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. 

Lemonade Anyone?

I had to put this down in writting because it was so cute.  No picture though, sorry.  Today Erica really wanted to have a lemonade stand.  So when McKay got home from school they got everything ready and all set up outside.  They charged .10 a cup of lemonade (bathroom cups because I did not have that much lemonade).  I did not think they would get anyone to come, but Erica decided to advertise.  She apparently went around to our neighbors and friends in the ward around our house and went and knocked on their doors and solicited their lemonade.  People were so nice and came out and bought their lemonade.  They got some kids from the park to come buy some and even a whole family came strolling out from down the street.  I was amazed at who came and supported these cute kids.  They ended up making $3.90.  I watched the whole thing from my office window as I worked.  They want to do it again tomorrow.  I am not sure if our neighbors will come out a second time.  I think Erica is planning on selling some of her toys she does not want anymore as well.  We'll see how it goes.

Update From Earlier Post

This afternoon Kason was crying and covering his ears and said they hurt.  He also was taking his glasses off a lot during the day and has been doing this for a couple of days.  Right away I had a feeling I needed to get him to see the doctor.  I called his pediatrician and they got us right in.  I was surprised to find out both of his ears are infected and he has a little left-sided pneumonia.  I had no idea he was so sick.  So now he is on an antibiotic and some cough medicine.  I am so glad I followed through on that prompting so that he can feel better and get better faster.  When they told me what he had, I thought, "If he is that sick, I wonder what I have?"  I see my doctor next week.  Maybe I have pneumonia as well.  I guess we shall see.

Sickness, again

I should be cleaning my house instead of writting a blog, but I thought I would take a minute to update what has been going on around here.  We finished our play of Savior of the World.  It was great, even better than the last time I did it.  It was fun to do it with Erica and watch her with makeup on and her hair all pretty and she was so good and excited about the whole thing.  I think her favorite part was her new friend she made, a boy name Royal.  He was quite a bit older than her, but I think she was in love.  We had just finished a scene and she wanted to go find Royal but I had to go the bathroom.  She ran off and I asked a friend if she would watch out for her while I was gone.  I came back and my friend told me that Erica went up to her and asked where I was.  She told Erica I was using the bathroom and would be right back and she was to watch out for her.  Erica then said, "oh that's okay, I am with Royal."  My friend told me to watch out for her when she gets older.  We were tired and exhausted by the time it was over and ready to move on to a new week with less stress.  But then, the sickness crept in.  Kason ended up with a rash all over and a fever and then came the nagging cough.  Then I got it, but worse.  It came on about Thursday with fevers and chills, unrelenting.  I could only take Tylenol but it was not helping me much.  I laid around all weekend long with no energy, freezing or burning up, hurting every time I moved, miserable, wondering when I would ever get better.  I was more concerned about the baby than me.  I wasn't sure if all the Tylenol I was taking or the hot baths I had to get in to control the chills was hurting the baby.  She kept kicking me letting me know she was still there, so hopefully no damage was done.  I started trying to find the blessings of being sick.  There were a few.  I was so glad I got sick after the play was over and not during it or I could not be in it, I was glad that the worst part of my sickness came during the weekend and Kory took very good care of us, and it forced me to my knees more in prayer and more meaningful scripture study where I read quite a few scriptures about having patience, trust, and faith.  The fever and chills finally subsided byTuesday but it left me with a terrible cough and no voice.  So Kason and I have been coughing all week.  One night I could not stop coughing and I was waking Kory up so I decided to sleep on the couch with my upper body elevated to try and stop the coughing.  That was a terrible night.  I think I only sleep about 3 hours.  So the next night, we put some mattresses in our bonus room with our noisy humidifier and Kason and I have been sleeping there for the past two nights coughing to our hearts content with the moist air around us.  I think we are getting better but it is extremely slow.  So with the play and my sickness, the house is quite dirty.  I better start cleaning now.  Next week is crazy with work.  I am working extra hours and going in for all day training on Tuesday as our department moves into a new technological phase, voice recognition.  This is something that I have been hearing about from my supervisors of where we want to be some day for so many years I can't even remember and it is now becoming a reality.  We have had 3 people quit within 2 weeks, my supervisor during our meeting yesterday said she was "nervous," but overall I think everyone else is excited.  I don't know what to think, honestly.  I convinced Kory to take a day off work that day to help take care of the kids.  He is nervous himself about taking care of the kids and wondering what to do with them all day and how he is going to handle it.  I think that is funny.  I told him I would trade places with him anytime, he can go to my training meeting.  Life is not dull around here.

