Happy Birthday Brynn!

Our baby girl is one year old. I can't believe it. On one hand, this year has seemed like it has lasted forever. It has been like having twins except they are at different stages. On the other, I still treat her like my newborn precious little girl. She's teething this week, so she's been a little grumpy, but generally she has been the perfect baby. Her gift to me this week was that she finally slept through the night. She was wide awake this morning at 5:30am, but to get a good 6 hours of sleep was great. It's been more that a year since I have slept that long at once. Today she was clapping, which she just started doing and she folded her arms for prayer for the first time. She mostly crawls, sometimes she will still scoot on her stomach if she wants to get somewhere fast. She walks around furniture and anything she can climb onto. Her daily rituals include pulling everything out of the diaper bag, everything off the fridge, out of the pantry, and Coleson's Legos-if she stretches as far as she can. She puts everything in her mouth. Last night we went to the park and she put wood chips in her mouth, even the one stuck between her toes. Some of my favorite things she does is pats our backs when we are holding/hugging her, kicks her legs and waves her arms as fast as she can when dad comes home, plays peek-a-boo anytime anything covers her face from our view, smiles, smiles, smiles. She started saying mama, da for dad and dog, it's so cute. Even though she is on the move and wants to get down and explore she still loves to hug and snuggle. We love you Brynn!

We're in Florida!

Right now were are in Orlando and loving it. I just thought we would share some of the highlights from our vacation so far. We have gone to the Magic Kingdom, Gatorland, and the Kennedy Space Center. At the Magic Kingdom we experienced Florida's humidity, heat, and down pours all in one day. We would have to wait until the storm passed to continue on some rides. We were totally soaked, even with ponchos, but then when the sun came out we would dry up instantly. The rides were fun, but I think Coleson enjoyed running through the rain just as much. Brynn is at the stage where she puts everything in her mouth and tends to bite me on the shoulder when she is hungry. We were on the Jungle Cruise ride when a lady tapped me on the shoulder and said my baby was eating plastic. She had chewed a whole through my poncho! We left Ammon with my mom at the hotel-which is very nice. he got to spend the day with grandma, go swimming and enjoy the scenery. He doesn't tolerate the heat well, or anything that is too bumpy or moves like an elevator because he gets startled real easily. Well that is pretty much everything at the Magic Kingdom. Anyway, so we were on the ferry boat going across the waterway to the front gates and this young man next to us sticks out his hand to shake and says i'm Andrew. He was in a wheel chair and probably has cerebral palsy. So we shook his hand and started talking. He just loved Brynn. He kept telling us what a beautiful baby she was-we had to have his dad tell us what he was saying because it was very mumbled. I was just impressed that he could communicate so well. I was trying so hard to understand him and have a good conversation. So we talked the whole boat ride. He was from england and it was his last day. You could tell he was just having a great time.



Gatorland was definetly a touristy thing, but it was fun to see all the big gators(not crocs). We saw real white alligators, poisonous snakes, and gaters jump up to eat raw chicken.

My fav. has been the Kennedy Space Center. To see the real thing, where the shuttle blasts off, to see the transporter, the path it takes, was awesome. Everything is a lot bigger in real life. Every person, every job is important. I think I like it because they try to be efficient, resourceful and there are so many inventions/things that make our life easier because of things they have started there and passed down. Like computers, diapers, cell phones, etc. I think a part of me has always wanted to be the first to do something or part of a discovery. When I was in elementary school I remember watching the Challenger. I wished that Christa McAuliffe was my teacher. We watched the challenger blast off and then sadly blow up. We were all crying and I remember wanting to be the first girl to go in space and be an astronaught. Well obviously as I grew up i didn't devote my life to the space program, i think my dream ended at byu in my first Physics class. I always thought I was good at math and science and figuring things out until i took that class. Maybe Coleson will want to be an astronaut.

April Happenings

At the beginning of the month Brian and I were lucky enough to go to the Saturday morning session of conference with some friends. It was awesome. It's always amazing to feel the presence of the prophet when he walks in the room. Brian's mom was kind enough to watch Brynn at the visitor's center for us. I was hoping to take pictures afterwards with the beautiful temple square flowers, but it was cold and rainy and the tulips hadn't bloomed yet. Still a wonderful day.

We had a wonderful Easter. It is such an uplifting occasion to reflect on the things the Savior has done for us especially making it possible to return to live with our Heavenly Father again. I helped with primary on Sunday and I couldn't keep back the tears as I talked about Jesus and sitting in the front row was Ammon sitting in his wheel chair. His head was kind of hanging to the side and I just felt how helpless he must feel sometimes, not having the ability to control his muscles like most of us can. I couldn't help him at that moment and neither could his teacher. Sometimes I feel helpless and frustrated not knowing what to do to help him. The answer for both of us(for all of us) is relying on the Savior. He has been through it all. We just have to know that he will guide us if we put all our trust in him.


