Christmas

We had the best Christmas ever this year!  I took the whole week of Christmas off and had so much fun just getting to spend time with the boys.  It was nice to not be so busy and have time to do the fun Christmas stuff.  And with the kids getting older it was so fun to watch their excitement and anticipation for Christmas.

Here are my cute boys the Sunday before Christmas.   My mom got them the cutest Christmas ties and Nathan was all about it and couldn't wait to show the kids in primary.  Logan took a big more coaxing but he was a good sport and they  both looked so handsome!

Nathan is such a sweet heart and said okay mom now get one of us together!  I sure do love my little man.

The Tuesday before Christmas we went to the Christmas in Color display at the Olympic Oval and my goodness it did not disappoint.  They said there were almost a million LED lights that were synced to Christmas music.  And you drove through it and put your radio on their station and it seriously took us about 25 minutes to drive through it.  The kids loved all the lights and little Logan kept saying ooo and awwww everytime we turned the car and he saw something new. 

Oh Wednesday we all made sugar cookies and gingerbread cookies and decorated them as a family.  I was amazed at how much the kids got in to it and were particular about which sprinkles they wanted on which cookie.  Logan frosted a bit, then ate sprinkles, then ate his whole cookie and then asked for another one.  I think he went through three cookies!  It was so fun to do it as a family.

On Thursday (Christmas Eve) the boys and I did our yearly trip to Gardner Village to see the elves.  This was our third time going and is one of my favorite parts about Christmas.  Logan was such a ham and would say hi hi hi to every single elf that he saw.  It was freezing so I hustled the boys through everything in about a half an hour and when I started leading them back to the car they both begged to go back through and see the elves again.  An hour and a half later we were all completely frozen but definitely in the Christmas spirit.

Christmas Eve we headed out to Lehi to the annual Kasteler fondue party.  I didn't get any pictures but the boys had so much fun playing with all the kids and Nathan loved the chocolate fondue.  Logan wasn't feeling great so we headed out early which was perfect because the boys were in bed by 8:30.  Nathan was so cute on the way home from the party, he kept saying "Mom, did you hear that?  I think I just heard Santa's bells!"  He went right to bed and told me to go to bed too so that Santa would hurry up and come.

Christmas morning was so much fun.  The boys were so excited to come down the stairs and see that Santa had eaten their cookies and drank their squeeze-it and left so many presents under the tree.  We did their stockings and every present Nathan opened he would yell Thank you Santa or Thank you mom and dad!  Santa brought each of the boys a build a bear, paw patrol dogs and color changer cars.  Matt and I gave Nathan a remote control car, a light saber, books and Legos.  Logan got a kitchen, dishes, a toaster and a color pad.  We did cinnamon rolls for breakfast and Nathan couldn't eat fast enough so that he could try out his color changer cars.  I think they were his favorite gift this Christmas.

The rest of the day was spent visiting our parents and spending time with our siblings.  We got home around 5 that night and spent the rest of the night playing with the kids and relaxing.  The kids went to bed by about 7:00 that night and Matt and I watched a movie and went to bed early.  It was such a great Christmas! 

2015

I've been wanting to post for awhile but haven't known what to say.  2015 I'm sure not sad at all to see you go.  This year has been so hard! Everything has turned out okay but it has just felt like it was a constant struggle after struggle after struggle.  It has been funny with the end of the year coming to see how many of my family members have had the exact same thoughts about 2015 and are just as excited to see this year end. 


So I haven't posted since May.  I feel like I don't even know where to begin.  Well Logan had his hearing test at the end of May and found that his ear drums weren't vibrating.  This was probably due to scar tissue from all the ear infections he had last winter and this was causing him to not be able to hear well.  When the speech therapist came and evaluated him he was performing at less than 1% of the things he should be doing. 


The therapist we got has been so awesome though, she comes twice a month and worked with him on comprehension and socialization before speech.  We started with sign language and he caught on really quick and has learned a bunch of signs.  The comprehension part of his therapy was the most difficult part, his therapist thinks he wasn't understanding us at all when she started working with him.  His speech was still nonexistent until about a month ago when actually started saying a few words!  He had another hearing test in November and his eardrums were vibrating at a normal rate and he is totally understanding us.  Logan is getting easier every day and is babbling and working on sounds like crazy.  He has come so far but we still have a long road to go.


Lets see what else, so radiation was harder on my mom than she was expecting.  It zapped her energy completely and that on top of recovering from chemo pretty much put her under.  She went to work, went home and went to sleep.  Even after radiation was over she has still been so tired.  Summer was pretty rough on her and she spent most of it resting.  She is getting stronger and stronger all the time but still gets exhausted after doing anything and none of us expected her to still be recovering at this point.


And then there have been issues with me.  In July I went in to see an eye doctor because my vision was blurry.  After not being able to get my eyes up to 20/20 they dilated my eyes and noticed that I had swelling on my optic nerves.  They thought this was caused by swelling in my  brain and sent me to get an MRI and a spinal tap.  Getting news like this really rocked my world.  Getting tested for brain tumors and horrible diseases and thinking the worst possibilities is so terrifying.  Two days after we got this news a letter came in the mail telling us that our house appraised for $40,000 more than we paid for it.  Matt and I freaked thinking holy crap what if this is happening so that if I have cancer and die Matt will be financially okay with the kids.  Of course that's totally irrational but we were scared to death.


The MRI came back clean which was a huge relief so they did the spinal tap to test the pressure in my brain as well as to test me for MS, Crones disease and Rheumatoid Arthritis.  The spinal tap came back normal as well and they discovered that the pressure in my brain was actually too low which caused the swelling. 


I did not recover well from the spinal tap at all and got a horrible headache.  I was down in bed for five days before the doctor let me come back in to get a blood patch over the place where they did the spinal tap.  When I went in for the blood patch they did an x-ray on my back and noticed that the area I got my last epidural at was not sealed and was covered with scar tissue.  The doctor did a blood patch on that area as well and my headache went away within just a few hours as well as all the back pain I have had since I had Logan.  The doctors discovered that my headaches, back pain and failing vision was all from the bad epidural.  It has taken several months but my migraines are almost gone, I'm not having back pain anymore and my lost vision has come back.


Matt also started a new job about a month and a half ago.  It has been an absolute blessing and he loves his new job but changing jobs is always hard.  Matt has been staying home with the boys on Tuesday mornings  ever since my mom got cancer and then brought them to work at 11 and I took them home.  Well with the new job this wasn't an option anymore and luckily my boss has let me switch to 4 10 hour shifts.  The job is also in Provo so figuring out how to get the boys to and from daycare with me going in to work so early has been a little tricky but I think we have gotten a good system down.  Matt is so much happier and so it has definitely been worth it.


Nathan has been the only one without issues this year and has been such an amazing kid.  Right before he turned four it was like he grew up over night.  The past few months have been amazing with him and he has been so well  behaved and fun to have around.  There have been times this year where I have almost lost it and Nathan has given me a big hug and told me to be happy and it has made all the difference in the world.  There have been times where I have looked at him and just thought, Heavenly Father really knew what he was doing when he sent Nathan to our family.


So I guess all is well that ends well.  It's almost like everything rough this year got tied up in a nice pretty bow for the end of the year.  This Christmas season was really different for me, I guess you could say that I finally got the true meaning of Christmas.  This year was so rough but I'm so glad that I wasn't alone and that we had the Lord guiding us through it all.  To see how we have all grown through the challenges is pretty amazing but I sure would never want to relive the last year again.