100th Post

Wow! 100 posts really? Considering how long they usually are too, I could have 300 if I made smaller ones. Here's another long update for your viewing pleasure.

First off-- what a roller-coaster of a week!!! My niece, Vittoria, had her scheduled open-heart surgery and no one expected anything but for her to sail right through it . She's had 15 previous surgeries and has done better than expected every time. This one however didn't go so well. There were a lot of complications and her heart was not functioning well enough on it's own so they have kept her on a ECHMO machine-- heart/lung machine, to give her body a rest and allow it to heal quicker. There has continued to be more complications and things that have gone wrong since then. Every morning around 6:30 we get an update text from James, my brother, and then throughout the day whenever they recieve new information or something happens. One time it's good news, the next it's not, the next time it's better, the next time it's not. My heart sinks every time I get one because I'm afraid of what it's going to say. We have faith that she's in the Lord's hands and if it's His will she'll pull through this. But it is still dificult to watch.

We went down to see her on Wednesday and that was a very emotional experience. I have never been more humbled than I was walking through the Pediatric ICU to see Vittoria. It was literally heart breaking to see her in there with tubes and wires over her entire body. We love her so much and it's just so hard to see her and her parents go through something like this.

Thursday after Luke got off work we headed back down to visit. We were blessed to be able to stay with my best friend, Janelle, that night so we could go back on Friday again. Friday we headed down after a good visit at the hospital to Luke's family in Castle Dale. Sunday we were ale to go back and all of my family, minus Joy, and most of the grandkids were able to be there. There is so much power in family! We had a family prayer for her and then the Priesthood holders gave James, Val, and Vittoria a blessing and it was a wonderful experience.

They have had such an outpouring of love. It's been completley amazing to see how many people have visited them and how many people we've heard of that are praying and fasting for her.
If you are one of those people, THANK YOU! You have no idea how much it helps knowing that.

Some pictures we have of our angel-niece/cousin
Mother's Day 2008-- Vittoria and Tianna loved dressing up together!

She is so good with babies-- you should see how well she takes care of her baby brother, Jacomo
In Dec 2008 at the cabin doing the Christmas Story Vittoria was the angel--- she certainly didn't have to practice that! She is always an angel!
This is from when we were still dating- Luke fell in love with Vittoria instantly!
And Tianna absolutely loves her! For the longest time she couldn't pronounce her name, but she talked about "Tradda" all the time. Now she calls her "Torya."

It's hard on Tianna not being able to see Vittoria. She knows we are at the hosptial to see her, but keeps asking where she is and why she can't see her. I can't wait until she can!
Thankfully we stopped by their house the weekend before the surgery to wish her well. We had been to the Oqquirh Mountain Temple and could stop by. It made Tianna's day to see cousin Vittoria.


For an update on what else we've been doing-- as you can tell, we haven't been home much. The 18th we attended the O.M. temple open house so we stayed the night at my Aunt's house to be there early. Later that day we had a Frandsen Reunion in Salt Lake. It was really fun! We got to swim and then visit with a lot of relatives we never get to see. And we got to show off this little beauty!


Then this past weekend we enjoyed more driving... bleh. Like I said, we went down to Salt Lake and then on to Luke's families house. We had a fun barbeque with them and watched an amazing firework display on Friday night. Saturday we were quite busy. We started out by visiting some grandparents and then went swimming in the new pool. It's quite impressive!
After swimming we went over to Price and ate at the new Wingers. We sent Aden and Tianna with Luke's mom to the Dino Mine Adventure Park and then back home while Monica and Chris and Luke and I (and Adelia) went on a date to see Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. We just finished listening to the book on CD a few days earlier--- with all our traveling it's been a lifesavor!

Now we are home for a few days before we have another crazy weekend... Our niece, Pyper is being blessed so we'll be attending that and then if all goes okay with Vittoria, Luke and my dad and some brothers are going to the Uintah's and I'm hanging out in Price for the week. At the end of the week we'll be back up here to Logan to bless Adelia. Anyone interested in attending
It is 9 Am at the Logan Stake Center--- you are more than welcome to campout in the back yard since it's so early.... and of course, hang out for food after the blessing! The trip was scheduled for this week so it would have worked out better with the blessings... but that's what happens in life. So it's going to be a marathon........... but in light of all that has happened, the inconvenience of things seems way to trivial to even worry about.



