Jeremiah Layton Gallahan

On July 28, 2012, our little boy, Jeremiah Layton Gallahan, was called back to our Heavenly Father.  He was our perfect little angel and was obviously needed for a greater mission.  While it has been tough on us emotionally to not have any time with our little boy, our knowledge of our Heavenly Father's plan has helped us to get through this rough time and it will continue to do so.  We are so very lucky to have tremendous support from our wonderful family and great friends.  Never in our lives did we expect to be burying a child, especially an infant, however, we know that we will get through this and our faith and our testimonies will become stronger from this experience.  Jeremiah will always be in our hearts and we know that we will be with him again in the eternities. 

We had a very special moment on Friday in which we were able to dress Jeremiah for burial.  While it was hard, it was a necessary and very healing experience for me.  We dressed him in the blessing outfit that I crocheted for him.  We thought it very fitting that they would be the clothes he was buried in.  A quilt (my first ever quilt) that I had made for him was placed in the casket with him.

Today we laid our little boy to rest at Fairfax Memorial Park.  We were joined by our family and held a small graveside service officiated by our Bishop.  My sister, Linda, sang a beautiful song and Ken dedicated Jeremiah's resting place.  It is a beautiful spot under a tree in a section called the "Garden of Angels."  Many others had hung wind chimes in the tree and it provided a beautiful backdrop for the service.  After the service, we all returned to my sister Pam's house where we had a nice luncheon that was provided by generous members of our ward.  There was a ton of delicious food. 

We have been greatly blessed in this difficult and trying time in our lives.  We have been blessed by the love of our Savior.  We have been blessed by the love of our families.  And we have been blessed by the love and generosity of our friends.  We could never express enough thanks for all the love, help, and support that we have received over the past week and I know will continue to receive.

Getting ready

So we have a lot of things that we're getting ready for around here:

-Isabella turns 5 in a week.  Can you believe that?  I will have a 5 year old.  Holy cow, where has the time gone.  We're having a party for her with family this weekend and we'll let her take a few friends to McDonald's or Chick Fil-a and maybe a movie in a couple weeks. 

-A new baby.  I heard from the coordinator at the doctor's office this morning and we're trying to schedule the delivery of our baby for August 8th.  I'm hoping I'll know by tomorrow if that's the plan we're going with so that Dr. Alembik can deliver this baby.  He delivered Isabella.  So, basically, unless the hospital is booked that day or Mother Nature has other plans, we're shooting for August 8th for a baby.  Look for updates on or around that date.  And don't forget that we don't know the gender of this baby, so it will be fun to see if its a boy or girl.  Now to just figure out some names.

-School.  Yup, Isabella starts school this year.  Again, hard to believe.  So now we have to start working on her school supply list.  Luckily the list isn't too bad for Kindergarten.  She will be able to go in on August 31 to tour the school and meet her teacher.  I think she's excited about it.  Then school will start September 4.  We are in a walking zone, but of course, from our house, its straight up a huge hill.  Although that might be nice for me to help lose some of my baby weight.  Hey, I gotta look at the walk there positively.

-The Olympics.  Um, hello, who doesn't love the Olympics?  I've really been looking forward to watching this and hoping it might get Isabella and even Bryce interested in some sports activities.

-Aunt Linda and Uncle Mike and of course, cousin Paige's, visit.  Aunt Linda and Paige will probably be coming in the next few weeks, while Mike won't be here until around the beginning of September.

We have a number of things we need to do around the house to get ready for baby and just to organize things some more or at all.  Hopefully we can get some of the things done before baby comes so that we have room for baby.  Luckily the crib is still set up, so we don't have to worry about that.



A look at the last couple months:
-Tammy's belly has been getting bigger, funny how that happens when you're growing a baby.
-Aunt Pam moved to a new house with an in-ground pool that we have all been enjoying.
-Uncle Russell and cousins RJ and Cameron came to visit for two weeks from Las Vegas.   Bryce still keeps asking to go to Grandma and Poppop's house to see his cousins.  (They've only been gone a few days, so he'll figure it out soon.)

