Gingerbread house

We got this gingerbread kit from one of Kai's family fun school nights. It was $2, I didn't have high hopes for it because we were just using regular frosting, but it turned out super cute and they loved it/loved eating it... They are great buddies. It was a fun evening :)

These kiddos are growing too fast...

Thanksgiving with Bre

Our week full of partying began with meeting up with Michelle and Sean in Mesquite. Zach had football playoffs and we stayed in a hotel with them there. We ate out and went to the hot tub. We got to watch Zach's game in the morning. It was a nice getaway for a night :) Then we headed back to vegas and did some much needed shopping! Bre flew in from MN that evening and we went out to eat and watched the twilight movie while the kids watched happy feet! whoop whoop! It was an awesome eve out with my sisters. It was a full house, but it was so fun to be together. Bre and I spent the rest of the week together with Lauren and Mike. She is an excellent cook and needless to say we were thrilled to have her for thanksgiving!!! She cooked a different meal for us everyday of the week and they were exceptional! Thanksgiving dinner itself was nothing short of amazing. The kids even made pilgram hats out of rieces and cookies. It was just awesome!We spent time shopping, going for walks, taking a visit to the dam, and trying out this bird sanctuary that we will definitely be returning to. The kids had a blast on their 'adventure hike'. Note the walking sticks... it was serious! so much fun!We also spent a lot of time lovin on these babies... :)Before they headed out we went deep into the woods and found the most perfect xmas tree and chopped it down with our ax... yeah just kidding, this is vegas, sadly there is no woods... We did the next best thing and went to home depot and handed over our $20 :) It is a perfect tree though :) The kids enjoyed coloring while we decorated some...It was sad to see Bre leave, we had such a great time with them, It was so much fun! Our week of partying wasn't over yet... We headed to mesquite and went to dinner with Rich's brother's and his dad. We stayed in a hotel and the cousins had such a great time together, even the 2 ladies of the group :) We have such great families and feel so blessed.

Randomness

note the large ears... :)This boy and his need to match his Daddy is pretty intense :)Patting her baby :)

Such a happy baby!

October

This is going to be picture overload, but here it goes! We took an evening and went to the pumpkin patch with Nate and Sarah. The kids are always so excited to do this every year, and it did not disappoint. Nate and Sarah had just gotten back from Hawaii and bought Meili this coconut purse, which she carried everywhere and got Kai a shark tooth necklace. Boy did they pin down exactly what these kiddos are into! Of course the evening wasn't complete without slushies and colored tounges! To say we will miss these two when we move is an understatement...Kai wanted to be a blue ninja this year. I convinced him that ninjas are typically black and that I could make the accessories dark blue. He's not particular at all!!! Rich made him 'ninja stars' out of black electrical tape. Kai told rich, 'I don't think you know how to make those.' Rich said, 'of course I do Kai... I'm a ninja...' After he made them Kai looked them over and said with wide eyes and barely a whisper, 'wow dad... you really are a ninja! Meili wanted to be a pink princess this year, but then changed her mind while we were mid costume assembly and said she wanted to be rapunzel. So she was a pink rapunzel instead :) she was happy either way. I can only claim 1/3 of this dress though, my sister michelle made the rest of it! My best buddie Jordon made Tristan's minion hat and it totally fueled the fire for the whole despicable me themed costumes. For Halloween night I went as Ms. Hattie, Rich went as Gru, Kai was a cookie robot, Meili was agnes with the fluffy unicorn (yes we did spray her hair black) and T was the cutest minion ever! With 7 Halloween events to attent the kids had plenty of things to dress up for. It was a little crazy... Henderson's Halloween festivities never disappoint. We did everything from a ward party to rec center walk throughs, a school parade, and tons of trick or treating. Meili even had the pleasure of meeting rapunzel! What!?! That's right, we thought we were at Dland or something! She was thrilled!We did some pumpkin carvings and this year Kai wanted to carve his own and did successfully! He was pretty proud of himself. It was really cute. He actually got his hands dirty this year, it was still a little painful though, Meili as well. For some reason they don't enjoy shoving their hands in it unless they are being silly and pretending to eat it...Deanna and weston came down for the festivities and it was so much fun to have them! We did some site seeing on the strip and for Halloween they dressed up too and between all of us we got tons and I mean tons of candy! It was a blast to have them and an awesome Halloween once again. By the time it was over the kids had been in costume 7 times! After trick or treating Halloween night for the last time, Meili was exhausted and sighed saying, 'This is my best day I ever walked...' haha I think they loved going house to house the best. We will do more of that next year :) Good times!

