ICU Anyone

We had a very interesting past week to say the least. Nate was having a hard time breathing on Saturday evening and I was such a good wife when he started wigging out I told him if he would calm down and relax he may be able to breathe better and he really needs to wait until Urgent Care opens Sunday morning because I still haven't paid off Abigail's last emergency room visit (he insisted on) for hand, foot, and mouth! In my defense, he didn't seem that bad, he always gets a chest cold twice a year every year since I have known him. Anyway about 7 am on Sunday he called to see when urgent care opened and it wasn't until 10:00 am, he said he couldn't wait any longer I said I couldn't handle the whining anymore I was tired and "you know I can't take you with 3 little kids at home right?". He said yeah and he left for the ER. I got all 3 kids up and ready for church, left to go to church, and when I still hadn't heard from him I text him. I thought this would be a quick trip and by the time church was over he would be to. Boy was I wrong. He told me that after an hour of solid steroids and oxygen his airway was not opening so they were going to take him to the ICU FOR THE DAY. Now I was scared and felt bad about my comments all night. I finished out church with the kids, called the parents, got a babysitter for the kids, and met him at the ICU. Things were pretty bad, they wanted to put a tube down his throat and put him on a ventilator instead of the by pap machine, but Nate was stubborn and kept saying no. I then found out from the nurse (Doug) that Nate had passed out when he reached his truck and when he came to he called 911 and told the dispatch person he was going 60mph running red lights and headed to the ER. She of course told him to pull over and wait for an ambulance, Nate didn't agree. He told her what route he was going and if he passed out she could send the ambulance and trace his cell phone number. (And people think I'm stubborn huh?). All the nurses couldn't believe his call the the dispatch and when he was released to the 5th floor the nurses knew about his incident. The day in ICU turned into 3 days in ICU and 1 day in a regular room in the hospital and a bucket full of new pills and asthma meds later we are 1 wk released and doing well. They decided he had bronchitis with a chest infection (would have turned to pneumonia, but his airway closed so quickly no liquid could get in, and then for some odd reason he had an asthma attack. He hasn't had an asthma attack in 12 years. I appreciate all the great family and friends that called in with their support, came and visited Nate, and helped with the kids so I could spend some time with Nate. Events like this make you really take a deep look at what's important in life. Thank heavens he is doing better. It's nice to have an uncle who works at the hospital to keep a close eye on family members and make sure you know exactly what is going on. The staff was wonderful (even the evil night nurse)!! What's even better is we got it all in before the end of the year so between Nate and Andrew we have reached our deductible and our max out of pocket! This 4 day trip only cost me $320. Now we have a sleep apnea test tonight which should be free and hopefully the machine I'm assuming he needs will be covered and I'm ready to start a new deductible in a week. Man MEN are expensive!!!!

Merry Christmas to US!!!

Nate and I have had this now a tradition about getting our big Christmas presents for each other in October; we have done this since we were first married. So to keep in the "tradition" I got for Christmas this year a new camera. YEAH I have wanted one for a long time and now I have a Nikon d5000. It is awesome I absolutely love it. It is so user friendly and can keep up with my kids. I have been really into couponing for the last 5 months and our house is overflowing so Nate also got me a can rotation system to make more room in the storage/bathroom/laundry room. Nate got a new sweatshirt, new boots for work, and a new knife set for the kitchen. I am especially proud of myself because I have our entire Christmas done (family/ext family) done by October 31. No standing outside in the freezing temps for me.

Cute Pics.

Alyssa in aunt Kris shoes.

Abigail in Great Grandpa's boots.

Sorry it has been so long. I have had many problems with my Internet and I hate complaining but enough was enough. I got great advice from my dad and so far all is ten times faster and better. My mom had a birthday a few months ago and while we were eating/playing the girls decided to play dress up. They are fascinated with shoes and decided to put on cowboy boots and dress shoes. They are so cute. When the girls were about a month old we put them in stockings and so we decided to put Andrew in Great Grandpa's boot. He is almost 4 months old now and we just started adding some cereal at night. I can't believe how time has flown by.

Wow what a few weeks!

