Huston Family at the Mesa Temple

I've always wanted a family picture at the Temple. I finally got it. What a great Christmas Present! Thanks Dan and Oscar!

French Fry

Well it happened. We knew it would. They just don't live that long. Zane's hamster, French

Fry, died. Zane found him right before bed. Not good timing. Ammon took it the hardest. We had a long talk about life and the plan of happiness. We talked about the possibility of animals going to heaven. Then Ammon, in his sweet little boy innocence, asked, "When we go to Heaven and see French Fry, will we have to buy him all over again?"

9 months!

I can't believe our sweet little Jackson is 9 months old today. I've tried so hard to enjoy this last little one. I try to cuddle more, but he just wiggles away. I swore I'd nurse til he was at least a year, but he decided he was done a few weeks ago. I hoped for a 13 month old walker, but at the rate he's going he'll be toddling along by Thanksgiving. He's just not cooperating, and his babyhood is flying by.

He had a rough start with an early, and difficult delivery and heart promlems to boot, but I'm happy to report that he went from a tiny five pounder to a whopping 26 pounds all in 9 months and most of his heart problems have been resolved.

All the kids adore him and his daddy just melts at his welcome home grin. I am so grateful for this final addition to our family. He truly is an angel sent from Heaven.

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

College Kid!

Can you believe I have a kid in college? I can't, I'm not old enough!! Ok, I am and yes Tres started college at MCC today. He's taking Philosophy, Biology, Food and Culture, and Pharmacy Technician Prep. The tuition was free because Dan works at the District. The fees and books are not covered so it cost him most of his savings, but he's excited (and nervous) about going. Dad takes him in the morning on his way to work, and he rides the city bus home in the afternoon. Good luck Tres!

Jury Duty

I received THE letter in the mail a few weeks ago (amazing because we lost our mail key and only get it when we happen to see the mailman out there). I thought about trying to get out of it. I went through the excuses. I have 8 children. I have no sitter. Jack's still nursing. Bekkah's got a heart problem and I can't leave her too long. The younger kids get out of school first, no one will be home for them. The list goes on and on. But sense of duty won out.

The day before you serve you are told to call a number and listen to see if you are still needed. I made my call at 4:30 pm and the recording said to call back again the next day at 11am to see if I was still needed. Apparently they think I sit around all day by the phone. I called again and the recording told me to be there in an hour. So I left Tres in charge of Jack and Bekkah, along with the phone number of a close friend in case of emergency (like a diaper change! Thanks Trinity!!) and headed off to court.

I've never sat on a jury, never made it past that phone call, so I was very glad I brought a book. There is a lot of waiting involved in the American legal process! I was finally escorted in to meet the judge along with 30 other people. This is where we were all asked a lot of questions to see which lucky nine of us would spend the next few days together deciding a man's fate. Ok it wasn't that dramatic, apparently a guy stole a piece of farm sprinkler equipment. Our tax dollars at work!

Each of us had to stand, tell what we did for a living, what our significant other did, how many children we have and their ages. Most people seemed to work for banks or fast food. Some were full time students, others were retired. I was the only one in the room who was a homemaker (I guess all the other ones got out of it!) When I got to the part where I said I had eight children there was an audible gasp from the other jurors. And when I struggled with the ages (hey, that's a lot to remember off the top of your head) there was a little giggling. Oh well. Apparently the attorneys don't like unemployed housewives with 8 kids, because an hour later I was excused to go home to my family with the assurance that I would get another opportunity in no less that two years. Maybe I'll fulfill my civic duty in 2011!

Utah Vacatation

We spent a great week in Kanab Utah with Grammy last week. We swam, and took walks. We went to Pipe Springs, and to the movies. We visited an animal sanctuary and drove to Toquerville to visit cousins. It was a nice relaxing week playing games and hanging out. Thanks Grammy and Papa Oscar for the fun time!

Be NICE!

At the Priest camp out last week Bishop Walker challenged the young men to "be nice" for 24 hours. Being nice was defined as, no rude comments, no yelling, punching, pinching, or teasing, no tantrums, and definitely no sarcasm. President Hinckley said the following: "I am asking that we look a little deeper for the good, that we still our voices of insult and sarcasm, that we more generously compliment virtue and effort." So Dan thought it was such a great idea that he challenged our whole family to do the same. Not as easy as it sounds. I've started over many times. I was so close last night. Then a little sarcastic comment slipped out, only a couple hours before bed. So I'm starting again this morning. Wish me luck!

If you want to read the talk by President Hinkley here is the link: http://speeches.byu.edu/reader/reader.php?id=6055