Holidays

So there is much to catch up on, and I hope I remember all of it! Most of my stories will be told by pictures and their captions though.

Earlier in the month we got a professional family photo taken. And here is the pose we chose. We really like it and are pleased with how well it came out given the circumstances.

All family arrived safely this past week, although most went through hairy moments trying to make it safely. (They all made it home safe too!) On Tuesday we spent the whole day over at Justin's parent's house. His sister and her family as well as one of his brothers and his wife were in town. The boys played basketball, which they all love to do. The whole day was wonderful and we were so happy we could spend that time with them. We also had a few other moments to spend with them while they were here, as well as all the time we spent with my family too (since my sister and her family were also in town and Christmas was "with" my family this year). It seems that from last Monday thru this Sunday we were with one family or the other the whole time. It made for a busy and hectic week!

Hazel has been more colic lately, mostly gassiness and such. She is still our little sweetheart, but unfortunately dealing with some intestinal issues. Before I get tons of mail from all you moms out there about things to try, know I have tried and am trying various things to help her out. Nothing is working yet, but it may just take time for her body to adjust.

Now for Christmas photos. These first ones are from Christmas Eve at my parents house. The kids all put on their pajamas (it has always been a tradition in my family that we all get new pajamas every Christmas Eve, I made our sweat pants this year). We then let them preform the Nativity story. Levi and his cousin Ashlie were Mary and Joseph. Then when we were all singing Levi decided he was the music director and stepped up to direct. It was so adorable!

Levi conducting music

Levi and Ashlie as Mary and Joseph

Our Pajamas this year... the pants were made by me...

Christmas morning was fun and Levi even let us sleep until about 7 AM! He loved all his presents and was even reluctant to go see his cousins and NaNa because it meant leaving his toys. He got a bunch of race cars and even a remote control car in addition to a cool dinosaur and a BBQ that makes sounds and lights up. He loved every one! At one point he had all toys going at once. Some other sweet gifts we recieved were from Justin's parents. We got some recieving blankets that were used for a couple generations; there was some outfits that his youngest sister wore when she was little; a book that was his youngest sister's favorite; and there was Justin's baby blanket. Hazel has used my baby blanket a few times, but it is nice to have both Justin and mine. My sister made a beautiful blanket for Hazel as well, that I am sure will be passed down too.

I was babysitting my nieces and nephew one night and had this exersaucer out for one of them. The next day Levi decides it is his toy and he hops right in. He played in there for about five minutes before deciding he didn't really like it.

My niece Chelsea (I met her for the first time this trip, she is my sister Mirinda's youngest)

This past Sunday Justin was able to bless Hazel at church. It was wonderful that both our families were able to come. My grandma even drove up from Roseburg for the event. Hazel slept through the whole process, which was wonderful! However I missed most of what Justin said because Levi was acting up and I had to hold my hand over his mouth just to keep him relativly quiet. The dress Hazel wore was made especially for her by my sister Mirinda. I told her what I had envisioned and she made it. It looked amazing! Hopefully an heirloom for Hazel to hand down.

Now for the classic Levi stories! Due to the high volume of visitors, lack of quality nap times, and attention being distributed to others, Levi acted out much more than usual. Every day he had several time outs due to hitting, biting, punching, pushing, pinching, or some other violent act upon a cousin. Now the cousins typically were doing the same thing back to him or had instigated his actions with their own, but there were several that were unprovoked. Justin and I were at our wits end by Sunday night. Luckily it all subsided and went back to normal once everyone left and he adjusted back to normal life. However, in typical Levi form, last night while at my parents he got too comfortable with the fireplace and burned his right pointer finger. He has a nasty blister on the pad of it. We tried wrapping it up, but every bandage we put on he pulled off, including just a band-aid. Finally I did some tapping and wrapping that worked for the night and he kept the bandage seen below on. I did have to redo it today though.

Today brought the OSU Sun Bowl game (Oregon played their Bowl game last night and won). So of course the kids had to dress for their support. Hazel doesn't have too much OSU gear, but I managed to make her look adorable! I had her laying on her blanket and Levi came over and tried to play with her, it was so cute! Moments like that make you realize why you wanted to be a parent. Oh, the Beavers won too (most boring game in the history of football!! They won 3-0).

