Happy Birthday Russ!

Happy birthday to Russ today! He's getting his wish that he stressed to me quite often of no gifts today. Mostly because of Rachel's birth. Haven't been able to get him any gifts. Although I would guess just having had her before his birthday was a gift for him. He was starting to get worried she was going to be born on his birthday.

I chose this picture of Russ with Rachel (taken with my cell phone camera shortly after she was born) partially because it was the most recent picture I have of him and partially because it reminds me of what a good father he is.

Hope you have a great birthday today, Russ! The kids and I love you very much!

Welcome Home Rachel!

Early Wednesday morning our newest daughter, Rachel, was born. She weighed 7 pounds, 12 ounces and was 19 1/2 inches long. Wednesday was actually her due date. I had never gone to the due date before so this was new for us. The closest I had gone to the due date before Rachel was 5 days before the due date.

I don't know if it would have been as hard as it was going to the due date if I hadn't been having lots of Braxton-Hicks contractions the entire week leading up to the due date. Had them fairly regularly every day but they would eventually stop. None of them were strong enough so I knew they would stop and knew they weren't likely to develop into active labor. I did find it interesting though that the two days before the due date the Braxton-Hicks contractions slowed down and never really got as regular as they had been.

I pretty much knew right away when actual labor started. Those contractions hurt. The Braxton-Hicks ones were uncomfortable but not really painful. They quickly got close and regular so we didn't wait long before heading to the hospital. Labor with Rachel was probably my shortest labor at about 4 1/2 hours. When we got to the hospital the contractions were quite regular at 2 minutes apart. Yes, I opted for the epidural. Yes, it was very very nice to have.

We came home from the hospital Thursday evening. The kids were all very excited to have her home. Even a couple of neighbor kids greeted us when we got home. I was worried how Dylan would be with a baby since he's such a mama's boy. He hasn't seemed jealous at all and even tonight when I asked Russ to take the baby so I could cuddle with Dylan for a minute Dylan got upset and said he wanted me to hold the baby and cuddle with both of them. He sometimes gets upset that I'm not holding the baby. Wonder how long it will last.

We are all glad to have Rachel as part of our family. She is a good baby and seems pretty laid-back most of the time. The only exception so far has been when the chocolate I decided to eat caused her to have some gas and such. Guess that means no more chocolate for me for a while. It's a sacrifice I'm willing to make for such a sweet and beautiful baby.

Molly's Birthday

Today is Molly's 7th birthday. Funny how quickly children grow up. We celebrated her birthday last night, partially to make things easier for getting stuff done that we need to today and partially because it's possible that I could go into labor at any time and we didn't want her to have to miss celebrating her birthday. I was actually due with Molly two days earlier in the month than I am due with this baby. Molly has kind of been hoping the baby would be born on her birthday, but at this point in the day, I don't think that's going to happen.

Anyway, I had talked to Molly earlier about what to do for her birthday since we didn't know what would happen and with my doctor giving me a 50/50 chance of making it to my next doctor appointment. We decided that we would just invite a few friends and have cake, a pinata (since we almost always do a pinata) and then go see Toy Story 3 since we hadn't seen it yet and it was one that the kids have been wanting to see. I asked Molly if she wanted me to buy a cake or make one (really hoping she would say buy one because this much pregnant I wasn't really feeling like making anything). She said she wanted a cat cake and wanted me to buy it if they had one. Make it if they didn't. Luckily, when I stopped by the store to look at their cakes one of the workers asked me if I needed to order a cake. I told her how Molly wanted a cat cake. She thought for a minute then showed me a picture of a small cake they make to look like a cat. I thought it was perfect. She said it would only feed about 4 so I also ordered a quarter sheet cake to go along with it. Molly loved her cake.

Two of the four girls Molly invited made it for the party. They all seemed to have fun. We had to kind of rush through the cake and pinata in order to get to the movie in time. I chuckled at the way the girls basically danced to the car on the way out.

Anyway, here are a couple of pictures from the night. I took a picture of just Molly with her cake but apparently it didn't turn out. I'm thinking I'm going to need to break down and get a new camera one of these days. The first is of all of the kids just before singing to Molly for her birthday (which reminds me that I laughed to myself watching Toy Story 3 when they had a short segment of celebrating Andy's sister's birthday and said, "Happy birthday Molly!"). The next is a picture of the cakes for Molly.




In addition to it being Molly's birthday, we are dog-sitting my sister's poodle, Maygun for the long weekend. I think Dylan and Alyssa are going to drive me nuts with the dog by the end of the weekend. They won't leave the poor thing alone. Which is funny considering how Dylan is typically afraid of dogs. He was scared for a few minutes but quickly got over it when he realized that this dog wasn't going to jump up on him or really pay any attention to him. Alyssa keeps trying to carry Maygun around. Let's just say the dog pretty much stays right next to me. Can't really say as I blame her.

First Day of School!

Today was the first day of school for my kids. Strange to think that I will have 4 kids in school this year. Jimmy is starting the 6th grade, Emma the 3rd grade, Molly the 1st grade and Alyssa kindergarten. So technically Alyssa doesn't start until next Monday, but she did have Kindergarten Orientation today and will do her individual test tomorrow.

When I went to take the traditional first day of school pictures, I discovered my camera isn't working. Not quite sure what is wrong with it. Acts like it just doesn't want to open right. I'll have to play around with it and see if I can figure it out later. At least I have a camera on my cell phone so was able to take a few with that. I couldn't get Jimmy to smile for the picture of just him. So he gets to have this one posted.

Here's Molly.

And Alyssa.

And Emma.

Kind of funny that in both of the pictures with all four Molly has her eyes closed. At least Jimmy smiled for those ones though.

