He Has a Name

(sorry its upside down, I am still trying to figure out how to get this in right)

So Ronny and I were talking and decided that since this little guy has to fight so hard to get here he should have a name. Especially so those who are praying for him know who they are praying for. We decided on the name Aaron Thomas Bjarnason. We will keep you posted on his progress.

Preliminary Results

Preliminary results from the amnio just came back. So far no chromosome or viral markers were flagged. Good news! The final results will come back in 7 to 10 days. The nurse I spoke with said its very rare that the preliminary results and the final results differ. We have a fighting chance! Our next ultrasound is scheduled in 3 weeks and will tell us if this little guy is still growing.

We have certainly felt the numerous prayers offered in our behalf and have certainly been lifted up. Thank you all so much.

Call for Prayer

So we have some news to share, I am pregnant and we are having a boy. This little guy however is really struggling. We saw a specialist today who gave us not so great news. Our ultrasounds are showing the baby is significantly behind in gestation and I have been diagnosed with Early IUGR (Intrauterine Growth Restriction). The causes for this are chromosomal deficiencies, virus, or placental insufficiency. I had an amniocentesis today to rule out the chromosomal deficiencies and any viral infections. If the results are positive for either of these two the baby will not survive. We should have the results back within 12 days. So, we are hoping and praying for placental insufficiency. This however brings with it its own complications but certainly better outcomes. My due date is in the middle of July but every day we get closer to that the better the chances this little guy will make it. The specialist is not very optimistic at this point but we are choosing to be so (we politely disagree). We can use all the prayers we can get! Pray for this baby to grow and be whole if it is His will and pray for us to have the strength to cope with what He has in store for us. This family is strong and our faith is just as strong.

We love you!

Ronny and Denise

He's a Wolf!

Last night was Joseph's first Blue and Gold Banquet. He was very excited. The theme: Turn Back the Clock". Joseph was designing his cake from the moment he was told he needed one. It went through many changes over the last few weeks and this was his final result. (Notice the "Flex Capaciter" ) He had a lesson in cake baking and Mom had yet another lesson in patience. (Those are frequent!) His troop preformed a skit about bears attacking scouts. It was about what you would expect from 8 year old boys. Last night Joseph was also awarded his Wolf Badge. He's been working very hard and was excited to have finally earned it.Our sweet Cub Master is so excited to hand out awards each month.

Discovery Gateway

For Christmas this year my mom got our kids a membership to Discovery Gateway. Its a children's museum with 4 floors of hands on fun for the kids. Last Saturday we headed up for a few hours of fun. It was fun watching all of them get their hula hoops going. It ended with Ben walking into Ronny's hoop and getting a nice welt on the side of his neck. Ouch!

This month the kids have also tested and passed to their green belts in karate. They now fight 2 on 1 in this belt. It gets quite intense. Sam also won his class spelling bee (he now moves onto the school wide bee next week). Joseph came in 4th just one place out of also going to the bee for his class. Charley is busy working on a history fair project on Nixon's trip to China. She is learning all about thesis statements, primary and secondary sources, and doing bibliography's right alongside learning about history. A few of you who remember this trip in the news may get a phone call from her this week. Its been a busy month.

Charley sporting her walking boot (She blessed us with a trip to the ER New Year's Eve night, (2010 had to go out with a bang apparently!). She's re-injured her foot a couple times so we are hoping it heals soon so she can get back to karate.

Creativity

While off track Joseph and Sam decided to have a sword fight. Mom had confiscated the swords for a while so instead of whining about getting them back, they made their own. The two of them spent the entire day making swords, sheaths, shields, helmets, and daggers. It was almost as much fun watching them as they did making them. The next several days were spent play fighting. I must say, there was far less arguing and crying with the new weaponry as there was with the plastic ones.

Their new adventure now revolves around the Tron movies. They have made discs they throw, (Mom has banned them from kitchen and living rooms!), and have put stripes down their shirts and pants with blue painters tape. When its over 20 degrees I make them take it outside. Joseph has made a target and taped it on the wall outside his bedroom. He takes aim from his bed at night. These boys are having quite the adventure lately. Its really fun to watch their imaginations go wild!

Christmas 2010

Christmas Eve we acted out the Nativity Story from Luke and opened our new jammies Nana made and left cookies and treats for Santa and his reindeer.

Earlier in the week we went caroling with some good friends around the neighborhood and came back to hot chocolate, cider, and lots of goodies. Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of that night. We had so much fun, it will surely be a yearly tradition here.

