Sorry it's been a while . . .

Everyone knows how busy life can get, so I'm going to do a little photo dump and give a brief explanation of what been going on in the Johnson family.

My cerclage surgery went great and we found out we're having a GIRL! I get my cerclage taken out on Feb 1st and she can come anytime after that! I loved the practice I was going to but after taking Bradley classes and doing more research on natural childbirth I decided to hired my birthing teacher as my doula and I also started seeing a midwife. It's been kinda crazy to change from seeing a perinatologist to a midwife but I'm feeling less anxiety as I get closer to the due date and I'm very excited to deliver at the birthing center.

Chris and I have been working hard getting ready for the baby. We moved to a lower level apartment and spent most of our winter break pack and unpacking. We also had to get the carpet replaced (gross cat smell wouldn't go away). Now that we are more settled we're just organizing and preparing for our little princess!

Chris and I on Halloween . . . let the never ending sweets in the house begin. I was a hostess cupcake and Chris was being "blown away" we had fun at our church's "trunk-or-treat" and enjoyed seeing our primary kids all decked out.

I turned 22! Chris surprised me with a trip to the aquarium. It was a fun night and we have tons of pictures and videos of all the different creatures. The highlight was the sting ray petting tank!

These two pictures were taken on Thanksgiving. We enjoyed a nice Thanksgiving meal with Chris' side of the family, then we left after dinner and drove to my sister's house for dessert and game. First photo is Chris' grandparents that drove down from Utah and second photo is me and my sisters! Ph and my sister is going to have another little boy! We're due 3 days apart from each other and it's been pretty exciting for the whole family!

Chris turned 25! We celebrated with a quiet evening in. (I'll make it up to him next year when I'm not all pregnant and tired.)

Christmas was nice and we have so much to be grateful for!

We had our Mexican food on Christmas Eve and made our sticky buns for Christmas morning (and Chris ate grapefruit). It was full of fun, family, and tradition. Last Christmas we were still depressed from losing Peter and Macie and this time around it was nice to put up their ornaments on the tree and feel their sweet little spirits again.

We also had our 3 year anniversary on the 22nd and it was another quiet evening in and we caught up on much needed sleep.

We also had a little party at our new place on New Years Eve. We had a few friends over, ate a bunch of snack, drank sparkling cider, and played with sparklers (that are now legal in AZ!)

This is just on of the hundreds of pictures of my baby shower. It was such a great day! Props to everyone who had anything to do with it. I felt sooooo loved and spoiled. If you want to look at more photos they are on my facebook page.

Also later that day we had a baptism for my sister's friend Oliver. It was a nice baptism and everyone could feel the Spirit.

After my shower and before the baptism is when I heard about the shooting in Tucson and couldn't help to feel sad and confused by this senseless act of hatred and violence, but was quickly comforted by the Spirit. My prayers go out to all the victims and family members.

Well I should go. I've been nesting like crazy and I have so much to do to prepare for this baby. So many projects to finish, I need to get started on all the thank you notes from the shower, do the laundry, make a couple exchanges, pack a hospital bag, fix my birthing plan, and SO MUCH MORE!

It's here!!! My ooey-gooey sticky buns! Enjoy!

Quick Cinnamon Rolls

6 doz 3 doz 2 doz

Warm water 3 ½ cups 1 ¾ cup 1 cup 3 tab

Sugar ¾ cup 6 Tab ¼ cup

Oil 1 cup ½ cup 1/3 cup

Yeast 6 Tab 3 Tab 2 Tab

Mix warm water, sugar, oil and yeast together and let sit for 15 minutes. This allows yeast to start working and rise. It will grow a lot.

Eggs 3 1 or 2 1

Salt 1 Tab ½ Tab 1 tea

Flour 10 ½ C. 5 ¼ C. 3 ½ C.

Add eggs salt and flour to above mixture. Stir in a little at a time. Knead a little to get the rest of the flour in.

Roll out for dinner rolls or cinnamon rolls. If dinner rolls, form and put butter on dough before rolling into rolls.

If cinnamon rolls: melt butter and spread over dough. Sprinkle with brown sugar and cinnamon or use combined cinnamon sugar. You can also add raisins or chopped nuts. Roll up and cut.

