wheeler farm/farmer ben's

we went to wheeler farm with dustin & minie while brookie had a photo shoot. we had a great time and i don't know why i don't take jude there more often. both he and and trev thoroughly enjoyed themselves. jude kept yelling "farmer ben's, farmer ben's!". in case you were wondering, farmer ben is the character from the berenstain bears and jude has a man crush on him. jk. he just loves those damn happy bears!
out of focus but amazing..... can you stand it?

he actually touched the cow, this was a first. meanwhile, greta was rolling down the hill in her stroller (i am a really good mom).

pigs are brown.....

i bet you have never seen a chicken face like this one and you won't soon forget it.

i told you grets was there.
i heart greta.

greta's blessing

beautiful greta was blessed this past sunday. trevan did a wonderful job blessing her and was only a tad nervous. i have to say i am still recovering from the event. i worked my butt of to get our house into shape. our yard was a disaster on monday and by saturday night it was a totally different story. trev worked all week in the yard and terri worked MIRACLES with the flowers. i stayed inside, but it was beast to tackle as well. i finally decorated the basement after 6 months! our little house did great hosting the 40+ that supported our little grets.

i am so grateful for my family. we had a huge turn out and it meant so much to me that people actually showed. so many aunts and uncles and even my cousin jodi from arizona! the best part was that my sister robyn drove all the way up from st. george with tuck & abe just to be here. it was a total surprise! she was leaving for california for with her 4 kids in the following days but managed to make it. i love her. she got me to cry and thats really hard for someone on antidepressants to do!

it was a perfect day. greta was of course beautiful. unfortunately she was sick with a cold and a bad cough but being the trooper that she is no one would have known if it wasn't for her cough. she cooed the entire blessing and then fell fast asleep in my arms after it was over. i love that girl.

daddie's girl

the men in greta's life.....
tim k., grandpa ernie, papa mike, chris m., dustin, daddie, chris w., lee, tim w., papa rog, cam, & brad

our little family

the best surprise.... sister bear

i am still surprised my house could handle this many people

the 2 papa's

abe & landy

what a perfect day......

look what brooke can do......

my sister brooke is so talented. she took up her favorite junior high & high school hobby of photography a few months ago and became amazingly good. i am totally jealous! i am also totally happy that i can take advantage of her skills and get these fabulous images of my babies. you should use her, really. her business is called oliverminie j. photography.......


my greta

and my jude......

greta the bobble head

just a little update on our gretsie. about 2 weeks ago (right after my last post) greta started shaking her head again, this time around it was worse. like when she gets going her car seat or bouncer will start shaking. the only way to explain it is to say that she looks like a bobble head, a cute bobble head, but a bobble head none the less. i knew they weren't seizures and that they are more like tremors but i was right freaked out. i have been around my fair share of newborns and i have never seen this, nor has anyone else i have talked to. so i called dr. cramer and we were back at the pediatrician's once again. we like to make it a weekly occurrence apparently.

dr. cramer watched & examined grets for about 30 minutes, he checked everything. after he was finished he sat back looked at her and just shook his head and said "i don't know what to tell you, this is beyond my area of expertise". he then told us that he was going to send us to a pediatric ophthalmologist to see if it was her eyes and if that wasn't the answer he would send us to a pediatric neurologist.

let me first say that she doesn't seem to be in any sort of pain or discomfort when she is shaking. she also does it in any situation (sad, mad, hungry, or happy) the jury is still out on whether she does it while she sleeps because i don't monitor her 24/7. sometimes she does it so hard that i cannot get her to eat and when i touch her or put my hand against her head she will just shake against it. it's just plain weird and not normal.

we went to the pediatric ophthalmologist and after some examination and watching the video i brought of her bobbling, he concluded that it was not her eyes that was causing these tremors. he dilated her eyes and checked them and said she had a perfectly healthy eyes. because she is so young he could not tell how much she can see but her eyes are not the problem. while this is good news, it is still upsetting to not have an answer. so onto the neurologist.

