One and Two Weeks Old--Baby Faye

One Week Old

Two Weeks Old

We're just lovin' her.

Welcome, Baby Faye Lucia!

Baby Faye- The Birth Story

(I'll have pictures up as soon as Blogger stops crashing. I've tried to load the pictures about 10 times and it crashes every time.)


Some of you might be interested to know what went down and I know it's a story I don't want to forget, so of course it needs to be put on the blog. Be advised, it's a two day affair, but that doesn't mean it's a really long story. It isn't.

November 1, around 8:15 AM

Lincoln and I saw the kids off on the bus and settled down for our morning breakfast and movie date. Usually the only way I can keep Link from screaming for Nathan in the mornings is if I let him pick a movie to watch while he eats his cereal, don't judge. This particular morning he was really clingy with me, very odd for Lincoln, especially in the morning. He gets clingy with Nathan in the morning, but not me.

He looked like he was trying to go to sleep, but couldn't. He wouldn't let me touch his diaper (not uncommon for him, but it was really, really full) and he kept pulling on his ears. Eventually I wised up and asked him if his ears hurt and he said they did. I called the pediatrician office on base and got him an appointment for 9AM. At this point it was 8:30 and it takes 20-30 minutes to get to the base if you go the speed limit. I lead Lincoln out to the van, realizing I won't have time to change my clothes (I didn't like the maternity shirt I was wearing) or put my contacts in, or do my hair. I tried to get him into the van and he did not want to get out of my arms. He fought tooth and nail on this. After almost 10 minutes I got him in his seat, but he was screaming. I ran back in the house and grabbed a sippy cup of milk, hoping it would calm him down. It only kind of worked; he screamed between sips until he fell asleep.

Not five minutes down the road and he threw up. He fell back to sleep. He threw up again. This went on and on until we got to the base. He was covered in barf and we were already late for the appointment. I had to undress him, and at this point I realized that I was out of diapers in the car, and wipe him down as best I could. I couldn't let him walk barefoot, so I carried him naked, smelling nasty, covered in barf still, and with an overflowing pee diaper. And me in my ugly maternity tee, glasses, and nasty hair, now also covered in barf and pee.

Practically running we make it to the pediatrician office and I explain that I'm late because he threw up in the car, although honestly, I would have been a little late even if he hadn't. I got a diaper from the lady at the desk and took Link into the bathroom to change him.

Yeah, he still didn't want to be changed. He screamed, and screamed, and screamed. The office lady that gave us the diaper came in to see if everything was ok, which it obviously wasn't. She saw the snot running down his face and went to grab some toilet paper to wipe him up with and as she did that another office staff member came in to see what was wrong. At this point, I lost it. I'd been really patient with him and using a soft, but firm voice with him. Now I was in tears.

The second lady almost immediately left to get a nurse. The nurse came in after I finally got the new diaper on him and was trying to keep him from taking it off. She walked in, picked him up, called him "Bubba" and said, "Let's go." He immediately stopped crying out of shock. I, of course, kept crying out of stress.

After this I found he had a double ear infection. No wonder he was clingy.

After the appointment I thought the same office lady that gave us the diaper wasn't going to let us leave because he was still naked and I guess when she got to work that morning it was pretty chilly so she assumed it was still cold outside. I assured her over and over that he'd be fine, that it wasn't that cold anymore, and that it would only take a minute to get to the car.

We immediately drove to the PX (like a mall with only one store and a food court) and bought us both new clothes. He got a shirt and jeans, I got a new sweater (non-maternity, I was already two days after my due date, there was no way I was going to buy a maternity shirt). As we headed out of the PX I checked my watch, expecting a good 15 minutes to get to my doctor appointment that I'd already had scheduled for that day. But no, I was already one minute late. I ran with him out to the car as I called the office to explain that my son had thrown up in the car, that I was on the base and on my way. We hurried back to the other side of the base for my appointment and changed our clothes after I checked in.

The midwife checked me and I hadn't progressed really since my last appointment (not surprising) and was still at a 1, but a looser 1 than before. She asked me how the baby was moving and I told her that the babe wasn't really moving much, but that I attributed it to there not being as much room to move around in. She asked if I could feel her move at least 10 times in two hours and I said no. That worried her apparently because next thing I know I was hooked up to a machine to monitor my contractions, which apparently didn't peak high enough for her.

I had to call a friend to pick up Emma from school at this point and have her dropped off to our neighbor.

After keeping me on the machine for a while longer (all the while I was texting Nathan to let him know what was going on) they told me to come back ASAP so they could induce me.

I drove home (forgetting to get Lincoln's meds first) and got my hospital bag ready, car seat ready, etc. and then Nathan said he was on his way home and to wait for him. I took Lincoln to our neighbor who had Emma and would take Megan and Jeremy when they got home from school.

Nathan finally got to the house and gave me a priesthood blessing and I felt better. We left to go back to the hospital (all the doctor offices are at the hospital on base) and got there right at 2PM.

They didn't get me hooked up to the pitocin until 4:30 and after not even 60 seconds of it they had to take me off because Dr. Abbey was going into surgery and didn't want me to suddenly be ready to have a baby while he was in surgery. I knew it would be pointless to tell them that there was no way I'd be ready that quickly, so they took me off the pit :(

Around 7:30PM they put me back on it when Dr. Abbey got out of surgery. The nurses made us laugh because they were positive that I would deliver before midnight. We told them that's not how my body works, but they didn't believe me.

I don't remember what time I got the epidural. I am sure it was before midnight, but I can't remember and apparently I didn't record it. The guy that did the epidural was awesome though. Lots of facial hair, big glasses, and quirky personality. But he was very comforting during the epidural. For some reason, it really freaked me out this time. I was in tears I was so scared for that thing. I don't know why. I had to have Nathan hold me and keep me from shaking. The epidural guy was great though. He went through the whole thing talking about "the bumble bee sting" and "the bumble bee's cousin" and if I hadn't been terrified for no reason, I would have laughed. Anyway, it was the best epidural EVER! I couldn't feel a thing after.

And like we said, at 3:30AM the following day, November 2nd, I was finally at a 5. And then all of a sudden at 4:30 I was at a 10. The epidural was so fantastic they had to tell me when I was contracting, yet, I could still feel myself push. I had to concentrate on pushing a little more than I had to with the other deliveries, but it wasn't difficult. It was awesome. And afterward I decided I needed to write a thank you card to the epidural man. And I would have, but he came in later to see how I was and I told him then just how fabulous a job he did and he said a thank you card wasn't necessary.

So our little Faye Lucia was born at 5AM on the dot, weighed in at 8 lbs. 7 oz. and 21 inches long. At first she looked a LOT like Emma. Darker complexion, dark hair, and really dark eyes. Her hair and skin have since lightened up a bit, but she still reminds me of Emma. Hopefully she'll be better behaved than Emma :)

Scouting

Before

During

After

We put Jeremy in the Scounting program here in Elgin. So far we've been really happy with it. We've seen a big change in his behavior at home and school since starting it. We still have problems with his choices once in a while of course, but since putting him in Scouts, we've seen him handle his frustrations with more maturity. He is still really shy and unsure of himself with some of the kids there, but he's learning and stretching himself. These pictures are from the ceremony where he received his Bobcat badge. He was very proud as you can see from the bottom picture.

He has Scouts once a week and Nathan goes with him every time, but the whole family went to support him getting his Bobcat badge.

Yay Jeremy! Good job, Bud!

Happy Halloween!

 Happy Halloween!

(a bit late)

The Army is weird. Ok, I love the Army, grateful for it, glad to support it in any way I can. But it's weird. The Dentac had a required Halloween Party. We had to attend and we had to be there for the whole thing. And it was long. I got sunburned. I still have some of that burn.

Anyway, here are some pictures from the Halloween party and from actual Halloween day. We didn't take pictures of the kids trick-or-treating, but we got some of them posing just before we left.

There was a pretty cool playground where we had the party.

The amount of cotton candy that was consumed should be illegal.

I'm a nervous person. I hate when my babies climb these and get too high.

Indiana Jones!!

Lincoln and Emma each won an award for their costumes. Lincoln got this cool basket full of fun stuff and Emma, poor Emma, got a certificate.

roar.

It's Indiana Jones again!

Lincoln with his award-winning costume and pumpkin bucket

Megan in her poodle skirt.

Emma as Rapunzel.

Yes, I made the hair. Yes, I hated making it. No, I'll never do it again.

Halloween itself was pretty fun. We went on base to trick-or-treat since the houses are closer together and we'd know some people there. Our 13 year old neighbor went with us to help with the kids, so that was awesome. Gosh, I love living next door to a girl who practically pays me to let me babysit.

