Holy Moly... I'm still on a Stevie Wonder high from his live performance on American Idol last night. I've always loved a lot of his classics but man, what a talented guy. He is truly amazing, I had no idea that he played the harmonica too! He grabbed that thing off the piano mid song last night and went to town, it was awesome! It's so fascinating to me how blind people can rock it out on the piano and sing all at the same time. It's been fun watching the blind contestant on Idol this season (although he doesn't have the best voice out of all the contestants, I'm still blown away by his ability to write/play songs for the piano and sing them as well) and then getting to see Stevie was quite the treat! Hence the big medley of Stevie songs at the top of my playlist, I'll surely be hooked for a few days!

Hopefully things are starting to get better with McKynlee, it's been a tough week for her and me. She's been home from school the whole week to recover of course, and she tends to go through a struggle with getting back to her normal self after surgery, especially with the more extensive ones like she had this time. She's very clingy to me and so I'll hold her and try to play with her and yet she doesn't necessarily want that either.. she doesn't know what she wants. She just unhappy, irritated, in pain, and either cries or lets out frustrating screams of complaint all day long... I was just about ready to tear my hair out mid-day yesterday {which maybe wouldn't be that bad, seeing that my hair is in SERIOUS need of a color - LOL} so I finally decided to give her some pain med.s and she fell asleep. Ahhh- S.I.L.E.N.C.E. sounded SO nice! Timing couldn't have been more perfect, right then my sister-in-law called to see how things were going and asked if she could bring us dinner! How nice is that... it was so yummy and greatly appreciated, thanks Elisa.. and thanks to everyone who has kept McKynlee in your thoughts and prayers. After waking up from her nap, she seemed to be back to her funny, playful self, she ate dinner and had some popcorn {her favorite} and we were able to have a good time playing with her until she went to bed!

Sydnee's art fair and friend birthday party posts coming up later today...

Ok.. I just have to add this real quick- Anyone who has known my family for a good amount of time, knows that we have a love for old movies & one of our all time traditions is to watch a movie every year around Halloween called "Abbott & Costello Meets Frankenstein." Well, of course I've passed on this tradition with my kids and they all L.O.V.E. it. 

So I've been trying to hurry and finish this post and I've got Tanner in the background BEGGING me to help him pick out his clothes and get dressed for school so he can go play with a neighbor friend before heading off to school and he's been telling "Come on Mom... Please, let's go... Come on Mom..." and finally he said in a trance-like voice with his arms straight out in front of him making the come here motion with his hands "Come WILBER, come..." and I just burst into laughter! (I know unless you've actually seen the movie, this will have no meaning to you but if you have it really IS funny). 

Meet...

"MAX"

The newest member of our family! 

We got him on Saturday through the Humane Society, isn't he cute! He's a chinese sharpei/pointer mix, and belonged to a family that moved and couldn't take him with them = ( SAD for them, but GOOD for us! He's completely trained and has the best temperament. The kids are in. love. with him! Pigwit (Sydnee's little dog) on the other hand is taking a while to warm up to him. She's got quite the attitude for such a little dog. I guess she's feels as if she's been de-throned! Hee hee hee.. Max is so nice though, they could be such good buddies. I can just see them sleeping next to each other, that would for sure be a kodak moment! Until then, we'll just take pictures of them separately. 

Thankful Thursday~

It's a good Thursday to revisit my "Thankful Thursday" tradition, I haven't posted one in a long time... 

• McKynlee's conformer has been starting to rotate & come out of her eye since the weekend, so I called the doctor first thing Monday morning and they made an appointment to take a look at it for Wednesday (yesterday). When they saw it, we all decided it would be best to try to fit her into the doctors schedule for surgery in the morning (today). He explained that this one would end up being more extensive than normal. Lately (over the past 9 mo. - year) when it has come out, we've just taken her back into surgery to reposition it and re-stitch it into place, but this time he will be taking a graph from the inside of her cheek to use to create more space in the socket after removing scar tissue and opening up the outside of her eye more, then repositioning it and re-stitching it in again. We've been through all these things before... I don't know why.. but yesterday I just felt so bad after getting the news that surgery would be in the morning. It's not like I didn't already know that surgery was the next step.. but the next morning and more extensive than many of the last surgeries... I shed some tears on the way home and then through out the day off and on. Sometimes I just feel like there are enough challenges associated with her visual impairment alone that I wish we didn't have the surgeries to go through as well. The day went on and I was waiting to hear from the hospital for the pre-registration over the phone and the instructions for what time to be there in the morning and what she can & cannot have to eat/drink and until when... The call finally came and in the process the girl realized that we had new insurance since our last surgical procedure two days before Christmas, and our new insurance was not one that would cover us having surgery with this specific hospital. By this time it was too late in the day to fit her into a schedule at another facility. When the doctor's nurse called to deliver this message and that we would have to wait until Tuesday morning of next week, I was so thankful... I just felt the worry and stress flow from my body and I was able to relax a little. I just needed a few days to prepare and that's what I got, so off to surgery we go next Tuesday. 
• Tanner has got to be the funniest darn kid ever!!! Look at these two pictures and see if you can figure out what he possibly could've said after "Look Mom..." while eating dinner the other night.
  

