Thursday, May 1, 2014
Family Days
These are just some random family days we've taken together, whether out or at home. We sure love family time and are relishing this stage where our kids still do, too.
The Little Gym
At the beginning of this season, Amelie decided that she wanted to try something besides dance, so I found a class at the Little Gym. After just one day of dance, Alisa decided the same and I can't say I minded having them both in the same class again. They have been loving gymnastics! Lisie just loves the physicality, getting the chance to release aaaaaaallll that energy, and Amelie is a natural, plus she really takes to the format there, soaking up the instruction.
One week, Lisie was doing her own thing (as usual) and fell off the low parallel bars. I tried and tried to put off taking her to the ER, but when it became clear the cut was deep, and that no one else would do it, we had to take her up to Primary Children's Hospital for some staples.
Ew!! She was a trooper, Jeff said. He had to leave work to take her, cause I said there was no way I was doing ER by myself with four tiny kids.
Now, Amelie is saying she's thinking something new for next season. She suggests horses, but if my preliminary research on pricing tells me anything... I don't think so.... We'll see!
One week, Lisie was doing her own thing (as usual) and fell off the low parallel bars. I tried and tried to put off taking her to the ER, but when it became clear the cut was deep, and that no one else would do it, we had to take her up to Primary Children's Hospital for some staples.
Now, Amelie is saying she's thinking something new for next season. She suggests horses, but if my preliminary research on pricing tells me anything... I don't think so.... We'll see!
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
Family Photos! Apr 2014
There is a studio, Pic Couture, that was doing a free session and CD for police families in honor of Law Enforcement Appreciation week. We jumped on that! We got some really good ones, and for free!
Tuesday, April 15, 2014
Acelynn Chori
On Sunday Jan 26th, I was sitting in church, when Jeff drew my attention to this stray sticker from a lesson I previously taught. It somehow ended up there on its own. It was an omen!
That same night, after we were home from Sunday dinner at my mom's and the kids were in bed, Jeff and I sat down to have the final talk of all talks about whether or not we wanted to induce this baby and when. After a full hour agonizing over it, we decided wait it out as long as we could and induce by the 10th. (I was due Feb 5.) At the closing up of this conversation, I laughed and then let out kind of a whiny "Je-eff." Upon checking, sure enough, my water had broken. All that for nothing. We called Grandma Chris to come to our house since the kids were asleep, and while we waited for her arrival, I cleaned he house. (It is no fun going home from the hospital to a messy disaster... or to have your MIL come see that.) We headed in, and all the while I was hoping contractions would start, but no such luck. Got admitted (about 1 or 130 am) and started on antibiotics, then waited.
That takes the cake for biggest I've ever been! Forgive my pale, tired look. I was so pregnant and it was 1 in the morning!
Jeff was able to sleep a bit, I rested some but couldn't really sleep much. About 5 a.m. they started talking about pitocin since I wasn't contracting regularly. I was a bit sad, but once I made the decision, let it go. I got started low, but was moving slowly still. At shift change, the new nurse came in and said "I'm going to get aggressive with this pitocin." I absolutely hated the sound of that, but had little change in two hours, so I didn't say anything. (At maybe 8am?) she quadrupled my dose, and that was it. It seemed like only minutes later I was begging for an epidural. The anesthesiologist (and student) finally came. I was having really rough contractions, longer than the breaks between them. While I'm getting my epidural, I can hear the A giving the student instructions, pointing, redoing, critiquing... and I was seriously dying. It was about the best time I wanted to be a specimen for a long teaching moment. I was contracting so hard and so often that the nurse made me move and lie down in the middle of writhing so she could check me. She said she was afraid I was ready to go. (I think I was at an 8.5 at that point.) They finally finished and it took a bit to set in. After an extra shot, I finally felt better. Then, really only minutes later, I was ready to go! Dr. Gibson came (yay!) with a student, and it was a pretty quick deal, like always for me. After some good pushing and the same old tear, Acelynn Chori North was born at 10:28 am. Our surprise (but not really too much of a surprise to us) girl. My mom and Jaimie were there, too.
