New Arrival!!! Happy Holidays

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We had a nice relaxing time. Well, mostly. hehe

Well, she's here!!! Samantha Joan King made it here November 23rd at 7:51 am. She was 8lb 3oz and 20in long. Yep, 2 weeks early but she's doing good, probably a good thing she came early or she would have been huge when she was born. hehe. She had jaundice pretty bad, but is pretty much over it now. We are so glad to haver her here. She is such a cutie and have just completely fallen in love with her. Not like it was hard to do. It's been fun trying to readjust to having a newborn again, and getting sleep when we can, but we are surviving, and doing alright. Taylor is doing rather well with it all. She loves to look at her lil sister, and point to her eyes and such. Taylor thinks it funny when Samantha has the hiccups or something and always starts giggling. So cute.

Happy Hollidays!

My goodness, it's been kinda crazy. But it goes with the rest of this wacky crazy year. We took Taylor out for a little bit this year for Trick or Treating and she seemed to enjoy it. She loved carrying her little bucket around if nothing else. She was a little kitty, nothing too fancy, but she looked cute. Hehe It's hard to believe Halloween is over now and we are getting into the wonderful Thanksgiving and Christmas season. We have so much to be thankful for. We are all surviving alright. Taylor is growing, and cute as ever. It's a good thing because it helps make up for her little tantrums and fits. She's definately starting to get into that stage. Luckily she has mostly stopped banging her head on the floor at least. Hehe Dan is doing well, still out at Eurofresh, and seems to be doing a good job. It's been a little interesting since his carpool kinda disolved so he's been having to drive to work everyday which wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't 50mi away. But we are praying something will work out soon. I am about to pop. Only 6 more weeks, and I'm getting to the point I am ready for it to be over. All the fun aches and pains and fun times that come along with it. We are excited to have her almost here. We keep joking she is going to come on Thanksgiving. I've decided I'm pretty much done with any traveling for the rest of the year.

Surviving another crazy week!!!

Well, this has definately been quite the year...Not sure if it is going to slow down...hehe. Last week my Grandma Barney had an aneurysm. She has been in the hospital and the Dr's were saying it didn't look good. She has been pretty sedated but they finally did surgery this last Thursday. They gave her a 50/50 shot basically. Luckily after 6hrs of surgery, she came through it just fine. Surprisingly well. The Dr's were all pretty amazed how well she did. When she woke up, she recognized my aunt that was there right away, and answered the questions the dr's asked w/o any problems. So she definately beat the odds. But with all the blessings and fasting and prayers on her behalf, it has truely made a difference. The Lord was kind enough to let us keep her here a little longer. She will still be in the hospital for several more days, but things are looking up.
As far as the rest of us, we are all doing well. Taylor is learning and growing more and more everyday. She's a smart lil thing. hehe we had started taking her to nursery a couple of weeks ago, so she seems to pretty well in there. It makes it a little tough sometimes, because we have church at 11, so it kinda gets in the way of her nap, making for fun times. She usually falls asleep on the way home from church. Poor thing. But it's been really good for her to get to be around and interact with other kids.
We had a few changes this last week at church, as they took part of our ward and put them in another ward. Kinda sad losing so many good families, but it was needed. Our ward was just too big. So needless to say Sacrament Mtg today had lots of ward business. I was released from YW's, hoping to get a little break these last few months before our new arrival, but not to be so. I am now in the Primary. Honestly I almost cried when the Bishop asked me. hehe but it will be a good change. Luckily Taylor is in Nursery now, so that will help out in that respect. I think I will be one of the Valiant 12 teachers. Not quite sure yet. But I will find out for sure this week when they bring me my lesson manual. It will be a little interesting once the baby gets here, but we will figure it out.
Dan is still a teacher in the EQ. So he enjoys that. He's staying busy with school and work, so mostly staying out of trouble. hehe Have to keep on him sometimes to get his homework done, but he's usually pretty good about doing it. His job is going pretty well, so always having tomatoes and cucumbers has been nice. I made some pickles a few months ago from them and got to try them last month, and they turned out rather well. I need to make some more. We've made some salsa too, and that was pretty good. We've been trying to get our food storage going, so all this definately helps. We bought some rice and beans a lil while ago, so I will be going this week to the canery to get it canned. I just hope there are some boys there to help cuz I'm not touching those 50 & 100 lb bags. hehe Selfish I know, but I really don't feel like going into early labor. Call me crazy. Only 12 and 1/2 weeks left!!!! Crazy, it's gone relatively fast. But definately getting to the stage where it's getting a lil difficult to do some things.

