Uncle Kyle and Aunt Cindy bundled Tate and Remy up and took them out in the back yard and made a totally awesome, all inclusive, eat your goldfish crackers and drink hot cocoa in SNOW CAVE!!!!!
The boys LOVED it!




Seriously, I don't think they even noticed we were gone. They had so much fun with their family!

Christmas Cheer with Steve and Connie!

We got to spend Christmas this year with Steve and Connie! Who are Steve and Connie you ask?

Why, Steve was our RN and Connie was our PCT at American Fork Hospital! And, really, who better to spend Christmas day with?

Better than nurse Bonnie on Christmas Eve.

Darrin started passing yet another kidney stone the Saturday before Christmas, it was painful until Sunday night and thankfully he was able to go to work on Monday. Monday at UPS brought with it a huge snowstorm, lots of packages and Brady getting stuck in his seat belt for an hour. Yes folks, Brady, Darrin's helper was stuck in his seat belt for an hour. They had to wait for a supervisor to come cut him out and install another seat belt. (Brady has it for a souvenir.) After climbing over Brady for an hour trying to still deliver packages, his stone started moving again. He came home at 9:00 pm and was in labor until 5:30 am. He had two Lortabs and 4 ibuprofen in his system and it wasn't doing anything for the pain. Sooo......

We dropped the pajama clad boys off at my second home/family...the daycare at 6:30 am and went across the street to the ER. Darrin was given lots of good drugs and it helped him so very much. Kind of like an epidural for a laboring woman.

He was sent back home on percocet and phenogren and did good for the next 24 hours.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch: We had a fun Christmas planned. Darrin's two brothers, brother in law, sister and sister in law and his parents and my mom AND cousin Charlie were all spending Christmas at our house. They all came over and warmed our house up with love, laughter, and Charlie even pee'd in a measuring cup. It was so great to have them all here!

But, Darrin didn't cooperate. He couldn't keep his medicine down and was in huge amounts of pain again. I finally convinced him to go back to the ER about 6:00 pm Christmas eve. There he found out he was dehydrated and had an infection. Also, they finally did a CT scan and saw exactly where his stone(s) were.

The doctor admitted him due to all the complications and the fact that Darrin's kidneys are already suffering and he didn't want more complications. So, we spent Christmas Eve with Nurse Bonnie. And Christmas Day with Steve and Connie, who were much more fun than Bonnie. Darrin was finally released on December 26th.

We came home and opened some presents and watched video of the family opening presents on Christmas morning.

Overall it was the weirdest Christmas ever. But, I did glean some Hospital Chair sleeping skills to add to my numchuck skills. Darrin, he is still waiting for the stones to pass....we'll keep you updated.


Yummy Christmas Dinner!



Darrin's Super-de-duper family: David, Betsy, Charlie, Cindy, Kyle, Brady, Mike, Ruth, Nancy, Remy and Tate came to spread Christmas Cheer! Thanks for the support guys!!!!!!!!!!!



Mmmm, cake.



This hospital stuff is Pretty BoRiNg!

Santa wears brown...

And drives a UPS truck! Every year Christmas is just a little teensy bit marred by the fact that Darrin works 12 hour days in the snow, cold and wind delivering packages to all the good girls and boys.

This year has not been as bad, due to the struggling economy (good for our Brown Santa, but not good for our country). But, it finally hit yesterday. Between the monstrous storms that have hit in the past couple days and all of the Amazon packages finally arriving, Daddy has been rolling in way past bedtime.

This year Darrin's brother Brady is his driver helper, his elf you might say....Brady just got back from his mission and it worked out to have a little extra money until Christmas. So, now we have two Bradshaw boys wearing o' the brown.
Tate and Remy love to go see Daddy and Brady, so we tracked them down the other day to say hello and take some pictures!


We stalk this truck on a daily basis.



This is how we kiss Daddy goodnight at Christmas time!



"That house right there, if you don't do it I'm telling MOM!"



"Um, you guys could get a lot more done if you would stop trying to kiss each other!"



"Okay boys, just hold it for one more picture!"
Darrin: "HURRY, we need to go!!!"
Brady: "What's the rush?"

My new favorite blog....

Here is my new favorite blog..The Jolly Porter, http://www.thejollyporter.blogspot.com/, (why won't this hyperlink?????????) I'm retarded.

Anyway, I found it thru my other favorite blog, c jane http://blog.cjanerun.com/, and I laughed OUT LOUD. At night. While everyone was sleeping. It was just that funny.

That's gonna leave a mark.

Yes, that's right, Darrin didn't see the rotary gerter and he totally rolled his ankle the other day at work. He really thought he had broken it because it hurt so bad (this coming from the man who passed 6 kidney stones last month without meds).

It turned out to be some pulled tendons, which apparently hurts worse than a broken ankle. He went to the "UPS doctor" and was told he was fine and the doctor put him on full duty...Ha!

We called some friends and they came to give him a blessing that night. The next day he tried on 6 pair of shoes trying to find some that would go over his brace, but still allow him to work. Ha!

He finally settled on his good ole boots, which gave him some good support. He got home that night, and took his boots off and we saw this:



It was just as bad on the inside and all over his toes too. I decided that was one of the coolest, but grossest things I had seen in a while.

He was given a runner for the last week, which was a blessing, so he could heal. He is getting better, but I have enjoyed calling him peg leg pete all week because of his new gait.


PS, If the title of the post and the first line make no sense to you, then ring your call button and I'll have Tommy here come over and hit you in the head with a tack hammer because you are a REtard. (um, just watch Tommy Boy, okay?)