Gone Exploring

On Sunday, I was reading some stuff for church and Michelle was playing on the floor next to me. I promise that I really was watching Michelle. I am not a completely negligent mother, but she is very quiet and very sneaky. I turned to see what she was playing with and found her scooting under the huge blue cart.

All for that silly little pink saline flush.

I ended up having to lift up the cart to get her out whole. (I like her little ears the way they are). It makes me laugh at the mischief she gets herself into.

Second Generation Blogger

While I was updating the Blog the other night, Michelle decided to help. I finally decided to show the picture. It was just so funny watching her type with her little fingers just like Mommy. The funniest thing was it took me quite a while to get this picture because every time I tried she would see my camera and being the picture princess she is she kept turning and smiling at the camera. What a good helper she is.

The Beginnings of Traditions

This year we decided to start some new family traditions. This was the first of some of the new. Every year one of the hospitals here hosts a festival of trees. There are so many trees, decorations, and other beautiful Christmas ornaments to walk around and admire. However, the most exciting thing to see were her little eyes looking at everything with such awe and wonder.

We were like many families having to stop all the traffic to take pictures in front of the really pretty trees, but that is how you record traditions, right.

Afterwards we went outside and showed Michelle the really, really big tree all decorated and lighted up. It was so beautiful and so fun.

Have I grown?

She stills seems so little still, especially when we get her next her cousins. However, when we were decorating for Christmas this year, Tory remembered taking this picture last year with her in her stocking and decided to take a picture of her in the stocking this year.
















I think that she may be just a bit bigger, maybe.

Thanksgiving

The yummy, yummy, yummy, yummy, yummy Turkey. It was really yummy.

The table all ready for us to eat. Did I tell you it was really yummy?

Michelle telling us how she was so thankful that she was NOT in the hospital, hahahahaha.
We are thankful for everything that has happened this last year because it has gotten us to wonderful moments like this.
Our thankful list: well it is too long to post, lets just say we are definitely thankful.

Let it Snow

Yesterday morning we got a bit of surprise when we woke up.

SNOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Series of Unfortunate Events Continued

We thought we were safe once we got home. Guess not. Michelle started acting sick Friday morning, but she played and laughed with her therapist that morning. However, by that afternoon she was very cranky, very tired, and very hot. I took her temperature and it was 101.8 degress Farhenheit. I decided to call her doctor and was waiting for a phone call back when Tory got up. He decided to recheck her Temperature, 102.5 degrees. Well lets just say we bought ourselves a weekend stay in our favorite hospital's PICU room. She ended up having a really bad respiratory infection and now has take a really strong antibiotic that is making her tummy feel really really yucky.

Doesn't she look so pathetic in this picture. Eyes like those make a mommy so sad.

Do Not Let Children Play with Cords and Wires

A picture is worth a thousand words, or groans of disbelief, whichever fits.

You may not believe us, but Michelle got herself tied up in this knot. What a good little boy-scout.

A Series of Unfortunate Events

Well, I know that it has been quite a while since I have posted, but there is always a story behind everything. As I had previously mentioned we were going on our first vacation ever with Michelle. This first picture is of Michelle is the night before enjoying some sugar out of the post Halloween treat bowl.

Unfortunate Event 1: We knew that since Murphy's Law rules our lives we would have to make multiple plans to make sure that we survived the trip to our vacation. Plan A: use the big ventilator with a battery life of approximately 4 hours. That would allow for Michelle to breathe the easiest and have the best humidity. Plan B: CPAP device that has internal humidifier that can plug into the car, not as effective, but will work. Plan C: Oxygen bag, no humidity and if at all possible only for emergency use. Well we were in car for approximately 4o minutes when Plan A failed due to unknown issues with the battery. Of course we then went to Plan B. We had not even gone another 20 minutes when the internal humidifier of the CPAP device failed. I spent an hour adjusting this and that until it finally worked. Like I said before Plan C was only for emergency. Thankfully we did not have to get to that point.

Unfortunate Event 2: We decided to just to use the supposedly now working the CPAP device because it is more convenient and portable the next day while we had our first our Thanksgiving dinner of the season at Tory's brother's house. The dinner event in itself was a wonderful event since the entire Thornton family had not been together in exactly 2 years. However, as soon as we got there the CPAP device stopped working again. We tried everything our minds could think of, including trying to dry an electrical sensor with my sister-in-laws blow dryer. (I can feel you all cringing at the idea of an electrical sensor being wet, but that is long story in itself). Well we finally gave up, and Tory's brother Tim brought down his regular humidifier and we just watched Michelle really close to make sure her breathing did not become too labored.

Unfortunate Event 3: We got lost in downtown Salt Lake City, UT trying to go to a doctor's consultation. What more do we have to say. (Luckily our sister and brother-in-law told us to leave really early and we made it to the consultation on time.)

Unfortunate Event 4: This is only mildly unfortunate and just to me. I went shopping with my sister at this cool interior decorating store. I found the frame I have spent my entire married life looking for. It is this really big multi-opening frame that I wanted for our bedroom and only it was only 25 dollars. Well, there were a few problems. My sister's car was not big enough to get it back to her house, and our car was already pack full of medical equipment to get it back to our house. I know this is petty, but I was really sad.

Our trip was actually a fabulous trip. We spent so much time with our family and we are definitely the type of people that like being involved with our family. It was incredible looking at the dinner table and seeing all those people sitting there and realizing that that was our family. Wowsers.

We also were able to go to Temple Square, Tory and I haven't been there since we were engaged (6 years ago) and were there with his family for the annual Christmas Lighting ceremony. Time has definitely flown by this last little while. We took a couple pictures of us and Tory's parents while walking around. This was definitely not an unfortunate event.

