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News for the Johnson family:

Abbigail was blessed on April 12th. We had all of Mark's family and most of my family were able to make it. It was a lot of fun to have everyone at our house, it was definatly a full house and we are very grateful that we have a big grassy field next door for all the 25 kids to play in!

Abbi is growing well. We went in for her shots and she is in the 75th percentile for heighth and 50th percentile for weight. She is such a happy baby - so quick to smile and she is even starting to "talk"! I love to hear her talk to me as it always includes a smile and a giggle. I'll have to record it and post it a little later. In the mean time, here is a cute picture of Abbi. Ignore the lady next to her as it is early in the morning and she looks pretty bad! But Abbi has the biggest smile on her face...she LOVES the fan in our room.

I don't have a picture for it, but another little bit of news is that I started my own Mary Kay business. It was a little scary to start as it is TOTALLY out of my comfort zone to approach people and ask them to host a skin care class. But I have done a couple and I am getting much more comfortable and they are actually quite a bit of fun! It's kind of nice to be able to leave Abbi with Mark some nights and I get to leave and have some fun and have adult conversation with women. So if any of you want to host a class or need anything...let me know! :-)

Our last bit of news is that Mark got a new calling. He was released as Stake Young Men's secretary and was called as our ward's Executive secretary for the new bishopric put in on the 26th of April. To say the least he is nervous but also excited because he really likes all three men that are in the bishopric. I think the Lord is determined to make Mark a very organized person! Anyway, here is a picture of Mark with his dad and father-in-law on the day he was set apart for his calling. It was a pretty fun day.

So that is our update for now. I hope all are doing well and I check all your blogs all the time...so I hope there are some new posts!

Abbigail Updates!

Again, I am not the best blogger, but I have lots of pictures to put in showing Abbigail! She is growing so well and (though you may be wondering how) she is getting cuter everyday!

This is Abbi enjoying her swing. In the morning when she first wakes up she likes to eat, then she likes to swing for awhile and just look around. She is such a good baby!!

Abbi got a pretty bad diaper rash. We're not sure how it got so bad, but it seemed to look a little pink one day, and the next it was almost peeling :-( So everytime she had a dirty diaper, we would dunk her little tush in the sink or tub to wash it off. She liked to look at the water running while she was in the sink. Anyway, after about 5 days it cleared up...thank goodness!

We were trying to get a picture of Abbi smiling, we didn't get one this time, but I still thought she was pretty cute in this picture!

It's pretty easy to get a picture of her yawning as she seems to do it ALL the time!

This is Abbi's first blowout! I don't think there is anything that stains as bad as baby poop! I took this off, soaked it, scubbed it, sprayed it and washed it, and there is still a little discoloration. Oh well.

We finally got a picture of her smiling! She does bigger ones where her eyes squint up because she is smiling so big. It's funny how grown adults will do anything including making a fool of themselves just to get a little smile out of a baby.

This is Abbi at 1 month old! She is getting a little bigger, but her cheeks are definatly filling out! We haven't been able to get any professional pictures done yet, so you have to live with my amature pictures. But I think the dress Grandma Welch gave her is absolutly adorable!

This is Abbi snoozing with her dad after she has eaten in the morning. He didn't have to go to work for another hour, so I decided to get ready while I had someone at home to watch her. This is one of Mark's favorite things, to cuddle up and snooze with her after she's eaten.

And finally, this is Abbi today! Grandma Welch gave her a packet of cute little headbands with bows on them. Abbi has such a small head that the headbands I had looked HUGE on her head! But these little petite ones are perfect! She hasn't lost any hair, and it is very curly on top. Mom likes to put a little mousse in it after her bath so it stays curly all day! But she is a happy little baby, and we LOVE having her. It makes me wonder what did we ever do before she was here?

Abbigail has arrived!!!

Introducing Abbigail Rae Johnson! She was born on February 14th at 2:10 P.M. She was born with a full head of hair, and it looks like there is some curl to it also.

On Friday Mark and I went to Twin Falls to get our taxes done by his brother. After which we went to my parents house and visited for a little bit. We ended up getting home at around 11:00 PM. We went to bed, then at 12:20 AM (yes just 1 hr. and 20 min. later) my water broke! I woke Mark up and told him that my water broke, he was a little hazy as he was half asleep, so it took him a little bit to register what was happening. Once it hit him, he was all business. He got my bags together and put them in the car while I took a shower and got dressed. I wasn't having any contractions, so it was kind of fun getting ready to go.

When we left the house Mark insisted that we get something to eat because he knew that once we were there I wouldn't be able to eat anything. So we went to the only place that was open...Jack in the Box and I had a Pomegranet smoothie and an egg biscuit. I am glad that Mark made me eat as I was pretty hungry by the end.