Christmas Morning

Joseph showing off the Santa gifts: zhu zhu pets, electric toothbrushes, and head lamps.

With the kids allergies these are the only kind of pets (those that come with batteries) that can come in the house.

Out of all the gifts, the biggest hit were the toothbrushes, go figure!

Dad surprised with the tie Charley got him. He loves it!

After the great present unveiling we headed over to Grammy Terri's for breakfast and a phone call from Aunt Michelle in Spain. We came home and had a quiet Christmas day napping, and playing with the kids. It was a great day.

Ben's Christmas Performance

Ben was the only one to have a Christmas performance/party this year. All the big kids were off track so they didn't have one. We all went to see Ben at school sing songs and recite poems. His teacher had each of the kids say what they wanted for Christmas this year. Ben's request: a bench! What!?! He wanted a bench at home like the one at school. We were a bit surprised and at home we talked about sometimes not always getting what we asked for. To all of our great surprise my stepfather Dexter delivered one mighty cute bench the following week without even knowing Ben's request. I guess Santa sometimes gets help from others.

Tree Decorating

This year we found our tree at the local grocery store of all places. It was one of the most beautiful trees we have ever had and we were all excited to get it in the house and decorated.

The best park ever!

After leaving sunny California we headed back towards home by way of Las Vegas. We have some great friends who live there that have been asking us to come visit for several years. We arrived Friday night just in time for pizza and games. Upstairs in their house they have a great game area with on old style arcade game and foosball table and wii. The boys were in heaven. They also have 3 girls just around Charley's age so she was thrilled!

Saturday morning after breakfast we headed downtown. We started at the lion exhibit in MGM and then made our way down to the M&M and Coke factory stores. We had fun making our own M&M mixes, and tasting Coke products from around the world. Ronny was so excited they had the drink he was familiar with on his mission in Paraguay. I only wish they would have sold those various drinks so we could bring some home with us. The kids all enjoyed their own flavors of floats, even before lunch!

After that we headed over to the Belagio for the water show. The kids were amazed at the shooting fountains. Then we headed back to the car and drove over to Wendy's for lunch. That particular Wendy's has to be the absolute slowest "fast food" place on the planet! There was nothing fast about it.

When we finished up our friends took us to the most amazing park we have ever seen. Its one of those parks that truly makes you want to be a kid again so you could run and play on all the structures! I took lots of pictures to submit them to our HOA in hopes that one of the future parks could be modeled after this one. It was awesome!

The next morning was Sunday and we attended Sacrament meeting at their ward. They were having a youth program similar to the annual primary program every ward has. It was sooooo good! First of all their youth filled the stand and then some. (I have never seen so many youth in one ward!) The songs that were chosen were great and the spirit was overflowing! I'm so glad we were there for that and would even consider heading down next year just for that program! One of the songs was about Book of Mormon prophets (its called "How Can I Be" and you can find it on U Tube, the best is the one with the three missionaries with the ukeles sitting on the couch.). Our Sam sat right up and said, "I know who they are!" and was attentive the entire rest of the program with a smile on his face. You could just see that he was touched.

More Fish!

Our last full day of our California Adventure we headed out to the coast to take the kids to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Papa even took the day off and headed over with us. What a treat! We stopped at Costco on the way in for lunch. Papa was so surprised you could get lunch there, its one of our fav's!

While waiting for a presentation on sea otters we sat in the theater and guessed at trivia questions about the aquarium. The kids were so funny up front trying to out do each other. When the presentation started we soon found out it was more questions but just about the otters. Each one of the kids came away with a sea otter book mark after answering a question. They were so funny!

There favorite part was touching sting rays, sea anemones, star fish, hermit crabs, and other sea creatures. They also enjoyed looking out the telescopes and finding dolphins and otters out in the bay.

Of course you can't end the day on the coast without dinner at Anderson's Pea Soup. The kids even ordered the pea soup and liked it. I guess I should know better by now. If its a vegetable and its green, it will be a hit with these kids. Next time maybe we'll leave a bit earlier and hit Casa De Fruita as well. I love that place!

We had so much fun with Nana and Papa and the house to ourselves, not that we don't enjoy cousin time, we just needed some good Nana and Papa time. The warm weather was great! We have one more year with all the kids being on the year round schedule so I would wager a bet that we'll be headed to CA next December as well.