As per usual, Jeff cut the cord. She was extra vernix-y, the most we've ever seen. She literally cried loud and hard for 2 hours right after birth. It made me really scared for the future, but she hardly ever cried at all after that... phew!
She was 6 pounds 15 oz!
She had trouble maintaining a good temperature, so I did a lot of skin to skin with her and she got lots of warmed blankets. When we finally moved to antepartum recovery, they kept commenting how many blankets she had. :)
They brought us a congratulations cake! Fun.
Cutie with a hospital crocheted hat!
Ready to go home! (In a gender neutral onesie, of course!)
Thankfully, my recovery with Ace has been really great, too, which is what I was wanting out of a natural delivery, so that was a bonus! Must just be cause she wasn't huge and she was my fourth. And that makes me really glad I had the epidural. :)
Let me just go ahead and fill you in, since we get asked all the time. We found "Acelynn" in a baby names book, it's pronounced just like it's spelled. Ace-Lynn. And Chori is the union of her grandma's names - Chris and Lori - pronounced Corey. She's a sweet sweet baby, and she completes this family!
That same night, after we were home from Sunday dinner at my mom's and the kids were in bed, Jeff and I sat down to have the final talk of all talks about whether or not we wanted to induce this baby and when. After a full hour agonizing over it, we decided wait it out as long as we could and induce by the 10th. (I was due Feb 5.) At the closing up of this conversation, I laughed and then let out kind of a whiny "Je-eff." Upon checking, sure enough, my water had broken. All that for nothing. We called Grandma Chris to come to our house since the kids were asleep, and while we waited for her arrival, I cleaned he house. (It is no fun going home from the hospital to a messy disaster... or to have your MIL come see that.) We headed in, and all the while I was hoping contractions would start, but no such luck. Got admitted (about 1 or 130 am) and started on antibiotics, then waited.
Jeff was able to sleep a bit, I rested some but couldn't really sleep much. About 5 a.m. they started talking about pitocin since I wasn't contracting regularly. I was a bit sad, but once I made the decision, let it go. I got started low, but was moving slowly still. At shift change, the new nurse came in and said "I'm going to get aggressive with this pitocin." I absolutely hated the sound of that, but had little change in two hours, so I didn't say anything. (At maybe 8am?) she quadrupled my dose, and that was it. It seemed like only minutes later I was begging for an epidural. The anesthesiologist (and student) finally came. I was having really rough contractions, longer than the breaks between them. While I'm getting my epidural, I can hear the A giving the student instructions, pointing, redoing, critiquing... and I was seriously dying. It was about the best time I wanted to be a specimen for a long teaching moment. I was contracting so hard and so often that the nurse made me move and lie down in the middle of writhing so she could check me. She said she was afraid I was ready to go. (I think I was at an 8.5 at that point.) They finally finished and it took a bit to set in. After an extra shot, I finally felt better. Then, really only minutes later, I was ready to go! Dr. Gibson came (yay!) with a student, and it was a pretty quick deal, like always for me. After some good pushing and the same old tear, Acelynn Chori North was born at 10:28 am. Our surprise (but not really too much of a surprise to us) girl. My mom and Jaimie were there, too.
Thankfully, my recovery with Ace has been really great, too, which is what I was wanting out of a natural delivery, so that was a bonus! Must just be cause she wasn't huge and she was my fourth. And that makes me really glad I had the epidural. :)
Let me just go ahead and fill you in, since we get asked all the time. We found "Acelynn" in a baby names book, it's pronounced just like it's spelled. Ace-Lynn. And Chori is the union of her grandma's names - Chris and Lori - pronounced Corey. She's a sweet sweet baby, and she completes this family!
Alisa's 4th!
Alisa turned 4 this year on Feb. 3rd, only two
days before little Acelynn was due.
Luckily, she made her appearance early and Lise got her special day to
herself. I knew that whether I was 9
months pregnant or had a newborn, I would not be up for home-making a party but
I didn’t want her to feel gypped in the party department. This was, therefore, the first time we
ventured into the land of... Chuck E Cheese!
Not my first choice, but she loved it, and definitely less work for
mom. It was exactly one week after Ace
was born, and I was fine until the very end, when my back was really hurting.
