A few more pics! What can I say, I love to take pics

Diane's sexy butt picture is for you Jeff. Really, the funny story about that is that Hope took her clip out and put it in Diane's back pocket and Diane didn't even know it. Then, we decided to take that picture for fun. Berny's modeling picture was taken by Diane. We love to take silly pictures.. What can I say?

Finally got our christmas tree up!

Hope was so excited about putting the tree up this year. We've been a little slow at getting it up because I have been working more. It was funny. The other night we were at our friends' the Olsens' and Hope said the prayer for dinner and asked Heavenly Father to help us get our lights on our Christmas tree. So, last night we got everything done. We've been doing it in stages. Hope pulled two of these hard metal chairs together and laid down on them and said she was going to sleep by the Christmas tree. It was so cute.

Christmas Card Pictures!

We ventured out with Jeff and Diane to take budget pics for our Christmas Cards. As you can see, my kids were not all that cooperative, although we did manage to get a few cute ones. Ask me if I have sent them out yet? NO, although I did manage to get down to smiths to print some pics. Hopefully, I'll get them sent out Monday. I love the ones I got of Jeff and Diane. They're so photogenic?? Sorry I didn't get them emailed to you. I will send them anyhow. Oh well, we've had a busy week and somehow I have managed to get laryngitis again this year.

Dinner Party Frock GIVEAWAY!!!!

Dinner Party Frock GIVEAWAY!!!!

Poor Luke!

Like I said, Luke was pretty tired by the end of the day. Although, He did enjoy the candy cane he got from Santa.

Hope's Dance Recital at the Festival of Trees

Today we went to the Festival of Trees to see Hope perform. It was so fun. She did very well. I only recorded part of the dance because at first I wasn't sure where she was in the line. She was so cute even though I think we got jipped on her costume this time. Afterwards, we walked around and looked at the trees, took a picture with Santa, and visited the kids corner where she was able to paint an ornament, be in a giant bubble, and get her face painted. It was a fun day for her but I think poor little Luke was so tired. He didn't get much of a nap.

Scribble It GIVEAWAY!!!!

Scribble It GIVEAWAY!!!!

Downtown Holiday Jacket and Pant GIVEAWAY!!!!

Downtown Holiday Jacket and Pant GIVEAWAY!!!!

The Link to darling clothes!!

I don't know why the link didn't show up on my post so I will just type it out. Really this is so fun. Check it out. www.kandykissesboutique.typepad.com

Darling custom clothes!

A friend of mine always has the cutest custom clothes for her girls. She had this on her blog and it is so fun. Visit the site! They are doing a give away on black Friday starting at 7 a.m. A fun prize every hour. I would love to win for Hopie!! For some reason I am challenged and cannot post the advertising pic I wanted but really such cute stuff!!

Bloody ice cream!?

So, today I had a Dr. appointment with my ENT to make a plan of attack on my balance problem. I will let you know if anything helps. He had some ideas I hadn't thought about. Anyway, Bern stayed home for a few hours in the morning and worked from his computer and then went to lunch with us at Artic Circle before he had to go visit customers and deliver some product. Hope was so funny! Bern had to take a phone call and went outside to talk. Hope came over to the table and the following conversation was this:

Hope: Where's Bern?

Me: Daddy is talking to somebody on the phone outside for work.

Hope: And then he's going to come in and eat lunch and play?

Me: Daddy is finished with his lunch. He'll come in for a minute but then he has to go work.

Hope: Poor Berny.


Also, while Berny was outside she asked me if she could have ice cream and I told her she could after she finished her lunch. She said, " Nilla with blood on it." She wanted a vanilla cherry topper. Sometimes she says the cutest funniest things. Well, I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving tomorrow!!

Twilight !!!

My sister in law Diane and I went with all the crazy women to see Twilight last night at midnight. It was so fun! We even had our picture taken with these models that the movie theatre had hired at Thanksgiving Point who, by the way, were supposed to look like Edward and Jacob. Not so much, but it was fun anyway. They were raffling off t shirts and other twilight items. So, Diane and I thought we would be watching this with a bunch of 12 year olds...To our surprise, most of the fans were grown women and only a handful of high school girls. There were a bunch of prego girls who had t shirts on that said Edward's Baby( I thought that was pretty clever :). One of the funniest parts of the night was when the gawky 16 year old boy employed by the movie theatre came to make an announcement prior to the movie starting. I don't think he probably ever had a room full of women screaming for him. So, the movie was definitely fun but probably could have been made a little better. There were a few character flaws that I thought were kind of funny, like Charlie, Bella's dad, was way too young to play that part. Also, when they run up the mountain, it's hilarious. Diane and I were cracking up. The villians were very well done. I guess it's hard when you have a certain idea of how the characters are supposed to look and they are a little different than what you expect but overall I think the movie was great and would see it again. Thank you to my KK friend Kacy who got us tickets! You're awesome.

Birthday Cont.

