Family Reunion 2012

In early April the Johnson clan descended on St. George for our first family reunion. It makes us feel old to think we are having family reunions. Oh well.

We had a great time and did lots of things, including: bowling, lava caves, golfing, cafe rio, pizza factory, swimming, settlers of catan, and movies. Below are some family pictures and individual pictures of the kiddos. Thanks to our good friend Ruby for taking the outstanding pictures.

Patten

Kimball

Alyse #1

Alyse #2

Talmage #1 (Ty and Becca's boy)

Talmage #2

Family #1

Family #2

Jan 2012

We are really good at taking pictures with our phones and posting those pictures on Facebook. Not so good at transferring those picture here to the blog. This is partly due to inadequate computerness, and partly due to laziness. Either way, this will be a picture-less post.

Things are going well in the Johnson household. Alyse, just in the last 2 or 3 weeks, is growing up. She grabs at things, smiles all the time, and is starting to reposition herself on the floor. Its sad to see our little baby girl growing up, but exciting to think of her crawling and getting in on all of the fun with her brothers.

Kimball has become quite the ham. This is often to Patten's dismay. I walked into a room where the boys were watching Winnie the Pooh the other day to see Patten straining to see the tv with Kimball jumping up and down, as if on a pogo stick, 2 inches from Patten's face. Of course Patten was whining (but not doing anything) about it, and Kimball was smiling. Hopefully they will figure this brother thing out at some point.

Patten has an incredible imagination. I mean incredible. The guy can turn boring objects into exciting fairy tale characters. He can make a feast out of dirt specks. If you need some creativity, step into our basement for 10 minutes with Patten. You won't be disappointed.

Kristin and I decided to paint our front room this weekend. Sadly, it's nowhere near complete. I've decided painting, and house work in general, is something you just have to jump into with both feet - even though you might not have a clue what you are doing. We keep telling each other that it's okay that we mess up here and there, eventually we'll figure it out.

ER Visit.... and more happy things

Our first trip to the ER. Can you believe that it was with our second son rather than our first? Well, I can. Kimball was swinging from a tree and fell and hit his head on the edge of a chair. Poor guy! He ended up with 3 staples in his head. The ER people said that we are lucky because we didn't have to hook him up with IV's and stuff. They were able to take care of him pretty easy.
Kimball was very brave at the hospital and so they gave him a cute little bear. Kimball LOVE's the bear and would take it everywhere if he could.
Poor Kimball came down with a cold the next day and had a fever so he does not look to happy in this picture.
Here is a picture of Patten and Kimball trying to help Dave move some of the lighter office equipment up the stairs. What great helpers! At one point Dave ended up pulling his bicep because Kimball was in the way.

I have tried to create a schedule for Alyse which is eat, play, sleep and repeat:) One day when I went to check on her I found her looking up at me as pictured above. Don't you just love those lizard eyes?

Our new upstairs office has been quite helpful, we bought this table to double as a desk because sadly Dave's old desk would not fit through the door into the room. We love being able to file things and work on things without having to go down a flight of stairs. Thanks to Norm for helping carry up the heavy office stuff!

The office also doubles as a napping room for Patten.

When we find Alyse in he morning we have found her in a few interesting positions. To the Left is her trying to recreate a previous life she led as a catipillar building a cocoon. To the right is the reenactment of breaking out of the cocoon to become a beautiful butterfly :)

We are still adjusting to three but making it by. We are blessing Alyse on September 18th at 9am for any of you who would like to attend.

Chores and more....

We have been trying to teach the boys that part of being a family means that we all have to do chores. I just couldn't resist taking a picture of them bringing their dirty clothes from their bedroom up the stairs to the laundry room. It was hilarious to listen to and watch. Patten: "Kimball, you push and I pull. ok PUSH!"

Greg and Annalisa are in town. Yeah! They came to see Alyse.... and hopefully us:)

Greg and Dave just can't take a serious picture, sorry Dave you will never be as tall as Greg :)

Patten and Addie had lots of fun together. Here they are watching a movie together.

Whenever I pull the camera out to get a picture of the baby the boys have to jump in. I can't believe all three of these children are ours!

Alyse in her one of her cute outfits

My sister Kimberlee lives in Florida and planned a trip so that she would be here after the baby had arrived. It was fun to spend time with her. Thanks for coming Kimberlee!

Kimball trying to help feed the baby by bringing me my pump. I know a little weird.

