Sweet baby girl!

Lauren was born with a cleft in her soft palate. She has no facial deformity or any problem with her hard palate but had a small opening to her nasal cavity. She had a cleft palate repair surgery and tubes put in her ears on Tuesday, January 27th at Loma Linda hospital. This is pre surgery at 5:45 am in the morning. What a cutie pie!

This is prepping for surgery. Everybody kept commenting on what a cutie she was. She looks adorable even in a hospital gown.

When they took Lauren off to surgery I cried. The anesthesiologist carried her off and she didn't even cry or fuss. Her surgery lasted less than 2 hours during which we ate crappy hospital food, listened to an MP3 player and cried and cried and cried. We had a pager which alerted us when surgery started, when it was over, when the plastic surgeon was coming down to talk to us and when we could go up to recovery and be with her. When we got the last page we practically ran up to recovery. Poor baby looked so sad, and lost and confused and in pain when we saw her it was hard not to cry, some more. Her little mouth was all stretched opened and cracked on the sides and her color was bad and of course she was hooked to a million things and I couldn't hold her at first which was really hard. But she was a trooper even then. Eventually they got her a room. I stayed with her Tuesday night. She was fussy which was expected but she could have been worse. She was fine as long as I was up walking around with her and taking her for walks. Good for her but hard for mom as it hit midnight, 1 am, 2 am, etc, etc, etc. We got about 2 1/2 hours of sleep sitting up in a crappy hospital chair. Finally Josh came down in the morning and I got to use the bathroom and stretch. She was doing well when they checked her in the morning and her palate was still intact. They discharged her around 10am which we were all extremely grateful for. We took her home, I got a shower and she got a bath. We both got comfy clothes on and took a nice relaxing nap at home.

This is her at home with her no no's on (arm restraints). Still looking very grumpy but she looks so healthy compared to after surgery. Now hopefully we can get her to take a bottle again, her mouth is still sore and she doesn't want it at the moment. Maybe tonight we can all get some sleep and keep the recovery rolling and smooth. We sure do love our sweet baby girl and are glad her surgery is done and over with!

Roller Skating

For our friend Maxx's birthday party, he wanted a party at the skating rink. Our boys have never been roller skating so we got a baby sitter for the two younger ones and off we went/
Not to mention Josh and I haven't been rollerskating in about 10 years. Trying to get Paul going.
Paul taking a break from skating.
Dad and his look alike David practicing.
Dad and both boys. Luckily we all had fun and we had no major accidents. When can we go again?!

Monster Truck Show

One of my awesome friends that I used to teach with (best partner I ever had, still miss teaching with her) gave our family Monster Truck show tickets for Christmas. Never been to one before, not sure what to expect but we thought the kids would enjoy it so off we went.

We got pit passes to go and see the trucks and drivers before the show. This was one of Paul's favorites as it was a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle truck. It was a pretty cool truck and did pretty good in the show. The driver was pretty young but knew how to handle his vehicle.

This dinosaur truck was one of Seth's favorites'. We loved the eyeball windows. Pretty sweet! The driver was a girl so we had to get a picture with her. Girl Power! She wasn't the fastest out there but she had been named Rookie of the Year in 2008 and her jumps were outta sight!

All the boys including Maxx(Leigh's son) in the shades and his dad Mike. Seth is staring at the truck in awe. :)

If you are gonna go to a Monster truck show and raise up some good ole FROA members you gotta see Grave Digger and get a picture. The boys each have their own version that they sit on and ride around the house. (Yeah try to store not one but 3 monster trucks in one bedroom. Talk about a storage nightmare!)

Relief Society Lesson

I always tend to think my kids look so awesome on Sunday so this time I took a picture. (How come I don't feel that way all during sacrament?)

Now just look at that picture. They say a picture says a 1000 words. Does it teach a lesson too? I had to lay everything out on the table to make sure I didn't forget anything. Is there some extra genetic wiring on the x chromosome that makes women do this for a single lesson or is it just me? I was teaching from the Joseph Smith manual, lesson 25 about parables. I had 4 baskets, one for each parable with visual aides for each. Then I had 4 visual aides for the table and lest you think one of my children put Mrs. Potato Head on the table by mistake, it was for the lesson too. Then I had my manual, my scriptures, my typed out 3 page guide and 40 handouts. They were planters cups lined with wax paper filled with kisses. They had a planter stick with Matthew 13 written on them. It's the scripture with all the parables in the lesson. I look at all of this and have to wonder; Is there something wrong with me? It reminds me of the movie RM, and pans from the Elder's Quorum room where the guys are saying, "Are you teaching the lesson? Nah man I thought you were teaching today." to the Relief Society where there's a harpist playing softly in the background and an ice scuplture on the table.

