Welcome Talon!

After trying every single trick in the book to self induce labor, I got too impatient and went a head and scheduled an induction 4 days before my due date. I also induced Lex and Winter ( I guess I'm pretty impatient, huh!) so we had the whole process down. The doctor called in the order the week before, and Labor and Delivery would call me between 5 and 5:30 am on the morning of the 18th.  My mom spent the night in case they wanted us to come in right away. I woke up at 4:30 to shower and await the call. By 5 :30 I was getting anxious, but had to wait until 8 to call them. My poor kids expected to wake up and us be gone and be able to head to the hospital to meet their new baby brother.

At 8 o'clock I called them to see what was up. They said I was next to be called but there weren't any rooms, so to call back at noon if they hadn't called sooner. I really think the wait was worse than being a kid on Christmas Eve!! But they called at about 9:45 and Jon and I kissed the kids and ran out the door.

After getting checked in and changed, our cute little nurse came in to get me all set up. She checked my arm for a good vein for the iv, said I had good veins, but when she stuck me she hit a valve and spent a good amount of time and lots of pain trying to get around it, but to no avail! I have to say now that it's all over, that pain of her continuously poking the valve, and then the subsequent pain of having my blood pressure taken regularly on that arm, was worse than the contractions! I also have a massive bruise that wraps around my whole wrist even still today, a week later. Anyway, after not being able to use that vein after all, she had to use another one higher up on my hand, weird spot! And after getting the needle in, and taking a few little tubey thingys, the connection thing fell off and a geyser of my blood went spewing all over everything. Yikes! Sorry all you squeemish people! Jon just buried himself in his iPhone while this was happening.

Then we finally started the petocin at noon. I immediately started having contractions, but we upped it every half hour to get them more regular. We assumed this would all go really fast.  The nurse and doctor both agreed that rupturing my water would kick it into high gear and we'd have a baby in no time! Awesome! Well the doctor had a complication in a C-section and then a delivery that took a really long time, and since those were more of a priority, we waited. Which I am okay with, Jon and I watched "Lost" on Netflix, it was fun. Contractions started getting harder and more regular, so we went ahead and did the epidural. My anesthesiologist was amazing and so fast!

Then we just waited for the doctor. For hours! But for some weird reason I was not progressing! The week before at my appt. My Dr. had said I was at a 3+, and the nurse was telling me that I was at just about a 3 and I stayed that way, even through the contractions. The nurse was sure breaking my water would help that, but we still had to wait for the Dr. My nurse really wanted me to have the baby before 6 which is when the shift change was, and so she kept on top of knowing where the Dr was.

He finally made it out of the other delivery and came in the room at about 5pm. Our nurse was in another delivery, so we had a stand in nurse check me and I was still only a 3. My doctor had a student following him and asked if I was okay with the student rupturing my water. Of course I was okay, I think it's awesome! At about 5:15 the nurse rechecked me and I was already at a 6, but said she'd wait a full hour to recheck me, even though I knew it wouldn't be that long. At about 5:30 Contractions were every minute and I was feeling pressure. Our nurse returned, mostly to say good-bye since shift change was at 6. But she decided to check me because I was feeling so much pressure. So at 5:45 she said yep there is no more cervix and there is a baby right there! So she went to get the Dr who would also change at 6 (I go to a group of amazing Doctors!) and Jon called mom and the kids to come over.

They all decided to stay on just to have this baby. My Dr asked if it would be okay if the student, who was just too sweet by the way, could deliver the baby if he was there with his hands practically on top of the students. He said I was a perfect subject for a student, with this being #5 and me not ever having ripped and having smooth labors in the past. Of course! How cool is that for this guy! Our baby would be his first delivery! It was funny too because the Dr's wife called him just before the delivery, because he was supposed to be off in minutes.

They got dressed and came over and said okay at the next contraction push. So I started pushing,
"Okay not that hard! The head is out, okay just a little for the rest of baby"
So in one push, at 6:01, our little son was out for us to love and hold!

Dr Drewes commented that after the last delivery, which was one of  the hardest he had ever had, that this was the EASIEST he'd ever had! Woo hoo! If only he had been there earlier, we could have had the baby much sooner, but as the Dr.s cleaned up, we were just happy to hold our son, the student was happy to have delivered his first baby, the nurse and doctor were happy because they really didn't have to stay too long after their shift change, and the Dr's wife was happy he'd be home in time for dinner!

