The Yorke Family

May 2016- Kindergarten and 5th Grade Promotions

2017-02-28T11:51:00.001-05:00

Both Evan and Aaron "graduated" this past year. Evan graduated from Kindergarten first. His class sang some fun songs and Evan did a great job. I was lucky enough that even though he is really tall, he was in the front row. :)

All of the Kindergarteners ready to perform for us. Aaron and Amber got to come watch with Barth, Katelynn and I.

They also got Accelerated Reader tags for doing a great job with their reading during the year. And then it was time to "graduate" and get their diplomas. Here he is with the Vice Principal, Ms Hennage, and his teacher, Mrs Mason.

Afterwards there was cookies and lemonade. It was a fun morning.

Evan and his awesome teacher, Mrs Mason. We were so thankful to have her this past year. She was phenomenal with everything. It was a very up in the year school year with surgeries and mini strokes and she was excellent. Evan had a fantastic year.

Standing in the balloon arch with his diploma! Way to go Evan!

The next night was the 5th grade graduation. Aaron is there towards the back without the funky glasses on.

He got a few awards for things, but I can't remember what they are now. That is why I should blog right away when it happens. I can't remember anything. :P

He was so happy that day and was happy to have the spotlight on him. He really is such a great boy! We are lucky to have him in our family.

His teacher for homeroom and science was Mrs Hatton. We loved her too. My older 2 boys also had her, and we loved her just as much then as we did for Aaron.

Aaron was so cute. He paused after getting his "diploma" to look back at us so I could be sure to get a picture! Cute boy!!

At the very end. He's on to middle school!!

There was also a reception for him afterwards.

They always let the outgoing 5th graders sign their names on the wall. Aaron showed us where his name was.

Hooray for the last day of school!! It was a great school year, but we were ready for Summertime!!

May 2016

2017-02-23T11:05:00.002-05:00

May was a busy month, but then again, it always is! Everything gets crammed in at the end of the school year. :) Weston had one last band concert.

It seems that Evan likes to take selfies!

Katelynn being cute in the car one day. She is always asking me to take her picture. :)

At the end of the year, all the kids have field day. The only way that Evan's doctors allowed him to participate was if I was there with him the entire time. He and Katelynn had a great time and I was so thankful that he was able to participate.

Katelynn was Evan's partner for the 3-legged race since there was an odd number of kids in his group. They had a great time together. Seniors from the high school come over and run all the groups and stations for field day. It is always so fun!

I think they were sorting balls by color at this station.

The kids absolutely loved the huge parachute! It was a fantastic morning together.

Barth and I only got to one Red's game last year. That was okay. They traded all of their good players so they were pretty bad last year. It was still a nice break to get out together and have fun!

Somewhere in that mass of kids is Brian. He had one final concert too.

Another sleeping baby. Because those are some of my favorite types of pictures.

Brian played in a concert that just did solos and ensembles at the high school. That took place in the middle of may. It lasted almost 4 hours. But he and his partner did a great job.

The day after Brian's concert, Evan had another TIA. This one was on a Friday and even though we got to the hospital in plenty of time for them to scan him on that day, his main neurologist, Dr Taylor, was out of town. That meant his care was left to his Fellows and they hemmed and hawed around and so they didn't get a request for a sedated MRA until too late. So, we spent the entire weekend at the hospital. (And then some.)

So, we hung out in the playroom as much as we could. We did lots of painting.

He ate lots of dirt cake- his absolute favorite thing that they serve at the hospital!!! :)

We took lots of naps. Those are my favorite because they always wake you up 5 zillion times at night in the hospital.

One of the days all of the buddies came up to the hospital. They brought Evan's favorite game of Munchkin and they all enjoyed a great game. That really lifted Evan's spirits. :)

And we can never go to the playroom without playing a game of pool. He never uses the white ball to shoot, but just goes for whichever ball he wants to hit in. Since we want him to be happy, we just play whatever way he wants. :)

What a sweetheart.

A couple of nights a week they play Bingo on the hospital's TV/radio station. Evan won and so he got to pick some prizes. After 5 days he finally got his MRI and an echo and EKG and some blood work done. Then we were free to go. Hooray! Both of the stays in April and May we got to have our favorite nurse, Audrey. She was his day nurse and is soooooo sweet.

The next week, just days before the end of school, Evan had to follow up with his doctors again to decide the game plan. Since kindergarten here is just 3 hours, and his appointment was at 9, and it was short, we decided to go to Smale Park on the river in downtown Cincinnati after his appointment and play!!

You can't tell in the picture, but this is a giant flying pig. That is one of the Cincinnati-type things. Every year they have the Flying Pig marathon. So, this park has a gigantic flying pig for the kids to climb in and on.

Katelynn wanted to climb it too, but was too scared to go inside.

They loved all of the cool and different things that they have at the park.

The rock climbing wall was pretty cool.

And so was the gigantic slide built into the hillside.

Evan loves to play chess with his brothers, so he loved setting up this huge chess board.

This is looking away from the park toward the river. It is right on the river.

Since Barth works downtown, we joined up with him and ate lunch at a place close by. The kids really loved that part! :)

Daddy being silly and acting like a walrus.

Evan the unicorn!

Now trying out being a walrus himself. :P

We ended out outing with a ride on the carousel.

Katelynn and Evan both had a great time.

It appears that Evan isn't the only one that likes to take selfies on my phone!! :) Silly Brian!

And Amber had a spring recital as well. She sure does love taking lessons from Sis Greenhalgh!

April 2016

2017-02-22T15:11:00.000-05:00

April was a busy and exhausting month. It was the beginning of some hard times for our family. But I digress. At the beginning of the month, Brian and I travelled down to Bowling Green for his State Odyssey of the Mind competition. It was fun to see the things they added and tweaked, and fun to watch. I always love having one on one time with my kids and I had a great few days with just Brian and I.

Here they were assembling their props to get ready to go on stage.

The judges afterwards checking everything out.

They didn't place and so didn't advance on, but that was okay too. Brian still had a great time!

Amber's hair had grown really long and we were finally able to do a crown braid in it! She wanted to see what it looked like so I took a picture.

Right next to the schools, there is a HUGE farm that has several hundred acres to it. When the weather is nice, they let their chicken roam free in the yard of the house. One afternoon as I was going to pick up Evan from school, there was a chicken crossing the road!!! :)

Just days before we were supposed to travel to Florida for Spring Break, Evan had something strange happen. He was walking across the kitchen to refill his glass of water and suddenly his leg gave out from under him. He couldn't use it at all. It was on the side that had been giving him problems from the moyamoya. A call to his drs and they wanted him seen at the hospital, immediately!! When we got there, they rushed him back to the "urgent" part of the ER where they bombarded us with drs and questions. After some fast blood work, and a CT to make sure that he hadn't had a full blown stroke and was hemorrhaging, they took him to a less urgent part where we waited. Since the episode lasted about 30 minutes and he still had some weakness, they admitted him. 4-5 days later, they determined it was a TIA (transient ischemic attack - or mini stroke), and he was released from the hospital but we had to cancel our trip.

There was lots of monitoring and he had imaging done. By 24 hours later, he was pretty much feeling back to normal, but he had to stay a few more days.

So he took advantage of things and ordered his favorite meals of donuts and chocolate milk.

We went to the playroom where he played his favorite things, like slaughtering me at super heroes. :)

And he did lots of crafts and painting.

A week later we had some follow up visits and that called for an ice cream cone. :)

By this point, my hair had gotten quite long and I was ready to get it cut and to donate it. But I had to make sure I curled it one last time for Barth, since he likes it curly!

We took advantage of a warm spring day to head over to the zoo before our pass expired. I love it in April when the flowers are in bloom. We took the wagon for Evan and Katelynn since Evan would get so tired to easily.

I always love the beautiful tulips that they have!

The Cincinnati Zoo is always just so gorgeous this time of year!

Checking out the Sumatran Rhino before he was shipped back into the wild.

The cougars were active and close by.

