Wednesday, January 29, 2014

And this is my Beloved

Here she is, She's 10 weeks old! It's slightly warm outside......so sweet baby and I are wearing spring clothes today. I can not tell you how much we all love this girl around here........

 .......but I can show you! Check out the toy that has been tied to the green triangle. That's Molly. Little B LOVES Molly, and he tied her to his baby sisters bouncy chair so that she could play with Molly too. It's that's not proof of pure love I don't know what is.

As soon as I typed the title of this post I started singing the song from Kismet, so I figured I'd share a bit of that too, since it fits our baby girl pretty well. My hope is that she will always know and feel how much she is loved, and that it never goes to her head!

Dawn's promising skies
Petals on a pool drifting
Imagine these in one pair of eyes
And this is my beloved
..........
All that can stir All that can stun
All that's for the heart's lifting
Imagine these in one perfect one
And this is my beloved
And this is my beloved

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

2 Months Continued.....

I remembered a couple of other things AND something AMAZING happened last night.

so.....#4- Nose Bleeds. Nose bleeds are common around here- that's to my genetic material- and little baby E has had way more than her fair share of nose bleeds in the past 2 months. The doctor took a quick look at her nose and didn't see any glaring problems and so we are going to try small and simple things to see if they help stop, or at least lesson the number of, nose bleeds. Basically- we are going to put saline drops in her nose 2 or 3 times a day and use a cold humidifier. We are also going to hope that putting even more saline drops in will help her "boogers" come out on their own without suctioning.

AND the Wonder of Wonder, Miracle of Miracles that happened last night......well, I was kind of anticipating a hard night. Why? Well, my boys had always slept a ton after getting immunizations, but this little girl was different, She hadn't napped well all afternoon AND when I attempted to give her some pain medication (because after you get 3 shots in your tiny legs you often don't feel so great...you're kind of sore and you have a little fever.....) she would choke and throw up.....much much more than just the medication.

At about 8:15 we decided to feed our girl again, it wasn't time to feed her yet, but she had thrown up twice and she was acting hungry- so our assessment was that we should feed her. She feel asleep after drinking the whole bottle, she slept in my arms (upright- "how to prevent reflux) for 30 minutes and then I laid her down in her bed. So I say she fell asleep at 8:30 PM and she woke up......wait for it......wait for it......at 7 AM, she was a very tired girl yesterday night. I do not expect for this amount of sleep to be normal or regular anytime soon, but it gives me hope!

And- now that I am upstairs and have located the growth chart that the doctor gave me, I can tell you that her percentiles were 72nd for weight and 64th for height.

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Two Months Old

The most beautiful girl in the world. That's what I think at least. She has, most definitely, stolen the hearts of everyone in the family. On Sunday this little girl turned 2 months old and today I took her to the doctors office for her 2 month appointment- So here are her STATS!

Weight 11 pounds 11 ounces (somewhere in the 70th percentile.....I left my chart upstairs)
Height 22 3/4 inches (somewhere in the 60th percentile, if I remember correctly)

For your information, the blanket she is photographed with in this picture is one that my Grandmother, Verna O Turner, made for my Aunt Susan. Susie found it this past summer and decided to give it to our little baby E. It matches the blessing dress that Baby E will wear in a few months, also made by her Great Grandma Turner, though that dress was made for the blessing of my baby sister, Wendy, in 1981.
Here are a few of the things that the doctor and I discussed about this precious girl.

1- Reflux- I admit, I was a bit anxious about the doctor visit today, because I knew I would need to tell the doctor that I'd been thickening the babies bottles. I started out by telling him that I felt slightly dangerous- because I had a little bit of knowledge, and I was acting on it and I hoped that I wasn't doing anything wrong and especially anything that would harm my baby. He told me that based on her symptoms (of spitting up 1-2 hours after eating) he would have recommended thickening her formula. I told him that I wasn't sure it was working- It had worked great for the first week, but she had started spitting up more over the past few days. He recommended thickening her formula even more.....SO, now we experiment and do our best to find her favorite thickness of milkshake!

2- Dry Skin- I explained that I had been putting lotion and eucerin on her at least once per day, if not multiple times a day and it seemed like her skin absorbs it and just gets dryer and dryer. The doctor said that she had "Dry Skin Plus" or "Utah Skin" which are his little nicknames for Eczema. That's what I thought, after all, her brothers had very similar skin issues, I don't remember them being as dry as she is. SO, we will now start her on her very own "Cuteness Enhancing Drugs" Hopefully the steroids will help get the eczema under control before she gets too itchy.

