Catching Up

I got really behind on the blog so here I go trying to attempt to catch up.  I am going to go aways back to get this all in.  This is my journal after all. 

BIRTHDAYS

We celebrated two important birthdays these last two months, Kory and mine.  Kory is now 35 and I am 33.  We took it pretty low key for both of our birthdays.  Kory bought BSU football tickets for his birthday and we gave him a new tie and a love letter saying why each of us loved him.  For my birthday I bought a new watch and a crockpot.  I got a new set of knives a while back and they cost a pretty penny so I told everyone that was my big present.  We ate cake and cheesecake for both of our birthdays and had a good time.

SCHOOL
School has started again.  McKay is in 4th grade this year and Erica started kindergarten.  Both are doing great and enjoying it very much.  They love riding the bus together.  They are going to a new bus stop that is just up from the park that is across our street.  It's nice because I can watch them from our windows.  It's nice to see them go and have fun and learn and we have a quieter home for awhile, and its fun to have them come home and tell us about their adventures and what they are learning and the excitement they bring home with them.  All three play really well together and its fun to watch them enjoy each other and play nicely and use their imaginations and build hopefully bonds of lasting friendship.

KASON'S 2ND EYE SURGERY
Kason went through his second eye surgery the end of August.  He did really well but after the surgery was in a lot of pain just like his first one.  He had this surgery to lift his eyelid even higher so it was more even with his good eyelid.  Luckily Mom and Dad were coming into town for Ashley's blessing and they were able to help us get the other kids off to school and help take care of Kason when I needed to take care of the baby.  They were a lifesaver during that time.  This will be his last surgery.  At his postop appointment the doctor said that this was as far as they could pull it up without bunching up his eyebrow.  It looks really good.  When he looks straight they are both even.  However, when he looks up or down they are uneven.  His doctor said that they can never fix it perfectly; however, it is the best that they can do and we are all happy with the results.  We are still patching his eye 2 hours a day and he is still wearing glasses.  We are hoping that someday he will not need the glasses or the patches anymore.  Keep our fingers crossed.

 Before surgery

 After surgery

Our super Grandma and Grandpa helpers, along with their trusty Ipads.

ASHLEY'S BLESSING
We blessed Ashley in our ward on Sept 2.  Mom and Dad came up and also Kory's parents, sister, and brother.  Jared and Michelle and their family also came.  We enjoyed a wonderful meal at our house afterwards with pulled pork sandwiches, fruit try, pasta salad, green salad, chips and salsa, jello, and Costco cheesecake.  We had a wonderful time and it was great to have so many family there with us.

KASON COMPUTER AND HOME PRESCHOOL
Kason over the last few months has learned how to use the mouse on the computer.  This has been really nice for him.  He used to have to watch McKay and Erica play all the games but now he gets a turn.  He is a pro now and can do about anything.  His favorite games are Lego Preschool and Starfall and Drawing for Children (both Starfall and Drawing for Children are used in Erica's kindergarten class).  I decided to keep him home from preschool this year and just teach him myself.  So far he learns a letter a week and we do it two times a week, just like regular preschool.  We started off by teaching him how to cut with scissors which was a disaster.  I then started letters and he picked up on them very quickly.  We are a bit behind and on letter F right now.  During the last two months he has gone from not knowing hardly any letters to all of them, he can spell and write his own name, and the letters he has learned so far he can write them properly and knows their sound.  I have been very impressed with how quickly he is picking things up.  Good job Kason!

GARDEN
Garden time is over.  We had a pretty successful year.  Of course some things grew better than others.  We finally got raspberries this year after three years of waiting.  However, we got hardly any strawberries.  Our corn did not grow, or our cucumbers, or beans, or watermelon.  Some of the things we did get were tomatoes, green peppers, jalapeno peppers, carrots, green onions, peas, cantaloupe, zucchini, and 2 pumpkins.  Our greatest producers were the zucchini, tomatoes, and cantaloupe.  It was a successful year!

