She's Here!!!

Our sweet Ella Marie arrived on Wednesday, February 22, two days after her due date. She made her first debut at 5:56am after only 5 hours of labor, start to finish. She weighs 8 lb. 9 oz. and is 21 inches long.

I didn't realize that I was in labor because the pain was so different from when I had William, and it was only about a third of the intensity. I started timing the "contractions" at 1am, they were every 5-7 minutes, but not much pain. I could talk through them. At 4am, they were 3-4 minutes apart, so I called the hospital and was told to go in. We finally left at 4:45am, I was sure I wasn't dilated very far, and almost waited a while longer. We checked in, and I found out I was dilated to 9cm, and my doctor, who would be there at 7am, wasn't going to make it. I was so surprised. The dr. on call barely made it for my water to break and for me to push. She was born shortly after that.



So, no pain meds, or any medical intervention. I had an episiotomy without anesthetic, luckily it blended in with the rest of the pain of delivery! : )
I've now experienced a completely medical involved birth, and one without. Very interesting difference, I must say if I can avoid it, I will never be induced again. I really didn't mind this labor, and could easily do it again in a heartbeat. Yes, I know I'm weird, but it was so much easier and much less painful than William's delivery, and I loved that I didn't have complications of my own!

Unfortunately, little Ella swallowed some of her meconium, had the cord wrapped around her neck and thigh, and had a plummeting heart rate. She ended up with hypoglycemia, so they had to work on her very quickly. I didn't get to hold her for almost an hour after she was born. I'm happy to report, she is doing beautifully now, and was able to come back to our room from the special care nursery by 8:30pm the night she was born.

William is excited to have a baby sister around, but is still learning lots of new things about babies. He wants to hold her, but still to shy to carry out that desire. He likes to look at her and wants to know where she's at. Last night when we went to pick William up from Grandma Christian's house, he didn't like the idea of Ella coming home with us. He said, "No, I want baby sister to stay here." Kinda funny, but his whole world has been flipped upside down. He hates it when she cries, it really bothers him. He will make a great older brother!

February...

Okay, I don't have a picture this time, just a quick update. Our family had a great holiday vacation in Idaho visiting my family. Then, we celebrated my birthday, and moved into our own place in Washington. It has been quite an adjustment for William to be in a new place where the rules are different, he doesn't have Grandma and Grandpa to run away to and get spoiled, and has much less space to run around in. I'm glad we had the full month of January to get adjusted, because my energy levels are about nill at this point.

Only 2 weeks until my baby is due. And I'm fairly confident that she will wait that long, I went to the doctor today, and haven't dilated. A bummer, but she is easier to take care of right now, so I'll enjoy the last few days I have with William before I rock his world again. It will be fun to have a little girl around that I can dress up for no reason and increase some of the girly aspects of the home now that we'll be even 2 for 2.

I'm loving having my own space again. And I'm very excited to use my things, and get to decorate our own little home, making it our own. We are close to a bus stop, which will be nice since we only have Tyler's car, and William thinks the bus is awesome. We are within short walking distance to some in-laws, church and temple, and parks, so when the weather is always lovely (meaning spring and summer) we will definitely get some great exercise. It's strange to have so many great weather days during January and February where all we need is a light jacket and we are good to go. I love it, we've only had one snow storm where the snow stayed for about 4 days. We got a good hour in sledding at Grandma and Grandpa's house, so I got my very small snow fix in, and now I'm good for the rest of the year. I suppose living most of your life with lots of snow for 8 months out of the year will do that to you.

I will post sometime after I have the baby and won't forget pictures. : )

Merry Christmas!

I know, finally I have a picture! We want to wish you and your family a very happy holiday season. 2011 has been a busy year for us; I'm glad it's coming to a close, but we had so much fun getting to this point.

We started out in Washington as Tyler completed his accounting internship. We got to see what a winter and spring were like in the Tri-Cities, so much fun! William enjoyed getting to know his cousins better and learned many new things as we celebrated his 2nd birthday right before heading back to good 'ole Rexburg!

