2 Brothers Layne

Today was a pretty uneventful day. Tanya made it out shopping, she said it was extremely busy. We played with Jonah, had some fun, and this evening went to a new years celebration. One of the guys at work invited me to go to his churches party. We went. It was Tanya's first experience in a non-mormon church party. They only thing that she thought was odd, was during the prayer people would make comments or repeat part of the prayer. The people were very nice, they even invited us back for church and bible study when we left. The program was really, really good. Singing, games, and a lot of laughs. I guess I should mention that the majority, most likely 98.9% are Philippino, other than Tanya, Jonah, and Myself, there were three other white/Caucasian there. It was a bit intimidating. the food was wonderful also. Tanya only ate fruit, but I enjoyed some philipino food.

It's been another good day at the Layne house. Jonah and Mommy played all day and when Daddy got home we made pizza for dinner. Jonah was adamant that he helped too! This evening Jonah got to open a very large gift bag of Christmas presents from Nurse Ally! This was his favorite part!

This evening has been a lot of fun for all of us. You will have to watch the video(s) to see if you can find them. It shouldn't be hard. Jonah also played with Erin today, the physical therapist. She brought Jonah a pair of skants. A skirt sewn up the middle to make pants out of them. When I arrived home from work and saw Jonah in them, I thought to myself, "Wow, he has a giant upper half and a tiny lower half." I guess stretch skants will do that to the little guy. Don't worry, at least they are modest, they do come below the knee!!! Ha ha ha! Hope you enjoy the flicks.

Just as we are getting Jonah's pajamas on he tells us he needs to go potty. After Tanya finishes her song for Jonah, I hear her giggling ecstatically. I ask her if she wants me to get a picture. She laughs and says no. But she also tells me that Jonah has just pee'd in the potty!! All day long Jonah has been saying pee, touching his diaper, and showing potty with a sign. Tanya thinks if we pursue this pretty hard then we won't have to buy another box of diapers. We are pretty excited. This weekend I am hoping she will have time to go out and buy Jonah some undies. I would grab some on my way home, but the first set should probably be a mommy thing. For as excited as Tanya is, I would hate to take this memory away from her. Jonah has had another amazing day. He gets closer and closer to crawling every day, and gets more and more confident on his feet. He loves to play with his kitchen as we clean our kitchen or prepare a meal. He is getting better at putting shap...

So it has be so much fun to have Daddy at home with us today. We've done a lot of playing as anyone who could see our house could easily guess. We've been preparing to send Daddy to work tomorrow when a few moments ago his Chief called and said that HM-14 (Dave's squadron) will not be working tomorrow! So COOL! Jonah has had a busy day of playing and enjoying lots of attention. Tomorrow he is scheduled to see the neurologist but I plan on moving his appointment to later in the week, if possible, so we don't have to brave the nasty roads!

Today we were dumped on!! 12". Terrible!! For a moment wished I had a snow blower. Jonah came out with us for about 20 minutes, then he was done being outside. Dave will stay home tomorrow due to the storm, church was canceled today, and it isn't supposed to warm up until Tuesday afternoon. YUCK!! We were able to skype with a lot of our family today. It makes the heartache and homesickness ease a bit when we are able to see and talk with our families. We have been trying to get Jonah to open up so we can see down his throat. We finally snapped a pick. You will see inside of Jonahs mouth: the Uvula and Jonah's tonsils. The Tonsils are touching and possibly over lapping the uvula. The doc's have said a couple things about this. Since no other signs of being ill are present, Jonah most likely has very large tonsils. Ok. We are down with this. On the other side of things. Jonah has played and played today. He has played with Mom, played with Dad, and playe...

Today has been one of the best Christmas's I can recall. We went from wondering if we were going to be able to have Christmas to an overabundance thanks to all of our wonderful friends and family!!! First off let me tell you why Tanya is so excited about today!! We were asked to speak tomorrow in church. Tanya has been dreading this day for the last three weeks. Well, Heaven has smiled down upon her in a huge way. A winter storm is upon us, and church has been canceled. She is very relieved!!! Another wonderful thing was Christmas dinner. Tanya spent most of the day preparing dinner. A turkey dinner with the works. This time it is only for two, not ten. Very, very good!! Today I spent in awe at the progression of Jonah. The thought never crossed my mind that Jonah would be doing the things he is. Playing with us, teasing us, thinking through situations, and the best is his sense of humor!!! Jonah loves to laugh. Unbeknown to Tanya or myself that Jonah is watching, we...

Today was a lot of fun, a lot of work, but fun. The house was mostly cleaned. Jonah had a great time skyping with his grandparents. We even joined my family's christmas party in Utah over skype. It was great! Hope everyone enjoys a merry christmas!!!