Mom, and Kurt and the kids got there just after the doctors were done cleaning up.  And Winter was immediately up on the bed with me and the baby. It's as if she knew him and was waiting for him. She knew to be gentle and soft and she couldn't stop giving him kisses. It was very sweet. And everyone else loved to hold him too. But they didn't get very much time before the nurse had to take him to get a bath.

Kids watching Talon get a bath....and eating an Oreo?

Jon said that there was a new nurse in the nursery too, and our baby was her first baby to clean. He said she did an amazing job. While  Jon was in the nursery, I was moved to the mother/baby floor and in to my room for the night.

Then came the task of naming our new little boy.  We have had Talon as the name for a long time. It was the runner up for Lex. But we had both heard it recently and were worried it was going to be too common. So over the past few weeks my mom and sister would tell us names they had heard that were uncommon, and we found a few others we liked, but in the end, nothing seemed right. He was Talon, even if it is a little less uncommon. We had also planned on using the Lindsey family male child middle name, but in the end decided to use my maiden name.

The kids stayed with us for a while and everyone passed Talon around, loving on their new brother, and he just slept, rarely making a sound. Mom took everyone home around 10, and Jon and I settled in with our 5th bundle of joy.  After so many times, Jon has those uncomfortable chair/pull out beds figured out. And he said he slept really well this time. Talon and I also slept well.

The next day, we had expressed that we wanted to leave as soon as possible, but knew they wanted us to stay the full 24 hours, so after a quick visit in the morning. Mom took Evey to dance and the other 3 to Seven Peaks! I missed taking pictures of Talon by himself in the hospital, because I ended up getting some weird side effects from the percocet they gave me. I have never had a tolerance for prescription pain meds. And I know that (now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure I turned the big pain med down and stuck with the ibuprofen with Winter, and maybe even both Paris and Lex too) but I went ahead and took a few of the doses of the percocet. So , anyway, I had to sleep off that junk for most of the day. But really my pain level was not high, so the ibuprofen would have done just fine.

We finally got home around 9:30 on Tuesday. The kids had made a cutie welcome home sign for Talon, they like Jon and I were so glad to finally have our beautiful new family member with us to love and watch grow!

Evey wasn't sure how to spell his name yet...oops :)

Family of 6

A family picture has been on my list for.....ever!! I decided, it was today or never for a picture before our new family member arrives. It was surprisingly harmless and they came out great!! I seriously only took 8 shots and got what I wanted! A- Mazing!! Thank you wonderful family!

A little bit of Baby

I was some how able to diminish my list of things to do before baby!  And look I've even updated the blog now. :)  I got some sewing done and thought I should post it incase I go into labor here soon. I still have a boppy cover, a chair cover, a blanket and maybe a carseat cover to make, hopefully in the next few days. 5 sleeps until he is being evicted, if he doesn't come sooner.

I made the sheets and bumper, and assemled the blanket out of leftover shams from the other kids comforter sets, so that baby has matching comforter too! I really wanted to paint the crib black, but decided against it at the last minute.
I still need to put up the wall decoration, but we have to name him before I do that!

I whipped out a few receiving blankets, doodied up some plain burp cloths and made a blanket out of some super rare (in this area) Panthers material. Panthers are Jon's "team",  so this is his favorite blanket and matching burp cloth!

Funny Face

We built the kids beds knowing they were pretty high and taking care to teach them rules about the beds and what not to do. Even Winter senses how high they are and will go up the stairs, but has only gotten on someones bed once or twice and she stays against the walls and calls for someone to help her down.

The other day while I was folding clothes in the next room over, she started crying and I knew she had fallen from somewhere. I flew into the room, pretty fast for my prego self, and found her standing in the middle of the room. No gushing blood or anything, until I saw her little nose had a mark on it. I checked everything else... head and neck, which I knew were okay because she was standing, while Evey grabbed an otter pop (our favorite form of ice for ouchies) As I was trying to put the ice on her nose it started bleeding and was already swelling, so I decided I wanted to take her to the emergency room to get checked out. I happened to have taken Jon to work that day, so I had to swing by and pick him up, and my mom met us at the hospital to take Paris and Lex. Evey choose to come with us.

