Brian Grandkids

Sherry wanted a picture of her with all the grandkids to send as a New Year's card. It was quite a challenge to get all those kids (23 of them...)to smile or at least look the same way at the same time. It's quite a herd I'd say!

Indy's early Christmas gift and a really long story...

So this month was a crazy one as usual. I thought we were going to get through it without anything too out of the ordinary but no!

A week or so before Christmas, Indy mentioned to me that he was SO thirsty all the time and peeing a ton. I would go down to his room in the morning to wake him up for school and notice 3 or 4 empty glasses in his room. So the day before the kids got out of school for the break I took him in to the clinic at Vivint. He was fasting so they could get a blood test. While we were waiting to be seen the nurse mentioned that they would need a urine test so she gave him a juice box. I thought that was a little weird since they had told him not to eat anything but didn't say anything. We met with the doctor and did all the routine exam stuff. Then she told us that they had messed up by giving him the juice box and he would have to come back in to get a blood test. Since Kurt and I were leaving the next day to go out of town we decided to bring him in again the following Monday morning.

Kurt and i spent the weekend in Las Vegas for our anniversary. We ate lots of good food, finished up our Christmas shopping and relaxed. Thank goodness we got away when we did because it seemed like all hell broke loose as soon as we got home!

Monday morning was a mad dash to get Indy back to the clinic, Montana off to the airport to stay with Sunne and the boys packed and ready to drive to the ranch. It was chaotic for a few hours but, once all the kids were gone, Kurt and I were able to do some last-minute wrapping and pull together some things to leave to the ranch the next day. We went to the England family Christmas party (with no kids, how sad...) and had a fun night hanging out with the family.

Tuesday morning I was going about my business when I got a phone call from the doctor at the Vivint clinic. She said that she was 99% sure that Indy did have Type 1 diabetes and we should try and get in touch with an endocrinologist as soon as possible. I immediately got off the phone and called Mike Young for a referral. He said that there aren't any pediatric endocrinologists in Utah County but said he would do some research and call me back. By this time I was a wreck. When Mike called me back he strongly recommended I get Indy home from the ranch and checked in to Primary Children's. I started to panic a little knowing Indy was kind of far from a hospital and worried that he might get really low or really high blood sugar and no one would know what was going on or what to do. We finally made some arrangements for someone to take him to the clinic in Bicknell, have his blood sugar tested and have those results sent to Mike before we drove down there to get him. When all was said and done, Jake drove him to Scipio where Kurt and I met them. From there we drove straight to Primary Children's. Mike had already called and made all the arrangements by the time we got there. We had to check in at the emergency room and by 11:00 that night he was in a room.

At this point, we knew that he did have Type 1 diabetes and our lives were certainly going to change. Normally with this diagnosis a patient has to stay in the hospital for 2 days to learn how to dose your insulin, count your carbs and everything else. But with Christmas only a few days away, Kurt really pushed for us to get out of there after one day. And boy was I glad he did. Sleeping with Kurt on a single roll-away bed in the room with Indy was no fun. None of us had any pajamas or toothbrush or anything!

So Wednesday night, after less than 24 hours and our brains a little overwhelmed with diabetes information, we were checked out and headed home from the hospital. We got home and Kurt gave us one hour to pack and be in the car to drive to the ranch. All I wanted to do was crawl in bed and go to sleep!! By 11:30 that night we were in Grover.

We had a wonderful Christmas with the Brian clan. The ranch even had a couple feet of snow so we got to have the white Christmas that we wouldn't have had at home! We ate well, started our Harry Potter movie marathon and enjoyed spending time with family. It will definitely be a Christmas to remember.

Although this is not the kind of thing I would ever wish on somebody, I feel so lucky that diabetes is a manageable disease and Indy can continue to live his life as he always has. He doesn't have to stop doing what he has always done. Now he just has a few added steps in his routine. I am really, really proud of him and the way he has handled this. And I am so grateful that he is an otherwise really healthy, active kid.

Merry Christmas 2011

21 Years

Hard to believe it's been 21 years that we have been married. I really do feel like the luckiest girl around. Kurt is thoughtful, patient, kind, talented, creative, loving, righteous, honest, non-judgmental and too many other good qualities to mention. Looking forward to growing old(er) together. Love you babe.

Christmas Sewing Project

I have been wanting to get new Christmas stockings for quite a few years now. But I can never find any that I love enough to justify paying such a high price for. So I decided to make some this year. Why I thought I could handle a sewing project in the middle of December I am not sure. But I love how they turned out! I still have plans to put mustaches on the boys' and black ribbon the girls'.

Recent

The girls after doing baptisms at the Provo Temple.

It's already the 10th of December and the days continue to fly by as we get closer to Christmas. We have been busy as usual. Trying to blog and post some every day events isn't high on the list of things to do! But here are a couple pictures from recent weeks that I loved.

Can you tell how comfortable these boys are with each other? This is the scene in the lobby each Sunday before they head off to priesthood. What good boys they are!