Boys night out :)

Bryce wasn't able to sell a pair of tickets recently, so he decided to take Logan out for a father/son date to a Suns game. It was even on a school night! Logan had a really fun time with his daddy. They got there early so they were able to go to the floor seating for a while and got to see Steve Nash and Amare Stoudemire warming up together. Logan fell asleep in the car on the way home, but they were both glad they went.

Yay for crochet!

My sister Shari made this darling little dress for Marlee and gave it to me when she was a new born. She's just now fitting into it. Shari did a really good job, we think it turned out really cute. Marlee wouldn't keep the hat on, of course, but people at church loved the outfit. Good job, and thanks Shari!

The matching booties are hiding, but they're really cute too. :)

Update

Well, we got some lab results about Marlee's hair. They tested her protein digestion and it came back abnormal. They said this is why her hair fell out so easily, and also adds to why she's so little (in addition to her heart defect)--I guess the way you digest protein affects growth. So the next step is to see a GI specialist (Gastro Intestinal), and they will tell us what we need to do to fix her digestion problem. We really hope it's not surgery, but if that's what it will take to help her get better, then I guess we better do it. Poor little girl. They couldn't find her veins when we got her lab work done so we've gone twice and have to go back again for MORE. They just dig around in her arm until they find the vein. We have to wait until her bruises are healed up before we can go back, and then they'll do it all over again. She's gonna hate the doctor's office before long. She's got small veins like me. Anyway, so that's the latest. We'll keep you posted on what they will have to do to fix her protein problem. Poor thing.

The saddest thing....

Ok, so remember how I posted about how cute Marlee's strawberry blonde curls are? I said in that post that I wanted to document her hair for journal reasons, just in case those curls ever went away. Well, little did I know that they would LITERALLY go away. I'm so sad. Starting after Thanksgiving, we noticed Marlee had a lot of hair on her jammies when she would wake up in the morning. She's always sucked her thumb and twirled the back of her hair with her fingers. But after T-day, her hair would come out when she played with it. We've found chunks of hair about a 1/4 inch thick that she had pulled out during the night. We didn't worry too much at first, but it just kept coming out. She worked her way all around the back of her head and now the only thing that's left is the very top part of her hair. (The bottom pictures were taken a couple weeks ago, and even more is missing than what's shown). We took her to the doc about it and she didn't seem concerned at first. She said that she's heard of kids pulling their hair out before. But it's weird to her that it doesn't hurt Marlee when she yanks it out. Marlee was sitting on my lap a while back and I heard this fabric-ripping sound, she handed me this patch of hair and said "here"--it didn't even faze her, like it didn't hurt at all. So because it's not hurting her to pull it out, the doc thinks there might be some kind of nutrient problem, possibly with her liver producing the right protein digestion thingies. (Whatever the liver does with protein, I have not idea). She's going to have Marlee do some blood work to see what they can figure out. It just makes me so sad, all that pretty hair is gone. Plus it's so stressful thinking that something ELSE could be wrong with her, in addition to her heart defect. Poor little girl. She's the sweetest little thing. It makes me so sad to see her have so many illness problems. So that's what's going on with Marlee these days.

BEFORE

AFTER

Don't you just want to cry??!! I do!

New Years Day

We didn't have plans for New Years Day and Bryce had the day off so we decided to head to Tucson and check out the zoo there. My friend Jen told me they thought it was awesome, and that she liked it better than the Phoenix zoo and it was about half the price. We'd have to agree that it's awesome. The animals are so close up and it's way less of a walk between the animals, unlike Phoenix. The kids liked it a lot too. We'll definitely have to go there again!

Giraffes are so cool.

I found that this is a good spot to boost my confidence about my weight. :)

The polar bear was hiding out forever, most people left without seeing him. Right when we were about to leave his area, he came out to say hi to us. :) He came right up to the window looking for food. It was pretty cool. Isn't that crazy, a polar bear in the desert?!

We thought this tortoise was pretty huge. I wonder how old it is.

Looks like Marlee had a little too much fun. :) Good times.

Christmas day (finally)

Christmas was a little different for us this year. It was our first time having Christmas morning with just us and the kids, no in-laws or outlaws. :) It was actually pretty fun. The kids were so excited when they woke up and saw all the presents under the tree. Logan thought it was pretty funny that Santa put two avacados in his stocking...Santa must know he loves them. :) On Christmas Eve, the boys heard Santa's sleigh flying overhead, and we told them that he couldn't stop until all the people in the house were asleep. It didn't take them long to be out! We were surprised how long they slept....they didn't wake us up until 8am. I woke up at 6, wondering where they were. I was sure they'd be too excited to sleep long this year. We had a really fun day together, playing with toys and focusing on the kids. Below are some pics of the kids and their toys. For some reason we didn't take a picture of Logan with his new big kid basketball hoop, but he was really excited about that gift. He can shoot baskets for hours. Enjoy!

Landon enjoys his marble contraption track.

Logan and Landon got cowboy guns and have enjoyed shooting each other to death. :)

Marlee makes a good little mommy....it's her first "dolly." :)

The kids got "SORRY" for Christmas. I remember playing this game over and over with my sister Shari when I was growing up. We loved it. Logan seems to like it too.

Hope everyone had a great Christmas and a happy new year!

Polar Express

Every year in Williams, AZ the Grand Canyon Railway turns into the Polar Express and travels the North Pole. :) In order to ride, you have to make reservations a year ahead of time. We made our reservations last January and we didn't tell the kids a thing about it. We spent the night in Prescott with Mom and Dad McBride. The morning of our train ride, we had the kids watch the animated Polar Express movie. Then later, we said we were going somewhere special. When we got to the train station, we went to get our tickets and we had the ticket master tell the kids where they were going. Logan and Landon got so excited! They couldn't believe they were actually going to ride the Polar Express to the North Pole!

Before we got on the train, we got to go visit with Mrs. Claus and write letters to Santa. There were gift shops and a line to take pictures with Santa. Logan and Landon are waiting in line to sit on Santa's lap. Papa is holding Marlee while in line.


Logan was born in Logan, UT, but he was only 1 year old before we moved to AZ, so he doesn't remember the snow. This is the kids first time playing in snow. They thought it was pretty neat. It was weird to be so cold and to touch snow again. We were so glad we could drive back home and not have to live in it. We'll definitely have to visit it again sometime though.

Nanny made special bathrobes for the boys to wear on the train (thank you Nanny!!). On the train they served hot chocolate and a cookie. On the way to the North Pole, they told the story of the Polar Express. On the way back, we sang Christmas songs the whole way until Santa came on board and gave each kid a bell of their own (it was a nice bell too, not a tin piece of you know what).
The train is taking off!! Yay!!


Going on the Polar Express was a special family activity that we won't forget soon. It was fun to have Nanny and Papa along with us. We won't do it every year, but I'm sure we'll do it again sometime in the near future. The kids loved it!