Friday, December 28, 2007

Christmas in Pictures

Christmas at Home

I love my tree!

Ben works nights so Santa brought him a daytime sleepy mask, here he thinks it's his Stevie Wonder mask
Guess who's got what :o)

To the Johnson's:

(L-R) Grandpa Johnny, Rich, Ben, Christina, Vicki, Nana Bev & Grandpa Chuck

Cute Ben

My Father- in- Law and his fancy ribbon tie


To Pink Gramma's:

The boys in my life: Dad, Nick and Ben Nick likes his new Nautica gear

Kaatz House

Megan starting off Guitar Hero...Then Chris

...Then Ben

... And Auntie Jill
Ben likes his gift from Nick

Finally to the Keen's:

The boys play for their gifts


The girls' turn

Papa and his new DVD

Smile Jake

Thursday, December 27, 2007

William is still doing great!


His Daddy calls him the 'Best Present Ever'!

Busy Christmas!

I can't believe Christmas has already come and gone! We were quite busy - but very fortunate that Ben's weekend fell right over Christmas this year! (Which is nice because looking at the schedule for 2008 - he works EVERY holiday, both our birthday's and our anniversary)

Christmas Eve:
6:15 am - Ben got home from work and straight to bed
11:15 am - Impromptu lunch with Aunt Cindy at Panera Bread
1:00 pm - Our own little Christmas - just the 2 of us
4:00 pm - Church - followed by dinner with the (Johnson)
8:00 pm - Presents at Pink Gramma's (Kaatz)
10:00 pm - Continued celebration at Dad & Chris' (Kaatz/Baumgartner)
Christmas Day:
2:00 am - Pry Ben & Nick away from Nick's new XBox 360 so we could go home
3:15 am - Finally to bed
7:00 am - Drag myself out of bed
8:00am - Back to the Johnson's house for my Father-in-Law's homemade cinnamon rolls
11:00am - Home to make a veggie tray to take to Aunt Cindy's
12:00 pm - Cat nap :o)
2:15 pm - Aunt Cindy's house (Hart)

See... BUSY! Pictures to come :o)

Monday, December 24, 2007

William Update!



Friday I saw a very tired Harold at work for a few moments when he stopped in to tie up some loose ends. He was in better spirits as they finally saw "The Wizard of Oz" AKA: the electro-cardiologist. They had been hearing about this guy since Will's diagnosis but he'd been so busy that he didn't lay eyes on Will until Friday morning. This was a very uplifting meeting for Harold and Kara. The doctor said that the reason they don't want to even consider doing the procedure to zap the second signal is primarily because, percentage wise, the majority of infants diagnosed - will grow out of it by their first birthday. (We're totally praying for this right now!!)
As of Friday afternoon, Will had been responding to the new dosage of medications and was holding steady. I woke up this morning to find this email from Harold:  

We'll be able to celebrate Christmas at home! William has responded well to the increased dosage of medication, so we were released from Children's on Saturday afternoon. It's been great to pick him up without all of the wires attached to him, and we rested well last night without everyone coming in to check on him throughout the night.

Thank you very much for all of the thoughts and prayers - I know that's why William responded well to the meds and we were released in time for Christmas! We very much appreciate it...

Harold, Kara and William

Will's still not out of the woods and this isn't close to being 'figured' out yet, but we know that God is faithful and we'll continue to pray for their family and for the doctors, that they may keep a better grasp on how (much) to increase Will's meds and when!

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Please pray for baby William






