Christmas Spirit

Having a baby in November has really had an effect on my usual dose of Christmas Spirit! I am usually driving Adam crazy already with my Christmasy atttitude. I've usually broken out the Christmas music and been pestering him for a Christmas tree by now. For some reason, the last month is a bit of a blur and I haven't reached my usual levels yet. Paige seems to be filling in for me so far. She has pestered me every day this week about going to the mountains to get a Christmas tree and decorating the house! I have started turning the Christmas music on all day to get myself in the mood. We just might have to make Christmas cookies and candy the next few days so that I can remind myself just how much I love Christmas!

Cute Kids

I think my kids are SO cute! (I know every parent thinks their children are good looking. Does anyone else ever wonder if it's just because you're their mom or because they really are so dang cute?!)

Pukey Piano Lessons

Yesterday was a rather eventful day really. I finished "Breaking Dawn" then took my kids to my friend Amy's house for a little play date. We got there late because Porter was still sleeping and I had to wake him up to leave. I wasn't really that surprised that I had to wake him because he got up at 6 yesterday morning!! So off to Amy's we went, where the kids proceeded to make her kids bedroom look like a nuclear holocaust had hit! After a million years picking up toys, we quickly headed home so that I could cook dinner before my lone piano student showed up at 6:30. Porter was cranky, Sarah got fussy and Paige was being very Paige so cooking dinner got a little sketchy. By the time Adam got home, it was all out chaos. Mykel, my student, got there just before dinner was done so I handed off my baby and left Adam to finish it. Porter started having a fit of hysteria and came to me just a couple minutes into the lesson. I pulled him up on my lap since Adam had Sarah and tried to console and teach piano at the same time. He was so hysterical that he started to cough, you know-that crazy choking cough kids do when they're that upset, and suddenly he puked all down the front of both of us! I yelled for Adam and made a run for the bathroom. I handed Porter to Adam, who had already laid Sarah down to come rescue me and excused myself to go change my shirt. While I was running to change, Adam was consoling Porter and going back to the kitchen when Porter puked again, all over Adam and the floor! Sarah was in hysterics now because she had been laid down, so I picked her up and sat back down to the piano. Adam took Porter into the bedroom to change his clothes now and laid Porter on our bed while he did. Porter pulled the blankets over himself and fell immediately asleep and slept until 7 this morning. After Mykel left (poor girl), Adam looked at me and said, "I don't think you should charge them for this one!" I think he's probably right!

Twilight

So you all know that when you have a new baby, it is really difficult to get anything done but did you now that if a friend loans you all four books of the twilight saga and you read them in 4.5 days you will get absolutely nothing done and lose track of absolutely everything in your life?! I loved the books (obviously) though I did have a few concerns about the whole Edward/Bella thing. (Who wants to cuddle a rock?!) And for the record, I like Bella better as a vampire!

Baby Pictures!

Sarah Lynn

Can I just tell you what an adventure we had getting baby number 3 here finally?! Paige and Porter have both been early (10 days and 3 weeks, respectively) so we fully anticipated this little girl early too. I didn't expect her to come as early as Porter but I figured around the same time frame as Paige was reasonable. About two weeks before my due date I started having contractions during the day, although they weren't anything major and I was COMPLETELY miserable. I get to the point where I almost can't walk at the end because of all the pain and pressure in my pelvis. I went to my midwife appointment and she checked and I was dilated to a three! All of us were convinced that I would go into labor any second, including my midwife. Because of that, my mom, sister and her three kids drove up from Billings that night to stay with us so they could be here when things happened. Wednesday passed and nothing happened. Thursday morning I woke up more miserable than normal. I went and laid down to take a nap and almost couldn't get up! When that happened, I called my midwife and asked if she would strip my membranes to try and induce labor, which, I should mention, is what got things started with my first two. She was willing, so Nicole drove me in to her office. We came home and just waited for things to happen. They didn't. Friday came. We thought for sure this was the day. Nothing happened. Saturday came. Surely things would happen today! Nothing again. Sunday came and my mom finally decided that she had better go home so that she didn't miss any more work. We all joked that because she had decided to go home after waiting those days that I would go into labor while she was driving home. I didn't. Monday - nothing. Tuesday I went to my regularly scheduled midwife appointment. When I checked in with the receptionist, she said my appointment had been cancelled. I hadn't been notified and upon further investigation, we found out that the office had cancelled it because they were so certain after stripping my membranes that I wouldn't need it because I'd have gone into labor! They fit me in and my midwife checked me again. This time I was dilated to a four! We were shocked! I'd never been a four before without being in labor! Now she was really convinced that I'd go into labor any minute but she agreed that if I hadn't gone into labor by Friday that she would induce me Friday morning. We now had light at the end of the tunnel no matter what! Nicole and I went and walked every day that week trying to get things going, including going to the mall with all five kids on Wednesday and making them walk laps with us and going to Walmart on Thursday to do all my grocery shopping. Thursday evening we had our friends Mark and LaNeige over as a last hurrah before I had a baby Friday. As they were getting ready to leave, labor and delivery called and informed me that they were full and were cancelling my induction the next morning. I cried. When I called my parents to let them know, my mom got on the internet and read me a million "home remedies" to induce labor and then my dad got on the phone and told me accupressure points to stimulate to induce labor. Nicole was so mad she called labor and delivery back. They said that they would call me the next day if something opened up but that they could only take me for sure if I went into labor on my own. Friday morning rolled around. I got up and started having contractions, which we timed and after an hour of being 5 minutes apart, we called my midwife and headed off to the hospital. (The hospital experience is a whole other story - I think I got the crappiest nurse there!) After about 10 hours of labor total, Sarah came into the world at 5:58 p. m. She was worth the wait. She is such a great baby and absolutely beautiful! I'm a lucky mom!

