Jaelyn's Hand Surgery

Jaelyn had hand surgery yesterday. :( For those who didn't know, she was born with an extra digit. Or in other words, an extra thumb. It was what the doctors call a "trickle effect" from her heart condition. They say that when you have something as serious as her heart condition, they will sometimes have this trickle effect of other things going wrong. She was also born with only one kidney and only until after she was born did we notice her extra thumb. 

In the delivery room, there were so many people (docs, nurses, etc) in anticipation for Jae's delivery, and so much anxiety and emotions that were running... I mean, I can't explain how overwhelming it was to give birth to this angel. It was SO important to me to be able to hold her right after delivering, but only if everything was looking good for her. I was blessed enough to hold her for a few short seconds before they swept her off to the nicu. While George went with her, I was left to recover (which I HATED) and texting was all I had to stay close to them. I was asking all about her, how she was doing, what they were doing. "TELL ME EVERTHING!" I texted. A few minutes passed and George texted me; "She has an extra finger digit. I call dibs!" ..... Now imagine the minion from Despicable Me saying. "Whaaat?" 

I thought he was joking. Literally, a straight up joke. I didn't find it funny. It was fine if it was true, but it didn't seem real, only because we had countless amounts of ultrasounds. I'd be surprised if we missed it. Sure enough I saw it for myself a couple hours later! It was just one more thing to add to her beautiful and very special body. Anyway, surgery went flawlessly. Finally one surgery that went her way!! She did amazing! I'm so freaking proud of her!!!

CHRISTMAS 2012

  I've been really, really excited for Christmas this year. I mean, really excited. I guess having a kid helps to bring back the magic of Christmas. I couldn't wait for Jaelyn to wake up and see the lights from the Christmas tree and the shiny presents that lied beneath. I about peed my pants every time I'd think about it. I wanted a color theme this year and I loved how it turned out.

On Christmas Eve we read scriptures together and ended the night with the book, The Night Before Christmas. I read it pretty animatedly, so Jae thoroughly enjoyed it. There was something about the feeling that I got at that moment, as we sat there enjoying the illumination from the tree and watching Jaelyn. George put his arm around me and we basked in the spirit and the love that we had for each other as a family. We felt whole and at peace with our lives. That is how I want every Christmas to feel like, because that was a perfect night.  

After I put Jaelyn down and George and I went to bed, I waited for him to fall asleep. Then I snuck out and I put out the rest of the presents under the tree. I finally had a glimpse of what it felt like to be Santa! I loved the thought of being the person to put out the presents under the tree and set up the house for that glorious Christmas morning. I wanted to see the surprise on everyone's face as they saw the transformation from the night before to the morning of. I skillfully placed each present in a way to showcase its beauty. Each present was delicately wrapped to the best of my ability, and if I could toot my own horn, I would because for me, I did a pretty dang good job! I was one proud mama and wife that night. I slipped back into bed around 2AM and fell asleep. 

  That morning I woke up early to make George breakfast. I made some killer Mexicali Omelets (courtesy of my pops secret recipe) and waited for Jaelyn to wake up. 

  Well she finally did and she was one grumpy little girl. She was cutting a tooth so not much made her happy. But Merry Christmas Jaelyn, you have a new tooth!! That made tooth number four. She cut number three 2 days earlier. Poor thing. Aside from the let down of her being grumpy, she still enjoyed somewhat of the morning and enjoyed her new presents. She mostly wanted me to hold her, so I didn't get many pics. But I'll post what I did snap. We celebrated with George's family the day before and went over to my parents house later that day to open presents and celebrate. We had so much fun!

FotoFly Santa

For a couple of years I had known about this place that did these really cute pictures at Christmas time up at Thanksgiving Point (& now at Scheels) where you can dress up as Santa so your kid doesn't end up totally and completely traumatized.. well I did them this year!! I was so ecstatic! I remember calling my sister and telling her about this place while I was in Arizona without a baby yet, and trying to convince her to take her kids there. It was too cute to pass up! It's called FotoFly Santa and deserves some kind of "Best Of.." award. Kicking it off for the first year, I was the one dressed up as Santa. I loved the idea of doing this as opposed to having a billion kids (sick and what not) sitting on Santa's lap at the mall, all the crying, screaming, fussing and of course the lines. Anyway, enough about the details.. here are the cute pics!!