Caydin Slideshow

I posted this slideshow a couple of years ago for Caydin's birthday, but wanted to post it again this year!

Caydin's Birthday

This is a few hours early, but tomorrow is Caydin's birthday. He would have been 7! I can't believe he would be that old! It's hard for me to write things because most of what I am thinking about is what "would" or "could" have been, and I don't want to do that because it only makes me sad! I am so grateful Caydin was born 7 years ago, and became a part of our family. I am so grateful for his laid back personality, and for his curiosity. I am so grateful for all he taught me while he was here, and for what he is still teaching me by being where he is now. Happy birthday Caydin; I will always be so grateful for the day you came into my life!

It's a . . . .

BOY! And, the baby looks completely healthy with no signs of club feet or any other deformities! There is one area of concern that we will be watching, but it has to do with me, not the baby. Because I have had 4 previous c-sections, I have some built up scar tissue on my uterus. When the placenta attaches to the uterus, it does so in one spot. If that spot is by the scarred tissue, it can cause some complications at delivery. And, my placenta is attached pretty low, pretty close to my scar. What can happen is that if the placenta actually attaches to the scar tissue itself, it can create the placenta to remain attached to the uterus at delivery, causing me to bleed. Worse case scenario means that if it does do this, they will have to give me a hysterectomy during the c-section or I will bleed to death. Other less serious complications could be that they would actually have to cut into the placenta to get the baby out, which still causes me to bleed more, and just general extra bleeding during the surgery. Most of the risks are minimal as long as they know that's what they are dealing with because they take the precautions for it in the first place. Having said all that, the doctor today wasn't sure if I actually have this or not. He thinks there is a pretty good chance that as the baby grows and my uterus gets bigger, it might pull the placenta up and away from my scar. So, he said that what I'll have to do is have another ultrasound at 32 weeks to see where everything is sitting. They will also be checking the flow of blood through the blood vessels at that time to make sure it doesn't look like it has grown into my uterus. So, I guess it's something still to be determined. I'm not too worried at this point because it sounds like I'm most likely not going to have this problem. My doctor has actually talked to me about this possibility in my previous pregnancies as well, so it wasn't such a shocking thing to hear because I've known it could happen. It doesn't create any problems during the pregnancy, which is nice, only during delivery. So, that's how it all went!

Year in Review Part Two

Okay, I'm finally getting around to part two!

September was a pretty exciting month for us. For years Rob and I have wanted to go to Yellowstone, but the opportunity hasn't come up. Well, last February, my brother got a new job in Sugar City in Idaho, which is right out of Rexburg, Idaho, so he and his cute family moved there. We hadn't been able to visit him since he'd moved until September. We were able to go and spend a few days up with him, and since his house is only about an hour and a half from Yellowstone, we took the opportunity to go up for a day to see some of Yellowstone. It was fun, but a lot of driving for the kids! The kids did like to see all the sites, and we were able to see some wildlife, including some otters, and a VERY close-up of a buffalo (the story can be found in one of my September blog posts, but I don't know how to make the cool link thing, sorry!). One of the other days we were there we went with my brother's family to BearWorld, which is a fun park where you get to drive through real bears and other wildlife, so the only thing separating you from them is your car! There is also a small amusement park at the main building that is free with admission, and the kids LOVED going on all the rides, as many times as they wanted! It was a lot of fun! We also just had fun hanging out with my brother and his family, and look forward to being able to visit them again this coming year! We also still went fishing a bit as a family in September. Oh, and I should mention that September was also when we found out that baby Fischer #5 was on the way!


I forgot what these are called now, but they are at Yellowstone, and the kids thought they were really cool! I don't have as many pictures as I want from Yellowstone, but it really did have so many amazing sites, and besides the steep cliffs where I was terrified one of my kids were going to fall over the edge, I loved seeing it!


This is a picture of us waiting to see Old Faithful go off. I actually took a video of it going off, but I'll have to maybe post that on a different post!


Another picture of us waiting. Instead of going to where all the crowds were, we did hang back by the tree line where we had more space and the kids could run more freely.


These next pictures will be from BearWorld. I didn't get a good shot of the bears from our car, but this was the white wolf, which was busy sleeping. It still looked pretty cool, and the kids loved seeing the animals from so close in our car!


I forgot to mention that BearWorld also has a petty zoo that you actually just walked into with all the animals! It was pretty cool! My favorite was that they had a baby deer that you could pet! It was so cool to be able to walk up to these animals that are usual just wild and be able to pet them and be right next to them! This deer actually started chewing on my shoelace, but it was as soft as it looks!


