Catching snowflakes

Sunday after we got out of church it was snowing these huge flakes. We stood in the parking lot for a while catching them on our tongues. It was so much fun. You could look straight up and watch it snowing but then you could dodge the flakes so they didn't hit you. When we got home I grabbed the camera and caught some cute pictures.

This picture of Nathan is my favorite!

Opps, I forgot...

Last night when we were about half way through the Temple tour Maddie leaned over and whispered to me "Look Mom, there's another one!" I asked her what she meant and she pointed to one of the guides who had a big name tag hanging around her neck and said "There's another girl named Usher! Why are all the people who work here named Usher?"

I love to see the Temple!

Last night we had tickets to go to the Draper Temple Open House. Maddie and Jeni were especially excited to go inside of the Temple since they've never been in one. We left our house about 5:15 and went to the church the ticket directed us too. We went inside and they directed us to the gymnasium to sit and wait. They were working their way through two rows of chairs at a time. That's when we realized that it was going to be a lengthy process and we were very unprepared to entertain four getting-hungry children for an undetermined length of time!

But as parents you learn to get creative and roll with the punches so we played plenty of "Rock, Paper, Scissors", "I Spy" and lots of poking games as well as entertaining trips to the restrooms and drinking fountains. The promise of refreshments at the end of the tour also kept us going!

Finally it was our turn. They took us into another room where we watched a short video about temples and about the Draper area. Then we got to go out and get on the bus that took us up to the Temple. They had assigned a color to each of the chapels that were staging areas and they told us to make sure and remember blue so that we could find our cars when we were done. Well Nathan heard blue and after we got on the bus in the foggy darkness he was sure we were riding on Thomas the Train. So we got to ride on "Thomas" up to the Temple.

The Temple was very crowded but well organized. We started by seeing the baptistery and Maddie and Jeni are both very excited to turn 12 so they can start doing baptisms for the dead. Everything was so beautiful and well done. Even in the hallways between rooms were interesting, beautiful pictures to look at while we waited. Next they took us through the marriage waiting room and dressing rooms and then into the ordinance rooms that had beautiful murals on the walls. The Celestial Room (me and Maddie's favorite room) was absolutely beautiful and so was the sealing room where we ended the tour. After we were done we were directed into a church building on the Temple grounds where they had cookies and water and more information as well as plenty of missionaries on hand to answer any questions we had. It was a really neat tour and I enjoyed talking to Maddie (Bob was busy with Jeni and Nate) about it as we went through.

When we finally got back to our car it was 8:45! We were all starving so we decided to go to "Chuck-A-Grandma" (Nathan's name for Chuck-A-Rama) that was just by the freeway exit. We got there just as they were closing and wouldn't let us in so we ended up going to the "Star Restaurant" (Carl's Jr.) instead. It was after 10:00 when we finally got home but it was lots of fun and a really neat experience for all of us. In fact Nathan has been asking this morning if we can go and ride Thomas to the Temple again today!

Dart's knee: Round 2

So Dart had only been home from his surgery a few days when a small child (who shall remain nameless) fell on his leg and as it turns out, broke one of the sutured ligaments. Bummer! So we had to take Dart back in for another surgery on Wednesday. Fortunately there was no damage to the bone or other anchors, the suture just came loose so the doctor put in a stronger suture and stitched Dart back up. We brought him home that night with a new incision he isn't supposed to lick and another round of medication. In spite of the second surgery Dart is acting much better and slowly starting to use the leg and knee a little bit. It was funny watching him try to scratch his nose there for a while!

The great thing about animal medicine is it is much, much cheaper than it's human equivalent! The second surgery including anesthesia, IV fluids and the take home meds only added $105 to our original bill (which admittedly was quite a bit more than $105 but no where near what a human surgery with all the complicated insurance to wade through would be!) Dart did learn a lesson though. Now he doesn't follow the kids around the house and plop down in the middle of where they are playing!

Sledding fun!

Last Saturday we went with some friends sledding. I wasn't too excited to go at first but when we got there it turned out to be lots of fun. The kids had a ball!
With a push from Daddy, Jeni went flying by her friend Keizzya.

Maddie loved going down the long hills with lots of bumps!

Nathan would spin in circles as he slid down the hill on this saucer.

Bob and Jeni spun around and went down backwards when they went together. I guess this sled wanted to go heavy end first!

I put this cute hat on Grace to keep her head and ears warm, tucked her into the sling and zipped my coat around both of us. We even went sledding with Maddie on the big green sled a couple of times. It was a really fun day!

