Free Range Family

We have so much going on this week! Yay! Anna starts her dance classes at Diversity today. Unfortunately though, we all woke up super sick and sore. I think we may have finally caught what has been ailing Lon all last week. Bleh… We would have to walk to the dance studio this week, and with the way everyone is feeling, I think it would be too much. Which does suck, I really don't want Anna to miss out on her first day of dance class. :( But Alan starts preschool tomorrow and on Friday he turns five years old. Last weekend we had Aunt April's first cheer game and Aunt Natalie's in town wedding reception. It was a crazy weekend and now we are starting yet another crazy week lol. Plus, we have not found the right car for us yet so we are still a single car family. Which makes things difficult when we don't live together lol. But we are making things work! I have just two more books to review, I will post this one this week and then the next one sometime next week. I am w...

Benton, not baby! Silly readers! See how I fooled you all? I'm such a trickster! You heard it right! My sister had her baby boy and they named him Benton. He was born Tuesday, July 16th at 10:48 pm. At night, just like his cousins! Benton is a perfect 7 1/2 pounds and 20 7/8 inches long! I think he looks a little bit like his mom and his dad! He is so handsome! We love you Benton! Natalie, I am so very proud of you beautiful. You are so strong. I wish I could have been up there with you, holding your hand and getting you to laugh through your discomfort and pain. I hope that I was able to support you enough through texts. I love you and Jake so much. I am so proud of both of you! Welcome to parenthood guys! It truly is a beautiful thing. Its hard some days (and most nights lol) but is always, everyday, worth it. Children really are the greatest gift ever. Life is beautiful! Love you!! I cannot wait for my family to meet Benton! They will all ...

Its Baby Day!!! You saw that right, I should become an aunt by later tonight or tomorrow! To say that I am excited is an UNDERSTATEMENT!!!! I am estatic, I cannot wait to get updates from her and finally meet him! Hurry Baby B, Auntie Jillian wants to meet you and hold youuuuuuuuu! :) Natalie, good luck and I believe in you! You are a strong woman and you can do this! I love you and Jake! Cannot wait until he is here!

Today we have Alan's make up gymnastics class from when he had fillings last week. I got a chance to go alone with him, which meant that I was able to watch his class, rather than chase Miss Anna around the lobby lol. Thanks Lon! :) This week, he has two gymnastics classes. And tomorrow is his last class before summer break. He will start up again next September. This summer I have plans of teaching him to swim and preparing him for preschool. I plan on taking both kids swimming at least once a week and he is going to do swim lessons at the gymnastics school in July. He has swam before, but has never taken swim lessons. I remember as a child HATING them lol! Hopefully he will have a better time than me and learn lots. I also will be graduating him to wearing underwear ALL the time that he is awake this summer. Currently, he does not wear underwear at school or in public places but this will change, to prepare him for preschool. I am thinking about having him do a preschool ca...

We had a pretty decent February this year, not too much snow and just enough things to keep us busy on the weekends. Not to mention that we found out some very exciting news about Aunt Natalie and Uncle Jake's baby! Check out what happened to us this month! We celebrated Valentine's Day this month at a little party for Alan and his friends at the local coffee shop. It went really well, even better than last time, especially because Alan was feeling much better! February also meant CHD Awareness Week just before Valentine's Day, I did not write my own posts for the week but I did link up with CHD parents. Here are the four posts I wrote: #1, #2, #3, and #4. Anna also turned seven months old, and discovered her voice. Needless to say, our house is NEVER quiet anymore lol. :) But I would not have it any other way! I took Alan on a Mama and Son Date to the Family Life Expo. Then we celebrated Super Bowl with both of our families, and I suceeded in not watching any of...

