Mother's Day

Happy Mother’s Day to all you Moms out there!

Today we finally got a picture with all SIX of us

I am so grateful for my role as a mother – there’s nothing I’d rather be doing

Cinco de Mayo

Katie had her weight checked again today
she’s not gaining the weight she should be
but she’s not losing weight - that’s a good thing
so the feeding “process” resumes
it’s a full-time job

the nurse thought Katie’s outfit was perfect for today

Happy Cinco de Mayo!
thankfully Stouffers makes yummy frozen enchiladas

Do Not Disturb

Can you blame me for not wanting to wake up this sweet girl?

In the Yard

I am a list maker. I have a Wal-Mart list, a grocery list, a Sam's club list, my personal to-do list, and of course a honey-do list. As a list maker, I like to cross items off my lists; it proves that something was accomplished. Unfortunately there are items on my list that never get crossed off - for example yard work... is there ever such a thing as a yard that isn’t in need of some sort of care?

Our yard has been neglected since last summer. First trimester nausea/exhaustion last fall kept me from cleaning up the yard before winter set in, then winter was.... well, winter, then I was enormously pregnant and my body would not have tolerated me hunching over and pulling weeds for hours.

Yesterday we finally got outside. The girls were excited that we had an excuse to bundle Katie up in a little snowsuit they’ve seen hanging in her closet.

While Justin worked on cleaning up the garden and planting some vegetables for our summer harvest I started the daunting task of weeding. Oh, how I wish I was one of those people that love gardening, but unfortunately I'm just someone who wants a fabulous yard without all the work. I estimate I may have gotten 2% of the weeding done before it was time once again to feed my little girl.

While thinning out the strawberries Justin found a little something he knew the kids would LOVE.

waiting for Justin to reveal his surprise

Jason’s first time holding a frog

Week Two

Well, the biggest change this week is that I’m on my own. My Mom has gone home and now it’s up to me to get the kids off to school, do the dishes, prepare meals, wash laundry, etc… She was a HUGE help and we all really enjoyed having her visit, but it went by way too fast.

Grandma’s got the touch – Katie’s out cold

Katie is eating better. On Saturday we retested her bilirubin level and it went down from 17.2 to 14.5 so thankfully that is no longer a concern. Hopefully by the end of the week the “process” of feeding Katie will no longer take an hour.

Katie continues to sleep a lot and I still have to wake her up to eat most of the time. Hopefully she’ll still want to sleep all night when I can actually let her. She’s starting to have more awake time though. I read in a magazine this past week that most babies cry between 2-3 hours a day. Thankfully, we’ve never had a baby that has cried that much. I can’t think of a time since we brought Katie home from the hospital that she has cried for more than 2-3 minutes. Hopefully that’s not just the jaundice and she truly does have a content and happy nature. She’s such a sweet baby.



Carly has been looking forward to giving Katie a bath since before she was born. I think her excitement is partially due to this picture she loves of her giving Jason a bath.


A few days ago Katie’s umbilical cord fell off so we were able to get out the baby tub and give her a good soaking.

For a nine pound baby she sure does look scrawny, but maybe that has something to do with seeing Jason in the same tub at 6 months old.


Yesterday was Katie’s first day walking Carly to the bus stop for Kindergarten. We’ve had a Baby Bjorn for several years, but I’ve never really used it much with the other kids. Katie really enjoyed it and I love feeling her snuggled up with me.

Doesn’t she look so small? Yet the fact that she was crammed into my belly just a few weeks ago blows my mind.

Week One

What an exciting, exhausting, busy, and wonderful week. Bringing home a new baby certainly has its challenges, but I'm in baby heaven and can't get enough of our sweet baby girl.

One of the first questions people ask is, "how is she sleeping” I really can't complain, Katie's been giving me 5-6 hours of uninterrupted sleep at night. There have been some nights when she'll want to stay awake for a little while after eating, but again in the newborn world I consider myself pretty lucky.

We gave Katie her first bath on Monday. Her favorite part was getting her hair washed and rinsed – doesn’t she look so relaxed?

Katie is taking a binkie very well and prefers the Mam brand (like Jason) over the Nuk brand (like her big sisters). She also enjoys sitting in the bouncy chair our friends loaned us.

Carly could seriously hold Katie all day. Okay, after a while she may ask for a little support underneath her arm, but it just doesn’t get old for her.


Jason adores his little sister and so far I haven’t noticed any changes in his behavior. I think if we are going to experience a little revolt it won’t be until after my Mom leaves.