Today was a pretty good day. A lot was acomplished. Tanya made an aprin for Jonah to go with the kitchen Santa is bringing him. Tanya made pizza tonight!!! Yummy!!! We are continuously working on Jonah speech. I think this is going to be another area of hard work for us. Jonah seems content with only saying part of the word, instead of the entire word. I wonder if that is just a two year old though? He is however, getting closer and closer to crawling!!!

Not to sure about the title; yet, I wanted something to sound complex that really is simple. Today has been a great day all around!!! Tanya was able to get out and get some shopping done, food shopping. Jonah's PT came and played with Jonah, she said she will bring some fancy pants for Jonah to play in next week. These pants have the legs sewn together from the waist to the knee to help prevent Jonah's knees and feet from splitting when he puts pressure on them. Jonah is starting to put together two syllable words. Today Tanya worked with Jonah to say soda. You can definitely tell that the DA part of the word was a struggle for Jonah to learn, as he puts emphasis on it. Jonah is doing very well in developing. It is very hard work for him, he has a long way to go, but we will get there.

Today we found that Jonah is on the upper end of his weight class so he is being put on a diet. A couple of things going on. We are cutting his calories, we want him to get longer and grow into his weight. He is almost 30 lbs. In doing so we are cutting his night feed by 100 mls and supplementing it with 100 mls of water. We are also weaning Jonah off his night feeding. Tanya has been anticipating both of these changes since before she left Utah. Not a huge surprise. Jonah has been very affectionate with Baby Ally today. Ally has been slathered in kisses and cuddled with all afternoon! It's been so cute to watch!

It was a personal triumph for Mommy to drive to the hospital first of all and to top it off we were there in plenty of time. The tunnel that takes us under the ocean was moving very well. It is not uncommon to have to wait 30 minutes or more to use the tunnel at certain times of the day. Lets hope for more of the same tomorrow as we have another appointment with the nutritionist. Today Jonah and I met his new Cardiologist, Dr. Zentz. He was very personable and I felt like he respected my opinion and saw me as a capable mother. What impressed me the most was that after doing an EKG and an ultrasound of Jonah's heart he was comfortable with staying the course that Dr. Day and I had charted out in Utah. Dr. Zentz will be requesting some of Jonah's records to help fill in the blanks and give him something to compare today's tests to. They measured Jonah's pressures at 34 and 33. "Normal" is considered 25 and below. So Jonah isn't too far off of normal...

One thing I love about Sunday is that Tanya makes bread!!! The smell is great, but the taste is best!!! Today was a pretty calm day. We had a good time a church. We left a few minutes early because Jonah was falling asleep on us. Not to worry, we left just before the closing song and benediction. Jonah has had a pretty good day. Tanya informed me that Jonah has met the speech goals that were set the first of October. New goals will be set in January. Jonah has enjoyed playing with my slinky tonight. I may have lost my studying aide to Jonah. He has not squawked once when playing with it. The only down side is that Jonahs hands get dirty from playing with it. One funny note. Tonight when saying Jonah's bed time prayers Tanya was holding Jonah in her lap and instead of Tanya helping Jonah say his prayers, Jonah helped Tanya say prayers. We try to use sign, as much as we know to help Jonah with his language skills. Instead of Tanya helping Jonah to position his hands to ...

Not sure what to say about today. Other than I can't believe we are one week away from Christmas. This holiday season will be very memorable. This will be Jonah's first Christmas when he isn't afraid of the christmas tree!! He asks for the holiday music to be turned on, and his contagous laugh and sense of humor!!! We love him!!! When I got home Tanya told me something pretty funny about Jonah. First I should pre-lude it by saying Tanya and Jonah have taken me to work a couple times this week. Jonah asked where I was this morning. Tanya told him I was at work. Jonah then said, "Momma bye bye." Tanya asked him where he wanted to go? Jonah said, "Daddy, Work." He was set on coming to get me from work today. He was sleeping when I arrived home today. It was nice to have some quiet time with Tanya. This evening was a lot of fun. I made a sandwich with Nutello, it is a hazelnut type of peanut butter, and asked Jonah if he wanted a taste. Of ...

It has been a nice slow day for our family. Today Jonah and I finally got to have a "Mommy and Jonah" day with no therapy or appointments! Hooray! Daddy says that everyone at work was moving in slow motion today. Since Daddy has only one speed at work, super fast, he found their behavior a little frustrating. It's his duty weekend so it will be another Mommy and Jonah day tomorrow.

