Announcing Dan Johnson for VP

We are quite excited about this new direction in our life. Just when we thought we were settled and content...

Ok, not really. But I think I am funny. And so does every other person who tells Dan that they saw him on tv last night.















My husband might not be running for office, but I still think he is one fine catch.

As I mentioned in an earlier post I have been struggling some with postpartum blues. One of the most depressing things about being postpartum is walking into your closet and thinking, "I am no longer pregnant and this is my third baby, so surely I will be able to find something to wear." But no. I thought I had clothes to wear pre-baby, during baby, and after baby. And I do have some, but for some reason I couldn't find a pair of jeans that fit. Depressing. And what is even more depressing, is that I might lose this weight soon, but I am not ready to give up my chocolate cravings throughout the day, and it is nearly impossible to go jeans shopping with three kids in tow.

Stay with me, there is a point to this whining.

Back to my husband.

He loves me very much and he is very good about complimenting me. But all of the compliments in the world still couldn't fix the fact that I didn't have any jeans to wear. So on Saturday he went to run a few errands and what did he come home with? A bouquet of roses and a Target bag with 3 pairs of jeans. From all of my ranting he picked up on the size that I needed and bought three different styles for me to try on in my own home. What an angel. Hooray for new jeans! Go DJ, That's my DJ!

Now maybe if I could keep this whining thing up, maybe I will never have to do my own clothes shopping again... ;)

Today Dan is home and school was cancelled because of Isaac. While we wait for the storm to come and for the power to go out, I thought I would share the story of Joshua's birth. For a woman, sharing a birth story is comparable to a guy sharing a story about shooting the winning basket from half court...but so much better!
'Twas the night before Dan's birthday when all through the house not a creature was stirring, except for a very very pregnant lady...

Around 3 am on on the morning of June 11, I awoke to go use the restroom for the 100th time and while in there my water broke. While I was in the bathroom coming up with the game plan, Kolbe suddenly woke up crying. I ran waddled back out to see Dan slowly waking up and realizing that Kolbe had wet the bed, then Emma ran in the room because the crying woke her up and then I said, "Sweetie, happy birthday! My water just broke."
Wow. Good morning Dan. Once the reality of the situation hit us, we started laughing and then jumped into high gear. I called Jenn and asked her to come over. We quickly got dressed and packed up while trying to calm down two tired and nervous children. Once Aunt Jenn arrived, we headed out and arrived to the hospital about 4 am.
Once there we told the nurse at the front desk that my water broke and they unnecessarily went into panic mode and put me on a stretcher and wheeled me up to my room. I was only 4 cm dilated, so I knew I had a long way to go. Then we waited...

Around 6 the nurse came back in and I was only 5 cm. The doctor on call ordered pitocin and at that point I didn't care to argue. About 10 minutes later I was having intense contractions very close together. Thank you pitocin. Then it was time for pain meds. Dan loves this part becasue he enjoys seeing me loopy- and I don't care becasue it takes the edge of of the pain. At 7:30 I started crying out for an epidural, but it was too late. I was 10 cm. And then came the strong desire to push, like the strong force of a hurricane. I could hear the nurses whispering, trying to find my doctor, but she was not available. Meanwhile I am doing my best to follow orders to hold this hurricane force in.
Then an angel in the form of Dr. Plessala entered the room. He is not my doctor, but he goes to our parish and is a friend of ours. We were both so happy to see him walk in the room. Then finally at 8:01 after pushing and the use of the vacuum thing, Joshua made his way out and then all I remember is seeing the doc's jaw drop because of how big our baby was. They immediately let me hold him while Dan cut the cord.

We were all in amazement when we found out that he was 10lb 6oz! Where did this huge baby come from?! Now I usually try to be a humble person, but I was very proud of myself for birthing this huge baby AND I felt it ALL. As I was being wheeled into one of the NEW recovery rooms I could just see the looks and smiles of all of the nurses in the hallway. I could hear them saying "She is the one." "She is woman." and then came the applause...ok not really, but my husband sure did applaud me.



Best birthday present ever.
Greatest wife ever.





Happy little family!

Today has been a trying day complete with tantrums, time-outs, and yelling all while trying to prepare for the hurricane. Not good. So now that things have quieted down for a moment I thought I would share a story to remind myself of how precious my children are.

