Baby Steps!

I have learned a lot these past 4 months with having two boys. The first thing: to make myself feel good about my day, I set little goals like these and call it an accomplishment when actually done:

1. I got my hair done today, without Timmy being home to take the boys.

2. Both of the boys took a nap at the same time, which means, I got to take a nap!

3. I was able to get both of the boys dressed before noon.

4. We made it to mothers group or the library Story time, before it actually was over!

5. Zach didn't bite anyone today.

6. I let Timmy actually stay at school for his 8 hour allotted time.

That's all I can think of right now, and I have been sitting here for like 20 minutes thinking of other things that I possibly could've done, and yet, I can't think of any. Sooo

Here are my goals in the future....
1. Make dinner by myself
2. Exercise
3. Clean the house
4. Go to bed on time

I'll stop there, don't want to get to carried away. Plus these goals may take awhile. I might have to make up some more little goals, to make myself feel better, like... I will be dressed before 10:00 am tomorrow! Or maybe go to bed right now, because this handsome little face wakes us up every morning at 7:15 am!

Ode to the Grantster

Luckily Zach has not yet topped the crawling out of the crib incident. So now I can dedicate this post to my precious second child who doesn't get the recognition that he deserves. Grant is heaven sent and I am so grateful for my mild mannered little boy who takes a binki. The difference between these boys are incredible. He is the calm after Zach's escapades. He quietly sits by me while we watch Zach make the most of life. He is my constant companion and knows when I need a smile or a laugh to make my day better. He goes to anyone and has this calmness and peace about him that helps me calm down. I love looking into his eyes because they are animated and full of happiness. I get a kick out of how he has always wants to hold his head up to make sure he doesn't miss anything, especially to see where his older brother is, who he loves so much. He talks a lot, and we have some really amazing conversations. I love this little boy and I feel closer to heaven when I am with him because he is such an angel! I love you Grant!

The day I have been dreading has arrived...

Zach learned how to crawl out of his bed last night. I didn't think this day would ever come because he doesn't even run very much and is a very cautious boy. He was so wired after all of his candy from our several days of trick or treating that he was trying to bite Grant. We put him in his crib, and he was screaming his head off and having the time of his life in his crib. (timeout is not effective for this boy!) All of a sudden he walks outside of his room with the biggest smile on his face. Timmy and I start laughing and couldn't believe that he crawled out of his bed.

We put him in his crib again and he crawls out again, in the most careful way possible. We then took out his premium mattress from his crib to the toddler bed. And now he is in his toddler bed, and the containment of the child has been eliminated, My life as I knew it had changed drastically, and hopefully my non coping skills will be able to deal with this! The moral of the story is: do not give your child candy late at night, because then they develop superman skills and can do the impossible!

Zach and Grant

It has been quite an adjustment taking care of two boys, but I have loved not every minute, but close to it. They are great little boys and for the most part get along very well. How we get through the day is that I hold Grant up so Zach cannot reach him, and then when they are close by there is a lot of supervision. I am proud of Zach for handling Grant as well as he has, and learning how to say "nice" when his well intentioned pats on the head become punches!

An eventful Sunday

Here are some quick little stories of of what Zach's Dad saw him do today:
1. We did the dishes this morning. Zach pulled a chair to the sink and turned on and off the faucet, added soap to the bowls, cleaned with the rags, made new wash rags, and got water every where. He loves the sink.
2. Then he pulled his chair to the stove, found a pot I hadn't washed yet, pulled it off threw it in the sink, pulled his chair back over to the sink, filled the pot with water, pulled it down, pushed the chair over, put it on the stove and then put a lid on the pot. After this he wanted to turn on the heat, and thats where his fun ended.
3. I had my sleeping bag out from campout yesterday, so Zach crawled inside to the very end of it and back and forth and back and forth with me in it too. Then we drew pictures with both of us with sicking our heads out of the bag.
4. We had Stake conference and Zach tried to run up to the Stake President and lead our neighbor Lauren to him too, while he was giving his talk (probably on reverence, I didn't hear much of it).
5. Then Lauren showed Zach how to act like a dog, and the two puppies chased each other down the hall.
6. When we got home Zach pushed the rocking chair up to his crib, climbed on the seat, then the arm and then tried to dive in the crib and thats when I dashed in and his fun ended.
7. Then Zach ended up in his crib and we wanted to read books to Grant, so I let him, under close supervision.
8. Zach HATES diaper changes, unless Grant is getting one right next to him, so thats how we got his diaper changed right before bed.
9. I'm sure theres more, but thats enough. Zach is a very busy fun boy. He is always thinking of something fun to do. I had visions of him today as a teenager, dreaming up tons of fun things to do and keeping our family happily entertained. He is a lucky happy boy!

