Our weekend in Provo.

Last weekend we went to Provo for my nieces' baptism. We went down Friday night and stayed with my brother and his family. Then in the morning we went to the church house for the baptism. We had a beautiful little program before hand. Then pictures were taken before the baptism took place.
My brother and his daughter dressed in white.

Everyone who was there for the special occasion.

Afterwards, we all went back to my brothers house and had lunch and visited. The kids ran around together having fun!
V. and her cousin L. loved playing with the water. {I didn't get very good pics. of her playing with her girl cousins}

It was a fun weekend. The Spirit was felt and was lovely. V. has asked a few questions about baptism, and such. She asked if Jesus was going to be there at the baptism. And I told her he would be, but we couldn't' see him, only feel his love and spirit in our hearts. After the ceremony, V. said she felt Him in her heart. Then she asked if Steve and I felt him in our hearts as well. We told her we did. It was just wonderful to have her witness this and be curious and ask us questions. And I am so thankful, that when the time comes for her to be baptized, that Steve will be able to do it. Watching my brother baptize his daughter was amazing! I'm grateful he was able to do that with her.

Summer toes and a new tradition!

At the start of summer,I thought, "Wouldn't it be fun for V. and I to do something together to celebrate the start of summer?". So I thought, why not get our toes all prettied up for the summer? I thought she was old enough to take her to the spa and get a mother/daughter pedicure. {She actually just got her nails painted while I got a mini pedi}. When I mentioned this idea to Steve he thought it was great! "Maybe you won't be at each others throats for a change!" he said. You see, V. and I are soooo much alike. Some days we mesh together real well because of that. Other days....we butt heads so bad! Because we are so much alike, we are both stubborn, spoiled and want our own ways!
Anyway, we had a lot of fun going to the spa! This is V. with her baby doll as we waited for the fun to begin!

First, V. had a nail polish change on her fingers. She picked the color herself. Blue, of course. And she liked that it was from the 'Shrek' line of colors.

Then the toes...

Pretty toes!!

We will definitely be making this a tradition to the start of our summer every year!

Our 4th!

Well, our weekend started on Saturday, we went down by the river and had a walk with my parents, brother and his family. By we, I mean V. and I. Steve was out with his dad staking out their hunting grounds. Yes, Steve drew on all 3 of his hunts. If he has a successful year, we will have meat to share with you all!
Anyway, it was a cool day, but a pleasant walk. Then we spent some time at my folks. Came home and rested a bit. Then Steve came and got us and we went in to his parents for the rest of the evening.
Grandpa gave V. and her cousin rides on his 4-wheeler!

We had a bar-be-cue and sat around the fire pit roasting marsh mellows.

V. and her cousin waiting for Steve to start the show! We decided not to take V. to the big fireworks show, because we hate dealing with the crowds! But one of these years, she's gonna realize we've been jipping{s/p} her with our little show at home. When that time comes, we'll take her to the big show!

Playing with sparklers!

After we did our little fireworks show, we sat around the fire pit visiting until we decided to go home and get some sleep!
Steve and V. hiding under a blanket being silly.

On Sunday, the actual 4th, we went to Pocatello to my sisters baby blessing. She had a little girl in May. After the blessing we went to my parents and had a luncheon and cake and ice cream because both my dad and brother were having birthdays this week.
Then we came home, relaxed, had some more hamburgers and hot dogs and all 3 of us fell asleep at a good time. It was a fun weekend!

Upsetting news

Oh, I have some not-so-good news. I had another miscarriage over Memorial weekend. You remember here I talked a little bit about the blood clotting disorder I have. I said then that if I had another miscarriage, I would look into going on blood thinners. So, having had another one, I made an appointment with my doctor to discuss options. Now the thing with blood thinners is, they are a twice daily injection. I have a HUGE fear of needles. But, I said I'm willing to get poked twice a day if it can help me carry a baby full term. However, about 8 years ago I was at the hospital for an I.V. transfusion for my headaches. When the nurse went to put the i.v. needle in me, I went into a seizure and stopped breathing for a few minutes.{That experience I will never forget!} Anyway, I'd only had one other seizure up to that point that I was aware of. We did tests, but they couldn't find anything wrong, or anything causing the seizures. My doctor said they were just something that happened. Luckily, I haven't had any since, that I'm aware of. My doctor said there's a good chance I have seizures in my sleep?
So, back to the blood thinner thing, after talking with my doctor and looking at past reactions I've had to needles, she said that she wouldn't advise me to go on blood thinners. Poking myself twice a day for ....who knows how long,{until I get pregnant and thru the pregnancy}, is just too many chances for me to have a bad reaction. It might trigger more seizures, which could be deadly. So, the baby aspirin and supplements I have been taking will keep the clots small enough that I should be safe. However, there is nothing more I can do to prevent clots from terminating my pregnancies. Does that make sense?
This takes me forever to explain, I know!
I'm so sad. What am I supposed to do? If we just continue doing nothing like we have been doing and leaving it in the Lord's hands, I could just continue to miscarry. I've had 7 total. I told Steve I'm almost at the point I can't take any more. But then what do I do? In order to prevent miscarrying, I'll have to prevent getting pregnant in the first place. I don't know if I can do that. Up till now, I've just said, let whatever happen, happen. Let nature take it's course. Leave it in the Lord's hands. But if I prevent getting pregnant, that's it! We'll be done having children. I guess I keep thinking that we were given one miracle, V. And I'm waiting for another miracle. But as I said, I'm almost at the end of my rope. I don't think I can emotionally handle too many more loses.
So right now, I don't know what to do. It is a very emotional and hard to decision that I don't want to have to make. But I'm going to have to eventually...
I know this is a sad, depressing post. But this is the latest. We are looking at the good to having only one child. We'll be able to afford to give her soo much more in life than if we had a larger family. Maybe someday we'll look at adopting. But not right now. Maybe we'll be a foster family, but that would be a few years from now.

Family reunion

Well, a couple of weeks ago we headed down to Provo to my family reunion. It was alot of fun! In the morning Steve and I golfed with my brother and cousin, while V. stayed at my brothers house and played with her cousins. Then we all headed up to Hobble Creek for the main part of the reunion. Food, games, hiking, etc. My dad was in charge this year, I talked him into doing a fundraiser for future reunions. So, I ended up being in charge{but Karla helped alot, thank goodness!} This was the first year doing something like this, so I knew alot of people wouldn't really know what to expect.We did a silent auction and raffle. A few people brought items to donate for the auction and raffle, I'm so glad they did! I made a bunch of stuff to donate as did Karla because we knew most people wouldn't really know what to bring. Well, now they know! Hopefully if we do this at the next reunion, more people will participate! Anyway, you can see some of the items I made to donate here.
Here we are in the car getting ready to take off to Provo!

We had a pie eating contest. My dad competed against his brothers and brother-in-law {the brother-in-law won}. My brothers and sister-in-law competed in our age group{my cousin won} V. participated in the young kids group{again, a cousin won}. Steve got some video of it, but for some reason I can't get the video to upload to the computer, grrr! Anyway, she had fun, you weren't supposed to use your hands or anything, but V. did anyway. All of the kids won a prize for participating.

Thru out the entire reunion there was a squirt gun fight going on. V. loved squirting everyone and getting wet herself. At one point, she lay down on the ground like a sniper and was getting some good shots in!

V. fell asleep instantly in the car and slept most of the drive home.Such an angel! She had a fun, exciting weekend!