Answer:

  "Look Mom, they're boobs!!!"

• Music... brings me so much comfort, emotion, inspiration, escape... I added some old favorites, new-found treasures & good-old fun listening songs to the beginning of my playlist and it's making me smile & dance about! Enjoy.~ 

HiP HiP HooRaY! You're birthday's here!

The night before I set out her special breakfast place setting, and thank goodness I did, because we got a bit of a late start this morning {or yesterday morning, now that it's 12:29 in the A.M.}. I was still able to serve her what I'd planned for, french toast with powdered sugar and strawberries barely... I couldn't have done it without Marcus' help of making & packing McKynlee's lunch for school and Andres getting her ready. Thanks guys! Normally we would've had her open her presents after having breakfast, but with the rushed morning we decided to save them for later in the evening. So off to school she went all happy and cheerful that the day she'd turn 8 was finally here!!!

Tanner was excited to be a part of the big surprise appearance of Nacho Libre delivering her birthday treats to her school class! Some of you may remember when Andres did this for the boys birthday back in the Fall... Sydnee thought it was so cool and made sure Andres knew that she would be expecting the same treatment when her birthday rolled around!

"Sometimes men wear stretchy pants..."

"Just for FUN!!!"

Somebody's blushing...

& loving every minute of it!

School let out early and Sydnee went home with a friend for a play date! I picked her up around 4 p.m. on our way to take Chandler to the doctor. He unfortunately came out of school with a lot ear pain and just burst into tears the minute he got in the car. I felt so bad for him, he had been holding it in at school. He ended up having an ear infection, so I'm glad we went ahead and took him to the doctor.

Andres came home not too long after we got back and Sydnee opened up her gifts from us. She LoVeD them to say the least!!! Instead of going out to dinner we decided to go see a movie, we hoped that we could find a sitter for McKynlee since she's not to fond of going out to movies, but weren't able to find one due the late change of plans, so Andres stayed home with her and I took the rest of the kids along with Sydnee to see "Hotel for Dogs." We all really liked it!

On the way home from the movie, Sydnee said she wished that the day wasn't already over... she just wanted it to last longer. I told her she still has a lot to look forward to, Sunday we're getting together for FHE with Dad's side of the family and will celebrate her birthday with them, Grandma & Grandpa O. sent her a card with money and said that they'd take her out to eat and to shop for something with her birthday money when they get back, her friend party is next weekend AND she'll be getting baptized at the end of the month! Now I'd say that's a pretty long and stretched out birthday celebration! What more could you possibly ask for??? She agreed!

~Happy Birthday Syd~

We love you very much!

Dino Museum with La & the Crew of Adventurous Little Ones...

Thanks La.. let's meet up at T.P. more often.~ ...and I missed seeing you too Amy... between the three of us, we have quite the crew of little ones! It actually feels weird for me to only be contributing "one" to the equation, I've usually always been the one with the herd, now it's Lara and yourself! I love spending time with you guys though, so let's do it more often and not let the time slip by anymore...

Sunday Family Dinner

{Kynlee hangin' out in the kitchen while we were preparing for the visitors to come}.

Sunday we gathered together with my side of the family for a most yummy-licious dinner! Everyone brought things to contribute to the menu of Cafe Rio Sweet Pork & Chicken Salads/Burritos! Oh my goodness... to say that is was yummy is actually an understatement. For dessert we had Key Lime Pie! Mmm.. Mmm... Good! We all had so much fun, I LoVe spending time with my family, the hard part is figuring out a time when ALL of us can actually get together like that. We've been trying since January and it FINALLY worked out! We're hoping to gather once a month from now on... we'll see how it all works out. I'm sure there will be some times that it gets moved out like this time, but the point is that we are making a conscious effort to make it happen. Can't wait for the month of April's visit!!!  

Isn't this little girly-girl a doll... she is my niece's little girl. I wish I could just squeeze all of her sugar out, as my Dad & Grandpa would say!

Blue & Gold Banquet for Scouts

Back on the 26th of February the boys had their Blue & Gold Banquet for Scouts. The theme was learning all about the U.S. and doing a National Treasure activity! 

These are water color paintings of different monuments created by a very talented lady in our ward, specifically for the Blue & Gold Banquet. 

I thought the way they set up the food table was really fun and had to take a few photos...

Leave it up to Marcus to do something silly and get the rest of the kids started! = )

This is Tanner being a pirate! 

{Arrrgggghhhhh--- Matey!!!}

Monkey see... Monkey do...

Luckily... McKynlee seemed to think this was a fun occasion so that made for a much more enjoyable evening for the rest of us! Isn't she growing up...