our chubberific little man!

check out these faces... So cute right!?! These are Tristan...and these... are Kai... Seriously! We are having dejavu daily around here... They are like the same person! They even made the same faces!!!I never remember Meili doing that :) just the boys... T is crawling now... and putting everything in his mouth. You wouldn't know it from that innocent face!These happened at about 5 1/2 mo! Love this boy!

Back to Ut

We headed back up to Ut mostly so we could look at getting a new car. Of course we enjoyed ourselves meanwhile. We did some shopping, hanging out with Dan and his new gf, and spending time with Shel. She even did some family photos for us which turned out spectacular! Here are the good ones, Kai was still in his sling, but took it off for pics.

Of course what are pictures without some silly ones...one more funny one...This was our best Grandparent shot!Doing some 'Utah crafting' with Galena :)We went to price and ended up buying a light blue 2006 Dodge Caravan minivan, it's awesome!

The kids loved hanging with their cousins. We were blessed to be able to find a minivan, it was the only one there... We are all still healing, emotionally and physically. The kids talk about it almost everyday and we try to talk about our feelings. Here's one convo we had with Meili... 'Mom why did our car fall down? What did it trip over?' She said her toilet went out her window and there was screeching and beep beep sounds. She said, 'Mom you had blood dripping on your arm'. and that, 'our old car had bad wheels, our new car has good wheels so it will not fall down, right?' She said, 'lucky day we were buckled.' and that 'we must have hit an electric line' (reflector pole?) Kai said he was very scared but tried to be brave and not cry even though he wanted to. He said he just held on and when Tristan and Meili were crying he told them it was ok. He always buckles now and is very conscientious of his surroundings and making sure others buckle as well. They are processing it all in their own way. We all are...

so much Gratitude...

Today I am grateful...I am grateful my kids are alive.

I am grateful I am alive.

I am grateful for a father in heaven that sent his angels to wrap their arms around us.

I am grateful for seatbelts. They save lives.

I am grateful my husband tightened all of the kids' seats down before we left for ut.

I am grateful for the still small voice, that most likely saved Kailer's life.

I am grateful for a man named TJ that pulled kids from the car, found my purse and cell phone and gathered my temple cards from off the freeway.

I am grateful we only rolled 1 3/4 of the way then stopped.

I am grateful there was no one next to me to collide with and that we rolled to the right side of the road and not through the median into oncoming traffic.

I am grateful that even though it was dark out someone still saw 'our dust'.

I am grateful the car did not catch on fire, we did not land in water, or roll down an embankment.

I am grateful there was no passenger in the car, because they most likely would not have survived.

I am grateful for semi truck drivers that stopped and pried open the trunk door to crawl in and get Meili and Tristan out.

I am grateful that those two were literally unscathed.

I am grateful for Kailer's only injury to be a broken collar bone.

I am grateful that I am not a para or a quad and that my only injuries were significant bruises and road rash/glass cuts on my arm. I am still here for my kids.

I am grateful for my family to rush to our aide in the middle of the night.

I am grateful for Nate and Sarah driving Richard up from vegas that night. They do so much for us.

I am grateful it was not our time. I have so much to be thankful for. I am so blessed. Now, I am starting over. I feel like I/we were so close and have been reminded of what is really important. Family. That is it. Relationships, love, and family. Nothing else matters. When you come so close to loosing everything, you realize what having 'everything' is really all about. Nothing monitary matters.

