At the End of the Day

Since Ryan is out of town, being a mom of four kids can be a little... hard sometimes. So after the older kids are in bed and while I'm waiting for Kevlie to conk off, this is what I give myself to celebrate another day that I haven't flown off the handle with any of my wonderful kids.

Nothing too fancy, I know, but the $.50 wine glass helps with that.

It's simple, and I'm ok with that. After a full day of hearing and joining the kids in play (which can't seem to be done unless their internal volume dial is turned to MAX), something simple helps pull myself back to center. I get to sit, eat something yummy and stare at the Christmas tree with it's pretty lights. It feels good.

I've always been a fan of simple things, I've found that most of the time, they bring the most joy into our lives.

A Summary

First off, things have been good, really good. I completely slacked on making a post for Kevlie, and I feel like it's a little too late to make one now so here's a summary.

She's awesome. 'nough said.

Kevlie, right after she was born


Kevlie 4 weeks old

Kidding! She's such a cute and sweet girl. She was born Oct 26, weighed 7lb 5oz (a whole 1oz less then Kaylyn) and was 20in long. She is now 5 weeks old and it's gone by SO fast! I feel completely fine, after three weeks I was pretty much feeling like my normal self.
We've adjusted fairly well with our new addition, the kids love her to death and will do anything to help me with her. Her full name is Kevlie Sara Grover. Ryan has two kids named after him so he decided that one needed to be named after me. She is an excellent baby and we are so very blessed to have her with us. Father has put so much trust in us by giving us our children.

Ryan had his birthday on the 11th (he's 27 now!) Kaylyn had hers on the 22nd (she's 5!) and my mom recently had hers on the 26th (I don't know how old she is!)

Ryan was called out to work early so he wasn't here for Thanksgiving :( and won't be home for a little bit more. We miss him like crazy when he's gone and love being able to video chat with him and just normal chat with him. He's such a good part of our lives. I do think it's a little sad, I feel like he's misses a lot sometimes. But, that's what sacrifice is, giving up one good thing for something better, in the long run it will be worth it.

Emma is doing great, we got her report card, her highest score was in math 97%! with 80's and 90's in everything else, except spelling, we need to work on that. She's such a good big sister and loves knowing that she's such a big help to me. With our new baby, I haven't been able to walk out to the bus stop with her, which I hate, and if I do walk out with her, Emma is worried about Kevlie the whole time. I miss walking out with her, it's just her and I time and I didn't realize how much I love it.

Holding Kevlie after getting ready for church

Kaylyn, wow Kaylyn, I don't know what to do with this girl. I recently discovered that she knows almost all the letter sounds. meaning, she's about ready to read! Last night she sounded out the word 'can' from the book we were reading. She just turned 5, and I don't sit down with her every day to work on 'school' as she calls it. Her mind is like a sponge and I need to start being more careful with what she absorbs. She's quite the dancer too, her favorite time to dance is when Kevlie is in her swing, Kaylyn with stand in front of it and dance for her. I think it's kinda cute.

Kaylyn's new spot to watch tv

Daniel is such a cute boy! I remember my mom talking to me about how she had a hard time telling me 'no' when I was little because of how cute I was. I never knew what she meant, until this kid came along. I am so smitten with that boy! I just think he's so cute, even when he's dumping my flour all over my kitchen table. He's doing wonderfully though, still a monster, 4t clothes fit his torso perfectly, and his bottom half still fits into 3t. He won't be 3 until May.

Daniel with his 'Buzz Lightyear' face, that or he can tell Kristie is making a fool of him and he's going to hunt her down...

Hopefully I've covered everyone... We are all doing well and are very blessed to have what and who we do!

