Our Girls

We have lived here for exactly 2 weeks today! Aftyn is starting to acclimate and yearns for friends already. She excitedly told me last Sunday that there are 2 girls in her church class that are twins! :)

Bronwyn ended up pretty darn sick from her church class last week and is sadly coughing a bit today so I kept her home to 1)not share what she has                               AND
                          2)keep her from getting some new sickness for Christmas.
She is definitely getting a bit big for her britches, having very determined ideas of what she wants to happen and trying out her freedom to choose her actions with all of us, mostly myself (Alysa) and Aftyn. It can be funny but also very frustrating. We just are trying to love her through it, which thankfully is pretty easy to do since she can be so caring and sweet.

Mirren is growing! On Thursday, I think she must have realized that she could finally really see things because she spent about 5 hours awake just looking all around her and at people's faces. Not at all normal for this girl who wakes up to eat, stays awake maybe 30 minutes after eating and then wants to go back to sleep until it's time to eat again. It is so sweet now when I really see her focusing on our faces, especially Reed's and the girls. She gets her fill of my face all day long with all that I currently do for her. It would seem she knows my voice quite well because sometimes if she's hungry and she hears me, wailing ensues until I pick her up and then she'll simmer down. 

That's our kid update. We sure love our girls. Can't imagine life without them.

Raking leaves at G&G Whiting's house. I love raking leaves and wanted to do this fun activity with my girls. :)

 

Better late than never. Aftyn was a cat for halloween. It's hard to see her ears on the top of her head, but they are there. Her favorite part had to be the makeup she wore on her face. She was delighted that she REALLY looked like a cat!

Jumping and playing in the leaves is a necessary part of raking. They loved doing it. Remember when the weather was so warm we could play outside in flip flops and no jackets? Yeah, me neither.  And I was probably too hot then anyway, what with being pregnant. . . . . . . .

Bronwyn the pirate. She was so cute! I decided she would have the most fun, since she didn't really care what she dressed up as, saying "AAARRGH" all night long. I'd say for the most part she loved her costume for Halloween.

This was taken at my sister Alyson's house the day before I trekked up to Idaho Falls after they had a big snow storm.

Taken last night. She was hungry and tired. Shocker. She sure is cute and still adores this pink blanket I pieced together thanks to my sisters Megan, Jenn and Alyson. They all played a vital part of this blanket, even if they don't know it. :)

Bronwyn being Bronwyn

 

 

This girl makes me laugh. She is really a thinker. And she thinks she's a dog, or a cat, or sometimes a horse.

What a sweetheart.

I think she is going to be tall like Aftyn but quiet and sensitive. She loves to be touched and to touch people already.

Sledding in "The Bowl"

Bronwyn's sledding partner

She took great care of Bronwyn and spoiled the pants off her by carrying her up the big hill many times over, not an easy feat

All bundled up and not going sledding. She slept in my sisters front room in her carseat happily while most of the rest of us froze sledding, and some stayed home to play games

Adventurous cousin - he was "snowboarding" and doing 360's on sleds the whole time. Nothing like the adventurous sort to get the rest of us trying things we might normally not. ;)

Sledding in action!

You're not having fun until someone's crying because they can't feel their fingers, lol

And then they quickly ham it up for the camera before being rushed home to warm up those freezing fingers

Aftyn had such a blast sledding! We were surprised by her fearlessness!

No way was Reed missing out on our fun!

We wouldn't have had such a fun day without everyone who stayed and played, but especially not without being invited by my sister and her family. They spoil us! We love that we live only a few minutes away from them and that we have gotten to spend lots of time with them already. Thanks guys!

This Just In . . . . .

Mirren finally smiled at ME this morning. As opposed to smiling in her sleep, smiling while looking at something to the side of me, or smiling at the light source in the room. And you better believe I counted how many times I got her to smile. 6 times!!! I am feeling very loved. :)
Poor Bronwyn is sick and has been since yesterday morning at 6 am when she puked. Poor thing. I've never seen her so sick for so long. Hopefully today will be the day she starts to feel better.
 Aftyn is hanging in there through Bronwyn being sick. Today she wants to make a "recipe" to eat. Pretzels and chocolate chips. I told her she would have to wait until her morning snack. I should probably make her eat an apple first. ;)

