My mommy

My mom is the best mom ever. She has always been there for us; she has always been loving and supportive. She is the best. I have always been able to count on her for everything, if I have questions about anything I can call her and get a great answer. She raised 3 children as a single mom and never EVER never even once made any of us feel like a burden in any way. She did her absolute best to teach us right from wrong, to encourage us to excel in whatever we tried, to always be there for us. She is the best. If I can even be half as good of a mom to my sweet children as my mom has been, they will be truly blessed. My mom is a woman of tremendous faith and with the capacity to love more than anyone I know. She is a rock in so many people's lives. She is amazing. She is strong. She is faithful.

And so, on March 16 when I sat in a room with a gynecological oncologist and 3 nurses and heard them tell my sweet, strong, amazing mother that she has cancer, I felt like I had to be the strong one for her. But I went in the bathroom and bawled and bawled and was so so so scared for my mom and for all of the people who need her in their lives and I prayed harder than I've prayed for anything before in my life that she would make it through and be ok.

Fast forward to today, May 31. Its been 2 1/2 months since that day and these have been some of the best and worst days of our family's life. Good in that we have seen how many people love and support my mom. We have had so many prayers and fasts and just a tremendous outpouring of love from everyone who knows her...and we all thank all of you for that. She had a pretty crazy intense surgey on April 2. But she came out with flying colors, after the initial icu scare. She has stage 3c ovarian cancer and stage 1 uterine cancer, technically 3 primary cancers so its crazy how well she is actually doing. It had spread pretty far but miraculously did not get inside any of her vital organs, but she sure had a lot of non-essential organs removed. It is a testament to me that prayers work that none of her vital organs had to be removed...as the surgeon was fairly certain there were be a lot of that done. (One of her tumors alone was estimated to be 7 lbs and she had multiple tumors and they seemed to have gotten them all).She has had a rough recovery, I won't go into details because she wouldn't appreciate that, but its been rough. Its been rough on her and its been rough on all of us who have been helping take care of her. But again, a blessing to see how much love and support there is out there. I know that Heavenly Father is mindful of her and he is blessing her with strength and perseverance.

She is not yet healed completely from surgery, but after 8 weeks they decided to go ahead and start her crazy crazy chemo last week anyway. She has day 1: 4 hours iv chemo in a clinic (which ended up taking over 7 hours) and day 2: 8 hours intraperitoneal chemo inpatient hospital (which we were actually there for about 12 hours), and day 8: 4 more hours in the hospital. That will happen in 2 days. Then on day 22 it starts all over again, for 6 cycles. Its a pretty intense and grueling chemo treatment, but their studies show that it gives and average extended life expectancy of 16 months. So far she is doing pretty ok with the side effects. We knew it would be rough, so we've expected that. But she is doing ok. She is strong. She is awesome. I love her so much and am grateful for every day that Heavenly Father allows her to stay on this earth and bless the lives of others. She is an inspiration to me and watching her go through this has been hard, but its just another example of strength and faith that she has shown. She still has a long, hard stretch ahead of her, but she can do it and I believe that she will be ok. :)

Every prayer that Aspen and Mia say includes "please bless grandma will feel better." Sweet girls. They must take after my sweet, sweet mommy.

Happy 1st Birthday Isaac!

Isaac turned one year old March 7th. I can't believe it has already been a year! And I can't imagine our family without this rambunctious, silly, sweet, cuddly, crazy little monkey! :) He is an amazing little boy and can hold his own with his two big sisters. He likes to toodle around, throw balls, kick balls, climb on things, wrestle, knock things over, push the garbage can around, roll trucks on the ground, run run run and roar like a dinosaur. He is so happy, so easy to smile. He is so much fun and we all love him so very much!

Here are a couple pics from his birthday. We made him a monkey cake, since he's such a little monkey. He dove right into it. Just like mommy. :) And he got balls and trucks and a cool drum for his birthday - perfect for our little boy!








I think his frosting beard makes him look just like daddy. What do you think?? ;)


Happy Birthday to our sweet son! We love you Isaac! :)

Its impossible!

It is impossible not to love this boy!

Not sure what's up!

SO I don't know what my excuse is for not blogging at all lately. Except that we're boring! But really, my point of this is for people who want to know what's going on, they can....but even more than that is to make it into a book as a family journal-type deal. Well, if i only update every 3 months, that isn't going to work. So this is me vowing to be better!

So a lot has happened in the last couple months, Christmas, my birthday - both pretty low key, but fun. I love holidays with kids. It is SO fun! :) Aspen and Mia had an especially fun time with Santa and all of that fun stuff. I may post pics later, or not. We'll see. ;-)

Also in December one of my oldest and dearest friends, Aeranee, got married to a great guy! Isaac and I rode the train up to Bellingham for the big day, which is a mode of transportation i would definitely choose again! Anyway, Aeranee is awesome and so is Geoff so we wish them a lifetime and more of happiness! Her and I got into a really fun accident where we rolled the truck. That was fun. No one was hurt, luckily. Just the truck.

