Quarantine Week 10

Paul worked all week at the junior high, which he didn't love. The students were supposed to return their laptops, textbooks, library books, etc. He's very excited that this was the last week he'll really have to be working with the students and parents. He can't wait to transition over to Timpanogos High School as the librarian. He also started his classes at SUU last week, and has been working hard on those.

I tried to get the kids outside and more active this week. It's a hard balance with Damon's limitations. He's not in pain anymore, and so he thinks he can do everything he used to, but I'm really not comfortable with that. We sit on the chairs outside, and walk around the cul-de-sac while the kids ride bikes, and throw the frisbee back and forth. He just wants to run and spin and ride bikes and get in the hot tub. Poor kid.

Ms Roxi had a See You Later Alligator activity for each of her classes, where they played outdoor games in her backyard. We didn't think that was a good idea for Damon, but Roxi told me I should bring Damon over when nobody else was there because she had the cutest picture backdrop. It was so stinking cute! I'm glad Damon got to say goodbye to Roxi. She's been such a great teacher!

We were able to see family a lot this week, which was awesome. Hallee and Wyatt came over one day and played for a long time. As soon as we dropped them off, Rockwell said, "That was a great day!" They have missed their cousins so much.

Mel and her family went to Colorado this weekend to see EJ and take him his car. She dropped Pepper off at Al's house so they can watch her while they're gone. We went over to hang out with everyone while they were there too. The kids were so excited to see Pepper! Rockwell is doing so great with Jackson and Pepper now.

Ammon and Ashley drove to Utah with their grandparents, and spent a few nights at Al's house. We went over there and played one day. We had a lot of fun visiting and playing games.

Gary, Julie, Caleb, Lindy, and Jacob drove to Utah for the long weekend. That was such a fun, last-minute surprise! I love when my brothers come to town. We went to Guru's for lunch with all the adults (and Damon) on Saturday. 

It was so fun to eat in a restaurant again. That plus all the time spent with family this week was so great. I haven't seen Caleb in over two years, and it was so fun to see him again. We went to Al's house afterward and just hung out. It was a fun day!

Quarantine Week 9

Week 9 was a doozy of a week! All of Damon's issues with his arm, my cousin Josh's son passing away from cancer, combined with Katie's miscarriage and major complications with her surgery made for a heavy, sad week. Katie spent a couple days in the ICU and her body is still not producing her own blood like it should. We are very worried about her. Somehow in the mix of all of her terribly traumatic experiences this week, she still made sure that Ben sent Damon a treat to let him know she was thinking about him. She is such a thoughtful and strong person. I've been so blessed to have a best friend like her all my life.

People have been so sweet and concerned for Damon. We have really appreciated everyones prayers on his behalf. Al came over and gave him some treats and a bunch of movies for him to watch. Al always tells Damon, "Give me all your money!" He laughs every time. She told him that she is so sorry he broke his wrist and that she will give him all her money. He said he'll take it, and he would like it all in pennies. She gave him a big bag of pennies, and he thinks he is super rich now!

My parents came to visit him and bring him a stuffed dog. Mel sent an activity set and sweet card for him too. He has felt very loved through this all.

This hasn't been a great week for Rockwell and Tessa. We have had so much screen time, and Paul and I have been so stressed. It's just been a very blah week. I asked Al if Rockwell and Tessa could go play at her house on Saturday. She was so sweet and kept them for about 9 hours. That was so good for them! They had a blast playing with their cousins and Jackson. Rockwell loves Jackson now and is proud of himself for not being afraid.

Mrs Smith put a sign in our yard for Tessa letting her know she misses her. That was really sweet.

I went in the backyard one evening and Tessa was swinging and reading her book. It was adorable.

I checked on her one night, and she looked like she was just one of her animals. :)

Worst Birthday Ever

Damon turned 5 years old on Tuesday! 

I took his birthday pictures a couple weeks ago, and got some great ones! He is such a handsome, happy, smiley kid. 

Damon loves loves loves to make people laugh, and is so good at it. He brings a lot of fun and laughter to our family. He is crazy and we have to tell him to settle down about 20 times a day, but we all love his fun and happy personality.

