We're moving

Sort of. OK, not really. At all actually. But what we are doing is consolidating our blogs. We know what you're thinking: "But wait! I enjoy reading the frequent updates to your blogs; how on earth are you going to manage to squeeze all of that into one blog?" Well, we're superheroes. That's how.

So here is how it's going to work. We will now exclusively use our other blog, picturethepossibilities.blogspot.com. We will be combining our photography and family blogs. For safety purposes, we will not use our kids' names or post any comments with our kids' names in them. We'll figure out something to call them in our blog (probably something creative like "this kid"). And if you are only interested in our family updates and are not at all interested in the photography stuff we post, well, sorry. You can feel free to skip the photography parts.

So, that's it. We're not actually moving. So look forward to exciting posts to come at least as fast and furious as they have in the past, now on only one blog!

And here is a random picture, because all blog posts are better with pictures.

This Kid

Emma

Well folks, we now have two and a half dozen people in our family! There are two parents and a half dozen kids.

Emma was born on December 1, 2010 at 12:19 pm. She weighed in at a healthy 8 lbs 6 oz, meaning she was our second smallest baby (our smallest was 8 lbs 4 oz). She was 20.5 inches long. That means Jay's mom and Brandi were right on with their guesses on the length, and David was only two minutes shy of the actual time of birth, so you three let us know what kind of candy bar you like!

Our kids had some pretty great guesses, but Matthew's was particularly great. He guessed Emma would weigh 3 lbs and only be 5 inches long. Jayden told him that Emma's head alone would be at least 5 inches long, so Matthew amended his guess to 7 inches. We're glad he was way off!

Emma is an angel! She has been perfect. We have been blessed to be six for six with easy going babies! Both she and Sherrie are doing very well.

And here are some pics:

Welcome to the Crazy Awesome Johnson Family, Emma! We love you!

Let the Guessing Begin!

We go in to have a baby tomorrow! Sherrie's c-section is scheduled for 11:30 am. Feel free to post a comment with your guess for time of birth, weight, and length. You can guess the gender, too, but we won't be too impressed if you get that right since we already know we are having a girl. Of course, my brother and his wife thought they were having a girl until a little boy came out, so ultrasounds can be wrong!

Oh, and whoever guesses the closest in all three categories will get a prize. Maybe. At the very least, you'll feel really cool. We might even acknowledge your coolness on our blog. If we ever update it again (which is very iffy if you look at how often we post!).

For reference, our heaviest baby so far was 9 lbs 9 oz. Our lightest baby was 8 lbs 4 oz. They've all been between 19-21 inches long. And they've all been born between 12:00am and 11:59pm (all on different days and different years, though).

Good luck, and happy guessing!

The guessing will be officially over after 11:46am (which is right when the baby will be born). Nevermind, Sherrie says it will be closer to noon. She's wrong, and I'm right, but we'll see tomorrow.

OK, guessing officially ends AFTER the baby is born and we let people know the information. Because after that, you're not guessing, you're simply repeating. Nice try, though.

To My Best Friend

Words could ever express how grateful I am for you. I don't think it can even be done in a song. Especially one by me, because I don't write songs. You make me want to strive harder to be the person that I never knew I could be, but you seem to think I already am. You make me laugh. A lot. I love that we can be together talking about nothing, or even actually saying nothing, and it is enjoyable. I love you for who you are and for who I am when I am with you.

I can't believe that it has already been 11 years since you became all mine. Forever. It has been the best adventure of my life. With my favorite person ever. I look forward to the many adventures that are waiting for us.

Thank you for always being there for me. Thank you for always treating me like a queen. Thank you for being crazy awesome. Thank you for everything. I love you with everything in me.

Happy Anniversary!

And thanks for these. They are beautiful!

I LOVE YOU! SO MUCH!!!!

Broken bones

We always expected to have our fair share of broken bones. We have four boys, and they come up with some crazy stuff. And we know that more than half of what they come up with we won’t hear about for over 20 years. So, it is not surprising for us to take a trip to the Emergency Room and find out that there is a broken bone. What is surprising is that in our family thus far we have had two broken bones; and both times it has been our daughter, trying to save the life of one of her brothers. Or something like that anyway.

This time she was riding her scooter down the sidewalk while one of her brothers was coming back up. She swerved to miss him, lost her balance, and fell and landed on her wrist. So on to the Emergency Room we go for our 3 hour extravaganza. (Which is actually not bad compared to the length of some of our Emergency Room visits.)

