Happy Birthday!

So today is my amazing husband Damon's birthday. He is 27 today so to celebrate I thought I would list 27 reasons why I love you!

1. You always put me and the girls first.
2. You are a VERY patient man.
3. You are a worthy Priesthood holder, and you take that responsibility very serious.
4. You like my cooking (well for the most part).
5. You have a great testimony of the Gospel and you are not shy to share it.
6. You always know how to cheer me up :).
7. You are working so hard right now to get done with school, so you can make our life better.
8. You (unless you aren't there) like to put Olivia to bed.
9. You love that you have two little girls.
10. You are always so encouraging when I want to try something new.
11. You wanted to marry me in the Temple, and we did.
12. You love to travel, and can't wait till we can take our kids all over the world.
13. You are a hard worker.
14. You take Olivia out to the park or to the store just so I can have a little peace and quite.
15. You used to come to all my swim meats when I was coaching, even though I knew they were boring for you.
16. You always make sure that you spend at least one hour a day with just me and the girls, even though I know half the time you should really be studying.
17. You always come with me to get blood drawn, cause you know how much I hate that.
18. If I'm mad at you, you make me hug you until I'm not anymore.
19. You still like to tease me.
20. Your knowledge about the Gospel amazes me.
21. You let me drive the newer car and you drive the clunker, even though you do more driving.
22. You will watch chick flicks with me(except Twilight, because you couldn't stand that movie).
23. You will do the dishes if I ask, and not complain.
24. You served a mission, and want us to serve one together.
25. You don't laugh(at least not too loud) when I am being goofy with Olivia and we are either dancing around the house or singing.
26. You think I'm beautiful and you tell me.
27. But the most important thing I love about you is that you fell in love with me when I was 16 and you have never looked back.

I love you honey!

Improving...

My mom said to me yesterday that I haven't posted anything on Sophie for a week so I thought I better let you know how she is doing. She is doing much better, in fact as I am typing this she is sleeping in her hospital room breathing room air. She hasn't done that in 2 MONTHS! Her stats are good. So this last week she had another ct scan to see how the lungs were doing and they have improved. We are pretty sure that the steroids she is taking are helping with that. She has had more blood taken the last couple of day for more testing, but so far they have all come back negative. She has been having some really runny diapers so they are watching that to make sure she doesn't get dehydrated. We were hoping that maybe that she could go home today but most likely it will be tomorrow, unless she gets too dehydrated. We are so happy though that she is getting better. She will have to go home with some medicine, but hopefully that will only be for a few more weeks. Thank you everyone for all your prayers, they have helped us stay calm during this stressful time and they have helped Sophie get better. Oh and the doctors still aren't quite sure what made her sick they are thinking that it was a viral infection.

Update

So here is a quick update on Sophie. She is still at Primary's Children Hospital, not quite sure on how long we will be here. She has tons of tests done so they can try and figure out what is wrong. We have two lung specialists who are husband and wife, we have a team of 3 doctors who are also working with her. So she had an echo done on her heart, it showed that her heart was fine, which is a relief. Yesterday they did an bronchi scope, which means they went done her airway with a scope and then took some of the fluid that is in her lungs. The tests for that have all come back negative. She also had a cat scan on her lungs and a live x-ray where she swallowed some chalky stuff and then they watch it go down, the point of this is that they wanted to see if there are any tears or holes in her esophagus. All of those tests can back fine. Sophie has all the doctors a little stumped as to what is the matter. Obviously there is something wrong, she can't be without oxygen and she breathes really fast. So the lung specialist wants us to try a acid reflux medicine to see if that will help with the liquid in her lungs. Also they are going to start a short trial of steroids, to see if that might help her breathing and maybe develop the lungs a little more. SO that is where we are at right now, if this stuff doesn't work we (meaning Damon and I plus doctors) will start discussing doing a lung biopsy. I'll keep you all updated, sorry no pictures, I've been a little pre-occupied :).

Primary Childrens Hospital..

