Lately

Here are some of the things that we have been doing lately.

My brother came to visit us at the end of April. We went downtown and walked around. Here is Jane on the bus ride.

Outside of the museum.

Some freaky drum guys at the food truck rally.

Don't ask me what the peace signs are all about. But he is lookin hot in Jane's glasses.

Lots of loving and cuddling with Grant. Sometimes a little too much with Jane but she is learning.

We decided to get some chickens. They were really cute (mostly still are) but they are seriously stinking up our basement. I can't wait till we can get them outside.

Grant has started to 'talk' and smile a lot. It is so dang cute (see video below)

Nana and Grandaddy came to visit for Grant's blessing. Jane loved having them here. We didn't do much but hang out but it is always good to have them.

I totally spaced off getting Grant a blessing outfit until a day before and looked and didn't find anything. So he was blessed in this. I didn't really care that much :)

Jane and Grant

I don't know how excited Jane initially was for Grant to come. I am sure it is hard for the 1st child and they get all the attention. She has been doing pretty good with him though. She is mostly soft with him but loves to be up in his face (the 2nd pic is evidence of that). She doesn't really want to hold him a lot but loves to lay next to him and wants to cuddle with him. She will often bring her books in and read to him or show him her toys and tell him what she is doing (the video at the end is her reading). It is pretty cute. She is having a hard time dealing with the change though. She is much more whiney and she cries a lot more. I am sure that will change as she gets more used to him and works out all those emotions. Also when he get older and can interact with her more, she will love it.

Grant's birth and pictures

    For those of you who already think a I am a little weird might think so even more after reading this post. Just to prepare you, it will be kind of long. If you only want to see pictures then scroll to the bottom. 

Here is the birth story.

    As some of you know, Jane's birth was long and hard. It was about 17 hrs, 2 of those hours were pushing. I sat at an 8 for probably half that time. She crowned for 45 minutes and I had quite a bad tear. So in light of this, I really wanted to make and effort to make this birth different. I had done some preparation for Jane's birth but I needed to do more. I prepared myself in three ways. Physically: I worked out until about 39 weeks. I went to the chiropractor  as well as getting regular massages (from my midwifes husband, best massages ever, seriously). I Emotionally: getting massages and going to the chiro also helped to release emotional stuff. I really worked on not being afraid and getting past some of the issues I was having that would block me emotionally. I also listened to Hypnobabies again to help me to relax and stay calm during the birthing process. Spiritually: I didn't realize with Jane's birth how much birth is a spiritual experience. I tried to draw closer to God by reading scripture, words of the prophets, going to the temple and praying. This was probably the most important preparation that I did and was the most valuable in the birth process. All of these things made my birth a really incredible experience. It was such a 180 from my last birth and so much better than I ever thought it would be. It was such a blessing. Here is what happened. 

