Getting ready to move, Malachi more owies : (

I love to hear Malachi say "Pablo" it is so cute, the second video is him saying it slowly.  Pablo is his favorite stuffed animal.  Of course it is Caleb's favorite stuffed animal too, so it causes a lot of fights between the two of them.

The Turtle stool from my Grandma Eldredge came in the mail and Malachi loves it!  He wants to stand on it all the time.

Malachi loves it!

Eating at the free breakfast on post

Travis with his farewell gift from his unit 

I love how Malachi eats the corn on the cob

After he takes a bite he lifts it over his head

Then he takes another bite

Caleb was cold at breakfast on our retreat, and everyone gave him their cloth napkins and we covered him up with those.

Austin has slowly but surely improved over the last month or so, she attended girl's camp and loved it, and got to go to the temple for the first time to do baptisms for the dead.  She has had to take her antibiotics every 5am, 11am, 5pm, and 11pm. That has been very annoying to have to wake her up, but the last week or so she has been able to do it on her own.  Her blood results have come back better and better, so she is doing good.  So the last few weeks have been very busy.  Travis has done a funeral, a memorial, two weddings, a strong bonds retreat in Denver, and a prayer breakfast.  I have helped with the retreat, a wedding, and the prayer breakfast.  We have also been trying to continue to pack and clean and get ready to move.  We had a fun time at the retreat in Denver, playing in the pool, and eating at restaurants.  I enjoyed going to Denver with Travis to do his funeral, becuase we went to the temple first, and it was a really nice peaceful break.  The wedding went farely well, I played the piano for it, and Travis performed the ceremony, the only sad thing was that at the rehearsal I had to leave becasue Caleb's eyes we so swollen he could barely open thme.  He has been having terrible allergies with his eyes, and I have to put eye drops in them, give him Benadryl, and put cold, wet clothes on his eyes and let him rest.  The poor thing looks so pitiful with his eyes all swollen.  It mostly happens when he has been playing outside a lot.  The prayer breakfast kept me busy making the 100 ham,egg,and cheese sliders and other food for it, but Betsy was a great helper, and came with me to help while I played the piano for that as well.  We had a couple garage sales, and then donated a lot of our stuff too.  We also went to a free breakfast giveaway on post, and the kids loved getting free breakfast stuff to take home, and eating the free food, it was lots of fun.  Poor little Malachi had a really rough last week.  Betsy was watching him, and they were cooking Macaroni and Cheese on the stove top and Malachi reached out and touched the pan with his fingers.  It burned and blistered three of his finger tips, I spent the rest of the day with his hand in and out of ice water, and holding him.  The next day he slipped getting out of the bathtub and split his chin open.  I had to take him to the ER where they put 3 stitches in my poor little baby, while we held him down, so they could stitch him up.  He hated it, and took a long nap afterwards.  Then Sunday morning while I was mixing up pancakes for breakfast, he walked across the stove top, and some one must have bumped the burner knob becuase it was on, and we didn't know it.  It burned the bottom of both feet, but only one turned into a blister.  We kept his feet in ice water for an hour, but then Travis and I had an appointment with the stake president to renew his endorsemnet with the church as a chaplain.  Poor Malachi we took turns holding him while he cried, and we had our interviews.  I've been putting aloe vera, lavenar, and helichrysum oils on the bottom of his feet, and they are healing well by now, a week later.  July 4th was interesting.  The kids wanted to buy fireworks to light, so I took them to our local stand, it was a long line, but we were waiting patiently, until I started feeling really sick, and then my legs buckled and I fell to the ground and almost passed out.  I scraped my knee a little, but other than that was okay, but still felt really sick, heart racing, and really light headed.  A lady that worked there brought me a cup of cold water, and that helped a little and I was able to get through the rest of the line, and pay for fireworks.  Once we got home though I had to lay down the rest of the night, so Travis helped the kids light off their fireworks at night with the neighbors.  I had just started taking thyroid medicine the last coiuple days, becuase my thyroid levels were low, but it obviously was too much for me.  So I stopped taking the medicine, and they will retest me once we get to Ft. Riley.  But I am 18 weeks along, and the baby is doing great, feel lots of little kicks.  All the kids say by belly is getting  bigger.  Yesterday we also had our Stake military breakfast, which Travis is on the committee for, so he was busy with that as well as the wedding he performed yesterday.  He is still trying to get all of his work stuff done, but tomorrow is his last day, so it will be nice to have all his attention to help with the move.  We had a 28' trailer dropped off at our house on friday, and tried to get most of our stuffed loaded onto the trailer, but after Joseph and I helped him with the first heavy wooden cabinet, I said no way can I do this pregnant, and got a couple of guys to come over and help him.  We still have a little bit left to load onto the trailer tomorrow, and then the cleaning begins!!!  It is pretty exhausting work every day, and most days the kids don't help enough, but Betsy has been my best helper!  We think we have got some renters who will be moving in August 1st.  So we are happy to not have to be showing the house.  We also found out we can't have chickens in our backyard in Kansas, since we live within city limits, so we have to get rid of our chickens, so sad.  Everyone is doing pretty good, Joseph did fall down the ramp friday while helped load stuff, and got some deep cuts in his arm and hand, but I bandaged him all up, and he has still been able to help, mostly with his one good arm.  I had set up our little pool for Malachi and Caleb to play in while we were loading stuff up, and I guess Caleb couldn't find the bottoms of his swimsuit, so he went outside and started swimming and playing around.  The guys helping us commented about our naked son, and we were able to get him dressed, but little boys sure like to make life interesting.  We have already packed up all the beds, so Travis and I are on an air mattress, and the kids are on sleeping mats.  When I was holding Malachi while sitting on my air mattress, Joseph came and plopped down on the bed right next to me and sent Malachi and I flying, he thought that was pretty funny.  Moving is so exhuasting, I'm ready for this move to be over, but we still have lots of work left.