We're Here Because We're Here

On Sunday the 8th of December, the girls and I pulled into our apartment parking lot. We spent the day opening box after box, pulling out all the toys for the girls, and I organized the boxes into piles and put what I could into the bedrooms. It was a fun day.
   The whole next week was spent trying to unpack boxes, get things organized, and get Reed to us.  We somehow managed to move in the middle of a massively cold snow front in our area. Snow seems to be drawn to us when we move, except this time the snow beat us and we had to follow its icy path.
    We still haven't managed to unpack our boxes, but that is only because we don't have the furniture we are needing. There are certainly disadvantages to selling all your furniture every time you move. Sure you don't have to move it, but then you don't have what you need at your next place and it takes time to accumulate what you need!
     We are loving our townhouse. It's spacious and so fun to have our own family space again. The girls are very excited for Christmas. I think I've lost my zeal. I'll be more excited to have everything unpacked and organized and having the right furniture pieces for our home. I will just wait patiently for now. :)
      Mirren is getting big, to me. I have no idea how much she weighs but she feels plenty heavy to me. If I can find my tape measure I will measure her length because she feels pretty dang long to me. I have begun to notice that her 0-3 month socks, although quite loose on her ankles, are actually a little short on her long long feet. ;) She is just on the verge of smiling, a feat I am excitedly awaiting. She is practically sleeping through the night. It's a little hit and miss right now and has only been happening for about 4 days or so, but when it happens it's heavenly. Here are some pictures from her photo shoot with my awesome sister Alyson.

Sorry, I'm going to be keeping this short and sweet. Hopefully we'll get back into the swing of things here pretty soon, which will include me blogging more regularly. And some updated pictures of my Aftyn and Bronwyn who get bigger and bigger to me everyday.

Catch Up Post#1. Baby Girl Finally Emerges! A Birth Story

Picture taken by Alyson Misseldine, Pepperwood Photography

After that last post has sat there for 3 weeks, I'm sure you would guess if you didn't already know that we had our little girl! Here's the story:

  After lamenting every day that passed and brought me closer to my due date and no baby, I woke up on the 11th of November and called my midwife. I asked her if we could plan on inducing me on the 13th, my due date. She knew of my family's plans to be moving only 3 weeks later to our own place far far away, so she took pity on me and planned an induction even though she doesn't believe in them. This was to be my first induction ever. I was relieved and anxious.

