Top 11 of 2011

11. We survived the year!!! We had tons of fun hanging out together at home. We made it through nights of no sleep and mastered caring for a trached baby!!!

10. Our kids grew up. Drake is now 99% potty trained and can talk up a storm. He surprises us every day with his smarts. Laynie can now sit, roll, back scoot, and stand with assistance. We no longer have a baby in our house. We have a little boy and a toddler girl!!!

09. I got a perm and fried my hair to pieces. I went from long blonde hair to short dark hair!!!
08. Laynie got another couple of surgeries behind her. In July she had her soft palate repaired, choanal atresia repaired, and tubes in her ears. She also had a MRI of her ears which helped us to find out more about her hearing!!!
07. We became old and uncool when we bought our minivan. By the way, I am still loving it!!!
06. We celebrated 6 wonderful years of marriage!!! I have the best husband in the world, seriously I do!!!
05. Little Laynie changed drastically in her physical appearance. We are very pleased with the results of her cleft lip and nose repair. Although, sometimes I miss that cute wide mouthed smile, I know that she will be much happier with the corrected lip. Personally, I think she is adorable either way!!!

Before...
After...
04. We enjoyed a few vacations!!! The first one was to Wolf Creek in June. We had a blast playing in the pool and hanging out!!! Drake entertained the entire pool with his bravery of going down the slide by himself.
Then, Trevor went to Lake Havasu. He had a great time!!!
In November, we survived our first plane ride with 2 kids and an endless supply of medical equipment. We had a wonderful time in California visiting my dad and family!!!
03. We moved into our new house the end of June. We really love it here!!!
02. We celebrated Drake's 3rd Birthday!!! He really owns my heart. He is so cute, funny, stubborn, and tender-hearted!!!
01. We celebrated Laynie's 1st Birthday!!! What a year she has had. She has changed us all in many ways and has led us down a path in life that was not expected. We have learned so much from this little girl and love her so much!!!
Our 2011 was fabulous. We are hoping that 2012 will bring us happiness and GOOD HEALTH!!!

Recent videos...

These are some recent videos. The first one is of Laynie laughing and doing some signing! She knows how to sign "eat" and "more". It is so cute. She didn't show the sign "eat" in the video though. She is a smart little cookie! The other one is of Christmas morning. I think every child needs a video of Christmas morning every year. Drake still isn't super excited about gifts. He liked all of his new things, but he just doesn't have a lot of excitement. I guess this isn't a bad thing, as long as he is grateful!!! It was fun to have a little boy that "sort of" got it this year. It is so much fun to be a parent on Christmas:)

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!!! We had a great Christmas. We spent time with both of our families, ate delicious food, got spoiled like crazy, and enjoyed relaxing a bit. I am so mad at myself because I didn't get my camera fixed before Christmas. We managed to get a few pictures with Trevor's phone, but usually I have sooooo many. The camera is getting sent in ASAP.

Drake was fun this year at Christmas. He was happy that Santa came, even though he has been telling us that he didn't want Christmas. Laynie got sick on Christmas Eve in the middle of the night and was pretty miserable all day on Christmas. Then Christmas evening she woke up from a 4 hour nap and was pretty happy. Kind of bad timing, but at least she is feeling better:) We went over to the Petersen's Christmas morning to open gifts and had to hurry home because she just wasn't feeling well. She seems to be on a great schedule of being sick every other week:(

Drake loves his new toys. Santa brought him a new bike and we are excited to teach him to ride it this summer. Maybe he can get some practice in our basement since it is so cold outside.

Laynie and her cousin on Christmas Eve. They has soooooo much fun banging pots and pans together. They both thought it was such a fun game!!! Laynie is shirtless because she has been battling the pukes again. Vomitting after every feeding.... no fun at all. Poor girl. It went away for 2-3 months and now it is back with a vengeance.

Trevor spoiled me with a beautiful new ring that I love!!! I decided on a change for the new year!!! Before...............

After..............

We hope you all had a Merry Christmas! We feel so blessed and are extremely grateful for our wonderful family, friends, and the Savior this season!!! MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Christmas Princess

The holiday season is so much fun! I love shopping, making treats, eating treats, decorating, and hanging out with family. I had to share a glimpse of our Christmas Princess! She is the cutest thing in the world!

I was looking back at our blog at last Christmas. I can't believe how much Laynie has progressed. It almost breaks my heart to look back, because I would NEVER want to go back in time and repeat the past year. I am so glad to have so much behind us, many questions answered, and many lessons learned. I hope that next Christmas I can say the same thing. Even though Laynie still has most of the same challenges and requires so much care, it is different now. I wouldn't say it is easier, but it is different. It is our new "normal", which makes it more comfortable!

Seriously, isn't she the cutest Christmas Princess ever????

We had a progressive dinner the other night with Trevor's family. We were in charge of dessert. I made this beauty, along with plenty of other treats. I am not the biggest fan of cooking, but I sure love making treats:)

Merry Christmas to everyone!!!

