So i guess i jumped into our present life without filling in the gap from a whole year! SO MUCH has happened to our little family. We moved out of our studio apartment above Nancy and Lynn Labrum's garage - (i have missed her everyday, locke too, she completely became my second mom. miss you and love you nancy.) and moved into the farmhouse. Not before we moved Lane's parents out and completely gutted the inside. I'm talking a complete gut job. Probably the hardest work i've ever done! we took out all the carpets, ripped out all the old baseboards, and kitchen cabinets. Since then we have installed new carpets, new hardwood in the kitchen and down the hallway (by ourselves!! i'm so proud...) installed all new baseboards and a bunch of crown molding (done mostly by our brother in law - thank you troy!!!!) put in ALL NEW windows! (i think this has made the HUGEST difference!) installed an electric heating system (this house has run off coal for the past 25 years) retextured ALL the walls, painted every. single. wall., scraped off the popcorn ceilings throughout (i like me some sparkle, just not on the ceiling...) Installed all new lights upstairs, put in new cabinets, new counters (I"M IN LOVE!!) lane has replaced all the lightswitches AND faceplates (Seriously, this made it look like a new house! i think its all the the details!) painted the brick fireplace white, installed a new bannister, replaced the red heart tub upstairs, (and yes, you heard that right.) and MOVED IN!!!! (just a note, its mainly the upstairs thats done, the basement really just needs the basement and carpet and its good to go. our goal is to get it done before the baby gets here, wish us luck!) Now its the fun part, putting the house together. I've been sewing and framing and printing and painting...pretty much anything i can get my hands on. And its really coming together, i'm just not going to post the pictures right now. not yet. i want it ready before i show the really cool before and after pictures! i'm thinking another month?? this week we are working on tiling the kitchen backsplash, painting the table and chairs, and i'm going to work on locke's crib bedding. its SO FUN!! i love decorating this house, its completely my dream house. SO, this last year has been alot about the house and moving but we've also helped Lane's parents build a new house as well as his sister and brother-in-law (which involved more babysitting then building, just to clarify. i'm still the biggest rookie ever in home renovation. or building.) Lane has finished another crazy year on the farm, he is such an awesome farmer. He works rediculous hours in the summer, and has a calculator with him EVERYWHERE trying to work the "numbers" of the fields, cows, milk, all that jazz. I'm serious he takes it with him everywhere. He keeps a spare on the back of the toilet. its funny. Locke always steals that one! we are finding it everywhere! So we also announced that we're pregnant with baby number two, which is due may 9th and we are SO excited for his arrival. I always kinda thought it was a boy too, not that i had any kind of major revelation or anything, it just seemed like everytime i looked at baby stuff i always veered to the newborn boy section. I wasn't sure if i was doing it out of habit? or because it was an inckling to what it was?? turns out it was! i wasn't surprised at all when the ultrasound tech said it was a boy. i was just excited! Lane is tickled to get his boys, and i am happy to know locke is getting a brother he can play with. This year has also included me and locke getting into a bad accident coming home from Lehi with Lane's sister Lacy in April 2011 where we totaled the car - it started raining in provo canyon close to bridal falls and as we went over a bridge we hydroplaned, spun around a couple of times, bashing into the gaurdrail a few times. It was...just insane. Locke slept through the entire ordeal which blows my mind still. Luckily we were able to get a ride home with Lynn and Nancy (which is another reason why i love love love them, the pretty much saved our lives that day) and their son who runs a dealership in Heber towed the car for us. it was also rediculously cold that day, of course, so it made it that much worse. But we survived!! yahoo! Another big moment last year was when we learned Locke's lazy eye was not able to be corrected with glasses - he had to have eye surgery. It was one of those moments as a parent you get a horrible sick feeling about whats going to happen to your baby, but still have to feel comforted knowing its the best thing for him. Its a very conflicting situation! These pictures were before he had glasses, and its hard for me to look at them because at the time i really couldn't notice his eyes crossing so much!! but it is painfully obvious now when i look back:
Here are some pictures after glasses but before surgery:
Then there was a couple weeks of patching before the surgery to strenthen the weak eye - we kept socks on his hands for the first day until he learned he wasn't allowed to touch it. It worked amazing! You're so smart lane.
and then of course pictures of us waiting in the hospital for them to come get Locke. I must say the nurses were wonderful, i think i was obviously worried and they were just so good to locke and us. We waited in that room for a bit then Dr. Abrams came in and gave him a quick assesment. After that we waited a bit longer then an older nurse (i loved that she was older, she definately had a motherly presence that put me at ease) came, scooped locke up in a big cuddly blanket and walked down to the operation room. I was so glad they didn't try and put him on a gurney - he's a baby! So that was another thing that helped my nerves. But it still KILLED me to let him go knowing they were going to hurt him! it seriously took all my self control to hand him over. And i totally broke down after he left - its just so scary!! every operation has risks and i tried my hardest not to think about the potential for the doctors to ruin Lockes eyesight permanently. Ugh. i still can't think about it!
Me and Locke right after they brought him back, the same way they took him. We stayed in the hospital room and waited for his surgery to get over. There was no way i could go anywhere, it brought out all my mom instincts! I'll always remember hearing his cry down the hallway as they were bringing him back - i could tell it was him but really groggy. As he came into view i completely broke down, he was trying to fight the nurse, but was still waking up so he was so confused. That was hard. I just focused on his recovery and didin't let myself think about the fact that me and lane made the decision to put him through all that pain. So the doctor told us he was going to feel like he had sand in his eyes for a few days, so i prepared myself for what i thought would be a few rocky weeks:
He slept the entire first day, and was up most of the night. But the next day he was right back on his sleeping schedule and was his happy little self!! i marveled at the way his little body just bounced right back. it was pretty amazing.
next day in his jumper. Like i said, amazing. he was happy! i couldn't believe it! he is such a trooper.
first bath, i can't believe how much a bath helped too! it totally revitalized him.
So thats all for now, but i'll be backtracking a bit more in the next couple of posts, just so this little "online journal" makes sense.