Spoiler Alert: Boring Material Ahead!

This is my blog and my memory so I am documenting my classroom. Since I spend a majority of my life and energy here I wanted to have some pictures of it. This is our reading corner. In room we are "Wild About Learning!" hence the monkey/jungle theme. And I just really like it.

This is the calendar corner. Here we "Dive into Math". Yeah I know it's cheesy but I like it and my students really enjoy our room. You wouldn't believe the crazy stuff I do in this corner. You've never seen me do the macarena with 20 6 year olds. It's something else.

The important thing to notice in this picture is the beautifully crafted white cubbies made by my wonderful wood shop teaching hubby. It only took 3 years but I finally got him to make me something for my classroom and they are wonderful. I love them!

This is where all the important planning takes place. (Thats why it looks like a tornado hit it)

This is my desk.

My students hard at work. I have a great class this year. Thank goodness. This is my 12th year of teaching. Where does the time go? I'm just lucky that I still love my job!

Sunday School Class

This is my Sunday School class. it is held every Sunday after Sacrament in the mother's lounge. This was actually a small class. There are usually at least 3 other kids and moms in there. We have a lesson (gripe about whatever happened that week), a snack (baby food, cheerios, biter biscuits), and sometimes we even get handouts (poopy diapers, spit up, half eaten food). It's one of the most enlightening classes I've ever been too. I can't imagine what my life will be like when I don't attend this class anymore.

P.S. Lauren is the one in the cute black boots. :)

San Diego Zoo

We took the kids to the San Diego Zoo on New Year's day. It was beautiful weather and the zoo was not very crowded. We had a wonderful day! We usually go the Wild Animal Park so this was a fun change. This first picture was one of my favorites. We caught the tiger in mid-action.

My little hippos. :) David had the "Uncle Dan" stretch neck going on in this photo. I can't believe how fast they are growing up. This year I will have an 8 year old, a 5 year old, a 3 year old and a 1 year old. Where does the time go? They keep getting older and I'm still the same age.

This has got to be arguably one of the ugliest animals I've ever seen. I'm sure that some animal out there is uglier, I just haven't seen it yet. Up close and personal this little guy was even uglier if that's poosible.

The panda bears and the koalas were our favorites. It was really cool seeing both of them. Seth wanted to pet the Koala, he kept calling it a teddy bear. Too cute!

AWWW! Two of my cute men. This was when we went to see the Sea Lion show. It was pretty interesting and entertaining.

I don't look forward to the years when the kids want to go out on their own for New Year's eve.

Winter Wonderland

At least that's what David called it. Here's a picture of our front yard.

You can't see the Penguins on the sled very well or the snowflake lights going down but all together it looked pretty good.

I went down to the OC, he he he, the other day to visit my beautiful friends. This is Amanda.

This is Thorey and her beautiful baby girl Charlotte. What wonderful friends I have. We've all known each other since elementary and junior high school. That's a lot of history. Kasey was there also but she left before I finally got to taking pictures.

Lauren was accessorizing. She's my girl!

Christmas Dinner

You know there's something wrong with you when you start hosting dinner parties at 16 and catering your own birthday party in college. But what can I say I love to play hostess. I don't know anyone else in my immediate age bracket that has an entire China hutch filled with a complete set of China, crystal and serving ware. I am the go to girl for borrowing crystal platters, bowls and pitchers. =) Whenever in doubt of what to get me for a present you can never go wrong with some type of crystal item or serving ware. I really enjoyed making Christmas dinner this year. I changed up the menu a bit and added some new recipes. It all turned out very well and there were very few leftovers to speak of. Here's just a couple of pictures from dinner. Next time I'll take a picture of the table before we start eating too. It was sooo pretty. On that note if anyone knows where to get a book on ways to fold cloth napkins into fancy shapes and ducks and things like that I have a birthday coming up in January. =) And I'm getting tired of the fan, which is the only way I know how to fold napkins.

For those of you who don't know that's Josh's uncle Craig and his wife Mary, my parents and cousin (uncle) Matt.

We had swedish fish for dessert. Teehee...