The sun was a bit bright but the flowers were so gorgeous.

We enjoyed our day at the zoo since we couldn't go on our spring break trip.

During that spring break week, I also went and got my hair cut. I donated 11 inches. This was right before I got it cut.

This was after. So short!

I do love a sleeping baby!!

Since we weren't able to go to Florida, we did a few things around home. One of the days we went over to Big Bone Lick state park here by our house and had a picnic dinner and played at the house. Everyone had a good time enjoying the sunshine.

Nothing like a little king of the mountain on the monkey bars. :)

Oops! It looks like his eyes were closed on this one!

Weston and Brian enjoyed walking around together a little bit as well as a bit of football!

My monkey bar girl enjoyed being upside down!

I tried getting a good picture of Katelynn, but she was in a kind of whiny mood that day. Poor thing.

She did have fun playing with Weston. He is such a nice bother to play with her when she is crabby.

How many Yorke's can you get on a teeny little monkey bar thing? Apparently 4! :)

Ta da!!

Me too!

Wearing Daddy's glasses on the car ride home. Love it!

I treasured the days with both of these guys at home in the afternoon. At nap time, they would always run from me. This day Evan had been hiding Katelynn so I couldn't find her and then burst into laughter when I pretended that she was no where to be found.

Brian also made the middle school select band. He was last chair trumpet in the 7th grade band.

Waiting for the concert to start.

The place was packed but we had good seats because we got there early.

Brian did an outstanding job at his concert!

These two are the very best of friends. I am so thankful for that. I couldn't ask for better boys.

At the end of the month, Amber cut and donated her hair too. She cut 10 inches off! This was right afterwards. Of course, Katelynn wanted to be in the picture with Amber. These girls sure do love each other. :)

Amber and her ponytail to donate. Great job Amber!!

March 2016

2017-02-22T11:06:00.001-05:00

With the arrival of March came the Pinewood Derby! Aaron's car was the Minecraft car that you see there. He drew the Steve on it all by himself. He did an excellent job on his car I thought.

While his car did decent, it didn't ever win faster than second place. That was okay, he still had a great time making it and racing it!

In March also came the time for the Odyssey of the Mind competition. The group that Brian was working with this year had a fun skit. There wasn't much competition at this level, but the kids still did a great job. Brian was, once again, the only boy on his team!

Getting ready to go on~

Kaylin, Lucy, and Amanda

Brian was an alien. He was nice and loud and did fantastic!

Afterward talking with the judges about what they did.

The judges go over how they built every piece and came up with their ideas.

Hooray! They got first place and advanced on to State!

Tucking in the girls one night and they wanted to me take some pictures of them!

They sure are sweet!!

Another warm day meant another day to play outside. The kids always come up with the strangest things to play. :) I like that they like to use their imaginations though!

One advantage of being small is that you can still fit in your sister's jeep when she wants to drive you around the driveway!

Feeling good enough to ride his bike on the driveway for a bit.

Katelynn was playing with her baby as I was putting together the new computer that we got that day. She said she was doing her baby's hair! :)

And, as usual, Momma came to visit us for her Spring Break! I love that she would always come to see us on her break. We didn't do anything super fun or out of the ordinary, but we still had a great time.

The kids always loved it when Grandma would come to visit. As usual, I was always too busy having fun to take lots of pictures.

While she was here she got to go with us to Weston's select band concert. She loved it! She loved music and thoroughly enjoyed hearing such a great band perform.

The kids after the concert. Being silly, as usual.

Checking out the fish and ducks at the pond at NKU after the concert.

One of the days that Grandma was here, we went to the zoo- just Grandma, Katelynn and I. We had such a great time. Grandma was happily taking pictures of everything. I will miss that. And I'll miss her here in a few weeks when she would have come for her visit.

She took Katelynn over to brush the goats. She was always such a fun grandma to the kids.

Katelynn riding the alligator before going into the manatee house while we were at the zoo.

Momma would go with me to pick up the kids from school in the afternoons. If the day was nice, we would stay after and let them play on the playground for a bit. This particular day, Grandma was pushing Katelynn on the swing.

This particular day Evan was able to do the cross bars all the way across. For the first time in a long time. I remember it so vividly because it gave me such hope that he was finally getting better. Little did I know.....

And finally, after loosing that other front top tooth at 3, Evan lost his other front tooth. :) Hooray! He is getting so big!!

Out riding the bike for Grandma while she was here.

One of the days after we picked up Evan from school Momma and I took the kids over to McDonalds for lunch and let them play on the outside playplace for a looooonnnngggg time! We all had such fun.

I'm thinking that it must have been St Patrick's Day from all the green that everyone was wearing. Soon enough, it was time for grandma to head back home and for us to finish up our month here in Kentucky.

Brian headed off to Lexington for an overnight stay for his speech and debate state competition. He didn't place, but he had a fantastic time!

Soon enough it was time for Easter and dying eggs!

The kids are all big enough that only Katelynn needed help. All those years ago when we were in the thick of little kids, I never thought that we would get to that point, but somehow it arrived. Most of the kids are big and independent these days.

Just a random picture of Katelynn jumping on the trampoline downstairs. I love that our playroom down there is big enough for slides and trampolines so that the kids can get some energy out on cold winter days. :)

And with the end of March came the beginning of Spring. It came early this past year! Must have been because of all that warm weather we had.

Our popcorn tree (aka our cherry tree) looked so pretty with the pink blossoms!

February 2016

2017-02-22T10:19:00.001-05:00

We had a warmer than usual winter in 2016. That meant that we had several days that were good for playing outside.

Evan still tired very easily, so that meant more snuggles for me! I didn't mind at all! I sure do love this sweet boy!

Our driveway is always a little bit on the chaotic side when everyone is outside. The kids love to draw roads and stop signs to drive around on out there.

Evan was my first kid ever in all of my kiddos to want to do a crazy hair day at school. His hair is so fine that he was all but fallen down by the time he stepped out of the car to go into school though!

One thing that Brian loves doing is Speech and Debate with the middle school team. He did Extemporaneous speaking for one of his events. Here he is doing the research prep in the library before competing.

He placed at regionals and so went on to state, but didn't end up placing there.

We finally got one decent snow! Hooray! The kids were excited. It snowed pretty good and then warmed up fairly quickly which made it perfect for building snowmen outside.

It was the perfect packing snow. Here is Amber getting started on her snowman.

Those bigger boys.......all they wanted to do was to launch snowballs at me!!

Aaron and Amber working on the snowman that they built together!

One cute little snow girl! She had a lot of fun out there too! It wasn't too cold which made it perfect for her.

Didn't they do a great job on their snowman?

Swinging on the swingset is still fun even if there is snow on it!

The snowman was almost as tall as our little KatieLynn!

Nom Nom!! She likes to eat the snow just like her siblings!!

Then Amber and Evan built other snowmen in the back by the garden!

Evan was hiding behind the snowman to try to keep from getting hit in the snowball fight that was going on between the boys!

Evan was hiding and Amber was building a snow bunny!

I thought that she did an exceptional job on that little snow bunny!

Adorable!

One of the days that I was working on building the trundle bed for Katelynn, I found her hiding in the rocking camp chair that Barth got for valentine's day and snarfing down a box of raisins!! She sure does love her raisins!

"I'm so cute Mommy! Take a picture of me!"

Katelynn sure us a sweetheart!

Trying out her new trundle bed! She loved it!

Such a big girl!

February is always the blue and gold banquet for cub scouts. I found out just hours before that we were supposed to take a cake of some sort for a contest. So I went and got the stuff to make some Minion cupcakes. I thought that they turned out pretty darn cute!

The Pine Wood Derby is always the first week in March, so Aaron and I got to work on his car! Here he is sanding it all up!

There was a stake Activity Day Girls's Daddy/Daughter hoe down! Barth and Amber had fun dressing up and going!

One day Evan and I went out to spend some money that he had left over from what people gave him after his surgery. He wanted a Lego set, so we got it at Meijer and then he got to ride the penny horse afterwards.

We ended our date together with a concrete mixer at Culvers!

January 2016

2017-02-22T09:59:00.002-05:00

Okay, let's see if I can even remember what it was we did an entire year ago!!! :)

We decided to go ahead and have Weston take the PSAT as a sophomore so that we could see how he would do and if we thought that he might be able to be a National Merit scholar in the future. He did an amazing good job on the test. Better than any of the other kids in his grade and better than almost all of the Juniors that took it too. I think that he will be able to get the National Merit next year with those scores!

We always do Barth's grandma's Swedish cookies at Christmas, but with our trip, we didn't get them made till January. They were still super yummy and the kids had a great time rolling out the wreaths and dipping them in sugar.

Making the cookies! All the pictures that I will post from this last year will be from my phone. I didn't take many pictures with my regular camera other than for birthdays. These aren't the best quality, but they are the best that I have!

Evan had his 6 month post op appointment in January. He was still feeling tired a lot, but they said that was normal. He appointments take anywhere from 4-6 hours so we always take lots of things with us to do. Evan loves the little Star Wars guys, so he would always bring them and have a battle at some point while we were there. :)

Katelynn finally had enough hair and sat still long enough for me to do a small French braid!

We didn't have a particularly snowy year, but we did have a little bit. It is always so pretty out when it snows.

One afternoon after we had picked up Evan from Kindergarten, Katelynn and Evan gave me a wonderful pot and pan concert. I was making lunch but it was sure beautiful music!

Katelynn was a super hero playing in her cape!

Around this same time, Katelynn went through a funny stage where she would stuff things into her pajamas!! It was hilarious!!! She is such a silly girl. :)

Amber had a wonderful piano recital! She did a great job! She is quite a good little player. She likes to practice and is moving through her books at quite a fast pace.

In January is always the Governor's cup competition!! Weston took a few tests and competed in Quick Recall.

Here was the whole team!

He didn't place on any of his tests but the quick recall team came in second!

The year that wasn't

2017-01-22T15:36:00.001-05:00

2016 was "the year that wasn't" for this family. It's a year that I'd just as soon forget. But in the interest of keeping track of things and for the sake of my journal, I am going to try to go back and blog about our not-so-great year last year, mostly in a month by month fashion. Hopefully I don't peter out halfway through. 😊

Amber's Recital Song

2016-05-21T22:46:00.001-04:00

Amber played "The Scarf Song". I hope you enjoy it!

I am my father's daughter

2016-02-20T20:00:00.002-05:00

I have worked very hard these last few days on a project. I made this trundle bed from scratch!! I went and got the wood and cut it, stained it, and put it all together! I put together a few different ideas that I had seen on Pinterest and I love how it turned out. I just couldn't see spending $150 to $200 on a frame that just rolled under the bed. So I built one.

I guess I have a flair for building things like my daddy!! :) It was a few days of hard work and sanding and drilling, but I think that it will be just right to go under Amber's bed for Katelynn. Now we just need to go get the mattress!

Yesterday morning when I was taking a break from sanding and cutting, Katelynn was being silly and saying, "Take a picture of me with a cup on my foot." She is getting so big!

The best news is that we finally kicked the binky habit! Hooray! And she is sleeping so much better because of it too!

The Beach- part 2

2016-01-16T18:12:00.001-05:00

Here are the other half of the pictures from my phone. Every time I went to take a picture of Weston, he would end up closing his eyes. It wasn't on purpose, but I don't have a single shot of just him on my phone that doesn't have his eyes closed. The rest of these pictures are from Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.

Most mornings we headed out to the beach around 8:30 in the morning. All the rest of the days were less windy than that first day. The temperatures were mostly around the mid-70's. It was so nice. And the water was warm- about 70 degrees there too. It was way warmer than when we went at Spring break!! The kids had fun getting net-fuls of sand and then getting it wet and trying to find shells.

The boys had lots of fun looking for the shells and bringing the nets of shell pieces up to us girls to see if there was anything worth saving in there. We found several crabs that way. :)

Wednesday was probably our nicest day on the beach. There was haze in the morning, but the waves weren't too huge and there were still very few people out on the beach as you can see here.

See? Just us and our stuff on the beach......all day long! The Lord sure did provide a great week and vacation for us!

Evan got crashed over by quite a few of those waves as he stood in the water next to Daddy. The waves were still pretty rough even though they were better than our first 2 days, but I still wouldn't let the kids go further than their ankles unless Daddy was there by them!

We made a cool crab and muscle habitat out of one of our buckets. The kids loved watching the crabs.

We actually got 3 HUGE clam shells that were open and totally in tact on Wednesday. I will post a picture of those with my regular camera. The funny thing about it was that the kids had been standing there with their toes in the water and I saw something dark in the water right by them. I told Barth to go check it out to make sure it wasn't a sand shark or something, and so he goes in and comes back with the neck of a guitar!!! Kind of funny. But while he was in the water, Brian asked him to get a shell he had seen. That was the first clam shell that we found. Then Barth saw 2 more close by that. It was pretty cool!

The girls sorting through shell pieces that the boys had brought up to see if there was anything they liked.

And here were our little crabs that we found. We enjoyed looking at them for most of the morning on Wednesday and then we put them back in the water.

Taking a break and drying off a bit after being in the water some.

Barth and the big boys played quite a few games of football. This was one of those games.

I turned from taking pictures of the boys and saw these two looking at the crabs and I thought that it was sweet!

Isn't it so pretty? Wednesday was our sunniest day.

More football! That little pink blob there was Katelynn following her Daddy around because she was tired but wanted nothing to do with me.

Playing and relaxing on the beach. By this time Katelynn had come over and wanted me to hold her. All the rest of the kids were enjoying the beach. I loved the sun!

While I was holding Katelynn, she fell fast asleep. She slept that way for about an hour and a half.

Evan showing me what he had found!

Checking out those waves a little more once we got a yellow flag. This was in the afternoon. One thing I didn't get a picture of was that every day, right before we headed in to lunch, we would go to the pool and hot tub for about 45 minutes to an hour. The pool was heated, but it was a little chilly for my taste. I preferred the hot tub with whichever of the kids were cold (which were most of them a lot of the time) and left Barth to be with the swimmers since he thought that the hot tub was too warm. :)

Katelynn's hair was crazy curly on the beach!!! I loved it!

Weston and Brian enjoyed taking walks along the beach to look for shells. Since there was no one on the beach, we let them walk quite a ways. They never went far enough to be out of sight, but I know they liked feeling more grown up to be able to go down the beach on their own.

One of the days there were some pretty severe storms that were about 45 minutes down the coast from us. We could see the crazy clouds, but like I said, no storms ever came near us till it was dark and we were done for the day.

Weston made himself a chair on one of the days.

Evan thought that it was funny to try to dump shells onto me and my blanket and get them wet. That is why he is laughing in this picture.

So happy! So fun!! (And such curly curls!) This little girl LOVED the beach!!!

One of the days we were there, we took the kids to the dollar store. Amber picked out sunglasses. She thought she looked so cool. Just like Daddy!

Stormy looking clouds and waves. It was very pretty.

More fishing for shells. I brought 2 suits for everyone. They usually wore one in the morning for the hours we were out and then another one in the afternoons when we went out for those hours. We really did spend almost the entire day on the beach or at the pool except for about 2 hours when we came in and had lunch and got Evan and Katelynn settled for naps. Once everyone was asleep, Barth usually took the bigger kids back down to the beach while I waited for the other ones to wake up from their naps.

Sandcastles and football. That was pretty much the name of the games in the afternoons.

I thought this one was pretty sweet of Amber and Katelynn.

Evan and I dug some tunnels and made some castles together.

The bigger kids liked playing the game Munchkin with Barth in the evenings. I usually played UNO with Evan or watched a show with Evan and Katelynn so that Katelynn wouldn't mess up the game.

Evan and Daddy enjoying the waves!

The week was pretty taxing on Evan. By the end of the week he was pretty tired. This particular day Katelynn had woken up from her nap after an hour and a half, but Evan was still sound asleep, and since we could tell he had been so tired, we let him sleep. Barth took everyone else, including Katelynn, down to the beach while he slept. I thought that it was fun to watch the boys play frisbee and Barth play with the girls. After 3 hours I woke up Evan, but he was still very tired. I let him wake up for another half hour before we got ready to go back down to the beach.

Amber buried herself and pretended to be the statue of liberty. This was Thursday and our last nice day on the beach. A cold front came in that night and it got awfully chilly!

The next morning we tried going down to the beach around 9, but it was sooooo COLD!! It only got to about 55 that day. The kids laughed when I told them to put on a jacket to go down to the beach, but they weren't laughing when they saw how cold it was!!

They decided that the jackets weren't enough. They used their towels for blankets out there too!

Brrrrr!!!

Aaron was hiding under as many layers as he could!

I suggested they run races to try to warm up.

Huddling for one picture before we high tailed it off the beach!! At least we got 4 awesomely wonderful days in the warmth!

The waves were much, much more calm that last day and it was more sunny. Sunny but wayyyyy too cold!

Since it was chilly, we headed over to Sandestin to a place called Baytowne Wharf. It is a huge golf course community with a little shopping center of sorts. They also have a cool playground that the kids enjoyed. We don't really go to the boutique shops there, or the carousel, but the kids liked taking their pictures in the fun boards outside the ice cream shop.

Katelynn liked the cow!

As we were walking around looking at things, I looked over at Brian and realized that he was taller than me!!!! I asked Barth to take a picture of confirm what I thought!! He really was taller!! :) He was happy about that. One thing that I thought was kind of funny was that they had a tent that they had ice skating in. The tent was to hold the cold in and in Cincinnati they have warming tents at the ice skating rink downtown that people can go to when they get too cold from ice skating outside. :) We had such a fun time on our trip!! I will try to get up some pictures from my camera soon too of the trip!

The Beach- part 1

2016-01-14T17:22:00.000-05:00

All of these pictures were taken with my phone, so they won't make any bigger if you click on them I don't think!

On the Sunday after Christmas, we headed out for our main Christmas present this year of a week on the beach at Panama City Beach. We stopped for lunch at a rest stop just as you got into Alabama. There was a cool space rocket, and there was this fun sign that the kids wanted their picture taken in. They sure do look like good astronauts. :)

Katelynn said, "Me too!!"

It took us all day to drive down there. About 12 hours. We got there at night, and then when we got in the room, there was a problem with the bunk beds. After we switched rooms, we finally got settled, had dinner, and went to bed. This was the week that there were all of those storms and tornadoes, and it was supposed to storm all week long. The weather ended up being overcast but nice and warm for most of the week. That first day we got there, the kids were ready to go by 7:30 am since it was really like 8:30 to them. That day the wind was blowing really hard- like steady at 25 to 30 mph. The sand was hitting our legs and Katelynn wasn't really a fan of that. Most of the first few hours on the beach, I held her wrapped in a towel to keep the wind and sand off of her.

The other kids didn't mind it too much. The waves were HUGE, and there was a red flag, so that meant no swimming for us. It was still fun to play on the beach and build in the sand. It was close to 70 that morning.

Even as the morning wore on we had the entire beach to ourselves. It was so nice. Mostly there were just older couples out walking.

The kids built trenches and sandcastles and had a great time.

After a while, Katelynn decided that she wanted her daddy to hold her for a bit. You can see our condo there behind Barth.

The kids didn't get in the water, but they did chase the waves back and forth and got their feet wet. That was a lot of fun too!

When we went in for naps, the sun decided that it would make an appearance. :) This was around 1 in the afternoon. You can see that there isn't a soul there on the beach. We were on the 19th floor of our building. It was a little high for my taste, but it was a beautiful view.

Looking down the beach the other direction from our balcony. It was so pretty. The wind was crazy though! Look at those waves!

Katelynn and Evan took a nap in mine and Barth's bed while the others played a game and then headed down to the beach. We joined them after these two woke up. They both took a 3 hr nap every day. Most days Katelynn would wake up before Evan!

Back down at the beach with a little more sun in the afternoon, and jacket, Katelynn decided that she would get up and play. It was still crazy windy, but it really was a lot of fun out there.

Brian was getting ready to make something.

Amber looks like she is cold or something, but I think that she's making that face because the wave was just coming in as I took the picture.

What a fun afternoon at the beach. You can see that the sky was overcast, but the rain held off until we went inside and were done for the day every single time! What a blessing.

Here is Katelynn with our things behind her, including my chair that I sat in and enjoyed watching everyone from! :) There weren't many shells to be had for the most part, and there weren't any people either!!!

Aaron trying to find some shells. You can see his shovel behind him there! That was such a great thing to have at the beach!!!

Evan had a great time. It was so good to see him smiling!

The storms would pass to our east and our west but stay away from where we were.

These pictures do not do the waves justice. They really were HUGE!!

It was so relaxing to sit on the beach and enjoy the time with my little family!!

Barth and Weston played frisbee for a bit. Sorry the pictures are dark, it was just so overcast and it was getting to be the late afternoon.

Brian walking along looking for shells in the surf.

The girls played together most of the time.

Amber, Evan, Aaron, Katelynn, and I went for a walk that afternoon while Barth played frisbee with the older boys.

Katelynn held my hand and we chased the waves back and forth!

Looking back down the beach.

I love this one with the lighting like it is and the kids walking in the surf. It was a perfect day!

Barth chilling in the beach chair while the kids play.

Weston and Brian built a spa to relax in one of the days.

Aaron built one for himself too, but didn't want water in it.

Playing on the beach!

The back of the boys' spa said this. That was Weston's idea.

One of the nights it rained after we had gone in. After we got showers, we headed over to the Ron Jon surf shop where Katelynn found herself a turkey hat!!! So silly!! Hope you enjoyed part one of the beach!!

Sunday Snow Day

2016-01-10T21:39:00.001-05:00

Yesterday it was 55 and rainy, but the rain changed over to snow overnight and gave us the very first snow of the season! Today was stake conference, which meant a later church time for us, thank goodness, because that at least gave the streets time to get salted although they were still slick and yucky to drive on. This afternoon, the kids got all geared up and headed outside to play in the bitter cold. It was 20 and felt like 3. The wind was 25 mph with gusts up to 45, so we stayed out for a bit, but not too terribly long because it was just too darn cold! The kids had a great time out there today though. Aaron got a sled and started chipping away at the ice to get some for building. There was lots of ice beneath the snow from 2 days of rain before the snow stuck.

Katelynn was the cutest this morning. She was watching cartoons in our sitting room and looked out the window. All of the sudden she started shouting, "It's SNOW! It's SNOW!!" It was adorable!!! :) She was sooooo excited to go out there this afternoon. She grew up too, because last year she hated it and this year she loved it!

Everyone had a great time in the snow. Even Weston! We have boots, pants and all the gear, but it looks like we need some new gloves this year. Some are starting to fall apart after a few years worth of use.

I wish that this one wasn't blurry because it is such a sweet one of Evan. He had so much fun!

Amber had a great time sledding. You can see the sheet of ice there on the sidewalk.

Evan did the snowboard this year! He did great!!!

He didn't even fall.

Look at that handsome face!! Brian is getting so big! He was busy chipping away at the ice too. I'm not totally sure why because they never actually made anything out of it.

I realized a few minutes in that I forgot mufflers for the girls and it was so cold. I was hoping that they were warmer afterwards.

Katelynn loved playing with Amber out in the snow and doing whatever Amber did!

Working on chipping away on the ice at the edge of the driveway.

Barth shoveled our drive this morning before stake conference, so at least our driveway wasn't too bad. He salted it too, so there was mostly just ice on the edges and up by the basketball court.

Amber and Katelynn decided that the fort on the swingset would be their fort too. They liked it up there because it was sheltered from the wind!

Weston and Brian had a snowball fight on the deck. The snow was very powdery though and made some cool misty looking stuff when they threw it as you can see here.

Watch out! Weston was ruthless!!!

The girls wanted to make snow angels.

I love their matching pink coats. Katelynn's actually has stars for the white spots, and Amber's has circles, but other than that, they match! :)

There are their angels.

Katelynn heading off on another adventure!

Evan and Aaron working away on the ice!

Amber and Katelynn dragging their snow around in the sled.

Because the wind was blowing so hard, it was funny to look at the houses and trees. The trees that were sheltered by the houses from the wind were beautiful and white, and the ones facing the wind were blown free of snow. Our trees were blown free of snow, but I loved the look of our neighbor's houses so I had to snap a picture.

I got a new coat this year and it's black. It's wool and oh so warm. But with a light snow falling, you could see the snowflakes soooo well and see each how each was different. I took a picture of this one that fell on the lapel of my jacket. Those snowflakes were beautiful!

We all had a great time out there today!

At the end, Evan and Weston decided to throw Evan's chunks of ice at the garage wall. They thought that it was pretty cool to see them break apart on the wall and leave a little ice blob there on the wall. :) School for tomorrow is on a delay due to the ice on the roads. That means no kindergarten for Evan tomorrow!! Yea!!!! Hope you enjoyed our snow with us!

Christmas 2015

2016-01-09T22:40:00.001-05:00

We had such a nice Christmas time of year this past Christmas!! I was finally feeling happy and good and so it was a nice and peaceful time of year for us. On the Monday night before Christmas, we had our traditional FHE where we did the nativity. I just had to include this first picture. I'm sure that Katelynn will just love me for it in the years to come, but this is what she looks like a lot of the time lately- she is usually screaming her head off about something that isn't going her way. She has decided that she didn't want to be the angel after all, and so is pitching a huge fit about it. I decided to wear the halo instead! :)

Amber and Aaron were Mary and Joseph. Amber's doll was baby Jesus. The pillow was his manger.

I ended up being the angel after all. Katelynn decided that she would ride the sheep with the shepherds to go see baby Jesus.

The shepherds were afraid.

Now they are going to be the wise men too. Time to get their gifts. Oh look, the angel decided that she would be an angel after all.

Presenting their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

Singing Christmas carols when it was all done!!

I do love having this tradition.

Christmas Eve the kiddos got their new Christmas jammies from Grandma and Grandpa Yorke. I told them to sit by the tree so I could get a picture and this is what I got!!! Crazy kiddos!!

Almost a good picture. Evan and Katelynn are being silly!

There we go! When I look at these pictures, it makes me realize just how much they are all growing up and getting so big. Even my baby is not much of a baby anymore!

I do love to get pictures on the stairs on Christmas eve!

There they go being silly again!! At least they were all happy!! :)

Yay for Christmas morning!! Weston got a new game!

Brian got a game too! The game uses the same board as Weston's game does, but Brian has different cards to add to it. It looks like a fun game. Barth has played with the kids quite a few times, but I haven't learned how to play it yet!

Aaron really wanted a shovel from Santa and he got one. He asked for a "real shovel- not a fake one" for Christmas. He loved it when we went to the beach!!!

Amber got all the things that she asked Santa for too! She wanted a dictionary, and calculator and a watch for Christmas!! At school they wrote letters to Santa and Amber asked for these 3 things. In her letter that she got back from him, he said that it wasn't very often that kids asked for a dictionary!! She does love to learn!!!

Evan checking out his stocking from Santa. He got the transformer guy that you can see just behind him.

Christmas morning is the best!!!! :) It was a perfect day!

Katelynn got a new baby from Santa for Christmas and boy did she LOVE it!!

Christmas was so nice this year. We had a smaller Christmas because as the main gift, we decided to take the family on a trip to Florida to the beach. Barth and I were really sweating it though as it got close to our trip. Every single day called for rain and storms all day long. But as my own personal Christmas miracle, Heavenly Father answered my prayers and made it so that there was no rain at all except for one morning for an hour and it did rain every night, but not till we had gone in and it was dark. Prayers are truly answered.

Looking back and thinking back on the year 2015, I think about what an incredibly hard year this has been not only for Evan, but for Barth and I and the rest of the family. It has certainly been a year of trials and refinement for us, and it is not done with yet. And yet, what an incredible year of blessings and faith and growing it has been. Our family has grown closer. My children are anxious to help and serve each other. I have learned that it is okay to be served and to ask for help. It has been humbling to accept help from others, and yet we have needed it and benefited from it. My faith in the Savior has increased. I have a strong testimony of the power of prayer. I KNOW that the Lord hears and answers my prayer, even if it is not the way that I think that it should be answered. My ways are not His ways. He has a plan. And He does carry my burdens. This past Christmas.......let's just say that this past Christmas has been a respite and a balm and a bubble of joy in my life. These last few weeks, in spite of getting the results from the MRI that it doesn't look like there has been any improvement with Evan's head, I have been at peace. Happy even. Someone could ask me how I was and I didn't have to fake it or say, "We're doing the best we can." I could really and honestly smile and say, "We're good!" I know that that is only because the Lord is carrying my burden and I am so incredibly thankful for that. I am so thankful for my family, my home, my health, my husband, the tons of doctors that we have worked with this year, and most importantly, the gospel and my Savior!!! Merry (late) Christmas!!!

Christmas Outfits

2015-12-18T18:10:00.000-05:00

Every year I like to make a new Christmassy type dress for my girls, but it seems like I'm always running late in getting things done. We have had something like every single night for almost 2 solid weeks, but last night I didn't have anything, so I made these cute shirts and skirts for Amber and Katelynn. I had to get up really early this morning for Evan's MRI, so I didn't get to see them with their cute outfits till we got home and Amber got home from school. When I wanted to get pictures, Evan wanted to be in some of them too,

This one is one of my favorites because it is genuine. Evan is hugging Amber because he loves her! It's just sweet to me.

And then they wanted a posed hugging picture!

In the middle of taking the pictures, Katelynn decided she didn't want to take any more pictures so she started to pitch a fit. Then, 2 minutes later she wanted her picture taken. That's just the way 2 year olds are!! That is why her eyes are all red!!

Well, I didn't get a perfect picture of the girls together, but at least you can see how the outfits turned out! I hope that everyone had a great Friday! Happy Last Day of School for 2015 to us!!! Happy Day! Let Christmas break begin!!!!!

Decorating the Tree

2015-12-18T17:54:00.000-05:00

Well, I just decided that I am going to skip all the 5 million posts that need to be done and skip ahead to where we are now. A few weeks ago we went out and got our tree. We did it after Amber's piano lessons and then, since we had so much going on the last 2 weeks of school, we let the kids stay up later than usual and decorate! They had a great time.

Everyone had fun finding all of their special ornaments from Grandma and hanging them on the tree.

Decorating the tree with the Christmas music playing is one of my favorite things about Christmas time.

The kids were especially loving it since it was already 9 pm and they were staying up late! :)

Brian is getting so big! It's hard to believe that I have 2 teenagers!

Oops, it looks like she looked away just as I was taking the picture. :) Katelynn enjoyed putting up the tree too! She enlisted the help of her siblings with hanging up the ornaments.

Trying to find a good spot to hang things!

The ornaments are now all over the tree. We have someone to hang ornaments at all levels this year- Katelynn hangs them low, Weston and Brian hang them high, and Aaron, Amber and Evan hang them in the middle! It's great!

It was Aaron's year to do the star!

And here's the group by the tree!! This year's tree was nice and stable! No falling down of the tree in the middle of the night this time around!! :)

Katelynn Videos

2015-11-12T20:12:00.001-05:00

Happy 8th Birthday Amber!!

2015-10-17T17:22:00.000-04:00

We celebrated Evan's birthday a day early and Amber's a few days late since we were camping! She was so happy when it was time for her birthday festivities!! This was a big year for her since she turned 8 and got baptized!