Happy Hump Day everyone! This week has been one awesome one for us and a very exciting one. We have lots of things to love! So here is this week's What I'm Loving Wednesday!!! Be sure to check out Jamie's blog This Kind of Love to see her WILW and other fun stuff! What are you loving today? I'm loving...  that my good friend Kelsie had her baby boy yesterday morning! I will get to go up and see them tomorrow! Now just to wait until then and also when they come home so that Alan and Anna can meet him. :) Congratulations Kelsie, Keith and Kelton! We love you all! I'm loving...  that my other friend Chelsey and her husband just welcomed another little boy into her family as well! This will be their fourth foster care child, they are so blessed! Next week she is on Spring Break, so we have plans to get all the kids together. Cannot wait! Congratulations Chelsey, Dan, Colton, M and Baby K! We love you all as well! I'm loving...  that we finally got our inc...

I did have a totally different title at first but I just kept adding and adding to the post as the weekend progressed. Now after rereading the whole thing, the title made no sense at all lol. It was a really cool title too. So lame that I had to switch it out for this cop out. Such is a writer's life. :) Anyways we almost broke our family's clean record this weekend. Technically Alan did lol. And by that I mean our family's clean record of having no broken bones. Yes, you heard me correctly, no one in our family has ever broken a bone . Not Lon, not I, not Alan, no one. It is quite a feat that Lon and I have lived through our whole childhood without breaking any bones, we were both wild children. This is super nerdy but I am kinda proud of it lol. I know, how ridiculous is that????? But its true. Well this weekend, we almost broke our clean record. Friday night I had to run to the store to grab a few neccesities for the house and it was almost bedtime, so I put Anna...

How was everyone's Valentine's Day yesterday? Ours went great! Alan's little party had a very nice turnout, we all had a blast together! I will be sure to post about that sometime next week. I do not think that any of us took a single photo though lol, how silly are we! Lon surprised me with a dinner date to Applebee's KID FREE and then we went shopping for a movie (the new Judge Dredd, AWESOME), which was all awesome. I also got chocolates, yum! I am really picky about chocolates lol and he made a point to get me the PERFECT box of chocolates for me. Oh how I love him so much. He is just so perfect for me! Thanks baby! I am so very excited because Aunt Natalie and Uncle Jake are coming to town today! Yay! We have quite a bit we want to do with them here, I am just not sure what the exact plans are yet. But Alan has been asking for Aunt Natalie since he woke up lol. They are buds since he was born. :) We just cannot wait to see them! Have a safe trip here guys, ...

I thoroughly enjoyed this hospital stay with Anna. All of the nurses and midwives were very supportive and helped me greatly, through labor and afterwards. I really liked how they were extra sensitive to my blood draw issues, unlike Billings Clinic. They were invested in me and followed my Birth Plan to a tee. My husband was helpful in this too, but I felt so much more respected this time around. I stayed in the hospital with Anna from July 7th to the 9th. This time around, there was like no other laboring mothers in the ward (and we had an adorable baby girl lol) so I was spoiled by the nurses and CNAs. They were constantly checking up on Anna and I, making sure we were comfortable and had everything we needed. I felt like I was always needing something, so I would try and combine my necessities for each time they would show up. I mentioned it once to one of the nurses how I felt bad about always needing them and she assured me it was only a part of her job. That made me feel good, ...

Since its Anna's due date today, I thought it would be awesome to post Anna's birth story. Enjoy! :D The night of the sixth I woke up with contractions. They had been scattered and irregular all day so instead of waiting around for them to regulate, I took Alan and Aunt Ariel out for some fun. But these contractions felt different. They were stronger and were coming every three to five minutes. Knowing that I was not in full labor yet just possibly early labor, I convinced Lon to stay up with me and bake brownies. We baked two batches of brownies and ate about half of one batch lol. After that, my contractions were getting unbearable. I tried to go to sleep but couldn't so I knew it was time to call my midwife Karina. I called her and she told me to go ahead and come in. My mother (the person who was to watch Alan while I labored) was still in Townsend, a four hour drive away, so I texted her and told her to start heading down. Then we got Alan dressed and up, and hea...

