It was a Friendly January!

*Play song, "Get by with the Help of my Friends" with this post

We were lucky in the month of January to have friends visit us, and likewise we visited some as well! Friends old and new, but all near and dear to our hearts!

First was the Harpers. Now, we first met Angie and Megan at the conference back in Indianapolis in July. We were really excited when we found out that Megan has 18q- same as Em.... and even more excited to learn they live in Utah! However, they do live in Logan, which is about 2 1/2 hours from us, so it will still be a treat every time we see them I'm sure! Nicely we pass through Logan when we go to Preston, Idaho to see Steve's grandparents and other extended family.... but this time they came to us!

We started off with lunch at a fave, Texas Roadhouse. And when we suggested things to do, Angie expressed a real desire to hit the Disney Store. I didn't really know until last summer (when I was hunting down Emarie's Rapunzel) that we have pretty much the only Disney Store for a big stretch of miles.... only one in Utah anyway, but actually found out that won't be for long! Apparently they're opening one in Salt Lake next month! But anyway, I don't blame them for wanting to go, and I never mind a chance to get there myself (like a kid again when I go in there!). It worked out nice since we were able to let Megan choose a gift for us to get her (late Christmas gift). She chose a Minnie Mouse (smart girl!). 

Next we went to the Provo mall so we could finally finish Em's birthday activities! And that was to ride the carousel and train they have there. 

 Em had pretty platonic emotions for the majority of the ride.... only reason we knew she liked it, is that she "asked" to get back on when we got off!

 Megan on the other hand was very apprehensive from the get go... and her unease only increased!

 This was right after Em had bumped her head on the bar in front of her... she didn't cry just had a surprised look and then made sure to hold on after that! Though we didn't notice a war wound until later.... we blame the fact that there was no nose piece on her glasses where the scratch occurred. 

Em holding on now!

 And this was the point that Megan was really not being shy about letting her feelings known to all!

 This was after it was done moving... she had stopped crying, but still was sure to let everyone know she wasn't happy being on there!

 "Did you like it Em??"

Thankfully the train went over much better with Miss Megan!

 Love this one of Megan!

 Em standing!

Angie and Megan

I should also mention that we finally got to meet Angie's husband (and Megan's dad of course!), Danny. He wasn't able to come to the conference due to what he does for a living (their family manufactures the wonderful Creamies that are amazing!). Sorry we didn't get any pictures of the guys this time.... next time for sure though!

Next friendly visit was when I went up to Taylorsville to see my dear friend Bekka! I first met Bekka several years ago when I interviewed her to be one of the assistants in my classroom and she and I hit it off right away! We are alike in a lot of ways, and just can relate on so many levels. I love this girl to pieces and she has been going through some really hard times! She had her first little girl Grace and shortly before she had her is when she quit working for me :( and moved North to be closer to hers and her husband's families. A few months ago they found out her mother has a really aggressive form of cancer and has had quite a few other (rather nasty) things on top of that. One was a flesh eating bacteria that caused the need for her to get her leg amputated, and my goodness I could not imagine having to see my mom go through something like that. And this girl is incredibly close to her mother, so please keep them in your prayers!

 Adorable Gracie!

Grace and Em playing together. Em didn't quite know what to think of Gracie's busy demeanor! She was very interested in Emarie, and kept pulling on her clothes, glasses and even her skin! Em was a good sport though!

Like I said, Grace is a very busy girl!

 Putting everything in her mouth (pretty typical of any baby though!)

And playing with the lights... which mom doesn't like!

And Grace with her beautiful mother Bekka!

I should also mention that we attended my bestie's (Lacey) baby boy's dedication.... but unfortunately I did not remember to take any pictures, even though I had my camera! But I have a lot of pictures of this cute boy, so here's a few!

 Adorable Elijah!! Just love him!

So, I am finally caught up with everything in January I believe! 

I know of....

