Random Ben Photos

Oh man, this kid cracks me up. He can make me madder than hell, then the next second he melts my heart. Here are some pictures of Ben and his randomness these past few months!Conference weekend: We had the Crooks over and Ben and Allison decided to try kissing.

They would kiss for a second then laugh for over a minute!

Nana and Poppa Dossett bought Ben a tent!

At our place in West Tisbury, Ben would watch for us coming up the stairs to get him out of his room. I would often play with him under the door, he LOVED it!
Ben loves playing the camera, so we took some pix. This was the only one that i didn't look like a total idiot.

Ben is obsessed with Mickey and Donald. Just like his daddy, Donald is his "best guy"!
Ben really enjoyed Nana Call while she was here taking care of him while I was in the hospital and with the girls in Boise. He was really sad when she left!
Ben got to see a monkey, up close and personal at the Zoo.
Whenever we got to the park, Ben likes to play fetch with the frisbee!
We gave Ben the broken fishing pole and he enjoyed poking the mud with it. He's "fisssing"

Burn, Baby, Burn

This year there have been a few fires. One was about 15 ft. from our trailer. It started across the train tracks and a neighbor saw it and called the fire dept. It was pretty windy that day, and we are lucky that the fire didn't jump the tracks. Here are some pictures from that fire:

The other fire was a hugr brush fire that started in Arco.. about and hour away towards Twin Falls. It lit up the whole sky. We were told it was a dust storm, so don;t judge me in the video!

View of our trailer and the beautiful sky!

My favorite picture of the night!

I love how the sky reflects off the tracks!

Pictures from Dossett's Visit

For the longest time, i couldn't find the pictures that were taken from when Toby's parents came to visit. Now, i finally found them in the girl's blessing folder. I should of though to look there because it all happened the same weekend! here they are:

First full day here, we took them to the Spray Park. Ben found a "box" and decided to throw water on people. Mainly Toby.





Doesn't he have the most innocent face?







Ben warmed up to his Nana, Papa, Uncle Willy and Autie Hannah. Here he is spending some snuggle time with Aunt Hannah during a movie. I think it was Mickey Mouse Musketeers.. but I'm not sure.


Nana and Papa Dossett bought the girls their new bumbo chairs. They are holding their heads up great so we are working on helping them sit up. These chairs were even endorsed by our Occupational Therapist!
Ben was a little jealous, so he had to bring out his chair! BTW, putting his hand on their head is one of his favorite things to do!

Twin Blessings

Toby's family came mainly for the girl's blessings. They were blessed August 1st, 2010. They were 6 months old. funny, i know.
When the girls were first born, we had a hard time deciding whether or not to bless them in the hospital, or to wait. I guess I really freaked out, thinking that if we blessed them, they wouldn't have any need to stick around.. I guess I felt so cheated about other newborn baby milestones that i really wanted them to have a blessing in our ward. I wanted to have all my family there, and pretty little dresses, cute bows, and a big party afterward, and let them have one "normal" thing in their lives. We decided that if we felt they were slipping away, we would bless them in the hospital, but we never did. Thus, their twin blessing:













Toby with his beautiful baby girls!

















Family picture. Ben wanted to help bless them...













Circle: Great-Grandpa Gallegos, Grandpa Dossett, Dad, Seth Johnson, Steve Dunn
Not pictured: Marcus Crook, Bishop Sessions




Addison Avery Dossett













Peyton Noel Dossett (she doesn't actually wave yet)

ummm?

Does anybody actually read this? I"m wondering if i'm doing this just to keep my sanity some days. I'm very curious to know if anyone actually read it. If it weren't me, i proably wouldn't because i know i tend to go of on tangents and its like my mind vomits and spews things out and they aren't necessarily in the right order. Oh well, as long as i can record things and go back to read them, then its worth it. I'm not the most committed blogger, but hey, who's has all the time in the world to do it, cuz whoever does needs to share!

I guess what i'm getting at is.. i went back and read what i wrote about the girls and i started crying because it brought back all the guilty feelings I had when they were born. I'm was so mad that i couldn't keep then any longer, mad that they were struggling, mad cuz i wouldn't hold then, then felt guilty when i didn't want to get out of bed to go see them. I felt horribly guilty (and still kinda to) for leaving Peyton in Boise for so long... even if i was sick and needed to be at the hopsital every day. It was a hard situation, but i've learned so much through out all of this, that i wouldn't trade the girls for anything, i would do this all again if faced with the same thing... isn't that kinda the point of trials?

Anyways, there's your verbal vomit for the night.. if in fact you are reading this..

