Here We Go Again

We knew that it had to be done, but it doesn't mean that you have to like it.  Almost 4 years after the accident, Frankie had to go in for one last surgery to have his bite corrected and it sure was a doosey.  His face hasn't been this swollen since the surgery that put him back together, except his recovery time was a lot faster, and his face wasn't as tramatic looking.  The surgeon had to cut his lower jaw in two places and move it so his teeth can actually meet again.  It has been 3 weeks since the surgery and he is doing great, but it is still very hard to chew which means, no steak for awhile.

Does this shirt make my face look fat?

Playing with daddy, kinda

Snuggle time

Las Vegas Baby!

I know that this post is a month late, but what can I say other than our computer has been acting up lately.

For Memorial weekend, we decided to make a very last minute trip to Las Vegas to visit our favorite Vegas family, The Allens.  Frankie had just been informed that he would be going back under the knife again to have his jaw broken again to reset his bite.  So he needed some distracting from the impending doom, so we packed up and headed South.

We had a blast and enjoyed every minute.  We got to see a movie in the park, walk around some beautiful gardens, enjoy a Las Vegas Buffet, see the beautiful Red Rock Canyon and so much more.  Olivia and JD really enjoyed playing with their cousins and Frank and I enjoyed the company of Jeannie and Jay.

Just hangin out

We're on top of the World!

Just playing around

This is so much Fun, come play with me Parker

You're right, this is a lot of fun

Keep your eyes open, the mama bird might
 come back at any second

I'm a bunny!

Move it or lose it!

Updates

Ok, so I know that this is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay over due on the updates but I honestly haven't been super motivated these past couple of months which is something that I've been trying to work on.  My house would really appreciate it if I would get a little motivation going, but it is so hard when you have two children demanding your attention.  So I'm just going to give you a few updates in bullet form and some cute pictures of our adorable children, who look so much like each other it's just funny.

• In October the sale on our little town home went through.  We are officially home owners!
• Olivia turned two
• In November we had a lovely Thanksgiving in Frankie's family
• At the beginning of December JD began to sleep through the night!  WooHoo!  I became one happy mom
• Frankie also began to look really hard for a new job and has done a lot of work on his professional portfolio
• We had a quiet and fun Christmas with the Wells family and the Rodriguez family
• We got a new baby cousin, Parker Kent Allen
• January was started off with a pretty rough surgery on Frankie's jaw that laid him low for pretty much the rest of the month
• We started some home improvement projects around the house, like reorganizing the children's bedroom so we could set up Olivia's new bed
• Olivia started to sleep in a big girl bed
• JD and Olivia started to share a room
• In February we got to go and spend some time with the Allen family and got to meet baby Parker
• JD started to eat solids, but still isn't a fan
• In March I finally buckled down and started going to the gym with Bonnie

So as you can see, we haven't been extremely busy around here but things have been moving along.  Both Olivia and JD are growing more and more every day.  Olivia is such a sweet older sister, not once has she shown any kind of jealousy towards her brother, only love, affection and concern when the need arises.  

I may do some more posts on the some of the topics above, I just wanted to do a brief update and post some cute pictures.

Happy Halloween!

In Which We Bless the Baby and Party

So we have been planning for Sunday since April. We wanted to be able to have some of my family who lives out of state make it for the blessing, so we chose to have it around Halloween since Nevada has a state holiday around then and Jeannie and her kids get to be let out of school. An added bonus is that Olivia's birthday is only 3 days before our chosen blessing day, so we also chose to celebrate her birthday with a party after the blessing.

So as you can see, we had a very busy weekend, but a very fun weekend. Jeannie and her family arrived late, late Friday night so all day Saturday was spent playing with her family. We made plans to have our own little Halloween party where Grandma set up a candy hunt, there was pumpkin carving and just good ol' fun playing around. At the end of the night we all went out for ice-cream. The whole day was just filled with fun. Olivia just couldn't get enough of her cousins, she had so much fun with them. She still is just going around our house saying their names.

Tractor rides with Grandpa are the best!

Grandma's candy hunt was so much fun!

Taking a walk and feeding the horses

Sunday was a very busy day, with getting everything ready for the blessing. We held the blessing at my parents house, because apparently we chose to bless JD on the day the whole valley had stake conference. It turned out just perfect. I can never thank my mom enough for everything that she did for us, and does for us. We had a really good turn out with our friends and family. It gives me such a warm feeling to know that we have so many people out there who love and support us. It gives me an even warmer feeling to know that Frankie holds the priesthood and is able to bless our family because of that. There was such a beautiful spirit there as Frankie took our infant son into his arms to give him a name and a blessing.

