Journal

Baby Logan is now 3 weeks old.  I know, I need to post his birth story STAT! I love the blissful feeling of having a newborn in our home.  He is just so small and loved by everyone.  He is always being held or sleeping in his swing in the living room among the family noise.  I spend as much time as I can with him curled up on my chest.  There is nothing like a newborn napping on you.  I mean NOTHING.  I have pretty much dropped out of the world as much as I can to enjoy this small window of time. Some nights I can't bear to lay him down and stay on the couch with him on me all night.  I feel him wiggle and move and it is so familiar, only on the outside instead of inside me. I wish babies could just stay exactly as they were born for a year.

Logan is a nursing champ! I feel like I am finally good at nursing. It only took 7 times for my body to really get the hang of it. It seems to get a little easier with each baby.  Maybe it is partly him and partly changing some of my philosophies about it that have made it work better.  I know for sure I am way more laid back about just about everything than I was as a younger mom so maybe that helps too.  My milk is pretty regulated after just a couple of weeks instead of many months (sorry, TMI but that is a big deal for me).

The kids are absolutely in love with him and are so tender towards him.  Lily calls him "The baby that came out of your tummy" when she talks about him. She also calls her baby doll, "The baby that came out of my tummy". Luke calls him "Yogan". I was worried about Luke since he is very possessive of me, but he caught on fairly quickly that he could not climb on me when I am holding the baby.  Maybe 2 or 3 tantrums those first few days and that was all.  I am still his favorite though and he is definitely still my other baby (love that).  Tanner is our number one baby holder.  All the kids love to hold him, but Tanner wants to hold Logan all the time, much more than the others.  

Nights are not too bad.  We have kids waking during the night and climbing in our bed fairly often anyway so it is just a couple more times up to feed the baby added in.  Peter has been getting the kids to school in the morning and letting me make up for extra lost sleep so I am not feeling too sleep deprived most days.

Recovery has been pretty slow going until now.  After 3 weeks, I can finally walk normally again without pain and it doesn't hurt my bones to bend or move around. So glad to have some strength back. It amazes me how much a body can change to make a baby and still come back together afterward.  The hardest part has been my patience with the kids. Well the lack of any actually.  I am hoping that feeling better will help me cope with the daily chaos a little better.

We have had a stomach bug cycling through the house to make things that much more challenging.  It seemed to go one person at a time so it has been days and days of sickness.  Let me tell you being violently ill and taking care of a newborn is no picnic, but luckily my milk supply kept up enough and it was only a 24 hour bug.

This has been an interesting Christmas season.  I have missed some parties and gone to a couple.  We have done a few special activities, but at a very easy pace. Simplicity has been the key for this year.  It has shown me how much a lot of the stuff we do during this time of year is really just unnecessary stress.  Some years I love all that stuff, but this is not the year.  I am really liking being home as much as possible The only 2 things I really wish that we could have gotten to are a meaningful service project and our Christmas card.  But with only a week left and this fun sickness we have had I am not counting on it.  Maybe a New Years card for us this time(or not) and service can be done any time of course.

I know it is a little cheesy sounding, but having a new baby this time of year really brings me closer to the Christmas story.  I don't know how to explain it other than a more tender feeling for Mary as a new mother and loving a little baby so much that it brings amazement and awe to the miracle that is life.  In a way the true meaning of Christmas has been much more wonderful in all the simplicity and humility that comes with bringing a baby into the world.  

I am so blessed. My heart has grown 7 times over now and it is more deeply felt in my soul with each little spirit that comes to our family. Life is not easy, but there is so much joy found in it.  I tried more than ever before not to complain about my discomforts and focus on gratitude these last several months.  I wasn't perfect at it by far, but it made way to find even more joy in the blessings in my life and there much strength to be found in not focusing on the negative.  I needed strength so that really helped.

Cough Syrup

 I wrote this journal entry a about 3 weeks ago now:

 I thought I would quickly give a recap of what also happened this last week in our family.  On Tuesday, our little Luke was admitted to the hospital overnight for drinking a whole bottle of cough syrup.  Either I left it on the kitchen cupboard in the middle of the night or he climbed up and found it on an upper shelf.  He had been pretty sick with a fever that day and so I noticed his behavior was a little odd and thought it was because of that.  He was behind the couch laying on the heater for a long time and when I checked on him, he was holding a little matchbox car just moving it back and forth.

I thought he had finally fallen asleep for a while when he came out from behind the couch, totally as red as a beet!  I picked him up and felt that he was pretty hot, although the thermometer said he was only around 101.   What was even more strange was the way he looked at me when he came around the couch.  He gave me this huge blank stare, almost like he didn't recognize me! He was certainly out of it.

Peter got home from work around then and started doing something in the kitchen with the kids.  I called him to come and look at Luke.  When Peter saw how red he was, like he had been in the sun all day or something. and how he was not really responding to his name, he said to take him the the Urgent care immediately.

