Sweet Baby Eli

We went to Josh and Elisa's Ward today to see Eli get blessed. It was so neat to be there and share that experience with them. Eli is such a sweet little guy.

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Christmas Stocking

I made a Christmas stocking for Ethan yesterday. It's the first time I've tried something like this. I think it turned out pretty cute! I'm working on one for Sydney now.
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Sydney Is One!

Sydney turned one this last week. It was so amazing to me that my little baby is growing up so fast! We had a little gathering of just a few family members and had some ice cream and cake. Dan made a really cute cake for the occasion and Sydney had a lot of fun! Ethan got to play with his cousins and it was a great time for all.

This is my baby at the hospital...

We had such a fun time...look at the cutie now!

Halloween 2010

I just wanted to write a quick post about this Halloween. It was Sydney's first one! Ethan and Sydney both had a great time despite the weather. We got them all dressed up and ready to go and we went to a trunk or treat/party at my parents' ward. It was really fun! We even got to meet up with the Moffats while we were there. The kids just loved playing and having fun with each other. Here are a few pictures. Ethan's costume had to have his "fire dog" Jasper in it, at least for the pictures on the porch. I love my kids and I'm glad they had a great time. I also loved that they share their candy with me.

Perspective

You know, perspective is a crazy thing. It's like one minute the world is flat and the next you're off on a voyage to find out that it's not. We all have our problems in this life, but I don't know if we all realize that it's not easy for any of us really.

If you take the sum of the pieces of the good things going for everyone it fills in our "holes" so to speak. I think that must be why we seek out friends and companions in life. Together, we can lift each other up and fill in some of the holes.

November is always a time of reflection, you know, Thanksgiving and all of that, but I've recently really been trying to appreciate what's around me and live in the moment. Sometimes I have a hard time with Ethan or Sydney, but if I just wait a few minutes Ethan's sense of humor will lighten my load, or hearing my little girl say Mama makes my heart swell.

If this sounds rambling, I'm sorry, but my point is this, there's always something that can be fixed, bettered, or changed in our lives, but today I'm grateful for what is. Today I have a wonderful family, a loving husband, two beautiful children, and some very loving friends in my life. I'm grateful for you all and love you all. I'm grateful for what is and what will be.

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New Post...It's about time...

I know this blog tends to get randomly timed posts and a few pictures here and there, so I'm trying to remember to write more consistently. Things are going pretty well for us. We're working on trying to get out of debt, which has been a little hard as far as "fun" is concerned, but we're getting creative. Ethan is loving school. He comes home every day with songs and stories and just loves his teachers. Sydney is doing well too! She's almost a year now and is eating solid foods for the most part and drinking milk now, which is good (and cheaper). Dan is working hard, as usual, and I'm getting more work in with doing transcription between housework, etc. now that Ethan is in school.

Ethan spent the night over at Grandma's house a couple of weekends ago. He was SO excited to go. I'm so glad he can have so much fun with Grandma and Grandpa. **Funny side note, it's not Grandma and Grandpa's house, it's just Grandma's house and Grandpa lives there, according to Ethan...** They frosted cookies and Grandma and Grandpa took him to breakfast the next morning. He asks everyday if we're going to Grandma's house.

For Halloween, Sydney will be a pink kitty and Ethan is going to be a firefighter. This is his first year of a Halloween party at school so he's really excited. I think we're going to partake in the trunk or treat festivities in my parents' neighborhood and then go to a few houses in their neighborhood. Should be fun, hopefully the weather cooperates.

Another new thing in our house, we got a dog! His name is Jasper and we love him so much! He's a Shih Tzu and his mommy Gidget is my sister-in-law Chris's dog. He is 10 weeks old now and a great dog. Almost fully potty trained and he just learned, albeit with whining and being scared, going down stairs today. That was an exciting day! No more whining at the top of the stairs because he can't get down on his own!

We're looking forward to Halloween this week so I thought I'd share a couple of videos of Ethan singing songs from school. My personal favorite is the last one...Enjoy!

Peek-a-boo!

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Little Man at Church.

Ethan got to wear his new shirt and tie today.