Damon loves to play Minecraft and has gotten really good at it. He enjoys watching tv and still quotes movies and shows all the time. He loves to play outside, work outside, and play pretend with Tessa. He is pretty happy to do anything Rockwell and Tessa are doing, he just likes to be with people. 

Damon is such a sweet kid. He hugs Paul and me and tells us, "You're the best!" all day long. We love it. He loves to share and is sweet and complimentary to Tessa and Rockwell. 

We sure love love love our Damon boy!!!

Tuesday morning started out great. Paul made crepes for breakfast.

Then Damon wanted to open his presents.

He was excited with everything he got. Tessa picked out a stuffed bunny for him, and wrote him a song. 

He was excited about his new gun and golf set.

Rockwell put together his golf set and then we went outside to play with it while Tessa and Paul baked Damon's cake.

After that, Tessa, Damon and I went in the backyard to play with his new bubble blower. They were jumping in the bubbles on the trampoline, and Damon took a bad bounce and landed with his right wrist between him and the trampoline bar. He started screaming and as soon as I looked at his wrist I knew there was something wrong with it. I took him inside and we put some ice on it and called his pediatrician. (I was so sad.)

They said one parent could come with him, so Paul took him in to the office. They wrapped his wrist in a splint and sent him over to get some x-rays.

The x-ray tech can't give any diagnosis, but she told Paul to make sure to call the pediatrician in one hour to get results. That let Paul know it was probably a pretty bad break. We called the pediatrician and she said his break was 7 millimeters of separation and referred us to a pediatric orthopedic surgeon, who said he wanted to see Damon on Thursday. 

The broken wrist really put a damper on his birthday celebrations, to say the least. :) Paul stopped at Swig on the way home from the x-rays and got Damon a drink and a cookie, and also picked up Toy Story 4 from Redbox.

Damon requested a dog cake for his birthday, and Paul took that on. He worked on building the cake while the kids and I watched the movie. It was very frustrating for him, but the cake turned out awesome!! I was so impressed.

After dinner, Paul gave Damon a priesthood blessing and then we had dessert. Damon said he didn't want any cake, he wanted the gummy bears that Rockwell had given him for a present. (Damon doesn't like cake, which is why I wasn't willing to make a dog cake for him. But luckily the rest of us thought it was delicious. Paul knew there was a chance he wouldn't eat much, but still wanted to make it for him.)

I took Damon to his Ortho appointment on Thursday. They took more x-rays and scheduled him to have surgery at Utah Valley Hospital the next day. Dr Machen said that he would move the bone back into place under an x-ray machine, and hoped that putting a pin in would make it stable enough. But if there was any sort of muscle or tendon or anything that had moved into the space where the bone was separated, then he would need to cut into the wrist and move that out of the way and then put a pin or a plate in, depending on how stable he felt it was. 

We checked into the hospital Friday morning at 8:30. 

He got all dressed, and then we waited for almost 3 hours. He was so brave, but would have moments of sadness where he would ask to just go home. We hung out, and talked about what was going to happen, and watched funny marco polos that Al's kids had sent him. 

There was a tv in the room so he got to watch some cartoons.

They finally took him back to surgery, and he looked so tiny in the bed as they were wheeling him out of the room. They estimated about 2 hours for the surgery and recovery in the back. I grabbed some food from the cafeteria and brought it back to the room. I hadn't even finished my lunch when Dr. Machen came to let me know everything had gone well. It had only taken 45 minutes, and Damon came back a couple minutes after that. He had woken up just fine, and they brought him in to recover with me for the next hour. I was so so so relieved to see him again and hear that everything had gone smoothly and that they were able to put the pin in without cutting. He was so sad and uncomfortable when they brought him back in.

His throat was hurting from the anesthesia tube and he wanted all the monitors and iv taken off. He drank juice and that helped his throat feel better. The nurse agreed to take a couple of the monitors off and then he settled down and nodded off to sleep for a minute.

When he woke up again, he was really unhappy. He was crying really hard and kept trying to get out of bed to go home. I called a nurse in because all of his wires were getting wrapped around everything and he was trying to put pressure on his arm to get out of bed and would not stop thrashing around. The nurse took the rest of his monitors and iv out and that really settled him down. He stayed calm the rest of the time, and was so excited as soon as they said it was time for him to go home.

