Gracie is 10 months old, St. George trip, and other happenings.

Gracie turned 10 months last week. She is getting to be such a great sitter. She talks a ton too. Not quite crawling yet and she still refuses to put weight on her feat. She likes having her toes painted and loves shape toys. Oh and one big thing Gracie has one tooth. Just on the bottom and not quite all the way in. But you can see and feel it. Mom is happy. Gracie is having a hard time with this tooth and is clingy and whiney. I guess that goes with the territory. I still love to cuddle with her though. I just recently was called as a nursery worker. Yesterday was my first day there. It was crazy. 18 kids and 3 adults. I took Gracie in because Josh had worked Saturday night and we sleeping. It was quite hard. Gracie was tired and hungry and I couldn't really do anything about it. But I will tell you one thing. When you are in nursery time goes way fast. I hope it gets better. Josh and I also went to St. George Last weekend. We had a great time. Josh spent most of his time tacking for snakes. I even went road cruising with him friday night. Saturday we spent the whole day with our wonderful friends the Clyde's. We went out to lunch and had o wonderful time. I love those guys. This last Saturday my niece had her first dance recital ever. She was so cute. My parents have been on a trip these last to weeks of Europe. I miss them lots. They are suppose to return on Saturday this week. Can't wait to see them. My nephew is being blessed this coming Sunday. It is also my mom's birthday. I can't wait. Oh and lets not forget to mention Josh and My cruise of Alaska June 1st-11th. So excited. It is for our 10th anniversary. Wow I can't believe it has been that long. We have lots of trips planed this year. 2012 Vacations every month we try to go to St. George. June we are going on a Cruise to Alaska July we are going to San Francisco for the CDH conference August is our Jensen family trip to Capistrano Beach, California. We will be busy busy busy this summer

Gracie is 9 Months.

This past Easter weekend we had Josh's parents stay with us. They left sunday afternoon. But Gracie sure gets a workout with both grandma's. We are trying to get her to use her legs more. She really won't put any pressure on them. We bought her a Jenny Jump up. Hopefully she will get used to using her legs. She is sitting up much better now and likes to sit up in the shopping carts. She is now eating baby food 3 times a day thanks to Grandma Hensley. Still can not figure out how to turn from her stomach to her back. But we are working on that. She is now 14 lbs. it took her 5 months. Doctor said today to work on her legs. But other than that she is doing great. So glad to have her in our family.

The land Dilemma

So many of you know that Josh and I recently bought a house in saratoga springs. We love the house but we really don't have a back yard. We do have a bigger side yard, but it is on a hill. Next to use on the south side is an empty lot. We had planned on purchasing this lot so we could have a better side lot. Recently there have been some developments. We noticed on Wednesday that someone was putting a fence up in our back yard. We thought that they were fencing off the vacant lot but they did our whole back fence. That wasn't so bad. Less fence we have to pay for. While they were working on the fence we went out to talk to them. We asked them why they were putting up the fence. They said that a company called Subdivision INC. told them too and that this company had also purchase some of the empty lots. Bummer. But we still had our hopes up about the next door lot. The next door lot is shaped like a triangle. There is not much room for a driveway and you would basically have no yard. Not the best space in my opinion to build. We thought this would help us.

Last night we had someone come and look at the lot. We asked them how many lots had been sold. They told us that it looks like all of them had been sold. Scares us even more. We called our real-estate agent and he told us that the empty lots had been sold. We wanted to call the company to ask them how much the lot next door would be but it was way to late to get an answer. I asked my real-estate agent how much he thought they would sell it for. He told me that they bought the land they are building on for $60,000. He sad he would guess about $30,000 to $50,000. Double POOP! Now we are hoping that the one ticked Josh's parents got from the Idaho lottery will help. Most likely not. We are good with bad percentages just not good ones. AKA: CDH reoccurring in the same family( (2%). If only.

Our new Car!

