Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Oh The Places.......... We've Been

The Snow is Gone!!!! But at lest we made a snow man!
So for those of you who are wondering "What happened to the Halls?" here is your brief update (very brief its been a crazy 6 months).
So I last left you at Isa turning 2. She is such a sweetie and talks soooo well. We just love this curly sue and can't get enough of her. She can do everything her sister does and tries really hard to keep up!
On December 9, 2009 Mikes dad Don passed away. Though Don had lived a long and full life to the age of 88 and had struggled with many health problems we truly weren't ready for him to leave us. It was somewhat sudden and we hurried back to Utah to take care of the funeral and everything that comes with that. We were very fortunate because Don had pre paid for his entire funeral so all we paid was $48 and then bought flowers. The funeral was very nice and we appreciated every coming in support of the family. He was buried in the Mosileum (sp) up at the larkin cemetary in Salt Lake City. Mikes family also needed a lot of help sorting through the great undertaking of picking up the financial pieces of their lives. We have made 3 trips back each at least 2 weeks long trying to sort through things and settle the estate. Mike has had an interesting work load placed on him due to his dads passing and has pretty much given up any free time he had left to help them. We will truly miss don and his energy for life!
December 19, 2009 Miss Zoe turned 4! I can't believe I have a 4 year old! She is so stinkin funny and keeps us on our toes! We had her party while we were in Utah for Mikes dads funeral. It was fun because she was able to have all her cousins, grandparents, and aunts and uncles there. I thought I had some pictures of her party but haven't been able to find them. I made her a kind of cute cake of arial sitting on rocks in the ocean. Her biggest present was a barbie lap top from us and nanna also gave her and Isa a vanity which they love! She is currrently in Ballet and having a blast. Her first recital is coming up and she can't wait! She starts pre-school next year and tells everyone she meets about it. She is so sweet!
Christmas was actually a lot of fun considering the circumstances. We don't normally get to see family for the holiday so we were excited to have them there for that. Luckily before Mikes dad had passed we had finished all our shopping and started wrapping presents. We had alread even built our ginger bread houses! It was nice that the Lord had prepared us so well in order to be ready for the abrupt trip back home. We were literally able to load up and be on the road within 4 hours of the news. Mikes family always has "Santa" come and visit the house on December 23 and all the kids get a goodie bag from him. My girls absolutely loved it and couldn't wait to sit on Santa's lap and they had so much fun having so many girl cousins around their age! We always open pajamas with my family on Christmas Eve and this year we were able to go with all my extended family to my Gammy's house. It was so much fun to see everyone!
In March for some reason Zoe awoke in the middle of the night (sometime between 2 am and 6:30 am) cut off all her beautiful hair, cut bangs, cleaned up all the hair and put it in the garbage and went back to bed. This was a sad day for us when we discovered the tragedy. We tried really hard not to get mad at her.
When she could tell we were upset she said "are you mad at me?"
I said "No I'm just sad because your hair used to be so pretty and its not as pretty anymore"
She said very matter of factly "Well, I think its pretty."
And that was that. She loves her new short hair and tells us on a daily basis about it.
