It's about time to.....

Introduce the newest Dixon.

Taylor James Dixon

July 18, 2011

4:05 pm

 7 lbs 10 oz  20 1/2 in

 

Week by Week catch up

Many of you are probably wondering what happened to the Dixons.... We fell off the face of the earth.   No really life just gets busy when you are in school, working, and all that!  As a quick recap, we both finished a hard semester and did pretty well.  We also moved out of our apartment the day after finals.  Matt started his internship in Vegas, and I am busy working and living in Alpine.  We are both excited for the day our little boy gets here and Matt finishes his intern.  10 more weeks at the most!  Can't wait!

Other exciting news...
Nate and McKell were married on May 6th!  It was so wonderful to be surrounded by family in the sealing room at the temple! I am so excited for them!  The day was picture perfect and wonderful.  I don't think my brother could have found a more perfect bride, she is darling! 

And finally I wanted to catch up on the week by week postings.  I apologize, they are not quite as cute as before.  My personal Graphic Designer is a little busy with wedding photos and a new job!

Week 18
Morning Sickness (more like evening sickness) is finally wearing off.  Grandma & Grandpa Dixon came to visit!  Lots of studying, homework, and tests.  You are now the size of a Mango. :)  Mommy can't wait for strawberries to be in season.

Week 19
Official Ultrasound at Maternal Fetal Medicine.  Mommy and Daddy are excited that you are healthy so far!  We think you have a Dixon nose.  You were moving lots.  Mommy still doesn't look pregnant very much.

Week 20
Daddy felt you move for the first time. He was excited.  He yelled "That's my boy!" He was so proud!  Mommy and Daddy had 7 tests, projects, and lots of studying this week!  Somehow we made it through the week.  Mommy's belly is rounding!

Week 21
You still don't like chocolate. But you loved Maggie Moos Raspberry Sorbet!  You like to keep waking mommy up at night.  You have broken the one-pound mark!   Mommy peeked with the ultrasound again, you are a little thumb sucker!  You are still the cutest thing!

Week 22
BYU made it to the sweet 16 this year with Jimmer!  Many of your friends and family want to name you little Jimmer.  We will have to see about that.... You are now the size of a Papaya!  We celebrated Daddy's birthday this week. You got matching green ties!   Although it probably won't fit you until you are much older. 

Week 23
Not only can mommy feel you move, but see you move her belly!  We are more than half way there!  We are so so excited to meet you!   Some day we will decide on a name for you.   For now it has been fun for Mommy and Daddy to text names back and forth to each other thinking of you.

Week 24
We spent General Conference weekend in Alpine.  We were lucky enough to spend time with both families!Conference weekend is one of mommy's favorites.  We are so blessed to have prophets and apostles speak to us.  Mommy thought of you more than ever... she wants to be the mother you deserve.

Week 25
Mommy finally looks pregnant.... (picture coming).  Mommy and Daddy saw you in 3-D ultra sound this week!  Daddy may or may not have been a little weirded out, but mommy thought you were adorable.  Especially your little feet and toes!  We came home with a great picture of your little foot!  Dr. says you appear to be strong and healthy!  No more placenta previa and your kidneys look great.  Mommy and Daddy are excited about that!

Week 26
Mommy gained too much weight this week trying to survive through finals.  We had ice cream more than once. :)  You've also gained weight this week... in fact your weight has doubled!  Weighing in at 2 pounds!  Mommy also noticed that whenever she holds another little baby, you like to make sure you are noticed.  You give them a friendly little kick!

Week 27
We moved out of our first apartment.  Once daddy is done with his internship we will move into a place big enough for 3!  For  now Mommy moved in to Grandma's house & Daddy moved to Grandma Dixon's house.  Daddy starts his internship in Vegas on Monday!  We were able to celebrate Easter before daddy had to leave.

Week 28
When you kick near mommy's belly button, it takes her breath away.  Dr. says its probably a torn muscle from you growing.  Lots of wedding preparation activities this week.  You had the hiccups for the first time!  (well I guess as far as mommy could tell)  Mommy cried cus daddy wasn't there to feel them... he had left 30 min before to go back to Vegas.  But daddy felt them as soon as he got back later that week.  Kinda Silly!

