Christmas in WA

Christmas is always a blast in WA. This year my mom did a "frozen" theme and the kids all got Frozen pj's and outfits and we danced to Let it Go a Lot :) It was so nice and refreshing to be home for Christmas and see all the Newton side of the family and my GrAMY and that Paxman side of the family. I love family tradition and am glad that my kids get to participate in it as well. 

Traveling to WA for Christmas

Getting to WA this year for Christmas was quite different then most years... I was nervous to begin with since Chad wouldn't be flying with us there (he still had school) and I had to travel while super pregnant with two kids. Those things all seem silly as mid flight Amy started breaking out in a freaky rash! It started to spread extremely fast and I called a flight attendant over to see if she could maybe help us find some benedryl or anything else. She started freaking out and went over to the intercom and asked if there was a doctor on board. Sure enough the guy sitting right infront of Amy raised his hand and said he had just graduated from Med School and was on his way to a job interview. He then asked for a epi-pen over the intercom and a nice man in the back gladly gave his up for Amy to use. Made me nervous that it was an adult one, but the doctor said it was our one shot and we should take it. They did threaten to land the plane twice and the pilots kept checking in for places to land... the epinephrine helped Amy and we successfully made it to WA, but were picked up on the run way by an ambulance and got to get our own personal ride to the airport. They said she looked good though and just let us go with a recommendation to go to a hospital. We didn't :-} but kept the recommendation in mind and watched Amy for the next few days. ---Side note when we got back to Omaha I took her and Laine in for Allergy testing and they never found anything that could have caused this.  

The Giving Tree for Belle

Living at Village Green has been one of the biggest blessings in our life!  We have loved being able to serve in our ward and have such wonderful neighbors and close friends. I've also gotten to know lots of the Village Green people from doing hair out of my basement for the last few years. For Christmas this year our friends from Village Green put together a Christmas Tree Fund for Belle and her funeral cost and everything. This was such tender mercy and we feel so blessed that all these poor graduate students and their families would take the time to put this together and gift this to us. Not only the money, but the messages and the meals all were so thoughtful. Words cannot express the amount of gratitude I feel for these great people! 

This Christmas actually two of my neighbors found out they were in similar situations with their babies- one even with a little boy with Trisomy 18. I feel sorry, but yet so blessed by the Lord and his plan to put us in each others paths at this time in our lives. It's a sad reason to know someone so well, but such a tender mercy and I'm grateful for the relationship it helped my build with Todd and Alli Miles and Dahlin and Mallory Darais. 

Preps for Christmas and Belle

Around the time of my birthday this year we found out we'd be having a little girl :) We also found out at the same time that she would most likely have trisomy 18. We later got an amniocentesis that confirmed she did have it. This was a very challenging time as they told us we would have 1 week to decide if we wanted to medically terminate the pregnancy as our daughters life expectancy was little to none. We decided to give her the longest chance possible and continue to carry her. This made the end of pregnancy a lot more stressful then the last two even. Belle and I had appointments at least once a week. We thought she was going to come out at Christmas since she hadn't been growing anymore, but happily found out that she had grown a little and would make it a little longer.  

Laine's 4th Birthday

Kwazi off the Octonauts

We LOVE THIS BOY! How fun it is that he is in our family! He is such a caring boy that notices everyone and is always wiling to help others. He is super smart and has the memory of an elephant- he is following Chad in his ways of personality, but a slightly louder version. Oh Boy I am glad I'm this boys mom!

Projects

Chad and Laine have both been busy at our house... Chad made his own DuckBlind and it worked really well. Laine on the other hand decided he wanted to be a hairdresser like his mommy and took scissors to Amy's hair. She was all too happy to sit there on the couch and let him snip away- he did make it quite a challenge to fix this time. I am proud to at least point out he was smart enough to not touch my hair scissors this time, but alas he still did cut hair so I can't be too proud. He only halfway listened. However at our house we now have two projects accomplished. :-)