Another shot of the baby deer! My sister-in-law and her little girl McKell are petting it this time! There were grown up deer as well that you could walk right up to and pet, as well as pigs, goats, and other things as well!


We had to take pictures with the kids being bears!


Eden as a bear!


Here is Eden, Isaac, and my nephew, Caleb on the back car of the train ride, which they loved!


The kids also liked the car ride that was there! I love how chilled Emma looks in this picture, the only one content to not be driving!


Here is another picture of my cute sister-in-law Kimberly with my niece, McKell. Part of what made BearWorld fun was that all our kids, even the youngest ones, had a lot of fun there, and enjoyed the rides. They had a small roller coaster, and I wish I had gotten a better picture, but Isaac and EmmaLee even went on it by themselves! It was a lot of fun, and it wasn't too crowded, so they really did get to go on as many rides as many times as they wanted to!


And here's a picture of all the kids just outside the main doors to the main building of BearWorld. I didn't get a good picture of them all posing, but at least they are all in the picture!


I love this picture! Caleb has this awesome mustang he drags his street with, and he was nice enough to take Isaac along. So, here they are cruising the sidewalk! Thanks again Nick and Kimberly for letting us stay with you guys! It was a lot of fun!


Like I said before, we went fishing a bit this month as well. This is the kids at Pineview. The amazing thing is that they are all happy, or at least not crying, which wasn't the case not too long before this picture was taken. When we very first got to the lake, we had just gotten to this spot, and Isaac was so excited to be there and to see the water that before we could even set all our stuff down, he grabbed a rock and threw it towards the water. The only problem with this was that Eden was between him and the water! The rock smacked right into the top of her forehead, just in her hair! It did split open a small cut, but pretty minor for a head injury really. It did bleed, and we were scrambling a bit to try to figure out how bad it was and if we needed to go get help. Luckily, it wasn't too bad, which was good because since it was in her hair, we couldn't bandage it at all! We did have some first aid stuff, so we cleaned it and put some antibacterial medicine on it, and she was okay. She still wanted to stay, so we did.


This is a blurry picture, which is probably better, but here is a shot of her head after we were done cleaning it! What a trooper, and hopefully Isaac learned to make sure there is a clear path before throwing rocks into the water!

Moving on to October. So, the big event of October was, of course, my sister's wedding! Melanie married Daniel Isaac on October 9th, and she was stunning, and it was a beautiful day! Of course, that is also when my camera died, which remained in that state till about a week ago! So, I don't have a ton of pictures from the wedding, and only of the temple grounds right after the wedding. So, besides the wedding, there was also Halloween. I also started my new job at the library, my youngest brother and sister each celebrated their birthdays, and Eden got the dreaded cast on, and her first cast switch! Her first cast was pink, but the second one was orange, which was for Halloween!


Here is a cute picture of Melanie and Danny outside the temple.


Another picture of the happy (they really are happy, I just took a picture when they weren't expecting one!) new couple! Melanie's dress was gorgeous, and she looked stunning in it!


It was a beautiful day, and I love this shot Rob got of the temple with the blue sky behind it!


Isaac is my little goof ball, and this picture of him at the wedding shows it a bit! He loves to ham it up for the camera!


Here's one of Emma out on the grounds!


I liked this one with the fountain behind me.


I love this Halloween picture of the kids. Eden wanted to put makeup on, so I put some on her and a little on Emma, so Isaac wanted some too. I didn't know what to do for him that wouldn't look girly, but I finally decided to make this sad excuse for a mustache, but he liked it, so whatever works, right?! If you click on the picture, it makes it bigger, so you can actually see the mustache!

Next is November. We started November with Eden's foot surgery, which I won't go into details again for. Let it suffice that I am glad it is done and over with! My youngest brother also received the Aaronic Priesthood at the beginning of this month, and we were able to go to church with them and then be there as he received it. It was a fast Sunday when we went, and Thomas got up to bear his testimony. Well, Isaac was sitting next to Thomas, which happened to be on the OPPOSITE side of where Rob and I were, so when Thomas went up, so did Isaac! Thomas had to wait a few people before it was his turn, and Isaac sat with him the whole time. I was on the edge of my seat trying to watch and see if I needed to go up and grab him! Finally, it was Thomas's turn, and he led Isaac right up to the podium with him. They got the little step, and Isaac stood up to the microphone. I wasn't breathing at this point, wondering what Isaac was going to do when he finally looked over the audience and was bracing myself for a quick intervention! Thomas whispered in his ear, and instead of freezing, my 3 year old son repeated everything his young uncle told him! He practically ate the microphone, so the first part wasn't really understandable, but my brother kept it short and simple, and you could understand the last part about how he loves his family, and he ended! I was shocked! He also just stood by the side and looked out over the audience full of strangers (at least to him) while Thomas took his turn, and then they both came and sat down! I realize to most people this is a long story they probably don't really have much interest in, but I wanted to record it because it was a milestone for me as a mother! The first time one of my kids bore their testimony in sacrament meeting! Sooo, moving on, I also celebrated my birthday in November, and of course, there was Thanksgiving, yum! We also set up our Christmas tree and decorations, and got ready for the Christmas season!


