Lilli's turns five

Yesterday was Lilli-pads 5th b-day! We made a rule in our house that you can only have bday parties with friends when you turn 5, 8, 12, and 16. The other years we just do something small with the fam. (I know Im a mean mom but id have to admit myself into a nut house if we did parties every year for every kid!) So Lilli wanted a princess party but wanted to invite her boy friends too so we made it a prince/princess party...

Her Royal Highness

Princess Lilli Lourene Walters

requests your presence
at a royal celebration
in honor of
the fifth year of her reign

Thursday, August 11^th

from 2:00-4:00 pm

at her new castle

2533 Edmiston Dr

First the kids decorated crowns (for the girls) and swords (for the boys). This photo taken the morning after so dont mind Kate in her jammies and the messy hair-dos! After they got done with their crowns and swords the king sent out an urgent message saying that the evil dragon has taken princess Lilli's cake and all her treasure! They jumped on their horses and were sent out on a mission to go rescue the cake and Lilli's treasure from the dragon...
First they came to the moat that the dragon dropped the treasure in and they had to fish all the gold coins out with their fishing poles...
Then they had to walk across the bridge to get across the hot lava...
Then they had to jump across the squirmy poisonous snake without touching it...
Then they had to find the secret code to the cage that the dragon locked the cake in by popping the balloons that had the code inside...
Then they piled into a big piece of pipe and my good little brother (I owe you Gabe!) rolled them across some more hot lava (dont worry, they all didnt squish in there at once. only 3 at a time) :)
Then they came to a hanging frog that the princesses kissed to see if it would turn into a prince...
Some thought it was gross and wouldn't dare kiss it, others (like Lilli) jumped all over the chance that it might actually be a prince they were kissing! :)
Then they found the horrible, mean, scary dragon!
They tried to destroy the dragon by throwing water balloons at it.
After a lot of water balloons they finally destroyed the dragon!
They used their secret code that they got from the balloons and were able to rescue Lilli's cake!
We fed the kids cupcakes but Lilli really wanted a Cinderella cake so we did our best to make her wish come true!
At the end of the day I sure did have a happy and content little princess! Mom on the other hand, well, lets just say Im still in my pajamas and am still not feeling completely recovered from it all! THANK YOU MIKAYLA (my AWESOME niece who has been staying with us for 2 weeks) and Gabe (my little bro who came just to help his crazy sister out)!

Happy Mother Day to my mom!

I wrote this to enter my mom into a contest to win a surprise package for mother's day. I hope she WINS! She most definitely deserves it! Happy Mother's day momma!

If you were to meet my dear mother you might wonder if she is really human. You’d probably think she must be some sort of super hero with super hero power and strength or something. I am here to tell you that she is more than just a super hero. My mother is a real angel sent down from heaven with a special mission to keep our family together and show the world how to love with pure and selfless intent.

I am just one of the 10 kids that my mom has given birth to. When one of my older brothers, Byron, was 10 years old he was in a serious car accident while on a road trip to Alaska with my grandparents. Byron miraculously lived through the accident and is now 39 years old. Although he is still with us today, this terrible accident left my big brother, my mom’s precious son, with severe brain damage and partially paralyzed. For the last 29 years my dear mother has taken care of Byron. Every day, for the last 29 years, she has gotten him out of bed, bathed him, changed his catheter, dressed him, combed his hair and brushed his teeth. She has made his meals into puree before spoon feeding him, and held his hands through his seizures he suffers from daily. For the past 29 years my mom has woke up every night, in the wee hours of the morning, to roll him over and straighten out his crippled legs so he can be more comfortable and fall back asleep. No matter how hard or inconvenient it might have been, my mom has pushed Byron around in his wheel chair to all of us other kid’s baseball games, piano recitals, swimming lessons, performances and graduations so that we wouldn’t ever feel one bit deprived of her support, attention and love. As a mother to a little one year old, I have to confess that sometimes, when I am changing a soiled diaper and wiping a stinky little bum, I daydream of the day when my baby will be old enough to go to the bathroom in the ‘big girl’ toilet and when I can be done with changing stinky diapers. Every time I find myself longing for this day I feel so guilty knowing that for my mom, that day will never come. For her, diapers aren’t just a temporary stage that Byron will eventually grow out of. For 29 years my mom has been changing her precious son’s stinky diapers and yet with every one of those diapers that she changes she humbly gives thanks to God for letting her son stay with her another day longer.

