Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas From My Family to Yours!

Good Boys

We were talking about what the kids wanted for Christmas one day.

I think they boys started it... something along the lines of Ransom saying he wanted a guitar then Logan saying he probably wasn't going to get it (pessimistic kid). Then Ransom saying he also wanted a Wii U and Logan saying it wasn't going to happen (oddly he's pessimistic about his own wishes because he wants a Wii U too.. ok that one probably has to do with the fact that the boys have been asking for a Wii U but I've been having to talk to them and help them understand that they'd probably not be getting such a big ticket item.)

Funny enough both of those items are currently under the tree. :) I'm predicting lots of jumping and screaming on Christmas morning.

At some point, Ransom started thinking about what I wanted for Christmas. He came to this conclusion:

Ransom: "Mom, I know what you want for Christmas."

Me: "What?"

Ransom: "Good boys."

Hmmm, the boy knows me well.

Yes, I would like perfectly behaved boys for Christmas. I'm not saying they are horrid little monsters but well... let's face it, I think ALL kids could behave better. So what do I want for Christmas? Apparently nothing that can be wrapped with a bow. I just want good boys.

But if you think about it.... the fact that Ransom realizes this all on his own seems to suggest that perhaps I already do have good boys.

The Big Sister

I meant to post about this weeks ago but well... I've got a baby what can I say!

Before Verity was born, I wondered how Everly would act with a new sister. Would she love Verity or be jealous of her? Kiss her or hit her? Non-stop tantrums or still somewhat her regular self?

Go figure, Everly not only likes Verity but she is obsessed. The second we came home from the hospital, we set down Verity in her car seat and Everly practically dove right in to get an up close and personal with her new sister. No, Hi Mommy. No, Hi Daddy. Just Verity.

Every single day, every single second it seems since Verity has come home Everly has wanted to kiss her, to touch her, to hold her. It's nice that she loves her so much but it's also a bit annoying that I constantly have to guard Verity.

If we have company over, Everly will immediately start pointing at Verity and say "See? See, Verity?" She's all to eager to show off her baby sister.

Of course, Everly has had her moments. Part of it is just her Terrible Two's. Part of it is definitely Verity related. For instance, going up or down the stairs is now too hard for her most of the time. If I'm carrying Verity down the stairs (naturally since Verity isn't going to make that trip herself!) then cries of "Hold You" are heard. (Hold You by the way is Everly's backwards way of asking YOU to hold HER) Let's just say it ends in either me carrying both girls down the stairs or Everly left at the top of the stairs in a ball of tears.

Overall however, I must say that Everly is adjusting to being the big sister quite well. Now we'll have to see how much she loves Verity when Verity starts grabbing her toys and chasing after Everly.

Verity's Birth Story

On November 21, 2012, I had my fourth baby: Verity. Here is her story.

The Pregnancy 

With my previous 3 kids, I used an OB and while I think all their births were fine, I knew that I wanted to switch to a midwife for #4. We had switched insurance after #3 was born so I was in new pregnancy territory this time. With the insurance we switched to I basically had the choice between the insurance’s OB’s or midwives. Both worked at the same hospital but I knew I was going with the midwives this time. I knew that a midwife would be much more in favor of a natural birth (something I have wanted from the beginning but never got for one reason or another) and a midwife would be more willing to accept my requests and refusals whereas an OB would more than likely kick me out of the office for some of the procedures I wanted to refuse. I am all for home births but I know it’s just not for me; I like being away from home for my births. I also didn’t want a birth center; once again I think they are great but I have yet to find one that I like plus I don’t have any qualms about hospitals in general. So I went with the midwives who deliver at the hospital. I absolutely loved them. There were about 7 or so midwives in the practice and as you never knew who would be on call when you delivered, they like you to rotate through them all. Each and every one of the midwives were great. They were much more natural than my previous OB’s, I could related to them and felt like my “crunchiness” was not seen as a weird thing to them, and they didn’t bat an eye when I refused certain procedures or requested to be re-tested. I knew that I had made the right choice in switching to midwives.

The Labor 

At 40w4d, I woke up at 2am with some mild contractions. I tired to tell myself to go back to bed as they were only 7-10 mins apart but of course I couldn’t. Finally slept a bit only to wake up at 6 am with contractions that were a bit stronger still ranging in the 7-10 mins. I had my husband stay home from work as I assumed things would move quickly. With my last baby labor only lasted 6 hrs (although she was a pitocin baby) so I assumed this one would be close to the same…. We decided to tell our roommate (the one who would help watch my other three kids) to stay home from work as well.

