Recharged

We had the opportunity to visit both of our families in Cedar City on Tuesday and Wednesday, and while it didn't go quite as planned, it was SO AWESOME to see our families! We've been missing those people!

Poor Aurora has been growing four new teeth in on the top so she's been absolutely miserable for the past week; extremely stuffed up, ear infections, sick belly, the works. She has a sore throat from coughing and hasn't wanted to eat or drink anything. Plus, she threw up in the car when we got to Cedar and kept us up ALL NIGHT on Tuesday night... so we also took a trip to her old pediatrician there to make sure she was alright. Thankfully, she is just stuffy which is the cause of all our her troubles, so they did a deep suction on her nose and she was SO much better for the rest of Wednesday. She even slept all night for us on Wednesday night! Hallelujah! 

Despite those few things, we had such a great time! 

We got to meet our cute new nephew, Lucas, and he is so wonderful! When we took pictures of the cousins together, Aurora absolutely loved being able to snuggle with her arm around Grace and her other hand holding Lucas' hand. 

This is such a fun time in life with our siblings and us having kids around the same age. It's crazy to see how much our families have grown over the years AND how the children (us) are becoming parents and the parents are becoming grandparents! Life is sure moving along and we're just doing our best to keep up! 

We realized we now have a niece and a nephew on each side of the family. We are loving it! 

Over the time we were there, we were able to:

•Have Dan help his dad, Steve, deliver packages for his courier job while I spent time with my sisters and my parents

•Try out a new recipe (Ranch Pork chops) with Dan's family

•Hang out with Dan's brothers and visit with his dad, Shon

•Have Dan help Jeremy give his dad, Steve, a priesthood blessing for comfort and health

•Take turns trying different methods of comforting Aurora as she screamed the entire night... finally resulting in me taking her on a drive at 6:00am so we could get some peace... bright side? I saw the beautiful sunrise

•Eat breakfast at Denny's with Dan's brothers, Caleb and Ryan (Caleb missed school because he had to catch up on sleep from the Aurora all night crying thing)

•Go to that lovely doctor's visit for Aurora

•FINALLY TAKE A NAP (only 1 hour but, hey, I'll take what I can get!)

•Eat dinner with Dan's family at The Pizza Factory and Kaela even came with the kids so Aurora got to see more cousins! We miss living by them!

•Play games and chat with my family... we played Quelf Antics and laughed our butts off at my mom's interpretive dancing skills, Becca's humming skills, Steph's song writing abilities, Erin's artistic renderings, Dan's miming expertise, and me trying to play Jingle Bells using my mouth as a kazoo! haha If you are now curious about the game, go play it!

•Get pushed around in a toy baby stroller... oh wait, that was just Aurora!

•Get a much needed early bedtime and a full night of interrupted sleep at my parents' house

We got home this morning just in time for me to shower before Abi got there for me to babysit! And let me tell you, that mini-vacay must have been just what we needed to recharge our batteries, because today went great!

Dan got a nap, 

I played with the girls and picked up my friend's foster daughter from school,

I tried a new hairstyle on Aurora and she actually sat still long enough for me to do it (!),

Abi got picked up and we took the other ladies with us to Smith's to go food shopping, 

We got all the food on my list plus a bit more for THE EXACT amount of money we had planned (Boom, baby!),

We had dinner from Arctic Circle since we were starving (Yes, we're those people that spend money on food shopping only to become hungry faster than we can cook it and eat out...),

We got to chat with our friend, Kara,

I cleaned out the fridge AND the pantry (Go me!),

I made dinner to send with Dan to work (Cheesy Chicken & Broccoli Casserole),

Aurora actually ate and drank stuff today (It's the little things!),

Aurora went to bed on time... peacefully,

Dan got off to work on time,

and I'm blogging!

Next goal? Get Liz to sleep before midnight!

Google Hangouts

We can all agree that hearing a baby cry is sad, right?

Well, hearing a baby cry that has bronchitis is even sadder. Poor Aurora.