I told them she had fallen from the top bunk and caught a stair on the way down, assuming the worst. We got into a room right away and while we were waiting for the doctor, the nurse said it was okay to let her fall asleep because she didn't appear to have any head trauma.  It was nap time, so being sleepy was adding to her misery. She actually fell asleep pretty quick. The doctor was able to check her out while she was sleeping so she wasn't moving and he decided to run a CT scan on her while she was sleeping. Well we all know how it goes in the emergency room, we waited for a long while.  We decided she hadn't actually fallen from the top bunk, she must have fallen from her own bed, which is still higher then normal beds, her wound just wasn't that bad. Anyway, by the time they came to get us to take us to the scan, she had been asleep for an hour, so when we picked her up, she woke up. But she was super good and stayed mostly still, or enough to get a good picture of her head and face. I'm really glad they didn't have to sedate her!!

Then we went back to our room and waited for the results. She was fully awake by this time and was acting completely normal. We were in a pediatric room with an underwater, Finding Nemo theme. She was having fun running around looking at the fish, and crawling on the bed and trying to crawl up on the tray that held the sodas they had brought us, totally back to her spunky self finding something else to fall from! When the doctor came in he laughed at how much of an improvement she had made. He said the scan looked really good, her brain was fine and there were no breaks in her face. He checked her shoulders though, because there looked like a fracture in her shoulders, but after seeing her running around and that her back looked fine, they determined she had just shifted during the scan.

All photos taken with crappy phone cam! 

We were discharged with instructions to give her Tylenol or ibuprofen as needed and come back if she started acting weird, and a cutie little girl with a funny face.

The pictures just somehow don't looks right, she looked much more swollen in person

When we got home and I tried to give her ibuprofen, but she didn't want it and didn't seem to be in any pain what so ever. Though we took it easy the rest of the day. Jon told me that after they had dropped me off at the emergency room door and he waited in the car with the kids for my mom, that they had said a prayer and especially asked that Winter not feel much pain and for her to heal quickly.  I am so thankful for the power of prayer! Winter did not seem to be in any pain at all in the following days, though I did get her to take some ibuprofen once. She looked a little funny and I referred to her as my "funny face" but she did not get the full raccoon mask bruising I thought she would get, and here we are a week later and it is almost completely healed, except for a tiny bit of bruising left under her eyes. There have been many thankful prayers since that day!

Softball

Evey really enjoyed playing softball this year. Even though 5 of the first 6 games were cancelled and rescheduled due to rain flooding the field. It actually worked better for us to have the season shifted later, because at the beginning of the season the games over lapped with dance a lot and so dance was the priority.  Evey started the season at the top of the batting order, always getting a base hit.

All following pictures are from the city final game

This year new rules were added, and stealing was allowed. It made for a much funner game, that and the pitchers are refining their skills and can throw more hittable balls now.  They go through a draft at the beginning to the season so that the teams are more evenly matched, but there was one team who ended up with 2 or so AMAZING pitchers. Not sure how they pulled that off, except I think they were the coach and assistant coaches daughters! Oh well they were an awesome team and super tough to beat. But Evey's team gave them a run for their money, when they played.

Evey switched between outfield ( her coach says it's because she has a great arm to get the ball in field, but she rarely saw action out there) and 3rd base. But , it was so fun to watch her bat and steal the bases, it was pretty easy stealing 2nd and 3rd and then they would often send them to steal home, so that was always a rush watching the close calls and as my mom wrote on her facebook status after watching one game: " I watched my oldest granddaughter Evey slide into home base and emerge out of a cloud of dirt - SAFE!!! " 

Dang it coach!! Move!!

At the end of the season Evey's team had the second best record. Then the city holds a tournament, so through all of that they just couldn't beat that one team, and so they came out 2nd in the league, but, that was good enough to move on to the state tournament!

Receiving her 2nd place ribbon.

We had had a stomach bug run it's course through our house and on the day of the City final Evey had it. She rested the whole day, we thought she would have to miss the game. But because she is amazing she decided to suck it up and go to the game. They even gave her the "game" ball. She did great for wanting to throw up the whole time!

Down and dirty sliding into home!

Everyone else has fun at the games playing at the park, or like this day  we sat in the shade and ate lots of snacks and wrastled!

