Rachel

Jared

Ellie

Fall Soccer

Jared played soccer this Fall. It was only 4 weeks long because we live in a cold climate. I'm glad it was a short season. I don't know how many more 30 degree Saturday mornings I was willing to do. Jared had a great time, learned a lot, and scored a goal during his last game.

Halloween 2010

We had a fun filled October celebrating Halloween. I was worried when Halloween fell on Sunday this year but the advantage of living in a small LDS community is that Halloween was celebrated on Saturday, the kids even went door to door trick or treating on Saturday evening. The weather was even perfect. My kids went without jackets in the evening, at the end of October, in Idaho. Amazing!
Rachel wanted to be a witch.

Jared a ninja.

Ellie a ladybug.

Trick or Treating, they never ran out of energy. They kept running from door to door. The only thing that made us stop is Jared having to finally go the bathroom. haha

David & Sonja. Sonja sewed her own pumpkin dress. They joined us for trick or treating for a little while.

Loading up on candy.

Half the kids we went trick or treating with aren't even in the picture.

Ellie and her friend Mei.
The kids went to a carnival Wednesday night. Ellie brought her friend Paisley. They were both ladybugs.

Jared never kept his mask on.

The kids got their faces painted. I can't believe I didn't take a picture of Rachel.

Rachel & Ellie got their nails painted.

One of the local grocery stores brought their Giant shopping cart for the kids to ride on. Highlight of the kids night.

I can't believe October has come and gone.
Time to take down the Halloween decorations.

Carving Pumpkins

I am such a party pooper when it comes to carving pumpkins. They are messy, slimy, and just a pain to deal with. For the sake of my kids I suck it up. This year was actually the best by far, they are all old enough to practically do it themselves. I only had to step in and help a little with the carving. I did find pumpkin all over my kitchen. Oh well, the kids had fun and Uncle David & Aunt Sonja came over too.

I was surprised at how much Ellie did by herself. She loved picking out her design, here she is poking her design into her pumpkin.

Rachel did her pumpkin almost completely on her own. I only helped carve around a few of the difficult edges.

Jared had pumpkin in his hair and face. He decided to do a mummy pumpkin.

Who let David play with the knife?

Num, num num...I guess my nephew in her tummy was craving raw pumpkin???

And the finished products.
Rachel's pumpkin, Ellie's pumpkin, & Jared's pumpkin.

Haunted Mill

I love Fall/Halloween in Idaho. There is plenty to do, everything from corn mazes to haunted trails. We went to the straw maze earlier this month. It was a lot of fun but we ended up going in circles for the first 20 minutes and found the entrance 3 times. haha. We did go at night, so it was a little more challenging.
Next on our list of things to do was the Haunted Mill. The Teton Flour Mill was built in 1890 and was sold in 1997 to be used as the Haunted Mill. I remember going to t he Haunted Mill when I attended Ricks College and loved it. We had arranged for a babysitter for Rachel and Ellie because they get freaked out pretty easy. Rachel insisted she wanted to go and so we let her. Ellie didn't want to be left behind, so we decided that if she got too scared we would just sit out with her, or take her out. I think she was being brave because Rachel and Jared were so excited to go. We got there and the line was something you would find at Disneyland. It was worth the wait. We had so much fun, we jumped, we screamed, and even the kids made it through. I'm glad we didn't leave any of the kids at home. It is something we will talk about and remember for MANY HALLOWEENS!

This is the Mill in the daytime.

The Mill at night...

This is an actual suspension bridge you have to cross over.

Hope you guys are enjoying Halloween as much as we are.

Lemonade Stand

The kids, mostly Jared, have been begging to do a lemonade stand for almost two months. Our neighbors had a lemonade stand while doing a garage sale and Jared has had $$ signs in his eyes ever since. Being the AWESOME mom that I am, I kept forgetting to pick up lemons at the store. Then the weather started getting cold but the kids insisted they wanted to do a lemonade stand and kept pleading with me. I finally remembered to pick up lemons and when Saturday rolled around the kids made fresh squeezed lemonade all by themselves. (Thanks to the help of the childrens Williams and Sonoma Cookbook.)
We made a sign and Bill helped set up the table. It was pretty cold when they headed out, I thought they should be selling hot chocolate instead of lemonade but they only 2 pitchers to sell. I told them they could stay out for an hour and then they had to come in. I hate to admit but I didn't think they would sell their lemonade. Within 20 minutes, they had sold their lemonade and made $5.00. They were super excited. I should have bought more lemons. I am glad they FINALLY got to do their lemonade stand.

Halloween crafts

I love when the holidays start rolling around, it means new ideas, new crafts, and new decorations. These are a few we've done for Halloween.

When craftng takes a wrong turn.

Who knew googly eyes were so versatile?

How do you say thank you?

I can't even begin to say thank you to all the people that have shown an outpouring of love and support to our family. I really have no words to express the blessings you have brought to me and my family. I can't tell you how many times my prayers have been answered through someone or my heart has been comforted by someone knocking on the door. So many times people tell me they don't know what to say to me but their actions and their hearts bring peace for the tears, strength when I don't think I have more to give, and love to get through the days. It has been 12 days since we lost Ryleigh. I thought that after the first few days everyone would continue to go about their own busy and stressful lives and I would be left alone to go through the healing process but that is far from what has happened. You have no idea how much it has meant to me...I will always carry a place in my heart for those that have shown kindness, sympathy, and love. You guys know who are. My heart is full. I love you guys.

