Our Christmas!!!

I can't believe Christmas has already come and gone. It is such a fun-filled time of year and our Christmas celebrations were wonderful!!!

We started our night at my mom and Leonard's house. We had dinner and opened gifts and then we went to the Petersen's for the Nativity and to open our pajamas! Above is Mary riding her donkey. They both loved the Nativity! And here is Trevor and Jordan as Wise Men!!!

Laynie and Grandma Debbie. I forgot my memory card for my camera so I had to take pictures with my phone so most of these pictures are a little bit blurry.


Waiting to go out and see if Santa stopped at our house. This is such a magical time for the kids. Drake was soooooo excited and he was so much fun this year. He had to wait about 30 minutes for Laynie to wake up and he was very patient considering how excited he was:)

Laynie had a kitchen waiting for her and she LOVED it! This was the first time she was actually excited about opening presents and really enjoyed all her toys:) She was so cute!!!



Nurse Laynie

Drake asked Santa for a Ninja Turtle Tower. This thing is huge and he LOVES it! This was definitely the year of the Ninja Turtles for Drake.



We gave Trevor's parents a really cute picture of all their grandkids and they LOVED it!

As usual, the boxes always provide the best entertainment!!!

Merry Christmas!!!!! I am so grateful for the gift of our Savior and for my wonderful family!!!! We are very blessed and we were so spoiled. Trevor surprised me with a beautiful necklace that matched the ring he got me a few years ago. I am one lucky and blessed lady...

Not so "CHEERY"

I wanted to share this blog post. Another CHARGE mom wrote it and it is about the mortality rate in kids with CHARGE. I think she did a great job in being real and honest. It's not a CHEERY post and it is something that I hate to even think about, but it is real and when we lose kids in our "CHARGE family" it literally breaks my heart! The mortality rate in kids 5 and under is 15-20%, that is 1 in every 5-6 kids! I wanted to share this so our friends and family know why we are so paranoid about Laynie getting sick and why we wash our hands so much they bleed:) Thanks for taking a minute to read it!!!

http://allthathathlife.wordpress.com/2013/12/23/1-in-6/

Exciting news...

Big changes are coming to our family. We are happy to announce that baby #3 will be joining our family in early June!!! We are excited and nervous for this new adventure.

We are ready for another little baby and we are happy about the timing. After Laynie was born, we had a lot of big challenges and I questioned if I could handle another child. After awhile, it was clear that there was definitely another one waiting to join our family, but we needed some time to get Laynie's medical conditions under control. We wanted to wait until she no longer had a trach. Then we came to the realization that her medical concerns will never be fully under control and it was just time!!!!

A lot of people have asked me what are the chances of this child having CHARGE syndrome. The chances are not high, it's about a 2% chance, but we know quite a few families that is has randomly happened to so it is a possibility. But at least we would be pros if it happened again and we are ready and willing to accept whatever is in store for us!!!

I am feeling better lately and we are looking forward to finding out the gender:) I feel like I knew the gender with my other kids, and this time I keep going back and forth. I will be surprised either way!

Lately...

We got some snow awhile back and Drake was begging to go outside by 8am. He had a blast playing with his dad and the neighbors in the snow!!

He had a Thanksgiving program at preschool. He did a great job and he said "I am thankful for my dogs!"

Yummy, yummy... our favorite Christmas treat is back:)

We are all ready for Christmas and I love it!!!

Laynie got a hair cut. You can't really tell, but her hair was a lot longer but just super thin and stringy. It looks much better. It is so thin on the top from rubber bands tearing out her hair, so we are trying or best to give her hair a little break from rubber bands so she has a chance to grow some hair back!

Awe.... my favorite view at night!!!!

Love these cute kids!!!

Thanksgiving

We had a fabulous Thanksgiving as usual. We decided not to have 2 dinners this year (since both of our families live in town) and we decided to do dinner at one house and dessert at the other!
We went to my families house for dinner. We had plenty of delicious food, fun company, and lots of little kids running around like wild turkeys!
Laynie looked so festive and cute in her turkey outfit that Grandma Maureen got for her:)

Me and the hubs<3 p="">

All the grandkids

The head chef Debbie and her assistants

After dinner we headed over to the Petersen's for dessert. We had many pies and goodies to choose from and we filled ourselves completely full!!!

The kids had sooooo much fun playing in this box all night!

 

Our Thanksgiving was great. We got to spend it with our families and are soooo incredibly blessed and thankful for all of our blessings!!!!

Miss April- Calendar model

Laynie is Miss April in a CHARGE calendar. Another mom put it together and it features a different child for each month. All profits benefit the CHARGE Syndrome Foundation. I believe it is $20 and that includes shipping. Your wall will be beautifully decorated with some of the cutest kids in the world!!! Here is the link to purchase a calendar: http://www.chargecalendar.com/
Thanks!!!!

The BIG 3-0!!!!!

My awesome husband turned the BIG 30 last week!!! Wow- I remember as a teenager thinking 30 was so old. I pictured 30 year olds have a family, house, a good job, and have everything totally figured out in life! It's crazy now that Trevor is 30 and I am close to it and it seems like we are still so young and have a lot to figure out in life.
Trevor is my best friend and partner in life. I am so grateful that I met him when I was only 15 and pretty much instantly fell in love with him. He is so good to me and such a fun dad. Our kids totally light up when he gets home from work! We love you Trevor and are so thankful to have you!!!

We started the morning off with donuts and sent Trevor to work in his decorated car. He was not so thrilled about that part, but it's now been almost a week and he still hasn't washed it so I think he secretly likes it:)

We got him this basket filled with lots of fun goodies!

Then we went to dinner and had family over for cake and ice cream!!!

Trevor had a great 30th Birthday!

Happy Birthday, we love you!!!

Cochlear Implant Update

I don't have any pictures to share with this post, but I still wanted to share about Laynie's progress with her CI. She had an appointment with the audiologist in SLC yesterday and she did so great! She went in the sound booth and played a game where she holds a toy up to her ear and when she hears a sound she drops the toy into the bucket. She really understood the game and did awesome. She tested within normal hearing range in certain frequencies. Normal hearing range is around 20dB and she heard some sounds in that range which was amazing. I seriously never thought she would be able to hear this well. There are still some frequencies that she isn't hearing quite as well, but hopefully we can get them to improve as they map her CI. Even though she is hearing at a great level, she still ignores a lot. She is still working on learning that certain sounds are meaningful to her and not just a bunch of noise. Also, she is working on figuring out what different sounds mean. She recognizes things like her name, dogs barking, and my phone ringing. She is still working hard, but I am sooooo amazed at her progress and super excited about the possibilities in the future!!!!

Our Halloween 2013...

We had a fun-filled Halloween!!!! We had a cute cowgirl and a cool ninja this year!!!!

And.... Mr. Brain Burger and Mrs. Scary Zombie

We had a little Halloween party with the Dennings and the Halls. It was so much fun. We had tons of tummy food and the kids also had a great time!

Playing the mummy game

Donut eating contest

Mr. Brain Burger at work:) AKA Cannibal Carl

Scary

Yummy!!!!

Trevor went off to work dressed as a nerdy prom king. I thought he looked pretty hot!!!! I took the kids trick or treating at his work and they had a little spook alley and tons of candy! We couldn't get Drake to go in the spook alley.

Halloween night we went trick or treating and visited all the grandparents!!! The kids had a great time!

We also had this bunny costume and it was freezing so Laynie was a bunny for trick or treating because it was much warmer. She could barely walk because she was stuffed with so many clothes on! She thought it was so cool going up to the doors and getting candy. We saved all the suckers for her, and then we thanked her for letting Trevor and I eat all that candy that she can't eat:)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!

Fall tid bits

My cuties with their favorite great uncle David!!!! They LOVE him!

Two of her favorite things.... Blues Clues and Elmer!!!

We went on a field trip with Drake's preschool class to the pumpkin patch. That place is so much fun!!! I love seeing him in action with his class!

I took my first trip away from my family with my two friends... Whitney and Kristie. We shopped all day on Saturday and ate at yummy restaurants. It was so, sooooooo much fun!!! It will have to be a yearly trip:)

 

My 3 favorite ninja turtles!!! These boys play so great together. I just love them!!! 

These haystacks are such cute minions. Drake thought they were cool:)

Fall has been so nice lately.... we have been loving it, but the nice weather is about to end:(

Cutest kids in town

 

Oh how I love this sweet girl and all her many faces. She has so much personality. She is just getting so big. I sometimes still think of her as my baby, but she isn't a baby at all anymore, she is such a big girl! I don't think she can ever understand the love I have for her and how thankful I am that she came to our family!!! We are so lucky to have her:)

Weeeeeeee....... she loves to slide!!! See what I mean about her being a BIG girl???

 Drake is too busy to get a picture of. This is what he is usually doing....

 But... I did manage to get one cute picture of this handsome little guy. He is pretty dang cute and sweet if you ask me!

Our evenings are getting really cool and crisp. We don't have many more days to be outside. I am sooooo not ready to be cooped up for the next 7 months and don't even get me started about entering sick season :(

Ninja Turtle/Transformer Party

Drake wanted a ninja turtle/ transformer party. He likes to make things a little complicated, but we happily gave him what he wanted!

 Our little transformer/ninja turtle:)

 He had a party with some friends at Blastoff during the day. It was so much fun! They played so hard and ate some pizza. We were pretty much the only ones in the place and it turned out perfect!

 Then we had family over that night for cake and ice cream. He was so excited when he woke up to the house all decorated just for him. He is so excited to be 5!!!! He got spoiled rotten by everyone. He has been playing non-stop with all of his new toys. He got a lot of clothes, ninja turtle stuff, transformer stuff, money and Dusty from planes. He also thought he was very special because Grandma Debbie took him to Toys R Us and let him pick out a new bike.

 My mom always makes his cake and they always turn out so cute:)

Thank you everyone who helped make Drake's day so special. He loved every minute of his birthday!!!!