I took her to the doc on Tuesday because the "allergies" that he said she had the week before when I took her to the doctor, got even worse. Way worse, actually. And come to find out, she has an ear infection AND bronchitis bordering on pneumonia.

Gah! If the doctor had only listened to this mamma a week earlier, maybe it wouldn't be this bad!

Aren't pediatricians so frustrating?? haha

Anyway, long story short, they gave her a shot to help with her coughing and then she's on amoxicillin for the next 10 days for everything else. And it is WAY sad hearing her cry... or try to cry. Crying is hard when you've got no voice.

In other news, today consisted of:

• sleeping in 

aftergoingtobedwaylateandwakingupwayearlythengoingbacktobedforamorningnap
*deep breath* haha

Dan had to work for someone at 9am and when he got home at noon, he sat in the living room so I could get a few more hours of sleep. I tell you, he's a sweetheart ♥

• watching The Secret Life of Walter Mitty with Dan and eating tuna melt sandwiches with tomatoes (yuuuumm!) Also, I loved the ending of that movie.

The whole point of watching the movie in the afternoon was so we could return the movie to Redbox before it charged us another day. Yeah, we forgot.

• Talking to my dad on Google+ Hangouts/my cell phone.

HIL.AR.I.OUS.

That guy. haha We could see him; he couldn't see us.
Like I said, hilarious.

• me cleaning the house + Dan going to our cousin, Sandi's 18th birthday party and then the store + Aurora finally taking a nap

• Dan and I making a new recipe together for dinner with Jeremy and Kaela!

We made Gyro Burger Pitas with Tzatziki Sauce from the cookbook, "Savoring the Seasons with Our Best Bites". They turned out SO yummy! We modified the recipe a bit and used pita pockets (smartest idea) and made smaller burgers to fit inside each half pita pocket.

Soooo, here is my modified recipe. And if you haven't checked out the Our Best Bites blog, you should! They have yummy recipes!

1 pound lean ground beef

2 teaspoons minced garlic

1 1/2 teaspoons dried minced onion

1 tablespoon dijon mustard

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

1 tablespoon red wine vinegar

1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

1 teaspoon dried rosemary

10 half pita pockets (aka 1 package)

Thin yellow onion slices

Fresh tomato slices, halved

Tzatziki

1. Gently combine all ingredients except pitas, onion slices, tomatoes, and tzatziki in a bowl and shape into 10 small oblong patties. Grill 5-6 minutes on each side and remove from heat.

2. Spread tzatziki sauce inside each half pita then place burger, onion, and tomatoes inside. 

Tzatziki

1 1/2 cups plain Greek yogurt

1 teaspoon minced garlic

2 teaspoons lemon juice

3 green onions, white ends finely chopped

1 teaspoon dried dill weed

1/2 medium cucumber, peeled, seeded, and thinly sliced

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon black pepper

1. Combine ingredients in a small bowl. Store covered in refrigerator up to 3 days.

*I'd use this sauce on fish tacos or really anything! It's amazing!*

Ours weren't that pretty or I'd have included a picture. BUT they WERE yummy! 

• Ending the night playing Triominos and Cribbage. 

Jeremy kicked our butts at Triominos and then Dan killed us at Cribbage ('bout time he beat me because, not to toot my own horn, but...I usually win hehe)

I'd Never Do That...

Tonight is one of those nights where I eat my words as I, once again, realize that something I said I'd never do as a parent when I was a non-parent, I now do as an actual parent.

You know... we all know those people who aren't parents who say things like "Oh, I'm never going to do that when I have kids!" Well, yup... that was me.

So here I sit, tonight at 11pm not going to do something because Aurora is asleep. 11pm is her bedtime.

Before I had kids and our friends with kids would say that they couldn't come to something because their kids had to be in bed, I'd say to Dan, "I'm never going to do that. I'm never going to say we can't come to something just because our kids 'have to be in bed'. Kids can sleep anywhere! We'll just bring them and they can sleep at our friends' houses or whatever."