So this morning we wake up to some snow, Damon and Livi go out and shovel it (I'll post photos of that later). When Damon came back in, I was trying to get Sophie's oxygen stats, and I couldn't get it to go above 84, so Damon took over the reigns and he couldn't get it any higher either. We raised her oxygen level and waited about 15 minutes and checked it again and it still wouldn't go higher, at that point we are thinking that the machine we have must not be working well so we decide that we better take her into our doctors office just to be safe. We take her in and they can't get a reading higher than 85, not good. So the doctor decides that he wants to do an x-ray on her. Well the x-ray comes back and shows that it could be a few things, pneumonia, respiratory virus, or maybe even something to do with her heart. Well we bump up her oxygen and again and see that her stats aren't getting better. So Damon and I decide that we better take her to Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake City. That is where we are now, Sophie has been admitted, and tomorrow they are going to do a echo gram of her heart to make sure that is working properly and we will go from there. I am assuming that she will be having lots of tests done, but hopefully we will be able to figure out exactly why she just can't get off the oxygen. I will keep you all updated, the hospital has wireless so I have a laptop here. Hopefully in the next couple of days we will have some good news.

Update...

Well I thought that I would give you all a quick update on Sophie. She is still on oxygen, I think we are going on our 8th week now. The pneumonia is all cleared up and has been for awhile, but she just can't seem to get of the oxygen. She had a doctors appt. on Friday for her sixth month checkup which she is seven months today so we were a little behind, and everything looks really good with her, but because she can't get of the oxygen we are getting an appt. with a pediatric lung specialist. Hopefully we can get her into that appt. before Christmas so we can figure out what is going on. All in all she is a happy little girl who likes to be entertained. She loves to smile and stick her tongue out which is so cute, I have yet to capture it though. Olivia can really get her laughing which is adorable, I love that they both just love each other so much. Sophie is always looking for her sister and Olivia is always willing to play with her. Sophie isn't crawling or anything yet, she can roll over and has almost mastered sitting up. She does really good with her oxygen tube, it really has come in handy sometimes as a toy for her, she loves to chew on the tubing. Its kind of sad that her favorite toy is a oxygen tube. Sophie has been eating some solid food for a couple weeks now, and she is doing pretty good at it. Most of the time though she just gets so distracted by her sister that she really doesn't eat that much. We sure do love having her in our family though, and are just praying that we will figure out what is going on and that she will be over it quickly.

Temple Square...

We had the opportunity to go and see the lights at Temple Square the Sunday after Thanksgiving. It was so beautiful and pretty busy. We walked around for a couple of hours and then headed back home. I love going to Temple Square at Christmastime with all the beautiful lights, it is such a special experience to be there.

Disney on Ice..

On Friday we got to go to Disney Princess Classics on Ice, it was so much fun. I loved and so did Livi. My parents bought me and my sisters tickets to take our girls. We were 5 rows from the rink so we had great seats. I think that me and my little sister Megan were more excited than the kids, we had always wanted to go as kids but never got to. Olivia got a little scared from the Beast from Beauty and the Beast, and the witch from Snow White freaked her out. All in all it was such a fun day. Since it was in Salt Lake we drove down and then parked a little further away so we could ride the train, Olivia loves riding the train. We loved the show though, I would get so excited when a new princess would come out. My favorite was the Little Mermaid performance, Olivia's was Ariel and Cinderella and the skate shoes and the snakes(eels in little mermaid), she told me more but you get the idea. Since seeing the ice skating, Olivia spins around on our wood floors all day and tells me she's skating. Thanks mom and dad for the great memories, wish you could have been with us!

Halloween

So here is a picture of Olivia in her costume. She was going to be Minnie Mouse but at the last minute she decided that she wanted to be a kitty cat instead. Our Halloween was pretty low key, we just went to the trunk and treat at the church and then she helped hand out candy at our house. This is our first Halloween in a sub-division and we got quite a few trick or treaters. It was fun to see all the kids in their costumes. Poor Sophie didn't even get to wear her costume, she is still on oxygen, so she keeps a low profile hanging out in the back of the house wear she won't come in contact with anybody, we don't want to get her sick again so keep her pretty secluded. Olivia loved Halloween though and anytime a kid came to the door she would ask them what was their name and what was their costume.

Home

Were home. Sophie got to come home on Thursday afternoon. She is still on oxygen, so we have her all hooked up at home with the oxygen machine. I was really nervous at first about her coming home on oxygen, I actually stayed in the hospital one extra day just because it made me so nervous. In reality though it really isnt that bad. Hopefully she will be off the oxygen the end of the week, that is what we are hoping at least. Bringing her home was so good for her. When she saw Olivia and our dog Red, her whole face lit up. She adores her sister, and she looked better after about 30 minutes of being home. Here are some pictures of her in the hospital, oh and one from today with her hat on that her Nanny made her. Thank you everyone for you support and your prayers. She was pretty sick there for awhile. We are glad to have her home and see her smiling again.