    I realized that i just might be one of women who gestate for a little longer than most as he finally came a week late. I woke up on Saturday morning feeling a few contractions but they were sporadic. After being up for a little while, I started leaking fluid. It wasn't a ton but enough that I put on a pad. It was a semi-steady flow of fluid and it looked like my mucus plug was coming out. My contractions started getting a little more regular but were still 10 minutes apart. I knew it was happening and and so around 10 I texted my midwife to let her know. I made a few calls and had Jeff give me a blessing. We decided to just have Jane go to our friends house now since the snow was not letting up and the roads were getting worse. She was more than happy to go but I was sad to see her leave. We told her that she might have to sleep there but when she came home again baby Grant would be here. And after this I just wasted time for the next 3 or so hours. Around 1 or so the contractions started to become more intense and so I sat on the ball and put a heating pad on my back. Doing circles with my hips with the heat helped for a while. Rachel (my sister), Jeff and I sat around in the living room and talked and laughed. My friend sent me a really funny picture of Jane. As time wore on and the contractions startied to get more intense, I decided around probably 2:30 or so to start doing the hypnobabies. I text my midwife again around this time and said that they were about 5 minutes apart but I could still mostly talk through them. I sat on the couch with my headphones in just trying to focus on staying relaxed. The hypnobabies didn't really help with the pain but it helped to stay relaxed in between and during the contractions. Jeff had started to fill the birth tub while I was listening to hypnobabies. Rachel and Jeff just kind of sat there watching me talking about my progress. I wasn't paying attention to them. I was really trying to stay focused. I think that it was just before 4 pm when Rachel suggested that Jeff call my midwife. We knew it might take them a bit to get there because of the snow. At this point I am thinking that I still have a couple more hours, at least, before he comes. So around this time I decided to get into the tub. This is when it really got hard. I kept listening to hypnobabies and it helped some with the contractions as they got much harder. It was all kind of a blur for the next hour. I was trying hard just to focus. I started to talking to Grant while I was in the tub. This really helped me focus and stay connected to him and what I was doing. I kept telling him how excited I was to see him, that we were ok and doing good with the birth and how much I loved him. My water completely broke while in the tub. My midwifes showed up and started to get things ready. Shortly after they arrived, about 20 min, I was in the middle of a contraction when I felt the need to push. I told them I was going to push and told Jeff to get closer if he wanted to catch the baby. I suddenly felt this urgency just to get him out. I told him that we were so close and that I was going to see him soon. I pushed once really hard and felt his head coming out as I did. His head came out completely with this push. I rested for what seemed only a second when the next push came on. I was holding Grant's head and helped pull him out as I pushed. I felt Jeff's hands come under mine and he pulled him out of the water and put him on my chest. He was born at 5:05 pm. I just sat there holding him, crying and talking to him for a while. My midwife later told me that from the time I told them I needed to push till when he came out was literally about 2 minutes. Grant cried for the better part of an hour after he came out. He wanted to make it known that he wasn't happy with the situation. After a few minutes we decided that I should get out of the tub and make my way to my bed. I walked back to my room holding him and got situated on the bed. I still hadn't birthed the placenta but we were waiting for me to feel the need to. I tried to have Grant nurse and he latched for a little while and I tried to push a little bit. After 10 or 15 minutes, I decided to get more serious about getting it out and handed Grant over to Jeff while I kind of squated and it came out. One of the best things about having a baby at home it that you don't have to go anywhere. I just layed there holding him and my midwives cleaned things up. After close to an hour they finally checked him out and weighed him. Then they checked me out and sewed up my small tear. Maybe 30 minutes or so after that, probably around 7:30, my friend brought Jane back home. Jane told my friend on the way home that she didn't want to see Grant but seemed excited when she finally saw him. My midwives left shortly after that and we just nursed and cuddled and then went to sleep.    

This was just moments after he was born. He has so much vernix on him and he is very purple.

 This is the first picture I took of him just a little while after he was born. 

Both of these were when he was a couple of days old. 

 Some of you may know the story of this picture. If not, notice his pinky finger is sticking out kind of funny. This is a genetic defect that is passed from father to daughter to sons. So my dad had it and I can only pass it to my boys. I have a couple of sisters whose sons have the same defect. The last two knuckles in the hand are fused together. My sister asked a geneticist about it and there are only about a dozen people in the world who have it. Crazy. 

This picture cracks me up. I just think it is so funny the way he is laying. 

Here is the most recent picture of him. I took this just a couple of days ago. He is losing his hair on just the top like Jane did. At least it doesn't look at weird on him as it did on her. He is growing so fast. He loves to nurse. He is not chunking up but is getting really long. He is a pretty good baby. He is fussy some during the days but he sleeps well at night. He will go at least one 5 hrs stretch, which is so nice. I am sleeping better now than I was when I was pregnant. We are so happy that he is here. Jane loves him, but a little too much sometimes. I will post some pics of them together soon. 

I need to dance

Jane has been saying this a lot lately whenever there is music on. It doesn't matter the music because she was doing it in the church the other day too. I put together a little video of different times I have filmed her dancing recently. I tried to add music to the video but youtube blocked my video when I did that. So here it is without added music.

Bideos of Jane

No that is not a misspelling. That is how she says it and she loves to watch them all of the time. I thought I would share a few recent ones. Well recent, within the last two months.

