What a boy!

You are looking at one tough little 4 year old cowhand! Yesterday he went riding with his dad on his horse T.J. The first thing he told me when he got home, in his cowboy twang, was "Mom, TJ bucked me off." And he was proud of it! "I was alright, I landed on my head, but I was a cowboy and got back on." (Sometimes it is better if mom's don't know what happens when we aren't around.) For a small guy, there sure is a lot of determination and strength in this little guy! (BJ did admit that there were a few tears shed during this little incident.)

Jensen just started wrestling with a youth league in town. He is by far the smallest boy on the mats. But he has those kids fooled!! Today his partner (who was much bigger) kept saying, "I can't make him move - I can't move him!" What a brute my little "mat rat" is. Who knew?

What surprises me the most is that he is such a tender hearted little soul. He gives the best hugs and kisses. They can't be beat! There's nothing like a little boy to melt a mother's heart!!

HHT - what in the world is that?

(Gross picture, I know!! A normal nose would just be "flesh" colored - this is BJ's nose, and all the red spots are telangiectasias that break open and bleed.) This is kind of a yucky informative blog, but it tells what we have been doing for 2 weeks. So . . .after BJ's mom had a big scare, he had a really really bad nose bleed, worse than the ones he usually has everyday. It was scary! So we went up to the U of U hospital to have him checked out. Come to find out, his hematocrits were REALLY low (past the level to have a transfusion)! He loses more blood through his nose bleeds than his body can keep up with. He is also anemic, so his body doesn't make blood as fast as it should. BJ, as well as his mom and 6 siblings have HHT- Hereditary Hemorrhagic Telangiectasia. HHT affects 1 in 5,000 people, and one symptom is frequent nose bleeds. People with HHT have a place where an artery is connected directly to a vein instead of capillaries. They can be a fragile site that can rupture and result in bleeding. This is called a telangiectasia (tel-AN-jee-eck-TAZE-ee-ya). Four days after our trip to the U we went back up with BJ's mom so they could have laser coagulation therapy. A laser is used to "shrivel up" all the telangiectasia sites in their noses. Everything went well. BJ is still REALLY low on iron, and still doesn't feel super good yet, but he hasn't had nosebleed since the laser treatment. I just feel really blessed that BJ doesn't have these abnormalities in his lungs, heart, or brain. (Those are serious and can lead to death.) I am thankful for medical science, and the fact that maybe now BJ can lead a half normal life without bleeding all the time. The laser therapy usually lasts about a year, and then we will probably go have the same thing done again. I am also glad that there is an HHT center in Utah. There are only 11 HHT centers in the United States, and we are lucky to have one this close to us! We are also very grateful to all the family members who took care of our kids while we finally took care of BJ. Thanks everybody!

Have I told you lately that I love you?

Do we let the people we love know how that we love them often enough?? This past week we had two scary things happen in our family. BJ's mother has a genetic blood disorder, and this past week it almost got the best of her. Her blood was really low and she had to get 4 pints of blood. However, she is really hard to match blood to, and has had some really bad reactions to transfusions in the past. The U of U finally found her enough blood and got it into her system safely, without any reactions! On Friday, my sister Gayla was in a car accident that should have been a lot worse than it was!! We are so lucky she walked away from the accident. Last night I was thinking about the last time I let Gayla know that I love her. It has been too long. The same goes for BJ's mom. I think LouAnn knows that we appreciate her - but I don't think we actually ever really tell her that we love her! Sometimes things in our lives shake us up a little bit, and for awhile we are more aware of how we treat each other and how we spend our time. Well, I have been shaken up this week. I don't know what we would do if we would have lost either of these two wonderful people in our lives. So my goal for the next while, is to try to make a conscious effort to let people who are important to me, know how much I love and appreciate them. Maybe it will turn into a good habit. Who knows? How fitting to be thinking about this subject right at Valentines Day. What a good opportunity to "spread the love"!!

Puddle Jumping

Do you remember when you were little and would get a running start and then try to jump over puddles? Today, when we were leaving the library, there was a large puddle by our van that we had to get over. (All that snow has definately left its share of muddy puddles!) Brittany was in a quandry. How was she going to get over that puddle? We backed up, counted to three, ran and jumped - and made it over the puddle!!! Five minutes later, we were doing the same thing in the video store parking lot - over and over again, just because. Today had been a kind of a hectic, not so happy day. It was kind of nice to take a minute and be a kid - and enjoy the simple things in life. It took me a minute to "chill" and not try to be in a constant "rush, let's go" mode, but it felt so good to endulge in a little childish "Puddle Jumping".

Brooklyn's Baptism

Brooklyn was baptized on January 26th. She was so excited for this event! (Brittany and Jensen were excited for all the Jensen's side to come visit!) Thank you to everyone who came to help make this such a special day for Brooklyn! It was so cute, Brittany wanted to look just like Brooklyn. She wanted her hair braided, and wanted to wear a white dress, even though it was 2 sizes too big!! Afterwards, the Brooklyn, Brittany, and Ethan got to go play in the motel pool! They had lots of fun - Brittany especially enjoyed squirting Chad with a tricky squirt ring! Jensen didn't get to go swimming, because he had was sick, so he stayed home to hang out with grandad.

Snow in Blanding!!

We finally have snow!! Yesterday, half of church was cancelled, and they announced that today was a snow day! The kids have been super excited not to have school today. We have spent the entire day playing in the snow. Sledding was fun, but the kids are the most excited about the series of connecting tunnels they built! Hurray for the snow!! We figure we have had about 20 inches in a 30 hour time frame. Today has been sunny and warm so the kids have been able to enjoy their snow day.