Proof of a good time

The 4 boys had a sleepover last night at Rob and Janice's house and then worked and played hard all day! They came home and I made them all shower and told them to get dressed. A few minutes later I found Parker asleep on the couch! He was so worn out.



Thanks Rob and Janice for having the boys over- they had the time of their life! Thanks for being so brave (their five kids plus four of mine=9 kids at the same time- wow!) and for your help loading that hay today- you guys are the best!

Little Man Mason

I had the pleasure of photographing this sweet little man yesterday. He is 5 lbs of sweet perfection! It took 4 years to get this little sweetie here, and his parents totally adore him. Jen and Josh are the most amazing new parents I have ever seen- they were so calm and sweet with him!

Congrats Jen and Josh...he is perfect!

naturally hatched chick

We have chickens....lots of chickens.....and lots of eggs. We get almost 2 dozen eggs every day. Oakley feeds and waters the chickens, gathers the eggs, washes the eggs and puts them in his "Farm Fresh" egg cartons. He has several local customers that buy his eggs for $2.50 a dozen. We get a good mix of white, brown, and green eggs. Everyone loves the green eggs!

Today Oakley came running up the stairs, so excited, yelling "look what I found!!!" He had this little baby chick in his hands. He has been wanting to hatch some chicks, and if he sees a hen sitting on an egg, he will leave it, hoping that he would get a chick. He is so excited about this- the chickens and the eggs are his pride and joy!

Baby Kayla

Congrats David and Jackie, she is so perfect!

I went to the hosptial to take pictures of this new little sweetie yesterday.

If I have told you I was done having kids, seeing this little one made me have second thoughts.....

stairs...already?

Allie was downstairs and Jenna was supposed to be watching her. Tyler walked around the corner to find Allie 3/4 the way up the stairs! This was the first time that she has climbed the stairs...we have kept her away from the stairs so I didn't even know she could do it. But, since she showed us that she can climb up the stairs, I thought we'd better teach her how to climb down. We did that a few times and she loves climbing back up! She is growing up way too fast!

got milk?

Remember the story about me bottle feeding the goats?

Remember how I bought bottles for the goats, because I didn't want Allie to use the same bottles that the goats did? Even if I soaked them in bleach, boiled them, and ran them through the dishwasher twice, they would not have been clean enough for Allie to use again.

This is part two of the goat story.

Jenna came home from babysitting today and told me that one of goats wasn't feeding her baby, and so we mixed up a bottle and fed it to the baby. Jenna brought the rest of the bottle back in and just set it on the kitchen counter. (For me to wash later, of course!)

Anyways, I was downstairs doing something and Tyler was watching Allie for a minute. I come back upstairs, and this bottle is on the floor. I ask Tyler, "Why is that bottle on the floor next to Allie?" and he said "because I gave it to her to drink." He looks at me, like DUH Jackie!

I ask him to please tell me he is kidding....doesn't he know that is the goat's bottle? That it looks nothing like her bottles she uses, and look at the milk inside of there! Does that look like formula????

Obviously, Tyler hasn't had much experience making bottles for our babies.

I am going to need therapy for sure. All I can think about is my baby drinking that Manna Pro milk replacer, drinking it from THE SAME NIPPLE THAT WAS IN THE GOATS MOUTH!!!!

little lizard

This girl has the funniest little tongue, it is so long and she is always sticking it out. I have pictures of her seconds after she was born with her tongue sticking out like this! So cute.

another hat

I love the color of this one!

hats

I love buying hats, headbands, flowers, and bows for Allie. (Have you noticed?) I especially love to use hats with photography. I found this super sweet lady who makes handmade hats and sells them on Etsy. I have bought 3 hats from her, and here is one of them. They are very well made, clean, smell good (very important to me- hahaha!), and packaged nicely. I highly recommend her if you are looking for a unique baby gift! She also makes sweaters and booties. You can find her shop HERE.

This is Jaxon, wearing the same hat- after he wore the hat I was worried that maybe I had stretched it out, but it returned to it's original shape and size perfectly!

with sadness...

I have to tell you all, that despite my rescue efforts, one of the black baby goats died. :( Jenna is sad, especially because she never even got to see it!

Phew!

Today was a crazy day. Allie had an appointment at Primary Children's with cardiology- she was diagnosed with pulmonary stenosis shortly after birth. Luckily it is very mild and right now they are just watching her. So today we went back for a checkup and they decided that she looked so good that they didn't need to do an echocardiogram, and that if she remains asymptomatic, they don't need to see her back again for another year! Yay! Good news.

I was going to come home and try and get the kids ready to go to a family reunion with my long-lost Johnson cousins, but I wanted to check on the baby goats that were born last night, because I was worried that I hadn't seen them nurse yet, and Jenna isn't here to take care of them. The new babies were very lethargic and laying down- they looked so skinny and I tried to make them get up and suck- and their mom picked them up with her horns and threw them! I put the mom outside the pen because I was worried she was going to hurt them. I called Jenna and told her that I didn't think they were being fed and that I think we need to bottle feed them, or they were going to die. So, I jump in my very-expensive-to-drive-right-now vehicle and make a 60 mile round trip to buy goat kidd milk and baby bottles (because of course I am not going to make Allie share hers) and try to get these goats to bottle feed. The bigger one did great and drank 3 ounces and then went to sleep, but the smaller, weaker one wouldn't suck at all! I had to get a syringe and feed it a few drops at a time.
After sitting in the goat pen in my nice new jeans (that I hang to dry because I love them so much and want them to last) in the weeds and the dirt, and getting goat kidd meconium (yuck!) all down the front of my shirt and in my hair (YUCKIER!), I felt like I might have saved these babies just in time. I just went back out to check on them and they were standing up and walking around. Hopefully they are strong enough now to make it!

This is one of the two black babies born last night, and her mom, Coco. I just took these pictures tonight and you can see how much better they look after my rescue efforts :)

Here are the other two babies that Smores delivered on Saturday. I think they are the cutest things ever- they are already running, butting heads with each other, and jumping up on logs and rocks. They are seriously so cute, I don't think the pictures do them justice!

And here is Jaxon holding one of them last night- he wasn't quite sure how to hold it!

Preston's Baptism

Preston turned eight years old on May 30th and was baptized on May 31 by his Dad and became an official memeber of our church! We are so proud of him for making this decision and for the great little man he is! We love him so much.

Our family was asked to give a talk on baptism, and Oakley jumped at the chance to be able to give a talk. Seriously- we don't know where this kid came from- he loves to give talks in church! He gave an incredible talk and I had so many people come up to me afterwards to tell me what a great job he did. I was so proud of him!

My Mom came up for the baptism and helped me with Allie when she got really tired and fussy at the end of the program. She took her out in the hall and Allie fell asleep on her- so sweet!

And finally, here is a picture of all the kids together- by this time, all their ties were off, I couldn't get them to look at the camera at the same time, much less smile, but at least I got them all together!

Jackson Hole

Here is Tyler saying "Here I am! Take pictures of me!" We call this the Blowfish face :)


We went to Jackson Hole over Memorial Day weekend with our good friends Rob and Janice and their 5 kids. Tyler and Rob took the 5 older kids down the Snake River on a white water rafting trip. I volunteered to stay behind with the little ones, of course :) Janice and I took the little ones on a little hike down to the river so we could watch them and get some pictures. Tyler, Rob, and Oakley got thrown out of the raft (into the 33 degree water!!!!) and I was a little freaked out!