Picture Time!

My mom has once again been begging me for pictures and a video. I have pictures ready, but not the video, sorry mom. These pictures are all of randomness that's been going on here. Enjoy!

Jeremy has learned about the American flag. He loves to point it out and calls it the "'Ca flag."

Nathan bought me pink roses and brought them to the hospital the day after Emma was born.

Megan had a rough afternoon. After having a time out, she fell asleep on the glider chair.

Kent, Rozella, Laura, Sarah, and Mike came to meet Emma on Monday.



Jeremy is such a good helper!



Jeremy is grateful for his ears.

Sisters


I've been doing a lot of packing lately.
I got this box out and wasn't sure what to pack in it yet. I turned around for a minute and when I looked again Jeremy was in the box, trying to close the top on himself.

My First 'Life with Three Kids' Story

Here I am, feeling almost ready to start posting again. I don't think I can really keep putting it off though. I've just not really felt like sitting at the computer lately, so email, blogging, and keeping up with the news has slowed down quite a bit.

Life with three kids is very interesting. I only spent one night in the hospital because I just couldn't stand it any longer. We were very lucky that Emma was released as well. Since she weighed more than she should have for her gestational age, they wanted to keep her longer. But I was smart and asked the nurse to check with Emma's pediatrician to see if it would be ok if Emma was released with me. When the nurse returned she had a look of shock on her face as she told us Dr. McKenna released Emma. All they needed was one more test, and since the results were good, she was released.

So far we haven't had many outings, of course. We have gone to the grocery store (I put Megan and Jeremy in the main part of the cart and kept Emma in her car seat in the front of the cart, this keeps me from being able to see where I'm going since I'm so short) and to a few clothing stores. I was looking for nursing clothing (was unsuccessful) at every store in the valley. Those of you who have been here know that isn't many, but still, it was annoying and tiring. When Nathan got home that night I went back out shopping and still returned empty-handed. There is only one store in the valley that sells nursing clothes and they are ugly and expensive, so I didn't buy anything there. At all the other stores I just looked for clothes that could would as nursing, like button down shirts. The only thing I did find was a polo shirt at Old Navy- $10.

Going shopping with the three of them was difficult. I had Emma in the Snugli, Jeremy in the stroller, and tried to keep Megan within arm's distance. When I needed to try stuff on I had to maneuver all three of them into a small dressing room, take off the Snugli and keep Emma in it at the same time, try to keep Jeremy in the stroller, and Megan from opening the dressing room door while I change. At some point Jeremy threw two of their books he'd brought and I now have no idea where they are since I don't know which store he lost them in.

The day before the shopping extravaganza I was really tired and decided to take a nap with Emma. I figured Megan and Jeremy could play nicely for half and hour or so and asked them to be nice to each other and stay in their room. About an hour later I woke up and thought to myself, I should check on them. I went into the kitchen and saw Jeremy standing on his pot trying to reach something on the counter. He turned around and looked at me, asking for help. My eyes opened so wide I thought my contacts were going to pop out. His face was completely brown, his hands and arms brown, too.

My first thought was he'd gotten into the Sharpies. I thought I'd hidden them all well enough, but since I'm using them to write on the boxes as I pack them, I figured I must have missed one. Lucky for him, his sister's butt, and my sanity it was just craft paint. Craft paint washes off a lot easier than a Sharpie pen. Feeling a bit stressed (I still didn't actually know at this point it was paint) I grabbed his arm and dragged him to his room. There I found Megan sitting between their beds with a dish cloth on the floor in front of her. On the dish cloth was a baby bottle with brown paint in it, a small craft paint container, and a small paint brush. It must have taken her the entire time I was asleep to paint him. Her face also had paint in random places and a few spots on her arms.

I hoped it would be funny later, because I was really, really mad. I took the paint and brush away and began to lead them out of their room, checking the carpet for paint on the way out. Relieved at not seeing any, I looked up and saw their wall. Brown. It was just the small area between the door and the closet, but still, it was brown. I asked Megan if there was paint anywhere else and after promising me there wasn't, I washed them off in the bathroom. Of course the next day I overheard Megan telling Nathan that there was brown paint on her dresser, courtesy of Jeremy.

Tonight will be our first date in a while. We were going to go shooting in the mountains, but since it rained most of the day, and will therefore be nasty up there, we are going to go see Indiana Jones instead.

Tired

Things have been pretty busy, so I'm not sure when I'll have a chance to do a real post. I guess whenever Nathan has his next day off is when I'll write. He covered the delivery pretty well, I don't know what else to write about it. I guess I'll think about it and figure something out. I do have a few "Life With Three Kids" stories. I'll write those as soon as I have time.