Drake's cuteness!!!

Drake is at a cute age and he makes me laugh all day long!
I wanted to remember some of the cute things he has said/done lately...

I washed his beloved blanky "tag" and I was folding the clothes and he found it. He gave it a huge hug and said to it, "I was so worried about you!" It was so sweet!

He was in the bath tub and he was getting out and he stopped and said, "I love you Mom" then he went to grab his bathtub paint. I only let him use it every once in awhile, because it is such a mess so he knew I would probably say no. Little stinker is too smart sometimes. He knew I couldn't resist right after he told me he loved me!

When he goes pee pee in the toilet he tells me that he wants to go in the hole. He flushes the toilet and goes while there is no water. Sometimes it requires multiple flushings to time it just right:)

He might be the strangest kid in the world.... Any time I talk about Christmas or Santa he says, "I don't want Christmas." If I ask him what toys he wants he just says the same thing. Then I say I will just give all his toys to Laynie and he says "NO". He must not get the whole Christmas thing because it is really weird!

I said, "I love you Drake" and he said, "No, I love Mamma Debbie." He sure knows how to make me feel special:)

I told him he got to go to Grandma and Papa's house for a "little bit" and he says, "No, I want to go for a BIG little bit."

Pictures!!!

I dragged my family out on a beautiful day to get a few quick photos. We were seriously only outside for 5 minutes. Laynie can't breathe really cold air. Trev's brother Jordan and my mom were the professionals behind the camera. They aren't my favorite (of myself), but I have finally gotten them up in a picture collage that I have been wanting to do ever since Laynie was born!

Another busy week...

It was another super busy week last week. I had a bunch of Paparazzi parties and we were in charge of our ward Christmas party this year. It was on Saturday! Everything went really well, but it is a relief to have the week over with!

Our sassy little thing in her cute hat. She is the sweetest thing in the world!

We also had a Christmas party with my bunko group. It was really fun!!!

We had "Breakfast with Santa" for our ward party. Here are the primary kids singing some songs.

Drake and his friend Mason were making snow angels in the gym:) These two are so cute together!!!

We had a little scare while setting up for the party!!! The day before I was in the library making copies and Laynie was in there with me in her stroller. I went out to peek at Drake really quick and when I came back the door was locked. Laynie and the keys were in the library!!! If it were any other kid this wouldn't have been a big deal, but since Laynie has a trach and needs suctioning frequently this was a huge problem!!! A wonderful lady, Jennifer that was with me grabbed her car keys are started running and said she was going to go find some keys. She knocked on someone's door that had a set of keys, but no answer. Luckily there was a small window where I could peek at Laynie, but she was turned the other way so she couldn't see me. She started crying after about 5 minutes. Crying leads to secretions, and secretions lead to a need for suctioning!!! I began to panic!!! Thankfully, Laynie coughed off her HME and valve over her trach so she could cough some of the secretions out on her own. If she wouldn't have done this she wouldn't have been able to get them out, and she would have been in a desperate need of help!!! I called the bishop and asked if there were any more keys in the building, but there weren't. I began debating calling 911 to see if the fire department could come knock the door down, or I was going to start my attempt at knocking it down! It was such a relief when I got a call that Jennifer found a key and was on her way back to the church. It was probably only 15-20 minutes that she was in there, but it was the longest 15 minutes ever! I am so thankful that Jennifer was there with me and knew where to go to find a key and went so fast! I don't think my heart rate went back to a normal rate for a very long time!

On Saturday night we drove up to Heise Pizza. We ate and played games and had a great time:)

Xmas crafts, OT, and the hair saga continues...

Drake has enjoyed himself some Christmas crafts lately. We have the lights, decorations, and tree up and we are all ready for Christmas!

First time painting!

Laynie's Occupational Therapist brought a new device this week. Laynie was not fond of it at all. It is something that is supposed to help kids crawl. She was soooo ticked off. I managed to snap this picture before she realized she was in some crazy contraption.

This is how it went the rest of the time.

And she practiced her coloring

My roots were getting really bad and I knew that I wouldn't be able to put bleach on my hair for a long time if I wanted to keep the hair that I had left on top so.................... I decided to dye it dark. Of course, it didn't turn out like I imagined it would because my hair is so obnoxious. I told the lady I wanted it brown and when you look at it in the light I wanted a tint of red. Well...... I ended up looking like The Little Mermaid!!!

My sister is coming to my rescue tomorrow to try to fix it. It isn't horrible, but not what I wanted. I am hoping for some brown and caramel highlights and hoping my hair stays on my head after another dye job!!!

It seems like once a year I have a little mishap with my hair. Maybe one day I will learn to just leave it alone.

gLOCKETS

My sister Afton just launched her new business... These are so adorable. They are called gLOCKETS. They are glass lockets that open and you can put birth stones in them. They are really great quality and super adorable. I definitely have a gLOCKET on my Christmas list this year! They would make a great Christmas gift. Check out her new website here!!!

P.S. $5 off coupon code is friends