Shock, evaluation, and Savannah - isms

Yesterday we heard that Lane's cousin's 8 month old baby girl has neuroblastoma - a cancer - that is stage 4 - in her organs, bone marrow, everywhere. She starts chemotherapy tomorrow. Yet again, my heart has been made so heavy by the challenges people have to face in life. Unfortunately, I slipped back into the "why" and "it's not fair" frame of mind. It is so hard to keep your eye on faith and the eternal perspective of life when things like this hit. This sweet family has a son with Down's Syndrome, and you would kind of think THAT will be their challenge, and now they have to face THIS! Why? Why? Why? Only the Lord knows, and I just have to keep reminding myself to put my trust in him and the plan. My heart breaks for Justin and Kari and we of course are praying for them. I have done some reading on it, and if it is a certain type of neuroblastoma, it is highly curable, so that is very encouraging. Anyway, we are adding them to our growing list of friends and family with heavy problems in need of heavy blessings.

So tonight the kids were all ready for bed, and I happened upon my husband's cousin's blog (this blog hopping is crazy! Everyone knows everyone eventually!). Savannah was saying, "Mom, come and put me to bed!" I said, "OK, you go down and I"ll be there in a second (I wanted to finish reading this post of his cousins). She then says, "What's more important mom? Your kids? or reading someone's blog?" Isn't this crazy that 7 year olds talk about blogs and stuff? Wow, a whole new vocabulary!

Then, after tucking her in and saying prayers, I told her about daddy's cousin's baby having cancer and how we need to pray for her because she is getting chemotherapy, etc. Here's the conversation:
Savannah: Is she going to lose all her hair?
Me: Well, she's so young she really doesn't have any.
S: But she has eyebrows and eyelashes.
Me: You're right
S: Mom, you know the only good thing about chemotherapy?
Me: What?
S: You lose your arm hair. I don't like having hairy arms.

Umm... I guess there is a bright side to everything huh?

Conner

So the Primary President told me this story about Conner:

In church on Sunday, they asked if everyone had fun watching conference. Lots of people raised their hands and said "I did, I watched" etc. My son? He grabs his head with his hands, and says, "Oh no Conference! I can't take it any more!!"

Hmm... where did we go wrong?

SAN CARLOS!!!

We went to San Carlos, Mexico last week with 6 other families. Thanks Janet for getting this all together!

We all went and stayed in the same Condos down there and really had a blast. I hardly saw Conner and Savannah the whole time we were there. (Good thing they know how to swim, right?)

Savannah in a rare moment out of the water....

Kayla - you're supposed to ride with the wave, not against it!
Some of "the girls" on our trip. Let's make it annual!!!

We were there for 4 days, and here are some of the valuable lessons I learned on this trip:

1) Don't take a 14 month old to the beach.

2) If you DO take a 14 month old to the beach, never leave the door open, and if you DO leave the door open even for a second, check the path to the beach and you are sure to find said 14 month old running for the ocean.

Me and the culprit - at the scene of the crime!

3) When taking a 14 month old to the beach - be sure you bring along a darling 20 year old girl named Kandyce to help take care of any 14 month olds you may have. (Actually, Kandyce, or any member of the Greene family will do! :) We love the Greenes!)

Kandyce, her crew, and a bucket of crabs!

4) Be ready to eat pans of brownies each night.

5) Try not to look at your huge stomach the next morning as you put on your swimsuit!

6) Don't innocently dump the ice water from your cooler off the balcony of your condo. People may be on their patio underneath you! :)

7) 12 people really can fit in an 8 person condo - and comfortably!

8) Sand can get in a lot of places.

9) Seaweed takes a LONG time to get out of your hair. (Just ask Kayla)

10) Don't drop your digital camera on the table at the McDonalds on the way down, because you will have no camera for your whole trip - and borrow other people's pictures to remember you really were there!

And finally . . .

11) Don't try to take family pictures at the beach!! Below is the proof.

Umm... I don't think this will be the Christmas card this year!!!

Unless, I guess we could photoshop Conner's head onto his body, and use this one, right? HA!!

Oh well, we had a blast and hope to go again next year!

Hey! We did it!

OK, how scary is it that all it takes to finally get my background right is asking my daughter and her 14 year old friend to patiently walk me through the whole thing?! It's easy . . . you just click this, then that, then here, then there, and don't forget to change this, then voila! There it is! By the way mom . . . you are so slow!

Thanks to a friend from the ward who called and offered up her daughter's services - I was going to take her up on it after we got back from Mexico, but now I don't have to! :)

On the same lines of scary stuff our kids can do . . . have any of you ever asked your kid to send a text for you because you are being responsible and driving and don't want to text while you drive? So you give them a long, detailed, 3 sentence message, and they toss the phone back to you exactly 3 seconds later. "What's wrong? Don't you want to send the message for me?" Yeah, I already did! "What? How? How is that humanly possible?"

Addi-bug!!!

So why is it by the 4th kid you almost don't know they exist because of lack of pictures? It couldn't be because every time you go to get the camera someone else has, spilled something, started crying, thrown up, peed their pants, etc. could it? If I don't shape up I'm going to have to start showing Addison baby pictures of Savannah and telling her it is her! (I could probably get away with that because they look so much alike)

Anyway, Kayla spent some "sister" time with Addison, and this is what she came up with:

Addison sure loves Kayla. Sometimes she only wants her and not me - which frankly is OK!

Addison is now running everywhere. Apparently walking just won't get her where she needs to go fast enough. The world will end if she doesn't run over to a spot on the grass, look, point and say doggie (everything is doggie) and run over somewhere else and point and look, then run somewhere else. Then she'll break out laughing for no reason - but something was hilarious and only she knows it! Dang, they are so cute you really could eat them couldn't you?