18 Jam Packed Years

Happy Anniversary to this guy--

my guy.

18 years- wow.

What we've been through is enough to fill

several books.  But hopefully, we are better people for it.

 Greer and Reese went all out and decorated our room

to mark the occasion.

 Here's the sad part though,

Kean and I are both sick--

we stayed home today.

He with two infected ears and two infected eyes.

Me, a raging case of Bronchitis.

He's back on antibiotics (again).

I'm on codeine cough syrup and steroids to try and clear 

up my cough.

Greer says I says I sound like a dying squirrel.

You can see our batch of drugs behind the pizza boxes.

Byron brought home Pizza Hut after I ordered Dominoes!

(This is even the shortened stack.  We pawned off a pizza on the Bodily's)!

Kean and I did venture out of the house for his big cancer screens at MSTI.

I'd already cancelled a few times because of the flu so felt we should

try and make this one since by afternoon we were both feeling somewhat better.

 Typical Kean-- he ripped off every mask-- so they kept us

quarantined into a room to do vitals, blood draws and the full exam.

All went well-- his counts are good-- even though they had

to take blood twice (they messed up his first submissions).

And the even better news-- we don't have to go back for another three months!

Repeat After Me: Trick or Treat!

What a fun night we had tonight.

You can't tell from this picture but we really did dress Kean up for Halloween.

Our first stop?  The Bodily's and before I could even get up to the house,

Kean had stripped off his monkey suit, walked into the "Gobily's" house

and started pounding down the candy.

Only problem is he forgot to take off the brown paper

around his Reese's Peanut Butter Cup-- and ate it too.

(Fiber, right?)

 It sure didn't take long for Kean to catch 

on to the fact he could get a treat at every house.

He quickly learned to say "Trick or Treat" and "thank you".

It did take him forever to catch on that he needed to keep

his costume on!

 In fact, at our neighbor, Gina Kwid's house the ol' costume came right off.

 And while he, yep, ate another piece of candy, I did

get a picture of these cute girls-- H, G, and R and their friends.

 We always spend the first hour or so of the night visiting

a handful of our dear neighbors and friends.

We love that tradition.

You'd think with the slower start it would cut down on the candy grab--

unfortunately (in my book but not the kids), that's not the case.

They get especially spoiled and come home with more candy

than should be legal for a child to have!

And They Are Off...

Let's face it.  The Internet has been full 

of all these darling portraits of kids holding signs

about what grade they are in or what school they are going to.

I'm lucky to a. get my kids off to school

and b. be alert enough to snap a picture on my phone.

Poor Holland starts her day with an out the door time of 6 a.m.

Yes, it is still dark.

And yes, she's still half asleep.

 Greer is a much more palatable 7 a.m.

 Remember, I was crazy enough to have four kids going to four schools.

Reese and Kean both ride buses.

Luckily they are supposed to be only 15 minutes apart.

 Reese got on and left us with no problems.

 Kean's bus was well over half an hour late.  Which means we played around

and rode his bicycle for nearly 50 minutes.

But once he got on the bus, he was fine.

His new bus driver and aid, by the way, are darling.

The first day is under our belt.

They all seemed to do fine, even Kean.

He's a big first grader this year- we have him on a Kindergarten 

schedule, only going half a day.  But I think he'll be moving right up to longer

and longer days before we know it.

Yes, he's doing that well!

Knock on wood...

Jelly Belly's

I'm a little late on this.  Actually, our whole family

was a bit late celebrating Easter together.

Since we were driving back from our trip to California last week,

we opted to hold the traditional Cousin's Easter Egg Hunt

at my folks house the other night.

 This was the year Kean got into the swing of finding candy

scattered about.

 We didn't do too much but the highlight in our family is a golden

egg (with five bucks inside) one with the name of each of the cousins

written on it-- and hidden relatively hard.

It keeps the older kids quite busy!
(Which is good, trust me).