Fast forward 2 days. Reed and I showed up to the hospital at 7 am to have the baby monitored for an hour and then proceed with our induction. We had the sweetest nurse who also happened to be a birthing class instructor. I was so excited to think she would be there for my birth and could offer me some good support. Sadly, she left before we got to that point.
   So we started the cervix ripening gel. I hated it. I am not a "lay in bed while having contraction pain" kind of person. At least not until I'm getting close to the pushing stage. I very impatiently lay in that bed for a whole hour as instructed, needing badly to empty my bladder. As soon as my nurse gave me the go-ahead, I ran to my bathroom. Shortly thereafter, Reed and I started walking the halls to try to get contractions going. Nothing really happened. I had some very painful crampy things but since they weren't contractions I decided to just go lay down and wait for some real contractions to happen. Also, another important thing to know is I wouldn't be able to have any other kind of medicine to induce labor for 5 hours after the gel had been placed, so I felt I had awhile for contractions to start on their own. No contractions. Literally just as 4 1/2 hours passed, my nurse put a contraction monitor on me and I began to notice this annoying pain in my lower abdomen. I had Reed check my monitor and lo and behold, real contractions that were incredibly light were starting!
   I was so excited in the hopes that perhaps I wouldn't have to have pitocen to induce labor since that was the reality that was staring me in the face. I ended up having oxytocin throughout the rest of my labor but thanks to a nurse who was sympathetic to my plight of wanting to have a very natural feeling labor, she kept the oxytocin on a very low dose so that it felt like my body was just doing its own natural thing and not having contractions forced upon it.
     So my first nurse left, I was on my 2nd nurse who I also loved, and real contractions that were causing dilation were happening! Woot! I walked the halls with Reed but I could tell my legs were getting tired from the effort it took to relax through contractions and so I decided the time was right for me to hop in the jacuzzi tub right in my own room. The nurse checked me and that's when we finally knew I was dilated, which meant we were well on our way to having a baby! I was a 5 and 80% effaced! I hopped in the tub, the nurse switched off my oxytocin to see if my body would continue to labor regularly on its own without the medicine. After about an hour, I could tell my body was working but not very regularly and my contractions were slowing down and not coming as hard as they had before which probably meant they weren't doing as much work. Bummer.
     This is where I became smitten with my nurse. She was such a sweetheart! I let her know the contractions were slowing down and I should probably go back on the oxytocin. She hooked me back up, but unbeknownst to me put me on an even lower dose of it and my body was still doing exactly what it needed to. When I figured this out, that she gave me such a low dose because she noticed that my body was so sensitive to the medicine, I gained a ton of respect for her. Because in the past I have had labor experiences where the nurse wasn't as sympathetic. Anywho, back to the story.
        So now that nurse had to leave after 4 hours. Here we were, on our 3rd nurse and no baby yet. I had not foreseen this happening. Reed and I kept commenting to each other how weird it was to be in the hospital and still not to have had a baby yet after so long. I was still in labor though so I wasn't discouraged, just impatient to be done. Around this time I had my midwife come back to check on me and after a brief discussion we decided she would come check me again in 30 minutes to see if it was time to break my water. After about 20 minutes, I called my nurse and asked if she could get my midwife to come right then because I thought it was probably time to break it because I was having a lot of pain and pressure because of all the water still inside of me. My midwife came and checked me and I was an 8 and the baby's head was engaged (finally!) so she broke my water and told me that there was going to be a lot of water, just as a means of a heads up. There was a lot of water and I was glad to have it outside of my body. I just knew we were for sure finally going to have a baby!! I was so happy!
           Timeline wise, I can't really be sure of all the next details. Contractions were coming harder. Reed was coaching me through them. I started having REALLY painful contractions which I decided were because my bladder was full. As one contraction was ending, I told my nurse and Reed The Plan. I'm still not sure why they were letting me call the shots, I guess that's what they do when you're the one in labor. LOL   I said, "okay, when the next contraction starts coming back down Reed I want you to pull me up as fast as you can (because after having hard contractions for so many hours, my stomach muscles were achy, crampy and pretty much shot) and I'm going to run to the bathroom as fast as I can."  And that's exactly what happened, with the nurse pulling my pole with all my iv's right behind me. As soon as I emptied my bladder, which was quite full, I felt SO much better. I very seriously thanked both Reed and the nurse profusely and told them they were my heroes because with their help I felt SO much better and the contractions weren't SO painful as they were before. I seriously had The.Best.Nurses. all day long. I loved all of them for different reasons.
          My midwife and nurse kept coming in and checking on me for about another hour or so, but I could tell I was really close to the pushing stage but couldn't quite get there and the contractions were so painful they were using up all my energy just to relax through them. My midwife came in and with her help I finally got the baby to move enough to get past those horrible labor contractions and then it was on to pushing contractions, hallelujah. And that's when the story gets long and painful. I probably pushed close to an hour. She was my hardest baby to get out. Why? you might ask. My midwife says it was because she was face up. And I tend to agree. By the time I got that girly to come out, I was sweating profusely and Reed says the baby's heart rate had dipped and if I hadn't gotten her out when I did we may have had to have some sort of intervention to get her out quicker. Also, her cord was wrapped around her neck at least once according to Reed.
      What a sweet sweet moment to finally have her laying on my chest and get to admire the person my body had spent so much time helping to grow. Our little Mirren Rose was so worth it and even though that was the hardest pushing stage with any of my kids, I would do it again. The post-birth amnesia has already gotten to me evidently. ;) Funny note, evidently I had a LOT more water than even my midwife was expecting because once Mirren came out a ton MORE amniotic fluid came gushing out, soaking my midwife's pants and the floor. Makes me laugh. Especially since it wasn't detected before just how much extra water I had but I'd like to think it might have been enough for 2 babies. Because seriously I felt like I was a big water balloon ready to pop for the last month easily.
       Everything else was pretty standard from that point on. Here we sit at almost 3 weeks postpartum and I feel awesome with no postpartum depression or anything to speak of and I am so so grateful. Aftyn and Bronwyn love their baby sister, but the cutest to me would have to be Bronwyn and how much she loves to kiss and hug her sister. She is so spontaneously affectionate with her, it makes me happy to see how genuinely she loves her sister. My transition from 2 kids to 3 has been so much easier than it was for me to go from 1 kid to 2. Odd, hmm?
        Mirren is a long little thing, already in 0-3 month clothes because she is so long. She was 7 lbs 13 ounces at birth and 22 inches long. She has already grown a half inch which makes it impossible for her to fit into newborn clothes. She has long arms and fingers and feet. She sleeps great and is so easy going it makes me feel spoiled and guilty all at the same time. We sure love her and are grateful to see what her personality will be and how it will change our family dynamic as she grows up.

Whiny Pregnant Lady Post - Seriously, you can skip this one.