Hit and Miss

So, we were supposed to go in to be induced on Friday, but before that I was going to get a Foley catheter in (more info on that here) Thursday night, so I would be ready to go in the morning. After the midwife tried four times to get the thing in, and after much pain, it was determined that my uterus really didn't want to cooperate with us. She told me to hold tight and that she would talk to the midwife that would be on call while I was being induced to see what they could do. After talking with her she gave me a few options. 1: I could be admitted that night and they would start me on Cyotec then in the morning they would start some Pitocin. or 2: I could go home and wait to go into labor on my own. Because Ryan only has a week before he's supposed to leave for two weeks again, I went with being admitted that night.
After three doses of Cyotec and being on monitors for two hours, then off for two, they started me on Pitocin at 8 in the morning. At noon they checked me and I was still dilated to a 1. My midwife told me at that time that if I wasn't dilated to a 4 by 5pm she thought it would be wise to send us home and try again another day. I tried so hard to get myself into positions that would put the most pressure on my cervix while I was contracting, but, I didn't do so well.
At 5pm the midwife came in and checked me again and still, I was only at a 1!! So we came home.

Now, for the emotional aspect of this adventure...

I was crying after the midwife and nurse left from telling us it would be best to go home. I was so tired of having monitors on me and sore from being poked four times to get the stinking IV in and not to mention the contractions and I hadn't had solid good since 8 that morning. Over all we were tired and half of me was glad to be going home. The other half? Kinda feels like a failure. I kept apologizing to Ryan, I still feel like it's my fault it didn't work. Ryan was awesome about it, he kept reassuring me and when we got home he made sure I went and laid down to sleep then took care of Daniel (the girls wanted to stay another night at Nana's). I have an amazing husband. On the way out to the car I couldn't help feel a little angry that one of the carriers in the back of the van wasn't holding a baby and that the car seat stayed empty on the way home.
BUT, to top it off, my house was clean when I got home! It was a mess when we left it, no joke, it was bad. I had tried to do some cleaning but didn't get nearly enough done that I wanted. I wish I knew who cleaned it, so I could buy them something - I mean, pretend to bake them something- to say thank you. Coming home to that made my day better, and at the same time, I felt bad again, cause we came home without a newborn.

We will be going in again on Tuesday to be induced, Monday evening I will be going in to my midwives to try to get another Foley catheter in (I pray it works). That's if she doesn't decide to come over the weekend. I honest to goodness hope that she's ready by Tuesday, if she's not, and we have another failed induction then Ryan will be calling his boss to see if he can stay home another week to help with the baby. If he can't, then I might be having this baby with the support of my mom by my bedside rather then my husband. :/

Hopefully everything works out just the way I want it to, really, that would make me so happy... Here's to hoping!

Our Summer

It has been such a very long time sense I've updated our blog. It all started when we got our cell phones and got rid of our house phone and internet. We love our phones and they are so very convenient, but there are a few things they just can't do, like change our profile pictures on facebook, or update a blog. I tried different apps that were supposed to work with blogs but non really worked.

Anyways, so here's the update!

We are expecting our 4th child on the 22nd, although I'm thinking about changing the induction to the 20th, more on that later.


We are having a girl! Our 3rd, and I can't wait to meet another Ryan/Sara combination and see who Father has blessed us with. We were REALLY hoping for a boy, I thought it would be perfect, two girls, two boys, all that jazz, but it wasn't to be.
It was a little hard finding out we were having a girl, Emma cried as soon as the nurse told us, I made it till the next day, as I was cleaning out the drawer of baby boy things I had put together. We have all come to terms with it and in all honesty we are excited to have another baby!
We have picked out a name, well, we pretty much picked one out on the way home after the ultrasound. We were hoping to name the baby Kevin, in honor of my dad, but that wouldn't fly so well with a little girl, so we threw names around, first Kevlen, which was too close to Kevin and Kaylyn, so then we thought for a minute and Ryan thought of Kevlie, and it felt right. Ryan then went on to say that her middle name should be Sara, cause none of our kids have been named after me, but two have been named after him; Kaylyn Noel (Ryan's middle name is Leon, which spelled backwards is Noel) and Daniel has Ryan as his middle name. Although, my middle name is Danielle, so technically I do have a child named after me. But he's insisting on it. So Kevlie Sara it will be.

A few of our summer activities should be mentioned, mostly cause they rocked.

The Blue Angels! Oh, they were fun to watch, even now, Daniel will still talk about them and use his hands to show how they flew, and then tell you they were loud and show you how to cover your ears. And anytime there is a plane that the kids spot they immediately think it's the Angels. It was a lot of fun for the kids to watch them and learn more about them.



Eating Watermelon is seriously one of the best things about summer! I LOVE watermelon and the kids do too!