We started the day with birthday cake pancakes with the
whole family. The birthday girl decided to head to McD’s for lunch (after the
doc for baby) where we spent quite a long time letting them play. We then let
her pick out a toy at Toys R Us (we do this with all of our kids – they get a
coupon on their birthdays, plus money from Grandma Doris – they love it.) Then it was on to Chuck E Cheese. Grandma Chris helped immensely by making the
cupcakes, we bought a balloon and some pizza and procured some tickets and
tokens for the kids in attendance – easy peasy! They enjoyed it, although Alisa
was a little bit (and Carson was immensely) afraid of the Chuck E Cheese in costume. Many of Lisie’s older cousins won lots of
tickets and gave them all to her. She
picked out a giant lollipop for her prize, she’d had here eye on it since we
got there.
Friday, January 17, 2014
A pregnancy progression
I have been terrible at blogging while we didn't have a home and I was working a job and a half. I'm trying to catch up, but it looks like pretty much the entire pregnancy is going to have to be recapped right here! (You know, seeing as I'm already past 37 weeks...)
I told Jeff we were pregnant with number 4 by having his buddy drop this little package on his desk at work.
Here is how we announced:
Here are the (few) belly pics I have amassed.
I told Jeff we were pregnant with number 4 by having his buddy drop this little package on his desk at work.
Here is how we announced:
(Vanilla Ice, Ice Baby... get it?!)
Here are the (few) belly pics I have amassed.
16 weeks
25.5 weeks
32 weeks
35 weeks
At my 36 week appointment, I went ahead and got an exam because I had been contracting randomly but strongly for a few weeks. Lo and behold (just like all my other pregnancies) I was already dilating! Head was down, and I was at 3 centimeters, though she said the cervix was still fairly thick and posterior. That night I went to the hospital with a bloody scare but it turned out to be nothing. Also, my doc gave me a letter to give to the nurses when I go in, saying to call her even if she's not on call. I'm so pumped about this! I hate going a whole 8 months with a doc, and then someone else shows up for your delivery. (She always says we're one of her favorites and tried to get us to buy a house in her neighborhood.)
I had more firm (but still very random) contractions so I was curious to see if there was any progress the next week. At 37 weeks, she said still three, but cervix was definitely anterior and head is firmly engaged. Yay! I might have cried if we hadn't moved at all. She also said she wished she could strip my membranes that day but couldn't. I think she will next week, though! Woop!
As you may know, I delivered without pain medication with Carson and it was ROUGH. Jeff and Dr. G tell me that I told them not to let me do it again, but here I am at the end of another pregnancy... My plan for this one is to again go without the epidural IF I can actually just go into labor on my own. If I need pitocin - no way, Jose, that stuff stinks! It makes it hard, because it would be much more convenient to schedule and now when the baby is coming (with all our schedules, the kiddos, and not to mention Alisa's birthday 2 days before!) but I'd reeeeeaallly like to skip pitocin and the epidural if possible. My recovery that time was not even in the same galaxy. I have yet to just start on my own, however, so I'm not holding my breath. What will stink is if I end up having to be induced late anyway and I could have just scheduled a more convenient induction! Oh well, we shall see...
Stay tuned for all the gross graphic updates soon to come!
Thursday, January 16, 2014
Cute phone photo dump!
There it it again! What a cutie. (Thumbs up!)
This house business.
Way back in April of this year, one of my co-workers decided to leave for 6 months or permanently from her full-time position at 5 West (where I sometimes fill in.) I though to myself, if that could be temporary, 6 months of extra full time income would be just what we needed for another house. I didn't really spend much energy on it, until the job strongly encouraged me to apply... a few times... and opened the job back up after I didn't. SO, I agonized over it, and finally said - duh, this is a massive blessing dropped in your lap. So, I worked full time from May to Nov in the name of earning money so we could move out of our tiny house.