Last Friday, Emma woke up with a low-grade fever and a cough. Emma tends to get these low grade fevers often. We assumed it was her body's way of dealing with exhaustion, because she tends to get them after big events, like the first week of school.


Anyway, we kept her home from school. Dan had a meeting at a coffee shop that morning and while he was there he mentioned Emma's fevers. Then a man walked over and said, "I am sorry to interrupt but I overheard you talking about your daughter. I am a hematologist and I think you should take her to a mayo clinic for tests." then he walked away.

.....what?!?

Dan came home, told me the story and I of course burst into tears. Dan took her in to our doctor and I went to Sheena's house with the boys, looking for a distraction. Luckily the boys are still young enough to not notice their mother crying and praying the whole drive over. I knew there could be so many outcomes to this but of course my mind was focusing on the worst case scenario. I am a mother, worrying is part of my job description.



Meanwhile, at the doctor's office, dan had to literally hold Emma down in order for the nurses to get the blood work done. Torture for Emma and Dan. :(

A few hours later we met back home and just had to wait for them to call with test results. Finally around 5 we found out that her white blood cell count was normal- praise the Lord. The other test that was done basically tested to see if her body is trying to fight something. Normal results range from 1 to 10. Emma's result was 10.3. Just on the edge, so we have been asked to monitor her temperature for two weeks then go back to the doctor.

Life is such crazy roller coaster.


We are thankful that as far as we know she is a healthy happy little girl.


Thank you, Jesus.

Now time to get back to work! A hurricane's a comin! (and yes I am trying to forget about how worried I am about this storm)




Sent from my iPhone


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Emma has a wonderful imagination. She is really good about entertaining herself and going off to her room to play with her toys. Sometimes, however, she likes to go and play in mommy and daddy's room.

Today I walked to my room and found this on the door:


Odd. Walked in room and saw her dolls tucked in:


Then went into the bathroom and found three more unfortunate animals:


Then I went and found Emma and asked why her animals were hanging from all of the doors in my room.
She replied:
"well I had to put my babies down for a nap and my animals were trouble and I needed to put them in time out."
Oh...ok...
I promise she did not learn this technique from us.

Then she went on:
"I had to put two puppies downstairs in daddy's office because they were in a lot of trouble."






I have to reiterate, she did not learn this from us. And I have to be honest and say that I am a little disturbed by her time out techniques...I don't think we will get a dog any time soon.



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Yesterday was a crazy day and all day there were moments where I thought "I am going to blog about this later." Well this morning I am not going to blog about any of those moments. Today I am going to write about fish and ignore the piles of laundry that I have waiting for me upstairs.

Fish, you say? yes, pet fish. About 4 months ago we were out for lunch as a family and after lunch, Dan noticed a pet store next door and decided it would be fun to take the kids in. Bad idea. What did we walk out with? Two fish and two small tanks to keep them in. Dan thought it would be a good way to teach Emma some responsibility, which was a good idea- in theory. So home we went with Aurora and Mack. (Aurora was actually a male fish, but we didnt have the heart to tell Emma). Dan got the tanks set up and the new fish now had nice homes and Daddy was the hero for the day. The kids loved feeding the fish every day for about a week- but then I took over the job because fish food kept being spilled and I was tired of cleaning that up.

A few weeks went by and I noticed that Aurora was swimming slower, I might have forgotten to feed her... I tried to do what I could to make her better, i.e. feed her and clean her tank (gross). But She was sick and one day I noticed that she was dead. I didnt know what to do, so I waited for dan to get home. This was his idea in the first place.

So Dan got home and we sat down for dinner and suddenly Emma gets up and runs to her room. She said she needed to get something, and thats when we heard, "Mommy, Daddy, what is wrong with Aurora?" Dan got up and went to see her and a minute later Emma walked out and said, "Aurora is DEAD." Oh dear. Well then we had to talk about life and death and we tried to avoid the whole all fish go to heaven thing. She said she wanted to bury the fish, so Dan took Aurora out of the tank and put her in a shoe box and the two of them went outside and buried the fish in the back yard. True story.

