Why we need some LAND!

Some days I really wonder what goes through the brain of an 11 year old and his mighty accomplices. What in the world would give them reason to think that it would be o.k. to buzz cut the backyard into their own personal bike / motorcycle trail??? This was not something we thought about when we let Tanner start cutting the grass this year. In a matter of minutes yesterday, our backyard went from being lush and green - which is extremely rare for August in the south - to a mess of burnt out paths all through the backyard. Who knew that he even knew how to lower the blades on the mower! The boys had also wrangled all their friends to come over and bring their bikes and had jumps etc. Mark was inside the house thinking that Tanner was just cutting the grass like he was asked and I was at the grocery store. You can only imagine the joyful comments our neighbors heard once we discovered their invention. If there was a silver lining.. at least it wasn't the front yard too. I can promise you that there would no longer BE any bikes or motorcycles to ride around here if that was the case!!! And this continues the saga of the JOY of BOYS.

Note: Picture was taken this morning... just one day after the cut. Yikes! It was a seriously hot day yesterday... there's no chance of that grass surviving... ahhh, yet another landscaping project. Grumble, grumble.

First Day School... a little late.

Brock -Smile??? or Nervous Jitters, Brennan - Chillin' into 5th grade, Tate - the "I think I'll like it" look. And that sunrise... who could ask for a better backdrop than that. I guess there is one benefit to catching the bus at 6:45AM!!! They would take the extra sleep anyday over the sunrise though. (I found the sunrise an extra special blessing since we had just gotten home with Reese at the hosptial two hours before this - ahhh the beauty our Father in Heaven gives us to look at.)
Still nervous... but he really did have a huge smile when he saw the bus coming and knew that he could actually ride it this year with his brothers.
Tate is growing up SOO fast! What a good looking little man!

Brennan was very excited that he has earned the right to sit in the back seat of the bus as a 5th grader. Oh my... let's hope he doesn't take Brock back there!




All smiles, Tanner gets the lucky opportuinty of starting school at 8:45am so catching the bus at 8:15 is a breeze. Mr. Cool was very happy to start middle school and enjoyed his first day.

Mark's New Secretary

It seems that I may have to keep an eye on the beautiful, young, blond haired, blue eyed hottie that Mark hired for his office. Hmmm...

Tender Mercies from the Lord...

It's taken me several days to calm down enough to even write about what happen on Sunday night, but words just can't seem to express the gratitude I have for a loving Father in Heaven that watched over our sweet little Reese. On Saturday night, Reese started with a fever and so I stayed home with her on Sunday from church. By Sunday afternoon she was still running a pretty decent temperature and just very tired. (I should have known that something was starting when she took two 2 1/2 hour naps on Saturday... giving me a wonderful break while Mark and the boys were all at the lake.) We came to the conclusion that she must have an ear infection again and so this time I thought...I really don't want to go spend the entire afternoon in Insta Care so why not see if the neighbor across the street that is a family practice doctor can take a look at her ears just to tell me if they are infected. They have lived here about 4 1/2 years but they are never outside and we have rarely said more than HI or waved occasionally to them. I thought it was a strange impression to go and see her but I figured it was a good idea. Little did I know how much I would need that beginning of a friendship later that evening.

Sure enough her ears were red and we started her on Omnicef - a strong antibiotic that she has been on before. After dinner, we started into the back to school bedtime routine as the first day of school was Monday. Mark took the boys upstairs and I stayed down to nurse Reese and see if I could get her to sleep. Shortly after they went upstairs, she started to doze off and I was so thankful that she finally was able to get some rest for the day. She had not been able to get to sleep all day and was sooo tired. After just a minute or so, she started being startled every few minutes in her sleep. I noticed that she was starting to get the chills and instantly grabbed a blanket to wrap her in. (Not the thing you are supposed to do with a feverish child, but I really was not thinking that her temp was very high.)

