Happy 5th Birthday Kyliekins!!!

Five years ago today my little Kyliekins was born! She was born on a Saturday morning. Megan was gone as she had spent the previous night sleeping at Kate's house. I woke up at 7:45am feeling odd and within a few minutes started having contractions. I woke up Rob a few minutes later as they were immediately pretty painful and they were only two minutes apart. We called and asked the message service to have the doctor call us. Rob got up and started getting things ready for us to leave. By the time the doctor called back 15 minutes later, I couldn't even talk on the phone. He asked Rob how far we were from the hospital and since we were only about ten minutes away, he told Rob to get me in the car NOW and get me there. Fortunately there wasn't much traffic. Rob made it to the hospital in about 7 minutes. My water broke as we pulled into the parking lot. Rob turned to me and asked if I wanted him to drop me off at the door first or park first. I looked at him like he was crazy and told him to pull up to the door and tell the nurses I was having a baby in the car. Within a minute or so there I was surrounded by nurses. They checked and as Kylie's head wasn't out yet, they pulled me out of the car and threw me on a gurney. Someone was holding the elevator for us, but they pushed me out of it as soon as they pulled me in as they didn't think we'd have time to make it to the second floor. They pushed me into a triage room and a doctor ran in and caught Kylie as she was born. Rob made it into the room in time to grab my hand as Kylie was born. The valet had grabbed Rob's keys and shoved Rob into the hospital after me or Rob would have missed it. Kylie wasn't breathing (they told me later that it's pretty common for babies who are born very quickly to be a bit shocked and need some help breathing) and a nurse grabbed her and she and two other nurses got her breathing. That nurse had just come on duty and hadn't even changed into scrubs yet. She came in later to see how we were doing and told me that as they pulled me into the hospital, there was a tour for prospective mothers by the door. She said the looks on their faces were priceless :) I think I may have scared them a bit! Kylie was born at 8:44am, less than an hour from my first contraction. Later that morning I asked Rob what he was thinking when he asked me if I wanted him to drop me off. He said he thought I was just being overdramatic :)

A few hours old ~


Just before her first birthday ~


Rocking in the chair she got for her second birthday ~


Ready for ballet class (age 3) ~


Age 4, being a goofball (she had just given herself a haircut and had to have her hair cut short because of it) ~


Last month ~


Posing this morning with the pig cake I made for her at her request ~


The pig cake ~


I love you Kyliekins!!! Our family has been so blessed to have you as part of it! I love listening to the incredible stories you come up with and having you help me around the house! I love listening to you laugh and seeing your grin! You are such a ray of sunshine! Happy birthday wonderful girl!!!

Jack playing in the kitchen sink ~


Jack and Kylie reading on my lap while I do homework ~


Jack vacuuming ~


Kylie (taken by Beth) ~


Beth (taken by Kylie) ~


Our intersting story for this week ~
Rob woke up on Friday morning and went into Megan's room to wake her up. She wasn't there. Beth had fallen asleep in Meg's room the night before as well, but she wasn't there either. He checked Kylie and Beth's room, but only found Kylie. He went downstairs and didn't see anyone. When he walked into the kitchen, he saw the label from a can of mushrooms on the floor next to a steak knife. He walked around the island and saw Megan and Beth on the floor, trying to open a can of mushrooms with the can opener. The lid of the can had several holes in it from the steak knife. Apparently Megan and Beth woke up sometime before 6:30am and decided they wanted canned mushrooms for breakfast, so Megan opened the gate (we have gates at the top and bottom of the stairs) and they proceeded to try and get themselves breakfast. After recovering from our heart attacks, we had a long talk with Megan about not climbing up on the counter and getting the sharp knives . . .

