Meet Ella!

This morning at 9:05 Ella joined our family. As most of you know we let her be a surprise and we were so excited to have another beautiful baby girl join our family. She was 7 lbs. 11 oz. and 20 3/4 inches long. She is such a sweet baby and we love her so much already.

The rest of the story

The other day my friend Lexi had a post on her blog that I thought was kind of interesting. She talked about how we sometimes edit our accounts of our lives when we are talking to others or blogging. It was something that I really haven't given much thought. I am one of those people that when asked how I'm doing, I almost always say good even if I'm not. I think I do this because a) sometimes its easier, less time consuming, b) I don't want to burden others with my problems, c) I'm prideful, and d) I don't want people to view me as a "Debbie Downer."




After reading Lexi's post I thought that it might be interesting to have a post that was the good, the bad, and the ugly. So, I'm gonna revisit the hospital post, but this time you get the rest of the story :)

At 4:00 a.m., after a night of up every hour or two with a baby that was coughing and wheezing, Kailey finally with sad eyes said, "I can't do it anymore." I was already having a hard time looking calm and supportive to help her calm down, and this almost did me in. At that point Joel and I agreed that it was time to bring her in to the e.r. Scratch that, Joel decided it was time, I'm a nervous wreck in situations like this and rely on Joel to make important decisions. Kailey and I got in the van and took off for the e.r. When we got there, we were eventually taken back to a room and the doctor explained that she would need breathing treatments and a steroid shot. The last time that we were there a month earlier, she had to have an i.v. for fluids and she did great. She didn't even fight when they put in the i.v. I thought "good, no i.v.; this should be easy, and we'll be out of her before lunch time." Boy was I wrong. When the respiratory therapist came in with the breathing treatment Kailey was terrified. After trying for a long time to reason with her and calm her down, the therapist had to call in another nurse to help hold her down. The therapist and the nurse held her and made her take the breathing treatment. Watching them hold her with terror in her eyes as she kicked and fought tore my heart apart. That was one of the hardest things I have ever had to watch, and over a breathing treatment, too. After all of this the doctor informed us that it didn't help enough and we would have to be admitted. So a while later Kailey and I went up to her room. I had only been communicating with Joel through text, so communication wasn't perfect, but I knew that he was coming as soon as he could get Eli ready, and that was good news. Shortly after we made it to the room, Joel and Eli arrived. When he walked in, Joel was on the phone with his sister Wendy. She was already in the parking lot waiting for someone to bring Eli down so that she could take him home with her for the day. This is where I started to fall apart. A culmination of no sleep, stress, viewing the torture of my child, pregnancy hormones, and not enough food took me down. Joel suggested that I walk Eli down to Wendy so that I could spend a little time with him. I didn't want to bring him to Wendy, because I just wanted to have him there with us, but I knew that it was for the best. I certainly didn't want to spend all day keeping Eli away from the nurse call button, grossness of the hospital room, bed controls, Kailey's play doh (messy but a comfort for her), and various other hospital equipment. So I picked him up and headed for the parking lot. As I got to the elevators I started thinking about him crying as I passed him off to Wendy, and that was all it took. I started crying and couldn't stop. I cried all of the way down to the first floor and barely made it too a bench. I sat down and Eli hugged me, and I cried for a while. Then I finally decided that I had to just call Wendy and let her know that I couldn't handle giving him up. So Eli and I went back upstairs to enjoy one another's company, and struggle through the day trying to stay out of the equipment and germs.



While I'm on a Debbie Downer kick, I do have gestational diabetes (had to go in on my birthday to learn how to use my glucometer and deprive myself of precious carbohydrates and fats), and we have chinese drywall wamp waaaa.