*Play song, "Hold On" with this post

I know of fear

I know of panic

I know of worry

I know of trauma

I know of sudden loss.... because of this, I believe it causes these other feelings to be more intense

On the other hand...

I know of hope

I know of faith

I know of the calming peace that suddenly comes, allowing me to do things like jam an epinephrin injection into my husband's leg and then get him to the hospital safely but quickly

I know of complete and utter relief

I know of profound gratefulness 

I know of miracles

I have almost lost my husband more times than is fair. I have almost lost my little girl as well more times than is fair. The two people that mean most to me in the world.... the two people whom I love more than anything. The two people to whom would completely change my world if anything happened to either one of them. 

Today Steve had an anaphylactic reaction, and no this wasn't his first.... it wasn't even his second, but it was his fifth in the course of 4 years. I don't know the odds of surviving that many anaphylactic reactions, but my guess is that it's not very high. It's a pure miracle, that he is asleep beside me right now. This was his first in nearly four years, I thought it would never happen again, and even though it was always in the back of my mind with the "what if's" and the "hope not's".... but I didn't worry about it.... that is, until last night. 

They were never able to give us a definite answer as to what caused it four years ago.... the best they could do was to have Steve treat and prevent his hay-fever since it was pretty certain that that was a contributing factor. We were able to narrow it down to 3 things that Steve was fine to have if his hay-fever was at bay: almonds, artificial sweeteners and aspirin. Now we are 99% sure that it is aspirin and that anaphylaxis is always changing since Steve has no sign of hay-fever currently. He is not allowed to take it anymore and I'm not even sure if I'll keep it in the house anymore.

I think people who've lived through real trauma have a different perspective on the world.... not always a bad thing.... not always a good thing either. I have a fear so intense about loosing the ones I love because I know what that loss feels like. But it also helps me remember that I need to keep a clear head because they may need to rely on me. 

This picture was taken May 3rd 2008. I will never forget this day. Steve took this picture with his phone right before he called me. I was almost to work when I answered and could barely understand him tell me that he was having an allergic reaction, that he came home from work and had taken some benadryl and thought that he was fine. I knew why I couldn't understand him.... his tongue was swollen, and it could be a matter of minutes before his throat closed. I thought about calling 911, but knew I could be faster and it didn't take but a split second before I was making an illegal u-turn to head back home.

When I got home, panic took over when Steve didn't respond to my calling to him. I finally found him the bedroom and my heart nearly stopped at the sight of him, because as hard as this may be to believe because of the above picture, he did get worse.... a lot worse. 

Luckily he was barely coherent enough to follow my barking instructions for him to get in the car. We live 5 minutes from the best hospital in Utah county, but I still drove about three times the speed limit and I'm so glad I did, because we literally got there just in time. 

I'll never forget the panicked looks on the ER staff as they immediately took Steve to triage when we entered the doors. I'll also never forget the alarms going off everywhere and the hurried orders that were called from every direction as we all watched his heart rate drop to almost nothing.... the doctors later called it "near cardiac arrest". 

We did not have an Epi Pen then.... but we did this time

This is the difference it made... yes you can clearly see that his right eye is pretty swollen, as well as his lips. And you can see a few hives on his face.... but Steve was able to walk around, he knew what was going on.... he could breathe.... his heart rate did not drop.... and he came home yet again.

We may gripe about the cost of those Epi Pens and the fact that they're more likely to expire before you'd ever have to use them. But I will never complain on their behalf because I know that they are powerful.... that they save lives. 

One saved the life of someone that means the world to me.... and I don't think you can put a price on that.

Truth is that we spent over $1,200 today on the ER visit, the 2 Epi Pen refills and prednisone.... but the bigger truth is I'd do it over and over again.

Pretty cheap for someone I love.