MY WORK
Since the baby was born I was fortunate enough to be able to take almost 3 months off from work.  They were soooooo wonderful.  I knew I was going to return to work but dreaded it for two reasons.  First was how was I going to do it with so much going on in my life and the second was that they were transitioning to speech recognition where the doctors would dictated, the computer would type it out, and we would edit it.  Part of me felt that I needed to quit and the other part of me wanted to try it as a sort of challenge to see if I could do it and to experience the new way of working with the speech recognition software.  With much fasting and prayers, I decided that it would not hurt to try and do it again.  I met with my boss and she let me change my hours.  They are crazy hours and whenever I tell them to people they gasp in horror and don't know what is wrong with me.  I am now working from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m.  Yes, I get very little sleep each night.  However, I am finally able to work without as many distractions and I can just sit and get it done and over with.  Sometime it is very hard to stay awake and I am very tired in the morning, but so far I have been able to do it.  Hopefully I don't jeopardize my health too much.  My work was also able to train me on the new software from home so I could be close to the baby and with new speech recognition has been very good and kind of cool.  I am able to go through reports more quickly and I think overall it was a great transition.  I still hope to quit some day when our loans decrease some more and when Kory thinks it is time for me to quit.  Just waiting for the day and carrying on.

TEMPLE
The Boise Temple was shut down for renovations for over a year and they have opened it up again for tours and the rededication in November.  We went as a family one Friday evening.  It was busy but so wonderful.  We had to park aways away and ride a shuttle bus over to the temple.  That was a lot of fun.  The kids were very reverent and we could really feel the spirit.  We met in the chapel next door to the temple first to watch a video and get with our tour group.  Then we went outside to walk over to the temple.  It was night and just to see the temple as we were walking towards it was amazing.  I cannot describe the feeling.  There were a lot of people but it was a quiet and reverent atmosphere and the temple was so bright and beautiful.  They did a wonderful job in renovating it and it is very different from the inside.  It was a great experience for our family and one that hopefully made an impression on our children and they can remember this forever.  One experience with McKay was as we were walking through one of the sealing rooms I noticed McKay wiping at his eyes.  I don't know if it was just super bright in there and he got tears from the bright lights or if it was the spirit touching him during that sacred experience.  I didn't want to ask in case he got embarrassed, but just kept it to myself.  I did not get any pictures while we were there, wish I would have thought about bringing my camera; however, they were not allowed anyway.

ASHLEY
My baby is growing so fast.  She is three months old now.  She is very chubby and cute.  She can hold her head up fine now.  She coos and smiles all the time.  She is starting to grab onto things that are in front of her.  She puts blankets and her clothes in her mouth.  She can't hold onto toys quite yet.  The other kids love to give her attention.  I like that I can put her on the floor on a blanket and they just take over entertaining her, reading to her, trying to get her to hold onto toys, and talking with her.  I love her and such a joy to our family.   The pictures below are a progression from one month old to three months old and how much she has changed.

