Happy Turkey Day!

You can tell she is feeling better right...that chocolate pie is delicious!!!

We had a very nice Thanksgiving. The Johnson clan came to our house for the third year in a row. Papa Lynn, Nama Katie, and great-grandpa Barber came on Wednesday evening. We had a really nice dinner at my parents house on Thursday and then the Gens arrived on Friday afternoon. We had our big feast on Saturday. It was great to catch up with everyone.
Jacie and her cousin Emma at my great-aunt Noreens for the annual Thanksgiving bash.
Family photo!
My cousins Hanna, Jenna & McKenna
And their little brother Jack. Look at Katie...what a natural!!! :)
Jacie baking pies with Nama Katie...it was so cute!
Yum...love those cranberries.
Yummy!!!
The whole clan...minus our photographer Katie. Grandpa Barber, Preston and Lynn built us a beautiful windmill for our backyard over the weekend as well. It was a great time for them and a really neat project. I can't wait to put it out this spring.

One sick baby!

We had one sick baby on our hands for a full week. It all started on a Saturday morning when she woke up with a fever. We tried to be proactive and immediately took her to our pediatrician. Of course it was Saturday morning so we didn't get to see our doc, but saw another. She looked her over...clear ears, clear throat, must be a virus! She said make sure she continues to eat and drink and wait it out. About 36 hours later we were in the ER...she had a fever of 105.9. She was diagnosed with a bladder infection. This is her picture at 4 a.m. when we got home from the ER. She was just happy that she got a new puppy stuff animal at the hospital.
After the ER visit the saga continued. Apparently they put her on a type of medicine that is very often resistant to these types of infections in little girls. Brilliant right! So a day or so later we were back at the pediatrician to get a shot of antibiotics and change perscriptions. We thought we were on the mend until she woke up that night with a fever of 106. Preston and I were both just beside ourselves. We were so worried about our little peanut. We rushed her to Children's and they immediately started her on IV antibiotics. We got there at about 3 a.m. and were on our way home by 6 p.m. that following night. The IV drugs finally gave her what she needed to get over the hump and she was on the mend. It was an exhausting week for all and we are just grateful that we made it through. She had lots of people worried.

As a follow up she had to have a VCUG test this past week. Talk about terrible...they had to strap her to this little board, cath her, insert die and then x-ray her. It was traumatic for us all. She laid there and just kept doing the sign for "all done" with her little hands up. It was so sad. The good news is the test came back completely normal so hopefully this was a one-time event and we won't be going through anything like this again! Through it all she was such a trooper. Below are some pics of our hospital stay.

Of course she was spoiled...she got this giant pink hippo from auntie Katie and uncle T. Auntie Rosie sent her these two little "Hannah dogs" that Jacie still just loves to carry around. She was loving on them non-stop. They tried to put her IV in her left hand, but blew it so it ended up in her right hand. We didn't realize how much she favored that hand until she was trying to do everything with that little splint on.

Kisses for the puppy!

Oh and a little pat on the back...he has to burp you know!

You could see it in her eyes...she was just miserable. I am so glad she is doing better. You can see in the pic below she has her blankie by her side. Nama Katie made her that blanket and it experienced the whole long journey with us...from being thrown up on in the ER to coming along for our hospital stay. It was also really nice...Nama Katie and Papa Lynn made the trip to Omaha to check on Jacie the day we were in the hospital. Fortunately we were dismissed before they arrived...but we were able to spend a couple days with them and they got to love up on Jacie Claire! Phew...glad this whole experience is over with!

Kansas City & Des Moines

It has been a while since an update because life has been pretty crazy at the Johnson household. From trips out of town to trips to the ER we are hoping for a less eventful December! Here are a few posts with updates on what has been happening!

The first week in November Preston took his next exam. I decided to surprise him with a little overnite trip to KC. We took off on Friday morning and had a really great time. We stayed downtown and wandered around the Plaza. We went to an amazing dinner at Bristols and then wandered over to Howl at the Moon to enjoy some music. We had a really great weekend...it was a much needed break!

We also made a trip to Des Moines in November. My good friend Kari lives in Minneapolis and we were really missing each other and feeling the need to celebrate our Birthdays so we decided to meet up in Des Moines. We stayed at Embassy so we enjoyed the happy hour, ordered in pizzas and the girls played. It was a great time...we had fun catching up!

Happy Halloween!

I wanted to share a bunch of pictures from all of our Halloween festivities. We had a very busy weekend, starting with our pumpkin carving on Thursday. You can see below all the fun we had. The picture about is Jacie with a bunch of her second cousins. It was so cute seeing all of them curled up reading a "sto-ee" as Jacie calls it! :)

Those of you that know Preston know that he doesn't mess around with these types of projects. We had three pumpkins to carve and we were going to carve them well! He printed patterns online and I did the drawing. Preston started doing all the carving, but being the perfectionist that he is I had to jump in....otherwise we would still be carving pumpkins today!

Jacie wasn't so sure that she liked how the pumpkin guts felt.

Jacie posing with her baby pumpkin!

Jacie is feeding the pumpkin "num-nums!"

Posing with the finished product.

Daddy was so proud he had to take pictures of all the completed pumpkins!

Namie Katie and Papa Lynn sent Jacie a fun package for Halloween. Jacie quickly figured out what to do with the stickers. I looked over and she had them everywhere!

On Friday night at church I had a trunk-or-treat event. Preston and Jace came for a little while. The event was a huge success...we had 500 kiddies attend!

Auntie Rosie sent this cute little outfit - I just love it!

YUMMY! Who needs candy when we have CHIPS! This is one of Jacie's favorite foods and words. Namie Thea and Papa Tom gave her this cute basket. And of course Zoe wanted some too!

Jacie loves her auntie Katie and they both LOVE suckers! Katie gave Jacie her first sucker several months back and continues to supply her with them on a regular basis. No wonder Jacie likes her so much! :)

Life is good when you have a tootsie pop!!!

Auntie Katie and Uncle T gave me this cool bucket and ball...and of course lots of goodies.

On Sunday night we went to the Buckley's for some trick-or-treating. The kids all looked so cute in their costumes!

Trick-or-Treating with daddy...whoohooo we just got lots of candy!!!

All in all we had a great Halloween. Jacie is growing and talking so much. She is very petite in size, but not in personality! She gives us a new challenge each day...but I can say one thing for sure...there is truly nothing better in life than being a parent. She makes us both SOOOOOO incredibly happy.

Vala's Pumpkin Patch

Last Friday we took a trip to Vala's Pumpkin Patch. It is a really neat place, Jacie is too young for the majority of their activities...but we had a blast anyways!

Papa Lynn would not approve of the color of this tractor...but it was fun anyways! :)

These two are my favorite...she is such a little ham!

This was by far her favorite activity...the jumper. She was up there saying "jump, jump, jump" and just laughing...it was adorable!

This was a close second...the corn sandbox. She liked throwing corn at daddy!

Mexico

Preston and I took our first big vacation away from Jacie. We had a really great time together, but by about day three we were really missing our girl. We snapped out of it and enjoyed our five days on the beach in Playa del Carmen, Mexico.

Amy and Zach's good friend Sarah was getting married so a whole bunch of the family came along. We all had a great time...it was a fun trip!

The photographer who was on the beach had fun taking our pictures. We look like we are jumping much higher than we actually were!

Hanging out in the ocean! The water was beautiful.

We missed our girl...can you tell.

Our last night!

Me and Dad!