Well I labored with contractions coming every 7-10 mins from 6am – 4pm… so much for making everyone stay home from work. Around 2 or 3 pm, I noticed that if I was standing my contractions would come every 3-5 mins but if I sat down they stretched back out to every 7-10 mins. At this point, they had definitely picked up in intensity but still were totally bearable. I use Hypnobabies as my birth method and while I will admit that I am definitely not a poster child for Hypnobabies (no pain free birth for me…but then I wasn’t a good student and didn’t listen to my tracks while in labor), I do think that it’s the only way I was able to get through labor; without it I would have been a mess. This fluctuation in contraction timing didn’t really help me in deciding when to go to the hospital so around 4pm, I called L&D just to see what they said. They didn’t seem all that concerned but of course once they read that I was a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean) albeit this was my third VBAC, they decided to have me come in.

We got to the hospital around 5pm and contractions were probably around every 5 mins by then. I got checked and found out that I was only dilated to 4cm. Not what I was hoping for. With my last baby, it took me quite awhile to get to 6cm but after that I went from 6-10cm in an hour. So hearing that I was a 4 made me think I still had a long time to go. I thought about going back home to labor there for a bit longer but I knew going back would just upset my youngest even more (she was quite insistent that she wanted to come to the hospital too and we had to leave her in tears…although apparently she stopped crying by the time we were in the car). So we stayed. Got through all the paper work, got my saline-lock put in (I would have rather had nothing but I figure it’s a minor annoyance to put up with just in case something horrid happened), got the monitors on (would have liked to skip these too although at least they were telemetry so I could move around…although this ended up being my second birth were the dumb monitors kept loosing the baby’s heartbeat and contractions… what’s the point then?) and then we decided to walk around the hospital. We wanted to have this baby that day and if I was only a 4, we figured we had a long way to go! Turns out that we couldn’t walk the halls, as the monitors weren’t picking things up right. So we stayed in my room while they tried to fix them.

Transition  to Delivery 

By this time it must have been around 7pm. I had resorted to standing and then leaning over a counter when I had a contraction at this point and so while they were trying to get the monitors just right, I started having contractions every 2-3 mins apart. At this point, it’s pretty obvious that I was in transition. I even figured I probably was just because I was suddenly overly warm, thirsty, and getting nauseous but I had bigger things on my mind and so I didn’t bother telling anyone. I feel like I had maybe 5 of those contractions but it must have been more. At one point, my wonderful nurse suggested a bath and while sitting sounded like the last thing I wanted to do, I knew that the warm water would probably be great. The bath was finally full and my husband and the nurse had finally convinced me to walk all the way to the tub (I did NOT want to move anywhere) when my body started to push. As this hospital doesn’t do water births and I had no intention of having one, it was a long walk back to the bed for me. As I mentioned before, my preferred labor position was standing while leaning over something so that was where I found myself at this point; standing and leaning over the foot of the bed. My poor nurse was sent scrambling to get all the stuff ready and calling for my midwife. Everyone under the sun was trying to get me into the bed but for how timid and easy going I normally am, I was very clear that I was not moving. I was having this baby standing (which I had previously thought would be one of the last ways I’d ever want to deliver!) I felt like I pushed forever but my husband tells me it could have only been maybe 3 minutes. In truth, I think it’s because with my previous baby, I had an epidural and so I only pushed 3 times with the 3 contractions so with this baby I felt like 3 pushes would do it. However, when it’s your body pushing involuntarily, it’s just a different story. So I felt like I did a lot more pushing but I really didn’t. All this time, my water still hadn’t broken. It never does…I must make strong bags of water or something. And thus my daughter was born at 7:52pm in caul, which is rather rare (although I wonder if it wouldn’t be if people didn’t tend to have their water artificially broken)

All in all, this labor was technically pretty short. I did have a lot of early labor (from 2am – 4pm) but active labor was only about 3 hours (from 4pm – 7pm) and transition was about an hour give or take (7pm – 7:52pm). I thank my red raspberry leaf tea for the short active labor, transition, and pushing. That stuff is amazing. So while one could say that my labor was 18 hrs (if you count all the early labor), most would say it was only 4 hrs (if you start counting from active labor). 4 hours is my shortest labor and it was the only one that was pitocin free!

I have now run the gauntlet for every birth type imaginable. We started out with an emergency c-section with my oldest, a VBAC with epidural and pitocin for my next two (although the third one I almost made it all natural) and finally ending with my completely unmedicated natural childbirth. While natural birth is no walk in the park, I will say it has been my favorite birth and easiest birth by far. There will be no turning back for me…(assuming we have more kids, that is)

And Then There Were 6

Naturally after I post a vent entry, I go and have my baby! I'll eventually do a whole post about her birth but for now here are the basics.

