Trying to Catch Up or at Least Catch My Breath!

Wow!  That’s all I have to say.  No, not really, but to sum up the last few months that one word really says it all.  Spence and I thought it would be a good idea to have another baby. We were very naïve.  We were nervous when we had Ree (because of Chase) but when everything turned out perfectly, we decided it was now or never to finish up our family and not leave Ree as the lone caboose eight years after Chase.  We found out we were pregnant with a baby girl and due at the very end of August.  Everything was going along smoothly and the baby was right on track when we had our 20 week ultrasound.  I however, was not feeling good.  I chalked it up to my age, swelling veins, headaches, and general pregnancy, but by about 30 weeks, my blood pressure had skyrocketed and I had to go on medication. I still felt like crap, but everything seemed to be going well with the baby and I was measuring my regular 2 weeks behind schedule (my babies are always small… 5lbs and 10, 12 and 13oz were the weights of Hayes, Chase, and Ree full term. One night in my 37th week (really not that early, but early for me) I woke up in the night with what felt like a contraction.  I laid there for about 5 minutes wondering if this could really be happening when another one came.  I jumped out of bed and started packing a bag…I wasn’t prepared in the least.  About 10 minutes later I woke up Spence and told him we had to get to the hospital because we live an hour away and Ree came pretty fast.  We left the kids asleep for my Dad to come and watch and headed out.  This was around 3:30am.  We pulled up to the hospital and Dr. Coss was waiting out front.  We headed up to the 4th floor and by 6:00 am, Kate was born.  Except she was tiny.  3lbs, 14 oz tiny.  When she came out, I was watching the faces of Spence, my mom, and the nurses, and it seemed as though all of their jaws dropped.  I looked down at this teeny little baby and wondered what in the world was wrong.  But she was strong.  Her Apgar was great and she was breastfeeding within the hour. But her white blood count came back low and they had to admit her to the NICU to give her antibiotics as a precaution.  I had no idea what the NICU was going to entail…if I had known I would have grabbed the baby and ran.  I fed her one last time and had to hand her over to the nurses…it makes me nervous just thinking about it. 

A lot of stuff happened between that minute and the nearly 2 weeks she was in the NICU (which I’ll write about when I have about 4 hours) but we finally brought home a beautiful 4lb 3oz baby and we were exhausted…physically and emotionally.  Thanks in part to the prayers of many and a priesthood blessing, she passed all of her tests with flying colors and was eating well enough on her own to come home.  She will be 2 months old next week and weighs about 8 lbs now.  She is fussy and demanding and is about to kill her poor, old parents, but when I hold her against my cheek in the middle of the night, no matter how exhausted I am, I want it to last forever.

Chase’s Career as a Hair Stylist is in Full Swing

 

Chase, “Ooo Ree, I know just the style for you.  Hold still while I work my magic.”

Ree, “I’m a little skeptical Chase…why won’t you let me see the mirror?”

Chase, “Because I’m just putting in the finishing touches.  Ah, yes, this little patch of grass really adds an Avant Garde flair.”

Ree, “I’m so excited! I can hardly wait to see it!”

Ree, “How does it look from this angle.”

Ree, “Yay…it’s finished.  Can I see a mirror now??”

(After an examination in the mirror)  Ree, “Oh Chase, what have you done to me?  I feel like I need to brush my teeth!”

Ree, “Chase, I want my money back.” 

Chase, “You should have seen it coming.   I don’t even have my license yet.”

Chase, “Catch ya later, Ree.  I don’t do refunds.”

Ah Pregnancy.

Have you ever felt like you you’ve done a terrible job at life for about 9 months straight?  If you haven’t, you should try pregnancy.  I was looking back at my blog posts noticing what a cruddy job I’ve don’t for the last six months and realized that since I’ve been pregnant, I’ve basically just been trying to survive until this baby is born.  Hayes’s schooling has suffered.  Chase has suffered.  Spence has suffered.  Ree has suffered…a little :).  It has been hard on everyone.  I think I did a better job when I was younger.  I don’t think that being pregnant threw me for quite the loop it seems to be throwing me now that I am 30-something-ish!  And lots of people are still having babies at 40…how do they do it???  I just did the math and I will be 56….can that be right???… when this baby graduates from high school.  Holy Cow.  There goes Spence and I’s golden years ! :)

Luckily, we’ve still managed to have some good times even with a tired, grumpy, lame mom in the house.  I hope my kids only remember the good times! (good luck with that one!)