I had a wonderful birthday! Rob took Friday off work and that morning we all went to school to eat lunch with Megan as it was her field day. Christy came and picked me up after that and she and I went out to the Cheesecake Factory for lunch. We even broke with tradition and actually told the waitress it was our birthdays, so we got candles in the slice of cheesecake we split after lunch. After lunch I went home and took a nap. When I woke up, Rob fed the kids while I worked on homework and then he took them over to Beca's house for a sleep over. Beca said she wanted me to have the best birthday possible and her kids had been asking for a sleep over anyway, so she had all four kids over to spend the night. They had a blast staying up until 10pm and having homemade waffles for breakfast the next morning. Rob and I stayed out until 1am watching the Star Trek movie (which I enjoyed, even through I have only watched one episode of Star Trek in my life). We slept in on Saturday morning :) We picked up the kids around 11am and then went shopping for shoes for the girls to wear as flower girls in Molly's wedding. We tried 5 stores, but didn't find anything. Kylie and I went out with my friend Crysta that afternoon and got deluxe pedicures (well, Kylie didn't want one, so she just sat on my lap, which I thought would be boring, but she said it was the best Mommy date ever). It was a good thing that I paid the extra money for the massage, etc, because within about 90 seconds of getting home, Jack spotted the nail polish and deliberately stepped on it to see what would happen. It wasn't quite dry yet, so I now have a very interesting pattern on one of my big toenails :) Saturday night, Crysta and I went out shopping and picked up my friend Allison and went to dinner with her :) It was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed my two birthday days!!! Thank you Rob and Christy and Beca and Crysta and Allison!!! Rob got me the pedicure and a small stereo for the kitchen. Christy gave me a certificate for a night's stay in the Hilton in Dallas that we can use the night we go to the Andrea Bocelli concert. And . . . drumroll please . . . I finished my first graduate class!!! :) I think I may have even gotten an A, but they haven't posted the grades yet. I may have gotten an A-.

First stitches

Apparently Jack has decided to take after his father. He's not even two yet and we have already experienced his first ER visit complete with stitches. None of the kids in my family ever got stitches, but Rob made several visits to the ER as a child.

Yesterday Jack fell as he climbed onto the toy box and hit his face on the edge of the window of the play house. He ended up with a really deep gash just under his lip. It freaked me out just a tad to see my baby with his face and front covered in blood and a gaping hole in his face. My friend Beca was over with her 4 kids and she called her husband right away as he works just down the street. I called Rob and told him to come home. Beca and I left for the ER as soon as Garett, her husband, got here. What exactly is the protocol for taking a bleeding child to the ER? I ended up sitting in the backseat of Beca's car, holding Jack so I could apply pressure to his cut and stem the bleeding. Jack fell asleep in the car. He hadn't taken a nap yet. We got it pretty much stopped by the time we got to the ER. A friend from church was the nurse on duty, which was nice :) We went to a small ER near our house and were the only ones there when we got there, so we got right in. We were put in a hospital room rather than a triage room where the walls are created from curtains. Beca stayed with me the whole time :) Rob offered to come, but it would have been almost over by the time he would have been able to get there, so we told him not to bother. I think it was a good thing to have someone who wasn't a parent there. I couldn't watch as they stitched him up, so I was very grateful that Beca was there to talk to him. I held his hand and didn't look. The nurse made me promise to sit down if I needed to - she said she didn't want to end the experience by stitching up the back of my head :) The doctor managed to get two stitches in. He wanted to put in three, but Jack wasn't having it. They had Jack velcroed into this board thing and he wasn't enjoying the experience much. The cut looked so much smaller after the stitches were in! Jack was fine as soon as they let him out of the velcro. His favorite parts were the grape popsicle the nurse gave him after his stitches and watching the cars on the highway out the hospital window (he had lots of fun shouting "CAR!!!" "CAR!!!" every time he saw one, which since it was rush hour was about every millisecond or so).

I am so grateful we live in a country and area where he could get medical care so quickly and that we have friends that are there to help us out whenever we need it! It was so much easier having someone there to drive us and not having to worry about the other kids! Thank you Beca and Garett!!!

After getting home from the ER ~





The next morning (today) after some of the swelling went down ~

Old Mother Hubbard and Mother's Day

Thursday night after spending several hours working on homework, I checked Megan's backpack before heading upstairs for bed. I discovered that her 1st grade musical concert was the following night and that she was supposed to wear her costume to school the next day. At that point the comments she had been making about dressing up as Mother Hubbard clicked and so I ran around the house and compiled an Old Mother Hubbard outfit for her. I left a note for Rob (as he lets me sleep in and gets Meg off to school almost every day) and went to bed. After school the next day, we hurried and made dinner and got everyone ready to go see Meg's musical. (Note to self and other moms - do NOT feed your children something with spaghetti sauce on nights when you are in a hurry and need to take them out in public.) Rob got home about 5 mins before we had to leave, so he had to inhale dinner, but we all got out the door on time. I even remembered to grab the camera as we left!

