Thanksgiving Weekend

It's about time I post our Thanksgiving weekend!! We had Thanksgiving with my family on Wednesday night. We had to wait until after Josh got out of school before we could go up there. When we got there, we walked in to family pictures being taken. My Grandpa & Grandma Porter were there, too! They came up to see baby Gavin.

We had yummy dinner and dessert. I'm glad Chelsie was able to come home, we missed Brian though.

We went down to Josh's mom's for Thanksgiving with his brother's Shane and Austin. Shane had Lucy for the weekend so we got to spend time with her, too. She's so cute and really opened up to Josh and I. She was my little friend for the day.

Josh and Shane looking through some old pictures from when they were little.

Rosie had been working hard all day in the kitchen making our yummy dinner. We had a couple of little mishaps with the turkey but it all tasted very good! It was really fun to hang out with them and to see baby Lucy. I wish Tycen would have been there but he was in New Mexico with his mom. We all watched A Christmas Story together. We all didn't make it very far into it before we all were napping! Lucy didn't take a nap all day so she and I took a nap on the couch.

My mom and Chelsie were going down to Spanish Fork to see my aunts, cousins and Grandma. Josh and I met them at Thanksgiving Point so I could go down to Spanish Fork with them for the weekend and Josh had to get back up to Logan to work the weekend.

We got down to Aspen's in time to have Thanksgiving again! It was really fun to see everyone down there and to spend time with them.

We were down there to go to a craft fair with my aunts. My mom brought all her jewelry down to sell, my aunt Amanda made some VERY, VERY cute magnet boards and wood blocks and my Aunt Aspen made some tiles with the vinyl writing on them. Amanda also had make these Grinch's. She had some more to paint so she had my mom draw the lines on them.

I stayed the night at Aspen's and she and I were up til 2 am putting the vinyl on the tiles. Aspen's little boy, Draven, was up with us watching RV. It's been a LONG time since I was up that late! We had a lot of fun playing with her Cricut, though!

The craft fair started Friday morning. Aspen and I got there just in time for it to start. Our booth was pretty small for all 5 of us to be smashed in there, but we had fun being together.

There weren't very many people there the first day and nobody was really buying anything from any of the vendors there. So we had Avery go outside with one of her mom's, my aunt Amanda, magnet boards to try to get people to come in. She was really cute and such a good sport!

The Light Parade was going on Friday night so I went to watch it with my cousins, Amanda and Aspen.

Jaylen, Wyatt, Draven and Hallie watching the parade.

Then all of us girls and Nielson went to see New Moon. They all loved it. Chelsie had never read the books and but after that movie she started reading them and hasn't been able to put them down! It was a blast with all of them.

We were at the craft fair again on Saturday and people were buying more than they were on Friday. My mom did pretty good so we were happy about that! We came home after the fair got over that night, but it was a really fun weekend. I felt bad for Josh who had to work all weekend and I really missed him.

I finally got the Christmas decorations up in our house and with the snowfall yesterday it is finally feeling like Christmas. I don't know why it has to be so bitter cold though!

New Moon Weekend

We had just another lazy weekend. We didn't do much yesterday, just got caught up with laundry and did some cleaning. We went to dinner with my mom at Angie's last night and got some entertainment while we were there. My mom and I were sitting at our booth waiting for Josh to get there and a fire truck pulled up and about 10 firefighters and EMTs come in. They weren't in a big hurry and didn't have the stretcher with them so we couldn't figure out what was going on. Later we found out that one of the staff there had an asthma attack and quit breathing.

Today, Josh and I just hung around the house. I went to New Moon with Tara and Atty. Josh didn't want to go because he didn't want to have to fight a crowd. Tara and Atty were already standing in line when I got there. It was so dang cold outside waiting for the box office to open. The movie was so dang good. I loved it! Much better than the first one.

I can't believe Thanksgiving is this week! This year has gone by way too fast. I love the holidays. I'm so excited to see my little sister on Wednesday! I hope you all have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Pictures and Weekend Happenings

My mom and I took pictures of Jade, Brit and the boys on Saturday to get their first family pictures. The weather was awful, snowy and very cold. Which meant with the snowy weather, we wouldn't get very good lighting. We tried to get the same pictures we took of Branson when he was just a baby. Gavin didn't cooperate very well, he was very awake.

Giving baby brother a "love"

We aren't really satisfied with the pictures so we're gonna have to do it again, but that's just fine with me. I love taking pictures of these boys.

