It's potty time!

I am excited to say that Jovi is pretty much potty trained! This must be a tender mercy with everything else that is going on right now. Last week, Ainsley was having potty problems, I thought it was a bladder infection, the doctor said she had a yeast infection, and some bacteria in her urine that was making it hurt when she went potty, and go more frequently - if that is even possible for that girl! Needless to say, we have spent A LOT of time in the bathroom lately!!! Jovi has also had a new obsession to be naked all day long, and she wants to fight me on everything! Welcome to the terrible two's, huh? I'm going to focus on how great it is not to have to change dirty diapers for a little bit. Also, I just wanted to express my love and gratitude to everyone who has been thinking and praying about our family! We have felt strengthened and comforted by your prayers and concern. Thank you so much!!! I've been stressed a lot about our baby's name, since we found out about his heart and everything, I've wanted to find the perfect name, something that means a lot, and nothing has really hit me. Then, the other day I was searching for names that had the word "heart" in their meaning, and I found the name Caleb - which means (depending on the website) dog, heart, or whole-hearted. It also said that dog was meaning faithful or loyal. Anyways, enough about Caleb, because that's not the name we chose, but it is a name derived from Caleb, which is Cale. When I looked up Cale it said, uncertain - which is kind of how we feel about this baby, and on another website it said slender or thin - and most babies and kids with congenital heart defects are smaller. So, with all of that explanation, we are going to name our baby Cale Dean Mackley. I have to say, after I found the name, I was very nervous to tell Carl, I thought he would hate it, but I guess it must be meant to be, cause he likes it too. We chose Dean for his middle name because my grandpa's middle name is Dean, and Carl's grandpa's first name is Dean, and they have both passed away, I call them our angel grandpas. I hope that they are with Cale now, and watching over us as we go through this trial. Sorry, mom if you hate it, I think we are sold on it, unless something else changes. It's so funny how much better I feel now that we have a name picked out - I don't know why it stresses me out so much.

Not what we expected

In February we found out that we are having another boy! We are very excited to even up our numbers. At the ultrasound they thought something might be wrong with his heart, so they scheduled us to get a fetal echocardiogram at Primary Children's hospital, we had that visit the first week in March. We found out there, that our baby has hypoplastic left heart syndrome, or HLHS, which basically means that the left side of his heart is underdeveloped, so it's kind of like he has a half of a heart. They can do a series of 3 operations to make it so the right side of the heart takes care of the left side's duties. The first operation will be 3-5 days after he is born, and the second is at 4-6 months, and the third is around 3 years old. They told us that he has a 60% chance of survival to age 5.
Obviously this news came as a bit of a shock, we are feeling overwhelmed of course, but we are hopeful for the best possible outcome. We also have felt so much love and support from our families, that we know we won't have to go through this alone, which is a huge blessing. We are just planning on taking things one day at a time, and putting our faith in God that whatever happens will be the best for our family.
If you know of anyone that has had a baby with HLHS, please let me know, I would love to talk to some other people that have gone through this.
This blog will probably turn into more of an update on the baby's status, so that I won't have to tell a million people the same thing over and over. We appreciate everyone's concern and prayers for our family, I never thought that I would have a trial like this in my life. Feel free to check back, we have another appointment the 8th of April for another fetal echocardiogram at Primary Children's.

Dance recital and other news

Fisher and Ainsley had their dance/rhythm recital the other day. They both did such a good job, it was seriously so cute to watch them up there, I wasn't sure if they would perform, but they did amazing! Thanks to Grandmas and Grandpas and the Olsens for coming - it was so fun! Here's a little clip of each of the kids. I hope you enjoy them.

Also, some other exciting news, we are expecting our 4th child on June 28. The new baby and Jovi will be almost 26 months apart, Fisher will be going to Kindergarten, and Ainsley will go to preschool. I'm not sure if that will be a good break, or just more crazy!?! Here's a pic of the ultrasound.

In the Christmas spirit!!!

Well, now that Thanksgiving is over, I'm ready for Christmas!! We put up our Christmas tree and decorations in our house, and the kids are so excited it's really contagious! I also wanted to make sure that I changed my music on my blog so everyone could listen to some great Christmas music, that's one of my favorite parts! Sorry I haven't been very good about doing my blog, since our camera died in Oregon it's been hard to post pictures, but I will try to do better. We actually just got our family pictures taken the other day, so I will put that on here, so you can see how cute my kids are getting. I'm not biased or anything.

Swagbucks

Okay, so I'm not usually one to promote things like this, but it's kind of a cool thing that I've signed up for, and I've already gotten 2 $5 gift cards to amazon.com, and all I did was search on the internet, so if you are interested in getting an account with swagbucks, click on the link in the sidebar. I'm pretty excited to use some of these gift cards for christmas presents and such. It's always nice to save some money, right?

New pictures

We got an 8x10 of this one.

This was Fisher's "silly face"

My little boy is getting so big!!!

We got an 8x10 of this one.

We got a 10x13 of this one.

We got a 8x10 of this one.

So, we went to JC Penny last night and got pictures for the kids' birthdays. They turned out really cute. Fisher wanted to do some silly faces, him and Ainsley did such a good job. Thanks Micki and Lexi for giving them lots of practice in front of the camera. We had to wait a few minutes for the photographer, so she gave us the free smiles by wire, so I could download all of the pics. Here are a few of my favorites.

Good Canning Recipes?

So, I've been on this food storage kick the last few months, and I'm really excited to start canning food. I actually canned taco sauce today! I'll put the recipe at the bottom. Anyways, I was wondering what are your favorite canning recipes? I would love to have a bigger collection of great things to can. I'm planning on canning some of Carl's elk that he shot last fall. I've done chicken, and it's amazingly simple and handy to have on hand, the only problem was that it was gone too fast, and I have to do it again. Here's my list of things I want to can:
-Potatoes
-Sweet and sour sauce
-Pork
-Sausage
-Pizza sauce
-Hamburger
-Cheese
-Butter
-Syrups
-Applesauce
-Elk stew
-Fruits
-Veggies
-Salsa
Anyone want to come help me can??? If you have done any of the above, or have a good recipe, PLEASE let me know!
Here's the taco sauce recipe if anyone is interested. I found it on www.homecanning.com
5 C. water
3 C. tomato paste - I used 4 6oz cans
1 C. cider vinegar
1/2 C. corn syrup
2 T. chili powder
1 T. salt
1 tsp. cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp. hot pepper sauce
For instructions, follow link.
I got 6 pints out of this, but they weren't full - the recipe says 6 half pints, but I got way more than that.
Happy canning everyone!