Ponytails and More

Her first ponytail!!!!!!!

I am freakishly excited about this!

I couldn't get her to hold still for a picture, so I thought I'd put her in the Bumbo so she would be still enough for a good pic of her hair. Well, it kinda of worked...

still working...

Then she decided to make the great escape.

This is baby stuff!

You can't keep me down!

In the beginning of Sept. I used to put Lila in the Bumbo outside the bathroom, or on the kitchen floor while I got stuff done. One day I got out of the shower and opened the door and saw an empty Bumbo. Lila had escaped. That was before she could crawl well, so I'm not how sure she managed it, but after that one time she didn't do it again for awhile.

Last month she did it a few times and today she was out within about 10 seconds. I can hardly keep up with this kid. I guess there is no more leaving baby unattended in the chair. Oh well, it is still nice to use for feeding her downstairs, for watching Baby Einstein, and for taking a bath with big Sis!

p.s. In picture #4 she looks just like me as a baby except for I had dark hair. My Mom pulled out my baby pictures a couple of weeks ago and we were all shocked. I finally have a baby that looks like me!!!

Best Kids Ever!

Last week I was trying to help Jax with homework and make dinner at the same time. Then Lila decided she was hungry and wanted to be fed asap. It was like 5:00 and I was headed for a breakdown. You know when you have just had all you can take and it's the part of the day when you just want to relax and sit down for a minute, but you can't? That's how I was feeling. Next thing I know, sweet Sunny comes running upstairs and says "Don't worry Mom, I can feed Lila for you!"

I wasn't sure if she could do it or not, she's only four after all, but I didn't have any other options so I agreed to let her try. It turned out to be one of the sweetest things I've ever seen. She did a great job. I wish I could have gotten it on video. She sounded like a mini-me. "Open up sweetie, here it comes, Come on Catey, you know you love avocados, here comes the airplane." All the things we say to get kids to eat she was saying. Lila loved it, and I was able to get dinner and homework finished. After watching the precious interaction between my daughters, my night didn't seem quite so bad.

I will say this is just one example of how sweet my kids are with each other. I think I truly have the best kids on earth. They are so easy going and funny. I love to be around them. Sometimes when I'm feeling a bit prideful I think that it must be something I'm doing and I must be the best mother ever, but mostly I know I'm just blessed to have them, and I try to learn from their sweet examples. These are the sweetest kids anyone could ever hope for.

Happy Halloween

Love,

Batman

Gabriella

and the littlest Rock Star

I had to add this picture. It cracks me up. She's getting pretty good at standing on her own and balancing, but she looks so unsure of herself.

Fall Picture Overload

Lila had to ruin it for everyone :)

The only picture I got of all three of them looking at the camera at the same time.

Lila was too busy eating and crawling in the nasty leaves to have her picture taken.

Always a poser.

It is so fun taking pictures of Sunny. She's gotten to where I don't have to tell her what to do. She really looks like a real little model. She does all these poses and then changes them just a bit. Like, she'll tip her head, or look away. It's so cute.

It's officially been a year since she cut her hair. It's finally getting long again.

Sisters.

One smile. That's it. Out of 50 pictures of so.

Eating more leaves.

My big boy. Love the huge scratch on his face. He was playing with his friend jumping into piles of leaves and apparently a stick got him in the face. Oh well, at least it missed his eye :)

He won't admit it, but I think he enjoyed this little photo shoot.

This is how it all ended up. She'd had enough.

This article was in the BYU newspaper. Kinda cool, except they didn't interview me. The article gives a good description of what we are trying to do for people at Deseret Industries
Ryan

ZOO

Mom and I took the kids to the zoo yesterday. Unfortunately my camera still isn't working, so no pictures. But, if you really want to know what it looked like, it was just like all the other times we've ever been except that Lila was there :)

The kids really enjoyed it. They haven't been since Jax was 4 and Sunny was 2 1/2, so it was a new adventure. They liked the Elephant show the best, and also the tiger and cougar.