This is a back post I started just before my labor with Anna got wild lol. I will post it now though for your reading entertainment! :D Friday was our last day with Aunt Ariel and Grandma Amber. Saturday they were leaving for Utah to help Great Grandma Audrey move up here. They will be gone for the next two weeks. So Friday we planned to take Aunt Ariel swimming at the YMCA. As some of you may have read, my midwives predicted I would be going into labor in the next few days. Thursday night I had four hours of contractions that were four minutes apart but once again just stopped. I had irregular contractions most of the day on Friday, thus didn't want to do too much but was determined to still give Alan a good time with his aunt. We weren't able to go swimming at the YMCA, but I took the kids to Pioneer Park to go swimming in their wading pool and go play on their playground. We had a great time together and I think that's what really started my contractions to regulat...

She is finally here! Yay! We are so excited!!!!! :D Anna, Day one She was born two minutes before midnight on July 7th. I labored for 29 hours (nineteen hours less than I labored with Alan, thank goodness). She weighs 6 pounds and 13 ounces (a pound less than Alan) and is 20 inches long (a half inch shorter than her brother, they are almost birth twins). She is just so precious, I can barely stand it! Anna, Day two Alan met her for the first time yesterday and is as smitten as we are! He brought her a pink dragon he picked out for her and couldn't stop giving her kisses. He is a great helper too so far and is always willing to help bring me stuff for her! How lucky did I get with these kids??? :D I feel so endlessly blessed! I just had to post this one of her froggie legs! We just got home today and are finally reunited with Alan officially again (he has been staying with my parents for the past few days, so Lon could stay at the hospital and help me ...

****This is another one of those TMI motherly posts. If you are not a mother and do not want to be grossed out, please do not read this. There is information about my preparations for labor. You have been warned!**** Thursday was my 38th week midwife appointment. Last week, they had messed up on my iron blood draw, so that was the first thing they did with me. I woke up this morning with bad nausea and took a Zofran early, which like made me feel like Super Mama for some odd reason lol. So I folded five loads of laundry, did two loads of dishes and vacuumed most of my house before the darn thing wore off. Then I was bedridden, throwing up everything I ate and still having to wait three more hours before I could even take another Zofran. Ugh. Thankfully, Lon came home for his lunch break with food for everyone and I was able to eat shortly after taking another Zofran. But this had me somewhat concerned about my blood draw later that afternoon. Once I had arrived, Nurse Lori gave me ...

Aunt Ariel and Grandma Amber will be leaving for Utah on July 7th for about a month, so we have been trying to spend as much time with them as possible before they leave. Yesterday, I took Alan and Ariel to Westwood Park to play in the setting sun, the only option for me to get outside these days lol. :P The whole park was luckily shaded and it made for a great time to play! Aunt Ariel's neighbor even joined us and the two of them chased Alan around with him squealing in total enjoyment. :) Here are some shots from the fun. :) Going down the twisty slide! Digging in the sand with Aunt Ariel He can finally do this all on his own! So proud! Taking a break and a drink :) Another baby update: No she's not here lol but almost! Last night I had contractions every four minutes for four hours straight and then they just stopped. We even called Labor and Delivery to give them a heads up and set up a night time sitter for Alan, that's how serious we thought it ...

This week has been a little rough on me, I apologize about the extreme lack of posts. Early Tuesday morning, I was admitted into the hospital again for morning sickness and dehydration. Once again, I started having contractions from the dehydration, though this time around they were much stronger. I was given two dosages to fight the nausea and a pain killer shot to bring down the contractions. And thankfully after five hours in the hospital, my contractions ceased and I was able to go home. Miss Anna, you need to stay in there a little bit longer! :) Here is this week's Pregnancy Post! How far along:  37 weeks and 4 days Size of Baby:  Almost 7 pounds and 19 inches long or the size of a stalk of Swiss chard Developments of Baby:  Baby girl is shedding most of the downy covering of hair that covered her body as well as the vernix caseosa, the waxy substance that covered and protected her skin durin...