39 weeks and 4 days pregnant people. I've watched all the events and days that I had thought, "won't that be a great day to have the baby!" come and go. I know she will come out, but understand, I'm a planner and today I'm watching the last "great" thing I had planned for my husband and kids to go and do together while I was supposed to stay home with our newborn and just enjoy some quiet time with her, come and go. I have nothing more planned. And yet she stays in my tummy, all warm and snug. I wake up at night, thinking I'm having a contraction because of pain. Nope. It's just her stretching out, trying to find some room for her squished little body. My midwife won't discuss induction until this Wednesday, my due date. I cry daily. I just want her out. I've done all the work of growing her and I know she is "done"! I am ready to enjoy her from outside my body now!! I know all these emotions and feelings will change the moment I finally go into labor and I can just be excited to see her, but in the meantime, I am seriously discouraged. And I feel like she's never coming out. I am grateful for every day that she's kicking and active in there, I'd just like to have my energy back, a smaller body with less pain, and a family that can finally plan our next big change, moving to the Idaho Falls area!  Also, keep in mind, I have carried babies clear to my due date before, I'm just a little more worried this time because my turn around from having the baby to driving to our new home and wanting to unpack is going to be maybe around 3 weeks. Will my body be ready for all that work in 3 weeks? No idea, but it makes me feel stressed and worried. And according to my midwife, stress doesn't help you go into labor. LOL. Okay, you can return to your regularly scheduled positive post on someone else's page now. Or you can just skip this post entirely. I understand.

38 Weeks Today

1.5 centimeters dilated, 50% effaced. I ran out of heartburn medicine last night. I think it only fair that I be allowed to have the baby soon! :)  Otherwise I'm going to have to buy more heartburn medicine and then it'll have to wait to be used up until my next pregnancy.  Oh, and I'm getting looks every time I go to the grocery store.
     One night last week at Walmart I was walking by this girl in her twenties and I thought "oh my heck, is her nose crooked?"  I was very curious, but trying not to stare or gawk so as I walked by her I quickly glanced over to see if her nose really WAS as crooked as it looked. Funny, but what I saw was her  OGLING my stomach as if I was going to burst open right there. LOL  Oh the joys of pregnancy.  And isn't it ironic that I was checking out her nose at the same time she was checking out my bump? Hi.La.Rious.

I'm a Bad Blogger Because I Can't Blog (Pictures Edition!)

Bronwyn found my makeup bag one night when she was supposed to be in bed. Not very surprising if you really know this girl. She's stealthy.

Bronwyn doing her art project with all the preschool girls. She loved being a part of the preschool while it was at our house and still has a hard time understanding that that's Aftyn's preschool.

Aftyn has been creating all kinds of interesting Lego creations. It's so fun to see her little imagination at work!

Boy do they love their Dad. And having their pictures taken, obviously.

Daddy's girls in Daddy's (clean) work hats. They were so excited that he let them "have" them for a couple of days while he was out of town.

Oh boy! We were all so excited to go to the pumpkin patch with Aftyn's preschool girls

Hayride! Aftyn nearly threw a fit when we first got there because our group wasn't there but there was a BIG group that was just leaving on the hayride and by gum she wanted to go, with or without her friends!

It must be so fun to play in corn! And make a snow angel! When we got home, Aftyn had a good handful of corn in her boots.

I'd wager we could safely call this Bronwyn's slide. She loved that thing and wasn't in the least bit daunted by its size.

Aftyn and Bronwyn and some of our friends

  So, that's what we've been up to lately. Sorry I've been so bad at blogging. I can't blog on my parents computer so I have to wait until Reed brings his laptop inside the house for me to blog and most nights I just don't care enough. :/  I'm sure that will change once we get our own place again with our own computer set up. I really love blogging and miss it when I don't do it regularly. Hopefully there will be a few updates more before we add our new little girl to our family but I'm not making any promises. By the way, 37 weeks tomorrow. Not that I'm counting or anything. Ha!

In honor of Fall

I just happened upon this recipe a few weeks ago and couldn't walk away from it.

 People, it is totally worth any and all sweat and calories incurred.

Yum!

My Dad said it was a chocolate lovers cake.

Sounds just right for me!

The Best Chocolate Chip Chiffon Cake .

Click. You will love me or hate me because it's so delicious!

35 Weeks

Okay, this one is pretty. 

Now I will add some imperfectly cute pictures of me and my girls. 

These ones are more my favorite, but remember, not by any means well posed or anything.