Hope's Birthday and Uncle Rick

This year Hope was spoiled as usual. She turned 4 and I can't believe that tiny little thing I brought home from the hospital on my birthday is a 4 year old sassy little girl. We are so lucky to have her. She is the funniest cute girl and says the sweetest things. She is always telling her dad and I that we are her best friends. While she still has challenges with sharing sometimes, She is the sweetest little girl and loves her family and friends to death. She is really good at interpretive dancing.. and loves her ballet class. This year we bailed on having her party at our house and decided to meet at godfather's pizza. It was a real treat this year because some of my family was here from Pennsylvania. The following are some pictures of her birthday.

So Sick of this!

I hate that this balance thing has become a big focus of my life so unless I have an epiphany or it disappears I will not be writing about it anymore. I know, WHEW! It's just having plans to get stuff done and then not being able to accomplish it all or having a constant ringing sound in my ear is a constant reminder even when I try to ignore it. Anyway, I have said my piece. Please stay tuned for cute new pics of Hopie's birthday as soon as I retrieve them from my parent's computer.

Balance disorder update...

Notice I am not calling it vertigo. This is because rarely are my symptoms an actual spinning vertigo. It is more like a state of constant imbalance that sometimes is better and sometimes worse. So, You all are probably going to laugh but I was googling mal de debarquement because it is one of the diagnoses my ENT is considering. I found this MdDS support group on yahoo chat forums. I am telling you these people are so amazing. Most of them have had this syndrome for months to years and have done a lot of research. I basically told my story and by the next day had five responses. I am not sure if I have MdDs because my problem seems to be more when I am in motion not when I am still. However, this group of people are fairly well educated about different type of vestibular disorders(affects balance). One of them referred me to this Dr. Hain's website. He is a MD in Chicago that does a lot of work with balance and hearing disorders> So now there is a fourth diagnosis I want to talk to my ENT about called a perilymph fistula. Basically, it's a hole between your middle ear and inner ear and can be caused by barotrauma and has been found to occur in people on the descent of a flight. Sometimes the hole closes on its own but it accounts for most of my symptoms and if it doesn't close sometimes they can patch it in surgery or tubes help to equalize the pressure. I am sure this is what you all wanted to read today but I am so excited to have found some possible answers. Sorry if it is pretty technical but I really didn't know how to explain it better. Berny says I use medical terms too much and makes fun of me but oh well. That's who I am.

Election Day Continued

As the vote rolls in and it looks like Obama has won the election, I am a little defeated and disappointed in the American public. While I wish that I could celebrate with the rest of the country the true achievement of having an African American president(Mixed African - American, White), I am really worried about where his economic policies and tax increases will take us. I wish that race hadn't played such a huge roll in this election and people looked more at the candidates record and policies. That being said, I hope that he recieves some true inspiration in guiding this country because he is our president for the time being.

Election Day!

I am a little... a lot worried about the turnout of this election. I just wrote a huge comment on this blog of someone I don't even know because I felt she was a little mislead although I respect her opinion. But I've got to tell you, If Obama wins this election there will be some crazy changes to the fundamental principles of this country. I really am worried about whether or not the new president will uphold the constitution and our rights as citizens. Socialistic/communism is not the answer!! On a somewhat lighter note, my balance tesing came back mostly normal except for one test but they don't know what it means and it doesn't help that on the day of the testing I was feeling pretty good because my ear popped the night before. Today has been a pretty off balance day but oh well what can you do. My ENT is not entirely sure what is going on. There are a few diagnoses that we are looking at. A prevalant one is mal de debarquement and it can last from months to years. Sometimes physical therapy helps so I am going to try that. Also, he is going to have St. Mark's (at my request) review my MRI to make sure there is no acoustic neuroma which is a benign tumor on your eighth cranial nerve which can affect your balance and hearing. The third diagnosis we are looking at is otosclerosis in my right ear. The theory is as the bones fuse in my ear, I gradually will have hearing loss and the toxins released when they fuse can make you dizzy. The only problem is I am not a candidate for surgery for that until my hearing becomes a lot worse. Right now, there is a small problem with the hearing in my right ear but that can also be from scarring( ear infections as a child). So, Crazy life but at least we're working towards a goal. Oh and I don't know if I said before but my heart is fine:normal echo, normal ECG monitoring. Anyway, Life still has to go on and heaven knows it will. Love you all.

Halloween Fun!

This year we decided to hit the grandparents early and to spend the rest of the evening in our neighborhood. Sorry to all of the fam we didn't visit on halloween but usually our holidays are spent running from one house to another and we decided we're going to start doing things a little different so it isn't so stressful for us. I have to say, I think our costumes turned out really cute. Hope was the cutest Tink even though she whined about her bun hurting her head. That only lasted until we started trick or treating and then she started having a lot of fun. Luke was a perfect little Peter Pan and Bern was awesome as Captain Hook. I, of course, was Wendy. Grandma Breinholt was a witch and Grandma Wardle was a snow princess. We carved pumpkins the night before. Berny is way better at it than I am so he carved the kids' pumpkins. We also got to spend time with our friends and neighbors for dinner and games. So yummy! Amanda, I would like your Cafe Rio Pork recipe. I got pretty dizzy towards the end of the night and Luke was getting onery so we came home a little earlier. Bern and Hope stayed and played. We really had a lot of fun!