Want to know what we've been up to this weekend.

Well I don't have picture for this post but I'll put some on when I get home if I ever do. Well this weekend was quite eventful. Friday I took Sophie's temperature and to find that she was at 101, so I gave her some Tylenol and let her sleep. Well I checked later in the evening to find that is was up to 103. So we quickly loaded the kids in the car and headed to the ER. They quickly got Sophie and I back, Damon took Olivia for a car ride. Well once in the ER, she had to get put on oxygen, get a catheter, get an IV put in and then get blood drawn for multiple tests. Oh and she also got some xrays, which if you have ever had a newborn get xrays you will know that they strap them in this contraption with the arms sticking straight up. Then after all of the that a Respiratory Therapist came and sucked out all her boogers for testing and he also administered a breathing test on her to help open up her airways. Well we found out that through the xrays that she has pneumonia. SO she has been admitted to pediatrics and we are now on our third night in the hospital. She is doing better, I wouldn't say she is out of the woods yet. She is still on oxygen and we are trying to lower it but every time they lower it past a certain amount the machine she is hooked up to starts beeping. So right now we are just keeping her on oxygen. Because Friday was the first day she had a fever and we brought her in then that has definitely been to our advantage. The poor little girl though she just wants to be snuggled. She is getting an antibiotic for the pneumonia and a medicine for the flu. The pediatrician is thinking that it is swine flu but we won't no for sure until late tonight or tomorrow. That kind of freaked me out, I have been so worried about swine flu, but that doctor has told me a few times that us bringing her in so soon was a VERY smart move. Everyone keeps asking me how I'm doing and to be honest I haven't given myself/or wanted to think about how I'm doing. I'm sure she will be okay, but the doctor told me to be prepared to be here a couple of weeks. My parents who are lifesavers, drove through the night last night and got here at 2:30 am. They have Olivia so that is one less thing to worry about, although do you ever stop worrying about any of your kids. Please keep little Sophie in your prayers, our little snuggle bug is needing some help. I will try to keep you all updated, hopefully in a couple of days she will be able to breath without the help of the oxygen. You know I remember when I was little thinking how the hardest thing I would probably ever have to do was go through child birth, but that is nothing. I think the hardest thing to do is to watch your child suffer, you feel so helpless. It makes you realize how our Heavenly Father must have felt when he watched Christ on the cross.

*Got back the results for the H1N1 this evening, and it came back negative, sigh huge relief.*

Want to know what we have been up too!

So on Friday, Olivia came down with a nasty stomach bug. She was throwing up all day Friday and on Saturday she was having some bad diarrhea. Today she seems fine, but she has had a fun few days of watching movies and drinking sprite. The pictures of her is how I found her on Friday, poor girl was so exhausted she just fell asleep right there on the steps.

Cute Girl...

I figured since I did a post on just Olivia yesterday that I better do one just of Sophie today. Sophie is so much fun and we just love having her in our family. She is four and a half months now, and on her fourth month doctors appt. she weighed 12lbs 10oz which is in the 22 percentile, and she was 23 inches long. Her hair will get really curly if it gets wet or if she is at all sweaty it will just kink up on the sides. We still don't know what color her eyes are going to turn yet, they are a dark grey at the moment. Olivia's eyes were dark grey until about 7months and then they turned to brown, so we'll see. Sophie is just such a cute little thing. She has the cutest laugh and always so smiley. She is still our little snuggle bug and we just love her to pieces.

Hip Hip Hooray!

This little girl I can honestly say is potty trained. For the past three Sundays Olivia has gone to church in panties and even tells her nursery leaders when she needs to go to potty. The only time she wears a diaper is at night when she goes to bed. I'm so proud of her and so excited. It is so nice to not have to worry about that.

couple of new post below. ENJOY!

Key West 2009!