The state tourney was held not too far from our house, which made it really nice. It was double elimination so we knew we'd get to see her play at least twice.  The first game was a huge eye opener! We had always heard that Provo was a fairly easy softball league and that other cities were much more gung-ho about it. Well we got a taste of that right off the bat!! This team was all about bending the rules to the breaking point as far as stealing. They went so far as to distract with one steal, to steal another girl, and then were amazing at the "pickle", which threw our girls off because they weren't used to that. Yikes! They also threw our girls off with a bunt one time, something our girls had NEVER seen in city play! And, their pitcher was Mean and super accurate. She could switch up between a standing pitch and this running fast ball that was just plain scary!! The girls were a little intimidated in the first inning, but shook it off and didn't let them get away with it the next few innings, unfortunately the other team had won the toss for home field advantage and so were able to beat us by 2. Our team did make some amazing plays though, and our pitch chased down the runner trying to steal home and tagged her! It was an awesome moment! And a super fun game to watch!

The next game was with a team much more evenly matched, and we were pretty confident we could beat them. Well a team is only as good as their pitcher unfortunately. Our cutie pitcher was hurt twice in the first game, she twisted her ankle in an attempt to get out a base stealer and then was hit by a super hard ball as she was batting. So they ended up giving her a break in the second game, and the second pitcher although just as cute and sweet, wasn't at her best and the coaches waited too long to take her out, and we couldn't catch back up. That paired with a pair of teen aged umps who didn't really care (the field ump was throwing his own ball out in the field, not even paying attention) and made some rather stinky calls as far as balls and strikes. Oh, and the other team would waste incredible amounts of time getting out on to the field, wasting game time, and taking advantage of the stinky umps who did nothing about it. So when time was almost up, we we're down, but as long as we finished the inning they would start another if there was seconds on the clock. At the start of the bottom of that inning the clock said 1:45 and it began to thunder. After having petered out with all of the scoring the other team was able to do, this gave Evey's team and incredible boost of energy, because their team name is Thunder! They are so cute! Anyway, the clock said 1:45 and they needed to get the 3 outs to start another inning and have a chance to catch back up. And they did it!! With like a second left they got the last out, and after a little squabble between the coaches and the ump, the ump finally stood his ground and made a good call and let us start another inning! Unfortunately, they were up by a few too many and after a very noble effort we lost that one too! But it was a ton of fun and a great experience! Evey is looking forward to next season already!

I took pictures at these games, and loaded them on the computer and then erased my memory card. But, something happened and only the thumbnails are in the compute! Argh! So no pictures, sorry!

Independence Day

Since we had over hauled the bed rooms, we ended up doing a lot of the house, and piling everything in the garage. So it has been a crazy mess for a while, we haven't even been able to get the van in. Ugh!! I hate that! So we spent the day Cleaning out the garage and utilizing our attic space above it! Which is amazing!! Not sure why we didn't use this space before!

So the garage is amazing and more spacious than it has ever been. We still have too much stuff to use it as a 2 car garage though, but oh well.

Then the kids went next door to help with our neighbor's eagle scout project. He constructed wooden cages for a wild bird rescue center. So they are huge cages for eagles and hawks and other big birds of prey. My kids went over to help paint them.

Then we all went over to roast dinner on the fire pit. Yum!

Don't ya love Evey's AMERICAN spirit?!!!!!! We all had a good laugh when she came out in that shirt!

After we had our fill of hot dogs, brats, watermelon, and smores. We all headed over to another neighbors house for a fantastic firework show.  These neighbors go all out every year and go to Wyoming for the "BIG" fireworks. Then the whole neighborhood goes over and we have a huge block party, and they try not to kill themselves and everyone else as they set off these beasts! There were a few close calls, one of the huge boxes toppled over and would have shot the fireworks straight into everyone, but it had shot it's last one just before it fell,and me and a few others were hit with some falling mortar, but everyone was fine and had a blast. Unfortunately it started raining and so the night ended a little early. But it was so much good clean fun! Thanks again, Chelsea and Josh for the great party!

Beware: Phone photos!

Independence -Sunday

The plan had been to give the kids their Saturday showers at Grammy's house Saturday night. But since we had to keep applying bug spray, it was silly to shower and then go to bed smelling of Off! So they didn't shower....Ewww! And since we got home so late anyway and had to carry most everybody in, showers were put off until morning. Sunday morning, when everything is rushed anyway.

I used to love 9 o'clock church (we rotate every year 9, 11, 1) and Jon appreciates it in the fall so he can watch football, but as our family grows, and all these stinkin' girlies!! :) it makes it hard to get out the door on time, even though the chapel is a 5 minute walk...less driving time!!! There have been numerous times I have done hair in sacrament! This Sunday was one of those days. We got everyone showered and out the door, but were late enough to not find a seat, luckily I jumped on the front row once the deacons were done passing the sacrament, and proceeded to do hair.

