My Sweet Grandma Walker

These are some of my favorite pictures right now. They were taken about a month or two ago, and are the last pictures I have with my Grandma Walker. I'm so grateful I got to see her this day. She has had a long battle with cancer and wasn't doing well. We had gone down just to visit her, but because of her doctors appointment that day, the visit was short. John took the kids so they weren't running around like maniacs and I got to visit with her for about an hour and a half. It was nice. This was the last time I saw my Grandma in a somewhat normal way. She was completely coherent and we had a normal conversation just about everyday life. The next and last time I saw her after this trip, she was not as coherent and did not get out of bed...she was very frail and ready to be done with this earthly life.

I'm so glad I took the time to see her this day...even if it was for just a short while. Grandma was funny....when John came to pick me up, I hesitated to let the kids come in since Brooklyn hadn't been feeling that well. Grandma insisted it was fine. So they came in and I asked if we could all get a picture. Grandma had just had a treatment and had to stay lying down for the day, but she got up to take the pictures with all of us. I was trying to be a bit selective with Brooklyn and her sickness, and Grandma said, "it's fine, what's the worste that could happen", then scooped Brooklyn right up on her lap. John and I had a good chuckle at this. I guess if your on your last leg of life, she made a good point.

Anyway, Grandma passed away on May 20th and I miss her lots, but I also know she's happy. She was an incredible woman, and I feel blessed to be as old as I am and to have had her in my life for so long.

I'll post more about her and her funeral later, but I was looking at these pics and just thinking about her now.

The brighter side of life.

Not sure why this picture is turned this way, but I'm too tired to care right now.

I don't know what it is about pictures at the park, but I have always loved them. Whether they are of my kids or someone Else's, park pictures just seem to be so bright and cheery. So this is our first trip to the park this spring. It was pretty chilly but the kids still loved being outdoors finally. Our trips to the park have been few though since we have had snow multiple times since then.

Kynadi looks so determined to stand on the swing..I'm pretty sure she got it.

Linken didn't want to let his sandwich go while he was playing...here he is rescuing it.

My girls LOVE the swings, which is unfortuneate since all I hear is , "mom, push me".

I LOVE bed time

As much as I love my kids, by the end of the day I'm sure glad it's bed time. I'd like to say I got them to bed and then worked on that HUGE pile of laundry you can see in the background(picture below)...but let's be honest, I probably laid on my bed and turned on a show.

These pictures are how Linken can often be found...snuggling a blanket. I think it's so cute. He often hands me his blanket first when I go to get him out of the crib in the morning. Throughout the day if he spots a little blanket of his, he will usually go grab it and hand it to me to wrap around him, or he just carries it around, as in the second picture. My one complaint about this is his new "trick". He knows all the blankets are kept in the armoir in his room, so he'll go in there and start pulling them all out until he gets the one he wants, and even after he gets the one he wants I think he continues to pull more down just to test my patience.

Easter...Finally posting

Easter this year was a bit different for us. We celebrated just as our little family. Usually we spend it with Grandma, Grandpa and Kelsey is here a lot too. This year I think my Mom was in Utah with Grandma Walker and Kelsey was with her Mom (go figure). So anyway, we still had Grandpa and he had just gotten back from his re-hab stay and was all excited about life. So we picked him up Saturday to go to the egg hunt at the convalesent center. We go there just in time to line up and spend two minutes scrounging for eggs. Then we were done. What excitement. I'm sure my dad was thrilled to have gotten all dressed and ready for that!

Anyway, I am not used to doing easter on my own and had forgotten that we didn't have easter baskets. I believe they're at my parents house somewhere. So we improvised and came up with these little hand-made baskets(in picture above), that worked just great. Plus I threw them away when we were done and I didn't have to worry about storage. Perfect. I felt a bit like Martha Stewart.

Well we did the traditionally painting of eggs, and of course the Easter Bunny came and hid everything in the morning. Since it was General Conference that weekend, we stayed in our PJ's and just had a relaxing Easter Sunday! It was nice.

These first pictures were taken before church the next Sunday...all dressed up in their Easter clothes.

I love this picture of John helping Linken with his jacket...I don't know why, it's just a cool picture to me.

What a little stud.

That Saturday night as the girls were getting their baskets out with the eggs in them, Linken learned how to climb on the cofee table. He was sure proud of himself. He also discovered when he stood up on it he could see out the window, which he thought was a good time.

