Grandma Lucy

Saturday Larry, Glenn, and I helped move grandma Lucy into Orchard Heights Assisted Living Home.  I have spent many hours preparing for this day.... Glenn had been out of town for over 2 months traveling cross county. The day after Christmas Lucy fell getting into bed. I didn't find her til the next afternoon (she was on the floor for over 13 hours! ) This was not the first time this has happened! She spent a night and day in the hospital and the doctors and social workers all told us she can no longer live on her own. (Which we knew and had tried to get her to move in with us back in August Which is a long story in itself.) Having daily check in's wasn't enough anymore. They also diagnosed her with dimentia  (which we already knew!) With that her daughter Patty moved in to stay with her until we could make permanent arrangements. I started the search. I called more places then I can remember (I stopped counting). I toured many. .. I prayed and cried... when we found Orchard Heights Assisted Living Home Larry and I both knew it was the place. There are so many wonderful things about this place. (I'd move in if I could.)  We took Lucy to see it, have lunch there... many more tears... but Larry and I felt so much peace through the whole thing. Glenn got back mid January, and he agreed the place was a good fit. We moved her in February 11th. We wanted one more birthday in her house. It was a special day. Moving day was a little hard but it went better then I imagined. We went to visit her for Family Home Evening tonight and heart attack her door. It was a nice little visit. The kids got to see the place and thought it was nice. I still worry about her being sad when I go to bed at night, and pray she isn't too scared but I know this is a blessing for her and everyone. We will see her often and shower her with love.

Grandma Lucy turns 96

On January 30th Grandma Lucy turned 96! We planned a surprise birthday party for her at her home. We all just showed up at 4 with food and gifts. It was our last family gathering in her home. She was preparing to move into an assisted living home. It was a nice evening surrounded by family.

Guilt....

So many things have happened in the last year and a half that are now undocumented for my family. The longer I went with out posting the harder it got for me to want to post again because I felt like I needed to "catch the whole thing up". Which got more and more overwhelming of course. But after this month of events I decided I was going to attempt to just pick up and start from here and not feel like I had to post about everything that has happened. I might touch on a few things that have happened because they are big but mostly I just need to start again. Not because anyone ever reads this but because I need to to document our life as the Davis family.
#1 Event worth Posting about was in December of 2014 Hayden was baptized. It was a very special day and I can't actually find any pictures of it right now... (this is WHY I need to do this so things don't get lost!) After her baptism we went and cut down our Christmas tree and went to the carousel to see Santa with all our family.
#2 Everyone had birthdays, Ethan got his divers permit, I've gone to girls camp, was released from Young Women's (after almost 6 years of serving with these amazing girls). Larry was put into the young men's presidency and now is the Young Men's president. Ruth started kindergarten which is ALL DAY! Funny thing is after 3 days of that at dinner she asked, "is tomorrow a school day?" I said yes everyday is school except weekends now. She said, "this is really cutting into my playtime." Just this week she has turned a corner and hopefully it will stay that way but she is enjoying school now and not saying she hates school. So that is exciting!

This is a picture of her on her first day!

But the thing that has inspired me to get back into this is the passing of my mother in law. After she passed away I was gathering picture of her to put together for a slide show at her funeral. As I looked and looked through all our photos I was seeing my children grow and change so quickly that I hardly believed they were who they are now because in my mind they are still these sweet little kids but yet they are not at the same time. I realized I was missing out on a lot of what I use to capture on my blog of memories. I post very little on Facebook and what I do post there is not very informative. I don't share overly personal things but maybe a few funny stories here and there. Not that I over share here by any stretch of the imagination but I do tend to journal a lot more when I do post on the blog (which I am sure part of why I stopped... it was more time consuming AND I can't figure out how to do it with my phone and I don't love sitting in front of the computer.) But now that all my babies are in school maybe I can sacrifice a few minutes a week to just update! That is my hope! So on to the passing of my mother in law.

