Squishy Baff

 Have you heard of this? I saw it in the store and thought...GROSS!! Scott, Brigham and Gavin saw it and thought COOL! So we bought some. That night all the boys, excluding Will, hopped in the tub for their special tubby time!

One package didn't really make a huge difference, I guess you need like 5 packages. The commercial/ad is very deceiving. The boys enjoyed it though!

CANDID

Week 10 in my photog group was CANDID.

Debbie's Funeral

 On Saturday, March 10th was Debbie's funeral. We arrived a little early to visit Gram's and a few other family graves at the cemetery. Look at all these HANDSOME boys!

 Debbie's casket was beautiful! Lite pink and silver. Inside the chiffon material was a soft pink with a little white, Debbie's favorite color!

 The flowers were amazing! The ones on her casket but also the 20 plus other bouquets all around. Matt spoke about the bananas in his talk and Elisa spoke about the Dr. Pepper. They both went into the casket with Deb. Also, a cute stuffed bear from her two adorable grand kids.

 Here is a great picture of Scott, her husband, Elisa, Brian and Lindsay, her kids with spouses Kade and Ember.

 Elisa, Brian and Lindsay standing in front of the flowers they ordered together for their mom. Just beautiful!

 There was such a great turn out. At the church earlier in the morning the entire stake chapel was filled and it extended into the culterhall.

After Scott spoke, Richard (Debbie's dad) embraced each other. It was another wonderful moment!
We all miss you Debbie! You will always remain alive in our minds, hearts, and memories!

VERY Productive Day!

 Today was a very productive day, I love days like this. We worked in the garden, exercised, and made lots of yummy treats! One of my friends told me she ordered a bunch of Fuji apples for .65 cents a pound and was planning on drying them. I called my contact at the whole sale produce and I could order a huge box of Fuji apples for .51 cents a pound! So I ordered a box! The boys and Scott helped peel them all and we dried them in our new dehydrate that papa bought for us! We gave the chickens a bunch of the leftovers and they devoured it! The rest went into the compost!

 I also ordered 30 8 pound flats of strawberries (for only $8.00 a flat!!) for myself and some gals in my produce co-op. One entire flat we washed, took the stem off and cut in half to freeze for the summer. Yummy shakes are in our future!

 The weather has been so warm and lovely these past few days. Some of the plants are starting to come through! I bought a bunch of seed packets and bulbs so we worked in the garden and planted everything. Down our long driveway we planted those huge sunflower plants and lots of California Poppy's. Can't wait!

One of our neighbors gave us about 20 raspberries plants. I had about 8 and we yielded about a handful last year from them. Scott and planted those in our raspberry patch on the side on our yard. I love raspberries! Scott also racked and weeded all around the yard. Our chickens have made a real mess in our backyard!

Scott and I also went on a 1.5 mile speed walk while the sun was out and it was so nice. Fresh air, sunshine. 65 degrees! Love it!

Cancer is so limited!

I made this tile for some of my relatives during a really hard week. This quote is so powerful and inspirational, I love it!

Birthday weekend continues...

 Another activity Brigham wanted to do for his birthday is to play at the park. The weather has been wonderful so it was a no brainer. We headed for Sugar House park and played for almost 2 hours! The park is huge with lots of things to do. There is a little lake with ducks and geese. A few playgrounds. A creek that runs through it. Basketball and volleyball couts...And many other fun things to do and explore. It's the same park we like taking the littles to go sledding at.

Brigham's Birthday Ice Cream

Brigham's birthday fell on a bad and busy day for the family, Deb's funeral. We tried to fit a little birthday celebration into the day, but also did some stuff on Sunday and also on Monday! It ended up being a pretty great Birthday for Brigham! He may look like he turned 6 or older but he's just 4 years old. 4 very short years. He is such a ham! He is always making us laugh by the funny comments he is always coming up with. Brig's is such a softy too. He loves to snuggle with mommy, which she loves. 

 We LOVE 31 Flavors! They email out free cones on your half birthday as well as your real birthday! So Gavin and Brig's received FREE cones, and so did Will and Jackson! NICE!! For the others I had a BOGO free coupon! You can't beat that deal!

THANKS 31 Flavors and

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRIGHAM!!

SOUR

Pot of Gold

For primary I wanted to do a fun activity to celebrate St. Patrick's day, so today we played Pot of Gold. The children took turns shooting the gold (balloon) into the pot. I started out by talking in an Irish accent, but ended up speaking like I was from Jamaica! The Jr. primary thought it was funny! I covered a laundry basket with black material for the pot and blew up 5 balloons and wrote a song on each of them. One of the balloons had "You choose".

 Before and after church Nathan had a fun time playing with them.

Thanks again to my favorite primary site I Heart Primary Music for another fun, easy, and good idea!!

Disney On Ice

 About a month ago I stood in line to donate books and received FREE Disney on Ice tickets! Scott and I took the three little ones on Thursday night, and we had a blast! We took advantage of this offer last year, it was so worth it! The boys took their Buzz, Woody and Bullseye to the show.