Emma turned eight this summer and was baptized! It was a little bitter sweet to realize that she really is growing up and learning to deal with all that comes with life.
Ryan made this cake for her, she's decided that her favorite color is blue, I forgot to take a picture but the inside was blue. She was totally stoked about it.



We decided to have her pick out her own dress, at first I was all about the white, but then thought she would enjoy picking out her own. She did an excellant job!



I love my girl! And we're so proud of her, she's made so much progress and continues to grow and learn.



Getting ready for the school year, which means, haircuts!!

Emma wanted to keep hers long so she can cut it short this upcoming summer.



Kaylyn wanted hers short enough she could spike it, we kept it a little longer then that, and she loves it!



And here's Daniel, cause he's just too darn cute!


Ryan now has a new job, he's working in North Dakota hauling water for the oil field. He's working two weeks on two weeks off so, to make sure he's here when we have the baby we will be inducing her on the 22nd! I'm super excited to have my baby! BUT, I was thinking. If I were to bump her induction date up to the 20th then her birthday would be 10-20-2010 or 10-20-10! How neat would that be!? It's such a once in a life time opportunity, that I'm having a hard time trying to decide what to do. The 22nd would work best, but I don't know if I can pass up a birthday like that. I need input!

Until next time! (which really won't be that long!)

A Bitter Sweet Birthday

Today is my dads birthday, he passed away 7 years ago in September of cancer. It was an incredibly hard time for me and my family. My dad is an amazing person, he rose up from a bad childhood, and odds stacks against him to become a successful and well loved husband, father and business man. He is a wonderful man that I look up to and hope to be like someday.
His birthday has usually been something that's made me a bit sad, as you can imagine. But recently I found out that my sister in-law was born on the same day, she is such a sweet and fun person, I love the way her and my brother interact. I think they compliment each other, mostly for the fact that if Josh gives her crap she'll give it right back to him. And with him being my older brother, I love to see that. To have someone who I think is a great mother and sister share the same birthday with my dad is a godsend and I'm thankful that I now have a better way to see and feel a positive today.

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Bleeding and an Ultrasound

Sounds scary right? It was.

Yesterday, after I had accomplished nothing on the house, I decided to take a nap cause I had used up so much energy. The kids sat on the couch with me and watched tv while I dosed for about half an hour, after I woke up my pregnant bladder needed to be empied, so I hightailed it to the potty room. While I was in there I noticed that I was bleeding, I freaked. After 3 babies with no complications I was at a loss as to what could be going on, I thought the worst, that I was loosing the baby (or already had) and was pretty darn sure there wasn't anything that could be done. I called my midwives anyways and talked to the newest one who is also an ultrasound technologist. She asked me some questions and said she would like it if I would come in. We got a time set up for that day and after finding a babysitter and calling my husband to let him know what was going on, I made my way to their office.

The worst part was the waiting! I was so scared that I was loosing my baby and here I was sitting the the waiting room, not fun! So after I'm called in, we start the ultrasound and baby is fine, wonderfully fine, did you know at 12 weeks, they have ears? So cute.

The reason for the bleeding is my placenta, the edge of it is covering the edge of my cervix so it's doing some 'edge bleeding' as she said. She assured me that the as long as I wasn't having menstrual like bleeding and not doing any heavy lifting, everything would be fine.

After I got out of the office I called my husband to let him know everything was fine, poor guy was so worried and stressed about it. He had already gotten back from work and had just finished fueling his truck when I called so I mentioned that he would be home before I was but he then told me that he was starving and so stressed that he was going into his mom's house to grab something to eat and then he would head home. Later that night I had a banana split, it was heaven. I came to the decision that we both have a comfort eating problem.

I'm lucky I have such wonderful midwives that would go out of their way to make sure mom and baby are fine and that they worry about my baby almost as much I do.

Nasua, Fatigue, Breast Tenderness and Moodiness. In Otherwords, Pregnancy.

So, I've reached my 12 week mark!! I'm starting to feel better, like the other day we were at my mom's, having a BBQ and Ryan was putting the hamburger patties on the grill, once it started cooking I got a whiff of the meat cooking and it smelled good! I told Ryan and he looked at me like I was crazy, lol. I'm so glad I'm not feeling sick every time we put meat on the stove. I still get a little sick during the day if I let my blood sugar get too low but all in all I am feeling better!

