One Week Old and Lots of Snow

(After his first bath at home)

Kyle is now a week old and is doing good as far as I can tell. He is eating, sleeping, and pooping like new born babies are supposed to. I have felt really confident in my ability to take care of this little guy because I have done all of this new baby stuff once before with Danny. The problem is I don't just have a new born baby I also have a toddler. I'm not really sure what Danny thinks about Kyle- yesterday and this morning he was wanting to hold him and give him hugs and kisses, but he has also been freaking out over random things. I don't know if the tantrums are jealousy, age, sleep, or illness related or a combination of any of those but it is not fun having your previously good natured child throwing a fit. Oh well, I guess this is just a learning opportunity for us right now. Hopefully we can figure out how to keep both kids happy most of the time. I am so glad that Jon is between semesters right now and has been here to help out with the boys. It is much easier managing things when there are two of us, especially since I'm supposed to be letting myself heal and so I have been trying not to pick Danny up. Jon took Danny up to Draper today to play with his cousins while he helps his dad with some work, so I decided to organize our family photos on the hard drive while Kyle is napping. I'll put up some pictures of Danny playing in the snow with Jon and my brother Michael and a few more of Kyle from that same day.

(Danny sporting a new hat and mittens from Matt and Julia)

(Danny had fun throwing the snow balls that Jon made for him)

(Danny's favorite part of playing in the snow was helping uncle Mikey and Dad shovel)

There are some pictures and my random thoughts on having two kids. Kyle is waking up so that's all for now. 

Diapers Used: 52

For unto us a child is born

WARNING: I AM GOING TO TALK ABOUT HOW I HAD A BABY. (I will try not to be too graphic, but I make no guarantees)

I will start with my 38 week appointment on Thursday the 20th- I was a 2 at my appointment and had my doctor strip my membranes because I was feeling done with being pregnant and if that got things going I was ok with that. We also scheduled me to be induced for the 28th because I wanted to have the baby this year. After my appointment I went back to work and didn't really think that the membrane stripping had done much until later that night when I had some contractions that woke me up. I went to work on Friday and just felt crummy. I started having contractions probably around 10 am but they were kind of random and not too bad. In the afternoon they started getting more regular and I was having contractions every 10 minutes and by the time I left work at 5:00 I was having contractions maybe every 5 to 7 minutes. When I got home Jon and I started making plans; If we were going to have a baby we needed to have someone watch Danny. My parents had gone up to the cabin for the weekend, and no one was planning on staying at the house that we could have watch Danny if we went to the hospital in the middle of the night. We asked Jon's mom if she would watch Danny and she gladly accepted and came down to pick him up. While she was on her way down I was pacing around the house having contractions about every 4 minutes. I was fine between contractions, but during them I didn't think Karen could get here fast enough. She got here, we made the child swap, and we decided to go to the hospital and see where things were at.

(Before we went to the hospital while Karen was on her way to pick up Danny)

We stopped at Taco Bell on our way to the hospital so Jon could get some food because he wasn't hungry when I had dinner right after getting home from work. I ate a churro which was pretty good and will come in to play later on. I was fully prepared to be sent home from the hospital, but I was more curious to see if I had dilated since my appointment and if these contractions were doing anything. I got all checked in and they hooked me up to the monitors and checked my cervix which was a 3+, so that was progress since the day before. I waited while I was being monitored and there is something about laying in the hospital bed being monitored that makes my contractions slow down and ease up. Needless to say when they checked me at the end of the hour there was no change so they gave me a shot of morphine in the hip which burned like crazy and sent me home at around 10:00.

We drove home and I was feeling super loopy and dizzy from the shot so Jon helped me inside and I flopped on our bed still in my jeans and boots. Jon took off my boots and I slept for a while until I woke up having contractions, feeling super nauseated, and shaking. I got up and threw up and thanks to the churro it wasn't as bad as it could have been. I got back in bed and started timing my contractions which were about every three minutes but for some reason I just wanted to stay in bed. Somewhere during this time I told Jon that I thought we should go back to the hospital again, and he asked how frequent my contractions were and said something about not wanting to be sent home again. I got up to throw up again and then came back and laid down as Jon got up and started getting dressed. He put on my boots and helped me up to the car and we drove back to the hospital at around 2:00 in the morning.

