Highs and Lows

I'll start with the lows since it leads into the highs.

Thursday morning I woke up to see our beloved twirly tree down for the count.

I knew it was coming. I mean how long could you stand up if all your weight was only on your front half? Regardless, it was painful to see him go. I will miss giving you your "haircut" every year twirly tree. May you rest in peace and the greenwaste.

Next I went to bed Thursday night feeling a possible cold coming on. I woke up Friday morning to the cold welcoming committee. "I don't need this" I protestest, "go away!"

I remembered Jon's aunt swearing by ZICAM. So I thought it was worth a shot. I picked some up Friday afternoon and started taking them - every three hours just like it says. I woke up Saturday morning and am now a believer myself.
(Can you see the low turning into a high???)

Now I was nervous about the cold on Friday because I was heading to the Carl Bloch exhibit at BYU and didn't want to miss it. I'm grateful I was able to see the beautiful work from this artist. You may recognize some of his work, such as...

If you haven't gone to this exhibit yet get there soon it leaves in May. Enjoy and be uplifted and inspired!

And last but not least...

CUPCAKES!!!
Alli brought me these delicious morsels. They tasted as good as they looked. Yummy! And the visit was even better.

Girl Fun

My bad mother moment is admitting that I don't enjoy playing Barbies or with these little princesses. However, this is not to be confused with playing with my daughter - that I do love! It's inevitable that as soon as Garrett leaves for school Ry wants to play with one or the other and I dread it...I would rather do ANYTHING else...but I bow to her pleadings and will play for awhile. This last week I decided to make it more enjoyable for me, selfish, I know. We had made play dough the previous day and I thought, "hey, we can make furniture for your princesses" and Rylee loved the idea. We made this living room complete with couch, chair, pillow, tables, lamp and a bowl of cherries. We also made a bad, bathtub and I couldn't help but make a toilet. This kind of "play" I can do.

Too fast...

he's growing much too fast. I can't believe my little buddy is 8 weeks old and that just a few short weeks ago he actually fit into these pj's...

Make it stop!

We love you Austin James!

2010 In Review

My mom always kept a list of things we accomplished or cool things we were able to do during the year and I loved pulling out the lists as I got older. I'm sad I haven't started it earlier but better late than never.

Garrett

In 2010 you...
Graduated from Mrs. Jerman's Busy Bee's Preschool
Made new friends with Sydney Yancey and Cayden Evans
Learned to ride a two wheeler - HOORAY!
Got to be a Parasaurolophus at the Museum of Natural History
1st Tee-Ball experience - very unsure of at first but came to love it!
Grandpa Smith took you, Dad and Thomas fishing on his boat at Deer Creek
Fishing on Labor Day and Dad & Rylee and caught tons of fish
More fishing with Dad and the Clavere's
Started Kindergarten with Mrs. Jarman and LOVES it
Learned to read and is already reading beyond your level - WAY TO GO!
Greatly improved writing, drawing and coloring skills
Celebrated your 6th birthday with an Animal Planet party and bowling
Started memorizing the Articles of Faith

Your Favorites...
Food - spaghetti and meatballs & pepperoni pizza
Color - blue and brown
Treat - candy necklaces (really...you've had one??)
Place to go - Dinosaur Museum
TV Show - Sponge Bob
Friends - Mommy (ahh, sweet)
Game -
Song -
Restaurant - Burger King
Toy - dinosaurs, Playmobil African Safari
Animal - All of them
What do you want to be when you grow up - "An animal scientist or a paleontologist or a marine biologist"

Rylee

In 2010 you...
Potty trained yourself in January
Celebrated your 3rd birthday with a Princess party and bowling
Insisted on picking out your own fabrics for skirts
Made your bed by yourself for the first time
Learned to use scissors
Made first non-family friend - Hannah Christensen
Started (and ended) dance classes at The Dance Conservatory
Independence is bursting...picking out clothing, hairstyles, food, etc.
Cut your own hair at Nana's...luckily you look sweet with bangs
Loves dress-ups

Your Favorites
Food - jam sandwiches
Color - pink & purple
Treat - chocolate
Place to go - Carl's Jr. to play
TV Show - Max & Ruby, Sponge Bob
Friends - Kaisa and Hannah
Song - "Teach Me About the Temple"
Restaurant - Taco Amigo
Toy - Barbies, Ponies
Animals - Lions
What do you want to be when you grow up - "A mommy like you"

Austin

In 2010 you...
were born
survived your first week at home with your brother and sister

Your Favorites
Milk

Notable Quotables and Curious Questions

Garrett: Referring to his dad "He just keeps getting weirder!"