New Family Picture

Here's the family picture we gave our parents for Valentine's Day.

Yes, there is an extra pair of "feet." Those are baby booties because we are expecting baby #3. The next Gallahan baby is expected the middle of August. Our due date is the same as it was for Isabella, so hopefully we can avoid August 1st so that Isabella doesn't have to share her birthday with her Mommy and the new baby. We are about 17 weeks as of today. We still haven't decided if we're going to find out what the sex of the baby is, but right now we're leaning towards not finding out. We have another 4 weeks before we'll have to decide that. Isabella is super excited. She goes back and forth on whether she cares if its a boy or girl. She will usually tell me she doesn't care which, then she'll tell Ken that she'll be upset if it's a boy. Bryce is obviously clueless. He might figure out as Mommy's tummy keeps getting bigger.

Catch-up

So I glanced at our blog today and realized that we still had a winter background and that I haven't updated since the beginning of December. I still have yet to upload the card from the camera to the computer so still no pictures. Here are a few things going on in our lives over the last few months:

• Christmas came and went, we had a wonderful holiday with such generous family. The kids had a blast. Isabella has just recently stopped asking when Santa is going to come again.
• We rang in the new year. We were rather boring and even Ken and I went to bed early. We're such party animals, I know.
• We've spent a lot of time working with Isabella on her reading and even her math. She's doing really well with both. When she wants to that is. She doesn't really like to sit still when she's reading, but we're working on that.
• Isabella also took a swim class. This was Preschool Level 2, and she loved it. She's still not completely sure about putting her face in the water, but she's working on it.
  
• Bryce has actually been showing an interest in potty training. He frequently runs to the bathroom when we tell Isabella to go in and go potty. He's even used the potty a few times. He's not quite ready for full-on potty training, but its a start.
  
• We celebrated Valentine's Day. For Valentine's to our parents/grandparents, we gave them a new family picture. I'll share that in my next post.
• Now we're into March and ready for Spring/Summer, despite the fact it snowed this morning.
  
• Soon we'll be registering Isabella for Kindergarten...can you believe that?!?

So there's a quick overview on our life. Hopefully I'll get with it soon and actually get some pictures posted.

I know I know

I know I need to update this, I just haven't been feeling it when I've actually had time to do it. So here's a quick synopsis on what's been going on. Pictures will come later.

Since Bryce's birthday, we've celebrated Halloween. Isabella was Snow White, thanks to Aunt Linda who made the dress. Bryce was a super-hero. He wasn't too sure about the cape and such but he was all about the candy. We went trick-or-treating at the local mall. It was busy but not horrendous. The kids were done after about 15 minutes. We lasted probably 45 minutes before we left to head over to Grandma and Grandpa Gallahan's house. We had stopped at Grandma and Grandpa Dixon's house on the way to the mall.

We also celebrated Thanksgiving. We had dinner over at Ken's sister, Teresa's, house. It was nice and there was tons of food. Unfortunately, Bryce wasn't feeling too great so he wasn't the best of company the whole time. At least this year we didn't end up at the emergency room like last year. He'd been sick with a cold all week. He decided to share and by the end of the weekend, Isabella and I came down with the cold. We had to go to the doctor anyways the following Wednesday so they checked them out. Bryce was good but a monster...98th percentile for height and 97th for weight. We had Isabella all geared up for shots and then, lo and behold, she got an ear infection courtesy of the cold that Bryce shared. So no shots and Mom and Dad get to take turns wrestling her down to take her antibiotic. She'll have to go back in a few weeks to get shots. By Saturday, I was feeling really bad and the cough from the cold had gotten worse, and I ended up at Urgent Care. Sure enough...bronchitis. Go figure, Bryce shares a minor cold, and Isabella and I get something more. Anyways, so I'm on an antibiotic now as well, which unfortunately, loosened everything else up and I was having major ear and neck pain. I sent a note to my doctor to make sure it wasn't something completely oddball, but she said it was just drainage. So after four days on antibiotics, I'm feeling a little better, still a little neck pain.

Now we're just getting ready for Christmas. You can read about our tree decorating here. I'm actually ready for the holidays to be over already.