John's Leg

John said that I needed to post and update on my blog about his leg. So that is what I am doing. For those of you that don't know the beginning part of the ordeal with Johns leg you can check my blog titled "My Poor Boy". John spent two months in the external fixator and once that was taken out he was put in a long leg cast. He was in the long leg cast for a month and we were told that if after the month was up his leg did not show improvement he would need a bone graph and plates put in his leg. Thank goodness when we went back to the doctor on the 22nd of Dec. we were told wonderful news. His leg is finally healing and he was put into a short leg cast. John was delighted to be able to have at least some movement with his leg again. He kept saying over and over, "I can bend my knee". We are all hoping that when John goes to the doctor at the end of Jan. that he will get his short leg cast taken off and finally be done with the long journey of healing his leg.

Christmas Eve & Day

On Christmas Eve all played games and the one that stole the show was Rock Band. John loved playing the guitar, probably because it is similar to playing the violin.

Here we are all enjoying the wonderful food and playing Rock Band still. We also played pictionary with Christmas Carols and other Christmas words.

Christmas Eve Santa was busted at our house. He was making too much noise and it woke the dogs and I. I managed to sneak down our stairs and get a picture of him.

Here is our Christmas tree. It was one of the most perfect trees I had ever seen.

Jessica got a new coat and was modeling it for us.

John loves books.
He received some for Christmas as well as got a gift card to his favorite book store.

Abbi on her scooter. She and Jess both got a razor scooter from Santa.

Abbi and her Barbie, that is all she wanted for Christmas and she got a lot of Barbie items.

Dave and Josh were in town and got up early just to see the kids open presents.

John getting into his stocking. There was an MP3 player in there and he has loved putting all of his classical music and church hymns on it.

Jessica also had an MP3 player in her stocking. She has a wide variety of music on hers, from classic rock,church hymns, the Beach Boys, and Country songs.

Fun Things Leading up to Christmas

Oh, the wonderful Christmas Programs. This was Abbi's first year and I was surprised that she sang out and was not shy.
Singing Jingle Bells with their bells a ringing, it was cute.

John loves to sing and is good at it. In one of the songs they sang all of the kids must have forgot the words, but their John was singing out nice and loud. It was as if he had a solo.

In this next picture Jessica was not too happy to see the camera.

With Christmas come all of the fun activities before hand. One of my favorites is the baking that we do and of course you have to make a gingerbread house. Now don't get all excited thinking that I made this completely on my own. My mom knew how busy I was and thought that making a gingerbread house would be a fun project for the kids and I to make. So, she bought a kit and we just had to put it together and decorate it.

The kids were so proud of the gingerbread house they made. I helped a little, but they did the decorating.





Christmas Eve we were at my mom's house. We did the same thing we always do. We eat, play games, sing songs, and enjoy one an others company. The kids always open on present Christmas Eve. This is of course the highlight of their night. This year Matt invited three of his buddies from work. They are all single guys with no family around. I was glad that Matt invited them so they would not be alone on Christmas Eve. So that this post does not end up being too long I will post pictures of Christmas Eve with pictures from Christmas day.

Christmas Pictures

I usually take the kids Christmas pictures much earlier than on Christmas Eve. This year we have been very busy though and Christmas Eve is when they were finally taken. Here are my favorites from the Christmas 2008 photo shoot.

Abbi adores her big brother and insisted that she have her arm around John in this next shot.

Temple Square

A few weeks ago I went to Salt Lake for my aunt's funeral. While I was there I decided to take advantage of it being close to Christmas time and we saw the lights at Temple Square. It has been at least eight years since I have had the privilege of seeing the beautiful display of lights and my girls have never seen them.







By the end of our walk around the girls were cold, but had loved seeing all of the lights. The funny thing is we left Temple Square and ended up at Leatherby's eating ice cream.

School

So some have asked what I am going to school for. I am getting my Bachelors in Early Elementary Education with a double major for special education. I have always enjoyed working with children, but have a soft spot for children with special needs and just love to be around them. A few years ago I did some volunteer work for and equine therapy group that helped disabled children learn to ride horses. I think this is what initially sparked my interest in working with children who have special needs. I am hoping that my education will also help me when I have time to volunteer in equine therapy again. Right now I am too busy with family, school, work, and church callings to do any volunteering. Someday I will have more spare time though and I will most definitely find an equine therapy group to volunteer my time.

FINALS ARE OVER!!!

I feel so much better now that my finals are done and over with for this semester. I think that I will actually be able to focus on my family, church callings and catching up on my blog site. My poor children and Matt have felt neglected for about the past two weeks as all I have done in my spare time is study and homework. I think that they may be as relieved as I am that they are over with.

Snowstorm

Wednesday night we had a big snowstorm that continued into Thursday. We only received about ten inches of snow, but the wind blew like crazy. As a result we had drifts in our yard that were about five feet high.

Here are some pictures of the girls playing in the snow Saturday night. It was significantly warmer on Friday and Saturday and some of the snow melted. You can still see how much snow there is though in these pictures.

Jessica was trying to slide down on her stomach, but I think she went face first instead.

Matt and I loved this storm because it allowed us to miss two days of work. Two wonderful days in the house staying warm with our kids and playing games. There is not any other way I would rather spend my days than with my kids.

Halloween

AHHH!!! Halloween night. This happens to be one of Matt's favorite holidays. This year we had a party at our house and Matt did a scavenger hunt for the kids.

Jessica was going for a beautiful, kind witch, but she still wanted dark makeup around her eyes. So that is what she got.
The picture that is dark is of a coffin that Matt made and inside the coffin is a very scary looking pirate. The scarecrow and the raven were part of the hunt as well. They all received the first clue and then had to find nine more. The last clue led all of them to Matt who was dressed like a pirate. They then received a riddle the first to solve the riddle got a treasure map. This map led them to a hidden treasure.

John was a pirate because we thought that he had a perfect peg-leg. While we were out trick-or-treating some people thought that his broken leg and the pins were all a part of the costume. It was kind of funny to see some peoples reactions when we told them it was real.

Here are Abbi and Reagan dressed as beautiful princess'

Matt did an awesome job painting John's face.

Abbi thought she was very special Halloween day because not only did she get to wear her costume to school she also got to wear some of mommy's makeup.