Summertime gone already

Boy, I can't believe school time is just around the corner again. Where does the time go? Dan will be taking a few classes here at EAC so he is excited. That and it's Cathy's first year in college, so she is nervously excited. She is doing very well. Her surgery went very well, and she is healing nicely. Still has to be careful and not lift heavy things and kinda take it easy, but everything seems to be good. No more problems we hope.
Dan had a nice visit back home. Always too quick, but it was good for him to be able to visit with his family and friends. His dad is doing better so we hope he continues to heal and not have any more difficulties. A few days ago we learned that his grandma was in the hospital with some heart troubles but seems to be doing better also. So it's been a little crazy with one thing after another it seems like, but it could always be worse. We were thinking about trying to look at moving back there to be a little closer to help out, but now's not the right time. Maybe after the baby is born. We'll see what happens.
Other than that things are going alright. Mom and dad have been in Alpine for a few days, so we stayed here at the house with Cathy to keep an eye on her and make sure she didn't get into too much trouble. haha

This week

This week has been good. It's nice to finally have a lil time at home. I love seeing my family, we had a great 4th of July in Heber and got to see the whole family minus Joe of course. It was good to see everyone and get a lil caught up on life. My sis Cherilyn is due with her first mid October, so we are all excited about another little boy. Kinda funny, it seems as though we can either produce one or the other in babies, with the exception of my oldest bro Johnathan, all of the married kids either have all girls or all boys. Interesting huh. hehe I guess that means we just gotta keep trying till we get it right! haha.
So I guess I don't get to stay home all week, but that's ok. Tomorrow I'm taking Dan to Tucson so he can go home for a few days and help out his parents. His dad had to have surgery again. It would be nice to be able to go with him, but just can't afford it right now. At least he gets to go. Thats what's important right now. Taylor and I will be all alone for a few days, but that is one nice thing about living next to family. So we just might have a sleepover. hehe.
Cathy is suppose to come home today so we are excited, as well as her I'm sure. Hospitals are nice when you need them, but it's always good to be back home.

Christmas

Woohoo

Cathy's reversal operation was today, and the dr's said she did very well. They ended up taking out her appendix while in there, because it was inflamed, but why not, they're already in there. So we are hoping that all heals well.

I had my U/S today and yes, we are having another girl, and the baby looks good, so we are very exited.

This year continued

To finish up, my sister's operation went well, she was in the hospital for a week, but had to go back to have surgery again because her intestines were leaking. So she had the pleasure of a colostomy bag for a few months.
It's been a lil crazy during all this trying to find a new job for Dan and in May finally was offered a job with EuroFresh in Bonita. It's about an hours drive from here, but luckily he carpools with a couple people. It's a good steady job and we get all the tomatoes and cucumbers we want. So there are a few nice perks. He is a Harvest supervisor so he manages the inmates and other workers there. So we are just so glad to have a little stability now.
Taylor is doing very well. She is now 16 months old. Been walking for a while now and is just a fun, smart, curious little girl. Such a cutie!!! We love her so much and is such a joy to have around. It's always fun to take her to the store or other places and have people oooh and awe over her. hehe
I am doing pretty good. I am over the morning sickness so feeling alright. Tired but comes with the territory. I've met with the surgeon here and he is going to wait till after the baby is born before he does anything with my gallbladder. I pretty much have to stay on a low-fat diet, stay away from greasy foods and butter and such but as long as I do that, I'm good. The baby is due on December 7th or 10th. But we keep joking that she's gonna come on Thanksgiving. haha We are very excited to have this new addition. Looks like another lil girl!

