Go Hop On Pop

The first picture you see on the slide show below is of my arm. The significance of this is probably a little confusing so I’ll attempt to explain.
After arriving at the hospital, they attempted to start an I.V.. 4 hours later and 24 tries by 6 different people we were still without an I.V.. I should have taken this as an omen for how the remainder of this birth was going to go, gotten up and left, or at least taken an epidural. Eventually two very competitive people who forgot that I was alive started fighting for who could get it in first and we lost all track of how many sticks they each attempted. For the record a nurse beat out a very sure of himself anesthesiologist. She even slid back on her roll away chair put her hands in the air and did a victory dance. The anesthesiologist shook her hand and I laid there wondering what the heck had just happened.
The induction started and 24 hours later with a prolapsed cord (cord came out before the baby, and cut off her life line), my little Hallie was pulled from me with a vacuum. Her eyes are blackened her head is bruised, all the vessels in the whites of her eyes are broken, and well I’m a little traumatized wishing I’d taken that epidural, but it was all worth it. I may fill in the middle in a couple of days, but for now I’m off to cuddle with my little one.

We had a fabulous storm last night. I love the sound of thunder and watching the lightening and rain just make it that much more fun. I had to bring the kids in from outside because the lightening was hitting so close the entire house was shaking. After the storm we were left without any power, but a beautiful double rainbow. The kids set up camp in the living room with lanterns, and read stories, and finally fell asleep. Sometime around 1:00 am the power came back on. As a child I loved power outages, as an adult I found it a little unsettling, but still fun to watch my kids enjoy the storm that we so rarely get around here.

I guess I just want my next blog to be about the new baby, but since I’m still pregnant… I didn’t really expect to have a baby yet, I’m not sure why I torture myself every time, but I do. I always say I’m not going to expect a baby early this time, it never comes early, this time I’m going to have realistic expectations, ahhh who am I kidding, I’m still hoping for an early baby, not a 10 day past whatever date science says is when this kid is due, I think the doctor forgot to inform the baby. Oh well… maybe it’s a good thing since we still don’t have a name.
The world continues to turn though and the kids have been busy as ever with the end of school. There are field trips, soccer games, and just life in general, I prefer busy!

Last fall, the co-op preschool group I’m involved in was at my home, and the kids were having a blast opening up sunflower seeds. Danny had harvested a large bag of seeds from our flowers. So the kids go home and we get one of our famous wind storms that we are known for and Danny’s bag of seeds were blown off the table where the kids were playing with them and they scattered all over the yard. Fast forward to spring. We have giant sunflowers growing EVERYWHERE, and mostly in places we don’t want them.

Our strawberries are having a good year, and my strange hybrid lilacs bloomed this year for the first time, they are dark purple with a white border, I love them.

Well the car seat is installed. I read a blog about a lady who did her visiting teaching and went into labor within 24 hours of completing it, so I have done that, expect for one, but I can’t meet with her until Friday, so maybe Saturday… All laundry is done, the little girls room is clean, and organized, and I’d say I’m ready to go. So tomorrow I’m going to start a sewing project, small one, just to keep my mind busy. I really should be concentrating on a name though… Hopefully the next post will be about our newest member of our family.

Can’t bring the camera out without the kids shouting, “take a picture of this mom”. Everyone wanted to be the center of attention tonight. Even Danny, he wanted me to take a picture of his green lawn.

We often take a local road home from town instead of the highway. We love this road because you never know what you might see. Tonight a beautiful white crane flew in front of us and landed close to the river. I only had my cell phone camera with me, so you can just barely see it and the quality isn’t good enough to zoom on it, but look closely it’s there. Most nights we see deer, and there are always giant turkey vultures, but this is our first time to see a crane.

I must be in some sort of funk, I can’t seem to find the motivation to blog, and I love to blog. The hopes of eventually printing and putting my blog in a book as a journal for my children keeps me motivated, so I’m going to go ahead and blame my lack of entries lately on my pregnancy.
As for the pregnancy, all is well, and I am down to just a few weeks before it all ends. I’m nervous, excited, and can’t wait to see the newest little one. We still don’t have a name.

The week after Easter the kids had Spring Break. I talked with the doctor hoping to go to San Francisco or somewhere with the kids, because the brown of this place we live is really starting to get to me, but he grounded me and said he’d prefer I didn’t go anywhere. So wanting the kids to have a good break, they deserve it, they work so hard at school, we came up with a game plan.
Danny took the week off of work, and we planned something local for each day of the week. The kids have been wanting to go camping, so Danny put the tent up in the back yard on Monday night. It was pretty cold, but because we didn’t have to go far, we piled tons of blankets on them and Danny being the good Dad that he is spent Monday night in the tent with them.