I had a fun time too, but noticed something that I hadn't before. Some of those poor animals have the worst cages/enclosures I have ever seen. The poor cougar lived on concrete, as did the bears. The penguins also had all concrete and a small pool. The tiger had a nice enough place, but it was small and he was pacing and growling the whole time. Actually several animals were pacing and seemed unhappy. I felt really bad for many of the animals, and that means a lot coming from me. I am not an animal person at all.

Anyway, all in all it was a fun day and if you're interested, vote for proposition 2 to help the zoo!

For Gracie

We've been praying for Baby Gracie every night for almost 7 months now. It's almost as if she has become a part of our family. She is going through another set of complications, and preparing for her second surgery right now. We don't know if her Mom will ever see our blog or not, but if she does we wanted her to see Jackson, hear his story, and know what is possible for sweet Gracie.



This first picture is one taken by a nurse before Jackson went up to Primary Children's. It's the only thing I had of him while I was still in the hospital, unable to see him. I remember how proud I was of him and how cute he was, even with all the tubes and wires. Jax was blue when he was born. The doctor thought it was because he was 4 1/2 weeks early and his lungs weren't developed enough. Soon enough we discovered that was not the case. The doctors at Utah Valley couldn't tell us what was wrong. Only that it was his heart and they had already called Life Flight. He ended up going to Primary Children's in an ambulance b/c all the helicopters were grounded due to weather.

Jax was quickly diagnosed with Transposition of the Great Arteries and went in for his heart cath. That went well and we were told surgery would come at five days old. They would've like to have done it sooner, but b/c he was small they wanted to give him a couple of days to grow and rest.

After surgery. Five days old. This is in the PICU. We weren't able to hold him, and could barely touch him b/c it seemed to irritate him. He looks a lot bigger in these pictures than he was in real life. He was only about 5 1/2 pounds, but was very swollen from the surgery.

They slowly weaned him off the meds that kept him asleep. It was so sad when he opened his eyes. He looked so scared. At that point I didn't know what the future held for him. I hoped he would recover and be perfectly healthy, but I was too scared to really let myself even think about it. He is about a week old here.

After he graduated to his private room on the third floor I had hopes he would come home quickly. He ended up staying there for another 2 weeks (which is not nearly as long as sweet Gracie had to stay the first time), which seemed like an eternity to me. This is him doing the car seat oxygen test. It is the best picture I could find to show his scar. This is probably a day or two before he went home, so about 3 weeks old.

In the end, Jax stayed for just over 3 weeks at the hospital. It took him about 6 months after coming home from the hospital to become a "normal" baby and stop looking so scared and upset all the time. I didn't care. I would have taken him any way I could get him.

This of course is him now. His scar is almost invisible to those who don't know it's there. I didn't believe it would ever look this good, but it does. He does have a big knot on his sternum where his ribs fused back together. They say it happens in about 10% of open heart surgery cases. It's pretty prominent b/c he is such a skinny guy. I wish I could have known then what I know now... It doesn't matter. Not one bit. I couldn't care less. Actually I kinda like it. It's his cool battle scar, and a reminder of what a special kid he is.

Slowly, over the last 5 years, I've thought less and less about his heart. At first I would go a day without thinking about it, then a week, then longer. Now I don't really think about it, except to schedule his yearly echo cardiograms and check-ups at PCMC. I know we have been extremely blessed that Jax has not had any major complications. He does have leaky heart valves and his aorta and pulmonary vein are slightly narrow. These are pretty standard and will probably never cause him a problem. If they do, it will likely be fixed by another cath. But, I choose not to think about that today. I'll think about it tomorrow.

For now, please pray for Gracie. We pray that she will have the best outcome possible for her and her family, and that one day, they will look back and think that they haven't thought about her surgery for days, or weeks, or years :)

Please take a minute and check out Gracie's blog. She could use your prayers right now :)