Rainy Morning

Just got Ethan off to school, so I decided I'd blog a bit. Things have gotten pretty busy over the last couple of months. We ended up getting a new car, Ethan started Kindergarten, Sydney will be 10 months old this week, and Dan and I are as busy as ever.

Ethan is really loving school. He has definately missed it over the summer. He comes back each day with tales of what he had for lunch and what he did that day. It's a little strange for me to have him have this little life that I'm not a part of. My baby boy is growing up!

Shortly after my last post, our Ford was leaking oil so badly that we had to go get a new car MUCH sooner than we anticipated, but through prayer and faith it worked out. We ended up getting a really nice family car that we love. It actually is better than the one we had as far as fitting the car seats and stuff. I just love it!

So, something funny, apparently Ethan has learned that when you're not doing what you're supposed to at school, you get a "check" with your name on the board. Last night he gave Sydney one for not listening. It was so funny!

We spent most of August on vacation up at Bear Lake and some of the days in the week before up at East Canyon with my family. We had a really great time and I found out that Sydney LOVES the water. Even if she's cold, she still tries to play. The only time she cried in the water at Bear Lake was when I put a life jacket on her. She doesn't like those at all. Both Ethan and Sydney had fun hanging with family and swimming up at East Canyon. Ethan still talks about it.

After Bear Lake, the kids and I went up to Idaho for the weekend to see Grandma and Grandpa Cornia. It was really good to see them and just be there as a family.

As for what's ahead, September is as busy as ever. We've got birthdays, school, and Josh and Elisa are having their baby! It looks to be an exciting month.

Until next time...


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Ethan & Sydney New Pictures

A couple of weeks ago the kids and I went up to Logan to get pictures done by my awesome niece Kylea. She did such a good job. Afterwards, Kylea and Mariah used some editing skills to make sure they looked just right. I LOVE these pictures. You can never get these moments back and now I have them forever. Thanks girls!

Playing Cards Together

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Relaxation

That is what I'm trying to accomplish right now. Relaxation has eluded me before, but I'm actually doing pretty well now.

I went to a new primary care doctor this week. I liked him. He seemed really competent and understanding about my issues. He even offered some additional insight as to a more specific diagnosis, so that was nice.

This week has been pretty eventful for us. We found out our car will need to be replaced sooner than we thought. We're still figuring out the logistics of that and babying the car along until we figure it out though. Dan's green Audi actually died last week. The engine threw a rod or something. It went to the car graveyard. It was a good car for us though. Dan actually misses having it too. He loved that car.

Sydney is now eight months old! The time has gone by so fast! She is sitting up and babbling a lot. She loves everyone and has such a sweet happy spirit about her. We just love it.

We also celebrated the Fourth with all of our traditional stuff, but I'll have to blog about that when I'm actually at the computer. We had a lot of fun and I got some really cute pictures.

We went to Jenny's house on Friday to hang out and have a little birthday celebration for Julia. We really had a great time! The kids played in the water and we had pizza and cupcakes. We also watched Princess and the Frog, which I hadn't seen.

All in all, we've had a good couple of weeks. We've had some bumps in the road, but we're moving in the right direction. I'll post again soon with some of the fun pictures.

Until then...

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Busy Summer Already!

Well, here we are and it's only mid-June and we've had quite the busy summer. Ethan graduated preschool on June 3. They had the kids do a cute little program and then had cake. Ethan has changed so much since he started there! They really helped him grow so much! We even went to Chili's afterward to celebrate. He had to wear his graduation hat into the restaurant too so "everybody could see it." It was cute.

The day after preschool graduation, We took our first trip to the zoo for the season. Seriously people, zoo memberships are awesome! Anyway, we went to the bird show and Ethan loved it! We walked around and he even went on the carousel for the first time by himself. My little man is growing up.

On Sunday, we celebrated a very special day for Ethan. He turned five years old! I can't believe it! On Saturday, We celebrated his birthday with a few close friends and family at a cute place by our house called Kangaroo Zoo. It's basically this big place full of huge inflatable bouncers with slides, etc. Ethan and the other kids loved it! He didn't stop moving like the whole time we were there. He had a Wall-E cake and we got the Cosmos party room. There was even a guy there doing balloon tying for the kids. It was a really great time. I highly recommend the "location" birthday parties if you can find a reasonable price. It was so much less stressful and it was so fun for the kids, and for me too...I went down one of the slides once myself.