Week 29
You have a new aunt today!  Nate and McKell got married!  It was a wonderful day! We are all so excited for them!  Mommy couldn't help but think of you getting married in the temple to a beautiful bride some day.
You weigh a woppin' 3 pounds now!  You love going for walks with mommy around beautiful Alpine!  Sometimes you get movin and grovin quite a bit! 

Week 30
Your Daddy surprised us with a visit for the weekend!  He bought us your favorite Raspberry Sorbet again!  He loves you so so much!  Mom is starting to wonder how you will continue to grow and still fit in her tummy.  Grandma and Mommy looked at cribs this week!  It has been raining non stop... who knows when we will be able to go for a nice walk again.  Hopefully soon!

Week 17

Week 16

Week 15

Little Update :)

Thanks for all the comments on the last post! I'm glad you haven't given up on me yet. ;) We are really excited! Life is still crazy with full time work, school, and juggling everything else.  It will be a miracle if we make it to July and get this baby here... or at least I feel like that sometimes, as I am sure all mommies do.  But we are thrilled to start a new chapter in our lives and couldn't be more excited!  :)

Week 14

Just a few

As I sit down to blog I think of all the things I am grateful for, but which deserves a full post.  I can't decide. If you truely know me... you'll know I'm a littttttttle indecisive.  (good thing I married a decision maker)

Thus I will list a few things....

My Matt

Knowledge of the Gospel

Family

The darling children in my Primary! 

I have the best calling!

Insurance and the Job that provides it. 

Friends

Lake Powell

PS.  We went to Lake Powell last month!  It was a blast! Should I tell you about it?  Maybe in another post.



Sleep

I said to Matt one day, "I hate sleeping! I could get so much more done if I didn't have to sleep for so long."

Think about it!  You would have hours added on to your day. Hours I could use for studying, cleaning, cooking, sewing, my to do list, exercising, laundry, cuddling, reading, laughing, what ever you wanted! Oh, that would be fabulous. 

But what I hate more than sleeping is what I feel like after NOT being able to sleep.

Therefore, I am grateful for sleep!

In the mean time, I will try to sleep ... untill I can figure out how to feel fantastic with out sleeping.

The Divine Gift of Gratitude

 "My brothers and sisters, to express gratitude is gracious and honorable, to enact gratitude is generous and noble, but to live with gratitude ever in our hearts is to touch heaven."

Pres. Thomas S. Monson

Thanksgiving is fast approaching.  ( I am still wondering what happened to April. )  Inspired by Pres. Monson's talk in General Conference, I have set a goal to live with gratitude in my heart.  To help do so, I want to periodically post a few things I am grateful for throughout the month.  

So to start off, I am grateful for husbands that do laundry.  :) 

I am wondering if anyone still looks at our sad, lonely blog. We have managed to neglegt the blog for months. Our lovely computer killed over one day last semester. We were thrilled to find out it was just out side of warrentee. We have been looking for a great deal all summer for a new one, while saving. We start a new semester on Monday and will need a computer. --- Anyways, that is my sorry excuse for not posting anything.

I will be posting pictures soon once we get our new computer. Untill then, this update will have to do.


And you will have to forgive my lack of blog posting skills... I can not remember how to change the font, colors, and such. I was lucky to get a background again... I guess that is what I get for neglecting the poor thing.

The Oven

Why do we have two ovens?

Let me tell you the story...
A long time ago... (ok maybe not so long ago) we moved in to an apartment in far away Provo....

So we moved in to this great little basement apartment here in Provo a little over a year ago. Well, see the black oven in the picture above? Well the poor thing has had issues.
It has never worked for us quite right. I tried to cook pizza, muffins and other such things and it always burnt the bottom or took way longer than called for.
We finally figured it out when we cooked lasagna for the first time.
THE TOP ELEMENT NEVER WORKED.
We reported it to our land lord the next time we saw them.

A little while latter, Matt decided he was going to fix this problem. He took the oven apart and made sure it was the element (which looked fine and dandy by the way). So we took it to Lowes, they don't carry it anymore... the Mending Shed, they don't either... Online... close to $200 dollars. So we decided to leave it up to the owner to fix.

In the mean time, this fatastic toaster oven has become our new best friend over the last several months.
I cooked everything we ate in this little oven or on top of the stove that only partially worked.
Anyways, time passed and we decided to remind the owner that it still didn't work.
So here's the story....

