Joanie's violin and Hunter's soccer

Again, it's been a while, but here's our update.
Joanie has been taking violin lessons since the beginning of the year. She is doing extremely well. She has learned "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" and this week she started on "Mary had a Little Lamb". She really loves it. Her teacher said she has been doing an amazing job. She plays every song three times a day. There are are days she isn't overly thrilled about practicing, but all it takes is a threat to not let her play the violin anymore and she'll practice.
She loves to read and will even read to Hunter when he asks her to. She has been extremely healthy and has continued to be the loving little girl as ever.
She has started coming out of her shell. We had a ward party, that was a karaoke party, a couple of weeks ago. She shocked everyone in the ward when she got up and sang "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" all by herself. It about caused me to have a heart attack. I stood by her and mouthed the words in her ear and she sang them. She then told the primary president that if she could sing a song for a talk she would give a talk in primary. She's been assigned one for the week after Easter. She's going to sing "Family's Can Be Together Forever."
She finishes kindergarten up in a few weeks and then will have all summer to play.
Hunter has started soccer. He's on his friend Hunter's team (it's a lot of fun). Today was his first game. It was freezing and started snowing, but he always had a smile on his face. The other little boy in the picture is the other Hunter. They are our neighbors and the boys see each other all the time.
Other than soccer Hunter has just stayed busy playing and going to school. He only has about 4 weeks left of preschool. He too should have a fun summer.
He also got up at the ward party and sang "Old MacDonald". It was really cute. I was up there with him and he couldn't sing half the time because he was laughing, which in turn made me laugh. Everyone in the ward said it was really cute. Then he also led all the kids in the song "The Hockey Pockey". The kids didn't know it as well, but the adults sure got into it.
He says he's ready to start learning the piano, so I'll begin teaching him shortly. I'll teach him for a year and then he will be able to pick an instrument and we'll get him in lessons. When asked he has said guitar and drums. We'll see what he decides for sure in a year.
We haven't had any other problems with bloody noses, which has been a huge blessing. We are still really careful, but have relaxed some what.
He too is a happy little boy and my cuddle bug. He loves to sit on my lap and just have me hold him. I love that.
Ryan continues to work. Next Friday he is supposed to be going fishing in Wyoming with my dad. He's excited to go fishing for the day. The kids and I will spend the day with my mom. Then the rest of the weekend will be spent (or at least a good portion of it) with my friend Tia and her family. It will be a lot of fun.
We've decided to plant a garden this year. We are going to put in tomatoes, corn, peas, onions and peppers. Then we will get with my parents and freeze and can what we can. I'm really excited for it.
I am doing well. I still haven't felt 100% but have been doing better. I've started writing a little more for the paper, but do that about every 6 weeks. My last story was about a gentleman who wrote a children's picture book. If you want a really cute book it's called "Wet, Bird-Feather Bread." Joanie absolutely loves it. If you'd like to read my story here's the link http://tooeletranscript.com/pages/full_story?page_label=hometown_features&article-Expanding%20Imaginations%20=&id=2129546-Expanding+Imaginations&widget=push&instance=secondary_stories_left_column&open=&. It was a lot of fun to write and then get to design the page for the paper.
I've been trying to get a portfolio of pictures put together so if we ever decide I want to go into a photography business I can. I took my friend's baby pictures a few weeks ago. They turned out so cute. I was really pleased with them. I love taking pictures and take the kids pictures whenever I can.
Not much else is going on. Like mentioned above we are spending next weekend at my parents and with friends. We hope everyone year.