Hospitals, yuck

As many of you know, we are getting to know the Our Lady of the Lake Emergency Room very well. Last month we were there because Kailey became dehydrated from a stomach bug. The we started out this week with another emergency room visit. Friday afternoon, Kailey started showing some signs of croup (you know, the yucky seal bark cough). She ran a little fever, it was no big deal. I figured, it's viral, its just gonna have to run its course, and no use running to the doctor when that's all that she will say. So by Sunday morning, things were still pretty much the same, a little bit of coughing and low grade fever. However, Sunday night things started going down hill. It all started with some wheezing. After she went to bed, she woke up coughing, this scared her, and she started crying. The crying really exasperated the wheezing problem and it turned into labored breathing. So we would get her calmed down and after a while she would go back to just wheezing, and go back to sleep. This went on through the night. We thought we could make it until morning and bring her right in to the pediatrician, but by 4 a.m. she was having a hard time calming down and the gasping was lasting a lot longer. Long story short, the breathing treatments and steroids in the emergency room didn't improve her breathing enough so we had to be admitted. I was so sad, because I knew that this meant that she would be missing her preschool character parade (they don't do halloween themed parties, but they do let them wear their costumes for a character parade and have special snacks after). I was also sad because Monday was Joel's birthday. We just had to postpone his birthday celebrations.

We did have lots of great visitors at the hospital. My mom and dad, Joel's mom, Mavanie, Jamie and the girls, and Jenny (Allison and Sara stayed in the playroom down the hall so that they weren't exposed to the germs) all came to visit. We also got a few phone calls from friends, and email/facebook well wishes. I'm grateful to have such wonderful family and friends.

Eli had a fun time playing peek-a-boo in the closet :)

3 hours and play doh in the data cord...argghhh

I'm currently enjoying a three hour glucose tolerance test at the lovely lab services office at Woman's Hospital. If you want to know how I really feel about the glucose test you could check out this post from almost exactly two years ago.

Earlier this week I came in for my prenatal visit and the one hour test. The folks in the lab wouldn't even give me the drink for the one hour test because they said that my sugar was already too high and they didn't want to put even more sugar into my system. Ofcourse! I always fail that stinking test anyway. I was ok with this because this meant there was a chance I could plead with Dr. Breaux to just skip that whimpy little test and go straight for the 3 hour. Now, don't get me wrong it's not that I was so eager to get in there and take the wretched 3 hour test; it's just that I knew that I would fail the one hour anyway and those two blood draws would be in vain. If I could just convince Dr. Breaux to skip the one hour test I could get away with 4 needle sticks instead of 6! See, for me it's all about minimizing the number of times a needle is put into my arm. Did I ever tell you about the time I almost passed out in the waiting room when I went in to have my booster shots to register for college. I just saw the dark spot where the blood was underneath the band aid, and the black spots started moving in. Clare had to take me out into the parking lot and I had to lay down on the side walk. Anyway, Dr. Breaux agreed that I could skip the one hour test and here I sit watching the clock, waiting for the next round of torture.

This morning as I was getting ready to go, I packed up my computer, phone, and data cord (I have some pictures on my phone that I wanted to put in a post) so that I could do some blogging while I hang out for three hours in the waiting room. Once I got settled in the waiting room I pulled my stuff out only to discover that Kailey had used my data cord to make some imprints in her pink play doh. Now the data cord will not plug into my phone, so no pictures :( If I had my keys I would just use my swiss army knife to clean it out, but Joel has my keys. He had to take Kailey to preschool this morning and Eli to Jamie's house so we switched cars. So here I sit with two and a half hours to go and no pictures to post.

Half way there folks!

I reached the 20 week milestone today. I got Kailey to take a picture of my belly. This was more difficult than I thought. She does good with her Fisher Price camera, but my camera was a little trickier for her. Her's what we got.


By the way, we did have our sonogram a week ago today. We did not find out what we are having. I wouldn''t have been sad if the technician had let it slip or if I had been able to see something. Ok so that was an understatement. I was listening carefully to every word that she said hoping to hear, "that is HIS foot" or "that is HER heart," but she was good, she didn't slip up. She also went pretty fast over the key areas so not to expose anything. I'll post some of the sonogram pictures as soon as I stop being lazy and get the scanner out :)

First day of School!

