September

 This month has gone quickly! I was called as the new primary president in our ward and I seem to spend time every day doing some sort of primary business. Getting teachers organized, planning meetings and activities, figuring out music stuff, getting baptisms ready to go and lots of other little things have kept me pretty busy! The kids in our ward are so wonderful though and I love to serve them! I have an amazing presidency and amazing bishopric and teachers to serve with. 

Alana earned her yellow belt in karate and was so excited to progress! She is working hard and seems to really enjoy the class. Sean and I earned our yellow stripe belt and we are enjoying learning the next belt stuff, although we both have a hard time with how slow we go since we are in a class full of kiddos. Lizzie earned her yellow and white stripe belt. She will be earning little dragon belts to help her feel like she is making progress even though she isn't ready to move to yellow stripe yet. Brett is working hard and earned his self defense for brown belt the other night. Brown belt is hard!

One afternoon I decided I was done having a couch in the loft because I just have to vacuum it and no one ever sits on it, so I tried to move it on my own. I got it to the landing by the time Brett got home and he sat with me on the stairs and said "Mom you need to think these things through" We both laughed so hard and then Sean helped me move it once we all go home from karate. 

Ski season is coming so we went to the ski store to get the kids all outfitted. Lizzie wants to try it this year. 

Seans been reading wayside school to the kids at bedtime 

Lizzie had Brown Bear Brown Bear color days at school for the first few weeks. She had a different color assigned each day. She always looks so cute! Here's yellow:

Making their names out of fruit loops in her class and learning about how to use the glue. 

We schedule a friend to come over after school one day and Sean texted me that he could meet for lunch that day. I checked with Lucy's mom and she was ok with her joining us. So Sean and I took these cute girls on a date to Zupas. It was so fun to hang out with Lizzie and see he starting to make her own friends and have her own life. She has had several playdates with this Lucy and had a play date with another Lucy today. 

We had a spontaneous hot dog roast with the Ellis family:

Sean has been giving Alana violin lessons. So far she has learned two notes. 

We have been trying to visit Mom and Dad Peterson as much as possible to spend time with them during this hard time as well as offer any help we can. We usually go on Sunday afternoon and I've been trying to take dinner so Carol doesn't have to cook. This particular Sunday we had a picnic in the basement. 

My Momma had a birthday, so on Labor day we went to a fancy restaurant at Thanksgiving point called Harvest It was yummy and fun and the kids didn't really know how to handle a fancy restaurant. 

Lizzie got to bring home her class pet Happy the Elephant. Happy stayed the whole weekend and we had so much fun together! 

Brett did a funny activity one night where he had to keep the cone on his head while doing stances across the room.  We learned his hair is pretty slippery. 

We dog sat for 8 days for our neighbors. The dogs stayed at their house but we went over 4 times a day to let them out, feed them and check on them. They kept breaking into one of the boys rooms and ended  up ripping up this poor guy. Sean performed surgery and he was just fine. 

Alana always likes to do Lizzie's hair then take a picture. 

Alana is thriving right now! She is so happy at school, she is making new friends, learning so much, and just happy in general. It is so wonderful to see. She always loves to play with Lucy. We went to Xanders birthday party a few fridays back and it was fun to see family. 

Aunt Sam sent Brett this cool Harry Potter tie and Sean helped him tie it one Sunday. 

Family chats on Sundays. Dad P spent several days feeling very very sleepy. It was pretty concerning to all of us. The pharmacist adjusted some medication and he seems more awake now. 

We had a Flex friday at school where the kids had to do school online. It was exhausting for me =) 

Loose tooth:

Dress like a teacher day:

We went to see our friend Ryan and Jess's new house. Their barn is bigger then their house which is saying a lot and they have all these fun cars in there. 

Lizzie made a hotel while I was sleeping on the couch in the background,lol!

Oreo likes to wake up Alana:

I went to a 5 hour ALS appointment with mom and Dad P this past week. The team he has working with  him is incredible. His health is sadly declining rather quickly. Here is an email I sent to his brothers updating them on what happened at the appointment:

I am writing to try and keep you guys updated on how Dad’s health is going. Unfortunately I don’t have great news to report. We had a long appointment with his team at the University of Utah yesterday. The Neurologist spent and hour and a half visiting with us about so many different things to consider as his mobility continues to decrease. He is already basically unable to walk. He can sometimes go a few steps but prefers to be pushed around in his walker seat. The most concerning thing is his breathing. He has been complaining of shortness of breath for several months and about a month ago started using oxygen around the house and at night. He is now completely dependent on it and his oxygen lowers to 80’s if he doesn’t have it in. The bigger concern with the weakening of the diaphragm and breathing muscles is that his body is unable to rid itself of the Co2. They did some tests.  A normally breathing persons carbon dioxide is in the 35-40 range. Darrells was in the 70’s. Too much of the Co2 is causing a lot of exhaustion, extra sleep, and confusion sometimes. The respiratory therapist did some other tests to see how strong his lungs and the muscles that are around it are and his numbers are very very low. The Neurologist is very concerned with how much he has declined in the past month and is concerned that he will continue to decline at the same rate.  They are starting a bipap machine that he will use at night and as much as he can during the day. Sean went with them today to get it all fitted and figured out and to be trained on how to use it. Darrell also started an infusion today that he will do for the next 14 days. It is supposed to help slow the muscle loss but it won’t return any function he has already lost. 

Another big concern right now is that Darrell has lost 14 lbs in the last month and that is on top of a large amount over this year. He is eating next to nothing and the dietician is pretty shocked with how little he is eating. They made a plan to increase his calorie intake and have talked about how important it is to try to remain weight stable. Hopefully after using the bipap for awhile he may feel a bit better and more hungry. 

As we spoke to the Neurologist Darrell asked her if he had a big poker game in February if he’d be able to make it. He wants to know what to expect. The neurologist said that without the bipap she doesn’t think he will make it to february. We are hopeful that the bipap with prolong things a bit, but its impossible to know how things will go.  

He remains in good spirits and has mentioned to me that he is not afraid to die, he has lots of gospel questions he wants answered. It is still a bit scary and very sad for all of us. 

Carol is holding things together in true Carol Peterson fashion. She is incredibly strong and kind and always there to serve him just as she has been for their entire life together, but she is devastated to say the least. 

Hope you guys are well! 

Love, Jennie

We did ask if we could go forward with out Disneyland trip in a few weeks and they said YES! So its on and we are going to get Dad P back to see the couch before he graduates this life =) We are all struggling and we have different days where we are more sad than others. Brett and Alana understand what is going on and they want to be told what is happening. They are so sad, but trying to hard to have faith and understand. We are just going to try and soak up every good moment we can for now. 

And here is sweet Oreo enjoying the discarded loft couch's new home in the piano room.