On January 27, 2010 I had surgery. (PS Mike was supposed to come with me and the girls to a friends and well my family all started puking the day of my surgery literally a few hours before we were supposed to leave for the hospital so I quickly made arrangements for a friend to come with me for my surgery and Mike to stay with the girls.) They went in to remove my thyroid and I got a little more than I bargained for. I had been taking medication for a while for my thyroid trying to get my levels under control. I had two large cysts that weren't helping by producing their own hormone so it was decided that my best option left was surgery. When they removed my thyroid they also ended up removing 2 parathyroid glands (this shouln't have been that big of a deal because you usually have at least 4 and only need half of one for it to perform its function). Your parathyroid glands help regulate the Calcium in your body and well apparently thats a big deal. I left the hospital (Bismarck hospital 2 hours away) came home and wasn't feeling fantastic but thats to be expected. By 4:30 in the next morning I had tetany in both my arms and hands and also in my face. I couldn't open my hands or move my fingers they were contorted into claws and I couldn't move my facial muscles and could barely open my mouth enough to slur out a few words. We rushed back to the hospital and found out I had developed hypocalcemia which usually goes away with some IV calcium and eventually those pesky parathyroids usually start doing their jobs. Lucky for me I was part of this really small percentage of people, .8%, who develop permanent hypocalcemia. I ended up at the hospital for a week on IV calcium, magnesium, and vitamin D, I had serious pain in most of my muscles and lots of other stuff to come with all that jazz. After receiving the treatments through IV for 6 days every two hours they were finally successful in switching me to pill supplements every 2 hours and sent me home. For the first 2 weeks I was taking about 65 pills a day (60 calcium) but they have been able to get me to a point of only 24 calcium pills a day and a few others. It has been quite the roller coaster ride and we are doing our best to manage the new list of health problems. Luckily we have had lots of good friends helping us with our kids and meals.
On February 20, 2010 my little brother Solon got married to Brandice and it was so much fun to have another sibling join the married clan.
We just happened to be in Utah for Easter this year so the girls were able to do an easter egg hunt in Cedar Hills with Aunt Allee and then the Easter Bunny visited us at Nanna's house this year. The girls had a lot of fun and I think they actually enjoyed me telling them about the reason we celebrate Easter. Zoe loves to hear about Jesus and Isa is always eager to join in.
April 10, 2010 we held an enormous estate sale at Mike's parents house and that lets just say was no easy feat!
While I was gone taking care of that Mike ripped out our main bath and remodeled it and it looks fantastic! I couldn't have asked for him to do a better job! Pictures to come!
Last but not least on April 24, 2010 Mike got really sick randomly with a fever and stayed that way for several days. We took him to the doctor but they said he just had the flu and sent us home. Two days later we took him back in to the Doc where they discovered, through my demands of a chest x-ray, that he had pneumonia and a possible collapsed lung. We took him to the hospital only to be sent home with some antibiotics. After 36 hours on antibiotics Mike started to get really bad chest pains and a racing heart his fever spiked even higher so I took him back to the hospital. They finally admitted him and found that the pneumonia he had was resistent to the antibiotics they had put him on. They switched him to two different meds had him on Oxygen and he stayed at the hospital for 2 days until he was well enough to come home.
We found out while all this was going on that Mike had been selected for SOS school in Alabama and it is supposed to start June 1. We are trying to get it bumped back.
So there you have it our life in a nut shell for the past 6 months (believe me that was one small nut shell)!

