Electric

Her bright, blue eyes shinning as she jumped onto the porch, bathed in Grandma's Christmas lights, " oh my goodness, it's beautiful."

Christmas through the eyes of our lively little Angel just could not get any better! It is just so darn fun!

(Now that looks like fun splattered all down main street in Grantsville or quite possibly it could be Harry Potter casting a spell on my beautiful baby girl, the verdict is still out on that one.)

The Saturday after Thanksgiving, we had a celebratory dinner at Grandma Brown's house and then we bundled up and moved the troops out. All the cousins marched down to Christmas central, aka main street in Grantsville. Main street just happens to be home of the one and only stop light in the town. In case you were wondering, I know you were. Look at these gems of knowledge hidden upon the pages of my blog.

Anyway, We took a little saunter down to main street. Man, it was a beautiful night! The light crisp air kissing my nose, a sweet, baby girl hugging close, my warm bodied hubby close by and our silly 2 1/2 yr. old so full of excitement it was palpable as she flitted and fluttered down the sidewalk.

As we traveled the 50 yards to main street...it's Grantsville, everything is just 50 yrds away, we asked the Little Love what Santa was going to bring her. She informed us matter of factly that Santa was bringing her a piggy bank. "What would you do with a piggy bank?"
"I will put my monies in it and shake it." well, duh, what else would you do with a piggy bank?

The whole gang lined up on the curb

waiting

And watching

Yay!!! The 2nd annual  Granstville Christmas Light Parade

It was awesome! Nory had so much fun picking up hot chocolate packages, candy canes, and glow sticks that were being thrown out to the kiddos.

 Little Ever cried and then slept cuddled up warm in her moby wrap knock off, my coat, and her blanket.

 Of course the big man made his way through town on the back of the shiny fire truck

As Santa drove by, Elanora looked up at us with her big ,confused, blue eyes and said "Where did my piggy bank goes?" We had to explain to her that Santa was going to bring it to her house on Christmas day and then with Christmas lights in our eyes we skipped and hopped down the street, back to Grandma's house. Oh boy,  life is fun!

 

  

Everly: The Birth Story part 2

 Day 2 and Yay, we were ready to have a baby. We had been in a small hospital room all night watching our Little Love's heart rate dropping over and over again and having horrible pre labor contractions. Holy Hannah those had to be real labor contractions.

 

 Finally, we were upgraded to the big nice delivery room and ready to get this show on the road. I definitely wanted to start this show off a little better than the night before had finished. You know what that means? Drugs!!! I was emotionally and physically spent and ready for that liquid gold shot into my spine by way of a crazy, huge needle and equally crazy, long tube inserted in my back. Ah modern medicine is wonderful!

When my amazing Dr. watched through the door I said, "I'm a wuss I didn't make it. I had the epidural." Being the awesome Dr. she is, she replied, "You don't get a medal for going natural, your children could care less." Then she broke my water, which had meconium in it, again, man I have poopy kids! That meant the NICU people had to be in the room when the cute baby was delivered in case they needed to suction her lungs (Everly and Elanora are already twinners).

With my lower half adequately numb and my water broke I was definitely ready to have my baby... or maybe I should stop having contractions all together because we had just had the longest night of our lives, how about making it longest day of our lives.  So at this point I was numb, no longer having contractions and still having to watch my beautiful baby's heart rate drop over and over again. Chris and I would drift off to sleep listening to the beep, beep, beep of the baby's heart monitor and then the beep would slow way down and we would jump awake to stare at the monitor to watch her heart rate drop yet again.

Luckily for us we have an amazing Doctor that we trust completely. We were also blessed to have the most amazing nurse. 



(I still can't get over how fluffy I was)

She was definitely heaven sent. It was her day off but the hospital was so busy they called her in (and there I was taking up hospital space and not in labor, awesome. I bet they loved me). I am so grateful she came in. I don't know how many patients she had that day but I know she came in just for me. She helped Chris and I through something horribly scary with her 'nursing know how' and her sense of humor.

They wanted to give me Pitocin so we could get the Babylove out safe and sound but unfortunately they couldn't until her heart was stable for at least 30 minutes. At one point she waited until 29 long minutes had gone by and then, sure enough her heart dropped. Crazy baby!

