My cute 3 year old

Isaac turned 3 on November 15, and boy can we tell. His stubborn independence is a sure sign. But, we sure do love him. He has had quite a year. Less than a week before his birthday, he had his second round of sclerotherapy on his tongue and chin area. (He has lymphangioma which makes the right side of his tongue swell up when he is sick.) This time they worked on the tongue for the first time and tried to be very agressive about it. Because they were unsure of how the swelling would be we had to be admitted to the hospital so that they could monitor him. Not a fun experience. Try keeping an otherwise healthy 3 year old hooked to an IV and confined to a hopital bed for 24 hours! When the bed was in an upright position, he would try to climb it like a jungle gym. He really does get pretty miserable in the days that follow one of these proceedures. The following video gives you a little taste.
Grandma Carolee and Grandpa Ron were nice enough to watch the other kids while Shane and I stayed in the hospital with Isaac. That meant they also got to be here on his birthday. The poor kid looks happy in the pictures, but it had been a rough week. You can see some drool on his shirt, that is because he can't really close his mouth when the tongue swells up.

By the way...round #3 of sclerotherapy is on Dec. 28th. We sure hope this works.

Halloween

This year's costumes included, a very beautiful Japanese girl, Superman,

and Scooby Doo.

Here is Bryant in his Kindergarten parade:

A few Halloween treats...I made carmel apples for the first time. These were for the Laurels that I teach, they were a lot more work than I thought, but very delish!

Fall Break 2010

This year we decided to do a big trip for Fall Break and use up some of those frequent flyer miles before they expired. We went to Washington DC with a side trip to Palmyra and Niagara Falls. It was an amazing vacation that we will always remember. Here are some of the memories:

We flew in to DC on Saturday, October 9th. We stayed with my sister Emily, and Ryan while we were in DC. It was fun to see where they live and just hang out with them. They were excellent hosts. Sunday we went to church with them and then walked around some of the monuments in the afternoon.

Cute cousins...

Kids sitting under the Arizona wreath.

Monday was Columbus Day and we joined the crowds in some of the Smithsonian museums.

On Tuesday our family loaded up in a rental van and headed out on our side trip to Palmyra and Niagara falls.

It was about a six hour drive but the time passed quickly because we were driving at the peak of Fall beauty back east. Coming from Tucson, it was even more stunning. I definitely needed my fill of fall leaves. It was honestly some of the most breathtaking scenery I have ever seen. We arrived in Palmyra in the evening and found somewhere to eat and then just crashed at our hotel. We woke up on Wednesday the 13th to the most beautiful fall day. Perfect for our day filled with seeing all of the sights of the restoration in Palmyra. We started with the Sacred Grove. We took a tour and were first shown the old log cabin where Joseph lived when he had the first vision.Walking from the log cabin to the new framed home, there is an amazing view of the new Palmyra temple:
Our tour guide told us that originally they planned to have a large mural of the Sacred Grove in the Celestial room, but when President Hinkley visited the site before it was complete, he said something like "why are we going to have a painting when we have the real thing right there?" So instead they have a window overlooking the Sacred Grove. From the temple you can see the Sacred Grove and from the Sacred Grove you can see the temple.
Here is the family in the Sacred Grove:

It was an amazing experience to be there. That feeling of peace, the Spirit, is tangible.

After the Sacred Grove we headed to the Hill Cumorah. Us in the visitor's center:

The monument up on the hill:

Next stop, the Grandin Printing press where the Book of Mormon was first published.

We also drove to see the Martin Harris homestead. After seeing all we could in Palmyra we decided to take a 30 minute drive to the Whitmer farm and see the home where the Church was Reorganized in April 1830.

The whole day in Palmyra was just perfect. Such a great experience.

From the Whitmer farm we headed to our hotel near Niagara Falls. When we woke up it was a little bit wet and drizzly, but we decided we would be getting wet anyway! We rode the Maid of the Mist into the falls. A really cool experience. It was also so beautiful!!

After Niagara it was back to DC to spend a few more days with the Gillan's. On Friday Emily watched the kids while Shane and I went to Mt. Vernon (George Washington's home). That was definitely worth going to. Unfortunatly I forgot my camera, but Shane and I both really enjoyed it.

