Summer updates

Well, again I have lacked on the blogging. We have a whole summer to catch up on so lets get
started. July was awesome as it was my BIRTHDAY!!! July 2 (aka the best day of the year) brought some wonderful times. Mom, Cami & I went shopping while the boys went golfing. Then we all went to my favorite Mexican resturant Bella's. Then it was presents and cake and ice cream at our home. I got some cute shirts and Ratitoullie from Cami, $ from Tyler & Grams Vi & Christensen, and just lots of other things I can't think of right now....
July also brought Mom's 55th Birthday! We love celebrating birthday's in our family so any excuse to get together and party is our time!!
The Kitties are getting so big! They are very naughty but are just a bundle of fun! They are just now starting to shed a little, which we have THOROUGHLY enjoyed not having cat hair everywhere...but we knew that day had to end. This is a picture of Lamar after he had tipped over the bag of catfood and climbed inside for a little snacky. He is so naughty.

Chloe in the sink, her fav spot in the morning:

Posing for a picture:


We went to Vegas on our way to San Diego for Heathers Wedding (Justin's little sister).
Justin & I at the Venetian in Las Vegas:

They were married on July 21 in the San Diego Temple. It was such a beautiful sealing and day. It was so relaxed and just absoultely amazing! She looked so beautiful and she and Steve were so happy! There reception was beautiful at his parents clubhouse.
The cute new married couple:

Getting some cake:

Grabbing a bite to eat of the delish Mexican catered food:


While we were in Cali we went golfing to an amazing course! I am a recent golfer and although I am terrible we sure do have fun together.
Golfing in Cali:

We really enjoyed every minute in Cali with Justin's family and with my grandparents and uncle. Mom flew down for the weekend so we could spend time together w/grams. It was awesome!!
Harbor Cruise in San Diego:



We have also gone camping a few times this summer in my parents new tent trailer. It is so nice to camp in a trailer instead of a tent!
Camping:





And now for the big news: We are buying a HOUSE!! We decided to start looking w/the potential of moving in January or February. We found this house that we loved and the owner had just dropped the price under the bracket we were looking in. She has had her home on the market for 6 months and had dropped the price by $50,000! So we decided that if we wanted a chance at the house we needed to put in an offer. So we did and she countered and we accepted!! So if our financing goes through, we will close on Sept 29 and be homeowners!!!! The home is in Perry. It's a 6 bedroom, 3 bath. I know what you are thinking. 6 bedrooms? Why would we need all of that room? Well, upstairs is 3 bedroom, 2 bath and downstairs is 3 bedroom, 1 bath. The downstairs has it's own entrance and full kitchen. It's on 1/3rd of an acre w/ full terraced landscaping. It is amazing! The owner we think is an elderly lady whose hubby just died and so she needs to move to a smaller home. She is also giving us all of the furniture in the basement. We are SO EXCITED!! I wish we had picture to post, but she already took the listing off of realestate.com. WE ARE SO EXCITED!!!! And just a quick shout-out to our AMAZING Realtor! His name is Tim Burton, he is the hubby of one of my long time friends Keri. He has been so wonderful and helped this process be fun!

Some Random Pics & 2 new additions....

Hi all!
I was looking at some pics we've taken over the last few months and I thought I'd post some. But first, We are now a family of 5!!!!!
Yes, we have twins! A boy and a girl. They are 5 weeks old. Here they are:




We think we will call them Chloe and Lamar. But we're not sold on it just yet..... Chloe is the dainty one with more white and Lamar (?) is the one with more black and stripes all over. They are SO CUTE!!!
So here is the story. I've wanted a kitty for a long time. Justin does too, but he won't admit it b/c he wants a dog (which I really really don't want and we can borrow our neighbors dog anytime). Well, after looking on KSL for a few weeks, Tyler and I went to a lady's house to look at the 2 kitties she had left. Well, after walking down to the musty basement and seeing the terrible conditions that they were living in, I had to have them both! And how could I have let them be split up and leave on in that terrible house?! Nope, they had to come together! We have had SO much fun watching them play. They are such good kitties! They sleep all night long and have taken to litter box training with no mistakes! We are loving them!!!

Lets see, what has gone on the past few months...
Mothers day!!! Mothers day was hard for me, I thought it wouldn't be too bad, but I was kind of a mess the whole day. But it was nice!! Justin got me an Anti-Gravity chair! It is AWESOME! And my mom got me a necklace w/brannick's name and birthdate on it and a willow tree of a baby boy. Here is mom opening some of her gifts:






We also celebrated Dad and Cami's birthday's this month. Dad's was on May 25 & Cami's was on May 27. For some reason, I don't have any pics of dad.....I must have taken them w/someone else's camera. Oops... But here is Cami:



We were able to enjoy Memorial day in the rain vising Brannick and our friend Heather's little girl Hadlee.

