Christmas Vacation

This year all 5 of Brian's siblings and their families (14 grandchildren included) made their way to Boise to celebrate the holidays. Boy what a blast! We all pitched in fixing up Diane's house, cleaning, and cooking mission meals.  We had fun playing racket ball and swimming at the YMCA and ice skating at Ice World.  At home we played Christmas Carols with chimes, the Grinch game, and of course we had a big indoor snowball fight with marshmallows. Too bad most of us got sick from being in such close quarters with each other.  However, we felt so blessed to have everyone together again.  T's family flew in from Alaska and Cam's family flew from Michigan.   I didn't get pictures of everything, but here's some of the fun ones I do have.

 Abby having a great time learning how to climb up and down Uncle Ben's stairs over and over again.

 This pretty little dress is actually a 3T skirt Grandma Tanner bought at Moni's boutique.  I just untied the bow and tied it around her neck to hold it up.  Way cute!

 The kids' table

 All of T's kids, including Maddy here, seemed to love carrying all the babies around.

 Christmas Dinner

 Time to act out the Nativity!

 John reading his part

 Drew playing a shepherd.  Is that PVC pipe really supposed to be sheep?

 Lizy and Brinley playing the angels

Essie was a great big baby Jesus, Sass was Marie, and Maddy was Joseph

 Brian, James, and Jake playing Wise Men

 Snowball (marshmallows blown through PVC pipe) fight!

 All the moms got pj's from Aunt Merilyn.

 Abby was feeling sick and just wasn't that interested in opening presents.

 Abby mainly got books....

 ....and dolls.   Just perfect!

 Cam and John's family

 Excuse me folks, I'm hungry!

 Gracie and her dad Steve

 John and Daniel

 Grandma Tanner, Clara, and James

 Brian heavily protested when he saw the larger size on his new jeans....then he tried them on and admitted they were a perfect fit for his growing belly:)  I told him if he lost weight I'd buy him a smaller size.

 Baby doll from Grandma Cathy

 Well no one really looks all that pretty early on Christmas morning do they???

 Gracie really scored with ALL the Disney princes dolls

    Abby is becoming quite the doll lover herself.  She usually smiles and squeals at them for about 20 seconds before she's off exploring the next object of interest.

Abby's First Birthday!

Teddy Bear Birthday Cake - Super easy cut-up cake using a 9" round cake pan, an 8" square cake pan, and two cup cakes for the ears. I just decorated it with butter cream frosting using a star tip. The miracle is that Abby napped long enough for me to get it done!

Birthday Dinner - Cheesy bagels from Smith's. Love'm, but I really did have something else a little more nutritious for Abby planned. However, sometimes little girls, especially birthday, girls get to have their way. It wasn't long after poor hungry Brian sat down with his bagel before Abby intercepted it and would not let go until it was thoroughly gummed to death.

Cousin Ivy

Her brother, Ethan bouncing around the house like a Tigger.

 Grandma Leavitt

 Cousin Genevieve

 Aunt Minta

 You'd think she was happy or something?  Pretty sure it was all the attention.

 We had lots of helpers opening presents.

 Abby's first taste of birthday cake. 

We think she liked it.........

 because she was clapping for joy!
The question is did she like it because it tasted good or because it was really fun to play with and dump on the floor?

Always happy to have a clean face again!

 One last present.......

 A rocking horse!  Almost like the one at Grandma Tanner's house!  She loves it:)  And of course all the cousins loved taking turns on it as well.

Beca, Damon, and Abby's best friend Vraina made it!  Abby gets so excited when Vraina is here.  She just wants to climb all over her.  Love her super cute skirt with matching hair bow.  I should make one for Abby.

Veggies

Gone are the days of Abby letting me feed her with a spoon! She is playing little miss independant and wants to feed herself. Unfortunately this behavior has drastically reduced the amount of veggies she eats. There just aren't a whole lot of vegetables she can pick up and not choke on. So my brilliant idea was to dump goopy baby food veggies on top of bread peices (her absolute favorite food). Surprisingly enough, it worked! Works even better with a dash of salt.

The Aspiring Pianist

I've recently been called to play the piano in Relief Society. Well I had really played much in the past year or so but I sure do practice (or try to practice) now. My challenge is that I have a little helper. Abby thinks it's her job to help Mama play the piano. She's pretty good at standing up on her toes to reach the keys. When that's not good enough she complains until Mama picks her up so she can really pound out a tune. Meanwhile I get an amazing amount of "hands alone" practice with my little accompanist.