We get to the school and I go to take a picture of Megan and discover that the camera I grabbed has no batteries. Way to go Mom! So I take a picture with my cell phone instead, then Rob stays with the kids while I take her to her classroom where the other kids are waiting. As Rob and I and the other kids are sitting in the audience waiting for the show to start, Rob leans over and whispers to me "so it begins - years of school programs." Well, I really hope that it gets better with practice. The curtain opens and from the middle of the first graders hysterical wailing is heard. Yup, it was Megan. She had to be almost dragged off the stage. So Jack and I jump up (Rob wanted to come too, but I know that I handle things like this better with the girls - he tends to spoil them just a tiny bit :) ) and get backstage where Meg is still in hysterics. Her teacher and I get her calm enough to talk and she announces she had stage fright. I wasn't quite sure what to do at this point. First of all, Meg had been talking about this show for weeks and I didn't want to her miss out on her chance to be in it. Secondly, she's recently started going into hysterics when we try to have her do things like go to her Sunday school class. It's only when we bring her though - she always enjoys the class and if a friend walks with her instead, she goes in without a peep. She had already done the show once that morning for the school and the crowd was actually smaller now. We had all worked really hard to be there and her siblings were looking forward to watching the show. Anyway, the more I talked to her, the more hysterical she got, so I finally decided I wasn't helping matters. I told her I loved her and I would be right out front watching the show. If she didn't want to get on stage, she could wait back there with her teacher, but we would love to see her sing too if she wanted to. Then I went back to our seats. She stopped screaming within a minute or so and even went back out on stage within a few minutes. Granted, she just stood right on the edge and didn't sing a single note, but hey, she was standing on the stage :) It made me feel better about forgetting the camera! If this was the start of years of school performances, I certainly hope they get better with practice!!!

We took a picture of her when we got home ~


I had a wonderful Mother's day morning yesterday! I was up until 3 or 4am finishing the three major papers/projects that were due this week, so Rob let me sleep in. Our church canceled all of Rob's meetings before church, so he was actually here and went to church with the kids and I instead of several hours earlier! The kids brought me presents and cards when I woke up. Megan and Kylie made me cards, including one with a bee-uuu-tiful portrait of me by Kylie :) They found a large serving bowl and placed the cards and my gifts in it. Beth brought me a shell. Kylie wrapped my gift in a clear plastic sandwich bag and gave me a my little pony (full of generosity, she piped up "I don't like this one anymore, so YOU can have it!") and half a tortilla chip. Megan gave me one of my hair clips (no, not a new one, one she found lying around the house somewhere). Rob got me fudge and a pint of one of my favorite ice creams. All the kids climbed into bed with me and we cuddled and talked while Rob made me a wonderful breakfast of eggs and toast. I couldn't have asked for a better morning! At church, all the men took over the classes (Rob taught Kylie's) so the women could all attend their Sunday school class and their women's class (usually a large percentage of us are teaching various children's classes). They brought us cake during the women's class and we each got a rose at the end of church.

The rest of the day was not quite as idyllic as Rob got a sugar low from not being able to eat anything for the hours he was teaching Kylie's class and so I made dinner by myself and watched the kids while he rested. I had to hurry through dinner preparations as I had a meeting to go to that night, so I ended up eating dinner standing up at the counter before everyone else ate and running out the door. The morning was so perfect though, and with so many small children, I really don't think that it's realistic to get a whole day off :) Plus, I get this Friday to myself as well as it's my birthday and Rob always takes the day off and sends me out with Christy to get pedicures and go out to lunch and go shopping. Thank you Rob for all your hard work to make my Mother's day wonderful!!! I love you!!!

Today I am enjoying the rain (we don't get a whole lot of rain in this part of TX) and looking forward to Friday - both because it's my birthday and because it's the last day of my first class!!! Yay for me!!! :) I hope all you women had wonderful Mother's days! :)

Holy pj's Batman!

There is a game on facebook called Farmtown that the kids are obsessed with. If they clean up their toys and are nice to each other, we play it every night before bed. As soon as I announce that it's on, all four come running.


Jack riding in Christy's old Barbie car. The girls push him around and he LOVES it :)


Rob was working out using the heavy bag in the garage and Jack snuck past him. Rob found him climbing up the bunkbed ladder - I swear that boy has bloodhound tendencies where anything climbable is concerned!