So now that I'm in my 2nd tri I'm thinking I'm having another boy, for these reasons:

Being pregnant with my girls I gained about 60lbs with each one, I lost about 30lbs after having each but obviously still have quite a bit to loose. Being pregnant with Daniel I actaully lost 10lbs in the first 12 weeks and then only gained 25-30lbs which I lost in the first 3 weeks after having him. So far with this baby I haven't gained anything, I'm more careful about eating before I get too hungry and keeping my blood sugar up.

With my girls, I had NO sex drive, I didn't want anything to do with it. It was about the opposite with Daniel and this one (to Ryan's pleasure) is about the same.

Those are pretty much (so far at least) the only two deciding factors at this point in time. I have about 8 weeks until we know for sure, but with how things are turning out so far, I'd be putting my money on a boy. I'm happy about that. Yay for babies!

First OB Appointment

First of all I want to say that I love my midwives. I believe that women should have doctors/midwives that are open to whatever the pregnant lady is comfortable with. These ladies are like that, and again, I love it!

So I had my first appointment today! I got an ultrasound and got to see the my baby, so much fun. The midwives just moved into a new building and got new equipment, the ultrasound machine is awesome! It's gives such good pictures, I was able to see it's little heart and to hear it as well. The baby measured a week earlier then what we thought though, so the official due date is Oct 24. And knowing my babies it won't be willing to come out until Nov 1.

So here are the pictures of my fetus. The tail looking thing is the umbilical cord.

Expectations

I know some of you know but for the others, we decided that it's time to start trying for another baby. Great news, I know! I love babies, but the months of November and December are so full of birthdays, holidays and anniversaries that we didn't want to add another to the list. So, we decided that we would try to get preggo in January and if that didn't work then we would wait until May to start trying again.

Now I don't want to give tmi, but I was really sure I wasn't pregnant, but the days ticked by and still no 'lady days'. I told a friend of mine that Aunt Flow still hadn't made a visit and she pretty much insisted that I was pregnant, so that night I asked Ryan to stop and get a test for me, he was brave and did.

I took the test while he was walking out to get the mail, mostly cause I didn't want him hanging around all nervous to see the results. No, he isn't that bad, I was just impatient to see if I was or if my cycle was off like crazy (I was seriously leaning towards my cycle being off, we've never gotten pregnant on the first try!). And honestly? (I know this IS tmi but here ya go) we haven't been using any sort of birth control for about a year.

After peeing on the stick it took about 5 seconds for it to tell me that I am indeed pregnant. I was phyced, I stood by the front door waiting for Ryan to come in so I could tell him. We kissed, we hugged I squealed like a school girl and then told him 'thanks for the baby'. I am so happy to be having another baby. It's going to be our last, I'm not sure how I feel about that (I am only 24). But hopefully by the end of this I'll know for certain.

You all are invited on this journey with me and even if you don't want to hear about it you probably will anyways. Sorry about that.

With every pregnancy I've had, in short I've gotten what I wanted.

With my first, I wanted a girl, probably becuase I am a girl and also becuase I didn't want her Bio dad being more attached, which he would have been if I had a boy. Also, I was about 8 months preggo with her when the movie Monsters Inc. came out. When Boo stepped onto the screen and I saw her I said to myself 'awe, I want a baby that looks like that!' and, she does. We call her Bugga Boo.

My second, I wanted another girl, Ryan and I had been married for 2 months when we got pregnant and we were still adjusting to Emma and I having him in our lives and the changes of roles. I again, was worried that if I had a boy Ryan would love and favor him far more then he would Emma, so I asked for a girl, with blue eyes (cause I love Ryan's eyes). And again, got what I wanted!

My third, of course I wanted a boy, when asking the man upstairs I wasn't specific about looks, I just wanted a boy and after trying to nurse Kaylyn (who had the smallest mouth) I asked that the baby have a big mouth so I could nurse without so much pain. He does have a big mouth, but to make him look normal I think Father decided to make the rest of him big too. He'll be 2 in May and he's fitting into 3T clothes perfectly.