One of my co-workers, Harold, and his wife Kara have a 4 week old little boy named William. At William's 2 week check up, they discovered that his heartbeat was 290 (normal is 120-140). They rushed his via ambulance to Children's where they diagnosed him with Wolfe Parkinson White (WPW). A normal heart has one path for the brain to send a signal telling the heart to beat. People affected by WPW have two paths telling their hearts to beat, so their hearts beat twice as fast as they should. Doctors began medicating Will, and were able to silence the second signal to allow his heart to beat normally. After a few days of monitoring, Harold and Kara took him home where he did wonderful and gained almost 2 lbs. The original plan was for Will to get his medicine every 8 hours for at least a year, where they would then run another panel to see if he'd outgrown the signal - if not, this would repeat every year or so until he turned 12-13 and they would do a procedure to zap the second signal. He would have regular visits to adjust the medication as he grew. This syndrome is not terribly uncommon, but IS rather rare in such a young baby. (Affects roughly 3% of the population - 70% of the affected are males, and mostly seen in ages 11-50)
Monday, Will had an appointment to up his meds to accommodate the extra 2 lbs, he did really well with the new dose until early Tuesday morning when Kara took the stethoscope to him (they do this every couple hours to monitor him) and noticed that his heart rate was back up. Will was taken again by ambulance to Children's where they just assumed they didn't increase his dosage enough. Unfortunately Will has had 2 episodes in the last 24 hours and is on a much higher dose of his medicine than they ever intended him being on this soon. Assuming he starts responding to this high dosage, he's got another 3 days minimum at Children's…

William is their first baby , and as you can imagine Harold and Kara are worried and exhausted with all of this…
I spoke with Harold today to get specifics for prayer and he said that they really need Will to start responding to the meds and keep him stable on them until he's older. The doctors do not want to do this procedure on him any time soon! Pray for comfort for him and Kara - so that they might be able to rest some, as well as wisdom for the doctors.

Thankfully William is a pretty content, laid back baby. Whether his heart is beating normally or accelerated - his temperament stays the same and displays no signs of pain or discomfort.

Harold asked me to thank all of you in advance for keeping them in your prayers! I'll update with more when I have it.

Thank you!

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Ben & My Boss

Thankfully someone at work thought to have a camera at the Christmas Party, unfortunatley the only picture they caught was the one were Ben jumped onto my boss's lap!
(Don't fret... I still have a job, and no complaints or lawsuits have been filed with county against Ben)

So here it is: Steve, Ben and a 'Bumbling Waitress' that entertained us on that incredible evening...


She's lovin' a little too much on my husband... but then again, Ben's a little too close to my boss too.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Colds, anniversary's, birthday's, board meetings... and one great Christmas party!

*Updated with pictures*

So we're finally starting to feel better... Ben's started as a cold and stayed an icky cold for more than a week, I on the other hand had a cold for a week with a sinus and ear infection, just for good measure. Thank goodness for OTC's and antibiotics! Unfortunately with Ben, once he gets a cough, it takes months to get rid of it. In boot camp a few years ago he came down with a case of pneumonia - and for fear of getting held back, or in trouble - it was awful before he was spied on the grounds by the Doc and ordered to sick call. He had quite a bit of lung damage due to the ordeal and because of that he can have a cough from a minor cold last him a good 6 months before it's completely gone. I'm thankful that the lungs heal over time, the last cough he had only trailed out 4ish months... so there's still hope for a healty guy! :o)

Our anniversary fell on Ben's Monday - which means he leaves an hour earlier for roll call at the precinct, which didn't give us a lot of time to do anything by the time I got home... So we 'celebrated' the day prior with a stop at the furniture store, where we've been eyeing a bookcase, and dinner at the Olive Garden. We got home just in time to curl up on the couch with our blankets, tissue, and water bottles to fall asleep from the PM cold meds! I know, I know - we're hopeless romantics... Alright, maybe we're just hopeless.
Ben did surprise me with a bouquet of my favorites: Tulips!

Tuesday my aunt came over to help me make it Christmas at our house, while my uncle was helping me figure out what and how to solve my curtain rod issue in this new place... Funny sized and placed windows are just one of my problems.