The kids got way too much candy this year since we had a trunk-or-treat at church, the Army Halloween party, and actual Halloween.  We've already begun the purge, taking certain candies and tossing them (like suckers and Laffy Taffy, we hate those here because they end up on our carpet).  Seriously people, where's the chocolate? Chocolate might melt and get messy, but at least it cleans up easily. Laffy Taffy stays in the carpet.

Anyway, I think next year we might skip the whole candy thing. Now if we can just get the neighborhood to go along with us. . . .

Lincoln Turns Two!!

 Happy Birthday, Lincoln!!

 The Big T-W-O!

This seems forever ago already, but due to blogger having issues with Firefox, I've been unable to post. So basically I'm saying it's not my fault, mom, that you haven't been seeing the pictures I keep promising to post.


But Yay!! Happy Birthday, Little Bud! Lincoln turned two a couple weeks ago and it was a lot of fun. I wanted to do a big party for him with a train theme, but since I was way pregnant, way tired, and way underfunded, we went low key instead.

Lincoln LOVES trains and buses right now. And he gets to see plenty of them here. We've got some trains that seem permanantly parked on their tracks that we pass all the time, so he knows when to look out his window and yell, "Choo-choo! Mama! Choo-choo!" And then the older kids all take a bus to school in the morning and the bus stop happens to be our mailbox, so every morning he gets to see a school bus up close and yell, "Bus!!" and wave to it and blow kisses. When I saw this Little People School Bus, I knew it would be perfect for him. And indeed, he was very excited to have his very own school bus.

Here's Lincoln trying to help me with his birthday cake. I decided that since we couldn't throw the cool birthday bash I wanted to do for him, he was at least going to get a cool cake. So I scoured my Pinterest boards for a cake I thought I could do that would be fun.

He grabbed the rounded top part of the cake that I'd cut off. Luckily it wasn't a major part of the cake.

Didn't want to blow the candles out. He ended up being a little scared of the candles because we're good parents and have taught him not to play with fire :)


 

So Lincoln, I hope you had a fun birthday and that you love being 2. Usually it's a hard age, and I've already seen some of the frustrations that come along with the age, but I've also seen you embracing this new stage in your life. You're calling yourself "boy" instead of "baby" now, you insist on doing a lot of things yourself, such as buckle your seat belt, get dressed or undressed, and choose exactly which diaper I'm allowed to put on you. We are still dealing with your screaming when you get frustrated, so we are trying to wait patiently for your communication skills to catch up.

You love stories, Toy Story and Tangled, dogs, trains, buses, Papa, grasshoppers, Hot Wheels cars, and you are obsessed with my belly and the baby inside (which by the time I'm posting this is outside my belly).

One of your favorite books is Bedtime at the Swamp, which is one of my favorites, too. Every morning when you wake up and dad isn't here or is getting ready to leave, you get upset. You are so attached to your Papa and hate to see him go without you. It's usually a big ordeal, trying to get you ok with him leaving for work.

You LOVE going to nursery at church. We've got the best nursery leader ever and you took to her right away, just like all the other kids.

You don't eat much. Dad and I struggle with your eating habits, but I know that sometime this year you'll realize food is yummy and start eating more. Pretty much anything you do eat, is on a sometimes basis. Sometimes you eat macaroni and cheese. Sometimes you eat chicken nuggets. Sometimes you will eat a pb&j. But you love, love, love milk.

We seriously need to video tape you more because you can be really cute sometimes when we ask you questions. You don't ever say "yes" to anything, you say, "a-huh!" and you do it with your bright blue eyes shining, a huge smile on your face, and you just look so excited every time.

I'm so glad you are part of our family, Lincoln! We love you very much!!

Happy Birthday, Nathan!

 Nathan's birthday was in September. I really haven't been blogging much, have I? Sorry about that, Nathan. Well, here are a few pictures. A couple days before his birthday he was finally able to guess what his present was, so we let him open it early.

He got a Whirly Pop Popcorn Maker and we love it. As you can see, he was very happy about it.

He asked for brownies for his birthday and to make it a little more birthday cake-like,

they were baked in a round pan.

Nathan, we love you and are very proud of you. 

You are the best husband and father we could wish for :)

Good Times

So, this happened recently. . . .

Pretty much the entire thing of pepper was sitting on one hotdog and my table.

