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Frosty The Snowman

Abby and I built a snowman, her first snowman. While we were building it she sang Frosty the Snowman was a happy, jolly soul. It was a lot of fun.

I have started making a list of the things I want to remember about Abby when she was this wonderful age of two here is what I have so far.

• When you slept you slept on your stomach all balled up. You were also a very wild sleeper; we would find you in all sorts of positions and even on the floor.
  
• Also when you slept you would sometimes talk and sing.
  
• You sang A LOT, mostly primary songs like I Am A Child Of God and Sunbeams but other ones too.
  
• You put a stuffed animal in time out for jumping on the couch.
  
• You called knives sharps.
  
• You enjoy reading and being outside.
  
• You like cats but would sometimes terrorize them.
  
• You were very loving to Kyla although sometimes you would take her toys but mostly you would share and go out of your way to include her.
  
• You can count to ten!
  
• You really enjoy movies, just now starting to let us watch more than a handful of movies.
  
• Started to go potty without help but not completely potty trained yet.
  
• You enjoyed cracking eggs but wouldn’t break them apart because it would make your hands dirty.
  
• You didn’t like getting your hands dirty, sometimes it upset you quite a bit.
  
• In the bath you would line up your toys (very particular about the order) and then laugh.
  
• Chocolate is your favorite; right now it’s hot chocolate.
  
• You love your cousin Connor and would call him on a play phone and talk about playing cars with him and Ethan.

Kyla!

Kyla is 6 months old! She weighs 16 pounds 3 1/2 ounces which puts her in the 55% and she is 26 inches long which is 60%. She is doing great, she can roll all over the place but the stinker will still look at me and coax for me to come pick her up instead of coming to me. She gets up on her hands and knees and rocks back and forth so she is getting very close to crawling...maybe by Christmas... She does NOT enjoy eating solids yet, hopefully that will change by the time she needs the stuff. She does not sleep through the night anymore, some nights are worse than others but we are working on it. She really enjoys bath time and finds it fascinating to splash the water. No teeth yet and still not too much hair but she will let me put headbands on her without ripping it off. Yay! Her new thing is sticking her tongue out, very entertaining. She is growing so fast, love the little bug!

Thanksgiving Weekend

For Thanksgiving we were with Eric's family. All of Eric's brothers and sisters were there this year and it was a lot of fun, we sure are getting to be a houseful. We ate really good food and played games. The one downfall was Abby running a fever of 103 degrees. No other symptoms and she got better in a couple of days, weird. The Saturday after we got the Christmas trees. We went up in the mountains and chopped down our own (this year we are sharing with his parents since that's where we are staying). Abby absolutely loves snow. Sometimes we had to carry her because she just wanted to play in the snow and not trek all around the mountains to find trees. Jacey and Abby

Grandpa and Abby

Here is the tree we found.

Look how strong Connor is!

Here are all of the cousins and Cheryl and me. Ashley is in the back then Connor, Jacey, Hailey. Then Kyla, Ethan, and Abby in front.

It was a really nice day and we had fun, Eric is still recovering and it wore him out but we still had fun.

Later that day we had a special bon fire for Cheryl. It was to celebrate her finishing up her last chemo treatment a few days before Thanksgiving. I haven't blogged about her before but my sister-in-law Cheryl was diagnosed with bone cancer in January and has been having chemo treatments and had major surgery to remove the tumor and replace the majority of her leg and knee. It has been a hard and long journey for everyone but she made it! We were so happy to celebrate the end of her chemo treatments and to know that she is almost through this whole thing. She is such a strong person. We named Kyla after her (that's her middle name) because we think that she is such an amazing person and has kept her faith and testimony during this trial and hope that Kyla will be like her when she grows up.

Jason, my brother-in-law built this fire with all the clothes that Cheryl had worn to the hospital to receive treatments, he also lit fireworks underneath. It was awesome.

To finish the day off we played more games and ate more food. It was a good weekend.

Just a little bit about the girls. Kyla is rolling all around, she getting ideas of crawling but hasn't quite figured it out. She is happy most of the time and has big smiles. Abby is talking more and better each day. She surprises us all the time. She can count to ten all by herself and sings all the time (real songs and made up songs) she really likes the songs she is learning in nursery. She is becoming even braver for instance, I thought that I could write up this blog without any interference because I put both the girls to bed but thirty minutes later I hear Abby climbing up the stairs in the dark and she is sitting here with me right now. Little stinker! She can open doors and start movies without any help. She is growing up!

More Happenings

Kyla tried her first solids, yummy rice cereal. Only she didn't think it was so yummy. After many attempts she decided she was done and refused to open her mouth any more. She is 5 months and one day in this picture. For some reason I was not in any big hurry for Kyla to start eating solids.

Abby got a paint activity of Winnie the Pooh from her Aunt Ashley for Halloween and she just loves it. Here she is painting with Grandma Tine.

Eric's old mission compainion who lives in California was in Utah for a friend's wedding and came over for a few hours to visit. They had lots of fun cathing up. Nate and Abby playing.Apparently there are NO pictures with me in them so Eric decided to take one so here is Kyla and me watching Abby and Nate play.

