Graduation Finally

Mark finally graduated with his Master's Degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering at BYU. What a relief, especially for Cheri!

Bryce's Confession

Bryce eating charcoal laced pudding

crayon mark self inflicted



Bryce enjoying the process

Bryce gets in on the action!

Bryce didn't want Tyler to have all of the hospital time. Bryce got into Mommy's medicines. After a call to poison control, Mark rushed over to the hospital. We are now staying over with Bryce for 8-hours of observations. It has been fine, we have not seen any effects and Bryce is loving the extra attention and stuff to look at. Cheri says she knows everyone by first name in the hospital now! Thanks to Julie for watching the kids while we enjoy yet another hospital visit. Below are pictures of Bryce eating the charcoal laced pudding and color crayon face. It is the year of hospital visits. I think we have hit our out of pocket maximum a few times already.

On a more positive note (the first was positive in that it was just precautionary), we had a lot of fun on a 3 day - 2 night vacation at Midway, Utah. Yes, we travel far on vacations but we know how well Tyler loves his car seat (this involves much crying). Pictures of the event are below. Julie and kids came swimming in the highly chlorinated pool (it actually tasted salty and Ryan's skin was itching).



Mom and Bryce



Bryce cleaning (slightly breezy)



Darth Ry-Ry and Princess Almary



Ry-Ry and a moustache



Swings at the Heber Park



Cute Almary in goggles



Cute Josh in goggles



Bryce jumping to Daddy



Ryan jumping in the pool



Almary riding on Mommy



Alex's idea of swimming



Andrew cuddling with Tyler



Ty talking to Almary

The Flirt with some good and not so good

Tyler had his follow up echo cardiogram today, and he flirted with all the ladies in the doctor's office. He flashed them his winner smile and bright blue eyes and they just loved him.

Now for the good, his aortic arch where he had surgery is looking really good and his aortic valve is still okay and not needing immediate surgery or angioplasty. They discovered that his aortic valve has two leafs and is a bicuspid instead of a mono or unicuspid as decided before. Is he growing leaflets for his valve? Prayers must work, one more to go, if that is true!

Now, the not so good is that his aortic valve is narrowing more than it was 2 months ago. The gradient on the valve was 20 at birth and is now 39-40. When it gets to 60 or 80 it is serious and requires intervention. The first year of life is the most critical because of the rapid growth of the baby, and that is when if something goes bad it will usually occur then. We go back in two months for a follow up visit and keep watching that valve.

We appreciate everyone's kindness in our lives and are glad to have our lives to share with others. Thank you for your prayers and we know they work!

Tyler Baby Blessing last weekend

We blessed Tyler last weekend. Thanks to all of the family that traveled far and were packed into two houses (mainly Eric and Julie's - Thank you Eric and Julie). The kids did have fun sleeping in the unfinished basement in a big tent with all of the cousins. Genius idea of Julie's!

The blessing was really nice and it was wonderful to have family around. Thank you everyone for your support and help! Tyler has his next echo cardiogram this Thursday; we are hoping for good news!

Mark turned in his project paper on Friday. After three signatures, all will be done for graduation.


Blessing outfit










Arizona girl enjoying some good snow

8 years and going strong!

On March 11, we celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary by going to dinner at the Melting Pot. Our waitress was anti-Utah County and all that entails, needless to say we still left a good tip and I would recommend dessert.
We will do the real celebrating this August, when we go scuba diving in Hawaii on the big island! Kachow and Wahoo!!!

In celebration of St. Patrick's Day, we had our 3rd annual "Green Dinner" with the neighbors. After enjoying green mashed potatoes, green rolls, green grapes, green lemonade, and green cupcakes, we went on a leprechaun's gold hunt. The kids found gold wrapped Rolo candies throughout.

One other fun note; Cheri and Bryce can be seen on GoogleMaps - street view. Cheri is just coming out of the garage on the south side of our house and Bryce is playing in the dirt on the street corner.

This last weekend we took Almary and Ryan to an introductory karate class and they both earned their white belts and broke a board! I have never broken a board with my hand in my whole life. We were proud of them!



Bryce is cute as ever and has a great vocab and personality. Daddy asked what everyone wanted for breakfast and he decided to make oatmeal. He started the process by filling the bowls with water which was on the counter in front of the kids. Bryce proceeded to comment that "I don't want water for breakfast!" Like we feed our children a bowl of water for breakfast..... but it was cute! Bryce is also starting to go pee pee on the potty. It is always fun as a grown adult to use that in your vocab. He is very earnest in going potty to get a treat!

Tyler is weighing in at 11 pounds and 11 ounces. He got his yucky 2 month shots and is starting to smile, coo and grab things. We go for our follow up echo cardiagram on April 10 to determine how well his aortic valve is doing and if there will be need of surgery. We are hoping not...

The children are slowly coming off sugar detox after a day of candy and egg hunting. Happy Easter and we hope that everyone is enjoying the peace of this holiday knowing we too can live again as the Savior does.


Playing with cousins


Smiling Tyler


Saber Tooth Ry-Ry


Silly Ryan


Silly Almary

Other pictures can be seen by clicking on a picture.