So, yeah.  It’s been a LONG time!  Things have been INCREDIBLY busy for these Cullumber’s- I don’t even know where to begin!  Let’s see, shall we start back in February?  Ivon and I had been toying with the idea of building a new house for quite a while- a somewhat duplex sort of home, so that Mom and Dad could move in with us, what with Dad’s health and all.  Ivon said it was 5-10 years away, I said, no, it would be about a year.  Well, that was a year ago.  (Guess who was right?!  SHHH!  I didn’t say a thing!)  Anyway, in February, we found a half acre of land for sale, just around the corner from us.  It was PERFECT!  We made an offer, and it was accepted.  Then came the waiting game with the bank.  We waited for two months for them to finally tell us that we would have to sell our house before they would give us a loan for the property and a house to be built thereon.  (Meanwhile, the property contract expired, and I was freaking out that someone else would pick up “our” land!).  We rushed to finish all the construction projects in our house, which were quite a few!  The main one being the master bathroom that had been under construction for six years… :0)  We got those projects done in two weeks.  Ivon put our house up for sale- before they were done, mind you.  He listed it on KSL.com.  Within an hour, we had two appointments to show our house.  The first one was promising, the second a no show.  But, after a week and a half of no more appointments, and no offers, we decided to list it with a realtor- the realtor who had listed “our” property.  Within 45 minutes of making the call to Norm (our realtor), we got a call from another guy, inquiring about our listing on KSL.  They wanted to come see the house!  And, well, they LOVED it!  They made an offer!  (We were also able to make another offer on “our” property, securing it again!)  Our house was listed for only a week and a half!  Of course, we had to wait another month or so for their loan to go through- which gave us time to get things ready to move.  We were told that we would sign on July 10th, so that’s what we aimed for.  Well, on June 15th, we got a call, saying that we would be signing on the 21st!  AHH!  We had a few days to finish packing up and move!  But, with the help of wonderful family and ward members, we were able to get it done.  So, where did we move to?  Well, we decided against camping for a few months, or purchasing a trailer and staying on the property while the house was being built.  We have moved in with my Mom and Dad!  It’s been quite an adjustment for all of us, including the five cats that are now together under one roof.  With it being a little over a month later, I think I can honestly say that things are easing up for all of us.  The kids are getting settled in, the cats are getting more used to each other, and we even got one room built in Mom and Dad’s basement!

So, there ya have it in a nutshell.  :0)  I figured I’d also post my monthly pages I’ve done up for my year book, because those have all the pictures to go with what I’ve just told you.  :0)

I’ll probably post my July ones, too, if when I get them done!  (Come on, it’s only the 2nd of August!)

OH!!!!  And, they finally dug the hole for our house yesterday!  YAY!  I’ll post pictures of that soon, too!  (Hopefully!)  :0)

Just wanted to wish all the mother’s in my life a Happy Mother’s Day!  Thanks for being  wonderful examples to me, for teaching me, and for loving me and my family.  And, I wanted to share this cute video with you!  :0)

Happy Mother’s Day!

I finally got the pictures finished!  It’s been super CRAZY busy around here!  These are Charity and her sweet little baby- he’s SO cute!  :0)

Charity’s maternity pics:

Isn’t she cute?!  These were taken a week before her cute little boy was born.  :0)

And, here he is!

The last four are my favorites!  He’s such a cutie!  (He also got pretty mad when we took away the binkie…  Sorry, Charlie!)  Love this kid!  Oh, and don’t forget to look at Andrea’s pictures of him, if you haven’t seen them already… go here.  She did such a good job with them!  I’ve spent the last few days trying to edit these ones as good as she did- still didn’t quite get them how she did hers, though.  :0)  Thanks for looking!

Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday!  This year, Emily and Hannah got to make their own Valentine Boxes for school.  We’ve never been able to do it- they’ve always made them at school.  So, it was fun to do it!  I used my e-crafter to cut out the shapes, and I even figured out how to use Adobe Illustrator and make my own .svg files for the Angry Bird face!

Emily's Angry Bird and Hannah's Owl!

Then, I wanted to try something different this year for the kids’ valentines.  And, I got this cute idea from Pinterest!  (LOVE that site!  Soooooo many ideas!)

