Parks and Pumpkins

About a month ago I was reading in my readers digest about a woman who put together a community project to build an "all access park" in her hometown. Jonny and I have always wished we lived near a wheelchair friendly park and have talked about how we could get one built here. Well the article inspired us to do a little research on the topic. Jonny has called many people and started the long process to see how to get one here in our town.
We found out that 2 hours away such a project had just been completed so we took a day to visit this brand new park with Brooklyn, her cousins, and of course to test it's claim to be "wheelchair friendly." (notice there is no rocks or bark, only soft ground....I love it!)


There are very few places that Brooklyn can take her wheelchair besides maybe the mall or church, so she was thrilled to cruise around this park. She loved keeping up with her cousins and shrieked with happiness the entire time. Anytime we helped her with her wheelchair we were screamed at that "she could do it herself!" When really she was flying down the ramps at a very unsafe speed!

"Look I can do it myself!"

I am not proud to say that the last part of the summer I avoided taking Brooklyn to the park at all. I was too hot and it was getting more and more difficult to carry her up and down everything the more pregnant I got. It was so fun to see Brooklyn be so independent at this park that I was able to put my swollen feet up and watch her take off!

Even the swings are made extra big so it was easy to get her in and out with her braces on. I don't know how many times I have struggled getting her out that I have almost had to go find help!

Before you continue reading..... this is my disclaimer:

This was not my idea

I resisted the whole time

If you knew my mom, you would know how this all happened........

Which of these things is not like the others? One of these things just doesn't belong....(you know the tune)

I guess my mom knew this was the only way to get me to post a pregnant picture of myself! My mom came up with the bright idea and seriously harassed me for at least a week to paint my belly and take pictures of it. Someday I may enjoy them a little more, but it's sad when the size of my face matches my belly!

At least Jonny and Brooklyn seem to be enjoying themselves!

You have to admit that my mother, the artist, did a pretty good job making it look so real

Since it's been almost 3 months since my last update I feel like there is so much to catch up on, but I just decided to put up a few pictures of my favorite 3 year old. Without her there really isn't much to talk about!

I briefly thought about posting a pregnant picture of myself then figured I didn't need to publicly humiliate myself anymore than necessary, so I deleted it. With just a few weeks left I am getting really excited but also really nervous. Though I probably complain more than I should (sorry Jonny) I feel so blessed to have made it this far in the pregnancy so on the other hand I am thrilled to be as wide as I am tall since that means the baby is getting bigger too!



First Day of Preschool!!!
I decided to do a Pre-school with four other moms in my neighborhood. I was sure my clingy little Brooklyn would never let me leave her at a new house every week, but she LOVES it! I am grateful for the other sweet moms who carry Brooklyn where she needs to go during their turn having her at their home.



NEW BIKE!
My mom found the cutest bike at a yard sale and Brooklyn was SOOOO excited to try to ride it. Try is the key word. After switching her special pedals and shoes to this bike, we realized it was just a little too hard for her to do. Jonny had to walk behind her and pedal her legs for her. It wasn't long until his legs started to burn and he switched everything back to her old bike. Maybe next summer those cute legs will be strong enough (Brooklyn's I mean, not Jonny's)



NEW STAIRS!
So every morning Brooklyn wakes up and screams for us to get her out of her bed. During the day she also loves to play on her bed but she needs help getting up and down from it so her Handy Daddy built her the cutest stairs to help her get up and down. This was her the first time just waking up and crawling down them. Though she has gotten better, she is still so excited about them that instead of doing it all alone, she demands that we watch proudly EVERY time she gets up or down.

The stairs are also a little toy box. Now Brooklyn can finally reach all of her toys

It's probably wishful thinking but hopefully my next post with be in a week or two announcing the arrival of our new little Girl!!

Bear Lake

A few weeks ago we took a little family vacation to Bear Lake. We stayed in a beautiful beach home and enjoyed four sun filled days on the beach.

Brooklyn was quite the Beach Bum and loved playing in the water and sand all day. She was a little too fearless in the water and tried crawling in up over her head a few times



We rented a jet ski which was alot of fun until Me, Jonny, and Brooklyn tipped on it going about 2 miles per hour. After that Brooklyn didn't even like to talk about the jet ski let alone sit back on it! It ended up breaking down the last day and now we are all splitting the $500 dollar bill to fix it. We are all blaming eachother for who "actually" broke it........

Just enjoying a small bite to eat for dinner

My crazy grandpa joined us for most of the trip and towed the kids in his louder than life riding lawn mower around the neighborhood and down to the beach. The only problem was the exhaust pipe would blow right in the poor kids faces. Carbon monoxide poisoning anyone?

Brookie loves to be like her Nana

A*L*O*H*A

The whole Fisher family took off to Hawaii this past week for a little Sun and R&R. We did get some good relaxing in, but the sun was a little hit and miss. It rained most days, but I don't expect any one feel would sorry for us now would they? We had a blast and here are a few pictures of our trip.

The View from our Beach house. Not too bad huh?

Hanauma Bay where we did some snorkeling

The Hawaii Temple

Despite the rain, we got a picture in front of one of our favorite temples

My Poor father in law got an infection in his ear the first day on the Island and when he was able to venture out of the beach house, this is how he had to enjoy the rest of his vacation. Ahhh...memories. I have a feeling this is definitely a trip he will never forget.

Our Rough and Tough Boogie Boardin' Men!

Now this is what Hawaii is all about!

The whole clan enjoying dinner at one of our favorite restaurants

In our "fancy" bus at the Macadamia Nut Farm. This ended up being one of the funnest (is that a word?) things we did.

Drinking fresh coconut milk from my new man!

