs of course - not that anyone out there in cyber space is looking forward to them!).

 I am now blogging this from another dying computer of ours that I haven't used in a couple years. 2012 is already looking expensive!

Party of FIVE!

We are so blessed to have this sweet baby as a part of our family! We are loving every minute of her, that is for sure. I felt an overwhelming sense of contentment the first time I saw this picture.

....AND not to make it all about ME, but for kicks, here is the proof that I was literally sleep walking through this entire day...

No, those aren't "coolots" that I'm wearing... although my skirt there IS looking reminiscent of the sweet pink and purple ones my Grandma made me back in 1985...

Yah, I realized at 5:00 that I'd been wearing my skirt sideways ALL DAY. All day! HELLO! No one told me?! I threw it on in a hurry to answer the door (it was my mom and Stepdad) right before church and never made it back to look in the full length mirror with all the chaos of hosting 20+ peeps at my house. NICE! I kept thinking that something wasn't right with my skirt but my sleep deprived brain wasn't making the connection. So basically I looked like an idiot all day with one big pleat down the middle of my skirt. What else is new, right? Ah well. What can I do but laugh about it?

Anyways. Besides that, it was a very nice day and Chris gave our sweet baby girl a lovely blessing.

We sure do love our Lexi! 

Santa Claus

A few weeks ago, we went for our annual visit to see good old St Nick.

Despite his blue shirt and the $18 bucks I had to pay to get this bad resolution photo on a CD (cheapest "package" available), he was the nicest, jolliest Santa we've visited at this mall in years, and was so adorable with the kids.

Which made it all worth it.

I love nice people.

Especially nice Santas.

 

I'm happy and surprised to report that we've continued with our record of no crying upon visiting the Big Man in Red.
 How does that happen you ask?
I 've figured out that P & E turn on their charm & flash those big smiles and good manners to score points with him, because they know good and well that their behavior record isn't exactly flawless.
Mmmhmmm. 
Don't let those dimples fool you, they've learned early how to work the system as well as they know how to work their Daddy's Iphone.
Better than me, that's for sure...and somehow it always seems to work...

Parker asked for a "SURPRISE" this year (he's an adventurous child), and Emmie asked for a dollhouse (she came up with it on her own and has had Santa's elves scrambling at the last minute to ensure her Christmas fantasies aren't shattered on Christmas morning...it seems even the North Pole is sold out of all the semi-desirable dollhouse furniture!).

Since we were prohibited in taking our own pictures with Santa, I admit we snapped a few outside the perimeters, stealing a little of their backdrop. Afterall, we did pay $18 bucks. It's the least they could allow, right? 
 I don't know if there is a candy cane shortage or what, but the last few years they give out these See's candy suckers - my sweet-toothed children's favorite part. On Christmas morning we have to hide the stockings until the very end, or all they want is the candy in them. Forget the plethora of too many gifts under the bedazzling lights of the Christmas tree. All they can focus on with their hypnotized eyes is the blasted chocolate. Don't worry. I've already been brain storming of how I'm going to instill a love of cardio activity into them throughout their lives. It might involve some chocolate bribery, but hey, whatever gets them moving, right?;)

And of course, after all that hard work to get all dressed up, we had to snap a few pictures at home of the Christmas cuteness.

Poor Roxy SO wants to be a part of this threesome. Like always, she's pretty good at weaseling her way into the picture.
Poor dog thinks she's a human.

MeRrY ChRiStMaS!!!

2 months

Lexi turned 2 months old on Sunday!

As you can see, her little cheeks are filling out and she's even sprouted another chin! We took her to the doctor last week due to her tummy troubles (she was put on some meds), and she weighed in at just over 10 pounds! That is a 3 lb increase since her 2 week appointment so I am happy to know she is putting on weight despite all that she is spitting and throwing up. She has her official 2 month appointment next week. She just started fitting into her 0-3 month clothes so girlfriend will finally start fitting into some of those darling outfits that so many sweet people have brought by for her.

