January-April Happenin's 2016

I'm still trying (somewhat) to keep up on this blog, for my records.

In January of this year, I was able to go with some of the girlies in my family on a fun trip to DISNEYLAND! We had such a great time!

 Me, Mom, Jenny and Lexi, Angi and Karlee.

 As I was walking past the Indiana Jones ride, I was looking up, admiring

all the birds in the trees above. All the sudden I felt a very warm SPLAT on my forehead!

Instantly I knew what happened, but was so embarrassed, I didn't want to freak too much and make a scene. So I hunkered down a little, grabbing at my family. Once they realized what happened they were DYING! We were all laughing so hard we were crying. Miraculously, it didn't get in my hair or my eyes. Definitely the biggest funny of the trip!

 Our lovely hotel. Our kids were so jealous. :)

 It got pretty cold at night (duh January), and we weren't super prepared.

We had to buy beanies at CVS. We took the pic on the right and realized, it 

made Lexi look almost like she had two moms....um. HAHA

More randomness from the months....

 Valentine's Day. Including a party with our friends, Lennen and Emery.

 Some fun snowmobiling!

 The Provo City Center Temple Open House.
Gorgeous!

 We had a late friend-party for Luke this year, but eventually we made it happen!

Nickel City was a nut house with all these boys on a Saturday afternoon. But it was short and sweet and definitely worth paying someone else to do the work! :)

 We had a whole bunch of illnesses the end of the winter. Luke got sick and then had a bad reaction to some meds. The poor kid was covered head-to-toe in rashes for a few days. :(

 Paige and Lucy lived in Utah for a few months this year, it was fun to 

get to spend so much time with these little cousins!

 We played hookie another day and took the kids skiing. Matt and I 

snowboarded. I snowboarded a bit while I was growing up. But it had been years.

I tried really hard to put on a happy face for Matt, because he wanted to have a fun day 

on the slopes so bad....but honestly, there were some tears and angry words throughout the day. I think my body isn't cut out for boarding anymore (bad knees). 

The boys had such a fun time in ski school though. 

 As I look back, I'm realizing how many days we took Luke out of school, or Matt missed work for us to have a fun outing.  And I don't mind one bit! Another fun day, with Dad at the aquarium! We spent 5 hours, taking our time, and enjoying the un-crowded museum. So fun!

 Date night! We went and saw our Cleveland Cavaliers play the Jazz, we invited

 our neighbors to join us, since we knew their love of the cavs too.

 St. Patty's! We built traps with our neighbors, and one leprechaun played some pretty silly tricks around our house!

 Easter was the week after St. Patty's this year. We had a fun weekend with hunts and

family festivities! Including, Devin falling off of a stool at Grandma Clark's house and 

breaking his elbow! (That was only the first of our 3 broken bones this year).

 Day hike with my little Wolves!

 Matt was invited to be on a segment on ksl. We followed Daddy and were allowed to be on the set and see behind the scenes. It was a lot of fun! While we were in Salt Lake, we visited Temple Square and the new Church History Museum (which is really awesome). 

 Visiting Great-Grandpa and Grandma Hales!

 We love living so close to this beautiful trail. The views are always breathtaking! 

We live in a beautiful place!

The Staph

WARNING***This post contains graphic, well, just really disgusting images.

This post is dorky. But I know dorky people that wanted to see these pics.
You know who you are. This post is for you.

About 2 weeks after I had James, I yanked one of those annoying, deep, hangnails off.

People do that all the time, right?

BAD IDEA.

It got infected.

The following images are the stages of the infection...these hurt just to look it.

I'll tell you I would have rather given birth 10x than have this again.

It was one of the most painful things I've ever experienced.
And I've had some pretty painful things happen to me in my time. 

I guess your fingertips are some of the most sensitive parts of your body, 

which explains the excruciating pain I had from this. I felt so dumb

for being such a baby about this...but seriously it killed! Everything about it hurt so bad.

Here she is...the beginning...

 Then the swelling got worse and worse.

 This (below) was probably the most painful and worst point of the infection.

I couldn't bend or straighten my finger. It was swollen to the knuckle. 

And it just seemed like the "stuff inside" (I hate gross words), had no more room to swell.

 Would you believe that day I laid on my couch all day, in pain? 

We thought I might loose my finger nail at this point.

And then I was going to be one of those people, who have a freaky finger. :(

Then the "gross stuff" started to surface. Matt came home and tried lancing it a few times

to relieve the pressure (I had to bite a rag when he did it, I'm tell you it KILLED!!!)

 Oh and by the way, I was on 2 different antibiotics during this whole fiasco.

The next series of photos could be even more disgusting, but I'll tell ya, 

it felt 500x better from here on out.

I had to soak it in salt water and then "drain" it (...barf) all throughout the day.

 And it slowly went down and started to heal. 

I wanted to leap with joy, even though my finger was looking pretty freaky.

(Matt made me bandage it up in public, because it was too gross looking).

I know this last photo is GROSS, but man it felt so good, even though it's scary.

By the way, from start to finish, this was about a month's time.

And I'm pleased to tell you that after that it was like this I had a new finger again.

My finger healed and the skin was baby soft.

And believe it or not, I think my nail is a prettier shape now.

Okay. That was a weird post for me.

Lesson to be learned. DON'T pull (or bite) off those hangnails, be patient with those

annoying things and clip them off later, like a lady.