Tuesday ahhh! this is why it is important to write this down when you are in the middle of it. Anyway, one day we went to the local children museum, it’s nothing spectacular, but close and fun for all of their different ages. Emma and Tanner loved the virtual maze that they had projected on the floor, Aubrey and Alyssa loved the cannon of air that shot balloons into the air.
We spent a day at Scheels, which is a sporting goods store in Reno, it has a carousel, shooting range, soccer simulator game, and other activities for very cheap. One of the days we got our peas planted and picked weeds, cleaned up the strawberry patch and prepared for our summer garden. The kids also went and saw Monsters vs. Aliens. I took Alyssa shopping with me while they went to the movie. I have no tolerance for any sort of kid movie lately, I’m almost as sick of kids movies as I am of the brown, I guess it’s been a long winter. So no trip to Disneyland, but I think everyone had a good time.

Tanner had his first pinewood derby this past Wednesday night. He’s been so excited about it, but I’m not sure he was as excited as Danny. Tanner designed it and helped Danny cut it out. They painted it and shined it, and spent a few evenings down at the local UPS store to weigh it so they could get it just right. Tanner’s only demand was that a star wars dude, I wont attempt to tell you what dude it is because I wouldn’t know, but this dude had to drive his car. Tanner took 3rd place!

Oh how could I forget, Alyssa got her first haircut. Alyssa is so easily traumatized, and she was very scared. I was so proud of her though, she sat through it and it turned out so cute. Her hair was getting so long, but very thin and stringy and now it’s so much fuller and cuter, and it can grow out even.

I had to throw in this picture of Aubrey because she is just the cutest soccer player I’ve seen. This is her sport, she scores almost every game and turns into a little aggressive monster out there, but a cute monster.

Last year we were in Yakima and colored eggs with cousins. The kids were really disappointed that we couldn’t make it there this year… sigh, sometimes making the unpopular decision just isn’t any fun.
We went to Virginia City this morning for a community egg hunt. Fun, but a little chilly, the views from the top of the mountain though were amazing.
This evening we colored eggs. Alyssa was a terror, pulling eggs out and splashing a new egg in as fast as she could, she had fun though. I think she colored a full dozen in the amount of time it took the other kids to do just a couple of eggs. We finally pulled her away from egg coloring and into a bath and off to bed. She didn’t get much of a nap today and really needed to go to sleep. She didn’t even argue.

Soccer Season began last Saturday. Aubrey, Tanner and Emma are all playing on different teams this year and on different fields so we are running around like crazy people.
Emma’s game was at 7:30 this morning, and it was a whopping 27 degrees out there. I don’t have a coat that is fitting at the moment so I froze my, well it was cold! The kids would kick the ball and scream in pain from their cold toes. They warmed up eventually but I didn’t, I was ready for that game to end.

Aubrey played at 9:00am. Danny took her to the game, and she rocked! That kid has no fear, and scored three goals. It was actually two, one bounced out, but try convincing her that it didn’t count. I was happy to catch the last few minutes of her game. Watching 4 year olds play is my favorite.

Tanner’s game was at the same time as Aubrey’s just on the field next to Aubrey’s. So we went over to watch his game next. Tanner often plays goalie, and I must admit it gives me a lot of anxiety, especially if the game is tied and it’s the last quarter which is what happened today. He managed to keep every ball out of the net, I almost couldn’t watch every time the ball went that way, but he was great!

I have been slacking on my blog lately. There have been many things to blog about, I’ve just been lacking the motivation to blog.
We’ve had a lot of ultrasounds lately. It’s been weird because we’ve had only one this pregnancy, but in the last few weeks we’ve had 3 really long ultrasounds. The baby has been sideways with its head under my ribs on the left and its butt under my ribs on the right. Its little legs have been tightly closed and it has refused to reveal its gender. Not that at this point it really matters, I’ve been OK not knowing what this baby is, I just wanted it to turn head down.
I went in for another ultrasound today, and the baby has turned. I could have told them that, I felt it turn last week at 3 in the am, there was no mistaking it, but now that it has turned, we were able to learn the gender.

It’s a girl!

We couldn’t be happier! Another girl, three teenage girls at the same time, more tights, hair things and mary jane shoes. But also more sweet kisses and loves, and all the joy little girls bring.

For those of you worried about Tanner, he seems to be taking the news well. The blow was softened a little by going to a friends house this afternoon. He did ask if we could build him a room over the garage. We’ll start a fund for that 🙂

Anyway, all is well in the our home, and we’re looking forward to the arrival of our little girl. Now for a name. We had a name picked out for a boy, Gavin Justus, but that isn’t going to work for a little girl, so back to the name books and lists. We are open to suggestions.

Well there you have it! 7 weeks and counting.