Mega Spring Update-May

May
Cole took Cade to the church parking lot and taught him how to ride his bike without training wheels. He learned in about half an hour. He LOVES it. (At the same time he was watching Rylee and fixing and feeding James a bottle in the car. Father of the year award!!)

Micarie and James came up from Utah to visit. We took them to Mesa Falls. It was beautiful. It was a very fun visit from them and the kids loved it.

This was taken on Cade's last day of Kindergarten. It was a very positive experience for him and me. 

Cole had the idea to make a slip and slide in the backyard,. He have a slight hill so we thought the kids would love it. Nope-they were really not into it. But Cole and I had fun!

Rylee turned 4th this month! She is full of imagination. She can be sweet when she wants too and quite feisty when she wants too. She picks out all her own clothes to wear each day. She went to preschool this semester and did really well.

Here is Rylee playing doctor with Daddy

Here we are trying to make the most of the beautiful weather. Cole is tossing me a bottle for James over the balcony. :)

We get so many visitors now that we are in Idaho! Cole's parents came up for Memorial Day weekend. We celebrated both Rylee's and Cole's birthday with them.

Shanna and her kids came to visit too! Lots of fun times and they got to meet Baby James.

Cole took Cade and Austin on a hike to R mountain.

Sweet Baby James

As expected, baby #3 comes and immediately I am behind!! He is about 7 weeks old now but I want to back up and tell his birth story.

It was Tuesday April 8th and, as usual, I was feeling done with being pregnant. Moving, walking, breathing were all hard. I still had two weeks till my due date. Cole was getting ready for work that day and said, "Just in case you are thinking about going into labor today, don't. Wait till tomorrow after I give my last final." After that he would have a week off between semesters before he would need to be back teaching. "Oh okay," I said knowing nothing of the sort was going to happen. The day was usual and that night I had a Relief Society activity. The activity ended and I was walking over to a group of sisters to chat before going home. On my way over there I felt an involuntary small trickle. I had never gone into labor on my own, so the thought of my water breaking on its own, possibly somewhere out in public, was terrifying. So I immediately became paranoid that this is what was happening. I quickly reassured myself that this was likely not the case, because previous doctors have commented on how unusually tough my water sacs have been. But I was still a bit paranoid and therefore forwent my conversation with these ladies, walked right past them and headed straight home. When I got home, I checked things out and still wasn't convinced until it happened again. Now I was starting to freak out a little. My friend Beth was my night time person to call in case anything happened during the night. By now it is about 10 pm. I called her to put her on stand by. She said she was just walking home from the activity and about to pass my house and could stop by if I wanted. She came in, I called and talked to a nurse and we decided it was time to go to the hospital. Now I am really freaking out thinking that I might be in labor! We got to the hospital and sure enough my water had broken and we were going to have a baby! It was about midnight when we got settled in my room, phone calls made and the epidural pumping away.

 My last babies came progressively faster so I totally expecting a fast delivery. But I made very slow progress. It was an awful night. So uncomfortable, can't sleep, anxious about the upcoming delivery, no idea what to name the baby, etc. Finally about 7am things started happening. I was all the way dilated and they called to wake up the doctor. A few hard pushes later and he was here! He was born still in his water sac. Part of it had not broken all the way. Cole saw James flail his arm inside the sac which broke it. Then he started crying. A beautiful sound! He was born at 7:09am and was 7lb 10 ounces, 20 inches long. And he had a small amount of hair. I was hoping for a red head and it kind of looked red but I didn't know if that was what I was seeing or just what I wanted to see. (Since then he's grown some hair and it is definitely red!! Woo hoo! Got my red head.)

Cole went and picked up the kids at Beth's house and brought them to see James. Such a special moment when the older siblings meet the newest one.

Then Cole took Cade to school and took Rylee to campus to give his last final. Cole's parents were on their way up from Utah to stay with the kids and help out for the week. Bringing James home was so fun and a little surreal.

He has some very loving siblings who love him very much!

Since then there have been lots of ups and downs. James has been a great baby. He even sleeps a little at night! Nursing has been the biggest frustration. I thought since I had done it successfully before that it would not be a problem. Wrong. I had cracks, bleeding, mastitis, thrush, and a baby with a small mouth. I went back and forth from pumping to nursing, whichever hurt the least at the time. For a while I would cry at every feeding because the pain was so bad. After 5 weeks of dealing with everything, things finally started to heal and look promising. Now at about 7 weeks I am able to nurse without a problem. Luckily through all of this James has been very flexible. He likes to nurse, he takes a bottle well, and he likes his binky.

First bath at home in our beloved pink bathroom

When he was a couple weeks old my mom came out for a week to help. Super helpful! She took this cute picture of him.

Now we are getting back into the swing of things. Going places with the kids, grocery shopping with all 3, making dinner, and being a family of 5. Sometimes it is a piece of cake and sometimes I am stressed out of my mind! But we love our baby James and are so glad he joined our family.

Surprise Weekend

My friend Beth asked if she could throw me a baby shower. It was super hero themed and was so cute!! She really did a great job. I had told Shanna about it just because we talk frequently and she usually knows what is going on. What I didn't know was that Shan later contacted Cole to see if her, Ciera and Kayla (they are all in Utah right now) could come up to surprise me and then stay the weekend. He told them of course. He played it so well. He told me his sister and her husband wanted to come visit for the weekend because he knew I would want to get some things done if company was going to be there. Then right before the shower he told me his sister was sick and not coming. So off I went to the shower. Some people started coming and then all of sudden they were at the door screaming surprise!! I was kind of in shock.
Here is the video:

I wish I had a picture from my end. All three of them standing in the doorway, huge smiles, and all excited and hoping I was surprised. It was so fun!! And I was totally surprised. It was just what I needed. I have been feeling blah about being in a new place, not having many friends, feeling not myself because of the pregnancy so this was a much needed boost!! Then they stayed till Sunday afternoon. We watched conference and hung out. The kids loved it too.

Rylee kind of attached herself to Ciera.

Rylee was in tears when they were leaving. She loved being surrounded by lots of other girls! Thanks sisters for the fun weekend!!! :)

** Baby update-Today was my 37 week appointment (although I will be 38 weeks soon) and I am at a 3 and 75% effaced. Head is down and lots of kicking. Things are moving right along!

Idaho Lately

Things have been pretty slow here lately. Literally, I move very slowly these days. I am down to less than a month before this baby comes. It has really been quite the physical trial. I have had to seriously lower my expectations. And it ultimately effects the whole family: house not quite as clean, eating meals a bit late, mom being kinda grouchy, not very creative with the kids, and if it requires mom doing much moving or getting up it is probably not going to happen. But baby seems to be doing well so that is good. We are all very much anticipating the arrival of this new baby (and for mom to get back to normal!).

The mornings and evenings are the roughest for me. The kids have gotten used to entertaining themselves a lot since I am usually not in a position to do so. It makes me sad but I am glad they are a bit older and can do that. And we are all still getting used to getting to know Idaho and the fun things to do: it is a little sparse at the moment. I found the kids bird watching the other morning (in pajamas and snow boots). Literally, Cade had paper and pen and they were counting how many different birds flew by. Honestly, I think there were only a couple that kept flying by again and again but they were pretty impressed at how many they counted!

But we have had a couple, fun, noteworthy things happen. The first was Cade's Kindergarten Circus. His class put on a circus for the families to come and watch. Our first school performance! Cole was even able to come (it was during the day). Cade was a lion. It was really cute and Cade was pretty excited about it. The lions got to do somersaults through the hoop.

Then a couple weekends ago there was a faculty day at the BYU-I ropes course. Obviously I am in no position to do anything fun and crazy and Cole was a good sport and just wanted it to be a family day. So we stuck around the kid stuff. But it was really nice to get out of the house and have something different to do. There was a huge sledding hill Cole took the kids on. Cade would fly down that thing holding on for dear life. And enjoyed every minute of it. Rylee had enough and I took her to get her face painted.

There were some crafts and snacks as well. Here are the kids just being goofy.

 Fun day and nice to explore a little more of the area. I am excited to be able to explore more as the weather warms up and I get more physical abilities!