Allison Victoria Lord

Introducing my beautiful baby niece Allison Victoria Lord who was born yesterday at 27 weeks and 6 days along at just 1 lb 10 oz. . I got to meet her today and she is so tiny but the cutest little thing ever. She has dark hair and eyebrows and was sucking away on a binky. The nurses said that she already knows how to throw a fit :) Please pray for the strength of this beautiful baby girl to grow and develop like she should and for my brother and his wife to get through this time.

A Treasure Within

In case you ever wondered what an earring looks like in a three year olds stomach, this is it! Thankfully it came out on its own and there was nothing drastic that needed to be done, except for the fact that I had to search for it, but I am trying to forget that part :)

Christmas Wrap Up

We had a very eventful Christmas weekend. We woke up early Christmas Eve morning at about 6am to discover that Bernie had food poisoning. He was so violently sick and we were just hours away from having 18 of his family over for dinner. We quickly switched the location to his parents house and I took on the task of making the dinner that Bernie had planned. I will just say that I have to give him a lot of credit for the preparation that goes into getting the meat prepared for dinner, he had a lamb rolled in beef. This was not something I was planning on having anything to do with and once it was all said and done I was ready to become vegetarian. I did my best to put on Christmas dinner with the help of Bernie's parents but there was definitely a void without him. Poor Bernie stayed at home and just tried to get through the night. Christmas morning he was feeling much better than the day before but had still managed to lose 7 lbs in 24 hours. Yikes! The girls of course had a wonderful Christmas and were completely spoiled by everyone as usual. We spent Christmas evening at my cousins house in Mill Creek with my mom's side of the family and spent the night at my parents house so we could do Christmas morning with my immediate family on the 26th. Bernie was a trooper through it all because I know he wasn't 100% but still did his best to put on a smile and made it to all the planned events. Once we came home on the afternoon of the 26th Bernie headed back to work and I was content at home with the kids playing with all of their new toys. Of course that was not enough excitement for us Johnsons, Ella decided we needed to end the Christmas festivities with a bang and decided to swallow one of my crystal earrings. Although we had a wonderful Christmas it was anything but relaxing and I am hoping that New Years will be a much calmer holiday for us.

The Cousins minus Eric

Playing with Sierra's new present

Ella loved the boom box Nanny and Gramps got her

Ashley was waving goodbye to PJ our elf who was hiding in the Christmas tree

Christmas morning with Santa's Little Helpers

Ella's present from Mrs. Clause. I am so happy with how it turned out!

These are puppets and when Ella opened them up she screamed,"I got my very own Muppets!"

Ella and her beloved Mermaid dolls. Once she opened this she would not put it down and tried to open all other presents one handed :)

Dad showing the girls how to jam

This is why I get very little sleep at my parents house when we stay there. Somehow the girls always end up in bed with me.

Ashley doing her twirls with her new tutu

Playing with Piper

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

Zoolights 2011

 The kids with their Rudolf suckers

 Happy little Reagan

Ashley with her big helper Lauren

My little rainbow

We had a great night at Zoolights with our good friends and neighbors the Angelos, Hercholds and Ledesmas. We saw all the beautiful lights, the kids rode the carousel and Ella finally took a ride on a Camel. I have been trying to get her to do this for over a year. She made her daddy go with her but she did it, and was so proud of herself when it was all over. Another fun holiday tradition, it's so fun watching these kids grow up together :)

Dancing Queen

 Ella has been taking ballet and tumbling at the Image dance studio and absolutely loves it. It is the perfect mix of dance and gymnastics and by far her favorite day of the week. I took a few pictures because it is seriously the cutest thing ever. Tutus and tumbling not sure it gets much better than that. I may be as excited as she is :)

FYI... some of these pictures were taken through a double sided glass window so they are not the clearest but you can see how much fun all the girls have.