While we were gone...

My dad and his girlfriend, Sue, came to stay with the kids while Bill and I enjoyed our trip to Cancun. Bless their hearts, they definitely got more than they bargained for. Livi had a chemo treatment scheduled for Tuesday after school so Dad took her in. Well her counts had fallen to ZERO! No one at the office could believe it. She was put in quarantine for the week. Sue and Dad were so careful with her. She didn't go to school, and when they went to a store one of them would stay in the car with her and watch movies while the other went in to purchase items needed. All that being said they look like they had a blast. Ironically, when we got home late Saturday night, Dad was complaining of his sinuses. Sunday morning Sue took him to an urgent care and discovered he had a viral infection! So, while they were keeping Livi "safe" they were actually submitting her to a 24/7 hot zone. Dad felt so bad they came home from the urgent care and left straight away. We were bummed. After all was said and done, Livi continued to amaze us... absolutely no immune system and she did not get sick. WOW, thanks Dad and Sue, the kids are still talking about how fun you are.

Serious Protection

These were some of the Uniform Division that were in from DC. We saw them waiting for their shift down in front of the elevators to our room. They asked if the kids wanted a picture with them. I knew Bill would be "funny" about it.

President Obama was FINALLY coming to town after saying he would come to see Vegas' new City Center since it's opening in December. Well, Bill was able to do some great stuff and we, in turn were able to benefit immensely. Bill was lead for the motorcade and so needed to be available at any time and thus

was given a room at the City Center's Aria. Very nice, very modern, very cool. I picked the kids up from school, packed our overnight bag, picked up a pizza and headed down to the strip. The room was really neat with a lot of new age features. At one point we were

watching TV with all the lights on and EVERYTHING went black! The curtains even started to close. Aaron started chanting in his nervousness, "Uh-oh, uh-oh" while Livi started screaming, "Aaron hit the 'Goodnight' button!" Too funny. Aaron especially loved the phone in the bathroom. Actually, to the kids both phones were amazing... they had cords?!

The Aria is connected by tram to the Belagio and so of course we rode it, a lot! (It would've actually been faster to walk, but where's the fun in that?!) We went to

the conservatorium, watched the water show, and ordered gelato, yum! One of the agent's Bill works with, his family was also staying the night, so we hung out and saw the sights with them Thursday night. Crystals is an upscale mall with a

lot of neat architectural design. People kept walking down these stairs not even knowing what they were walking on and why everyone seemed to be looking at them until they got to the bottom and turned around. SOOO PRETTY! Bill met up with us that night in the room. It was interesting sleeping with the 4 of us in a king size bed, but oooh, those pillows and that mattress... heaven.

Friday morning, I had decided to keep the kids out of school and enjoy the day together seeing the sights and exploring. We found the more artistic side of the strip in two museums in City

Center. The Chihuly museum was AMAZING! I'm not too interested in glass sculptures, usually, but I could not stare at these long enough. Livi was just as amazed. Aaron kept wanting to go. The next museum brought tears to our eyes. Rodney Lough Jr. is a nature photographer and does incredible work. Once again Aaron was anxious to be on our way as I ooohed and aaahed over every print. Admittedly I was hoping to see a photograph of the California coastal redwoods. What we found was even better:

A picture of the DEL NORTE coastal redwoods... that is where my family has been camping since I was 2 years old and where we continue to camp now every year. It's where my children were introduced to camping, it's where they've been with my mom! I explained to Livi and

Aaron that the picture was of the place where we go camping with Granma. The name of the photo was perfect, "God's Garden". Olivia started to cry, so did I. We stared at it for quite some time and then Livi found a book that was for sale. We used the index and found "God's Garden" in the book. Livi stood over it for quite some time sobbing. I had to keep wiping her tears away so they wouldn't splash on the pages.

We made our way back to our hotel room, got our bags and headed home. It was strange leaving the strip. I really felt that I was leaving a vacation behind. What a great mini vacation. (The first thing Olivia did when we got home was to recreate "God's Garden" for herself. I love that she loves art, very much like my mom.

VALENTINES

On Wednesday, the 10th, Livi invited a friend over to help us make Valentine cookies for the ward primary activity.

Mike helped make the cookies, and the next day, when we went to the activity, we took Mike and his triplet siblings Matt and Megan. (I iced 4 dozen cookies, we were short by 3 dozen! Luckily the seminary teacher in our ward let us use her cookies. We piped the names of each of the kids on the cookies.)

Sunday was Valentine's Day. The kids chose and bought with their own money Valentine gifts for each other. Livi got Aaron a bag of white, pink, and red gum-balls. Aaron bought Olivia Valentine socks. TOO CUTE! I wrote a love poem to Bill. We got the kids boxes of chocolates and Bill gave me roses. We had my homemade chicken alfredo with broccoli for dinner with Mom's quick cherry cheesecake for dessert!

The Birthday Boy is F-our

A tradition that we had in my house growing up was birthday cereal. I love doing it with

my kids. They wake up on their birthday to their favorite kind of cereal. Who wouldn't want this tradition with the pure joy that comes with it?!

WOW! What a cute kid. Aaron was so excited about his birthday this year. The actual date was on a Sunday so his party was to be held on Saturday but he took cupcakes to school on Wednesday and gymnastics on Thursday. On Wednesday at school he was given a birthday badge that said, "It's my Birthday". Aaron was thoroughly confused. He knew his birthday was Sunday the 31st, we'd been telling him that for the last 3 weeks, but then why did the badge only his shirt say that it was today?!?! "Am I F-our today?"

We couldn't resist bringing cupcakes to church on Aaron's actual birthday. It was so fun to watch his shy up while the primary kids all sang "Happy Birthday" to him.

By the time we had cake on Saturday and cupcakes in his primary class on Sunday, a birthday dessert at Lindo Michocan on Monday (a favorite mexican restaurant of ours) and yet another birthday "burger" with an ice cream sundae at Red Robin later in the week (compliments of Gee), it was safe to say that Aaron's 4th birthday was memorable.

Branson Reeve, Andrew Gardner and the birthday boy

This year we decided to let him take some friends to the Mini Gran Prix or the "go carts" as we

call it. He invited his two little buddies Andrew and Branson, and their dads. So Bill and Aaron set off Saturday afternoon to pick up the other

party goers and head to the go carts. Livi and I stayed home to get ready for everyone coming over. The families of the boys who went to the go carts as well as some other friends were going to join us for cake, ice cream and presents. When the boys got home there was much excitement in the air. They seemed to have had a lot of fun. I am so grateful to Bill for having taken the pictures of the events. They rode the go carts and then the airplane ride and the big slide. Apparently Aaron was the only one of the 3 boys who enjoyed the giant slide. All week, leading up to his party he would tell anyone who he knew, who he saw, that they were invited. The boys were invited to the go carts and he would tell the girls, even his teacher, Mrs. Powers, "You can come to my house for my birthday cake but only boys at the go carts." So fun!

"Do I have the coolest dad or what?!"

The cake was a huge hit. Aaron, after having seen a race car cake was sure that he wanted a motorcycle cake on a race track. So...

...the awesome cake (1/2 chocolate, 1/2 yellow), with the ramp made out of yellow.

He loved it. He kept telling me "It's AWESOME!" It was pretty awesome, everyone at the party loved it. I love being able to do such cool stuff for my kids. (Thanks mom for adding that to our lives.

Aaron was so much fun to watch open his gifts. Everything he got was so spectacular in his eyes. A coloring book and crayons, games, horse shoes, a "hoppy ball", crocs and a kite from Mom and Dad, books and a leapster game from the Ellisons, snazzy clothes from Grandma and Papa T. He loved it all.

My favorite is always to watch him open what his sister got him. Big score on the Bat Mobile!

I've been trying to make holiday pillow cases for the kids for every holiday. I thought a Birthday pillow case would be fun. It served better as a chair cover though. In the middle of the night our sensitive sleeper wanted it off his pillow, he said that it was, "too scratchy". It was a cute idea anyways.
Aaron's choice for his birthday dinner was our homemade pizza. (Good choice!)
Brother and Sister Hirschi are Aaron's Sunbeam teachers. He absolutely adores them. Sunday evening they brought a bag full of birthday presents! So fun!

What can I say about our "sweet love"?. He always has been and remains so very tender hearted. It is something that Bill and I make a conscience effort to remember and to tell others because he is so rough and tumble, it's easy to forget his soft side. And it is just under his skin. Currently he weighs about 44 lbs, is 42 inches tall and wearing, pretty comfortably, a size 5 in clothes. He loves meeting new people and talking to them. He of course always asks their name, first and middle, and how old they are. It doesn't matter how many times he asks you, he'll ask you again. But don't confuse this repetition with forgetfulness, Livi has found her match in the memory bank. At four years old he can spell out simple beginning-middle-ending sound words like; cat, dog, car, red, etc. and easily knows colors, shapes, letters, head locks and body slams. Oh yeah, wrestling is a favorite past-time of his. His favorite time of any day is a good wrestling match with Annie and Dad. Aaron is excellent at letting us know when he doesn't think something is fair, and even better at letting us know when we're "not making [him] happy". He is very quick to obey when requested to help with Annie and loves electronics.