New Year's Trip to Sedona

So, I got a comment the other day about how we (as a family) are always going on trips.... really?? I guess we do go on a lot, but most of the time they are just little getaways. Like the trips to Steamboat Springs every year on my birthday, a place very near and dear to my heart, so this is always something Steve does for me :) And then the conferences, and of course here and there we get to go some places thanks to my wonderful grandmother and grandfather! They are members of the Gold Crown Resorts, so get points toward any Crown Resort... anywhere. Most of the time we take them up on going to Sedona... we love it there! I took Steve and Em there for the first time on our way back from our very first Chromosome 18 Conference to San Antonio back in 2008 (before I blogged).

Em was nearing 7 months in these pictures

Then my mom, Em and I went for Spring Break in 2010, I did blog about this trip here.

I also have been several times growing up with my family

 Me, one of my besties Ashley and my cousin Cassidy

Me, my baby brother Connor (he was about 2 here) and Cassidy again

My cousin Alexis, Cassidy, me, my cousin Melissa and my cousin Ashlee (this shot is courtesy of my grandmother, she was crazy and took us five girls ((all pre-merging teenagers)) on this trip by herself!)

All of the above pictures were summer 98 and 99 (which would have put me in Jr. high and first year of high school), please don't tell me I look the same!

Now for this trip, we left the day after Christmas.... not as early as we would have liked because it took us a while longer to get out the door in the first place... and then we had to turn around and come back for Em's formula because of course we can't just go to the store and buy some replacements! One of the many joys of having a special needs child... and one that's allergic to everything at that!

So we didn't get into Sedona until about 11 pm and I was sick, sick, sick when we got there! Thanks to the last stretch of about 10 miles on about the windiest road I've ever been on (and I've driven in the Alps!)... and not lit at all, so I couldn't see very well :P So, I spent the first night throwing up... and that was not the end of the sickness for the trip sadly! 

The resort we stayed at was nothing short of spectacular! We really didn't even have to leave! There was a mini golf course, playground, amazing grounds to walk around with a pond and ducks (we couldn't pass up an opportunity to take some amateur pictures of our cute girl! And in one of the cute dresses the Bowen family gave her, it went so well with the scenery!). And they had activities going on everyday! Also, for Christmas, the whole place was decked out with light displays, they called it "Red Rock Fantasy" and were charging people $5 to walk through. Since we were guests we didn't have to pay and had a lot of fun looking at it all! And Em was in heaven when we saw the Rapunzel display for the first time! Sadly we never got to swim in the gorgeous outdoor spa, because we still have yet to locate some of our swimsuits since the move (which includes the only one that fits Emarie right now)... the more and more I think about it, I'm worried we left them in Indianapolis since that's the last time we used them :( Anyway, we figured there'd be no problem finding one in a place that's pretty warm year-round... but NO such luck. We finally found a Walmart in a town 30 miles away and found something that would work... not exactly a swimsuit, but it was on clearance for $1.50, can't beat that! But the day after we bought it is when Em started to get sick. And well, since her surgery was coming up, we didn't want to take any chances of her getting worse!

Despite the amazing resort, it often had a lot of people coming and going... not just because of the light display, but there was also a fairly new shopping center with tons of restaurants (which we tried to eat at a couple of them since they were within walking distance from our room. But each of them always had more than an hour wait, so it didn't happen). So we did leave quite often to sight-see and just admire the gorgeous red rocks surrounding the area! The Indian ruins are always a must see, as well as the Church of the Holy Cross that is built right into the rock!

We came across so many nice people while we were there, ones admiring our gorgeous Em and telling us things like, "God gave the world special children to teach the world compassion" wow! I really like that and it made me cry that a stranger felt inclined to tell us that and Em even gave her a hug! Also, we ate a restaurant one night where the manager gave us free food... just because I was admiring the spectacular salad bar! 

We spent a very low-key New Years in our room, after going out for dinner and grabbing a Redbox movie. Steve and Em were both battling a cold at this point, so we thought it was best to stay in, even with all the parties going on all over the place! But we usually like it better this way anyway. 