Place on greased cookie sheet. Let rise 15 or more minutes. Bake in 375 degree oven for 10-15 minutes. Remove to cooking racks or wax paper. Ice with icing after removing from trays.

Cinnamon Roll Frosting (Use this one!)

4 oz cream cheese, softened

1/2 c butter, softened

1 3/4 c powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla flavor

1/8 tsp lemon flavor

1/2 tsp salt

Whip the cream cheese and butter till fluffy. Add powdered sugar one cup at a time. Add the vanilla flavor, lemon flavor and salt and whip for 1minute

Icing (This is more of a glaze)

¼ cup butter

2 cups powdered sugar

¼ cup milk

1 tea vanilla

Combine and glaze rolls.

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Now for step by step photos of what they should look like.

Knead the dough by hand, food processor, or your dough setting on your bread machine. If you're having a rough day kneading by hand can help you get your frustrations out and can be a little therapeutic :)

Roll out your dough onto a clean countertop or surface. I use a pastry board because our apartment's countertops do NOT look trustworthy. Then using a knife (or in my case a silicone basting brush) liberally spread the desired amount of melted butter across the entire dough surface. Make sure the dough is rolled into the closest resembling shape of a rectangle as you can get it to.

Then by hand crumble brown sugar across the dough's surface. I use light or dark brown sugar, it just depends on what I have in my pantry or what mood I'm in.

Now lightly sprinkle cinnamon across the dough's surface. This is the third layer (butter, brown sugar, then cinnamon). You can add sliced or crumbled nuts if you want to. I'm allergic, but I can imagine walnuts or pecans would be great with this recipe.

Now begin to roll the dough tightly until it looks like . . .

THIS! Now you can use a knife, floss, or my personal favorite, a pastry scraper to cut out your sticky buns!

Have your pan ready and greased. It is also smart to preheat the oven now, if you haven't done so.

Place rolls next to each other and using your thumb press the center down. When pan is full place into preheated oven and follow the directions above.

If you don't press the center down it will look like the cinnamon roll on the right in this picture.

Now you FROST! You can frost in the pan while they are still warm so it melts, or you can plate the rolls and then frost to the desired amount.

Well I hope you enjoy! I know I'm going to make these next week for the 180th Semi-annual General Conference (check out lds.org or mormon.org if interested)

Faith is not hoping, but expecting

. . . and so am I!

Well the cat's out of the bag. Everyone can stop thinking that I've been gaining weight, because I'm pregnant (and have actually lost 20 lbs).

We're trying to stay optimistic and praying for a healthy baby we can take home. I'll post more later but I'll leave you with some videos for the time being . . .

OK I'm back. I actually found out I was pregnant really early, normally before most women do and I was in disbelief thinking it was twins again. We had been trying for a while so it wasn't a surprise or anything. Then my hormone levels weren't where the dr. wanted them to be and I thought I was threatening to miscarry. Then we saw it was just one baby it had a heartbeat and I could relax a little more.

I knew it was going to be a long road and it didn't help that I have almost the exact due date as Peter and Macie, so when October 8th roles around, I'll be 20 weeks pregnant again. This time around I also had a cerclage procedure around 12 weeks. I didn't like the spinal or having to be in the hospital but it's something Christopher and I had prayed about and we thought this would give our child the best outcome and keep it in there longer and hopefully full term.

I have a wonderful team of Dr.s at Phoenix Perinatal Assoc. that keep a close eye on me. It's a night a day difference from my last doctor (who's name I will leave out). The surgery went great, my doctor kept commenting on how I had the best cervix he'd ever seen and called in every resident he could find to come check it out. I didn't feel very comfortable at the time, but atleast I was numbed and couldn't see what they were looking at. I was discharged later that evening when the spinal tap wore off and I could prove to them I could walk and pee on my own. I was so excited to get out of there I over did it just walking to the car and wound up in the hospital the next day due to extreme back pain (most likely from the spinal) I PRAY I don't have to have a C-section, if so I'll demand they knock me out and wake me up later.

Since my surgery I get ultrasounds every 2 weeks and we've gotten some "best guesses" on the gender, but I wont get a better guess until my anatomy scan on Oct. 11th (my sister and I have them on the same day!) and it wont be 100% final until he or she gets here. Also we have names picked out but probably wont share them due to unwanted feedback that will follow.