Dave and Patten feeding Alyse her first bottle. We have decided to feed her one bottle a week so that she will take bottles when I want to leave her. We weren't very good with this with Kimball and boy did we pay the consequences...

This picture was taken the Sunday after Alyse was born. She is getting less scrunchy faced everyday.

Kimball's Birthday was July 31st and we had a little party for him. Here is a picture of him ripping open one of his presents and Patten helping:)

I made a basketball cake for Kimball because he LOVES balls right now and it seemed to be the easiest ball to make. One of the phrases that Kimball can say is "hoop ball."

Levi and Kelsey my sister.
We took a few pictures of the attendees but I didn't get as many as I would have liked.

Mimi, my mom.

Norm- his face is cut off, sorry Norm. Kimball thinking about blowing out the candles

Read and look at below photo first... sorry I am figuring this out more and more each time.
Dave, Patten and Kimball running/rolling to the finish line. Can you believe he actually passed a few people while pushing all that weight? Your awesome Dave!

In previous news (sorry, at least it is getting up) we went to Fairview for the 24th of July and Dave pushed the boys in the 5k fun run. Dave would have placed in his age group but the blanket you can see in the picture fell off of the bike mid run and wrapped around the tire. That added a few minutes to his time!

Our Garden is still doing great! Here is a picture of one of our basil harvests.

I hope you liked all of our randomly placed pictures and captions. We are adjusting slowly but all is well. The boys still love Alyse and can't get enough of her.

Alyse Johnson

Mimi (my mom) and Alyse. My mom is so excited to finally have a granddaughter!

Norm LOVES babies. I think he would be around all day every day if he could

I can not get enough of this cute little bundle!

She has a very scrunchy face which is slowly going away. I will post some more recent photos in a few days.

Despite Kimballs expression, he can not get enough of Alyse.
He is constantly wanting to hold and kiss her.
When he is upset about something Alyse is a great distraction!

Uncle Derek, Aunt Natalie and Aunt Missy.
We were lucky that Missy was in town so she could see Alyse.
Thanks for visiting Missy!

Aunt Kelsey and Alyse.

Well, you probably noticed that she has arrived! Dave has done a fantastic job of letting everyone know that she is here and I absolutely love his post. I have not posted yet because it takes up a lot of time taking care of a baby and two toddlers. A lot more time then I used to spend taking care of my kids, but it is definitely worth it.

Let me tell you a bit about the labor and delivery from my perspective.

As some of you may know I have been very into the whole natural child birth thing. I did it with Kimball and wanted to do it again with Alyse. With both of them I was determined to not be started/induced. With Kimball I could not handle being pregnant anymore and scheduled an induction date which wasn't used because I (thankfully) went into labor about 4 hours before they would have induced me. I had decided with this pregnancy I wasn't going to cave and I would hold on and wait. Well, I guess I forgot how hard pregnancy is and an induction date was scheduled for Alyse.

I was very worried about being induced, I thought the labor would be impossible to endure without an epidural. I had an awful experience with the epidural when I had Patten and I did not want to go down that road again. My midwife had mentioned many times that she could break my water but I had heard of so many women who ended up needing petocin (sp?) to get the contractions going even after their water was broken.

Good news... the water breaking was all I needed. It turned out that when I arrived in the hospital I was nearly dilated to a 5 and 90 % effaced. I guess all the miserableness I was feeling was doing something :) My labor ended up being just over 2 hours and my midwife said that if I had waited to go into labor by my self I might not have made it to the hospital in time (worst fear). I guess it was a good thing I was started!

I decided to do something different for this labor. With my previous pregnancies I only wanted Dave in the delivery room. I just didn't want anyone else there. With this pregnancy I felt really good about inviting both of my moms to the labor. I am so glad I did. They were very supportive and helped the entire experience to be even better than it would have. There was a time when I had all three of them (Dave, my mom, and Julie) tickling me on my back arms or legs. It was so comforting even through the craziness of labor. Thank you moms!

Alyse is a joy. We love her so much. I am so glad she turned out to be only 8lbs 4 oz. I was really afraid I would end up with a ten pound baby after I deliver Kimball at 9lbs 8 oz. Would a ten pound baby actually fit out of my body without a c- section? I don't know... Any way I was thrilled to have something smaller.

We have been home from the hospital now for a few days and are trying to get into some semblance of a schedule (hahaha). Our boys love Alyse and can't get enough of her. We are so glad to have a cute girl added to our family.