Rylee: After seeing Santa at Macey's, "that is NOT the real Santa Claus he is JUST a human dressed up like Santa."

G: "Daddy, you have exposed your brilliance."

R: "Does Santa have a penis?" Luckily my mom got to field that one. "Of course"

G: "My brain has hatched an idea!"

R: After seeing Austin for the first time and he had on his beanie hat "Was he born with that hat on?"

G: "You are the most beautiful mother I ever had." Yes, that 8 1/2 month pregnant mother cried!

R: "You are the worst mom" Yes, that 9 month pregnant mother also cried.

The December Blur

It just went by to fast. There wasn't enough time...or more accurately, I didn't have enough energy to really "do" Christmas this year. But we managed just the same.

Fruit Salad has nothing to do with Christmas but I thought it was so cute when Garrett came home from Kindergarten with his take home book entitled "Fruit Salad" with instructions on how to make one. He was thrilled when I suggested we make one for lunch. He and Rylee helped pick out and cut up all the fruit and they even ate it!

These two are just too cute.

Rylee and her best buddy Hannah.

They just make me laugh!

On the 6th I took the kids and my mom for lunch at Spaghetti Factory and to see Santa at the mall. Garrett hopped right on his lap and told him a few things that he wanted and Rylee wouldn't even take the free sucker from him. Maybe next year!

On the 10th my parents took us (me, Jon, Alisa and Brian) to dinner and then to the temple to do sealings for family work that had been worked on throughout the year. This has become a tradition around Christmas and I love it. Taking a step back from all the commercial parts of Christmas and do something extra special. This year was still great the only difference was after one hour my fingers had swollen to sausages and I had to squeeze me feet back into my shoes long enough to walk out of the temple.

On the 11th Shellie and I took the kids to see Utah Regional Ballet's The Nutcracker. This was Rylee's first year to attend and she couldn't wait.

She sat on the edge of her seat (or my lap) the whole time and enjoyed watching all the beautiful ballerinas.

My very own Rudolph's came flying through the house.



On the 17th was the Christmas Sing and school. Garrett promised he'd sing loud for us. Singing at all was exciting for me!

Isn't he cute! He just grinned ear to ear when he saw me, Rylee and his grandmas in the audience.

That same night Shellie had the kids over for her Polar Express sleepover. When I picked Rylee up the next morning I thought something looked different but we were in a hurry and it wasn't until we got home that I realized she had these new sweepy bangs. She was insistent that "Nana said my hair was too long so she cut it." It wasn't until after a bath and I could really see we had a slight mullet going on since not only were there bangs but the sides had been cut too. I questioned her again and she only said "don't tell Nana". A few minutes later Shellie calls and says she just got back home and found a ball of hair in her hallway and was anyone at our house missing it!

The little stinker with her new do (after a professional fix). Luckily it wasn't a drastic cut and we had something to still work with.

My cuties ready for church!


On the 21st we of course welcomed our sweet Austin James

and were able to bring him home on Christmas Eve.

Christmas Day!
Garrett and Rylee were so patient while I finished feeding Austin and changing his diapers before we opened presents. This was one of the redeeming parts of the day...seeing these happy faces.


The much anticipated and constantly asked for pillow pets. They didn't disappoint!






The aftermath...where did the presents go?

This was the other redeeming part.

Garrett made Jon and I a present in school (a snow globe) and this was my favorite gift of the day- the card.


"I hope you like this card"
He was so proud!

Rylee ready for church in her new dress from Grandma Sue and Papa!


Holy cow! I have three kids!


The rest of the month was spent holding, loving and snuggling our "Christmas Baby" as Garrett nicknamed him.

