Scenery Shots

I sure love living in Utah. I think it is gorgeous!

Iowa Recap

Even though it was sad circumstances to go out to Iowa, Ben's parents, siblings, and extended family are so fabulous that we were still able to have a lot of enjoyable times and good laughs. We got to go spend an afternoon in probably mine and Ben's favorite city, Ames (also where Autumn was born). If Ben didn't love his job so much in Provo, and Utah hadn't grown on us so much we would try to find a job in Ames.

We also got to enjoy the fall foliage and they had a couple of overcast and dreary days, which seemed kind of appropriate for Ben's sister's viewing and memorial service, but then we had a beautiful sunny day that was just perfect for playing the backyard.

Zephyr

Prairie, Papi and Zephyr enjoying the porch swing in the backyard of Poopa and Grandmother's house

Silas (Zephyr's cousin that is one week older)

Silas enjoying the leaves

Prairie having fun throwing leaves in the air

Autumn having so much fun in the backyard

Ben's little sister, Lindsey, finally consented to Ben doing his trick with Silas, Silas was a champ

This is how invigorating the trip to Ames was for Prairie (just kidding she had a great time at the Ames Public Library when Papi put on a puppet show to enertain all the kids in the children's section of the library)

This is how Zephyr loves to such his fingers, especially when he is eating solids, one bite of food, one such on the fingers, another bite of food, another suck on the fingers

Autumn and Prairie had a blast using the plethora of canes around the house as crutches

Zephyr and Silas holding hands (and then shortly after that they kept grabbing the other one's pacifier)

Autumn, Zephyr and Prairie with great-Grandma Parker (this is Ben's mom's mom)

Halloween Recap

We did a lot of fun things for Halloween. The week before halloween we had a halloween party for the girls and their friends. It was nonstop work, so I don't have any pictures from the party with 11 little kids running around.

I was working on Zephyr's Halloween costume (and his winter coat, it was a combo deal) and I thought I want this to fit all winter, so I made it a 6-9 month size. Well when it was almost done, I tried it on Zephyr, and it was huge. Luckily I had exactly enough fabric let to make a 3-6 month size. Well Zephyr's cousin that is 1 week older than him is much larger, and the larger one fit him perfect, so they had matching costumes. Their grandpa calls Silas the Bullfrong and Zephyr the tadpole.

The kids at the Monte L. Bean museum for the halloween festivities

Autumn as Belle and her brand new American girl doll that she has been saving up for for months in her matching Belle dress

Prairie as Diego from the Nickoloden show Go Diego Go, who is Dora the Explorer's cousin

and of course Prairie had to have a rescue pack

Hannah, Ben's cousin, Zephyr, Silas, Prairie, Autumn and Chrissa (Autumn's doll)

Ben and his sister Lindsey each of them holding their son, in their matching frog costumes

Smiley Silas and cutie Zephyr in the frog costumes

Autumn with her haul, she was pleased!

(Prairie was too excited to start eating to set our her candy in piles)

So Sad

Beautiful Laura

A week ago today we found out that Ben's little sister, Laura, ended her own life. She had been struggling with a deep and devastating depression for many years. She tried so hard to survive. I feel so sad that this seemed like the best solution to her. I'm sad that I didn't understand the extent to how bad it was while she was alive. I'm sad that she won't be there to do the makeup and the hair of my girls for prom, because heaven knows I do not have talents there. I will miss her laugh and her quick whit. I am grateful that when she really had nothing to give, she still gave to my girls, because they love their aunt Laura and miss her terribly. That even when things were so bad, she would come babysit, build forts, do fingernails, make smores for them. My daughters have the best memories of their aunt Laura and I am so grateful for that. I will miss our deep conversations about life. I will miss the emotion that she was able to pour into a piano. I will miss her.

Ben and Laura (Laura figured out how to play the accordion that Ben got for free on craigslist)

Laura with Yvette on Ben's birthday

Laura snuggling with the girls

Autumn and Laura

Autumn and Laura

Laura and Autumn reading books together

Laura with Prairie

Prairie and Laura on Prairie's first birthday

Prairie and Laura

Laura and Zephyr (the only day I have pictures of Laura and Zephyr together)

Laura and Prairie

Emily and Laura

Our Weekend Getaway

We got a 4 night stay at the ..... Hospital! Thursday night Zephyr had a fever, gave him some tylenol, that seemed to help. But all day friday he was burning up. When Ben got home from work he decided that we should take him to the doctor's. We took his temperature and it was 103.7 degrees. When Ben called the doctor's office and told them, they told him to come in immediately.