She loves to talk to so many different things now and I often don't know who she is talking to. She is showing her George magnets to her dinosaur in this first one. She if funny because she will often talk to the sun in the car, or any of her animals or babies or even the birthday balloon we had kicking around for a while.

She also loves to look at herself when she is doing something. We don't have many good mirrors in our house so she often stands on our bed to watch herself. Her is a dance she has been doing lately.

Many of you know that Jeff has way too many guitars and such. This Ukulele does come in handy though because it is just her size. Jeff is really hoping that she keeps interested in playing instruments.

She definitely keeps up entertained and busy. We have been making the move into her own room at night. I know most people are thinking it's about time but we just love to have her close. So we have done some things to her room to make it more fun for her. She does like being in there but not always at night. It is a work in progress. Hopefully it progresses fast since we are running out of time. I am almost 38 weeks and am feeling like I will explode any time. Here is what I looked like a couple of weeks ago.
Don't judge my outfit. I have so few clothes that fit me anymore. If I am home then I am comfortable.

I didn't realize that this picture was turned to the side. Jane was sick this last weekend and church was cancelled for the weather. So we spent a lot of time just laying around. You can't really tell in this picture but Jane's poor eyes were so weepy.

Here is another cute one of her playing the Ukulele.

So we are just waiting around mostly. We are all set and ready for the little guy to come but don't feel totally ready yet. I have no false hope that I will go early since I was so late with Jane. After the 15th then I will start to think it will happen. .

Christmas and such

So it has been way too long. I decided to post some pics from our trip to Texas for Christmas. It was really fun because so much of my family was there for my nieces wedding.

Jane got a play tent and she really loves playing in it. She also loved playing at my brother Prestons house. The car was a favorite and there were many fights between her and Ruby about it. Sorry Ruby :)

 She also had a good time at their house with the tape. Oh and the Minnie mouse ears.

We spent an evening at the lake house. Of course Tommy had to make a fire and make it the biggest thing you had ever seen. It did get a little out of control (as you can see below) but then they got a handle on it. You really couldn't stand within 4 ft of it. Jane still talks about this fire.

 Try not be scared of Brians hair. He says lots of people like it :)

She loved the tree and it was hard to get her to not pull the ornaments off.

I really didn't take as many pictures as I should have. There was a lot of cousin fun for Jane. She went to bed exhausted every night. There was also a lot of sickness within the family. Which was sad. Most of them had the flu but Jane woke up one night throwing up. It last a couple of hours and then was over. The only problem is that she got it again and even worse after we got home. Luckily, my mom had driven home with me and was here to really help because Jeff got it too. It was a really fun week when we got home. Things are finally now back to normal. Now to focus on getting ready for the baby :)

The sink fell out

That is what Jeff said to me one night as I was sitting downstairs. I had heard a noise but was unsure what it was and especially what he was talking about. We have been in our house for about 2 and a half years now. We bought from a guy who got as a fix and flip. So naturally we have found some annoying random things that they cut corners on. Well this was just another one of those things. Our sink had literally fallen out. The sink doesn't have a lip that goes over the granite but under it. The people had only cemented the sink to the granite and hadn't used anything else to fasten it. So we had to make it workable for a couple of days. This is what it looked like.

Jeff went to talk to the people at Home Depot about what to do. They said not to do it ourselves because you have to drill into the granite. Well for some reason we just believed them and called someone to come and fix it. They didn't have to drill but just cemented some brackets. Nonetheless it is all fixed and working great now. Oh the joys of home ownership.

So besides that really fun time we haven't had too much going on. There was Halloween. We are not much into Halloween so we just borrowed a costume from my sis in law Becky. If you didn't see it. Here she is.

Jeff and I didn't dress up. We didn't take Jane trick or treating either. Well I guess we did go to the ward trunk or treat. She didn't really get it but had fun seeing all her nursery friends.

We have been having fun to trying to make the most of some nice days and playing with friends. Jane is in love with my friends baby. It is nice and gives me hope that he will really love the new baby (fingers crossed).

Ok random picture time for all you who don't have facebook :)

And one more funny video and then we are done till next time.