Supermom!

Paige is hilarious. I know that she's my child so I'm probably more inclined to think so than everyone else but she comes up with some of the funniest stuff! A few weeks ago my parents were here for the weekend and we went with them to their "storage" here, which is really a semi-trailer full of their stuff that has been packed up with all the things they couldn't take with them when they went to Missouri 5+ years ago. Paige wanted up in the trailer with Grandma and Grandpa, so I agreed as long as she was careful and up she went. Well, within minutes she got too close to the edge and toppled out. Luckily I was standing right there so I caught her before she did anything but give herself a good scare! So yesterday she was standing on the toilet in my bathroom talking to me and staring at herself on the mirror (one of her current favorite past-times) while I was getting readyto go to church. She stopped and looked at me and said "Hey mom, do you remember when you were supermom and you catchdid me when fell out of the trailer and I didn't hit the ground or bonk my head and make a hole?" So apparently catching her makes me supermom. I think I can live with that!

Snow Angels

So we got our first snowfall over the weekend. Paige was so excited! (Three is such a fun age because she is so aware of the world around her.) Our usual Sunday routine includes going to church, coming home to change clothes, and then heading out to Adam's mom's ranch for the rest of the day. When I picked Paige up from nursery on Sunday, she immediately wanted to know if she could go home and make snow angels. I told her that we needed to go to Grandma's house and she threw a fit! She informed me that she was NOT going to Grandma's house. She was going to go home and color and make snow angels! We "compromised" by taking all her snow stuff out to Grandma's. When she finally got all dressed up in her snow pants, etc. after lunch, she asked me to come out and watch her play in the snow. She got out into the middle of the yard, flopped down on her back, wiggled her arms and legs a couple of times, and then quickly stood up to check out her snow angel. When she saw that she'd actually made one, she giggled, walked about two feet and repeated the process, including giggling at herself. She must've made about 20 of them until the yard was almost covered. It was so darn cute!

Waiting for a baby

So I spent the last week feeling pretty much miserable. My parents came up for the weekend and we (meaning my mom, the kids, and I - Adam was at work) ended up at my Grandma's house helping my Dad work on his "honey-do list." He and my brother Chad were trimming back these trees that really looked more like bushes because they were so overgrown and I felt like a dork just sitting there watching and using my pregnancy as a cop-out, so I jumped in to help by clearing away the branches and stacking them up. I woke up Sunday morning feeling less than great. Apparently my very pregnant hips don't appreciate doing that much bending over! I spent the rest of the week feeling very crampy, lots of pressure, more than normal amount of contractions, etc. I finally called my midwife's office Thursday morning and told them what had been going on and they told me to come in right away. Basically, I'm already dilating and having contractions so I'm parked on the couch as much as possible for the next two weeks so that we don't have a pre-mature baby. It's not exactly my idea of fun but I'd rather be obedient and not have a NICU bill. So, if anyone has any good movie recommendations, I'll have plenty of time for the next couple of weeks! =o)

Red

So we got a new horse. His name is Red. We "inherited" him from my sister and fam. They decided to get rid of him so they could stop buying hay and attempt to move to town to save gas. He is so gentle that he is like 1200 pound dog instead of a horse. Paige loves "her" horse. Every night when Adam gets home she thinks it's time to ride. She also thinks that she now gets to go with when he leaves to go to the mountains to go riding, to the point that she threw a fit when she woke up last Sunday morning and found out that Daddy had gone hunting in the mountains without her!

Paige is on Red. He looks unhappy because he had just had his feet trimmed and was feeling a little sore. Porter is on Jerob's (Adam's brother) horse Silly.

Here is a close up of Paige on Red.

Here is Porter on Silly. He always has to have the reins, which he always has to pull back on! Poor Silly! As we were maneuvering the horses into place to get the picture of the kids together, every time Silly took a step Porter would say "whoa!" out of the surprise of the movement and poor Silly, would stop because someone said "whoa!". Needless to say, it took a few minutes to finally get Silly over there!

Gibson Reservoir

I heard there was a lack of pregnant belly shots on the last post so I thought I'd provide you some. These pictures are from our family trip to Gibson Reservoir up by Augusta. Just so you know, if you've never been there, it's really windy up there! I thought we were perfectly dressed for a day at the beach, which is what I think of when I think reservoir (considering I grew up in a waterskiing family.) Oh how wrong I was! It's beautiful but not so beach-like, as you can see! We needed jackets and pants even though it was mid-summer!

Here I am in all my glory. Keep in mind this was a couple months ago. I am even more glorious now....

Paige and Porter with Dixie, our dog.

I thought we had some pictures looking down at the dam/reservoir but I can't find them. This is the kids playing where you can look down from the "top" of the mountain and see everything.

Cataract Falls

We didn't have many adventures as a family this summer but we did manage to make it to Cataract Falls twice with our friends Mark and LaNeige. It is such an easy hike and so beautiful!!

This is Porter and I sitting on the bench by the falls.

Here is Paige in front of the falls.

This is Adam and Porter throwing rocks into the creek. Mostly it's Adam keeping Porter from throwing himself into the creek!

This is Paige (on the right) and Mark and LaNeige's daughter Tana with Tana's grandma's dog Bubba.

I'm finally giving in!

Well, it seems like everyone has a blog these days. I have resisted for a long time, probably out of laziness, but I realize now that it is actually the perfect solution for my laziness because I can post pictures and updates without the actual work and time of sending a real email! Hope you all enjoy!