Breakfast Leaves Me Breathless and Other Updates on our Family

33 weeks pregnant today! For a few weeks now, after breakfast I struggle with getting a big deep breath for a few hours. Sounds pretty normal to me for as pregnant as I am and yet it's still a little annoying not to be able to breathe normally. Only a few weeks more and that problem will solve itself. Luckily, I only have normal pregnancy complaints to speak of at this point. I am still sleeping fairly well which makes me happy. I have to get up at least once a night to use the bathroom but it's only because I can't turn over very well because of the extra weight of my bladder so I empty it to help my body to relax and I get a deeper sleep. Our little missy likes to experiment with her kicks at this point and she's so big you can easily see her move from the outside now. It's mostly entertaining until she starts doing repeated high kicks in there. LOL
    Aftyn is still LOVING preschool. For the past week and a half it's been my turn to teach, so we have had preschool at our house. Bronwyn has loved getting to be a part of all the learning. She insists on drawing while we practice writing our names and enjoys playing all of our games and singing songs with us. Oh, and she loves all the crafts! I don't know how she's going to like going back to our mommy and me preschool. Oh well. Maybe I'll have to ramp it up a bit to be more like Aftyn's preschool schedule.
     I have seen such a change in Aftyn since preschool started! She asks SO many more questions about things and has really started picking up on things much more quickly. She has a hunger for learning that is so fun to watch! She is doing really well with phonics and is getting closer and closer to reading. I can't wait for her to learn.
      We are all so excited for our baby coming soon! We have the bassinet all set up, her blessing dress made (I only need to finish sewing the button holes), her lighter blanket finished and her thicker blanket is not quite finished and it's taunting me with it's edges all hanging out waiting for me to finish sewing it. I'm lacking the energy and patience right now. It's probably not going to get better in that department, luckily I don't start using the thicker blanket until my baby's are closer to 6 months so that gives me some time.
        We are grateful to be living with my parents still but certainly looking forward to the time when we can move into our own place again. Our plan is for that to happen a few weeks after we have our baby.
         Which brings up some other news. I can't remember if I mentioned but Reed has accepted a new position at his work as a salesman. Because of this new position, it actually requires us to move. We have freedom to choose among many cities in Idaho to move for this position and should have a decision made sometime in the next month. And then we can start looking for a place to rent for our family! We're thinking that we should be in before Christmas.
           Reed is really excited for his new position and we're excited for the growth and learning this will allow him.
         So, that's our update for now. And I have to go to the bathroom. Shocker. Until next time! I'll try and have pictures to share next time.

First day of preschool!

                          

Aftyn was so excited and nervous for her preschool. I'm in a mommy group preschool with 3 other little girls. 

Bronwyn's first day of mommy preschool. She insisted on a bag and picture just like Aftyn and it is rather nice to have her own supplies for our preschool. I love her excited grin!

My 4 Year Old Cried Herself to Sleep..... And Other Facts About My Life

You want some honest truths? Good, because tonight I am all about honest truths.

For example, Aftyn crying herself to sleep. Why? Because she wants to move back to Massachusetts.
She brought this up to me earlier today. And cried then too. I had simply asked her why she kept switching chairs in primary today during singing and sharing time. (I just got a calling to be a teacher in Jr. primary so I sit a few rows behind her class.) She told me she couldn't see our chorister because of the visitors she had in her class and how next week she just wanted it to be the normal number of kids in her class (3 in total). Not sure why the visitors bothered her but I'm just guessing that she's having a hard time with change right now. My parents who we are currently staying with are out of town helping some of my siblings. Could that be part of the problem? I don't know but I'm sensing that could be part of it. I can't help but feel a little guilty that in some way I have perpetuated that and will continue to do so as our family is about to change in the next 10 weeks. I'm hoping that starting preschool in 2 days will help her to have a normally scheduled activity just for her that will help her find a sense of belonging in this life we now lead.

Moving forward, more truths. Reed just accepted a new position at work. Because of this we may be moving a few weeks after this baby comes. And we don't know where yet because we actually have a few choices of cities we could live. Aftyn is going to hate moving again and even worse it's not back to Massachusetts.

This baby is coming too fast and also entirely too slow all at the same time. I haven't decided yet what my getting through labor plan is yet. I would like to do the Bradley method again, but haven't had ANY time to go to my in-laws house to find my book and then spend HOURS of time reviewing and re-reading and practicing all the skills I need to make that happen. That makes me very anxious about this impending birth. I'm really trying HARD to look forward instead to seeing this cute little girly who makes my belly wiggle and squirm.

I am getting to the point in pregnancy where I just feel huge. I'm not in too much pain, thankfully, just a few aches and pains here and there for which I am grateful.Still sleeping well.  So I'm huge, I feel like it will take me forever to get back to being skinny and I'm discouraged because I still have 7 1/2 weeks before I'm full term and I wish it was more like 4. I know, waa waa waa. I should be grateful it's not longer!
I sound like a real whine-fest tonight.