We also were able to let Michelle play with her cousins. It is fun to look at how they react and interact. They were very cute and funny, of course with the parents these kids have it is no surprised how cute and fun they are. However, we only got pictures with a few of her cousins, stinking medical equipment taking up our time.

Yeah Cousins!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tagged

So I have been Tagged. I have to tell six truths, some embarassing. I hope you enjoy on my expense.

Truth number 1: I had a nose job when I was I was eleven. The technical term for the surgery I had to have done was rhinoplasty and it was not to make my nose look prettier (I wish), no it was to make it so that I would not snore so loudly. I had been scaring my entire family with the volume of my snoring. My sister woke up one night from nightmares about wild animals, then she realized it was just me snoring.

Truth number 2: I won't eat peppers. It is not that they make me sick or that I can't stand the taste or smell, I just don't eat them. Kinda sad.

Truth number 3: I love to play with fire. Not metaphorically, literally. When I was little I used play with my mom's candles. One time I lit a paper napkin on fire with one of her favorite candles, I don't quite remember why, but I then tried to run to the sink to put it out with water, the napkin landed on the floor and melted the linoleum. I apologized to Mom and tried to give her my whole life saving, I think it was something like five dollars and some odd cents. The best part is my mom kept that part of the kitchen floor covered up so no one could see the spot and my dad only found out about it after I went to college.

Truth number 4: I love chocolate. I probably should go to rehab because of how much I love chocolate. I literally have to eat something chocolate everyday. I don't know why or what would happen if I didn't eat it, but I absolutely love chocolate.

Truth number 5: I hate taking medicine. I'm a nurse and know all about taking medicine when perscribed and all that stuff but I absolutely hate taking medicine.

Truth number 6: I love sleeping in. Not that I get to do it anymore with Michelle wanting to play play play. But if I could stay in bed as late as I wanted, oh what a world that would be.

Signing Time

As most of you know, Michelle has been diagnosed with hearing impairment and so about a month ago we added another therapist to our myriad of new friends who come to our home each week. She is a wonderfully talented woman who works as an outreach teacher through the Idaho School for the Deaf and Blind. She has been a very positive influence on us and has been helping us learn sign language. I know, Tory and I both have a hard enough time speaking English, our first language, let alone learn an entirely new language so we can teach it to Michelle. However, like I said, this therapist has been very positive and we are very excited about this new challenge.

When I told this therapist we are going to being getting together with Tory's whole family she got very excited. We sat down, and for an hour we made name signs for all of Tory's family. It took an hour because it was difficult to think of nine different ways to sign the letter T without using existing signs that already mean something, like potty. Lets just say it was very fun to make up all these new signs, of course it was nice that at least two were already real words, Grandma and Grandpa. She has given us a big assignment to take pictures of each family member using their name sign so we can make a picture book for Michelle to learn everyone's name. We can't wait to see the outcome, it is going to be so fun.

The next time I meet with this outreach teacher I want to figure out name signs for the McCracken side of the family. Though I think we are going to have a fun time trying to figure out five more A signs. Sigh, why doesn't anyone name a child with something that starts with a letter like Q. Hahaha

We are so excited to be taking Michelle on her first vacation and get together with the entire Thornton side for the first time in TWO years. YEAH!!!!!!!!! We have been trying to prepare Michelle for this excursion, but I'm pretty sure she has absolutely no idea what this all means.

I know that we have already uploaded a lot of pictures from Halloween, but like I said before, it is way more fun than when we were D.I.N.K.s (Double income no kids). These are two of the Pictures that Tammy took for us Halloween night. I can not tell you how fun it was to watch someone take pictures of our super cute girl and then get some family shots. Tammy took so many great pictures, I guess my new project is to figure out how to make a web album and link it to the blog so you all can see all the wonderful pictures. Well one step at a time, trying to join the 21st century is more work than I thought, whew.

Oh, the joy of childhood

Halloween was so so fun. Everything has become so much more exciting since we had a baby. Not that she realizes what is going on yet, but being able to get excited about trick or treating, costumes, and scary movies (a.k.a. Disney's The Haunted Mansion) is so fun again.

We found another edible substance that Michelle allows into her mouth, Dum Dum suckers. Do we see a trend growing, chocolate chip cookies, Doritos, salsa, and popsicles.

Oh well, she was happy, and she voluntarily put it back into her mouth. I just can't get too upset when she looks at us with those super cute eyes. What is a mother to do? This was definitely a more fun filled Halloween, than we have enjoyed in a long time.

Michelle finally got tired and she crashed, Nemo suit or not, she went to sleep. She slept good and hard that night and when she got up the next morning, boy was she excited to get going again. As soon as we got her out of bed to play with her she had to give us a big cheshire cat type of smile. She probably knew that Daddy would think that a Dum Dum would totally be an acceptable breakfast food. She is not spoiled at all is she.

Anyway, her first Halloween at home was excellent and we are already excited for next year. (Do you think they make a Lightning McQueen race car costume? Uhmm.)

Happy Halloween

Yes, oh, yes. We have been converted to blogging. What can we say, we have decided to join the rest of the world. We are catching up with "the Times".

We had so much fun at the Ward Carnival slash Trunk or Treat. Michelle was the only Nemo at the party. What super fun. We were busy busy on Halloween, Doctor appointments (of course) in the morning, and dressing up that evening, and having a fun Halloween photo shoot with Tammy and Nemo at the end of the day.

After the Doctor appointments though, we stopped by to see some old friends in the St. Luke's PICU. They were all in amazement of how wonderful she looks. We of course think that she looks perfect and is doing wonderfully, but it was nice to hear people who haven't seen Michelle in a while tell us she looks great.

Well, we are so excited to start this blogging thing. As a good friend told us we are "journaling" so here's a big Thank You!!!!!!! to Tammy.