Well Abigail decided to put a bead up her nose, thank heavens it came out quite easily. Then within about a week she decided to put a rock up her nose at day care. When I got the call I was worried that one of the girls were sick and today was just not a good day to leave work, so when I was told she had a rock up her nose I busted out laughing, loud enough Abigail heard me thru the phone and she started giggling. I was thinking this would be like a 1 hr max trip to urgent care and back to daycare/work I would go. Boy was I wrong. First I attempted to take care of the rock myself; one bloody nose and making it much worse we were at urgent care, Andrew, me, and Abigail. They said I had to go to the emergency room they could not help me, back in the car we go, now Abigail hates shoes and socks so I had a diaper bag, car seat carrier with baby, and was carrying Abigail (after twins shouldn't be too hard right!) Off to the emergency room we go. I was not happy because now I knew it would be a long day and I hadn't even gotten the bill from Andrew's birth and here we are back in the hospital. I called Nate bawling because I just couldn't handle anymore, Andrew was fussy/hungry, Abigail was running around like a wild women and even put Nate's keys up her other nostril when he got there to help me. The PA strapped Abigail to this board to hold her still so they could get the rock out (it was up there a bit), after MANY failed attempts they called the Dr in. He was able to get it out, but Abigail was screaming and it fell in her mouth and she started to choke so the DR and PA flipped her over to try and get it out and Abigail decided to swallow it!!!!!! Well, the rock as out, but now we had to have an X-Ray to make sure it wasn't in her lungs/airway (mind you she was screaming at the top of her lungs) but protocol is better safe than sorry. All I heard was my bill going up again and my wait getting longer and longer! Her airway was clear and they think they saw it in her stomach so now we had to go home and feed her lots of fiber to help her pass the rock. Lots of fiber = lots of diarrhea for me x 2. The girls have to have what each other has and Abigail is the harder of the two to give diarrhea too. Yeah for me the rock passed the next morning just in time for her to find a pepper corn and put that up her nose the same day. Guess we didn't learn our lesson.

3 kids , 3 times the stress, 3 times the fun ??? YOU BET!!!

Wow, I can't believe Andrew is already 5 wks old. I went back to work when he was 3 weeks old and he has been such a good baby. I get to take him with me to work for 2 months and so far he eats and sleeps for most of the day, is up in the afternoon and early evening and since he was about 1 week old has been sleeping for about 6 hrs at a time at night. If I could be guaranteed to have more babies just like him I would have another 1 or 2 quickly. Now, that being said, it is not fun when all 3 kids are sick on top of Nate and I also not feeling well. Thank heavens for Grandma!!!! It went around our house at least twice and may be starting a third time. The girls are getting much less jealous of the baby and are back to being jealous of each other. We still have to have 2 of just about everything and even then that's sometimes not enough for them. The girls have learned their first "naughty" word. "Shut up!" Thanks to their uncle Tell for that one. They say it so cute though it's very hard not to laugh at them. My mom says I'm going to have to nip it in the butt very soon or it won't be quite so funny, she's right like always, but i definitely have to work on not smiling when they say it in a valley girl tone. It's so nice to have a wonderful family who is always willing to help even when the kids are monsters and very whiney!!!!!!! I know hard to imagine my kids whiney haha. I didn't think it could be too much harder going from twins to three kids, boy was I wrong. There have been many more nights where I have just bawled than I ever did with the girls. I have to keep telling myself that Heavenly Father doesn't give us more than we can handle and we need to lean on our families when we are cracking. I will definately owe my family a million IOU's by the time they have kids. I'm so looking forward to repaying all those that have helped me.

Andrew Nathan Johnston

After 26 hours of labor Andrew Nathan Johnston came into this world. He weighes 7 lbs. 13 oz. and is 22 inches long. Family is glad he is here and his BIG SISTER'S love him dearly!

Almost Done!!!!!

I am finally past the 37 week mark and I'm ready to be done. My feet are starting to swell towards the end of the day and I can never get enough sleep. On top of all this, I've decided to do something stupid/crazy and take the girls up to Island Park for my family reunion. Nate has to work so it will be just us with my family. Thank heavens there will be lots of helpers, but no air conditioning, sleeping in a tent, and all those misquotes, boy am I nuts. I saw the doctor and everything looks great; I even lost 2 lbs in the last 2 weeks; I'm sure I'll find them in the next week though. You would think being this close to the end that I would have my bags backed, an outfit picked out for Andrew, and all the newborn stuff out of storage ready to go. Well, I don't. I'm going to have to pack my bag today and an outfit for Andrew just in case he decides to join the family reunion, but I'm not to excited to start the unloading of storage or cluttering the house of more baby stuff. I barely got it put away when we found out we were pregnant again. We will need to do it soon though because we have another family reunion next week and then some friends are coming into town as well and we want to be able to spend some time with them. Life is definitely getting crazy around here. Happy Fourth to everyone and we'll keep you posted on when Andrew finally listens to his mother and comes into this world.