She indeed broke her wrist. They said it snapped back into place, but they wanted her to wait a week to see an orthopedic surgeon to make sure that any swelling went down before they cast it. Not even going to get into how fun it was trying to set up that appointment. That would be a blog post in and of itself, and this one is going to be lengthy enough as it is. We’ll just get to the part where we took her x-rays, not her, her x-rays, to the orthopedic surgeon on base who took one look at it, and said it needed to be reset. Oh, and he was also leaving within the hour to go on vacation for a week. Awesome. Needless to say, after some more fun on the phone that lasted way longer than it should, she had an appointment to see a different surgeon. That worked out great for us. After more x-rays (he didn’t like the angle of the other ones) he said that she did indeed need to have it reset.

They told us to come back at 2 for prep and then she would go in to surgery at 4. She did so great.

They were having trouble putting the IV in, but she was a trooper. She thought it was pretty awesome that her anesthesiologist was a Husker football player that had gone professional. She even asked him to be the first to sign her cast.

Once everything was all ready they took her back without us. They put her to sleep, or mostly, but she doesn’t remember anything.

Afterward , all the nurses raved about how great she did and what a sweetheart she is. She is pretty great. Now when her wrist heals she will be able to rotate it. Yea for specialists.

We love our amazing girl and hope her recovery goes well. So far she is doing great.

Cute kids

Yeah, we kinda like them.

It's a...

...Do you want to know? Are you curious about what we're having? Well, then scroll down and you'll find out that we are having a...

...BEAUTIFUL DAY!!!

Or a hot one. It wasn't too bad after the sun went down. We could actually stand being outside.

Oh, by the way...

Or at least it will be in December! There is someone in our house that didn't lock herself in her room and cry when she found out what we were having this time.

It really was a beautiful day, though.

An Invite

He Made It!!!!

YEA!!!

Poop, the ER, and a Lego (Long Post, Long Day)

Did you ever have one of those days? You know the kind we're talking about. It's one of those days where you just say, "It's been one of those days!" Have you ever had one of those days? NO YOU HAVEN'T! OK, maybe you have had even worse, but yesterday was one of those days, and it involved (in this order) poop, an ambulance to the ER, and a Lego. It was one of those days.

Yesterday Jay came home for lunch (which is something he does not do nearly as often as he would like since we live a bit away from work). But yesterday, he came home for lunch and found Sherrie (incidentally, we do not actually refer to ourselves in third person on a regular basis. We actually use real pronouns like "I" on a very regular basis, but when we are blogging, it is from both of us; so, while Jay or Sherrie is actually typing this, he or she will refer to him- or herself in the third person. This may cause a minor dilemma for the reader, namely, whose voice do I imagine this all being spoken in? Easy! Kermit the Frog. Why? Who knows? Sherrie's sister, Janice, says she always imagines Kermit the Frog's voice when reading our blog, so it seems like a good idea. If you have any questions as to her choice of Muppets, talk to her about it...maybe in Miss Piggy's voice.) in the post-clean up stages of an adventure. She was not thrilled about it, and when she related what had happened to Jay, he started laughing. She informed him that laughter was definitely NOT the proper response, so as you read please keep that in mind. It is NOT funny. After all, since when is flinging poo funny? Never. And, no, Sherrie was not doing the flinging.

So, someone, and we're not sure who (but his name might rhyme with atthew) forgot to flush the toilet. Of course, this was a number two. And cute little innocent baby boy (who really isn't a baby anymore--they grow up too fast!) decided to investigate. He came to her smelling like poo, which isn't actually all that unusual, except the poo smell was coming from everywhere except his diaper. GROSS! Sherrie went to investigate and found poo flung all around the toilet and a plastic cup and toy fishing pole in the icky gross toilet (that kid is doing fishing completely wrong!). Needless to say, she was not terribly excited. Jay came home after the clean up, heard the story, inappropriately laughed his head off (which he certainly would not have done if he had been the one to go through the ordeal), and picked up the monkey (you know, monkeys like flinging poo). He also smelled a nasty poo smell, looked down, and saw some on Ben's shirt that Sherrie had missed (it was hiding under his overalls). That was an unpleasant surprise. He then was in for another unpleasant thought as he realized, "Hey, if that smell came from the poo that is on his clothes, then that means that the wetness on his sleeves that have been all over me is....EWW!" Fortunately for him the wetness was actually the aftermath of Sherrie washing Ben's hands and arms!

That was enough excitement for one day, but it was actually just beginning. Sherrie called Jay just as he was finishing work and informed him that she was on her way to the hospital with Ethan. Ethan had not been feeling well and was running a fever. Sherrie was holding him when she felt his temperature suddenly rise and he had a seizure and stopped breathing. She immediately called 911 and gave Ethan mouth-to-mouth (while on the phone with the 911 operator). Ethan's whole face was blue and the other kids were freaking out. Sherrie has no idea how long he wasn't breathing, but she thinks it was probably less than a minute before he began breathing again.