3- Sleeping- over the past 3 days she's started sleeping 6-7 hours in one stretch at night. We see a light at the end of the parental sleep deprivation tunnel. We want to get the eczema under control quickly because itchiness can sometimes make it hard to sleep, at least it made it hard for her brothers to sleep. After getting lots of shots today, and then trowing up a couple of times when she choked on the infant acetaminophen.... ....I'm thinking that she will probably take a break from long sleeping periods tonight.

I'm sure there was more, but I can't think of it write now, I will blame that sleep deprivation :)

Sunday, January 19, 2014

Kindergarten Spotlight

Last week J was the "spotlight" in his Kindergarten class. He came home the second week of school and told me all about spotlights and EXACTLY what he wanted to happen when it was his turn. It was hard for him to wait more than 3 months for his turn, but it finally came and it turned out great. 

The first thing that J wanted was for his ENTIRE family to come to class and be there for his spotlight. So Ken took a little time off of work so he could be there. J got to fill out a big poster all about himself with pictures- he choose a picture of himself when he was about 18 months old as his "this is me" picture. 

After reading his poster to his class he had the chance to answer questions. Mostly the questions were like this. "what's your favorite candy?" "who's your favorite super hero?" "what's your SECOND favorite candy?....." and so on and so forth until we knew a lot about J's taste in Candy and Super Hero's. Then he did his best to read a book to his class. I had expected that Ken or I would read the book, but J took the book and just started reading. It was awesome. He needed help at times, but he did it, and his teacher was quite impressed too.

The spotlights are at the end of class and so J got to dismiss each row of kids to go get their coats and backpacks and then they could come back and J would give them a treat. The treats needed to be store bought and individually wrapped. Well, if you know us, then you know we are kind of cheap.....and buying an individually wrapped treat for 30 kids just isn't something we budgeted for. The Saturday before J's spotlight Ken took the boys with him when he went to the bank. The boys LOVE the bank because they give kids "Candy Money". So Ken told the teller that J loved candy money and wanted to give some to his class the next week, the teller than filled up a bag with candy and gave it to Ken- AWESOME! All the kids enjoyed their candy, and it was even kind of educational as they were able to look at each coin and say "I got 25 cents" or "I'm eating a penny!"

After J's spotlight Ken surprised us all by 1- not going back to work (well, he did work from home a little) and 2- taking us all out to lunch at Pizza Pie Cafe.

It's hard to believe that my little baby, who first appeared on this blog at 3 1/2 months old when he started rolling, has grown up into such an amazing and fun Kindergartner. He is such a loving, smart, imaginative and funny boy.

I know he will just keep growing and that is scary to me, because he is my baby, but I also feel that he is going to be one amazing man when he grows up. I feel very blessed to be his Mommy.

I have one last story to tell about J, not related to his spotlight, but related to what a kind and loving boy he is, and really, how much he loves his sister. After talking to my Mom and then talking it over with Ken, I decided that I would go ahead and start thickening the babies formula to see if it would help with the re-flux issues she was having. Basically she was spitting up 1-2 hours after eating. That same day I had told J that I would take him to the store so that he could by some gum- with his own money. He was so excited, he had all of his money from his piggy bank in a little plastic bag and he knew exactly what kind of gum he wanted to buy. I had been trying to get a prescription filled for a couple of days and so on our trip I was planning to pick up my prescription and buy a box or two of rice cereal for my baby, because that's what we use to thicken her bottles. I decided that I would take the baby with us to the store as well, since she had had a hard day, nap wise, that day and I figured a good car ride would help her to relax and get back to her normal "I sleep anytime someone lays me down" ways. Well, when we got to the store I realized I had forgotten to bring my purse.

