About a month ago, Camille turned 11!  Here are some great things about Camille: 1.  She's alive!  When she was born, we didn't know if she would be able to stay here with us.  She weighed just 1 lb. 5 oz. and was more than 16 weeks early.  But she received priesthood blessings and good medical care and we are so happy Heavenly Father let us keep her here. 2.  She has a great imagination.  When Camille has friends come over, she loves to play imagination games with them, including dress up.  I love the costumes she puts together.  Her older brothers and sisters don't dress up any more except for Halloween, so I love that she still likes to do it. 3.  She loves to give hugs.  If you visit our house, you will get at least one hug from Camille. 4.  She works hard at school.  School is a little challenging for her, probably because of her early birth.  But she continues to diligently work.  She's in a regular class and has a teacher who likes to give

This year, one of the many things I'm grateful for is Camille losing her feeding tube!  After ten years of dealing with it, this is HUGE.  Last Christmas she got the norovirus and she just could not get rid of it.  Finally, after three months of diarrhea, her doctors decided to change her medicine.  This got rid of the virus AND it improved her appetite significantly.  She gained 10 pounds in 10 weeks. I told the kidney transplant dietitian how well Camille was doing and she said that lots of kids feel better on this different medication.  Which made me wonder, Um, why didn't anyone tell me that sooner? So after she gained all this weight, we spent the whole summer without using the feeding tube.  The challenge was to drink all her fluids--9 cups a day--without it.  We had a little glitch when she felt some pressure with school starting but finally we decided it was time.  The feeding tube was essential when she got it and we couldn't have kept Camille alive without

This summer, right after I got home from Louisiana, we celebrated Mindy's birthday.  She turned 14. Here are some great things about Mindy: 1.  She loves to share her life with anyone who will listen.  Some people are open books; some people aren't.  Mindy is definitely in the open book category. 2.  She loves to read.  Her favorite activity is to go to the library and load up on lots of books.  Then she comes home and tries to read them non-stop.  She especially loves fantasy with dragons and princesses and superheroes.  She LOVES Harry Potter and has read the whole series 7 times.  Whenever she has run out of new books, she starts reading the Harry Potter series again. 3.  She isn't a dessert hog.  Mindy is actually not a dessert fan.  One year for her birthday she wanted watermelon instead of cake.  This year she requested trifle.  There are a few sweet treats she likes but her favorite snack is a bag of Doritos which her brother Jan gave her this

Our Halloween was low-key this year.  We did our usual carving pumpkins on Monday night. On Halloween I went to the school parade in the morning.  Then in the evening we did trick or treating after a quick dinner. This little Minion was put up by some friends of Camille to compensate for the rest of their yard which was filled with scary stuff. Susanna had a party with friends which involved making homemade root beer (because she is now legal to buy her own dry ice), making homemade donuts, and watching "Coco".   Meanwhile Talmage went with a few friends to a haunted house. Here is my son's family in Louisiana with some super cute costumes and grandchildren: Here are some pictures of my son in college going to a "goth" party with friends: Scary, huh?  Fortunately this is nothing like his look in real life. Love the flyswatter decor.

Last weekend was fall break and we decided to head out to Price to do a little bouldering.  It's a new sport to us but our expert son told us about The Mountain Project app to help us find places to boulder.  He also borrowed his friend's crash pad and loaned us climbing shoes to make it a little less dangerous.  Turns out it's still kind of dangerous. The first place we went was in the "Price Recreation Area" which is right off the highway shortly before you arrive in Price.  I actually stayed in the car to read my book and feel warm while the rest of the family hiked around looking for the boulder called "Baby's Got Biceps".  It was a fairly easy climb which Susanna and Talmage did.  When they came back, I got out and Scott and I hiked around a little.  It was a beautiful setting. That night and the next morning we enjoyed swimming at the hotel in Price and by we, I mean my children.  I'm not a big fan of indoor swimming and my husband wa

I'm so lucky to have three grandchildren.  Not so lucky that they live far away in Louisiana.  But lucky we can Skype every week with them.  And lucky that we get to visit now and then.  And lucky that they came to visit us!  They arrived shortly after Everett came home and stayed about two weeks including over the reunion. I didn't take enough pictures but here are a few: It is challenging to get a good picture of Max: One thing I'm especially glad to have a picture of is this 5-generation picture with my 98-year-old grandma and my dad: We wanted to get a picture with Stephanie but our bystander photographer wasn't the greatest:

Recently my youngest daughter started taking a tumbling class.  On the way home, I noticed a rock-filled field full of wild sunflowers blooming very cheerfully.  I don't think anyone planted them. The flowers are growing in one of those ugly fields next to an industrial-type building with no landscaping or anything.  What you need to especially understand is that these sunflowers have had next to no water for this entire hot summer.  We had exactly one rainstorm in August that gave us about 1/2 inch of rain.  That was it for all of June, July, and August with highs in the 90's or even 100 most of those days. But somehow these sunflowers have not only grown but blossomed and thrived despite having almost no water and a serious lack of fertile soil.  They are truly resilient flowers. It's a good lesson for me as I think about the adversity I face and will face in the future.  How can I be more resilient and teach my children resilience?

After a summer of being far apart, we all gathered together over Labor Day weekend for a family reunion.  Everett came home from Armenia, David and Stephanie drove from Louisiana, Lincoln and MiCayla came back from Houston, and Garrett and AnnaSue came home from spending the summer in Latvia.  We were definitely far-flung this summer! We drove up to the rental house in Bountiful up in the foothills on Friday afternoon.  All the married couples got their own bedroom and there were enough other beds for everyone else too.  Each couple was in charge of a meal and I put my teenagers in charge of Saturday morning breakfast. On Friday evening, we played some fun games--Werewolf, 4 to a Couch and maybe something else I can't remember. We started an Assassin game with water guns.  The hot tub was quite popular. Saturday morning we went on a hike not too far away.  When the younger children got tired of hiking, I stayed with them at a little creek where they loved playing in the wa