Both Evey and Paris wanted elaborate braids, so by the time I was done it was time for the closing song.  I love July when we sing patriotic songs and the closing hymn was the Star Spangled Banner. I couldn't even get through the first line before I was bawling like a baby!! I love when the piano and organ tag-team and the sound is full and the congregation is standing, and our beautiful conductor sings an unwritten harmony. I love our national anthem, and especially when we get to sing all of the verses.

We spent the rest of the day relaxing as we usually do, until I go to choir practice and then the whole gang shows up for our weekly dinner together.

Apparently it is a challenge to play croquet with a naked monkey on your head!!

Winter loves Tristan and often grabs his finger and drags him to play with her.

Oh yeah and she loves to be as naked as possible, which I let slide while at home!

We ate yummy Ka-bobs and then started a wicked game of Killer bunnies, but had to pause for fire crackers. Our awesome neighbors texted right  as we were heading out that they wanted us to join them as they set off some too (I think it's a tradition now, we've done it for at least 3 years now), so we just combined our stuff and had a blast! Our laws on fireworks were loosened this year and so it was legal to get ones that shot up to 100 feet in the air. So Kurt picked up some of those, missed getting pics of them though.

Winter's first sparkler!! She still requires quite a bit of help.

Not sure what they were looking at , but it must have been interesting!

Independence- Saturday

We started our 4th of July celebrations on Saturday the 2nd, with an early morning balloon fest. We had everyone out the door and at the field by 6:30 am! This is a HUGE accomplishment, I am so not a morning person (especially super prego) and neither are 3 out of 4 of the kids! But, we all did it so that daddy could see the Darth Vader Balloon (wink, wink). This was Vader's first year here, and our first year getting up on time. I'm glad we went this day too, because I heard the balloons were cancelled on the 4th because of icky weather.

Vader brought out a bunch of geeks in costume. I guess if you have it, you only get a few chances a year to wear it, so why not, right?! I'm just glad Jon doesn't feel the need to wear the costume he has!!

After we baked in the sun as it crested the mountains, we went for Krispy Cremes. We thought we'd take the kids inside this time since they had never been in to see the doughnuts being made. They thought it was pretty cool. 

Then we went home and did chores really fast and then headed back out to take Evey to volunteer at the freedom fest street fair with Grammy. These next photos are taken with my phone and so are pretty crappy. :)

Paris LOVES snakes!! She was one of the first kids up there to pet that big boy!

Evey and Lex aren't as enthusiastic, but still think snakes cool, and Winter, didn't care too much for it. But Evey got her to touch it once.

The girls got their hair done by Paul Mitchell students. We knew this was going to be there, so I was let off  hair duty for the morning, as you can see in all the previous pictures!!! This is one of the things that contributed to getting to the balloons on time! Hair for 3 girlies takes a while sometimes!

And Lex got a sticker. He really wanted me to take a picture of it!

Winter has a firecracker on her face, that you can't really see. She made (okay Grammy made it) her visor at the booth Evey and Grammy worked at.

We spent the rest of the day shopping and running errands. Then went to Grammys house to watch and listen to the Stadium of Fire.  We have yet to buy tickets to the show, but when mom lives about a block and a half away from the stadium and we can see the big screen from her front yard, it makes it hard to want to fork out that much money! Maybe we're just cheap! :)

We barely missed the fly over, the kids were heading out the door, so Evey and Paris saw it, but Lex FREAKED out from the sound and came running back in the house yelling for us to close the door . Poor guy. He has a hard time with thunder too, but he's been working on that and getting much better, but the jets were a new kind of loud!!

So we sat out and listened to the show, and David Archuleta and some country guy....I know blasphemy on me for not knowing who he was....Country music generally not listened to in our house. Okay, it was Brad Paisley. Anyway....

I took lots of firework pictures, but decided to only post a few, because once you see a few you've seen the all, am I right? However there were some pretty awesome ones this year that I don't think we'd ever seen before! And they were timed to the music, which we could tell but not hear due to the sound delay. It was still fun and awesome!!

See all the fire on the bottom....that's the stadium! It is literally On Fire!! It would be awesome to see from the inside! This is apparently the biggest stadium firework show in the US!

Then we waited at least an hour for the traffic to die down before we ventured home.