About ten years after Byron’s accident my oldest brother, Nathan, woke up one morning with his new bride of not even a year not feeling very well. After breakfast he went to go lie down on the couch. When his wife went in to go check on him he wasn’t breathing. By the time the ambulance reached their home it was too late. I remember being at home when my mom and dad received the phone call from the hospital who told them that their son had died from sudden heart failure. The image I have of the devastation in my mom’s eyes and on her face is still so vivid and haunts me still today. Every mother’s worst nightmare, loosing her child, was now a reality to mine. To this day, she celebrates Nathan’s birthday every year and looks for little signs from her boy that say to her, “Don’t worry mom, I’m still here. I’ll be watching over you and I promise we’ll be able to embrace again soon.”

About 5 years before Nathan passed away my mom’s oldest daughter, Elisa was diagnosed with Lupus, a chronic autoimmune disorder. At first the affects of this disease were pretty mild for my sister but as she grew older and went away to college, the affects Lupus had on her grew worse and worse. She was hospitalized several times and had to withdraw from her college courses on more than one occasion so that she could go home and get better. Even though my mom’s college degree was not in nursing, she was the best nurse her daughter could ask for. How comforting it must have felt for Elisa to come home from being so sick at college to her mom who would nurse her and comfort her while she went through all her chemo treatments to get the Lupus under control. Well, soon the affects of Lupus on Elisa became so severe that her kidneys shut down and she was put on dialysis. The doctors said she would need to have a kidney transplant if she didn’t want to be on dialysis for the rest of her life. Of course, my mom was the first to raise her had and offer to donate her kidney to Elisa. The family quickly put an end to that idea knowing that there were still 5 kids living at home, including Byron, who needed their mom. We knew Elisa’s blood type was O+ and according to my lab results from a college biology class I was taking, so was mine. After a long list of other tests at the hospital we learned that I was a perfect match to donate a kidney for Elisa. As a mother, can you try to imagine the emotion…sitting in a hospital room with one child laying in a hospital bed on your right side, hooked to a dialysis machine, waiting to go under major surgery to receive a new kidney and ironically, on your left side, is your other daughter laying in a hospital bed waiting to go under major surgery to give her kidney. How stressful that must have been on my mother to be put in that circumstance. How fervent and intense her prayers must have been in that moment, pleading for the help of God to guide the hands of the many surgeons so that her daughters would make it through the surgery. I’m sure she spent every second of those 8 long hours while we were in surgery praying that Elisa’s body would accept her new kidney and function properly and that my body would heal and function properly with only one kidney. No matter how much stress she must have been feeling or how emotional I’m certain she was, during that nerve racking time for me and Elisa, my mom gave us strength and helped keep us calm. She kept a smile on her face and held our hands though it all. In fact, the last thing I can remember before I fell in deep sleep from the anesthesia is her smiling face looking down on me. I could tell she was trying her hardest to hold back the tears. In fact, right before I closed my eyes, I’m pretty sure I saw one slip away and roll down her cheek.

Now, for this mother’s day, my mom is not going to be here. Almost a year ago my mom and dad decided to pack up their suitcases, leave their home and other belongings behind, and take Byron and Gabe, my youngest brother, to go spend a year living close to my youngest sister Leah and younger brother Dave. Most of us siblings live close to my parents so they get to see us and their grandkids quite often. Dave and Leah and their spouses have lived far from home for a while and my parents thought they could use some extra support and help from their mom and dad especially since David and his wife just had their first baby. Pretty selfless act of kindness, I’d say. This is just how my mom is. It’s her nature to sacrifice for others. My mom is always serving and doing things for other people so that their lives might be better. She has obviously been through a lot in her life as a mother but never have I ONCE heard her complain or feel sorry for herself because of the all trials she has been through. In fact she is the most grateful, humble, selfless person I know. She never does or buys anything nice for herself; only for others.

Even though I will not be able to see my mom on Mother’s Day this year, I want her and everyone who reads this to know that I KNOW that angels do live among us. I have witnessed living proof of one of God’s finest. And I feel SO blessed to be able to call her… my mother.