Me & Justin w/Brannick


The Fam:


Me & Shalyce w/Brannick:


Little Hadlee's Grave:

Two Months

It hardly seems fair that life has gone by after the passing of our sweet son. It has been two months since his body left this Earth. We have been doing well, just keeping busy as usual. I am still working 5-6 days a week and Justin keeps his busy schedule at work. We have been so blessed with callings, family, & friends to keep us occupied and busy doing the Lords work. We miss our sweet Brannick and not a day goes by that I do not think of and long for him. I recently had a friend lose her newborn daughter and as she wrote on her blog of her experiences during her short stay at Ogden Regional and then Primary's I longed to be there. It amazed me how much I just wanted to walk down those familiar halls and see the same faces that always greeted us on our way back to Brannick. I would give anything to be able to go back and spend one more minute with him. I am not sure if I'd be strong enough to handle visiting the hospital, but it just seemed like a second home to me. The smells and sounds remind me of him. Anyway, at this point I'm just blabbing on and on about nothing. The point of this was to remember him and to let you all know that we are doing well. He is still very close and I feel his sweet presence. We don't cry over him as often (we meaning me....I'm a crybaby!) but I remember him always and keep him close. I can never express enough the relief I feel at knowing that because of Heavenly Fathers plan for us we will be with him again. I long for that day. Thank you to those of you who still call, pray, and think of us. We are so blessed to have so many wonderful people surrounding us. Here are a few more pictures of his last day with us:

Heavens very special angel

I know many of you are surprised to hear of the sad events that have happened over the past few weeks leading up to Brannick passing away. He got a very small infection that lead to him needing to be on the ventillator again. After several days of getting worse and needing more support, the doctors pulled us aside and reminded us that many kids that are on a ventillator for more than 3 months of their lives will most likely not ever be able to live for long. After a lot of talking, learning and praying, we decided that it would be more peaceful and less painful for Brannick to be taken off of life support before he gets sick and dies suddenly. On Sunday we felt that Thursday was to be the day. As the days past on he kept getting worse and they needed to give him more sedation and morphine to keep him comfortable.

Thursday our family gathered together say goodbye to our sweet might prince. As we pulled out his breathing tube he continued to breathe for about 30 minutes. It was peaceful and gentle as his spirit slowly slipped away from my arms to Heavenly Fathers arms. Although this was the hardest thing I've ever done, it was the most peaceful and spiritual experience I think I've ever had.

Saturday was a very small viewing for family and a small graveside service. We decided to keep everything small since Brannick was so personal to us. We just felt like it needed to be small and intimate. I hope those of you who would have liked to have been there can understand our decision. We are so thankful for all of you who have been so amazing and supportive toward us. Your prayers were felt and helped us to be strong for our son. He is an amazing little boy and we are honored to be his earthly parents and to see him again soon.

I need to give a very special thanks to the wonderful people at the hospitals Brannick lived in. He was so loved and watched over. Every decision they made on his behalf was one of love. This past week, Primary Childrens was just so amazing. They let us do whatever it was that we needed. We were able to visit at any hour and have as many people by his bedside as we wanted. They gave us more than we needed and provided lunch for us on Thursday. All of the nurses who cared for Brannick were amazing. We are so blessed to have so many new friends! Our life is so wonderful!

I also need to thank Myers mortuary. They offered all of their services to us at no cost. It would have been several thousands of dollars for us to bury our son, but they donated everything. They were amazing! Now we are going to be able to pay for a headstone for Brannick. How blessed we are!

I will post pictures here and there over the next few weeks.

Bath Time & Fashion Show

Well, Brannick and I have had so much fun this week! I have worked a lot, but when I am there I have stayed for a long time. Every Mon, Wed, & Friday (and as needed) it is bath night in the NICU. I was able to be there Wednesday and this was Brannick's first time getting IN the bath tub and not having a sponge bath. He LOVED it! His eyes were all huge and he was so excited! It was DARLING! I was really nervous to be the first to put him in the bath, and man are babies slippery when wet!! LOL! He just kind of kept slipping out of my hands and slumping. It was quite hilarious to watch.

First real bath!
(Wednesday)


Then I got to play dress up. He got so big so fast that I am in a hurry to get him to wear the cute preemie clothes he was given. He wore Uncle Ty's outfit on Wednesday

Clothes from Uncle Tyler:



Aunt Cami's on Friday (after another bath)

Dino outfit from Aung Cami & Uncle Lloyd:

Bath time:
(Friday)



He always wears gramma's outfits and next will be the ones I bought him. It is SO fun!

My cute doggie outfit from gramma Terry:




He has been feeling better this week. We are crossing all of our fingers, toes, and limbs that he will be healthy for a while and can really grow and progress like he is supposed to. He is currently a VERY CHUBBY 6 lbs, 4 oz! I just love this little guy!

Brannick in his new bouncer:

Brannick is 5 Months!

Well, he is now 5 months old and 5 lbs 10 oz! He has gotten to be quite the chubby baby! Who knew that he could be chubby with how small he started? Amazing! He is doing well. He got sick a few weeks ago and had to be reintubated for a few days. Those were bad days for he and I. He was a maniac! His nurses couldn't figure out who he was cuz he was so angry about being on the ventillator again. Poor little guy! But they extubated him after about 5 days and he was great! A totally different kid! He was having a double doses of sedatives every 2 hours and was still ridiculous! We are SO glad to have him on only high flow oxygen again.
Not too much exciting news other than he is a cute chubby baby that loves to sleep and snuggle on mom. I LOVE that part!
Stretching and yawning:

Sleeping in his favorite spot on mom:

My cute Choo-choo outfit:

Supporting the packers!:

More cute pictures

I just can't stand how fun it has been to have Brannick wearing clothes. I get to hold him all the time now and I hope that within the next few weeks he can start learning how to eat.

This onsie is a Carters newborn size. He still has a ways to go to fit into this size:

The first time gramma got to hold him:

His cute sleeper outfit-still pretty big on him: