The Browny Bunch: December 2007

Friday, December 28, 2007

Merry Christmas! (belated)

Merry Christmas 2007! (A little late!)

Here is our tree after Santa paid us a visit. As you can see, there were plenty of gifts to go around. You can just barely see the bouncy horse in the lower corner, and the stockings are all on the couches.

Sarah first woke up at 4:45 am! I made her go back to bed, where I discovered Chloe was awake too. Aargh! We lasted until 5:45 am, when for some reason Kyle woke up. (Maybe he heard Aaron crying? Or sensed that everyone else was awake?) So we got a nice, early 6:00 am start to our day.

Here are the kids watching Sarah open her new Uno Spin game. Of course, Kyle is naked as usual. I don't know how he keeps himself warm, but he does! They all got lots of nice gifts. My favorite thing they got was new jammies. Sarah had completely grown out of her old ones, Chloe had taken to wearing mismatched sweats, comfy pants and shirts, and well, when Kyle does want to get dressed, he wants to wear jammies. We put Aaron in some Christmas jammies. He was the best present of all!

Ashley made Aaron a special Christmas hat since we brought him home on Christmas Eve. Isn't it cute?

Last but not least, here are some pictures of Aaron without a hat... Grandma wanted to see his hair! What a sweet baby he is.

Finally!! Aaron arrives!

Well, after much ado, Aaron finally made it here! He was born on Sunday, December 23, 2007 at 4:38 pm. He weighed 7 lbs. 6 oz. and was 20" long. He is beautiful and healthy with a great set of lungs! We were so thrilled to to hear him come out screaming.

Our birth story... (don't worry I've left out all gory details!)

Our birth "plan" originally was to have me go to the hospital on the 27th (my due date) for an induction. Well, at my doctor visit the Thursday before, we discovered that what we thought was his head was, in fact, his bum. Yes, he was breech with his head stuck up under my ribs. (This explains how uncomfortable I was!) So the new plan was to try to get him turned (version) and then induce me as soon as possible to avoid going into labor with a breech baby. But of course, Friday was super busy at the hospital so they couldn't fit me in. We had to wait until Saturday.

We got there first thing in the morning for the version. I was really fearing the pain involved in this, but it turned out pretty well. Then it was on to the pitocin. Unfortunately, this did nothing but give me piddly contractions all day that kept my midly uncomfortable and hungry. (You can't eat when on pitocin and they'd had me come in fasting in case we had to do a c-section.) We finally gave up at 5:30 pm. They let me eat (hooray!) and walk around a bit. Then we tried some cervadil (sp?) for overnight. This was all it took for me to go into labor with Kyle so I was hopeful. Well, I woke up Sunday morning not in labor, so after breakfast and a shower it was time for more pitocin. The morning went pretty much the same as Saturday had, so Brad and I were getting pretty discouraged. My doctor came in to check me around noon and the results were that not much had changed. Aaargh!

However, getting checked seemed to be what we were waiting for because by 1:00 I was definitely in labor. They gave me this drug to help take the edge off. I was in a dreamy drug trip for about an hour and a half. It was weird, but it did make the contractions better. By 3:00 I was really ready for my epidural, but they didn't want to give me one unless I'd progressed. Well, I was to nearly 4 cm. Now, my history has been once I get to around a 5, labor is basically over and the baby is ready to be born. I told my nurse and she hurried in the anesthesiologist (sp?) (we'll just call him awesome drug guy) so that by 3:30 I was feeling oh so much better.

My new nurse checked me at 4:00 and said I was at 6 cm. (Hooray!) I was just starting to tell her about my fast labors when, POW!, my water broke. Then about 2 minutes later, the baby dropped and POW!, he was ready to come out. And big time! I don't know what happened to my epidural, but it was not working anymore. I had Brad push the "happy button" to give me more meds, but it did not kick in at all! So much for loving the awesome drug guy! Then of course, we had to wait for the doctor, which I didn't want to do, but the nurses were all for it. Anyways, not too much longer and little Aaron was here, healthy lungs and all! Hooray! Hooray!

A couple of hours later and the gang came to visit. The girls were so excited to see their new brother! Kyle was so excited to explore my hospital room! And here we are - a 6 family!

