David is 6

 

December 16, 2005

 

Christmas Day in the Hospital-9 days old

1st Birthday!

2nd Birthday

3rd Birthday

4th Birthday

5th Birthday

6th Birthday!!!

6 years old!!! How did these six years go so fast?! This time 6 years ago David made me a Mommy!  It seems like so long ago that I had him and held him for the first time.  It was such a special and emotional day.  I was 37 weeks along and went into the hospital at midnight on December 16th.  It was at 2:44 p.m. that David Pascal came into this world.  I saw him for a few seconds, but never got to touch or hold him as they rushed him over to check his breathing.  After the longest 45 minutes of my life, I finally got to see and hold my new baby boy and I have loved every moment since then.  He had a rough time starting out in life. He was in the hospital in NICU for 11 days, because he had sleep apnea which means he would sometimes forget to breath while he was asleep.  He also had bleeding on the brain and a lot of fluid in his lungs.  On top of that he had very bad jaundice and had to be under the rays all day and night except for every 3 hours, when they would let me feed him.  I was at the hospital constantly with him and by his side as long as they would let me stay there.  He had so many tubes and cords in his tiny little body, but he was such a fighter.  The nurses had a feeding tube in him for the first couple of days, but he would pull it out all the time. I was such a mess the whole time he was in the hospital.  The worst day was Christmas though.  Everything was just a blur that day and we tried to spend most of the day there with David.  There were so many miracles that happened, while he was in the hospital.  He had bleeding on the brain the first couple of days and then after our families did a lot of fasting and praying they did another scan of it and were shocked to see that it had cleared up somehow and couldn’t explain it.  After RSV, tons of ear infections, 2 sets of tubes and a few other sicknesses, he has survived and is an amazing healthy little boy now!  We are so blessed to have him in our lives.  He is such a happy, positive, outgoing, friendly, helpful and amazingly smart boy! He has so many talents and just a sweetness about him that makes everyone love him! Happy 6th Birthday David! We love you so much!!

8 Months Old!!

 

8 months old already! Where has the time gone?! Parker has changed so much in this short amount of time.  He is all over the place and crawls like a pro! He loves to stand up on his feet and hands and put his booty in the air!:) He loves playing on the floor and playing with David and Maggie.  He starts crying anytime mommy or daddy leaves the room.  He loves hanging out with Daddy now…thank goodness!:)  He likes watching him play video games or just crawling all over us on the couch.  He loves to eat and wants anything that we have including hot or spicy stuff.  He loves to give big hugs and slobbery kisses.  He is already fitting into 12-18 month clothes, which is crazy! He loves taking baths with Maggie!  He waves bye-bye and even says it sometimes. He loves shaking his head no and dancing.  He loves listening to music and loves having us sing to him.  He got his first ear infection last week. Poor little guy.  He pulls himself up on everything.  He loves to babble and hear himself talk.  He has gotten a lot happier in the past month or two.  He is a sweet little baby and we love having him in our family! Happy 8 months Parker Scott!

Temple Square 2011

We made it to Temple Square to see the lights this year! Last year was so amazingly crazy and busy that we did not make it.  We always seem to pick the coldest night of the year and sure enough we did it again this year.  It was about 17 degrees this year with a wind chill in the single digits. Burrr!! We also rode the Trax this year. The kids have been begging us to do that too.  It was a pretty nice ride.  Parker stayed in his stroller until the very end on the way home. He did an awesome job and loved every minute of it!  We each had at least 2 layers of clothes on that night, but still got a little chilly.  Parker had a nice bear suit on and stayed warm and maybe even a little hot.  It’s a great tradition we have and look forward to it every year!

Our Christmas Tree

Parker watching all the fun!:)Gabe and David were so helpful!:)

We set up our Christmas tree the Sunday after Thanksgiving.  We were so exhausted on Saturday after driving all night, so we made the kids wait…they were dying to put it up! Gabe was here to “help” too.  By help I mean him and David sat there on the couch and watch, while the rest of us did all the work!:)  We let each of the kids pick out an ornament as usual this year. David picked out a daddy gorilla with a baby gorilla on it’s back. Maggie picked out a princess dress one.  And for Parker we gave him 2 options and he chose a Noah’s Ark, Baby’s First Christmas ornament.  They were all very excited about them! I love this time of year and seeing the kids get as excited as I do about it all. It goes by too fast sometimes, but we are glad to have this happy season!:)

Arkansas

 The kids favorite place at Pam and Micha's.