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Funny Things By Zoe

So last night in the bath tub Zoe had her finger inside the rubber squishy end of a medicine dropper and put it in Isa's mouth. Dangerous territory, she should have known better. Needless to say Isa clamped down and bit her finger. Zoe was of course really upset (Isa drew blood) so this brought an end to the bath fun. I pulled them out and layed them on the living room floor. (for some reason my kids always have nasty noses after the tub, seriously is this just us or does this happen to everyone). Anyway, before I could wipe the nastyness Isa had smeared two big boogers all over her face. Zoe looked over at her and with a really big scowl said "mom I think Jesus gave us the wrong Isa". Ha seriously no lie I had to have her repeat herself because I thought I heard her wrong but nope I heard her right. I asked her why she said that and she said "he gave us the gross Isa". Lol seriously where does this kid get this stuff!
Yesterday in the car she asked "mom why does Jesus need us?"
I said He needs us because he loves us"
She said "no he needs us"
I said "Oh he needs us to be good examples to other people"
Zoe, "OOOH"
Ha okay so that is what life is like with this little kiddie. Everything in her mind (as it should) comes back to Jesus.

Monday, December 7, 2009

Happy Birthday Isa!!!

We officially have a 2 year old as a baby (thats what we all still call her even though you will frequently here her say "I not a baby I Isa)! We love this little girlie she is the funniest little kid and so stinkin smart. She makes some of the best faces (mostly when she is giving someone the evil eye or a dirty look but you can never pass up her giggles and smiles). Some things you might hear her say if you lived at our house:
"I wanna bite" (at least once a day no matter what you are eating. This kid can eat)
"I can't do it anymore!"
"I can't find it anywhere!"
"Zoe hit me" (usually when Zoe is no where near her or she did something she shouldn't have)
"I wanna talk to Aunt Allee" (no lie Al she really does ask for you a lot)
"I wanna treat"
"I have princess teeth"
"I seben (seven)" (she usually says this to pick at Zoe because Zoe knows she isn't seven)
"Mommy I go poopies"
"Mommy I wake up. I open my door" (this sometimes happens at 3 in the morning)
"Neber, neber" (never, never)
My favorite thing however is when I am changing this little flexible girls diaper and she pulls her legs over her eyes and then pulls them to the sides and says "peek-a-boo". Seriously whoever taught her that is hilarious and it wasn't even me!
For her birthday we had the Sheltons over for some play time, homemade pizza, cake and ice cream.
The kids all had a ton of fun eating the food and playing!
Isa loved her Minnie cake (made by yours truly I think it looked fantastic if I do say so myself and this my friends is without a cake mold). When I brought it out Isa and Amelia both squealed minnie at the top of their lungs.
Isa got a really cute my little pony set and movie from Amelia which she carried around the whole day brushing. We gave her a tutu with a head band so she can play ballerina with Zoe, some bracelets I made
and a baby bed for her babies (this kid is totally all about the babies)
It was been a crazy two years but I wouldn't trade this little monkey for anything. Isa-beeps we love you happy birthday!

MMMMMMM Turkey! MMMMM Pies!

For thanksgiving this year we invited some friends over for dinner. We had the Stucki's (family of 8), the Honsingers (family of 5), the Sheltons (family of 5) and of course us (family of 4) Thats right ladies and gents 22 peops at our house but seriously it was so much fun we would do it again in a heart beat! It was so nice to have the basement finished (all except the bathroom) so the kids could have free reign and the best part was that the adults got to just hang out upstairs without having kids standing under our feet the whole time. We usually just saw them when they wanted more food. Which reminds me seriously the food was awesome. We had turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoe pie, sweet potatoes, gravy deviled eggs, a relish tray, a tuna salady thing (a must for cami), two types of jello salad (one of which had cheese which I was a little leary of but turned out to be one of the best jellos I have had), apple pie, strawberry cream cheese pie, pumpkin pie, lemon meringue pie, banana cream pie, and chocolate pie. What isn't to love about that menu. Soooooo who's up for next year?
Mike and Caleb playing Rock band
The amazing Trish cleaning up.
The amazing Karie cleaning up (and for some reason not pictured is Cami who also did a major cleanup). These ladies were awesome and actually made cleaning a lot of fun with a lot of laughs!

Oh what a mess! Seriouslywe had so much left over food which of course was totally my fault because I kept insisting we wouldn't have enough.. haha boy was I wrong thank goodness Trish kept putting me in check.
Last but not least these daddies had so much fun playing rock band and seriously cracking us up. I can't believe the talent they have listen closely and you just might hear the next american idol!

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Ode to The Elders!


Okay so we have always been that family that has the Elders over at least once a month (if not more) for dinner. Along the way we have found some Elders that we absolutely love. Elder Christiansen and Elder Guyman are part of our Fav 5. They are so funny and my girls can't get enough of them. Zoe's favorite thing to do when they come over is to play pillow fight. You can not get this girl to stop laughing when they are playing until you tell her its time to stop then its instant sadness. Here are some pics of this wonderous event. The funny part is a year ago this chica wouldn't go near these guys she would just stand under my feet in the kitchen while we finished dinner. So needless to say our brainwashing is working we are slowly getting her to realize that missionaries are the only way to go and that if she wants to always have pillow fights she will marry one! haha