And my fourth, this is my predicament, I don't know what I want. I'm so smitten with Daniel that part of me is ok if I have another girl, but then the other side is saying I should want a boy so daniel has someone else to play rough with... I'm kinda at a loss. Although, this time, I think I'm going to let it be up to the Almighty (not that it wasn't before, but I won't put in any requests). Just let him take care of it and go from there.

I'm so lucky to have my family, we're so blessed! And, I LOVE BABIES!!!

Oh, P.S. I'm only 5 and a half weeks along!

New Addition to the Family

At the beginning of the year we enrolled Emma into Piano, she was in Karate but I think the girl hormone kicked in a bit and she really started wanting to learn how to play the piano or how to sing. We went with piano lessons. She's been loving them! She seems to be a bit of a natural too. Then again, she's only been to a handful of lessons.
When we enrolled her we decided she needed something that resembled a piano so she could practice. We found a little keyboard on amazon for $11, yeah I should have know... It' sounds like we maybe got a $5 value out of it. We were totally disappointed. Emma, not really knowing any better was totally stoked about it and she practiced like crazy, resulting in our ears bleeding.

The other night as I was surfing Cragslist I decided to look under pianos, just to see what we could find, Ryan asked me what I was looking for and when I told him I was looking for pianos, hoping to find a good one for under $1000, it must have struck a cord with him because then he started looking and decided that he really really wanted one. We figured an upright would fit well in our family room and that we would have some very strict rules on when it could be played and when it would be off limits.
So as we're looking on Craigslist we find an upright piano that was in good condition for $600. Needless to say it was a steal of a deal. We contacted the owners and went to look at it the next day. When we showed up to look at it we noticed right off that it was a pretty small piano. Which suited us fine. I fell in love with it, and I think it's perfect. We bought it and brought it home last night.
The kids love having something new to play with, they're really good with it and know not to be too hard.
Our house feels more like a home with a piano and I'm grateful we have the opportunity to learn and enjoy music in our house.

Everybody Clean Up

I'm always trying to find new ways to get my kids to help clean the house. My favorite so far (and theirs too) is, for every chore they complete they get a big hug and kiss from mom. They eat it up! But, hugs and kisses only go so far.

My newest tactic; time! Kids LOVE beating the clock, so I play on that. While I fold laundry, or do dishes, or even clean up with them I count either up to five or from five down to one. In that time they need to have picked something up. After they have an item in hand they have ten seconds to put it away. It works like a charm, and they love it!

This is how good they did today. I love my kids! I also love how at the end Emma gets all model-ish on me and stoically gazes into the camera.

New Technology

Lately we've run into phone trouble. First, our home phone started dieing without notice, and when a cordless phone dies without notice I can't find it when I push the page button. So we had to start relying on my prepaid cell phone. Which we got for emergencies. But honestly, it adds up fast when the only think you use is a prepaid cell that runs out of minutes way too fast. So then we get another cordless it worked beautifully for the first 2 days, then one of the kids either dunked it in water or pored water all over it. Needless to say, that one is out of commission.

We started thinking and we have found that for the same price as our home phone, internet and one cell we can get unlimited messeging, unlimited data, e-mail and 550 minutes with 2 cell phones. We don't talk on the phone much anyways, most of the time I prefer to text. So we will be dissconecting our home phone, our internet and storing my piece of junk prepaid phone and will be using a cell phone for all of that. Maybe the cell phone will go to Emma once she's old enough for it. Then again, we could add another line use parent controls, and now-a-days they have 'family locate' where they can track the phone by GPS and even give you turn my turn directions. That sounds good to me. We'll have to see where that goes though.

So all in all, I honestly hope that going with cell phones works out. I hope we're satisfied with the service and that we don't regret signing a two year contract.

Best Present this Christmas

This year was full of so many gifts and so much love that it was seriously awesome. I love the Christmas season and the love and generosity that comes with it. My favorite gift (not that all the gifts weren't wonderful) was the one my sister Kristie made for all of her brothers and sisters.

A little history, my dad was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in March of 2003 and in September of the same year he passed away. It's been one of the hardest things to live with. I hate that my kids don't know him, I hate that I didn't have him ther to give me away at my wedding, or to give me advice on things now. I miss him horribly, as I'm sure the rest of my family does. Thats probably why Kristie made these gifts.