So, we headed home on New Year's day (Sunday) because Steve actually had to work the next Monday when most got it off. Before we had left, I had noticed a bit of dried blood in Em's left ear and figured she was getting an ear infection, though I thought it weird because we had treated her for one of these when we treated for a sinus infection 2 weeks before Christmas... but I went ahead and started some drops in there that morning. And we got a picture with the Sesame Street display and Em's beloved Abby Cadabby and then fed the ducks before we headed on our way. When we were about halfway home, in Paige, Arizona, we stopped for lunch and that's where I discovered Em was now having large clots of blood expelling from her ear. I was totally freaked... and it started to show that it was really bothering Em when we were about 3 hours from home (this is where she pretty much screamed the rest of the way). As soon as we got in cell service range again I immediately called her dr's office and got her an appointment for the moment we'd be into town at the after hours office. Em did fall asleep for about a half an hour, maybe 45 minutes and she had had a dose of Tylenol, so she was feeling a bit better when we got there. The doctor couldn't see in her ear because there was too much blood, but decided it would be best to put her on some higher strength drops and a heavy-duty antibiotic. All in all, it meant for no surgery for Em the next Wednesday :( But thankfully the anesthesiologist was ok with doing it 2 weeks later since it wasn't anything really serious (like RSV or pneumonia), and 2 weeks should be enough time for it to clear out of her system. And well, she was able to have the surgery and you can read about the surgery here and here. 

All sickness aside, it was a great trip! And here's the highlights in slideshow form (yeah I'm pretty fond of these slideshows, though Steve did most of this one!)

Just to be redundant! Choose 720HD instead of the 320p and full screen to see everything best!

All things Christmas- Christmas Day

Well we finally got things working again, so I finally was able to finish the Christmas day slideshow.

First up was Christmas day at the Peters, which as I mentioned before we celebrated with them on Christmas Eve, but like with the Christmas Eve post I will include those pictures for Christmas Day. We got Steve's parents a huge digital picture frame (Steve's siblings pitched in for this too), and that was the big item of the day. Steve's younger brother Jeff gave his new wife Crystal some flowers which I thought was sweet :) The granddaughters were of course very spoiled and got a lot of things from their grandparents like play food and chef hats and aunts and uncles gave them toys of all kinds! Isabel was a good little helper to pass out all of the presents. My dad had joined us for breakfast that morning and then stuck around for present opening too. Thanks to the Peters!

Next up is the real Christmas morning in our new home.... yes you will see that the only way to have the tree up was for us to take down the kitchen table and put it there... but it worked which is all we could have hoped ;) The biggest hit that morning was the Weebles Treehouse Playset that Santa brought! Em still can't get enough of it! Steve and I didn't have any presents there because we got our new camera, but that was a great present! 

Next up was the Andrews house. This is also where we exchange gifts with my mom and dad. I made both sets of my grandparents a special gift- a unique print of the temples they were married in (Salt Lake for the Andrews and Manti for the Wildes) and a restored picture from their wedding with it. I'm still not completely satisfied with how they turned out, so I'll be doing a little more work on them and once I'm done I'll show you what I did. My mom gave Steve and I some clothes and an extra battery for our camera and she gave Emarie a new Rapunzel dress-up dress and my brothers got her a really cute dress. My brother bryan gave me some new skin care products that I'm in love with and some new tools to Steve! And my grandparents gave us all some clothes. My dad really spoiled us! He gave Em a Loving Family Dollhouse with accessories (hoping this will give me motivation to get her room organized!) and Steve and I both emergency kits for our cars and each a Barnes and Noble gift card, but the biggest thing was a Tom-Tom which came in very handy when we left on our trip to Sedona the next day :) We gave my mom a special made necklace with Emarie's picture in it and my dad some shirts.... both my brothers got gift cards to Amazon. The large tv in the slideshow was a gift from Amy (my aunt) and Jason (her husband) to my grandparents. Thanks Andrews, Wildes and Christie(s)!