Going to Trail West, Piano recital, Birthdays, and Austin in the Hospital

Arriving at Trail West

Malachi getting his first pony ride

Samuel on the pony ride

Caleb on the pony ride

Caleb found a friend at kid's club

Getting ready for river rafting

Getting our safety instructions

Getting started on the river (Joseph, Samuel, and I are in the back)

Getting our towels when done

Going on the big rapids. We were sure holding on tight!

Feeding the chipmunks in the ghost town, during our jeep jours

Finding gold in the stream

On the hike up the mountain

At the top of the mountain, we're in the front on the left side and the right side (samuel)

Austin going down the mountain with her friend Kiera

Malachi going down the mountain

Austin and Caleb at whale rock

Malachi on the horse swing

Caleb on the horse swing

Caleb was so sweet. He picked this seeded dandelion (if that's what they're called) and said he was going to make a wish, he closed his eyes and said, "I wish I was a better boy, I wish I was nicer to my mom, because I love her so much, I love her more then the whole wide earth!" He then opened his eyes and blew all the seeds off. He did this with such sweet tenderness, that it brought tears to my eyes. I gave him a big hug, and said "I love you too!" I love my sweet boy!

Samuel on his horse for the trail riding

Austin on her horse for the trail riding

Joseph on his horse for the trail riding

Samuel was a little nervous, this was his first time riding a horse, but the guide calmed him down, and he ended up having a blast!

Caleb drinking hot chocolate at the wrangeler breakfast

Austin catching her french toast

Samuel catching his french toast

Malachi is paitently waiting his turn to catch french toast

Samuel helped Caleb catch his french toast

He caught it!

I helped Malachi catch his french toast

Betsy catching her french toast

Austin catching her french toast

Joseph catching his french toast

Austin riding her horse back from the wrangler breakfast

Malachi loved his ice cream cone

He got it all over his face

relaxing in the hamock

Betsy, Malachi, and Caleb walking town the trail

Joseph

Joseph climbing/falling on the rock wall

Going down the zip line

Joseph turned 14

Joseph blowing out his candles

Malachi had another run in with the oak stool, I threw it the stool to the curb, I was so mad at it for hurting my baby again.  

