the week of halloween

we had a great halloween.  i am always super worn out by the time halloween is done and over with because of the millions of parties and how many times we actually have to dress the kids up.  oh well, the kids loved every second of it!!

i decided against buying new costumes this year, so my girls just rotated through all their old halloween and dance costumes.  

on halloween brylee decided with this old dance costume that we turned into minnie mouse.

 tacey decided that she was a 'dark' princess.  fyi, in tacey's book, dark doesn't mean evil.  it just means the princess is dressed in dark colors.  haha.

 halloween weekend was so fun and the weather was so, so nice.  we ended up doing a bonfire outside that night with our awesome neighbors.

 one night we all headed out to grandma warren's to decorate pumpkins.  

  

 this was our ward party!

 the same night we had a bonfire we also loaded up the kids and went to the spook alley and out for ice cream.  it was a pretty scary spook alley if i do say so myself!

we took the kids to the hocus pocus event in rexburg.  the kids always love going to that.  this year they even had a train, which totally made riggins day.

 riggins at his gymnastics halloween party.

halloween night ended up being sooo cold!! but we still had a blast.  our neighbors hauled us around on their trailer to trick or treat.  

and we ended the night with our traditional halloween visit from the kennedy's!

now bring on the holidays!!!

brylee gene

my little smiley brylee is sure growing up quick.  this girl of mine has been on my mind a lot lately.  one of my very most favorite memories from this last summer is with bry.  everybody had gone to bed and i still up doing stuff around the house when i remembered we were supposed to be having a meteor shower.  i quickly ran out the backdoor to look for some shooting stars.  sure enough, the second i stepped outside i saw the brightest, biggest shooting star i had ever seen.  by then it was midnight but i was so excited i tried to wake everyone up to come watch with me. haha.  rhett and tacey honestly have no recollection of me trying to wake them up, but brylee popped right out of bed happily.  we took a bunch of blankets and pillows to the backyard and cuddled up to watch the falling stars.  bry talked my ear off.  she mostly talked about how excited she was for school start, to finally be able to take a lunch to school, and most of all she couldn't wait to be able to be with her friends all day.  after a good 30 minutes we were freezing and went by in the house and bry fell right back to sleep.
a couple of weeks after school started i could tell brylee just wasn't loving it.  she kept telling me she would cry at recess because she missed me.  my mama heart has been literally breaking.  i hate it.  i think a full day of school and having 3 out of the 6 hours be in only spanish has been a little overwhelming.  and honestly, i get overwhelmed just thinking about what it must be like for her.  she was also struggling at night when we would go to read together.  that is so unlike her to cry or complain about reading or doing homework.  finally one night i was praying and trying to decide what i could do to help her.  i laminated a couple of pictures and snuck them in the girls lunch boxes that they could keep at school with them and then i let bry pick out something of mine that she could take with her.  they sound like silly little gestures but holy cow, things turned around after that.  brylee still sometimes gets a tiny bit homesick while she is at school but i can tell she is feeling so much better.  all of a sudden she seems happier and her reading and everything else has just taken off again!!  i also just had parent teacher conference last week and her teachers were telling me about the change they saw in brylee as well.  they also said she is so quiet and they are just barely starting to see her come out of her shell.  i laughed out loud when they told me that.  last year her teacher was telling me what a little chatterbox brylee was.  bry doesn't have her best friend in her class anymore so maybe that has something to do with it. haha.

a cute/funny/frustrating story.  brylee came home off the bus the other day and handed me her broken glasses.  i asked her what happened and she told me she had no idea, that they just fell off and broke.  ummm, i don't think so.  haha.  turns out her and the neighbor boy were rough housing on the bus and he accidentally hit her in the face and broke her glasses, she just didn't want to get him in trouble. little stinkers.  so we've been in the process of getting those dang things fixed.  the vision center called me the other day to tell me brylee's glasses were in so i went and picked them up and took them to the school to give to bry during lunch.  as i was hopping out of the car at the school i could hear someone yelling, 'mom, mommy, mom!!!'  bry and all her friends were standing outside behind the fence yelling to get my attention.  it was so dang cute.  i ran up to the fence and handed her her new glasses and chatted with her funny friends for a minute.  and on a side note, the office messed up and ordered her pink glasses instead of purple.  so right now she looks SO MUCH like tacey!!! it's crazy!!