Well, Dan gently reminded me of this comment when I said, as an actual parent, "Ya know, we're going to have to start limiting our late night hang outs with friends because Aurora is starting to get on a sleep schedule and needs to be in bed by 11pm." haha

I've since learned that kids do better when they have routines; sleep schedules (aka 'bedtime') included. AND I continue to learn new things as a parent every day.

So the question you may have then is: Are you sad that you can't have your late night hang outs anymore??

And to that, my answer is: Not really.

INSTEAD of going out, I've had the lovely opportunity tonight of rocking my sweet, beautiful baby girl to sleep. I got to put on a movie favorite of mine, What About Bob?, and enjoy eating an avocado with a spoon, straight from the shell. I've had time to blog and blogging is completely relaxing to me. AND I get to have a bit of "me time" where I just get to sit and do nothing but relax in my pjs while Aurora is sleeping and before Dan gets home. "Me time" is nice... AND, sometimes, needed.

Parenting is definitely rewarding! We love our wonderful, little babe!

And, besides, we had a full day today.

Dan had a doctor's appointment this morning. And had blood work done. Hopefully they can figure out what's wrong with his body. It's time for him to start feeling good again! What a blessing it would be for him to be rid of his aches, pains, and ailments!

After the doctor's appointment, I dropped Dan off at work and Aurora and I headed over to the horseshoe pits to watch Dad and Erin compete in the doubles tournament with their partners for the Utah Summer Games. We braved the high temps with Mom and Cole and had a good time. PLUS, Erin and her partner won the bronze medal for their bracket! I love that horseshoes is something we can all do as a family. We've loved attending league on Thursdays and Dan loves pitching! We're looking forward to other tournaments this summer that Dan can participate in, too.

Aurora and I continued the afternoon with Artic Circle burgers at my family's house and then going over to visit her daddy at work. I love how excited Dan is all the time to show off our daughter and carry her around. He's such a wonderful father to Aurora! I sure love him!

When we finished there, we drove over to our Aunt Amy and Uncle Trav's house for a little birthday cake and ice cream for Grandma Rigby's birthday. She ended up leaving early with Grandpa because she wasn't feeling well but it was sure fun to spend a small part of her special day with her! The longer I know her, the more I grow to love her. She is one amazing lady! AND spending some time with the cousins and Dan's mom and dad and Caleb was lots of fun! Yummy cake, delicious ice cream, juicy blueberries, and lots of laughs!

Activities

Today was day #2 of my spur of the moment decision to join one of my instagram buds in a 30 Day Get Fit Challenge. 

It. Has. Been. Rough.

haha Buuuut, I guess "getting fit" shouldn't be easy, right?

I will say, though, that trying to "get fit" when you have a fussy 4 month old who got shots today and you babysit your VERY active niece and nephew for a few hours is not the best plan. I basically felt like every move I made was going to make my legs fall off my body! Squats and lunges make your legs BURN the next day! Which, in turn, makes it hard to chase kids around and standing-bounce your sad little baby after her doctor's appointment. 

I'm hoping it gets better. haha

For my own record, I'm going to list out each day's challenge activities. If you'd like to join in, feel free!

Day #1:

30 jumping jacks

30 crunches

10 sit ups

1 minute wall sit

10 lunges, each leg

47 squats

10 push-ups

25 knee highs

30 butt kicks

Day #2: (BY FAR an easier workout than day one... go figure)

10 jumping jacks

10 deep lunges, each leg

45 squats

20 sit ups

15 crunches

2 mile speed walk (*I substituted with a 30 minute walk around my neighborhood pushing Aurora in the stroller)

In addition to getting my body fit, I've decided to do a little work on strengthening my testimony and knowledge of the gospel. I take 20 minutes a day to myself (usually when Aurora is napping and Dan is working) to study The Book of Mormon and utilize the Preach My Gospel manual and then I read a little bit about the teachings of the prophet, Joseph Smith, in the Teachings of Presidents of the Church book. How awesome it has been to be reminded of the principles of the restoration of the gospel on this earth and to learn things and see things that I may have overlooked in the past. I'm glad we have prophets on the earth today to lead us and guide us in what the Lord would have us do. It's definitely uplifting to be reminded of the basic things of the gospel.