Birth of Ashley Elizabeth

We had our baby finally.  She came a couple days early which is fine.  She was born on Wednesday, July 18 at 9:28 a.m.  She was 6 pounds 1 ounce, 18 inches long.  Dark brown hair and so little and cute.  The birth was not fun at all, extremely painful but fortunately very short.  I had my doctor strip my membranes at my appointment early Tuesday morning.  That brought on the contractions all day long, but they were not consistant until that night around dinner time.  I started timing them while I was finishing up work and they were about 7 minutes apart.  I tried to sleep that night and seemed at first to fall asleep between the contractions for a couple of hours.  At around 1 a.m. I gave up and went and watched TV for a while and kept track of the contractions.  At about 3:30 a.m. I decided to wake up Kory and head to the hospital.  They were at that point around 4-6 minutes and getting more painful.  We went in and they monitored me for about an hour.  I was at 4 cm and about 6 minutes apart in contractions.  After that hour, I spent about another hour in the Jacuzzi tub to try and relax me and dilate me.  After that, I was getting hooked up to the monitor in bed when my water broke.  The nurse said I would be staying for sure now and got going on all the questions and getting me hooked up to the IV.  Unfortunately, I was group B strep positive, so they started the penicillin and we were waiting for that to go in me and waiting also on the anesthesiologist to do the epidural who was in doing a C-section.  My contractions quickly started to come more often and were unbearable.  I was in so much pain as they were trying as fast as possible to pump the penicillin in me.  Finally the anesthesiologist came in and tried to give me the epidural.  She had a hard time saying my interspaces in my spine were really tight.  They tried a couple of times and finally got it to work.  I would get shooting pains down my back on my right side that were so painful.  That pain along with the heavy contractions were way too much for me to bear.  I was totally losing it and no longer had any control over my breathing and trying to relax.  The pain was too much.  After the epidural was in, they laid me down but only one side was going numb.  Just then the doctor came in and went to check my progress and said that the baby was ready to come out.  Nothing was ready and the baby was coming.  The poor nurses were running around trying to get the bed ready and table for the baby.  It was crazy.  The anesthesiologist was trying to turn the epidural up to max to try and relieve my pain.  I was totally out of it at that point and confused.  I could not believe that it was time to deliver already.  I so wanted the epidural to work so I could take a nap, because I was exhausted.  The last time they checked me I think was right after my water broke and I was at a 5.  They said within 40 minutes I went from a 5 to a 10!  No wonder I was in so much pain.  The nurse said that with me sitting up to get the epidural probably made me dilate so fast.  After everything was set up for the delivery, they had to snap me out of it to get me to hold my breath and push.  Luckily I only had to push twice and he was able to get the baby out.  It was terrible.  The epidural made the pain of the contractions go away on my right side but not my left and when they delivered the baby I could feel everything the doctor was doing and stretching me and feeling the baby come out, that part was not numb.  They put her on my tummy and cleaned her off and it hurt my stomach so bad.  I told them to take her off of me.  I probably sounded like a terrible mother.  I was in tears afterwards from the trauma of the whole thing, vowing never to have children again.  I think I now know what true labor is like.  We have a beautiful result though and I am very thankful for our sweet little girl.  She is probably our best baby.  She is overall a good sleeper and wonderful eater and just good overall.  The kids love her and try to help take care of her, getting diapers and other things to help me out.  They like to hold her and concerned when she cries.  She is a great addition to our family and we are very blessed.         

                       

McKay's Birthday and Pine Wood Derby

This post is all about McKay.  He has had a couple of special days these past few weeks.  He had his first Pine Wood Derby and won 1st place with his winning car.  There were only 8 boys and a couple of the cars were really close in racing with McKay's car.  It was fun to watch and McKay was very humble about his winning.  It was a very short race with only a few boys and we had root beer floats afterwards.

 McKay and his potato man he made on his last couple of days of school.  He decorated it all by himself.

 The three winning boys.

McKay turned 9 years old yesterday, June 26.  We just made it a family day because I don't think physically I could have handled a birthday party with friends.  I took the kids to an indoor play place called Planet Kid.  We were there for hours and they had a lot of fun.  Then we went to a big park in downtown Boise and played and then went over to a giant fountain and played in the water with sticks that the kids were finding all over the place with the big trees.  We stopped off and got McKay's new scout book for Bears and took a trip to Walmart.  We got home around 5 p.m. and everyone was exhausted.  Kory came home from work exhausted as well with a busy and frustrating day for him at work.  We made some quick cupcakes and went and got Guido's New York pizza for dinner, yum.  McKay opened presents and got a new bike, Lego set, a crystal maker, a little art picture from Erica, $20 from Grandma and Grandpa Adams, and a book and bear neck tie for scouts from Grandma and Grandpa Hall.  It was a great day.  Happy Birthday McKay, we love you!!!!!