last friday the 30th we went to primary children's hospital to meet with dr. filloux a pediatric neurologist. because my lovely gretzel does not bobble on demand and has bit of stage fright it seems, he too had to watch her do it on the video. he repeated many of the test that the previous doctors had done, including reflexes, an eye check, and neck strength. he felt all of those things were normal and because its so varied at this young age whether they are hitting milestones that was irrelevant. he wasn't sure what it was either. dr. filloux did notice that her head movements were a little abnormal, even when she wasn't' shaking. he has seen a few cases similar to this but said the shaking is all a result of something else and not all of the cases were the same. he said "i am not overly concerned but i am concerned none the less.". he seemed pretty positive however that it was a neurological problem. he thought maybe that it was her vision but not her eyes. that there may be a problem in the part of her brain that receives the information her eyes are giving her. he thought too that maybe it would figure itself out over time (best case scenario). there were no for sure answer, just that he for sure wanted her to have an MRI so he could see what was going on. SOOOOO on june 13th greta will be having an MRI to see if they can figure our darling little girl is a bobble head.

i am not sure how i feel yet. i feel validated. i knew that this was not normal and i was glad that dr. cramer wanted to look into this and also that dr. filloux was concerned. i was afraid i would go in there and that they would think i was a hypochondriac. i am just glad that we live in a time that we can have answers to these medical questions and sometimes treatment. greta is a wonderfully amazing baby and she is so perfect in my eyes. i feel confident that everything will be okay, it's still just scary to not have answers. i can deal with whatever it is as long as i know what it is. i am nervous for the MRI, he said they were pretty heinous with babies and that the whole process will be about 4 hours because they have to sedate them. i hate it, but it's not the first time i have had to something like this with my kids. by now jude is an old pro with general anesthesia. just keep us in your prayers if you would. grets need them.

six weeks old 6 weeks old

i can't really believe that 6 weeks have passed. this little girl is an angel. i thought jude was a good baby, she is amazing. we had a 6 week check up today and here are the results:

8.8 lbs (10th percentile)
21 1/4 inches (25th percentile)

she is pretty little still, which is so foreign to me. jude was always on the big side, he is only now becoming average. most of her clothes still drown her and she still wears newborn diapers. maybe one day she will chub up, i love rolly polly babies. dr. cramer is bit concerned about her vision. she used to do this shaky thing with her head and her eyes shook too. that has stopped but she never really focuses or looks at me and he noticed that too. we are going in another 6 weeks to check her again. this problem may root from her distress when she was born and in-utero. we found out her cord pH levels were pretty low and that proves she was in major distress and we don't know for how long. a low cord pH level can sometimes cause brain damage and other problems. so we will found out in time what the long term effects of that will be on grets. par for the coarse for us. we don't have great luck. we do have great luck however in making good babies. greta is perfect and i am loving every inch of her! beautiful girl.

trailer trash

p.s. would george bush give us our money? well, we bought this in hopes that we will get that stimulus check one day. trev has wanted a bike trailer since he bought his bike back in july and when we were at costco the other day they only had one left, we had to purchase it. jude is pretty excited about the trailer and keeps telling people that daddie pushes him on his bike. now trev can pull the kids (jude that is, grets needs to grow a little first) while i go shopping or sleep. one day when i get a bike i may join in.

funny enough, jude has wanted a helmet since trev got his bike. i guess they both got what they wanted. oh, and the those knee pads come in real handy while riding in the trailer.

..... and their off.

uncle tammy's birthday

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CAMERON!
cam turned 24 and it was a cause for celebration. i had the novel idea that we should go miniature golfing because A: jude has never been & B: the gregory's love golf. it was muy bueno! i packed grets around in the baby bjorn and the gang played golf. i love cam and i love celebrating him even more. thank you for coming home.

jude's best picture face to date..... timeless

trev's hole in one (after that jude proceeded to say he got a hole in one at every hole. pretty sure that dropping your ball into the hole counts)

he may NOT be a natural. jk. he is amazing at golf, watch out sergio garcia.

landon's hole in one

the birthday boy and his crew

i told you we were there too!
(looking great as usual....sigh)