I'd hoped Katie would be my child without any feeding issues, but it seems she's starting to follow after her big brother and prefer to sleep rather than eat. At her doctors appointment on Tuesday she was down a pound from her birth weight. We went back in today and although she hasn't lost any more weight, she hasn't gained either. So we're going to have to start a feeding "process" over the next few days and hope that she starts putting on the pounds. This also means that I can’t let her go more than 2-3 hours during the day without eating and 4 hours at night… oh, how I hate waking a sleeping baby. Today the Dr. tested her bilirubin levels and the results came back at 17.2 which is high, but not high enough to necessitate phototherapy treatment. Hopefully, the next few days her jaundice levels will go down and will result in a less sleepy and more hungry little girl.

Katie’s Arrival

We didn’t think we’d see the kids on Wednesday morning before heading to the hospital, but the girls were so excited for the big day that they couldn’t sleep in.

Me and my girls as we’re leaving for the hospital

7:10am - checked into the hospital

7:30am - two failed IV attempts... not fun

7:40am - Dr. checked me and I was already dilated 4cm. He broke my water and told me I could have my epidural as soon as I was ready.

7:41am - Told nurse I was ready for epidural (I was not going to take any chances not getting it in time or suffering any longer than necessary)

7:55am - third times the charm, different nurse finally gets an IV started, they start filling me up with fluid, penicillin (for strep B), and start pitocin

All morning - express desire for epidural, nurse insists she needs to get entire bag of fluid in me before I can have it

9:20am - anesthesiologist finally called, but she asks me if she can do someone else first. I tell her I want to say no, but feel bad making some other poor woman wait. We tell her about my history of quick progress once I'm dilated to 6cm. Thankfully, she decides to give me my epidural first which wasn't nearly as painful as the three IV attempts.

9:55am – measuring at 5-6cm according to nurse

10:07am – Dr. measured me at 6cm

10:30-10:45am - still feel somewhat uncomfortable during contractions, feeling like I want to push, asking for more drugs. Nurse gets me in stirrups and tells me she wants me to push a little through next contraction to see if I'm ready for her to call the doctor. I push for 0.01 second and she tells me to STOP. Thankfully doctor already on his way.

10:49am - Dr. arrives

10:50am - one contraction, two pushes and wala she was here!

As the doctor is delivering Katie I heard him say "she's a two _____ed baby." I asked him to repeat himself two times as my mind tried to figure out what my baby had two of. Thankfully, he had just said that because of her size he had to use two hands to hold her - so she was a "two-handed baby". Our nurse had thought he'd said two-headed.

That moment of meeting her was incredible. I wish I could find the words to adequately describe how I felt or there was some way to bottle those feelings up so I could relive it again and again. It was incredible. As Justin later described it, seeing Katie enter into this world was experiencing a bit of heaven.

We thought it was funny when the nurse commented that I was made for pregnancy. Difficultly getting pregnant, months of nausea and vomiting, extreme weight gain, back problems, painful recoveries, challenges with nursing, and many, many months (years) it takes to even get close to pre-pregnancy weight. I never thought it possible that I could make any aspect of pregnancy look easy.

Katie came out screaming and we thought we were really in for it, especially when she was awake from 2-6am our first night in the hospital. Thankfully, she’s done awesome since then. Of course it’s only been a few nights, but we’re hopeful she’ll keep it up.

Hearing she was over 9 lbs was just what this Momma wanted to hear. Having had feeding issues with all of my kids a little extra chub is a good thing.

Katie loved getting her first bath. The nurse said most of the hair on the top of her head fell out when she was washing it. She still has quite a bit of dark hair on the back of her head, but I’m sure she’ll lose that soon enough.

Justin was exhausted after our exciting morning.

The kids came by that evening to meet their new sister. They were all so excited to hold her.

We’ve been talking to Jason about the baby coming out of Mommy’s tummy, but I’m sure he didn’t understand. He’s been great so far though and wants to hold her anytime someone else is holding her. He’s also been very interested in helping me burp her.

Because I test positive to the Strep B virus I’ve always needed to get penicillin during labor to protect the baby. Because this labor went so quickly I wasn’t able to get the desired amount before she was born. As a precaution our doctor wanted us to stay in the hospital until she was 48 hours old so they could keep an eye on her. We’ve never stayed in the hospital more than one night, but it actually ended up being nice to have a little extra time with her before heading home.

We sure are enjoying our sweet little girl and feel so blessed to have her in our family.

First things first: the Name

Wow, what an incredible few days we have had. First I know everyone is dying to hear what name we have chosen for our sweet little girl. Obviously, if it took us two days it was not an easy decision. We went to the hospital with three names in mind: Cambria, Katie, and Madelyn. However, after she was born and none of those were "fitting" we went back to an older list and added: Jenna and Sadie. Adding two more names didn't make our decision any easier. Yesterday morning our pediatrician came in and was giving us a hard time about it. He had told us previously if we didn't have a name by the time we were discharged from the hospital he got to name her and this week he was choosing Esmeralda. We got talking about names and we asked him his opinions about the names on our list (he knew we were leaning toward Katie the previous day). He said he pictured Jenna as some high school track star (which Justin was ok with) whereas with Katie he envisioned a cute little girl with pig tails. He told us Madelyn was the most popular on our list and Cambria the most unique. But he added that Cambria sounded like a kid who might have allergies. It was interesting to hear some of his stories. The most unique name he has seen is Abcde (ab-si-dee). One of the worst name experiences he’s had was meeting the leather clad, rocker parents of a baby boy named Metallicia. He also said there are some names that just come full of problems like Brittany. In his experience Brittany’s tend to have many medical issues (little did he know Brittany had also been on our list at some point). Anyhow, of all the lists we've had Katie has always been on it. So as Justin started taking our things to the car I wrote down Katie on her paperwork (I also asked the nurse what we'd need to do if we got home and changed our minds). We're still not used to it, but we're pretty confident it will soon "fit" her. So we’d like to introduce you to the newest member of our family - Katie Fletcher.

Baby Fletcher

We are pleased to announce the birth of our not so little little girl. Holly and baby girl are doing great. Here are the key stats:

Time: 10:50am (4/14/2010)

Weight: 9 pounds 9 ounces

Length: 19 inches

Name: TBD

The delivery went so quickly that baby girl did not receive the desired amount of penicillin so we will be staying in the hospital through Friday. The extra 24 hours should give us enough time to finalize her name!

I am sure Holly will be posting a few more pictures once we get home...and hopefully we will have a name as well.

Break, Baby, Baptism

Spring Break

I wish I could say our spring break was as productive as our mid-winter break. But sadly it was not. In fact all my sorting and purging over mid-winter break (two months ago) ended up in the nursery. While we plan on having the baby sleep in our room for the first bit, we do need to relocate the girls to the nursery when my Mom comes - tomorrow. But oh my…

Where’s a magic wand when you need one?

Baby

A few weeks ago my doctor and I were talking about the upcoming arrival of our baby girl. I reminded him that we had both Carly and Jason on the dates we did because he was leaving town the following day. I told him I’d been thinking I’d like to have the baby on either the 16th or the 19th and somewhat jokingly asked him if he was planning on going out of town around that time. As my luck would have it, he’s leaving town the 15-20th.

At my appointment last Friday I was already measuring at 2.5cm. My doctor told me he thought there’d only be a 10% chance I’d make it until Wednesday, but if by some chance I was still pregnant he’d like to induce me that morning. He told me he was working this past weekend and he was certain he’d see me then, but we’re determined to hold out until my Mom gets here tomorrow afternoon. So if everything goes as planned… which it better… we’ll be having this baby on Wednesday. We’ll keep you posted.

Baptism

For several months Justin’s been teaching a family about our church. The Mom was somewhat raised in the church, but DJ and the 10-year-old son were not. They’ve wanted Justin and the missionaries to come over as often as possible. They wanted to know everything. Besides these weekly visits, Justin and DJ have developed a close friendship over the past several months and have been playing basketball, racquetball, and scuba-diving together. A few weeks ago the husband and son decided they wanted to get baptized. And being the somewhat-pessimistic person I am I kept waiting for them to change their mind. I kept asking Justin questions like: have you told them about not drinking alcohol or coffee? What about paying tithing? They really want to donate 10% of their income to the church???

Having been raised in the church the restoration of the gospel and the role of Joseph Smith are not foreign to me and it’s always made sense to me that our Heavenly Father would have a prophet on the earth today, just as in bible times. Paying tithing is something I’ve always done and living by the gospel principles has brought tremendous blessings to my life and to my family. But to hear all these things for the first time as an adult… that’s an entirely different experience. It’s made me grateful that I was raised in the church because I think it would be so difficult to accept as an adult. But this family felt the spirit and knew what they were hearing was true. They wanted to know everything about the church and were willing to make changes in their lives and habits to live according to its teachings. Their baptism was scheduled for this past Saturday afternoon – April 10th.

Since their decision to be baptized they have had several experiences that have tested their faith. The most recent was a trip to the ER on Thursday morning when DJ was experiencing severe abdominal pain. A cat scan revealed he had a colon infection and he was kept overnight for treatment. The doctors wanted to keep him through Saturday for further testing, but DJ was insistent that he be released so he could be baptized as planned. Talk about faith in adversity. When I got home from visiting my doctor on Friday Justin texted them in the hospital and told them what my doctor had said. Their reply was essentially “tell her to sit down and cross her legs, cause nothing’s gonna stop this baptism.” My doctors comments had Justin a little worried too. Had I gone into labor on Saturday I honestly think he would have had a hard time deciding between being at the hospital with me or being the baptism.

Thankfully, DJ was released from the hospital and I did not end up in the hospital. The baptism was wonderful and we are so grateful to have been a part of it. It’s been an amazing experience for our whole family.

Justin baptized DJ and one of the missionaries baptized his son

Gone Digital

I started scrapbooking way back in high school. It’s always been something that I’ve enjoyed doing and have spent many, many hours over the years scrapbooking with friends and roommates. However, in recent years it’s been difficult to keep up with creating albums for each of the kids as well as a family album. Even though I’ve been a “traditional” scrapbooker – paper, trimmer, adhesive, photos, etc… much of what I did was on the computer. Before getting pictures developed I spent time cropping and resizing them based on the layout I had in mind. All my journaling and titles were created on the computer and positioned just so it would fit exactly as I imagined. It was a time consuming process, but a process I enjoyed.

Back in January I came to a crossroads. I was an entire year behind. Nothing from 2009 was in an album. I’ve been tempted to go “digital” for a few years now and decided it was time to make the switch. So for the past few months I’ve been working on putting together our 2009 family album. Even though I’ve spent many, many hours creating the pages in Photoshop I still feel like the process was much quicker being completely digital (and much less messy too). This afternoon my finished book was delivered (FYI - I ordered through Blurb.com).

I was so nervous to see the final results. I was concerned that the colors and patterns that I created on the computer wouldn’t look the same in print and that the pictures would look grainy. Overall I am very happy. I do think you lose some quality in your pictures this way, but it wasn’t enough that I think most people would notice. I LOVE that I’m able to have HUGE pictures in the book without dealing with the added cost of printing enlargements the traditional way. And the major reason for me to go digital is that 156 pages takes up only ½ inch on my bookshelf verses the three or more inches of a traditional album(s). Another great positive is that now when I put together a book for each of the kids, most of the pages are already done – everything is saved forever and can be reprinted anytime – no more needing to physically create the same page two-four times. My one complaint, and it is a big complaint for a perfectionist like me, is that you don’t have control over what gets cropped during printing. I was very careful not to put any journaling, etc... on the outer edges of a page so it wouldn’t be cropped off, but their instructions didn’t say anything about losing any content on the inside edge. As a result, MANY elements appear off center in the middle of the pages and on several pages I’ve even lost some journaling in the binding. For example:

MAJOR disappointment, but I suppose I’ve learned what I need to do differently in the future. It will however annoy me tremendously.

Girl’s Night Out

Having done this before, we have a pretty good idea how much our lives are going to change in the next few weeks – adjusting to the demands of a new baby while trying to recover physically, the likelihood of nursing difficulties, waking up during the night, etc… One of the many other changes includes my loss of freedom. So we’ve been trying to do things now that will be more difficult with a new baby. On Tuesday, we got a sitter so I could meet Justin in Bellevue for lunch at Daniel’s Broiler (courtesy of his boss). After a delicious lunch I spent a little time shopping for the perfect diaper bag – which proved to be much more difficult that I’d imagined.

Last night I had a night out planned with my two favorite girls – Miss Abigail and Miss Carly. I know they are going to be HUGE helpers, but I also know that the demands of a newborn will be felt by them as well and it won’t be as easy for us to get time together. So I surprised them with a night out… just the three of us. I didn’t give them any clues to what we were doing and they bombarded me with questions all day. For some reason roller-skating kept coming up… for real, they think I’m in any position to take them roller-skating?? A friend recently told me about a nail salon in town that also caters to kids. I knew it would be the perfect activity for the girls. They LOVE getting their toes painted and I definitely wanted a little pampering as well.

The girls were hooked up with fun massage chairs, including their own video monitor to watch a movie on. I had a nice grown-up chair right beside them.

After their pedicures I found out it would only cost $3 more to get their fingernails done too. The girls know of my dislike of painted fingernails, but I figured they were going to be waiting for me to get done anyhow so I caved in and broke our rule… but stressed that it was just this once. I have to admit they really did turn out cute and to the girls it really was the cherry on top of an already incredible experience… so well worth it.

We were trying to think of a way to show off their painted/jeweled thumbs and still have their faces in the pictures… Carlys came up with this...

After we were all fancied up with went to Dairy Queen for dessert. The girls got to order whatever treat they wanted (something that they think only Grandpa lets them do). It was such a fun evening and it was obvious how much it meant to them. It really was a special night for me too and made me realize - even more - how lucky I am to have these two girls in my life.

In case someone’s interested we went to Perfect Nails on 16th Street NE – you won’t get a spa-like atmosphere (it’s in a strip mall), but from now through the summer adults get a manicure & pedicure for $25 and it even includes paraffin dip.

Easter Weekend

We got a lot of rain last week, but thankfully the rain held off Saturday so we could enjoy our morning activities without getting poured on. Our annual neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt started at 9:30am. The grass was wet and soggy but rain boots kept our feet and pants dry.

Here’s Jason and Carly ready to go.

Jason’s age group started first. The eggs for his group were just laid out on the blacktop, but when everyone started running around I think he got a little spooked. He caught on eventually, but I think he only ended up with a total of five eggs.

Of course Carly knows the concept of gathering eggs and did a lot of running around collecting eggs.

Abigail’s soccer game ended just in time for her and Justin to make the Easter egg hunt for her age group. Here she is with her friend Alyssa ready for the hunt.


Their Loot

It was disappointing for Abigail that all the candy we received was chocolate which means that even if it doesn’t contain nuts it’s “made in a factory that processes nuts” so neither her nor Jason was able to eat anything we brought home. I had some errands to run that afternoon so I picked up some candy at Wal-Mart to surprise the kids on Easter morning.

By the time Justin and I got out of bed Sunday morning the girls had already decorated the house with Easter eggs they had drawn, cut out, and taped on the walls. My “Easter Egg Hunt” was to find all of them.

We told them we had a surprise for them, but they had to go wait upstairs for a few minutes. Justin and I hid eggs all over the downstairs. When they saw their baskets at the top of the stairs they were thrilled.

It was a little strange not to go to church on Easter Sunday. Instead we were able to enjoy an entire day at home (in our sweats and pjs) watching General Conference, spending time together as a family playing games and eating loads of sugar. The kids were entertained by setting up several Easter egg hunts throughout the day. All that sugar elevated their energy level quite a bit, but overall it was a very relaxing and enjoyable Easter.

Baby Shower

I made a comment to Justin the other night that logistically it really wouldn’t matter if we had a boy or girl. We haven’t settled on a name. We have re-decorated the nursery. And we haven’t purchased A SINGLE thing. Truly, not a single thing… how can that be when we are just weeks away from having this baby? Weren’t we supposed to go shopping immediately after we found out that we were having a girl and buy an adorable little outfit? This pregnancy has been long and difficult, I knew it would be. But there hasn’t been a moment when I haven’t looked forward to her arrival and I have never had a moment of disappointment that we are adding another girl to our family… I wouldn’t have it any other way. I suppose my lack of preparation has just been my way of not letting myself get too anxious too early.

But it’s official… I’m anxious. Two of my wonderful friends threw a baby shower for me Friday afternoon. While I’ve never been someone who enjoys being the reason for any sort of party, I must admit it was great to get together with friends and celebrate our baby girl.


We received lots of cute outfits, a few blankets, and some essential diapers. We’ve also found a great car seat we can purchase from some friends. I think it’s finally time to do a little shopping for our little girl, but I think we’re just about ready. A friend of mine had her two week old baby at the shower. Holding that little eight-pound baby definitely made me excited. I’m sure some people would think that by the time you reach #4 the newness and excitement wouldn’t be as great, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.

We each created “my baby” out of playdoh and I was supposed to pick the winner. There were definitely some cuter babies than others…


The baby shower was during the day while the girls were at school. I left everything in the gifts bags so when the girls got home from school they were able to open everything and experience that excitement.

I can’t remember if the girls were doing peace signs, rabbit ears, or holding up their fingers for “two” of something… I just think the look of concentration on Jason’s face as he tries to copy them is cute. I’m such a lucky Mom!