I really don't know how to thank you other than...THANK YOU!

Ryleigh Anne

On September 15th, I went to my 18 week check up. It was just a normal appointment, check blood pressure, pee in cup, check my uterus to make sure it was growing,check baby's heart beat...I decided to do get the quad screening done at that appointment also. Everything went great, the doctor found the baby's heart beat right away and it sounded great. I scheduled my next appointment, the exciting one...the ultrasound.

September 20th, I get a call from the doctor's saying my blood test came back positive. They wanted me to come in the next day to see the doctor and do an ultrasound. My heart sank. I looked online and found that there are a lot of false positives with the test. I decided not to be worried until there was something concrete to worry about and that this baby was meant to come to our family regardless of whether or not our baby would have a birth defect.

September 21st, I didn't have my appointment until later that afternoon. My brother and sister in law had an ultrasound that same day and found out they were having a boy. I was super excited for them. I then got excited thinking I might find out the gender of our baby the same day. Bill and I went to the doctor's appointment, we had the ultrasound first. I laid down, exposed my tiny baby bump. I saw our baby pop up on the screen. I always get excited when I get to see our baby. I started to notice that our baby wasn't moving around...then I noticed the ultrasound tech scanning the image, I asked what she was looking for, she said she was checking the blood flow, there was a long pause...and then she looked at me and said, "I am so sorry, I can't find a heart beat. " I went completely numb, I didn't know what to think or feel. We had lost our baby.
I was having a hard time processing the news. The nurses and doctor kept trying to find a way to comfort me but it seemed anything they said was wrong. We decided to go in that night to induce labor. The doctor told me what to expect. It usually took a few hours to get labor going but when it did it was usually quick and most of the time the doctor or nurse didn't have time to come into the room when the actual delivery takes place. The thought horrified me but it was one of the facts I had to deal with.
September 22nd, I was in the hospital for almost 24 hours and still nothing was happening. The doctor said that if I didn't start having contractions with the next dose of medicine that they might have to send me home because it might take 3 or 4 days. I was turning into one of the "exceptions". After the doctor left, Bill offered to give me a priesthood blessing. It was very comforting and reminded me that the Lord has His hand in all things. Within the hour I started having contractions. I could tell it was almost time and I called the nurse in and sure enough I was completely dilated, she called the doctor. I had over a day to prepare for this moment. I didn't know if I would want to see the baby or if I would want to hold it. So many thoughts and emotions were going through my head. The doctor made it before I delivered. It was a small miracle and tender mercy having the nurse and doctor in the room with me.
Our baby girl was born at 3:30pm on September 22, 2010. We named her Ryleigh Anne. I couldn't wait to see her and hold her. The nurse cleaned her up and wrapped her in the tiniest blanket. Ryleigh was beautiful. She had the smallest fingers and toes. She already had finger nails, and little eyebrows. Ryleigh had my feet (finally one of the kids got my feet) and Ellie's button nose. The nurse said we could spend as much time as we wanted and needed with Ryleigh. It was one of the most spiritual and peaceful experiences. My love for her was instant, just like any of my other children. Ryleigh was perfect...
The doctor said he couldn't see any physical birth defects but my placenta looked very abnormal. He thinks that our baby wasn't getting all that she needed to continue to grow and develop. We had a decision to make. What to do with Ryleigh? We had discussed it before we met her. Do we bury her, do we let the hospital take care of her body? After we met her, there was no question in our mind about what to do. We wanted to give her a place for her body to rest until we could be with her again. We knew it would also help the kids, help them associate with their sister and help them heal their little hearts.
We didn't think people would understand us wanting to bury her, our baby girl that didn't make it to 19 weeks and never took a breath. But everyone has been so supportive and understanding. We have had an outpouring of love.



September 25th- We decided to have a small graveside service for Ryleigh. I thought it would only be our family. My mom came up from California. The Bishop, some of our friends came, people from the fire department and paramedic program. It was a quiet & simple service.
Ryleigh's coffin was so small. One of the hardest moments was picking our her coffin. We saw a pink one with ruffles and we couldn't think of anything better to put our precious little girl in. When we were at her service, the coffin looked even smaller. Rachel has had the hardest time, she was so excited to another sibling, to hold, to love, to smother in kisses. Rachel made all of the girls matching bracelets and made a matching necklace for me. She placed Ryleigh's bracelet on a rose and placed it on her coffin. Rachel broke down sobbing...Bill just held her. I looked over at Jared, he was throwing rocks in the horses coral at the ranch next to the cemetery and Ellie was kicking her feet up pretending to be a horse. I wanted to laugh and cry all at the same time...the only thing I could think of is poor Ryleigh looking down on her family saying.."Really? This is the family I got stuck with?"
We stayed until they lowered her into the ground. Bill stayed to help cover her. I couldn't stay for that, it was too hard but Bill said it was one of the only things he knew he could do for her as her father.





I don't have all the answers, we have had our ups and downs since we lost Ryleigh. Sometimes, it hurts so much it is hard to breath. Most days are filled with peace and comfort and strength in the prayers that people have offered on our behalf. I look forward to the day we can be with our little Ryleigh again.