Man this story is a mouthful, I guess technically a blog post full...Lame attempt at a joke to keep the audience reading. I usually like to have more pictures and even though we had both the camera and video camera and I had planned to do some fun interviews of everyone waiting patiently for Everly to get here, we were, at this point, a little nervous, not knowing whether or not she would actually get here and we definitely didn't want to document that. So no pictures yet.


They were trying all kinds of things, hydrating me (still), having me wear an oxygen mask, I even had to have blood pressure meds because mine wasn't doing to well at one point...not sure why, I wasn't that stressed :), they even added water back inside me because my water had been broke and they hoped it would chill the baby girlie out to have her water back. Nope.

It was getting a little critical that we get things moving along so the Dr. decided to do a test run of Pitocin. They didn't turn it all the way up, or whatever term is used to describe how they control how much Pitocin I'm getting. I remember them saying to turn it on to a 4...I think. I started having contractions right away and right along with the contractions, her heart rate dropped so low I couldn't hear the monitor beeping. They shut off the Pitocin and scrambled to find a heart beat. Chris was watching the monitor and said her heart was beating once every 3 seconds or something like that.

Everything calmed down and contractions stopped and Little Love's heart got back on track. The nurse looked at us and said, "Get ready, pretty sure you'll need a C-section." They were sure she was tangled in the umbilical cord which was causing all the trouble.
 
They gave Chris an awesome, flattering blue suit to put on, hat and booties included. Luckily for him, he can rock any outfit. Now I'm not a crier. My cold, cold heart doesn't allow it. But, at that moment I was a basket case. I couldn't stop crying. Not because I was worried about having a C-section but because I had just watched my child's heart almost stop.  We were tired and stressed to the max. Chris and a random man my mom tracked down in the hospital gave me a blessing. In the blessing Chris asked that the nurses and Dr. would have an open mind so that they would know what to do...not exact verbiage but you get the point.

This is when things get interesting. The nurse came in and said, "Okay, Julia wants to try one more thing." They proceeded to put me in the stirrups and then moved my bed to the most upright position it could go. Crazy. The nurse told Chris he had to hold me so I wouldn't fall out (numb lower half and all). She told him if I fell out of the bed she would have to do a lot of paper work. Did I mention she was awesome? They were hoping gravity would work. The Dr. said to put the Pitocin on 2. The nurse was nervous because she had just watched my baby's heart about stop so she said she would start with 1.  Gravity and a little Pitocin did the work. At 3:00pm our beautiful baby girl was born

They were right when they said she was wrapped in the umbilical cord. But it was crazy how wrapped she was. The cord was wrapped around her neck, arm and leg. My Dr. needed help untangling her. Obviously Everly was doing backflips in my tummy. My belly was huge so the Little Lamb had plenty of room. As they were cleaning her up, we learned just what a miracle our little Ever is. Her umbilical cord was not only wrapped all around that baby but is was disintegrating and not fully developed. The nurse patted me on the shoulder and said," Man you're lucky to have her here."
 She was only 5 lbs.11 oz. Her umbilical cord or lack thereof, was the reason she was  smaller.

The scariest/happiest moment of our lives ended with this beautiful baby... and wickedly awesome bedhead.

 

 

Everly: The Birth Story

We always said Elanora was our little miracle baby. She took 7 long years to come to our family. Years and years of waiting... and then... sicker then a dog at girls camp, passing out at the Neon Trees concert and poof... Yay, a baby.

 

 

Clearly the Browns like to make an entrance to the party and boy did our little Ever make an entrance.

Being preg-o with my little Babylove was a little more tricky then it was with the first Babyface (although she only took 1 1/2 years). I was sick, a lot. Poor Chris had to hold down the fort most of the time (Good thing he isn't just here for looks, he is also pretty efficient).  In fact this pregnancy was so different and much harder, if I hadn't had an ultrasound every Dr. visit, I would have guessed I was having a boy. 
 I started having sporadic braxton hicks weeks and weeks before I was due. I didn't have one with the first Lil' Sugar.

 

(A few extra pounds more then the first pregnancy too. Ha, a few)

 The Sunday before I was due, I was at Evening in Excellence and those braxton hicks were 4 minutes apart but not painful, so luckily the Young Women president didn't have to deliver a baby. Although she was confident that Siri would help her through it.