We found out in July that she was diagnosed with terminal bone cancer that stemmed from the breast cancer she had had in 2000. They didn't give us a timeline but we knew this was going to be terminal. We spent some time with family and they all came out to see her in the last few months. 

Very close to Christmas things started to get much worse for her and the doctors told her probably 3 to 6 months. Christmas Eve was a bit scary we thought we might loose her then, but she really wanted to spend Christmas with her grand kids and family. So we all prayed she would get to do that and she did. She was strong enough to come out to our house Christmas morning, and spend some time with our kids. That was the last time our kids saw her and the last time she really left her house. After that she was on hospice care. Scott and Brenda (Larry's brother and sister) had come to be with her during the holiday. After they left I would go and spend days helping care for her and Larry spent several nights there to help his dad as well. It was a very emotional time but also very special. I felt heaven very close each time I was with her and felt the veil was thin for her as well. On Jan 10th I spent the day helping her and it was the most painful day ever. For her and everyone involved. I cried and cried as I helped care for her (as did the hospice nurse). I cried the whole way home with my heart breaking that she was in so much pain. Jan 12th Larry called to let me know that she had passed away about noon. There are many aspects of my relationship with her I won't go into a lot of detail but I will say this. Even though some times we may not have always seen eye to eye and had disagreements I grew to love and respect my mother in law. I saw her many attributes and how she blessed me and my family. Our last afternoon together we hugged and cried and I told her I loved her and she said to me "I love you so so so so so so much." This still makes me teary but I know that the Lord has blessed us, healed our relationship and has left me knowing that I do love her and will try to keep her memory alive for my children. 

I had the privilege of writing her obituary, and dressing her after she passed. These blessed me more then I can really say as they were the last way I got to serve this woman who served me in so many ways.

Her funeral was very nice and we got to see lots of family we haven't seen in a while. We spent that evening with Larry's brothers and sister and their family. We got to hear all the great stories of them growing up. We laughed so hard we cried and I just felt blessed to be surrounded by these people. 

So now my goal is to try to post something at least once a week (maybe every other if there isn't anything to exciting going on) But mostly I just don't want to loose all the memories that are to come like I have many of the past year and a half.  Some of what we have done in the past year and a half have been painful and private enough I probably wouldn't have blogged about them anyway but I should have at least documented some of what was happening. I will do better!

This is my favorite picture we found while I was putting together the slide show. This was Nadine with their daughter Brenda. I think she looks so beautiful in this picture.

This picture was taken in our back yard a year or two ago. She just looks peaceful and happy.

 This was the last camping and boating trip we took after her diagnosis in July. Scott and his family came out and we had a wonderful weekend just being together and having fun!

I took this picture of Nadine in 2000 Ethan is that baby. She use to come and help us work on our house that we had to totally gut. Here she was still going through Chemo, just barley healed from her mastectomy and she would come and help work on my house projects. On this day she needed to rest and often times would take that time to snuggle the baby and they both took a very deserved nap. It brings me to tears and humbles me to look at this photo and realize all the many ways she served and blessed my life. 

Week 9 of Summer vacation!

This week was a trying one, well part of it anyway. Monday we spent the day cleaning up and doing laundry after getting back from 8 days of camping. It wasn't really cleaned up till Wed. Well the house anyway. Laundry was done Monday. I had signed the older 3 kids up for a water color class at the beginning of the summer that was for this week. They had so much fun and learned a lot. While they were painting each day Hayden and I went to the park or wandered the dollar store. One day we even got an ice cream. She was so good about not getting to take the class. She never even asked why she didn't get to go. The end of the week was rough just because I wanted bed rooms cleaned up before they left for grandma camp. Some how this was a unrealistic expectation... Anyway the job did get done and now (Sunday afternoon) they are on their way their now! Daddy is doing the drop off so I can stay home for a baptism. Thanks Grandma! Next week I will post pictures of all the fun they had!
i am also going to have fun crafting away and spending one on one time with my Baby Ruth! Which she is already demanding!
This one is Ethan's. He painted a volcano, and trees. I loved that he tried to use all the techniques she taught them.

