Logan is 6!

This guy turns 6 years old today!!  Happy Birthday "Logee"!

  

Likes: playing with Ashten, reading, helping me in the kitchen, sharks, school

Dislikes: losing, being rushed, time-outs, chores

Since I started writing my blog after all three boys were already born, I didn't get a chance to record their birthday stories, like I did for Ashten.  I've decided that, although the specifics are a little fuzzy now, I'd like to try and record each of the boys' birthdays to have on record.  So, I will be doing that on each of their birthdays this year! 

Logan in his going home outfit - April 1, 2005

Logan was born at 5:04 am on Thursday, March 31, 2005.  But my labor actually started the night before.  I was giving Brayden his bath at about 6 pm when I noticed some slight cramping that was coming and going.  Nothing too urgent yet, but within an hour, I knew it was definitely the start of labor.  I got Brayden to bed around 7:30 and started emailing my work and getting things in order to leave for the hospital soon. 

Meanwhile, Chris was in Colorado Springs at a lacrosse game because at that time he coached JV lacrosse at his school.  He had driven separately from the bus, in the event that I went into labor and he had to leave early.  Unfortunately, this particular night there was a pretty bad snow storm, especially in Colorado Springs.  Chris called me about 8 pm and told me he might not make it home and was thinking of stopping at a hotel for the night because his little truck was having a really hard time on the roads (even I-25).  I told him he better get home soon because I was in labor and we needed to go to the hospital!  Apparently he just drove behind a semi truck the whole way home, very slowly, but he said once he got to the south end of Denver, the roads cleared up quite a bit.  But I was praying for him the whole time, because he said he was seeing cars sliding off the roads left and right.  By God's protection, he was home safely by 9 pm. 

So when Chris got home, we called his parents to come over to stay with Brayden and Chris called a sub for school for the next few days.   We left for the hospital by 9:30 and by that time I couldn't really stand up during contractions and was having to do my breathing a little.  The drive to the hospital was good, considering the snow.  I don't remember the roads being that bad, and it was late at night, so there weren't many people out.

When we got to the hospital, they put me in an observation room, even though I was obviously very uncomfortable and having horrible back labor.  They said they were going to monitor me for 2 hours to see if I was progressing at all.  During this time I was supposed to lay flat on my back with monitors strapped to my belly.  That is VERY hard to do with back labor.  I was in so much pain and so uncomfortable.  I remember that I kept telling Chris "I can't do this", and he was very encouraging and reassuring.  Thankfully, though, after about 20 minutes, the nurse came back in and told me they were going to admit me because the baby's heartbeat was decreasing a little with each contraction and he was in "distress".   I think this was totally just a God thing though, because after I was admitted and moved to a L/D room, Logan's heartbeat never dropped again and the nurses never seemed concerned about it. 

About 12 midnight I got my epidural and the nurses told me to "get some rest".  Haha, ya right!!  On top of being all excited and not sleepy at all, I could still feel each contraction just a little in my tailbone.  I think that must have been because of the back labor, which I found out later is because of the way the baby is facing, with the back of his head pressing on my tailbone.  Poor Chris had to try and get a little rest on the teeny, tiny "couch" in the room.  I don't think he slept much that night between not being able to completely stretch out and the nurses coming in and out.  I tried to distract myself with the TV, but, just FYI, there is nothing on worth watching from 12-5 am!!

At about 4:45 or so, the contractions were getting very uncomfortable and almost painful in my tailbone area.  I told the nurse and they checked me and I was about 9-1/2 cm.  The nurses paged the doctor and got to work getting the bed and room ready.  By the time the doctor got there, I was feeling very ready to push.  I pushed for a few minutes and the doctor noticed that the baby wasn't really descending.  So, on the next contraction, he turned Logan around, so he was face down.  After that, it was only about 3 more minutes of pushing and Logan was born! 

After I had been holding Logan for a few minutes, I looked down and noticed my arm was HUGE!!!  Apparently my IV had come out of the vein while I was pushing (but not out of my arm), and it was pumping fluid into my arm.  It was very scary looking, but it went down within a few days with ice.  You can kind of see it in the picture below, especially on my hand.  Don't I look tired?  By this point I had been up for probably 22-23 hours!