So now we just have Mack. And what inspired this post is that I walk by his gross tank every day and contemplate quietly disposing of him. I know- probably so wrong of me. But the kids don't care anymore about having a pet fish and I feel bad for him. Poor Mack.

Fish are friends, not food.

Ok, so this morning I wrote a happy little post about Kolbe. I think my motivation to write it came from my desire to actually have happy thoughts and to jumpstart my day in a good way. I like to post about good things and try to avoid the difficult stuff. But the truth is that adjusting to having three children is hard! I always want to be a good witness and show what a gift children are. For instance, the other day I took my kids to the grocery store. Joshua was in a sling, kolbe was in the cart and emma said she "needed" to push her stroller with her puppy in it. Whenever we are out I always get looks and comments- "My, you have your hands full." Even though there are moments that I want to yell at the kids while we are out- I do my best to control myself and smile so that I can show these people that having children is a blessing and not crazy!
Today I am dealing with a small case of the baby blues. I woke up feeling sad and hormonal, just in a mood. Joshua is in a mood too, which means that the only way to keep him happy today is to carry him in my moby wrap- which is a wonderful thing- but it is hard to carry around an extra 16 pounds- I feel like I am pregnant again. I love carrying him, but it takes away energy and I have no desire to go do the household chores that I need to do, and sadly, I don't even feel like getting on the floor to play with Kolbe. So poor Kolbe is playing a game on our ipad and I am avoiding the stinky diaper that he has as well...
So now that I have vented, I must go address the stinky situation at hand- or bottom.

P.S. I hope you are having a good day, Ana, I miss you!

Kolbe is two and a half. He definitely has the terrible two tantrum down. Thankfully that does not occur on a daily basis- maybe just every other day. He is usually a very happy and sensitive guy. He loves Lightning McQueen and everything to do with the movie Cars. But his current favorite toy is a small figurine of Peter Pan. Kolbe is Peter Pan, at least that is what he says. He loves the movie, he loves to have the book read to him over and over again, and he loves to grab a sword and attack Captain Hook (who is usually me, unless daddy is home). I love his little imagination. He loves it in I turn on the song "you can fly" and then he starts running around the house with his little figurine and pretends to fly. So sweet.

The other day we were leaving our church after Mass and he looked over at the suspended crucifix behind the altar and said to Dan, "Look, Jesus flying like Peter Pan!" Don't really know how to respond to that one. haha

We went to disney world with my family about a month ago and we searched and found Peter. Kolbe was so excited to see him, but would not look at him. I guess he was overwhelmed by the reality of his favorite character being there, trying to talk to him, that he just didn't know what to do! (as you can see in the picture above, Emma was shy too, I think because she is shy around boys, and I would like to keep it that way.)

Speaking of little Peter Pan, I have to go, I hear him calling my name.
Time to fly to Neverland!

And going to pre-school!

Emma went to her first day of 4K yesterday. She LOVED it! Dan got to take her to school and make sure she was happy and settled in her new classroom and I got to pick her up with the crying, tired boys at 11:45. I do treasure the huge hug that she gave me and the proud look on her face. She got buckled in the car and started to tell me all about the game she played on the playground where she was the queen(not surprised) and then there was the king, princess, and monster. Fun times. She was proud of her faded blue hands that were painted for craft time. I asked her what they talked about during circle time and she said, "We talked about all sorts of things, like about Jesus." Very good.

After meeting daddy for lunch and ice cream, all three children fell asleep on the way home and stayed asleep for over an hour. I'd say the first day was a success!

Yes, I, Lauren Johnson, tend to do this blogging thing about every 6 months...here i go again!

A lot has happened in our little family since January. The most important being the arrival of "little" Joshua David. "Little" would not be the word I would use since he arrived weighing in at 10 pounds 6 ounces...and I did not have an epidural...

The other big event that is Dan has a new job. The Archbishop asked Dan to become the new Family Life and Respect Life Director of the archdiocese. It was very difficult decision to make because Dan and I both loved working with the youth at the high school. But we felt God's call and now we are diving into the world of family and respect life ministries.

I really want to try to keep up with this blog again and share little moments that happen each day because, well, I think my kids are funny and so cute! :)

Speaking of kids...they are hungry and are asking, I mean begging, for a snack. Hopefully I will be back soon!