The theme this year was Buzz Light Year and Woody, and it had all the characters. Slinky Dog, Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head, Hamm, Rex, Jessie...And of course Mickey Mouse, Minnie, Donald Duck and Goofy! It was really cute and the boys loved it! Especially the big guy!

Long Suffering

   I've never known a person or a group of people with as much endurance, determination, strength, power, stubbornness, will, drive, courage, heart, patience, tolerance, persistence, and love as my sweet cousin Debbie.

   Deb has been fighting caner for the past 6 years. She's had her breasts removed, femur, hip bone and the cancer has spread in her lungs and brain. We all knew her time of earth was limited but it came to a crashing halt after a strange experience at the doctor's office. She was at a visit getting a blood transfusion sleeping through most of it and really quiet during the entire process. Shortly after she left she starting acting and saying weird things.  Also, not remembering who anyone was. Her sister, Angie, and brother-in-law Greg took her to the hospital Thursday evening. By Friday the doctor's had discovered Deb has carbon dioxide poisoning, and she had a few hours maybe days left. Debbie's husband, children, in-laws, sisters, brothers, cousins and friends rushed to her side. Scott and I arrived early Friday evening and it was heart-wrenching to see her and her lovely family. She has awake a little and then would fall asleep over and over again. Deb had to wear this "Sucky-mask" that literally sucked the air out of her. You could tell it was very uncomfortable for her and she didn't want to wear it. There were a few times when she was awake she would talk to us. Everyone would hug and kiss her and tell her how much we all loved her. Saying goodbye was hard, seeing her immediate family say goodbye was brutal. We stayed until 12 or 1 in the morning with no significant change.

   On Saturday afternoon they moved her out of ICU, off all the monitors and in a larger room to hold the family. There were 25-30 people there supporting Debbie and the Dickson family at all times. It was amazing to see and feel the love in this family. I am so thankful to live close enough to be part of this experience.

Saturday, Sunday and Monday she would sleep them be wide awake and talk with us all. She was very lucid, candid and funny. One time she woke up and said, "Why are you all staring at me?" Or, "I'm still here" Or, she wanted to go shopping, eat lobster or need to use the restroom. Her breathing became more harsh and uneven and we'd all say goodbye and ball and then a few minutes later she'd be awake cracking jokes.

There were so many personal, touching moments between Debbie and her husband, Scott. Or with her children, and siblings. She kept asking for her children to be close and repeated several times to them how much she loved them. She asked us all not to forget her. She begged her husband not to remarry because she wanted him all to herself, but then added it would be okay IF she was perfect!

   On Sunday night Alison brought in a violin and we had asked Deb on two different occasions of she wanted Alison to play and she quickly replied, No!” On the third time Mare, (Alison’s mom) asked Deb and she said yes, thankfully! Alison played several church hymns and we sang along. It was moving. It was beautiful. It was heart-warming. The spirit was so strong and powerful. And then Deb said, "Let's do this again next Sunday!"

   Debbie's father, Richard, is serving a mission at the England MTC with his wife Kathy. They had spoken on the phone and Skype several times (which was hard and beautiful to watch) but was trying to fly here to spend the last few hours/days with his oldest daughter. On Monday night around 11pm he finally arrived and is was joyous. She was so surprised, like a child on Christmas morning. I will never forget that special moment.

   By Tuesday late morning Debbie was in and out of it, really groggy. Her morphine drip was on 23, and she said she was still in some pain. (I was not there at this time but this is what other cousins have relayed to me) Debbie would focus right above everyone and say, "Hi!", "It's beautiful here", “The old timers are here”, would laugh and something the spirits were telling her, “Uh huh” (like she was listening to directions on what to do) and "Fine!" One time she said, "Hi mom!" (Margene, her mother, had passed away 9 years ago) Then the next second she would ask for Sprite or need to use the potty. Her breathing became shallow and drawn-out and at 2:30pm Debbie gave up the ghost. She is finally pain free. She is finally with other family in heaven.

Gavin's Skiing Video

A few weeks ago, we went skiing as a family.  It was Scott's 1st time, but only Gavin's 2nd time.  He did really well, and I was able to shoot a video with my iPhone.  He zoomed down so fast, and kept lapping Scott over and over again.

Sledding!!!

 How awesome are these two shots of the boys sledding yesterday at Sugarhouse park. Scott and I picked up the two little ones from preschool and kindergarten with all their snow gear in the car and sleds and took them sledding. It was a great surprise! We stayed for over an hour sledding, boarding, building snowman, having snowball fights, making snow angels and making many fun memories.

 Look at his face, he is such a ham! LOVE this kid!

 Cute Naters went down several times, but only wanted to go down with Scott. Here he is helping dad pull up the sled.

 Gavin went sledding a few times but boarded most of the time, he is doing so well! Even after he bites it, he'll get right up and climb that hill again!

 I saw this yesterday...how funny! Poor dog was exhausted after pulling his friend up a few times!

 Dad making snow angels and of course Brig's wanting to copy dad! While they were laying there making snow angels Nathan kept making snowballs and throwing them at Scott and Brigham! He kept laughing and laughing thinking he was so funny! And it was!