life update / things have been hard lately

It's time to go see Alex and Amanda's baby! OMG, I'm so excited. Thomas hasn't met her yet. I'm freaking excited. I'm so excited, so excited. I feel like our kids, dude, I swear. I know, look at that. The bullhawk and everything. That's like the same hair that... Oh, yes. The blue eyes too. Look at that. When she opens them. She doesn't look more... Oh, why is that so cute? Now she's so happy. Ashley's crazy a little bit. Just kidding. I'm an aunt. Isn't that the coolest thing ever? Is that a sneeze? That was the cutest thing ever. Oh, she's smiling. Did you smile from that sneeze? Wow. It took Uncle Thomas' magic touch. Yeah, I know. She started screaming. Are you singing her a song? Am I singing her a song? I think she likes your hat. She has huge lips. She's like going to be the most perfect human. Me and Thomas just got back from the hospital, but he has a fundraiser he's a part of tonight for his friend that passed away. So he's there tonight, and then when he gets home, we're going to go see Thomas' dad. So I just wanted to update you guys with him. He is officially home. He's doing much better. He's showing a lot of improvements. Obviously, they wouldn't have sent him home if he were not. So things are looking really good. Thank you guys so much for praying for him and for thinking of him. It's definitely been a very scary situation, but we are just very, very happy with all the improvements that he's shown so far. Can you tell everyone hi? Say, I'm almost one. I'm almost one. Ezra's first birthday is in less than two weeks, so I have been planning that a little bit today. Oh, that's so nice of you. Thank you. Say, I so sorry. I didn't mean to slap you in the face. I've been planning his birthday party. I always do Dr. Seuss birthdays for all my kids, and he just so happened to be born on Dr. Seuss' birthday. I mean, how ironic is that? Pretty crazy. So I've been planning his birthday a lot today, getting some of the final ideas done. I used to go like above and beyond. I've always done that for their birthdays, their first birthdays, but we're going to keep it kind of chill. Just have our friends and some family come over, and it'll be a good day. But right now, I am getting some ideas because Thomas has been doing a lot of yard work, as you guys have been seeing in our vlogs. Today, he did all the backyard, and I want to do something on the side of our house over here. I can't point. I'm going to go out there. It's getting dark right now, so hopefully I'll be able to see. I have a good idea of what I want to do over there because there really is no sun, so the grass does not grow on the side of the house. So I have a few ideas. I'm going to go out there and just check it out and see if I think it'll be a good idea. Hi. What you doing? Want to say hi? Hi. What are you eating? Okay, so this is what I was talking about. Thomas kind of blew all the leaves over here today, so we had to get these picked up. But this side of the house is just kind of dead. The grass doesn't really grow here. So I'm thinking of doing something else. Maybe I'll post a picture of what I'm thinking I'll do. Right here. Yeah, so this whole area. But I love these trees. I love how private and secluded our whole backyard is. Today he cleaned out all the rose bushes and trimmed them down, so we got to get all these leaves picked up. Yeah, I can't wait for spring to come and for this whole backyard to be filled with leaves. It has been a while since I've been in the vlogs, and I actually just recently found this out because I caught up on all of our vlogs that we've had recently, and I'm not in any of them. I, like, have little quick spurts of me, like, coming through. But I kind of wanted to share with you guys why. Like, I haven't just been avoiding filming or anything. But a week and a half ago to two weeks ago, I found out through my sister that my nephew passed away. Ashley and I were in Florida when it happened, so we weren't able to make it to the funeral. But he was 21. His name was Tynan. I think he was actually 22. He lived down in St. George, so we got that news, and it was tragic, and my family just sucks, you guys. Like, I don't know why, but for some reason, my family has a lot of people who pass away, and not just, like, extended family, like, immediate family. So I've had two brothers that have passed away and a sister. And then, obviously, Milo. You guys know that. And my sister that passed away also had another son that passed away of Sid's. So the same way Milo passed away. So any time, like, something like that happens, it brings my family really close together. Well, we made it home from Florida, and I got a text from one of my best friends that our other best friend had passed away. He actually shot himself. And it's one of those situations where you just, you can't help but think, like, man, I really wish I could have done something. I wish I could have reached out, or I wish I would have said something, or I wish. And based off of, like, everything we found out, our friend was kind of in a place where there wasn't really any way to help him. He really was a great person, and it kind of sucks that that's the way things had to go. But I think we all need to remember when something like that happens to someone we love that it's not our fault, and they're really, I promise you, based off of the state that he was in, that there wasn't anything any of us could have done. That scenario went over my head a million times. Like, what if I would have texted him? What if I would have called him? What if I would have taken him to lunch? Or what if all these millions of things I could have done? So we can't be too hard on ourselves. We just have to be there for his kids now and be there for his family and reach out to him and let him know that we love him. As I went to a little, I set up this little dinner for all of us to go meet up and hang out and talk and kind of just converse about our friend that had passed away. And I got a text message from my siblings, like in a group message, that my dad had a stroke and that he was in the emergency room at the VA hospital. So I was like, oh, you know, I don't know much about strokes. I just was like, oh, I'm sure he'll be okay. Like, I didn't know how serious strokes were. And then I got another message that he had the stroke 2 a.m. the previous, or 3 a.m. the previous morning and it was 5 p.m. the next day. So when you have a stroke, they say that you have 24 hours to get in and handle the clot or whatever it is, the blood clot, before you'll pass away. You have a chance of dying if you don't catch it within 24 hours. So I got another message while I was there. It was like, dad has 24 hours or else we're in trouble. So I immediately left my dinner with my friends and I let one of them know, like, hey, man, I got an emergency, I got to take off. I didn't want to take away from that situation. So I jumped in my car, picked up Ashley. We drove to Salt Lake City to the VA hospital and they had actually transferred him to University of Utah because they had to do immediate surgery on him. So they actually went through his groin up to his brain to remove the blood clot. And when I saw him, it was pretty tough because my dad is a very strong, tough type of individual and to hear him not be able to speak at all was really hard for me, you know? Like, all he could say was, oh, Thomas, Thomas, Thomas. But he couldn't say more than one word and it was tough, you know, like, to see my dad in that situation. But I think what we all need to remember is that no matter how tough times get, like, we always have family that we can turn to or we always have God that we can turn to. We can get on our knees, we can pray, we can do whatever we need to do to help make us feel better. So don't ever feel like you're alone and reach out to someone if you're struggling with something. Don't try to fight every battle by yourself, you guys. Like, I just am a strong believer in reaching out when we need help. And when times get tough, like, that's really what signifies and determines who we are. Like, it's not about how hard you can hit, it's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. So when we fall down, we just got to get back up and don't let things or tragedies in your life dictate your future. So I'm going to be back in these vlogs more and I will make sure that I mess with Russ a little bit more and keep things a little more fun. So I didn't want to make this, like, a depressing vlog at all, but I just wanted to let you guys know what was going on. I think that will actually be it for tonight, you guys. I don't want to, like, bring up any more sad emotions or anything. But thank you guys so much for watching and tomorrow, I promise you, we'll be more upbeat and I will be back and I'll be clowning and messing with Russ and I'll give Ashley a hard time and I'll be my normal self.