As terrifying as this was, it was not the first time we have experienced this with our kids, although it was the first time for Ethan. The same thing happened to Jayden on two separate occasions (once as an infant and again when he about Ethan's age). It's called a febrile seizure, and it is actually fairly common in children under the age of five. It's caused by a sudden, sharp rise in temperature which causes the body to seize. It's very scary to see, but not actually cause for too much alarm. Of course, that's easy to say when you are not standing there with your unbreathing, blue child who really looks like he is dying in your arms!

Of course, an ambulance came and brought Sherrie and Ethan to the ER where Jay met them. Uncle Ethan was awesome for coming over and watching the other kids (the paramedics were nice enough to wait for him to get there, and they even gave our other kids a tour of the ambulance! Obviously, little Ethan was not at a critical stage at this point. Most paramedics do not take a break from an emergency situation to show off their ambulance, or listen to the kids suggest that they install a swimming pool in there. "We've got to get this gunshot victim to the ER immediately!" "Yeah, OK, but I was wondering, do you suppose there's anyway we could fit a swimming pool in here?" "What are you talking about??? We've got to go NOW!!!" "OK! Fine! But can we maybe stop at a swimming pool on the way?" Nope, they don't do that, so there was obviously nothing to worry about for little Ethan at this point, they just wanted a doctor to check him out to rule out anything else. Plus, when you call 911 and they send an ambulance to you, it's just a waste of a trip if they don't bring someone to the ER, even if they did get to show off the ambulance to some kids).

Anyway, Ethan was fine. The worst he had to endure was sitting in the ER for about two hours and sipping on blue Gatorade (which is kind of gross, but he liked it). After they saw us playing volleyball with balloons we had made out of rubber gloves, they let us go. We're pretty sure that's actually a requirement for being discharged from the ER, which is why they have so many boxes of rubber gloves in there.

So, our day was pretty exciting. We made it to bed time with the kids all in their pajamas and having brushed their teeth. We read scriptures together and said our family prayer. That's when surprise number three came. Matthew said, in just about the most casual, nonchalant voice you can imagine, "Well actually, the Lego arm in my nose is kind of uncomfortable." WHAT??? It was the most random thing to hear, and he said it in the most off-handed way to one of his siblings, that we were stunned. We asked him to clarify, and he confessed that he had taken the hand from a little Lego figure and shoved it up his nose...THE DAY BEFORE!

It was a fun day.

The Circus. The Circus. We Love the Circus!

Being the awesome parents that we are we didn't bring the camera. Pictures of our kids riding ponies, jumping in jumpy castles, riding elephants...who wants pics of their kids doing those awesome things anyways? Highly overrated. And all the other cool circus stuff we saw? Who wants pictures of that? The picture of cuteness baby's face when he won a bike...? Alright, so maybe it was everyone else's expression that would have been worth capturing when they read his name. His face pretty much looked like this.

We think it might have had a little more to do with the hot dogs, funnel cakes, and cotton candy that he was stuffing down his face.

Alright, alright. He is Always that happy. And cute. What can we say.

His sister is the benefactor of his good fortune. Poor kid. Each one of his siblings will probably ride his bike before he will. It is a good thing that he is so good natured.

Thanks Grandma and Grandpa for a wonderful night at the circus.

Girls...Toilets...Whatever.

Yesterday we were at church, and Cuteness #3 needed to answer nature's call. As I walked with him into the restroom, he said one of the funniest things ever:

"It smells like girls in here [...pause...] I mean toilets."

Um, I wasn't aware that those were two things you could confuse!

The Only Way Out is UP!

Team "Hike the Tower, Puke with Power" (Awesome. We know.)

Event "Trek Up the Tower"

This was our first official race, minus Janice. She's already been able to wear the little timing chip.

Running...walking up what we thought was going to be 47 flights of stairs was nothing we could prepare for. We did the stairs at the gym, but so many people told us that real stairs were different. I was prepared to die, or at least faint. Jay was't worried at all, but I could just picture myself being Chicken Little's dad, face planted in the stairs and struggling to move an inch. Only I wouldn't be saving the world, or showing my child that I listened to what was important to them. I was only going to be killing myself to say that I did it. Which is a way awesome reason, only not one of the choices to choose from when we signed up.

Anyway, all my hype was for nothing. It was awesome, although the air was definitely thinning as we went up. We thought it was 47 flight, so when we got to #39 I was thinking "8 flights to go, I can totally do this." Turns out there are only 40 flights so we were basically done. Although, we kinda felt ripped off because that wasn't really the top, but whatever. We did it, and we weren't even the slowest. Jay stayed by me as I was pacing myself (much slower than I needed to), but now I know what it is like and next year I think we can totally rock it. And by that I don't mean winning, I just mean meeting our own personal goals.

