July... Gone With The Wind!

July was just nuts you guys.  Nuts.

Kate's first bath.  She liked it :)

Kate's billiruben levels were just under border line, but the docs decided since it was a holiday weekend (July 4th), they would order the billi lights cuz they didn't want the risk of us being in the ER.  So we tried those dumb lights.  I say dumb because all they did was stress us all out!  They wanted her to be under the lights at all times except when feeding, etc.  Kate hated the lights cuz she kept hitting the silly little fabric sheilding her eyes, pulling it down.  I tried all different sorts of ways to get her under them.  She only slept in it once after falling asleep in my arms.  All other times she just woke up because she hit the side or something, which meant she didn't get her naps very well.  And neither did I.  That equals stress folks!  

So upon talking to the nurse who came everyday to check her levels, we decided to stop the lights (she only was under them for a total of 5 hours in three days) and see how she tested.  Well, she tested better and better and the nurse discharged her and took the dreaded lights away!  It left me feeling a bit upset.  Frankly, they stressed me out for no reason and she would've been fine without it.  They just didn't want to be called into work on a holiday weekend.  Sorry folks, but that won't happen to me again! ( The nurse said that back when she had her babies, no one worried unless the baby really turned yellow and she felt that docs overdue the lights these days, instead of letting the natural process of feeding and peeing take down the levels over the course of the babies first week and a half, which is really what ended up working great for Kate.  Blessing and curse of technology?  How many poor moms are getting stressed out like me over really nothing?  And someone needs to redesign those billi light tables!  Yikes!)

Here's Kate at 5 days old:

Saturday, July 25th...AKA Moving DAY!

It was so incredibly sad to move from Laramie.  We loved our time their so much.  Such amazing people live there whom I miss all the time.  Sigh.

Moving with a cluster feeding newborn was just ridiculously hard because I couldn't do much.  We had such good friends come to our rescue.  Thank you!  Our amazing friends Courteney and Miles fed us the best breakfast ever and packed my entire kitchen pretty much.  And my amazing neighbor Terra provided boxes and watched our kids at all sorts of different times!  And my inlaws drove the moving truck from Littleton up to us since our Uhaul didn't have a truck to fill our reservation we made weeks in advance (why do we reserve then? #woesofasmalltown).  Michael's mom watched the girls and his dad helped arrange the truck as they loaded it.  Then on Saturday they took the girls down to Littleton in the morning so we could finish packing/loading.

Michael left with the truck around noon and I stayed a little while longer to feed the baby.  We didn't get everthing into the truck and Michael was returning on Sunday for a week of revisions on his dissertation before we handed in the key.  It was nice to not have to worry about cleaning.  I'll never forget leaving tho.  I took one last look around and cried because this had been our home for so long and the backdrop to our lives and I loved it!  It had been a great place to live and we had the best neighbors that I know I will probably never have again!  They were a huge blessing!  They always had that cup of sugar or egg.

Here's a pic of Michael after he got home from unloading the truck at our storage unit.  Michael was on go-go-go mode all summer.  It never stopped!  He amazes me.

Michael's Crazy Schedule went like this:  July 1st-baby born, July 4th-finished paper, prepare dissertation defense presentation,July 21st- give presentation (so impressive; try saying d-geodetic a hundred times), pack, July 24-25th-move, July 26-31st-make paper revisions, clean, move, Aug. 3-4th-present on math at STEM conference in Sheridan, WY, Aug. 6-7th-set up class in two days, Aug 10th-school starts and teach, plan, and grade forever!

It was crazy and we missed Dad so much!  Too many life changing events in one month for all of us.  Now we are much more settled and living in Michael's parent's basement in Littleton, CO, and saving up to buy a house.  We'll see how that goes.  The market here shocks us.  Three years ago we would've been able to get what we need and in a good neighborhood, but now prices have gone up so much and it is hard to find something good and big enough for our price range.  I'm sort of praying that the market takes a dive back to reality and affordability soon.  One can hope, right?

And here's Kate at two months:

Cute Abby with her baby.

Nice double chin. :)

Amazing eyelashes.

Long Bod

Her concerned look.

My assistant.

Cute faces.  I'm in love.

Like I said, my assistant Abby.  No assistant beats her!

Random.  Yum.  Inspiring.

Leaving now to go bake some muffins :)

Kate Elizabeth Huntington

Man oh man.  I'm back.

Kate's birth story started on Tuesday, June 30th, 2015.  I was (supposedly) one week overdue, but really it felt right on time.  I was sooo ready to have Kate and after a couple days of consistent contractions anywhere from between 7 minutes to 15 minutes, I woke up on Tuesday and had NO contrations.  All.  Day.

We wrapped up the day by getting the girls down for bed.  Here's the cute picture of Michael holding the girls like "babies" after their bath.