Friday afternoon we went to a pumpkin patch near Emily's house to soak in some more Fall goodness:

Saturday, back to reality. On the flight home we had the usual meltdowns by our then almost 3 yr. old, and the only other tears happened when, after running to catch our connecting flight, Bryant realized he had left his DS on the first plane and there was nothing we could do about it. (A little lesson in responsibility I'm sure he won't soon forget!)

Summer recap

Since I have been a blogging slacker, I am going to do some brief updates. I was looking through my pictures and just had to get some of them up. So here goes our summer...
I headed to Utah driving 6 kids- 12 hours-by myself (my 4 kids, including 4 month old Eliza, and 2 of the Ross boys ages about 9 and 10 years old) Yes, I am crazy, but I had good motivation to do it. 1) get out of Tucson heat, and 2) make it there in time to run the Wasatch Back relay. This was a big deal for me because my friend and running partner, Sarah, talked me into being on their team and it was just the motivation I needed to get out of my post partum slump and back in shape...quickly...after Eliza.

This is our van of 6 girls and our very cool driver. We had so much fun together. What a great group of women!

Below is the whole team...all 12 of us posing at the end after running almost 200 miles in less than 24 hours.

A big thanks to Ron and Carolee for watching my kids while I did the race.

The following Monday, we headed to Orem where Sheryn and family met us for a week of fun. We went to the dinosaur museum one day...Kids digging for dinosaur bones:

We went to Heritage Park in Salt Lake City. It was a neat place. We spent the whole day there.

After a fun week with Sheryn, she went home and the kids and I stayed in Orem. We played so much with them that I decided it was time for a little work. I spent pretty much the whole next week helping paint some rooms in my parents house. After that we headed back to Logan. We had fun doing sparklers and watching the 4th of July fireworks outside of Romney stadium with the cousins.

While in Logan I got to visit my good friend Matt and his mom Alice.

Shane flew in and joined us in Utah on July 9th. We squeezed a lot of fun in with his family for a few days and then headed to Island Park to Sheryn and Sheldon's cabin for our Pett family reunion. I didn't get very many pictures but we had fun hiking, riding the wave runners and hanging out. Below are all of my parent's grandkids except for James (who was only a few weeks old). The weather was so nice and we had so much fun this summer in Utah, that I hated to go home. Good memories!

Griffin's vs. Pett's

The Griffin’s have put the Pett’s to shame. This month we have been in our house for one year. During the past year every one of Shane’s siblings except Tyson has been to our new house to visit. Not to mention several Aunts, an uncle, and cousins. Shane’s guest list includes:
· Last August, Janette and Quinners, Cleon and Jessalyn came to help us paint
· October, Ron and Carolee, Melody and Carter came to visit
· November, Katrena and Shane and kids came for Thanksgiving
· March, Carolee and Cherilyn came to help after I had Eliza
· March, Tim and friends stopped by during Spring Break
· April, Braden and Jameson rode their motorcycles down
· June, Robert and Katie and kids came and played with us

My family hasn’t been totally absent. My guest list includes:
· September, Spencer, Kristol and Jacob came and went to a water park with us
· November, Spencer’s family also joined us for Thanksgiving
· January, Joshua came with S and K while on a business trip to Phoenix
· February, My mom spent most of February here helping after Eliza was born
· March, Mom and Dad, Spenc er and Kristol came for Eliza’s blessing
Now I just need to rally my family so that the Pett’s outshine during the upcoming year. Maybe it’s because we are still trying to figure out what there is to do in Tucson, and why one would want to visit. We’ll work on that. (Maybe Josh could come up with a travel brochure for me like he did when he lived in Indiana)
Anyway, here are some pics from our most recent visitors, Robert and Katie. We had a great time with them.

End of School Year

Today is officially the last day of school for Cailey and yesterday was Bryant's last day of pre-school. It's on to summer vacation for us.
This is a picture of Cailey and our cute 6th grade neighbor Stephanie leaving for the last day of school. Stephanie would come and pick Cailey up to walk to the bus stop every morning. Very helpful when trying to feed a newborn and get all the kids out the door. Last week we went to Bryant's Preschool Promotion.

Bryant's teacher Ms. Cindy

Last weekend was Spencer's MBA graduation from ASU. We love that Spencer and Kristol live so close.