Our little nephew JJ

This is my cousin Amy's story. I copied this from her facebook. Read and if there is anything you could do to help it would be greatly appreciated. If anything keep them in your prayer.

Carli and Dane

First of all I want to thank everyone for the well wishes, thoughts, prayers, ideas , etc. for my little JJ. For those of you that havent joined please join my group team JJ... I also ask that each of you PLEASE post info about JJ and his blog on your page, or send it in an email or in some way help me by getting the word out about his blog and situation. We need all the help that we can get. You may ask, Gee he is almost 3 and they knew he would need this surgery so why are they not prepared? well, for one I cannot work because JJ cannot go to day care, he really doesnt go much of anywhere.. with his liver right under the surface of the skin and protruding like it does, it would be life threatening if he were to get injured before we can get the surgery done.. The other reason is that he was on Medicaid.. well we only found out in May that they were dropping him due to the fact that we have "access" to other insurance through Johns work.. Well, that being said, only a portion will be covered, and it is a very expensive procedure.. we also have to come up with all of our travel costs to and from Seattle from Idaho which is a 12 hour drive, plus time off work, place to stay, meals etc. etc. as you can imagine this could be very costly.. When JJ was born and in the NICU the bill was over a million dollars so I imagine this will be expensive depending on how long he takes to recover and if he goes into the PICU or not. Anyways, Please do what you can to spread the word so that anyone who is able to donate in any way, big or small, they will.. every single penny counts.. AND means more than you know.. Thank you to those of you that have already donated.. it is so greatly appreciated...

JJ's blog is www.teamhelpjj.blogspot.com and there people can donate at the bottom of the page.. you can also go on your update status or "whats on your mind" button and type in the link www.teamhelpjj.blogspot.com and it will put it on your status and main page.. or you can always just forward the info in an email to your contacts in your email..
If any of you have any other ideas let me know..
thanks so much again and again... <3
` and just think after July if we get to go ahead with this.. you won't be bugged with anymore of this stuff from me !! love to you all

New Family Pictures

The house is quiet...The kids are sleeping...The dog is fed...Dane is playing basketball...I hurry and load the dishwasher, because I know that I get to blog tonight!!!Yeah baby!!! I feel like Meg Ryan in "You got Mail", "All I hear is the beating of my heart, and those three little words...You got mail". It has been a long time, six months to be exact since I last posted on our family. As many of you know we have been busy. Here is the latest: Family pictures! Never an easy task with kids, but ice and bribes can go a long way!










Thanks Mom and Case-You guys are awesome!!!

Britney's Wedding

My cousin Britney got married last night to Jess Golbransen. It was the Cutest wedding in the world. The colors were black and white with citrus accents, they used a lot of zebra as well. Soooo cute! All the decorations and the food was amazing. They had these cupcakes that were half cupcake, and half frosting. Yum! Candy tables, ice cream machines etc. Wow, my entire mouth just filled up with saliva...again. My kids were there with me and they had so much fun as well. I didn't tell them that we were going to a wedding reception, I told them that we were going to a princess ball and that there was going to be dancing. I had no idea that they had taken me so seriously. When I told them that the dancing was about to start they started running into the dance floor and I had to hold them back while brit and Jess had their first dance. Then Cotter and Quinci started Slow dancing together and Gage and Elsie joined in. They were fast dancing, Slow dancing and kinda steeling the show. Cotter then went over to Ana Hogle (an older woman ) and asked her to dance. I thought I was going to pee my pants-no one put him up to that, how does he know how to be so smooth he's only five. He spun her around and even dipped her, it was incredibly impressive-she is a lot taller than him and he totally held his own. I'm just glad he didn't kiss her. She obviously was swept off her feet because she followed him around for a while after that. It's ok with me though because she is such a cute and sweet girl. Quinci is kinda protective of her brother/ dance partner and wouldn't let Cotter dance with any more girls. She got totally jealous when cotter asked one of the brides maids to dance. She started Crying, ran over to Cotter and ripped him away from the Kara (brides maid) and gave her this kinda "he's mine biotch" look and started dancing with him. I was laughing at them pretty much the entire night. Brit and Jess ended the night with this totally cute Salsa dance they learned for the wedding, that Cotter and Quinci of course tried to copy after they were done. I hope they have a great honey moon in the Bahamas. I am so happy for them, Britney is perfect and an amazing girl and Jess fits her perfectly. They are going to have a very happy life together!

