They had a big parade/shin dig in downtown Senoia. We met Jesse and Carrie down there for dinner and the parade.
The first thing the girls wanted to do was ride the ponies. (Well, not Eja. She was terrified of them)
Kaia and Sienna loved it though.
Little Tan Man is officially a roller. He's so dang cute. I set him down and he rolls once, then looks at me and smiles...rolls again, looks and me and smiles...and on and on.
He's the happiest little baby. He talks all day long now. Usually he says "Dadadadadadada" over and over. He literally wakes up in the morning talking. I don't hear him cry. I hear him in there talking to himself.
The girls have been riding their bikes like crazy. We decided it was time for them to learn so we took of their training wheels and walked down to the end of the driveway. Sienna got on her bike and took off. I was SHOCKED! She just started riding like a pro. I kept cheering for her and taking pictures and everytime I would yell "Go Sienna!" Eja would say "How bout me mom? Can you get me a picture?" haha. So I would say "Go Eja" and take a picture of her.
It took Kaia a second to work up the nerve, but then she decided she wanted to give it a try and she's been riding like a champ ever since.
The only bad thing is, Sienna is a crazy lady. She starts at the top of the hill and goes as fast as she can down the driveway. We had Kaia, Eja, Kyden, and the Case boys over and they were all riding their bikes in the street. She would come flying down the driveway and weave in and out, dodging all of them by 1/2 an inch.
Then Eja decided that she was going to try to follow Sienna down the driveway and it didn't turn out very well. She face planted it pretty hard and slid down the cement. She had a huge road rash and a bloody nose.
On Thursday the 20th Sienna had her Christmas program at preschool. She was dressed as an angel and they sang a whole bunch of songs for us. Sienna was HILARIOUS! I haven't laughed that hard for a long time. She was standing in the back row, in the middle, and she was singing at the TOP of her lungs. You honestly couldn't hear anybody else. It was so cute. Plus she can't say her "R's" and she talks like a little black girl. So she was singing "Gift me Wit yo Gwace!"
I love her.
Then Santa came.
The only thing Eja wants for Christmas is Candy...We keep trying to talk her into toys, but she says "No, I want candy"
Sienna wants a Dora Doll.
We planned on spending Christmas at home this year, but on December 23rd Grandpa Barney passed away. My mom and dad were on a flight out there when it happened. We knew they would be staying out there and it was going to be a rough Christmas anyway, so we all packed up our stuff and went to Utah to spend Christmas with them.
Naomi was moving out to Orem and they were going to drive her car a few days after Christmas, so Dusky, Kaia and Sienna got in her car and made the long journey from Georgia to Utah. I can't believe the girls went with him. It was a 29 hour drive. Dusky said they did sooooo good. They didn't fight or complain the entire trip.
They left about 3pm on the 23rd. I kept calling him through the night and he said he felt fine and he would stop and get a room when he got tired. Well, about 6am he was still driving. He decided to pull over at one of the rest stops and have a little nap. As soon as he stopped the car Kaia woke up so he told her to be really quiet for a few minutes while he rested.
He had only had his eyes closed for about 30 seconds when she started screaming "Dad, there's a cop!!!" He jumped up in his seat and she said "Just Kidding!" haha.
Needless to say, they just kept on driving.
Tanner was STILL sick. He seriously hadn't gone for more than a day without being congested and wheezing. But it just kept getting worse.
I was giving him breathing treatments every few hours and it wasn't helping at all. So Sunday night I took him into the weekend clinic and they put him on antibiotics, steroids, albuterol every 3 hours, and an inhaled steroid. I was getting pretty frustrated at this point.
Eja, Tanner, Naomi and I got on a flight the next morning and flew to Vegas. My dad picked us up there and we drove to St. George.
I ran to Walmart and got the girls some "Santa" presents. We had packed up all their little things in the car and then I just got them some scooters.
Dusky and the girls drove into Hurricane about 5pm. They came straight to Grandma Barneys because thats where we all were.
Grandma Barney was REALLy having a hard time.
We spend most of the evening with her and then we went and saw the Gouldings for a few minutes.
By the time we got home, Dusky was hallucinating he was so tired. He kept seeing a man with boots walking around with no body. haha. He couldn't remember if we were in Utah or Georgia.
He laid down and fell asleep and about 5 minutes later he popped up in bed and started frantically looking around and yelling "Where am I? Where am I?"