Pictures of the 24th weekend




This girl knows how to be a beach bum! She had her suit on but slept through the entire pool event!




ALSO Adelia turned 6 weeks old on the 25th and is growing and developing well! I took Tianna in to the dr. today because her eye was all puffy and continuing to grow-- come to find out, it's a mosquito bite. Weird.
That picture actually makes it look better than it really does... she can't hardly open her eye sometimes.

Tianna has also discovered one of the many joys of sisterhood-SHARING CLOTHES! Yes you may be asking, isn't she almost 3 and Adelia is only a month and a half? The answer is yes, but she somehow fit into a pair of newborn pants so now I ask you

WHO WEARS IT BETTER?




She's such a funny girl and Adelia is such a sweet little snuggler. I love my girls so much and thank Heavenly Father for them. They are both healthy and wonderful and I realize now more than ever what a blessing that is.

Plee's to Heaven

Our sweet little niece, Vittoria Frandsen, is in Primary Children's Hospital, battling with complications due to open heart surgery she had on Tuesday. She is the most amazing little girl and she's been through so much in her life. This was her 16th surgery in her 7 years of life.

There has been an ourpooring of love and support for their family through prayers across the entire world. But she can use more!
We have created a blog for her to show everyone this beautiful little girl and her family as well as give updates on her status in the hospital.
http://vittoriascorner.blogspot.com/

A Week of Busyness!!

We just have too much fun together I think! I can't keep up on the posts, and I always have to post too many pictures. I guess that means we either have too much fun or just take too many pictures! That's probably it!

Wednesday we celebrated our fourth anniversary! Wooot Wooot! I love that man! Since it was a Wednesday and I had young womens to go to (thankfully they went earlier than usual) and we have a new baby, we didn't get to do much, but we had a good time. I got home around 7 and Luke had just gotten home from the store and began cooking Haitain food (from his mission.) This is no quick meal, mind you... so we ate dinner at 9:00. Then we put Tianna in bed and I cut Luke's hair while we watched the movie, "Knowing". Yep, that was our romantic evening together! :D
Okay, so it wasn't THAT romantic, but we enjoyed it-- and I got to see my husband dance around the living room with his little girls and that was even better! Plus he made me the same kind of food that he had made on our first day. So that was really sweet also!

My cute hubby making me dinner-- and my beautiful flowers he gave me!

Thursday night we attended Luke's company party. It was way fun! The theme was luau and so we dressed up a bit and ate REALLY REALLY good food, Tianna played carnival games, and we watched Polynesian dancing! Tianna got really into the show. They told us to yell "Cha-hoo" whenever we liked sometthing and she yelled it the whole time. Everyone was laughing at her! She even got to go up and learn a dance with the other little girls. It was soooooooo cute!
Go figure-- You ask someone to take your pic and you get 3 inches of sky and cut out an entire person! The other picture does have Tianna in it, but of course, my eyes are shut! The first one would have been so cute!



Friday we wanted to do something different than usual since Luke got off work early. We decided to go on a family hike. I've been wanting to hike to the Wind Caves up Logan Canyon since we moved up here and so we did it! Oh buddy-- it was quite a hike! It's basically up an entire mountain-- 900 feet in 1.3 miles. Tianna did exceptionally well for a not-even-3-year old. She hiked most of the way up and then Luke carried her on his shoulders for the rest of the way up and the whole way down. A little less than half way up she started to get bored and so we said she was like Dora and had to hike to the "castle." Well that meant Luke was Diego and I was Isa (the Iguana) and she said Adelia could be Dora too. Somehow the story evolved into we needed to rescue Princess Aroura from a huge tree and take her to the castle. I thought it would last for a few minutes but she called us Diego and Isa the ENTIRE time and still to this day I'm referred to as Isa most of the time.
"Hey Isa!" "What Dora?" "What are you doing, Isa?" "Hiking to the Castle, Dora." "Hey Diego!".................. for 2 miles!!! :) it was fun!


This looks out from the caves-- keep in mind, the road where we started is at the BASE of the mountains.