Today was Kailey's first day of school. She is only going a few days a week and half days. It was fun getting her ready, new backpack and new shoes. Then yesterday about half way through the day, it occurred to me that I was going to have to leave her there for three hours. I started to worry about her being homesick or what if she didn't have any friends to play with at recess. I decided that I needed to just put the worries out of my mind and just deal with them if they actually happened.




This morning, Joel and I dropped her off, and she did great, no tears. She has always been such an independent girl.

First Primary talk, school's about to start, Eli is 18 mo...

I have a few things to catch up on, I don't have all of my pictures ready, but I know if I don't get started I will keep procrastinating.

Sunday Kailey gave her first primary talk. She talked about preparing now to go to the temple. She did a good job (with help ofcourse), aside from keeping her mouth on the microphone the whole time :) Joel's parents happened to be in town on Saturday, so they stayed for her talk.

That's Izzy (Mavanie's pup) stretching in the background, she had been napping too.

Kailey starts school in less than a week, next Tuesday! I think she will have a good time. She has been good at jumping into new things. She got her hair trimmed a couple of weeks ago, we've done a little clothes shopping, so we are almost ready.

Eli turned 18 months on the 1st. You know what that means...nursery!! Not that I don't enjoy having Eli around, I was just very ready to not have to reassemble the bottoms of the primary bulletin boards every Sunday, and keep him away from the piano (sometimes while Sis. Gale was playing). We went this week for his check-up. He is 24 lbs. (50th percentile) and 32 inches (90th percentile) and as healthy as a horse. Our pediatrician pointed out that he has not yet been in for a sick visit, they have all just been well check-ups.

This is one of Eli's favorite things to do. I dont' understand it either.

Since I've been slacking on the blog we have been to California for the Bonnette family reunion and Eva got her ear's clipped, and I made it out of the first trimester. I'll get some of those pictures up soon.

New pup

Today we took a trip out to Prairieville, and picked up a new pup. We had been thinking about getting a new puppy for a while. Since we lost Sam a while back, Rickey has been a little lonely. The past few weeks we have had Izzy staying with us (Joel's little sister's dog), and Rickey has been really happy. They play and Rickey doesn't squeal/howl when I leave the house. One time we were leaving the house, the brakes on the car squealed, and Kailey exclaimed, "Mama, I hear Rickey."

I figured now was as good a time as any since the new baby won't be here for another 7 months; should give us plenty of time to get her house broken and settled. So this afternoon we brought home a miniature schnauzer. She is about 2 months old. We haven't decided on a name yet, but we are working on it. Kailey has given us many suggestions, her crazy made up names of course. I wish that I had written down the name that she was calling the pup tonight when she was in the bath.

I've been on a summer break

You may have noticed that I haven't posted in quite a while. I guess I was just on a summer break. My brain has been programmed to work august through may, and then shut down for the summer months. After all I was only in school or teaching school for 20 years. K-12:13 yrs. + college: 4 yrs. + teaching: 3 yrs. = 20 yrs.; I couldn't have you thinking I had repeated a bunch of grades :) I'm just glad I was able to break this in June instead of going all the way to August.

We haven't had a whole lot going on. I've just been trying to find food that I can eat without feeling ill, and trying not to succumb to the fatigue of the first trimester. This pregnancy has turned out to be a little more challenging than the previous two. All in all, it could be worse, much worse. I have seen the suffering first hand that others have endured in the first trimester, and I really do have it easy.

Kailey did a week long summer class at the dance studio, and she had a really fun time. Joel and I got to go the last night for parents night. I am so proud of how far she has come from when she first started dance. I have a couple of pictures on my phone that I will add later. (My phone and cord are in the back and I'm running out of time with the babies. I knew if i waited until I had time do both write the post and add the pictures this post might not happen for a while).