It was just fun. When we were done we got a medal and a towel with all the sponsors on it. Then we went downstairs where the party was going on. They fed us and gave us a bunch of free stuff. YAY for Free Stuff!!! ... that we got rid of a week later. Hmm, except the t-shirt. YAY for Free T-Shirts that we actually keep. Although, when you think of what we spent to enter the race, maybe the T-shirt doesn't sound so free after all, but totally worth it.

This is me puking over the edge of the parking garage...

...okay, so I wasn't puking. I was hacking up a lung because of my cold, but it looked enough like it that we needed to take a picture. Or, at least someone thought so. :)

Definitely going to do it again next year. (The race, not the hacking up a lung/fake puking.)

Who wants to join us?

We LOVED it

Getting up in the early hours of the morning that no one is ever supposed to see. Walking (umm... running) in the bitter wind with sub-zero temperatures FOREVER.

Waiting... Delays... More waiting... Running... Running... More Running... Dying... Barely Making it...

For this:

Umm...SO. WORTH. IT.

We got to San Diego early afternoon on Monday and drove the hour and a half to my sister's house in Orange County. We spent the rest of the day in glorious 70 degree weather.

After dinner and family home evening we played "kick-the-can". The indoor version being "kick the paper towel roll". It was so much fun. I hadn't played it since I was a kid and I had completely forgotten all the rules, which I quickly learned as I broke them. They are an amazing family and I am so glad we were able to spend some time with them. They are one of those families that you just want to hang out with with the hope that some of their awesomeness will happen to rub off.

Our hotel was in La Jolla and it was a beautiful part of town. We were minutes from the San Diego Temple. Which is so beautiful, inside and out. We kept going back just to walk around the grounds... and to take lots of pictures. SO FUN!

Tuesday night we went to meet some friends at the Hard Rock Cafe in downtown San Diego. It just so happened that that Tuesday was Mardi Gras. Who knew? Apparently... everybody else. Parking was crazy and we got to see a good portion of downtown, which we loved. After we ate we walked around their outdoor mall that was right there. It was huge, beautiful, amazing weather, and so much fun. Walking back to our car we got to watch drunk people riding on buses and shouting to everyone. It was a fun night! :)

So, the week was A-MAZING! I spent my days running, swimming, laying out, sleeping in, whatever I wanted. Evenings were spent with the two of us doing whatever we wanted while enjoying the fantastic weather. My sister, Elaine, and her girls came down one night and we went to Little Italy together. We walked around and ate a lot of gelato. Which reminded us how much we love the stuff and how much we need to go back to Italy.

It was a great week. Thank you to Jay's parents and my sister, Janice, for watching the cuteness kiddos and making it all possible. We appreciate it SO MUCH!!!

It is true. We LOVED it all and we want to go back soon. We think we could even live there. It was THAT fantabulous.

We know

Valentine's Day was over a week ago, but we just wanted to share the cute Valentine's the kids brought to school. My sister saw this on a blog and I was helping her with the photo of her daughter. I decided to do it with Cuteness #1 and #2, as well. Totally going to do it again next year.

Aren't they cute?

Long Overdue

It has been almost two months and it is high time that we give a shout out to our many wonderful friends that we said good-bye to in Georgia.

YOU ARE ALL AWESOME AND WE LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!!!

Words could probably never express the depth of gratitude and love that we feel. Each time we move we are sure that there is no way that we will make friends nearly as amazing as the ones that we just left. And yet, there are always amazing people that actually allow us to invade their life and become great friends. We have been so blessed everywhere that we have lived. This just happens to be the first time we have had a blog to publicize our thanks. May all of our amazing friends across the globe know that we are so grateful for you and we love you all.

We would never be able to count the times that our prayers have been answered by seemingly small and simple acts (or outright HUGE ones) of those around us. We would never be able to count the times that our lives improved because of the service and example of our friends. It is always heart-wrenching to say good-bye to such friends, always hoping that something, sometime will bring us together again. Thanks for the good times, the good memories, and the good food. Georgia holds a place in our heart...thanks to all of you, our amazing friends.

And in other news. It is freezing here and we have snow up to our eyebrows. In our last post we mentioned this Winter Wonderland. Little did we know that it was just getting started. We had a blizzard on Christmas day. This last week we had about 6 inches added to the million that we already had, which makes it fun trying to find a place to put it all. Oh yeah, there isn't a place... because it is full of snow. The kids have not been to school at all this year because of the additional 3 snow days. Don't get us wrong: snow can totally be lots of fun and it is very beautiful. However, when it is -24F and a wind chill of we don't even want to know how cold, well, we spend a lot of time indoors with hot chocolate.

And Crazy Awesome Cuteness #4 turned 3 years old today. Really, where does the time go? And for real, he's really cute.

And we will end with a few more pics. We have the Craziest, Awesomest Family in the world.