So the day after Sophie's blessing me and the girls tagged along with my parents and my lil sis to go see my adorable niece Betty and her parents. We had a great time, it was supper hot so we stayed inside most of the time and played the Wii fit, which I love, I want one bad! Emma and Steve were supper gracious and let us all stay with them, big thanks to them, especially Emma who has been feeling a little under the weather. Don't worry she will be all cured of it sometime in March. Yup another niece(we hope) or nephew is making their way to the Johns family. I'm supper excited to see what they will have. I had tons of fun playing with Betty, she is soooo cute, but boy oh boy does Livi now how to make her mad. Poor Livi lets just say that she had some nice teeth marks to bring home to show her daddy. Damon had to stay in Utah and look after the fort, and go to school and make some money. The sad thing is that was probably our last visit to Key West, Steve and Emma and Betty will be moving up too Virginia in November for Steve's work. But we are pretty stoked for them to move up there because then they are just 3 hours away from NYC, so mine and Damon's plan is we'll go visit them and then leave the kids with them for a weekend and go have some fun in NYC<>

Sophie's Blessing Day...

On August 25th we were able to Sophie's blessing at our house. It was a wonderful occasion and we had many friends come and see this little angel. Sophie was just that an angel, she loves to be held, so she is a happy girl as long as someone is holding her. Damon gave her a wonderful name and blessing, where she was told that she has many wonderful qualities. She is such a special spirit and we feel so blessed to have her in our family.


So this is Nathan and Phyllis Tanner. Nathan was a Mission President for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in England, him and his wife Phyllis became very good friends with my parents almost like family so when I born they asked him to be in my blessing circle. He also was the Sealer who married Damon and I. So we knew that now that we live in Utah that we had to ask if he would be in the circle for Sophie's blessing too. We were so excited and felt very blessed for all of the wonderful people who came to help us celebrate. It was a great gathering.

Sophie with Grandad. She looked so cute in her dress. Damon's mom had made it for Olivia but I'm going to use it for every girl I have and then hopefully they will use it for their kids.

Sleepy Girl.

Look how big I'm getting! This is Sophie having a good snooze after big sister has gone to bed, finally undisturbed sleep!

Duck Pond.

So yesterday we went to Provo to see Auntie Megs, while we were there she took us for a walk to the duck pond by BYU campus. Olivia loved it, she got really excited when she found some turtles. I loved seeing the baby ducklings, they were so cute. A couple of times Livi almost fell into the pond, she loves the water and wants to stand so close to it. Megan and I were afraid we were going to jump into the dirty pond.

Happy Birthday Betty!

I just wanted to say Happy Birthday to my beautiful niece Betty! She turned two today. I love this little girl so much, she is the sweetest little thing and is so much fun to play with. I took this picture of her back in April when her and her parents visited and I just love it. I love her blue eyes. Hope you have great birthday Betty, we LOVE you!

Update

Quick update on Livi. I took her to the doctor on Monday about her chicken pox. They weren't spreading at all so I was wondering if they actually were chicken pox. The doctor looked at them and didn't think that, that was what they were. So what are they. Its a viral infection, which he says she could of gotten anywhere (gross). It looks similar to chicken pox but I guess the bumps were different. Since it is just in her mouth and bottom it is more like foot and mouth, but we joke that it is mouth and butt since that is where it is. Luckily he says it is almost all gone, and even today it has cleared up a ton. She has very few in mouth just on the roof and still on her bottom. So yup that's the update, no pox.

Chicken Pox!

Yup you read it right, Olivia has the chicken pox. I have no idea where she got it from. On Friday morning I took of her night time diaper to find a cluster of blister looking bumps. I showed it to my husband and asked if he thought maybe chicken pox. He told me to just watch them and see if they start to spread. Well I forgot all about them until the afternoon, Livi had just had a bath and as I was drying her off I saw the bumps again and noticed that some were now going down her legs. I called my mom to see what she thought, she told me to give the doctors a call. Well while I was doing that I took her temperature and it was 101 degrees. Our doctor was already gone for the day, but I did talk to a doctor and he told me I should probably take her to the InstaCare. Our doctors office also has a instacare. So I loaded the kids in the car and headed out. At that time Livi was not feeling well, she didn't want to move I could just tell she was not feeling well. Well when the doctor saw her and looked at her bumps she started thinking the same thing. She checked her throat and there where spots in her throat. She had the nurse do a strep test to make sure it wasn't strep. Well that came back negative so the doctor was pretty sure that it is chicken pox. The thing that gets me is that she was vaccinated for them. I guess you can still get them if vaccinated but hopefully it won't be as severe. Our worry now is trying to make sure that Sophie won't get them. She probably will but hopefully not bad. So yeah me and the girls are stuck at home right now. My mom is coming down today and I am so glad. She had this trip planned before Livi got the pox, but now it will be so much help. Livi has been doing really good. Its only at night do they start to bother her. The ones in her mouth really bother her at night. She has some medicine to help numb the mouth so I think that helps a little. They haven't scabbed over yet so we aren't dealing with the itching yet. There really aren't to many, the most are around her bottom. I'm just hoping that if Sophie does get them she gets them soon, because me and the girls are supposed to be going to Key West August 25th and I REALLY want to go.

