When daddy comes home

Sorry, this is my first video. I didn't know it had to be facing the right direction :)

I also hope it's not too loud.

They had a great time singing about how they love it when daddy gets home.

This is old, but I still need to post it.

A Mon. night the first part of Oct. Aaron couldn't sleep, he was going to St. Louis for work and was worried about leaving me and the kids. I reassured him, we'll be fine. :) Tue morning before he had even landed we had a problem. I was helping one of the kids when I heard a loud thud in the kitchen, you know that sound of a head hitting somehing hard. Judd had been on the kitchen table helping himself to breakfast. He fell off and hit hard. I wasn't there to watch, but Levi said, mom, he almost did a back flip.

At first I wasn't too worried, but it got bigger and bigger. I called our Dr. They said "keep an eye on him" if he's acting abnormal take him to the ER for an x-ray. I called my good friend Amy for her wise opinion. "keep an eye on him" He's OK, I'm convincing myself. Then he's acting funny, I think I'm going to take him in, but I can't do it by myself. I've been to the ER lots of times with Gage, but not by myself with 3 kids, and our insurance has changed, and we haven't met our deductable, and... The doorbell rings. It's Amy! (she felt like she should come over). She makes the decision I couldn't convince myself to do. We're going. I decide on Primary's because I know it well and figure the insurance will work there. We make the long drive and I'm "watching him" the whole time. First he's crying weird, then he falls asleep, lethargic?... Once we got there I thought let's just "watch him" a little longer before we go in and rack up a big bill for nothing. He was moving a little gingerly, but smiling. We got something to eat at the wonderful (sarcasm) cafeteria and he was eating and happy and seemed fine so we drove home. Amy smiled as she dropped me off at home and said thanks for the call and the lunch date. (big smile). I'm so thankful for her friendship and her listening to the spirit and coming when I needed her help.

I'm also grateful he was fine even though he looked pretty rough for a couple of weeks. This pic was about a week after it happened. The goose egg is looking better in this pic, but the black eyes got even worse.

First day of School

Gage-2nd grade, Miss Berg

Levi-kindergarten,
Mrs. Ashworth
Claire-momschool

Cute Claire pictures

She's just so cute and hard to get a smile out of, but here are a few fun one's. Michelle did her hair cute and then had to take the fall pictures. She's posing for our neighbor Courtney who sells those cute dresses and hair accessories. It's fun for claire to be the model and Courtney needs a girl Claire's age.

summer fun

The Bentley family watching our 4th annual Orem Owls game. We love that tradition, love having traditions that we (and hopefully the kids) will remember. Of course we're right there so we do the Krispy Kreme donut tour after. Love it!!!

Levi, Amy, and Gage behind the Thueson's speed boat up Ogden canyon for a great Bentley weekend. We had learned that we can handle and really enjoy a day at the lake when we did it for the 2009 Bentley reunion.

Grandma Brown made arrangements for all their posterity to go to the newOquirhh Mountain Temple Open House. Claire was sick so Aaron, Claire, Judd, and I stayed home. This cute pic is all her other grandkids.

more fun

Gage, Claire, Levi, Kolby, Zack, Judd, and Troy are showing how they can be HAPPY!!!
Michelle was here and we took pics for a reverent book. It gave us something fun to do and they only whined about having to take pictures a few times.

Elders quorum presidency vs. bishopbric tug-o-war at our ward pioneer day party (it was Aaron's idea) I won't make public which team won :)

Cousin Haylee and Judd with their bottles.

other summer fun

My best friend Lise and her kids came to visit. The kids had a sleep over (no, they didn't sleep) and we went to the Bean museum at BYU.

Church history sites

We also went to a whole bunch of church history sites.

We stayed in Nauvoo for three days. It was a grand adventure. We stayed in a "cabin" along the Mississippi river. Grandpa Brown taught the kids to skip rocks on the river. We caught fire flies (both mom and I had that on our list of things to do before we die). It was a great place to go back to. And I was a little sad to leave, I could feel a little of how the pioneers must have felt leaving that beautiful, peaceful place.

summer vacation

Velma was the oldest family member there and Judd was the youngest.

We (Bentley fam and G & G Brown went on a major road trip. The first stop was a way way extended family reunion in Kearney Nebraska. We met lots of family we didn't know we had. We had a great time getting to know them and learning more about our family history.

update

SORRY! I didn't manage to get any updates while we were at the hospital. We're home now and all is well-back to normal anyway, with the kids fighting. A ton of test later, they never did find Gage's infection. The infectious disease team decided the bumps were sterile absesses. So, Thursday morning they pulled one shunt completely out and internalized the other. We stayed the night, had more CT scans and x-rays and they sent us home with a much happier kiddo, with 62 stitches, covered in iodine which we can't wash completely for 2 weeks. Claire and Judd had their surgeries on Thursday also. Three kids in surgery in one day has got to be some kind of record. There's was so quick. They both came back screaming mad (they say the anesthesia messes them up), but they seem happy now.