 

But even with the exhaustion and arm problems, Logan was probably the easiest labor and delivery I had.  And what a precious boy God has given us, I wouldn't ask for anything more!

Happy birthday Logan.....you are very special and loved a bunch!

Brayden plays Bball

Brayden has been playing on a spring basketball team for the past few weeks.  He has improved quite a bit in just a short time and seems to enjoy it!

Two candles and one lotion from Bath and Body Works: FREE

Perfume from Victoria's Secret: FREE

Midnight Dazzler from Haagen-Dazs: FREE

Time at the mall with my two little ones:  PRICELESS!

(When we were sitting in the food court eating our ice cream, I was just kicking myself that I didn't bring my camera to capture their cute chocolate-ice-cream-mustache faces.  Then, when we got home, I thought up this blog post and then I kicked myself again.  Thus, the non-mall picture of Preston and Ashten.)

Logan and Ashten's birthday party

Logan and Ashten's birthdays are 10 days apart in March.  So instead of having two different parties where we invite our families over, we just decided to lump them together.  Thankfully, Logan thinks this is a super idea and doesn't feel like he needs his own party.  And he will have a friend party this year, so that probably helps.

Ashten dressed in her pretty party tutu!

During the party, both kids kind of just opened presents on their own, my mom even joked that they "had their own parties" because they just did their own thing!  At first Ashten didn't really get the whole party and present thing, but after a few toys and books started coming out of the presents, she was pretty into it! 

Aunt Monica and Madison teaching Ashten how old she is

Logan in his new cowboy outfit

Ashten reading her new book

Logan requested a "How to Train Your Dragon" cake.  Ashten didn't care, so I just made her a "1" cake with sprinkles. Not my best work by far, but they were happy.

Ashten eating her first birthday cake.  Notice how she's picking the cake off her fingers? She doesn't really like to be messy.  That's my girl!!!

Logan getting ready to blow out his candles

It was a good time and surprisingly not too hectic, we'll definitely be doing it again in years to come. 

Ashten - 1 YEAR OLD!!

Oh my goodness, where has the time gone? 

No more "0-year-old's" (as the boys like to say) around here anymore.

I have so thoroughly enjoyed watching Ashten grow up and learn new things this past year.  I am even more excited to see what the 2nd year of her life brings - things like walking, running, talking, seeing her personality emerge more, trying new foods, etc.

Happy 1st Birthday Ashten Briar!!!

Spring fever

The weather has been really nice lately and I've got spring fever....BAD!   I am so ready for flip flops, shorts, cute skirts, Ashten's summer wardrobe, playing outside all day, I could go on.....

Hair Talk

Random ramblings about hair......

The other day I was cleaning the boys' shower and noticed they were out of shampoo.  When I asked Brayden how long they had been out of shampoo and what they had been using, he replied "we've been out of shampoo for a while, so we just stick our head under the water and rub our hair really hard for 40 seconds".  Only boys would do that!!!  I gave them new shampoo, and we told them to make sure they tell us next time they are running low on shampoo.

Brayden asked to do a mohawk for school the other day.  He said he could do it all by himself.  I'd say he did a really good job!  He used gel and hairspray and all.  Every day that boy surprises me by something new he can do for himself.  I guess I shouldn't be surprised, I mean he is 7, but still!  He is growing up fast!  After school the first day he wore a mohawk, we asked him why he wanted to do his hair like that?  Did he have friends that did one?  He told us he just wanted to do it because he thought it was cool.  He said "Dominic wears a mohawk too, but he somehow keeps his hands off of it all day, I can't do that.".  And it's true, he is always touching the top of his mohawk to make sure it's still sticking up!

My hair is getting long, I'm just lazy and don't want to go get it cut!  I need to.  I'd really like to highlight it and lighten it up some for summer, but that requires a professional since right now it's dark.  My sister used to do my hair all the time, but then she moved to Omaha and left me on my own hair-wise!  (kidding, Olivia!)  I don't want to pay to do it at a salon, it can be so much money, so maybe I'll just wait for my sister to come visit or not do it?  I could always just wait for the sun to lighten it up this summer, that always happens to me!

