January 2024

I took the boys out individually for some special time with me since I knew that would be sparse after the baby came.

The older boys both go to church activities on Tuesday nights now, so Peter and I went to Flying Star the first Tuesday and shared a hot chocolate. Now he expects a treat every time we drop off the boys!

Liam earned his real viola! He had been practicing on a "box" viola, but after he could do all the positioning and bowing exercises himself he earned a real one.

This kid is REALLY good at Spot It. He will sit there and practice all by himself so he's fast when he plays others.

Benjamin drew this beautiful picture. It's Christ's hand and baby Olive, Jacob and Kathryn's baby that died.

Someone gave us gingerbread house kits.

Every year we add 1 more decoration/light strand to our house. The snow man fell over in this picture, but we're finally not an embarrassment to our very festive street.

Look closely and you'll see a lego sword and sheath that the boys designed and built all on their own.

Every day a new train village is erected and every night we clean it up. We finally put the trains upstairs, and sadly the boys haven't played with them again!

Reading my childhood books with Grandma.

Peter has been dressing up since he was a toddler.

38 weeks!

Benjamin just drew these on his own with pastels one Sunday.

Grandma Bear and Liam spend lots of time on puzzles together.

Another costume. Benjamin was his costume designer.

Ryan found grammy on the floor the day my parents were on their way back from Hawaii. We called the paramedics and raced over to meet them. Jacob and Kathryn beat us (I won't tell you how fast he was going...). We knew she was really sick but didn't even think that she wouldn't make it!

Daddy came straight from the airport to the hospital. For the next few weeks we all spent time rotating at the hospital with her. She was so tired she usually wasn't awake and not up for games which was so sad, because she loved playing games.

A long train they could crawl through in their room.

Aunt Michele, Grammy's only daughter, flew out and spent all day every day at the hospital advocating for Grammy. It was a nice reprieve for Daddy who had been there every morning, lunch break and evening til she got there. Uncle Mark came for a few days too. We all went to dinner at El Pinto.

The kids all drew pictures for Grammy's hospital room, and she loved them and always commented on them when I came.

It was hard to find food that Grammy's stomach could tolerate. They thought she might have colon cancer, but when they did the scope (which is actually what ended up killing her), they found that a portion of her colon had died and was hardened. The scope punctured a hole in her colon since it was in bad shape. They had to do an emergency surgery on to fix and the shock of the surgery with Grammy's health and age was too much for her to recover from.

Not sure what this costume is...

Lamoni with friends and Top Golf = one happy guy

The night before she passed we all gathered in her hospital room. She had a beautiful big room overlooking the city. We all got special one on one time with her that I'm really grateful for. I would like to think she could hear us even though she wasn't responsive. Her twin sister, Diana, got there just in time to be with her. At that point I decided I wanted Rebecca to come the day she died, but it wasn't looking promising since Grammy could go at any minute and it was already so late. She ended up hanging on til 12:30 a.m. on the 25th, and I had Rebecca that afternoon. I'm glad they share that day together.