My cousin, Melanie Baker suffered for many years with cancer and passed away on January 18, 2014. I was able to go to her funeral on January 23rd with my parents and brother, Cody. It was a celebration of her good life, but of course, we are all sad that she isn’t here on earth with us anymore.
Melanie was so kind and loved everyone. She loved all things Disney and it was a big part of who she was. I will never forget being with her and the whole Baker Family in 2009, when we went to Disneyland. Melanie planned it for us and it was such a great trip. Even though, she was several years older than me and we actually didn’t get to see that side of the family that often, I still felt a little close to her and I’m so grateful she was my cousin. I’m so happy that she is out of pain and I’m sure she has a great mission in store for her on the other side.Until we meet again, Melanie!
Here’s the layout I did:
I used my Believe in the Magic and a template from Simple Scrapper
The last week in April, I got a call from my brother. He had decided to take his wife on a fun little train trip for their anniversary, but they needed someone to take care of little Mallory. Of course, I was delighted to do it for them. A few days later, Cody and Becki and Mallory spent the night at our house and then in the wee hours the next morning, they left on their adventure.
Today was my chosen day to do the A DAY IN MY LIFE Challenge, so my notepad and my computer were used all day. It was a crazy day with lots of cleaning, store assistant duties, being with the kids and more. A big highlight of the day for my kids was the great weather outside. They spent the whole afternoon (after school) outside doing lots of things including blowing bubbles. Beth loves the Spring flowers that are popping up!
Yesterday was so exhausting that I needed to have a more laid back day today. I accomplished a few things, but mostly spent the day being lazy and Beth and I completed another puzzle! I love that Beth loves to do puzzles!
Happy Cinco de Mayo! We had bean, rice, and cheese quesadillas for dinner and it is one of JJ’s favorites, so he was very happy. I decided to cancel my crop for tonight because I just wasn’t ready for it – so we actually spent the day/evening together as a family. We also got word that this afternoon, I became an aunt again. My brother, Toby and his wife Savanna had their second child – a little girl they named Briel Ruth Sorensen. Can’t wait to meet her.
I worked on taking lots of pictures today and getting organized to complete my Photography Hunt Challenge. I didn’t get it quite done, but spent most of the day working on that. More cleaning and working on the computer too. The kids are still enjoying getting to play outside more! Joey was hoping that today would be his last day to have to give himself injections – but after visiting the doctor this morning – our hopes were dashed. He has to do it for 5 more days. We really hope the blood clots clear up soon.
It’s been nice to have Joey home all week, but I really feel badly that he has been feeling so awful. The blood clots, gout, and all of his medicines have really got him in pain and feeling down. But his girl can sure cheer him up. She snuggled and played with him in bed for a long while today. Since Joey didn’t have his podcast tonight – we had dessert first and went to Sub-Zero for ice cream and home for dinner tonight.
I slept in awhile today. Joey got Aaron to come over and mow our lawn and then they headed up to Salt Lake City to do his podcast. The kids and I spent the day cleaning, making cookies, and being lazy. I also worked more on my photography hunt challenge – its still not done and I need to finish! The kids were glad to see Joey at the end of the day. I made all of us lay down on the ground to take a fun family photo and I thought it was very cute of the kids as they helped Joey off the floor. 🙂 Joey brought home Mings for him and I for dinner and it was very good.
There’s nothing like the 3am sound of a kid throwing up. Poor JJ got sick all over his bed so we spent time in the shower and cleaning it all up. He slept on the couch with Joey nearby the rest of the night. This morning, I was feeling pretty awful too and Joey is having a rough day, so no church for us today. What a great Mother’s Day huh? We did get our calls into our moms though, so that was good.
It was finally another nice day and my kids couldn’t wait to play outside after school. They played for a few hours and constantly came in to tell me about things they saw and things they were doing. They were very cute. Beth loves worms and JJ helped her find several worms to put in a container of dirt. They kept coming in to show me their findings. It wasn’t until I went out to call them in for dinner that I found out where they were getting all the worms. JJ was tearing out all the bricks that were in the ground to make a pathway by the shed. After being angry about it for awhile, I finally realized how cute it actually was. JJ was helping his sister find worms. He didn’t realize he was moving stuff that wasn’t supposed to be moved. Silly kids.
Tonight was JJ’s Pack Meeting. It was so exciting because he got his first 2 awards in the scouting program. He received his Bobcat badge and his Badminton belt loop. Part of getting the bobcat badge was painting lines on JJ’s cheeks. He wasn’t so sure about that one and really didn’t want me to do it. When he saw one of his scoutmates getting it done – he finally let me paint it on him – but as soon as he got home he washed it off – no paint faces for him!
A big fan of Bill Watterson (Calvin and Hobbes), Joey wanted our kids to be attached to their stuffed animals. In trying to encourage this, he would ask Beth if she would let him borrow her stuffed tiger (which he had bought for her at the Hogle Zoo and named “Sasha”) at night. This has quickly got out of control as now Beth has to have someone watching Sasha anytime she’s away from the house, and has asked Joey to take Sasha to work with him several times. Joey’s co-workers have got quite the kick out of seeing Sasha’s head popping out of his backpack and attending his meetings. Sasha is Daddy’s “helper” and Beth’s comfort! I’m not sure what we would do if we lost Sasha – let’s hope that it never happens!
I have some great visiting teachers. I have been so swamped getting ready for NSD and other things that I haven’t had a chance to have them come over this month. They dropped by some yummy banana bread that the kids and I snacked on all day. They really are very sweet.
Joey had an early appointment with his Rheumatologist. It was in Sandy so he was just going to stay up there and work at Pete’s house, but his leg was all swollen in a way that it shouldn’t be, so they decided he needed an ultrasound. They could only find one hospital that could do it today and that was the Timpanogos Hospital here in Orem, so he came back home. At 3pm, he left to go get his ultrasound, with the plan to leave from the hospital to go do his podcast. The kids came home from school, we had snack and playtime and about 5pm, we left to go pickup my cousin, Heather who was in town for the BYU Womens conference. I hadn’t seen her in a year and was very happy to have some time to visit with her. We haven’t actually been close in proximity ever, but I feel like we have kept a pretty good relationship through the years between emailing, and recently through Facebook/blogs. She’s a wonderful person and I’m so glad I had a chance to catch up with her. We picked Heather up and went to Hogi Yogi’s where we had yummy sandwiches and yogurt. Amidst the visiting and handling my wound-up kids, I missed several calls from Joey. Finally JJ interrupted my visiting with Heather and said, “Mom, you’re phone is ringing.” I missed the call again, only to find out that I had missed several calls. I called Joey back and it was now close to 6:30pm and I expected Joey to be in Salt Lake City. But no, he was still at the hospital where he had just been informed that he had 18 blood clots in his leg and 1 in his lung. It was so shocking to hear and especially over the phone where I couldn’t be with Joey. Joey informed me that he was going to go do the podcast now and then we would talk later. So fortunately, I stayed calm – finished visiting with Heather and then dropped her back off at the BYU dorms before heading home. After the kids went to bed, I did research on blood clots, worked on final preparations for NSD, and had a freak out before Joey finally arrived home and we were able to talk. A huge day.
Another crazy day. Joey and I slept in a little bit and then he headed off to the pharmacy to get his medications. Unfortunately, he had a hard time finding a pharmacy with the right stuff – and so when my NSD crop started – he still wasn’t home. The crop went well – even though the kids had a rough time, so I was trying to do my crop and handle the kids at the same time. We made it through and finally Joey got home. Joey’s doing pretty well, but the worst thing is having to give himself injections in the stomach for 5 days. The needle doesn’t really bother him – but the medicine is really hurting him. I just pray that this medicine will help and that we can get the blood clots to go away.
We stayed home from church today. But our home teachers came over and was able to give Joey a blessing and I pray that it will help him through the next several days.