Chase  broke his arm in April, but the addition of 3 new kitties helped ease the pain.

As much as I cuss about them, they are pretty cute! (from left to right: Toulouse, Berlioz, and O’Malley)

We had a successful semester at homeschool co-op with our cooking class.

Cali, Laurie, Addie, Sam, and Catherine

Conner, Hayes, & Bridger (with Aaron in back…an honorary homeschooler for the day)

I have no idea why Rosie was at cooking class, but it made Chase happy.

 

Sweetie had a new baby girl with a zebra striped mane.

Oh and did I forget to mention that our new dog that wasn’t supposed to be our dog but ended up being our dog anyway had two puppies? You may start to wonder if I’m some crazy animal lover/cat lady, but trust me I am just a pushover….seriously.

So kiddos…try to forget your mom yelling at you and just remember these love and animal-filled days of your childhood!

10 and 2!

Ree was born the day before Chase’s 8th birthday.  Wow, what a gap!  Now I’m afraid they are destined to share birthday parties until one of them starts complaining.  Their birthdays definitely snuck up on my this year, but I actually managed to take treats to Chase’s classroom and we had a fun bash over at the Jackson house with all of the Jacksons and Platts.  I took my camera with me, but didn’t snap a single shot.  So typical.  So here are two fairly lame photos, but the only ones I got of the kids on their birthdays. Can’t believe how fast they are growing up.  Happy Birthday punks!

Back in the Saddle Again.

I finally have a camera again.  I’ve actually had it for a couple of months now, but A) I didn’t have a camera case for it so I didn’t dare take it anywhere and use it, and B)  I still haven’t had time to read the dang instruction manual (which incidentally is a CD not a book….I hate that).  Luckily, the camera works pretty well without me telling it to do anything, so I actually have a few pictures to share.  But I’ve REALLY got to read that manual!

As you know, it has been HOT, HOT, HOT around here lately.  All around town I see people out cleaning and installing their swamp coolers.  It’s only April, but it was close to 90 degrees the other day.  Spence and Hayes started working on our cooler yesterday, which turned into Spence and I spending hours yesterday cleaning all of the minerals and salt from our well and softener out of our cooler.  You people in town don’t have any idea how easy you have it! :) Spence also completely took apart the pump to clean it so it would spin again and had to take off the motor and oil it…our water is very hard.  Oh and by the way, Chase also broke his arm yesterday…but that didn’t stop us from getting the cooler ready…you’ve got to have priorities when you’re pregnant and facing a long summer.

By evening (we were still working on the cooler) the kids were deserting our hot house for our cooler yard and the sprinklers.  I took a moment to snap some pics and by dusk the cool air made me feel good enough to use the dead branches I’d pruned from the trees to have our first campfire of the year.  My kiddos eat that stuff up!  Other than Ree deciding she’s afraid of the dark, we had a great time. 

Our slide is pretty fast, but Ree has gotten good enough to land on her feet after it flings her into the air and onto the ground…at least most of the time!

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten more and more paranoid about inadvertently starting a forest, or in our case, a brush fire.  It is so dry around here that I’m even more paranoid.  So I made sure I raked all of the dry weeds in a big circumference around our fire pit and then made Hayes have the hose handy just in case a stray spark fell on the abundant fire fuel growing around our house.

Ree kept wanting me to take a picture of her doll by shoving it in my face whenever I tried to snap a shot.  I really appreciated it!

		Ree’s close-ups of her doll VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

I’m including this last photo so you’ll get an idea why I’m afraid of burning the whole place down…check out all of the dry, yellow fuel around our campfire!  YIKES! (I’d burn it to get rid of it, but I’m afraid to!)

Stay cool everyone.  I hear there is a storm headed in on Thursday. (At least that’s what someone at the gas station told me!)