Abraham turns 5!!

Abraham celebrated his 5th birthday on October 27th. He came into our room first thing in the morning and said, "Its my birthday, do I get to go to kindergarten today?". 

 He was so thrilled to open his presents. 

 Since we had the Ward Trunk or Treat that night, he got breakfast at Golden Corral to celebrate!

 For months now, Abraham has told me he wanted a Plants Vs Zombies birthday. So we started with brain cupcakes.

 Ken put his artistic abilities to use with some marshmallow fondant and created an awesome cake.

 If you don't know the game, you won't understand the cake. 

 The plants...

 The zombies...

 Abraham didn't see the cake until we brought it out with candles burning. His reaction was awesome. He totally loved it. 

 I tried to get a picture with all the kids eating their cake and smiling, but Maddie was my only model. She was happy and smiling in every picture. Everyone else was, um, inconsistent. 

 I couldn't resist posting this cute picture of cute Rex. 

 Happy birthday Abraham! Oh how we love you. 

Swimming Lessons

Abraham has always had a fear of having water on his head. Let me tell you how fun that makes washing his hair, but I digress. We decided to enroll him in swimming lessons, to hopefully help his confidence in water. 

 Our good friend Ethan enrolled from the same class, which was great. We would carpool and one mom would stay home with the younger boys while the other took the big boys to lessons. 

 I think we need to work on Abraham's crazy face. 

One Year Later

About one year after Rex's first eye surgery, he was back having his 3rd surgery. This time it was for his ears though, and not his eyes. He got tubes placed. 

 There's never been a cuter patient! The nurses were just eating him up. The anesthesiologist and nurse actually fought over who got to carry him back!

 The surgery went perfectly and we are hoping for an ear infection free winter.

 Heading home.

Honestly, I can't believe how much has happened in one year. I remember being SO scared when we first learned that Rex had a cataract in his eye. We didn't know what to expect and weren't have much luck finding answers. Luckily we ended up at the Duke Eye Center with an amazing ophthalmologist. We suffered through the contact and made it out alive. We got his implant and his glasses. I will always remember the first time he passed an eye exam with his right eye. They probably thought I was crazy because I started crying. I was so happy to know that Rex would be able to see and see basically normal. We still patch everyday, and the older he gets the harder it is to keep that patch on him, but really he does pretty well with it. He keeps his glasses on for the most part and I'll admit, as silly as I thought they were, they are a part of him now. We're grateful for all the support we've had, we're grateful for our doctors, our health insurance, and modern medicine, we're grateful for Gracie sharing her frames :-) and we are more than grateful for our sweet little boy. Here's to another year and the ability to clearly look to the future.

The Tuckers came to Town!

We were thrilled beyond belief when we found out that Barlow and Andrea were coming to visit. Abraham talked all the time about his "October" cousins. Their visit did not disappoint, except that it was really much, much too short!

Of course we had to take them to Marbles!

Don't you think that Jace and Tyler could be brothers?

One night, after the kids were asleep we got some delicious North Carolina BBQ and stuffed ourselves silly. 

We had some Tampico tasting.

We also hit up Pullen Park. I love this picture because Addie was upset and screaming, until she saw the camera, and then she posed!

The boys on the train. They had so much fum playing together.

All the kids. Thanks to Maddie and Addie for wrangling the babies!

Super spies.

Andrea wins best picture of the trip with this one! I love it! 

We also went to Chuck E Cheese, Ritas, and had a great time just being together. Thanks SO much for coming to see us Barlow and Andrea! We had so much fun.

Happy Independence Day Brazil!

Since Brazil's Independence Day landed on a Friday this year, Ken and I decided to celebrate. We figured out who in our ward had served missions in Brazil and invited them all over to celebrate. 

I didn't take tons of pictures, but it was a fun night with delicious, authentic food, and fantastic company. 

We used a coconut in our decorations and that Monday for FHE Ken and the big boys broke into it and ate it.

Lake Lure

A few weeks ago we took a road trip as a family to Lake Lure, North Carolina with our good friends, the Barrows. It was the longest car ride my kids had ever taken. Jaci and I went up with the kids (7 kids aged 6 and younger) on Wednesday and Adam and Ken met us on Thursday night. The ride up wasn't too bad, although it did include a 1.5 hour stop at McDonald's.

We got a killer deal on a time share at a beautiful resort. The kids were so happy with our "new house". In fact, Abraham still talks about it. He says he wants to go there for his birthday.

Amelia has been Rex's "girlfriend" since birth. They are good buddies and had fun hanging out together. 

 The big kids loved having a 4 day long play date. They all get along so well, it was perfect. Jaci and I make an awesome tag team Mom.

The Barrows have a little boy, Alex, staying with them for awhile so he got to come with us. The kids all just loved on him.  It was so cute. They love him. Just today at church, Abraham saw Alex and said, "Mom, Alex is so cute I want to borrow him."

 Words can't describe how much I love little Gracie. She loved having her picture taken and looking at all the pictures on the iPod. Every time I looked at the iPod she'd changed my cover picture. I loved it.

 Here is Abraham reading to Amelia.

 Does it get any cuter than these two babies in a wagon? I think not.

Tyler wanted to watch Grace play a game and so he climbed up and put his arm around her. How sweet is that. I really can't say enough how awesome all the kids got along. It made the trip so enjoyable. 

 The kids were SO excited when the Dads arrived on Thursday night. As amazing as Jaci and I were to take all those kids to the lake and pool, we were really glad to see them too!

 Can anyone guess what we had for breakfast this day? Don't judge me, it was vacation!

 We stopped at this gas station and it made me laugh. The pumps were so old.

 With the guys there to help, we went to visit Chimney Rock. Here is Jaci and I with the kids (Amelia was strapped to Adam, so she's not in the picture).

 You took an elevator up to this beautiful look out. Seriously, the pictures do not do it justice.

 I was a little freaked out one of the kids was going to find a way over the fence railings.

 Then we decided to take a hike to the waterfalls. It probably wasn't the best choice we ever made. Somehow we all made it alive though. I LOVE this picture of these cute kids posing.

 My favorite thing about this picture is the random couple kissing at the bottom of the waterfall.

Jaci is supermom and she and Adam stayed with all the kids one night so I could surprise Ken. 

 Surprise Ken with what, you might ask? I found out the Lake Lure was where Dirty Dancing was filmed and it just so happened that the weekend we were there was the 3rd Annual Dirty Dancing Festival. So, I scored us tickets to the screening of the movie at the lake where it was filmed. How cool is that?

 Here was the view as we waited for the show to start. It was gorgeous. It is such a beautiful place.

 Somehow we didn't get any pictures at the lake or the pool, but we spent a lot of time there. The pool had a lazy river and the kids loved it. Abraham and Grace especially seemed to enjoy floating along. It was such an awesome trip with awesome people and was a much needed vacation. I think Rex sums up how we all felt at the end though!