In other news, my sweet Dan did a little clean up on the fallen trees outside our house today. He cut down two huge trees and then trimmed up a few others AND cleared the rest of the ones that fell in the way of the driveway (ours and the neighbor's). Luckily, Jeremy was off work to help him because at one point they had to attach a rope to the car and to the tree so that they could use the car to make sure the huge tree fell the way they wanted. Yeah. I usually just watch and keep my fingers crossed that Dan doesn't have anything horrid happen to him. He loves running the chainsaw, though! Boys! haha

While they did that, Kaela and I took the kids on a walk around the neighborhood. It was crazy to see how many trees were down. The city is in need of a major spring cleaning! 

Oh! Guess what?? Guess what?? The doctor said that my baby is ready to add RICE CEREAL to her diet! And then in a few weeks we can add orange veggies!! I was excited but at the same time I'm over here thinking, "Where did the time go? My baby is getting so big!" I'm glad Dan was off work today because we both got a chance to try feeding the cereal to her. She seemed to like it, but at first her face was hilarious! It was like, "What is this stuff?" haha We'll keep trying.

Tonight we watched The Walking Dead and I snapped a few pictures of my unsuspecting hubby. Isn't he good looking? Yup. I kinda like him. Oh, and my beautiful napper! I like her, too! ♥♥♥

Treasures!

Today I had my last "after baby" check-up with Dr. Gatherum. Yay! We had a c-section to get little miss here and he said that I'm all healed up and everything looks good! So, yeah, I'm happy about that. AND to make everything even better, a little 6 year-old girl gave me a pretty little flower and smiled at me on her way out of the hospital. It was so cute and definitely made my day!

Luckily, Collette had come to pick me up for my appointment since Dan had to work at Tropical Smoothie and we only have the one car. Dan and I have been needing to get a new vehicle for a while now so Dan's been on the search for us. A few days ago, he saw a deal going on at a dealership in St. George and we were talking about going to just look. Well, while I was at my parents' talking with Collette and Erin, Dan called me from work and said that his mom was going to take us down with her to check it out at 1pm.

She came to our house to pick us up and after a quick stop at Dan's uncle's house, we were on our way to St. George. Long story, short...... We ended up getting a new car!! A 2005 Dodge Neon and we love it! And Dan's mom got a new vehicle too! A Town & Country Van! Perfect for helping Steve with his deliveries (he does a courier company). We were all pretty happy with our finds!

Then to top of our day, we got to stop by and see Grandma Rigby, eat some yummy food, and get a four generations picture. I've been dying to get one for Aurora with each set of parents and grandparents. Family is so important to us and I just know these photos will be a cherished treasure for her to have when she's older! All we need now, is one with the Johnson's! What a wonderful day.

Four Generations Rigby Side (minus Grandpa Rigby because he wasn't home!) 

Four Generations Smith Side

Four Generations Barclay Side

It's a....

Well, we found out the gender of our sweet baby on Friday! And we are THRILLED to announce, we're having a baby GIRL!! Yay!

It was so fun to have Dan there with me to see our baby moving and growing! She kicked for us and they even saved footage of that on a CD for us with some other pictures. I could watch those baby feet kick all day! It was adorable! I can't wait to feel her kicking. 

Waiting to see her was torture for two reasons... 1) they made me go in with a full bladder so the wait about killed me! I was going to explode! Lucky for me, my bladder was TOO full for him to do the ultrasound so they let me go before we started haha and 2) they didn't tell us her gender until half way through the ultrasound because they had to do measurements and stuff for my doctor AND he said she's healthy but a little small so he wanted to be sure before saying "it's a girl". 

In the end, we found out and we are just so happy! We have felt like she was a girl from the beginning so it was fun to be right. And now we can get decorating and begin the spoiling of our wonderful, beautiful DAUGHTER! So fun to say that! 

I'm excited to meet her and for her to meet her dad! Dan talked to her this morning and told her that we're so happy to have her and it was so special and cute. Great moment. 

I love Dan so much and I'm so excited for this adventure we're on! 