By 1:00pm on Monday they were real contractions and were getting intense but not regular. I sent Chris the 'be on standby' text. He came home. My parents took the sweet Big Sister and by 10:00pm we were driving to the hospital (I was in serious pain but excited because I didn't want to be induced and my Dr. will only let me go a week over my due date and I was cutting it close).

 

We got to the hospital fresh faced (fresh faced was a little more painful than I imagined) and excited. Ready to have a new baby to hold. I thought it might be fun to try and go al' natural' this time. But was pretty sure I wasn't going to make it because I didn't care either way, just wanted a healthy baby. I figure you have to be dead set to make it without the good stuff :) But hey, I'm up for anything and made it to a 5 or 6 with Nory Bug before I got the epidural. Add a few numbers and I'm there, right?

 

The nurse placed the contraction monitor and the baby's heart monitor on my crazy big belly. Then she proceeded to check me. "You're only a 2," she said." I replied with a "What the H@!%". For the record that definitely wasn't the word I was thinking, the word I was thinking was way worse. I was in quadruple the pain that I had been in when I was a 5 with Elanora. The nurse left the room and a few minutes later a different nurse came in with 2 cans of apple juice and said, "We need you to drink this," and that is when the worst and longest night of my life started.
 

"Apple juice, why?" Clearly the nurses thought we were 3 years old because the only thing they would say was, "The baby isn't very happy and we need you to get some sugar into your system to get her moving around." What in the heck does that mean? I had literally just had a berry smoothie in the parking lot of the hospital, the nurse looked very worried when I told her that. Finally they told us, which at this point we had figured it out on our own, being the geniuses that we are.
My beautiful baby's heart rate was dropping really low and when it wasn't dropping, it wasn't nearly as fast as it should be. The lines on the monitor should have been moving up and down fairly fast. Her lines, when not dropping were barely going up and down.

The Dr. gave the orders to hydrate me, to see if that would help. Hydrate is an understatement, they had so much liquid going in me that I filled up like a water balloon every ounce of me swelled. I looked pretty fluffy and puffy (lucky for me they continued the hydration process all through the next day). We were given the option to stay the night and monitor the baby or go home and then in the morning I would have to go to my Dr. office and they would monitor the baby's heart for a couple of hours. We opted to stay just so we wouldn't worry all night long about the baby...

We worried all night long about the baby. Staring at the monitor watching her heart not beating correctly and occasionally dropping. Every time I would roll in the hospital bed or would go to the bathroom...which was a lot, remember the hydration thing pouring into my veins, my contractions would become horrible. Poor Chris would hold my hand as I withered in pain, wanting to cry. When the nurse came back in, I told her that I had to be in active labor or else shoot me now. She checked me again and said nope I was still a 2. This had to be pre labor. What in the world? The pain was 100 times worse than I had been in with Nory. The pressure was crazy and the contractions hurt like...you know what!

Finally in the morning the nurse checked me again and I was a 3 or 4. It was go time. That was the conclusion of the longest night of my life. But the start of the longest, scariest day of my life. At least the day concluded with a miracle baby and not just a puffy, fluffy face and wicked hospital bed head.

 

 

 

  

 

 

 



Scary Moments

I have had a few scary moments in my life.
I once was riding on the back of a bullet bike, the driver popped a wheelie and we almost flipped backwards...shhh don't tell my mom, she definitely would not have approved. Not the greatest bike ride I had ever been on.

 

(Ha ha, that's 18 yr old, "I'm so cool "me, next to the said bullet bike. A long, long time ago )

  Once Chris and I went snowboarding in the back country. My car's fuel line froze, there was a crazy storm heading our way and we were stranded where the odds of someone driving by were slim. Luckily for us a drunk guy put his beer down just long enough to pull over and pick us up. We had to sit on open beer cans but we got down the mountain. Not my most fun snowboarding trip.

(That's the storm coming in)

(Look at that stud, so young)

(Can you see the tears. Not fun watching the old car getting towed off the mountain)

 

Just a couple years ago a drunk guy jumped into the back of my car. My hunky super hero, Chris just happened to wander out into the driveway and about broke the guys arm dragging him out of my car. Honest mistake, the guy was drunk and confused. Not going to lie, it was horrifying.
 