When it rains it pours

This year is not starting out to be as great as we had hoped. In the last post, I posted I was sick. I was finally starting to feel better when we had a scare with Hunter.
Friday night about 11 p.m. Hunter ended up with a bloody nose. Ryan tried for 30 minutes to get it to stop. When that didn't work we ended up running out to the Emergency room in Tooele. After a long wait, we were finally seen. They finally got him to stop bleeding about 1:30. We were given the option of having his nose cauterized or bringing him home. One of the brethren in our ward's bishopric is an EMT and he was at the hospital. We brought him in the room and consulted with him. He suggested we just go home and if it started bleeding again to bring him back in. We took his suggestion and headed home. (On a cute side note, once Hunter's nose had stopped bleeding at the E.R. he rolled over and instead of asking what was going on, he said, "Where's Joanie?" It was really cute.)
Ryan cradled Hunter the whole way home, carried him up the stairs and set him on our bed. As soon as he was set on our bed his nose started gushing again. We tried for 10 minutes to stop it. After it didn't stop we ended up back at the E.R. The doc tried to cauterize it, but it ended up bleeding worse.
Anyway, to shorten the story, they ended up transporting Hunter to Primary Children's Hospital in S.L. via ambulance. It was scary, but we were also blessed. It turned out that one of my friends (thanks Rose) ended up being on the ambulance crew that transported Hunter in. Having someone I know and trust was a huge relief to me, since I rode in the ambulance and Ryan drove the car into S.L. We know the Lord was watching over us and is aware of our needs, because my friend doesn't usually work the night shift, but she was on. I know the Lord did that for me.
My friend was able to put some gauze in Hunter's nose to stem the bleeding. He was able to sleep the whole way into S.L. Once we got to Primary's I was so impressed. They took such good care of Hunter. They were amazing.
My parents came down from Syracuse at 6 in the morning for dad to help give Hunter a blessing. (They were also going to drive out to Tooele and pick Joanie up from our friend's house, but then we were told they were going to release Hunter so they didn't)
Hunter ended up seeing an ENT at Primary's. They ended up putting some sort of sponge-like substance in his nose to stop the bleeding. Once that was done, we headed home.
Ryan and I were both exhausted after being awake for more than 24 hours, but when we got home, we all slept. Joanie was so good and just watched TV.
Although this happened we are still thankful for the Lord for watching out for us. There were many small things that happened that made us aware that the Lord is watching over us. In addition to Rose being on the ambulance, I didn't end up with a migraine after being awake that long, and Ryan was able to stay awake to drive into and back from Salt Lake.

Update

We've been having a pretty good time for the most part.
Ryan has been working hard, and his work schedule will be changing in March. He might end up going to overnights. There are mixed emotions about this. Whereas, I love having him home at night it would be hard. However, we could end up saving on childcare if he did this. His other option might be working on the grocery side of the store. We're just waiting to find out.
I've been sick. I spent three days in the hospital and then ended up taking a whole week off work. I'm planning on returning to work tomorrow, but have a visit with the doctor first. They never figured out what was wrong, so I've just been taking it easy. Ryan has been a great help (like always) and doing whatever needs to be done. The kids have been amazing with the whole mess up of their schedules.
Thanks to a wonderful group of mommies I belong to, they brought meals in for the whole week. It was a huge relief for us not to have to worry about it.
Joanie is still enjoying kindergarten. Her reading has really taken off and she loves to read to Hunter. She is a great big sister. She started violin lessons in January and is doing really well. She's so shy I wasn't sure how she would do with her teacher, who is a senior in high school. However, she's been doing really well. I attend the lessons with her, and she still won't talk to him, except via me. But, she does let him position her how she needs to stand and hold her violin. She's doing amazing. I'm really proud of her. We also signed her up for soccer for in the Spring.
Hunter has be having fun in preschool and playing with his friend Hunter. He too was signed up for soccer. He's pretty excited about being able to play soccer.
Overall, the beginning of our year has been good. We still miss Matthew and his family, but have been blessed in our lives.
We missed mom and dad for almost three weeks when they went to visit Matthew and his family. It was the longest I've gone without speaking to them. However, I didn't want to interrupt their visit with Matthew. The kids and I picked them up from the airport. That was a lot of fun for the kids.
I'm on Facebook, so if you want updates on me check me out there.

Growing up

Joanie turned six a week ago. I can't believe my baby girl is six. She has always been such a big helper. I don't know what's happened, but she's started having a terrible attitude. Throwing a fit over every little thing. We tried to stay away from toys for her birthday and instead bought her a desk and chair and a lot of art supplies. She loves drawing and being creative.
She has started to read and loves it. She brings home books everyday from school. It's great. She does love to read too. She is still shy and refuses to talk in front of large groups. However, for our Primary program she is willing to play the song "I am a Child of God" instead of talking. I'm really excited that she's willing to do anything in the program.
Starting in January she will be taking violin lessons. I'm excited that she shows an interest in music and reading. These are two very important things in my life.

On a side note: Hunter is doing awesome too. He's learned to count to 100 from listening to Joanie practice. He is so happy.

My first blog

K, I'm not a genius so I hope this works. My family is amazing. We have a lot of fun. With Halloween this past week we were extremely busy. Joanie was a cute witch and Hunter was a fireman (which is what he wants to be when he grows up). If I remember correctly they dressed up like four or five times throughout the week. By the end of the week I was ready for Halloween to be over. We went up to Granny and Grandpa's twice this week (my mom and dad's). For some unknown reason they decided to purchase a seven-seater teeter-totter. The kids love it. Joanie had fun playing with her friend Isabella.
Thursday we ended up going down to Utah Valley University in Orem for 3A state volleyball. I'm working on a story about it. We were able to see Ryan's niece Melissa while we were down there. Joanie was especially excited because Melissa is her favorite Palmer cousin.
We're just staying busy and missing our family and friends we don't get to see on a regular basis.