First day of Nursery!!!

Wow, I can't believe my babies are 18 months old. We actually made it early to church by 10 minutes. We were able to snag a back row seat (easy exit for screamers), which we ended up not ever leaving once during Sacrament. The girls were so good today it was amazing. Nate and I had both planned on being in Nursery all day, but the girls warmed up quite quickly. Abigail loved playing with a ball and bubbles. Alyssa warmed up as soon as she saw Abigail playing. We were there for maybe 5 minutes. It turned out quite nice because all during Sunday School and Relief Society I had contractions about every 4 minutes. They started hurting pretty bad towards the end. Don't worry, I know I'm only 32 weeks and they are not doing anything more than driving me crazy. Even with the girls I didn't feel the early contractions this bad, they were more in my lower back, which I accounted to the fact I was measuring 10cm larger than a normal single pregnancy. Thank heavens they went away after some water and a nap after church. The girls didn't have any major breakdowns in Nursery and they stayed there the whole time. Abigail was so excited that she got to color (only her second time) that she was waving her paper all around. I was excited to hang our first piece of art on the fridge. It makes me a little sad to see my babies grow up, but I'll have another baby soon. The girls are so cute, Abigail will tell you Hi, while Alyssa says Bye, See Ya. What a wonderful Sunday!!!!

Abigail helps clean the yard

Abigail and Alyssa wanted to go outside and play so we decided to sweep up grass clippings while they were playing. Nate made a big pile and was raking the lawn when Abigail decided to grab the big push broom and help daddy. She kept going up and down the sidewalk. She is such a good helper. Alyssa decided she could do it too. The girls are getting so independent, Abigail ran 3 houses down the block to go play with a ball and Nate had to go get her. She so loves bouncy balls, while Alyssa is terrified of them.

Remodling here we come

We finally have had enough of carpet in our living/dining room combo. So, we decided to lay laminate flooring through out the entire upstairs. It was suppossed to be a somewhat simple of a job right. Not our luck. There were 10 times more staples, nales, and misc stuff than we ever imagined. Plus, we found some water damaged under the dining room window so we had to cut out sheetrock to see if i was from the old windows ( we replaced all the upstairs windows last summer) or a current water problem. Thank heavens there is no more water damage, just a hole in my wall. The hole has been filled with insulation and covered with sheetrock, now my poor husband has to find the time to retexture the walls and I have to pick out paint colors. Did I also mention we still have 3 more rooms to redo the floors in and this baby is coming in less than 8 weeks. UGH!!!

Easter 2009

Nate and I had so much fun this Easter with the girls. We colored eggs and the Easter Bunny even came. The girls were not too helpful with the coloring of eggs, but they did like to bang them on the table, they made great deviled eggs on Easter morning. Abigail and Alyssa were so cute Easter morning. Alyssa went straight for the toys and Abigail had an egg opened and all the candy stuffed in her mouth and was on her second egg by the time I had gotten Alyssa up and out of bed. The girls had gotten new tri-cycles and dresses, but their favorite part (for Alyssa) was the Spanish/English maracas they got. She head bobs to the music. The girls also got their first dollies. I lasted over a year mom. They are finally wanting to play with dolls. Our tom boy Abigail is turning into quite a little girly girl. She likes purses and dollies, while Alyssa likes to play with blankets, nice cheap entertainment. Their legs are a little too short to pedal their tricycles, but they do like to scoot around in them.

It's a ??????