I took pictures with the kids holding out their fist- which they thought was weird until I showed them pictures of what I was going to do.  :0)  Then, once the pictures were printed, I cut slits above and below their hands to put the suckers through- which I had to cut 232 slits!  I think they turned out CUTE!  I LOVE my kids!  :0)

This post has been a long time in coming.  My emotions- depression and anxieties- have been off the wall lately!  Between Mallie having RSV (which she’s good now), Robby got Strep Throat and Pink Eye, and Hannah and Christopher got Pink Eye… my nerves were frazzled by the end of last week!  Yet, the other hard part was Dad getting sicker and sicker from his treatments.  Losing weight, not being able to hold anything down.  He was also in a lot of pain- his oncologist had to put him on a narcotic to help it.  Dr. Ben-Jacob, the oncologist, told Dad to be sure to tell his Radiologist about needing the pain medication, because it wasn’t too good to have to need it.  On Thursday, for some reason I’m not too clear on, Dad ended up talking to the nurse about needing the pain meds.  His doctor was walking out of the building, when he turned around- not knowing why!- and went to talk to Dad as he was in the hall with the nurse.  It came to the doctors attention that Dad was taking heavy duty pain medication.  Dr. Fisher told Dad that it was very odd to need narcotics while on radiation treatments, and ordered a CT scan to see why he was in so much pain.  They found that Dad has a tear in his colon, causing gas to leak into his abdomen, and has a condition called Typhlitis- which come to find out has a 50% mortality rate!  They admitted him to the Ogden Regional Hospital, and put him on antibiotics.  He wasn’t able to eat or drink anything- needing to let the colon heal- until Sunday when they finally put him on a liquid diet.  They gave him solids yesterday.  He’s been in the hospital until just this morning, when the were able to release him.  (This is all a VERY condensed version of what really happened- it was too difficult for me to write about it sooner, when all the details were fresh.)

The doctor had told Dad that his colon was disintegrating.  The whole right side and top of the colon was turning to mush.  They couldn’t have even done surgery to repair the tear.  Dad was three days away from dying.  The doctor said that had he gone home on Thursday, he would have died over the weekend.

Do you know how many times Dad has been on deaths door?  When he had his first surgery, when they found his first cancer, Dr. Belnap told him if the surgery hadn’t been done, Dad would have been dead in a week.  When Dad had the aneurism back in August, they gave Dad three days to live.  And, these aren’t the only times!  I am SO thankful for Divine intervention!  I am SO thankful to know that Heavenly Father has been watching out for Dad, and blessing him!  I am extremely thankful that Dad is still alive, and is now home!  Dad is a miracle- over and over again!

At the hospital on Sunday...

And another thing….. Dad’s doctor told Mom that Dad is now DISEASE FREE!  He doesn’t have cancer anymore! That’s the best news we’ve had in months!  What they’ve been trying to do with the treatments is sterilize the area so that the cancer doesn’t return.  Dad had 7 more treatments to go when he ended up in the hospital.  They figure it was the chemo that caused the Typhlitis- the radiation never touched the area.  Dad goes into the doctor on Tuesday and they will discuss whether to continue the treatments or stop- although Dad says that he is done with the chemo.

Prayers work!  Heavenly Father hears and answers us!  I am so thankful for all the prayers that have been offered in Dad’s stead.  Thank you so much to everyone who has been praying for him!  :0)

Okay, so, I think Hannah has pink eye.  Yay!  :0}  So, we were talking about it after dinner tonight, and Christopher was remembering when he had it awhile ago.  He said,

“I had a bug stuck in my eye.  It got sticky stuff stuck on my eye, like glue.  I think it was bug poo.”

……………………………………………..

And then, today, while I took Hannah into the doctor, Ivon watched Christopher and Mallie there at his work.  Those two usually do really well- Christopher always loves to go to work with Daddy because he can build robots with Daddy.  But, Mallie didn’t like it-  AT ALL!  She’s still not feeling really great.  Ivon said she screamed most of the time.  Grandpa Cullumber fed her mac n’ cheese, and she had string cheese and other snacks- but, it wasn’t enough.  She was tired, she was mad, she was done.  She grabbed her coat, gave it to Daddy, he put it on her, and she walked out the door!  :0)

……………………………………………..

Well, I suppose this one is funny and not funny.  Funny if you know how Robby is- how he’s always been!  Not funny because, well, he got hurt!  :0)  Take a look!