Well that's all I can think of and I hope you guys are all doing well. Chris and I both work part time, go to school full time and try to balance everything else inbetween. Here are some ultrasound pictures to show the progression . . .

16/17 weeks

End of the summer

So I've been working hard to trying to make our blog look cuter because I can't figure out for the life of me how to upload photos all the way from Christmas to my macbook. If you know apple please email me :)

The plan is I will just upload photos later, but if not I'll do a photo dump on another post.

I don't even know where I left off. School ended for another semester and Chris survived his first Organic Chemistry, and I went from Straight As to Straight Bs, which bumped me .01 away from my GPA that has kept me on the Dean's list. :( I'll get over it. I'm halfway through all my credits and I'm just trying to keep on trucking through until I can finally get that degree. I think after undergrad is over Chris and I are just going to pack up or sell everything and move to Boston or Colorado. We need a break from AZ.

Over the summer we were able to make it to Utah for the Groberg family reunion, which was fun and I haven't been to one in quite a few years. Pretty neat seeing all my cousins all grown up and starting families of their own.

On a sad note, a few days before the reunion we had a family funeral on Chris' side of the family. On father's day Chris' cousin's youngest son was hit by a car, he was hurt badly and passed away a week later. That week I said so many prayers for Jackson. Jackson's final act of service in the world was to give life to 4 other people through organ donation. His funeral and services were so touching, so see all that strength and faith, and to see the church's chapel so full, it was so touching. A few weeks before Jackson passed away his family came to visit us in AZ. It was so great to get to know him a little better and I'll always remember how he made us laugh, and the most sincere prayers. He loved playing the falling blocks game with me on my computer (commonly known as Tetris). When dedicating his gravesite his grandmother read a poem about butterflies and his cousins got to do a butterfly release. It was all so touching and I am so grateful I got to know him 3 of the 5 years of his life.

Some happy news is I have a new niece, she's such a chunky cutie pie.

Other good news, is I found out that I'm going to be an aunt again! My sister is pregnant!

Well, work starts tomorrow and school starts next week. I'm taking all online classes so I hope I can stay on top of everything. I also hope I can figure out how to upload all my photos on my laptop then some of them on here. Hope I didn't leave anything out, but I should catch up later .

The curse of 3

So the past 2 weeks have been really rough on me. It started March 17th during my spring break I just couldn't keep anything down after hours of vomiting I decided to drive myself to the ER to get some IV and Zofran, then sleep during the morning and go to work in the afternoon. Well that didn't work out, the DR. ran some labs and discovered my white blood cell count was over double what it should be . . . which means infection. Started poking around and one spot hurt and he was all worried about my gal bladder so I was kept for 24 hour observation (#1) . . . Here's a picture of one of the 3 failed attempts to get an IV in . . .
That's after a week of healing too . . . Anyways I was sent home to rest and take two different antibiotics. Then school was back in and I was still recovering and was running late and slammed my finger in the door. Broken (#2) Then a few days later I woke up covered in hives (#3)! I couldn't figure out what I was allergic to so I called our old bishop (thank Heaven he's an allergy Dr.) and told me to take Zyrtec. Did that went to a baby shower and the next morning I decided to sleep on the couch while I washed the bedding (just in case it was the detergent) and I had even more hives and my hands and feet were swollen I couldn't close my fingers or walk or do anything. Later it spread to my lips and I looked like Angelina Jolie! Here's is a picture of that . . . (attractive, I know)
Well I was told I'm having a reaction to the antibiotics from the hospital from a week ago and to stop taking them and I'm now on Prednisone (spelling?) which is helping. Its going to take a few weeks to get everything out of my system before I can get all my allergy tests done, but I pray that the curse will be broken after this third "inconvenience". I'm really behind on school so I should go.

But before I do I wanted to let you know that Chris and I are just busy with school and work. I finally got a car (pictures to come)! Toby is really growing and doing a lot better with training, even though his nick name is Toby the Terrorist! Some sad news is my family dog Stevee died, I'm just glad he's not suffering anymore :(

When I'm all caught up with my school work I'm going to update my craft blog. I recently did many crafts for my sister-in-law who's have a girl in May, so keep your eyes open for that!

Hope everyone else is doing well and I wish I had some bigger more exiting news to share with you guys, but we don't.