I started to tell J that we had to go home when I realized that he could still buy his gum. So we went into the store. I asked J if he was willing to let mommy use his money to buy the food the baby needed. He said yes. So I let him buy his gum and then I counted how much money he had left. There was $1.33 in his bag, which if my memory served me correctly was pretty close to the cost of one box of rice cereal, so we walked back to the baby section of the store and sure enough- the rice cereal cost exactly $1.33. Now, if we lived in a state that didn't tax food, this would have felt like a MIRACLE! But Utah does have a 3% tax on food. I told J to look around on the floor for some coins. We didn't find any. I stood there, in the baby food aisle for a while, trying to figure out what to do. I only needed about 4 cents. I thought about just going home but I really felt like I needed to get the cereal, so I worked up my courage and I asked a complete stranger if they happened to have 5 cents. When they gave me a somewhat quizzical look I blurted out, "I forgot my purse and my son had his money from his piggy bank and it is exactly enough for the food for my baby, but I don't have any money for tax" as fast as I possibly could and I was soon given a quarter by the kind stranger and there was another stranger walking by who stopped and was looking through his pockets as well. We were able to buy the rice cereal. The jury is still out as to whether or not it is really helping- she spits up less, much less, but she still spits up at least once a day (instead of once per feeding), I guess the doctor will tell me what he thinks at her appointment on Tuesday. And what I learned from this lesson in begging for help from strangers, and borrowing money from my sweet 5 year old son- Sometimes, you can't do it all on your own, sometimes no matter how hard you try and how well you think you've got it all planned, you're going to need to ask for help.

My own kind of Beautiful

Last week I went to a special Women's meeting at church. A lady called "the Food Nanny" came to speak about meal planning. Though I am not currently very good at meal planning, I feel like I have been in the past and I hope to be good at it again in the future AND she's got her own TV Show......SO I figured there might be something she had to share that would help me get back into the habit. It was a great meeting and I did learn a new way to do a weekly meal plan that I'm excited to try. BUT that's not what this post is about. As you can see from the title, this post is about being my own kind of beautiful. So, why did I tell you about the food nanny?

Well, I'm kind of tired all the time lately, and I really don't get a ton of social interaction and sometimes I don't get dressed until well after noon. (When I am dressed before noon, I'm usually dressed in workout clothes and probably smell funny too) I put some effort into dressing myself when I went to the Food Nanny activity, I even put on jewelry, picked out a shirt and pants that would look cute with the boots my sister gave me AND I brushed my hair and put it up with a barrette! That's right, MAJOR EFFORT! And as a reward for my 5 minutes of major effort, I felt cute. 

I walked in to the meeting just slightly late and luckily found a seat next to some very nice people that I actually knew! It was pretty fun, until about half way through when the food nanny started talking about making soup and I really wasn't that interested in soup, I guess, so I started to look around at the other people in the crowd. I realized that I knew a few of the people on the row in front of me, they had been a part of our Ward (local church congregation) before it got too large and was split into two separate wards. I noticed these women because they were pretty much flawless in their appearance. Clothes right on trend. Hair perfectly coiffed. (I say coiffed because their hair was done, it was styled, as if they either had stopped by the salon right before coming to the meeting that night, that or they have some major skills and spent some time on their hair at home. Coiffed!) And they were wearing makeup, all kinds of makeup. I realized that I felt a little inadequate. I actually sunk down into my chair a bit. Luckily my focus was drawn back to the speaker when she started outlining how she did her meal planning. But when I got home I was telling Ken about the meeting and I remembered how I felt when I had been watching the ladies in front of me. I'm sure I made no sense to him when I asked "should I wear makeup?" I think I might have explained why I asked the question, but I guess it was more a question for me.

So I mulled the question over for a few days and I decided that I may not have a hairstyle- (or even know how to maintain a hairstyle after the first time I wash it after getting it cut) and I may not wear makeup- (or even know how to really apply makeup, it's true, I actually feel kind of clown like when I do attempt to wear it) and my clothes may not be new, BUT, I usually feel quite beautiful. And I decided that I should run with that, I should be my own kind of beautiful. Because I can't be anything other than me, genuine Kate.


So here I am, I'm pretty darn cute, if I do say so myself. I have rosy cheeks and beautiful blue eyes. I have decently colored brown hair, it's trying to turn an awesome shiny silver and white, I haven't decided if I'm going to let that happen quite yet or not. But hey, if you have to go gray.....why not have it be shiny silver and bright white! Thank You Awesome Genetics! But there is so much more to me than just my looks. I'm funny, really, at times I think I'm hilarious and if I get people laughing......it's hard for me to stop trying my best to continue to entertain them. I like that about me. I also like to sing, and people say they like to hear me sing, and that's always nice to hear too. I've got my own sense of style too, and I think it's a pretty good sense of style.

So I'm going to do my best to remember, that I may not look flawless, because really, I not flawless, but I am Beautiful, in my own way. NOW.......if only I could convince myself that having giant piles of paper and homework and craft supplies on my kitchen counter was awesome..............

