It's raining, it's pouring

I never anticipated last week being so mentally and physically exhausting . . . one I never want to repeat again.

Sunday: Church and parents show up for a surprise visit.

Monday: Finish up the newsletter for the SPCA and get it off to the printer; head to Salt Lake to the library and to visit the Martin garage door company for samples; decide to also stop by Standard Plumbing.

Tuesday: Actually got a little nap in and made dinner; Matt showed up to start roofing and spent the night on our tramp.

Wednesday: Went to check on Matt and took him to lunch; went back to Tooele to Standard Plumbing but no one there for us to talk to; still haven't picked out tub; got the proofs back from the printer; some mistakes that needed correcting; fixed those and sent it back, hopefully to never see it again until I mail it; fertilized the lawn.

Thursday: Meet with electrician for 3 1/2 hours and still never got through everything; ran home to meet the Sears delivery to accept our wall ovens and water softener; went back to the lot to finish with electrician and gt Tyler; headed home for lunch and then drove right back to meet with the cabinet people for 2 hours; finally got home but too tired to think about dinner; decided to get the grocery shopping done and took the kids for a Frostie at Wendy's for watching Alex; made it to bed about 11:30 and got up at 3:00.

Friday: Took Alex for his third hearing test in his left ear. So far he hasn't passed. Thankfully he did today so I don't need to schedule an appointment with the ENT. Met with the home theater/speaker dude and finished going through the basement with the electrician = about 3 hours. Ready for a nap. Headed for the neighbors home in Lake Point for a neighborhood party with ice cream and soda pop, the second night this week we've had ice cream for dinner. Kiersten wanted to know why we don't do block parties in Stansbury: too hard to decide where to cut off and stop inviting people. The women chatted and the men hunted down the vole that had dug a hole under our new concrete garage floor.

Saturday: Went to East Canyon for the day, came home and mowed the lawn.

Oh ya, we had swim lessons all week. And I had a sharing time for Primary to prepare. And a baptism/blessing program to put together for my boys. And plan a birthday party for Nate (thankfully his friends were out of town for a couple of weeks and I convinced him to put it off until they get back). And all my bills seemed to come in at once and of course everyone wants more of my money than I believe I owe them. Trying to work my way through that pile. And my kids have been left to themselves pretty much all summer. I'm embarrassed to see Ashlyn when she comes home from a friend's house with straggly hair and unbrushed teeth. I'm sure the neighbors are wondering WHERE IS HER MOTHER?

Monday: I had a serious melt down and wanted so badly to run away where no one could find me. I seriously thought about calling my sister Ang to see if she wanted to go home to Ferron with me for a couple of days, but when I called home today (Wed.) she was already down there. How dare she run away without me!

Yesterday: An okay day. Found out our shingles are priced way too high so we're back to square one looking for new shingles. Tried to take my first nap in a week: lasted about 20 minutes. Made a trip to Salt Lake to look at garage doors on homes. No luck. Driving through one neighborhood we happened upon a HUGE Primary activity complete with vinyl signs announcing the activity and police cars to block off the road! I'm not even going to try and compete with that.

Today: Went for my first run this morning and surprised myself by going 1 1/2 miles. My hips will pay for that for a few days, but it sure felt great to be running again (How do you stretch your hips?). Got the shingles ordered.

I know that "this too shall pass." But in the meantime my baby is getting bigger and I just want a little time to hold him and enjoy him myself. All I can say is thank you Heavenly Father for sending us such a content, happy baby who hasn't minded getting shuttled all over the planet in the last month.

 

The scales are now tipped in favor of . . .

the BOYS!

A. G. was born Tuesday, June 22 at 9:06 am.

He weighed 7 pounds 15 ounces and was 20 inches long.

I meant to post this so much earlier, but I seriously have no life. And when I do have a free moment I definitely don't want to be sitting at the computer. We'll see how many days it takes me to complete this post. So far: 17. I began it on the 25th of June. It is now the 11th of July.

So maybe I'm a little superstitious. There is this family of bloggers I follow simply because I like the way they all write and one of the sisters is my age with 5 kids who follow my kids birth order and who had a baby in January. I feel a little connected. Anyway back in March I knew I needed to get back into my scriptures on a regular basis. One of these sisters posted about the same time that she was going to read the Book of Mormon in 60 days and even gave a daily reading schedule. I decided to accept the challenge. It would get me reading on a more consistent basis plus when I was done reading in June this baby would be ready to join our family.

This particular sister was also going to have a baby in June . . . which she did, the day she finished the Book of Mormon. I did pretty well at keeping to the schedule, but towards the end I kind of lost steam with end of school things and our house finally starting to get built. Here's where my superstition enters in. In the back of my brain I figured this baby would not come until I had finished the Book of Mormon. We had planned to go to the Uintahs for a day trip on June 18 so I purposely did not finish the last chapter until that night after we got back. Well, the next day came and went. And so did the next and the next. So much for my superstitions.

Tuesday, June 22 I was scheduled to be induced. I had to call the hospital at 6 am to see when they wanted me. My doctor and I discussed being induced several weeks prior since she was going to be out of town for a week and wouldn't see me at my last appointment. She suggested the 22nd and I went for it even though in my heart I really wanted an odd number since my kids birthdays are 17, 21, 27, 21. I thought the 23rd would work great. But I didn't mention it to her and we stuck with the 22nd. I figured this kid could share an even birthday with his dad since Tyler is the only one in our family with an even number. Am I sounding a little strange at this point?

Our surprise birthday party started a little early. Remember we didn't know what we were having, girl or boy. At 3 am my water broke. It was not little trickle either. I literally ran to the bathroom and wondered if it would stop enough for me to get to the hospital 30 minutes away. I finally got in the bathtub to kind of clean up and remember feeling like that baby was just going to drop out. I knew then we needed to leave immediately which was so unlike when my water broke with Kiersten. I don't remember the gush, and we stayed at home for a good hour and a half while I had something to eat and finished packing a few things.

A half a block from our house the contractions started. We timed them all the way in to Salt Lake at about 3 minutes apart. At one point I asked Tyler if he couldn't go a little faster than the 75 miles he was going. I was never so happy to make it to the hospital and I'm sure Tyler was a little relieved also. They were waiting for me since I was supposed the come in that morning anyway. I didn't need the Pitocin but asked for an epidural right away. Not because I needed it at that point, but because I knew this could be a fast delivery. I was dilated to a 5+ when we arrived at 4 am.

The epidural worked great and I wouldn't do it any other way. I was able to converse freely with the doctor and nurses right up until I was ready to push. At about 8:15 am the nurse said we were ready to have a baby and called Dr. Cannon. At 8:40 am I started to push. I really thought it would be like Ashlyn -- one push and she was out. This one was a little more difficult. With Ashlyn I felt all kinds of pressure and really felt the need to push. This one not so much. I also wonder if it was because he was bigger than any of my other kids too. I pushed for about 25 minutes before little Alex was born at 9:06 am AND he chose his own birthday, not me.

Dr. Cannon let Tyler have the honor of announcing boy or girl. Alex came out and Tyler hesitatingly said, "Boy?" And then Dr. Cannon flipped him over and Tyler announced with more clarity, "It's a BOY." He was a little stunned. He really thought we were having a girl. I was pretty sure it was a boy. So A. G. has joined our family and we couldn't be happier. Like Kiersten has said several times, "He's the best thing that's happened to our family."

Tomorrow's the day . . . hopefully

I add hopefully because with Ashlyn I was scheduled to be induced on the 19th of March and the hospital put me off for two days because they were so busy. I hope that doesn't happen tomorrow, but I am mentally prepared if it does.

Last Friday was the annual Leary reunion at Manor Lands in the Uintahs. My kids really wanted to go; I really wanted to go; I don't think Tyler was too keen on the idea of me going and possibly going into labor 1 1/2 hours from our hospital. The day before, I had an appointment with my doctor's nurse (Cindy) since Dr. Cannon was out of town for the week. Cindy was the NICEST and I walked away wishing she were my doctor. Not that I don't like Dr. Cannon but Dr. Cannon is just a little more professional and is in and out quickly (which I don't mind either). Cindy took time to listen to my concerns of taking a day trip to the mountains when I'm already dilated to a 3+, 75% effaced, and the head is very low. We discussed it and she ho-hummed but thought I'd be okay.

Then she asked me if I was a religious person. And I said I was. She said, "Maybe you should ask Him if it's okay to take this trip." That caught me off guard and I'm a little embarrassed to admit that it took a health care professional to suggest the idea. We talked about an experience she had had that week with the Holy Ghost while with her bishop and young women just that week as they were hiking. I resolved to do that very thing when I got home. I told God that if this baby did not come during the night and I woke up feeling like I have every other morning then we were heading to the mountains for the day.

Friday morning I woke up feeling great. Tyler was still very nervous, but I reassured him that I had prayed about it and felt okay with our decision. We would leave the cabin if I felt we needed to and we also scouted out all the hospital exits along the way (not that I wanted to have this baby in Evanston!).

It was a fabulous day. And I'm so glad we went. My kids were glad we went. I even think Ty was glad we went: the fishing was the best it's ever been at Whitney Reservoir.

*I thought this picture that Ty's dad took was pretty funny. Is he feeling sympathetic or what?

A side note:

Our house has some walls. It's been exciting to watch the progress move so quickly in just 3 weeks.

Waiting

Scout camp over.
13th anniversary celebrated.
Sharing time done.

This baby can now arrive any time. We are all anxiously awaiting his/her arrival.

Our beautiful backyard

For the Memorial Day holiday we wanted to go hiking up the Oquirrh mountains which are right in our backyard. I wasn't sure how well I'd perform at 8+ months pregnant. But I surprised myself and didn't need to stay behind at any point.

 We saw this: 

 The sego lily -- our state flower

 And this:

 And the view was spectacular:

 Stansbury Park -- where we currently live

 Lake Point -- where we are moving; you can even see our pile of dirt if you squint hard enough

"We're not in Kansas anymore."

Up to this point the whole house building process has been kind of a fairy tale like we've been playing make believe designing our dream home, but never really believing it would come to pass.

Not today.

I'm not in fantasy land anymore.

WE HAVE A HOLE!

I dare say this will be one of the more exciting parts of the build.

We went out a couple of times just to watch the excavator and let the kids play on the dirt piles. I'm tempted to leave a pile of dirt somewhere on our lot just for something to play in.

March of the Toys

Early this morning around 5 am I was awakened by Ashlyn crying uncontrollably as she tried to tell me something. My first thoughts as I tried to understand her were "she's thrown up" or "she's peed the bed."

 It was neither. Her toys were on the move. She literally thought her toys were moving in her room, and it had her petrified. I immediately put her in bed between Tyler and me, told her she was safe, and then she fell back to sleep.

We questioned her later about her experience. She repeatedly told me how she laid in bed watching her toys move, and then I told her how brave she was to get out of bed to come and tell me. We have no idea how long she laid there. The poor girl. But just look at her room. I would probably think things were moving to at 5 o'clock in the morning too.