Verity Jane

November 21, 2012

7:52pm

7lbs, 9oz

18 inches

What Was He Thinking?

I'm going to start this post off by saying, of course this is all in jest.... at least mostly. I know God knows what He's doing... but I feel like I need a mini vent.

I'm now 40 weeks 3 days into this pregnancy... yeah past my due date. Of course, this shouldn't be a shock to me. I always go past my due date. All my kids have been born around 41/42 weeks. Why should this one be any different right? But it doesn't seem to matter, in fact I'd say that with each baby I just get more impatient.

Now going past my due date is enough to get me annoyed but when you through on random hours of contractions that get me excited and then just fizzle out, I get mad. Which brings me to the point and title of this post: What Was He Thinking??? He being God of course. It seems logical to me that once labor starts it should stick around till the end. None of this, few hours of contractions here pause with nothing for days and then a few more hours of contractions there. Why get my hopes up?

And that is where I'm at. Had a few contractions last week then nothing for a whole week. Had some nice contractions last night...now nothing. Ok I'm crampy but that doesn't mean anything. Now I'm left wondering if I'll have to wait another week before more contractions or if this girl will get the show on the road and come before Thanksgiving weekend. I'd really rather not hit 41 weeks...mostly because then I have to do all the tests and then there's the talk of induction that comes at 42 weeks. I think that's what really bugs me about going late... knowing that I'll go so late that I'll have to go through all the tests and possibly the evil drug Pitocin.

I'm hoping that since I have my proper due date this time that I'll have this baby either right before or at 41 weeks...but who's to say. It's possible that I had my right due date with Ransom and he was 42 weeks...Everly was 41 weeks according to my right due date.... and Logan, well Logan didn't get to decide when he wanted to come but was forced to arrive at 41.5 weeks (if that was his right due date..) I've been saying that she'll probably come Thanksgiving weekend since the beginning and I really probably should have told MYSELF that better...because I'm not buying it. I want this baby born today.

So there's my mini vent. I'm sure nobody needed to read the rants of a past due mama but I needed to put it somewhere and I think poor Justin has heard enough of my complaining. Did I mention that going past due makes you an emotional mess? It does. No matter how many times you tell yourself that your due date is just a guess date and it's not likely to mean anything, if you pass that date you are sure to get upset and emotional. So yes, poor Justin has probably had enough.

At the very least, you got to hear from me so that there's not too much space in between my posts. I realize they've sort of slacked off lately and odds are good that they might be few and far between once this baby arrives. (or perhaps there will just be tons of photo filled posts...who knows)

2 years of Everly

It's weird to think that 2 years ago today I was just starting that evil drug Pitocin so that I could have my first little girl. Where has time gone? It doesn't seem like it's been 2 years! It doesn't seem like I should have a toddler girl, yet I definitely do!

Everly Joy is just that; a joy in our family. Constantly talking, singing, and dancing with the occasional full blown 2 year old tantrum, Everly is a very much needed part of our family.

But will someone please explain to me how we have gone from this:

To this already?

In a Field of Dandelions

I don't know why but I can never see my kids picking dandelions without thinking of Five Iron Frenzy's song "Dandelions"...probably because I listened to them quite a bit sometime in high school. Doesn't matter if the dandelions are yellow (like in the song) or if they are ready for blowing... the song comes to mind.

In case you are unfamiliar, here's the lyrics... not that they fully apply as I wasn't given any dandelions...this time they were strictly for blowing or as Everly seems to prefer, hitting them against her face or picking at them.

In a field of yellow flowers,

Underneath the sun,

Bluest eyes that spark with lightning,

Boy with shoes undone.

He is young, so full of hope,

Reveling in tiny dreams,

Filling up his arms with flowers,

Right for giving any queen.

Running to her beaming bright,

While cradling his prize.

A flickering of yellow light,

Within his mother's eyes.

She holds them to her heart,

Keeping them where they'll be safe,

Clasped within her very marrow,

Dandelions in a vase.

She sees love, where anyone else would see weeds.

All hope is found.

Here is everything he needs.

Fathomless Your endless mercy,

Weight I could not lift.

Where do I fit in this puzzle,

What good are these gifts?

Not a martyr, or a saint,

Scarcely can I struggle through.

All that I have ever wanted,

Was to give my best to You.

Lord, search my heart,

Create in me something clean.

Dandelions

You see flowers in these weeds.

Gently lifting hands to heaven,

Softened by the sweetest hush,

A Father sings over his children,

Loving them so very much.

More than words could warrant,

Deeper than the darkest blue,

More than sacrifice could merit,

Lord, I give my heart to You.