One more thing and I'll be caught up. Seven years ago, when Joel and I were still dating he gave me Cold Play concert tickets for Christmas. The concert was probably the best show that I had ever been to. Not that they were my favorite band that I had seen live, they just had the best live performance. So Cold Play came back to New Orleans and we did not hesitate to buy tickets. We went last night to the concert and it exceeded my expectations. The very best surprise was the opening band, Snow Patrol. I love snow patrol!! I knew their music much better than the Cold Play music. I would have gone to the concert if it had just been Snow Patrol.

Dress rehearsal

On Friday, Kailey had dress rehearsal for her recital. I am really excited about the recital. The theme is the Little Mermaid and she is a guppy.

Kailey and a fellow guppy, Brynn. I found out on the first night of dance class that a girl in Kailey's class was the daughter of a teacher that I taught with at Tara.

Kailey and a friend from church, Brooklyn.

This picture is terrible because of the distance and lighting, but Kailey's class in on the front row. This was part of the finale. The other pictures of her on the stage were worse than this one.

Dresses from Memaw!

Kailey's Memaw sent her some sundresses in the mail. She was so excited when she got them that she wouldn't wear anything else for days. If only I could sew so well.

Star Trek movie and a poppy seed

Last night Joel and I went to see the new Star Trek movie. As I have mentioned before, I loathed Star Trek for most of my life. It wasn't until a year or so ago that I actually gave it a chance, and found that it wasn't that bad at all. I'm no treky, but I do like star trek. I was actually looking forward to this movie.

picture from: www.startrek.com

We took our seats in the theater, and the movie started, within the first thrity minutes of the movie I was crying. I cryed 4 times during this movie. Might I remind you this is a sci-fi, action flick. {SPOILER ALERT: this next sentence might ruin some of the movie if you planning to see it and are a serious star trek fan, so read the very small sentence at your own risk} I cried when Spock of the past met up with Cpt. Kirk of the future and told him that they would be friends, what the h??? (If anyone mentions this to Joel, I might have to ban you from the blog, ok so I don't think that is possible, so lets just say we might not be such good friends for a little while). I knew something was going on. That night when we got home, as I lay in bed, I calculated due dates in my head. This morning I went straight for the pregnancy test (I only waited until morning because they say that you are less likely to get a false negative if you do it the morning; I have had a false negative in the past). As suspected, after my crying fit in Star Trek, there is indeed a poppy seed-sized new baby growing inside of my belly :)

When I told Kailey she jumped up and down for a long time, and told me that it was going to be a girl, and she was going to name her Re'Etta (I hope I got the spelling right, my years of teaching in public schools gave me advanced unique name spelling skills).

Thanks Otis!

The other day Eli and I took a quick trip to the store. In the car I had it on NPR (i'm secure in my nerdiness thank you very much), and in between segments they played a song that I believe was Otis Redding. Eli was dancing like I have never seen him dance before. I personally love Otis Redding, and was happy to find that Eli and I have this in common. I have loved Otis since I was 7 or 8 years old. Jamie and I had a Dirty Dancing soundtrack that we played a million times. Today I added Otis to Pandora on my phone and we were cooking with crisco. It is a marvelous thing to have happy dancing babies in your livingroom.

P.S. I've been away from the blog for a little while thanks in part to yet another corneal abrasion, so I'll be playing catch-up this week.

Messes

Babies posses a certain super power; they can make messes faster than any mother could ever clean. Most days my babies are gracious and keep the messes within reasonable bounds, but today they are letting loose a little.

This was taken a couple of days ago. Eli climbed onto the table, got the pitcher of Kool-aid, climbed down, took a few drinks, spilled it down his shirt, and then noticed that Rickey was licking up the trickled down Kool-aid. That's when he decided that he needed to pour her some.

While I was doing laundry today, this was going on: Kailey stripped all of her clothes off. Eli dug stuff out of the trash, pushed a chair over to the kitchen counter and poured out a cup that contained melted ice and a little bit of dr. pepper all over his clothes, poured out a bag of teddy grahams, got the salt shaker and poured out some salt, pushed the play kitchen around the room, and he is still going.