All the girls headed out for a day of SHOPPING!!! This ended up being the hottest day we had, which made about six hours of outdoor shopping a little miserable. I'm pretty sure my feet swelled to double their size..... which I didn't even know was possible!


Having dinner on Waikiki Beach....and having some fun taking pictures

is it any wonder he has back problems????

We were so grateful that my mom was so willing to watch our little handful for the eight days we were gone. Brooklyn didn't ever want us to come back she was having such a blast with her Nana. Thanks mom for watching Brooklyn!.................

But no thanks for the short, short, oh so short A-line haircut you took it upon yourself to get for Brooklyn while we were away!

This isn't a very good picture, it actually is quite cute. A little too short. A little too a-line for my liking, but this little girl looks cute no matter what, right?. And how could I get mad at the only person willing to watch my child for eight days?!?

IT'S OFFICIAL!!!!!

BROOKLYN'S GONNA BE A BIG SISTER!
I guess it has been official for a while, but we just found out we are going to be having another little GIRL runnin' around the house come October! We are so excited, but also apprehensive. Though this pregnancy has been a lot like Brooklyn's, in many ways I hope it's not! I keep waiting for something to go wrong but so far so good. The ultrasound found that our little girl appears to be healthy and yes, we had them double/triple check to make sure the spine was closed!

We also feel so blessed that I have even made it this far in the pregnancy since we have lost two pregnancies this past year. I believe I have officially been pregnant for a year (don't act like you can't tell!) Here is a brief summary of our struggles this past year..........

I got pregnant early last summer and felt that I had won the lottery. I wasn't nearly as sick as I was with B and was going to have the baby in the spring which I thought was just perfect. I kept thinking how easy all this was finally going to be. There wasn't a day that I didn't give thanks or feel that this picture perfect pregnancy was the Lord's way of giving me a break, that I thought I deserved. Well at 12 weeks I realized that this pregnancy was not going to be. I passed out a few times at home with a frantic husband and mom who called 911 and I was taken to the hospital to stop my hemorrhaging. The recovery of the miscarriage proved to be much worse than labor. I couldn't lift Brooklyn for almost two weeks because of the loss of blood and I had and chronic headaches. Thanks to my wonderful sister, mom, and husband, I was able to lay on the couch for days (weeks?) recovering. My sister no longer fears another labor, it is a miscarriage she fears!!

Six weeks later I found out I was pregnant again. YAY! I didn't think life could be so cruel and take this one away, but it still nagged at the back of my mind. So I never told a soul, and suffered in first-trimester silence while being sick, tired and putting on ANOTHER 5 lbs. At exactly 12 weeks my worst fears came to light once again. Only this time I didn't have to pay the $2000 dollar hospital bill and was quite relieved for a "normal" miscarriage (oh, the things we become grateful for). Though physically I recovered from this pregnancy quicker, lets just say I didn't get dressed for about a month. This may be where ANOTHER 5 lbs came from but its hard to tell since sweats are so forgiving!

Six weeks later...... I become pregnant again. Only this time I cried. I wanted to scream "how fertile am I ??"I didn't think it would happen so soon and had planned on waiting until I could function like a normal person again, not to mention I had no faith that his pregnancy would work out. This time the doctor put me on progesterone to lower the risk of another miscarriage. It is this stuff that I attribute to making me want to die every day until I was 16 weeks. I have never been sicker or more tired. Not to mention by this point I was so TIRED of being tired and so SICK of being sick from my other pregnancies, but this was much worse, so I took it as a good sign. Every day I couldn't get off the couch, I smiled to myself and thought "well I'm still pregnant!" Now I was grateful for being sick?!?


So here we are FINALLY! From day one Brooklyn told us this was a girl (we thought it was a boy), and she has since named her. I'm pretty sure she just thinks this one will "go- away" as the others have, but now that I'm getting a little belly, I think she understands a little more. Jonny is up for husband of the year award and is thrilled to not be Mr. Mom anymore. He has been amazing these past months, coming home from work every day and cleaning the house, cooking dinner, and learning to do pig-tails on Brooklyn sometimes better than I can. I couldn't do it without him and it's strange how trials bring you closer than before.

Wish us luck in the next few months!

Ride Baby Ride

About a month ago Jonny and I went out for a walk and ran into some friends who had a little boy who was just learning to ride a bike. The second we got home Brooklyn kept saying that she wanted to ride her bike. It broke my heart to tell her no, or that she couldn't, so we plopped her on her bike, grabbed some blocks of wood so her feet would reach the pedals, and then made the classy decision to duct tape her feet to the blocks, and the blocks to the pedals ( we were laughing hysterically as we duct taped her feet to the pedals.....the things we never thought we would do!). Well it worked for a few minutes until her feet pulled out of the tape, and she was thrilled, but we knew we had to improve it.......

So we bought some vecro and stuck the wood to the pedal, and the shoes to the wood. Though these are special shoes that fit over Brooklyn's braces and her best walkin shoes (and they were a very generous gift from a friend), she would not be able to ride her bike without them, so they remain stuck to her bike!

We initially thought we would just push her around and she would eventually get the idea of how to push her legs, but she surprised us and immediately took off and pedalled all on her own. We were shocked and thrilled. Since she refuses to use her walker for more than two steps anymore, this is great therapy and EXCITING!!! She shows us more every day what she can do.

I LOVE IT!


This is the first time on her bike. If you look closely, you can see about three different kinds of tape, and about four layers of duct tape going across her feet!

Three Year Pictures

These are some of Brooklyn's three year pictures that Holly took (I've added her blog link at the side). Once again I love them!

Love This Face!!!!