I set Luke down on the floor so that I could get ready to go and we noticed that he couldn't walk.  He was flopping around, kind of crawling in a circle.  He fell over and bonked his head pretty hard on the floor and didn't really notice any pain or look for me to comfort him.  He was just so out of it he seemed delirious. Peter said maybe I should go straight to the ER.  I stopped at the urgent care quickly just to see, since it is really close and on the way and sure enough they said to go to the ER.

On the way, I kept trying to talk to Luke and he still didn't really respond.  At one point he was looking at the ceiling and moving his head back and forth like he was hallucinating or something.  I was getting pretty worried and at this point still thinking that this was all from a fever.

At the ER triage, I noticed that his eyes were moving back and forth, like they couldn't focus and he started dry heaving.  They took us back to the pediatric ER and he was quickly surrounded by people trying to evaluate the situation.   They were worried that he was having a seizure. The Dr. said that these symptoms could be from fever and asked if he had gotten into any medicine.  That was the first time it had even crossed my mind!  I tried to call Peter at home to see, but couldn't get a hold of him right away.  They took his temperature, got an IV going and gave him some Tylenol. They also took blood samples and ordered a CT scan and a chest x-ray.

 While all this was going on, I finally reached Peter who said it was obvious that someone had been into the cough syrup.  When he described the bottle, I knew right away that it was the new bottle I had just bought the day before.  It was empty!

I told the doctor immediately and he said that all of his symptoms made sense.  He was heavily drugged.  Luckily we found out that what Luke had ingested was on the mild side as far as anything damaging goes.  We just needed to wait for him to metabolize it.

We continued to go through all the testing that was ordered, which of course takes time.  Luke finally fell completely asleep during the CT scan.  I was relieved to see him peaceful and not all whacked out.  The chest x-ray showed a little bit of pneumonia, so they immediately started and antibiotic. Finally at about 11pm they admitted us into the pediatric ICU so that Luke could be watched closely until he returned to normal.  He woke up around that time and was wide awake, and acting a little drunk still.  I was so tired by then but I wasn't expecting to get any sleep any time soon.

Luckily, Luke got his own nurse that stayed in the room all night! It was a male nurse that was so good to him and Luke was still too out of it to be clingy to me.  Finally at about 12:30 I laid down in the little window sill bed and fell fast asleep for a couple of hours.  When I woke up at around 2:30 Luke had finally fallen back to sleep and all was quiet.  I was up many times because of heartburn and bathroom breaks or hip pain from being 8 months pregnant, but Luke slept soundly until 9am.  I was so happy to see my little boy wake up acting completely as himself, and wanting no one but mommy! We had breakfast to make sure he could keep things down and played around for a few hours. By noon Luke was begging to go home and we were finally discharged.

This was a very scary ordeal and I felt so sad that I had not put the cough syrup more out of reach.  Worst mom award right here!

He loves this teddy bear now.

Fall Beginnings

This was Dallin's first day of home school! He is loving it still.

Carter bonked into Tanner and had this funky lip bruise for his first week of Kindergarten!

Lukey turned 2! We had a family dinner and party. He loves the happy birthday song although you wouldn't know it by his reaction.  Opening presents was pretty exciting too.

My friend brought me some fun new baby things.  That made it a little more real.  Although I think I am in some kind of denial at the moment of this happening so soon now.

Our ward put on a great end of summer BBQ.  The kids got to decorate their bikes and do a bike parade.  I think that was their favorite.  They also got to play lots of other fun outside games and eat tons of food.

Lily rode her trike almost the whole time. The rest of the time she was busy being social.

Peter had all the kids engrossed in a book one night.  It is so cute when they all get involved.

General Conference was our best yet this time! I decided to shake things up and do it completely differently.  I printed some Conference Bucks from a website I found on Pinterest and had the kids cut them out for me.  Then I went a little dollar store crazy and found a bunch of things that the kids would like and keep their little hands busy.  Shopping for 6 kids ages and different interests is quite a feat.  On conference morning I set up this little store in my room and locked the door. 

We gave the kids 2 conference bucks and showed them the store and explained the prices.  We told them we would pause conference after each talk and if they were listening and reverent during the talk they would get 2 more "bucks". We would open the store for 2 minutes and they could shop before getting back to the next talk.  If they needed some warnings they got one "buck" or no "bucks" depending on how they did. 

Once the kids saw the store and had things in mind they were totally excited about it.  They had extra motivation to buy what they wanted before someone else did. For the most part, everyone bought exactly what I had picked out for that specific person and everyone was happy. 

We put out a bunch of white paper and MARKERS (which was a real treat instead of crayons) during the session as well so they were allowed to color to their hearts content.

I could not believe that we kept all 6 of them quietly busy and in the room for every session (minus the one we were at Larry's house for)  Peter and I even got to sit and listen for the most part and just give gentle reminders as the sessions went on.  It was amazing! The kids loved it and it was fun to spend so much of the weekend in one room together learning and enjoying one another. I loved all the cuddle time too.  We will definitely make this our new tradition every conference.

Dallin was running around outside and got this nice bit of road rash one day.  Poor guy was in a lot of pain for a few days over it. He couldn't wear pants and was even limping because it hurt a bit to walk.  There was a lot of gravel in it so we had him take a lot of baths with Epsom salts and we made of large homemade bandages to cover it. He got some gnarly scabs once it dried out and started to heal. He is the king of not picking owies though so after one week, it was fresh pink new skin.