Life After Our Losses

The past few months have really been a struggle. We're both just trying to keep busy and cope. We wanted to thanks all those who prayed for us and we ask you to continue keeping our family in your prayers. Also a big thanks to those who donated some money to help out with hospital bills and memorial service costs. (The Peter and Macie Johnson Memorial Fund at Wells Fargo if you would like to help too). Also thank you to those who came to the memorial service.

Many want to know what happened and all I would like to say addressing that is the night of October 7th I went into premature labor and delivered my sweet babies the next day. They were not strong enough to survive. I don't like to call is a miscarriage or a stillbirth because deep down I know they lived for a few seconds each. Chris and I watched Peter's heart beat and we also wittnessed Macie struggle to breath. We got to hold them for a few hours and I was released from the hospital the next morning. Healing afterwords was a struggle and frustrating because of the doctors I had. I was hospitalized 2 weeks later due to a missed infection. Healing emotionally is another thing I struggle with. I think about them and miss them every single moment. I can't wait until I get to raise my perfect children in Heaven.

Chris and I returned to school 2 weeks after everything and we were able to finish up the semester. I'm so thankful for all of our professors that helped us.

Right now we're both just working hard, looking for a new car, and getting ready for another semester of school.


Oh I almost forgot! We bought a puppy and named him Toby, he was also born on October 8th, so we have our hands full trying to train and entertain him.

Maybe another day I'll post pictures of our Christmas, but right now I said everything I needed and wanted to be said. Many people ask if there is anything they can do and other than prayers the only thing I can say is don't forget those special babies that don't get to go home with their parents. It's always comforting to Chris and I knowing that our children touched others lives and are not forgotten about. Also, don't stress over the little things, and never complain or take for granted a moment with your own children.

Our hearts are shattered at the loss of our twins.
Peter James and Macie Pearl.

We're just taking time to really heal and sort through everything.
We are planning on a memorial service.

We feel all your prayers and thank you for them.

It's a . . . and a . . .

Twin A is a BOY!
Heart beat 150
Weight 7 oz.

Twin B is a GIRL!
Heart beat 136
Weight 8 oz.


I'm so excited to know, and I was right all along! They both look healthy and when I get some time to scan the photos I will put those up . . .

Hope everyone is having as great as a day as we are!

Twinners update

So I hit week 15. Time just keeps ticking along and it seems like February will never come.

The twins are measuring perfectly and I heard their heartbeats (finally) for the first time last Friday. The first was 145, and the second was 150. I see the Dr. in 3 weeks and then we will schedule the BIG ultrasound. I use to was a boy and girl, but now I don't really care, as long as they are both developing fine and make it safely to me. My belly started to pop out this week, but I can still fit in my normal clothes. They didn't like the rapid weight loss in the beginning, and I haven't gained anything since then. They say a steady pound a week should be fine, and I think it'll come, because I'm getting my appetite back. The other day Chris and I were watching this comedian on TV and he said the words Doritos, and I looked at Chris and told him to add chips and dip to the shopping list. The smart man I married left for the grocery store 2 minutes later. Chris is the biggest blessing in my life. Such a caring man and a hard worker.

We are both back at school now and trying to get use to the hundreds of pages we have to read. He's busy with all his science classes and labs and I am busy just walking from class to class in the heat.

We also bought a new (used) car. It'll fit the twins and a double stroller come 2010. It's silver so I refer to it as The Hershey or Hershey Wagon.

Funny story today . . . I saw that Target was having a sweet sale on these convertible car seats, and they only had one left. Luckily they had another one in the back so while I held the first one and Chris was coming back with the second one, when he turned the corner and I saw the huge box in his car and the huge box in mine, it hit me that we're having two babies. I had a moment of sheer terror, but then quickly followed by pure joy. I'm so thankful to the Lord for these twins, and I just feel at peace with everything. Sure we're poor starving college students and soon-to-be-parents, but we have an eternal family and the gospel in our lives. Nothing could be better.

Well I've put off my homework long enough, and the US Open isn't on so I'm going to hit the books.

Here's my first belly pic! Enjoy, I'm sure I'll look like octomom or whatever by New Years. lol

Double the Trouble, Double the Fun

This post will be just pictures because we can't even begin to describe in words how happy we are!

Twins at 6 weeks

Baby A at 8 weeks

Baby B at 8 weeks

Twinners at 8 weeks!