Happy Birthday Brianna!

Brianna's birthday blog is late, no fault of my own.  The 2 of us were at girls camp for her birthday July 22nd.  We had a wonderful, spiritual time up there.  We were able to do some bonding.  Brianna and I had a rocky start when she was born.  She was unfortunate to arrive during the time my husband and I were having all our problems and were seriously contemplating divorce.  I think all the stress I was going through transferred to her.  She was born at Cottonwood hospital and weighed an even 7 pounds and was 19 inches long.  I wanted to name her Celestia but lost the argument in the hospital with Troy and his mom.  I was so frustrated I said, "FINE!".  Her name is now Brianna Celeste, at least I got a portion of what I wanted.  Brianna has the distinguished honor of bearing the female version of my brothers name, Brian.  He is the one who blessed her when he returned from his mission.  Brianna spent a lot of time crying in the middle of the night and the only way to get her to stop was to do the Priesthood bounce.  Ugh!!!!!!  Talk about hard on the arms.  As soon as you stopped she would start crying.  I spent hours doing this at night.  One Sunday morning Brianna was crying and I happened to turn on the t.v. to drown her out and I put on the Tabernacle Choirs Music and The Spoken Word.  Miracle of all miracles she instantly quieted.  Talk about music soothing the savage beast!!!  I feel bad that most of my memories of Brianna are more negative.  I spent many nights and days praying that I would like her.  Now she is such a joy in my life, always willing to help and love me.  She has brought me breakfast in bed, made her dad buy me an ice-cream cake for my birthday, and numerous other things.  She reminds me a lot of me when I was her age(12).  I passed the family Christmas Nativity director on to her.  She is the one to get all the cousins together and make costumes and practice for the play.  I wouldn't trust anyone else to do it.  Her creativity amazes me.  She's smart, loves to read, loves to camp, four wheel and hike.  She has a great love of animals and sleeps with both our dogs.  She does a wonderful job of helping watch Vance when I need a break.  I know Brianna had a rocky start but it will be a wonderful journey a long the way.  Thank you Brianna for being you and Happy Birthday!

Like father like son...

True colors of Greg

Updates

Troy's rash has turned the corner.  It is actually looking better after 3 antibiotic shots and about 3000 mg of oral antibiotics.  Yay!!!!!  The high doses though has messed up his appetite and gives him some flu like symptoms.  We were warned about it.

We went to the Ward camp out and had fun.  We had Brianna and her friend watch 5 kids while the 3 sets of parents went to lunch.  I think the conversation we had was better than lunch.  It was a bit pricey.  It rained part of the time but not to bad.  Vance decided to copy the big boys and got into the mud puddle located in the middle of the campsite (check Collette's blog for a picture).  I was okay with it but after we had to clean him up and it smelled like he rolled in cow manure.  Ugh!!!!  Gross!!!!!  Thank heaven kids are washable.  Dad wasn't to happy with it.  We didn't have our camera but we did have the video camera.  On Saturday while everyone was packing up to go our friend Shane came up with his boat and took us boating for a few hours.  It was a blast.  I got sunburned.  Not to badly though.

Vance also learned how to ride a bike without training wheels this week.  I guess it's the summer for all the neighborhood kids to learn that.  Vance saw Tyson riding his bike and decided that he wanted to try.  He was determined to push start it himself and couldn't quite get it.  Sam pushed him off and off he went.  I got a picture on my cell phone but no way to download it.  Sorry!  That was the end of the lesson and he didn't give it a try again for almost a week when Tyson gave Vance his little bike.  In a matter of minutes he was off and riding.  No help needed.  That was the easiest child to teach how to ride a bike since I didn't have to do anything other than sit back and watch.  What a determined child.  I just love him so much.

Troy, Sarah and Vance have gone to Scofield with the Pitts.  I will join them with Jacob late tonight.  This week is EFY and Jake and Liz are there.  On the first day Jake found out that his hair didn't meet the For Strength of Youth standards.  I guess I should have read it before I sent him.  He had to get his hair cut or leave.  Liz called and told me about it saying that they had someone there who could cut hair.  I asked to talk to Jake and he told me he didn't want to cut his hair and I told him it would grow back.  He insisted.  So I told him I wouldn't force him to do it and to come home.  I was pretty mad and frustrated at that point because I knew that the Stake paid for it and they couldn't get their money back.  After a few minutes I thought that maybe I should go pick him up so I text Liz and asked her if he needed a ride.  She text me back saying that Jake had decided to cut his hair.  I am so proud of him! Of course it's not as short as I want it to be but it barely fits into the standard.  Baby steps, right?  I can't wait for long hair to go out of style again.  I didn't like the 70's style the first time around.  Back to the story of going to Scofield, our kids get to ride on a float and throw candy.  So Cool!!

Some may be wondering what happened to Greg during the Ward camp out.  He got caught by the police with his friends at my house drinking alcohol.  He and his friends all received tickets and Troy showed up and had a good talk with all of the boys.  Hopefully this won't happen again.  I think I have updated everything.  Have a wonderful Fourth of July weekend to all.