Ty's birthday

Dear Grandma Becki,

I love this picture of you and me when I was born because it shows me how much you love me.  I can see it in your face.  I love you so much and I will miss you while you are getting all better.  I can't wait until you aren't sick anymore so we can play lots and lots.  And you can come to my 2nd birthday party next year.  I want to see you there in a super-suit!  Because you are a superhero to me.  Thank you for going through all of this bad stuff so that we can have lots more time to make memories together.  I love you,

Love, Tyler

P.S. I love it when Mommy gives me special Grandma Becki kisses on my neck.

It's Halloween!

Dear Grandma Becki,

It's Halloween and it's Ty Guy's birthday. We are going to have fun and he's going to eat cake and ice cream and we're going to go trick-or-treating! He is going to have a Halloween cake. Ty is one year old. I'm going to be spiderman. Dear Grandma Becki, they're going to dye it purple. Funny, funny! They're going to make it funny!

Love, Nathan

Nate wanted to show you some pictures from the Halloween party he went to last Friday:

Nathan and Tootie at Tootie's Halloween party

"Ty"gger

Nathan's vampire teeth

At the party:

Grandma with purple hair???

Guess what Brooke is going to do on Saturday when you are here? She is going to chop off my hair so that it is short when it falls out. Emily and Shellie even want her to dye it purple! What do you think - should I let her???

Today I'm in a whiney mood - my right hip hurts from where they took out the bad guys, and my left side hurts from where my rib broke, so I can't sleep on my left side, back or stomach!! And today, they put a tube down my throat and my throat hurts. I think you should call my doctor and yell at him!

Tomorrow they are going to put a special tube inside my chest with three dangly things that will poke out. I will take a picture to show you. If I could go with you trick-or-treating I would scare everyone!!
Love,Grandma Becki

How to make a jack o'lantern

Nathan had a lot of fun carving pumpkins last weekend.  He has been wanting to carve a pumpkin for weeks now.  Charmaine brought us these pumpkins from her garden.  Nate wasn't too keen on cleaning out the guts, but he had a blast helping carve!

First you clean out the pumpkin.

(The one handful of "guts" Nate was willing to pull out.  You can see from his face he's not so sure about this!)

Then you draw the face you are going to carve.

Using an in and out motion, use a pumpkin saw to carve the facial features.

(Make sure to keep your mouth wide open in pure delight)

Voila!  You have a jack o'lantern. 

(Nate is very proud of our creations)

All lit up!

Nate and I carved the last pumpkin the next day.  I thought it was very cool.

Only one more day until Halloween!  (Believe me, Nathan is keeping count!)

We love you, Grandma!

To NS (Nathan the Superhero!)

Did you see the beautiful sunshine today!! The hospital sits right on the top of the mountain and it has giant windows all over. I can almost see your house when I look out! Today they took out a whole bunch of bad guys (bone marrow) to study. The things they find out will help the doctors make better medicine for other people like me who have this disease. Then Brookie and Mooley and Shellie came up to a special class to learn how to take care of me when I start the strong medicine next Tuesday.

Yesterday I couldn't figure out how to listen to your video, but I just fixed it! What a wonderful singer you are! When your Daddy and Emily and Brookie were little, every time we drove on the freeway and passed the temple, they would start singing "I Love To See The Temple"!. It's our favorite song too.

I love your Halloween book. Did you make it in pre-school? You should be an artist and a writer when you grow up. Ty is so lucky to have you as a big brother and teach him all the wonderful things that you can do. I love you, Grandma Becki

Halloween Book

Nathan made a Halloween book that he would like to read with Grandma Becki.

Cover: Nathan's Halloween Book

Once upon a time there were two mean ghosts and they had some things to trick-or-treat with Halloween.  And they had candy for everyone to give to them.  And they went all the way to their houses to get the candy.  They had to bring bowls and say "trick-or-treat" to get candy.

Once upon a time there were some Halloween things and they got scared because there was a ghost in their house.  The ghost's name was Chunker.  He was mean because people was a ghost for Halloween.  They were scared because there was a blue cat in their house.

And then it got stoled because someone wanted to be a ghost but he didn't have a costume so he gave it to him but it was his.  Then a spider came in their house.  The spider's name was Chunker-tot.  He was a nice spider.  He ate doggies.  Nothing else happened.

This is a monster face.  He has two eyes and four white teeth and one blue nose and five purple hairs.  His name is Hotter-tot.  He's a mean little monster 'cause he has a scary face.

This is about a pumpkin.  It has a nose and eyes and mouth.  The pumpkin's name is Chunker-tonker-ponker-tot.  He is a nice pumpkin because he helps firemens lift his ladder up and save people.

THE END.

To my best buddy,

Nate, It just makes my day to see your picture on our special blog. I sure miss you. Brookie said that maybe on Saturday you can drive to my house and I will come outside to see you! Wait until you see the cool mask I get to wear all the time.
Guess how I broke my rib?? I just rolled over in bed. Isn't that silly! In just one more week, the doctors are going to give me some special medicine that will help all the good guys in my body fight off all the bad guys that are making me sick and making my bones break.
Even Tumble and Abby can't get around me, so Grandpa Kim's sister Cheryl is going to bunnysit until Spring. I think they will be really excited because she has ducks and lambs and birds and cats and dogs. Maybe they won't be so afraid of Maya by the time they come back home.
Tomorrow the doctor is going to take out a piece of my bone and some of the bad guys to study. I'll tell you all about it when I get back.
I LOVE YOU, XOXOXO Grandma Becki