LIFE

Life continues to move forward for the Johnson family. I think I'll have to give quarterly updates on our blog, because that's how often I am actually finding time to sit down and make posts. Today we have an exciting announcement....we are officially homeowners, sort of, again!!! We have decided that Michigan is going to be our permanent homebase for the next several years, and we have purchased a home that has yet to be built, but should be finished and ready for us to move in sometime at the end of October/beginning of November!!! We are very excited about this. We have moved 6 times now, and four of those moves have been cross-country. Sooo, I can't begin to express how nice it is going to feel to settle for a few years, and with the added luxury of settling in our own, custom-built home. :) Excited! So, here are a few pictures of what we have been doing. We've had a lot of visitors lately, and we have even more coming out soon - which the kids are LOVING! Happy Independence Day to all!

Day out with Thomas and Happy Mother's Day!

So on Saturday Ben got the day off to take the kids to Greenfield Village to see Thomas the Train. Unfortunately, it was terrible weather - freezing cold with that bitter, cutting midwest wind and intermittnet spells of rain and hail. Ben tells me that the kids still had a great time, and the pictures would attest to that. It was WONDERFUL to have the kids away for a few hours while I got to do whatever I wanted around the house with only Eli to worry about. When they returned back home, Jacy ran up the stairs and blurted out, "We haf a present for you!" I wasn't really sure what she was talking about, so I played along and said, "Really? What did you get me?" To which she responded, "Cookie fowers!" Daxton let out a big sigh and reprimanded Jacy because she had just revealed the Mother's Day surprise that Ben had picked up on the way home from seeing Thomas that he had been instructing them not to tell me about the whole way home. Really, it was so cute to see how excited Jacy was about it, even if it was just because she wanted some of my cookies. I LOVE cookie bouquets in all their high-calorie, high-fat, sugar-overloaded, frosting glory. Anyway, thanks honey! It has been a wonderful Mother's Day weekend/day! Happy Mother's Day to all!!!!

Which one is which?

The Story.....

So, now that I've posted some pictures, I'll share the rest of the story. First, I want to offer my apologies to anyone who has had to be around me for the past 37 weeks and 4 days. Let me just say, first and foremost, I am eternally grateful for the opportunity that I have had three times now to conceive and give birth to my children. I consider this one of the greatest blessings of my life; however, for me pregnancy is a means to an end, and a means that is extremely hard for me to endure without complaint. When it is over and I start looking back at the way that I cope with my pregnancies, I just want to apologize profusely to everyone for my miserable demeanor and all-too-often vocalized anxieties. Anyway, the good news is that I have never struggled with post-partum depression. In fact, it's quite the opposite. I have post-partum euphoria. Since we arrived home from the hospital last night, I haven't been able to quit expressing my elation at being able to bend over, breathe, shave my legs, share my lap with Daxton and Jacy, sleep on my stomach, etc. The list goes on and on.
So, for the play-by-play, if you're interested, I've been diagnosed three times now as having babies that are LGA (large for gestational age), and as such, my doctor had offered me a scheduled induction at 37 weeks to avoid needing a C-section for a ten-pound baby. Of course, I jumped at the chance to take him up on this offer (the sooner the better in my opinion). So, I had been scheuled to be induced on the 7th of April as soon as the results from an amniocentesis indcated that the baby was mature. Nana flew out to be with us in the evening on the 6th, and my body decided to go into labor that night, which was very convenient because we could leave the kids and head to the hospital without majorly inconveniencing any neighbors in the middle of the night. So, Ben and I headed to the hospital at 2:30 a.m. on Wednesday morning. I was really hoping that my being in labor naturally would allow me to bypass the amniocentesis, but due to the failure of my contractions to progress my dilation, I had to go through with the amniocentesis early Wednesday morning. It wasn't a very pleasant experience, but at that point, I was about ready to find the nearest sharp object to take matters into my own hands, so I was willing to let them do whatever they wanted to do to me so long as it resulted in the expulsion of my baby from my body. The amnio went well, and my doctor gave the okay to start the induction at about 1:00 p.m. So, the pitocin was started, and soon after the epidural was administered (heaven!), and by 7:40 p.m. we were ready to push....., well, I guess I was ready to push. I pride myself on being a good pusher, and this is because I have no trouble whatsoever on focusing every fiber of my being into getting rid of the object of my discontent, not to mention the joy and anticipation of meeting the new little addition to our family and receiving that inital wave of relief when you see that they have all the right parts in all the right places and are healthy and alive. SO, it was literally two intense pushes, and Eli was out. Happy day! It's all downhill after that. I've been on "cloud 9" ever since. Eli is a beautiful baby, and I am in love with him for sure. So far, he's extremely mellow, and although it's only been half a day around the other two kids, I think he'll fit in just fine. I feel extremely blessed and extremely grateful, and now that I'm rid of the pregnancy doldrums, maybe there will be more to read on our blog!

Elijah Seth Johnson 4/7/2010

Making it through March....

So, I've taken a little hiatus from the blogging world over the past couple of months. For a few different reasons really - one being the pregnancy doldrums get the better of me and I just don't have the time, patience, or energy; and, the other being that Ben started his new job working at Discount Tire



and that has been wonderful, but also limits my "free time" because I have to keep a much more stringent work schedule. I can't really recap everything that we have done in the months of January and February, because I don't have the time, patience, or energy. So, I'm just going to attach whatever pictures I can find and let them speak for themselves.

Photos of the kids...

So, we went out on Monday and got the kids' pictures taken. Overall, we were pleased with what we got. Daxton is at that lovely stage where when you tell him to, "smile," he thinks about it too hard and it comes out looking very strange and forced.