Tuesday

Tuesday was probably one of the greatest days! BUT I guess, to get the full impact of the why, I'll have to rewind a bit to Mother's Day.

Why Mother's Day, you ask? Well, that was the day we found out that we would have a wonderful new addition to our family! I took a pregnancy test a couple of weeks previous and got a negative so we decided we'd try again on Mother's Day. I woke up before Dan that morning and snuck off to the bathroom then waited the suggested 2 minutes (longest, most nerve wracking 2 minutes of my life!). I smiled with excitement when I saw that little positive and I snuck back into the room with the results where I sat next to Dan on the bed and creepily stared at him until he noticed I was there haha I gave him a kiss good morning and handed him the test. That woke him up! He sat up and then a huge smile came to his face and he gave me another kiss and a big hug! He was so excited! WE were so excited! We were going to be parents!! Happy first technical Mother's Day to me! haha

We decided we'd keep the news to ourselves until after my first doctor's appointment (which was SUPER hard seeing how we visited both our moms/families that day). We did tell my parents that following week though so we could ask some questions and since I'm on their insurance. They were so excited! (This will be their first grandbaby!) BUT we swore them to secrecy too until after the appointment. 

Which brings us to Tuesday! Waiting for that appointment was probably the longest wait of my life! I went to the appointment at 2:30pm and filled out the paperwork before they took me in. At 3pm, I was put in the room to wait for Dr. Gatherum and they handed me a gift bag with some new mom goodies (magazines, books, formula, ect.). I was nervous because it didn't really seem real yet and I didn't know what to expect AND right as the doc came in he was called into a delivery so I waited again. Finally he came back in and I asked him some questions (like if it'd be a good idea to go to Ireland in October with Dan's grandparents for free... it wasn't. Dang. haha) and THEN the nurse came in and they gave me an ultrasound!

It was just about the coolest thing ever to see something... someONE inside me and to hear the doctor say "There's your baby" and then even cooler to be able to hear it's sweet little heartbeat! ♥♥ It sounded like a hummingbird, it was so fast! (177 BPM) I wish Dan could've been there to hear it! He was working at the time so I had to meet him afterwards.

When I left they gave me the pictures of our cute little blob (hehe), I set an appointment for July, and then I hurried off to see Dan at his mom's house. Dan LOVED seeing the pictures and hearing about the heartbeat (he's the cutest dad-to-be). Then we told his family. They were SO excited! Candace cried and they all gave us hugs. So fun! Then we headed to my family's house to show my parents and tell my sisters. Talk about excitement! This baby is going to be SO spoiled by all it's aunts. My sisters have only been telling me they want a niece or nephew for just about forever haha

To celebrate, we went to dinner at Sizzler with both our parents. It was so fun! I hope we can be as great of parents as the ones who raised both of us. We are so blessed to have them! Lucky our kids will have them as grandparents.

After dinner we called our grandparents and some other family members. SO AWESOME. I loved hearing all the screams and excited laughter from everyone! Our baby is seriously going to be loved and spoiled. ♥ We love all of you guys!!

♥ Baby Johnson will be arriving January 2, 2014 ♥

Powderpuff

Today I had an appointment with Doctor G for a lovely little thing called a "yearly exam" (kill me haha). Luckily, all was well and I was deemed "healthy". EXCEPT for the fact that I'm apparently a fatty! I love being reminded that I've "gained weight since my last visit"... I mean, really? I obviously already know that. BUT thank you for telling me. haha I hate doctors appointments. And in honor of that information being given to me, I celebrated with a piece of homemade fudge from my mamma (YUM!) and dinner at Costa Vida for Taco Tuesday. Oh. I'm also starting to track my calorie intake on caloriecount.com but we don't need to talk about that...

In other news, I went to my first powderpuff football game tonight at CV. Christina played and her team totally kicked boo-tay! After the game, I visited my parentals (they are hilarious people, I tell you haha) and then Chrissy and I visited Becca and then I hung out at my in-law's house and read a Parenting magazine while Caleb made lego starship vehicles. It was a good night :)