I stayed at my mom's til about midnight Saturday making watch bands. I made me 2 really cute ones and got one made for a Christmas gift for my special Lu. We're going down to Spanish Fork the day after Thanksgiving where my mom and her sister's will have a booth at a craft fair. My mom is selling her watch bands, necklaces and earrings and my aunts are selling vinyl lettering and hair bows. I'm excited to go and hang out with the girls, it'll be fun. I'll miss Josh though, I always do. I hate being away from him overnight!

While I was at my mom's she told me my dad's cat was dying. We tried to get some antibiotics in him, thinking he probably had a UTI or something bacterial. We got two doses down him, but my mom told me today that Goldie passed away. I went to my dad's work to tell him I was sorry his buddy died. He loved that cat so much. Goldie wouldn't settle down after my dad got home from work until my dad sat in the chair and Goldie got up on my dad's chest where they could touch heart to heart. It's tough to see my dad cry. He is sure going to miss his buddy. We found him in our garage when my parents were moving out of their house about 7 years ago. It was winter and we didn't want the cute puffy kitten to be out in the cold over the winter so we took him in. My parents had his tail amputated after it got infected from a fight he got into, he was the guard cat.

It is so dang cold outside today. Josh and I have just hung out in the house all day. We slept in, after Josh got home from work at 7 am, and have been lazy. We got Josh's homework done and have been camped out on the couch with our blankets and laptops and our furbabies. The perfect day!

Brinley's Lemonade Stand

Through the wonderful world of blogging we've found a friend of Josh's from high school. We've been following her blog about her daughter's fight against leukemia for a long time. I've never met Kristin until Saturday. We went down to Salt Lake because they were having a fund raiser at a Smith's to raise money for childhood cancer awareness. It was really fun to meet them for the first time and to see their beautiful children. Brinley is so cute and we were so happy to donate to such a great cause. That family has been through hell and back over the past year and will continue to do so for the next year of Brinley's treatment. You can read about her story here.

While we were down there we also got to go have lunch with Rosie, Josh's mom, at Applebee's. It was so good to see her. We don't see her near as much as we would like. I definitley hit the jack pot when I married Josh, not only did I get the best husband but also the best family! We also went to visit my 3 favorite kids. DJ and I played Legos, building tall towers that kept falling down. They showed us their Halloween costumes, they were so cute! I wish we could have gone trick or treating with them.

Special Delivery

It's a long one so get prepared!

Our new nephew Gavin was born today at 1:21 pm. It was a very stressful delivery. Brit was induced and they got her going at about 8 or 8:30 am. When she got to the hospital to get started they told her she was only dilated to a 2 or 2 1/2, but on Saturday they went to the hospital and they told her she was at a 4. So we didn't know what she really was at for a while. My mom and I headed down to Layton at about 8 am, when we got to the hospital her Dr. hadn't been in to check her yet. He got there at about 10:30 and said she was almost at a 4 and he broke her water. Her contractions were getting pretty intense and it took forever for the anesthesiologist to get there. They finally got the epidural in and then things went along really quick. She dilated from a 5 to a 7 in about 20 minutes, they had at hard time getting Brit on a side that was comfortable for her and good for the baby. His heart rate kept dropping which had been the story all day, they just couldn't get the monitor in the right spot and keep it there. The nurse finally had to put the fetal monitor on Gavin's head and had to do it twice! They still couldn't keep his heart rate up, it just kept dropping. The nurse started getting a little worried and we were coming up on 1 pm. We asked if the nurses could get someone to give Brit and Gavin a blessing. No one ever came. The nurse came in and said they were going to prep Brit for a c-section. Brittiney was really scared at this point because of Gavin's heart rate and she didn't want to be away from Branson that long recovering in the hospital. They won't let kids under the age of 12 visit in the hospital because of the swine flu so Branson will be away from his mom until they discharge her from the hospital.

