It has been a busy year for the Isbell family. We started the year with a three week old and she has kept us on our toes all year long. Josephine turned 1 last week and we are so blessed to have her in our family. Here is our family in review:
Josephine is the baby of the family and has three older sisters, but has managed to steal the show and gets lots of attention. At 8 weeks old, she had stopped eating or thriving. After blood tests, she was rushed to Primary Children’s Medical Center on a helicopter. After 2 days in the PICU and another 4 in the hospital she was doing much better. I have never been so happy to have a baby smile at me. She had urinary reflux in both of her kidneys and had a very serious kidney infection. After leaving the hospital, she took antibiotics on a daily basis, and one additional minor procedure until October when she got her tubing rebuilt to term it simply. She spent two more days in the hospital. Today she is 21 lbs and healthy! She is close to walking and can get into the bathroom to empty the toilet roll faster than any baby I have seen. As for her medical condition, the doctors will continue to follow her for the next year, but we are anticipating no further procedures or medications.
Lilly is two. Do I need to say more? She is so very sweet, but she does not like it when she doesn’t get her way. She learns new words every day. We are working on getting her to say the first part of her words as she always has her binkie in her mouth. Lilly loves her blankies, bottles and binkies. She has every comfort she can carry at any one time. Since Josephine stole many months out of her baby time by joining the family just 17 months after her, we let it go. Lilly is getting close to being potty trained. She wants to go to school with her older sisters, but will have to wait one more year.
Annabell is 4 and is sweet and caring. She started pre-school this year and is doing great. They sing lots of songs in preschool and she walks around singing them all day long. She also started speech therapy and has mastered her “C” and “G” sounds. Hopefully she will be all ready for Kindergarten next fall.
Lexie turned 7 this year. She is in the 2nd grade and is excelling in math and is almost caught up in her reading skills. She is learning fast and growing even faster. She still manages to wear out the knees of her pants though before she out grows themJ.
Chris graduated from the University of Utah and is continuing his search for a full time mechanical engineering job. In the meantime, he has been busy switching to the Washington State Air National Guard and is preparing to go to Officer Basic Training or AMS in January. We are going to miss him, but are very proud of our soon to be lieutenant in the Air Force. He also started his own rock chip repair business and works a part time job as well. All the rest of his free time is spent carpooling the kids to school and playing soccer. He is a very good goalie and his teammates don’t know he has only been playing that position for the past year.
I am still working full time at XanGo and am very grateful for an excellent job in these economic times. Most of my time is spent trying to keep up with our energy filled girls. We have been very blessed this year and are looking forward to another busy but wonderful year ahead of us.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
- Chris, Heidi, Lexie, Annabell, Lilly, and Josephine Isbell
As tradition holds, Schultz Christmas fell on the 21st this year. We all got to open our presents from my parents and then each kid and grandchild buys a present for their "special" person and those presents get opened as well. My kids loved it and I got to put together the cute kitchen set from my sister. It was mass chaos and tons of fun!
Josephine isn't happy to be at the ER at 1 in the morning, come to think of it, neither was I.
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