"Baby"

For Christmas one of the gifts that Annaliese gave to me was a booklet with writings from all her classmates.  Her class had gone on a writers workshop field trip.  Here is Annaliese's entry.  I think hers was the best. It is so interesting to me to get her perspective on the day she came to the hospital to meet her new sister.  And I have to say the details she remembers are right on. 

BABY by Annaliese

Annaliese, Avrie, Adeline...another baby was coming to our family.  Those names were hard to come up with.  One day, about a week ago, Dad, my sisters and I went to the hospital.  When I entered the hospital room where my mom was, the first thing I saw was an ivory curtain with leaf patterns on it.  Then I saw her. Just a burrito with a diaper, a onesie and a hat.  Her eyes were closed, but she had a peculiar nose.  I hugged my mom.  I stared a the TV screen with boring, soothing nature videos.  Music played quietly to soothe the patient.  "Look at the city!" said one of my 7-year-old twin sisters.  I stared at the lights illuminating the skyscrapers, the cars, the people.  A hazy purple sky spread over Chicago.  "I want to live in a skyscraper!"  I cried.  My baby sister winked at me as I held her.  Her nickname is Winkie.  Now she is home.  She is one-and-a-half weeks old.  Althea is truly the best.

A Weekend in December

This little girl had her 2 month check up.  She's perfect and healthy!  What a blessing!  She is in the 95th percentile for height (24.5 inches) and 75 percentile for weight (12 lbs).  She's growing so fast.   All her 0-3 month and some of her 3-6 month clothing went next door to our neighbor who has a baby just a few weeks younger and much smaller.   She started smiling and cooing a few weeks ago and we are loving it!  She has started to prefer keeping her head turned to the left so we are constantly trying to get her to turn right so that she doesn't end up in a helmet like Annaliese did.  She also got shots at this appointment.  She did not like that at all.   Last time she was pretty mellow.  Not so this time.  I finally got her settled down afterwards and she slept for 3 hours but when she woke up....wow! Never have I heard her scream like she did that day.  Thank goodness for Tylenol! I felt so bad.  She was miserable.  Tylenol took the edge off and before long we had our sweet happy baby back.

This weekend we got some awesome snow.  "Sledding Hill" at Oz was full of neighborhood kids- ours included.  Althea and I stayed in the car and watched.  The girls are getting pretty good. I even saw some surf board type sledding from them.  Good times!  Afterwards we went to Avrie's favorite restaurant...Noodles and Co.  Here they are still in their snow clothes waiting for our food. 

And...What would we do if we didn't go see the Joffrey Nutcracker?  Three years in a row now we've taken the girls so that means it is definitely a tradition.  It never seems to get old and we all love it.  Also for the third year in a row we drove through the drive thru at Protillo's for dinner.  Then like every year we had to speed through town to try to get there before we were late.  And for the third year in a row we sat in our seats just as the lights dimmed and the show began.  We've got it down!  Maybe next year I'll get us an early dinner reservation somewhere nice and mix things up a bit! 

We decided the best dances are the Arabian Dancers and the Russian Dancers. Also the girls loved the little ginger bread boy.  We have a couple of different storybooks of the Nutcracker that we read every year.  The girls don't know this but I'm pretty sure that Santa will have 4 giant Nutcrackers for them this year on Christmas morning. I hope they'll love them.  

 On a side note....This year Adeline announced that she would like to take ballet lessons.  She just doesn't want to perform ever and she doesn't want anyone to be in her class.  Hmmm.  Will work on that but I am glad that she is interested in lessons because I think she could be good at it.  Actually I bet all three could be awesome.  Dance lessons are a good thing I think.

And finally, Kermit has been working on a new song/video for Christmas.  Good King Wenceslas.  My girls have the sweetest voices.  It melts me when I hear them sing.

Busy weekend I'd say.  More crazy but fun days ahead as we count down to Christmas.

A visit from Grandma and Grandpa!

How lucky we are that my parents were able to be with us last week!  We had a lot happen and I'm so glad they could be here for those special occasions.  They flew in on Friday and I picked them up from the airport in time to go straight to pick up the girls from school.  The girls loved having their grandparents pick them up from school.  That evening we received word that Uncle Kimmel had decided last minute to jump on a plane and was headed into town!  Kermit went and picked him up late that night. We had a full house!