One Saturday morning we get a knock on the door. I had just gotten out of the shower, so I lock myself in the bedroom to get ready while Matt gets the door. From the bedroom I hear them getting our tools and such and it sounded like they were taking apart the oven. By the time I am all ready I come out of the room to find them cleaning up all the tools and closing up the oven.

The power was on, the old element was in the guys hand, and matt was putting away his tools. So, I figured they had just replaced the element. I was pretty excited about it!
I said something like "Oh we should make sure it works before you leave!"
So I went and pushed the 'Bake' Button ......
POOOOOFFF
Their went the power and electrical. OH NO!
Matt comes back in the room and says "NAT!!!....."
We open the oven door and a little puf of smock comes out.
I just blew up our oven.

They really hadn't replaced the element, but had just taken the old one out.
But now we had an even bigger problem.
THE ENTIRE OVEN DID NOT WORK! Thanks to me!

So a week later after some microwave meals, we get an offer from our sweet neighbors in Alpine who just happen to be remodeling their house and were in need of dumping an old oven.
Matt jumped at the offer and we went to go fetch our new oven.

We (well Matt and my brother) haul it into our apartment (which mind you is not an easy task. We have narrow steep stairs just before entering our door and the kitchen is in the back.) Anyways, we go to plug it in and ......who knew that oven's have different plugs. It was a 3 prong instead of the 4 prong outlet we had. So now we have two useless ovens in our little kitchen. :)

To end the story, the owner sent a nice little repair man to fix the black oven. He diagnosed the problem to be the electrical board the whole time. The top element is in fantastic shape. He came back the next day to replace the electrical board and we were SO HAPPY!

Well the truth about the story is, we were extremely blessed. Matt told the guy the whole story about how I blew up the electrical by pushing a button.... The guy acted surprised and said that shouldn't have happened. And quite frankly, we were pretty lucky it hadn't started a fire!
I think someone in Heaven is watching over us!

We couldn't be happier to have a working oven!
I'm not sure if I am more happy to cook again, or if Matt is more excited to Eat again!

:)

Winter Wonderland!!!

The other morning we woke up to this! It looked absolutely beautiful! There is just something cozy and wonderful about waking up from a warm sleep to a fresh white Winter-land of snow like this!

Would have loved to be skiing with Ange, Em, and Nate!
(I was a bit jealous... I admit)




Good Morning!


Yes, we live in the basement of this quaint little house! We love it!

Matt is a fantastic snow shoveler!
I think shorts and cold must be a Vegas thing. ;)
Do they still wear shorts with Ugg boots down there?

A precious gem

A few days ago, I found this little gem!

"An intelligent being, in the image of God, possesses every organ, attribute, sense, sympathy, affection, of will, wisdom, love, power and gift, which is possessed by God himself. But these are possessed by man in his rudimental state in a subordinate sense of the word. Or, in other words, these attributes are in embryo, and are to be gradually developed. They resemble a bud, a germ, which gradually develops into bloom, and then, by progress, produces the mature fruit after its own kind."

– Parley P. Pratt

For some reason this just clicked in my mind. I have had several church lessons on individual worth, not to mention all the young women lessons growing up, but for some reason, this sank into my heart and made it all the more clear.

Man was made in the image of God.

Since I have been married, I have noticed that I am very similar to my parents in their characteristics and attributes etc. while my husband is very similar to his parents. So WE are similar to our Father in Heaven.

That means that I have all the same attributes as my Heavenly Father, I just need to develop them.

A quick little update...

We started school-both Matt and I are going full time.
We both work part time.
We miss the Dixon family. (luckily we see the Dennis fam often!)
We want to go to Vegas.
We bought a car this summer.
Matt translated for General Conference.

My brother came home!

My Birthday!

My surprise b-day present from Matt!

Built by Matt.
BYU Games! Go Cougs!

My closet fell apart!
It was a lovely mess, but my handy husband fixed it.

We took a quick trip to Powell for my brother since he has missed out for the past 2 years.
Our apartment has a phantom puddle of water that appears in the middle of the kitchen floor.
Come to find out, that phantom puddle is also in our bedroom and closet.
We are sleeping on a mattress in living room while our carpet is torn up and drying.

So there you have it, a quick update from the Dixon's!