Gardening

I am really excited about gardening this year.  I am getting a bit of a jump start on things so I am totally prepared.  When we first moved to our home five years ago and I started my first garden, it turned out to be the best garden yet.  We called it our jungle.  We had tons of food and it was a great success:

Ever since then, our garden has gone downhill.  I'm not sure why.  Last year was the worst.  We ended up with only 2 tomato plants and a couple of jalapeno plants (this is because I bought them already started and growing from Walmart) and one little cucumber plant.  It seemed throughout the whole spring and summer I was planting, and replanting, and replanting, and nothing ever wanted to grow.  We had a very wet spring at first and I think the water drowned our first batch of seeds, but even after that and replanting again and again nothing would grow.  Our stawberries came back for the second year and actually provided quite a few for us, but our rasberries (second year in a row) grew no berries at all.  It was really depressing. 

So this year, Kory dug out all of the clay rocky dirt from our main big garden and some from the strawberry garden and put in a draining system and then filled them back up with good top soil and manure.  I also got the idea from our Stake provident living specialist to start growing plants inside.  I was not sure how to go about doing that but she posted pictures on her blog and made it look really easy.  So for spring break we went to Walmart and for $3.00 purchased a seed starting kit.  The kids had a blast filling the little holes with dirt, labeling them, putting the seeds in, watering them, and finding a new home for them to incubate in with lots of hot sun.  I am hoping with new dirt, lots of little plants, and lots of prayers that we will have a glorious garden this year and that our strawberries will come back alive and our raspberry plants (3rd year) will finally produce some berries.  Wish us luck!

 McKay was my main helper in this project all the way through to the end.  He was quite a bit into it as you can tell by his face in this picture.  In fact, I told the kids that if we broke open the seed starter and planted all the seeds that day that they would have to fold laundry for me afterwards so I could start working.  They agreed on the deal and even folded the clothes and had a blast doing that and did a great job and helped me out a ton.

 My box of seeds.  I got lots of new seeds this year.  Another theory about the dwindling garden was I thought the seeds were too old.  My mom sent me brand new seeds and I bought a few as well.

The finished product with labels and all.  I may have started some of these plants too early (like pumpkins), but I can always throw them out and start again in a month or so.  I also started watermelons and cantalopes.  They take forever to grow and I am hoping that if I start them now that by the time August comes we will have lots to eat.

Catching Up

I have not blogged in awhile.  We have had a few very busy months.  One big news that happened the last day of February is our ultrasound.  We found out we are having a girl!!!!!  Very excited.  The baby looked healthy and well and we feel very blessed. 

McKay for the last two months has been playing basketball for the first time and did really well and enjoyed it.  We just finished up the season last Saturday.  Here are a few pictures from his last game:

And of course Erica and Kason.  The first couple of games we took them along and things were a little rough.  They watched for a little while and quickly got bored and decided that tormenting each other was more fun.  We had to split up the family and either Kory or I went and we would only take one child with us.  Much more peaceful.  However, at McKay's last game we brought the whole family back together again and they actually did not do too bad.  They enjoyed making silly faces at the camera, eating snacks, and coloring.  Here are some funny pictures of them during the same game as above:

Along with basketball, Erica and I have been involed in a play put on by our Stake called "Savior of the World."  I was in the Christmas version (act 1)  two Christmas' ago and now we are doing the second act which teaches about the Resurection.  It has been very time consuming and we have the practices on Tues, Thurs, Sat, and Sun each week.  I have had to continue to work just earlier on in the day on Tues and Thurs and sometimes late at night to make up my work I did not get in earlier.  It is a wonderful play though and I am happy to be apart of it and to be able to have Erica with me.  She steals the show in all of her scenes because she is so cute.  When we perform it, I will post some pictures from that later on.  Needless to say, we have all been a bit tired around here and I even caught Kory and Kason taking a little snooze together after Kory got back from work one day: