We did it!

We haven't always been good about family scripture study, but the last several years we've done it pretty faithfully. Each morning we wake up and gather 8 sleepy kids around our living room and read a couple verses each from the Book of Mormon. It's not always spiritual, it's actually fairly chaotic at times. I'm not sure how many times we've started over, but it's been a few. Well yesterday we finished! I'm sure most families have finished several times, but this first time was so exciting for me. I'm so grateful to have my sweet husband who honors his priesthood and leads his family in scripture study each day.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Jack-in-the-Box

Princess Bekkah

Princess EmilyAmmon the Dragon Slayer

Chuck Norris (AKA Zane)

Bed Head (wish I looked this cute first thing in the morning)

Zombie Zach

Dr. Gregory House (star of USA channel show called HOUSE)

Graceful Mckenzie

If you haven't heard the whole story yet...here it is. Mckenzie was at a Halloween party Saturday night. She was playing a drama game and she was supposed to pretend to die. If you know Mckenzie at all you know she is very dramatic. She dropped to the ground, missing the carpet and landing on the tile floor. She hit her head pretty hard, but felt ok (except for a headache). The next day her fingers felt numb, and by the evening her whole arm was tingling. Dan took her to urgent care figuring it was probably nothing but wanting to be cautious. Next thing we know they are headed for Banner Children's Hospital to meet up with the neurosurgeon. After several tests it was confirmed that she had a spinal chord injury. Now her other arm had gone numb and it was spreading to her legs. The swelling of her spinal chord was compressing the nerves in her limbs. Over the next four days she was put on steroids, given numerous tests and kept for observation to rule out a brain bleed or any other condition that may have been caused by her 'not so graceful' fall.

Though the next few months will be slow and tedious she is expected to make a full recovery. Thank you to all who visited in the hospital, bearing gifts (loved the helmet Emie!) and cheering her up. I also want to thank everyone who helped with babysitting and brought in meals. You made it so much easier to be at the hospital taking care of my 13 year old baby, knowing my other babies were taken care of at home. We are very blessed to have a wonderful extended family and a wonderful ward family. We feel truly grateful that Mckenzie was able to walk away from this, knowing that some people with this same injury never walk again. It could have been so much worse. And I thank a loving Father in Heaven for watching over and protecting my family once again from life's' little bumps (or hills, or mountains as the case may be)!

Now for the embarrassing pictures: (a mother's prerogative after her kid puts her through this kind of worry)

First day in the hospital and thrilled to be here!

Don't you love the teddy bear hospital gown! Joys of being in the pediatric unit.

Resting comfortably at home with her new Snuggie (thanks Grandpa)!

Emily's First Haircut

Emily had her first haircut this weekend! We went to see Aunt Mindi at her salon (thanks Mindi!) She got the shampoo and everything. She wanted to donate her hair to Locks of Love like Mckenzie did a few years ago, so we cut it all off. She was so excited to be able to give her hair to another little girl who needed a wig. And she is especially excited to not have to deal with tangles anymore!

What A Great Weekend!

Our Family had the amazing opportunity to spend conference weekend at a good friend's beautiful cabin.We enjoyed the fabulous weather.

We played games and watched conference as a family.

We played golf...or attempted to anyway!

This is right before Ammon hit his first ball...into my shin!

There was a playground and family center with video games and computers. Our big kids loved that!

And we threw in our fishing lines at the lake while the little ones collected cat tails and crawdads.

We had a fantastic time just hanging out as a family!

Bekkah's Update

Our little Rebekkah had her cardiologist appointment at Phoenix Childrens' Hospital on Friday. We were excited to hear that her Holter Monitor (a device attached to leads on her chest to record her heart beat for 24 hours) came back negative. Her Doc is planning on taking her off her medication in the spring if everything continues to go well with her WPW (Wolf Parkinson White Syndrome). That's great news because the medication she is on makes her very sensitive to the sun, and she gets blisters when she's out in it for very long. I don't think she could take another summer inside!

We also got the results of her echo cardiogram (ultrasound of her heart). This was not quite as good of news. Her Ebstein's Anomaly has been upgraded from a mild to a moderate abnormality, which basically means the malformation of her tricuspid valve is getting worse as she grows. The good news is that the leaking of the blood from one chamber to another is still not substantial enough for the surgery. He said as long as the leak is minimal, we just "watch it". This means that if she turns blue we need to call him. No pressure huh! But the surgery is very tricky, he called it an 8 1/2 or 9 on the scale of difficulty, 10 being the hardest. So I guess we just watch and wait and do it all over again in March. And in the meantime, enjoy having our sweet little princess!

Tea Party

Bekkah had her favorite BFF over this morning. She and Gracie had a tea party complete with cookies and water. Bonus: Once all the water was wiped up my floor was clean! Thanks girls