Nice, huh?  Poor guy!  He was trying to be a gymnast on our kitchen chairs, hanging between the backs of two of them.  Well, he started swinging.  Just as Daddy was going to tell him that that wasn’t a good idea, Robby’s arms couldn’t hold him and he fell, forehead first onto the hard kitchen floor.  Same old Robby, he doesn’t try to catch his fall- well, except with his head.  :0)  Let me tell ya, Witch Hazel works wonders for keeping bruising and swelling down!  :0)

Okay, so, here goes…  Mallie has RSV.  Yay, huh?  I had to take her into Instacare yesterday because her fever reached 103.3 degrees F.  Her O2 was 86.  Her cough was bad.  She was a little bit blue and her breathing was pretty difficult.  Ivon was at church, with the van, and I had no way to get hold of him.  So, I filled up the sink with water and sat her in there to try to get her fever down as the Tylenol had yet to kick in.  That helped, it brought her fever down to 101.  Shortly after that, Ivon got home, and I took her to the doctor and two and a half hours later, when they could get to us, they tested her and sure enough… it’s RSV.

Luckily- although I don’t think luck has anything to do with it- she’s doing much better today.  She’s been playing with Christopher and dancing to music.  HUGE improvement from yesterday morning- all she wanted to do was be held, which is very uncommon for her!  I think she’s going to be just fine- no hospitalization required.

Between Dad getting really sick from radiation and chemo, and Charity being put on bed rest and watched closely for Toxemia, and now Mallie with RSV…  *SIGH*  Do you ever have times when you just have to laugh at how many difficult things there are going on in your life?  Today is one of those days.  I’d rather laugh at them then cry- even though it might be one of those stress induced crazy laughs.  I’ve already cried about them- now it’s time to laugh and say, “Bring it on!”

The beginning of last month, Robby lost his second front tooth.  He lost the first one just before Christmas.  And, because I’m so on top of things…  I took a picture a few weeks later, and a week after that, I am now posting about it.  How’s that for being punctual?  :0)

He looks pretty cute with those ones gone!

When I was trying to take pictures, he kept moving around acting weird.  :0)  (Hence the blurry first picture.)  So, when I asked him to hold still for a bit, he did this:

I have to say that this is the BEST.  PICTURE.  EVER!  I am SO going to do a scrapbook layout with this one!  :0)

Head on over to the Shabby Shoppe Blog to see my last post-  Heritage Pages.  SP has decided to discontinue the blog- except for shoppe announcements- and discontinue the Shabby Artist Team- except  I will be able to participate in new releases and such.  She has too much on her plate right now, and in order to simplify, the best thing to do was let go of these things.  The blog was taking too much time away from designing new products and spending time with her family.  I think she’s pretty amazing for choosing her family first.

I completely understand the need to simplify!  With everything going on in my family right now- Dad starting treatments, Charity’s baby is due on February 24th, Baby Shower on February 9th, and trying to find/buy property and build a home on…. and the list goes on!  Things are crazy right now, and I wasn’t sure how I was going to be able to continue with the blog at this time.  So, this is a blessing in disguise, no matter how sad it is to be letting this part of me go.

So, anyway, head on over to see the new pages I’ve done.  I will also be posting them on my blog in the near future… along with a “few” others!  :0)

Christopher has been VERY interested in his future.  He talks about it ALL the time.  He wants to grow up- so I tell him he needs to eat his vegetables so he can grow up faster.  And, he wants to go work with Daddy at Quilt EZ so he can make robots, too.  We’ve been talking about building a house quite a bit lately, and he has taken up on that, too- he wants to build his very own house, and he says that I can come visit him.  :0)  And, on New Years Eve, we had fondue, and used little tealight candles to keep the fondue warm- he LOVED the candles, and wanted to keep some so when he builds his house, he will have candles to put in it.  This is quite the jumbled story, I know, but I had to give a background for what comes next- otherwise, it may sound COMPLETELY wrong!

Okay, other day, he was talking to Ivon and I at the dinner table.  He said,

“When I grow up I’m going to build my very own house, so I can have candles.  Then, I can marry a girl, and kiss her on the lips!”

:0)  (A few Sundays ago, when he was saying goodbye to Grandma Cullumber, he gave her a kiss and told her, “I like kissing girls on the lips!”)

This kid and his stories…. :0)