Last, but not least was the Wilde clan! This is where the other one of those pictures I made was given. We gave Mitch and Jen ice cream accessories including an electric scooper and novelty spoons and bowls because we had it on good authority that they'd be getting an ice cream maker.... well we got one too, and little did we know, Mitch and Jen not only got one, but 2! Haha, little miscommunication! Emarie got a Fijit robot and another annoying little robot from Mitch, Jen, Connor and Noah, and she got a keyboard from my grandparents. Thanks Wildes! 

All in all it was a great Christmas! 

So enjoy the slideshow

And like before, for best results change the 320p to 720 HD and full screen it

All Things Christmas- Christmas Eve

Keeping up with the slideshows, think I may have found a better way to do it too! Here's a little compilation of our Christmas activities, which included trying to read a Christmas story every night in December... didn't always happen, but we had fun with the effort! Also, exposing Emarie to my wonderful Christmas movie collection (Elf, Home Alone 1 and 2, The Grinch, Muppet Christmas Carol and many others!).

And then Christmas Eve fun. We celebrated Christmas Eve with Steve's family on the 23rd (after the family pictures), but I included the pictures with the rest of Christmas Eve. A little video of Em opening her Christmas Eve jammies that night and of course one of her sleeping so cute! I also threw in a picture of our Christmas card tree (quite impressive this year!), since this seemed the best place to put it it! 

My recommendations for the slideshow is to select 720 HD (scroll over where it says 360p and you will see the 720 choice) and full screen it (to the right of the definition choice) to see it best :) Enjoy!

All Things Christmas- Peters' Family Pictures

I have got a lot of motivation to finally get my Christmas posts finished! Part of the reason I put it off is because the pictures take so much time! With our new camera and my obsessive husband (he wants to edit them and such... and he does it on the desktop which we don't have hooked up to the internet... so transferring them to my laptop is always a pain!)... anyway, thanks to a new site that I've joined (mostly for my job of running the preschool website) Animoto! It has made it so easy to just make a slideshow of all the pictures, so all the Christmas posts will be done with slideshows.

To start us off, we took family pictures the Friday before Christmas (23rd). Steve did a very good job using the tripod and remote button, and although it was cold, everyone was in much better spirits than we've been at photo shoots in the past, because we usually do them when it's way too hot (don't know about you, but I'd much rather be cold than hot any day)!

So here's the pictures

*Suggestion- hover your cursor over where it says 360p and choose 720HD instead. Also make it full screen to see it best (choice for this is to the right of the resolution choice)

After we were done with pictures, we did Christmas eve that night with Steve's family to make it all easier on those of us that had other places to go on Christmas Eve and Christmas day... love that they have always been flexible with this! 

We had a fancy dinner and games, so some of the pictures from that are in the slideshow as well. I love the one of grandma Peters reading a story to 2 of her granddaughters (Emarie and Ariana). 

I'm excited to use an idea I found on Pinterest of making your own canvas prints. I'm going to make a large one of the whole family for Steve's mom, pick some of our favorites for us, do the ones that Kristal and Uli liked the best for them (since we had them for Christmas)... and make 1 for each of the other couples that was their favorite. It should be pretty easy to do them all together and fairly inexpensive... but we shall see! 

More Christmas posts to come! 

Four

*Play song, "Your the World to Me" (incorrectly named though, it's supposed to just be "World to Me") for this post

My baby turned four on Christmas Eve, which is just surreal to me. At times it's unbelievable for me to think that that much time has past, it seems like it was yesterday that I was holding my gorgeous girl in my arms for the first time.... Other times, I can't even remember what our lives were like before her.

Four is an age that will forever hold a special place in my heart. It is the age my sister will be etched in my memories until I see her again. It is also the age of children I have been working with and teaching for the last 7 or so years. It is a great age. One filled with wonder, excitement and imagination. I am so excited to see what this year will hold for my dear sweet angel! 