The next day was the twins baptism day.  We spent the day getting ready.  It was a very special day.  That night we ate out at the twins favorite restaurant "Noodles and Company." The next day was also a special day because Althea received her baby blessing during sacrament meeting.   It was so great to have my parents and Kimmel there to support us on this special weekend.  Kimmel had to head back home on Sunday but my parents were able to stay through until after Thanksgiving.

The kids had school for a few days before Thanksgiving.  My mom was so helpful getting the girls through their homework and piano practice.  I wish she could be here all the time to help me every week like that!  We spent the week getting ready for our Thanksgiving dinner.  Again, what would I have done without my mom!  Her years of experience hosting Thanksgiving was so great to help pull this year off.  We shared her amazing meal with some friends from church (Rockwoods, Olsons, Kotelly).

We were able to go out to dinner a few times.  We went to the new restaurant in the neighborhood called Summerhouse.  That was fun because a friend from schools father is one of the main chefs there. He came out and talked with us and gave us a few appetizers for us to try that were amazing and different than anything I ever would have tried on my own.  We also went out and got a Christmas tree from Home Depot the night before they had to leave.   A memorable week to have them here.  I love them and  I hope they know how glad I was to have them here.

Grandma

I found these photos randomly on my laptop.  They are from December 2011.  My girls with Valrea Althea Hafen King.  Kermit's mom.  Grandma.  She had just been diagnosed with lung and brain cancer over Thanksgiving weekend of that year.   We knew her time would be short and it was.  We lost her on Easter Sunday 2012.  From her diagnosis in November until her death in April we visited her in St. George 5 or 6 times.  This was from one of those visits.  Grandma had some mining property up in the mountains that she wanted to take her family to see.  Gabe and Tanc were there with their kids as well and we loaded up the suv's and climbed the steep dirt roads that lead to her mines.  We had a great time looking for fossils and rocks.  We even went into an old mine cave.  Very cool!  Grandma had been receiving her radiation treatments but still had enough energy to get out and do some things.

That is one thing I have always loved about her and miss.  She was always up for an adventure or outing.  She was never one to sit home.  She got out every day.  If somebody in the family wanted to take a hike - she'd change her shoes (or not) and join the fun.  If somebody wanted to go shopping, she'd take you off the beaten path to find the best places to shop.  If somebody wanted to go anywhere she was game to join in, always. Even when she was in pain before she had hip surgery years ago she was still up for adventure just to be with her family.  She loved to travel the world.  She loved museums and culture.  She loved life.  I hope my children will have her sense of adventure throughout their lives.  These pictures up in "no mans land" with their grandma I hope will remind them how much she loved an adventure and also how much she loved them.

Avrie and Adeline's Baptism

Avrie and Adeline on their baptism day

November 23, 2013

What an awesome weekend we had! These two have been so excited to be baptized and the day finally came!

My parents and Kermit's brother Kimmel came out to be with them on their special day.  It really was a perfect day.  We had a sweet program.  My mom and I spoke on baptism and the holy ghost.  Annaliese joined Avrie and Addie singing "Rainbows" and were accompanied by our friend who plays violin.  It was so sweet.  I love to hear them sing!   Avrie wanted to be baptized first so Adeline got to be confirmed first.  Both confirmations were beautiful.  They really looked like angels.  Just sweet and beautiful as could be.  I truly felt the love Heavenly Father has for these two and I think all that were there did too.

We had so many people come out and support us.  The Relief Society room was packed.  They have amazing primary leaders and teachers and ward members that were there.  Also they invited a few of their friends to come from school.  Mia and Stella were there with their parents.  I'm proud of Avrie and Addie for wanting to share their special day with their friends.  It was a perfect day all around and one I hope they'll never forget.  I know I won't.

Blessing Day

Althea Elsie age 6 weeks

November 24, 2013 was a special day. This beautiful baby had her blessing day at church.  My parents came in from St. George for the occasion as did Kermit's brother Kimmel from Massachusetts.  Our ward meets in a CPS school not far from our house so she was blessed in the school auditorium during our 9am sacrament service.  We got there in time but I didn't have her dressed yet so I ran to a classroom to get her ready her with my parents. It was literally a freezing cold morning so taking her out of her cozy footie jammies was a bit of a shock.  She was a good sport about it though as I changed her into her beautiful but rather tight fitting short sleeved dress.  She barely fit in it but we got it buttoned.  We finally had her set just a few minutes before she had to go up.  I was worried she would start to cry during her blessing but she did pretty well.  I gave Kermit a muslin blanket to wrap around her and she did great. Just a little fussy toward the end but not a big deal at all.  Kermit gave her a beautiful blessing and I actually recorded it on my phone. I will type it out and print it for her baby box. No doubt she is a special girl.  She is an angel from heaven.  Proof is right there in the picture above.