Tyler finished his last semester of school and graduated in July. So exciting, I've never seen him so happy! : ) The first of August, we said our final goodbyes to our 5 year life in Rexburg and moved back to Washington. We enjoyed a great, HOT, summer and Tyler found employment while I adjusted to being a stay-at-home mom.

William has blossomed since he's been around children closer to his age. He upgraded to a big boy bed, and LOVES it! He is a true boy and roots for the bad guys in the movies. He loves his dinosaurs, cars and trucks, sharks, and dragons. His vocabulary has picked up 300 fold, although it still has his own twist. One of my favorite words is "frocket". He will say "I want frocket milk mom, frocket milk". It means chocolate.

Tyler is doing a lot of research with technology for his job, which has been very interesting. He loves to come home from work and wrestle with William, fly his simulator, and play with family. He is such a great guy, and it has been wonderful to see all of his accomplishments this year.

I am busy keeping up with William and staying on top of all the chores that come with staying at home. We are expecting a baby girl in February, and I love to feel her kick all day long. I've gotten back into knitting quite a bit, but nothing too fancy. We are anxiously waiting for the right place to call our own, and in the mean time I daydream of all the projects I will do then. I also finished reading the New Testament cover to cover, next year I plan to tackle the Old Testament, we'll see how that goes.

We have had a great year this year. It has boosted our testimonies and proved to us on countless occasions how much we rely on the Lord and how much He is involved in our lives. It has been a joy to teach William more about the Savior during this time. We hope you have a very Merry Christmas with your families. God bless you.

Time Flies with No USB cable

I've been waiting to find my USB cable to connect my camera to the computer to put more recent and exciting pictures on here. But, I've had no luck. Since we moved here, I didn't anticipate that our things would be in a storage unit for more than about a month, so since it's been more than 3, I should have organized the storage unit better than we did. Hindsight is always 20/20.

Well, we are still living with Tyler's parents. They have been very generous to let us bombard their busy lives for so long. Especially with a toddler who is not very mindful of his surroundings. Tyler found a great (I mean there really couldn't be a better fit for him anywhere else) job working for Modern Ag Products. They are an agriculture/fertilizer company. He gets to work with one of his friends, so it's working out thus far.

I know I haven't shouted it from the rooftops like I did when I had William, mainly from a lot of reactions of when I was prego with William, so now that I'm 25 weeks along, yes, I am expecting another baby. I will be having a girl in February, due February 20, but we'll see if I get to have her early or if she wants to be a snuggle bug and wait. So far everything is wonderful, I do have a hernia, but it's not a terrible concern. I eat more than Tyler again, which makes me laugh, and brings back memories from being prego the first time and work parties. Yes, I've eaten a whole cantaloupe in one afternoon, and I usually eat twice the amount my husband does. I found a fabulous doctor, so I'm expecting a much less eventful delivery than last time. I'm nervous and excited to have a girl, happier to have a girl right around Valentines Day. It will be much easier to have heart and red/pink birthday parties for a girl than a boy.

We had a great Halloween. Tyler and I dressed up as cavemen, with bone accessories (Tyler had a bone through his nose) and William was our very animated green and orange dinosaur! I liked that we all coordinated this year, and I made all of our costumes. Very very simple ones, but I was impressed with myself.

The weather has been great here in the tri-cities. It's fun to hear about snow in places we used to live, but know that we won't have that here for a long time yet. It is getting nippy outside, but we do get little warm spells here and there. The ward here is great. That's the hard part about looking for a place to live. The more affordable options are outside ward boundaries, and I just got a calling that I'm thrilled about, so it will be sad to leave for that reason. We are anxious to establish ourselves in our own home, since we haven't been on our own since William was about 2 weeks old. So it's been a while. We'll see what happens. It is absolutely wonderful to see how the Lord has guided our lives to where we are today, and the blessings we've seen. Our silver lining is growing ever brighter. Hopefully pictures will make another debut on here before too long, we'll wait and see!

Back to big WA!

That's right, we are back in the land of Washington state! For good this time. I took great pictures of our travel here, but I must have packed the cord that connects my camera to the computer, so once again, you have to wait on the pictures. Funny, it's almost been a year since I actually posted pictures. Guess the rest of the world is a bit more "with it" than I am. Oh well.