Then I called my friend Ashley at 8:30 to see if she would go on a walk with me (Michael was disserting), and she said "of course".  So we met at Washington park and had such a good time walking laps and talking about our birth experiences.  It was just what I needed spiritually and physically.  After an hour I went home and hopped in bed.  Still no contractions.  Sigh.

We had two awesome hours of sleep when BAM I woke up in PAIN.  It was midnight.  And then came the urge to use the bathroom where my body proceeded to empty everything that was ever inside me (this has happened in all my labors) and that is how I knew I was in labor!  And when pulling my pants back up I noticed they were a little wet.  Wahoo my water broke!  That has never happened to me before, how fun!  No wonder these contractions are so intense.  My contractions were only about 3 minutes apart so I walked into our room, turned on the light and told Michael that it was time to go to the hospital.  Things were very intense and close together and my OB nurse friend told me how third babies come so fast...

We pulled up to the hospital, walked in between a contraction, and signed our names on all sorts of documents, which I will confess, drives me absolutely nuts during labor.  I just don't have the patience for it.  They wheeled me up as fast as they could cuz they could tell things were HAPPENING.  Ha, I always feel so bad for the nurses/CNA's who have the job of escorting us up.  People deliver in elevators...

But don't worry, that wasn't me.  We made it and my nurse was thrilled!  She said they weren't having much action (small town, right? love that), so she was all ready and happy to go!  She was a talker!  Wow.  That nurse could talk, and she had a story about everything.  It was funny/ on the verge of annoying at times.  But really she was great.  

Moving on, I changed into the gown and she checked me.  With how the contractions felt, I thought surely I would be at an 8 (which is about how it felt when I was at an 8 with Abby), but lo, not so.  A 6.  What?  Oh man this is going to take awhile.  But I decided enough chat, I'm going to focus on my breathing and try some visualization stuff and totally go "into" my body.  This is when the nurse became annoying.  Things were going really good and then she proceeded to try and put an IV in.  She asked me to clench my fist during a contraction at which I responded by not responding.  When the contraction was over I told her that contractions were off limits for doing "stuff", especially since I was trying so hard to to relax and not clench up.  Well, she failed twice and said she'd get someone else to do it.  Best thing ever.  It never happened.  

Things just started moving too fast.  I think I only had like 3 contractions when at the end of the last my body started pushing!  This has never happened to me.  It was so crazy awesome and got me super excited.  The nurse ran and called the doctor to make sure he was on his way, which he was, thank goodness.  She came back in and was busy as a bee getting stuff ready and telling us how everything would be fine, she had delivered 20 something babies in her career, which was really great to hear.  Oh, one of the things she said about a hundred times was, "TBF, third babies fly, TBF".  And in my case, yes, it was so true.  We were so glad we left home immediately.

I continued my awesome hypnobirthing breathing and visualization of the baby coming down.  It helped so much to keep my eyes closed and tune totally into my body.  I was able to block out everything and just focus.  I opened my eyes when Doctor Bragg came in tho.  It was good to see him.  The baby was crowning at this point and the nurse was getting all "hold your breath in and push" over and over again while Michael looked at her in amazement, because frankly I was doing FANTASTIC with what I was doing.  I chose not to push at all and just let my body do it.  Because of that, it took about 5 contractions for Kate to come out.  But when she did it was AWESOME.  And such a relief that it was done.  It really was so fast.  Wow.  And I barely tore, which was a goal, as much as it can be a goal, ha! 

Anywho, Kate didn't cry very much and they spent the first 30 seconds of her life rubbing her back and chest.  And then she cried, but still not much.  They put her on my chest and wow, it was love.  She had here eyes wide open and was just looking at me so peacefully.  It was so amazing.  I think I even teared up, hard to remember ALL the details now.  Michael cut the cord, good job dear, and we proceeded to look at all her cute features:  looong fingers, round face, big dark blue eyes, double chin, awesomely long eyelashes, long body, and dark hair just like Ellie had.  She was so cute, and so Kate.

Sigh.

Kate Elizabeth Huntington

Born Wednesday, July 1st, 2015

1:53AM

7lbs 4oz.

20.5 inches long

I immediately began nursing her and she nursed for 90 minutes.  I was so happy she did so well.  Then the nurse cleaned up Kate while I changed into comfy clothes.  Kate kept making this really cute trill noise while the nurse did her stuff.  It was sooo adorable sounding.  I love hearing the tone of my babies voices!  So fun!

Michael made up the sofa bed thing in the room and pretty soon we were all snoring.  Michael woke up and left at about 5:30 so he could work on his dissertation and also be there when the girls woke up so he could bring them over after their breakfast.

The girls were sooo cute and excited.  I think the pictures say everything, don't you?

Abby couldn't wait for her turn to hold Kate.

Abby loved all Kate's features too.

Ellie made sure Kate met her Dog.  Very important.

I adore this picture for lots of reasons.  I love how Ellie was touching Kate's foot.  They loved seeing her naked.  I also love how rat nested Ellie's hair is from sleeping.  Goodness.  Also, I saved my wrap from my arms getting stabbed cuz that stuff is just so cool how it sticks to itself.  She thought it was the best!

