Rubers

Here are some recent pictures of our Ruby! Is she not the cutest thing ever! I love the fact that I had a strong influence on my other two kids eye color. They both have such dark brown eyes and I love it. But I also love that Ruby's are totally different than the other two. She is different in a lot of ways. Burke and Emma look so much alike, hair and eye color as well as skin color. But this Ruby is throwing us for a curve. She is fair skinned and has almost blueish grayish eye color! She looks a ton like my dad and what I looked like as a baby (except the eye color)! It is fun to see the differences!

Rubers is 5 months already!! Boy it is crazy how time passes! She is super sweet and smiley! We think we have a daddy's girl on our hands. She is in love with her daddy! Every time she sees him she gets this HUGE smile on her face and starts chatting away with him! He loves it! Enjoy! The one below is obviously from Christmas of which I still have to post! Someday right?!

Ruby's Story

Ruby Jane

Here I am below at the hospital right before I was induced. That's right I had to be induced again for the third time. Technically I chose to be induced, but for good reason. My due date was the day before Burke's 4th birthday. And we didn't want to chance having her on his birthday so we chose to be induced four days before his birthday. Now, my doctor and I both were certain this child would come way before her due date considering I was dilated to a 4, about 75% effaced and my cervix was super soft for about a month. But no, she was nice and comfy inside me and that is where she would stay until the induction date. I kept on having braxton hicks contractions (like the last 4 months) thinking any day near the end I would going into labor but I never did. My body was ready, but the contractions wouldn't come. Since I really wanted to experience going into labor myself with out PIT, I asked the doctor to just see if breaking my water would send me into labor without having to use PIT. And sure enough no more than about 20 min after he broke my water I was starting to have real contractions!! This is what I had been waiting for for 9+ months! I was welcoming the pain! It was cool, until the started hurting really really bad. I was contemplating going without an epidural, but who am I kidding. That pain is unreal. So, I finally told the nurse I'd like one and sure enough the doc was doing another epidural right then and that I would have to wait for mine. The contractions got worse and worse and finally it was my turn to have the epidural. I think we barely got it in and working before I was to push. It didn't work as well as the other two I've had. I felt more and could move my legs more than with the others but luckily there was little pain which was a huge blessing! I also did go really numb after the baby came. Ironic.

When they broke my water I was at a 6 or so. It took about two hours from that time until the baby was out. Quick, that's how I like it! I did have to push for about 15 minutes or so- which was way longer than with the other two. The reason could have been because Ruby was way bigger than the others were. They ended up giving me a kick of PIT when I was pushing to help make the contractions harder so I would feel the need to push. (It sort of slowed down near the end and that probably contributed to a longer delivery as well.)

Well, Ruby was born at 11:53 am and was 7 lbs 8 oz measuring 20 1/4 inches long. We are proud and grateful to say that she is healthy, strong and very very beautiful. Her heart was checked out to make sure they didn't miss anything in utero and sure enough, she passed with flying colors. We are sure grateful for a healthy baby!

Grandma Johnson brought big bro and big sis down to the hospital to see their new little sister! they were so thrilled to see her and hold her. Burke was very hyper at the hospital. He just wanted to hold her every second he was there. Emma was very calm and very motherly with the baby. She was helpful and knew how to hold her carefully and to be gentle with her.

We are so grateful she is here in our family. I can't believe it has been over a month since she was born! I'm sure I missed some details in her story, but that is pretty much it. Stay tuned for more posts: Ruby's blessing, First day of school, soccer and a summer time wrap up! (Can't believe it is already fall. I wanted summer to be over with so bad so I could have this baby since my pregnancy was horrible, and now I am wishing the warm weather would stick around for a little while longer. The winters are just too long and too cold for my bones. Oh well. )

Ruby

Our little Ruby finally made her presence known about a month ago. I can't believe I am finally posting again. The last post I wrote was when we announced that I was pregnant with her and now I am announcing her birth. Awesome. Regardless, she is here, she is healthy, she is adorable and she is our little Ruby Jane! So much has happened over the past month and more that I don't know what to write. So, I am just going to post pictures so I can get to bed soon because she is already down for the night. My sleep clock is ticking. So, please enjoy pictures from her first photo shoot that my good friend Becky Phillips took with Phillips Photography.

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!!

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!!

