Christmas........

Well I was trying to put other pictures on but again I had connection problems. So here's what I got on. For Christmas Erin and Jon got us family pictures, which with Chris here it was perfect. It was kinda funny, it was snowing just a bit and we took them outside. So we all dropped our coats rand through all the snow on the ground and started posing. Poor little Issy had her sweet little round white head with a bright red nose glowing at us! It was very cold but it was lots of fun. It will be fun to get the pictures back and see if we all had bright red noses! After the pictures we were all freezing and hungry so we went to one of our favorite restaurants here in Utah "Good Wood" awesome potato salad and pulled pork! My scar is showing in this picture. We are going to have it edited out in the family pictures:-)
Erin and Jon playing around.
Erin and Jon stayed another week with us so they could be here with Chris too.

It was nice that all of the kids were together for the week. We all got spoiled by having Issy around to kiss on when ever we wanted. Chris fell under her spell to, he was crazy about her.
This was yesterday at the airport. Chris was leaving to get back to Mesa. I was sad because he was so sad to leave. He said he wanted just one more week with us, and he would have felt better. Funny how we tried to get him to be with us when he was 17 and had all of those problems, and that was the last thing he wanted. But now after 3 years he has changed enough that he enjoys being with us. But he had to get back to work. I cried on and off for the rest of the day. As a parent you just really want your kids to be happy and have happy lives.

Chris was feeling very huggy! He grabs hold of you and doesn't let go.
Mike and Steven enjoying a little sugar!

Things have wound down now it's just the 4 of us again. And I'm feeling pretty yucky. I think I have something, I just hope I didn't give it to everybody else. I need some good rest. It was impossible for me to take it easy like I was supposed to after my surgery. I am just hoping that I haven't done anything stupid to my recovery.

Christmas Morning.......

Well our internet service has been down most of the day. I have tried to load more pictures onto the blog and keep getting disconected. But it was so fun to have all four kids, plus the son-in-law, and granddaughter all here to open presents thid morning. We all had good times together. Issy being the "little princess" of the house got a fitting little pink castle, which she loved! Steven got rock band a video game, which he has been playing most of the day it's a crack up to hear them all in the basement singing. The game scores you on loudness and tone when you are singing. Needless to say it has sounded like a party here all day!

Christmas eve........

Nathan chillin, I think this picture is sideways!


Issy playing in her pretty little Christmas dress that I bought her when her mom was like 5 months pregnant. She too sweet for words, who needs fudge!
Christopher being very excited to be here with his family:-) He really is excited!
Cool designs with the Christmas tree lights

. More cool lights.
Steven chilllaxin sideways sorta!
Merry Christmas everybody!

It's over!

This is Erin and I as I was leaving for my surgery. She is exactly 1 week out of her surgery and she looks and feels so much better.


This is me tonight. Isn't the big collar thing hot? I think I just might be way to sexy to post this picture to the masses!
This is a blown out vain. The nurse shot right through the vein. I got 3 different IV holes this was the worst.
They went through the front of my neck to get to the back, I think I'm going to have a way to sexy scar on my throat, also the surgeon didn't tie any knots in the stitches so that I can remove them myself on Christmas day. Besides the fact that I broke out in hives across my chest the night before my surgery. It came from such a stressful week the week before. I was actually feeling very calm for a few days before my surgery, thank goodness!!!

I am alive! So the horrible, wretched pain I got back in the middle of August is soon to be over. I had my surgery yesterday and it went very well. A sweet lady in our ward is a recovery room nurse, and she made sure that I got the best anesthesiologist there. Plus she took great care of me in recovery. The anstestioligst was very nice and made sure that I was not scared. I told him that I had seen trailers for the movie "Awake" about anesthesia awareness. He said"I'm going to have to see that movie so I can put peoples minds to rest about it." And he explained why people have it and that I didn't fit any of the categories. They were playing the song "Low Rider" when I went into the operating room, and the neurosurgeon told me I was "lucky to have that anesthesiologist because he was on a roll today" and another attending said "we are calling him 'butter' today because he has been on such a roll". Then I told them that I had inside help, that I had a hook up to get him, they all laughed, and the next thing I remember was being in the recovery room. The surgeon come out and told Mike that the surgery went really well and I was going to be fine. But he also said that the bulge was huge, and what showed on the MRI was just the tip. So Mike and I really are glad that I went ahead and did this, because it would have come back with a vengeance!