Bronwyn and Aftyn are growing and changing so much. Aftyn loves now to use her imagination in play with dollies and animals and all kinds of things. It's so much fun to watch! She is constantly telling me how much she loves me as she wraps her arms around me for a hug. She is such a good example and always strives to do the right thing as long as she knows what  that is. :) Currently she likes to "wrestle" with Bronwyn which drives me nuts because she basically lays on Bronwyn and squishes her and then Bronwyn squeals because it hurts. But I think Bronwyn is encouraging her when we're not looking so it's really her fault. Siblings. They are just so fun. ;)

Bronwyn is at that age where kids just say the funniest things without meaning to be funny so you have to hide your smiles and laughter while giving them the impression you're taking them completely serious. She still takes 2-3 hour naps every afternoon and even ASKS to take them! I feel so spoiled and lucky. Also, she is a much happier girl because of those long hours of rest. And she still manages to go to bed by 8-8:30. She is so affectionate and loving, if you say something is hurting, she will come up and kiss it even if you didn't ask her to! She is so considerate and caring and mindful of others.  She L-O-V-E-S fruit. She hasn't found one she doesn't love and she is a much more adventurous eater than Aftyn.  Aftyn is getting MUCH better about trying food. Recently we discovered cucumbers make her throw up. LOL. But at least she tried it!

I am in the middle of sewing blankets for our newest girly, a blessing dress for her and a new diaper bag. I'm trying to hurry and get it all done but my swelling ankles aren't helping and my faltering energy stores certainly don't make me all that productive some days. But my goal is to get us all settled in over the next week before my parents come back so that we are as prepared as can be until our Baby Patience is born. It'll happen. Because the alternative is too awful to think about.

Our New Life

Reed's been back at his job for 4 weeks now. We have all been living in my parents house for 2 weeks. I will be 26 weeks pregnant this week. And well, life just keeps on moving.

I have acquired a new (to us) double stroller, and a new (to us) car seat for our baby. I think I'm beginning my nesting stage. In the ways that I can. I can't find my sewing notions but I have come up with an idea for the blanket I want to make for this baby. I also have a good idea of what I want to do for her blessing dress. I'm fighting all that's in me not to pull out all my newborn clothes, or to get out my bassinet and get it all prepared for this little girly. I'm not wanting to pull out clothes or get furniture set up yet because I'm hoping we can find a way to have our own space aka our own apartment or house before we have this baby. And then I will get to go into full nesting mode getting a whole household set up. For some reason right now, that sounds heavenly. :) All this nesting energy needs to go into something!! LOL

We are grateful for all the love and kindness we have received from our families at this time in our lives. We hope that sometime soon we'll be able to get back on our feet but until then we're grateful for all the service we're the recipients of.

Perspective

Yesterday around 3 am, Aftyn woke up with a fever. And continued to not feel well the rest of the day. I started feeling sick around 2 pm and continued not feeling well the rest of the day. Bronwyn thankfully was patient with the 2 of us and sat around while we watched movies from my bed until Reed finally made it home around 9:45, just in time for me to already have put the girls to bed and to have missed most of the sickness as I was beginning to feel better.
 It was a hard day, it was a tiring day. But guess what it showed me?! I can do hard things. I can get through our present hardships and our kids will help. We can live with parents and we can stick together. My kids have my back. My husband has my back. We have kind parents who give us what we can't afford to give ourselves right now and who are willing to help us.
 Heavenly Father knew what he was doing in letting me feel awful yesterday. I am so grateful it was just a 24 hour bug and I now have my normal amount of energy and strength to keep up with my girls and do the things that need doing. I can do this. I've got this.

Look! No Net!!

Sorry for no pictures, but well, that's life right now.

Since coming back to Idaho, life feels like a precarious balancing act.
We are so grateful for parents who kindly take us in and let us live with them, we are so grateful for Reed's job that is slowly but surely helping us get back on our feet but we know that that is going to take us a while
at this pace.

We are precariously hanging on to the tiny tidbits of the familiarities of the life we knew before.
 It feels like if we let go of our old ways of doing things, of our habitual rituals that we might topple over into some scrambled pile of rubble with so many body parts and no one quite sure which ones belong to them. This is a tough time for us.
 We are trying to make a home life for our family in someone else's home.
We are so grateful to have the home but still hard to find the balance of doing things their way and losing our own ways.
 Bronwyn seems to be manifesting the most problems with all this change.
 Poor thing is on day 3 of digestive issues that we can't seem to quite get under control.
And no, it's not the stomach flu because no one else has gotten it.
 We are mindful of our blessings.
We are so grateful for our health and our happiness, so grateful for work and for our baby on the way, we just feel very uncertain about what Heavenly Father has in store for us in the future.
And what we're supposed to be doing in the meantime.
Have you ever felt that way?
 I just can't seem to figure out what our path is supposed to be right now.
 This whole outcome has been so totally out of the blue that we haven't known or figured out what's next. Hopefully we will soon.
 If nothing else, in about 4 months we'll have a new little person to brave this unexpected journey with. Hopefully she's cute.
 That might make up for all of this, just a little. ;)