Today is also my Danny's birthday. He's 35 today...I still love him more everyday than the last. Happy birthday honey! I love you!

It's 1:30 a.m.

And I can't get my mind to shut off, even though my body is ready for sleep. Ah, the joys of anxiety disorder. It's funny, what probably kept my ancestors alive in ancient times, you know being extra vigilant, has become my ball of nervousness that I can't get rid of. All in all, I think I belong to a relatively anxious family. It has manifested in different ways with different members. My particular incarnation is anxiety disorder.

Right now, my hormones are trying to normalize after having the baby so I'm dealing with a bit more intensity than I'm used to. I've had insomnia for a while, but I think *hope* I'm starting to break out of the cycle.

I reclaimed my room today. Even though we still have things to do to Sydney's room to really make it hers, I moved her out of my room today. It's nice being all by myself. It's quite liberating actually. It's important to have a place that's just mine. I haven't had that for a while. I have it now and I'm happy.

This week marks the first week of summer vacation for us. We're two days in and so far so good. The kids and I went for a long walk today to the library, Subway, and the gas station near our house to get drinks. It was really nice to get out. I love a good sunny day.

Ethan makes me laugh everyday. I love the way his mind works. His thought process is so funny sometimes. Case in point, Sunday night we were coming home from my mom and dad's house after a nice visit. We were almost home and about ready to pass the gas station near our house when Ethan says, "Mommy, the Icee store is not on fire." A little confused, I said, "Yeah. You're right. It's not on fire." He then said, "It's not an emergency." It was then that I realized that he was thinking about the fact that I had told him we don't go to the store on Sunday unless it's an emergency. I then said, "You're right. It's not an emergency." He said, "But I want an Icee. But it's not an emergency." He was a little disappointed, so I told him we could go another time.

It's nice to know that something I'm teaching him is sinking in. It was just too funny that he made the jump from emergency to on fire. I guess that's where the almost-5-year-old mind goes when he thinks 'emergency'.

All in all, today was a good day. I hope tomorrow is good too...that's really all we can hope for in life I think, a succession of good days and the strength to see the not so good ones in the best light.

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Today

Aren't they cute?
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I'll Be Posting A Real Blog Soon But...

To tide you over...

Lately

Well, here I am hanging out. I wonder why it is that I seem to do some of my best thinking at these crazy hours of the late night/early morning.

Today was a pretty good day. We got out of the house and went to dinner at El Burrito. It's amazing that we're still going there after almost 11 years together and 10 years of marriage. Dan took me there on our first date and now we're taking our kids there.

When did I become a grown up?! I remember when I thought 30 was old. Now I'm on the verge of the big one and it suddenly doesn't feel so old. Perspective is a crazy thing.

Sydney turned 6 months old this week. At dinner today we saw a little baby, probably only a couple of months old, and it made me realize how much she is really growing and changing everyday. She says da da and loves to laugh. She has a funny sense of humor and thinks that her brother is hillarious. She is so precious and innocent. She is beautiful.
Ethan is doing really well at school. We had a little bump in the road last week, but we're okay now. I love him so much. He has the biggest imagination. He says the most random things. Invisible wheels are almost always turning in that head of his. I envy that, the endless possibilities, the vastness of it. He adores his sister and loves to make her laugh and talk to her. Syd was looking at him tonight at dinner and I realized what a special bond they will always have. They're kindred souls.

Looking ahead to this next week, we have a visit planned to go see Grandma and Grandpa Cornia. I've missed seeing them and they'll get to meet Sydney for the first time. They weren't able to come down due to Grandpa's health. He has to stay pretty close to home because he's on oxygen. He is doing well otherwise though. He turned 90 a little while ago and they just celebrated 69 years of marriage. I wonder if Dan and I will be like them in 59 years. I hope so.

Reflection is the name of the game today I guess. Until next time....


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Days Go By

Days go by. When I think about the last little while I'm reminded of that lyric in a Keith Urban song. Days really seem to be going by, and fast. A lot has happened over the last little while. Dan went and worked out of town again for a week, we got Ethan's paperwork for kindergarten, and we've just been doing daily stuff. Some days it seems as though I get to the end of the day exhausted from being busy without really knowing what I've been busy with.