Baby Progress Update

We are getting closer to having this baby girl of ours.  About 3 weeks left, or longer.  Right now I am measuring about a week behind, so we will see when this baby really comes.  My due date is July 20 but we have one conflicting day and that is our anniversary which is on July 16.  I don't really want this baby born too close to our anniversary.  So maybe later is better.  I am still able to do quite a bit but get tired easily and sleeping is very painful.  I am very slow as well.  It is really funny to hear people ask me when I am due and I say around a month and they look at me and say things like no way, you are so little.  I get that so much from everyone that I am getting kind of sick of it.  Except I have heard that all my life; I am so little.  So far I have only gained about 13 pounds during this whole pregnancy.  I am all baby and water I guess.  It will be nice to be done with this pregnancy.  I have a few last minute goals to accomplish before she comes like making and stocking up on freezer meals, deep cleaning the house, getting all the baby stuff out from the closets and getting everything in order, and making bread mixes already in bags and you just have to add the wet ingredients to make.  We will see how far I get with that.

 A Sunday activity, making human sandwiches.

Cute Erica.

Scouts, Ballet, Easter, Kason's B-Day

 Time to catch up on the blog.  These are totally out of order, oh well.  So I will start out with Scouts.  We went to McKay's Blue and Gold Banquet and he recieved his Wolf award.  His birthday is next month and he is officially going to be moving on.  He worked hard to get this on time.  We had a really nice dinner with hot dogs and hambergers, chips, salads, watermellon, and cream pops.  There was a jump house for the kids.  We had a great time.

Erica had her ballet recital this last weekend.  She did a wonderful job.  For many days now she has been sick again with the fever, chills, and a nasty cough.  She was pretty run down the morning of her performance.  Luckily she made it through it and she was the prettiest one there, in my opinion.  This is her last year.  She said she did not want to do ballet again.  We will have to find some other type of activity maybe later on.  She will start Kindergarten this fall and I think we will start with that and when she gets a little older maybe do a sport or something????

Easter was forever ago, but I needed to put a few pictures on for that special day.  We got lots of yummy candy at the park across the street.  It was just the boys this time as Erica and I had to go to a Savior of the World practice at the same time.  The boys brought home some candy for Erica and she did not seem to mind missing it.  On Easter morning, the Easter Bunny laid eggs all around our backyard along with some sand toys, kites, and jump ropes.  It was a really nice day.

Kason turned 3 years old on April 30.  It was a rainy day almost all day.  We were going to go to the zoo, but the weather was not very good.  McKay was in school and Kory had to go to work, so I took Erica and Kason to a new Aquarium.  It was small but had some nice exhibits.  Lots of animals to touch (which I did not do).  Erica was our bravest toucher.  I took my camera along and Erica brought along McKay's camera (one of our old ones we let him use).  When we got there I noticed that the batteries in my camera were dead.  I was glad Erica brought McKay's camera and we started taking lots of pictures with it.  Everyone was having a good time until Kason say some candy and wanted some M&M's.  I had some coins in my purse but definately not enough to buy any candy with and I was not going to buy it with my card, so I said sorry, but no.  Well the rest of the Aquarium visit just went downhill from there.  Kason was screaming and crying and did not want to look at anything, he just wanted candy.  I finally gave in to at least let them feed the fish.  So I did buy some little shrimp that they throw into the water to feed a few different types of fish.  We went over and started feeding the sharks and sting rays.  They did not want to eat the food though.  I turned away for a moment and then I heard a big splash.  I thought a fish jumped up to eat some food but then Erica screamed, "McKay's camera!!"  It had fallen into the fish tank and sunk to the bottom.  I really did not want to reach my arm in to get it amongst all the sharks, but luckily a nice, large man came to the rescue.  He reached in and got the camera out along with getting his sleeve all wet.  I thanked him profusely and now Erica was in tears.  After that we quickly got rid of the rest of the fish food and got out of there.  No one was happy at that point.  As we were walking to the car I was asked many times by Kason and Erica if they could have some M&Ms now.  Uhhh, no.  Needless to say, the camera was destroyed and now I don't have any pictures to post of the aquarium. 

 I actually made a decent cake this year.  I am a terrible cake maker.  Kason wanted a blue puppy, so we made it into a Blue's Clues Cake.  Everyone loved it.

 That evening we took everyone out to Carl's Junior to play and eat and have fun. 

When we got home from Carl's Junior we had present time and cake time.