She is such a sweet girl and I am so thankful that she is in our family!

Katelynn got to go first this time. In this picture Katelynn is giving us her famous fake, cheesy smile!! It cracks me up every time!

These two girls sure do love each other. I am so glad that I could have 2 girls because having a sister is so much fun!! Katelynn got Amber bubbles.

Aaron's turn was next. Amber stopped and posed with each of her sibling before opening her presents. What a cutie!

I think that Aaron got her a jump rope, but that could have been what Brian gave her. I can't remember any more. It's been too long!

Next was Evan's turn. I can't remember what he gave her either, but she liked it! :) They posed together at the beginning too, but the one at the end was sweeter, I thought!

Here they are in that sweet pose. Blurry but sweet. It looks like he gave her a glow ball of sorts.

Next up was Weston. These 2 look so much alike to me.

Katelynn loves her big brother and wanted to sit on his lap while Amber opened his present.

Next up was Brian.

He got her some cool kites.

She was excited about this present from Grandma and Grandpa Yorke!

And she liked her new shirt too!

She asked for some digi birds for her birthday and got them! She loved them!

She also got some fun shopkins from us too!

Amber really wanted another doll that looked like her. We had to throw her other one away after she was sick all over that doll! :P

So sweet! Amber showing her doll to her "sissy"!

Amber and her new doll that looks like her.

Amber picked a lemon cake this year! Yum! My favorite!!! :) With pink icing!!!

Happy 8th birthday sweet girl! I'm so thankful for your spunk and pizzaz and all the fun you bring to our family! I am especially thankful that you wanted to get baptized this year and made such a great decision! We love you!!!

Evan's 6th Birthday!

2015-10-17T16:45:00.000-04:00

Boy do I have a lot of catching up to do!! About 6 weeks ago, on Sept 4th, Evan turned 6! We had a great day! We actually celebrated a day early because we were going camping as soon as the kids were out of school on his actual birthday. As usual, the other kids picked out presents for Evan at Dollar Tree. Aaron went first this time. He said that Evan was supposed to punch a hole in his present to help unwrap it! :)

Aaron got him a pail and shovel that he could use in the sand box! Some of these pictures came out kind of blurry. Oh well. That is just what seems to happen as your camera gets older I guess.

Next up was Brian. He made him a fun card and gave him a dollar in his card.

I can't remember what Brian got Evan, but I'm sure it was something that he liked. Evan really was happy. He still doesn't always have good days. Some days he is tired and doesn't smile very much. And some days he feels out of sorts and is very emotional. You can tell that he wasn't quite himself this day. But he was still happy and had fun.

None of the pictures of Katelynn and Evan came out very well. Either Katelynn looked bad or else Evan did. Katelynn made a card for Evan in addition to her gift of something that I can't think of what it was (this is why I hate blogging later because I can't remember the details later on). Katelynn making a card is so funny! She doesn't color it at all. She gets a paper and then cuts it all up and declares it done and then takes the pieces to whomever it was supposed to be for! Silly girl!! :)

Weston reading his card to Evan. I think that he gave Evan an Iron Man puzzle.

Amber reading her card to Evan.

He liked the glow sword that she gave him. :) She is demonstrating how he should use it I think!

Evan with another sword of some type from one of the other siblings while he opens a card.

Evan and his new super hero hat. When he was in the hospital, they had a bucket full of super hero action figures. And although Evan had never seen any kind of super hero shows, he loved playing with them. Ever since then, he loves anything to do with them. He liked Spider-man before, but now he thinks they are all so cool!

He got pretty excited about the new angry bird building set too! :) I love that face he's making!

So big! And such a sweet boy! I'm thankful for my little guy!

Opening up his BIG present! He was pretty excited about it!

And here's what it was. A cool dinosaur robot. Barth got it, new in the box, at a garage sale for $20!! We do love a good bargain at our house!! :)

The birthday cake with dinosaurs and monster candles.

Happy Birthday to you........

Make a wish and blow out the candles. Happy birthday little guy! What a year he has had!! But what a trooper and such a great example he has been to me of perseverance and strength! He still has a long road ahead of him, but I'm happy to have this much of the year behind us!!! Here's hoping that year number 6 is a great one for you Evan! We love you sooooo much!!

For Grandma

2015-10-16T20:31:00.001-04:00

Here are some cute pictures for great grandma!!

Amber's Baptism

2015-09-12T16:02:00.001-04:00

Today was a very special day at our house! Our sweet little Amber got baptized. It was such a nice day. I was worried that we wouldn't have many people come since I had already heard that two families that we are friends with would not be able to make it, but there were so many people that some even had to stand in the YW room (which is where our font is). It was a nice turnout and a great day. I realized a little too late that we didn't have any more programs that we have used in the past, and I didn't really like some that were available online, so I just made my own and I think that they turned out cute with Amber on the front.

Here was the program. Amber wanted to make sure that everyone had a part, and all of her siblings did a GREAT job!!!

Here was Amber this morning before we headed out. This was the dress that I made for her to be baptized in. We also got her a white dress for afterwards, but I really did love this dress that I made for her. It was so pretty. I loved the material!

We just barely got back into our buildings like 2 weeks ago! It has been under renovation so that they could expand the building for the last 15 months. Here is Amber in front of the building before we went in to set things up.

I love this picture because you can see how excited the kids are for the baptism. Amber and Evan were excitedly talking about it while I set up the sign in table with a picture of Amber, the 3 white dresses picture that G&G Whitley sent to her and her baptism book.

We were able to get some good pictures before it began. Daddy baptized Amber!

Mommy, Daddy and our sweet little 8 yr old girl!!

All of the kiddos. Katelynn was not happy about not having Grandma and wouldn't smile for a single picture of just the kids.

Our whole family! I sure do love these guys!

We were thankful that G&G Yorke were able to arrange their trip that they are on with some friends of theirs so that they could be here for Amber's special day!

Katelynn loved being held by Grandma. :)

The entire family!

The service was very nice. The spirit was strong at the meeting. Amber had to be baptized twice because her dress came up out of the water the first time. The second time we told her to hold her dress between her knees and there was no problem. :) She didn't seem to mind though. After all was said and done and the cupcakes and cookies were eaten and things were cleaned up, the kids played outside for a bit while Daddy made sure the building was locked up! Amber here is wearing her other new white dress that we got for her. It was a pretty dress as well!

Running and playing around the church. I did Amber's hair in a halo braid so that it would be easier for when she got baptized. It looked pretty.

I can't believe that here in a few days this handsome guy will be a teenager!!!!

It was past nap time by the time everything was done. And Katelynn was in one of her terrible 2's moods. I said, "Here Katelynn, let me take a picture of you and Weston." So she promptly folded her arms, humphed at me and said, "NO!!!" At least I know this stage won't last forever.

Running races and playing on this cool and beautiful autumn day.

These kids are all growing up on me!!!

Afterwards, we picked up some subway sandwiches that Barth had ordered that morning and then G&G Yorke and their friends, Craig and Annette, came over and we had a great time having lunch and visiting. It was a perfect day and a perfect way to spend my birthday!! I am so happy that Amber chose to be baptized. What a wonderful day it has been!

Uncle Aaron fishing

2015-08-31T17:12:00.000-04:00

Last week we had our annual Uncle Aaron fishout for FHE. I had meant for us to have it a few weeks ago, closer to his birthday, but that week was a bad one for us! Barth ended up getting pneumonia and was off of work the entire week. I have never, ever seen him so sick in our entire 17 years of marriage!! So, I put it off a week and we went then! And it was the perfect night. We had the most gorgeous 70 degree weather, so it was cool and lovely in the evening!

We had a picnic dinner there next to the pond and then we fished afterwards. We usually fish at the gazebo, but there was a man fishing there with several lines in the water, so we just fished at the edge of the water. It was still nice.

We fished for at least an hour! We brought several hot dogs to fish with and stayed until they were all gone.