The last bit of news is sort of major. It was a huge decision that actually came very easy to Justin and I. Over this past week we had joked about Justin owning his own fast food place. Then after a comment I made at church, I realized Justin was not pursuing a career he wanted. So we talked a lot about it, and prayed too. Justin said my advice for him to start his own business was very inspired and right on target. It now seems so obvious of a choice I can't believe we didn't come to the conclusion sooner. So Justin has changed his major to business and will graduate from OSU June 2011 with his business degree. He plans to open his own business. We are still talking about what specifically he will do, but we have several good ideas. Justin has so many good contacts already, and he is so good with people that I think this is the best option for him to succeed. As I said this choice feels so right and seems so obvious now, I know we made the best choice. It even made it more clear when we dropped his science classes and registered him for business classes. He was able to get into every class he needed and his schedule still works with his work schedule! Everything is just falling into place. I am excited about this new path, and not just because we'll be done sooner.

That's all from us. Long, I know... sorry! Next week will be shorter I promise! Happy New Year to all!

Pre-Christmas

Our weather this week has been frigid and white. I used to joke, when I moved here from Nebraska, that I was always "dreaming of a white Christmas." Now, for the last three years, I have had a white Christmas. Justin says to blame global warming! Either way, the snow is beautiful! It pales compared to the drifts and feet upon feet of snow Justin and I would get in Nebraska and Wyoming, but it has a different beauty.

Justin has been able to take Levi out in the snow quite a bit this week, which has made Levi the happiest little boy around! He's eaten snow, made a snow man, gone sledding, accidentally white-washed himself, discovered snow is actually cold, and learned ice is very slippery. He will wake up every day and yell, 'It's snowing', even if its not. We went out and bought him a new coat and snow pants since K-mart was having a sale and he needed the pants. Hopefully both will last him through next winter too.

Hazel discovered the snow too. I took her outside for a brief moment to get a picture and then ran back inside for warmth. She did quite well, and didn't even squeal once. I went out to run errands a few times during the week and she did well on those occasions too. As I mentioned, she is a very mellow baby. She's had some bad gas lately so she's cried a little more than usual, but I'm sure she'll be back to her usual peaceful self soon.

On another note, our family has been sick sick sick. Well everyone except Justin, thankfully. I've had a cough since before Hazel was born, and Levi has been on and off sick for longer than that. I started getting sick again yesterday and Hazel started getting the same symptoms as well. We would have stayed home from church today but it was the Christmas program so we stuck it out as long as we could. We made it through half of the first hour and headed home. I think we spent more time getting ready than we did at church. But we did our best and that's all we can hope for. I think Levi is getting hit the hardest, as he seems to be the grumpiest about being sick. He goes from super grump to super sweetheart and back again in two seconds flat. But at least we get the super sweet moments too.

That's all the pre-holiday stuff from us. We look forward to seeing all the family coming into town on both sides for the holidays! We are just so excited to see everyone! My sister has already encountered aftermath from the winter storms, as her flight from Chicago was cancelled. Portland airport is pretty much shut down, so no flights in or out. She managed to get a flight into Seattle and then will drive down with her family. Hopefully the drive will be safe, for her and our other family members driving this upcoming week! We love you all and wish you the merriest Christmas!

Christmas Spirit

So we have had a full week, as can be expected with a new little one at home. However, I have never felt overwhelmed or like it was too much. Maybe that's because Justin was home to help, but even when I had both kids to myself I felt alright. We did have help with dinners at the beginning of the week, which was very nice. Both of my visiting teachers are pregnant, and one of them went into labor two weeks early and delivered her little boy the same day I did. My other visiting teacher was great, especially since she has three girls already at home! Our home teachers were nice as well, they took Levi one afternoon for a play-date with their 3-year-old boy. All in all it was a good but full week.

We have been doing our best to curb Levi's acting out, which dramatically increased when Hazel came, as expected. We have been trying to give him the attention he needs without missing Hazel's constant needs. I even had a moment today to take Levi to run some errands with me one on one. He seemed to really enjoy his mommy time too, and I think it helped his behavior the rest of the day. He does love his sister though as he still showers her with kisses and cute comments like, 'Don't be sad Hazel.' and 'Oh, poor baby Hazel.' Even when we had our one on one time today he asked a few times, 'Where's baby Hazel?' He is a very sweet older brother! One attention getting antic was tonight when he found the jar of Vaseline I'm using for Hazel and smeared it all over the front of him, literally from head to toe! His socks were covered, and it didn't end until his hair (which had a few globs). I was in the shower with Hazel at the time, and I'm not sure what Justin was doing, but I know we've all had those moments where we look away for a minute and a disaster happens. Unfortunately for him the hot water was almost gone so half his shower was in luke-warm water. He was not happy. I just reminded him that this is what happens when we make such big messes. I think it'll still take a couple more showers to get it all out of his hair though.