My friend and I found Batman pj's on sale and of course, I had to buy them for Jack :) They even have a cape on the back :)
Jack trying to get the camera - he wanted to be the one taking pictures ~


And a shot of the cape :) ~


Kylie, Beth and I build a fort on the climber. Kylie added the pile of shoes near the entrance - I'm still not quite sure why. She wanted a picture taken of it. Jack decided he wanted to be in the picture too, but Beth hid in the fort.


Jack hiding behind the fort - the flash didn't go off because of the light from the window, but I think it's a cute picture of him!


Kylie peeking through the window of the fort ~


The only shot of Beth I got. Guess she was feeling camera shy.


Jack looking like a toddler instead of a baby :( He's getting so big!


Update on Megan - she felt fine while on the gluten free diet, but adding gluten back in didn't make a difference, so we're fairly sure it's not celiac's. She had a horrible ear infection last week and is now on antibiotics. Her pediatrician sent us to an immunologist to get her immune system checked out. Apparently immunology and allergy are combined studies, so we went to an allergist/immunologist today. He is going to get some tests run on Meg to rule out an immune disorder and since they are drawing the blood anyway, he is testing her for allergies as well. Once those results are back, we will go from there. He suspects that she does not have an immune disorder as she is missing many major symptoms. Right now it looks as though he will send us to a gastroenterologist and a rheumatologist after we rule out what we can at his office. He listened to me though and seemed to actually believe me that something is not right. He asked, which the infectious disease specialist never bothered to, what we felt about it - what was our gut instinct? Laura, my friend who is a nurse at a pediatrician's office, said several months ago that at her office, they have found that when the parents suspect something is wrong, it usually is, but the infectious disease specialist always dismissed anything I said.

Anyway, on other fronts, school is going well. My first class will be over in just a week and a half! I've started observing 12 step meetings once a week to familiarize myself with the format so I can use them for some of my internship hours. I've decided I'd really like to do some work for LDS Family Services, the Mormon church's social service group. Having read through the twelve steps now, I'm really impressed by them and think they would be useful to help individuals heal even in cases where addiction is not part of the problem, for example in cases of abuse. I recognize that they are very religious though, so it would only work for those patients that were religious as well.

A few pics from today

Beth decided she wanted bread and butter and didn't want to ask me to help her get it. She got the bread down from the counter and opened it, got the butter down from the other counter, took a knife out of the drawer (she knew to use a plastic one at least) and made herself and Jack a snack. This is what they looked like when I discovered them ~


Jack climbed up on my lap and fell asleep while I was working on my paper today :) I didn't want to put him down in his crib as the roofers replaced our roof today, so the second floor was much noisier and I don't think he would have slept ~


Megan wearing the glasses she made so she could dress up as Mother Hubbard ~


Jack takes matters into his own hands when dinner is later than he would have wished it ~


Quick explanation about our roof - the hail storm a few weeks ago pretty much totaled it. We had to have all the shingles, etc replaced. At least we didn't have to replace the wood underneath the shingles! We found a wonderful company that gave us an advertising discount (we let them put their sign in our yard) equal to our deductible, so we didn't end up having to pay anything out of pocket. They even showed up when our insurance adjuster did so the insurance lady could use their two-story ladder. We've decided this storm was actually a really good thing. Roofs are only good for ten years or so and ours was eight years old. This way we get it replaced with another ten year warranty without having to pay for it :)

A few pictures

Beth singing to herself - caught on camera by one of the kids ~


Jack vacuuming - one of his very favorite things to do. Yes, the floor was clean that morning. That is what four small children do to a floor in an hour or so ~


Me in my now usual position, taken by Kylie ~


This afternoon the kids wanted to play outside. I heard the water turn on, so I went outside and turned it off, but there was already a bit of a puddle. It became a bit more of a puddle, added to by the next door neighbor's little girl, who apparently agrees with three of my children that nothing is more fun that a mud puddle. This is what they looked like just before I hosed them off and brought them inside for a bath ~


And a closer shot ~


Beth - in her world, this is dirty. I think it's the dirtiest she's ever gotten. She was soaked though as apparently there is nothing wrong with getting wet, it's just the mud part she has an issue with. She is showing me a piece of grass that stuck to her hand ~


Just a sentence to celebrate - I got three out of my four short papers done and submitted today!!! I got two done before dinner and then my monthly book club meeting (by the way, we read A Rather Lovely Inheritance which I very much enjoyed) then since I got home just before 11pm, I got another one done before typing this up (and now going to bed since it's after 1am). One more left tomorrow, then the annotated bibliography and 9 page paper!