Once we were finished with the blessing, we ate and partied! The food was all very delicious all thanks to my mom. (Once again, I can't thank her enough for everything she does for our family.) When things slowed down with the food, we let Olivia open up her birthday presents. She didn't quite have the reaction I thought she would to her presents, she was just so reserved about all of her presents. She was just so overwhelmed with all of the people there and all of these new toys to play with, that she just didn't know what to do with it all. (Now she plays with those new toys all of the time.)

It was a very busy day, but it all passed by so fast. Thanks to everyone for coming and celebrating our two beautiful children.

(I don't have any pictures from the blessing and party because we forgot our camera. I have to get them from my mom, so those pictures will be coming.)

Happy Birthday!

Ok, so I'm back dating this post because I've just been so busy and haven't had the time to post about our amazing little girl's birthday.


Frankie was able to take the time off so we could give as much attention as possible to the birthday girl. Both of us were thinking how hard it is to believe that we have a two year old. It seriously feels like just yesterday that we were at the hospital waiting for things to progress in the labor room so we could welcome our long, long awaited angel. We wanted to give Olivia as much undivided attention as possible, so we asked our good friend Alyssa Yancey to watch JD for a few hours. We decided to take Olivia to the American West Heritage Center after hearing from Hilary and Brad how much fun it was. It was fun.


We got there just ahead of the crowd, but not too soon that we missed the pony rides and train ride which started at 5:00. At the heritage center they had a corn maze, a huge slide down the hill, hay jumping, and little kids maze, pony rides, train rides and animals. We chose not to go into the corn maze because it was chilly and we didn't want Olivia to get bored with just walking around when there was so much more to do. I think that my favorite part was getting to see her ride the pony. At first she was a little apprehensive, but she decided quickly that she liked being on the pony.


After playing at the heritage center, we took Olivia to go and buy her presents. We let her pick out one toy and the rest of the presents that we bought were saved for her birthday party on Sunday.


We didn't do a whole lot, but we sure had a lot of fun celebrating our little girl. I still can't believe that she is two.

2 Months Old

I can't believe that 2 months have already gone by since we welcomes our sweet baby boy into the family. He is growing so much and just twisting all of our hearts around his little finger. It has been a rather difficult 2 months, but I sure do love my little JD more and more every day. Every time he smiles at me, cries, falls asleep in my arms or anything for that matter, I feel my heart grow even bigger with love. Olivia has also become fond of her little brother. She loves to climb into his bassinet at the end of our bed and go "na-night". She especially loves it when we put JD in there with her to cuddle with her. I can't wait for the days when JD isn't such a fragile little baby and can really cuddle back with her.





JD has grown so much and I've enjoyed getting to notice his little quirks and see him reach certain milestones. Although he isn't sleeping through the night, he has definitely improved upon his waking up every hour. Of course using the swaddling blankets with the Velcro have helped a lot in keeping asleep. He hates them when he's awake, but since he moves so much in his sleep, I have to keep his arms confined. Now he sleeps 3-4 hours at a time. It isn't great, but it is an improvement on every 1-2 hours. Occasionally he does sleep 5 hours at a time, so I hope that he'll eventually move towards that time frame.




JD has been smiling for about a month now, which has been so wonderful to see. The first time I saw him smile at me on purpose was in the middle of the night when he should have been sleeping. He was just trying to butter me up into forgetting it was 3 in the morning. Now you can get him to smile every time he gets his diaper changed or right after he's had a really good feeding. I love to see him smile and coo, it just melts your heart (even at 3 in the morning).


He is also slowly getting past his fussiness and being willing to be put down for short (I say short) period of time. He does have his one really fussy time around 9 o'clock every night right before we put him down to bed. There are times when the only way we can calm him down is to put him in his swing, which he loves to death. Sometimes we can get him to calm down by changing his diaper, which he is really starting to like. But most of the time it has to be the swing.



I've been trying to get him on something of a schedule, but he has been quite resistant. He does not nap very well during the day at all. Some of it has to do with Olivia making noise, but he just doesn't nap for more than an hour at a time. He likes to take cat naps. Sometimes I can get him to take a 2 hour nap while Olivia naps, but not all of the time. So that is what we are trying to work on right now. And that is our little boy.