Austin's Arrival

Disclaimer: This post is not for sympathy but rather for me 1) to be reminded in the future of what it was really like 2) to impose a little guilt, if necessary, when Austin grows up 3) for Alli who, I'm afraid, thinks that I've been sugar coating motherhood.

I'm a bit of a superstitious person and should have known things weren't going to transpire as I had envisioned with this delivery when I went to bed the night of the 20th and couldn't get a single ounce of sleep. I laid awake all night tossing from one aching hip to the other. I finally got up around 2:30 and looked out the window to see mounds of snow. Beautiful, yes, but would also make driving to the hospital a bit treacherous. At 4:00am I showered and got the rest of my things ready and off we went to the hospital...it only took 25 minutes (instead of the usual 10). I checked in and look how happy I am - and ready to POP!

(I know, can you believe I'm actually posting this picture! It's for posterity)

Next came the IV. On my left arm the nurse blew the vein once it was already in. On the right arm she hit a valve which wouldn't allow any flow. She gave up and had another nurse try my left hand. Finally, a working IV. As 7:00 was approaching, which was my scheduled c-section time, there was no doctor. Dr. Broberg, who delivered Rylee so beautifully, was nowhere to be found. They paged him twice and never received a response. This isn't looking good. The doctor who was to assist was there and grabbed another doctor to go ahead with the delivery. SPINAL BLOCK. To be honest this is the part of having a baby I fear the most. All went well...at first. While they start cutting I get what can only be described as an electrocution up my spine and into my head that completely freaks me out and is incredibly painful. Both doctors and the anesthetist acknowledge they've "never seen that before". That pain finally goes away. During the rest of the c-section my blood pressure dropped four times down into the 70's which was remidied by a quick shot of epinephrine. This made my pressure jump up and with that I felt like my heart and lungs would explode from my chest. Afterwords the anesthetist tells me that when it drops that low that's usually when people start to vomit and go out so luckily I escaped that outcome.
Here Jon is introducing me to my newborn son Austin!

Isn't he sweet! He was born at 7:56 am, weighed 7 pounds 6 ounces and was 20 1/2 inches long.

Me and my baby once I finally got to hold him!



Daddy and his boy!



Just bonding.

I love this precious little face!

Garrett and Rylee were thrilled to come meet their new brother...

and ride on mom's bed.

Garrett and Austin

Rylee and Austin

Enjoying a cartoon.

Jon was able to take the week off and it was so nice to have him at the hospital with me for most of the time. I was very blessed to have so much help from our families and the kids were taken care of so that I could just recuperate at the hospital and enjoy those first few days without worrying about anything.

Christmas Eve we're heading home! But first the nurse needs to remove my staples. I had staples with Rylee and "knew" what to expect. The nurse takes one look at the incision and says out loud "WOW, he sure used a lot of staples! And it looks like many of them are bent." So 28-30 staples later (I lost count with the ones that the skin had started to grow back on) I was ready to leave.

Garrett and Rylee were anxiously awaiting our arrival.

Christmas Eve night I went to my parents for dinner with Garrett and Rylee and made it for about 1 hour. Christmas day was fun watching the kids open presents and all their excitement. By afternoon however, the tears came and I went to bed that night with eyes nearly swollen shut from crying. Everyone says "oh how fun to have a baby for Christmas" and I suppose it could be but just that statement made it worse. I felt like crap and would have skipped over the whole day if it weren't for my kids. Guilt, physical pain, hormones out of control and disappointment over my already very low expectations of what I would be able to do was just a recipe for disaster.
So my recovery has been nothing like my previous two c-sections. I was in quite a bit of pain and the drugs weren't helping all that much. To add to the fun I got the awesome hacking cough that everyone seems to have. Coughing and c-sections are like water and oil. They're never meant to be together. That being said...is it worth it????

You betcha!

(Here's the sugar coating Alli)

I have been given a beautiful, healthy and happy baby. What more could I ask for?

And I just have to say - I don't know what I would have done without all the kid watching, laundry doing, meals brought in, housecleaning, grocery pickups, and other acts of service given to us by our family and friends! Thank you Thank you Thank you!!!

Closing notes: 10 days post surgery I finally started to feel like I was on the mend. Hallelujah!