Today has been a little on the crazy side due to the weather. We had maybe 1 inch of snow today and it caused a huge mess. No one knows how to drive in the snow here! It took Dave nearly 3 hours to make the 15 minute commute home today. As for Jonah and I, we had a great evening together being very silly. I handed Jonah the scraps from cutting his bandages for his g-tube. He quickly started unraveling things and asking Mommy to put them on. Before long, this is what we came up with. This kiddo has such a great sense of humor and the greatest laugh! Just being silly! Never a dull moment around here. Of course Jonah had most of his laughing out before the camera was turned on but enjoy it anyways! We are going to have a big week next week. We see cardiology on Monday and Nutrition on Tuesday then Neurology the following Tuesday. I still 1have 4 more appointments to make tomorrow or Monday. Hmmm... lots to keep us movin'

Today Jonah caught mom thinking. She had her hand by her face tapping her temple with her pointer finger saying, "Hmmmmmm." She came out of her daze when she heard Jonah mimic, "Hmmmm." She looked at him as he tried to imitate her hand placement but couldn't quite get it right. With some help from Tanya he was able to get his thinking face on. On with the daily grind in the life of Jonah. Tanya has been pretty busy today with phone calls. She found out a lot of information today. Jonahs "Super Stroller" aka adaptive stroller has been approved and will be ordered tomorrow. Which means we should have it in a couple of weeks, hopefully by the new year. She was given good hope for the crocodile walker. The insurance rep said since the adaptive stroller was approved the walker shouldn't be a problem. They also spoke about specialists. A pediatric cardiologist that we think specializes in pulmonary hypertension works at Portsmouth Naval Hospi...

Today was an early morning for our entire family. Tanya and Jonah took me to work today. Jonah seemed to enjoy the ride, at least to get out of the house. Today he had a Pulmonology appointment. This doc will be taking over on weaning the steroids. Tanya was able to snap a couple photos of Jonah while they waited. We also heard back from the insurance today about some other specialists. It looks as though we have some researching to do. .

Today was a legitimate first for Jonah. He felt what snow was. Tanya said it was very funny. She described Jonah as having a, "You know that stupid answer so why are you asking me look." We also had to name his baby today. Jonah has been playing with his Hadie doll Nana gave him a year or so ago. He has been a bit rough on hadie, and with Tanya occasionally watching a new baby thought this to be the opportune time to teach Jonah how to be soft with babies. She went and got the one baby doll we have that is a toy and gave it to Jonah to play with. It is his baby!! Jonah started calling the baby by name. "Baby Jesus." Too funny!!! Tanya quickly remedied the name situation, and now we call the baby Alley. Jonah is starting to develop consonant sounds. We are very excited for this. He used the Y sound very blatantly today. Wonderful!! Go Jonah GO!!!

The truth to my black eye is: I rolled under a helo to look at something on the wheel, the other guy did too. He had the flash light. Don't worry that Flash light learned its lesson. Today was a pretty calm and relaxing day. Tanya let me sleep in for an hour or so, very nice. Today at church we were a bit disappointed to learn that next year we will be moving to 1 pm service rather than the 11 am service. They are combining our ward and the spanish branch for sunday school and young men/women and primary hours, but we will be splitting up again for Sacrament. So we will begin at 1 pm and the spanish branch will begin at 2:05 pm. They will have there sacrament meeting the last hour, so 4 pm - 5 pm. Jonah learned who Elmo is today. Tanya found some videos of Elmo on Youtube to watch. It was fun. Jonah can also say Elmo.

Tanya said shut up and I thought she said stand up. I won't confuse those commands again!!! Ha ha ha. What do you think happened? I will tell you the truth about Tanya giving me a black eye or not tomorrow, but first we want to hear what stories you derive from my pictures about how I got a black eye. Today has been a pretty calm day. Tanya was able to sleep in for a while this morning. She has had a monster head ache lately. Then we made a trip to CHKD, Children's Hospital of the Kings Daughters. It wasn't to hard to find. But the first time is always intimidating to find in a new place. While Jonah was sleeping Mommy snuck away to read a book, while I played some games on the computer. After Jonah woke up and we finished up our break from the worldly cares we cleaned all the floors in our house. This task has been weighing on Tanya for a week or so. Then for dinner Jonah tasted the Stroganoff Tanya made and kept asking for more. It was great! Oh yeah, Tanya fi...

So glad that today is Friday and Dave has the weekend off! It will be nice to spend some time together as a family. Jonah's new nurse came today for a full shift. She was shocked that a three year old little girl new how to pray. As I was watching a Bridgett and her sister. All-in-all it was a fairly good day.

