Wow, life has been a little crazy, but good. Here’s a few funny things the kids have said:

Random from Keaton and Berkley

Keaton: “Mom, when grandma was your son did you like qubo?” (Aug. 2010)

Berkley (while eating a banana): “Mom, I hate bananas, but I still like them.” (Aug 2010)

Keaton (while holding up a snail with a big crack in it’s shell…it was obviously dying): “Mom, I found he’s heart. I found the poop, too.” (Aug 2010)

Keaton: “Mom, I just killed a snail but it’s still alive, and I can see it’s poop. Come see it.” (Aug 2010)

A conversation with Jaxon:

Jaxon: “Mom, I’m getting really big….do you know how I know?”

Me: “How do you know?”

Jaxon: “Because, when I go pee the bubbles are really big.” (sep 2010)

As we were driving down the road the other day, the kids saw a log cabin:

Parker: “Wow, that house is made out of lincoln logs. If a car ran into it, it would just fall down.” (Sep 2010)

Between Keaton and Scott

Keaton: “Dad let’s pick a number between 1 and 20.”

Scott: “Okay, I’ll pick the number. You guess.”

Keaton: “40.” (Aug 2010)

Between Jaxon and Scott

Jaxon (wearing his white shirt and tie from church): “I’m going to wear my church clothes all day today, dad.”

Scott (thinking Jaxon was going to say a reason that is spiritual): “How come?”

Jaxon: “Because, I want to be a secret agent.” (sep 2010)

And now here are a few pictures from our summer:

For boys who claim to hate everything that is girlie, they sure love this barbie car.

Below are photos of how we spent most of our summer

And below we have Keaton who LOVES his baby sister, but before she was born, he kept saying he didn’t want a sister, and he was upset that we were having a girl. He wanted another boy, but to his surprise he has learned to love Swasey.

Parker/Keaton news:

*Parker had another eye appointment a while back and once again his eyes are all clear, and he’s doing great. So we are continuing with his meds and hoping it all keeps going good.

*Keaton went to see the OT/PT—whom when we went to these appointments both therapists said to me, “So why are you here?” Apparently he is doing so good that they don’t even know what to do with him when he comes in. However his leg continues to give him trouble. The more he grows, the stiffer his ankle is getting. So, we go back in this month to the physiotherapist to talk about a rhizotomy again and also the possibility of surgically lengthening his achilles tendon.

Also, Keaton broke yet another pair of glasses today. I guess we’ll be getting more glasses for him.

Other news:

Jaxon lost both his front teeth and Parker lost one of his front teeth. I will post pix later. The kids started school. Swasey had her 2 week appointment and cried and screamed. The doctor and the nurse both commented on her feisty temper. I’m tired and life is a blur right now.

My 3 oldest boys decided to wear white t-shirts one day. I can tell my kids apart, but Parker came walking by me with his white t-shirt on, and I just saw him out of the corner of my eye. I thought it was Jaxon, so I started talking to him like he was Jaxon. Keaton came running up and laughing and said, “That’s not Jaxon!” I looked up and there was Parker standing in front of me. Now Keaton is catching up to Parker in height, so it was funny when they all wore these white t-shirts. I felt like I had triplets.

Parker had another eye appointment. I always get so nervous at those appointments. Before we went he had been complaining that his eyes hurt when he went out in the sun, and his eyes would water really bad. I always think they are going to say he has inflammation in them, but once again they were free from any cells. So, we just keep doing what we are doing, and he gets his meds once a week. It was such good news to hear that his eyes were okay. I was soooooo excited, and I’m praying that it stays that way.

Here’s some more pix of Parker’s bday:

(Above) Parker sword fighting Darth Maul.

I’m not sure why, but the kids wanted to make it look like they were standing on darth vader’s head.

Getting rid of Darth Vader.

Scott “vader” losing the battle to the Jedi.

I’m not sure what this is, but I think he was excited about getting money for his Bday.

A few things and stories about Parker:

* I like to call Parker Mr. T…short for Mr. Tease. He LOVES to tease, but the good thing about him is, he is good at taking a joke, too. If someone teases him he can easily laugh it off.