We moved back to Rexburg for Tyler's final semester. I went back to work at Beehive FCU as a temp teller, which was fun to see old friends and make new ones. We made a few trips to Utah and Washington over the next few months for friend weddings and other events.

Tyler graduated the end of July, and we decided that we were supposed to be in Washington. So we are back. We are still job hunting, so if you hear of anything great that opens up in the accounting/finance field, please be a bug in our ear. The adjustment has been somewhat okay for William. He loves to be around his cousins and all of Tyler's family, which is great, but he has a hard time going to sleep at night. He has become very attached to me, so every time I leave the room, he gets really upset. I'm blaming the new environment and all of our lifestyle changes, but who knows what the real reason may be. He has even remembered most everyone and is getting really efficient with names. I love the new communication skills.

It is weird to change from "school mode" to "real life mode". We have been in "school mode" for the past 5 years, so it is quite an adjustment to make. I'm excited for this new adventure, but I must admit that I miss my family and friends from Utah and Idaho. Distance makes it hard to travel whenever I want, but it will make the trips we do make that much more special. For now, we are busy becoming fishes in the pool and on the boat in the Columbia river, playing all sorts of outdoor games in the great backyard and visiting several different parks. Did I mention pretty much every store you can think of is within a 10 minute drive? Oh, and one of my absolute favorite restaurants, Texas Roadhouse, is being built here!!!! Yaya! So, the situation isn't really that bad. I'm just not one to love being patient for all the kinks of unknowns to workout. What's important is taken care of, but now we wait until everything else falls into place. Miss you if you're somewhere else, glad to see you again if you are here!

Do you know of anyone?

So I have some super amazing friends who are wanting to adopt. They are Tim and Kaitlyn. I've posted a link in my family and friends so you can see their page. If you know of anyone who could use this information, please pass it on. This couple is absolutely wonderful and will make fantastic parents. They love to do stuff outside, are both teachers, and are very creative. We used to play games with them almost every week when they lived close by. Now they are on an adventure in Alaska. Please spread the word to those you think would be interested. Just jump to www.timandkaitlyn.com.

Stay at home Moms

So, stay at home moms. Sounds easy right? Anyone can do it right? All you have to do is take care of the kids, clean the house, make the food, do the little odd jobs to maintain your living space, and be appealing to your hard working bread-winning man. Easy as pie, that's what I thought. To stay at home meant that you gave up too easily on a career or didn't want to work very hard in life. Honestly, I have made those mental associations.

The last 4 months have been an eye-opener for me. I'm only the mother of one, a son who has JUMPED into the "terrible twos". And wow, I made a terrible misconception! The first two weeks of being a stay-at-home mom or formal "homemaker" kicked my tukhus. My world was foreign and I couldn't make heads or tails of it. And the worst part, was that I constantly get told how amazing of a kid William is. So my dilemma, if I am pulling my hair out with him, how could I handle a child less manageable? Silly, but that was my mentality back in January.

The reality is stay-at-home moms have THE HARDEST job there is. It's a 24/7 job with no guarantee of a return on investment. It is a marvel that the women I know who stay home even get out of bed in the morning or can possibly look as great as they do! I find it funny that men say how easy it is for the wife to stay home, yet they don't know what to do for an hour alone with the kids so their wives can go visiting teaching or go to a relief society activity. And the house usually looks like a natural disaster or two swept through. (brings back memories right?)

Every job is hard, no matter who you are. But being a stay-at-home mom is one that is hardly ever recognized for the amount of effort that goes into it. No world renowned award for catching the bowl of dropped spaghetti right before it hits the white carpet. There are immeasurable joys that come with motherhood, but it's a tough road to walk. Kudos to all the mothers who stay home and find solace in blogging a bit or doing whatever they can to stay above water. And to the rest of us who work, I hope you all get to experience what a stay-at-home mom does. One, you'll run back to the sanity of "work insanity", and two, you'll smile every time you see a mother who dares step anywhere public with her kids alone. MOMS ROCK!

So there's a tip of the iceburg on my soapbox about moms who stay home. I could write a book, maybe I will (but probably won't). :o)