Winter Blues

We've had a long few weeks as Ellie got her tonsils out just after Christmas.  We are VERY HAPPY to report she is feeling much better now. Today, Dad took her for a quick zip on the snowmobile out in the fields behind our house. Max and I happily watched from within our warm home!

Our new ward has been very welcoming to us in our new place. Each presidency has been stopping by to visit. When the primary presidency came they were asking Ellie her favorite color, food etc. When they asked her what her favorite thing to do was, she replied, "I like to play with my Mom." Man I wish I could have bottled up how good that made me feel and keep it for a rainy day! That little lady just melts my heart.

    Ellie has, surprisingly to me, had a difficult time adjusting to the move. She kept telling us on Sunday that she 'just wants to go to her old primary.' Through many tears and discussion we finally got her to church. On a play date with our new neighbors El refused to go play with the kids while the adults talked. After about an hour she left the room and I thought she went to play. But fifteen minutes later she walked up to me and as I grabbed her hand it was freezing! She looked at me and said, "Mom, the door is locked. Could you go unlock it?"  The little Stinker walked home in 15 degrees!!! Yep, bad mom moment right there. We are hoping to have a little tea party soon to help her find a few new friends.

    Max is growing too! He eats like a horse, and my favorite is that he has recently learned how to give hugs and occasionally he just keeps his head laying on your chest and falls asleep. He continues to be sweet, loving, and happy. Mitch and I just can't stop counting our blessings!

Side note: Ellie LOVES play-doe. I LOATHE play-doe. It's the smell. It makes my toes cringe. After we clean it up I sanitize the counter as if a raw chicken had been dancing on it. I have to be in a darn good mood to let her play with her 24 PACK that her friend gave her for her birthday. I will say her rocket ship looks pretty good though! 

We Are Not Exempt

Tonight we went bowling with Grandpa and Grandma Lifferth. Grandpa treated us all to a night of fun and ice cream and it was great! I think he is feeling a little sentimental as he starts his chemo on Thursday. It was at bowling as I laughed at the kids dancing around as their ball took 3 minutes to get down the lane, that I had the thought "we are not exempt".
 For the past few months the concept labeled 'trials' has been on the forefront of my mind. Sometimes we go on living our life in such a way that we only hear of bad things on the news, or happening to other people. Then when it happens to us we are naive enough to say 'why me?!' Or if you're like me I thought, 'really? is this really happening?'
      The more I thought about how fast things can happen and how quickly life can change there was a real fear that entered into my heart. I felt completely out of control of my future and realized that the only one who has true control is the Savior. No matter how young a child is, how good a father is, or how much life a teenager has left, we are not exempt from the trials and learning experiences that we have to face. Initially, this idea is a little frustrating but the more we pray and the more I ask for understanding the more complete the plan is to me. I think in my house I need to have a big sign that says, "TRIALS: That's why you are here!"

     What would be the point of this life if we didn't grow and to change physically, mentally and emotionally. How grateful I am for the opportunities to grow, learn, and depend on a loving Heavenly Father who is aware of us and who wants to help us.

Christmas Card 2012

This is our Christmas card from 2012. If you didn't get one i'll have to apologize. We have had a lot going on in December. Ellie's birthday, closed on a house, my parents moving, Mitch's dad had back surgery, and we moved to Farmington! So here it is enjoy!

Time sure does fly when you are having fun! The Dorius adventures continued in 2012 as life’s challenges have turned into its blessings. How grateful we are to be able to enjoy life with wonderful friends and family. Here is our year in a flash.

 In February Stacie quit her job with the school district to begin a new (and much harder) job as a stay at home Mom.  In March we welcomed a new member into our family, Maxwell Mitchell. He is a sweet, cuddly boy who has only given us happiness and smiles. We are so thankful to have him in our family.