* Parker asked me once if I would please call him “Jumper” instead of Parker, because of how much he likes to jump….and it’s true, Parker is always jumping off of something. Mostly it’s the couches, but it drives me crazy. I just know he’s going to hurt himself one of these days.

* For some reason when we pray as a family, Parker usually ends up giggling through the whole prayer. Not funny for me, but he has that cute smile, so I can’t ever stay mad at him.

* Even though he loves to tease, he also watches out for his brothers. A few times as Scott and I have gotten the kids gathered up to leave to go somewhere in the van, one of the boys for some reason doesn’t cooperate, and ends up throwing a tantrum. Whoever the tantrum thrower is, sometimes I will tell them we are going to leave them home….which of course we would never do, so I’m not sure why I make that threat in the first place. But, there have been times, when we’ve gotten everyone in the car except the tantrum thrower, and Parker will start crying and begging us not to leave his brother behind. Another time, I had taken the 3 younger kids to the store to shop for groceries while Jaxon was in school. I told them if they were good I would let them pick out a treat at the end. Well, Keaton ended up getting too many warnings, and so I finally told him he would not be getting a treat. Of course he started to cry and I saw Parker walk over to him and try to tell him it would be okay. So, when I got done shopping I let Berkley and Parker pick out their treats, and reminded Keaton he wouldn’t get one. So, yeah you guessed it, he cried some more. I paid for the groceries and handed Parker and Berkley their treats, while dragging screaming Keaton to the car. As I was putting the kids in their car seats, Parker quietly asked me if he could please give his treat to Keaton. I honestly didn’t even know how to respond. I didn’t want to let Keaton think he would get a treat even though he was bad, but Parker was willing to go without so Keaton could have a treat. I allowed Parker to give Keaton his treat, and was amazed at how kind and loving he could be. He’s such a good example for me.

* Parker potty trained himself just after he turned two years old. I had just finished potty training Jaxon, which had been a nightmare, so I decided to wait to potty train Parker. But, after we moved into our house, I kept finding Parker diaperless. He was taking his diaper off and actually using the bathroom, only I didn’t know he was really using the bathroom. He would flush the toilet, so I really didn’t know he was going, and I kept getting mad at him for taking his diaper off all the time. Well, one day he must have forgot to flush the toilet and I finally realized he really was using the bathroom. He was by far the easiest kid to potty train.

* The second Parker wakes up is a big wrestling match with Jaxon and Keaton. Our house is wrestle mania.

* Also just after Parker turned 2, he was diagnosed with JRA. It was all so devastating and upsetting at first, but he’s learning how to deal with it all and so are the rest of us. I used to wonder if for some reason our family was being punished because of all the problems we were having.  I don’t think it’s unnatural to think that, but I started obssessing over it a little too much. But, one day when I was studying the scriptures I came across this story in the bible in the book of John, and I finally felt okay with everything:

John 9:1-3,6,7

1 And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was ^ablind from his birth.

2 And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this ^aman, or his parents, that he was born blind?

Parker turned 6 years old, and we had a small bday party for him. For part of the party, Scott drew this awesome picture of darth vader on the driveway, and then we let the kids throw water balloons at him to “kill” him. After they got all the black off the sidewalk, Vader was officially gone. Also, for the party, I decided to get the swimming noodles and was going to make swords out of them, or light sabers. I thought I would just put black tape on the bottom of them and let them be floppy so there would be no chance of hurting each other. Well, Scott saw the noodles and asked me what I was going to do with them, and I told him, and he got all excited and went to the store and bought pipe to put in the middle of them and made them look all cool. I’m not sure who had more fun with the light sabers, him or the kids. The kids still love sword fighting him with them.

Scott “Vader” fighting off the Jedi Knights.

Parker had to make a leprechaun trap this year. He was way excited about it. I let him decide how to do it. He drew the rainbow himself, and then he told me how he wanted to make it so the leprechaun would fall through the hole in the middle of the trap. It turned out really good. While I was helping him put it all together, Keaton disappeared for a long time in the other room. Just as I was about to glue the rainbow onto Parker’s trap, Keaton came and showed me a rainbow he had drawn, and told me he really needed a trap, too. It was really cute and funny. I didn’t have time to make Keaton’s trap right then, so for the next two days after that, that’s all he could talk about. I finally gathered up some materials and helped him make a trap, too. By the time we took the pictures of the traps, Keaton’s latter had been broken into pieces. I never did get around to getting it fixed. But, he was still happy with it. It was lots of fun doing these traps with both these two super cute boys. Sadly, the leprechaun outsmarted us, and we weren’t able to catch a leprechaun.