This one is Brock's painting of Dotty, our dog.

This one is Amelia's. It is her polka dotty horse. I love her night sky with the stars in it!.

Grandma Camp

The first week of August my kids all went and spent the week with Grandma and Grandpa Workman. They all had sooooo much fun! When I got there to pick them up they all talked a million miles a minute and all really loud, so they could tell me everything! I am so glad they had a good time and everyone had a good time! I thought I would post some of the pictures mom gave me! She sure kept them busy!Here are the girls petting Uncle Sam's horse Luna. Luna had a baby a little while ago and my girls love horses (or all animals at that!) At some point the horse did get a little close for comfort for Hayden though. She even says Luna's name it is pretty cute!

Grandma had to take them all to Dairy Queen the last day before we got there! The kids of course loved that! YUMMY! Hey I don't think I ate DQ once while my kids were gone! Oh wait I did try out "The Scoop" It is an ice cream shop here in town that opened a little over a year ago here and I hadn't been in yet. So one evening Larry and I went kid free and then went to music in the park.

I love Hayden's ice cream face!

Amelia with one of her most favorite cousins Lia. They got to play together a lot this week and loved it! Amelia is a year older but they play together so nicely! It is nice when you get to be friends with your cousins~

order=0>Grandma took the kids to the county fair! WEEEEE!

Hayden was too little to ride on any of the "rides" but the pony ride was her most favorite! Moms says she got the best smiles out of Hayden while she was on this pony!

I know Amelia loved it too! She is a My Little Pony girl! Now if only these horses were pink and purple too!

Ethan and Johnnie got to go on this really cool bouncer! Way fun! I love that Ethan is upside down in this one!

They had lots of fun hands on activities for the kids too!

It is never complete with out a picture like this!!! What kind of garden did these kids come from?

border=0>
Some of the time they got to hang out by Grandma's pool, and play with squirt guns! They also got to shoot bebe guns!!! (Not Hayden though) The little boy in this picture is Hyrum my nephew. He is 4 1/2 and the funniest kid ever!

The kids got to go to a really cool aquatic center where there were tons of fun things to do! Can you tell Hayden is way excited! Don't be fooled she is!

Ethan on the water slide!

Baby Reagan, Aunt Angela, and Johnnie at the aquatic center! Everyone had a fun and safe time and my kids can hardly wait for next year!!!

On top of it all mom/grandma took them school shopping!!! What a huge huge help that was!!! All I have to do is get shoes, and school supplies!!! I did the supplies while they were gone so I could just get what was on the list with out the whining over the extra things that look like a lot of fun that they don't need.

I had a week full of DR appointments, kid free shopping for vacation stuff, and school supplies. I also got to get a pedicure, and craft till my fingers were glued together, then I washed them and kept going!!! I still have some to finish before the baby gets here so I will be ready for the bazaar but I made a huge dent in my list of to do's! It was amazing to watch movies I wanted to in the middle of the day an not have to rewind so I could hear what was said. I went craft shopping one evening with some girl friends and then out to dinner. And NO ONE wanted to eat any of my food all week oh and I didn't have to take anyone potty the minute I sat down to eat. It was very restful and I can never thank my mom enough for this time I had to recharge my batteries and remind my self that I do love being a mom, I do love my children, and taking care of myself is ok once and a while! It was a great week but I was excited to see my kids and hear all about how much fun they had. It brought me a lot of joy to hear about how much they loved it! My goal is to be just as much fun as a grandma that my grand kids would love to come play at my house for week and do all kinds of awesome stuff with them! Thanks Grandma and Grandpa for putting up with the noise and business of my 4 kids (plus all the others that came over to help entertain them all.)