Thank you Kristie! I love it!

The writting is my dad's he sent Kristie a letter while she was living up here and us in AZ back in '02, so she used it in each of the photos. She was also able to find a picture of each of us with our dad, except Rachel (but I'm looking in my archive of pictures to see if I can find one).

Gifts like these are the best!

FUNDAMENTAL TO RASING YOUR BABY!!!!!

A friend of mine on Facebook posted this yesterday and I love it! My mom never let her kids cry it out, and she never got too tired of us. She loves spending time with them and hearing them talk. We could always go to my mom for anything. She believed it was best for kids to have their cries answered and she did amazingly well (even with five kids!)

Mom, this is for you and for following that 'mother's intuition', cause it turns out it was right!!

WATCH THIS VIDEO!!!!!

Happy Feeling Day

I woke up today and felt happy. I love that. And I think it's because I made a super awesome Jell-o mold the night before. I got the idea from my friend Kimber, she inspired me. Plus it looked so stinkin fun and I had to make it! The girls had such a fun time helping! I love rainbows, I've always thought they were gorgeous. I kinda don't like that gay people use it for a gay symbol, not that I don't like gays, I just don't like people thinking I'm gay cause I like rainbows.

ANYWAYS, here is my jello!

It's beautiful!

And, the best part, I get to take it to family dinner tomorrow! And I know everyone will be giving me rave reviews about it, if they don't then I'll give myself enough rave reviews to make up for it.

Also, as I was laying in bed at 6:00am after getting Ryan's lunch and sending him out the door for work I told myself it was going to be a good day. I made the choice to have a good day and it's been an amazing day! There's still the kids fighting and the house that's a mess but I'm more able to handle it today, I'm not freaking out and yelling and I'm making the girls talk through their disagreements. Yay for good parenting!

Another reason I'm happy, it's so pretty outside today! It snowed like crazy and it's the awesome snow that sticks to the branches on the trees and makes everything look white and gray, I like white and grays. I passed a house on the Annis Highway on my way to my moms today and it had one of those trees that has the little red berries that taste horrible, but, with the snow and the red it was so pretty! I wished I had my camera, today is such a good day for pictures!

On a sad note, something that was really hard, about a week and a half ago we were adopted by a cat. He just came up to our back door put his front paws up on the glass and meowed. I love animals and can't turn one down so I put some tuna fish out for it and he stayed by our door all night (which I hated, it was cold and I didn't want him outside freezing) and in the morning he left. When night came again he was back! So I fed him some more, made sure he had a towel to curl up on and let him in for a little while, we then found out that Kaylyn as well as Ryan is allergic to cats. Fun. So this pattern continued and I had even posted an add on craigslist, trying to find him an indoor home (he was de-clawed).
Then one day as I was getting lunch ready Emma came running to me saying she saw the cat being chased my a black dog. I stuck my head out but didn't see him or the dog and decided I would wait it out. That night he showed up but he was limping. So, sure enough, the dog got him, his back leg at least. About three days passed and he wasn't making any improvement, and we didn't have the money to take him to the vet so we made the decision to take him to animal control in IF. As we're there the lady tells me that if he's injured bad enough the best thing to do would be just to euthanize him. I cried when we left and for about the rest of the evening.
The next day I called the animal shelter and asked what happen to him, the lady told me that the vet had examined him, and his leg was broken and also very badly infected. So it was either amputate the leg or euthanize him. So they euthanized him, I cried like crazy. He was such a sweet cat, he was even good with the kids, he didn't mind them crowding or snuggling him. I was so very sad. I had really hoped they would be able to fix him, and adopt him out to a good home. I know they did what was best though, I don't think for a minute they put him down cause it was the easiest thing, it was the best option they had. They're in the business of saving animals and they do an amazing job at it.

To the cat who adopted me.

Today is still a super happy day, I'm generally a happy person, fast to smile and all that jazz but days like these are super happy, like my hormones glued a smile on my face. It's great! So, go have a happy day!! Decide to have a happy day, it makes a difference. And do the best by your kids, everything you do should be for their benefit. I know that in no way ties to this post but it's true.