Miss Kynadi

No real reason to post, I just like this picture of Kyandi. What a cutie. I love her!

What a Round Head

I just found these pictures. I had taken them right after Linken was done with his helmet to show how round his head is now. It's like a perfect little head. I'm grateful for technology! You can kinda see his scar on the back of his head, but the one on top is not noticeable at all. :)

This was the day Link had his surgery. You can see his head is kind of a funny shape.

This was just after he was done wearing the helmet.

Our Trip to Houston...back in March

The day John was offered his new job at Halliburton he imeediately gave his two week notice at Home Depot. This was fine except for the fact he had to wait until his background check came back to start at Halliburton. This took longer than excpected and so there was a two week period when John was technically unemployed. We decided at the last minute this would be a great time to go visit John's family in Texas. So we loaded up the car and headed out.

I was a bit worried about the 24 hour drive we had ahead of us and three kids ages 4,2, and 1 being in there with us, but it turned out great. We had planned on stopping along the way, but every time we got to a place that the kids could get out and play, they were doing great in the car. So we kept on going. We drove through the night so they slept a lot of the journey. The only time we had any problem was about an hour or two outside Houston.. Linken started getting a bit restless and cranky. At that point though, John said we had made it this far and we weren't stopping that close. So we drove the whole 24 hours without stoppin other than to gas up.

Well, like I said we decided at the last minute to go so we thought it would be fun to surprise
John's family. We got there Monday night around 7:00 and went to John's sister Tammy's house first. We knocked on the door and gave them a big surprise. They thankfully took us in. The best surprise wa the John's mom the next day.

His parents work as missionaries in the cannery so we decided to show up there. Tammy led us there and when we arrived we decied Tammy should go in first with just Linken. We took Link's helmet off so it didn't completely give it away. Tammy said she went and found Grandma TX and she asked who the little boy was. Tammy just said she was babysitting him. Then the rest of the conversation went a little something like this:
Grandma TX: "What's his name"
Tammy: "Linken"
Grandma TX: "Just like our Linken and he has red hair like our Linken too"
Tammy:" Yes"
Grandma TX: "How old is he"
Tammy: "One"
Grandma TX: " oh, just like our Linken"
Tammy: "Yeesss"

At this point Link started getting fussy so Tammy said she was going out ot hte car to get his binki, and she came outside ot tell us the story about how Grandm TX had no idea that it was her linken. Then we all went insisde and gave he a HUGE surprise. John's Dad came out of the restroom right after we had gone in. He saw us, did a bit of a double take, jumped, and had a great big smile. It was fun to surprise them and I don't think we'll ever let Grandma TX live down the story of not knowing Linken even after making all the comparisons. Too Fun! I love surprises!

Well the rest of the week was filled with lots of fun, including lots of shopping for Tammy and I, rock band, a trip to the zoo (where I have never waited so long to find a parking spot
in my life), a treat from Tammy to Build-a-Bear, out to the movies to see Princess and hte Frog, eating out, and lots of visiting and enjoying being around the Fairchilds. It was lots of fun and we were grateful for Tammy and Mark and thier kids for letting us bombard their house and cause them to rearrange their daily lives for us.

Here are some pics of the trip:





Above our some pics of Kyandi at a reptile store. She got to go with Tammy, Mary, Andrew and Spencer. They said there was a HUGE snake there.

Aunt Tammy amazingly got Brooklyn to take a nap.

Linken with Aunt Mary...this was the best pic I got

Brothers!

On our way through the mall to Build-A-Bear we saw this pet store and had to go in. The kids LOVED it. Linken loved seeing the dogs as long as they were not too close.

Brooklyn doesn't look it, but they were pretty excited about getting to build their first pet.

Kynadi got right into stuffing her bunny, but Brooklyn was a bit nervous so I had to help.

Kynadi was so cute, she was so serious about getting her new bunny washed and brushed. It was lots of fun.

This is at the cannery. Kynadi is dressed as a worker. She took this all home so she can dress like this for the next Halloween. :)

The Thayers love Macs and are the ones that sold John on them. So here is Links new Helmet sticker. They labeled him "I-Link" This could be profitable for Macitosh .

There always has to be a wrestling match... I think Tammy wins!

Brooklyn is playing with a remote control spider. Linken was deathly afraid of it, which I think made it more fun for the girls. It made him cry every time he saw it move.

Gettin down with some Rock Band!