Then mid-June or so of this year, our old realtor dropped in and said she thought we may be able to sell our house for a decent price now (we'd been waiting to even out after the crash.) SO, we set an appointment to talk about it, and by the day she showed up, we were so gung-ho that we had just moved out of our house already. We settled in to my mom's basement the first week of July and put our house up for sale within a week or two. It only took until the first week of August to get an offer that was acceptable. (Later, it was a little surprised how much we ended up paying at the closing of that house... but it was exactly what we saved up to that day, so bonus there!) They were veeeeeeeery slow in closing, but we were able to begin seriously looking at places. We put an offer in on a short sale in the meantime, and kept up the hunt, while I just kept earning the down payment. We found another place we really liked that wasn't unsure like the first, and put an offer in, which was accepted. We had to be a little slow in closing this time, as Jeff was out of town for a week, and we needed all the paychecks we could get! We closed on a Friday afternoon, but had to wait and wait and wait until Tues so it could officially record. (We already had the code to the front door, so we may or may not have gone in on Monday to paint... I couldn't say for sure...) We spent Tuesday and Wednesday moving everything, and a full week after that picking up little residual stuff and moving things in from the garage (ok, this is not even done yet...) Unpacking and decorating are taking much longer. Luckily, I am not working full time anymore, but still one or two times a week has been enough to make me feel sooooo busy all the time and unable to complete the task!
It was really rough for everyone for me to be gone at a full time job. I was out of the house just for work at least 55 hours each week, my parents did a lot of babysitting for us, my poor kids never saw their parents and got passed from sitter to sitter, Jeff and I never saw each other. It of course, helped us appreciate a lot of things, and me, especially being able to be home with my kids (not that I ever wanted NOT to, but if you stay home with kids, you know how it can get...)
Currently we are slowly, slowly finishing the basement, as baby4 should be coming anytime and we only have 3 bedrooms upstairs. Framing is finally nearing it's close, which puts a quick electrician visit next on the agenda, then the business of drywall. Hopefully sometime this year we'll see initial completion. :)
It still feels a tiny bit unsettled without that part of the house usable, but it has been great to be back in our own space, finding our own new routine... you know, just so it can all be thrown out of whack again when this babe comes!
Someday we'll have you all over... but don't hold your breath. :)
Then mid-June or so of this year, our old realtor dropped in and said she thought we may be able to sell our house for a decent price now (we'd been waiting to even out after the crash.) SO, we set an appointment to talk about it, and by the day she showed up, we were so gung-ho that we had just moved out of our house already. We settled in to my mom's basement the first week of July and put our house up for sale within a week or two. It only took until the first week of August to get an offer that was acceptable. (Later, it was a little surprised how much we ended up paying at the closing of that house... but it was exactly what we saved up to that day, so bonus there!) They were veeeeeeeery slow in closing, but we were able to begin seriously looking at places. We put an offer in on a short sale in the meantime, and kept up the hunt, while I just kept earning the down payment. We found another place we really liked that wasn't unsure like the first, and put an offer in, which was accepted. We had to be a little slow in closing this time, as Jeff was out of town for a week, and we needed all the paychecks we could get! We closed on a Friday afternoon, but had to wait and wait and wait until Tues so it could officially record. (We already had the code to the front door, so we may or may not have gone in on Monday to paint... I couldn't say for sure...) We spent Tuesday and Wednesday moving everything, and a full week after that picking up little residual stuff and moving things in from the garage (ok, this is not even done yet...) Unpacking and decorating are taking much longer. Luckily, I am not working full time anymore, but still one or two times a week has been enough to make me feel sooooo busy all the time and unable to complete the task!
It was really rough for everyone for me to be gone at a full time job. I was out of the house just for work at least 55 hours each week, my parents did a lot of babysitting for us, my poor kids never saw their parents and got passed from sitter to sitter, Jeff and I never saw each other. It of course, helped us appreciate a lot of things, and me, especially being able to be home with my kids (not that I ever wanted NOT to, but if you stay home with kids, you know how it can get...)
Currently we are slowly, slowly finishing the basement, as baby4 should be coming anytime and we only have 3 bedrooms upstairs. Framing is finally nearing it's close, which puts a quick electrician visit next on the agenda, then the business of drywall. Hopefully sometime this year we'll see initial completion. :)
It still feels a tiny bit unsettled without that part of the house usable, but it has been great to be back in our own space, finding our own new routine... you know, just so it can all be thrown out of whack again when this babe comes!
Someday we'll have you all over... but don't hold your breath. :)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)