I love Christmas letters and pictures!!!

I absolutely love getting Christmas letters and pictures from friends and family at Christmas. I can't wait to see how much my friend's or family's kids have changed and I love to read Christmas letters about what is going on in their lives. So I think I might be obsessed with it because I go to the mailbox everyday at least once starting about a week or two ago and today I hate to admit I checked the mailbox 3 times because I thought maybe I missed the mail lady. Am I weird? The mailbox is not in front of my house either, it's down the street and around the corner. Even if I don't have anywhere else to go that day I always get in the car and drive down to the mailbox and then drive back home. Thanks to those of you who have sent them already but come on people (Annie, Lanee, Amanda, Vanessa Lee, Jenny, Joy, Vicki and anyone else who normally sends pics and letters) hurry up because my mailbox is sad and so am I because I NEED MORE PICS AND LETTERS!

My sick baby

Olivia got sick with some kind of stomach virus for the first time and she's almost 3. I was just telling someone a week or so ago that my kids have never thrown up and how nice that they haven't so far. I spoke too soon. Well, she actually did throw up when she was 7 months old the day before she was diagnosed with diabetes but that was because her blood sugar was extremely high and it was more like spit up because she was mostly just breastfeeding. Then I remember one time not too long after she was diagnosed (I think this had something to do with her blood sugar again) where she did it again but again she was breastfeeding mostly so it wasn't that bad. Well, this was bad but she only got sick twice and didn't wake up at all during the night so that was nice. She did have a fever early the next morning and now is having a few problems from the other end (sorry if this is too much info). This photo is of her passed out on the couch after getting sick the second time. Many of you know that this girl does not sleep hardly anywhere but in a quiet dark room, so this is odd for her because the t.v. was on, Audrey was babbling loudly, and Steve and I were talking. She was really sick and so sweet. I was sad that she was sick but she was acting so sweet that I enjoyed her sweetness. Make sense? Well, since then Steve got extremely sick as well and now I am just praying Audrey and I don't get it.

O.k. so I had to share this picture of Audrey. She is wearing overalls that my grandma Thompson made me when I was a little girl. Click on the picture to see the detail. This is the only outfit that I have that I wore when I was her age. So fun.
On the back right next to her bum cheeks she embroidered the words, "Dont' Spank" Hee hee, only a grandma would write that. I love it.
Please pray for Miss Audrey, she is involved in the Teddy study which is a study for kids with a higher risk of getting Type 1 diabetes. They are trying to find out what triggers kids to get this disease so we have to keep track of a lot of things as she grows. At Audrey's birth, the doctor took some of my cord blood and tested it and found out that Audrey has high risk genes for juvenille diabetes. To give you a good idea of her risk, children who do not have high risk genes still have a 1 in 300 chance of getting the disease. Because Audrey is related to Olivia that already increased her odds to a 1 in 20 chance of getting the disease. But because she has the high risk genes she now has a 1 in 7 chance of getting Type 1 diabetes. So in the study, we go in every 3 months and have her blood taken and tested to see if she is developing any antibodies. There are 3 antibodies and Olivia has 2 of them. These antibodies attacked Olivia's pancreas and killed her islet cells that produce insulin. Up until 3 months ago, Audrey's tests came back fine, but about 6 weeks ago we received the news that she has developed one of the antibodies. On the positive side, it is the most common of the 3 antibodies and in 75% of the children that develop this antibody it will go away on its own. We are praying that she is one of the 75%. We took her in today for her 15 month study visit and they drew her blood again. So in 4-6 weeks we will know if it went away or not. The nurse told me that sometimes it takes a few blood draws before it goes away if it's going to but that if it doesn't go away and she develops a second antibody then most likely she will get diabetes. I am trying to prepare myself in case she gets it so please pray that either way we will accept God's will for her and for us. I'll keep you updated on her results.

Little Versions of Me and My Friends

I've been meaning to post these pictures since I took them this summer but kept forgetting. My good friends from childhood Debbie and Vicki came by for a visit and brought their kids. On the couch Paityn, Vicki's little girl, is on the left, then Olivia, then Branson, Debbie's youngest boy.
Paityn is 6 months younger than Olivia and Branson is 6 months older than Olivia. They are so cute together. They really look like miniature versions of us especially Olivia and Paityn. Whenever my mom sees Paityn and Olivia playing together she remembers when Vicki and I were little playing and says they look just like us. Vicki lives not too far from us now so Olivia gets to play with Paityn and they just love each other. Debbie lives in Wyoming so we don't get to see them as much. Boo hoo.

A Little Pampering

I just came across this picture from this past July. Olivia loves having her fingernails and toenails painted so while Aunt Lisa was visiting she chilled on the couch while we pampered her. Doesn't she look so relaxed? My goodness.

Ta-Da!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I told you to stay tuned for the princess pictures and here they are along with a few other pics from the past few weeks.

She basically wears this everyday when we are at home. In this picture she has several outfits on top of each other. I love how she is posing, I told her to look like a princess for the camera and that is what she did.

Here she is before she got her princess outfits, she started wearing this everyday even over her clothes minus the headband and glasses.

Just a pic of Audrey in her Cherry dress for church.

After a nap one day my dad went and got Audrey out of her crib and this is what her hair looked like, can you believe it?

My snow bunny, she got her new snow pants and it snowed a lot this past weekend so she had to test them out.

I have to add a funny thing that Olivia said the other day. She calls a lot of people or animals her "best friend". Well, she had to go potty so she climbed up on the big toilet instead of her little potty. I asked her why she wanted to go on the big potty instead of hers and she said, "I have to go poop on the big potty because it is my best friend." Wow, lucky toilet.