Little Pieces of Life and Our Travel Log

Last time I wrote, I left you with the good news of our new little girl!  We are still so excited to be expecting our 3rd little girl. I've taken to calling her baby Patience. She has had to be so patient for us to have the time to think about her and begin to look forward to her impending arrival in a few months. We have never had such a stressful time of life as now and I'm sure it's only going to be getting busier.
 Reed and I did indeed move come July 1st. We had been all set up to move on the 29th of June but after measuring out our trailer space in our apartment and trying to fit boxes and things into it quickly decided that that trailer would surely not be big enough. After reserving a bigger trailer for the following Monday and waiting all day Sunday to receive a confirmation e-mail for Monday, Reed decided to call UHaul Monday morning to find out what was going on. When he called he was informed our reservation had been changed to the next day and even then, the location we thought we would pick our trailer up from did NOT have our trailer. And would not have our trailer. Reed called around, found the right size trailer 35 miles away, drove there, discovered his drivers license had expired 4 months earlier, drove back and picked myself and the girls up so I could pick up the trailer with my unexpired drivers license. In the meantime, we had to re-arrange our moving schedule with all the guys from our ward until later in the afternoon when we would have the trailer. Oh my goodness I was so frustrated. It was probably not my most favorite day ever in my life.
    BUT  we managed to pack it all up, finish cleaning our apartment and get out of there by 1. AM. LOL.
Yes, that's right, we packed ourselves and our girls into the car carrying the trailer at 1 am Tuesday morning mostly because 1) we had told our rental company we would be out by Monday and 2) we didn't want to have to sleep on the floor with only our pillows and a few lap blankets we had managed to keep out for ourselves to travel with.
    I drove for about 1.5 hours before I couldn't keep my eyes open. We made it to Ludlow, Ma. and stayed in the Holiday Inn Express. I have to HIGHLY recommend that motel to EVERYONE! Seriously. Best breakfast, best room, best pillows, best service and happiest workers I have seen. Ever. We were out of there mid-morning and drove to Bowling Green, Ohio. We arrived there at 3:45 am. Only because we had a motel reservation that allowed us to stay there for free. It was torture to drive so long and completely wore poor Reed and I out BUT in spite of having no air conditioning in the car had such great cloud cover and rain most of the day that we were never really hot all day! What a blessing!
    The 2nd day we drove to Des Moines, Iowa. Another cool, rainy day. What a blessing. We arrived at a much more reasonable time probably around midnight.
     Day 3, the 4th of July. We drove to Ogalalla, Ne and stopped there in spite of wanting to make it to Cheyenne, Wyoming because Reed thought he noticed our car dripping anti-freeze at a pretty heavy rate and he didn't want to chance having problems in the dark of night with our car and not many big cities in between Ogalalla and Cheyenne. In hindsight, it was a smart call on his part. It was SO. HOT. THE. WHOLE. DAY. We spent the night in the Days Inn. My poor pregnant ankles resembled elephant feet, and I'm not joking.  That night as we were driving, Aftyn LOVED seeing all the fireworks. She just oohed and aahed over them all. What a little sweetheart and she was so game about getting/having to see them from the car. Bronwyn was already asleep by the time we started seeing them.
   Day 4 was the day we had hoped would be our last day driving. (It had been pretty hot, but we had been getting some good cloud cover that helped to cool us off.)  As we finally made it to Cheyenne and stopped for lunch, we had no idea what lay ahead of us. 20 miles after leaving Cheyenne, going up a fairly steep hill, our car completely overheated and we knew we weren't going any farther that day. After lots of help from my dad and brother, we got a tow back to Cheyenne and our cheap and very interesting Motel 6. It was too late by the time we were towed to make it to any kind of mechanic and boy were we worried since it was Friday night that we could potentially be stuck there all weekend until Monday when most mechanic shops opened back up.  Thanks to Reed, our insurance and Midas (who we have nothing but GREAT things to say about) we were fixed up by Saturday evening at 5 pm. I could have kissed those mechanics sweaty feet since it meant we could finally finish our long long drive on Sunday.
  Sunday we woke up at 5:30 and managed to hit the road by 7:30. Go us! We made it home to my parents house around 11 pm. I was never so glad to be done driving. Also, Sunday was Reed's and my 6th anniversary. Good way to show your level of commitment, driving 15 hours and just being grateful to almost be done.  I'm not sure I ever want to take another road trip across the U.S. in the summertime. Even with air conditioning. Maybe if I could relax and just enjoy and stop whenever I found something interesting to go look at. But not anytime soon, hopefully.
Reed started back to work last Tuesday with his old employer, Total Scales. We are grateful for his job and ability to begin making money so quickly for us. We will be living with my parents in the meantime until we have an idea of how long we may be here. We are so grateful for both of our parents in hosting us in their homes on and off while we're here. We really miss Massachusetts and hope that someday we can go back and see more than we saw in our year and a half there. We will miss our old ward and friends there. But we are looking to settle in here and make the best of things right now. I like to scare Reed sometimes so I remind him how swiftly our little girly could be here. It's amazing how fast this pregnancy has gone thus far. She will be here sooner than we can even comprehend. We are grateful for her addition to our family. We are grateful for our blessings as a family right now. And that's all I've got tonight.