Zach knows how to open doors!

Zach fortunately did not pull anyones hair this week, but he has learned how to open the door. I put him into time out about five times a day and it usually is in his room and I shut the door. The other day I put him in his room and lay down by Grant, so we could both get a little break from Zach. All of a sudden I hear him opening the door and walk into my room and go "shhhh" (that is what he says when he thinks someone is sleeping.) I laid in bed still wondering what he would do next. Then he closed the door, and started running around the house. I got up about a minute later because I remembered that the locks are on the outside of the door because Zach locked himself in his room a couple of times in a row. Not wanting that to happen again, Timmy switched the locks so you couldn't lock yourself in your room. The only problem is that Zach could lock you in your room. Luckily he didn't, but he did hear me get up out of bed and quickly ran back into his room and closed the door. I walked into his room and he was rocking back and forth on the rocking chair, and had the biggest smile on his face! He is a tricky little boy, I tell you!

Zach has had another wild and crazy week!

Starting with him qualifying for Early On because he is speaking at an 18-20 month range. I wasn't offended with him qualifying for it, I was actually grateful that there is help out there to help him get back on track. The early on lady came on Thursday to help him with his speaking skills. Then things went a little wild, because Zach was hungry and tired, so that added onto the wildness factor. First off he was supposed to do a puzzle, but he ended up banging the blocks together. She tried to get him to quiet down with the blocks but that only motivated him to get louder and louder. Then she pulled out a book and a ball and asked which one he would rather play with, obviously he chose the ball. (I asked her if anyone ever chooses the book and she said that most kids do!) She told him to roll the ball to her but he refused and said "Mine!" several times. She finally had to put away the ball and he kept trying to get it out of the bag for the rest of the hour. Her comment about that episode was "Wow, I really need to be on top of my game for this one!"

Then she said that he was hungry and that he should probably eat. I was excited because I thought that meant she would leave. Well, I was wrong, what happened is that she sat and watched him eat. His eating skills were a little dicey, and he kept throwing things off of the table because he loved her reaction. After 10 minutes of eating they went to the other room, while I was in the kitchen cleaning up. All of a sudden I hear this yell from the lady. I rush to the other room, and Zach had grabbed her hair because they were wrestling, or rather Zach was wrestling her! The first thing that entered my mind was that at least he didn't bite her! She left shortly after that. It was a long hour and I felt really bad for the lady. Hopefully next month will go better. Her parting words were "you must have your hands full with those two boys"." And it is true. Grant and I just watch Zach with awe and wonder.

What we have been up to!

It has been a busy two months seeing my family in Utah and learning how to adjust with two kids. Zach went a little crazy with his sleeping he was starting to wake up during the night and then he was refusing to take his naps so so we gave him a new bedtime routine, gave him a nightlight and put on the fan so there would be white noise. Now he is sleeping well and Timmy is starting to adjust to waking up at 6:30 am.

Grant is a little angel boy and looks just like Timmy's brothers. He spits up a lot and it's a good thing that we have hard floors everywhere because there is a trail of spit up wherever we go. Zach is getting nicer everyday to his little brother and says baby all of the time. Yesterday he was sitting on top of Grant, but that will hopefully be a one time occurance!