Ashten is starting to get more hair.  It's enough that after a nap I usually have to brush it as it is sticking up on top.  She doesn't have enough in front to put a hair clip in, but the back is really coming in full.  And along the back on the bottom, she is starting to get just a couple ringlets!  (you can see them on her shadow)

What's my problem?

It seems like several times a week, I am brought back to and reminded of my word for 2011.  It's like God won't let me forget the committment I made to really work on it. 

Lately I've had this dialouge going on in my head.  I'm not hearing voices (although there are days I feel frazzled and crazy enough that it wouldn't be a huge suprise!), it's just me fighting with me in my head (wait, maybe that's kind of crazy too?)  I'll find myself having a bad attitude about something I have to do.  Say, like laundry, or grocery shopping, or making my list for grocery shopping, or sweeping.  It really doesn't matter what it is, if I'm not in the mood to do it, I have a grumpy attitude about it in my head.  But then I got to thinking - what's my problem?  Really! 

Take laundry for instance.  The other day a little piece on our washer broke and so it wouldn't complete the cycle.  All day a full load of laundry and water sat in the washer till someone came out to fix it.  All day I was like "stupid washer, why does all our stuff break all at once?" and "of course it had to happen today, when I'm washing MY clothes".  But then I was thinking, wow, imagine my life without a washing machine.  Or without enough clothes to make a full load in the washer.  So all of the sudden I got grateful for my broken washer and my soggy clothes inside.  And for repair people who are just a phone call away.

Or take sweeping.  We have all hard floors in the upstairs of our house, so sweeping is a daily chore around here.  Floors are my thing.  My thing as in I hate to see dirty floors (and if the floors are clean, the rest of the mess isn't so bad), not my thing as in I like to clean them.  Every day I sweep the floor and then it seems like not 30 minutes later, they are dirty again.  So I haul out the broom again and sweep up the dirt.  But what if I didn't have hard floors at all?  What if my floors were dirt?  Ew! 

See where I'm going with this?  I figured out that my problem is perspective.  Sure it's inconvenient to do tons of laundry every week, but it's a good reminder of the abudance in my life.  And sure, sweeping isn't the most exciting way to spend my time, but it's a good sign of a lived-in home where people feel free to be themselves.

I knew my word for 2011 would be always in the back of my mind, haunting me and causing me to change the way I think and act.  I sure hope I can say I've shown improvement when this year is done.

Brothers

They are so sweet when they get along well!

Purple dress

My grandma always asks whenever we have a baby what she can knit for the new baby.  I'm usually not so easy as to suggest a blanket, although she has made two of those for us as well.  For Brayden, I asked her to make a little knit outfit and it turned out so cute.  All 3 boys got to wear it!  I always knew though, if we had a girl, I would ask my grandma to knit a dress.  So she let me pick out a pattern, and the color I wanted it to be, and I just love how it turned out!  It is so pretty and purple.  The amazing thing is that my grandma has been dealing with a lot of sickness, fatigue and a diagnosis of cancer and still managed to find time to finish this for Ashten.  I love that Ashten will always have this and can hopefully pass it down to her daughter someday, kind of like I got to.  So special!

Aquarium

A few weeks ago, we went to the aquarium for Chris' birthday.  We hadn't been in a long time, so it was fun to go see it again.  The kids loved it!!

Ashten was pretty sleepy when we first got there and just wanted to cuddle her bear, but she perked up pretty quick once she started noticing the fish and stuff.

This is one of my new favorite pictures!

We didn't plan on them matching that day, but it worked out well for pictures and for keeping an eye on them!

My favorite display is always the one with the fish from Finding Nemo - they are so pretty!

This rattlesnake was so active while we were there, the boys are really into snakes right now, so they loved that.

Yay for daddy's birthday!

We've got the sickies

Last Thursday, in the wee hours of the morning, Logan came into our room crying that he didn't feel good and couldn't sleep.  We brought up his sleeping bag and put him to bed on the floor of our room.  That began what turned out to be 5 days of sickness for him, and all the rest of us as well.  I took him to the doctor yesterday because he had had a high fever for 4 days, was just sleeping all the time and didn't really seem to be getting better.  Come to find out he had the flu.  And no, we didn't get the flu shot.  Even with all of this, we still won't next year. 

Yesterday morning Logan's fever had broken and he felt pretty good.  He was very upset when I told him he had to stay home from school for one more day.  But then yesterday afternoon, he took a 3 hour nap, so I'm thinking it was good he stayed home and got some more rest. 

