My Life.... busy as usual

Oh My Word! I can't believe it's been more than a month since I updated this poor neglected blog! Soooooo much has happened... but then again, it is my life! LOL

Let's see.... what has happened:

Jessica: Had a birthday, turned 20 years old!!!!!!!! I can't believe it! The big bad CHD (congenital heart defects) that tried to take Jess multiple times while she was an infant, and again as a child, as a teenager we almost lost her ... but she has made it to "adulthood!" Something Karl and I never dared dream would happen. Of course she is still at the level of a 7 yr old but she has lived for 20 years and that's a huge accomplishment! I'll post pictures soon... I promise! Jessica's wisdom teeth are trying to come in so I'm going to have to get her in to see her dentist. He said that he will take a look but who knows if he can do anything about it.

Justen: Justen and Ravyn have decided to post-pone their wedding until December. After taking a look over living expenses, etc, they realized that Miss Ravyn needs to have a job and help financially before the wedding. It's a huge reality check, isn't it? I think that one of the hardest part of growing up is having to provide for yourself and your family. Karl and I struggled financially for quite a few years and still have to watch what we buy. It's rough going sometimes but I'm sure that Justen and Ravyn will do well once they get everything in order. We are still so happy that Ravyn is going to be a part of our family. At least it won't be so hot in December! The wedding pictures will be less likely to have sweaty, melting wedding party in them. They wedding cake won't have to be served in glasses because it melted either. hehe! I am so glad that we have more time to get everything together, too. Ravyn and I are making her bouquet... I have a picture of her holding her partial bouquet but I think I'll wait until it's completed before I post a picture of it.

Brandon: Poor Brandon has to have oral surgery on July 30th. He has an adult tooth up on the palette of his mouth which has to be surgically uncovered. They will attach a small chain to it and then to his braces and it will slowly pull that tooth down. When it's time, the baby tooth which is in it's place, will be pulled and the adult tooth can come down where it should have gone in the first place. This is the eye tooth and the oral surgeon explained to us how important the eye teeth are. According to the x-ray, his wisdom teeth are ready to be pulled too so we are going to do all that at the same time. It makes sense to sedate him only once and have him recover from surgery only once. I feel bad for him since I know how hard the wisdom teeth extraction is. I had it done one summer while I was in HS and my family went on a trip 2 days afterwards. I had the choice of either going with them or staying for a week with my aunt and uncle. I decided that I might as well go on the trip so I did. It wasn't the most enjoyable trip I've ever been on but I survived! Brandon will survive too. He also has a birthday coming up on July 28th! He will be 15 yrs old. We are having his party on the 25th. He is going to get the Mario Kart for the Wii. Yes, we broke down and let Jessica buy the Wii last month with her government money. Karl and I swore we'd never buy it and at least WE didn't. haha... j/k of course. Since Jess doesn't feel well enough to go out much we figured she should be able to use her money to buy something to help entertain herself. If the kids fight over who gets to play it then nobody does. We've found which games are too strenuous for her to play and which ones are OK for her. She gets so "blue" so easily, we have to watch her or she will be trying to catch her breath and looking like a purple grape. Poor kid.

Austin: Austin is doing well. He is involved in scouts and does his calling really well at church. There's not a whole lot going on with Austin except that he told me that he needs some "Mom and Austin" time. I have been very preoccupied with so many things that I guess I haven't spent enough time with him. He wants me to watch a movie with him so we will definitely have to do it! He and I really need to start a walking program. We are both feeling the effects of not getting enough exercise and being around food all day (all night for me).

Karl: Karl has been working his cute pattootie off hard. He's taken some off-duty jobs, had his schedule changed around and around, and helping out an officer who was involved in a near-fatal accident. Actually, I have spent some time with the officer's wife too. Officer Bobby suffered severe head injuries and wasn't expected to survive. It's been 3 1/2 weeks and he is recovering from his other injuries but his brain has a lot of healing left to do. He recognizes his wife and can walk but he is still very confused and emotional. Please pray for him and his wife, Kristi, that they will get through this. They have two small children who are staying with grandparents (who live out of state) right now. This is an amazing couple and we really hope that Officer Bobby will make a full recovery.

Karl has also been working on my craft room & laundry room and it is now time to do the texture on the walls and ceilings. One of our friends has a texture machine and is supposed to come on Saturday to make a huge mess texture the place. I'm so stressed excited! At least after the texture is done, dry and cleaned up... all we have to do is paint and put in the flooring - - - then I can MOVE IN!!! Do I dare hope?

Nancy: is in great need of a gardener... or more likely a crew of people to rip out tons of weeds that have been growing since the monsoon season started. I'm also in need of a maid... or someone with a back-hoe to clean out my mess of a house! The monsoons have brought the much needed storms to our area but of course my fibromyalgia doesn't like storms so I've been dealing with pain. Lots of it. I also have no time to myself except for the times I stay up after Jess goes to bed. Some times it's not until the wee hours of the morning. I'm not kidding. Look at the time stamp on this post. I started this post at around 3:15am and it's now 3:57 am. But I digress.

My sister, Alice, had a baby boy last week! Joseph Hyrum Vivaldo. We got to go and visit them and pass the baby around. He was 3 days old and soooooo cute! Poor Alice looked tired so we didn't stay terribly long. (we also respected her enough to not take pictures of her at this time) Our crew - of 6 7 (sorry Ravyn, I almost forgot to count you!) can take a toll and anyone! Jessica was so proud of herself for being able to hold such a tiny baby. Justen and Ravyn got to hold him too. I think Ravyn was a little surprised that Justen knew how to hold a baby so small but I reminded her that he held his younger brothers when they were babies and he has also held other baby cousins.

Here is Jessica... so proud to be able to hold her new cousin!

Jessica and Hyrum

Ravyn taking her turn holding Hyrum while Justen waits his turn.

Jessica playing with her other cousins, Jesse, Julie and Marissa - who are all so proud of their baby brother. (Jess had an extremely late night that night and has not been up to par since. Going out really wears her down and she has to have recovery time.) But she had a great time that night and it was all worth it!

And last but not least....

MY BABY!

She's a 2005 Nissan Altima. Karl has been stressing out so much over the price of gas and the fact that our SUV only gets 10 mpg! This car gets 22 - 31 mpg, can fit all 5 of us and the oxygen goes in the trunk. Karl is so smart... he figured out that the oxygen tubing can come through a crack in the seats from the trunk... the seats can fold down and make the already huge trunk bigger so that is an awesome way for Jess to have her O2 and it not be in the way. We still have the SUV for the times that she needs her motorized wheelchair - which would include trips to the doctor, the mall, or any other long-distance walking is required. She doesn't need it to go to some one's home so here we were (in the picture) getting ready to go to grandma & grandpa Jensen's house on the 4th of July. (pictures of that fun event to come later too!) Karl has been so much more relaxed at the price of gas now that we have a much more economical car. We were able to put 1/3 of the price down so our payments are very reasonable. It's a beautiful car - inside and out. Only 30,000 miles on it and still under warranty. Sorry guys... it's ALL MINE! (Well, I let Karl drive it from time to time though... hehe!)

So anyway... these are the major updates that I can think of... and now that it's nearly 5:00am and it's starting to get light outside, it's time for me to go to bed. No, I'm not a slow typist... I just got to playing with the SD card that can fit nicely into my laptop (which I am using right now) and I downloaded 3 month's worth of photos. Now I need to transport them to my portable (pretty) hard drive. :) *I'm soooo spoiled!!!!*