It has been quite the roller coaster ride these four years and sometimes I wonder how we survived it all with our sanity in tact...... well, mostly in tact ;) I love my girl more than I can describe and I am so grateful for her each and everyday. So, I only saw it right that we celebrate her in the way she deserves.... and for the first time ever on her actual birthday! Christmas Eve has always been filled with way too many things that it was impossible to do any sort of birthday festivities, which is why we defaulted to celebrating in January somewhere near the day she came home from the hospital which was the 22nd. One of the biggest things that usually happens on Christmas Eve is Steve's work Christmas party, which is always a movie.... and not a kids movie, so I always feel awful having someone babysit my girl on her birthday. But this year, since it was on a Saturday, they did the movie on Friday the 23rd, so we had most of the day open! Just breakfast and presents at Steve's parents in the morning (that's when we celebrated Christmas with them since that was the day that it worked best for everyone), and then the annual Wilde family Christmas Eve party that evening. So, actually it was pretty packed, but we knew we could make it work! 

After we were done with present opening at the Peters', we had a special package for Emarie to open. A package that was packed with love from a very sweet Ch18 family in Michigan, the Bowen family. I teared up just when I saw the size of the box sitting in front of our door. And more tears came when I opened it first to prepare it for Em to see. Sweet notes and pictures adorned the top of the box, and what was inside was way more than we could imagine. Thank you Bowen family from the bottom of our hearts. You are such an amazing family and we consider ourselves lucky to consider you friends.... actually family, because we're all in this roller coaster together :) And even though we haven't met you, we feel like we know you as well as family and can't wait for the day when we will actually meet!

 Looking at the pictures of the adorable Bowen kids

 Here's a small portion of what they sent which included some clothes that their daughter has outgrown, they are all absolutely adorable! 

And the last item we opened.... Em's face says it all! 

Our card seemed a little less impressive after all this, but we gave it to her anyway ;)

 "Reading" her card.... I just love how expressive this girl is! 

 The surprise in the card was a gift card to go to Build-A-Bear and to do some other fun things (which we didn't get to, but I'll get to that later)

So, as soon as we were done here, we headed straight for the mall. Our plan was to hit Build-A-Bear at the Orem mall, then head to the Provo mall (don't have a BAB at the Provo mall anymore) to ride the train and carousel.... but thanks to a grandmother that was at BAB with like 10 of her grandchildren getting them all a bear for Christmas and they took forever, we planned to be there 30 minutes or less, which we would have.... but whatever! So since it took almost 2 hours, it was the only thing we got to do :( But, we're planning to do the other stuff when we can (trip then hip surgery, it would probably be a month before we could do it... but well, now the surgery has been postponed of course ((more on that later)), so we may be able to do it sooner than we thought).

 Choosing just the "right" one can be tricky business (see video below for just how well Em did this!)

 Holding her choice of an empty bear and waiting.... waiting.... waiting for her turn to fill it 

 Yup, still waiting..... I should also point out Em's cute shirt that says "One Cute Birthday Girl!" a hand-me-down from Kennya and Kennedy (friends)

The process of filling is in the video below :)

 Choosing the clothes is equally as tricky and important!

 Finally it's ready! I think she's happy :)

Love it!

And later we headed to the Wilde family Christmas Eve party (more of the Christmas celebrations from that in a following post) where her grandpa Mitch and grandma Jen gave her this....

 Yeah, I had the same look as Em.... thanks guys.... that's just what we needed... a Barbie bigger than our daughter ;)

And here's Em at the end of the night with all her birthday loot! The Jingle dog and book, jingle music toy, Rapunzel baby, birthday cake wooden puzzle, socks, Rapunzel gel window clings, Rapunzel purse and Rapunzel pillow and throw (plus all the clothes) were from the Bowen family.... told you it was a lot! Then Steve's mom made her the cutest little rabbit family set, complete with a zip-up carrot holder. And then of course the Barbie ;) Can we say spoiled??

All in all I think she had a great birthday.... what do you think??