Mammy and Grandpop visit and Kyle turns 13!

Mammy and Grandpop decided to serve a mission!  They were called to serve in the Hungary, Budapest Mission and report to the MTC Feb 1st.  We were pretty lucky to have them come visit before they left.  Although they had all kinds of things to do before they left they were sweet enough to come see us.

Tyler is now taller than Grandpop. (Kory loves to photo bomb)

Kyle is now taller than Mammy.

We celebrated Kyle's 13th birthday while Mammy and Grandpop were here.  He turned 13 the week prior, but was sick on his birthday with Hand, Foot and Mouth disease and didn't feel like celebrating.  

 Kyle at 13 is all about football!!  Football is all he talks about.  Well, besides enjoying looking at his muscles and eating food.  He loves cereal.  Chicken Katsu.  Spam.  Anything Polynesian.  He is a big kid with a big heart.  He also says exactly what he is thinking which sometimes gets him into trouble, but we are pretty proud to call him our son.  Overall, he tries really hard to be good.  He dreams of being a NFL player!  One funny thing about Kyle is he can't sit down for an entire meal at the dinner table.  For some reason he won't ask for things to be passed to him.  I am not sure how long he has been doing this, but now that he is so big it is very noticeable.  It makes us laugh as we are working on helping him learn to ask for things to be passed.  If that is his biggest fault I'd say he is pretty lucky!  

It all worked out.  We had a great time celebrating with them!  

Although living in Omaha has it drawbacks, it has some perks.  Living close to Winter Quarters is pretty awesome.  There is a special spirit at Winter Quarters.  We were able to find moms relative Nancy Alexander and enjoy the afternoon together.  

A pretty special experience was to be able to attend a session in the temple with Mom and Dad.  I took the day off work, and Monty school and we spent the morning in the Winter Quarters temple.  The spirit was so sweet and peaceful.  I loved sitting by my mom.  I don't think I have done that since I went through for the first time over 15 yrs ago.  I love my mom and we had a pretty fun laugh in the temple which got us a pretty discussed look from Dad(love you dad.  Sorry!). I laughed so hard I started to cry trying to stop.  Then I started to cry thinking about missing her while she was gone.  Then I realized it was pretty cool because she will be my mom forever so one year is not that big a deal.  So many emotions all in about a 10 minute pre-session cry. In the celestial room Dad forgave us!  We sat on the couch, Monty, me and my parents.  I loved it.  Hugging your parents in the celestial room is pretty awesome.  Now I am at an age when many of my friends have lost parents.  I realized having my parents still around is a blessing and I am thankful for their example to serve a mission.  
Afterward we went and got a Philly cheese making the day just perfect!  I will never forget that day.  It was a wonderful weekend.  And we were thankful for their visit!!

Hand Food and Mouth Disease

 Monday night during Family home evening Makai started complaining that his feet were hot.  He wouldn't leave his shoes on and kept taking them off even though we were at the church playing games.  Then I noticed a bump just above his lip.  When we got home things went from bad to worse.  Makai was crying and I noticed his hands and feet were breaking out into a rash.  He slept only a couple hours that night and I spent the night trying to sooth his itch in every way I could think of.

The following morning, more spots and rash.  I am not one to take my kids to the doctor, but at work someone told me strep was going around and as he said his neck hurt I thought it was worth getting him tested for strep.  NEGATIVE.  The doctor told us her was fine and he could go back to school.  So, I sent him back to school.  The following day Trey work up with spots on his face and hands, then Kory, then Kyle!  I had to figure out what was going on.  Monty finally figured it out.  Hand, Foot, and Mouth disease.

It took the other boys getting it to figure it out.  When Kyle said he wasn't hungry I knew something was up.  Then we read the symptoms to H.F.and M. and loss of appetite was on there.

Anyway, I found the stages interesting.  Makai's toes ended up loosing layers of skin.  I didn't get a picture of the last stage which was him loosing all his fingernails both on his hands and feet.  The worse day was actually the first day when he was itchy.  The rest of the 'disease' he handled pretty easily and the other boys were just tired and not hungry with spots.

Just interesting!