The Family's Getting Out

It's been a while, but last weekend we went to our bi-annual visit to the Salt Lake Home and Garden show. It was pretty much pure madness this time. We went to the fall show just before Olivia was born in October, but it was Olivia's first time actually there.

We dragged the stroller in, but ended up leaving it at a booth. My aunt Ann has a handmade jewelry booth that she does. It was also Dave's biggest outing since surgery to date. We walked around a little over 3 hours and Dave carried Olivia in her Snugli (baby carrier) half the time.

Also, we've taken Olivia out to eat a couple of times and she's figuring out what "real food" is. She loves watching us eat and now starts to grab at it. On another Olivia note, she has got Mommy and Daddy wrapped around her little fingers. Nothing new, but she's so expressive. She has so many facial expressions.

I'll try to post again soon.

Olivia...and Dad

Olivia is growing. We recently had her 4 month check. Wt: 12 lb 1 oz, Ht: 23 1/2 in, head circumference: 44(?) cm. It's been a bit of a tough stretch for us. Olivia has just not been especially happy, which is very unusual for her. We were rather convinced that she might be teething, which I realize sounds nuts, but it turns out she's not.

Although teething may not be occurring, we have had round 2 of the family cold. Poor Livi has had a tough time with it. Nevertheless she continues to be quite the little trooper. Despite her general not feeling well, she continues to be so much fun. I love seeing her personality continue to come through and we have a blast playing with her. How could you resist this?Dave returned to work last week. He was sore at the end of the day, but did remarkably well. He did 35 hours last week and has just made tremendous strides in his recovery. Thankfully (for everyone involved) Daddy has been able to be more involved with Olivia again.

We have really enjoyed our weekend together. All of the family got a lot of much needed rest. Tomorrow we're back at it. Here's to hoping we have a good week and keep moving forward. :0)

A Post - Mostly About Olivia

We haven't had much going on lately. Dave is still in recovery mode and Olivia is adorable as ever! Hopefully it will just be another week or two until we get some normalcy back. I'm continuing to work and trying not to lose my mind while also attempting to take care of the rest of the family and our house. Not sure how well that's working.Here are some more recent pics:

Cute baby Olivia.She is full of smiles and laughs, all the time!One of the few times she's been
able to sit with Daddy for a few.
Note the facial hair growth.
Looks pretty good, huh?The fun of having a girl - another
adorable dress for my pretty girl.

Despite all that's going on, Olivia is the best and makes everything better. As tends to happen, she continues to grow bigger and bigger. Needless to say though, absolutely love our little girl!

Slowly but Surely, Finally Getting Started...

It feels like it's taken me forever to get started blogging this year. That's because it has. I have been going and going, trying to take care of Dave, Olivia, our house, and working. Busy, stressed, overwhelmed, anxious - just a few emotions I've felt during the last month. It has been a roller coaster, whirlwind of a time. I can say however, that having an easy baby has been a HUGE help! Olivia had her 3 month birthday this last week. This is a very brief entry, but once again it's late and I need to get some rest. So, until next time...

One For The Road...

As we conclude 2011, I thought I'd get one more post in. Due to my immense lack of energy or brain power, this will probably be a condensed version of the end of the year. We have been home from the hospital for a week now. The first couple of days were rough. I believe the week has gone like we thought it would, a few ups and a few downs. However, all things considered, I think Dave has done remarkably well.

Dave got to go home on Christmas Eve. I didn't think it would make much difference if we were at the hospital or home for Christmas, but it actually did. We had a rather uneventful day, but just NOT being at IMC was a tremendous blessing! We have been behind on a number of things this past month, probably year. So we didn't get hardly any Christmas shopping done. (That's being worked on now.) Thanks to our amazing friends and neighbors, we had a Christmas. It was a good chance to explain a bit to Olivia about the true meaning of Christmas. While I'm not sure it was really a big deal at all to her, I appreciated being able to teach her.

I've been trying to take opportunities to help teach her about different things. She's been a lot of fun. Her personality continues to show more and more. Among other things, she has HUGE smiles and is laughing now. It has been really challenging for me to take care of her and Dave. Last week Mom and Dad Porter were here, which was an enormous help. This weekend has been a bit trying for me.

It seems I will be awake to ring in the new year. Here's to hoping 2012 is a good one!

Where We've Been...

This will be an extremely short entry, but I'll try to catch up soon. The "highlight" being that we have not fallen off the face of the planet, but rather have been camping out here.

It's IMC - Intermountain Medical Center in Murray, UT. Dave had his surgery to remove a tumor in his lungs. Everything with the surgery went fine and Dave did almost too well during his brief ICU stay. It has not however been all rosy. Nevertheless, we are on the home stretch and hopefully leaving tomorrow.

A Bit of BAD News...

After months of Dave coughing up blood and just not feeling well. We've learned he has a tumor in his lung. A biopsy was taken today to see if the tumor is benign or malignant, but we have been told by 2 surgeons that surgery is pretty inevitable. We will meet with the surgeons the next couple of days and determine a plan from there, but we're looking at having this done next week probably. I'll update as we learn more.