My Holiday Wish...

For the select people I didn't get to tell personally "merry christmas".... I'm sorry. I hope everyone had a great christmas. I hope that memories were made and futures created. Old traditions honored and future traditions formed. I wish the people from my past, present, and future know how grateful I am for the lessons learned. Those who exist in the distance - I wish all the best. I hope they all know that no matter what obstacles are given, I will always exist in the shadows. I will be there to pick up the pieces of life and I will always be there to celebrate the achievements - even if it's only in thought.

For all of you who are out there who I didn't get a chance to say how much I love each and every one of you. My heart is spread across the oceans and circles continents. I did not get to tell all the people who deserve it... that I am proud, excited, and jealous. Some get the opportunity to see the world and that thought amazes me. Although I hope that a small piece of me went along for the ride.

Family and friends are the greatest gifts ever given and the most valuable assets one could have.

The cars I drive are meaningless. The house I own is a building. The money I have is paper. The family I was blessed with, the friends I have gained, and even the people I have yet to meet, are what makes my life richly complete.

I have learned many things in my relatively short life: never be afraid to tell someone you love them, always remember the best moments are unplanned, learn to listen and give compliments, find a reason to laugh, and the most important thing is to never regret anything; it doesn't matter if the experience is good, bad, or indifferent, something is always gained. Be proud of each moment and experience.

So finally, I love you all. I miss you! Despite the different paths our lives have taken over the years, I will always be available. I will always be grateful for what you have taught me. I will always remember. I will always care.

~S~

Snyder-Warenski Dutch Xmas

Hi All!
Wow it has been such a long time since anyone has updated this blog. I apologize. It's my fault. I will do much better moving forward.

I hope that everyone had a great Dutch Xmas. We had a wonderful time! The past few years we have been increasingly more traditional for this holiday. Rob made sure he had the 5th & 6th off work. We did our best to be old school this year. We did gifts on Christmas Eve. We put out shoes. On Christmas Day I did my best to keep food traditional also. I looked online and found some recipes that I wanted to try. Since we are vegetarian we can't make Grandma Jo's croquettes. We did find some potato versions though. I made a soup called Rivel Soup. It was pretty basic; made with broth, vegetables, & small crumbles of dough. I messed it up LOL it was bland and I added too much salt. I tried. All I wanted to do was make the day special for Rob & the boys. It has been hard the past 2 years without Grandma Jo.
Overall, we all had such an amazing time! The party was great! We appreciate Sinter Klaas. He has made it so special. I look forward to him. I don't know that we'll ever be able to tell him really how much we appreciate what he is giving us and our children. I love listening to his stories.
As for my experience with everyone else this year... I think it was my favorite Christmas yet! I had a great time!!!
Here is a quick slide show of our Dutch Christmas....

I hope that we all will keep this up now. I don't have everyone's email address to remind them about the blog. If you want to change anything on the blog please feel free to log in and use it as you wish... The master account is: Email (ruitmanblog@gmail.com) password (ruitmanfamily). You can also use that info to sign into the email account at gmail.com. PLEASE GIVE THIS BLOG INFORMATION TO EVERY MEMBER OF YOUR FAMILY!

Sorry All - Missed You!

Hey everyone. It has been a while since my last post. Things with us have been a tad stressful. Lots of changes.

The boys are doing great! Carter is having some complications from the surgery he had in March. He has a massive infection in the tissue and they found a large lump in his groin and a lot of scar tissue. We are unsure what the lump is - we are hoping that is infection. He actually has puss that has come to the surface and created a sore for it to ooze out of the skin. He has been on strong antibiotics for 2 weeks now and the sore is still oozing and bleeding. :( Once the infection is gone we can start dealing with the lump and the bending. He will most likely have to have surgery again. One step at a time. I just hate my baby being in pain.
On a brighter note - they are doing amazingly well with their sign language. It truly is a second language for them. They know the signs for everything they speak. It is so awesome. Since I am home with them now I am trying to be as effective with my time with them as I can. I frequent a teacher supply store to ensure I have the best tools to educate them in a fun way.

Rob is working hard as usual. He has been looking for a second job.

I have been going to a Pain Clinic for the past month to try and get control of my body. You'd think it'd be easy but it's a struggle. CONSTANTLY. I am just very lucky to be surrounded by such amazing people.
I am also heading a "donation drive" for Primary Children's. We will do the donation right before Christmas but I am trying to get things going now. So I am excited for that.

Quick Update

Hey everyone!

Thanks for all your prayers and support. I went to the neurologist Wednesday and he needed another MRI so I went in Friday for that. He should be receiving those results in the next few days and we'll go from there!

Todd is working this summer for one of his professors and really likes it. He has been traveling some (which I honestly don't like) but they have been great to work with us lately. We recently moved the next apartment building over to a bottom floor apartment because stairs are hard for me. We like it a lot---it's a lot cooler being downstairs.

Audrey starts kindergarten in 2 weeks and she's so excited. I've been looking forward to this day for awhile but now that it's getting closer, I'm not so sure if I want her to go. She just started getting into Hannah Montana----she's growing up too fast!

Kai goes in today for a hearing test. He doesn't talk very well and started VERY late so we are hoping something shows up or that they have some suggestions for us. Kai is going through a pirate obsession right now and wants to watch Pirates of the Carribean all day every day while wearing various pirate accessories.

That's about it for us. Things are going relatively well here in sunny California. We would love to get together with everyone when we come up to visit this winter.

~ Todd ~ Lisa ~ Audrey ~ Kai ~

Hello Everyone, I thought I would add to the Ruitman Family Blog. I'm always looking at everyone's blogs and posting and they are always so cute and fun, but do I ever add or make a blog for my family of course not. So I made a personal goal to be more proactive in my blogging :) I have a blog for my family but I'm still am learning make it cute like everyone else so while Lisa and Todd are in town I'm going to have Lisa show me, I will let everyone know when it is up and going. I will give a quick update on the Jacksons: Jim just closed down our business, with the price of gas it was just to much stress to keep going. He has a new job that he loves and I think he will be there for awhile. Evey is getting so big and loves to play and is learning new words every day. I'm still at home but just got called to be in the young womens presidency in our ward so that keeps me busy. We've able to do a lot more fun things this summer since we shut down the business like camping and going four wheeling, Jim's been rock climbing a lot more to try and work off the extra weight he gained while driving in the truck. We hope everyone is doing well and I look forward to reading everyone's post's.

Fun at home!!!

Well, the boys had so much fun disc golfing, we just happened to find a miniature set at Target for $20 bucks. We TOTALLY had to buy it! The boys understand where the discs need to end up but they aren't quite getting the throwing from a distance thing...

Last night it was raining pretty bad. It had been raining off-and-on all day. Well it was about 9:30pm - a little past the boys' bedtime but lightning and thunder started so the boys were fascinated watching out the window. Then Mommy gets a juvenile urge to be the crazy spontaneous mom I always dreamed of being ;)






We played on the slide - then the kids decided they didn't want wet shirts on. Once the shirts were off they decided the diapers were next! So the boys played naked in the rain - in our front yard - for about 10 min! Holy crap - if that doesn't get social services called on us I don't know what will HAHAHA.





oh - by the way - Rayden made sure he added to the water that was gushing down the gutter... that's one way to potty train I guess! ;)

A-Typical or Melanoma - Elaine Ruitman

You got it! I have been educated on moles recently because of a peculiar mole that I had on my thigh.
For the past 21 years I have been worried about Rachael, Todd, Carrie and Jo because of their funny moles all over their bodies and the cancer that runs on both sides of the family.
Then six months ago I noticed a mole on my thigh that looks suspicious to me. I begin to watch it, and it begins to change.
Anxiously at my last physical I have my doctor look at this worrisome mole which results in a scheduled removal and biopsy. I then think nothing of it until the nurse leaves several messages to talk to me about the results of my biopsy but won't leave the results on the answering machine. That is when I start to worry.
When we finally are able to stop playing phone tag and talk, she tells me that I need to come in and have more tissue removed from around the sight where the mole was. That the mole was A-Typical. What is A-Typical?
Immediately I am on the Internet. After my research I begin to worry a bit because A-Typical is the stage before Melanoma, the killer cancer if not caught early.
Today was my appointment to have extra tissue removal. This time I am able to sit down with my doctor and read the actual biopsy report, and yes, there were traces of Melanoma. It looks like I caught this in time. I will know next week when we get the results of this biopsy.
Now a word of caution to you sun worshipers and tanning bed lovers. You know that I have always preached to stay out of the sun. Especially to keep your face out of the sun. With the little bit of sun that my skin has seen over the years, I can not believe that I am having this problem, please check your skin out!

Lisa Ruitman Update

Hi everyone, I talked with Lisa today, she just had a long day at the doctors office. I got this information off of her and Todd's blog page for those of you who are not aware of what is going on

Do you like my new fashion accessory? I chose black. Versatile, slimming, sexy and it was on sale. Need I go on? Seeing as how I may be using this for awhile, I need ideas of what I can do to "pimp my ride".
For those of you who don't know what's going on, I've been having "neurological" symptoms like numbness, weakness, pain in most of my body. I'm to the point where I'm having a hard time walking. They've run tests and ruled out a lot of things. We're down to MS and/or Lyme Disease! We're crossing our fingers it's Lyme Disease (that would mean I could start treatment now). I will find out in a week if it's Lyme Disease--in all actuality it's probably not. At the end of August I will get into a neurologist for my "urgent" appointment. I love the medical system here!
Please keep praying for me and thank you for all of your support. I will be having someone update this blog as we find out more (it's hard for me to type).
Thanks Mom for typing this ;)
I love you all.

Stoddards

We have been busy with the heat of the summer of 100+ deg. Morgan is staying in Salt lake for a few weeks. She is having a wounderful time. She is hope to babysit the twin s. With an adult still around. (robert and shelby HINT!)The spa is doing good everyday we are getting more and more clients in so that is a good. My dogs are good too nothing really great happening for an update. I will post a few pix for an update. ok maybe not better luck another time.

July 4th 2008

Summer Time

It's summer time and My Boys love being outside!

Here is Carter running as fast as he can in the opposite direction just because he can:




Here is Rayden learning how to kick the ball with intent:




Both the boys are chasing the runaway ball:




Rayden just relaxing after a tough game against his brother:

WELCOME EVERYONE!

Alright everybody - lets hope we can keep a central site that everyone will continue using since we do not have MyFamily.com anymore. I think this can work just as well though. We just need to remember to write our name at the bottom of each post so we know who wrote it since we are all using the same login and password. We all have "administrative" rights this way. It is the only way I have figured out how to get every post on the main page. I encourage everyone to play around and experiment with this site. One thing I had to learn the hard way is - when you change the layout (background) it deletes the page elements that we can add - like links to other websites. If you have any questions about how to navigate the site feel free to ask me! I know Lisa and Christina also have blogger sites.

My email address is: lovingmytwins@hotmail.com
My cell # is: 801-231-8827 You can text me anytime.


I really hope that this works out for everyone! I want us all to stay in touch!!! I will post some sites that might be of interest and give everyone a way to post everything they want. I will add some links on the main page as well.

HAPPY BLOGGING!!!!!

Much love,
Shelby