Fall 2010

Carly...

"Has anyone seen Carly?"

"Oh, I think I found her!"

HERE I AM EVERYONE!

Pure Sweetness...

The ability to love and nurture is so beautifully natural

Sleeping beauty Lilli

Lilli's favorite past time...

DALLIN!

Pure BOY!

Such a good big brother

My brown eyed baby girl

Angle face Kate

What a trooper!

Loves to cuddle

The mom...

MOM! Quit taking pictures of us and COME TAKE CARE OF US!!!!

Fall 2010

Bringing home the bacon... i mean turkey!

So not only does my hard working husband go to work to bring me home some $$, today he came home from work with a turkey! What a good husband/hunter he is.

Alright alright, Im back!

So its been over a year since my last post and everyone keeps bugging about updating our blog so instead of trying to play catch up from the last year + I'll just post our latest adventure we had for Dallin's 5th birthday last weekend. We took our trailer to Challis where Cody likes to go fishing. It was a really quick trip but more wonderful memories were made and more yummy fish to eat. I really am going to try and be better about keeping in touch and sharing life's great moments with our family and friends. So heres to a fresh start...

Our latest addition to our growing family, Kate Bethany Walters. She is the HAPPIEST girl and has been such a joy and blessing to our family. She is almost 6 months old! WOW how time flies! Looks like its time to get pregnant again! JUST KIDDING! We love our little Kate-a-babe.
I'm kinda rusty with the blogging so I posted these pictures backwards. This is Carly (2) and Lilli (3) after a long day of hard playing.
Back at the trailer for cake and ice cream for Dallin's b-day. He's holding up 5 fingers since he turned 5 in case you were wondering and I promise he was happy, he just gets a little shy/embarrassed when all the attention is on him. Cousins Tyler and Carson met us up there too.
Dad with all his trophies and Carson in all his professional fishing gear.
Dad's little Lillipad
Dad's little Carly monster
Dad's Dal pal. And incase you forgot, he's FIVE now.
While Cody and Dal went fishing, me and the girls had some good bonding time back at camp. We painted rocks/body parts.
We collected sticks to throw in the river and have races to see who's floated down the fastest.
I told you, shes always smiling...
Sisters make great best friends.

Another fun little adventure...

Catch-up

We haven't made an entry since November 1st so here is a catch-up of some of the things we have been up to lately:Our friend Margeaux took these cute pictures of the kids. They are growing up way too fast!During football season Dal and Lil enjoyed sitting with their dad watching game after game.Cody nursed back to health this injured hawk during the opening weekend of pheasant hunting. Then he killed all of these poor pheasants.My little bro Dave tied the knot over Thanksgiving with his beautiful bride, Jaimie.Good ol Bishop Hobbs married them at my parents home.The whole Ball Family! (except for my good husband who, once again, thought it was a higher priority to "go and find food our starving family" than be at his brother-in-law's wedding. He went fishing...)Dal and Lil sang a song with the other grand kids for part of the program.Jaimie fits right in with the family and all the grad kids LOVE her!DallinLilliCarly (wishing she was with her dad)Congrats Dave and Jaimie!!! We love you!Bath time! A few days before Christmas we moved to our first home in Idaho Falls!Our annual nativity scene acted out by some of the Walters cousins.Dallin the wise man (wishing he was with his dad)Lilli the star.I found this poor Christmas tree in the dorm trash bin and decided to give it a good home. Cody had a really hard time housing such a poor looking tree. Thanks Cody and Meag for the Christmas presents!! GO RAVENS!! The pajamas were too small for Carly but they fit Dallin perfectly! ;) After Christmas Cody went to South Dakota with some of his "boys" to go hunt for pheasants.

Some would say that hunting pheasants in -44 degrees is crazy but Cody calls it the best vacation ever.

"Look at the curl on that cock's tail!" -CodyThe Carly monster showing off her 4 teeth.Lilli being a typical big sister.The annual swollen, sunburned face Dallin comes home with after ice fishing with his dad... At least is wasn't as bad as last years when he couldn't even open his eyes.Dal helping his dad skin a raccoon. He put Dal in charge of skinning the foot with a butter knife. Carly turned ONE on March 3rd!