I found these pictures yesterday when I downloaded the pictures of Keaton climbing the bunk beds.

Berkley loves food!!

1st pic: Berkley had eaten pancakes with apricot syrup. He really enjoyed them. I’m not sure how he got the syrup to spread so evenly over his nose.

Jaxon’s many inventions….

A rocket ship and I’m not sure what the 2nd one is….All I know is, you are supposed to look through the little ring thing he taped on it.

A castle and Jaxon made his very own compass

Here Jaxon has something made out of paperclips, and the last one is him showing off his lost teeth.

(Below)Halloween Pix:

Ninja Turtle, Ghost

Power Ranger and Bumblebee

4 cute little boys celebrating Jaxon’s bday….

I found out not too long ago that I am prego yet again. I’m due on August 13th. I had my first appointment last week, and they also did an ultrasound. It was really cool seeing the baby on the ultrasound. I’m not sure I’ve seen the others when they were that small. It looked like it had plenty of room to roam around and it seemed very active. Everybody keeps asking me what we want, and I’m totally fine with a boy or a girl, but seeing that baby on the ultrasound, it really reminded me of my other boys. I swear it was jumping rope with the umbilical cord. So, my prediction is another crazy, active little boy. We find out in two months what it is.

PARKER NEWS: We also went to an appointment for Parker, which I really enjoyed…Mostly because they built a new hospital that is much closer to our house so now we only have to drive 15 minutes to see the rheumatologist. How lucky are we?! The appointment went really good. The doctor said the arthritis in his joints is in remission. His left knee has been a tiny bit stiff since he’s had the arthritis, but at this appointment he could fully extend and bend his leg. That was so exciting to hear. As for the bad part of the visit….I guess there’s always good and bad, but not too long ago Parker’s cheeks on his jawline became very sore and swollen. It hurt him if I even touched it. We took him into the instacare, and the doctor said it was a salivary gland infection. Well, we told the rheumatologist about it, and she said it’s very rare for a kid his age to have a salivary infection, so they decided to do some extra lab work besides what he already has to get….she named about 3 different diseases it could be associated with, and I can’t even remember the names, and I’m not sure I want to. I guess if he has any of them we will deal with it one step at a time, but for now I haven’t even heard back on the lab results, so we are just waiting. I asked her if they would do anything differently if he did have any of the diseases, but they would still follow the same path they are on, so it’s not that big of a deal. I guess they just want to know, because in the future it could maybe cause some problems….who knows? I guess we’ll see how it all comes out. As for his eyes, they are still, clear, too, but the plan is to keep him on the MTX for at least 2 years, so it will be fun doing the shots for 2 more years. Oh well, it could be a lot worse. At least he has some positive things happening, so I will just hold on to that and be happy for the good news.

Parker also had an appointment this week. We went to see the eye doc. I always get nervous at this appointment, because if they find anything in his eyes, they will have to put him on even more meds. Right now he is on his weekly methotrexate (chemo) shot, which he completely hates. If they ever do have to do the other meds, it would also be an injection that stings. It already hard enough holding him down for his shot that doesn’t sting. But, the appointment was good, and Parker’s eyes were completely CLEAR! Yay! So, we just have to keep up on the metho for the next 2 years and go to the eye appointments every 3 months, and hopefully get this all under control….and for those who might be looking at our blog for the first time, Parker has juvenile rheumatoid arthritis along with the fun uveitis (eye disease) that comes with it sometimes. So between his appointments, and Keaton’s appointments sometimes it’s hard not to go crazy. But we are hanging in there. Good news always helps.

For some reason the kids decided they wanted eggs for dinner the other day.

Me: “Which kind of eggs do you want?”

Jaxon: “I want the kind that’s cooked in water.”

Parker: “I want scribbled eggs.”