The Happenings

So I told my mom a couple of days ago that I would put some new pictures up, and I'm just now getting to it. Sorry. Nothing really has been going on. Me and the girls have just been hanging out at home and playing outside or going for walks to the park. We barely ever see Damon during the day, he is either working or at school and usually doesn't get home until about 7 at night. So when he does get home, we usually get the girls loaded into the stroller and put the dog on the leash and head to the park. We spend a lot of evenings there, we just love the park. Other than that nothing is new. Olivia has been having lots of fun playing in the sprinklers or in her little pool. We are still working on the potty training with her, some days are better than others. Oh so one of the pictures she has her head over the sink. Well I read in one of my parenting magazines that if your child has a hard time getting their hair washed to have them lie down on the counter and let their head hang over the sink. Then you roll some towels to put under their neck for some extra support. It then is like you are washing their hair at the hairdressers. Olivia loved it and it made washing her hair so much easier, didn't have to worry about water going in the eyes at all.

Sophie is doing really good, she is such a smiler now and it is so cute. She is also it quite the little talker, which isn't really surprising seeing how I love to talk and so does Livi. She is a pretty good little baby, the only time she is really fussy is when she is hungry and then its like you can't feed her fast enough. She loves to eat. Some days I think that is all I do is sit on the couch and feed her. Livi is still loving being a big sister, she loves to help me, which isn't always a good thing, but I do think that these two little girls will have lots of fun playing together when they are older.

Happy Pioneer Day!

Probably anywhere else in the country July 24th is just another day. Well not in Utah, today is Pioneer Day and I think they might celebrate this more than the 4 of July. They have this huge parade in Salt Lake City, and then there are lots of different things going on around the state. Damon even is out of school today for it. It is quite the holiday here. We were thinking about going to the parade this morning, but I didn't really want to be on the road by 6a.m. just to get good seats, so instead we stayed home and had some homemade waffles with strawberries and watched it on the t.v. We are having a nice day home with Damon, now that he has clinicals we barely see him. He usually is getting home around 7p.m. each night, luckily though when he does get home he is all about spending time with us. So it is great to have him home with us today. I bought Olivia this huge beach ball that you hook up to your garden hose and water squirts out these holes, Olivia and the neighbor girl have been outside all morning playing with it. Later this evening they are doing another movie in the park in our subdivision, so we are excited to go and watch that, they will be showing Charlotte's Web with Dakota Fanning. Oh and I am so proud of myself and my cooking lately. I always worried that I might not be every able to cook stuff from scratch. Well with the bread rolls I made and then last night I made shortcake for strawberry shortcakes and they were so yummy. Homemade shortcake, sweetened strawberries and homemade whip cream, yummy. I told my husband that when our girls are older I will have some really yummy food that I make. Well hope all of you out there have a fabulous Pioneer Day!

Lakeview Visit.

We had tons of fun in Lakeview. We were there over the 4th, so we went to the annual Rotary duck race, and then later we went and watched the fireworks. Olivia had lots of fun seeing old friends and getting lots of attention from everybody. I was able to do some hair for friends, which is always fun. We just had a great time seeing everyone and hanging out with the my parents. Oh one thing we did do was my mom and I took the girls to go and see UP. Olivia loved it, her laugh was so cute throughout the whole movie. At the end a lady a few rows in front of us turned around and told us that Olivia's laugh made the movie for her, I thought that was so sweet, and that is exactly how felt too.


Look at that cute little smile. She has started smiling and it is so cute. You have to work for them though.

I know this photo is fuzzy, I just thought it was so cute.


Livi and her best friend Maile, they were so happy to see each other.


Sophie with Granddad, getting some cuddles, she is our snuggle bug.


Olivia all ready to go and watch UP!