Surgeries

Gage is in Primary Children's Hospital. We brought him up Monday evening. It's early for his shunt revision that was already scheduled for the middle of next week because the infected area started bleeding and we didn't want to take any chances. The surgery Late Monday night went well. They took out both shunts. They replaced them with external shunts-the spinal fluid drains into a bag instead of into his body. This is temporary while they do tests and fight the infection. Once the Dr.'s are satisfied that it's gone they will replace one shunt (the other is no longer needed-at least that's what we're all thinking). We don't know exactly how long this will all take. We're planning about a week.
Judd and Claire are still scheduled for Thursday morning surgery. They will both get tubes put in their eyes to fix the clogged tear duct issue. This is same day surgery, so we should be in and out in a few hours.
Thanks mom for staying with the kids. What a weight off our shoulders to know you're there taking good care of them. And thanks to all of you for your support and prayers.
I'll try to keep updates here so you know what's going on in our crazy life.

Spring break in Kanab

We (Amy and the kids) went to Kanab for spring break. I feel a new freedom now that I have been down there by myself (actually my mom helped for an hour on the way down and my parents hitched a ride up with me, then bought a car to drive back home). We went to Zions National Park with Grandma Brown and the Federkeil family. It was fun to do with the kids. My family practically lived growing up.

We enjoyed relaxing, visiting with family, and I watched a bunch of BYUTV with my dad. Now I see why he's addicted. :)

I look forward to doing that during the summer serveral times, well at least once.

March Madness

March Madness is over for our family. Levi took 2nd in the Brown family competition with 80 points. He was only behind Neal who obviously has too much time at work. This is Neals third win, but Levi is already plotting to beat him next year. What a fun family tradition this has become. Thanks mom.

Soccer!!!

Aaron has a media pass so he'll go to all (or most) of the games. He will be interviewing the Real team after the games this year.

This was the first game of the season and first at the new stadium for the rest of the family. Go Real. The players came up for pictures after the game. I don't know any of their names except Kyle Beckerman (he's easy to spot with dreds), but they're still fun pics.

Is it summer? Spring? No, it's still winter, but we had a few great days outside.
John, Gage, Ryan, Claire, Jaidance, Jacob, and Levi on the hammock.

Judd is 1

Judd didn't hesitate for a second when we put cake in front of him he started eating and eating and eating... yummy!

He got a ride on fire truck from the fam. He loves it, he just smiles and thinks he's big. His siblings like it too, a little too much sometimes. He likes it when they push him, but he doesn't like so much speed (got that from his dad). It's a good thing he's so patient.

Claire is 3

We revised Levi's ice cream cake for Claire by scaping off the blue frosting and adding yellow.

Her favorite new doll (SaraLyn) and more gummi bears and sprinkles. We won't be able to get away with that for very long, but she was thrilled. We still ended up throwing cake away.

Levi is 5

Happy birthday Levi!!! Ever since we went to Coldstone Levi has been begging for an ice cream cake. Batman with blue frosting gummi bears and sprinkles. So, that's what he got. But we're too cheap to buy it from there so Aaron made it. He did an awesome job don't you think.

Here's the party crowd. He wanted to invite everyone...This is what we got. The boys from his preschool group, 7 of the nieghborhood friends, and at the last minue Federkeils came up for the weekend (to shop) so we had 2 cousins and 2 more adults to help. What fun :)

The kids came in their pajamas for breakfast(pancakes with whipped cream, chocolate chips, sprinkles, strawberries, and syrup) at dinnertime.

After going through the line up twice and not even close to breaking the pinata Aaron and Gabe broke it with their hands and sprinkled the candy over their heads.

Gage attacks the pinata.

Levi and cousin Zack

swing Claire

Levi and Jacob

home teachers

Gage, Levi, and Claire had a great time playing home teachers last Sunday (not even the last week of the month). Knock knock... It's the home teachers! Claire would open the door and say, "nice to meet you". The boys came in and then they started fighting about who was giving the lesson. :)

They sure are cute... when they're sleeping

Claire fell asleep with her doll and it was so cute. I recognized the peace of the moment (they're rare) and took a picture of each of our beautiful gifts from God.

The ancient Roman philosopher Horace admonished, “Whatever hour God has blessed you with, take it with grateful hand, nor postpone your joys from year to year, so that in whatever place you have been, you may say that you have lived happily.”

It's spring ?!?

So, it's not really spring. It's frezzing and there's tons of snow on the ground, but we couldn't wait to try out the Weber BBQ we found super cheap from KSL.com.
Aaron couldn't stop smiling while he was cooking in his shorts, and sandals. We can't wait for spring!!!

Someone was not actually in this huge Brown family picture. Write a comment of who you think it is. :)

2 more fun pics

Uncle Kelly with all the Brown grandkids. Youngest to oldest- Hailee Brown, Judd Bentley, Kyle Brown, Troy Federkeil, Claire Bentley, Zack Federkeil, Levi Bentley, Kolby Federkeil, and Gage Bentley.

We went to Grandpa Heatons Ranch in Fredonia for some variety. As we pulled in the cows started coming right to us, thinking we were bringing food. It was a bit scary, especially the bull. It was cold too. What could have been super cute pictures turned out to be lots of tears. We gave them candy after and they were fine.

The picture we used for our Christmas cards.

Oh, soooooooo cute!

Pics with Michelle

At Thanksgiving we took a bunch of family pictures with my sis.