This Year

Well, as I said before, this has been quite a year. We've had a wedding, babies being born, crazy time with trying to find a job for Dan, and so forth.
Then in March we had the opportunity to go back to TN to visit Dan's family and friends, and for them to finally see their grandbaby. We went for spring break, and got to celebrate her first birthday there. It was a pretty crazy trip, doing a lot more traveling than planned, but it was very nice to see and visit with Dan's family.
At the end of March I started getting sick. I wasn't sure what it was, but I was in quite a bit of pain and finally went to the Dr. they did some tests, during all of this found out I was pregnant again, which was good news, but just not the best timing, hehe. So he gave me some anti-biotics to take and see if that would help, but said if the pain persists, go ahead and go into the ER. So later that afternoon I was feeling worse, so I went in. That was on a Thursday. I was there for a few hours and after some wonderful drugs, (which I had to be kinda careful with) and 2 ultrasounds found out that I had cholystitis, basicially a gall bladder attack. If I hadn't been pregnant, they probably would have taken it out right there, but because I was, they said I probably would lose the baby if I did have surgery. We didn't want that, so they gave me some antibiotics to try and get the inflamation down.
After getting home late Thursday night, Taylor stayed the night at my parent's house. I was still in pain on Friday, but luckily they gave me some pain meds. I had another dr's appt on Friday where this dr gave me some even strong anti-biotics to try and said they should work better along with some more pain meds. Let me just tell ya, the pharmacist was a lil confused with me getting 3 different prescriptions in 2 days. hehe.
Saturday, mom ended up having to go to Tucson because her dad had been rammed by a cow, fell back and hit his head, so he was in a coma and not doing too well. So she needed to go. So my lil sis Cathy came and stayed the night with us, and she had started getting sick too. Puking a lil fever and such. We thought it was just the flu. My poor husband, having to deal with 2 sick girls, and the baby so it was quite the weekend.
By Monday, I was feeling better, no more pain anyway, but Cathy still wasn't doing good. So I ended up having to take her into the dr. By the time we got in there she was still in lots of pain, and her belly was all swollen and pulsating. Not good. So the Dr sent her over to the ER to have her checked out. They thought it might be an appendicitis. I had a friend come pick up Taylor so I could stay with my sis until my dad could get there from work. It was kinda crazy. My mom was still in Tucson with my grandpa, still not doing too well. One of the ER dr's thought she was pregnant and didn't believe her when she said no. Even did a pelvic exam...lets just say by that time my dad was there and as he left the room, the dr couldn't look at my dad...hehe crazy drs. hehe
They decided to do a CT-Scan on her. I needed to leave and pick up Taylor, so left Cat with my dad. I got home, and soon after got a call from my dad saying they were going to fly her to Tucson. She had some kind of growth in her abdomon, and couldn't get ahold of the surgeon. (which was a blessing in disguise) During all this, my mom is stressing out trying to figure out what to do. They were going to fly my sis to a different hospital than where my grandpa was at. Luckily one of the head specialists heard my mom's problem, and spent 1/2 an hour making some calls, but found a room for my sis there at UMC.
A little bit later my grandfather decided he'd done his job, and passed on. But because of everything that had happened with my grandpa, Cathy had some of the best care. 40 surgeons, specialists and dr's looking at her ct scans, and working on her case and deciding the best way to treat her. They were going to do surgery on Thurs, but had an opening come available on Wed thank goodness. They handled it perfectly too. They treated it as cancer and froze it. When they got in there found she had a pancreatic tumor that had ruptured, and luckily had formed a sac where it was leaking blood and such. Apparently that had started to leak as well. Part of it had wrapped around her intestines too which was why she was vomiting. Because they had frozen it they were able to remove everything they needed to. If they hadn't she would have bled out and died. The sac had I think 2 pints or so of blood. They had to take a small part of her intestines out as well.
So everything worked out the way it should have. If it had been much different I would have had to attend 2 funerals instead of one. There were definately several miracles that happened to keep her here. We believe too that our grandpa saved her life. He had had a few incidents that month that should have taken his life, but didn't. He stayed long enough to save hers. That is just the way my grandpa would have wanted it to be. He is an amazing man!!!

Getting Started

Well, I have given in and decided to try the whole blogging thing. So we will see how it goes, and if I can figure it all out. It's been a pretty crazy year already and it's only 1/2 over...hehe. No it should get better now!