Since no one ever came to give her a blessing and they were wanting to take her to the OR right away, my mom said a prayer. It was pretty emotional for us 4 girls, we were crying messes. We know this stuff happens all the time but when it happens to someone in your family, it's scary. They took her in to the OR, which luckily for Wendy, my mom and I was right across the hall from the room we had been in, and came and got Jade about 5 minutes later. Her doctor finally came into the room to check out what was going on with Gavin and we had to tell him she was already in the OR, he had a panicked look on his face. So us three girls just stood in the doorway for the next 15 minutes calling everyone letting them know what was going on. We were looking through the windows on the door right into the OR room they were in but couldn't really see much, then they put the screen up so we couldn't see anything but the top of the door way. The anesthesiologist came out and said everything was going okay and that she was fully dilated and they were going to let her just try to deliver him naturally, with the help of the vacuum, instead of the c-section, we were so relieved to hear that! We stood there anxiously waiting and then we thought we heard a cry so I went up to the doors to listen through the crack and almost got ran over twice by someone coming out of the doors, cause I'm smart for standing there! Then at 1:21 pm we finally we heard him cry! We finally relaxed. Someone came out and told us he was fine, they just took him to the NICU for precaution to make sure he was okay. Then they came and said he was in the nursery so we could go see him.

We watched him get all cleaned up and get his shots. He weighs 7 lbs 6 oz and is 19 inches long. They didn't let me into the nursery to take pictures like they did with Branson so I had to do it through the glass.

We went back to the room to see Brit after they were done giving Gavin his bath. It took a while for them to finally bring Gavin in. I guess they were wanting to make sure he was warm enough. He's so sweet and has the cutest cry.

I wish Branson could have been there to see his new little brother and I could have gotten their first new family picture.

They came in to move Brittiney to the maternity room so we all caravaned down there. Once we were in the room Wendy was handing Gavin, who was still wrapped in the hospital issued blanket, to my mom just as Brit's new nurse came in and she freaked out on us and told us that we couldn't have babies in there. Brit told her it was her baby that she had just had, then the nurse said that Gavin was big. We just looked at each other like "seriously?". Brit told her what he weighed and she started saying how people were bringing their brand new babies into the hospital and that they can't because the babies were so suseptible to the H1N1 virus. She was a little bit of a fruit cake!

They are going to bottle feed him and Jade got to feed Gavin his first bottle. At first he didn't like it but by the time we were leaving he was sucking it down pretty good. Mom and I got to change his first diaper and Brittiney was up walking around by 6 pm. She was doing a lot better than I thought she would after being prepped for a c-section and given the anesthesia.We took Jade to Red Robin to get some dinner. Brittiney hadn't had anything to eat so she ordered some chicken noodle soup but it was nasty she said so we got her some dinner, too.
Jade was excited to be able to swaddle a baby again. He said that was one thing he did very well, and he really does! That baby was wrapped like a burrito!
He was sleeping on my lap and I caught him smiling, he was pulling some pretty funny faces.
He threw up after one of his feedings so I got to change his clothes. I love naked babies!
When my mom and I were leaving Jade and Brit took Gavin back to the nursery so they could go down to the waiting room and see Branson. He was so excited to see us all, he was screaming and running in circles! He was so happy to see his mom and dad. He's going to have so much fun with his new baby brother and so are we!

Happy Birthday Branson!

Today is Branson's first birthday. We had a birthday party for him on Saturday with both families. It was a lot of fun to watch him open his presents and get excited. He got his own little cake to tear apart and eat and he loved it!

He got lots of fun presents. He loves this vacuum my parents got for him. He loves to follow my mom around when she is vacuuming so she thought he would enjoy his own vacuum. It sings songs and teaches him the ABCs but he only likes it if it's on the vacuum sound. He walks around vacuuming pushing it going back and forth with a very concentrated look on his face like he's really doing it. It's hilarious!

Weekend Re-Cap

We had a great weekend. Josh is finally feeling better, the stupid cold is still lingering but he's doing better. We went to Cody and Tara's Friday night and Saturday night because Morgan came up from Cedar City for the weekend. Morgan brought her cute, little puppy Ebony. She's grown so much and is so fun. The boys and Morgan played Halo and Tara and I looked up jewelry online and played with the puppy and Athena. That seems to be the usual for our weekends lately which is good because I love hanging out with them.

We stopped by tonight to watch the Dodger game and to take them so pumpkins from my parent's pumpkin patch but Cody had been in bed all day with a terrible migraine so we had dinner with the rest of them and watched a little of the game.

We went up to my parent's today to take first year pictures of Branson while it is still pretty outside. We went up Cub River and the leaves were so pretty and it was a beautiful, warm day! My mom, Brittiney and I got some very cute pictures of our sweet boy. He's so much fun and is learning my name. We went to see Jade and Brit's new house today and when we walked in and Branson saw us he led me in his room with his hand in the air pointing at his new room, then he lead me to the other rooms just smiling. He was so excited!