Within a few minutes, she suddenly had this terrifying glazed look in her eyes and became very limp and lethargic. I immediately screamed for Mark and tried getting her to snap out of it. Then she started having trouble breathing and I immediately ran out the front door and to the neighbors house across the street. Without earlier having gone to her house I really don't think she would have come to mind in this emergency. By the time I ran across the street and go to her door, Reese was having trouble breathing an gurgling. She immediately took her pulse and gave her mouth to mouth. We were able to get her to snap out of what we were soon to find out was a seizure brought on by a very high temperature. The ambulance showed up just a few seconds later and I ran her to the street to meet them. In getting her into the back, they took her temp and found it to be 104.2 which is actually 105.2 internally. They told me that she probably had a febrile seizure from the temperature and that we would take her straight to the ER. I called for Mark to get my shoes and bring my wallet and we rushed off. In the meantime, the neighbors were all outside trying to see why there was an ambulance, fire truck and four other volunteer fire dept. vehicles at our house. Mark called for a neighbor to hurry in and watch the boys and he jumped in the car to follow us to the hospital. Words cannot even begin to describe the pain and agony we felt as you see your little baby in these conditions. It still is hard to write about...

On the way to the hospital the EMT was able to get an IV started into her arm on the first try (what a miracle) and gave her another dose of Tylenol. She was such an angel and soooo good throughout the entire ride. At this point she was very tired but alert and responsive. I guess it is normal for them to be very tired after a seizure. They gave her oxygen and had all kinds of things hooked up to her. On the way to the hospital, I called the bishop from church and asked him to meet us at the hospital to help Mark give Reese a blessing. They were there when we arrived and we were able to step into a room and give her a blessing. In the blessing, she was blessed that she would be able to recover and be o.k. and I breathed a sign of relief. I was never more grateful for the priesthood power that at that moment in my life. How thankful I am for a husband who honors his priesthood and keep his covenants so that at a moments notice he is able to give any one of us a blessing if we need it.

The doctor in the ER agreed that it was most likely a febrile seizure but she wanted to run some other tests to see if everything else was o.k. She had a CT scan, chest x-rays, blood tests and urine cultures ( catheters are no fun on infants)... and everything so far has come back normal. We are still waiting on some longer cultures from the lab for her blood and urine, but hopefully that will all be normal too. We were able to leave the hospital about 3:15AM and I just can't tell you how good it was to walk out to the car with her that night.


With two hours of sleep, we woke Monday morning to get all the kids off for their first day of school. Tanner - 6th grade, the big middle school, Brennan - 5th grade, top of the elementary, Tate - 2nd grade, hooray, and Brock - Kindergarten - yeah for big boy school! If the pictures have him looking a little scared, you'd never know it when he got home that day. What began as a very scary evening, awoke to a very exciting first day of school. One we all will never forget. Hooray for awesome teachers and what will be a GREAT year for them all.

It truly was a tender mercy from the Lord to have her be healed! I must say that some of the most touching things that I have been told by neighbors since then was how the boys all in tears, gathered together in prayer for their sister in the front yard - and many other times. The love they have for her is beyond anything I can describe. Countless times Tanner would call us while we were in the ER wanting to know what was going on so that he could tell his brothers. They all had the hardest time getting to sleep and shed many tears on her behalf. I am very thankful to say that she is now fever free four days later and we have our sweet little sassy Reese back bossing all her brothers and the cats and dog around again. She is such a blessing to each of us and we all love her so very, very much. And one that note... some one's just waking up and calling... "Maaaa.... Maaaa!!!"

Boys will be Boys... KABOOM!

Who would have thought that we could mysteriously use almost 1 1/2 gallons of vinegar in our house in just 5 days??? Hmmm.... last week as I was in the laundry room, I heard the biggest explosion come from the driveway followed by loud roars and cheering. I ran to see what was going on only to find about 10 boys huddled around a completely blown apart water bottle. Thus the makings of yet another "bomb" science experiment for the Kenison boys - and this was just the boys not Mark - although he was eager to learn the methods of their madness! Leave it to my boys to find a way to make simple household ingredients into one of the loudest explosions I've ever heard. Note - see ingredients above... call Tanner for directions! Seriously!!! Believe me, we have played around with several vinegar and baking soda experiements, but nothing was like this! It's even louder than dry ice bombs... Shhh - I have held back on letting Mark teach those things. It won't be long. Somehow the dry ice has always mysteriously been gone after the root beer has been made - wink, wink. Hopefully we can make it through the boredom and not have anyone arrested of fined before school starts on Monday.