Lord, search my heart,

Create in me something clean.

Dandelions

You see flowers in these weeds.

36 Weeks

Weeks: 36

Baby Stats:  Baby is the size of a honeydew for those who love the fruit comparisons. She's supposedly almost 6 lbs but let's face it, my babies tend to be a bit bigger then normal so she's

probably already at or past 6 lbs! She is now around 18 1/2 inches from head to heel...once again supposedly.

Symptoms: Lovely Restless Leg Syndrome has finally shown up, I knew it was too much to hope that I would not get RLS this time around but it seems to be pretty mild. Other than that, just tons of braxton hicks. They say they just get worse with each kid and I can agree with that. I'm sure it's not the case but it does seem like I have braxton hicks all day long. Too bad it doesn't really do anything about when I'll go into labor (maybe for some women but not me).

Aversions/Cravings: Right now it's all about apples and warm desserts but I think that has more to do with Fall setting in then being pregnant.... 

Bump: Still getting bigger although as always I look like I carry small. Something to blame on the anterior placenta, I'm sure. It's annoying to have a smaller bump in the beginning of pregnancy but it's always nice come the third trimester when I am still able to put my own shoes on. :) 

Weight Gain: Depends on who you ask... At the midwives' I"m up 13-14 lbs but at home it's more like 17-18 as I probably gained 3-4 lbs before I first saw the midwife. Either way, it looks like I'll keep my 20 lbs goal. 

Worries: Not too many. I do worry about if I'll have to deal with induction talk with this baby. I know I can do a natural birth even with Pitocin (since I almost made it with Everly) but I would absolutely love to have a Pitocin free birth for once in my life! Also I'm worried that I'll go late again. Ok it's not so much a worry as a jealousy thing...everyone I know (even those who are normally late) has been having their babies early. I can't imagine that I'll be lucky enough to follow the trend so it's one more thorn in the side of having babies who like to cook.

Looking forward to: Finally having this baby. I know I still have a good month+ to go but it's always around this time that things seem to drag on and I'm anxious to move on to the baby part!

Medical Stuff: Nothing really. I've got my 36 week appointment on Monday but there should be nothing to report. Blood pressure has taken my usual third trimester dip (I thank the red raspberry leaf tea and stevia for that.), weights normal, midwives have been fine with my refusals of random procedures, get to go over my birth plan this Monday... I've always thought about making one but I always figured I can just tell them as things go...well 3 babies later, I've finally realized that just doesn't work very well for me. It does in some things but other things I tend to let slide if I'm already in the hospital room. So this time it's all going on paper so that I don't have to resort to being that "perfect" patient once in the hospital. Although this hospital and midwives are very easy going and much more my style so I doubt we'll clash on anything much.

Missing the most: Hmmm I don't know. Maybe just being able to sleep for longer then 2-3 hr segments but it's not like that will change once I have this baby. :)

Pregnancy milestone: Almost "term".

Finally Fall

Fall officially stared awhile ago but we took a little longer then normal to really get the leaves and such. Not to mention that we are now getting our rain. The other day, we needed to waste some time before picking Justin up from work so the kids and I did a mini shoot at the park (ok they mostly played at the park, the pictures were finished in about 2 minutes flat I think!)

It has gotten impressively difficult
to get a good picture of all three

Logan

Ransom -
kind of a deer in headlights look...or something creepier

So much hair!

I've seen this expression before

Baby Fever

Is it strange to have baby fever when you are already pregnant? I suppose it is... It's not that I want ANOTHER baby on top of this one, it's just that I want this baby NOW!

Ok, she can cook a little longer. I'm only 35 weeks and as my kids like to cook extra long, I probably have a good 6-7 weeks left. However, everyone I know is having their babies already..early. Alright so I can actually only think of two ladies who have had their babies recently and early but that's two babies that are out!

As I've got this baby fever and I'm also curious as to what #4 will look like (will she take after the Ransom/Everly/Me line or will she take after Logan/Justin/my brother line) I thought I'd do a bit of baby trivia....

Here's all three of my kids at birth (or there about)

and just for comparison sake, here's all three now.

Care to guess which baby is which?

Car Seat Safety Series

For those who do not follow my other blog (The Pistachio Project), I just finished up a month long series all on car seat safety.

Did you know that 3 out of 4 car seats are installed wrong? That's huge! No wonder why America has such high death rates for kids under 4 from car accidents!

I just wanted to share the series with all of you in case you wanted to brush up on car seat safety. It's always a good thing to know and there is so much to know about car seats that it's very easy to forget something or install a car seat wrong.