Today was pretty cool. I found out that my brother Josh and his wife Elisa are having a baby boy. It's a little surreal that he's going to be a dad. I mean, this was the little brother I grew up with. He was the one who would make up silly songs with me on car trips and who would run through the sprinklers with me. He's going to be a daddy! It's exciting but hard to wrap my head around at the same time. He'll be a great dad, but it's just weird that we're both married and now we'll both have kids.

We've been a little under the weather at our house as of late. Sydney I think is the last one to be working through the cold. I went through it and am almost done, thank goodness. I only hope she gets over it soon. It's hard to see your baby sick, especially when they're too young to take any medicine except Tylenol...no cough medicine or decongestants.

I finally read "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins this weekend. It was a quick read, it only took me a few hours...I think four or five, but it was a good story. I just got the second book of the series from the library today. I'm excited to start reading it.

All in all, we're doing pretty well. I'm holding it together most days, which is what most hope for I think. I still deal with my anxiety disorder and all that it entails, but I'm working through it.

Until next time.
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Sweet Girl

Today's Update

Well, I have to say, this week was a bit tough. Dan went and worked for a week at a hospital in Pennsylvania. It will help us pay stuff off a lot faster, so it was worth it, but it wasn't easy having him gone. He is going to go out again sometime this month, but it probably won't be for as long. It was the longest we've been apart in about 9 years. It is so nice to have him home! I honestly don't know how you full time single parents do it. I only did it for a week and I'm exhausted!

We had a pretty good week here at home. Ethan was off school for Spring Break so we tried to do things here at home. I'm really grateful for my parents this week. They really helped out. My mom watched the kids for me one night while Jenn and I did a session at the Bountiful Temple and went to dinner afterward.

We dyed eggs at my mom's and had an Easter lunch/dinner with them. It was really nice. My mom also watched the kids for me so I could go get my hair cut. I was getting sick of my long hair so I cut about 4 or 5 inches off. I love it! It's so much fuller.

Today was pretty normal. Ethan got his hair cut and we went to Costco. I worked on a baby afghan and then we went and picked up Dan at the airport.

I'm SO glad our family is all under one roof again and I'm truly grateful for the blessing of Dan being able to go and have this opportunity. It's hard having him gone, it's a sacrifice for all of us, but it's helping our family move forward, so I'm happy. Heavenly Father really sustained me this week. I'm so grateful for that.


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Relief

Tonight I'm feeling sweet relief. I've been stressing as of late, about nothing of consequence to be sure, but it wasn't fun just the same. Dan and I had a wonderful day together after he worked a bunch this weekend. It was nice to reconnect. It's amazing to me that this man can anticipate my needs emotionally without me even saying a word. It's such a blessing to have an eternal companion with such compassion.

So now, I soldier forward feeling sweet relief and relaxation, at least for now. Hopefully it lasts.

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I Was Sleepy But...

I just had one of those kids waking up crying things, so I thought I would blog a little. First of all, I'm LOVING that I can blog from my BlackBerry. I don't get a lot of face time with the computer these days because of a certain little bug. Oh well, at least it's something more fun to do than being on the computer...at least when she's not puking on me.

Anyway, we had a fun day today. We went out to see Debi and the kids. Ethan and Abby had so much fun playing together. When I asked Ethan what his favorite part was of being there he said "Abby." It was really cute. Debi also has this portable mini bounce house thing, which Ethan was still talking about tonight and was thankful for in his prayers. I love to hear my son pray. He has such a wonderful spirit and he immediately brings it into our home when he prays. It's really a blessing for me to say prayers with him everyday.

Sydney learned to roll over this week. She can't roll back the other way yet though, so she gets stuck on her tummy and gets mad. It's kind of funny. Also, I know I'm horrible to think it's funny, but sometimes she spits up and then her head bobbles right into her newly formed puddle. She doesn't seem to mind, but it's kind of funny to see. She loves to talk to me all the time and is so happy pretty much all the time. Tonight when I put her to bed she was talking to herself so loud I could hear her downstairs. I love it.

I sort of feel the fatigue returning after having the cry in the night alarm incident taken care of and calmed down. So I guess that's it for now.