Ok, so we've known for a month now what the sex of the baby is and I've wanted to do something really cute picture wise, but come on, it's been a month and it's not anywhere close to being a top priority, so sorry no cute pictures to say we are having a BOY! Yes, finally a boy. I think Heavenly Father knew I could not handle any more estrogen. The twins are great but what a handful. This pregnancy has been a bit harder than the girls. This baby has way too much room and I feel everything. The girls were so cramped because I did not get as big as most so they were nice and content (as one can be with a companion). Maybe that's why they are so wound up. This baby loves the quiet time from about 4-8 pm each night, which would be great except I'm in class 4 nights a week and anytime the professor talks I get kicked/punched/elbowed/ etc.. The other nice thing the doctor told us at our last visit was the baby is in the 87th percentile for how far along I am. I asked if they could have gotten my due date wrong and he assured me no, it's just a big baby boy. We haven't decided on any names and probably won't until its closer and school gets out so you'll have to wait and see what we choose.

Happy Valentine's Day.

I let the girls feed themselves ravioles and good thing it was already bath night because boy did they need it. Alyssa insisted on using her forehead, nose, and face to clean her tray. Abigail used her hands to smear it everywhere including her face. At least none made it on the floor!!!
They almost ate as much as they do with mac and cheese.





Abigail was not to thrilled with her picture taken
in the bath tub. She absolutely loves the water and loves to swim. She waits until Alyssa is out and then she goes from one end to the other. Abigail has learned to turn on the cold water and this is her getting caught by mommy.


Alyssa was having fun for once playing with her toys in the bath tub. She likes taking them and filling them up with water and drinking them. She is very nice as her sister crawls all over the top of her going from one side to the other. She loves to throw her toys over the side making quite a mess.

Alyssa has also learned to store food between her high chair and the dinning room chair. She put the remaining of her dinner there I guess saving it for later.



Alyssa and Abigail holding hands on their own after breakfast. They giggled each time one would grab the other's fingers. Poptarts make kids happy, as long as there is sugar on top!!!!!!

I am very blessed to have such wonderful kids.

Shoe fetish this early? AHAHAHAH

Alyssa would be content to have no toys and only shoes. She is getting really good about matching up shoes for everyone in the family. We have a little chest by our front door where we put our shoes (since they never make it to the closet) and she knows how to open and close the chest, put and take out all the shoes, and who gets what shoe. She will bring me Nate's shoe and say dada. The was even following me around on Sunday with my high heels. If she could pick up my feet and put them on me I think she would try. I tried getting a cute picture of her in a shoe dilemma, where she was trying to figure out how to put on Abigail's shoes (which are too small for Alyssa), but the kid knows every time I try to get the camera she drops everything and wants to touch the lens. I'll have to be more sneaky.

Girls will be monster's????

Ok, so this week I have been told about every other day that one of my girls had to go in the corner for time out. I thought it was for beating up one of the other kids (since they have beat up both a 4 and 5 year old in less than 4 days.) Well, I was wrong, my children have decided to climb on little chairs and tables and try to fall off. They wouldn't listen to the adults so they got put in time out. They are both so tiny still it's hard to believe they can be such monsters. We have even had to put them in a corner in church. They are quite cute when only one is the corner the other comes near to wait patiently for her sister to finish her time. The other day Alyssa was in the corner and after she was done I sent them both off to play (aka destroy the living room) and Abigail must have been feeling a little left out so she put her self in the corner. I just started to chuckle and told her what a good job she had done. Abigail's been put in there so many times she now keeps her body standing up and in the corner and only occasionally moves her head to see if you are still there. Alyssa on the other hand, tries to use all the dead wait she has to sit down and won't keep still. What a fun age? Can't wait to see what crazy things happen tomorrow.

Christmas 2008

We had an awesome Christmas this year. Instead of waiting until the last minute as usual for me I had everything done before Thanksgiving. I had stopped into Denny's to give Nate a plate full of goodies from his family Christmas party and they had a Santa there so we got a picture. Abigail was so full of chocolate I think she was in a trance and Alyssa was ready for bed. Alyssa is just like her mom huh? The cutest thing on Christmas morning was at my parent's house, the girls were opening gifts from grandma and grandpa. Abigail's first gift was a pink monster truck . A great compromise between my mom, my sister, and I. She opened that present and would not open anything else. She absolutely loved it. We kept taking it away and trying to get her to open another gift and she would have a fit. Yes, I did get 2 just like me. I sure hope this next baby is more like his/her dad. My house can't handle anymore drama.