Maggie and Livy

Marji and Parker...such a ladies man!:)

BFF's! They are just too cute together!

Sister Picture.  We all got some great deals on shirts at Old Navy the day before and ended up matching the next day!

Hanging out at the Anderson's. Maddy, Gabby, Thomas, David and Matthew

Cousin time in Arkansas is top priority.  The kids love hanging out together and we love watching the kids play so well together...most of the time!

Thanksgiving Part 1

 Meme and the kids baking cookies!

 Parker, Papa and Meme

 I love Maggie in this picture with Meme!

 Great Grandma Turnbull and Parker

After 4 Thanksgivings in Utah, we finally made it home to Arkansas to celebrate and it was Awesome!!:)  It was quite the roller coaster leading up to the trip though.  Everything we had planned fell apart, when we found out we had to get a new transmission for our van.  For those of you who don't know, transmissions are not cheap...not even close.  My van had started making this weird squeak sound when it shifted on back in the end of October.  We finally took it in and the car guy informed us that he didn't know how we are still driving the van and it didn't make since.  The transmission has shards of metal in it and has been deteriorating and there is no explanation how it is still running...of course the explanation we have is by the grace of God.  So it was a couple of weeks before we were supposed to driving out to Arkansas for Thanksgiving.  Oh and did I mention we were supposed to take Trish and Gabby with us and Gabe was going to ride back with us on the way home?? So we found out the problem and found out how much it would be to fix it and knew there was  no way that we could come up with the money in time.  So I had to make some very hard phone calls to every one and tell them we could not come to Arkansas.  Trish and Gabe were very understanding and Trish said that she would just drive her and Gabby out by herself and then bring Gabe back with her.  I was devastated.  We had been planning this for almost a year and it would be the first time my family has all been together in over 5 years. I was so depressed and down, until I was riding in the car with Maggie to go to the store and she said, "Mommy, are you sad?" I said, "Yes, I am" Then she said, " I like it better, when you are happy and Jesus likes it better too!" Out of the mouths of babes, right?! So I sucked it up and tried to think positive about being in Utah for Thanksgiving.  I went to the temple on Thursday night thinking about our situation and I was sitting waiting and reading the Book of Mormon and I read 3 Nephi 13 and in the last few verses it said : 
 31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?

 32 For your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.

 33 But ^aseek ye first the ^bkingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.

 34 Take therefore no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. ^aSufficient is the day unto the evil thereof.

 Sorry I couldn't get my mind to paraphrase it...but the answer was right there and so simple.  Heavenly Father would find a way for us to go.  I went home and told David about it and told him I wasn't worried because I knew we were going to Arkansas and it would all work out.  David was a little doubtful about my answer and said to me, "Jen, maybe the answer is that it will work out for us to be in Utah for Thanksgiving.  I knew deep down that wasn't it.  David needed more convincing though.  So we were at church on Sunday and I got a text from Trish.  She said that her and Gabby could fly home and back for practically free because of her miles and that we could borrow her car to take to Arkansas.  I told David this and he couldn't say no!!! It was crazy how it all came together and worked out better that first planned.  We hit some pretty bad snow on the way home from Arkansas in Colorado and Trish's car does a lot better in the snow that ours.  Thank goodness for a giving family to help us all be together for the holiday!:)
We had quite a few obstacles on the car ride, but it was well worth it!  On the start of the trip we didn't have any music of any kind to listen to because we had pushed a cord in the trunk and made the speakers go out...that was fun.  Then we had a dvd player,  but couldn't find the dvds for it AND the adapter for it was missing some pieces.  It made for a car ride of a lot of talking!:)  The kids were amazing on the car ride.  They really are the best little travelers.  We left on Friday at 2:00 p.m. and got to Arkansas on Saturday at 1:00 p.m., Arkansas time! Amazing time for a family of 5 including a baby. 
We spent the first few days in Dardanelle with the Torgersons and then headed down to Benton to see Pam and Marji.  More pictures to come of the rest of our trip!:)