 The girls were all so good at helping Kean find his candy.

 He'd take it over to Grammy and she'd help him put it

in his bag (we forgot to bring baskets-- lame mom).

I think Kean's favorite part of the whole Easter Egg Hunt

was not eating the candy in his bag (the good stuff)

but pawning jelly beans off of Grandpa.

(My dad always has a pocket full of Jelly Belly's).

The Results Are In...

Today was our big follow up testing at the cancer clinic.

I'm such a chicken.  I really didn't want to go by myself

in case the results were discouraging.

So at the last minute, my friend Colleen Riggs went with me.

She has always been especially cute with Kean.

 In fact, I think he has a little bit of a crush on her.

Anyway, here's the news-- my mama's intuition was right on!

Kean's white blood cell counts were back within normal range.

Of course, I've shaved off a few years of my life worrying

and the doctor isn't sure why- but we will gladly take it.

(And run.  No more testing!).

Every time Kean gets his blood drawn at clinic, he gets

a duck.  We got a good laugh over this one today.

Colleen christened him "Fabio".

Fabio Duck is just one of 80 some ducks in Kean's collection.

 Sunday night we had a grand time with this gang.

We met Brennyn (plaid shirt) four years ago

at the BSU Dance Marathon.

The football team usually shows up to build morale and give the students

dancing all night for St. Luke's Children's Hospital a shot in the arm to keep going.

Brennyn and Reese tore up the dance floor-- he mostly flipping her around.

It was so cute.

So he automatically became her favorite dance partner for the next few years.

Rob (in the black shirt) became our other dance buddy a few years ago.

And Kendra is the one Kean latched onto the other night

and didn't want to leave.

They all came over for dinner, dessert and a little cut-throat competition-

playing our new favorite game:  Cover Your Assets.

Rob smoked everyone!

Ah, life is good to us.

Dancing With the Stars

Friday night we went to one of our all time favorite events.

One we have been blessed to be a part of due to Kean's cancer.

(Another one of those few but incredible perks).

Get this, they had 950 students sign up to dance from Friday

afternoon straight through to Saturday morning-- all to raise

money for St. Luke's Children's Hospital and the Children's Miracle Network.

(This is Friday afternoon when everyone is first arriving).

All the dancers are assigned to dance for a certain honored child--

that's Kean's picture first on the left.

When we first arrived, Kean was given his Pink team "Champion" t-shirt.

 I wasn't sure how he would handle himself- especially with

all the loud base-driven music thumping all night.

But let me tell you, the kid was in his element.

Of course, who wouldn't be when constantly given attention.

He loved the bounce houses...

and was totally in love with the music.  Well, to be honest,

was likely in love with the fact that he danced much of the night

away with several pretty co-eds.

He particularly fell hard for this lovely girl, Kendra.

In fact, she ended up joining our family on stage a couple of times

because he didn't want to let go.

So, welcome Kendra to the family!

Here's a picture of Kean up on stage at the beginning of the evening--

as they introduced all of the "champion" kids.

It was so cute.  They introduced them like they would a world famous boxer.

They said things like:  "weighing in at 42 pounds... "

  

 I don't think I saw much of Reese the entire night.

She was off jumping, dancing and eating the entire campus

out of cotton candy and all the other yummies they had around.

 All too soon (according to my girls) it was time to leave

and say goodbye.

 The best part though, came right before we all headed home

leaving the kids to keep dancing.

They lined up-- at least 700 of them and formed the longest

human tunnel I've ever seen.

All the champions and their families ran through the tunnel

getting high fives and lots of love and encouragement.

Kendra carried Kean the entire way with me behind.

It went on and on-- first I can't believe Kendra's arms didn't fall off

and second, it was so very touching.

You go to something like this and your faith in the future

of our country is completely restored.

(Clearly, I need to stop watching election coverage).

These students are not only sharp, driven, organized and

real go-getters.  But wow, do they have heart!

