Christmas... mostly pictures... a few months late :)

Christmas was so much fun this year. We had Brooklyn for the first half of Christmas vacation which is always my favorite because we get to have her for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. On Christmas eve we always open our Christmas Jammies and read the Christmas story. It's just a quick version but it helps to reminds us and teaches our children the real meaning of Christmas.

Brooklyn helped Gavin open his jammies.

This pretty much sums up Christmas. Gavin crying and Brooklyn crazy excited.

Modeling her Christmas pajamas.

Brooklyn helped make cookies for Santa.

2011 was my five year anniversary of working at the credit union and so I got a nice gift that we used as part of Christmas and we also got a $1,000 shopping spree at Dicks.... Thank you Utah First. Anyway because of this we ended up having a bigger Christmas than we normally would.

Our Christmas Tree after Santa came! Can you say Spoiled?

Christmas stockings.

Brooklyn's FAVORITE Christmas present.

Gavin/Jessie

Brookie/Jessie

Daddy/Jessie

Mike Wazowski

Lookin Handsome in his Christmas outfit from Grandma Draudt.

Brooklyn the Ice Skating Princess

Chris played hockey over the summer and whenever we took Brooklyn to the games with us she constantly told me how she wanted to go ice skating because as she explained she was four and that meant she could ice skate now. We had taken her skating before and it hadn't turned out so well with tears and everything.

Well... She was right! Apparently being four (at this point she was almost five) means you can ice skate!

Audrey and Mckenna were so patient and helped Brooklyn out so much. By the end of this one day of skating Brooklyn was skating all by herself without any help. She is growing up so much I can't even believe it. We were so proud of out little skater.

Birthday Parties :)

After we went ice skating Brooklyn decided she wanted ice skates and an ice skate dress for her birthday. So we decided to surprise her with an ice skating Birthday Party. She had been talking about having a surprise birthday party for weeks but when we actually did it she was a little taken back and shy about the whole thing.

Chris and I got her Ice Skates and and a Sleeping Beauty ice skate dress for her birthday. She was so excited to have her very own skates that looked just like Audrey and Mckenna's skates. She was also just besides herself about the dress. After she opened it we went in to the bathroom so she could change into the dress and she was shaking she was so excited. It was so wonderful how everything went.

Grandma Debbie made an Ice Skate cake which turned our awesome! We love Brooklyn so much and we're so grateful for all of our families that love and support her.

Aquaphor the Miracle Cream!

Let me tell you... if you have any sort of skin problem Aquaphor is probably the answer. Okay it's probably not the answer to everything but it sure does fix/help a lot.

Just before Gavin was two months old his skin decided to be super sensitive. He had cradle cap and it was really bad when we went to the doctor she told us to use Selsun Blue shampoo on his head. After a couple weeks the Selsun Blue wasn't helping so I called the doctor back and she called in a prescription shampoo for him that we were to use every other day. We also had to switch to Free and Clear laundry detergent and Aveno baby soap and lotion. The prescription shampoo helped his scalp clear up but his forehead was still a mess. His forehead looked awful and felt like a big scab and it would weep. The doctor called in a cream form of the same stuff that was in the shampoo and that didn't help. Everything about his skin at this point just kept getting worse.

About a week before his 4 month appointment I couldn't wait any longer I felt so bad for Gavin that nothing we were doing was helping. Because of everything going on with his skin and head he was super itchy and I think it may have contributed to him not being very happy. We found out that he has cradle cap and eczema. We were given some steroid creams to put on the affected areas three times a day... which at that point was pretty much his whole body. Our doctor also told us to grease his whole body up with aquaphor twice a day. Once in the morning and once at night. This was a lot of work but it cleared everything up so quickly! It was wonderful to have a baby with soft baby skin again. He was so much happier when everything cleared up and could be trusted without socks on his hands.

We've had a few break outs since then and we just break out the creams and socks and everything again but it's so wonderful knowing what will help. He's also had his cradle cap come back a little bit and he'll scratch his head so I tried putting aquaphor on his head to see if it would help with the itching. It makes his hair super greasy but helped pretty much clear up the cradle cap. Before Gavin we knew some of the miracle of Aquaphor but now we know it's even more incredible.

 Uses for Aquaphor...

Cracked/Dry lips
Use on cuts and scrapes
Face Rash (Some kind of Dermatitis that I have at the moment... don't remember the name)
Dry Skin 
Cradle cap
Eczema
Diaper Rash

Monthly Pictures 1-4

Gavin has grown so much in the past... almost five months! We all love him so much and are so grateful to have his sweet spirit as a part of our family.