Saturday, January 18, 2014

Running My Own Race

"Run your own race", that is what I took away from a session I attended a few years ago at Women's Conference. I don't remember exactly what the speaker was talking about but the gist of it was that we shouldn't worry too much about what other people are able to accomplish, rather we should focus on our own lives, our own races, so that in the end, like Paul, we can say "I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith." (2 Timothy 4:7) Immediately this thought of running my own race took on a double meaning for me, the first, like the speaker intended was for me to not compare myself to those around me. My house may be messy, and our cars are not brand new, BUT I am doing my very best and I don't need to worry about how I and my family may be different from others. The second meaning was more literal, because at the time, I was training for my first big race.

It's been a few years and, running wise, I've had my ups and my downs. But some things have stayed the same, I still love to run and I know I'm not very good at it, so I revel in the fact that I can run my own race. While I was pregnant I ran the Utah Valley Half Marathon and I'm happy that I did. I very much ran my own race that day- I was slower than most people- but I was also 16 weeks pregnant SO just by finishing I pretty much blew the rest of the field away, right? Right! I think it was about a week after that race that I decided I wanted to run it again- this time not pregnant and hopefully a little faster and with less potty breaks. And so I signed up for the 2014 Utah Valley Half.

That race is in June. This year I'm also branching out into the world of Relay Races. The big dream is to get a team together to run the Ragnar Wasatch Back race. When a team didn't come together easily this year, four of my friends and I decided to run the Ogden Marathon Relay in May. I'm really excited about these two races, (and to make things even more fun, we have all committed to prepare to run the 2015 Wasatch Back- and we already have about 8 out of the 12 people we need for our team! ) and I want to make sure that I am in optimal Kate Shape! So a couple of weeks ago I sat down and put together my training schedule.

I've been running again for about 3 weeks now and I'm taking it slow- because I know, for me, slow and steady training keeps me injury free. I've modified training schedules that I found online- the couch to 5k and a 10k and half marathon schedule that I found on halhigdon.com. I melded the three schedules together, eliminating a week here or there where the different distances overlapped (for example, the half marathon schedule has you start with 3 or 4 mile training runs, but by the time you finish the 10k training schedule you are already consistently running 5 and 6 miles.) and then I counted days and weeks. If all goes well and I don't get sidetracked by illness or injury I should be ready to run my half marathon a few weeks early. It all came together so well, it felt like it was meant to be.

I look forward to a great year of running my own race.

Sunday, January 12, 2014

Something I Miss

Yesterday was a good day. It was Saturday, things got done, errands were run, hopefully fun was had by all. But it was different than the typical Saturday that I've grown to love. In years past Ken and I would run errands together. I like being together, I love Ken and it might be odd, but I find it calming just to be with him, to be near him. I miss him when he's gone. He's gone a lot during the work week, because, well, he's at work. And so on the weekends it's nice for us all, the whole family, to be together.

Before we had children there was rarely a time when we would go shopping or run errands without each other. And even when our first two boys joined our family, we just dragged them along with us. Our oldest was born right as winter turned to spring (seriously, like with in minutes of the actually change- I just realized that, it's kind of awesome, just like that sweet little boy is!) and there really wasn't too much fear in my mind about him being around large crowds. We didn't take him to church for about a month, but if we needed to go to the store, we just packed him up in his car seat and went to the store. There wasn't much thought put into it, we just did it. It was pretty much the same with our second boy- he was born smack dab in the middle of summer when there isn't much fear of anything, just glorious warm days and lots of fun to be had out and about as a family. And so, we just added him to our merry band of errand runners and off we would go, together.

And that is what I miss. I miss being together. Someday, when it's warm, (oh, how I miss the warmth) when the stupid viruses have mostly gone into hiding and when our sweet little baby has a more regular type of sleeping schedule, we will once again be able to run errands together. Someday. But why is this time, adding this child, so different? I thought about that yesterday while I was all alone, running my errands, and here is what I came up with.

1-She's practically perfect in every way! Meaning, She sleeps a lot, and she's willing to sleep in her bed! And so I want her to do that. Her brothers were not so good at that, in fact, I would often time the running of errands for right after they had eaten or right when I expected that they would be tired, so that I could get them to sleep during the car ride to wherever we needed to go. It worked, they got the sleep they needed, and eventually we were able to convince them that sleeping in their beds for naps was a good thing, but it seriously took weeks, if not months, to do that. This sweet girl likes her bed, she likes our bed, she likes sleeping IN A BED and I love that about her, but it makes it hard to take her places. And so we will wait.

2- It's the DEAD OF WINTER, it's cold and kind of dangerous out there. Why risk it?