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Just A Little Anxious

Today I'm just a little anxious. I know it's not logical anxiousness, but here we are. There's no real reason to be anxious, but anxiety disorder isn't discriminating like that. Some of you know, some of you don't, that I have anxiety disorder. I've been diagnosed for about 10 years now, but I've been dealing with it all my life. Prior to being diagnosed, I thought everyone worried like me, that it was "normal". I'm so grateful that I have been able to deal with it and keep it under control for the most part.

Today is one of my anxious days I guess. I know it will pass and I'll be fine, but it's still not fun going through it. It actually helps a bit to write about it. Maybe my words will help someone out there with my same feelings.

So today, I'm okay. Like Dory from Finding Nemo says: "Just keep swimming."
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This Week's Update

This week has gone pretty well. Sydney had her four month checkup this week. She is growing so fast! It's amazing how fast they change. She already looks different from the family pictures Kelli took for us. (If you want to see some of them, check out her blog at www.kellismithphotography.com). Sydney is such a happy girl most of the time. She had kind of a hard time with her reaction to her shots, but she's doing well now.

Ethan was off school for most of the week due to Parent Teacher Conferences. We did that on Wednesday. His teacher and the speech language pathologist are so impressed with his progress. I am so proud of him. Putting him in this preschool has helped him so much! He is so much more confident and willing to try new things. Both Dan and I are extremely grateful for his teacher and the aides in the class. They are wonderful people. You can tell they really care about him and the other kids in his class.

On Friday, the weather looked decent in the morning and the forecast seemed pretty mild, so I told Ethan we could go to the zoo. We have a membership there and it's so fun! By the time we got there, it was snowing just barely so we walked around for a bit. The animals were really active, especially the cats. The snow leopards were really loving the cold I think. Ethan was so excited to have fun at the zoo. He has been wanting to go for a while. By the time we left it was blowing snow, so it was good to get out of there.

Today I went to the Quilted Bear and got Sydney her first headband. She is so cute in it! I love it...even though she could probably get satellite channels on it. It's really fun having a girl and doing these kind of girly things.

This weekend looks to be good, church tomorrow and then a family get together. We're also finishing Sydney's room this week. *Hopefully* :)

Until next time...
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Playing Together

Ethan loves her so much!

Just An Update

Just wanted to do a quick blog update. Things seem to be going pretty well right now. We're plugging along as usual.

Sydney just turned four months old! I can't believe how fast time is going by. We're just starting to get a little bit more sleep and just coming out of the newborn fog and already she has changed so much. It reminds me of Ferris Bueller's Day Off where he says "Life moves pretty fast. You don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." I've been trying my best to savor every moment I have. I know she won't be this little for very long.

She had her first experience with getting her hair done the other day. I have to say, it was really fun!

I'm trying to live the day to day. Enjoy each moment as it comes. It seems to make for a much happier existence.

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Fun Weekend

Well, so far this weekend has been fun. Dan and I went out to see Shutter Island with Jenny and Moby last night. It was really good! Great intense thriller. I'm not sure if Dan still had circulation in his arm when it was over though. In my old age I've lost a bit of my edge for those intense movies. It was really good though.

Today was a nice and relaxing day. I got to sleep in (Thanks Honey!) and we just hung out here at the house mostly. Tomorrow is Church and I'm excited not to have to do it alone. It should actually be relaxing. I'm looking forward to having my spiritual batteries recharged.
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Sleepy

Sweet Sydney Sleeping

Shooting Fun

Hanging at Cabela's.

Stuff

I haven't just blogged lately, so I thought I would do a quick post. Dan is at work and both kids are asleep so it's one of the rare times that I actually have a completely quiet house. In fact, the only thing I can hear currently is the sound of the keyboard as I type.

Today was kind of a rough day for me. I'm not sure if it's the postpartum hitting or the fact that I haven't really seen the sun out today, but it was just one of those days where everything is annoying, you feel like you want to cry, and you just want to get in bed and hide to get away from it all until tomorrow...if the sun happens to peek through the clouds. I knew I had to do something about it, especially since Dan was working tonight. I knew I had to change my attitude somehow. I decided when Dan got up from sleeping (he worked last night too) that I would go beat the crap out of myself at the gym. I did and it worked. I feel so much better! I love the endorphin high that I get after working out, and boy did I really work out this time, weights, cardio, the whole deal. I'm going to be feeling it tomorrow, but it's a good pain.