Saturday was my company's Holiday Party down at the Waterfront Seafood Grill on Pier 70. It was beautiful down there! ... And COLD! I was responsible for finding the 'entertainment' for the evening . You wouldn't think that 18 CPA's and 9 bookkeeping, audit, and supporting professionals would be that much fun... but you haven't met us! I work with an awesome group of people! Short of the 17 mile=90 minutes (each way) commute - I work at a great place! I found a Seattle company that hires out talent/actors. We had a 'roving' magician come that was totally awesome! I thought it would be a bit cheesy, but this guy rocked! And as a surprise to all but 2 other staff members, I hired actors to play Bumbling Waiters... they were hilarious! Talk about a sore thumb though, this place was the nicest I'd ever been to, and these actors were spilling water and being loud, and then ended up sitting on people's laps... (prompting my husband to jump onto my boss's lap) it was great! One guy was posing as a 'manager' and ended up pulling one of the waiters out by his coat collar. Ben (who was seated right next to the managing partner of the firm) was almost up and trying to break it up. This waiter was actually pretty convincing. He was an older gentleman, with a great face... He played the "I'm old and going senile" role quite well. When he got yanked out and was getting yelled at by he manager, is when people got a bit nervous. The walls at the restaurant were glass so you could see how animated they were. Steve (big boss) and Ben started to discuss the legitimacy of the situation and both were fairly convinced this old guy was getting canned. Ben said, "From a guy who mostly has to scold and yell at people for a living - this looks pretty authentic!" It started to fall apart when they came back in and started this love triangle thing with the 3rd actor/waitress. Once the whole Father/Daughter/boyfriend and butt prints in the asparagus came out they immediately announced themselves as actors and broke into a round of Jingle Bells.
Steve handed out envelopes with a bunch of gift cards and announced the new perks for company: Anywhere, anytime, any event that ANY employee decides they've had maybe one drink too many or doesn't feel safe driving home - call a cab and bring him the bill! Now coming at a group of decent professional people, this shouldn't cost them too much - but is just another way they like to take care of us.

Sunday was Mom and Grammy's birthday party, where the family finally had a Thanksgiving meal together (minus Aunt Debbie who's not feeling well and lives in Tim-buk-to... near Port Townsend) It was yummy!
Ben got himself into a heap when he became president of or new HOA, so we drug our feet over to the neighbors for a board of directors meet and greet type deal. We were hoping to use our colds to get us out of there early... but ended up having a really good time, and stayed chatting until (too) late!

Monday was an ear infection=no equilibrium day for me! After leaving hand prints all over the hall and a couple near misses with the floor - I crawled my dizzy self back to bed and snuggled back into my boy for the day.

I of course, left my camera in the car - which valet then hid from us Saturday night, so I have no pictures :o( Ben looked so cute though! New shirt and tie - he was mighty handsome! I sported a new, much shorter, do that will significantly decrease our shampoo bill :o)
The pictures I leave you with are of my pretty tulips from my husband! ...And one of our Christmas tree. It was in a corner last year and didn't look quite so bare, this year I'm searching for more decor!




*I know Christmas is not about Santa! However, I love my Santa decorations! If we can all have themed birthday celebrations... So can Jesus. This year Jesus' birthday party is of the Santa theme... and it's mainly just the guy's clothes as you can see from the last picture :o)*


Sunday, December 9, 2007

The best first dance:

Jake and Heather introduced this wedding video to me this evening at Mom and Grammy's birthday party... It's awesome!

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

3 Years ago today...

... I married my best friend.



Monday, December 3, 2007

"Our Week in Pictures"


It's been crazy since Thanksgiving so I haven't been much for updating but, I did take pictures!!! Here's the last week or so:


  • Thanksgiving at Dad's
  • Nick stayed over
  • Finally got our new bedroom furniture (special thanks to Jared for helping Ben move it in! And Nick for lugging all the boxes to the recycle bin!)
  • Spent an evening with Jared and Emily using Dad and Chris' house while they were away for their anniversary (Pool table, Foosball, PS2, pizza, beer for the boys, root beer for us girls... and a game of 'cups' that we found in the game wall)
  • A long, very busy week at work
  • A few nights with Aubrey and the kids (and the Miller's!)
  • Ben's Marine Corps Toys for Tots collection (and SNOW!)
  • The Seahawks game from the couch in our jammies
  • A Sonics game complete with a fire in the JumboTron - And a loss - SURPRISE!

Now it's back to work with a cold :(

Dad and Ben


Cute Nick

Guitar Hero's: Ben & Jared
(Don't worry Nick - Ben was very good to your REAL guitar!)



Rock on...

... and on!!


Newlyweds

... And 'Cups'

Cute Kids!!

Fresh from collecting toys!