Jenna vs Snow White

Jenna found many comparisons to herself while watching Snow White.

While the mirror was describing Snow White- "Mom, that sounds just like how I look!"

Anytime Snow White was talking to the animals= "Mom, I love animals and they love me too!"

When Snow White layed down to take a nap- "She is getting her beauty rest, just like me!"

The first time Snow White was referred to as a Princess- "Mom, I'm a princess too!"

on Doc- "He's smart like me!"

on Dopey- "He's funny, just like me!"

on Happy- "He's happy and smiley, like me!"

on Sneezy- "He sneezes a lot, like I do, huh Mom?"

on Sleepy- "I'm only sleepy when I need my beauty sleep."

on Grumpy and Bashful- "They aren't like me at all!"

Haha, at least she has a healthy self esteem!

Emmalene

Well, yesterday was Emma's birthday. I can't believe that she is 10 years old. So much happened and I look at her and realize what a miracle she is. Many people do not know everything that happened during her pregnancy and what it took to get her here.
It started when Jacob was 2 weeks old. Jason woke up one day and said "I had a dream about a little girl with dark hair and blue eyes, and I think we are suppose to have her now." Well, as you can imagine with a 2 week old, I laughed it off. But he kept talking about it and it became a point of contention with us. I finally said " There is no way the Lord is going to ask me to have another baby, so soon after s having another." To which Jason countered with "Have you prayed about it?", which I did so sure that I would be proven right. Well I was wrong and I came to know that this little girl was suppose to come to our family. But it took over a year and a miscarriage till I was finally pregnant.
During this time we had made a move up to Lyman, Wyoming. The only family around was Jason's Aunt, whom at the time I did not know very well. The closest Dr was approx 45 minutes away in Evanston. I was automatically considered high risk because of my previous 2 pregnancies and the closest high risk Dr was in Salt Lake, just over 2 hours away. I was put on light bedrest at the very beginning because of my history. Bedrest is hard with a 4 year old and 2 year old. I soon became very ill and was hospitalized due to dehydration and losing 15 lbs in a month. I was in the hospital for 5 days and the day after I was released I started bleeding. At first they said it was a popped vessel by the cervix and would stop bleeding within a few days, however days turned into 2 weeks. They said the bleeding had moved up by the placenta and was causing it to detach. By this point, Emma had stopped growing, and was measuring 2 weeks behind. The Dr in Evanston told me to abort her. He said that for her to go that long without growing showed a serious problem and that IF she was born, she would be physically and mentally disabled and that I would not want to saddle myself with a child like that. He gave me a less than 10% chance of having her at all. I remember sitting there in disbelief, first that I may not have my baby, and second that the Dr was advising me to get an abortion. I walked out of the office with Jason and said "Take me to Salt Lake, to Cottonwood Hospital." I wanted another opinion. Just prior to us leaving I asked Jason for a blessing. In that blessing I was told, not that everything would be ok, but that this specific trial was being given to me for a reason, and that in order to have my baby I would need to totally rely on Heavenly Father and not on the Dr's, and that if I had complete faith in Him, I would have my baby and she would be whole. It seems easy enough to believe. Then we went to Salt Lake. The ER Dr, after doing an ultrasound, advised me to go see a high-risk specialist. He said he didn't see how I was going to have this baby, but they were not equiped to deal with the problems I was having. When Jason pressed the Dr for more information he said that my placenta was approx 7 1/2 cm by 5 1/2 cm, roughly the size of a tennis ball, that the hemmorage behind the placenta causing it to detach was 7 cm by 5 cm. Basically only 1 cm of the placenta was attached.
An appointment was made for me the next day to see the specialist and after reviewing all of the tests and ultrasounds he told me that there was no way I would be able to see the pregnancy any further, but that he would make me as comfortable as possible until I lost the baby. I went home devastated and confused. My Bishop came over that night, to see if there was anything he or the ward could do. Already the Relief Society had stepped in and were taking care of my children and cleaning my house. He gave me another blessing and repeated what was said in the first blessing, that if I had faith in the Lord, I would have my baby. I would recieve that blessing, verbatim, 3 more times but 3 different people, none of whom were present at any of the other blessings. I then became determined to build my faith in the Lord. I wanted this baby more than anything, even knowing that she could have physical or mental disabilites. I found things to do that would increase my faith which included reading the scriptures and other uplifting books, listening to uplifting music. I made a gratitude list, and went over the things I was grateful for each day and tried to add something new everyday. I tried to stay positive. For about 4 weeks the hemmorage stayed the same and she still was not growing, but she was still there. The Dr's were amazed, I was seeing 2 at this point. But they still cautioned me about the physical and mental problems that she would be born with. At this point, she had not grown for 6 weeks.
Around the 7th week I went in for a checkup and ultrasound. The Dr was unsually quiet and then brought in another Dr to look at the ultrasound. She had grown and the placenta was starting to re-attach. It was nothing short of a miracle. Soon every week the Dr noticed more and more of the placenta re-attaching and she was growing. The Dr said he had never seen anything like this and started calling her his miracle baby everytime he saw me. Every week he was amazed at her growth, in a short time she caught up to where she was suppose to be and then she started measuring bigger.
About the time the Dr declared the placenta to be fully re-attached, he also noticed I was starting to dilate. Yep, I was in pre-term labor. It was a problem I had with my other kids. I was 26 weeks along at this point. So, while I was hoping to be taken off of bedrest, I was not. Still down.
I made it to 35 weeks, when they did an amnio to determine if her lungs would be developed enough to be born, and amazingly they were.
Now here is the miraculous part Emmalene Charity Bishop was born 5 weeks early weighing in at 7 lbs 3 oz and 20 1/2 inches long. She had no sign of being born pre-mature and had no physical disabilities. Time would tell about anything mental. We were cautioned to not get our hopes up. According to the Dr's there was no way she would have suffered during the pregnancy the way she did and not have any side effects.
Well 10 years later I am happy to report there have been no side effects from her traumatic pregnancy. She is in the honors program at her school. She is bright, loves to read, has a natural ability to play the piano and sing. She is beautiful, happy and very tender hearted. She has a huge heart and is very sensitive to the feelings of those around her. She is truly my miracle child and I am so grateful that the Lord blessed my life with her. There are times I wish I could take her to the Dr that told me to abort her and let him see what a miracle she is.