We've recently started paying him an allowance... "TV tickets". He has a chore chart and gets paid his tickets according to how many of his chores he gets done. 1 TV ticket = 1 show. If he does ALL his chores he gets 5 tv tickets for the week. (Plus a ticket for each night that he sleeps in his own bed for the entire night, which he has yet to accomplish for a week's time since we moved into this house 1 year ago! Since we started this 2 weeks ago, he's earned 1 ticket for sleeping in his bed ALL night.) He discovered the loop hole in the tv time though. He figured out how to watch his favorite shows online. (He showed Livi how to do it the other day!) Up until then I hadn't been collecting tickets for computer time... something needs to be adjusted. I told him, "Aaron, you need to play with something other than electronics."

A: "What are electronics?"

M: "Things that have batteries or plug in. Go play with your blocks or your Geo Trax."

A: while kicking his feet and flailing his arms, "But MOM! My Geo Trax have BATTERIES!"

He got me there.
Aaron got this lion from a friend of Grandma Susie's upon his birth. It came with a counterpart, an elephant we named Eli, but recently Aaron gave it to Daxton. (He wanted Daxton to have a friend to sleep with at Papa's just like he does.) His lion, Leo as it was named, has been his comfort and friend forever. He has taken him on every trip and he has been lost several times. My favorite was when he was lost on Wall St. in NYC. Bill ran back several blocks and actually found him. We almost left him on the NY subway as well. There's no more stuffing in the little guy and his nose string had to be snipped when one morning I found Aaron (maybe 18 months) crying at having twisted his finger in the loop so tightly it was turning purple. Everyone who knows Aaron and has spent any significant amount of time with him also knows Leo. Tonight he told me, "Leo is my best friend. He makes me happy."

What a treat to have in our family. Aaron, we all love you so much. Your Granma Claycamp would be so proud of who you are and the love you give to those around you. The tender heart you have and the gentleness you show to others... Aaron, those qualities come from your granma. Happy Birthday big boy!

Disney On Ice

Thank You Grandma!!! Bill was gone and I was looking for something fun to do with the kids on Saturday afternoon. Grandma pulled through. She bought tickets to Disney on Ice as part of the kids' birthday presents. YEA! It was so fun to take them to such a magical experience. Next time mom, you'll have to come down and take them. You would've loved to see the smiles in their eyes, in person!

The princess meet and greet turned out to be the princess standing on stage waving at all the kids. Livi and Aaron had brought their Disney autograph books for Princess Tiana but this was as close as they got.

Good picture skills Liv.

I thought the Cars was so super cool. They were actually driving on the ice!

Ursula was fabulous!

Tinkerbell was Livi's favorite. It was so colorful.

Thank you Grandma. What a special treat for the kids!

Perseverance

(For the life of me I can't get this rotated properly.)

This is what Mrs. Lee, Olivia's kindergarten teacher,wrote to me regarding Olivia receiving the citizenship award for the month of January.

she has been selected as one of the students of the month for perseverance (for obvious reasons). She is a great inspiration to me, even if no one else knows about her battles. She handles every hurdle with such grace and control. I really admire her, so when it came time to select for perseverance it was a no- brainer. :)

Great job babe! We are so proud of you.

Annie, Annie, Annie

Upon agreeing to get a dog Bill and I had a pretty good understanding of it's just a dog. If anything big (as in $$$) was required we would probably just let her go. Yeah, we had NO clue.

Bill is Mr. tough guy and still tries to pretend that, "she's just a dog", but behind all that "muscle" is a lot of heart. To bring in the new year and new determination to exercise regularly Bill and Annie have been running together every morning. It's funny to see what a big effect it's had on Annie. When Bill leaves for work in the morning she lays by the front door and whines for a little while, and when he gets home she cannot get enough of him. They love to wrestle together and Bill is the only thing that can get her to bark. They really go at it. He'll do body slams and "punch" her and flip her around. She really gets goin'. It'll be interesting to see when her muscle more fully develops what she'll be able to give back.