Gimpy McHop-a-long comes home

Dart has been home for a week now and is looking much better. He came home last Tuesday, the day after his surgery with a very swollen leg that was shaved from hip to toes and a three inch incision stapled shut over his knee. The doctor said that Dart had a complete tear of the ACL, PCL and medial collateral ligaments and damage to the medial meniscus which I believe is a pad of tissue between the bones in the knee. (I hope those terms are right, I had to listen to the voice message again and again to try and get them!) Anyway, the doctor said that pretty much anything that could go wrong in his knee did go wrong.Poor Jeni was really freaked out by Dart that first night. She didn't want him anywhere near her and if she had to go past him she would cover her eyes and run. The funny thing was, it wasn't the incision or the swelling/bruising that bothered her. It was all the hair shaved off! Kids are funny sometimes!

We were instructed to keep him from licking the wound and to avoid excessive stair use for the next 8 weeks! Ha, like that is going to happen in our house. If you are not familiar with the layout of my house it is 5 stairs from the garage to the family room, 4 stairs from the family room to the kitchen and living room. Then it's 10 stairs to most of the bedrooms and the closest bathroom and finally 4 more stairs to my bedroom (where he sleeps at night) and the other bathroom. Poor dog! The first night we had him home I finally put him on a leash and put it around a chair to keep him from trying to hop up the stairs on three legs. Anyway, he is doing much better now and starting the use that leg a little bit. Unfortunatly he doesn't seem to have learned anything because he has already tried to sneak out the front door at least twice in the last week!

Dart and family pictures

Yesterday morning we had an appointment at Target to have our family pictures taken. About an hour before we were suppose to be there Bob discovered that Dart, our dog was gone. He had put Dart out back without realizing that someone had left the gate open. Dart being the bird dog that he is loves to run and explore and does so every chance he gets.

This is not the first time this has happened and we usually just have to wait until someone finds him and gives us a call. We weren't sure what we were going to do this time though because we needed to leave for our pictures. Bob went out to look for Dart but came back empty-handed. We were all up in our bathroom trying to get all the kids bathed, dressed and combed when Dart came running through the bathroom and into our closet to find a pile of dirty clothes to lay down on. When Bob came back from looking for him the garage door must not have closed tightly because of the wind so Dart was able to nose it open and come in. We were all very relieved to see him but when we looked at him closer we could see that something was wrong. He was very dirty and he didn't move right. He tried to change positions but his back end just sort of flopped. I was afraid that he had hurt his back. He finally got himself to his feet and I was glad to see that his back seemed to be okay after all but his left hind leg just hung there. He hopped along on three feet and when Bob tried to pick him up he started whining like he was really hurting. We decided that Bob would take Dart to the vet while I took the kids for pictures. When the vet finally had a chance to look at Dart he said that Dart most likely got hit by a car and that all the ligaments in his leg are messed up. If Dart is ever going to be able to use his leg again he will need arthroscopic surgery on it. Who knew they did that on a dog!! So anyway, Dart is scheduled for the surgery on Monday. I hope it all goes well and that the surgery can restore most of the function in his leg. I didn't realize how much we would all miss having him around.

Happy New Year!

I don't know if it's because of the passing of the old year and watching the new year come in but I can't help but think about how quickly time passes. Last night we started out our New Year Eve party by going to see Bob's nephew Cody get set apart for his mission. He flew to England this morning where he will go to the MTC for three weeks and then report to the Leeds England mission. It is amazing when I stop to think that Cody was only 6 or 7 when I first met him. He has sure grown up since then. I couldn't help but look at Nathan and think it won't be very long before it's his turn to go on a mission and that I really only have him for a few short years. Oh well, I guess that's how life goes.

After the setting apart, we went home and Steve and Sarah came over to party with us. They brought their Wii and the new Wii Fit they got for Christmas.

We had a lot of fun playing with it. I think that's the kind of exercise I could get into. Too bad it's so hard to get hold of a Wii.
Nathan really enjoyed Slalom skiing (apparently it works better if you keep your hands in your pocket!), Jeni liked bowling and Maddie had fun playing tennis.

We laughed as I did a very poor impression of a tree and Bob fell off the tightrope two feet from the end.

Steve impressed us by skillfully dropping balls through the holes in a marble game and Sarah wowed us by getting great distance on the ski jumping.

Grace just had fun watching the rest of us. Who knew you could do so many things in your own family room! After a while we left the kids to play on the Wii and the adults got to play a few rounds of a domino game called Mexican Train. We were having so much fun that we almost forgot to usher in the new year but we remembered just in time! Happy 2009!