It was kind of freaking me out. But he finally went back to sleep and stopped acting crazy.
Zach and Tasha came later that night.
The next morning we woke up and believe it or not, Santa found us in Utah.
The girls and Kyden were so excited and I'm glad we were all together and that my parents got to wake up on Christmas morning and have all the grandkids there and see their excitement.
The only thing Kaia asked for was a horse...
So we got her a little stuffed horse, and 3 little toy horses.
She was so excited that she got 4 horses. We went over to Robbie's house later that day and Katie got this HUGE horse that you can actually get up on (in a saddle) and ride it. I thought that Kaia would realize what crappy horses she had, but she is the sweetest thing EVER. She got so excited and said "Katie and I BOTH got horses for Christmas!" and she didn't even realize how lame her horses were.
All the festivities wore the men out...
The girls love their new scooters.
On Thursday Me, Dusky, Zach, Tasha and Kamari went snowmobiling. It was a blast. I haven't been snow mobiling for so long.
Sally watched the girls and my parents and Naomi took Tanner.
The girls went to McDonalds with Sisalee, Alex and Ammon.
Tanner still wasn't getting any better. Kaia wasn't feeling good. She woke up with a fever in the middle of the night an started throwing up. The next night she came in and asked Dusky to give her a blessing. So him and my dad gave her a blessing. Then they gave Sienna one. Then my dad gave Tanner one. It was pretty cool.
We were still doing the breathing treatments and the pulmicort. He had finished the antibiotic and the steroids. He wasn't sounding ANY better. Sally told us we needed to take him to this allergist. She said he was kind of weird, but he has helped her a lot. So we decided to try it.
Dusky took him over and when he got back from the appointment he told me "That guy was quacky!" "He was a total wierdo"
He did some wierd things and said he was testing him through Dusky. THen he told Dusky that Tanner was allergic to my breast milk (Because Dusky had a bottle of it with him) So he put a vial of something in his diaper and told us to keep it touching his skin for the next 24 hours. He said we would see results in the next few hours. Dusky left thinking ya right. By that night, Tanner was not wheezing or congested AT ALL. So weird! I can honestly say that was the best $52 I have ever spent.
It snowed in St. George while we were there. I seriously prayed for snow. I wanted it to snow so bad. Dusky had the kids and I went over to hurricane to do everyones hair. As I was driving down my parents street, it was snowing these BIG beautiful snowflakes, and for some reason I had a total complete meltdown. I miss Tanner so much. I was so sad that he would never get to go play in the snow with us again. He will never get to go snowmobiling with us again. All of these are mundane, unimportant things in the eternal perspective, but they still make me sad. I hysterically bawled the whole way to hurricane and I realized that I couldn't go to my grandma's house in the state I was in because they were already having a hard time. So i went to the cemetery and sat at Tanner's grave. It was so beautiful. It was snowing like crazy.
The good news is...I get to look at this little man all day long. And no matter how bad of a day i'm having, I get to see my kids and they always make me feel better.
I feel so blessed to have the opportunity to be a mom. I can't imagine loving anyone or anything more. My family is the greatest family ever!
The girls had so much fun playing in the snow. We had to go buy them warm clothes because they didn't own any.
They made some awesome snowmen
While we were there Dusky found Tanners "Hot Rod" costume in the closet. He put it on that morning and didn't take it off the entire day. Seriously...It was embarassing going around town with him dressed in a hot rod costume with a cape. haha. I think he dedicated that day to Tanner because he went hiking and bunny bashing.
Friday night we had Grandpa's viewing and then his funeral was Saturday afternoon.
The funeral was very good. Tana and Darren gave the eulogy. My mom, my dad, Tricia, and David spoke. Rob sang, another friend of the family sang, David and his family did a musical number with all of their instruments, and the grandkids all sang.
Grandma and Grandpa had plots at the cemetery already, but Grandma didn't love where they were. So my dad told her that we could bury Grandpa right below Tanner. So now they are there right next to each other.
We had to fly out of Vegas at 6am on New Years day. So new years Eve we went down and got a hotel room and decided that we are officially old and lame. The only thing we wanted to do for New Years Eve was go to bed. So that's exactly what we did...at like 9:30.
I've never wanted a New Year so bad in my life...Bring on 2013!
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