Sorry this is quite late but Josh and I leased a brand new Honda Pilot in Feb. 27th. We have loved every minute driving it. It is so nice and big. Much easer to get Gracie in and out of it and we have tons of trunk space even with our huge stroller. Now if course the day after we bought it, Josh had to deck it out in Ute stuff. We even got the U license plates. So much fun to drive. I am still al little nervous about parking it, but I think I am getting the hang of it. We actually were just going to test drive it., but we fell in love with it. It seats 8 and will be so nice to take on our trips this year. 3 major trips. Our 10th anniversary Cruise in June. The CDH conference in San Francisco in July. And our family trip to Capistrano Beach in August. We love it so much. Oh and if you ever want to buy a Honda, go to Stockton 12 on 10600 south. They were awesome to work with,

Gracie is 8 Months

Yes she is. She now can roll over to her stomach all by her self. She hasn't figured out how to roll back though and gets quite mad. She laughs and giggles. She has always been a great sleeper and sleeps from 8:30 pm to 9:00 am. She is finally through her nasty virus and is back to her normal self. She likes to shake and knodd her head. She loves loves loves her daddy. She smiles every time she sees him. She likes his facial hair and always tries do touch it. She is quite the daddy's girl. She loves to grab mom's hair too. She will usually hold it while going to sleep. She also is and exceptional eater and loves Nella Wafers. Still working on the sitting up part. And she still won't have anything to do with standing up. She also loves her Grandpa Jensen so very much.

Her next big adventure will be the skull specialist at Primary Children's. I have been noticing her soft spot more often and I asked her Pediatrician today. I may be noticing it more because of her Meningitis scare last week. He felt her head and told us that he wanted to be sure that everything was normal. So he is having us go to the specialist. He told me not to get too worried, because he thinks everything will be fine. He just wants to be totally sure.

I don't know how I feel about going back to Primary Children's again. I hope I will be ok.

If things are not normal Gracie will probably get a CAT scan, a helmet or need surgery.

I don't think she will need any of those.

The Meningitis Scare

Well Thursday was quite the day. Tending my sisters kids while she was recovering from having a baby. To calling the doctor to get an appointment. Gracie is really unhappy lately and has had low grade fevers all week. Doctor found her was a little red in her ear and gave her some Amoxisilin. He told us that it was also a virus causing the fevers. He noticed that her soft spot had become a little swollen and mentioned Meningitis, but didn't seem that concerned. He told us that he didn't really know Gracie and told us to try to get a follow up appointment with Gracie's Pediatrician on Friday. This was about 8:30 pm. I went and picked up Gracie's medication and headed home. Gracie was crying the whole way home. I thought something has to be wrong. Gracie isn't a fussy baby and she sounded like something was wrong. I called my mom and discuss it with her. She said that she would see if she could find anything in the Infant illness book she had and call me back. We got home and I tried to feed Gracie. She only would eat 2 oz. out of 6. I became more concerned. I put Gracie to bed and called my mom again. She said that it probably wasn't anything serious because she was sleeping ok. After the call I went in to check on Gracie. She immediately started to fuss and cry again. Now I knew something was wrong. I called my mom again in a panic. She had liked up the swollen soft spot in the book and told me that it might be Meningitis. Very serious. I had never even heard of it. She told me it was bacteria on the brain that was infecting it and that it could be fatal. She told me to try two things on Gracie to see if it could be Meningitis.Her soft spot on her head was swollen. And she has had a low grade fever this whole week. Plus Fussiness. I got really worried when she was not sleeping. I called my mom and she read something about swollen soft spots in a Infant medical book. The book said to try putting her neck on her chest and see if her leg comes up. The other told to hold her leg at a 90 degree angle and see if that caused pain. Both she did. So My mom told me to take her straight to ER. This was at 11:30.

The ER started looking at her immediately. She was given an IV and some fluids. They did a lot of blood draws and a blood culture. They also checked her urine. Gracie screaming the whole time. The couldn't find anything. A doctor told us that he would like to do a spinal tap to make sure that it was not Meningitis. They gave Gracie a low dose sedation and the started the spinal tap.

After waiting until 5:30 am we finally got the results.No Meningitis. Hooray! Thank Heavens. I was a little disappointed though. I wanted to know what was causing the fever. Dr. said a Virus. Viruses suck. You can't cure them. You just have to stay there corse. Anyway I am so grateful that it was not Meningitis. Doc. said to continue giving her Tylenol every 4 hours for the fever. Very scary night and a very tiring one. I just hope that what ever Gracie has will go away soon. I hate to see my Goosie so sad.

Gracie's weird fever

Gracie has felt a little under the weather lately. Sunday when at my parents house for Dinner, she got really fussy. She had thrown up in the car on the way from over eating. So I knew that she wasn't hungry. I checked her pants and changed them, but she still was way unhappy. I decided to take her temperature. it was 101.1. The doctor told me that I should be worried about anything over 99. I told josh and we took her to an Instacare close by. I had given Gracie some Tylenol before arriving. We waited for a long time to get in. Gracie was moaning and crying. She threw up the Tylenol. I tried to calm her down but nothing worked. I couldn't sit because she didn't like it and would cry. Finally we got to see a Dr. He checked her ears, chest, and stomach and couldn't find anything wrong. I knew something had to be wrong because Gracie never acts this way unless something is wrong. The Dr. said it probably was some virus and to continue giving her Tylenol. He also said that these fevers can last up to 5 days and not to worry until the fever reached 104- 105. I thought thats crazy. Thats when the body is close to dying because of the heat. So we went home with know explanation.

She still was fussy all night. My mom and sister suggested that maybe she was teething. I checked to see if I could feel any teeth braking through but nothing. I also had my mom, sister and brother in law check. Nothing.

Sunday night she had a hard time sleeping and would wake up and cry. I was getting more worried as the days went on. Monday morning I fed her and gave her some more Tylenol. She still was very hot. I even got a cold wash rag and put it on her head. Still nothing worked. A friend of mine suggested giving her popsicles. We went to the store and bought some italian ice. She didn't really like it. I really was worried so I asked if Josh could give her a blessing. He told me that he would have to have 2 people so I called my brother in law Robbie. They gave her a blessing and today she was mostly her self again. I am so thankful for the pre-stood.

Gracie is 7 months and our weekend trip to St. George

Gracie turned 7 months yesterday. She is so cute. She is talking more and more now. She now rolls over everywhere and can move form one position to another. Lately she has been into faces. She likes to touch peoples faces. With me and my dad it is mainly reaching right for our glasses. Also just today she has been starting to pull my hair. I guess I am going to have to put my hair u[ from now on. She also likes Grandpa's and dad's hands. She loves to smile and will definitely tell you when she is hungry. She is such a great addition to our family. So good and calm. We love our Gracie Goose.


Last weekend our little family took a trip to St. George. We had a really good time. We left at 8:30 Friday morning right after Josh got home from the night shift. I drove the whole way while Josh and Gracie slept. We got there at about 12:30 in the afternoon. We just hung out at the house most of Friday. Saturday we woke up early and went to Vegas. Josh wanted to go to the Pawn Shop on Pawn Stars. A show on Discovery Channel. He loves at show. The line to get in ran all the way across the front of the store. I wasn't so excited to go. I wasn't looking forward to spending 3 hours waiting in line and so on. It only took about 10 min. to get in the pawn shop and we where only there for about an hour.

After the pawn shop. I really wanted to go to the M&M factory and the Coke factory. Gracie had never been and I wanted to take her. We went to the M&M factory first. We bought Gracie a green M&M onesie and a little plush green M&M doll. Next the Coke factory where we took our First Family Photo with Gracie and the Coke Bear. I was so Gracie smiled for the picture. After our afternoon in Vegas we went to Henderson to visit Josh's Cousin and the new compound he bought. Complete with a bomb shelter. Josh's cousin Hayley has done a ton of work on the place. We spent that evening with Hayley and his family. For dinner we went to Sushi. It was getting late and Josh and I didn't what to drive through the Arizona Canyon so we decided to spend the night. Sunday we had a leisurely morning and didn't get back on the road until 2 pm. Sunday night we watched The Help. Very good show if anyone wanted to know. Monday we got packed up and traveled back to Saratoga Springs. It was a great trip. So fun to just be with Josh and Gracie. I'll Try to post the family picture later. Apparently my parents computer doesn't want to add it.

Gracie Loves Giraffes

Ever since Gracie's Great Aunt Judy and Great Uncle Bill sent her a giraffe pillow and blanket she can't get enough of giraffes. After her Blessing I received a little note and some money from my Aunt Tarina and Uncle Steve. The note said to by something fun for Gracie. I went to Target and got a soothing sounds giraffe and a blanket with a giraffe on it. She falls to sleep with the music every night now. Smiles and eats it before she sleeps. She didn't really like it until the giraffe pillow and banket came. Now she smiles at everything giraffe. So I had to get a giraffe outfit for her. Josh also brought her home a giraffe from Texas. She loves them and can't get enough. I think she will be having a giraffe birthday party. It is so fun to see what things kids react to.

One Crazy Vacation

So my dad took the boys to see the Utes play at the Sun Bowl in Texas over New Years. So the girls thought that it might be fun to take all the kids to St. George. We thought wrong. Lots of miss communication. We left Friday at 12 noon. Friday was Ok.

Saturday was the opposite. Friday night my mom, sisters and I decided that we wanted to go shopping on Saturday. We decided that going in shifts would be best. Mom and Camille would go first at 10 and be back by 1 so that Manda and I could go. I didn't really have anything in particular that I needed to get. I did want to get some shirts for me. Pretty much all of my shirts are to small and are getting so warn out that they are getting holes in them. We would switch off tending the other kids all except for the babies Brielle and Gracie. The babies had to go with their mommy's. I thought this was going to work out great. I thought wrong. I pretty much was the only one babysitting because Manda was putting Lianna down for a nap. Shopping was fun though. Manda and I went to JC Penny to get Clint clothes, then to Kid To Kid, then to the outlets and our last stop we went to a Down East ModBe Warehouse sale where all the shirts where $3. We made a hall. After our shopping trip we all met at Costco. Camille had left her baby formula at home and had to get some. Then we went to dinner at Panda. Four adults against 6 kids is not my idea of a vacation. We had to separate each child to eat. By the end of the meal every kid was upset about something. That night the adults stayed up and played UNO until the new year.

Sunday was crazy too. No one was ready to go to church until 1. Camille decided that she was going to put Brielle down for a nap but never left her room until we went to church. Thus me babysitting again, We walked to church because it wasn't that cold. We missed the sacrament. After sacrament mom, Camille, Jordan, and Brielle went in the chapel to sit. Manda didn't think that there was enough room in the chapel to sit so she and I stayed out. I was feeding Gracie, Lianna started to wonder and got lost. Amanda found her and decided to leave because was worried about Lianna getting lost again. She left in a huff because mom wasn't there to help. But mom didn't know she needed help. I went in to for the rest of the meeting and sat with Camille, mom, Jordan, Brielle and Gracie. The rest of the day Gracie and I took an nap. I think it was a well deserved one.

Monday we went out to breakfast. Kracker Barrel. Yum. It took a while. Apparently a lot of other people had the same idea. We had planned on leaving at 1. We had to be back to pick up the boys from the airport. We went to the house and started to hurry and clean up and get out of there. Manda went to Walmart to get treats for the ride home and didn't seem to come back for a while. She was making keys and it took longer than expected. We didn't get all the laundry done and took 2 whole garbage bags full home to wash. we finally left at 2:40. Before we left Kai misplaced his IPOD. Mom and I had been looking everywhere to find it while trying to clean and do laundry. Manda came home and was panicking about it. She didn't want to leave with out it. She mom and I had a shouting fight about us not helping looking for it. We never did find it. The trip home was a very quiet trip. I was so glad to be leaving.

Needless to say there will be no more baby sitting trips for me. We are back now and are all getting along just fine. Man am I so happy t be home.

Gracie's first real sickness

Christmas and yesterday Gracie had been acting very unhappy. She wasn't eating that great ether. Christmas at my parents ward she was so fussy. I spent the meeting out in the lobby trying to get her to calm down. Yesterday she woke up crying and didn't stop. She seemed like she was in pain. Strep has been going around in my family the last couple of weeks. So I was suspecting that she had Strep. None of the regular Doctors offices were open yesterday so we had to go to the InstaCare. The doctor swabbed her throat and was testing it when she started crying so hard that the doctor came in and asked if maybe the swabbing caused her to cry. I told her that she had been this way all morning. The test came back negative and another doctor came in to examine her. He was so nice. He picked her up and console her to the point that he could take a look at her ears, One of them was fine but when he checked the other ear there was a infection. I was given a prescription and went right next door to get it filled. The whole way Gracie screaming and crying. I didn't know what to do. It took what seemed like forever to fill it. Finally we went home and I gave her some medicine and a bottle. She didn't drink much but it seemed to console her enough to help her sleep. After a short nap all she wanted to do was be held. Poor baby, I feel so bad. She has had up to this point not very many sicknesses. Just stuffy and runny noses. So the day after Christmas was Gracie's first real bad sickness. She is however feeling much better today. Thank goodness.

Happy Thanksgiving!

This year we spent our Thanksgiving at my parents house. Josh had to work Thanksgiving night and my mom, my sister Amanda and I went to Walmart and Shopko for black Friday.