When they got to the doctor's the doctor said he needed to go to the hospital. He was still running a really high fever and he was very lethargic, non-responsive, they figured he was severely dehydrated and needed an IV. So Zephyr's fever broke and by Saturday morning, he was feeling sooo good, he was laughing and playing and Ben and I had such a good time with them.

By the afternoon he was really really fussy. Everything they tested (swine flue, avian flu, RSV, regular flu, all kinds of viruses) for he came up negative. Because of his extreme fussiness and because his oxygen saturations and his heart rate would drop lower than they were comfortable with we ended up staying an additional 3 nights, even though his high fever was basically gone after the first night.

Because the doctor couldn't figure out what was wrong with Zephyr, they wanted to make sure their wasn't some underlying heart problem. So Zephyr got to have a EKG and an echo cardiogram. For the echo he had to be sedated, and that was honestly kind of scary for me. His echo turned out completely normal and his heart looks great. They never figured out what made Zephyr sick, but he is better now and at home, yay!

Zephyr in his hospital crib, hooked up to monitors, an IV and antibiotics (oxygen didn't come until later)

Zephyr with his monitors

Getting and IV is no fun, here is his hand with the IV, they had to keep his wrist destabilized so it wouldn't come out, and all of his fingers taped

We had a nice view from our room, I do love Provo

Papi and Zephyr playing, when Zephyr felt soooo much better after being hydrated

Zephyr showing off his baby hospital gown, with his hospital tag and his sensor for oxygen saturation, Zephyr really didn't like that sensor, they had to redo and redo that one, because he would push it off with his feet

back view of Zephyr with his baby hospital gown

some things don't change even at the hospital, Zephyr loves to sleep in his sling, it was a little trickier though to get him in with all of his cords attached to him, plus whenever I put him in the sling, the oxygen saturation didn't read as well

Zephyr with his oxygen tubes

Autumn holding Zephyr in the hospital

Zephyr with tons of extra cords (yes that is a pink pacifier, and Ben is the one that brought it because we use all his other pacifiers, Ben couldn't find them when he went to the house to get stuff for the hospital)

Zephyr sedated getting his echo cardiogram

Silas

My sister-in-law requested that I post some pictures of my nephew Silas since she doesn't live close anymore and doesn't get to see the babies. Silas is our nephew that is exactly one week older than Zephyr. Ben's little sister and her husband and son moved to Utah from Idaho, and now only live 40 minutes away, and we have been spending a lot of time with them. It is really fun to have them close, especially since we have babies so close in age. I figure that if Zephyr never has a brother, Silas and him cane be like brothers since they are so close in age.

This is Ben's youngest sister, Lindsey and her son Silas, isn't Lindsey gorgeous?!

Prairie holding Silas

It might just be me, but when I see Silas I totally think of the bald cabbage patch doll. Silas is so cute, and so chunky, the complete opposite of Zephyr, who is soooo thin

Silas is very advanced for his age. He is very strong, he has been sitting up well on his own for a while, and is strong enough to hold on to the couch and stand without assistance from his mom for a little bit

Prairie, Autumn, Silas and Lindsey hanging out on the green couch

First day of school

Autumn started kindergarten 2 weeks ago. She was really nervous, but she LOVES it! She is in a Spanish language dual immersion class. Here are some pictures of her in her princess first day of school outfit.


She even had disney princess hairties and disney princess socks.

Autumn being cute!

Autumn with her backpack

We had a back-to-school dinner the night before kindergarten started. We had pesto, green beans, and broccoli. Autumn made limeade to drink and I made a key lime pie (recipe taken from Cafe Johnsonia) and we add green food coloring to the key lime pie so it really looked green to stay with the green theme. Then Ben helped Autumn make green whip cream for the waffles. Autumn said we had to use green plates, so we gathered as many green dishes as we could. It was a lot of fun, and Autumn really liked it.

Autumn with her key lime pie with green whip cream and green spinkles

5 months old

Zephyr is 5 months old today! He has been soooo different from our girls. He doesn't like to play on the floor, he wants to be held all the time, he isn't that interested in toys, he just wants his mommy. He is a tiny peanut just like Autumn was. He weighed intoday at 11 lbs 12 oz, which is tiny for his age, he is below the chart, so he doesn't have a percentile. But because he is so small he can still wear all of his 0-3 month clothes. Here is a picture of him in his spiderman jammies and the same ones he wore the night he was born, wearing them when he was 2 hours old.

Zephyr 5 months old wearing the same spiderman pj's

Zephyr 2 hours old wearing the spiderman pj's