Baby Girl is Here!

No time like the present to take up the blog again.

Baby Girl is here!  She is just over 4 weeks and what a wonderful 4 weeks it's been.  I can't even believe it and still shake my head in disbelief.  I truly thought that we could not have another child.  That is a post for another day.  She truly is a miracle baby.  I feel so blessed to have her!

6 days before her due date we decided to schedule to be induced.  The pregnancy was harder than my other 2 by far....even more difficult than with the twins.  The thing that made it so hard was that I could NOT sleep...ever. It was driving me crazy physically and mentally.  My feet would throb in the night.  My legs were restless.  I was huge and would toss and turn never able to find a comfortable position.  I don't know if it was my age that made the difference this time or what.  All I knew is that my past pregnancies were awesome and this one was so hard on me.  October could not come soon enough.

On the Friday before I was due I was scheduled to go in at 5:30am to at last be induced.  My mom came into town a few days before so the older girls were taken care of. They also had no school that day so they could hang out at home and wait for the call to be able to come down to the hospital to meet their baby sister.  I went into their dark bedroom at 5am to kiss them goodbye and told them we'd see them in a few hours after the baby was born.  They were so sweet.  Hugs and kisses and excitement.  The whole family was just so excited that the day was finally here.  The girls went back to sleep and Kermit and I took our 10 minute drive downtown and pulled up to the valet.  I walked right in and immediately got up to my room where they started getting me ready to go.  Dr. Lisa came in at 8:30 and broke my water and started the pitocin.  We waited...waited some more.  Started getting some good contractions by about 11:30am and they gave me my epidural.  We waited, and waited more.  Nothing was happening.  The good thing was that it allowed me to get some sleep. I didn't get any sleep the night before as usual and I was exhausted. By evening, still nothing! The only action we had was me throwing up.  I think I dilated to a 4 (from a 2 which is where I was when we arrived). Kermit and I were starting to wonder if we made the right decision to induce.  We were told that because this was my 3rd delivery that this would go very fast.  In fact we were encouraged to induce because 3rd babies usually do come fast and it isn't uncommon for women not to make it to the hospital once their labor starts.  We didn't want any surprises so we chose to induce but this was not at all what we were expecting.  We had told the girls that we would see them in the afternoon with a new baby to show.  Long labor waiting and waiting and waiting..thank goodness for epidurals!  The night came and we watched the clock pass midnight.  It was now Saturday morning and we were still waiting.  Finally at 1:30am Dr. Lisa came in to check and we were ready to go!  At last!  Kermit was asleep on the couch and had to jump up ready for action.  He was dizzy and a bit disoriented as he woke up.  He jumped right in and I was ready to push immediately.  Again, I was expecting for the baby to come fast.  3 pushes is what I was told to expect.  Nope.  30 minutes of pushing.  But that's not that bad.  Everything went fine and no complications. I couldn't ask for more.  Just the amount of time wasn't what we were expecting BUT this delivery was almost exactly like both of my previous.  Long day of labor and 30 minutes of pushing.  Annaliese born at 9:40pm after being there all day.  Twins at 5am after being there since 11am the day before.  So it made sense that Althea came just as her sisters had.

I said in the beginning that I didn't believe that we were having another baby.  And that was true up until the moment she came out.  Once I finally saw her I believed it.  She was perfect!  8lbs 2 oz.  and so beautiful!  Kermit cut the cord the nurses cleaned her up and brought her to me.  Oh my! I haven't stopped thinking about her since.  I am addicted to her.  It's so strange that I couldn't picture her and couldn't even picture myself being a mom again really until that very moment.  A switch went off in me.  I am in love with that baby. I seriously cannot imagine not having her now.  Just the minute before she was born I couldn't imagine having her!  She is the perfect baby.  I love her love her love her!

I don't remember all the details after she was born but we were transferred to post partum floor where we rested.  Later that day Kermit went and got the girls and my mom and it was awesome.  They loved her from the beginning.  They have loved her ever since.  They want to love her and hold her all the time.  And they do. 

I am so blessed.