With Love From,

Emma, Burke and Baby #3!
Baby #3 is due to arrive sometime in mid August (which means I am 14 plus weeks along right now.) The baby is healthy and when the doctor checked the heart- all looks healthy and normal and good!! We told the kiddos about the baby about a week ago and they have been so excited since!
There- our secret is out! Hope you have a HAPPY DAY!

Emma's Ballet Photoshoot

Well, Emma is nearly fully recovered from her tonsillectomy she had 2 weeks ago. It took until day 11 post op for her to be somewhat her normal active fun self again. Hallelujah! Up until then it was dreadful!!

On a more happier note though, since she has her energy back she was able to go to ballet again this week!! She missed last week's class due to the already mentioned horrible surgery. Here are a few pictures of her in her ballet giddy-up! We recently put her into a small ballet class with one of her other cousins. It was very affordable and we felt she was more than ready to do something on her own like ballet!! She LOVES it! I made these leg warmers (which I make to sell as well) for her and wanted to get some pictures of her in them! These turned out pretty cute- (by the way LIZ when you read this- please be proud that I have learned just a tad bit about photo shop and know that I doctored these pictures up a little. I know they aren't profession-al, but I did it none the less. What do you think- good? Bad? I like them so that's all that matters right? Just kidding. )

Hope you enjoy these of our sweet little girl!!

I give all the credit to Emma for choosing the above pose! Totally an Emma pose for sure!!

I love this little girl's legs. They are so cute!!
She thought the one above was super fun to do as well!! Can you notice she has lost weight from her surgery. I wish I could have known exactly how much, but it was for sure noticeable! I want my tonsils out! Come on!
I made her these leggings thinking they would be great to wear for dance during the winter months. I guess her teacher didn't approve. Emma handed them to me after dance telling me that her teacher told her to take them off at the beginning of class. Whoops! Oh, well that was a good thought. I hope her primary teachers won't make her take them off at church- because that's the only other place she wears them. I guess we will see on Sunday right? Funny.

September and part of October

I am finally documenting and posting some pictures as of late. Here are some fun one of the kiddos in action. September brought us a new school year- Emma's second year at preschool! She missed the cut off date to start kindergarten this year- which I was more than fine with. I don't want to send my child off quite yet if at all. I might do the whole home school thing!! Schools these days really bother me and it is very scary what is going on in school! That is another topic for another day though!

September also brought new ballet class, which you can see other pictures in a different post.
September brought Burke a new found discovery for a lot of fun things! He is all over the place and has a mind of his own and is very creative and VERY playful!! We love it! He is our little tease in our family for sure. Big sis doesn't like it so much, but he gets a good laugh out of his little pesterings (is that even a word)! Hope you enjoy the random pictures!

Oh, the end of September also brought "Cub-ub" (as Emma used to call him when she couldn't say his name before his mission) - Tyler's nephew Caleb home from Guatemala where he has been serving a mission for two years for our church! It was so fun to be at the airport with like 50 other people all anxious for his arrival! Fun!

This picture is the only one I have of Emma after her tonsillectomy from my camera. I took a few on my phone at the hospital. What a bad mom I am. I have taken so many pictures of Burke at the hospital over the years- and I really failed on this one. But, I felt bad even thinking about taking a picture of her when she was SOOO miserable! She actually looks pretty good in this picture- she was looking really bad for a few days. Her eyes sunk into her head and she got skinny and pale. It was so sad. So, I guess I am glad to see that the only picture I did get was of when she didn't look like she was on her death bed. There, I feel better already. Notice the PINK ice cream- must have for a girl who got her tonsils out!! She is also under a fort Grandma made for Burke when Emma was in surgery! He loved it. Then E took it over.

This one is so funny. He loves babies. He loves his boat that Tyler made him for his Peter Pan cake. Put them together and you get a fun boat ride! He was so proud of this! I love it.

And if you get to the end of this post and are still awake, then you will know that this is not Grandma's house, this is our house and yes we have moved back into it!! Yippe!! We are so excited and the kids love playing with all their old toys again and getting to be in our house again with our little family. This was just taken yesterday. They love to pack everything in baskets, bags, boxes or containers and lug it around the house. Pack rats for sure (Jenny). And speaking of Jenny- thank you for that cute table to liven up our entry way. I will be sad when you want it back someday. And let me know if you would rather us not use it anymore now that we are moved back in. Thanks again I love our fun entry!!