Here's the link to the series schedule which will then take you to all the posts that I wrote.

For the Love of Squash

It is officially fall finally and the weather has finally changed as well. With the change in season and temps, we are officially in soups and gourds mode.

We recently received a ginormous squash from Grandma (Justin's Mom....like I mentioned before I don't want to mention last names so there will always have to be clarification, I guess). This squash was huge. First we did just a basic roasted squash which sadly I undercooked because, go figure 1 hour was not enough for the massive beast! However, it was nonetheless apparent that Everly LOVES squash!

Today, I made the second half of the squash. This time I cooked it too much to be used for roasting so I just scooped it all out and made Smashed Squash (talk about fun to say!) Now normally I time things pretty well so that lunch is ready at 12:00. Today I didn't. Today, food was done before 12:00 and I was trying to hold the troops back while we watched the clock. Besides the smashed squash was still pretty hot. The boys of course are totally ok with that; they like their schedules enough that they have no problem waiting for the proper lunch time. Everly however, is another story. It's one thing for her to have to wait all through the cooking process but it's quite another when she can tell that food is done and it's not being placed in front of her.

I decided to hold everyone off with a bit of zucchini soup (zucchini was yet another thing we received from Grandma and it's making its way into everything) It wasn't much, just some leftover soup from a batch that I had frozen. (I'm stocking up for when #4 comes). The boys thought it was great to have a little appetizer....

Yes I know the picture is crooked.
I just want you to see that she was
getting every last bit of squash.

Everly..... "Squash. SQUASH!!!!" Crying and wailing proceeded. There was no denying that the girl wanted her squash. It didn't matter that I explained to her that she was going to get both zucchini AND squash, (and she likes zucchini too!) she wanted her squash and she wanted it NOW!

I finally decided to just remove the soup and give her the beloved squash. Instant smile. The girl started digging into her squash like there was no tomorrow.

Then she asked for seconds. "Mo, squash?"

Then she asked for thirds!!!! Seriously, who eats THAT much squash???!!!

I believe we have found Everly's new favorite food.

Sadly as easy as smashed squash is to cook and for as well loved it is to eat, it makes for a very messy toddler. Needless to say, Everly had to have a bath afterwards.

One Smashed Squash Happy Girl

Happy Grandparent's Day

Happy Grandparent's Day!

Normally I would be making and sending a new scrapbook page for the Grandparents to put in the album I gave them....ummm yeah, it kind of slipped away from me this year. However, considering we'll be having another baby in November (in which case, the Grandparent's also get the "new baby" page) I think, we'll just wait till Christmas and then I'll give you both. (so long as you don't mind) I know that tends to be my habit with my parents as I"m always worried about mailing a 12x12 sheet anyway...and Justin's side...well you're moving so I figured hunting down a photo album probably wasn't the smartest thing right now.

So yeah, Christmas.... you'll get your 2012 Grandkids page and Baby #4's page.

For now, here's a recap of this last year (from Sept - Sept)

Out of the Mouths of Bloggers

I've seen similar "You know You're a Blogger..." lists before and naturally they always line up pretty well. To give you a glimpse into my blogging life (and the life my family now enjoys/tolerates) I thought I'd write one of my own.

Things You'll Hear The Blogger in Me Say:

"Dinner will be done once I take a picture"

"We need _____, who should I pitch to?"

"No I didn't get all this stuff for free, I worked for it."

"Hold on, I've got to update the blog/facebook/twitter/pinterest."

"How'd that taste? Does it need something? Is it blog worthy yet?"

"No you can't actually use this product right now, I just need you to look like you are using it for the picture."

"Can you guys just look happy for this blog photo? I know we've taken 50 pictures already but none of them are just right....just one more...really."

"No package? Where are those review products?"

"I love ____. I did a review for them and they are really great. You should get some, here's my affiliate link."

"Sorry you can't wear that diaper yet, I need to take clean pictures of it before we take the action shots."

I'm sure there are tons of other horrid blogger quotes that I say... these are just some of the big ones. Keep in mind that there's a good side to being a blogging family too... like free stuff. I mean I won't need to buy anything for baby #4 (not a new car seat, not new diapers, etc) because of my blogging. So there's good and bad...and even the bad I don't think is too horrible.

Quotable Logan

Logan is eating an orange in this picture in case you are wondering.

I think it's safe to say that my kids are notorious for saying some ridiculous stuff. The other day, Logan said something rather funny... I didn't think it was ALL that funny...but Justin literally laughed out loud (not a common occurrence) and has since proceeded to laugh about it at least 3 times over the course of the last few days. So it must be good.

Logan: "I don't know why it stinks but I do know you farted, Ransom."