Hazel has been a complete delight and joy! She would be classified as an 'easy' baby for sure. I am not trying to brag, and please remember that I did have a fussy and harder baby with Levi, so I'm not without sympathy for those who have hard babies. She is eating about every three hours during the day, and sleeps anywhere from 4-6 hours at a time at night. Levi was up every two hours on the dot, so I know those nights! She doesn't cry much, and when she does it is the sweetest little cry. I don't know if its because I see it differently because she is a girl or what, but it seems everything she does is sweet and precious. As I said she is an absolute joy in our home, and has made the transition for us so easy. She lost her umbilical cord remnant yesterday, so she got her first bath. Unlike Levi who screamed the whole time his first time, she loved every minute! I didn't even have to use a towel to keep her warm. She sat and licked at the water falling down during the shower and fell asleep during the bath. She must be a woman! Justin says its because I took at least one or two showers a day when I was pregnant with her, but who knows! All in all she is more than making up for the hard pregnancy that I had.

We have been out and about a little this week, and even made it to Christmas Storybook Land in Albany twice. Essentially it is a large display of a vast variety of small scenes from children's stories; from Disney to Mother Goose. They have lots of Christmas trees decorated with lights, and a model train display. I'll give you one guess at to Levi's favorite part! Trains! It is something he asks for every day. He's a boy, he loves trains! At the end is Santa. Levi sat on his lap without crying, but this year he played shy. Another thing Levi is enamored with is Christmas lights, so we have been taking him to the Pepsi plant here in Corvallis that has a big light display. There is a radio tower right by it that they turned into a huge tree with lights. Levi calls it the volcano. So every day he begs us to take him to see the volcano. We've indulged him many times, but I can't seem to do it every night.

We went and had a professional photo taken this week as well. My mom got a coupon for a free sitting with one 5x7 photo free, and she gave it to us. Levi, who usually loves to have his picture taken, was shy the whole time, and we had to bribe and prod to get anything out of him. Luckily my mom was there to help, I don't think we would have got even one shot without her. I'll post the picture when we get it back, but we don't even get to see the pictures until next week.

As for the happy parents, I am healing nicely and seem to be doing just fine with daily tasks. I think once Justin goes back to work I will have my real test, but I have no worries. Justin does head back to work next week, and will be back hardcore! He said he is ready to really bust it out while he is off from school. This will be very helpful during the holiday season.

Well, thank you to all who sent cards, gifts, or even just stopped by or called to say hello. We appreciate all of you and all that you do! We love you all and wish you the best Christmas!

Welcoming our Christmas angel

So as most, if not all, of you know Hazel Anne joined our family on December 4th! I'll keep my labor story brief for those interested. I started feeling contractions on Wednesday at 3:30 PM. My mom took me walking around various stores in town until I went into the hospital at 9 PM. Shortly after I got there they had me take a bath, and after that my contractions became very close and very intense. In one hour I dilated 4 cm. By 10:30 I was pleading for pain meds. I didn't get them until almost midnight however. I first received IV drugs, which worked for about half an hour. They then checked me and saw I was progressing very fast and knew I would need to push soon. So instead of an epidural they gave me intrathecal drugs. Basically, I could feel pressure and sensations, but no pain at all. I wasn't numb, and mostly my body just felt very warm. I think if ever my labor progresses this fast again I will get this, I liked that I could still feel things and walk around. They came in around 1 AM to check me and realized she was crowning, so it was time to push. Hazel came out at 1:52 Thursday morning! The midwife I had let Justin help pull her out, "catch" her, and cut the cord. He was excited to do it all! He said he even got to put the two clamps on her cord before cutting it. It was a totally different experience than Levi's birth, but I guess they can all be different somehow. Hazel was 7 lbs. 2 oz. and 20 inches long. Unlike me, Justin, Levi, or most people in our families, Hazel was born with lots of hair! And its brown! We know it'll change and probably become blonde, but right now its so weird to see our baby with brown hair. I think she looks just like Levi did at this age, except the hair. Anyway, Hazel checked out fine, and so did I, so they let us go home Friday afternoon. Hazel is doing great, and although she is feeding okay, she is still not catching on as quickly as I would like her to. She wants to feed on her schedule, which can be anywhere from mild snacking to waiting 4 hours in between feedings. I was able to get Levi on an every-2-hour schedule pretty quick, so this is a bit frustrating for me. However, I know she'll catch on in her own time and I'll soon have a schedule with her too.

Levi is an amazing big brother! He is adjusting to her wonderfully. Don't get me wrong, his two-year-old attitude had become much worse and he is looking to get into trouble at every turn, which I expected. But his treatment of Hazel is one of the sweetest things to watch. He always wants to give her kisses, and he is always concerned where she is and what she is doing. He loves to hold her and he wants to help with feedings and diaper changes. Now if we can just keep his behavior in check!