3- This Flu season seems to be a bad one. I say that mostly because I've seen stories about it on the news AND for some reason that I still don't understand- I got the flu, so the virus MUST be running rampant out there, just waiting to infect innocent little babies. That, coupled with the fact that I know several mothers of children who've had long term issues because they contracted RSV as babies, makes me really really want to keep my baby safe and free from illness. So, we just don't take her out and about like we did with our other babies.

And that is why we divide and conquer, everything gets done and the kids all get special time alone with one of their parents, either because they are going out on an errand run or they are staying home with Mom or Dad and Baby Sister- who is probably sleeping. But Divide and Together are like oil and water, they just don't mix well. They are different.

Eventually, things will get back to normal, and I will shout HALLELUJAH! Until then, I guess I'll just try my best to enjoy the moments. As it was, yesterday, I went to Ikea, all by myself, and picked out a new duvet cover for my bed. Then I went to the Pharmacy- where, on my 3rd attempt, I was able to pick up a prescription- more on that will probably come later. Finally, I went to the grocery store, once again, all by myself. Then I came home, and my family was, once again, together :)

Thursday, January 9, 2014

A Brand New Year!

It's January 8th! We survived the first 7 days of this Brand New Year and things are looking good for the rest of the year too! Here's some of the highlights from the beginning of January. 

Last March I won some "Perfect Tortilla" pans, and 10 months later....J and I used them! It was J's idea, he wanted to eat the shaped tortilla as part of his lunch. 
 As you can see, his lunch was a shaped tortilla full of cheese, he is a young man with fine taste. I guess he invented the "Cheese Tostada". The boys both LOVE cheese and quite often J will ask for a bowl full of shredded cheese. I think this was the first time I actually gave him as much cheese as he wanted.

We made some more shaped tortillas for our dinner and we had Taco Salad. It was really really good. I have the thought in my head to add some cinnamon sugar to a tortilla when we bake it and put ice cream inside.......we shall see if that idea ever comes to fruition.

 This little girl has been awake more during the day. And she has been happy for the majority of that awake time, which is very, very nice for me. Baby E is now 7 weeks old and in my opinion, though she still has her fussy times, she is now on the tail end of the period of infant fussiness! YAY! (I don't know if that time when babies, between 2 and 6 weeks old, are fussy in the evening has a name.....so I've named it TPOIF- the period of infant fussiness). As I type this she is having tummy time- which she hates- so she is once again fussing. BUT most of the time, when she's awake, she looks like this! What a cute girl she is! I love her SOOOOOOO MUCH!!!!!!!


She won't have her 2 month doctors appointment for a couple more weeks but I've already started making my list of questions for the doctor. 1- she seems to get a lot of nose bleeds. This isn't completely new to me, all of my babies have had nose bleeds but it seems to me like she gets them more often than her brothers did, 2 or 3 times per week. And 2- she burps up, just a little, hours after eating, it doesn't seem to make her too uncomfortable but there have been times that it definitely bothered her. Is it Reflux like B had? She's younger than B was when we started thickening his formula which pretty much fixed his reflux, 2 months younger than B was in fact so I'm leery of thickening her formula, basically because she is only 2 months old. So we will wait and ask the doctor what he thinks. I was mulling this over this morning. I rely a lot on what the doctor thinks is appropriate, if I was my mother or grandmother would I just do what I felt was right and what would work for my baby? I may have to think about this more.....it could be a future blog post.


 We went to the Dentist! At the dentist it was discovered that both J and I had cavities. Boooooooooo. So we get to go back to the dentist next week to fix that. J sat next to my head while the dentist was doing my check up, I have LOTS of silver fillings and J kept saying over and over and over again "Mom! I see lots of BLACK in your mouth, you have so many CAVITIES!!!!!" The dentist told J that they weren't cavities, but they were filings AND that he thought J would make a  good dentist some day. J quickly responded that he was going to be a Train Engineer.

Six months ago B had his first dental appointment, and he wanted nothing to do with the dentist. In fact at that appointment Ken had to sit in the dental chair with B on his lap and all that they did was raise the chair up and down and show B the dental tools. This time B happily sat in the chair, allowed them to clean his teeth and do every thing else that needed to be done- probably a good 30 minutes of sitting still, AMAZING. What a boy!
Well, I feel like I've gotten in the habit of creating blog posts around pictures. I will try to stop doing that- Pictures are cute and fun, but I feel like I've gotten out of the habit of actually WRITING posts. We will see if I can change this. There will still be pictures, you can be sure of that, but hopefully they will just add emphasis to the story of our lives.