We had to stop walking half way across the parking lot because I was having a bad contraction and some security guys outside the hospital saw us and grabbed me a wheelchair. (As I am writing this down I am remembering random things like that we had brought one of those huge BYU ice cream bucket things for a barf bucket, so I bet we looked pretty awesome to the security guys and one of them even commented on the size of it) We got back up to labor and delivery and the nurse who had monitored me before was still there and she was my nurse again. When she checked me I was at a 5 and she said they would be keeping me this time. She wasted no time getting the anesthesiologist in there with the epidural because I was shaking, throwing up, and probably pretty distressed looking. After I got the epidural I was hoping to sleep more, but I had a hard time falling asleep because I was shaking so bad. I was pretty happy because even though I had the epidural I could still roll over on my own and I could move my legs which was my main issue with the epidural when I had Danny.

I wasn't really looking at the clock, but I'm guessing it was around 4:30 I started having this pain in my back on the left side. So I pushed my epidural button to give me some more drugs, but nothing happened. I kept trying to push it to give me some relief and it wasn't doing anything. I let the nurse know I was hurting and she said the anesthesiologist was in the OR with an emergency and she would have him come in when they were done in there. So I was writhing around on the hospital bed and was now not just having an aching pain in my back but I was having pain that was spreading around to the front and getting worse every time I had a contraction. To put it simply I was miserable; at one point Jon tried to distract me with a video on his phone but I hardly even remember that. The nurse was telling me that she was surprised my water hadn't broken because I was an 8 and that once the doctor broke my water I would probably have the baby pretty quick.

I'm guessing it was at about 6:00 because I got a new nurse and the doctor came in and they checked me and my water had broken and he felt that the baby was on his back and he said that was probably why I was having so much pain in my back. They got things set up for me to push and I had one contraction and the doctor turned the baby and told me to push. The good thing about being able to feel this was I could push and know that I was actually doing something. I got his head out with that first push and then when I had another contraction I pushed the rest of him out.

(I decided to put the picture where I look slightly happier rather than the one Jon took where I still look miserable and in a lot of pain)

(His poor little face was super puffy and kind of bruised at first)

Kyle was born at 6:21 am on December 22nd. He weighed 6 pounds 15 ounces and was 19 inches long. I was very relieved to have him out. I'm not sure what was up with the epidural not really doing much but after Kyle was born and I was down in mother/baby I was happy that I could walk to the bathroom no problem.

We had our 2 days in the hospital and then came home in the early morning on Christmas Eve. It was an interesting Christmas Eve and Christmas because we didn't really do any of the family get together things that we traditionally do because we didn't want to take our newborn out to get exposed to bunches of people with bunches of germs.

Christmas morning I got things set up because I had been up feeding Kyle and was expecting to have a magical moment with Danny when he woke up. Sadly this dream did not come true because when I heard Danny making noise in his crib I went into his room and my nose knew that there was a problem. Danny had been sick and had diarrhea for a while and when I went in his room I smelled it before he said "tub" and I turned on the light and saw the mess. Jon took Kyle up to my parents and I started filling up the bath and wiping down Danny as Jon cleaned up the crib. Merry Christmas! Not exactly the start to the day we wanted, but once cleaned up Danny was very excited about his presents and I think he had fun. All of my siblings except Ryan spent the night at my parents house Christmas Eve, so Danny was able to play with his cousins and that was great for him and great for us because he loved it and we didn't have to entertain him.

Ok I need to stop writing because Kyle is asleep and I want to maximize on my night time sleep. I will try to write another post and add more pictures soon. Maybe tomorrow if I am feeling ambitious because I took some pictures today that I want to post.

I do want to say though that our families have been amazing at helping watch Danny and taking care of us all while we were at the hospital and since then. Thanks so much! Jon and I are very lucky to have both our families close and willing to help.

Playing in the snow

 Danny's first experience playing in the snow this season wasn't as magical at first as we might have hoped. He lost a glove and stuck his hand in the snow and got pretty upset early on in the snow playing. 

 Here is Jon the concerned dad trying to make it a more enjoyable experience. 

 We took him over to the cement where he could stand up a little easier and I showed him how it was funny to try to eat the snow. He couldn't bend over far enough to get his face in it, but that cheered him up a bit. 

 His mittens kept falling off, so we are going to see if we can find him some gloves and boots that actually fit for future snow adventures. 

 We were able to get him to try walking around in the snow before we came in. Luckily I don't think he will be scarred by falling in the snow and getting cold. 

 After the snow Danny took a nice warm bath and had fun playing with his Disney bath toys and his cup. 

 Danny likes getting soap on his hands and helping us wash his tummy. 

Getting water poured on his head is not one of his favorite parts of bath time. 

Last night we went to dinner as a family and then walked around the mall. I thought I was about to go in to labor or have some terrible diarrhea as we were walking around. Luckily after I stopped walking around and was able to sit in the car for a while I was fine. Hopefully this baby stays in a little bit longer so he can be healthy when he is born. It is still a little weird to think I am going to have 2 kids in less than 2 months. 