Fun at the Zoo.. Meleleuca Day

This year we finally made it to the Zoo. It was Melaleuca Day, which means all employees get in free... awesome! We did take the girls as well, but they mostly stayed in the car seats! It was a fun day, and of course, we got our traditional magnet, plus we got Ben a toy boom-a-rang. He loves it. We then went to Texas Roadhouse with our friends Steve and Nykele. Ben calls them Deet, and Kel. They love it.

Everyday LIfe... at first

There are really no word to describe how happy we were to bring the girls home. Finally, they had "made it" and ecstatic didn't even begin to describe it. However, even though we were happy to have them home, it was incredibly hard. They were hooked up to oxygen 24/7 and also monitors to monitor their heart rate and oxygen saturation. They beeped all the time, sometime when their sats were low, mostly when they weren't picking up or reading correctly. I can not even describe to you how stinking annoying they got to be. Sometimes the monitors would tell us that their heart rate was in the 20's (which is VERY bad) but they were fine and pink and breathing. It was a real struggle for us to listen to them every night. It got to the point where we would turn them off, pray for prompting from the spirit to wake us if it was needed and go to sleep; it got that bad. The other think that was really hard was the we HAD to feed them every 3 hours. They needed the constant nutrition to gain weight and maintain their health. On top of that was the 6 medications a day that we had to include in their feedings. (side note: yes, i am still breastfeeding them, but they still need supplements because they get really tired when they nurse so they don't get enough and we need to top them off.) Anyways, their electrolytes were cherry flavored because they really didn't like the taste. We quickly learned that they LOVED the cherry flavor so we would make sue to give them those meds at night because they would down their bottles and we could sleep more! It was a great system.

Ben's Adjustment

Ben never had a hard time adjusting to the fact that there were 2 more babies in the family. He didn't even seen to mind that they definitely took up more of our time. Ben was always very helpful, and was always quick to tell us if the babies were crying... not that it was hard to tell. We did have to put a baby proof knob on our bedroom door because he would go in and poke them til they woke up.
The only problems that we've had with them is when we moved into our new place, Ben got into their room while Addie was sleeping in the pack n' play and he decided that she was cold, so he took all the laundry and threw it on top of her. Then for some strange reason, he decided the put some jars of peanut butter in there as well. We then put a baby proof knob on their door, but somehow he got past that one too. So, we put a lock up high on their door so he can't get in, and we know they are safe.
The only other problem that we have is that he loves them so much. He loves to try and pick them up off the couch or tries to lay next to them, then accidentally rolls on top of them. He's actually a very good big brother, and even throws their diapers away for me!! He's already tried to feed them their bottles but he can't quite get it and they get frustrated.

Cute story: He's always trying to stop them from getting sad. He always finds a Nuk and give it to them when they are crying. Sometimes, however, the absolutely will not take them and he get frustrated and throws it at them and shouts "NO, NO, Baby!" Its too adorable! He get so mad because he's trying so hard to help!

4 months later...

Ok... so I'm FINALLY getting around to updating this thing, then hopefully keeping it updated. I'll start where I left off.

After the torturous night in the hospital, we FINALLY were able to take our baby girls home! It was very very excited and SUPER stressful. We spent the morning getting ready. We made sure that they had all their appt. set and they had their discharge check-up. I got up early, not that i got ANY sleep whatsoever, but i got me and Toby some breakfast sandwiches from Subway and we got ready to get our girls home. BTW, my mom was still here and watching Ben, and getting the house ready. We spend the morning waiting around, really. I went to Rounds and got all their discharge information, and talked with Dr. Anschutz about what to expect with the girls being home, and when to call and bring them back, if necessary. It was very bittersweet, saying good to all the nurses that had become family to us the past 4 months.
We were supposed to have left by 11, but it was 12 by the time we got everything together and said our good-byes. It took us 2 trips to the car to get all the stuff that the hospital sent home with us!!!
Its took us another 2 hours to get home after we left the hospital, even though we only lived about 40 minutes from the hospital. We needed to stop by The Prescription Center to pick up their prescriptions (6 each). Then we noticed that Addison's monitor wasn't reading or picking up anything and we didn't want to chance the drive home and the time it would take for Kraig (our medical supply contact) to get to our house, so we stopped by Norco to get them to fix it. Finally, we made it home. Its was really awesome to get the car seats out of the car and carry them inside, with little ity bity babies inside. They didn't weight much, even with the carseat.. lol Ben was alseep when we got home, so we got the girl's situated and fed. When we woke up, I went upstairs to get him, and tell him that baby sisters were finally home. He wasn't sure quite what to think, but what kid would when they've been in the hospital so long and he's never got to see them. So, he walks into the living room and we point the girls out and he just goes over and looks and them and says "baby" It took him awhile to figure out there were 2 babies, but he's been in love with them ever since. The girls slept in our room until we moved and even a little after that.

This is the girl's coming home announcement that we sent out to family. Aren't they just the sweetest little things you've ever seen?