She has been flashing contagious smiles and has been testing out her little voice with coos and mimics the sounds I make the last few days.  So fun!

She is SUCH a sweetheart and it's pretty safe to say that we all adore her around here!

Grateful

Someone pinch me.
Am I really a mom of 3?



Yep.
Here's the proof.
Count 'em yourself.
It feels great.
Especially that they all turned out so darn cute.
How'd that happen?
Okay, so I might be biased.
But they ARE super smart. Destined to be geniuses for sure.
O-kaaay. So I might be biased on that one too.
Well whatever I think they are or are meant to be, I just hope I don't go messing them up along the way.

Anyhow, on Thanksgiving morning we woke up to an extra special surprise and found that one of our basement bedrooms had flooded from a dripping faucet by the window well outside. Perfect. It ruined the dry wall by and around the window and the carpet was nonsalvageable. So for the moment our basement is in chaos as everything had to be moved out of that room & into the family room while it sits in limbo and waits for a new wall and carpeting which won't be in for another 10 days or so. Not fun in trying to get ready for Christmas, and not so good on my sanity as the clutter moved from that room is driving me a bit CrAzy. But it could have been much worse so I'm trying to breathe deep and count our blessings that the whole basement wasn't effected...

Back to Thanksgiving...

We try to just stick with visiting one family per Thanksgiving. Otherwise it's just way too hectic. And way too much food. And way too much toting around napped deprived kids.
We save that special day for Christmas. :)
This year we were with the famous Hansen crew.

It was Lexi's first Thanksgiving, and as you can see, she was a popular guest.
Maybe the most popular of all, in fact.

The food was delish and the company delightful.;)

But the star of the night seemed to be playing old school Nintendo from back in the day in Uncle D's room....

Go figure.

BOYS.
Throw these Nintendo-playing fellas in with a room full of 15 year old Nintendo-playing dudes and I dare you to tell me who are the twenty and thirty somethings versus the high schoolers.
Okay so maybe the receding hair lines would give it away.
Darn receding hairlines.
I kid, but really, if this is the way they bond, so be it.
I'm happy for them. ;)
Really.

Seriously though.
Thanksgiving.
I am so grateful for a great husband who works hard for our family, for my beautiful three kids who keep me on my toes and put up with me even when I'm sleep deprived (not that they have a choice, bless their souls), for good health and the survival of this latest pregnancy, for a nice home in an area I absolutely love, for my treadmill that I can finally use again, for Christmas cards from friends we've made over the years who have touched our lives, for the molasses spice cookies I anticipate making all year and will finally make this week since 'tis the season!', for the perspective I am blessed with through the gospel, for Amazon.com for making my holiday shopping not only a possibility but a dream come true, for Hobby Lobby moving in within 12 minutes of my home this last year, for Baby Gap sales that provide this deal-hunter a shopping high with prices better than Target, for avocado turkey and parmesan lunches, for a husband who rubs my back without me asking and in all the right places, for a church calling that allows me to work with young women I adore and women I admire, for TLC for giving me some quality television to watch while I nurse my sweet baby (Say Yes to the Dress, Sister Wives, The Little Couple anyone? What...they're good!), for the Today Show for keeping me informed in the few minutes I manage to catch of it each week, for Emmie finally catching onto potty training this last week and for the way she dances and sings throughout the house and whose creative thinking and stories always have me laughing, for Parker who is suddenly so grown up and helpful and whose high-pitched voice always makes me smile (okay maybe not always) and whose dimples make my heart sing, for Lexi who loves to snuggle and doesn't make messes (besides in her pants that is) and who is finally HERE and HEALTHY and who has me completely SMITTEN!

I could go on and on as I have much to be grateful for...but I'll wrap it up right here since my cute baby Lexi is finally asleep and I should be too. :)
HaPpY ThAnKsGiViNg! :)