We are starting to make outings during the day which is a big deal for me because taking Zach out was a huge deal without Grant. We haven't attempted going to a store yet but we have gone to the library once and went to mothers group two weeks in a row!

Here are some pictures that my amazing neighbor took of Grant before we left for Utah!

Here are the Pictures of Grant!

Sorry this is taking so long to post the picture. Our computer is extra slow for some reason, so I wasn't able to post as many pictures as I would like. Grant is such a great little boy and the binki is helping out so much. Zach is asjusting as well as he knows how, and attacks Grant less and less everyday. I am so grateful for my little family, for my sister who came out to help us, for my great neighbors and the ward members. I feel so blessed!






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Baby Grant is here

Grant Timothy Johnson was born last night, 7/20/09 at 11:17 and weighed 8 lbs 2 oz, 20 inches long. Here is a brief report of how it went. We went to the weekly appointment in the morning and the doctor said she thought everything was ready to have the baby and we could go to the hospital that night, she would break the water and then persuade the baby to come. So we kinda just strolled into the hospital at 5 and got signed in and everything. the water was broke at 6pm. Angela was not feeling contractions at this point. So we walked around the birthing center trying to help things move along and that helped alot. By 7:30 she was feeling contractions and by 8:00 she wanted the epidural. The anathesiologist arrived around 8:20 and she was happy by 8:45. The nurse checked how she had progressed and had the doctor come in to confirm and they said she was ready to push. So Angela was feeling great on the epidural and couldn't feel exactly where to push, but she pushed hard anyway for two hard hours. So was a little angel and tried so hard to get the baby to come and finally he did. He is a beauty and is so content and happy. I love my little family so much. These boys are going to be a bundle of fun. I love Angela so much and am so proud of her. She is my hero! She is feeling fine and recovering well. Pictures later

What we have been up to these past few weeks!

Sorry that I haven't posted for a while. We have moved into our new duplex and we are loving every moment of it. We now can play the recorder, bang pots around and I can play the piano! Zach and I are so much happier and very grateful to be here. Timmy and I finally unpacked the last box this week, so that was a big deal. There is something about pregnancy that leaves me unmotivated to get things done, except for one thing and that would be painting our living room. Our first color choice of paint was yellow, which was as bright as the sun, so I made Timmy change it to this beautiful...wait for it... accidentally purple color choice, I had no idea it would turn out that color! I don't want to even post the picture because Timmy is trying to recuperate. Our conclusion of why the paint turned out that color is because the yellow paint threw it off because we just painted over the yellow. So if you ever happen to visit, please just call it a tan color, because Timmy is refusing to paint again! I guess it is not wise to choose a paint color when you are in third trimester.

As for pregnancy, I am loving the Michigan summer because we have been enjoying some nice 60 - 70 degree weather, and when it gets any hotter all I need to do is call my sister in Houston and feel a lot better about the weather. The baby of course has not come yet and I am expecting this little Grant to come on the 29th of July because that is the day that my midwife said she would induce me. This last month of pregnancy is quite the deal, not so much of how I feel, but the comments I get from people. Such as, "Are you going to have twins?" "You are the biggest pregnant lady I have ever seen!" (Luckily he said that to my husband and not to me!) "You are due in two weeks you look like you are overdue by two weeks." And the comments keep coming, I don't blame them in a way because being 5 foot 2.5, and pregnant is quite a spectacle because the baby doesn't have a lot of options of places to go so I look a little dicey. It has been a great pregnancy overall, I am just anxious to see what this little guy looks like and want him to get here safely. I think part of the reason he hasn't come yet is because he is a little nervous to meet Zach, and wants to be in a safe place as long as possible! So right now it is a waiting process and we will see what happens!

Will this baby come 3 1/2 weeks early?

