a vacation @ nannie's

it's always so nice when we get to stay at my parents house for the weekend. it's just like a little vacation. love my mom to peices. where she is will always be home (as long as senor and the kiddies are in tow).

we all went swimming at the AF rec and boy oh boy have they remodeled since i have been there last. it's way better! i loved myself a little AF rec growing up, many fond memories with my sisters and the holmsteads were had there.

gretsie in her bikini. i am totally upset i didn't get a better picture. all 3 month olds need to sport girrafe print bikinis!

when i said we all went, that included grandma billie. she is great. she and jude do the same thing in the pool, bounce up and down. hers however, are called excercies.

after dinner at my dad's favorite resteraunt "mi ranchito" there was a magical summer storm that hit. jude and gabi quite enjoyed playing in the rain.

further proof that brooke is a terrible mother......
i love my minie.

out of focus but darling anyway

after a group tubbie all the kids were in the pj's and ready for bed. when we were leaving the magical summer storm turned into a wind storm. jude couldn't resist running against it, wait neither could i.

loving every square inch of him in his new "poo foo wanda" jammies i bought him in chinatown.

snapped this one in the midst of a fall, poor little guy.

too be 2 again.....


i wouldn't mind my life being like this forever.
its pure joy.

the 24th of july....

our family tradition on the 24th of july (utah statehood holiday) is to hit up the salt lake bee's game. we go with trevan's family, its a good time for all to be had. the food.... please, does it get any better? trevan loves baseball, i love people watching, and jude get's to be with his peeps. everyone goes home happy.

sort of a worthless holiday but a holiday none the less. he makes all things better.

some little tidbits

cousins & cartoons

still not regretting those darling earring

greta meets grandma billie

loving that jude would share is bob the builder pencil with grets......... he's a nice guy.

the trippie

amazing..... brooke was the only one who took pictures while in san francisco and it was minimal at that. we had so SO much fun. a lot of time was spent giggling (paige's directions, sonoma county girls, brooke's $500 one stop shop, donna @ dollar rental car, my darling figure, classic "pamisims", etc.) and even more time shopping. we decided that next time we probably would save money in the long run by staying at an all inclusive resort. i think most of our husbands wanted to divorce us after we were through, pretty much A LOT of money was spent. it was good to see bister (baby sister) paigey. she is all grown'd up and has a darling apartment in san ramon. thanks again to paige and nate for hosting us!

until next year my fair ladies.......

p.s. aren't my sisters gorgeous? don't be hatin!

and we're off......

greta and i are off for our first williams' girls girl trip and we couldn't be more excited. we are planning for this to be an annual thing and thankfully babies under 6 months are invited! we are hitting up the wonderful san francisco for our commencement year. trev and jude get to stay at home and do "man" stuff, sorry boys. we'll be back with flowers in our hair for a fantastic update!

found these today. when greta's feet get big enough you can be sure she will be wearing them. thank you.

an update on gigi with no answers

just a little update on baby of mine. 3 specialists later we still don't have much of an answer as to what is exactly wrong with greta. it's a little frustrating but patience and faith i guess will have have to become my friends.

the MRI came back some what normal. there were 2 area's of concern one w/ her corpus callosum being thinner than normal and two that the area's in her brain that have fluid are bigger than normal. they are both within the realm of normalcy but still of notice. dr. filloux wants to see her back in 2 months if she is still having her head tremors for further diagnosis and back again in another year for a MRI to check her brain again. dr. filloux also thought that maybe at some point we should see a geneticist to make sure it was not a chromosomal problem. he then referred me to see another pediatric ophthalmologist, dr. dries and also to a government funded program called "early intervention" for children under 3 with disabilities.

dr. dries gave me the best news of all, which is that greta can see. i have thought since the beginning that maybe she was blind. he did a number of tests on her and said that he agreed that her vision was very poor for her age but that she was not blind. that was a huge sigh of relief for me. however, greta is not doing the things that she should with her eyes at this point (tracking & focusing) and her vision is quite weak. he seemed to believe that it was probably due to lack of development in her brain in the vision department. he didn't know why this was and how it happened but acknowledged that this was not normal. dr. dries wants to see her back in 2 months for further testing and suggested "early intervention" as well. he did however LOVE her name, kudos to me.

