Trey's Birthday

In true Western fashion, we spent 3 days celebrating Trey's birthday. (March 12th)

Hey it's not a birthday unless you can go out with a bang!  And that we did!

Saturday night a few of us met up at Chick-fil-a.
The kids had a ball playing in the playland.

(This was the best picture I could get of all of them)

On Sunday we had some of Trey's friends over for ice cream and cake.
I wish our house was big enough to invite all his friends!
Trey was in heaven.

{Before his friends arrived.}

 (Still working on that smile!)

Everyone else got off the couch and Trey just sat there for a few more minutes.
It cracked us all up.

I even went all out and made him a firetruck cake.  He LOVES firetrucks lately and has to always point them out when he sees them.  (Along with busses and planes and so forth)  But on this particular day Jeff took Trey on a walk up to see the firetrucks and when they got close to them he started freaking out!!  He was SO scared of them!  Haha!  I was like, "Great, I'm glad I'm making him a firetruck cake!"  He still loved his cake, but we have since learned, his obsession over firetrucks is only when he can look at them from afar or in a book.  Silly kid!

Monday (his actual birthday), I made a yummy dinner and Trey opened all his presents.
Afterwards we went to Jeff's church ball game to cheer him on.  That was probably the highlight of all three days for Trey.  He loves getting to watch his Daddy play ball.

Helping them warm up before the game.

 His favorite gift was a present from his Grandma Kathie and I.
His new trike.

Now he can keep up with the big kids!

Grampy

My sweet Grandpa passed away this morning.
Everyone who knew him would tell you what a wonderful man he was.

 I can't think of a more fitting day than Easter for him to go.
I'm sure the Lord is welcoming a dear friend home today.

 

He has been an amazing Grandpa and would have taken the shirt off his back for anyone.

I seriously can't think of a better example to follow than my Grandpa.

We always joked that when he died he'd be heading straight to the Celestial Kingdom and the rest of us would be hanging on to his shirt tail!  We laugh about it now but that's probably what's going to happen!

About a month ago my Grandpa had a stroke that caused both his arm and leg to go numb.  They took him to the Logan Rehab center with hopes that therapy would help him recover.  He tried his best but in the end it just wasn't in the cards.  This last week he went downhill fast and just gave up on eating all together.  He was ready to go and had managed to stay around long enough to tell all of his children goodbye.

My mom and aunt Lori were here visiting me this last week and got home hours before he passed.
They stopped by on there way home around midnight to check in on him and ended up staying for over an hour holding his hand and talking to him, telling him about their week and letting him know they loved him.  He wasn't able to open his eyes but they knew he was listening.  My mom told me he twitched his eyes on 3 different occasions that let them know he could hear them. They said a prayer with him before they left and asked the nurses to give him some morphine since he appeared to be quite uncomfortable.  They received a phone call 45 minutes after they left that he had passed.  I know he waited for them to come home and say their goodbyes one last time.  I'm so glad they got that tender moment with him.


 My Grampy made an impression on everyone he met.
He loved when you would sit down and talk with him about stories from his past.  He could talk to you for hours.  He was such a little jokester and would always be cracking little jokes or trying to tickle us when we weren't looking.

Ever since I was a little girl my Grandpa has always called me Kimberly.  I don't think I can recall a time he has ever called me anything else.  I loved that about him.  He is so sweet and so loving.  I'm not sure my sweet Grampy has ever said a bad word in all his life, much less raised his voice.
 If only we could all be more like him.

My Grandpa LOVED to be outside and loved to go on walks.  This time of year was his favorite.  Every time he'd see a pretty flower, a cool looking leaf, a pretty sunset, a rainbow, deer running in the field, a pretty bird, basically anything he found of interest he would come and get us and want to show us.  It always brought a smile to my face.  I'm really going to miss having him around, sitting in his little blue chair.  He loved that chair.  That will forever be his spot. 

My Grampy treated my Grammy so good.  He always did whatever she asked of him without a word of complaint.  He was such a hard worker.  In all his 35 years of teaching school, he only missed 3 of those days due to a ruptured kidney (or something close to that).  My grandpa loves to read.  He's probably read every church book there is to read. :)  And as long as I can recall, he's watched the BYU devotional on TV every week.  (Even if he had to turn it up to the loudest volume to hear it).  He LOVED his grandkids, and although he didn't always vocalize it, I KNEW he loved me.  He was always so happy when any of the family came over to visit.

I'm so happy for the knowledge of the gospel and eternal families.  I know we will get to see him again someday.  It's reassuring to know my Grampy is happy and in a better place.  I obviously can't remember what heaven is like, but I'd like to think it is a beautiful place with lots of flowers, and I can just picture my Grampy up there smelling every last one of them.  I know he is having quite the reunion up in heaven with all of his family and was welcomed home with open arms.

 

He will most definitely be missed.

I love you Grampy!