Their goal for the evening was to raise 80 grand.

They shattered that goal (I'm not surprised at all) and raised

a whopping 114 thousand dollars-- all to help kids like Kean.

The Den of LOVE

There is no way we have been married for seventeen years!

Part of me feels like it was yesterday

but the bigger (and more tired) part of me feels like

we've been married for centuries.

Oh, how I love this guy. 

 And out crazy girls.

They sent us out on a date last night

with homemade fabric wallets (courtesy of Reese)

and twenty bucks inside each of them.

 We went and had yummy Thai food on them

and then a movie (The Martian-- which was great-- intense but great)!

Look what we came home to-

as Byron referred to it:  "the den of love"!

 The girls went streamer crazy in our room...

left chocolates and other treats on the pillows

(well, in front of them anyway)..

 I kinda had the theme from Mission Impossible going through

my head-- our room looked like we had infrared beams all over it.

 This was my favorite part-- we thought it was a B with an L

through it- but it is actually the "&" symbol.  There are tiny hearts

on each side:  one says husband, one says wife.

 And then there was the 17 years sign...

 the chocolate hearts all over the floor...

 and this little gem:  Anniversary Barbie with an old

photo album they dug up from my bridal shower!

 Oh yes, and one glass of sparkling cider to share.

It made our night...

and the seventeen years we've been married

worth every minute!

Babies, Babies, Babies (The Barker Bovine Breeding Center and Puppy Central)

So much for a quiet little Christmas.

Our lives have been INSANE the past few days.

I don't even know where to begin-- 

so I'll begin with the cliff notes on Christmas.

All the girls wanted was a puppy.

That tricky ol' guy with the white beard and red suit

left them a stuffed puppy and a note-- saying he couldn't find

them "a puppy" and that we'd have to go as a family to pick

out one that would be a perfect fit.

But he did say he left a couple of small presents up in the barn.

 We all (and I mean all-- the Bodily's, the Moomey's, my parents

and Byron's mom) traipsed up to the barn-- where the girls

found these two little fur balls.

 Drum roll please-- meet Lola...

 and Monroe (as in Marilyn).  They call her Ro for short.

The sisters are Aussie/Border Collie and Blue Heeler mixed.

Trust me, they are even cuter in person.

 The funniest thing is they think Kean is one of their chew toys.

It is so funny to watch them interact.

 As if two puppies away from their mama for the first time

isn't enough... we came home Christmas night to find one of our

cows had literally just given birth.

It was about ten degrees outside and the new mama cow

didn't go over and clean off her baby.

So as hypothermia set in, we rushed the baby to the barn

(Byron's extended garage) and with the help of Ron Moomey,

dried the baby off and cleaned him up.

 We all took turns blow drying the fur on the little guy.

Crazy... not something I ever thought I'd do in this life!

 Between the puppies, the baby calf and Kean who got a new bed

for Christmas (have I mentioned he does not like changes in his routine?),

we were up ALL night.

The baby calf-- I think the girls have decided on the name Elfis (like Elvis

but the Christmas version), was really struggling by Saturday morning--

a runny nose, weak and wouldn't get milk from his mom.

We weren't sure whether it was the mom or the baby-- but he wasn't 

getting any milk and was really worrying us.

So even though Byron had put him back out once he was dry,

he got cold again and we brought him back into the barn.

 The most we could get the mom to do was nuzzle him and moo--

but no milk.

 So Byron went out and found a supplier open and bought some

colostrum and got that down the baby, plus some vitamin shots.

By Saturday night, he still wasn't latching on- so we got the mama

into the trailer, Byron tied her up and forced the baby onto her.

It has been a long two days (and nights) but the Cow Whisperer, aka,

Byron thinks we have rounded the corner and the little calf is now strong

enough to drink and will survive.

That's the good news.

The scary news is we have 7 more (yup, 7)

pregnant cows.

Arrggghhhhhh.