Warm Water to fill one Pink Bathtub = 20 cents
One yellow rubber ducky =$1.39
Lexis fixing Michael's hair=priceless!

Summer is on

Lexis is headed to Girl's Camp this next week. She has a busy summer as do the rest of us. We have been trying to coordinate all of the summer camps, family reunions and etc. and it is quite the task. Noah and Grace both have soccer camp--1 at BYU and 1 with some world famous Brazilian player. Lexis has BYU volleyball camp, girl's camp and we all have season passes to Seven Peaks to keep us busy. I have my 15 year Reunion, their are atleast 2 Allen Reunions and we have plans to spend two weeks in Washington with Grandma...plus school actually starts again on August 15th! My word!

CAROL

Today I got a message from Nicole saying that Carol was in the ICU in very serious condition. Her baby, born two months early is doing well but Carol is not. Supposedly, she went into the hospital with severe pain and a high fever on the 10th and they ended up taking the baby by an emergency C-section moments later. She was in surgery for hours, her blood pressure would not come down and they put her on dialysis. I am in shock and overwhelmingly distraught. I have not been the best at keeping in touch over all of these years, particularly in the past 8, but I LOVE Carol! In elementary school, in middle school, in high school I always considered her my best friend. No doubt we struggled at times and I am quite sure that there are at least a few other people who called themselves her best friend but it didn't matter to me! She was THE one person I turned to at the most difficult time in my life, when Dad died, she was THE friend I knew would always be there for me and she was THE person I honestly admired in so many ways which included the unbelievable spirit she had about her. In going through old photos for this summer's Reunion, I was curious to see that in a huge majority of them I am standing next to Carol, arm around her, her arm around me, holding hands! What a horribly difficult thing she and her family are now faced with. I am overcome with sadness and helplessness as I wonder what I can possibly do and why is this happening to such a wonderful individual!

On the recently made blog her husband, Scott, says this, "She has a Streptococcal Pnuemoniae infection. A septic infection...the worst.....with all possible complications. All major organs have been effected including her skin. The scariest part of this, is a syndrome called DIC. This has effected they way she clots, and bleeds. It's fairly complicated, but she clots where she shouldn't, so when she bleeds somewhere, all her clotting factors have been used up, so she bleeds.This has made putting in every needle, tube, etc. very dangerous. All the clotting over her skin is starting to "boil". The hope is that these spots are just on the top layer of her skin. If they are deep, it would be like she had been on fire, and will need to be transferred to Harborviews burn unit to deminish chanced of a secondary skin infection."

Kissy face

This is THE pose I guess these days. Lexis, her friends, they all do this little kissy face to the camera. She does look especially cute I would agree but when doesn't she?! I printed out a bunch of pictures of her and her and her friends and her and family to put in the frames she has up on her bedroom walls at her Dad's house. She has had all these frames up for at least a year now but no pics in them. I filled them all for her birthday as a surprise. It was fun and I know she was happy about that. Now we need to get a few MORE frames to hold the newly fabulous photos we took at her birthday party. So many great pictures of such a fun time.

Sand Castles

ANOTHER fun day with our favorite friends, Bowie and Darby! Another sleep-over and when a full 20 hours had passed they still were quite unhappy to have to seperate to their individual homes. They love being together and Mom loves that they love being together! We spent 3 hours alone building an entire city of sand at the park. What great kids!!

A long lost picture of my darling boy! So small, so much younger, still fantabulous!

Noah

My boy "doing Yoga" in his sister's socks that he obviously does not take off to walk outside in and that he absolutely prefers to his own socks. Note the band around his ankle. He usually has five or six around his wrists as well. Most are the Lance Armstrong one's others 'choose the right.' Such a boy!!

LEXIS' 15th BIRTHDAY!

May 29th, 2008

A Surprise Party!

We started out the afternoon's events by heading to one of the local beauty schools under the rouse that Lexis, Grace and I woud get pedicures. (One of Lexis' favorite things and "just somthing to do...) Lexis and I walk in and go directly to the receptionist counter where I say
we are here for our pedi appointments and the girl begins to search for our ficticious reservation. The poor, young girl has no idea I gave her the wrong information and at that point I do nothing to help her out as I wait patiently, attempting to mask my smile while at the same time srambling for my camera as I watch 5 of Lexis' close friends all in matching white t-shirts and blue jeans hold magazines in front of their faces directly behind us on the waiting room's bench.
Lexis turns to sit down herself and as most of the seats are taken :) :) she begins to walk to another area of the waiting room before sweet, impatient Kendal sneezes dramatically and everyone starts to giggle. Lexis is truely surprised and her reaction was "I noticed them sitting there but I just wondered why they wer all sitting like that!" How cute is she! (Unfortunatly, we walked away from THE surprise moment without a picture.) I say, 'let the party begin!' Each of the girls are called
to get their hair done and each one chooses to have the ever-so chic curls done to their hair. Next, we are off to take pictures of the newly coifed, conveniently matching friends. After 226!!!! photos snapped we head to near by Pizza Factory for dinner. Lexis is given a pizza in the shape of a 15! to be continued...

A super FANTASTIC Birthday Party for LEXIS!

Happy 10th Birthday, Noah!

It's true-he's 10 years old! Where does the time go? I can so easily picture him as my sweet baby boy and what a beautiful baby he was...some things don't change! We celebrated his day by passing out candy bars to all of his classmates and he went to his favorite fancy restaraunt with his Dad for dinner then back home for cake and gifts. Noah got a MOTORCYCLE from his Dad! Mom is really not sure how she feels about that, actually, Mom knows just how she feels about that and it's not positive. Noah is, of course, thrilled! We are having his party with friends in a week because he really wanted to have a water party at the park and the weather hasn't been cooperating. Hopefully, next week we'll see some sun...

What We Do at 4AM

So Michael is completley not sleeping these days! I WISH I knew what was happening. His medicine doesn't seem to be affecting him, the Dr's up-ed his dosage which is bewildering since he is already taking an adult size of an adult anti-psychotic. (The insurance wouldn't even cover it becuase they refused to cover it for such a small child!) But they did and it hasn't made a difference. He really just doesn't sleep! I am a walking zombie! I cry easily, feel overwhelmed with all that is being neglected elsewhere and have in turn made life more difficult becuase it seems that the only time I may have to get some sleep is in the afternoon when he is off at school which literally takes up my time to get other things done creating the need for me to finish homework, housework and the like in the middle of the night when Michael is awake. The catch 22 there? I've developed a habit of being up all night and find it hard to fall asleep on the occasion that Michael does. I am truely grateful that while he is not sleeping a huge percentage of the time he is content to play, laugh (as seen in our 4am video) and eat making this a HUGE improvement from a year ago when he was awake and really angry! How grateful I am for that!

Spring Break in San Diego

San Diego

Laughter

I just happened to run by this video on my computer tonight and Oh MY Goodness! How wonderfully fun to see my two little ones so happy and so little!

Spring Break!

"Our best day!" Each one of our mouths uttered those words today!

What a fun day we had today! Carly took a day off from her own life to show us around her fantastic home of San Diego!