Christmas 2010

Christmas was wonderful! Our greatest blessing is that we have two HEALTHY, HAPPY children. We are so grateful that everything went well with Joshua's second surgery, it was very minor but it is a relief to have it over with. What a miracle modern medicine is! Here's a few snap shots of us this Christmas season:

after church at Grandma and Grandpa C's.

Jacob sleeping with his new Buzz and Woody (he loves these guys!)

Joshua - having fun opening anything wrapped in paper

Jacob with his Mr. Potatoe Head from grandma C

Two cute boys in their Christmas snowman jammies on Christmas Eve (Aunt Cami is in the background she is due in less that two months yeah!)

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and were able to spend time with those you love!

grateful

I was reading a friend's blog today who lost her baby just a few months before our baby Joshua was born. She has been through a lot, and she is an amazingly strong person. It made me realize how very grateful I am for our little family. They each bring me so much joy. Yes, life has it's difficult moments and sometimes things are hard. But, there are so many more good times than hard times. There is so much to be grateful for. I love my children and I am SO grateful that they are healthy, and happy and so much fun to be with. I love it when Joshua opens his mouth really wide and gives me a big open mouth kiss on my cheek. I love it when out of the blue Jacob comes and gives me big bear hugs for no reason in particular and says "I love you mommy!" Then I say I love you too! and he always responds with I love you too! LIFE IS WONDERFUL!

November

Here are some fun pictures from the month of November:
First one that I don't have a picture of was celebrating our 4 year anniversary at the Roof restaurant. - Thanks mom for the gift certificate and thanks to mom and dad for babysitting : )

Jacob and Joshua playing a "duet"

taught Jacob how to make Snow angels


We got a new kitchen table for our anniversary (yeah for having a husband who works for Deseret Manufacturing - the Church's furniture making department)

spent many fun hours playing with Jacob and Joshua I love my boys!

made a girafe with Jacob and Joshua out of blocks. We made lots of other animals too but this was Jacob's favorite

Went to Ivan's citizenship ceremony. If any of you think you know a lot about American history, I can almost assure you that Ivan knows more than most Americans after studying for the citizenship test. It is really difficult. I only know about 1/2 the answers on the study guide.

new family pictures

I found a new photographer on KSL classifieds who was offering to do family pictures for free. We needed a new family picture so I e-mailed her we got together at Wheeler Farm, and a week later we had a CD with over a 150 pictures of our family. We were amazed by how fast she got the pictures back to us, and we were grateful for the free pictures since we will be having some big medical bills arriving in our mailbox shortly. Here are some of the pictures she took. If your interested in her doing pictures for your family she is currently doing them for just $20! You can see her blog at http://www.jbphotography09.blogspot.com/

hospital stay

Before surgery

the day after surgery, and still smiling

Things went much better than expected at the hosptial. First of all we had been today that Joshua would have a tube coming out his back to drain his kidneys and the tube would remain in place for about 4-5 weeks. Well the pediatric urologist came to see us after the surgery was over and told us that they had put in an internal cathader instead and that he didn't have a tube in his back. The tubes will have to be removed in 4-6 weeks, but it will be a quick procedure. That was a huge relief. They had previously told us that Joshua would be here for 3-5 days. Then last night one of the doctors who works with the pediatric urologist said that if things go well he can go home tomorrow (which would be today). Joshua is doing really well. They have removed all of the tubes and machines that he was hooked up to. Joshua has also done very well with managing his pain. He was been nursing more frequently, but that has helped to lessen the pain he was feeling. Several of the pain medications that had been ordered for him they decided not to give to him because he was doing so well. He's mostly just been on Motrin, or Tylenol. We are so grateful to the medical staff for there expertise, to our friends and family who fasted and prayed for our little boy, and most of all we are grateful to our Heavenly Father for his watchful care.

In Tune

It is amazing how in tune to the Spirit little children can be. With recently watching conference, Jaocb has been talking more about President Monson. It The Friend this month Jacob saw a picture of the inside of the conference center with the podium and organ pipes and proudly exclaimed "President Monson" pointing at the picture. So today in the afternoon I asked Jacob if he wanted to go see where President Monson talks and of course he did. So we took the kids down to temple square (one of the reasons I enjoy living in Salt Lake is being so close to temple square that it's easy to drive down there for a Sunday afternoon walk). We took a tour of the tabernacle and the nice elderly missionary that was giving us the tour just couldn't get enough of how enthusiatic Jacob was about President Monson. I think Jacob believed he was really going to meet President Monson. We came around a corner on one of the upper floors and Jacob saw a picture of the prophet and exclaimed "President Monson!" So the elderly missionary said "Let me get a picture of your family by that picture." We went out of the roof and the senior missionary told Jacob he could put his hands in the fountain water and Jacob couldn't have been happier. Later after our tour we went over to temple square and Jacob saw the statue of Christ. We have been talking recently one a two year old level about how Jesus had "owies" in his hands and feet, and how much Jesus loves us and wants us to be nice. Jacob saw the nail marks in his hands and feet and he reverently pointed it out to us. I had also recently showed Jacob some pictures of temples and told his that it was "Jesus' house" As we walked by the temple tonight before we said anything about the temple Jacob exclaimed "Jesus house!" We had a great time being together as a family!

6 months

Joshua and Jacob are as cute as can be. We can't believe Joshua is 6 months old already. He had two teeth when he turned 6 months old and in the last week or so he started breaking 6 teeth at the same time! Despite this he is doing very well. He is 16 lbs (30%), and 29 inches long (95%). His favorite new food is cheerios. I think he likes them because they give him something to crunch inbetween those teeth. The sad news is that he had a renal scan on his kidney in September and now they are doth draining about 40-50% slower than they should. So now he has to have surgery. It is a 6 hour surgery and he is be in Primary Children's hospital for 3-5 days. Then he will have a drainage tube coming out his back for about 4-5 weeks. Even though it will be very hard to see our little boy go through such a difficult surgery we are grateful that we live so close to such great Medical care considering that we are just a few miles away from the hospital and some children drive for many hours to come and recieve care here.