now we are on to the early intervention stage. who knew such a thing existed? well, i couldn't be happier that it does. my RN that is on grets' case is names suzanne and i love love love her. she came over last week and observed greta for an hour and half and came to a few conclusions. she concluded that yes, greta was a prime candidate for early intervention because of her vision and that although greta is on target for most milestones, her vision is terrible and because of that she has little or no neck strength. most babies lift their heads because the have a reward by seeing something, but because greta doesn't see well she doesn't know to lift her head so we have to teach her. suzanne taught me a few "exercises" (not the jane fonda type, unfortunately) that i could do to help greta with her neck strength. so far, they seem to be helping. she also told me to buy greta visually stimulating toys. greta responds to noise quite well and has made the connection that sight and sound go together. she looks to see what she is hearing, even if she is not seeing it, and that is a good sign. suzanne is scheduled to come again next week and this time she is bringing a visual therapist.

i am not sure how i feel about the whole situation. even though there are no for sure answers i am glad we are moving in the right direction. how awesome is it that we live in a time where we can have the answers? greta is still a bobble head sometimes and we still don't know why. like i said, patience and faith right? plus, i don't know what it's like to have a child that doesn't have special needs so i guess this is normal for me. bring it on. one thing that i do know for sure is that I LOVE MY DAUGHTER. she is wonderful and i know that she will be okay because of how much we love her.


....even if she does have to wear these at one point.

meet piercety alley

i did it.

i pierced greta's ears. trevan has literally been asking since day one when we were going to pierce her ears. (what dad wants their daughters ears pierced i don't know) so today amongst aunts and cousins grets got her first set of earrings. the best news is that is was totally not as bad as i expected. greta only cried when they did it and then she was done, i think she was grateful i finally did it. everyone looks better with a little bling right? she is adorable.

p.s. this is greta's new favorite past time. her tongue is so amusing.

this captures perfectly how i felt.
sort of like, "really? i just did this?"

see? she is perfectly okay with her new accessory!

i heart boating....

can we just say that i need a boat? we went boating on the lamoreaux's boat (thank you TRI-L) and it was amazing. when robyn and bob lived here they frequented the lake quite a bit and if they were going they knew they had to have a seat available for me. my parents never did things like this when were growing up (not my mom's fault). so i loved it when bob came into the picture in 1997. he taught me how to wake board and i did it again today but couldn't clear the wake (it had been almost 6 years since i had been last) and i was totally disappointed. we are getting a boat and thats final! i was destined to be a boater.

jude did quite well in the water the 2nd time around, i kind of just threw him in and he was totally okay with it.

when i think of gwyn my mind goes directly into standing ovation mode. i think she was meant to be my daughter. plus, she is always wanting a milk shake, i love her.

trev & bob had all the kids in the water at one point. i had to get back in the boat after i failed miserably at my back flip off the back. sigh.

abe didn't so much like getting in the water or riding the tube, he preferred the boat.

brooke and her fetus loved being the flagger

abe & jude were enjoying the food on deck.....

i'm ready

the 4th of july (picture city)

4th of july is the perfect holiday..... and ours was terrific.

we started the day off @ 5:30 with the hot air balloon festival in provo

out of focus but oh so perfect!

gretsie loves hot air balloons.
_________

then it was breakfast and the neighborhood parade at nannie's....

pretty sure brooke missed viewed the whole day through a camera lens. come to think of it thats how she view most days.

miranda (12 years)

asher (8 years)

of course jude was rockin' a sweet 4th of july outfit

______

after a LONG nap it was off to sugarhouse park w/ the greg's for their annual party with the kailen's

we decided that this lawn mower train was something that jude needed to partake of....

... he agreed.

no you cannot borrow my headband!

poor jude was sick with a dumb cold the whole day. he just wasn't himself as you can tell in this picture. he is being a mouth breather because his nose is so clogged.

a little bocce for the boys

quite possibly my favy picture of my daughter

yaya and her grandbabies

my cam.... will someone marry him already so we can all be best friends?

until next time my dearest holiday!