 5 days after coming home from the hospital, Ellie grabbed onto the garage door as it was going up and rode it to the top. The ride down was not as fun as she ended up breaking her little leg. She was non weight bearing for a month which made our house into a child’s wonderland full of wiggle cars, and skateboards as she scooted around. Ellie brings adventure and laughter into our life everyday.  She is full of great one liners such as, “ Mom, you awe weally fwustwating me wite now!”

In May we enjoyed a family vacation to Disneyland. We have never fully experienced Disneyland and we would not have guessed how priceless the smiles were. The experience was made even better as Ellie was working in physical therapy, to re-learn how to walk, which gave us a free pass to the front of each line. We decided we can’t go back unless one of us breaks our leg again.

This summer we enjoyed our Utah Park’s Pass as we spent nearly every weekend at the lake. Stacie also convinced Mitch to run in the Wasatch Back Ragnar Relay. Although we had a great time Mitch vowed to never do it again. J

 Mitch continues to work at Fusion IO in SLC and has been enjoying his job there. His favorite part of the day continues to be walking in the door at night and having an excited Ellie run up and bear hug him. We are grateful for his hard work for our family.

As we reflect on the past year we are grateful for the many blessings that our Heavenly Father and Jesus have given to us. We have had the opportunity this year to remember how precious life is, and how each relationship we have should be cherished as a gift. We hope that this Holiday season we can all reflect on the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ and the many blessings He has given us. Merry Christmas & Happy new year.

Love,

        The Dorius

Happy Birthday Ellie!

 Can you believe Ellie turned three! Where has time gone! Ellie is a hoot and a half and fills our life with happiness and laughter. For her third birthday we had a party with some of her closest cousins and friends. We had a mascaraed ball AKA organized chaos. All the kids had a pretty good time I think!

 Each kid was either knighted  with a sword or a magic wand by the one and only King Mitchell. Here is cousin Jakey being knighted.

And the princess Kendal walking like a fancy princess with her lovely wand.

Present time! Cousin Averee was a great helper at the party. Hurrah for older cousins! Ten three year olds can be a lot to handle!

Because it was a mascaraed we all made masks using feathers and rubies. Don't they all look so cute!

Mitch had the idea to make a red carpet for the kiddo's. He pretends he's not crafty, he has hidden talents! :) Happy Birthday Ellie Bug! We sure love you!

Merry Christmas!

 What would Christmas be without a few tree pics! I liked these ones because they seemed to catch the personality of each of our little elves!

This practice is very common. Ellie mauling/loving Max a little too much.

 Happy boy!

 Silly El, refusing to smile.

 I told Ellie there was a princess in the lens of the camera. I love it.

A little tickle of her toes while snapping a picture, that's the power of a mom, multi-tasking! Merry Christmas everyone!

Thankful for Fall!

Today I'm simply thankful to be having so much fun with my little family. Here are some of our fall happenings!

Ellie and I love cooking together. She generally makes the kitchen into a disaster but it is a fun disaster! What a great helper!

 We had season passes to Lagoon this year. It was so much fun. El, Max and I would go there for a few hours a week and come home whenever we wanted, it was perfect. They have a lot of fall decorations that were really fun and we took advantage of them!

 Ellie with her cousin Elise. They have a lot of fun together. Ellie's favorite ride is the Tidal wave. She is such a riot!

 Ellie hanging out with that "Spooooky Switch!" She would say with her hands next to her face to emphasize the spookyness of it all, "Mom! let's go get some candy from that Spooooky Switch!"

 The kids love riding the train, no really she does. She just decided to be a little turkey for the picture.

 THE TANGLED CAST! Such great costumes right! Ellie loves Repunzel and Max is up for anything so he was the lizard. We had so much fun trick or treating at Daddy's work. Dad's work major spoils the little kids as they hand out full size candy bars and create fun spook alleys. We Love Fusion IO!

 Dad had Veterans day off so we made a giant snowman. We had to use 2 x 4's to roll the 2nd ball up and we snapped them in half with the weight! What a project! I came home from doing some prn work and found Ellie out playing in the snow with Dad like this. Such a funny duck. Um Ellie where are your boots!?