Monday, December 17, 2007

Laundry and more laundry

I've spent the last several days doing non-stop laundry thanks to putting it off until Saturday and 2 kids being sick - the kind of sick that goes all over the place. A lot of people in our ward started getting sick last Monday, but by Thursday none of us had it so I thought we were in the clear. Oh no... about 5 minutes after getting home from a Primary meeting Thursday night, Chloe tossed her spaghetti all over her bed. So she stayed home Friday and I did my best to keep the other kids away from her - hoping to limit the spread of germs.
Saturday was all about doing the normal laundry and getting the house clean. I went to bed Saturday night feeling anxious about not having packed to go to the hospital (due date is the 27th) so I got up and made a bunch of lists - just in case. I felt a lot better. So between that, the house being clean, the laundry all done, and Chloe feeling better, I felt like I could have this baby any time.
Well, it turns out to be a good thing I didn't go into labor because Kyle woke up crying early Sunday morning saying that he had done "yuckies in his big boy bed" (and on the floor). So it was more laundry for me. The upside to Kyle being sick is that all he wanted was for me to hold him in the recliner. Kyle is a loving boy almost all the time, but he's also 2 1/2 so the chances to just sit and hold him don't last very long. Plus, since church is now a pretty painful endeavor I was grateful to have the excuse to stay home and sit. He had another incident in his bed last night (but thankfully a small one) so today it has been more laundry. Then it's on to my sheets and towels which I've had to put off because of well, the laundry. I was trying to bemoan my situation to Brad at lunch time today and he jokingly replied that it was just fate getting me ready for the new baby. Ha ha. I'll take baby laundry over sick laundry any day! Aah, the joys of motherhood!

On to something a little more fun. Our neighbors, the Morgans, gave our family a gingerbread house kit and the kids had a total blast putting it together. Brad did the initial house construction, then the girls and I did most of the decorating (I was in charge of frosting application). Kyle was happy to make his gingerbread man and then proceeded to be happy consuming his gingerbread man.

This last picture is of Kyle wearing Brad's motorcycle helmet. We were cracking up! Mostly at his efforts to walk around with a head bigger than his body!

For some fun pictures of the kids from Thanksgiving, check out Ashley's blog...

http://www.seethesunshine.blogspot.com/

I'd post them, but I need to go and do... laundry.

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Welcome December - or not!

Well, December started out so nicely - snow and all! The girls were so excited when it started snowing on Saturday. As soon as we had a couple of inches, they were out to play. They had a great time playing down at our neighbor's yard where they went sliding in a small gully behind their backyard. They were outside for about 2 hours. They came in cold and wet, but very happy.

Sunday morning it snowed some more, and in typical western Washington fashion, church was cancelled. I know those of you in Utah are laughing right now, but people here just don't know how to drive in the snow. Slushy roads are a MAJOR hazaard. I was relieved not to have to go and be in pain for 3 hours. Instead, once Brad got home from his meetings, I got to take a really nice nap. Hard to beat that!

Well, then the snow turned to rain and wind. Of course, lots of wind means power outages around here. Something to do with above ground powerlines and lots of tall trees growing in saturated soil... Anyway, luckily for us, the power went out just as dinner was finishing up in the oven, so we were still able to have a nice hot supper. Then it was entertain each other in the dark for 2 hours before bedtime. We sang songs, let the kids play with flashlights, and then with glow sticks. Brad called his family and had a nice long chat with Eric about motorcycles. We got the kids to bed and then at 8:45 the power came back on! Yay!

The next day was major wind and rain. Even though I was worried about the power going out, it didn't. The bad thing was that with all the rain, they had to close down the 2 roads that would get Brad home from the shipyard. They also had to shut down 1 of the 2 ferries. Needless to say, he had a bit of a wait, and then a crowded ferry ride to get from Bremerton to Port Orchard. Then he took the bus home since he'd had to leave his motorcycle at the shipyard. The rain total for Bremerton for 48 hours ended up being 12.9 inches. Yes, that was no typo. 12.9 INCHES!!! I don't know what we got here in Port Orchard, but I'm sure it was at least several inches since they got between 3 and 6 over in the Seattle area. Most of you have heard about how they even had to shut down a huge section of I-5 because it was flooded by about 10 feet of water. It is still shut down today. A lot of people around Western Washington were flooded out or had water damage, but we've been very lucky. Brad has yet to check out our crawl space where we have some decorations and other stuff stored, but so far everything stayed nice and dry for us. Even the garage. Count your blessings, right?

Well, that's all for now. We are keeping busy getting ready for Christmas and the arrival of baby Aaron. That will be my newest excuse for being a slow blogger!