double the blessings

Today was a great day! We were church hopping... First, to my cousin Julie's ward to watch her baby being blessed (Evynn Claire - born 1/18/09). Then to my cousin Scott's ward to watch his baby being blessed (Grace Marie-born 2/28/09). It is always so much fun to be around family and I have to say... I LOVED being around all those babies. There is just something so special about a baby so new from Heaven. I was so happy to see cousin Allison down visiting with her 2 week old baby, Brian Anthony (born 3/10/09). He was so precious.Here are all the cute little cousins together. And I threw in a blurry picture of Sarah from today too....Sometimes I cringe when I think of what a crazy teenager I was and wonder what people must have thought... (Don't answer that!) The great thing about family is that they love you anyway and they can look past (hopefully) your growing up years. The quote always comes to mind, "No matter what your past, you have a spotless future." It is a comfort to me to know that everyday I can begin again and try harder to be a better me. What a blessing!

After the wonderful church meetings today, I went over to my parents house where we all received individual letters from our dear friend, Mike McFarren who is currently at the MTC preparing for his Portugal Mission. We went around the room, and everyone took turns reading their letter aloud. As people read their letters, you could really picture Mike saying it. His letters were so sincere and touched everyone. There was laughter and some tears. Today was a really nice day and filled my heart up with love.

Brooke Blossoms

After posting the pictures last week of my sister-Haleigh and James with the goats, my cousin Christy couldn't believe how much Haleigh had grown and said she thought the picture was of Brooke. So, I am posting pictures of Brooke for Christy so she can see what Brooke actually looks like now. She is turning 16 in August, may Heaven help us all! :) Just kidding. She is a such a great helper and a kind-hearted girl. She is a lot of fun and I think we are a lot alike. I absolutely adore her. Isn't she beautiful?I love this time of year because the cherry blossoms are so beautiful. I see orchards full of these pretty flowers on the way to my parent's house and always want to stop a take a picture. Today on the way out there, we did stop for a trial session. Even though, I hate the shirt James is wearing, aren't the flowers pretty?

1st physical therapy appointment

Sarah had her 1st physical therapy appointment today. It was quite a long day. Chris and I left the house at 6:30 a.m. to take our 2 hour drive to the children's hospital where she first had to take x-rays of her spine. We got done with that around 10:00 or so. I had just enough time to feed her and take the drive to the other building for her 11:00 appointment with physical therapy. Her physical therapist, Dawn, was really nice and taught us different excercises to do with her at home to stretch out her neck muscles that need it. I was nervous that Sarah would cry and be uncomfortable, but tough like a Boyer, she didn't seem bothered too much by it. In fact, she didn't cry once. She was good tempered as always and smiled at everyone.
The bummer part was that they want her to go back once a week for 12 weeks. And after that they will still want to see her until she begins walking, but at least they will begin to lengthen out time between appointments hopefully.
These are pictures from yesterday. I had to take a picture in her crib so you would see how tall she is getting! She can reach the whole way across the short way! Growing, growing.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Here is our family picture... everyone in their green for St. Patrick's Day. James was not happy about wearing the green shirt and jeans I picked out so.... to please me, he put them on... but he wore the orphan clothes he likes underneath (yes, dirty sweat pants and all) so he could have the last laugh. Boys! Hope everyone had a fun St. Patty's Day.

Mr. O'Boyer

Since Friday was James last day of school before their 2 week break, his class celebrated St. Patrick's day. In addition to his fun day at school, he got to go to my parents house and see all the new goats my Dad and Brooke bought. Brooke loves her little goats and we tease her that she is only 15 years old and has 7 "kids". This is the goat James got to name. He named it Oreo. My sister, Haleigh, picked the smallest baby goat ever! Then I wanted to play around with the black&white setting on the camera so I took a picture of the buddies. They are the best of buddies. Fun times.

Sarah's appointment at the Children's Hospital

So to give the background, when Sarah was born, the nurses immediately noticed a large bump on her neck. The Doctor said he felt it when he was delivering her. They took her for an ultrasound and it was in their opinion that is was a cyst. The pediatrician on duty said not to worry about it because it wasn't affecting her breathing or hurting her in any way, but said that at some point, it would probably have to be surgically removed. They referred me to the Children's Hospital to have her be evaluated by the specialists.

Her 1st appointment was supposed to be in January but because the Doctor's kept getting called out to emergencies, they kept postponing her appointment until we were finally seen yesterday. Over the last 3 months since she was born, the "cyst" has dissolved and gone away. Her primary care physician couldn't even find it at his last appointment with her but told me to take her to the Children's Hospital anyway to be sure.

So, I took her yesterday totally expecting them to look and say, "It's gone, you can take her home now." But what they actually said is that she has what is called "fibromatosis coli/ torticollis". This is how they explained it to me: that when she was born, she got a tear in the muscle of her neck. That caused a big blood clot there that the Doctor's thought was a cyst. Over time, the blood clot goes away but the tear made her neck muscle shorter on one side so that she holds her head to one side. I thought all this time that it was just because she is young and didn't have full head control yet. But they said that if it is not corrected, it will cause spine problems.

What this means is that I will have to start taking her to physical therapy. Do you know who does physical therapy around here on babies under 6 months old? No one. I will have to take her to Madera (which is down by Fresno) for x-rays and physical therapy. I am not worried, this isn't life threatening, and she will be fine. But, I was surprised to get the news and a little bummed about how far we will have to drive. We'll be ok though. Love to you all!