As far as what is going on with us, things are pretty normal around here. We blessed Sydney in sacarament meeting on the 7th and it was really nice. Some family and a couple of friends were able to come. Both of my brothers were able to stand in the circle, along with the grandpas, Dan's brother Ben, and our friend Moby. Sydney is growing so much and changing so much every day. She really is a happy baby. Give her food, make sure she's not messy, and cuddle with her every now and then and she's happy. It's so fun to have my little girl. She is so different from Ethan. She loves to cuddle and Ethan hated it. He was always afraid he was missing something going on around him. He would always push away when I would try to cuddle him so he could see what was going on. Sydney, on the other hand, is content just to be with Mommy. I love it.

Ethan is doing so well in school. I'm SO proud of him. He has wonderful teachers in his preschool class that are working with him on some of his issues with the social aspects of school. I love them and am so grateful for them. He comes home with so many art projects that our refrigerator is always sporting something new. I really love it. He can write his name and is learning to use scissors. He is getting pretty good at that. He loves to sing all the songs and is so funny with the things he says sometimes. The other day, they sang "The Wheels On The Bus" at school and he sang it all the way home. When he got to the verse about the Mommys on the bus going, "Shh, shh, shh." he said, while pointing to me, "The yous on the bus go shh, shh, shh." It was cute and it made me laugh so much. He has many friends and is relating well to the classroom time. I'm just so proud of how much he has accomplished in such a short time being in that school.

Dan is working a lot, but that's a good thing. He recently started working part time on one or two days a week with a temporary agency. His overtime was cut due to overstaffing at his regular job, so this fills in the gap for us. It's flexible and the money is good, so we're happy with it. He is also gaining a lot of experience in things he doesn't normally do, so it's been really nice. I love Dan and I'm so grateful he works so hard for our family.

As far as anything else goes, we did our taxes and we're getting something back, so that's a good thing. I've been working as much as I can, but it has been slow, so the extra money to do something a little fun will be nice. I'm fully recovered from my gall bladder surgery. I'm glad it's out, but I'm sick of being the expensive one in the family. Hopefully my expensive medical stuff is done for the year. I think I was having attacks during my pregnancy but didn't know what it was. Finally, after one trip to the Instacare and another trip to the ER in January, we figured it out and I saw the surgeon. Surgery was good. It went well and I'm happy to be able to eat again.

February is shaping up to be pretty busy for us. We had Sydney's blessing the first week, we had my nephew Logan's missionary farewell this past Sunday, and we have my other nephew Andrew's homecoming this coming Sunday. Hopefully the ward doesn't think we're inactive. We're not, we just have a huge family. I'm grateful we get to have this fun time with our family though.

We've been busy, but hopefully that won't keep me too far from the blogging world. I need to do it more often than I have been.

I know you are but what am I?

Little Pee Wee!

Kids Pictures

Last week I took the kids in to have pictures done. Sydney was two months old and I wanted to get some pictures of her, Ethan, and both of them together. :) They turned out really cute! Enjoy!

So Cute!

Don't you just want to love on her forever?!

Am I Awake?

As many of you know, having a newborn in the house is a big job...I mean it's a HUGE undertaking at times. Sometimes you're lucky if hair gets brushed that day. The days often fly by as a blur and you're left wondering if it's daytime or nighttime. Now that Sydney is almost two months old, she's starting to be a little bit more normal as far as routine is concerned. I have a minute, so I thought I would do a quick post.



First of all, my birth story. I was due on November 15th, but I was feeling so miserable that second to last week, my doctor and I scheduled an induction for November 12th if I hadn't gone into labor by then. Well, November 10th rolled around and Dan had to work overnight until 4:00 a.m. I didn't think I would be going into labor anytime soon, so he went to work as usual. In the early morning hours I started having really strong contractions that weren't stopping. I finally broke down and called Dan home from work at 2:00 a.m. what was now November 11. Annoyingly, by the time he got home, about a half an hour later, the contractions had stopped so I thought it was just a false alarm. It turns out it wasn't.



