Catch up-- Allison arrives!

So this last year has been quite a roller coaster. I last posted before BJ left for Basic Training. Now he's gone to Officer Candidate School (MUCH worse and more grueling than Basic), and we miss him dearly. This is a pic of BJ getting off the bus his first day at BCT.


This is a pic of BJ going into the gas chamber at BCT.



I didn't feel much like blogging the last year for personal reasons, but I feel like I need to keep up the family journal. So-While my Benny Boo is gone, I want to document things that are going on so he doesn't miss anything. He was pretty sad to be leaving, especially Allie, because he'll miss so much of her growing. I don't think I've ever seen him that sad to leave us. He'll be back just in time to celebrate his birthday a day late, so I'm trying to think of a bunch of super fun things to do for him for his birthday and Father's day, our anniversary... all those fun events that affect us in the spring/early summer.

So I'll start by posting about Allie, just to catch everyone up (If I get onto BJ's laptop I'll post some pics eventually-but we do have a video at the bottom). BJ came home from Basic Training in June and worked in Bountiful coming to see us at my mom's on his weekends. We welcomed our beautiful daughter, Allison, to the world on July 7. She tried to come 5 weeks early, but I was drugged and off my feet as much as possible to try to keep her in there longer. She stayed another 5 days before her debut. We thought we might have been off a week on her due date because she seemed a lot younger than a 4 week early baby. She ended up in the NICU for 8 days because she aspirated at birth and they had to clear out her lungs so she could breathe. She was on glucose, O2 and a c-pap with a feeding tube...oh yeah, and Bili lights. It took a few days to get her off of her c-pap, and then we had to try to get the feeding tube out. She ended up pulling it out herself and nursed like a champ for the next 24 hours. I stayed at the hospital for the week with her and left my kids with my mom. It was great to finally be able to bring her home. She had to come home on O2 for another 10 days or so, but she did really well after that.