We checked in the hospital and got settled in around 1:30 AM. They hooked me up to monitors and waited to see if I would start contracting and progressing on my own. Well, I didn't, so at 5:30 they started me on Pitosin. I started to have regular contractions and they were getting stronger! Finally around 11:00 AM I got an epideral (my doctor had to go stand in for the anesthesiologist in surgery so he could leave and give me the epideral...I am very, very, very grateful my doctor did this!) After the epideral I took a much needed nap. The doctor would come in and check me about every hour and at 1:15 he came in and asked if I was ready to start pushing!

She was already quite low and it was nice having Mark coaching me and counting because as I would push he would count and I could tell when something was happening because his counting started sounding like he was really excited! Finally at 2:10 she was born!

This is Abbigail shortly after she was born. I think the light was a little bright for her!

Here is the proud daddy with his little girl! She is in the middle of a big yawn.

Here is mom with Abbigail. This is after they moved us to the mom/baby center so I was able to clean up a bit. It felt really nice. :-)

Finally here is Abbigail all dressed and ready to come home. I love her hair! It went naturally into a faux hawk! We came home Sunday afternoon and we are so happy to finally have her here!

Our new home

Well, many of you know that Mark and I moved. We bought a house the beginning of November and we moved in, did a big remodel and all before Christmas!!! I told Mark we can never do that again. So here are some pictures.

This is our bedroom. There were these old built in closets that we ripped out. They were definatly old as they weren't long enough for my dresses as they would hit the ground.

This is from the hallway. This is another built in old closet with the bedroom door to the left.Demolition! This is from the hallway again showing all the closets that we ripped out.

This is in our bedroom looking through the wall that used to seperate it from the bedroom next door. It was such a small little room. If you put a bed in it you could barely walk around it. So we ripped down the wall and we made a master suite by cutting this room in half and making a bathroom and walk-in closet.

Here Mark is putting in a support beam in our bedroom as the closets we tore out actually bore some weight. (Oops!) But with the support beam in, all is well! It was quite the big heavy thing to manuver.

I thought this picture was funny for some reason. But Mark is putting sheet rock up for the bathroom and closet. His brothers were over, which helped alot in getting this done. I think we would still be working on it if they hadn't come and helped.

Here is the almost done room! This is from the hallway where there used to be the built in closet, it is now the entry to our bedroom. If you look on the floor where the cut-outs are those were the built-in closets that were in the room.

Here is the wall between the bedrooms. It now has the bathroom on the left and the closet on the right.

I will have to do another post with the finished product. I just need to take the pictures. So that was our big project right before Christmas. While we were doing this Mark and I had our bedroom in the family room, which is where all the kids were going to play when they came over for Christmas. So needless to say, I was a little stressed to get this done so we would have our room, and so the kids would have somewhere to play.

All we really need to do now are little things like put the door knobs on, and stuff like that. I'll post the finished product soon!

Prego pictures!

O.K. So I know it has been a long time since I posted, but I'm trying to do some catch up. This is me at about 8 months. Lets just say that it is getting much more difficult to move, I have heartburn everyday, and it is getting more and more difficult to sleep in my own bed as I need to sit up more to be comfortable and to be able to breath. But, the baby is doing well, and is growing as she should be. I feel her moving all the time, and she seems to like my left ribs the most. Her nursery is almost done and we are very excited for her arrival! I must admit that I am looking forward to not having this big belly anymore!

Global Warming my eye!

I just wanted everyone to see what we got here in Burley Saturday. Keep in mind that this is the middle of OCTOBER!!!! I don't think I'm quite ready for weather like this. However, it did get me in the Christmas mood :-)


I hope everyone is happy and having beautiful sunny weather!

IT'S A GIRL!!!!

Hello everyone,

Mark and I just found out on Monday that we are having a little girl! Mark wasn't too shocked as every male in his family has had a girl first. For some reason, I had it in my head that it was a boy, but I am happy either way! We are pretty excited. We have a few names in mind, but one seems to stick out more, but we'll see. It was so fun to see how much the baby has grown. I went in early in my pregancy to get a definate due date and she was so small! The lady doing the ultra-sound had to magnify it to get measurements. Then this time, she is so big! We were able to see her little profile and her little feet and fists. This just added fuel to the fire of how excited I am for her to get here!

As for Mark and I, we are doing well and looking forward to the holidays. I got a new calling in my ward where I teach the 5 year olds. I have to be very theatrical in telling the stories, but it keeps their attention. They seem like they will be pretty fun. We both like our ward. We went to an elder's quorum activity a couple weeks ago, which was shooting our guns at clay pigeons. It was pretty fun, except for the downpour that lasted about 5 minutes and soaked ya to the bone. I'm still working at Zion's bank for now. I guess I'm starting to look more pregnant as many people commented on that today. I'll have to post some prego pictures soon!