One Month Old! Sporting Daddy's chicken legs.

Two Months Old!

Three Months Old!

Four Months Old! I love my feet!

Oh Goodness!

I was planning on updating the blog today... I realized there are so many things I haven't blogged about I am so behind it's almost overwhelming. It might take me forever to catch up but I'm determined to do it!

Birth Story (Part 2)

After Gavin was born he had a hard time getting enough oxygen and they did a bunch of tests and x-rayed his lungs. I was still sort of out of it when they wheeled me downstairs to our room. The nurses and doctors updated me a few times telling me that hopefully they would be able to bring him to me in a couple of hours. Well those couple of hours turned into a few hours and it felt like an eternity.

They ended up putting him on an antibiotic and in the NICU. Those hours were so hard. It was so hard knowing I hadn't really seen my son yet.  Chris held him up to me after he was born before they took him downstairs but I was so out of it by that point that I couldn't really register anything. I remember at one point when one of the nurses was talking to me about Gavin telling me if they hadn't brought him to me by nine that night that they would take me in to see him and I just cried. I knew he was getting the care he needed but I just wanted to be with him.

At about nine thirty or so they wheeled me in (still in the bed) to see Gavin. It's so hard to see your little baby hooked up to so many monitors with an IV in his little foot. He was so beautiful and I was so grateful to be with him. The next time I saw him was a few hours later when they called me to come in to feed him. I was still attached to everything at this point and it was hard to get around. I remember them calling on the phone saying he's ready to eat and I could hear him cry. That was all I needed to get out of that bed. It hurt and it was hard to get up (a lot of help was required from Chris) but it was so worth it knowing I would get to see my beautiful baby.

Those precious hours we spent in the NICU were wonderful. I would feed Gavin and then Chris would burp him so we would both get a chance to hold him. I think the fact that I had to get up to see him was motivation for me to get up and I think it helped me recover quickly. I remember one of my nurses told me that the best way to recover from a c-section is to act like it didn't happen. I had been so scared to get up and feel the pain from everything in the beginning but having to get up to see Gavin helped me so much.

We were blessed to have Gavin when we did. Had he been born much later in the year and we wouldn't have been able to take anyone in the NICU with us to see him. We were blessed to be able to take two people in at a time to see him. They didn't necessarily get to hold him but I was so proud to show him off. After 48 hours in the NICU Gavin was able to come be with us. What a wonderful gift. Chris and his brothers and his dad helped give Gavin a blessing. I am so appreciative that I have a worth priesthood holder in my home and that can take care of our family. We had to rely on the Lord so much in the first few weeks of Gavin's life. It definitely strengthened our testimonies.

After Gavin came out of the NICU he had to go under a biliblanket because his bilirubin levels were high. They had him on the blanket for a while and were going to check his levels and possibly send us home with a biliblanket. Well when they checked the levels they had gone up even though he was on the blanket. We decided to have him stay a little longer under the lights. It was hard to watch him under the lights because they had to cover his eyes. Gavin has always been a very alert baby and did not like having his eyes covered. He would be fine but any time the door would shut or there was a loud noise he would turn his head toward the noise and lose it because he couldn't see what was happening. Being under the lights helped his levels so much that we didn't even have to go home on a blanket. We only had to go back to the hospital and have him checked once. It was wonderful.

The day that we went home Grandma Debbie and Aunt Amanda picked up Brooklyn so that she could come spend the first two weeks at home with baby Gavin. Our nurse was running a little late in coming to check us out so she gave us all three of the diaper bags that the hospital offers. All of our nurses were so nice and friendly and helpful. I am so grateful for all the wonderful people that took care of me and my baby during our stay in the hospital.

Back to Work

Well today is my first day back to work. I loved the time I had at home with my little man and hope to be home with him again soon. I haven't posted much in the last few months... it's much more fun to spend my time with Gavin then it is to spend time on the computer.

Gavin is being taken care of by family which is wonderful. Being gone from him, it's comforting knowing he's with people that love him. I'm not gonna lie it's been a really hard day and I just held him and cried for quite a while before I left this morning.

Anyway... I'll probably update my blog more often and I can catch up on all the wonderful things that have been going on with our family. Which reminds me I need to change the name of our blog... any name suggestions are more than welcome :)