Pregnant and not sleeping

I have been awake for a couple hours just trying to go back to sleep, but I haven't been successful. I decided I might as well get up and put some pictures on our blog. 

These first ones are all from our trip to see Gran and Pop (my grandma and grandpa Westover) at the beginning of October.

For one of Jon's classes he went to a raspberry farm in Salem UT and they told him he could come back and pick any berries that he wanted because they were done with their harvest for the year and still had berries on their bushes. Of course Jon and I were not about to say no to some free fruit, so we went one evening and picked a ton of berries with Michael and Rachael. 

I think we all had a good time picking berries and when we got home Jon and I made a bunch of raspberry jam. 

We had a really fun Halloween party at Ashley and Karl's house that Ashley and Teri planned. We went as the Doctor, the Tardis, and Amy from the TV show Dr. Who. Jon made this side by side photo of our costumes and a picture from the episode we were basing our costumes on, so that people who have never seen the show could get an idea of how good our costumes were. I think maybe one or two people at the party recognized who we were trying to be, and then when we took Danny up and down the street for trick-or-treating three people actually recognized us. We are pretty nerdy, but for us the fun of Halloween costumes has been making them and being creative. Jon painted Danny's jacket with the help of a stencil Jennifer made on the Cricut and I sewed Jon's bow tie. 

I am now less than 2 months from my due date and I am getting more ready to have this baby. The idea of two kids is a bit daunting, especially since Danny has started to get older and will have little tantrums when things don't go his way. The most recent thing he doesn't like is having his diaper changed when he is poopy, so we have been trying to encourage him to use the potty but he hasn't been liking that much either. It could be a lot worse, but from our usually very good natured boy this can get a little frustrating. I have been very grateful that my fear of him starting to climb out of his crib has not happened yet; right now he goes to bed at night really well and I am worried that might change if he knows he can escape.

I'm trying to think if there is anything else that is going on in our lives that I should put on here. I just finished knitting a sweater for Danny, and it is pretty cute. I am pretty excited about it and I am improving my knitting skills. My next knitting project I just started is Christmas stockings. I made a practice heel because I have never made socks before and Jon said that when he has tried doing socks before he gets stuck at the heel. I didn't want to knit the whole top of the stocking and then mess up on the heel and have to start over, but the practice went well and it was easier than I thought it would be. We'll see if I can get any done before Christmas- my goal would be to do 4 so we can have one for each of us including the new baby.

In other baby news people keep asking me if I have a name picked out for our baby yet. The answer is no. We have a bunch of names that we have talked about, but so far nothing has really stood out or stuck. We still have time before the baby is born to pick something out and if we don't have anything by then we might be in trouble because I don't want to leave the hospital without a name for him.

Jon unofficially heard from one of his teachers that he will be doing the High School part of his student teaching at Alta where to current multi-media teacher is retiring and they are hoping that Jon will replace him. It would be pretty awesome if that all works out because that is what Jon wants to teach and it would be nice to have a job lined up for him after he graduates. We'll just have to wait and see what happens in the next few months.

I don't know if I have mentioned that I signed up as a Mary Kay consultant a few months ago on our blog yet, but I am a Mary Kay consultant! It has been fun and I have learned a lot. I decided that I need to actually try to work at it if I want to be successful and make money, so that is one of my goals. I had a lot of fun last month doing before and after photos and entering people into the makeover contest that Mary Kay had going on. Maybe I will do a post with the pictures from some of the makeovers I did. I hope one of the girls I entered wins :) If you want to check it out and vote for your favorite makeovers or just vote for the girls I entered (I think you can look them up by first name and last initial- Carrie W, Julia W, Ashley W, Angie Z, and Jessica E) the website is https://www.mkmakeovercontest.com/vote/. Also let me know if you want to let me practice on you because I need all the practice I can get.

Grandparents

Grandparents are one of the best things ever. The past few weeks have been kind of crazy on the Grandparent front for me. Over conference weekend we took a quick last minute trip to California to visit my Westover Grandparents with Michael and my parents. My Grandpa has got dimentia and my Grandma thinks he is deteriorating very quickly. We had a nice visit with them and enjoyed watching conference and got to see quite a few of our other California relatives too. I brought the camera and had fun taking some picture of Danny with his second cousin Stephanie and then getting pictures with my Grandparents.

Even though it was a really long drive for a short visit it was good to see everybody and it was good to see my Grandpa when he can still kind of remember us or at least pretend like he does.