Austin doing an art project in while in the hospital

So we went to trail west two years ago, and it was the best family vacation ever.  I have applied every year since, even though they told me our chances of getting in again are slim to none.  Well a miracle happened, and monday morning (June 1st) I got a call telling us they had two families no show, and that left room for our family, and would we like to come, I made sure they were fine with us coming without Travis since he is in the field, and they said that would be fine.  So we did it.  We spent the next couple of hours getting everything ready to go, and then drove up to Buena Vista, CO (2 hours).  We were so happy to go again.  They gave us a condo just above the lodge to stay in, and we joined right in with the festivities.  We had a great time the whole week!  They had tons of activities for the kids.  It was a little exhausting climbing all the stairs all over the place, but we had a great time!  The best part for me was not having to cook or clean the entire week, and having good wholesome entertainment for the kids every day.  Each night was also nice to have a spiritual talk, and some quiet time without the kids.  Our friends the McCurdys were there, so it was nice to hang out with them too.  We loved hiking, horseback riding, white water rafting, jeep tours, ropes course and zipline, swimming, and all the fun activities and games.  I know the ropes course was a little scary for Caleb, We went up together, since he wasn't tall enough to grab the rope to hold onto.  I was holding his hand the whole way across, which only left me with one hand to hold onto the rope.  Towards the end they only had a rope hanging down every couple of feet, so I would have to let go of the rope and then quickly grab the next rope, well one of the times I had to switch ropes, Caleb moved the wrong way, and I missed the rope and we fell sideways, we were tethered together and attached to the higher wire, so we just fell horizontal, but after a minute of figuring out how to get us back up with one hand, we did it and made it to the end, it did scare Caleb a little, but he did great.  He didn't really want to go down the zip line, but I went first, and the worker, gave him a little push to get him off, and he did fine.  He even said he wanted to do it again, just not until tomorrow!  We had a couple incidents of kids fighting, but overall was a great week, The day we got back from Trail West we had 6 tons of rock delivered, and re-landscaped our front lawn area.  We had some help from some friends in the ward who are awesome!  Also that afternoon I had my piano recital, it went great, but boy was that sure a busy day.  The next week consisted of trying to get the house ready for pictures so we could list it for rent.  Joseph turned 14 years old on June 9th!  He is getting so big, he is now finally taller then me, and weighs more than me too.  We had a nerf wars birthday party for him at our house.  It was a lot of fun, we had about 5-6 boys come to the party, they ate homemade pizza I made to look like targets, had cake and ice cream, and had dart wars in the backyard.  The only down side was that I had ordered a bunch of guns from amazon and they didn't arrive until after the party, so we didn't have a huge selection of guns.  Now Austin had been complaining about her knee hurting, and the next day she had a fever, and was sleeping all day.  The fever combined with her knee pain (she didn't hurt it at all) worried me, so I called the nurse advice line and they told me to take her to the dr. right away.  I woke Austin up, and took her to the dr. office, the dr. told it was probably some kind of infection, and to take to the ER right away.  I checked on the kids at home, (I had left Joseph and Betsy in charge) grabbed some things for Austin and I and we drove to Memorial hospital (not the one of post, the dr. said to take her to Memorial Hospital about 30 minutes away).  We waited in the waiting room, for about an hour and a half, and then they took her back and started taking blood and urine samples, and ordered an MRI, they hooked her up to an IV and started giving her fluids (she was also dehydrated).   Finally by 9:30 pm they finally had enough abnormal results that they admitted her to the hospital, Once I got her settled in her room, I drove home, checked on all the kids to make sure they survived the day with Joseph in charge, told Joseph I would have to go back to the hospital in the morning, to be with Austin and sent him to bed.  The house was a disaster, but all least all the kids had been fed and were sleeping.  I finally went to sleep too.  The next morning, I fed all the kids breakfast, gave them instructions for the day and went back to the hospital.  They ran more blood tests, I sent a red cross message to Travis in the field, to let him know that Austin was in the hospital and would likely be there several more days, and we needed him at home.  They finally determined by late afternoon that she was fighting of a bacteria infection in the bone marrow in her leg.  They started her on antibiotics through her I.V. They have also been giving her pain medication and fever reducer through her I.V. since we got there. Austin was holding up pretty well, she wasn't feeling good, so mostly just laid in bed and watched T.V. or slept.  I went home at lunch time and checked on the kids, and then came home about dinner time as well.  Going back and forth so many times, was exhuasting.  The ward was helping to bring in dinner, so that helped.  The next day was my birthday, but life took over, and once again spent the day going back and forth from the hospital and home,  Joseph and Betsy were getting pretty tired of taking care of things at home, but, my prayers were answered and I heard from Travis that afternoon, that he was on his way home.  He made it home that evening, ate dinner with us, and then went and spent the night with Austin at the hospital.  Travis and I took turns watching kids, and staying with austin at the hospital.  Finally by Saturday evening her fever had gone done, and her blood work results were starting to improve, and best of all, Austin started getting up and moving around a little more.  She went to the play room there and made some crafts to decorate her room with, she had the most colorful room in the hospital.  They dr. told us they could probably send Austin home on Monday, but she was doing so much better, they let us take her home on Sunday, but with strong antibiotics to take on a strict schedule, and we had to bring her in frequently for blood tests.  We made it home just in time to go to church.