Swim Lessons and a Family Vacation

We had Eden, Tanner, Carter and Lily doing swim lessons for several weeks this summer. They really liked it. Luke wished that he was in the water too. Eden especially showed a lot of improvement this year.

Lily's teachers just loved her with all her affection and cuteness.

In August, we headed out for a vacation to Idaho/Utah.  I was very proud of our packing job.  I packed enough outfits for all of the kids for one day in each bag and labeled it.  It made every morning and evening go quickly and easily.  Definitely the way to go for us.

This was another trick that worked really well. The kid's school does something like this so I copied the idea. Each kid got a clip color and if they needed a warning for any reason we moved them to yellow.  Once they changed their attitude back to happy and helpful, they could go back to green.  If not, they would go to red.  Every 30 minutes we passed around a bag of little candies and everyone on green could have one.  It worked great and no one ever went to red. They were seriously great little travelers the whole trip.

We had a great visit with my parents in Idaho Falls.  One day we went and toured BYUI and ate at Big Judds.  Their eyeballs got so big when they saw the giant hamburgers.

Grandma gave Eden an art lesson.

Playing in the yard.  My parents have a great piece of land.

The kids had a blast doing tractor rides for hours until they got a flat.

The chickens were well loved.

There is a great little zoo their and my grandma came to join us.

My dad bringing Lily back to the group....again.

The hippo drinking fountain was a big hit.

One afternoon, we found a nice bouncy house place for the kids to burn off their energy.  This one was a water slide so the boys pulled off their shirts and went for it.

We were the only ones there so it was even more fun. I love it when that happens.  There weren't even any workers out there to boss us around.  After we were done we cooled off even more with some snow cones.  Then we headed back to my parents for my grandma's birthday party.  It was fun to see her and other relatives and grill some burgers.

Rides on my dad's motorcycle.  It was just up the driveway and back, but pretty awesome stuff.

After visiting for a few days we headed to Utah.  I am adding the the following journal entry from when it was all fresh to tell you what happened over the next few days:

We have been on vacation for more than 2 weeks now.  Peter came to Utah on August 8th to do a 200 mile relay (like Hood to Coast) with his brothers and friends.  On the 10th The kids and I drove down to Idaho Falls area (with the help of my Father in Law) to visit my Parents and Grandma.  Peter met me there that night when he was done with his run.  He filled in a couple of extra legs and joined some on theirs so he ended up running about 35 miles in 2 days.  Crazy stuff!

We stayed with my parents for about 5 days and had a few fun adventures that I will write about soon.  Then we drove to Utah to visit friends and family.  We stayed in Heber with our friends Heidi and Greg and enjoyed their huge house and property for a few days.  We saw Peter's siblings who live there as well.  The highlight of that part of the trip was a visit to 7 Peaks water park.  The kids had a great time and it was CROWDED!  Luckily, I was the only one who got sunburned.

On our way out of Provo, our van's transmission started slipping out of gear. It felt like suddenly we were driving in neutral.  It was 5:45 on a Friday night, but we were able to find a mechanic that was open until 6 to drive the van to.  We had to drive really slow to avoid the gear slip, but we made it to the mechanic who agreed to wait for us.  He said he would look at it on Saturday, by the afternoon.

We got a ride in 2 different cars back to Heber thanks to Greg and Heidi and waited to hear from the mechanic the next day.  He thought he could get us back on the road by Thursday! The original plan was to leave Monday. He was not in any hurry to put a stranded family back on the road so Peter made some phone calls and found a transmission specialist that said they would put us in front of everyone to help us get on our way.  So Monday morning, instead of Peter and the kids leaving for home, we moved the van to the new mechanic.  That was a great move.  He worked late and had the transmission rebuilt and ready to go before noon on Tuesday! He even made sure that we had it checked at home with a sister shop and included a good warranty.

The other part of our plan was for me to stay behind in Utah and go to BYU Education week.  Peter convinced me that he could handle the kids on his own for a couple extra days at our friends and dropped me off on campus after we had moved the van.  I was feeling very uneasy and stressed about it the first day.  I almost didn't go, but we decided to continue with the original plan.  Peter drove the kids home on Wednesday so we only lost 2 days and a big wad of money on the whole ordeal.  There were many blessings of course.  If that had happened in the middle of nowhere I can't imagine Peter having to stay in a hotel for a few days with all the kids.  That would have been a nightmare.

Education week was a dream.  Once I felt at ease about the family being okay that is.  I enjoyed the solitude and uplifting classes.  Walking around got me a little sore from being pregnant so I bought some super squishy flip flops at the bookstore and had no more problems after that.  I was anxious to get home to my babies, but the rest and relaxation did wonders for me as a person and a mommy.  I learned a lot and came back with a renewed spirit.  I sure do love BYU. There is something very special about that campus, it feels a bit like home to me. I flew home on Saturday morning, and squished chubby little legs and kissed soft sweet cheeks the rest of the day.