Emma Rose

Emma was due on the 15th of May. Since Jeremy was such a big baby (9,9), and since Emma was 5 days overdue, Kellie's doctor advised us to induce labor. So that was today's activity.

The induction began at 8:10am. Things started pretty slow, especially since Kellie was only dilated to a 1.5. After 6 hours, she had progressed to a 4. Fairly soon after that, she received an epidural and began dilating much quicker. By about 7:20pm she was fully dilated and ready to start pushing. However, we had to wait for the doctor to get back to the hospital (he had gone home, which is a sure way to make a baby come).

Kellie began pushing at about 7:50 and delivered Emma at 8:12pm.

Emma weighed 9 pounds 4.2 ounces and measured 20½ inches with a head circumference of 13¾ inches.

Both Kellie and Emma are doing great. In fact, Kellie said this was the easiest labor of the three kids.

Kellie will undoubtedly post more when she gets home.




Emma on the scale








Mama and Baby

Yay for Pee!

Today I was outside chatting with my wonderful neighbor. It had been such a good day so far. I'd had a yummy breakfast that I didn't have to make myself. I actually got a shower before 4 PM, and I'd just gotten back from a doctor's appointment where he told me I was a little more effaced, .5 of a centimeter more dilated (for me that is like a major break-through), and he had scheduled me for an induction (this time one that will actually take place) for tomorrow (Tuesday) morning. And watermelon. We were enjoying the beautiful sunshine and eating delicious watermelon. The kids were getting pink and sticky and I didn't mind at all. We were letting our kids run around wild in the yard, playing with sticks, a wooden ride toy in the shape of a zebra, and a tricycle. They were pulling dandelions and blowing the seeds all over the yard (I'm really glad our landlord wasn't around to see their handiwork on his nice lawn). As I was talking with my neighbor I looked up from my watermelon and saw Megan, pants and underwear down, shirt pulled up, and pee streaming from her bottom onto the sidewalk. Can you say "mortification"? I thought I was going to die! My neighbor's little boy was standing right there with her, just staring at her pee run down the cement.
Sometimes Megan forgets that playing isn't as important as going to the bathroom as soon as she feels the urge. She waits and plays and waits and plays until she realizes that if she's not on the toilet in three seconds she's going to mess her pants. Then she freaks out and yells that if I don't put her on the toilet (which she can normally get on herself) that she will have the world's biggest mess in her pants.
Today she didn't even bother to tell me that she'd waited too long. She just dropped her pants and went. Right there. In the yard. In front of my neighbor and her son. So embarrassing.
She looked at me and said, "Mom, I need toilet paper." All I could say was, "Well, that's usually located in the bathroom- where you're supposed to pee."
After I cleaned her up I told her to get new underwear and pants because I was sure that she had gotten some on her. She went in her room and changed all of her clothes- into sweats. It's 85º outside! I told her to pick something else, but she refused, not really understanding that hot weather + heavy clothing = too hot to play. Not too long after this she went inside, stripped down to her panties and came back outside. Luckily our landlord was here now and had just turned on the sprinklers, so it looked like I meant to have her naked so she could run through them. However, I wish she'd had on her swimsuit, not just her tighty-whities.

New Quote Monday

Today's quote is from one of my very favorite children's book series. If you haven't read them, you should. A Series of Unfortunate Events is not only hilarious, but it actually helps kids deal with difficult situations (fear, grief, loss) and learn that they can be self sufficient. It also teaches vocabulary in a fun way. The author, Lemony Snicket (Daniel Handler), has a sense of humor that I completely appreciate and his writing style is kin to that of Roald Dahl where most of the adults in the story aren't the brightest or most responsible. This quote is from the first book, The Bad Beginning.

"The book was long, and difficult to read, and Klaus became more and more tired as the night wore on. Occasionally his eyes would close. He found himself reading the same sentence over and over. He found himself reading the same sentence over and over. He found himself reading the same sentence over and over." --Lemony Snicket

Absolutely Ridiculous Food Bribes

As many of you know, my children refuse to eat. I believe I've posted pictures of them before under a blog entitled "Poison" in which they look like they are dying from food poisoning. Well, they still don't eat (it really is amazing that they haven't died from starvation).

Last night I made nachos for dinner. You'd think that getting a dinner that consisted of nacho cheese chips, shredded cheese, and tomatoes, all of which they actually will eat, would mean dinner would be eaten fairly quickly. I was wrong. Neither of them ate their food. Megan opted to go to bed hungry instead of eat her food. Jeremy actually ate about half of it before I gave up on him and put him to bed, too. They know that if they don't eat their dinner they get the rest of it for breakfast and may only have water to drink until it is finished. Well, they wouldn't eat their leftovers for breakfast either. So we went out to do some grocery shopping (which now I realize is nearly pointless since they won't eat food anyway. Why was I buying food when they just get it on my carpet and not in their mouths?). When Megan and Jeremy became way too whinny I decided it was time to make them eat. We got home and I brought out the food. They still wouldn't eat it! They were starving and wouldn't eat.