His recovery has gone so well so far. He's been in less pain than the doctors anticipated. He is supposed to sit still as much as possible and have his arm elevated. The hardest part has been getting him to sit still as much as he's supposed to. He did start complaining of pain Saturday afternoon, so we've been keeping medicine in him since then. He's really doing so great. He's already playing Minecraft with just his left hand and is able to do everything he needs to on there. I'm glad, because that can keep his attention for quite some time while his arm is elevated.

We are all so disappointed that this is how Damon's 5th birthday turned out for him. Every birthday should be better than this one though!
Happy birthday Damon Doyle! We love love love you!!

Mother's Day

This has been my favorite Mother's Day yet! I slept in this morning, and Paul made me breakfast when I woke up. An egg mcmuffin and some passionfruit juice that he found that tastes just like the fancy drink from Kauai.

We had the Sacrament and our Family Night, and then Paul and the kids gave me some presents. I love the 'About My Mom' pages that they fill out every year. 

Paul got me a book that I've been wanting to read, a hiking shirt (that hasn't been delivered yet), and he surprised me with a book called A Girl's Guide to Heavenly Mother, and an Article that he printed out from the BYU Studies Quarterly called "A Mother There": A Survey of Historical Teachings about Mother in Heaven. These surprise presents mean so much to me. This picture was taken after I stopped crying. :) This is the most thoughtful and meaningful present Paul could have gotten for me, and was the culmination of the best Mother's Day yet.

I woke up this morning to a video that my uncle Ron sent out to the family. Jason filmed Grandma Hawkins talking about her life at the family reunion in 2013, and Ron recently found the video on Jason's ipad. I watched the video as soon as I woke up, and really started thinking about my amazing lineage of mothers who have helped shape me into the woman I am today. The two that I have known personally are my mom and Grandma Hawkins. They are two women who have spent their lives devoted to the important and meaningful things. The two most important things in both of their lives are their family and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I have learned through their examples and their teachings that family and the Savior is what it's all about. I'm very grateful for this perspective that they've taught me. 

I finished reading a book this week called Eve and Adam, and the next mother that I thought about in my lineage was Mother Eve. I absolutely loved what I learned about Eve through studying this book and the scriptural accounts we have of our First Parents. Eve was brave and courageous, intelligent and obedient, and sacrificed her own ease and comfort for the betterment of her family. She longed to be better and to learn and grow, and did very hard things knowing it would be worth it in the end. This was as far as my thoughts had gone at the time I saw the book that Paul had found for me, and as soon as I saw it I was just overwhelmed by the feeling of completeness that this last mother in my lineage brought to the chain of thoughts my mind had been focusing on today, my Heavenly Mother. About a year ago I had a number of experiences that really made me feel like I needed to learn about our Heavenly Mother. I have felt a very strong longing for Her, and felt like She will be able to expound my understanding and better our family's life. Paul and I feel it's very important for our children, especially Tessa, to learn about Her while they are young. The fact that Paul sought out these two new sources for me to learn from for Mother's Day was so meaningful to me. And that led me to think about the beautiful woman who raised Paul and taught him to respect and admire women, and think of them as equal partners. From the very beginning of Paul's and my friendship, I noticed how he treated women, and I loved what I observed. His mom very much influenced his opinion and attitude toward women, and I will forever be grateful to her for that!

I thought it would be fun to put pictures of these women in this post, and so I pulled out a couple scrapbooks. Right away I found a picture of each of them with Tessa, and I thought that was just perfect. She belongs to this same lineage of wonderful women, and I'm so glad she'll get to learn from them as well.
I spent some time outside this afternoon with the kids. Damon loves his new bubble blower!


Paul made steak tacos and pina coladas for dinner. They were extra yummy today!

We did a Zoom call with the Clark side of the family after dinner. We played a Mother's Day Kahoots game that was a lot of fun. We got to know Grandma Clark a little better by playing the game. I always love to see the family!

With all the seeking and learning that I've been trying to do lately, I have gained a greater love of being a woman and a mother. Today was a real blessing, where I got to celebrate what I am, and feel very very loved and seen by my family and by my Heavenly Parents. I love these children and love love love being their mother!