Oh what do you do in the summertime?

Let little sister ride a bike in the HOUSE? What!
Get BIG air like the X-Games! Tanner
Nice blades Bailey - Brennan's best friend
Brock Man! Sweet Trick!
Boys Night Out - Back to School Monster Truck Bash
Brennan's stupid Human Tricks... Flat Belly
Blown Up Belly! Part Alien?
The True Bored Face of Summer - Tate
Before the Water Bill came with news that they were tripling our already crazy water rates... This will be a memory of the past... water bills now will be close to $350 a month!!! And that's WITHOUT the sprinklers running in the yard. YIKES!

And the summer rolls on....

Thanks for the yummy cupcakes Ms. Susan... you offered to hold me while I ate! What do you mean I got icing all over you?
Evidence! This is house Reese keeps her girly figure!
Paddle Boats for Family Home Evening! Fun, Fun!
The second boat full.
Say cheese!!!

It's hard to believe that the summer is almost done and the kids will be back in school in less than two weeks. I guess I have mixed emotions... the thought of going back to having my life run by the schedule of the school makes me cringe, but having only Reese at home during the day sounds like a good deal too. The poor boys are so bored and ready to be back in class. At least they enjoy school and look forward to going back! We are trying to cram the summer into these last two weeks since Nauvoo took a huge chunk of the summer, both in preparing and then in the actual time away. We thought the paddle boats were so much fun that we decided to take the kids for Family Home Evening. Much fun was had by all even though we had to share a boat because they would not let Reese ride with us. Boo hoo! It all worked fine and Reese enjoyed watching from the shore while we all took turns. Still on the list to do is a day at Carowinds ( a local amusement park), the Back to School Monster Truck show, and as much time at the pool as they can get. Add that to the list of shoe/ clothes / backpacks / etc. shopping, dental appointments, school open houses and stake conference weekend.. it should be a busy two weeks.

The Birthday Date!

Mark and I had a wonderful night on Saturday celebrating my birthday. I had been asking him for a long time (although he says he doesn't remember) to take me on the paddle boats at Francis Beaty Park for one of our dates... he couldn't say no to the birthday girl! Here are some of the photos from the boat ride - above is the one that I snapped while we were in the boat and the other was one that the "Not so Happy" employee of the boat dock took. It was a very pleasant hour on the water with the greatest company on earth! I am the luckiest girl ever to have Mark as my eternal companion and he was a great sport despite his dislike of paddle boats and hot temperatures. He's more about speed boats and cool lakes! Thankfully he dried out by the time we made it to Maggiano's for dinner. YUM... it's some of the best Italian around. I guess I didn't think about how hot it would be when I made my request for the boat ride. We plan on taking the kids next time and we'll wait a little closer to dusk for our ride next time! Mark and boys made me a fantastic dinner yesterday for my actual birthday and even made a cake too. Brock did a really cute job of decorating the cake with sprinkles and candles. He was a little disappointed that I would not let him put all 34 candles on the cake though. Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures of the cake before we all inhaled it! Mark even shopped in advance for my presents.. this is a huge step! He bought me a beautiful bird feeder, yummy Yankee Candle and a lovely Willow Tree carving. The best present was just being with my family and getting to go to Nauvoo this summer. It was a huge expense to go, but worth every penny! Maybe I'll be lucky enough to get the same birthday present again in the future - Nauvoo! We'd love to go again!

Comments??? Fixed!

O.K.

So I thought... Gosh a lot of people are hitting the blog, but no one seems to have anything to say. That's odd. Then we realized that the comment settings were a little messed up. So sorry! All is well now and hopefully you can all leave us comments. But then again... maybe you all don't want to tell us what you really think! Or even better... maybe we don't have anyone looking at this blog and it's just the hit counter going crazy to make me feel better! Ha, Ha!

More Pictures from Nauvoo