A little thing called CIDP

When … holding on with two hands clenched in a tight squeeze around the rope handle, straight elbows, wrists in place, fingers interlocking, gloves, jaw clenched, life jacket, no shorts, legs bent in a sitting position, back straight, everybody in the Front of the boat, and my father pulling me as gently as he could over and over again with no success … when all of that wasn’t enough to do what I loved, I KNEW SOMETHING WAS WRONG. It was at Lake Powell when I realized that IT wasn’t just weakness or Carpel Tunnel. (Yes it was the same Lake Powell trip that I opened my Mission Call.) Something was wrong and I needed to find out quickly before I left for Russia on September 12^th.

One MRI, a few ECGs, a few Nerve Conduction studies, lots of blood, some urine, a Spinal Tap, several phone calls, many doctors, plus visits, and many tears later I found out that I had CIDP. Chronic Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuropathy.

Well needless to say, I didn’t end up going to Russia. I’ll spare you the details. It’s a whole other story. But I will say this. The whole thing ended up being one of the greatest blessings in my life.

The next couple of months were very interesting. There were many experiences that I will never forget. At one point I could barely walk without support. Walking up the stairs hunched over like an 80 year old man was all I could do to reach the top. I began to realize that I had taken for granted the every day things I use to do with my hands and feet.

I didn’t dare go visit my friends. I could barely turn the key to the car with both hands. The few times I did venture to Provo, I was sore and shaky by the time I got there. And worst of all I couldn’t even do up the button on my pants. What if I had to go to the Bathroom? Thanks to ever persistent friendships of the ones who cared to get me out of the hole I was in and get me out to be social again. Those were the ones who helped a poor friend button up her pants.

I was a scared, nervous 16 year old girl again when it came to going on dates. I felt like I’d forgotten how to talk to a boy. I had little confidence. I walked like Ronald McDonald because I could not hold my toes up; they just flopped on the ground. No wonder I rarely if ever went on anything but first dates during that first 6 months. One date in particular consisted of going to Salt Lake for a concert at the Conference Center. Afterwords the group wanted to WALK to Olive Garden for dinner. Mind you, this was in the middle of December and I do not do so well in the extreme cold. It was all I could do to keep my shoes on (they weren’t even heal, they were flats!). My poor date offered to give me a piggy back ride the few blocks left, I refused. Number 1. because I was in a skirt and number 2. my pride would not let me. I was determined. With numb feet, legs, and hands, we reached Olive Garden just in time to follow the group to our table. ...Luckily my date was sensible enough to ask the driver to go get the car 10 blocks or so away while the rest of the group stayed warm in Olive Garden, because HE was cold. Bless that boy.

I eventually moved back to Provo and went back to school at BYU. I lived just south of campus. I walked up the hill to class every day. I remember the first time I passed someone up while walking up the hill. I was thrilled! I called my mother to tell her about it. lol

Anyways, a lot has happened since and I have been very extremely blessed. I am now married to a wonderful husband who has so much love and patience for me. I have been blessed with wonderful friends. I have the most superb family, and married into the most amazing family. All of which have offered many prayers in my behalf. It is truly humbling. (I can not express my thanks enough to all of you for your many thoughtful prayers)

Nearly 50 IV treatments, over 100 needles, a few sharps containers, a few BOTTLES of Advil Tylenol and Benadryl, a few months of Methotrexate (a chemo drug), lots of sleep, some FABULOUS nurses and many Dr. visits, probably 100,000 if not over a million Prayers later … I feel stronger & better now than I have felt in the last two years!!!! Progress!!

I am so excited that I can jog with my husband! Even if it’s more like half jogging, mostly walking. I have been able to jog EIGHT days in the last two weeks! And the week before that, I was able to WATERSKI at Lake Powell FOUR days in a row!!! (I didn't even get sore that week at Lake Powell, Kinda nice! lol --- because I was numb. )

You know, over the past two years I have grown so much as a person that I would never trade this for anything else in the world. I have grown so close to my husband, my family, my Heavenly Father, and my Savior. Nothing can replace that.

CIDP has been the greatest blessing! If I have learned anything from this experience, it is that Heavenly Father lives and His Son Jesus Christ lives. They know me. Heavenly Father has His hand in my life. Prayer is real. The Priesthood is real. The Holy Ghost is real. And my Testimony is real.

Thank you for all your continued prayers and support! They are felt and deeply appreciated. We love you!