One Happy Baby

Abby had a fabulous nap and just woke up bouncy and happy. Yes, bouncy. I swear this baby is going to jump around like a bunny before she can walk. Brian's mom says he was a lot like this too. Abby, however, is much more smiley and social. She loves watching and interacting with other people, especially other babies and young children.  If there's another kid around, no matter how fussy she may be at the time, her eyes just light up with delight.  I wonder if she will continue to be such a happy extrovert as she gets older?

Abigail

Abigail Marie Tanner
Born Oct. 1st at 7:40pm
2 pounds 5 oz and 14.75 inches long
28 weeks gestation

Abigail was born so early because I came down with pre-eclampsia and HELLP. They life flighted me to Boise for the delivery because their NICU was better equipped to take care of her.

She was in great condition (APGAR scores of 8 and 8) when she was born. She was intubated for the first two days on 22% oxygen but after that she was placed on a CPAP. The little cutie had fingers the width of toothpicks and a head the size of a baseball. Her daiper was smaller than an index card and her binky looked like it belonged to a doll, not a baby. But, I geuss she was about the size of a doll.

I visted her as often as I could while I was recovering in the hospital. Sometimes it was very frustrating because my blood preasure would get so high that the nurses refused to let me get out of bed to see her. I kept trying to persuade them that if they would just let me see my little girl that my blood preasure would go down. They agreed only if I was wheeled over in a wheel chair. Even after I left the hospital my doctor still ordered me to not move around too much. So I'd catch the shuttle from the Ronald McDonald House to the hospital and then have transport wheel me up to the NICU. Gosh I felt silly. But at least I didn't have a stroke.

The first day I held Abigail I was just grinning from ear to ear. She was just so prescious and so tiny. I loved watching her little face make such tiny perfect expressions. I think she enjoyed being close to me after being torn apart for a few days. That's also when my milk decided to come in. By the time I put her back in bed I was drenched!

Abigail progressed pretty well for the first two weeks. Then we hit a pretty big bump in the road. She had to have her UV (umbilical vien) line taken out because it had migrated into her liver. They placed a PICC line in her left leg to give her IV fluids, TPN, and lipids. Then she stopped tollerating her feeds and became extreemly "spelly" meaning she had frequent periods of apnea and bradycardia. A blood test revealed that she had a systemic bacterial infection. Most likely it was from her PICC line. So they pulled her PICC line and gave her fluids through IV sites. They also had to give her several blood transfussions and intubate her for breathing support. The tube in her trachea was very irritating and made her creat lots of mucus secreations. After the antibiotics kicked in she started to feel better. So well in fact that she decided to pull her tube out. We tried her out of CPAP for the night but she was still so weak from her infection that she had to be reintubated the next morning. The trauma of being re-intubated caused a lot of blood to pool up in her lungs and her belly. Poor little girl.
A few days latter she started to feel much better. She had a new PICC line placed and they started weening her off the vent. Then she pulled her tube out AGAIN! This time we put her on a high flow nasal cansula and she's been doing well ever since. She is now a wappen 3 lbs 2 oz!

Yellowstone Trip

Brian and I decided we weren't really busy last weekend, so, we packed up and went to Yellowstone! Life holds few such perfect windows of opportunity for taking vacations and enjoying one's freedom. We called it a babymoon:) I'd love to take a few more if we can.

We biked on Friday and Saturday wherever we possibly could. This was a fun way to see the park because we weren't cramped in the car and we could get places a lot faster than on foot. Watch out for wild animals thogh. I didn't see the bison on the road until we were practically right next to it.
We also swam in Firehole canyon. This was a great way to cool off in not so cold thermal heated water. At the head of the swimming hole we jumped into some deep rapids and let the river carry us down stream . It was fun, but possibly dangerous. I'd recommend a lifejacket (which of course we didn't have).

Of course we walked around many of the geysers and took all sorts of pictures.

Our camping experience was, well, different. The campground was amazingly crowded. I never knew you could shove so many campers into such tight spaces. I'm amazed there was any room left for the trees. We had a bear roaming around the outskirts. Yikes, it was scary having to run to the bathroom at 3 A.M. Despite the crowd and the bear, we actually slept pretty well. Thanks to the electricity in the bathroom we were able to pump up a comfy air mattress. I might also note that this campsite bathroom had flushing toilets, soap, and a mirror:) Not too shabby huh?

My belly is definitely looking pregnant these days! I'm not huge, but I do have a very destinctive buldge. I guess that's about right for 20 weeks, right? I'm having fun with it. It nice that I feel so great and energized. I think I might even be up for the Mt. Timp hike we were planning on sometime in August.