On Wednesday the 10th I had arranged for my cousins Teri and Ashley to come over and make applesauce with me and my mom. I thought it would be fun to get together and learn something new and it would make the work go a lot quicker. Not long after my mom got home from work and we started into the applesauce project she got a call from my Grandpa Snow saying that he was following the ambulence to the hospital because my Grandma had passed out and they were on their way to Utah Valley Regional Medical Center. At first I wasn't too worried but then my Grandpa called back and said they were at the hospital and they were doing CPR. We were originally thinking that she might have just fainted because my Grandpa had mentioned she hadn't eated much, so we thought it was a blood sugar thing. You usually don't need CPR if you are having a blood sugar issue. My mom left and went down to the hospital to be with her dad becuase he was very distressed. We kept on making applesauce and my mom called and said they thought Grandma might have a blood clot in her lung and asked my dad if he could come down to help give a blessing, but he thought she should find someone at the hospital to help because that would be a lot quicker. Not too much later we got another call from my mom saying that Grandma had passed away shortly after she had been given a blessing. This was so surreal because I was expecting that either of my Grandpas could die at any time, but I had never thought that one of my Grandmas would be the first of my granparents to pass away.

We had a funeral on Monday October 15th and it was really good. The grandkids and great grandkids that wanted to participated in a musical number and I cried through half of it while trying to sing. It was a really nice funeral and I had been worried about Danny being cranky and running all over during the funeral. Jon's parents and sister came down for the funeral and Danny sat with them and Karen got Danny to go to sleep in her arms. I thought this was a miracle because it has been ages since Jon or I have been able to get Danny to fall asleep anywhere besides his crib or the car (Grandparents are just amazing like that).

It has been very comforting to me to know that this life is not the end and that I will get to see my Grandma Snow again. The peace that the gospel brings is amazing and I am very grateful for that. I know that my Grandpa and my mom and her siblings have been comforted by this knowledge too. Jon and I both have amazing families and I am grateful for the good examples and support we have all around us.

Water Party

Jon was watering the lawn at our old place a few weeks ago and Danny wanted to help. We decided we would just let him go for it and take some pictures.

We are about to leave to go to Disneyland in a few minutes, so hopefully we will have some fun pictures and stuff to post from that soon.

Chaos

I don't even know where to start. This past week has been chaotic to say the least. We have been moving from our apartment in Provo to my parents basement and on Monday I was feeling really good about how things were going and how much we had already moved.

On Tuesday all hell broke loose. I was at work and I get a phone call from a frantic Jon saying that there is hot water spraying all over our kitchen from the washing machine hook-up pipes. I told him to call the landlord and try to get it turned off. I ended up leaving work and going down there for moral support, to help clean, pack, and do what ever else I could do. By the time I got there Jon had got the water reduced to a drip and most of the water in our kitchen swept out the back door. Shortly after I got there and Jon gave me the tour of the wetness a man from a restoration company came and we told him what had happened and he looked at the valve and said that the valve was faulty and it wasn't any fault of ours that we now had a big mess and a bunch of damage. After he looked around a guy from our property management company got there and he was not a happy camper, but he said that the valve was bad and would need to be replaced. Luckily not too much of our stuff was damaged. Our kitchen table and a little antique suitecase got the worst of it. We had some boxes of laundry detergent that were on the floor that are now one solid chunk of detergent each and a few things that got a bit warped because of all the humidity and moisture in the air, but it could have been a lot worse. The previous night I had gone down the the apartment to grab most of our food and take it up to my parents, so things like our cereal and food stuff that would have not been good to have in extreme heat and humidity was already out of the kitchen. I had to toss a bag of sugar that had turned into a 3 pound sugar cube and some graham crackers that we had left so Danny could have something to snack on when we were down there, but again it could have been much worse. Also Jon might not have even gone down to the apartment until later if the girl who is going to be living there starting in September hadn't called and asked if she could bring her husband over to show him the place since he hadn't seen it yet. My mom got off work early and came over and helped me pack up the kitchen while Danny was at my parents house with Jon sleeping. We asked Ashley if she could help watch Danny for us so that we could try to get the rest of our stuff packed and out. She came and picked him up and Danny and Dean hung out while Carrie helped Jon and I do more packing. We took a load up to Jon's parents in the truck and unloaded it in the barn where we heard from Jon's dad that if we had tried to come up the next day we wouldn't have been able to drive down the lane because there was going to be a sidewalk put in starting the next day.