Quinci's dance recital

QJ's passion is being girly! Pretty things and princess swag are true happiness in her book. Her ballet class could not be more perfect for her. She loves it more than pizza! Her first dance recital was the other day and she was so cute and I was so proud of her. She is the youngest student in her company and she was soooo stinkin cute! I wanted to laugh the whole time she actually knew exactly what she was doing and did all the dance moves with extra enthusiasm. Her dance was to Cinderella and she was a mouse, it seriously can't get cutter than that! I'M SO HAPPY I HAVE A GIRLY GIRL!!!


She was happy she got to wear make-up

The finale song

We all gave her flowers after the show. It was definitely Princess Quinci's day!

Country Music Marathon

First off Tennessee is Amazing!!! This was with out a doubt one of the funnest Vacations Dane and I have ever been on...and we went there to run a marathon? Yah, well it was so much fun! We were given the VIP treatment and I seriously felt like I was hanging out with two Rock stars...haha it was just Dane and Blaine, but you should have seen the way people freaked when they saw them. Women literally shaking while begging them to take a picture with them. It was hilarious & I was able to see it all first hand because I was the designated picture taker the whole trip. We went to VIP dinners, concerts, Dane and Blaine were on the news, and we hung out every night at all the clubs and if you know anything about Tennessee you know that the music is awesome! Plus Blaine shared a room with Dane and I so there was a lot of late night laughing!

Here is a picture of all of us at the expo, the day before the race. We hung out at the racing booth for a while so people could meet & take pictures with the guys.

We met up with our trainers/running entourage later that night a Tim McGraw's benefit concert for the Tug McGraw foundation. We stuffed our faces with pasta while making our game plan for the race the next morning.

Hear we are...game faces and all. We look so happy!? This was taken about 10 minutes before the race, so it's hurry and pee, take your Advil and get to the starting line!



And Were Off!

This was probably the hardest part of the race. the heat was nuts and so were the hills. Right now is the time you really need your crazy mental aspect of the race to kick in.

This bottom picture however is the happiest part of the race. We are turning home for the last stretch and it feels GREAT! The monkey was off our backs and we were probably running really slow, but it felt like we were flying
We seriously couldn't have done it with out these two guys. They were awesome! Kirk was the crazy camera guy who filmed the whole race while running, he is in the white shirt, and Arnett was our pace setter, he was constantly asking us how we were doing and giving us candy! They made the whole experience so much funner and it felt like a 26.2 mile party with them there. Here we are with our dashing medals!


Sooooooo True! I have the Ugliest toenails after I run...Oh well I'm addicted now!

The recovery is the part I hate so I was Dane and Blaine's nurse that night and the day after, I just thought this picture was funny, I look like Mini Mouse. They had to hold me down for the rest of the Ice. I don't enjoy it at all.

This is us at Billy Currington's Concert that night after the race. We had just eaten really good food then we got to sit and listen to the music...AHHHHHHHHH! We got to meet Billy Currington! He was a really nice down to earth kinda guy! I also didn't realize until the concert what a huge fan of him I was. We went and met the Carter twins as well, their Mom wanted to meet Dane.
Such a Fun experience, the music the atmosphere everything! It was so fun for Dane and I to share this experience with Debbie, Tawni and Jake, they were so awesome to come! It will be hard to top this marathon, but I'm going to try!!!!