Saturday night, Janurary 9th, this routine wrestling match was underway when Bill did his customary body slam on Annie and we heard a "crack"! Instantly Annie was yelping and wouldn't put any weight on her right fore leg. I quickly called the vet as Bill was yelling, "I broke her leg!", Livi was bawling and Aaron was trying to "see". By the time we were able to get through to the on call doctor she seemed fine. We took it easy for the rest of the night(see pic above). Bill was real upset at the thought that he may have broken her leg and we decided that perhaps we should look in to pet insurance after all.

Well, Bill left Sunday morning for a quick trip to L.A. and Annie was sad. She wasn't eating much and her energy level wasn't quite the same. Bill came home on Tuesday and while they started their running back up Annie's appetite just wasn't quite right. We feared that she had swallowed something that just wasn't coming out this time. (So far she had given us back 8 socks "forwards" and 2 socks "backwards".) Friday morning she threw up while whining at our bedroom door and then threw up breakfast... not easy to clean shag carpet! (Yeah, gross.) That was it, she was going to the vet. Something wasn't right. (I had flash backs to the penny stuck in Livi's throat for 5 days when she had just turned one.) Pet insurance hadn't come soon enough.

The vet took some x-rays and couldn't exactly tell what was in her stomach but could definitely something was in there. (Bill was curious as to whether or not it showed a broken leg. It didn't.) We decided to do the surgery. (We could've done a barium scan but that would've been an additional $600. So we opted to put that cost towards the surgery, throw in the spay and be done with it.)

One small fistful of "debris" (aka: rocks, sticks, and mystery white foamy substance), a check for more than our mortgage payment and 3 days later we have... a big puppy (38 lbs to be exact) attached to a "collar of shame".

While Annie was in the hospital many prayers went heavenwards from our sad hearts. Tears trickled down my cheeks at the overall "experience", Olivia bawled and Aaron did his hysterical fake cry. I had to calm Olivia down and explain that I wasn't scared that Annie would die, I was just sad that she had to be away from us, and I was sad at how much money it was costing to have Annie taken care of. I explained to the kids that we would just have to be more careful how we spend our money over the next couple of months until we can get back what the surgery cost. Olivia said, "Like maybe not have so many birthday presents?" I said, "Yeah. Maybe Annie could be one of your presents this year." Livi smiled really big. She liked the idea. She turned to Aaron, who was sitting next to her at the island eating lunch and said, "Aaron do you want Annie or lots of presents for your birthday?" Aaron, without missing a beat, responded with a full mouth of sandwich, "I don't want Annie. I want lots of presents. Annie bites me!" I was so caught off guard I almost lost my own mouthful and Olivia started to cry even harder. (I can't help but laugh at it now as I'm writing this. Oh Aaron.)

We all visited with Annie on Saturday. Admittedly she was happiest to see Bill. I got teary eyed... again and promised to come see her Sunday before church. (Seriously, what is this dog doing to me? It is just a DOG!)Sunday, I got to the hospital in good time as she was just coming back from her morning walk. (I.V. and all.) She looked really good. Everything was set for her to come home on Monday. When we picked her up from the vet's it was almost comical the amount of emphasis the doctor put on "NO ROUGH HOUSING!" (They obviously remembered the broken leg call.)

While Annie was gone there was a definite tranquility in our home. That, coupled with the lack of flying fur, made for an enjoyable weekend. But Bill agreed, that it just felt like something was missing.

It was really good to have Annie back home with us. It's hard that she can't go running with Dad for 10 days, we are definitely feeling her energy level hitting all time highs. It doesn't help that Dad's gone and it definitely does not help that it's been raining all week! A very over energized dog + a very obtrusive elizabethan collar makes for a lot of bruises. Even the once teary eyed Olivia asked,"Could we just let her stay at the hospital 'til she gets the cone off?" We'll make it through. Annie is actually beginning to be quite talented with her cone. She will drop her bone down into it, swing her head in large circles so that the bone is spiraling inside of it and then fling her head up in the air catapulting her bone across the room; where she then proceeds to pick it up and do it all over again. (I will say, it is quite pathetic to see her trying to scratch behind her ears when all she is scratching is the cone.)

1.) Annie trying to get close to Aaron. 2.)Annie didn't think she was close enough so she decides to sit on Aaron. 3.) Aaron surrenders his chair to Annie but not before long Annie is lying on Aaron on the floor. 4.)Aaron is proud that Annie can no longer "get to him".

This sequence of events has happened before, to Olivia. Olivia didn't find refuge in the laundry basket. She ended up sitting on Annie's pillow with her.