Surgery House, Sick House

It's about time I posted about our family and what we have been up to! There has been so much going on that I don't know where to start! Let's see, Burke had yet another surgery about three weeks ago. Yeah, can you believe it? He had sinus surgery to relieve his chronic sinusitis that he has had since February, and he got his tonsils and adenoids out!
His tonsils were so infected that they could have been the reason why he has been sick for so long, combined with his sinuses being so inflamed that there was no way for the infection in his sinuses to drain. This poor kid.

Recovery went okay. Some days were better than others. The first few days went really well, but then the scabs from the tonsils fell off and he had a few really miserable days with a big sore throat. About day 15 post op or so (last Tuesday) he spiked a temperature after I put him to bed. I measured the temp at 102.8! I don't think he has ever had that high of a temperature before! It came on so quickly and made his little heart race so fast. We were worried especially about his heart so we decided to take him into the ER.

When I walked into the ER I said frankly to the lady at the admitting desk. "This is Burke Johnson. He has a high fever and he has heart disease." She calmly and quickly asked his date of birth and had me sign something. Then again quickly and calmly she picked up a phone to contact the nurses in the back and said, "we have a 3 year old boy who has a high fever and his mom says he has heart disease." No more than 30 seconds later a lady came up to get me and we were back in the back getting check out. It was amazing. I had the ticket to get back into the ER quickly like never before. I could not believe their reaction. Professional, calm, and very quick. It was awesome. St. Luke's I commend you for how well you dealt with us in the ER that night. Thank you for caring for my child like I would want him to be dealt with.

So, we got admitted that night because after they ran some tests and took an x-ray. His white blood cell count was super high and they were concerned about what that meant. They wanted to keep him for 48 hrs to see if the cultures would grow anything or not. His fever never came back but they wanted to still keep him to watch him. By the middle of day two (not quite 48 hr yet though) Burke, in my eyes, was more than fine to be discharged. It took the rest of that afternoon to get all the doctors to agree to let him go. So, after 2 nights and two days we were released from the hospital. The next afternoon he was to go into the pediatrician to get the test results back. They came back negative! He must have caught some sort of virus that caused a random temperature. He is a little congested but is back to normal for the most part. He is his active crazy self again!!


Now onto Emma. She got her tonsils checked by the ENT due to her getting sick frequently enough. I thought too, since tonsils were infected in Burke, that probably they were the culprit in Emma's case. She enough her tonsils were infected and large as were her adenoids! Super fun.

She was due to have her tonsils/adenoids out on Oct. 1st. Burke was discharged from the hospital on Sept. 30 (Thursday) and Emma was to be at the Surgical center at 9 am on Friday morning. We just wanted to do our best to keep the ENT, the hospital and the pharmacy in business! It is our pleasure! You can thank us later.

Her surgery went very well and was quicker than expected. Her adenoids were huge and the tonsils were huge and very infected. Her tonsils were bigger than Burke's were. I got to see them- pretty gross. I got a picture on my phone but I don't know how to get them off my phone and onto the computer. So, sorry no pictures. We stayed in the post op recovery room for about an hour and then were released. Weird. No PICU admission like Burke. No oxygen required. No over night stay to make sure all is stable. This was totally different than Burke's surgeries. How nice it is to have a child who is healthy and does not require all the special medical needs. I am so grateful for the tender mercies of the Lord.

Day one and two post op went great. Today though, day three post op, is a different story. She is hurting more today and won't take her pain meds. as well as the past few days. She is also not drinking as well. She is sleeping more today and resting more as well. Hopefully we can just get through this quickly. She is a trooper and reacted better the first few days post op better than we expected. Today though is more how we thought she would act- totally uncooperative! That's okay though. Things will get better. I feel so bad for her. I bet she is in so much pain. Having just been through this with Burke not long ago, her recovery is so different than his.

So, there you go. And update. Oh, I am sick again too. Sore throat and congestion. It is crazy how I usually get sick in a way that helps me be more empathetic to what the children are going through at the same exact time. Being a mama of two children who have both had surgery in the past two in a half weeks, and who have both been sick recently also, means that this mama is run down, exhausted and is running on little sleep. Happy days! But, we are alive and Burke is not in the hospital so we are grateful for our health, and to the Lord for watching over us through our tough time. He really has been there for us.