Little Adelia did really well on the hike too! She loves being carted around ALLLLLLLLL day so she loved being in her little carrier. She fell asleep and slept the entire way up the mountain. Once we got there she woke up and ate and then slept most of the way down.
There are just a few things we would do different if we did it again. Number one-- bring bug spray!!! Secondly, take the same way down and you go up-- we took a slightly different path and it took us to a couple of places one should not have a 4 week old baby! But we managed AND it was shorter--just a bit scarier too!

Saturday we had to get work done. Luke worked on our fence in the backyard. He took one large panel and made it into two pieces to make a large gate-big enough to get a trailer into the back. I was impressed with his skills! Meanwhile, I weeded and took care of the kiddies. It felt really good to get some projects done! This week we have continued our yard work. We have this one long stretch under some trees that weedy grass comes up. We had tried to plant wild flowers but they just get lost in the weeds. So we took out all the weeds, laid down that black fabric stuff, lined it with rocks, and covered it with bark. Now it looks really nice!

On a side-note... our garden is flourishing! We have a ton of zucchini and peppers/chili's and everything else is growing very well. We may actually have a bit of corn this year too!! I guess even if we have 2 edible ears of corn this year we'll have done better than last year! HAHA.


On Monday our little baby girl turned 1 month old! It's crazy how fast time goes by! She's doing really well-- growing and becomng more and more alert each day. Like I said, she loves being carried around. You put her down and she wakes up and gets mad, you pick her up and she immediately falls asleep. That's a bit frustrating when we need to get something done, but it's fun holding her so we don't complain too much.
To commemorate her 1 month birthday Luke made a cake! He's a funny boy!

And, last but not least, now that Adelia is one month old, Tianna seems to be ready for triplets! But Mommy isnt! NOR WOULD SHE EVER BE!

The Fourth.. and Stuff= Picture Overload!

We are already a week into July!!!!?!?!?! How did that happen? Adelia turned 3 weeks old on Saturday and I can't believe it's been that long. At the same time though, I also can't believe it's only been 3 weeks because she feels so much a part of our family that it's hard to remember what it was like before.

For an update on her-- no Chicken Pox thank goodness!! But, sad to say, she did come down with a little cold. (yes I know, it's just ridiculous that we keep getting sick in our house) Tianna got over the pox with very little distress but she came down with a cough at the end of last week too. By Sunday Adelia was congested and coughing so I took her into the doctor yesterday and he said it's just a mild cold but she should be better in a few days. She already is Each day is a lot better so hopefully we'll be DONE WITH ALL OF THE STUPID SICKNESS STUFF until Winter.
One nice thing about taking her into the doctors was to see how her weight it going. She's still so little and I was curious as to what she weighs now. 7 lbs and 13 oz. One thing about her though is that she may be small but she is VERY STRONG!

ON TO OUR WEEKEND'S EVENTS! Luke had Friday off and we spent it with the Peacock's up on Ferron Mountain fishing. It was a beautiful day but had a cold breeze so I spent a lot of time in the car with the babe. Luke and Tianna had quite a bit of luck in the fishing department though! They ended up with the biggest fish! And yes, I mean "they" in a very liberal term-- it was all Luke while Tianna and Aden played their little hearts out nearby. They are so fun to watch together!

Yes people, he is wearing pink glasses! Sorry Bert, couldn't resist!

Saturday we were in Scofield for the Pleasant Valley Day events. We watched the cute little parade and Tianna made out like a bandit with the candy. Her and Adelia looked so cute in their red, white and blue!
The rest of Saturday was spent bummin' around the cabin, playing with the fam, riding 4-wheelers, and watching the fireworks. Sunday we got to see our new little niece who was born 2 days after Adelia. Her name is Pyper. We took some pictures of the two girls and it was sooooo stinkin' cute! They wrapped their legs around each other like little twins. Okay, say "Awwwwwwwwwwwww"-- you know you want to!

Tomorrow is our 4th wedding anniversary. It's amazing how fast life takes you. Our little family has doubled in size in those four years! Wow!! Honey, I love you so much! Happy Anniversary! Thank you for making the past four years the best of my life and for making me smile every single day. I'm so very very happy to be married to you. You are my best friend and my EVERYTHING!!!!