I had decided to take a weekend trip to utah by myself with the kids to see my sisters and hang out. Rich was supposed to work all weekend, so it seemed perfect, although I had an uneasy feeling about it all week... I thought I was just nervous about traveling outnumbered 3:1. I made it almost an hour and a half away. It had been a little crazy, as all drives with kids are. The thing I just keep shaking my head about and kicking myself for is having Kai out of his seatbelt. He was in and out giving Tristan his binky and switching movies in the DVD player. Never again. Never will I have any of them out of their seats and never will I try to do anything while I drive. I will stop. I will slow down. I'm thinking about 5 min prior to wrecking Kai was out of his seat looking for a dvd. I told him it was too dark and I didn't feel good about him getting out anymore. He got back in and I'm sure that is why he is alive today. Thank you still small voice. I am so grateful I listened that time. I told the kids we'd just have to listen to the radio. That is the last I remember from that conversation. I think I must have been trying still to look for a dvd or doing something else because the next thing that I saw/heard was rumble strips on the left side of the freeway and hitting a reflecter pole. I remember slamming the breaks and veering to the right totally over correcting. I heard a loud bang, which I found out later was my front left tire popping off. Then I knew we were going down. There wasn't even time for me to scream. We rolled my side down first and I just remember a lot of glass and feeling so close to the pavement. We figured I ended up rolling on the pavement and right side 1 3/4 times. We ended up stopping facing southbound (the opposite direction of travel) and with my door to the sky and Meili's door on the ground. I remember looking and Meili and she was screaming and crying and I couldn't see/hear the other two. There were guys looking in over my busted window and they pulled me out after the kids through my window. I was in shock. I think I still am, I thought I was in a bad dream, but then the pain in my arm was so real. I just kept thinking where are the kids and was Kailer buckled...? I could never, ever, live with myself... I made them show me my kids several times. They put me on a backboard and loaded us all in the ambulance. I hollered that I needed my phone and purse, they found my purse but this guy asked if he could call my phone and ended up finding it. After a couple of hours of x-rays, debridements, and stitches in the ER in Fillmore, we finally checked into a hotel at about 4am. I had morphine in the ER so I couldn't nurse Tristan. He wanted to so bad and all my binkys were still in the car, he wouldn't take a bottle from them or a green binky from them. It was so sad he just cried himself to sleep until I could nurse him at about 7am. My sister was a great help holding him all night. Rich was emotionally exhausted and I couldn't nurse Tristan or hold him with a gimp arm. So grateful for all the help. So grateful to have eachother, so grateful to be alive. So so grateful.

The next day we went back to the site and found my glasses (random) and a teether toy. I am so grateful that when I found the teether I wasn't flooded with emotions of sadness and loss. We are so blessed. When my tire popped off it took out a huge chunk of asphault with the front axle of my car, that's most likely what started the rolling. We were going about 70 on the freeway. I got a text later that day from a guy named TJ that had called my phone. He asked if we were all ok. This is what I learned from him: 'Hey, my name is TJ. You gave me this number to help find the phone last night. Just wondering how things were going and if you guys need anything in any way? You got one tough son. I lifted him out the top window by his shoulders. He didn't say it hurt at all. He was just worried about everyone else being ok. I'm glad everything worked out. definately a miracle. Yeah, we tried getting you out but you wouldn't let us until your kids were out (which I have no recollection of). He had unbuckled himself so he was first. Then the baby who was smiling when we pulled the blanket off the car seat. Then your older daughter and then you. Oh, and there were several temple cards out in the freeway. Hope you got them all. You said you felt like you were going to pass out but never did. We didn't see it happen, but we were the first car there. No one could have been in there for more than five minutes. There were a bunch of truck drivers that stopped and they pryed the trunk open. None of the other doors would open. We climbed in through the top, took them out of their car seats and slipped em out the trunk. None of them even cried.' Kai and Meili were both awake for it. Meili doesn't say much about it except that 'our car fell down' and 'we fell down in our car'. It is quite scary to hear it from Kai's perspective. He says, 'I grabbed hold of both of my armrests on my carseat and we were doing circles. Then when we stopped Meili and Tristan were crying and I told them it was ok. They I hollered at you mommy and you didn't answer. I thought you probably were sleeping. Then a man pulled me out of the top of our car after I unbuckled and they went back in for Meili and Tristan. The ambulance is really fast Mom, they came really fast and you had a lot of blood on your arm mom.' Scary right...

Here's what I have learned: Slow your life down. Stop running, start walking more. Always buckle up. Enjoy what are the most important things. They are right in front of you, your children, clearly the most important things you have in this life. Just slow down and enjoy them. Squeeze them more, hug them more, tell them you love them more. Although monitary things are nice, they just do not matter. I have been reminded of what is really important and I hope I never need another reminder. This should last us for a while... we are so grateful and so blessed to still be together...