As a little Christmas story for you, here's a cute moment from Levi. Justin and I have been trying to teach him about Jesus as well as indulging in his childhood joy of Santa. We seem to have a good mix right now for his age, and what he can understand. However the other night at our Stake's Creche Exhibit Justin asked Levi where baby Jesus was, expecting him to point to one of the hundreds of nativity sets around the room. Instead he answered, 'He's at the North Pole with Santa.' It was the funniest little connection he's made yet!

Well that's all for this week. Hope yours was as wonderful as ours!

Turkey and Tree

So this will probably be my last post until after Hazel is born, but since it has been over a week and a holiday has occurred, I figured I should write before I have a lot less time to do so.

So for the most part, pre-holiday, we just got our house ready and cleaned (again!). Justin and I really pushed it out and crossed a lot off our to do list. The house really looked great and stayed looking great after we were done. We've been doing good to keep it clean since I think we both don't want to have to do another deep cleaning before Hazel comes (which we are really hoping for any day now). When I did the laundry this last Tuesday I really thought it would be the last I would do it before she came, and yet I have a feeling I am going to make it through another laundry day. Last night I thought she was coming, and in fact Justin got so excited he could hardly sleep (welcome to my world). I was having a lot of pressure like they were contractions, but I was not feeling a great deal of pain. They progressed steadily until they were 3 minutes apart. I called my mom and asked what I should do since they weren't painful and didn't remind me of the contractions I felt with Levi. Her answer was to call my OB, and we both thought that meant I would have to go in and be checked. However, upon calling, she told me not to worry and to just wait it all out. She said it sounded like my uterus wanted to contract but I was not dilating, so there was no pain. She didn't want me to come in, but call her back if they became painful. So I waited. No pain. In fact, they faded away like she said. I did have one contraction that was very painful, but nothing followed it up so I was left again waiting. Here I sit 24 hours later and still nothing. I think she will come within the next couple days, but we shall see.

As for our holiday it was wonderful. We spent Thanksgiving with Justin's family in a nice day at home. Justin played football with his brothers and their ward from church in the morning while his mom, sister, and I watched the Macy's Day Parade. Justin didn't know that, that was ever a tradition in my family, so he learned something new. I love watching the parade, and I hope our kids will learn to cherish that tradition too. I made orange rolls, green bean casserole, and a carmel pecan pumpkin pie to bring with us for dinner. The orange rolls didn't come out the best, but Justin said my other two dishes were the best I've ever made them. His family seemed to enjoy my traditional food dishes too. The dinner was excellent and everything I could have wanted for a great Thanksgiving meal. After pie and disappointing football games, we played a game as a family. Heading home that evening we let Levi see some Christmas lights and he has been raving for them ever since. I have a feeling we will be going out in the evening a lot this month to see the lights. Luckily we have a business in town that has a huge light display (we've been there once already).

The next day my mom and I went shopping. Usually we wake up early and hit the major sales and massive, yet horrific crowds. But yesterday we slept in and went out around 8:30 instead. We still found some good deals and just enjoyed being out. Justin and I decided we should get out decorations out and up since we didn't know when Hazel would come and we wanted to get it all up before she did. So yesterday we got all our decorations up. Levi loved it and really enjoys our Christmas lights. Today we went back to Wal-Mart and got a fake tree for $25. It is a 6.5' pre-lit tree. We enjoy it and are glad not to have to spend $30+ every year for a tree. We figure in about 7-10 years when we have the money we'll replace it with a really nice fake tree, like my parents. They bought their first fake tree this year, and it looks great! They spent 10 times what we did, but wow is it worth it! Their tree really is beautiful. They also bought a train that attaches to the middle support and circles the tree about halfway up the tree. Levi loves this and asks to have it played as many times as anyone will let him. But back to our tree, we like our tree a lot and it serves all our needs right now, so we shall stick with this one for a while. Although upon inspection you can tell it is fake, it still looks really nice. Once we got all the decorations on it, it looked even better! We tried to put up our typical Angel Moroni as our tree-topper, but it was too heavy. In fact any star with lights would have been too heavy, so we employed Levi to do some drawing and finger painting to create a star for this year. He did a good job, and it came out looking lovely! It makes the tree look even better (that's a mom talking isn't it!). Now all I can think of is how nice it will be not to have all the needles to clean and the messy water to fill every other day. I will miss picking out our tree every year, but Justin said we should come up with a new tradition to do. We thought of picking out one nice ornament each year as a family, going out for hot chocolate and sledding, or maybe both. But we'll see. So our tree and decorations are up and we really are all set for Hazel to come... in fact both of us are quite anxious.

So until she comes and we are home again as a new, bigger family, I bid you farewell!