We are only half way into this day folks.

The first part was typed this morning. Now for the happy ending: Eli took a three hour nap, hallelujah!

By the Way

If you noticed, I started to change my "folks we know" to a new list over on the left. I just wanted to let you know that even though I've not done anything to it in a long time. I'm not finished, so if your blog is not listed over there I have not disowned you :)

A new canvas

Tonight in the tub, Kailey was having a good time coloring the bath tub with her bath crayons. Then she discovered a new "canvas."


I looked at her and she said, "I'm drawing him." His back was mostly orange :)

Easter

This is Eli when he discovered the girls at the table coloring eggs. I think that he thought that there was kool-aid in the cups :)


"Look girl, I know its hard when your man is at Jetson, especially during holidays. Why don't you color some eggs to get your mind off of it. "

This caption was for Jessie. I read in one of her posts that she comes up with captions for her pictures (a throw back to her yearbook days). I do too, sometimes; I just never post them. I just couldn't resist with this one :)



This was Easter afternoon. I forgot to get out the camera that morning when they got their easter baskets, and their clothes and hair were still looking neat :(

Utah ski trip

Our flight home from Denver was delayed, so we had to entertain ourselves for a while. Eli was in love with moving sidewalk, not sure what the technical term is :) Joel and I must have gone up and down the corridor 25-30 times.


Kailey had a great time using her chopsticks to eat her hibachi shrimp at Uncle Jonathan's restaurant.

Yay for skiing! Park City was nice; this was the first time that any of us had skiied there and we had a great time. Thier ski lift was awesome. I used to have bad issues with getting off of ski lifts, I think I have over come these problems with experience (I'll save that one for another post), but I didnn't have to test it out the Park City lift was truly wonderful.

Tubing was super fun. (Eli didn't think so, but the rest of us did. Eli at least had a good time playing in the warming hut.)

Jared (Joel's brother) and Ashlyn (his super cute daughter)
Keri (sister-in-law, Jared's wife) and Amilyn (sister-in-law, Joel's sister)Some of the other guys in the warming hut (back l to r: Zachary, Josh, Brandon; front l to r: Jamie, Allison, Sarah, and Joe)
Despite his intense hatred for his snow gear, I thought that he looked super cute.

Temple Square is so beautiful. In this picture we are in one of the vistor's centers at the Christus.
Kailey and Allison outside of the Salt Lake temple
Joel's brother Jared is a chiropractor. He brought his travel table over to the house and adjusted all of us even the babies. It was heaven after packing Eli on my hip through a few airports. If you didn't notice the needle in Joel's head, that was acupuncture courtesy of Jared. Thanks Jared, you're the best!

Some other pictures, like our snowman, and the babies riding on the baby tubing ride can be checked out on Jamie and Keri's blogs

The braces are gone!!!

Yippeee! Hooray! I went in this morning and had my braces taken off. It feels glorious! It is so nice to eat food and not have 1/4 of it stuck in my braces. No more suffering after adjustments and new wires, no more stinking rubber bands, and no more cut up gums and lips from baby head butts and poking wires!!!!
P.S. pictures from the ski trip coming soon. If you want a preview, click here for Keri's blog. We had a great time hanging out with her, Jared, and Ashlyn.

My April's fool day trick was foiled :( Months ago I set up the appointment to have my braces off, and as soon as the receptionist gave the date I started planning. My appointment was originally set for today. So my plan was to tell Joel that my appointment had to be changed to a later date. I was going to see how long it would take for him to notice that they were gone. Then a couple of weeks ago he called from work and said that the company ski trip dates were set for April 1st - 5th. I had to call the orthodontist and reschedule the removal of my braces. I was super sad to postpone the removal; the ladies at the office tried as hard as they could to work me in earlier, but it just didn't work.

So we are off for some skiing and general conference.