Burping is whole new level of pain, but I found out that ginger ale makes it much easier. I have actually felt pretty good today, they said I would have some good day and some bad days, just to hang in there.

I mostly feel relieved that this is all behind me (knock on wood) and I just have heal and get my life back!

Modern Medicine is awesome!

Family Party Pictures part 2

We had every family decorate a cookie Christmas tree, (I just didn't have it in me to make a bunch of gingerbread houses). I didn't take a picture of the gift exchange we did the "right, left" story it was fun. We also had a contest of who could make the best Christmas ornament with recycled things, I'm really sad that I didn't take pictures we had some great ones. A very fluffy toilet paper snowman, a perky foam deer with twig legs and antlers, baby food lid snowman, an etched Santa's sleigh coke can that lit up, a candy wrapper origami mobile. I can't believe I didn't take a single picture. I was given the toilet paper snowman he is quite cute, I'll try to get a picture of him posted later. Have fun looking at out pictures.

A bit of excitement.......

I am having a surgery on Tuesday the 18Th. I have been waiting for months for this to happen. I have been trying to do all of my Christmas stuff early, because my surgery is exactly 1 week before Christmas. Needless to say the week before my surgery was going to be packed with finishing everything up. But Erin called me last Tuesday, she felt so sick her stomach felt like it was "ripping apart" to quote her. Well I told her she needed to get help fast. She called a neighbor and got a ride to the urgent care, but they sent her to the ER. Come to find out it was her appendix. It wasn't in the right spot so it took them a while to figure out it was her appendix. So Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday I got to hang out with my little Issy, needless to say my Christmas stuff didn't get done. So it's a mad dash on Monday and what doesn't get done will have to go undone:-)
Issy with her mom in the hospital.
Erin eating her lovely clear meal of broth, jello, and apple juice. YUM!

Downey Family Christmas Party.....

Well we had our first ever family Christmas party. We have had company at Christmas, but we haven't lived in a place where we had enough family to have a real party. I tried to up load more pictures but my computer couldn't handle it for some reason. We did some fun stuff and I didn't take pictures of it all. We started the day off with allot of snow. It made me feel very Christmassy! I'll post more later, when my computer decides to work right! Stephen, Charlotte, and Elise just hanging out.
Erin and Issy
Grandma and Issy

Uncle Guy and some of the food, and if you make the picture big you can see both John and Jon in the background.
Uncle Mike, Lori and Camon
Elise, Mike, John, and Briana.

Jessica, Bret, and Elise
Char, Aunt Kristen, and Murphy.

Food. (notice the glass cleaner sitting on the bar, maybe we thought it would be good squirted on the salad:-)

Lori, Murphy, and Camon.

It's beggining to look alot like.........

This is what we woke up to today!
This is our 3rd winter here and I still love it! (It does scare me when we have to drive in it) This is off out back porch. If you click on this picture and make it big you can see the snow flakes falling.









I can't have a fancy beautiful wreath on my door we face north and get crazy wind, rain, and snow blown on it during a storm. So this was a simple little wreath I threw together last year (we had the same exposure in the rental house) but mother nature added a little something extra to it!

This is out the front door looking toward the old alfalfa field that is now a bunch of lots waiting to have people buy them and build houses. Then this is just our little front area we also get snow blowing onto our house!
This baby is enjoying her dinner! I will call this BEFORE
And AFTER!
My babies!














This is Nathan posing for a picture to send a girl over the Internet. He was mad because he almost smiled!:-)




This is my oldest baby without her braces! She has a beautiful smile!