Alyse - A Dad's Perspective

Kristin gave birth to our beautiful daughter Alyse on Monday afternoon at 12:40. Quite amazing, really. Below is the experience from a dad's perspective.


The hospital turned us down at 6am, only to tell us to hurry our butts in at 8. We arrived at 10 and the midwife broke Kristin's water at 10:30. Speaking of the midwife, she was incredible. Nancie Mooy is her name. If you are in SLC, I highly suggest looking her up. It was like having a doctor and a doula in one. The nurses respected her and did what she asked, and yet she understood and respected Kristin's desire to birth Alyse without medication. She was awesome.

But back to the story. After the water breakage, Kristin and I paced the halls for a good 45 minutes. I know some husband's fear the thought of natural birth because they fear the responsibility involved. They'd rather just sit back and let the epidural do all of the work. That's fine, and I'm not here to judge natural vs. medicated (Patten's birth was medicated and it was great), but I for one enjoy the husband's job in a non-medicated birth. At least with Alyse's birth, I noticed this most acutely while Kristin and I paced the halls. At times we could walk 100 yards without a contraction, at other times we couldn't walk 5 yards without a contraction. But the whole time it was as though no one else existed. Sure, we were walking by the nurse-hub quite frequently, and 10-15 nurses were watching our every move (they aren't sure about the whole labor while you walk thing). But to Kristin and I, it was just the two of us. We talked, we laughed, we cried (during contractions), we reminisced, we anticipated our daughter, and, generally, we just loved each other. What a special time. I won't soon forget it.

After pacing, we headed back to the hospital room. Kristin spent some time sitting on the birthing ball (medicine ball), used the restroom (I must say that "used the restroom" does not adequately describe the drama involved in that bathroom stop), and then headed for the bed. She first labored while laying on her back, when at some point the midwife said (in her respectful way): "now, Kristin, you can reject this, but I suggest you turn to your side to help that baby get over the pelvic floor." Kristin's response? "Let's do it." And, just like that, within 3 or 4 contractions, Alyse was out.

Alyse had a lot of white stuff (don't remember the name) on her, more than the boys. And despite Kristin's valiant efforts to be healthy during the pregnancy, she was still a large baby girl (8lbs 4oz; 21.5 inches). It took her 5 or 10 seconds to let out a cry, and she didn't cry incessantly like Kimball or Patten.

It took us a few minutes to decide on her name (which proves that all of you people who think we know our children's names 4 months before they are born are wrong). But the name settled in, and it wasn't long before I couldn't imagine my life without my baby girl. I can already tell the boys have a lot competition for my attention, and she's probably gonna win.

Update

I was reading through Dave's facebook wall which he updates much more regularly than I do. I noticed a request for more pictures and updates on our blog. Well, I have some very sad news. We can not find our camera anywhere. So all pictures that are being taken are from Dave's phone, which is actually quite nice. He has been posting all of said pictures on facebook if anyone would like to check them out.

I have also heard a request for a picture of my large and growing a belly. I will make sure that Dave takes a picture of that in the near future (hopefully tomorrow) and post that for you.

Here are some updates on the fam. My belly, as said before, is getting larger and so is my baby. Today she decided to lodge herself on my right hip and not let go for about 4 hours. Cute you might think but a bit painful. I have never known what it is like to get ribs kicked or a foot stuck under my ribs but I have sure felt babies lodged onto my hips and my bladder. I guess it is a good reminder that my baby is healthy and active.

Patten is growing up like a weed. He is so verbal and loves to talk up a storm. His favorite conversations involve why, what, and how. A lot of the time I don't have answers:) I wish I was a little smarter so I could quench his curiosity. Patten can get dressed and undressed by himself! I know for those of you who have daughters they probably had this done and figured out long before Patten's age. Well, we are just grateful he finally caught up.

Kimball has shown us what a true child does, not to say that Patten is not a true child or that Kimball is a terror. He just does a few of the normal things that Patten never did such as learning how to climb out of a porta crib, vacations are going to be really exciting now:) Kimball still isn't talking much but every once in a while we think he is trying to say a word.

Dave is loving his job and is happy with what he is doing. We are so grateful to have an income and a real job. I have to say though that I wish I was more grateful and enjoyed more the years of school. Yeah Dave was busy then but he had all holidays off. That was wonderful.

Well that is all I can think of to blog about. We will try harder to find our camera.....