Telling Our Kids The Good News

Go here.

Wanted:

A person capable of creating a child within their own body, while at the same time managing to keep a 2 and 4 year old alive and not fighting, box up and prepare to move a family of 4, and various other tasks such as selling and fixing items to sell on craigslist.

Organizational skills a plus. Patience not necessary but certainly nice. Pay minimal. Would you accept homemade chocolate chip cookies as payment instead of money? The cookies  may have a bite or two missing since my 2 year old took it upon herself to taste test them for you.

Another skill needed is optimism for the man in the home who is applying for jobs like mad. Must cheer him on and cheer him up and have dinner ready when he gets home. Sandwiches are totally acceptable. As is cereal.

Also, beware the 2 year old and markers. There seems to be a magnetic draw between the two, as the sheet on my bed can now attest as I took 2 minutes to put tights on the 4 year old today.
Also, the 2 year old is showing tendencies towards neatness attributes.After sitting down for a meal or any sort, she quickly loses her shirt if she deems the meal too messy and tries to keep her clothing clean. How thoughtful and helpful!  Please encourage her when she tries to sweep the floor and makes a bigger mess. She holds and dumps the dust pan like a pro! She must have picked up that skill from her 4 year old sister who is also a great dust dumper.  Beware the 2 year old's too long visits to the bathroom to go potty. We have deducted after doing her business she likes to put on makeup, spread soap, unroll toilet paper and any other "fun" task that catches her eye. Including but not limited to dunking toothbrushes, toilet paper, hands and anything else "fun" into the toilet water.

The 4 year old currently has an affinity for bed jumping. But she can make her bed like a pro.
And is learning all kinds of other useful skills like using scissors on her own gogurts, drawing stick figures, folding towels and spelling her name out loud. She's a great assistant in helping the 2 year old into clothes, going potty and most other things. The 2 year old doesn't always think she's such a great help though.

If you think you could fill this position successfully: Congratulations!! You too must be amazing!

Oh The Joys of Moving

Craigslist. I love to love it, I love to hate it. I just finished dealing with a person who tried to get me to drop my price by $2. While he was here to pick up the pieces. When you're paying less than $10 for something that's worth easily more than I'm charging, that's a problem. I think when you find yourself insisting that they pay that extra $2, that's when you know you're poor. When $2 is worth the pain of insisting on someone paying it. If I was going for a garage sale atmosphere, I wouldn't be selling on craigslist. Okay, end of rant.

Also, I'm getting tired of arranging my time so people can come over and pick up the stuff of ours that they are buying. We're trying to fit back into the same size trailer we came out here with almost a year and a half ago. *Sigh*  I hate having to start completely over acquiring furniture for a household. At least this time we're moving with a chair. A folding chair. Also, don't mind my attitude. It has to do with saying goodbye to perfectly usable and nice pieces that we've been given or gotten fairly inexpensively and are now saying goodbye to instead of having them last a whole lot longer with our family. Hopefully this will be one of the few times in my life that I have to do this. Again.

I sound ungrateful. I am really just tired. Moving isn't anyone's most favorite thing to do. It's interesting trying to box things up with two curious little girls who like to pull things out of piles and play with and move them to new places. Oh the joys.

Also, something I feel I should have more time to be excited about. We find out what we're having on Tuesday. I'm excited when I think about it but I don't have time to let that be something for my mind to rest on for very long. At least this pregnancy is going by quickly and fairly painlessly. I'll take it!

Okay, there's your update for now. Still no job. We'll let you know as soon as we know. Either way, June 29th we are leaving this apartment unless something job-wise comes up in this area. We're not making any REALLY concrete plans at this point for anything.

17 Days Left

Well, we've not been up to much here. Packing, taking things to Salvation Army, selling things on Craigslist. We're taking about the same amount of things out of here as we brought in which really isn't much. Beds, clothes, kitchen stuff, toiletry items.  Kinda sad about losing some of the things we've gathered here, I had such big dreams of changing and painting. Hopefully I'll get to do that at our next place. Here are some much needed pictures from lately.

   

Aftyn's 4th birthday!!

It got really hot. We slept terribly for 4 days.Hence Bronwyn falling asleep randomly on the floor mid-morning.

The girls in their birthday dresses from Grandma Bishop! So cute and ready for church!

Also other awesome news, I hurt my right wrist again. Ugh. Just had to document it b/c it's really bad timing for that.