Twilight Movie!

Okay, so I was browsing my friends' blogs and Melissa Vera had a link to GotTwilight which had a link to Twilighters anonymous. I took the quiz and apparently I am a Bella. I am soo excited about this movie! I didn't think I was until I started browsing the literature and pics on these blogs and it looks so good. How much fun is this going to be? I can't wait.

Needing to vent a little...

Okay, so I know everyone is prob sick of hearing about this but my vertigo problem is still not resolved. It was getting better so it wasn't bothering me as much. Only dizzy now and then but the last three days it has been pretty bad again and pretty much all the time. I have had a full work up a few months ago: MRI, balance testing,antibiotics, etc. I've been to two different ENT's and am now getting my heart checked out by a cardiologist to make sure that my heart isn't causing it. It's completely depressing. Nobody can really tell me what is going on. I was hoping that it was gradually going away but the last few days it got worse again. I try not to think about it and stay busy with my kids because when I dwell on it all the worst things go through my mind. My ENT wants me to have some more balance testing done so I am going to do that but he also said that we may have not seen anything on the MRI because it was too small. So, if my balance testing comes back normal then I'll probably push for a repeat of the MRI brain and neck this time. Sorry if this is kind of a downer, I'm just having a bad day.

Test time blog

Busy snowy weekend in Utah

This weekend we saw the first flurries of winter. I'm sure it will warm up again and we won't see real snow til December but it was crazy because last week we were still in shorts in the 80's. I was on call this weekend at the hospital. Friday, I was called in four 4 hours and then met up with the fam for dinner at Italian Village for Mom and Jessi's birthday. So yummy! Saturday, we ran the normal errands but had to kind of stay home and keep it low key because I was on call that night. Bern, Hope, and I built a Halloween gingerbread house from a kit that I bought at Smiths. Luke was more interested in eating the candy. Hope thinks she made a halloween birthday cake for grandma and Aunt Jess. Sunday, we went to church and that night we went to Grandpa Coy's birthday party at his house. The mom's (Mom, Desi, Kerri, and Eileen) made soups and Bern made his famous breadsticks. The cousins made desserts and muffins. Em made a dessert and breadsticks. As usual, the Wardle Fam puts on quite a feast. It was delicious.

Luke's Owee!

So, Hope and Luke were playing in her room. I heard a big crash and Luke started screaming. I ran back to see what happened where I promptly spanked Hope as she proceeded to tell me that she pushed look down because he was kicking her. First, Luke can't kick standing up. He doesn't have that kind of balance yet so I don't know what really happened and second, she pushed him down earlier that day too. Anyway, we took him to Timpview Regional to have it xrayed because he wouldn't bear weight on it very well. They told me it was sprained and we went home. Hope and I went out of town for the weekend and by then he was walking with a little limp. When I got back on Sunday he seemed to be walking almost normal. Bern told me the ER DR called and I thought he was just following up. By Wed. he was still limping so I called the ER Doc back and he told me that the radiologist thought there was a hairline buckle fracture of the tibia. They wanted me to bring him back to re xray it. I decided to take him to his pediatrician to have it examined. They xrayed it and said there was a fracture of the fibula and it was not hairline. Also, you can't have a buckle fracture of the tibia( I hate that we don't have IHC insurance). They casted it and now he has to have it on for 3 weeks. So, today we autographed his cast. See if you can see what I wrote for Hope. She scribbled next to it.

Fall Leaves

Sunday afternoon we took the kids up American Fork Canyon. We had a lot of fun hiking around the picnic area and up a small trail. The leaves were beautiful and I just kept thinking, why don't we come up here more often? Seriously! I don't need to wait around until Bern wants to go up. I could just bring the kids up on my own but wait Luke is walking/running now. Oh yeah. Two kids on my own next to a river could get a little tricky especially since Hope is extremely adventurous. Oh well! It was a beautiful afternoon. Here are some pics of our cute fam.

Ryan Shupe Cont.

Ryan Schupe and The Rubberband!

A few weeks ago, we went to Thanksgiving Point Waterfall Garden Ampitheatre to see Ryan Schupe and The Rubberband ( I might be spelling that wrong). Jeff and Diane were good enough to come with us and we took Hope. I didn't think Luke would make it through the concert so Lindsey, Trev, and Mom arranged to watch him for us. We had a lot of fun and we were glad we could spend some time with Jeff and Diane. The Gardens at Thanksgiving Point are beautiful. Also, we ran into some friends of my dad, the Bells and the Vandykes. Hope didn't want to leave( we left a few minutes early). She said the show wasn't over. Check out her dancing video. Funny!