anyways, it has been a weird couple of months.  i've never thought of any of my kids as clingy or mama's girls/boy.  they've always been super independent and excited to do new things and always adjusted quickly.  but lately, brylee has been a mama's girl.  and i don't hate it....until i hear it is making her cry at school.  is this why some families homeschool?  ahh, i miss both of my girls so much while they're gone.  but on the bright side, it is so neat to watch both of my girls grow and learn in ways that i know i couldn't do for them.  i guess these are the times i get on my knees and pray for them while they are out of my sight.

adios tonsils and adenoids!!

from the first day little riggies was born we were a little alarmed by how hard it was for him to breathe.  i remember panicking every time i nursed him because he honestly could't breathe through his nose.  and there was the snoring.  his snoring has been insane.  so when he was 8 months old the doctor had him sleep with a monitor on to see how his oxygen levels were at night.  he had multiple episodes during the night suggesting sleep apnea.  the doctor suggested we have his adenoids and tonsils removed in a year or so.  well, riggs is now 2 almost 3 years old.  lately the boy has been keeping me up at night like a newborn.  okay, not quite as bad as a newborn, but close!  the poor boy is just restless all night long.  he wakes up all night long and then ends up wandering around the house confused.  i wake up quite often having to put him back in his bed or finding him in some random spot on the floor.  i decided it was finally time to take him in and get this taken care of.  things move quick once you go in to the ENT to schedule surgery because of insurance purposes.  i have to say the days leading up to the surgery i was an anxious, hot mess!!! whenever rhett and i fasted and prayed we knew riggins needed the surgery and that he would be okay, but still....my mind completely wandered way too much!  

the hospital called the day before to tell us to be there by 5:45am.  i had no idea what we were going to do with our girls.  i couldn't decide if i should ask one of my friends if i could drop the girls off at their houses at 5 in the morning or if one of us should stay home(which neither of us could imagine doing). luckily rhett's grandma called me for something completely random and the conversation ended with her saying she was going to take the girls the night before and they would just sleep over. hallelujah!  that for sure ended up being the best option, she lives right by the hospital!

i got a total of 3 hours of sleep the night before riggies surgery.  we woke riggs up at 5am and he was calm and happy as can be.  he did really want a bowl of oatmeal and some milk, but sadly we had to keep his tummy empty.  

i had made the mistake of googling toddlers and tonsillectomies.  not a good idea.  haha.  apparently most of the time it is an awful experience!!

i truly believe fasting and prayers work!  because the day simply could not have gone smoother.  riggins made best friends with all the doctors and nurses and he handled it all like a champ!

one of the nurses let him pick out a teddy bear and a toy(:

 i was nervous how riggs would act when the time came for them to take him back without us.  when the doctor asked him if he was ready he said, 'yep, but can i take my blanky?!'  they were so sweet and let him take his blanket back in the OR.

if you ever want your mommy heart to break though, just watch them wheel your baby away.  ahhh, worst feeling ever!!

 so i had heard the hardest part is when your little one wakes up from surgery.  they are normally panicked, hurting, and confused.  so i had been mentally preparing myself to see riggs that way.  

after the surgery i braced myself as we went into the recovery room.  i walked in and laid by him and he smiled at me and said 'hi mom, look at the fish!'  haha.  they had fish painted on the walls and he was pointing out all the different colored fish.  i kept asking the nurse why he was so happy, i was the confused one!  haha.  the post op nurses were loving him.  they said they have never had such a happy kid(patient) after surgery.  oh man, the relief i felt was amazing.  the doctor also came in for a quick second to tell me he thought the surgery went really well and that riggs' tonsils and adenoids were quite big.

they took him up to the peds floor and he immediately started eating and drinking.  i know a lot of the time tonsillectomies are same day surgeries but since riggs is under three they kept him for observation.  

riggy did really well the rest of the day.  he took his meds like a champ and the only thing he really complained of was the IV.

my hopes were up that since the day had gone way better than i had expected that the doctor would let us go home for the night.  he came in right before 9pm and said he wanted riggs to stay until morning.  i questioned him on why because riggins (and i) REALLY wanted to go home.  his doctor said although the risk is super small, there is still a tiny, tiny chance his throat could close up and block off his breathing while he was sleeping.  that freaked me out enough i didn't ask anymore questions about him keeping us.

rhett and the girlies went home and i had a sleepover with my little boyfriend.  i had ran home and grabbed my laptop and a couple of his favorite movies and we made a night of it. it ended up being kind of fun.  i slept right next to riggs and we just cuddled up and watched the movie planes.  not to mention i slept peacefully, probably because i knew he was being monitored all night by someone other than me.  