Some of you know that I do all kinds of stuff to try to get my kids to eat. I've sung songs between bites, named bites ("Take a Nemo bite!" "Take an airplane bite!" "Take a lion bite!"), and now today I have done camera bites and reading bites. I actually took pictures of my kids forking food in their mouths to get them to eat. It still took forever to get them to eat because after every bite they had to see the picture. I guess that's the bad part of digital. At least I can erase them later, unlike film. There were quite a few times where I didn't even bother looking through the view finder to line up the picture, I just snapped it. I got a lot of pictures where the kids were way off to one side of the picture or where it was blurry. They didn't seem to mind, though.

Then tonight I read to Megan. I've been wanting to read Dragon Slippers to her (especially since she looked at the book and read the word "dragon" off the cover) and so I read a paragraph or two and then had her take three or four bites before I would go on.

Here are a couple pictures of them shoving food into their mouths for the camera, not for me.

Piggies & Paws

I went to the doctor today and while I was waiting to be called back I was looking at a table with a bunch of pamphlets and such on it. Usually I don't bother looking at this table, but I had gotten there really early and had time to kill. I saw a postcard with children's hand and footprints made into art and thought the pictures were simply adorable, so I picked it up. It is from a business called Piggies & Paws. They do home parties and private printings where a licensed artist comes with a bunch of sample artwork in a binder and some framed and you can pick what pictures you want. The she makes prints of your child's hands and feet (depending on the picture you want), takes them home, and creates the picture you ordered. I would put examples on here, but because of copyright reasons, I can't. But here is the website: http://www.piggiesandpaws.com

Go there and check it out. I think I'm going to do a party the first week of June at our weekly mother's luncheon. I figure, all the moms and kids come usually so it will be perfect. I just need to remember to sign up for the first Tuesday in June.

New Quote Monday

This week's quote is from a conversation I had with an old roommate's husband way before any of us got married or even went on our missions. It is in reference to "that time of the month."


"The only thing I know about periods is that there are four of them in a game and after two it's half-time."

-Rod Johnson

Baby Countdown

Well, last week I had an appointment to see if the baby would be in a good position to induce labor since I've been worried that she'll be huge (remember, Jeremy was nearly 9 lbs. and each consecutive kid is supposed to be bigger). Well, I was only dilated to a 1, 60% effaced, and her head was at a -2. Not really prime for having a baby. So the doctor scheduled me for another appointment today to check. I'm the same. Actually, one thing did change- the baby is now at a -3. She went the dang wrong direction!!

Before going in I was resigned to the idea of her not coming until this weekend. I just knew that I wasn't going to be in a good position to be induced today. I was completely fine with it until I got to the car. I didn't say anything to Nathan or the kids, but by the time we got home (Nathan left for work from the doctor's office, so it was just me and the kids) I was really upset. I don't get it. For a few days now I've known in my gut I wouldn't be induced today. I've had a feeling that it will be this coming weekend for quite a few days now. So why am I so upset about it? I don't know. I ended up calling my mom and crying on the phone to her. I feel so stupid, but I guess I just really want Emma to come now and not be huge.

My mom was great and cheered me up a bit. She gave me a little money to buy Emma some clothes since most of what we have are infant winter clothes from Megan's infant days and some money for dinner tonight, since I'm really not in the mood for cooking. (Have I ever been in the mood for cooking? Hmm.)

There are two girls in my ward who are pregnant and are due right around the same time as me. One of them was dilated at a 3 a few weeks ago. I think she'll go before me. As for the other girl, I don't know what she's at, but I'm sure it's more than my pitiful 1.

I just remembered that I labeled this post as Baby Countdown, so I guess I better put the current countdown info.

2 Days 13 Hours 40 Minutes 25 Seconds as of May 12 at 10:19 AM

New Quote Monday

Yes, it's Monday again. It always seems to creep up on me when I least expect it. Well, last week's quote was a fun one from Bill Cosby.

"Always end the name of your child with a vowel, so that when you yell the name will carry."

I had a hard time deciding this week's quote, but finally went with lyrics from a song. If any of you moms out there haven't heard of Sandra Boynton, then you've been living in a cave. She has dozens of children's board books that my kids (and me, too) devour. A few years ago she came out with a book/CD combination called Dog Train. I bought it at Kohls when it was their Kohls Cares for Kids item. We Love It! Boynton wrote not only the lyrics, but the music as well, and she has done a great job. Some of my favorite songs include Tantrum (sung by the Spin Doctors), Boring Song (it's dang hilarious), I Need a Nap (sung by Kate Winslet and Weird Al, two names I bet you never thought you'd see together), Dragon Fire (kind of a lullaby), and Wave Bye-Bye (oh my gosh, I love this one). The song I chose as today's quote is called Evermore and is simply beautiful. I hope you can check out this book and CD at your local library or even better, go out and buy it. Ok, I just found a website where you can listen to snippets of her songs from different book/CD combos she has done. Go to:

http://sandraboynton.com/sboynton/boyntonmusic.html

and you can hear bits of different songs and see who sings them.