 What would fall be without a Utah State football game! How fun is it to have the AGGIES winning?! The weather was  70 degrees. It was absolutely perfect! Notice Ellie's socks and shoes are off again. We may need to start duct taping those suckers on. Notice Max is pant less. We had him in a snow suit in anticipation for the Logan chill. But we were bamboozeled by the crazy weather and ended up taking it off so he did not sweat to death.

 It's hard to say what came first the leaves or the snow. I'm not sure if the order of these pictures is right because Utah weather can be so crazy. None the less the kids love it. Max had to be quarantined from the leaf pile because he tries to eat them. Silly boy. Is there nothing he won't eat?  :)

                                                            Happy Fall Everyone!

When it RAINS it POURS

Sometimes when it rains it pours and all you can do is sit there while the rain pelts you in the face. That is how I have felt this month with our life. Our life is so incredibly great that when true heart breaking trials come upon us we sometimes just sit there and think 'is this really all happening to us!' We often forget the real reason that we are here on this earth and that is to enjoy pain, sorrow, happiness, and trials. Fortunately for us we have experienced all of the above in the last month and have been blessed by our Father in Heaven in more ways then we will ever know.
      Mitch's dad is 74 and quite a goer. Last month he was up roofing a house when he tripped, slid off the roof on his belly and landed on his face on the cement. He fractured his skull, broke his zygomatic bone in 3 places, shattered his knee cap into 30 pieces and had internal bleeding in his brain and on his kidneys. The man looked like he'd been through a war. Upon getting to the hospital they took him in for knee surgery, and put several staples in his head to help hold it all together. They kept him up at Mckay Dee hospital for a week until his vitals were stable then they sent him home until his swelling went down. A week later he was re-admitted to the hospital for re-constuctive face surgery and they put 4 metal plates in his face and head. We are really fortunate that we have him with us today. Cognitively he is 100% however he has a lot of physical therapy ahead.

                          Ellie with Grandpa a few days before the accident.

Mitch and His brothers prior to the accident. These moments are supposedly bonding moments. I think for now on they should stick to shopping or something a little less dangerous.

Poor Larry. His eyes were swollen shut and he was in a lot of pain. He is lucky to have Grandma Sherrill to take good care of him.

        A week after Larry's accident My dad sat all of my siblings and our spouses down and told us he had colon cancer. He also proceeded to tell us that there was a potential that he had liver cancer and if that was the case he had a year to live. It was honestly like taking a punch to the gut. It was HARD,very HARD. We would not get any official results for another 3 days. As a family we spent the next two days fasting, praying pleading and worrying. It was all consuming to all of us. We continually had a prayer in our hearts that the liver would be negative for cancer and that he would JUST have colon cancer. Our Heavenly Father poured out his blessing upon us as we found out that the liver was negative and that Dad was no longer on a time line for life.
       The following week dad was admitted to the hospital and had surgery to remove part of his colon. Dad checked in the day that Larry checked out.  The funny thing is that they would have been 3 doors down from each other. Dad is now recovering from his surgery at his home while Larry does the same. Dad will have Chemo therapy starting next month to get rid of some more cancer cells that spread from his colon. We have very high hopes that his treatment will be successful.
       With all this happening Mitch's parents received their Mission call to the California, Los Angelos mission. They are supposed to leave Dec. 31st. However it will likely be delayed until he can recover.
     So as it is Thanksgiving this week let me take a moment to say what I am grateful for. I am grateful for life. I am grateful for priesthood blessings, I am grateful for family relationships and the plan of salvation. I am grateful for the opportunity to view life with new eyes. This month has helped me to see more good in people, to cherish every relationship I have. I have learned how quickly things can change and how precious this gift of life is. I've truely learned about the comforting spirit of the Holy Ghost and how quickly it can encompasses and comfort us when we ask. I'm grateful for family and how they help each other get through things. Life is tender and precious and I hope that this month we can all take a step back and evaluate what is most important to us. Happy Thanksgiving!