If this baby is anything like Zach he will be coming tomorrow! Zach came as unexpected early surprise and he continues to surprise us everyday! I will give you a brief rundown of his delivery. To begin with i had gone to education week the week before and had been walking around BYU campus several times over so I think that contributed to the early birth! The day before he came, which was Sunday I noticed that my belly had dramatically dropped. That night around Midnight I felt just a tiny bit of water. I got up and searched on google about water breaking. (As you can see I didn't read a lot of pregnancy books!) It said that if there isn't anymore fluid in a half an hour it is probably something else. Well after waiting nothing else came, so i thought everything was fine. The next morning which was Monday I told Timmy to go to work because I was sure everything was fine. I got a little more water so I called my mom and she said to call the nurse. The nurse told me that I should go to the hospital immediately. So I threw on some clothes, didn't eat anything or take a shower because I was fully expecting to come back home after this little inconvenient visit to the hospital.

I drove myself to the hospital and found out that my water had broken but I was only 1 centimeter dilated. I hurried and called Timmy to tell him the news and he rushed home to pack the baby bag for the hospital fully to expect the baby to come as soon as he walked through the door. It unfortunately didn't happen that way, it was a long waiting game. I had gone into the hospital at 10:30 am and didn't have Zach until 1:24 am. They put me on potossun and when the nurse said that I should be in a lot of pain when a contraction happened, I quickly got the epidural. Even though I wasn't feeling that much pain, I didn't want to take my chances. In fact the epidural man became my little buddy and I saw him a total of four times!

By 11:30 pm I was ready to push, and so I halfway pushed for the first half an hour because I wanted my little boy to be born on an even day and not on an odd day. I don't know what my thing is with odd numbers, I just don't like them! However I should have tried a little harder because I ended up pushing for two hours, because Zach was coming through the wrong way. The doctor finally came and said that he was going to use the forceps to turn him around and that if I didn't push really hard he was going to have me go in for a C-section. (This was the same doctor who said that if I ate any sugar or salt I would gain three pounds the next day. I didn't like this doctor!)

Zach came within a half hour after the doctor showed up! and it was an incredible experience. Zach looked so beat up with bruises on his head and a lot of red marks over his face. I actually thought he looked like a little grandpa! There was so much to take in, and little did I realize what a great adventure this boy would take me on. I love him with all my heart and can't wait for him to meet his little brother. Except this little one cannot come tomorrow because Timmy is at scout camp!





This is my favorite picture of Zach, because he looks so tough and is already featuring the Zach face.

The Return to the Hole

As we are preparing to move across the street to our beloved duplex that we have dreamed about living in since the day we moved into our basement duplex. I would like to give a brief history on both of the basements that I have lived in. The first was my Sophomore year in college. Where my good friends from the dorms and i decided that it would be so much fun to live in our own little place, and the price was just right. So we lovingly called the basement "the hole". What started out to be a great idea turned out to be a year we would never forget. There were five little girls upstairs who made a lot of noise, we could take a maximum of 5 minute showers because there was only one water heater. Not a lot of people would visit us because we were not conveniently located and we were considered a pack of wolves because we were inseparable. But I actually have the best memories of that year. The day we went dumpster diving right after Valentines Day and got a ton of flowers and told people that they were from our secret admirers when asked about them. The weekend we went to the library to find a book on how to fold napkins because there was nothing else to do. The day when we decided to be brave and ask people to come to a party at our place and only one person showed up... When we accidentally burned the sugar container because we left it on the oven burner. These are the greatest memories and luckily we were able to laugh at the events while they were happening. These roommates of mine have become my best friends and we became closer because of this funny year.

Fast forward to moving to Michigan where we found ourselves in another hole. We rented this place sight unseen, and we found out quickly why the landlord was willing to work with us from Utah! The place was not what we had expected. However as soon as we met our neighbors everything changed. Not only did they welcome us the first day we arrived, they gave us cinnamon rolls, invited us to a BBQ that night, told us where to go shopping and helped unload our U Pack. They have changed our whole outlook on Michigan and I will be forever grateful for them. I will look back on all the times when we were living in our second "hole" where we are sitting in front of our TV with the sound down on the lowest setting because we don't want to be too loud. Trying to teach Zach to be quiet because we make a lot of noise as it is. Learning to turn on the fan at times to go to sleep at night because the walls are so thin between the upstairs and the downstairs that any sound carries. The great food that our neighbor gives us upstairs, our favorite being his famous BBQ. The week in December when we didn't have any heat because the heater needed to be fixed. These are great memories and ones that I will remember with fondness. However if you ask me if I would ever repeat both of my experiences of living in "the hole" ... Heavens NO!