In case you have a hard time finding the quote of the week (it's just below the picture of Nathan with the kids on the left side of the screen) I'm going to post the lyrics here.

Evermore

The forest of April awaken from sleep,
and flowers unfold through the snow,
and the wind rushes high,
and the river runs deep,
and it sings what you already know.
You already know-

Evermore I will love you,
evermore I will stay
ever right here to hold you.
Never so far away.
And though I know sometimes you go
to find your way alone,
evermore I will love you.
You're ever my own.

Megan's Cake Recipe

Today while I was taking a nap, Megan was pretending to make a cake with Jeremy. They got out mixing bowls, measuring spoons, measuring cups, and baby spoons. Megan told Jeremy they needed one cup of oil. Nathan wondered what other ingredients would be necessary for Megan's cake. Here is the recipe she told him:

Megan's Cake

1 cup oil
1½ cup sugar
1 carrot
4 cups flour
1 tsp guacamole
1 egg
4 tsp milk

Put all these in a bowl. Stir them together. Put the bowl in the microwave. Cook for 4 minutes. Put it in the oven for 6 minutes. Pour a glass of milk to drink. Eat the cake and drink the milk.


She's going to be our own little Ratatouille chef.

Fishing!

A couple days ago Megan told me she wanted Nathan to take her fishing. I thought that was cute, but didn't think much of it since the only fishing stuff we have are two old poles we inherited from Carlos and Karen. I had put them in a box to take to D.I. because in the three years we'd had them, we'd never used them. I figured things wouldn't change when we move to Ohio, so why bother carting them across the United States?

I told Nathan that Megan had asked to go fishing with him and he was surprised, but very excited. He thought it would be a great opportunity to have some special Papa-Megan time. Last night he called me from work and said he was going to pick up some fishing stuff. So early this morning, just before 7 am, Megan woke up calling for Nathan. I asked him what time they needed to get up to go fishing and he said, "Oh, probably now." So he went into her room and knelt next to her bed. He whispered, "Megan get up." And for the first time ever, Megan said she didn't want to get out of bed. So Nathan whispered, "Do you want to go fishing?" Megan sat right up, said, "Yeah!" and ran to her dresser and started to get dressed! It was really cute.

So Nathan first went to get a fishing license and some snacks. Then they went to First Dam. They started on a bridge and then moved to a pier. They didn't catch anything other than the slime in the water, but Megan loved every minute of it anyway. They talked about the slime, why the water is green, the baby ducks, and fish. Megan even told Nathan a story about Mr. Play-dough Man who likes pizza. (I have no idea where that came from.)

After fishing at First Dam for about three hours they went to Willow Park and fished at Skylor Pond for about half an hour. Megan played on the jungle gym there for 10 minutes and then they came home. By this point it was nearly 11 am and Jeremy and I were bored without Nathan and Megan. Jeremy and I had already played outside two or three times (I pushed him around in the tricycle and he rode on one of those bouncy horses), we'd read plenty of books, set up a huge mesh toy with different color balls to throw into it and pretended it was a house instead of what it really is, sneaked Easter candy before lunch, and visited with my friend, Amber.

It's been a pretty good day today and right now the kids are cleaning up the living room so they can go outside and play. I got a nice nap in and we had a coupon for Arby's so I didn't have to make dinner (yeah!).

Here are a couple pictures that Nathan took of Megan while they were fishing.

Megan fishing at First Dam







Megan baiting the hook herself








Megan showing off her baited hook








Happy Megan, what a good sport she is. It was 31º when they started fishing!

Homestarrunner

Ok, so I thought I would share my all-time favorite Homestarrunner email with everyone. I must explain one thing though. Nathan didn't know what "Stuckey's" was and so that part of the email wasn't as funny to him until I explained it. But Stuckey's is a gas station in the south. I've never actually been inside one, but they look like the typical gas station that you'd just rather not go into. Anyway, here is the address to get to the cartoon.

http://homestarrunner.com/sbemail129.html


Here are a few other favorites of mine.

http://homestarrunner.com/buginmouth.html

"Bug in Mouth Disease"

http://homestarrunner.com/whatsinthebag.html

"Lookin' at a Thing in a Bag"


Also a favorite would be the Teen Girl Squad. Very funny.


Enjoy!