Coleson has had a great month. He is still wearing the medal he won for the read-a-thon from last month. Thanks again to everyone who supported him. It really did boost his reading skills. He has been playing basketball on a community team. It's very beginner level and it's like watching bunch ball soccer, but with kids fighting over a basketball-sometimes it gets dribbled and sometimes just carried. Coleson gets really excited about the possibility of someone making a basket, so he is usually on the side of the bunch jumping up and down, hoping the ball will go in the basket, or that it will come out of the bunch for him to grab and shoot. It's great entertainment for me. He did make a basket in one of the games. It really bothered him that they weren't keeping track of points of the score board, though. This last weekend he was in two talent shows. On Friday it was the Stake Show where he performed with about twenty kids, singing disney and musical songs. He was really cute doing all the actions perfectly(except he told me he made two mistakes) and singing. Then on Saturday the ward primary went to a retirement home and showed their talents. It was a great activity. Coleson showed how he is a Lego designer and makes Lego cars. He was showing all the cute old ladies how you have to make sure the wheels are just right and balanced so they all move and nothing falls off. Then he put his creations in a container and patiently walked up and down each aisle to show each person his cars and answer any questions they had. They were all very interested, I'm sure.

Winter Fun...

Now that it is spring, I feel like we need to post some pictures from our winter adventures. Most of the winter has been with sick kids and being inside, but we have been able to get out and have fun as well. We were in California for two weeks and I only took one picture, how sad is that. Coleson had another ski lesson this year. He just flies down the mountain. It's hard the first time to watch your child just free fall, ski down the mountain with no poles or someone holding his hand. I was snowboarding and trying to film him and I couldn't keep up. He loves it. I haven't been snow boarding since I got married (7 years). Brian was kind enough to let me leave the kids for half the day. It was so fun but I'll have to admit it was kind of pathetic. I can't believe what a wimp I have become. Half the time I would slow down or sit back if I started to feel a little out of control. All I could think of is, if I really biff it I still have to go home and take care of kids the rest of the night and the next day, etc. I can't just kick back and be sore and relax. I still play sports all the time so you'd think I would be able to jump right back into snowboarding -by the way our ward women's basketball team went to regionals (yeah we have regional church sports here) and won the tournament. I have a shirt to prove it. Out of all the college intramurals and church sports I've played (soccer, volleyball, basketball, flag-football, futsal) this is the first time I have been on a team that actually made it all the way-to get the shirt. Anyway, I'm not as good as I used to be and hopefully next year I'll be able to hit the slopes again with Coleson and get back into the groove.



Brynn has been scooting around on her stomach for the past month or more (to her its better than crawling I guess) and she immediately goes for Ammon if he is on the floor. There is something about scooting over his body and then pulling either his hair or ear that she just loves. It looks as though she is wrestling with him if I don't pull her away in time. Ammon is a pretty good sport until she gets his hair. However, if she ever puts her fingers by his mouth he will bite, so he gets his pay backs. They are pretty cute playing together, I just can't let them be alone.

A Shout-out from Ammon...

For the past several months we’ve been missing certain wonderful little things about Ammon. We noticed little by little, that his personal interactions with us and others have been changing or completely disappearing. He hasn’t been giving us delightful shout-outs when we come home, he hasn’t been responding to specific songs that he previously loved, and certain playtime catch phrases that we use with him have exhibited limited or no response. For example, at the end of every vocal prayer right before we would say Amen, Ammon would immediately perk up and shout out a quick Amen (he would almost always beat us to the punch). Songs like “When Your Happy and You Know It” and so many others have lost their instant sweet smiles and excited hand gestures, only to be replaced with distracted stares. I used to always sing to him the notes to the “Charge” song they do at baseball games, and he would always give me a huge smile and shout-out at the charge part, but even that disappeared. Even the sound of my voice, Summer’s voice, or Maga’s voice over the phone has not had the same excited response. We realize that kids usually grow out of doing certain things, but to have everything disappear so quickly and all at once didn’t seem natural. We haven’t known what is potentially wrong, but things have changed. We’ve dearly missed our sweet Ammon’s personality, and we’ve been fearful that we would continue to lose more of it.

Over the past few months we’ve been praying with extra emphasis and faith on this, and hopefully we have the answer, or at least part of the answer. On Tuesday, Ammon went in for surgery on his ears to insert tubes and perform an ABR hearing test. The surgery required that he be sedated, and he ended up fasting till almost dinner because the surgery was delayed several hours. The surgery went well, and the doctor told us that he found a lot of thick fluid in Ammon’s ears. The doctor suctioned as much of the fluid that he could, and we are putting drops in Ammon’s ears for the next week to ensure the rest of the fluid is removed. The ABR test indicated that with the fluid removed his hearing was still in the normal range and no permanent damage had been sustained.

While we were sitting in recovery we thought we would put Ammon’s new tubes and cleaned out ears to the test. I quietly sang the notes to the “Charge” song, and at the charge part, even in his still groggy and tired state, Ammon gave a little shout-out. We hope our little Ammon is back, we have missed him so much. If you feel so inclined, please remember our little boy in your prayers. Through Ammon a lot of special blessings have happened to our family and others over the past three years, and I know those blessings will continue well into the future. Hopefully it doesn’t sound too selfish to say, but a simple little shout-out from Ammon every now and then makes me feel like the luckiest person in the world.