Bragging Time

My oldest daughter is the most amazing artist. I am so jealous because I can barely draw a stick figure. Here is a picture she drew for me. She didn't trace it. To me, it's just absolutely amazing!!!

Things that irritate me

I love my children. Really I do. But I cannot stand it when they fight. It starts from the moment they walk into the door from school, and lasts sometimes past bedtime. It mainly comes from both of my sons. They both love to tease and torment their sisters. Could someone please explain to me what is so fun about making someone else cry???? And lately it seems like all they want to do is fight. AARRRRGGGHHH!!!

Graduation

Well, we knew this day would come, but we didn't think it would come so soon. Our youngest has graduated...from preschool that is. It was a pretty traumatic day for her. Even though we got the calander marking the last day of preschool and we talked about it, she was totally unprepared for preschool to end. While the kids were outside, the teacher talked about how much she would miss the kids and started tearing up. She said normally she doesn't cry until after all the kids have left, but Faith started crying in class and that got her started. They were talking about how they would have new teachers and noticed tears streaming down Faith's cheeks. Faith said she didn't want new teachers, she wanted to stay with them. AWWWWWW! I said that's nothing, she has been crying everyday since you sent the calander home. I am happy to report she is crying less. She still mentions her teachers daily, but we are trying to get her more excited for kindergarten. Seems to be working.

Birthday Chaos

My 2 youngest childrens birthday's are a week apart. So I got the brilliant idea to throw a double birthday party for them. We chose a local skating rink

that also has a bounce zone,
a jungle jim

and laser tag, because of course kids of all ages like these things. I figured, I would get this overwith at once, I wouldn't have to clean up and both my children would be happy. So after 10 8-9 year olds and 6 5 year olds showed up, the party began. It all started out innocent enough with everyone sitting down to eat pizza. The kids were good, happy, enjoying pizza and all was well with the world. After pizza we turned them loose. Now we had a few adults there, as well as older children to help keep track of all the kids, because I knew they would not stay together. But the mother in me, had to know where every child was and that there were no kids sneaking outside or into other peoples parties. So I spent the majority of the party, walking from area to area trying to keep track of all these kids. I think I got my 10,000 steps in for the day during those 3 hours. I helped smaller children go to the bathroom, locate lost shoes, pick up kids who fell on their skates until it was time for cake. YAY!!!


All in all, it was a good party. Kids left happy, with everything they came with, minus presents, there were no injuries, and noone was lost. My children got presents they loved and had a great time with all their friends, cousins and sibilings. Thanks to everyone that came.

America, The Beautiful

My oldest son had the opportunity to participate in a concert with 11 other schools from our state, at Symphony Hall. The final song that all the schools sang was America the Beautiful. There were at least 500 students, maybe closer to 750. There is only one school that you can see on stage, the rest are sitting in the first 20-30 rows in the audience. It brought tears to my eyes, to hear our children singing this song. During a time, when it seems our country is struggling, this song helps me to remember, how blessed we are to live in America. I am so grateful for the Freedoms we have here, and know that we have them because of the men and women that fought for our freedoms and died for them. Both my Grandfathers served in WW2, my father was in the Army, my husband in the Marines, and my youngest brother currently serves in the Navy. How grateful I am for men like them, that are willing to defend the freedoms that God intended this country to have. I only got half of the song, before my battery died, but I hope you can feel the love and reverence for our country that these children sang with.