Here are my favorite roommates of all time, and maybe because we acted like this we might have scared a couple of people. These are the amazing flowers we found in the dumpster!



And this is my lucky family that I am so blessed to have in my life. I would live with them anywhwere!

Aaron and Christina's wedding

We were so lucky to be able to go to see TImmy's family for the last wedding reception for the Johnson boys. We had a wonderful time. We drove with Christina's "American Mom" Cindy. She was a very nice lady who was patient with constantly stopping, and putting up with Zach's little episodes of screaming. Here is Zach dancing with Cindy at the reception



The time at home with all the cousins was action packed, but unfortunately we don't have any pictures of that time. Zach was much happier than he was on his first trip to MO, but he still was a little unsure of all the other cousin's invading his personal space. He has "oldest and only child syndrome", which we hope the new baby will cure him of. But Zach like to play with everyone outside on the slide, swings (one of which Mark broke!) and the sand box.



At the reception, Zach was is heaven. He loved all the food and space to run. We also had fun with all the activities in the program. The dancing was also alot of fun. Here are some pictures to highlight that part:



Alicia and Keith were quite the dancing duo. They worked to floor well and captivated the crowd.







I think that about sums it up. Also I think we were supposed to send the pictures Melanie downloaded onto our computer to everyone else. So someone remind us if that is what we were supposed to do. If you want pictures we can send CDs.

The Wild Month of March!

Before you start reading I would like to apologize for not flipping the pictures upright. I thought I had... oh well, this blogging thing is still new and helping me learn the wonderful world of how to run the computer!

For Spring Break in March we went to Frankenmuth, which is a fun place in Michigan where the whole town is a small replica of what Germany is like. The first place we went to the world's biggest Christmas store Bronners (that might be an exaggeration!) Zach loved this place so much and couldn't get over the little elves with the tools!



Zach is trying to convince Santa in advance that he would like him to save up on all of the balls he has available for Christmas next year. Ball is one of the five words that he knows. The others are: mom, dad, whoa, yeah


Zach went crazy when he saw all the ornaments. I let him go to see what he would do. That was a bad idea he wanted to touch every ornament in the store. At this point we knew it was time to leave the store, or else we would have to pay for a lot of ornaments, due to them being broken!


We then ate lunch outside because the weather was so nice. Zach accidentally slipped and fell into a lot of mud, but luckily we had another outfit for him. Afterwards he wanted to carry a whole bag of food to the car, and refused to let anybody help him.


Afterwards we went around to a lot of German shops, and we sampled a lot of tasty food, especially the fudge. Zach was able to fall asleep while we were walking around, and was such a good sport all around. My favorite part of the shopping experience was when Zach spotted a large stuffed lion. The pictures explain how it was backwards, sorry!





That night we went to the pool in the hotel with Zach for the first time. He was so scared of the water and held on us for dear life. He finally got the hang of things and got a kick out of the water. The next morning we headed off to Lake Huron because Timmy said that it would only take 20 minutes. We didn't have any directions or a GPS system, so we got a little lost and finally found the lake 2 hours later. Zach's face explains how we felt about the whole experience.




It was a great trip and a very memorable Spring break.

Farewell to the lovely mullet!

Zach was blessed with a beautiful mullet that I once had as a child.




When he was being called a girl more than a boy, I finally agreed with Timmy that this mullet phase needed to go, and that I can have our next boy continue on with the tradition.



Zach did an incredible job with the clippers, and didn't cry at all, which was a pleasant surprise.



Now he is a grown up boy! It was a sad day to see him grow up so fast in just a few minutes. But now he is not being called a girl ANYMORE.