Papa T and Grandma K come to visit

Tony and Kathie made another trip out here a couple of weeks ago.  It so happened that Tony had a root canal and was willing to let Jeff be the one to take care of it.  (Did I mention it was his FIRST root canal!?)  What a nice dad!  Jeff was needing some root canals to fill his requirements before he graduates, so thanks to Tony he has one more to check off!

As far as I know everything went smoothly and Jeff did a great job.  At least Tony hasn't called yet to tell us otherwise. :)

Trey loves when Grandma and Grandpa come to visit.  It was fun having them here again.

 

While Jeff and Tony were taking care of business at the Dental school, the rest of us spent the morning at the park.

It has been great weather for the past couple of weeks... I'm talking 70's and 80's and it's only the middle of March!  I love it!  So we've spent many of our days at the park.

Trey found Grandpa's shoes.  Silly kid.

We went out to eat a couple of times but decided maybe we wouldn't be doing that anymore since Trey was a little stinker!  The days of enjoying a peaceful dinner with kids at a restaurant are over...

We did however make it to two of my favorite places.  Pamela's and Uncle Sam's.  And we can't forget Cheesecake Factory.  I've become a sucker for their White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake lately.  I don't even want to know how many calories are in one slice and I refuse to find out.  I'll continue to enjoy it without that extra guilt.

Tony and Kathie got up way too early, in my opinion, to go watch Jeff play church ball in Washington.  The chances of me being ready to walk out the door with my 2 kids by 8am were slim to none... so Kate and I opted to stay home while the rest of them went to support my basketball obsessed husband. :)

We can't forget about sweet little Kate.

It wouldn't be right if I didn't have at least one sleeping picture of Tony.
That man can sleep anytime, anywhere, anyhow.  Ha.

We also blessed Kate the weekend they were here.  The timing worked out perfectly.
Thanks for everything Tony and Kathie!  We look forward to seeing you again in May!

Kate's Blessing Day

Kate was blessed on March 4.

Jeff gave her a beautiful blessing.

She looked so dang cute on her special day.

She even sat on the bench like a big girl. :)

She cried through a lot of the blessing.  That darn binki fell out as soon as the blessing started!

We were lucky to have Jeff's parents here that weekend.  It was nice to have some family at the blessing.

 I love this pic!

You can see both her dimples.

It truly is a blessing to have this little girl in our lives.  She is my little sweetheart!

Weeks 2 & 3 with Grandma Kathie

Grandma Kathie came to visit a couple of days after my mom and sister left.  Thank goodness because I wasn't quite ready to be on my own yet!

This was the day she arrived.  Trey was so excited to see her!

Grandma K and Trey had lots of fun together.

I'm so glad Kathie was so helpful with him, he was a little extra needy these first couple of weeks (as was expected.)

I think Trey loved having someone to play with him ALL of the time.

Trey would wake up every morning and want Grandma K to race his cars on the racetrack.  He was pretty consistent with this. He would sit down and pat the floor next to him for her to sit down.  Pretty cute if I do say so myself.

Trey got his fair share of ring around the rosies.  He wanted to do it again and again and again... unfortunately for him, us old folks could only do it a couple of times before we got too dizzy.

 Loving on his sister Kate.  

Trey really was so sweet with Kate.  I was worried how he would act towards her, but he did so great and always wanted to give her hugs and kisses.

Playing some more with Grandma... Trey kept her busy! :)  (Kate was waiting for her bath)

Love my kiddos...

She also did some bonding with Miss Kate.

 

Random photos of Kate

Kathie was here for a week and was supposed to head home the Saturday after she got here.  It so happened that Jeff was leaving to interview in Texas that same day.  Kathie got up at 5am, got ready, and packed her bags... just about ready to head to the airport when she decided she better stay to help me the 3 days that Jeff was going to be gone.  Bless her heart.  (This may or may not have been due to the melt down I had the night before.)  I had reassured her that I would be fine but I think she knew my state of affairs and decided it was best that she stayed.  I'm so glad she did because Trey got another blasted cold/cough that weekend and was quite miserable to say the least.  I was up more at night with him than I was with Kate.  Between the two of them I think I only got about 5 hours of sleep in 2 nights.  Thank goodness Kathie was here so I could nap during the day.

Thanks again Kathie for staying longer to help me out... we were all glad you did!

Cuddling with Grandma while watching a show... we watched a few too many of those since he was sick and not feeling well.

CHEEEESE!

We took Kathie to the airport Tuesday morning (the same day Jeff got home).

Trey was sure sad to see her leave.

Poor kid gets used to having someone here and then they just have to turn around and leave again.

Good thing she comes back a few weeks later!

That same day I came downstairs from doing something and found this...

Cute little Trey thought it would make Kate happy to share his pretend food with her.

This wasn't the first time I found his toys on her..  once I found his Barney DVD on her head and more than once have found a ball on her lap.

I love that he thinks whatever makes him happy should make her happy too!

It's times like this when I just LOVE being a mom.