But never in my life have I been more terrified than the day our little miracle Everly was born.

This most unflattering picture documents one of the happiest days of our lives. Also one of the scariest. I see 2 very physically and emotionally tired parents. Parents who might have watched their little baby's heart struggling to beat all night and into the afternoon long.

 



Introducing...

Our new little Babylove made her entrance into this crazy world on Tuesday. Her entrance was not as graceful as planned. Making it an extremely terrifying and yet most happy day.

 

Everly

November 5, 2013

5 lbs. 11 oz.

18.5 inches long

of 

pure perfection

 

 

 



If Wishes Were Horses

It's no secret around these parts that I am definitely trying to brainwash my little cowgirl to loving horses

 

                    

          My plan seems to be working she loves to go and feed the horses. She loves filling the hay nets with little handfuls of hay and carrying the grain buckets. Such a good little helper. I am pretty sure horses will be her calling. Show jumping here we come

 

Chris has other plans

 

 

    It's a tough argument. I mean look at that baby's pen holding form. She was only 1 in this picture.

She loves writing her name, which she has been doing for months... every once and a while needing a little help with the N and R depending on the day. 

  

Her favorite thing to draw is happy faces

 

 

Yesterday Chris was busy working on the remodeling project and I was busy deep cleaning the little artists and the new Babyloves bedroom  (can I just state, that for the record, I'm crazy and love to clean, I have baseboard day at least once a month, a lot of times 2x a month. It's a day were I sanitize and wipe the baseboards and door frames and everything else in site. Me being crazy, not just nesting)

Nory Bug came running in saying, "Look at my kitty, look at my kitty."

We didn't expect what we saw. We didn't expect what our 2 1/2 year old had come up with when left to her own devices

 

(Not only did she produce this awesome picture, she just happened to draw it on expensive transfer paper which I had left on the table. She colored on every sheet of it, but just look at that cat, definitely worth it!)

I feel I should state, we are so excited to see what this beautiful baby will have a passion for and the phases she will go in and out of. In no way will we force her to love something (well... I will force her to hate monkeys and country music because, well come on, both are just gross :)). We will just give her a world of experiences to enjoy.
Chris and I talk all the time about how excited we are to meet the new Babylove and see what she will love to do, how she will be similar to Nory and how she will be different.
Life is beautiful people. And we plan to live it!

But let it state on the record how super cute she looks in her cowgirl get up!

 

 

 

Final Count Down

The count down is on. This new little Babylove is only 5 short weeks away from coming into this crazy world and joining this super crazy family. Man, we are so excited, mixed in with a whole lot of terrified.  2 babies, I am definitely not responsible enough for 2 babies. Ready or not

(This counts as my 35 week picture, look at that crazy huge belly)

 Chris and I are always super organized and always planned out. Lists and checking them off and such. For example, When I went into labor with Nory love on my due date mind you, I definitely had my bags packed and ready to go. I didn't have to dig out all the camping stuff to look for a bag hidden in the back of the closet and I didn't have to do a load of laundry because I had plenty of clean underwear to take to the hospital, of course I did, duh it was my actual due date.
Now because we are so organized, is it any surprise that about 4 months ago we decided that we should rip out the plastery walls in our bedroom so we could add insulation and nice, new sheetrock?

 

Heaven knows that there isn't anything more comfortable, when 8 months pregnant and sleeping on a mattress in the front room. I really love rolling in and out of a mattress on the floor every 3 hours to go to the bathroom at night.

I seem to be having a little deja vu. The night before Baby face #1 was born, the paint was just drying and we pretty much slid her crib into place before we loaded into the car to go to the hospital. But it worked out great, she came home to a non asbestos walled bedroom complete with insulation and a super cute set up (I would post pics of her room but they are on my currently crashed computer).

Just wait until you see the finished product. Chris can do some pretty awesome stuff, all with just a picture I found on the internet. I do feel bad because when I was prego with Nory Girl I strapped on a ventilator and mudded, sanded and painted with the best of them. But this go 'round I have been feeling pretty crappy. Sick about 70% of the time, so I have just been watching the work from afar. Although I did provide the picture that inspired our new master bedroom to be :) That's something, right?