This is Abby reading The Monster at the End of the Book a classic that every kid needs to read. She knows this book really well and can tell you most of what is said on every page. It is pretty hilarious to watch and listen to. Sometimes you will all of a sudden hear YOU TURNED ANOTHER PAGE! from across the house because she takes the book and reads it all the time.

Eric's Surgery

On Friday October 30, 2009 Eric had surgery. This problem has been leading up to this day for too long, 47 days to be exact. With being diagnosed with diverticulitis and having it not get better within that time frame we decided that the best thing for Eric would be to have that part of the colon removed so this problem will finally go away and hopefully never return. It was considered an elective surgery (he could just live with the pain until it eventually went away and hope that it healed correctly and that no other problems or complications would occur) but we both had prayed about it and felt that this was the right choice. It made us feel even better when the doctor, after having done the surgery, told us that he thought we made the right choice considering there is no way to know the future and that the infected part looked worse than the scan had been showing. The day before Friday Eric had a colonoscopy done to make sure there were no surprises and check for cancer or other diseases and it turned out that is was just diverticulitis and nothing else, the rest of his colon looked great and healthy! Talk about a relief! The day before Thursday Eric had to start preparing for everything and a part of that included being on a clear liquid diet. That means water, jello, broth, Gatorade, water, jello... that's it. He has had to be on this diet a few times before (previous hospitalizations) and for a while after the surgery. Because of this diet he has lost close to 20 pounds! Anyway the surgery went really well, it took around 2 hours. Eric's dad, Randy, waited with me at the hospital and my mom watched my girls for me. No one under 14 was allowed to come because of flu season so my lucky mom got to introduce Kyla to the bottle for the first time. It was rough but she managed and I am so grateful for all her help! The doctor came to talk to us to tell us what happened and how everything went and he told us that he removed about a foot of his colon. A normal colon is around 6-7 feet long and to have a regular functioning colon you need at least 4 or 5 feet. So Eric is still functioning normally. He also said that he could definitely tell what part needed to be taken out and that the majority of the section he took out was the part that had more diverticula on it (those are what they are called before they get infected which most people actually have and don't know it) so the problem is not very likely to occur again. Eric spent an hour or so in the recovery room then we got to see him (we were waiting in his room he was going to stay in for the next few days). He was still out of it and his throat was killing him from the breathing tube but they would let him have water yet and that kinda made him made. They tried to see if he could go for a walk that night but that didn't happen, he did go for a walk the next day though and got better each day. It was kind of funny walking with him because old people with canes walked faster than he did! We both had a good laugh at that. He had an epidural in to numb is stomach area for the first three days when they took it out he really felt the pain but he got it under control so that he could come home Tuesday night. Everyday has been a little bit better. It's still a four week recovery from the surgery date but we can definitely see improvement. We are both ready for the day when he can pick his babies up and hug them and play with them and get back to work!

This is what his stomach looked like the first day after surgery, there were four incisions.

The second Sunday after surgery, the bottom left (your right) is the largest incision and is the one where the doctor reached his hand in and took out his colon to work on it, all the other cuts are small where cameras were put in to help them see.

Halloween

The month of October was a busy month. Abby did quiet a few Halloween activities, first there was painting pumpkins with my ward's playgroup, then the pumpkin walk with family, caving pumpkins, ward carnival, then trick-or-treating.

This is Abby painting her pumpkin. When they were all done the kids ran around the gym and Abby really wanted to go but let her nerves get to her then when it was almost time to go she warmed up and ran around with the other kids.Here we are at the pumpkin walk and lovely tradition we have in Logan. There were some really cute scenes. Behind us in this one were M&Ms. The theme this year was commercials.Kyla was awake when we got there then promptly fell asleep the rest of the time.Abby really enjoys playing with her Uncle Rich. This was my favorite scene. Green Giant huge vegetable garden.Abby really didn't like putting her face on through these holes. Jon, Mom, Rich, Abby, and Ashley. Thanks for coming with us!Carving pumpkins. Usually I carve pumpkins with my brothers and sister but this year since Eric really wasn't feeling well and he wanted to watch the festivities we stayed home while everyone else got together. Abby is such a girly girly when it comes to getting dirty. She gets a little bit of something on her hand she needs to clean it off. She is so funny. So I did all the dirty work.She did help me carve for a few minutes.The finished product. Nothing fancy this year. The next few pictures are just cute pictures of my girls.Lee's, a local grocery store, did a treat-or-treat for kids in costume so my mom and I took the girls. Abby was having a great time because she was getting candy until I took her into the spook alley then she was scared of all people in costume and refused to take anymore candy from them.We are getting ready to go trick-or-treating around my parent's neighborhood. Kyla is a bunny and stayed awake for a few minutes and Abby was a bug. I have no idea what kind a bug, just a green bug.Abby was so excited . She would say trick-0r-treat 3 times before the door opened and would say thank you, bye bye, see ya soon.

This is a short clip of Abby trick-or-treating.

The treasure for the night. She only went to a few houses because I wanted to see Eric that night before I had to put the girls to bed but almost everyone gave her 3 pieces.
This is the only picture I got of any of my cute nephews and nieces. Ethan the lion, he had such a cute roar.