Grandma Kathy was able to come that afternoon and meet Kate.

And this is Kate Eliason.  One of my favorite people, so I naturally named my daughter after her.  Plus I liked the name a lot.  Win, win.  She was one of my beehives for two years.  Oh how I miss my old ward and the Young Women I got to know so well over three years.  Tear.

It was really nice having company because Michael didn't come back till 7:30 that night.  He was so hard at work finishing up his paper, which he finished that Saturday.  My hospital stay just about drove me nuts, I couldn't wait to get home!  There seemed to be someone coming in every half hour for something and I didn't have a Michael there very often to tell them to go away and come back later.  Let's just say, sleep was disturbed.

Grandma Kathy was able to stay two days and help out, till she had to leave with Grandpa to go to Utah for a grandson's baby blessing.  Luckily, we had great friends who helped watch the girls some mornings that first week, since Michael was sooo gone working on his paper and then defense presentation.  We had so many cookies on our plate.  It's funny, because you think, "oh, I just had this baby and now we get to be altogether as a family and enjoy eachother", and really that never happened this time around.  Michael just had so much to do.  TALK about stress.  Of course the stress of it all didn't hit me till after we had moved to Colorado three weeks later.  I will NEVER move shortly after giving birth again.  It was horrible in hindsight, and not much fun during it, but I was trying to hold it altogether for everyone and stay positive, etc, etc.  On the upside my body had a pretty speedy recovery compared to my last two births, so I really did feel good.  I also had 20 freezer meals which made those three weeks awesome!  I barely had to cook.  And baby Kate is such an easy baby.  We are so blessed to have her in our lives.  I have three girls!  Eek!  How fun is that!

Did I mention how cute Kate is?

Ellie just came up to Kate, squished her cheeks, and said "We are the chubby cheek grils and (turned to me) you are the squashed cheek mama".  Fair enough. So funny.

Water photo bomb!

I'm sitting outside at a Waterpark next to a sleeping baby with not much to do. Everyone has headed to the lazy river aka out of sight. So why not learn to blog from the comfort of my phone on a chaise lounge chair?

Here's some pics of our life lately.  Blogging has not been too high on the priorities list.  Sleep is still trumping the afternoons if I don't have a chore to do or person to feed :)

Kate is getting soooo big and the girls are having a lot of fun lately jumping on the trampoline.  This weekend summer ends and I'm bummed as I'm just starting to feel more normal and wanting to do more stuff. Oh well. Here's to a nice long fall!  Love having seasons :)

Phone Photo Dump

So here is a collection of pictures from my phone that I've been hoarding.  I find it's really convenient compared to lugging my big Canon around.  It just doesn't have the quality of my nice camera, but at least we have a picture in the moment.  Enjoy the photo dump!

I had gas rewards in January, compounded with the low price of gas it made the cost less than the volume for once!

Janet and Kendall after we put the new furniture in their office.  Pongo the dog loves me.

Ellie and cousin Tyler playing with boats in the creek.  I love that my kids will get to grow up in such a cool place.

Abby hung out with Grandma.  Her pants got wet. Good thing it was warm outside.  Such cute legs!

Ellie with her little lego Duplo boat and person running back up the stream to set it off again.

Selfie with our new car.  My Mom-Mobile.  We are really pleased with it so far.  We even took the girls on a mountain drive one Sunday on rugged dirt roads.  Gee I love that capability!

I love Ellie's face in this picture.  She was "resting" with me on my bed.

Abby and neighbor Hyrum next to the biggest dog ever!  I don't remember the dogs name(Jack?), but he was a trained therapy dog that one of the librarians owned and brought in for storytime.  He was so gentle!

He just sat there while throngs of kids stroked his long fur, it was amazing and Abby was soooooo enthralled because she loves dogs.

Ellie likes "reading" books on the library's kid computers.

Abby really just loves to touch everything she can.  She will take on and off the headphones a bajillion times over.

Oatmeal yogurt hand treatment...makes your skin so smooth :)

Ellie and Aiva like to climb onto the bikes and pretend they are riding.  So funny.  Good times.

We went to the splash pad.  Abby didn't like it so much as you will see.  Ellie (in the background with the coral swimsuit) had a good time :)

Chubby cheeks.

Abby giving our neighbor a funny look.

I love Ellie's swimsuit!  I found it second hand.  I think its Gymboree.  She loves it too!

Ellie relaxing on her camping chair and eating her popsicle.  Good thing she wears shorts under her dresses!  So funny!

This is a picture of the first time that Abby figured out how to spray the bottle.  Unfortunately, she can only do it when it is facing her. But as you'll see, she thinks its pretty great and soaks herself really well.

"Check out what I can do Mom!"

These girls were being oh so funny with their squirt bottles.  Lots of giggles.