Merry Christmas! '09

Christmas was a whole lot of fun this year... Easton and Ty, received a ridiculously large amount of presents, and they couldn't be happier. Ace and I got some pretty fabulous stuff as well and we are just as happy. We went to Utah and I took a whole lot of pictures so I sorted them into the different Christmas's we had...so as not to overwhelm the internet with uploads...if you so desire (mom) you may click on them to see the pictures bigger.

Lucky for us, Santa knew we were going to be in Utah for Christmas, and was nice enough to stop by and give us a few of our presents early.

After that, we were off to Grandma Leelee's house, and chilled with Papa Cory, Uncle Jesse, and Aunt Lolo...and we collected even more goodies...

And last, but not least, we made our way up to Sandy to spend Christmas Day at the Casper's. Easton and Corbin had way too much fun together attacking monsters and dinosaurs, and are now best buds...and we collected more goodies.

While we were in Utah, we had few snow adventures... this was Easton's first 'real' time playing in the snow, and well, being from Vegas, the snow clothes that I brought weren't the greatest. His winter coat was a size 18 months (luckily he is pretty skinny) the snow pants were just a bit too small, and the gloves were the stupid cloth ones and also to small. Easton had a gap between his coat arms and his gloves, but he didn't care, he played out in the snow for hours, and refused to come in. He and Ace built a snow man together, made snow angels, and had snow ball fights...he was in heaven. Poor Ty only got to play in the snow for a few minutes, because as I previously stated, snow clothes were limited.

Then, we went up to a family party on the Casper side, and did a little sledding. They had some boys on snowmobiles to take you to the top, which freaked Easton out a bit (screamed the whole way up). But once he got on the sled with Ace he was happy. He went down with his Uncle Brad, and Aunt Mandy too. Ace and I went down (I may have been screaming a bit) and rode the snowmobiles...fun day.

As for the gifts, we got many, many great things and everybody is happy, but I have to say that I do have two favorite gifts that we received. I am not sure which one is the number one gift of the year, you can let me know what you think...

First, my cousin Ginay and I got a lovely gift from my Grandparents, 'Mimi & Boppop', it is called

Christmas Morning Fireplace...Vol. 1

Now if you are confused by this gift I will explain...it is a DVD that puts a virtual fireplace onto your TV...AND it plays Christmas songs while you watch your virtual fire burn. Considering that this is only Volume 1 of the fireplace DVDs, my hope is that I will be able to collect all of the other volumes of this marvelous gift.

Now I really thought things couldn't get better than a virtual fireplace (vol. 1), but then, I underestimated my Mother-in-law. For she gave all of us the
Luggable Loo
and life has changed for the better.

What you see in this picture is the top part of the Luggable Loo. The bottom part is a 5 gallon bucket...these two pieces snap together to create a portable toilet, and possibly the best gift of Christmas.

p.s if you are wondering about Ty's surgery, it didn't happen because of stupid people at the doctor's office of --

Dr. Steven Leibowitz M.D

653 Town Center Drive, Suite 102

Just incase you want to know who NOT to go to if you ever need surgery. Basically, they told us they take our insurance a long time ago, and when I called a week ago to double check with my insurance company, my insurance told me they weren't in network. I called the Dr. office back they said not to worry because they knew they took our insurance. I told them to make sure anyway and call me back. They called on Christmas Eve to let me know they don't after all. Nice right?

So we have a new Doctor and we have to go see her on Jan. 6 and then set up a surgery date from there... it feels weird to not be mad at the insurance company...

Christmas Card 2009

Merry Christmas!

I hope everybody had a wonderful Christmas... here is our Christmas Card for those of you I don't have addresses for. If you are truly offended by not receiving one in the mail, give me your address and I can assure you will get one next year (if I do one).

Here is the Santa picture we got from our ward Christmas party. They had everything set up so nicely and took this picture for us...the Christmas miracle is that Easton and Ty are both looking at the camera and we even got a smile out of Easton! He was so happy about this we left and Easton kept saying, "where are Santa's reindeer? I can't find them anywhere!"

Open Wide and Say "Ahhh"

Here is Ty's most recent favorite face to make...he literally opens his mouth as big as it can possibly go and says "ahhh" and then proceeds to laugh hysterically.

And here is a little "Ty Medical News"...