Here is my brave girl the day after her surgery! For this last cast, she went with the lovely purple, mainly because she wanted me to decide this time, and purple is my favorite color! It took her over a week before she was able to walk on her foot again, but she (and I) survived!


This was just a random picture of the "girls" of the family that we took when we were taking a break from decorating the Christmas tree.


I loved how interested the kids were in watching their dad get the mini train ready for the tree!

I'm almost done with the review! Since December wasn't that long ago, I decided to not post as many pictures of Christmas, since it is still posted lower! The first big event of December was when Eden got her cast off for good! Yeah!!!! We enjoyed driving around and looking at the Christmas lights during this month, and of course, we enjoyed Christmas as well, especially because of so many kind acts that were shown to us during this time! One especially special gift that was given to us was left secretly on our doorstep, wrapped. We could tell it was a picture, but decided to wait until Christmas to open it. You can imagine how completely surprised and touched we were when we finally opened it and found it was a personalized sketched drawing of the Savior holding Caydin! I still have no idea who did it for us, and if that person reads this blog, please know how grateful and deeply touching this gift is to both Rob and I. It is something we will treasure always!! Just a few days after Christmas, we were able to go up to Logan for my cousin Laura's wedding. She looked beautiful, the ceremony was beautiful, and it was so much fun being able to be apart of that special occasion for such a special person! Congrats again Laura!


If a picture can say a thousands words, then here is the picture for how we felt about Eden's experience with her cast.


And here is the one for how we felt after it was all done and off (and yes, even the slightly crazed look was appropriate for how we felt)!


This isn't the best picture, but you can see one of Eden's scars in this picture from her surgery. I'll have to get better pictures of all of the scars and post them later!


Here is a picture of some lights we saw at the Layton City light place. Okay, so I forgot what it is really called, but it was a park that was all lit up and that you could drive through, and walk through if you wanted, and all for free! We drove through it several times throughout the month of December!


Another picture of some of the lights!

So, there you have it! My year in review, or at least some of the bigger parts of it! It's amazing how much can happen in a year!

Year in Review Part One

This week I FINALLY got a cord for my new camera, so I have been busy going through all my pictures. Seeing all of them, it inspired me to do a picture review of my year, so there are going to be a lot of pictures following! In fact, I will be doing this in two posts just because there are so many pictures. So, here we go with part one!

January is mostly just random pictures. It was our last month in our apartment in Springville before we made the move to Sandy.


This is Eden. She has grown a lot in this last year!


But, Eden hasn't grown as much as Emma! Maybe she's grown so much because she loves food so much?!


This isn't the best picture of Isaac, but it was the only one I had from January! He stays dressed more often these days, and actually gets himself dressed now!


We took this picture not far from our place in Springville, and I figured it would be an appropriate conclusion to January and Springville!

I don't actually have pictures for either February or March. We moved into Rob's parent's old house in Sandy in February because we thought we had a job opportunity. Within a week it became clear it wasn't going to work out, but we decided to stay in the area for a little longer anyway. Since we had already lived in that house for 5 years before we moved to Springville, we knew the ward and people in the neighborhood. A lady in our ward there is the Mt. Jordan swimming pool supervisor, and offered me a job as a pool clerk. It was very part time (like 10 hours a week) till summer, but then I worked more like 20 hours a week all summer. It wasn't much, but it got us through! In March, my maternal grandfather, Richard Willits, passed away. It was really hard to say goodbye, but I know he feels a lot better where he is, and I'm so happy he is in a place where he no longer feels sick! Love you Grandpa!

April was Easter and a little warmer weather!


The kiddos in their Easter stuff!


We took advantage of the warmer weather by visiting Pineview and doing a little bit of fishing! Isaac is really starting to get into fishing and loves to follow his dad around and be just like him!

May was a very busy month for us! Rob's sister and her husband and kids were able to go through the temple and be sealed as a family this month! Rob's mom decided she wanted to take a trip down to St. George and generously invited us along! It wasn't too hot, but warm enough for me to come home sunburned after a day at the lake! We also celebrated Rob's birthday in May!