We're all moving a little slowly around here still.  Lots of coughing, sniffling, napping and resting going on.  I know I haven't blogged in a while, and I have some things I want to write about, but I just haven't had the energy to do anything for awhile now.  Hopefully in the next few days.  Thanks for staying with me!

The little things

As you may have noticed, I haven't posted anything in about a week now.  I usually post when I have pictures to post about, but all my recent pictures are still on my camera, so......

So I'm going to post about all the little things that have been going on in the last week, picture-less-ly.  It's the little things that matter, right?

We went for a walk/bike ride as a family last night!  That's right -- Chris was home early because, wait for it..................basketball season is over!!!!!!!!!!!  Not that I don't 100% support Chris in his choice to coach and love the extra money it brings in and respect his sacrifice in spending all that extra time coaching, but I am definitely ready for it to be over by this time of year.  I think God knew we needed something significant to celebrate, so He gave us beautiful weather so we could all go out to park and just hang out as a family.  It was a wonderful thing. 

Ashten is getting very brave in her walking lately.  She will take 3-4 steps all on her own and her cruising around furniture is looking more and more like walking and less and less like cruising every day.  It won't be long now.  I wonder if she'll walk before her first birthday?  If so, she'd be the first one of my kids to do so.  Isn't that funny that they say girls are more all about the language aspect of developement and boys are more about the physical aspect?  Well so far, Ashten is way more about the physical and less about the language.  I think she figures her grunts can get her by a while longer but if she has any chance of keeping up with her brothers, she's just got to learn to walk.

Two of my dear, dear friends came over for a playdate this morning.  There were 6 kids here and us 3 moms.  It was such a wonderful time of chatting and talking and laughing, I definitely need more of that in my life.  Even all the kids had a great time, I didn't hear one fight the whole time!  I hope we will be able to get together again really soon.

Last week Chris turned 31.  While he isn't necessarily excited about the idea of getting older, I don't see the big deal.  Age is a number, it's really all about how you feel.  Well that's what I think right now, maybe ask me again when I'm 40?  Anyway, we had a great time celebrating his birthday as a family.  We went out for a yummy lunch, and then after naps, we went to the aquarium.  I will be doing a post on that sometime, whenever I get around to downloading all the pictures off my camera.

Amazing Race has started again!  In fact we missed the first episode because we were out at the aquarium for Chris' birthday, but thankfully they showed it again on TV, so we got all caught up.  I don't know why, but I love that show!  And the boys love it too, we all cuddle up on the couch and watch it as a family.  It's one of the few shows on during primetime that is actually appropriate for the boys to watch.  If I were to do a reality TV show, I think I'd want to do that one with Chris.  Although I worry that we'd be the couple that just bicker back and forth when things get hard or frustrating, neither of us do real well on little sleep or when we are lost or don't know what to do or how to figure something out.  But I think it'd be a great couple bonding experience, don't you?

I read Psalm 37 in my quiet time last week -- wow!  I found so many themes and repetitions that I can totally apply to my life right now.  I just prayed my way through it and God just revealed little nuggets of truth to me.  It was an awesome time.  Because of that, I was thinking that once a week I would read and pray my way through a psalm, I hope I can keep up with that!

Last night I went to Safeway and saved 82% of my total!  YAY!  Now sure, all I bought were some sweet potato fries and some Eggo waffles, but still!  I was just happy to see that number at the bottom of my receipt.  I think I'll save that one, until I beat it someday.

I've set a new goal for myself to make a least one new recipe a week.  This week I made Chicken and Dumplings.  I was a little nervous about it because Chris and I aren't big soup eaters, but this is really good.  I'll be making it again for sure.  And the leftovers are almost better than the first time!

It's time for me to go pick up the boys from school, one of my favorite times of the day.  Although today I have to wake Ashten up from her nap, which always makes me sad.  The girl needs her sleep, but she doesn't always seem to think so, so she puts off going to bed until it's a half hour before we have to go and then she only gets a short nap.  At least she sleeps well at night, though.  I think I'll let everyone play on the playground after schoool.  It's a nice day, and a great way to beat the rush of car leaving the parking lot!