Hooray, it's Thursday! We have nearly made it through another week. Jonah is doing great. Today we met his new nurse Kristen. She seems very nice and they got along quite well. She was only here for 3 hours to do orientation so we'll see how Jonah does with her for an 8 hour span tomorrow. Also tomorrow my little friend Bridget and her new born baby sister, Sabrina are coming to play. Their Dad is out to sea for another week and their mom needs to do some Christmas shopping and get a hair cut. So excited to get to play with 2 adorable little girls.

Today Tanya was being silly and put Jonah's PJ's on her head. When she bowed her head to make the PJ's dance Jonah lost it. I thought it was pretty funny to hear about. Almost as funny as when one of my friends came over and in playing with Jonah made an elephant sound. A pretty loud one. Jonah got scared and started to cry. James felt bad because just as we would sooth Jonah, Jonah would catch a glimpse of James and start to cry all the harder. It was very humorous!!! James eventually stayed outside for about 30 minutes just to allow Jonah to gather himself before returning into the house. Other than being scare today by mommy, Jonah has had a pretty good day. He has learned to say Froggy. He also played with PT today. Little trooper was a sleep when I got home. I was asleep when he woke up. So after I aroused myself from my slumber I walked over to him bent down low and said, "Hi Jonah." He looked at me casually then back at his toy. Then he reali...

Nothing special about Tuesdays Just that they consistently come and go each weak. The sun rises and the sun sets on each Tuesday. Tonight Tanya was able to go to a quilting bee with some of the women in the ward. Jonah continues to learn and progress with amazing fortitude. He amazes me at times with what he picks up and can process. Today Tanya put a clothes pin on his nose and had a lot of fun listening to him speak in a funny voice. Today I realized how far Jonah has come and just how much work he has left to do to be able to walk. He is almost there but still has a large mountain to climb. Which Tanya and I are more than willing to help him champion!!! Some of the places Jonah struggles in: the left leg taking steps, putting weight on his knees, bending his knees to sit, and a few other things I can not remember right now; yet, Jonah continues to excel with his social skills and cognition. All-in-all our little baby is turning into a little boy, more and more...

Who ever told me that it does not get below freezing in Virginia LIED!!! Big surprise right. Today was spent in the wind freezing me to the bones at work!!! It was terrible. I was so cold when I got home I jumped in bed and turned our electric blanket on HI and took a nap to warm up. But enough about me. On to Jonah. Jonah has had a pretty good day today. He has told Mommy that she is SILLY all day long as he laughs hysterically! His laugh is completely contagious. Jonah has developed an obsession today for talking with Aunt "M" on Skype! Silly boy has said M over and over all afternoon. What a fun day with a very happy boy!

Today we said goodbye to 3 of our Navy friends. They were here on a temporary station while they finished up their schooling and on Wednesday they will travel to their permanent duty stations. It was sad to see them go but we are excited for them to be able to put down some roots and move ahead. As for the family... we all enjoyed church today and a very yummy dinner that Daddy made for all of us! Jonah is still using the potty consistently and picking up on new signs and words all the time! Today while we were at church Jonah started pushing a chair around the room. It was great to see!

The day was supposed to be highly productive in getting the house back into shape after being neglected for the last couple of weeks. Yet Dave let me sleep in while he took care of our son then later we all took a 2 hour nap and then watched The Sound of Music. It has been a day of memories and that is better than a perfectly clean house I think! P.S. We are having our first snow flurry this evening! It is beautiful but I highly doubt that it will be enough to stick! ...Just the way I like it!

Today was a slow starting lazy day for us, ok for me, not Tanya. We didn't get up and really get going until about 9 am. Jonah came and played in our bed for a while this morning. After we got up and readied ourselves for the day the big projects started. Tanya made a cake and baked a ham for the ward christmas party tonight. It was a lot of fun. We have made some really good friends that we get excited to see. It is almost starting to feel like a home ward. We were even asked to speak in church on the 26th. Jonah is getting much better with his cold. Hopefully by next week he and Tanya will be able to start playing with other children again.

The Christmas party was a lot of fun. Good food, good fun, good times. Altough, there was a dessert that looked awesome, but it did taste like paint!!! Jonah was pretty good for the nurse tonight. Tomorrow is the ward christmas party. Same nurse. Tanya has a ham and a cake to cook for tomorrow.

Jonah had a visit today from Erin, the Physical Therapist. She was very pleased with the amount of strength Jonah gains each week. Jonah is such a hard worker and is so good to take on any challenge that comes his way. Jonah seems to be on the mend. I think it's safe to say that we are over the worst of this cold! Dave and I are excited to attend his work Christmas party tomorrow!