Gavin is 3!

I really can't believe that Gavin turned 3 yesterday!! Where does the time go?? It seems like ever since Jenna was born, Gavin has just grown right up! All Gavin wanted for his birthday was the big Buzz in the box from Walmart! And that is exactly what he got! He was so cute when he went in the front room to open his presents, he kept saying "it must be a buzz mom." He is the most thankful kid I have ever met, and I am not just saying that cause he is mine, he thanked me for Buzz 30 different times yesterday. He tells me he loves me at least a dozen times a day or more! I feel so blessed to have such a wonderful son like Gavin!

Facts about Gavin

He is potty trained
He is very tall and weighs 36 pounds
He is a size 10 shoe!! Holy cow!
He loves his sister more than words can say. He calls her his Jenna Boo
He loves Toy Story, Mickey Mouse, Phineas and Ferb and against my will Spongebob
He just gave all his binkis to the binki monster
He is really a smart kid and is speaking so well (he was a late talker, we wondered)
He loves to go to Nursery
He can not love you to infinity and beyond because he simply does not have wings!

I love you Gavin to Infinity and Be-forever! (that is what he says because of the wing issue)

Jenna's 1st Surgery

On Wednesday we took Jenna to Primary Children's to have her eye surgery. It was a hard day for all of us! We had to have Jenna there at 7:30 am to check in to same day surgery. She had to fast the night before, so of course she was starving! I just love the doctor that did the surgery, he is so nice and great with Jenna. When you go there for surgery they have the doctor, anesthesiologist, and the nurse come and talk to you prior to surgery. They were all so kind. The anesthesiologist was the one that actually took Jenna into surgery. Talk about a hard moment! I had to hand my sweet little baby over to a complete stranger and trust that he would bring her back to me safe and sound. I knew she was in great hands, but it was still really hard!

We waited in the parent waiting room and about and an hour and a half later the doctor came in and told us that Jenna did great and that things looked really good. I was so happy! I was so worried about the anesthesia! They let me go back first to see her in recovery. The funniest thing happened on my way back. The nurse that takes you back walked me to her area and said this is Jenna's mom. The nurses told me that she had been really grumpy and they weren't sure what she needed. The younger nurse was setting down holding Jenna and I said to her " she is cuddly." Well the nurse that walked me back said in the most sincere voice, "oh dear, I think she is just precious." She thought that I said "she is ugly." We all about died laughing!! It takes laughter to get me through anything, so this was a great moment!

Jenna looked pretty beat up when I got to her, she had blood on her eye of course and then blood around her mouth from the breathing tube. It took us about 2 hours to get her calm enough to eat. They finally took out her IV and we were able to take her home! She has been doing really well, Thursday was a hard day and Saturday was hard. She has been eating and being more active each day. She is such a little fighter and I feel so proud to be her mother! I love this little miracle so much!

This was when she first came out of surgery


This is Jenna today 4 days after surgery

Jenna Update

People have asked about Jenna's hearing and what we have decided to do. I met with Dr. Park a few weeks ago about her ABR test and we decided that we are going to do Cochlear Implants. We have an appointment with the implant doctor on July 20th to find out more about the implants and to discuss how they would help Jenna, and hopefully soon after that they will do the surgery! After I made the appointment I got a little excited! It is just so amazing that technology has brought us this far, to be able to make a little girl go from hearing nothing to hearing everything! I think it is so amazing! God's hands just continue to touch Jenna's life.

Well, we have been back from Disneyland for two weeks now, and I still want to go back. We had SO much fun.

We stayed in Las Vegas one night on the way down and one on the way back. We stayed at Southpointe, it was an awesome hotel. I think I will stay there from now on when I go! We made a gambler out of Ryan by introducing him to Blackjack! Lets hope he takes after me and walks away and not like Kurt who has to be drug out!

We made it to Disneyland around 6pm on Sunday and decided to go into the park. That was the best time to go, we walked right onto everything! No lines, it was lots of fun!

The look on Gavin's face was just priceless the first morning we walked through the gates to Disneyland. He truly loved every minute of it. He kept saying "can we go on acation (vacation)" the whole drive down. We had to convince him that we were on vacation!