Kindergarten Orientation went well. Alyssa got her homework book to start working on and has since done 6 pages out of it. Well, 6 1/2. She would have done more but I told her that was probably enough for now. Her teacher has always had the kids draw a picture of themselves at the orientation while she goes over some information for the parents. For some reason Alyssa doesn't think she draws well and didn't really want to do it but eventually did. She seemed a bit nervous going there.

I helped Emma find her classroom before going to orientation for Alyssa and helped Molly line up with her class. Jimmy basically took off and didn't want any help from me.

Being an early out day, the kids just got home from school. Molly came in and gave me a big hug and exclaimed that the first day was fun. Emma smiled and said she liked it and likes her teacher. I asked Jimmy how he liked it and his response was a shrug and, "It was okay. My teacher seems nice." Funny how they aren't quite so excited as they get older.

Dylan's 2 Year Checkup

Dylan had his 2 year well-baby check this afternoon. I think he's getting really tired of going to the doctor. Usually he's pretty good at his well-checks. Not today. He cried the entire time. Did not want them to touch him or even look at him. I guess crying the whole time is an exaggeration. He had a rather good time playing with the toys in the waiting room.

Anyway, Dylan now weighs 27.6 pounds and is 34 1/2 inches tall. That puts him right on the average for height and just under the average for weight. Luckily he didn't need any shots today because he is all caught up on his immunizations. And it's nice that he won't need to go back to the doctor for a while (except for any illnesses over the winter that I'm sure he'll get).

His doctor asked if he's putting a couple of words together in talking. I chuckled and told him he will say things like, "Alyssa downstairs watching tv." So yeah, I would say he's putting words together. The doctor's response to that was that he's ahead of the curve then. All of my kids have been good talkers though so he seems about right on for me.

Happy Birthday Dylan!

Today is Dylan's 2nd birthday. Which I had actually finished posting about and then had a problem and it lost my entire post. This time it will probably be shorter. Should count yourself lucky. I probably rambled about more things than I should have.

It's hard to believe that two years have gone by since Dylan was born. At times the days were full of stress and worry for Dylan with his heart defect, but it has been a good two years. I wouldn't trade them for anything. Dylan is a joy in our lives and we are all glad he's part of our family. Jimmy often says that Dylan (whom he calls "Gus" most of the time) is the "most awesome ever."

We celebrated Dylan's birthday with cake immediately after eating dinner tonight. Even before taking our dishes off the table from dinner, actually. I actually remembered to take a few pictures too.

Dylan is blowing out his candles in this first picture. For the third or fourth time. He loved blowing out the candles so Russ kept relighting them for him.
Here's Dylan with his cake just after I finished frosting it. I hadn't planned what I was going to do for his cake before it was made. (He was eating a soda cracker with frosting on it at the time.) Dylan's sisters and brother kept saying he needed a Yo Gabba Gabba! cake since he loves the show and since I really didn't have any other ideas went ahead and decorated it as such.
Here's his cake. Not the best cake I've ever done, but not as terrible as it could have been considering how quickly I did it and the fact that it was freehand. Didn't get some of the colors quite the right shade I wanted, but that's okay. The kids were impressed. That's all that really matters, right?
I have tried to upload a video of when we sang to Dylan and his blowing out the candles the first time. Dylan grinned and sang along. Unfortunately, it keeps having problems. Which is probably why it lost my first post about his birthday. I don't think I'll try again. Really don't want to have to write the post a third time.

Dylan's Dental Appointment

If you remember a while back when I took the kids to the dentist that I mentioned that Dylan had one cavity and would need to get it filled but the dentist wanted me to wait to schedule that appointment until after I his echo so I could talk to his cardiologist and make sure he was fine with them doing the sedation in office. I did ask and after a quick roll of the eyes said he had no problem with it and also said (after I asked) that he doesn't need to take any antibiotics before dental work. Which is actually a nice thing considering it wasn't very long ago that they wanted people to take antibiotics before dental work even when they hadn't needed surgery to repair a chd.

Anyway, I have been putting off scheduling Dylan's dental work because of his needing to be sedated for both the echo and then a couple of weeks later the MRI. Just didn't think he needed to be sedated a third time so quickly. I finally broke down and called the dentist to schedule it when Dylan started putting his hands in his mouth like his teeth were bothering him. I looked closely at his teeth and noticed that he had a couple of other cavities on his front teeth and the one cavity was looking worse.

With kids like Dylan who do have health "issues" they use an anesthesiologist to administer the sedation instead of their usual quick sedation with a pulse/ox monitor. That meant that the times they had available were fewer so I was surprised when I called and they could schedule him within about a week. Unfortunately, the appointment was a later appointment. Which meant that Dylan was going to need to go half of the day without eating and a good portion without drinking anything either.

I worried about what I would do when I needed to get the other kids lunch and try to keep him from wanting food and drinks. Luckily I have a very nice mother who offered to let me take the kids there and leave with Dylan before lunch so that he wouldn't be bothered with it. She was tending four of my sister's children so I thought it was very nice of her to offer to watch four more.

Fixing the cavities took a little longer than they expected even after they knew all they would need to do. He ended up with caps on his front two teeth and they had to grind them down to make them look okay. Said the size that fit looked too big and would have just looked bad. Because of the grinding his mouth would be sore. And from how cranky he was the rest of the day, I would say they hurt. Even after getting some Tylenol in him.

I am very glad to have it done. He was very cranky again all morning and I thought it would be a very long day. When he gets cranky like that he thinks I'm the only one who can do anything for him or with him. And gets upset when his siblings even touch me. He did get happy (about the time I took the kids back down to my parent's to let them play with their cousins and so Jimmy could mow their lawn) and has stayed pretty happy the rest of the day. The one exception being when Lys decided it would be a good idea to grab his sore front teeth. No idea why she thought that was a good idea.