we left pretty early the next morning and headed home.  i was pleasantly surprised rhett had gotten the girls off to school with their hair done and lunches made.  seriously, he's the cutest/best dad ever!

 so for the most part things have been going pretty smoothly here at home.  i can definitely tell when his medicine has kicked in and when it is wearing off.

i felt bad because we had to drag him to church on sunday so i could help with the primary program and also, we wanted to watch the girls do their parts.  we made sure to drug riggs up so he wouldn't be hurting during sacrament.  after the program riggs and i left and he was definitely starting to get tired and was hurting by then.

he spiked a fever the other night which totally freaked rhett and i out!  luckily some friends and surprisingly google helped talk me down from my anxiety attack and all was fine.  apparently it is normal within the first three days after surgery.

we just finished up day 7 and today was definitely one of his harder days.  i thought he was feeling well enough we could sit in the car while tacey was in tavaci.  big mistake.  i ended up pulling tacey out early because riggs was crying so hard because he hurt.  :(

but honestly, i'm still grateful with how well he has been doing!  he is still eating, drinking, and taking his medicine so we are on the right track!  by 2 weeks he should be feeling himself again, so the countdown is on.

and this is completely random but RIGGINS decided it was time to be potty trained.  i never, ever would have decided to potty train him while he was recovering from surgery.  but he all of a sudden just started going on the potty.  he has had a couple of accidents but for the most part he always makes it!  not sure where that came from but since we are trapped at home anyway i guess why not!  

sorry, that was super long and probably boring.  but i figure one day it will be something good to look back and read about(:

i sure love my riggie roo and am so proud of what a trooper he has been.

salt lake

last weekend my baby sister got to go through the temple for her very first time!! it was seriously one of the neatest experiences.  the whole time we were in the temple i was just beaming with pride and i honestly couldn't quite looking at sacia.  she was glowing.  i was also so excited that drake and sacia had chosen the salt lake temple because i had never been to a live session before.  it did not disappoint.  i loved it.  

i feel bad because i don't have any picture at all of sacia and drake on their special day.  they are getting sealed next month so hopefully we do a better job that day of getting pictures of us all!

i did snap this before we headed into the temple.  i sure love these girls.

and i did get to take some pictures of dustin, brik, and oaks!! i was actually super nervous to take these for them, but they are seriously the cutest family ever. i don't think they know how to take a bad picture.  we had about 10 minutes to take these pictures before we needed to head into the temple for the session.  it was so busy too!  there were seriously a ton of people everywhere you looked.  i am just excited we got a few pictures without a bunch of people in the background.  it was tricky, but we did it.
and how funny is this?  random people stopping to take pictures of our kids.  haha.  i love that rhett was taking of picture of these people taking a picture of the kids i was taking a picture of.  did you get all that?

pretty sure i have the cutest niece on the planet with the most gorgeous eyes and the best expressions!! i die every time i look at these pictures of her.  

apple orchard

we had a spout of some super nice weather a few weeks ago.  i was trying to do all i could to soak it in.  i thought we had better hit the apple orchard before the weather went crummy again.  so after tavaci one evening we went and i'm so glad we did.  we spent a little time in the orchard but the majority of the time in the gardens.  even though we were all packing around quite a few apples the kids just couldn't get enough of the gardens.  i can't believe how much has changed up there, it is gorgeous!

brylee was in the tree, shaking the apples off the branches while tacey was trying to catch them. 

 my little tree climber

almost every single apple we picked had at least one bite taken out of it. 

obviously i brought my camera with us this day.  the kids were totally cheesing it up and i loved it.  they would run off and find a spot they liked and just wait for me to take their picture.  it was pretty cute.

 the leaves were just starting to turn yellow, which i love!!  this was the only tree that was completely fall like.  this one little tree helped me decide it's MAYBE okay that summer is gone now.

 one of the main reasons we didn't spend a ton of time in the orchard is because the dang sprinklers kept turning on.....one row at a time.  every time we would move over a row the sprinklers would turn on where we were at.  it was almost like someone was playing a funny joke on us.  

riggies loved it.  he was so muddy and soaking wet by the time we left the orchard.

 this has so far been one of my very favorite memories with my kiddos this fall.  not exactly sure why.  it may have been because all three of my kids were in a great mood.  and i always have fun taking my kids on campus and telling them all the fun stories from when rhett and i were dating.  it is kind of fun making sweet, new memories with my kids in the same place rhett and i met and fell in love.  

another win for the apple orchard.  the kids have already asked a million times if we can go back.  hopefully we can go one more time before it gets too cold!