Bear Lake

This is the little vacation we took with my family to Bear Lake. It was a lot of fun, with beautiful weather, and great company. Here are some pictures of our get away.


We didn't want Abbi to disturb everyone, and our room was a little cramped (you pack a ton of stuff when you have a kid!) So Abbi was confined to the closet as her sleeping quarters. She acutally did quite well.

We bought a floater for Abbi with a cool little canopy. She LOVED the water. Her little legs were just kicking like crazy! Reminded me of a duck, don't see much going on above, but crazy down below! Swimming tuckered her out and she slept a LONG time, so we tried to go swimming every night!

This is the north beach at Bear Lake. The Malmstrom kids and Chris Condie playing in the sand. It was a beautiful day. We also did our traditional water games, which the Welch clan DOMINATED! (as Mark gives me a smirk as I type that!)

Abbi didn't enjoy the beach as much, because the farther out in the water, the colder it got. So we had to keep her close to the beach, and she couldn't kick like she wanted to, plus she got sunscreen in her eye. We took her out of her floater and let her sit in the water. She liked the feel of sand on her feet, but quickly got bored. So off to grandma who was more than happy to take her and to give her warm loves.

This is Abbi all ready to go spilunking (cave exploring) We went to Minitonka cave. It is constantly 40 degrees inside. I thought Abbi was cute peeking over the side of the backpack. She didn't like when we stopped because she got bored quickly, but she liked it. However, being dark, she did doze off in the middle for a little bit.

This is Dad walking on the "boardwalk" that you have to take to get to the cave. On one side solid rock, the other side a 50 ft. drop. Mom was nervous whenever Mark got close to the open side.


Abbi peeking out right before we go into the cave.

These are steps made in the 1930's during the Great Depression. It gave men work for 9 months to make the trail for this cave. There's about 9 million stairs! Most were carved from the rock.

Apparently there was something on the ceiling. But this is most of the family in the cave. It was hard to take pictures as you can imagine it's kind of dark inside.

This is at the end of the trail, called the Wedding Room. There was acutally a couple that got married down here. Why, I don't know. It's muddy and cold. (Mark liked the temperature) The stalagmite (don't know how to spell) is called the bride, and there is a stalactite above it that is the groom. Hence the Wedding Room.

Sorry about the sideways picture, But this is when we got out of the cave. Abbi was good just chillin in her seat.


This is Mark and the baby on the "Boardwalk" We thought the scenery was pretty.

Mark and Abbi ready for a bike ride. It is Abbi's first bike ride. She seemed to like it. Abbi seems like anything that is outdoors. Even with all the bumps of a bike ride, she still managed to doze off.

Abbi in the bike trailer. She's still too small to sit alone in it, so we shoved the car seat in and strapped it down. It worked and she liked it. She has a screen in front of her, which she likes to feel.

This is when we first arrived. All of us are putting our food we brought away and making lunch. The condo we were in was very nice. Thanks mom and dad for putting it all together!

This is the beautiful view from the upstairs bedroom window.

This is Whitney catchin some rays reading her book on the balcony.

Overall we had a great time. It was perfect because it was a vacation that when we came home, we didn't feel like we needed ANOTHER vacation to recoup. Thanks mom and dad again for putting all this together. We love you!

Fun pictures of Abbi

O.K., so this isn't a picture of Abbi, but I just finished making this, it's the first one I've made (hence the tea dying isn't the best) but, I like it!

Abbi was in a pretty good mood, so we took some fun pictures! I know that I am biased, but I think that she is one CUTE baby!

It looks like she is deep in thought, but really all it is, is she loves to chew on her fists. I've tried to stick a pacifier in there, but she just spits it out and sticks her fist back in.

She is learning how to hold on to her rattle. She's not the best at it, but we are working on it! She likes to look at it and she likes the rattle, but she prefers to have you hold it and entertain her.

Something tickled her fancy! This baby LOVES to laugh, and we LOVE to do all we can to get her to!

While we were visiting Candace in Logan, Mark and I were trying to get dressed, and Abbi just wasn't very happy, so Mark turned the TV on to a cartoon, muted it and set up this little area for her. We thought it was funny how mesmoried she looked as she watched the cartoon.

This is Abbi chillin in her car seat as we drive to Boise.

Finally, this is a video of Abbi "talking" in the car on our way to Boise.

Here's what's new!

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!