He got to meet all his heroes, Micky, Handy Manny, Pluto, Minnie and many many more! I had to take him to Goofy's Kitchen, the Asper family always took me there and I loved it. Gav was so into it, I was glad because it was a bit pricey! He got to see Minnie, Pluto, Goofy, Princess Aurora "Beauty", Mad Hatter, and Chip. Minnie even came and got him to go dance, Gav ate it up! He was so cute with her he danced the entire song hand in hand with Minnie Mouse! It was so worth the money. He was must of gotten tired though, we all were looking at a character and when we turned back to Gav we realized he fell asleep and his head fell right into his mac and cheese! He had quite the look on his face!

We spent 4 days in Disneyland and 1 day in California Adventure. Gav was able to do a lot in California Adventure. While Ry, Dad and Kurt went on the roller coaster, I took Gavin to the Bugs Life area and we went on all the rides he could do there. He loved it! He was actually tall enough to go on all the big rides too! Pretty impressive for a 2 year old! We went into Dinseyland around noon every day and didn't leave the park until it closed at midnight, mom would have stayed and slept if they would have let her! I think we hit all the rides at least once if not twice and spent more than we should have on frozen bananas, drinks and churros. I can't believe how much the food costs! Oh well, ya only get there every few years!

We loved the fireworks and Fantasmic. I just love Disney and the feeling you get when you are there, I turn into a 6 year old at heart, thanks Walt!

We took one day and went to Huntington Beach and had lots of fun there. Mom and Ryan were the only ones who got in the water, I prefer the sand at the beach not the water! Gav liked making sand castles and then knocking them over within seconds of their construction!

This vacation made me love being a mother just so much more. Seeing the excitement on Gavin's face was just so rewarding to me. He is such a wonderful little boy and growing up way to fast. Jenna was the perfect baby on this trip! She slept and ate and enjoyed one ride, It's a Small World. She loved the lights and bright colors. All of the characters would spend lots of time with her, we held up a lot of lines! She even enjoyed putting her feet in the sand at the beach.

After such a rough roller coaster of a year last year,this vacation was much needed and we enjoyed every minute of it!

Gavin is a....

BIG BOY!!

Gavin is officially potty trained! He decided about three weeks ago that he wanted to wear big boy underwear! He had two accidents the first day and after that we were good..well with pee anyway. He kept holding the other, but now if I read him a book he is great! He is getting more and more used to it everyday.

Gavin is 2 1/2 and huge. He is in the 95% for his height. He just keeps getting bigger and bigger. He is so observant lately, he wants to know EVERYTHING. He always says, "What is that called mom?", or "what does this do?" He knows all his colors, shapes and we are working on counting in order. He is also learning some sign language and doing really well with that. It amazes me how quick he catches onto things!

I just love this little boy to pieces, he is such a sweetheart! Today I asked him to do something and he told me "sure thing sweety!" I love you Gav!

(somewhat explicit picture to follow)

long weekend

What a weekend!

On Saturday we left Richfield a few minutes late (2.5 hrs actually) and headed to Provo for the NICU 30 year reunion. We were excited to go and hopefully run into a few people from the NICU. Kurt took Gavin to do some of the activities while I fed Jenna, Gav loved it they had face painting, fishing for prizes, and lots of treats. While I was setting there feeding Jenna I saw one of Jenna's angels walking down towards me. I was surprised that tears started to fill my eyes. Here name was Annie and she was the best thing about the NICU. She helped us daily try to feed Jenna. She was so sweet to Jenna and such an advocate for her. I remember her telling me before we left, "many people are going to try and count her out and say she cant do things, you treat her like a normal baby and she will do anything!" And that is exactly how I treat Jenna. We also ran into one of the receptionists that works at the NICU, with all those late nights you find anybody to talk to. She was a really cute girl named Bonnie, she came back to the reunion twice to see if we came! What special people you meet there!