All of the kids are getting bigger- most of them baited their own hooks this time. I decided that I was the picture taker and Barth was the fish-taker-offer this time!! :)

Weston decided that he wanted to use a lure this year. That meant that he didn't catch any fish, but he didn't mind. He still had a good time!

Evan caught the first fish of the night! A real "whopper"! Barth told him that he should just leave it on the line and use it for bait because it was so small!

Aaron caught the next one! Evan caught 5 I think, Aaron caught like 7.

Here was Brian's first fish of the night! He caught the most by far! Like 11 or 12 or something like that! I decided that it must have been because he was using the original pole that Uncle Aaron gave Weston when he was little. It was the Taz fishing pole that Aaron gave Weston when he was like 4, I think!

Even Evan got the hang of baiting his own hook. I really enjoyed just keeping an eye on Katelynn and watching the kids have a good time fishing!

The boys fishing! It really was the perfect night to be out!

We brought some bread and Katelynn fed the ducks for a bit. She ate a donut the other day when I was off doing something else and never had a reaction. After a call to the allergist, they said that it was okay if she started to eat wheat things!! Yay!! For the most part, she is still eating her wheat-free bagels for lunch and things like that, but if she wants to have something for dinner that has wheat in it, we give it to her. So far she has been fine, just like the doctor said she would be!! :) When she was feeding the ducks, she actually ate most of the bread herself and then would feed the ducks a few crumbs. Silly girl!!

Casting out his line. The cool weather was so nice for Evan. The heat still bothers him since there isn't really any change yet as far as an increase in blood flow to his brain, so he has a hard time when its hot, but in the cool weather, he has more energy.

Amber finally caught a few at the end!!

Even Katelynn "fished." We didn't unhook the hook, but she stuck that pole in the water just like her brothers and sister and had a grand old time! I am so thankful for this tradition and for a time that we can remember and talk about Uncle Aaron!!

He lost a tooth!!!

2015-08-18T17:54:00.000-04:00

Evan has had some loose bottom teeth for a little while now!! Last night I asked him if I could look at them to see how wiggly they were, and one came right out!!! Yay! Now that top tooth will not be the only missing one! :) Look closely and you can see it there on the bottom.

You can't really see it (the new missing tooth) in this picture, but it was a good picture, so I decided to include it. As a side note, yesterday was the first day since his surgery that he had worn a shirt that didn't button up. His head is still sore, but I guess he wanted a little variety in what he was wearing. :)

This afternoon after everyone was home, he looked so sweet sitting there organizing his Yu-Gi-Oh cards. I had to get a few pictures. You can see that his head is healing pretty nicely. (At least on the outside.) He does actually have one bald spot that has no hair at all growing on it. Not sure why that is exactly, but oh well. He plans on growing his hair back out and you won't even be able to tell.

Then Brian decided to come and photobomb the picture! Brian is such a silly guy!

Evan got quite the chuckle out of that. And from Brian pretending to be dead behind him.

The main reason that he likes these cards is because Weston likes these cards. He wants to be just like his big brother. The shirt he is wearing came from Aunt Heather some years ago for like Weston or Brian's birthday when they were young. Since it is baseball and since it has red on it, Evan calls it his "Cincinnati Reds" shirt. I think that it's cute!

So far he has enjoyed his first few days of school! :) As a side note, Barth has been sick since Saturday. He has had a fever close to 104 since then. When he finally went in today, they told him he has pneumonia!! Oh my! I'm glad that he is finally on an antibiotic and hopefully he will be feeling better by the end of the week!!!

Happy 10th Birthday Aaron!

2015-08-18T17:28:00.000-04:00

The Sunday after Evan came home from the hospital was Aaron's 10th birthday!!! He had a nice day at church and then we celebrated at home afterwards. For his birthday dinner he chose for us to have chicken nuggets, home made macaroni and cheese, rolls, grapes, and I think there was something else too, but I have no idea what it was. (This is why I have to blog right away because I can't remember a thing!!)

I took the kiddos to Dollar Tree to get things for Aaron. It was a busy few days between getting released from the hospital and then trying to get things ready for a birthday! All the children made nice cards for Aaron. Amber went first to give Aaron his present.

She gave him silly string. It was gone by that evening I think! :)

Next came Evan's present. I should remember what it was, since I was the one that picked it out since Evan couldn't go to the store, but alas, my memory fails me. Whatever it was, I am sure that Aaron liked it!

Aaron really missed Evan while he was gone to the hospital. I am so glad that my kids can share rooms with each other. I think that the late night talking (when they are supposed to be asleep- but I know better!) helps them to become good friends.

Next was Weston's turn. He had gotten in from his scout trip just a few hours before we left to get the presents.

Weston got him some sour candy for his birthday!

Katelynn wanted a turn to "give" Aaron a present, so she got one that we had gotten for him and then proceeded to open it for him!! :) I kind of forgot to get him a present from her. Oh well. I was just doing good to have anything for the birthday! :P

Brian was next. I thought that this was a sweet picture of these two boys.

Brian gave Aaron a slingshot that he could use at the pool. He's been able to use it a few times, but since Evan couldn't swim, we haven't gone to the pool terribly much the last month of the summer vacation.

It was so fun to have Grandma and Grandpa Yorke here for Aaron's birthday!!! That was a special treat!! I was so very thankful that they could come and help out when Evan had his surgery. It was nice not to have to worry about things at home, but to know that the kids were being well taken care of by Grandma and Grandpa!

They got Aaron a cool new game! Grandma is a game person and my kids LOVE to play games with her when they visit! This was a fun one!

Aaron then opened his card from Grandma and Grandpa Whitley! He got money from them!! He thought that was pretty cool. He got some Pokemon cards with some of his money, and I think that he still has some of his money left!

He got a Minecraft torch from us! He thought that it was pretty cool! He keeps it in his bed at night and sometimes reads by its light.

He also got this really cool bow and arrow set!! The kids have all had a LOT of fun with it! They love to stand on the driveway and shoot it. If they stand by the basketball hoop, some of them can even shoot the arrows so far that they fall in the neighbor's yard across the street!

He also got a fun Lego minecraft set. He had it all put together by the next afternoon! :)

Aaron requested a Red Velvet bundt cake! I made one last year for Barth's birthday and I guess that he liked it so much that he wanted it for his birthday!

Blow out the candles and make a wish!!! Happy Birthday to my sweet Aaron boy!! I can't believe you are now double digits! I am so thankful for you in our family!! I love you soooo much!

1st Day of School!!!

2015-08-13T21:17:00.000-04:00

I'm going to take a break in my catching up to blog the first day of school! It came and I was really not ready for it this year! Today was the day! Barth worked from home so that he could hear about each day of school as they came home. :)

Weston is a sophomore this year! I can't believe it! They started seminary today too. I took a few pictures, but the other ones were blurry. Must have been the early hour!

Brian was the next out the door. He is in 7th grade this year! I can hardly believe that here in a month I will have 2 teenagers in my house!!

Both Weston and Brian had great days today. They had lots of friends in their classes which they were happy about!

Last off were the elementary kiddos!! Katelynn wanted to be in the picture too! :)

Wow! 5th grade already?!? He was so excited for this year! He is the big dog on campus this year!!

He has a great teacher this year. He enjoyed his day and all of the classes and teachers that he has for science, math, and social studies. His homeroom teacher teaches him language arts and then he changes for the other subjects.

Amber was sooooo excited to go to second grade today! She loves everything about school. Her teacher this year was a teacher that Brian had in 3rd grade.

One thing that Amber does that I love, is that she always tries to be kind to the new kids. She said that there was a new girl today that didn't know anyone because she had just moved to our school, so Amber decided to be her friend and sit by her at lunch. Makes me a happy momma!

All set for kindergarten!!! He was a little anxious, (and admittedly, so was I) about this first day. I met with the teacher, nurse, and counselor yesterday about Evan's health and then felt much better about it. We got the teacher that I had asked for, which I am so thankful for.