I went back to sleep and woke up at about 9:00 a.m. with hard contractions. This time, I knew it was for real. We called my mom at work, so she could come home to watch Ethan, while we went up to the hospital. The ride in the car to drop off Ethan and then the ride up to the hospital was the longest car ride ever! Finally, we made it up to LDS Hospital and got up to the Labor and Delivery ward. They got me into a room and had to ask me questions while I had to stop every couple of minutes to breathe through contractions. By this time, they were about every two to three minutes apart. They asked if my water had broken and I told them I wasn't sure. Apparently, it doesn't always "break" sometimes it is just "leaking." Anyway, it turned out that my water had broken. That meant not being sent home for a false alarm. You know, even though I knew I was in labor, that's always the fear, that they'll just send you home thinking you're the crazy pregnant woman who doesn't know what she's talking about. After we were sure that I was in labor and not crazy, the blessed anesthesiologist came in with my epidural. I had already endured about five hours of labor at this point, so relief was wonderful.



Anyway, the labor went on for quite a while. I progressed quickly at first and we thought I would probably have the baby before 7:00 p.m., but the hours kept ticking by and I was stalled out at 8 cm. They did some checking as to why and it turns out Sydney was "sunny side up" meaning she was head down, but facing toward the ceiling not the floor. They tried various things to get her to turn over, turning me on each side, doing an amnio infusion to give her more room to turn, etc. but nothing was working. Babies in this position often make for labor longer and harder for it to progress. I really wanted to be done by this point. I hadn't eaten in almost 24 hours and I was tired, let alone just being in labor is hard work, even with the epidural. While Dan and I were alone in the room for a few minutes, I asked him to give me a blessing. It wasn't long after that, I was ready to push, but first the doctor had to turn her. He was able to turn her face down and she was out within four minutes of me starting to push. That was a big change from the 45 minutes of pushing I had with Ethan. Sydney was born November 11, 2009 at 11:32 p.m. She was 8 lbs. 6 oz. and was 20 in. long.



After Sydney was out, they had to work on her a little to help her breathe. She had swallowed some meconium. She hadn't swallowed much, but it was still giving her troubles keeping her oxygen saturation up. They worked on her for about 25 minutes and then she was fine. Everything in the delivery room was okay and we stayed in the delivery room for a while.



Afterward, in my post partum room I had some minor complications, but the nurses were able to work on me and I was fine. Because of me being out of commission though and not being able to feed Sydney that first night, she had some blood sugar issues and had to be put on an IV. She also went to the NICU for a couple of days. She was okay, but it was hard not to have her with me the whole time I was in the hospital. The two days I was there as a patient I had to go to the NICU to see her.



Our time in the hospital was also marked by a fire. Some construction was going on between the 8th and 9th floors on the other end of the hospital and a fire was sparked inside the wall. Some of the sparks got into the ventillation system so a good portion of the hospital smelled like smoke. They had to move the NICU babies over to a part of the regular nursery because of the smell. That turned out to be a good thing because she was a lot closer.



Finally, it was time for me to go home, but Sydney couldn't come with me. My pediatrician arranged for a "hotel stay" for me so I could feed her during the night. Dan came home and stayed with Ethan while I stayed with Sydney in the hospital. It was a rough night to be away from Dan after having just given birth, but I was glad to be with Sydney. We got her discharged the next morning. Dan and Ethan got to come and get us from the hospital. It was the first time Ethan got to meet his sister because of all of the H1N1 flu restrictions on visitors. Nobody under 14 unless they were ill was to be in the hospital. They were only making exceptions in some end of life situations. Ethan was so excited to meet his sister and to have me back home. He is such a good big brother. He is so protective of his sister.



So now, here we are about eight weeks along and things seem to be going fine. There were some bumps in the road with breastfeeding because of my PCOS, but with the help of a medication and some supplementation, things seem to be improving. Now that things are further along, It shouldn't be a month between blog posts.



Until next time...

Sydney's First Photo Shoot

My cousin, Jenn, took some pictures of Sydney so I could do my birth announcements and have some cute pictures for my wall of her at this young age. Aren't they cute?

Smiley Girl