Ty has had clogged tear ducts in both of his eyes since he was born. It isn't a health concern really, just annoying and gross. It irritates his eyes and makes his face all red. Easton had it too, but his just went away after a couple of weeks.

They told us that if they hadn't gone away by the time he was 10 months they would probe his eyes...it's a small simple surgery, and only lasts about 5 minutes, but it does require anesthesia, which I don't enjoy. (especially since he had his MRI when he was 4 months and had to be sedated for that as well) Just not a fun thing.

Anyway, they told us that 95% of the time the probing works and it's all better after that. So we had his eyes probed about 2 weeks ago and guess what...
Ty is one of the lucky 5% of babies that the probing didn't work on!

So that means another more invasive surgery... it takes about an hour to do and they basically stick small tubes down his tear ducts to open them up. The tubes have to stay in for 6 months to a year and then they remove them with the hope that that will keep them open. While we were talking with the Dr. he said that a lot of the time while he is trying to put the tubes in they don't work because of the bone structure and other problems which then means that he will make an incision on the side of his nose and go in that way.

So tomorrow I have to take Ty in to get blood work done and a physical and then we have his surgery scheduled for the 27th of Dec.

I don't like Dr. stuff/ blood stuff etc... at all. (I passed out when my dad pulled my tooth out) but I hate it even more having to watch little Ty go through so much of it. I am so grateful that he is healthy and happy. And I know there are so many more worse things that it could be, but it still is not fun at all.

This will be the third time he will be sedated and we haven't even made it to his first birthday! He has definitely been quite a pricey baby, here's what has happened so far...
-I got pregnant with him withOUT insurance...that was fun
(epidurals are expensive, but sooo worth it)
-He had his eye nystagmus which meant eye specialist and later an MRI
-Clogged tear ducts required another eye specialist and many visits
-Probe surgery
-Plastic surgeon after the probe didn't work and now this new surgery

We think it has to do with the fact that Easton was free because we were on financial aid, so now we get to pay double, maybe triple for Ty! But don't worry, we have met his deductible (thus the surgery date being the 27th of Dec)!

I hope everybody has a great Christmas and I will keep everyone updated...I just hope this surgery works :)

Do you know what a Roller Coaster Face Looks Like?

This is a picture of a page in a book called, "Roller Coaster".

This is a picture of Easton impersonating one of the people on the roller coaster...can you tell which one?
Hint: Easton hasn't yet mastered the art of winking an eye so covering it with his hand is his solution

He told me one day that this is the face people make on a roller coaster. I thought it was strange, but Easton does a lot of weird things so I said, "Yeah, maybe sometimes." Then a few days later we were reading the book and Easton kept doing that face. When we got to this page he pointed him out, "See mommy See!"

Thanksgiving 2009

This Thanksgiving was a lot of fun and slightly miraculous. I say miraculous because we had everyone at our house, and anyone that has set foot in my home knows it is not the biggest...1200 square feet to be exact, and here is the list of people that were in my house at the same time:
1. Ace
2. Me
3. Easton
4. Ty
5. Grandma Leelee (my mom)
6. Papa Cory (my dad)
7. Jesse (my brother)
8. Lauren (my sister
9. Grammy Raylene (Ace's mom)
10. Papa Larry (Ace's dad)
11. Brad (Ace's brother)
I have a new found respect for people living in a one room home with more family members than this...don't get me wrong, we had a lot of fun with everyone that came and we got to spend more time with everyone that would have normally been divided up between families, but holy cow that was a lot of people!

I didn't get a chance to take a whole lot of pictures mostly because I was fairly delusional from the crazy amount of shopping we did (on Black Friday we went from midnight to 8:30 in the morning). But I did get a picture of Raylene's jam packed car on their way home proof of the shopping...

Larry Raylene and Brad saying goodbye to the boys...

Lauren and Ty

Easton and Grandma Leelee

And this one of Jesse and Ty, I am pretty sure is my all time favorite picture ever. Right as I took this Ty was, uh, filling up his diaper and, obviously, Uncle Jesse became concerned, but just take a look at Ty's happy face--he is truly enjoying himself!

Easton gave everyone a concert of all the songs he knows...here is just a short video of one of the songs he sang...


It was a super fun week with everyone and I am so glad everybody came...I just hope next time we do this my home is just slightly bigger so we don't have anyone sleeping in the garage (Brad) !