He came home tired but happy. He had a great day. He said that they got 2 recesses today. He got to go to the little playground in the back and then they also got to have an inside recess. An added bonus was that he got to be the line leader on his very first day of school!! :) Tomorrow morning he has another MRI since he hasn't been feeling right this week. Hopefully it goes smoothly.

And my little KatieLynn said, "Take a picture of me!" She was sad when the kids left this morning, but we had a great time playing outside this morning while they were gone.

She got her backpack and drove all around in her car this morning. It was soooo cute! We blew bubbles and did chalk and played chase. The hardest time for her was when we went to pick up Evan, because she wanted to pick up Amber and Aaron too and was so mad at me when we left without those 2. Oh my! Overall it was a good first day back!

Moyamoya Surgery

2015-08-09T10:52:00.000-04:00

Uggghhh!! So I have been dreading this post and dreading reliving this extremely hard week of our lives. But, I want it for my journal, so here goes. On Friday, July 10, Evan went in to have his revascularization surgery for his moyamoya. He was the second case of the day and had to be there at 9:30. He was supposed to go back to surgery at 11:30. But, as the time drew closer, they informed us that the surgery before ours ran in to some difficulties, and so Evan's surgery was delayed. So we waited. And waited. And waited some more. But, we had all sorts of fun things to do. Neighbors and friends and grandparents had sent him fun things. And we brought our iPad to play on while he waited. The hardest thing was that he couldn't eat or drink. And that was sooooo hard. Especially as the day wore on and on.

He finally fell asleep for a nap around 2 and slept for about 45 minutes. When he woke up, he just wanted to lay there and watch TV. Finally the surgeon came in and marked the site and then we went back to the outside of the OR with him. We couldn't go in as he went off to sleep. By this time it was 4. Then Barth and I headed out to the waiting room. The hours came and went, and eventually we were the only ones that were left in the waiting room. Right after 10 pm, Dr V came out to tell us that everything had gone just like he had thought that it would. He said that by the looks of his brain, you could tell it was blood and oxygen deprived. But that everything went smoothly and according to plan. From there, we went upstairs to the ICU where we were finally able to see him around 11 pm. It had been a very long day! They took him back for a CT at midnight and then we settled in for the night. They came in every hour to wake him and do a neurological exam. The morning came after very little sleep for either Barth or I. About 4 am, Evan's blood pressure started dropping. To help the bypass "take," his blood pressure needed to be high, but his wasn't even normal- it was too low. They gave him bolus after bolus of fluids hoping to bring it up. They turned off all of his pain medicine. They gave him other medicines to try to help raise it. They talked about giving him a transfusion to try to help. It was very stressful. When morning came at 6 am, they made him wake up and stay up to try to keep his pressure up. It did help some.

The one nice thing about it was that we had the BIGGEST room in the entire ICU! The place was huge!! It was like the size of 2 rooms. It was sooo nice. And with all the big windows, it was cheerful which helped to keep my spirits up.

Evan was on lots of IVs and monitors. It was crazy!! He had an IV in each hand and an arterial line that monitored his BP constantly.

I really did enjoy the views out our windows and the big clock tower right there!

I loved the rolling hills beyond the parking garage for the ER.

He looked the best on the first day after surgery. There was no swelling yet and the pain hadn't caught up with him yet from not being able to have pain medicine from his blood pressure being too low.

He even managed to give me a few smiles that day.

And what a sweet little angel when he slept. This was probably his best day up until the day that he left.

I only left to go and eat in the evening around 8. I loved this area outside that I could enjoy the fresh air and flowers. It helped me to cope with everything that was going on.

The next few days were hard. As in really, really hard!! They wanted Evan to get up and sit in a chair and try to walk. But every time he did, he would throw up and throw up and throw up. It was terrible. And the swelling started. The next 2 days his right eye was mostly swollen shut. We got some cool transformer dinosaurs for Evan that he could build while he was in the hospital. His hands were so full of IVs though, that mostly Daddy built them and Evan held the pieces and helped as best as he could.

Barth went home every night but one when Evan cried and cried for him. That night I went home. I left at 11 pm and headed back by 7 am. The nights before that were hard. They woke him up every hour for a neurological exam. And then he would have to go to the bathroom at the side of his bed. But sitting up would then make him vomit and vomit and vomit. And then he would finally fall asleep just to be woken up 15 minutes later and start that whole terrible cycle all over again. When Barth would go home and come back, he always brought back cards that people brought over to him. That was fun and helped to cheer him up!

He ended up being in the ICU for 4 days. It was a very long 4 days. We finally found out that the reason that he was so dizzy and nauseous was that he had a cerebrospinal fluid leak in his head. The surgeon used a dural patch when he closed and that usually helps so that people don't have this complication, but it didn't help Evan. He said that he could tell that he was having that because of the bump that was coming on despite the fact that the swelling was going on. And the fact that any time he moved he got really dizzy and then would throw up or dry heave. We kept trying to get him to eat things, but nothing sounded good, and the few things that he did have would just come right back up. :( Poor little guy! He did a lot of watching TV and sleeping. And he was very grumpy!

They weren't sure why, but as the days wore on, he needed oxygen. First it started just being when he would fall asleep, but by day 3 and 4, he needed an oxygen blow by (or having oxygen blowing right by has face) all the time. And then, even that wasn't enough and he had to go to a mask. But it was soooo hard to get him to do things. His pain was still out of control and he was very agitated. He even broke a mask and threw it at a doctor. He was not himself and it made me sad. We had several really good nurses while we were there. Our night nurses were by far the best. We had one not very good nurse on one very bad day. She kept wanting him to take his medicine by mouth even though his pain team had said that since he couldn't keep anything down, they were good with him just continuing to take it by IV. She wouldn't bring the medicine in when she was supposed to and then would badger him to take it by mouth, even though I kept telling her that I wanted him to have it by IV. It was very frustrating. At one point, when Barth was there, she came in and once again started to tell him that he really needed to be taking his medicine by mouth. I told her that I had said all day that I wanted him to have it by IV and that she wasn't listening to me. I told her that Barth would make the call, but that I had to leave before anything else happened. I was that upset. I walked out of the room and out of the unit. Barth texted me a few minutes later that he was getting the medicine by IV. When I came back to the room, but nurse apologized. Thank goodness. After that, she was good and did things the way we wanted them done. I think that she was worried I would tell the charge nurse or something like that.

Finally, at long last, we were able to go to the regular floor. As time wore on, he no longer needed his oxygen. His regular room was much smaller, but it had a huge, fancy TV that displayed, "Welcome Evan!" when you turned it on! He thought that was pretty cool. He had 2 different guy nurses while he was in the regular unit. He thought that was pretty cool.

Those last 2 days of being on the regular floor were more fun for him. He got to go to the playroom and do fun things. He loved to paint at the easel there. They also had a bucket of super heroes that he really loved to play with!!

Outside the playroom, there was a roof top deck where the kids could do out and play with chalk or bubbles.

One of the nights that we were there, they had some cool Star Wars guys come to visit! Evan got to get his pictures taken with them.

The jawa challenged him to a game of pool and then helped him to win! :)

I think that this guy was a bounty hunter, but I can't remember. The Star Wars guys were making 2 different appearances that night. One to the playroom and one to the teen room. There weren't that many people that came to see them in the playroom (I'm guessing that more went to the teen room) but that just meant that they gave the few kids there a lot of attention!

Then Evan played a game of pool with the Tusken Raider. The storm trooper kept tipping the tusken raider's pole so that he would miss and Evan would win! :) That was pretty fun too!

Finally, finally by our last day there, Evan was feeling better. He was off of the oxygen at last! He finally able to eat and keep things down!

Even though it was a hard week, and even though we won't even know if the surgery was successful for another few months, we are thankful that it is done and that Evan is healing and feeling better from the surgery. He still gets tired so easily. I'm hoping that as time goes on and that his blood flow gets reestablished, he will feel better. I'm glad to have this part behind us for a little bit. Now, it's time to start school and keep a watchful eye on Evan for signs of trouble with the other side of his brain!