I'm not the best picture taker, so instead of having a picture of Bonnie and her family at the temple, all I have is a picture of my kids and sister who came to help with the kids! It was a beautiful day and we are so excited for Bonnie and her family that they got to have this day!


I forgot to mention that May was also the month I had my allergic reaction and ended up going to the ER twice and suffered with hives for a week! NOT a fun experience!


Here is Rob opening one of his presents at a birthday party for him at my mom's house.


This is the lake we went to while we were in St. George. It is called San Hollow, and it was gorgeous! It actually gets avoided because it has been plagued with "swimmers itch", but we talked to a ranger, and the parasite that causes swimmers itch is only active when the water temperature is above 70. We were there early enough that the water was still only at 62, so we decided to give it a try! We didn't really swim in it, but we had a raft and did some fishing, and we had fun wading in the water and playing in the beautiful red sand!


The kids had fun burying their legs in the sand!


Isaac doing his!


While in St. George, we also went to a big taxidermy museum, which I can't remember the name of now! It was fun, and the kids had a lot of fun walking through and seeing all the animals! This is us on the top level. The animals you see behind us actually has a pathway leading through them, leading up to where we are standing. It was a fun trip!

In June we celebrated Isaac's third birthday. He got two parties, one with my family, and one with Rob's side. Also in June, we got the chance to go to the Zoo for free after I had won free tickets for a "Night at the Zoo", which is a fun event they hold once a year. Besides free tickets, it came with a free dinner from Chick-fil-A! We won five tickets, but Isaac and Emma were still young enough that they didn't need one, so we invited my brother and sister, Thomas and Laurie, to join us as well! It was fun!


This was Isaac's birthday party with my family. We had planned on having an outdoor party, but the day ended up being rainy and cold, so we did some quick calling and were able to use our church gym instead! We got him a pinata, so it turned out to be really nice being able to use the gym!


Besides my family, we also invited our good friends from the ward, the Schow's, and their kids, so there were plenty of kids to enjoy the candy from the pinata!


For the birthday party with Rob's family, we splurged and got Isaac this really cool "Lightening McQueen" cake, since he REALLY wanted one! It came with two real cars on the cake, so we counted it as one of his presants!


This is the only picture I got at the Zoo! While we were eating, the Chick-fil-A cow came around, and the kids thought he was great! They also enjoyed seeing all the animals at the Zoo, and since it was a cooler night, the animals were all pretty active! The big male lion put on a little show for us by "talking" while we were there! The kids would mimick the sound, and the lion would mimick it back! It was pretty neat!

We didn't go many places in July; I was busy working and we were trying to figure out life a bit! But, that didn't mean we didn't enjoy the warm weather!


One thing we loved about being in Sandy was the fenced in backyard! The kids spent much of their summer out back playing with neighbor kids, and just having fun. We tried to stay cool, and the kids loved the slip-n-slide!


Here is Rob and Emma cooling off in the shade on the swing!


I don't know how easy it will be to see, but my face is all red in this picture, showing just how hot it was this day!


I just thought this was a cute picture of the kids, and since it was taken in July, I thought I would throw it in!

August was another busy month for us! Eden and EmmaLee both had their birthdays that month, and it was also the month we went to the fair and my dad's car burned up! We also moved up to Clearfield with Rob's mom, and Eden started kindergarten! A few months earlier, I won tickets on the radio to Liberty Land (the first time I've ever called in on something, and I WON! Won't ever happen again!). Thanks to a discounted time, I was able to take my whole family with us, so when my brother and his family were in town, we went to Liberty Land! It was a lot of fun, especially since it was free!


For Eden and Emma's birthday party with Rob's side, Rob's sister Bonnie invited us up to use this blow up play place they were borrowing from her boss. The kids loved it, and it made for an easy party!


Here is Emma playing! I didn't get more pictures because my camera battery died.


Here is a picture I took at the fair we were blissfully enjoying while less than a mile away my dad's car was burning up!


Here is a cute picture from the fair as well, and if you look close, you can see how red the kids faces are! It was a hot day!


Another picture of the aftermath of the car fire!


Here is a picture from Liberty Land. Laurie took Eden on the go carts, which they both loved!


Isaac loved riding on the planes at Libery Land.


Another cute picture from Liberty Land!


Rob and Isaac also had a lot of fun on the go carts!


Eden on one of the planes!


Again, another random but cute picture from August. If you look close, Emma is asleep with headphones on!


This is a picture of Eden and Isaac in our new place in Clearfield. I thought it was amazing how tan they both were! You can tell we spent a lot of the summer out doors! Those tans are gone now though!

And, with that picture, I'm going to conclude part one! Stay tuned for part two!