Then on Sunday we drove to Spanish Fork to meet with the Hallow's family about their sweet daughter who has a cochlear implant. We received a lot of information about the implants and it was wonderful to see how well their daughter is doing. She also invited a friend of hers whose daughter has an implant and it was good to hear her story as well. God just continues to bless us all with miracles and she is one of them. I am so thankful to them for opening up their home for us!

Monday started off with an eye appointment at the Moran Eye Center in Riverton. We met with a new Doctor, Dr. Larsen. He was wonderful. He was so good with Jenna. He amazingly enough said that Jenna has equal vision in both eyes. Remember when Jenna was 5 days old they told us she was blind in one eye and missing the optic nerve. Well thankfully that doctor was WAY wrong. I call him Dr. Meaniepants. :) Have to have humor when you go to so many appointments! She does still cross her eyes, mainly her right one, so we scheduled a surgery to correct that towards the end of July. They will also open up her tear ducts so that her eyes wont be so runny.

Tuesday was her ABR, hearing test. I was hoping for a miracle that it would have different results than last time, but it didn't. It still showed profound hearing loss in both ears. I will meet with the ear doctor on Tuesday and we are hoping to start progress on getting her an implant.

Jenna continues to be such a wonderful baby, I couldn't ask for more! You would never know that anything was wrong with her, she has such a sweet spirit about her. I feel so lucky to even have her here in my home that it makes things like her hearing and ears seem like nothing to deal with. I never realized how much we take for granted. The lady we met at the Hallow's likened the hearing loss to a death. You mourn these things and it takes time to get over the thought of your child having an "imperfection." With Jenna I always say God gave her a body and earthly life, the rest is a luxury we can deal with not having. I know she communicates with me in her own way. Her and Gavin have a bond that seems unbreakable, I know they were friends in Heaven, you can just see it.

And of course after having a long weekend away and busy, we are all sick! So now I will work on getting us all better! And in 1 week we are headed to DISNEYLAND!! I have never been so excited, this family needs a vacation!

7 months and finally growing!

It is so crazy how fast time goes by, I can't believe Jenna is 7 months old! She is still small enough that it seems like I just had her! She is doing really well even with everything stacked against her. She just amazes me. Jenna started rolling over about 2 months ago and has yet to quit. You can not leave her alone anymore, because she will roll right onto her stomach, she hasn't quite figured out how to get back over. She is doing really well holding her head up, lots better just the last week or so. I have started to put her in her bumbo chair and she is doing fairly well with it. Her physical therapist was really impressed with all that she is able to do. She has already surpassed Gav, he didn't move until he was 9 months old. So anything Jenna does is amazing to me:) Jenna loves her thumb, fist, finger..whatever she can get in her mouth to chew on! She is starting to eat more and loves the oatmeal cereal. She is 13 pounds and growing right on the curve on the growth chart. She is such a cute snugly baby. She has become really vocal lately too, especially during church;) She loves to talk and play with Gavin, he is such a sweet older brother, they are lucky to have each other.

Last week we went to Primary Children's in Riverton and Jenna got her hearing aids. They are SO cute! Of course I got them pink with sparkles!! They are a hassle to keep on however! Her ear is so small and the piece that goes behind her ear is heavy so I have to Velcro it to her headband! She hasn't had much improvement hearing, but they didn't think she would. She has to wear them for 6 months in order to be a candidate for cochlear implants. The other problem is that her ear canal is so extremely small, the piece that goes in her ear can't go down very far to transmit the sound to her inner ear. So one more obstacle she has to overcome, what a strong baby she is!

We have appointments in May for her eyes. We are praying that she can have sight in both eyes, the Dr. said she mainly needs to get bigger to be able to tell. She seems to see the whole world if you ask me!

We love our little angel and I feel so extremely blessed to be her parent. I have had many people lately tell me that they read my blog and it makes me feel so happy to know that Jenna's story is reaching others. (please leave a comment so I know who you are:)) I know she was sent to this earth for that purpose. I hope her story helps anybody going through this or a similar situation. Please know that if you have questions please ask them, I will answer anything! I put everything on this blog, even those things that are emotionally hard for me. But I feel that I need to, it is somewhat therapeutic for me....strange huh!

Here are a few pictures of Jenna Baby even one with her new Hearing Aids!!