It reminded me of this a couple years ago. . . .

No, sour cream didn't cover as much of the table here,

but it did cover more of her than the pepper did of Lincoln.

Good Times.

School Days

 I missed blogging about the first day of school. Only Emma was really excited about it, but all three of them now love school. Megan and Jeremy got their first report cards two weeks ago and they are doing great. Emma is quickly making lots of friends and knows all her letters/sounds of letters and can count to 30, which I had no idea.

Of course these pictures were modeled after the awesome ones on Pinterest, but due to my lack of planning and funds, they aren't done with cute chalkboards. Instead, just computer paper and a sharpie.  Oh well.

Life of an Army Wife--Artillery Museum

Once Nathan had to start going to the Base in the mornings, I started trying to find things to do with the kids that I could handle on my own. I'm not much of an adventurer and with temperatures in the 100s, I really didn't want to do anything outside.

The Base here is an artillery base. What that means other than it constantly sounds like a thunder storm is going on, I'm not sure, but there's a cool "Missile Park" where you can see different artillery from various wars and this museum. We went to the Missile Park with Nathan, but I think those pictures are on his phone. So here are the museum pictures from when I ventured out with the kids on my own

We started with stuff from the Revolutionary War

Digging for treasure. Almost every time I went to take a picture of him, this is what I saw.

Pretending to be shot by the cannon.

I had to include this one because it's a good shot of Lincoln's "Squinty Smile."

The museum covered every war we've been involved in from Revolutionary to Afghanistan, but the bulk of the artifacts came from the earlier wars. Behind the kids in the last two pictures are way old school computers used by the military--crazy, eh? The kids really liked the museum, which surprised me, but then, they are Nathan's kids, so it probably shouldn't have.

Turning Six!

Before we left Ohio we had a birthday party for Jeremy.  His real birthday wasn't until after we got to Oklahoma, but we wanted him to be able to have a party with his friends and we weren't sure if our shy Jeremy would know many people in OK in time for a real birthday party. Here's Jeremy's birthday letter, followed by pictures.

Dear Jeremy,

What can I say, kid? I love you so much. You truly have an awesome sense of humor. You make all kinds of things funny that I never would have thought of. Recently dad and I discovered that you've been hiding your top notch reading skills from us. You are such a smart kid!

Here are some things about you that I want you to know:

You are a fabulous reader and your math skills are spectacular.
You love people. Sometimes you act like you're scared of people, more often kids than adults, and get incredibly shy, but I know that you really care about people a lot by the way you act when you see someone else who is sad.
You are dang funny.
You are a very loving child.
You are a great brother to your siblings. You play so well with Megan, Emma, and Lincoln. And you play differently with each one, which tells me that not only are there many sides to you and your own imagination, but you know how to play with others without getting bossy.
You have a definite style that is your own. You prefer long sleeves to short sleeves, you like button down shirts with collars, and when you have a favorite shirt, you want to wear it a lot :)
You still like to sleep listening to my Beatles CD.
You are interested in outer space and want to be an engineer when you grow up so you can invent things.
Dad and I wish you had more confidence and understood how awesome you really are. We are working hard and praying to know what to do to help you know yourself and your major awesomeness more because we LOVE you.
Creativeness courses through you. As I look at the drawings and paintings you make I see amazing creations that I've never thought about. The machines you draw and paint, the abstract art you make with the things you collect, I think it is all wonderful.
You want a dog and I want one for you. One day, kid.
You are a Wii and computer game master.


Jeremy, we love you and want you to have a great year of being 6. It should be fun :)

love you,

Mom


The theme was Legos because this kid loves Legos. He also requested a German Chocolate Cake.

 I was informed by a couple of the mothers that a few of the little girls that were invited blushed furiously when they got his invitation. Just be warned girls, Jeremy already has a list of potential girls to marry. His list, not mine. Not to say the list can't change, though.

When we got to Oklahoma we had a quiet family party for him.

Indiana Jones hat. I saw this at a party store months and months before his birthday. My sister in-law gave Jeremy an Indiana Jones whip and satchel for Christmas, so I knew he had to have the hat, too.

Lookin' sharp, kid.

Two little greenhouse kits from Grandma Buckner and Stuart Little.

Star Wars pillow case. No matter where or how I took the picture, half of it was dark. Not sure why.

Legos!!

Happy Birthday, Jeremy! We love you!!