Speaking of hurt trucks, Malo's truck, as the kids say "daddy's gold truck fell off the road and got an owie." Yep, it slid on the ice, rolled off a hill, and was destroyed. Luckily Malo managed to get out before it rolled into the ravine, but he was very sad to lose his truck that he loves. But we were very grateful that he was able to safely make it out of that situation.

We were able to attend our newest nephew, Soren's blessing the first Sunday in January. He is a cutie and we look forward to spending lots more time with him!

Also in January, we went to Leavenworth for a weekend with Leif & Lurlyn and their 3 cute munchkins. It was low key and fun! :)

Malo was out of town for all of January, and just came home on the weekends. Which was lame, but oh well. At least he was here for my birthday. Which he designed and hand cut out an awesome wall hanging for me for my birthday. Its awesome. I'll do a pic another time. :)

Let's see? What else? The kids are just growing up way too fast. Isaac started walking the day before he turned 10 months and hasn't stopped since. He is a crazy mover! He turns one in 6 days - i can't believe how quickly this year has gone. He is the happiest little guy and a complete snuggle bug. Aspen and Mia continue to grow and become more and more opinionated and are so full of energy. I adore all of my children and they each bring something new, unique and wonderful to our family. I am so so so grateful for them!

See! Told you we're boring! Nothing else I can think of. But now that i'm mostly caught up, I'll try to keep up! :) I'll make sure to at least post Isaac's birthday festivities (which will consist of CAKE!)

Sweet, thoughtful Aspen

Aspen decided today, all on her own, that she needed to wrap up some presents for people today. She is so sweet and so thoughtful. She went around and found things around the house that she wanted to give daddy, isaac and mia and then she wrapped them up herself and put them under the tree. She gave daddy a candy cane box with one candy cane left in it, isaac a crayon, and mia a littlest pet shop beaver (that i'm pretty sure is already mia's, but whatever...its the thought that counts, right? :) I was just so proud of her for thinking of her family and knowing she wanted to give them something. And being so excited about it. I am super proud of my sweet, thoughtful little girl! :)

Halloween (hey at least its before Thanksgiving!)

So my goal was to get Halloween posted before THanksgiving...and here it is! And I have no good reason for not putting pics up sooner; its not like I edit my photos or do anything fancy...I just haven't done it. So we had days of Halloween fun and I never actually got any pictures of anything outside of the house. But Friday night we went to a trunk-or-treat and chili feed with Esther and her family at her ward. That was really fun. Aspen especially LOVED it! She is so social and loves talking to people. She's ask all the kids around about their costumes and was just so fun. Mia was being shy and didn't say one word the whole evening, just clung to my leg. And Isaac, well he is such a joy. He spent half the time smiling and the other half sleeping. And it was really fun to hang out with Esther and her family. We love that they live close to us now. :)

Then Saturday we went with Esther's family to their neighborhood party and Malo and Jeremy took the kids trick or treating in their neighborhood and Ess and I stayed at her house passing out candy with Isaac. Then we hung out and watched Ghost Busters II. Fun stuff.

Then Halloween Malo took the girls trick or treating just in our neighborhood while Isaac and I passed out candy. Holy smokes did we ever have a lot of trick or treaters! Once the girls came home, Aspen passed out candy to all the trick or treaters and I tell you, that girl is so funny! I love her. She had more fun doing that than anything else! She was so cute; she was SO excited every time someone knocked on the door and she'd give out handfuls of candy; I finally had to tell her not to give more than 3 pieces to each person and she said "but i like to give candies!" Sweet girl! She talked to EVERYONE about their costumes, about if they were having fun. She is just so fun. The best thing was when older kids came to the door, she would NOT give them candy until they said "trick or treat." and she'd tell them to say it. And if they didn't say thank you, she'd say "ok, say thank you!" It was just so stinking cute. And after about an hour, Mia started getting involved and excited. Gosh, I love my kids. They are so much fun and get SO excited about things; I love it. I love them so much and it was such a fun few days of Halloween fun with them. :)

And here are some pictures of Aspen, Tinkerbell. And Mia Monkey. And Isaac was a pumpkin one night and Tigger the next two nights. Both outfits were too small for him, but he pulled it off with his big blue eyes and giant smile. Love these kids.













Mia wanted so badly to wear Isaac's costume, so here she is wearing his. She is so funny; she has a mind of her own and wants what she wants. She has such a big personality in a little package and she makes us laugh daily. All these kiddos do. Each in their own way, they all contribute SO much to our family and they all have such fun personalities. Malo and I just are so blessed to have such wonderful, albeit often naughty, kids. Not sure what we ever did to deserve these sweet little munchkins, but we couldn't be happier! Happy Halloween!

Isaac's in trouble!

He's trying so hard to take steps and balance on his own....I've grounded him for life if he does it! ;) This boy cracks me up, he is so determined. His face cracks me up; its his concentrating face.