The next day we heard more from our insurance lady about how the mangement company was trying to say that the flooding was our fault, but the guy from the restoration company said that wasn't true and he was going to be dealing with the owner of property and her insurance to repair any damage. It was irritating to find out that eventhough when we were there the guy from the property management company said that the valve was bad, but then tried to still say it was our fault so they wouldn't be responsible to the damage. We sent an email with pictures of our damaged stuff to Jared from the restoration company and he was going to give that to the home owner's insurance so that they can replace it or something. We were too burned out from our scramble of the previous day to go down to work at the apartment, so we spent the evening trying to put away some of the stuff we brought up to my parents.

On Thursday Jon and Karen were planning on going down to the apartment to do some serious cleaning because Jon had scheduled our check-out for Monday the 27th. When they got there they found out that our apartment had been converted to a dry sauna and there were machines pumping out hot air at 122 degrees. Jon freaked out to say the least. From what I got out of him they took the AC unit in to Danny's room and Karen cleaned while he called people to figure out what was going on and when the apartment would not be so blasted hot. Sadly he found out that those things are supposed to be going for a couple days to make sure that everything is all dry. Jon got pretty upset with our landlord and I'm glad I didn't hear it becuase I don't think I would have been too happy at what he said. That evening went down and grabbed a few things from the apartment and dug up the garden. I experienced the heat in the house and I would have not been happy trying to work in there for more than a few minutes. After we got back to my parents and put Danny to bed we transplanted the tomato and peppers to my parents garden. I am really hoping that they do ok with being dug up and driven across town and then replanted. I guess we will see.

Jon rescheduled our check-out to the 31st, so hopefully we can get the place cleaned before then. I'm hoping that the heat-blowing-drying machines are turned off by Saturday so we can try to work on cleaning then.

This whole ordeal with the water mess has just been a nightmare. If it wasn't my life I would not even believe some of the things that have been going on with our management and how unhelpful they have been through all of this. I just can't wait to be done with this, but I'm afraid that we will still be dealing with the aftermath of this even after we have done our final check-out.

I am trying really hard to forgive and not be angry and I think this is something that I need to learn right now with this situation and other things that are going on right now. I keep trying to think of Christ's teachings:

3 Nephi 12:44

But behold I say unto you, love your ^aenemies, bless them that curse you, do ^bgood to them that hate you, and ^cpray for them who despitefully use you and persecute you;

 

Dang this is a hard thing to do, but I keep thinking that this is what I need to practice and learn right now. Maybe I'll add some pictures or the video clip Jon took of the apartment after we got the water stopped. 

Oh Boy! Oh Boy!

I had my 20 week ultrasound on Wednesday and we found out that we are having another boy! We are pretty excited for Danny to have a little buddy to play with. I am also excited that we already have boy stuff so I don't need to do much to prepare for this new little guy. Now we can start thinking about names. Jon and I have started throwing some names out, but nothing has sounded right. Luckily we have some time to think about it.

Last night we had Carrie come over and help us move our mattress and box spring to my parents house. We slept over in our new room for the first time. Hopefully now we can get all of our stuff out of the old place and get it cleaned up in not too long.

The fixed is fixed!

I don't know if I mentioned the unfortunate breaking of our 50 mm lens on the blog, but it broke. I didn't zip the camera bag after girl's camp and Jon went to bring in the bag and the 50 fell out on the driveway and broke in two pieces. I was super super super sad. We have been meaning to take it to a camera shop to see if it can be fixed and finally got around to doing it a few weeks ago. I picked it up on Friday after work and decided I better give it a test run this weekend. It occasionally does this thing where is says the lens isn't connected to the camera and to clean the components, so we might see if we can take it back and get that fixed now. Luckily I can just turn off the camera or take the lens off and put it back on and it works fine. 

On Saturday we took a walk over to the farmer's market and grocery store. 

 Danny rode in the stroller part of the way and walked some too. 

 I love this picture- I have been doing this kissy-fish face thing that Danny thinks is hilarious and so I did that and then took this picture. 

 One of the things we got at the store was a bag of cherries. Jon pitted a bunch of them and then Danny devoured them.

 On Sunday we went to Grandma and Grandpa Westover's for dinner. The kids played outside on the slide and teeter-totter and I took some pictures. 

Besides the occasional connection error thing the lens seems to be working fine. So, I haven't mentioned yet that we are going to be moving at the end of the month. We are moving in to my parents basement and out of our apartment. When I have told people that don't know my family they have this "I'm so sorry" feel to their responses, but I think it will be a good thing. It won't be forever and we will be able to save money for a down payment on a house when we know where Jon gets a job. I don't know if I will have time to blog much while we are trying to pack up and such, but we'll see.