OH MY!

This is what happens when you let dad dress the kids for school. I don't know if you can see it well in the picture, but the shirt is turquoise with stripes of hearts of different colors, the too short shorts are blue, with like a pink wash and flowers, and the shoes, are light blue, not turquoise. Her hair is in the same do it was the night before, just the back brushed and pulled back and some pink and purple flowers added. Isn't it lovely?

A Healthy Household, once again

Well, I think this is the first day in about a month that noone has woken up with a fever, sore throat, throwing up or some other ailment. It first started with the oldest child and made it's way through all of the kids. For some of them, it hit the twice, and for some it took weeks to get rid of.
Poor David, started a running a fever in the middle of Great Grandma's viewing, and my mom had to come and get him. His fever lasted 6 days. Now, he is one that when he gets sick, he drops weight, and is allergic to the common antibiotics you can give children. So, since the Dr had no idea what was wrong, they didn't want to just put him on antibiotics since most are too strong for him. So we watched, waited and prayed while he dropped a few pounds, till his fever disappeared and he started gaining his strength back. Now we need to help him gain weight again.



Another fun thing that happened. Right before easter we were at Walmart, when some out of control child ran straight into my youngest, Faith. Her head smacked into the cart and immediately she started to scream. The other childs mother came and grabbed her child, gave me a dirty look and proceeded to say something in spanish while pulling her child away from us. Now, I don't speak spanish, but I know enough to know that she wasn't apologizing. While part of me wanted to chase her down and make her acknowledge what her child had done to mine and make them apologize, my child was screaming and needed to be dealt with. When she finally pulled her face away from me, I noticed a horrible bruise already forming under her left eye. I looked up to see if they were still around, but they were long gone. So, Faith, got to wear a beautiful new easter dress with a black eye. We convinced her the black eye matched with her outfit. I mean pink and purple do go together right. She proudly showed off her black eye at church as an accessory along with her new purse and easter hat.

Get them started young

We thought, given the bad economy and all, it might be a good idea for our kids to get jobs...haha.

Kids

I was reading my sister in laws' blog about funny sounds or words her kids are saying/doing lately. It reminded me of when my older kids were much smaller. I didn't write a lot down like I should have, and normally I don't have a good memory, but where my kids are concerned I can remember quite a bit.
When my oldest, Hope, was around 18 months, she woke up one morning, crying for a "bano". She walked around the house looking for this "bano" and I had no idea what it was. For about a week she was constantly asking about it and we were clueless as to what she wanted. One day we were out on a drive and passed by a car dealership that was having a large sale and she started screaming "Bano! Bano!" We realized she was pointing to the several ballons that were tied all over the place. "Bano" = Balloon. Ahhh. Then I remembered, she had a balloon that popped just prior to going to bed. So we stopped at a store and got her a ballon, and she was happy again.
Dallin, didn't really talk until he was 2, but he would say a few words here and there. His first word was "this", 2nd word was "that". Whenever he wanted something he would just point and say "this" It was pretty entertaining. When he did talk, his phonics were amazing. I think he just waited to talk until he knew he could do it right. When he was just over 2, he came in to my room one morning and said "Mom, can you get me a bowl of cereal please?" I about fell out of bed because the night before, it was just animal noises and grunts. From then on, it was complete sentences for him.
I'll save more memories for a later time. That's all for now.

Scripture Time

At the beginning of the year, we decided to spend time each night reading out of the scriptures with our kids. Now, we had been doing this, but we were reading out of the Book of Mormon reader, and illustrated stories from the Old/New Testament and Book of Mormon, which is fine when you have small kids, but when they start getting to be teenagers, that bores them and they don't want to participate.
So we decided to read out of the actual scriptures. We are starting with the Book of Mormon. When we first started our night went something like this. We would read a verse, then each child would proceed to ask what certian words meant. Often each child would ask what the same word went. So to read a chapter was a very time consuming event, fraught with headaches, kids getting tired and losing interest and parents becoming frustrated, but trying not to show it so that it wouldn't drive the Spirit, if it was there, away.
Now we are almost done with 2 Nephi, we finish the last chapter tonight. And I noticed something last night. While we still are explaining what words means, the questions from the kids have turned more to "what does this verse mean?" and "isn't this like the verse in this chapter that we read a few weeks ago?" WOW. They are actually paying attention and learning something. We have had some very good conversations with the kids about the scriptures. And they are sharing their feelings about it. There has been such a strong spirit present, often times it is very hard to stop the discussion for bed.
It's times like this that I realize why patience and persistance are important. And like maybe, just maybe we are doing something right.