Weekend Up date

This weekend was so much fun! Friday we took the kids to Prineville for Grandma camp. We stayed Saturday and took everyone out on the boat in Prineville Res. It was a lot of fun! It was the first time my dad has been able to come out with us. The kids had soooo much fun with Grandpa throwing them overboard! They even "pushed" grandpa off once too. (ha ha) The only bad part was I got my camera out to take pictures of all the fun and found that my video card was at home in the reader!!! AHHHHH! So I have to pictures of all the fun. The kids had fun riding the tube, Ethan and Larry both water skied. And we all cooled off in the wonderful water! We got out just in time for the thunder and lightning storm to start. It was a beautiful storm and my kids were very impressed. We don't get those here very often. And I haven't seen one that big in a really long time! It was like God's fireworks! Way cool! Larry and I stayed till Sunday afternoon and then headed home with out the kids. I was soooo excited for this week to get some stuff done with out interruptions and a week free of whining and fighting... The farther we drove away I started to feel guilty, like maybe I shouldn't have been so excited, or maybe I shouldn't leave my children, especially Hayden. But I am feeling better about it this evening after getting a message from my mom. I knew they would have fun and they were just as excited as I was. So no more worries! They were all looking forward to this and I am glad that they love to be with Grandma and Grandpa so much. Plus I am so thankful for a mom who loves to do such fun things with my kids. I know she has a week planned of fun stuff. I will post pictures when they get back because I know my mom will send some. So my week is going to be jam packed! Today I went to my 29 week check up. I don't have diabetes! But I am anemic. Which is totally normal for me in my 3rd trimester. I have had this every time. So I will start my iron, and call it good. After the Dr visit. I did my normal pay day groceries shopping, and got home in the afternoon just in time to get my scrap projects started. I am excited about how much I have gotten done in just the few hours I worked on it today! Amazing how much you get done with out getting up a million times to get a drink for someone, take someone potty, get a snack.... Larry and I had a really quiet dinner where we could hear each other talk and not get interrupted at all. It was almost weird. Larry pounded the table a few times and whined that he needed to go potty just so we wouldn't feel to weird. The rest of my week will be filled with paper projects, a pedicure, and hopefully an afternoon at the movies! Oh and I will have to finish packing for vacation. But Larry and I will work on that in the evenings. Anyway Sorry no pictures again only boring journalling!

Welcome to the Family Reagan!

My Brother Sunny and His Wife had their baby girl today! I am so excited for them and can hardly wait to go see her! They named her Reagan Joy. She is so beautiful, and healthy!!! (I stole this picture from my moms blog you can read more about her there. )

This evening we were watching Ethan at his baseball practice and Amelia wanted to pick flowers for Grandma and Reagen so that they would know that she loves them. It told her they would die before we got to see them again so we thought we could post the pictures on our blog for them.

Hayden had to be part of the action so she picked a handful of weeds to show to Grandma too! (Sorry I didn't turn it before I posted it!)

Brock never to be left out had to pick flowers for Grandma and the baby too! Only he couldn't hold his he had to put them on a paper towel. (Not sure why!) So consider these your first virtual flowers Reagan! We love you and congratulations Sunny and Angela!

"My Grandma"

Lately Amelia has had a really big attachment to my mom. She calls her "my grandma" and will randomly start crying or asking to go see her. She lives 3 hours away so it is a weekend to go see Grandma. Which we love to do but can't do every weekend obviously! So anyway Wed. last week we were taking Ethan to cub scouts and Amelia asked me if she could go and see her Grandma and I told her yes we were going Friday. So then she told me "mom I need to get a picture of me and my grandma to put on the wall in my bed room so I can always see her." So while we were there we took this picture! It is sooo sweet to me to see. Oh and Grandma is the one who made this very cute dress for Amelia. Hayden has a matching one! They love their dresses so much that I can hardly get them to wear another dress on Sunday.