Our 4th pregnancy

Well, summer is just about over and so is our time in Philly! I still cannot believe it.  We have lived here for THREE years!  It has FLOWN! I guess that's what happens when you're having fun :)

In comparison with last summer, we had a sort of boring one this year!  Haha, last year Lyndi and I spent a lot of time outside playing in our blowup pool while Emerie was napping, we went to playgroup every week, went to the beach several times, had lots of barbecues and were a lot more tan!

This summer we... packed haha.  Well, I spent a good amount of time sorting, organizing and most importantly throwing things out!! It feels SO GOOD to get rid of all the stuff we've collected just in the time we've been here.  Thanks to Tyler being EQ President and helping out with so many moves, we've "inherited" a lot of things!  All of our possessions fit into a 15' truck.  Also, we found out just how picky the thrift stores are about taking used things.  I ended up breaking a lot of our chairs and furniture apart because they would not accept it.  Which was fun, I'll admit, I tried some ninja skills out on our furniture :)

Among other things we did this summer though, we went to the beach on one of Tyler's weekends off, had 2 barbecues with friends, went to see fireworks, lit off some of our own, and went to the kids museum. Haha, that's literally all I can think of! I suppose there was a drastic difference in my free time during the day this summer though :) Levi's a pretty cute little time consumer.

Haha, I caught him in the middle of a sneeze, and I still laugh out loud when I see it.

This kid is such a cute chunky monkey!  He finally fit into the swings at the park just in time for nice weather!  He ended up falling asleep in it several times :)

Miss Emerie and her camera faces... haha.  Lyndi's much more composed.

Look at those handsome baby blues :) ...and the pink jumper :)

Emerie has just begun to really take after her big sister.  It drives Lyndi crazy to have Emerie mimic her, but it's so adorable!

That one time I forgot to turn the faucet off for the tub... Good thing she's taller than the tub!  She wanted more baths with that much water haha.

Somebody has a girlfriend already :)

Lyndi was so upset about moving away from the neighbor girls!  There were 3 that lived above us that LOVED our kids!  The oldest one babysat Levi all the time and when they found out we were moving, she insisted on babysitting every day until we left haha. 

This describes Emerie's personality so perfectly... :)

Check out that handsome dude all ready for church!

My beach babes :)

My other beach babes :)

This belongs on a magazine cover or something, such a cutie!

Lyndi loves the Perez's son Josh.  They were best buds for a few weeks while he was here visiting. 

I really am going to miss the beach!

My world right there :)

 

He had just started to notice the food we were eating

Our own little fireworks show before bedtime

Tyler and I went to Gettysburg for the day and stopped at the Turkey Hill ice cream factory on the way home, lots of free ice cream samples!  Totally worth going without kids haha.

He laid there for almost 5 minutes with Cy on his face, I guess he felt the need to support Iowa State :)

I woke up one morning to this, he was awake just hanging out talking to himself with his feet dangling

Passed out after his bottle

Our summer harvest, sadly that's about all we got, but they were worth it!

Our street is SO noisy!  But apparently that's all it takes for him to nap, so that became my only sanity the last few weeks of getting ready to move.

Our ward had a Pioneer Day breakfast, and this is what the girls wore, and believe me, they did their hair like that back in the 1800's ;)

Kids Museum

 

Haha, as soon as we got to the museum, Lyndi grabbed Josh's hand and they ran around everywhere holding hands :)  After a while, Josh ran to his dad and said "Dad, she's wearing me out!"  Haha, get used to it kid ;)

Goodbye Philly!

Our last minute at the house

This kid is now sitting up and borderline crawling! 

He rolls over when he's drinking his bottle and gets so upset that his milk doesn't come out

Kindergarten starts in 2 weeks!  So crazy!

We're not in Philly Kansas anymore :)  Steeler territory here we come!

First time eating solids :)  I have never waited this long to feed solids, but he has been amazing at it and seriously eats a ton!

One thing I miss about Philly, THE PARKS.  They are everywhere and are all amazing!  Greensburg needs to work on that :) 

See that swing back!?  Why would you put a chain on the back?  So safe and so comfortable... :(

Plowing through our days without daddy.

Sporting Phillies

Emerie has JUST taken a liking to Levi. Not that she didn't like him before now, but she's now old enough to play with him and pay attention to him.

The 20 year old couch saw it's last day!  Man, was that a solid piece of furniture, I will be buying our future furniture from them!

Scary or cute?  Haha. The weird things we find in Aunt Alyssa's stuff :)

This post is all over the place I'm realizing now... after re-reading it.  I don't care.  My brain has been all over the place for months now, and it's probably not going to get better until Tyler's done with school in may!

We recently moved in with my parents in Greensburg, PA (by Pittsburgh for those of you who are wondering where that is) for the duration of Tyler's LAST school year (I still can't believe I'm saying that!).  This is sort of stressful on everyone in some ways, and much less stressful in others. However, I made a countdown on my phone, and it just happens to be 40 weeks!  So this is considered our 4th pregnancy. Haha, GOTCHA with that blog title eh?!?  The first trimester no doubt will be full of sickness (physical and emotional) from Tyler being gone, the 2nd trimester will be long but probably a bit more comfortable once we get settled in, and the 3rd trimester, during which we will not see Tyler while he's in Montana, will be the longest and most painful.  All just like a regular pregnancy ;)  But after it's all over, we will get to take home a degree! 39 weeks exactly from today folks!

I haven't posted in a while! I keep thinking a lot has happened, but not really. But here a few things:

Levi is now 3.5 months old!  So crazy.  I keep thinking he's so tiny, but he's a tank and such a cutie!  People hold him and wonder how he's so heavy.  Our kids are just solidly built haha. He melts my heart with those blue eyes and red/brown/blonde/white hair. He has his dad written all over him!  Tyler has the same thing with his hair.

The following sequence of photos is from Emerie from the middle of April. If only I got paid to clean up after her, we would be living a rich life my friends!  This was occurring while I thought she was napping.  I got Levi down for a nap, then got her down for a nap then I laid down for a little bit.  I woke up, walked out of my room to see Emerie in the living room with a mess of hot coca mix. I followed the trail from the couch to the floor to the kitchen and found this: 

 In her defense, she DID feel bad about it, and she knew she was in trouble. I think the crying in this picture though came from her being unable to take her clothes off to take a bath due to the stickiness. 

The booster seat? At least an inch thick of cocoa.

 Do you have any idea how hard it is to sweep or even vacuum hot cocoa mix?  Very hard!  I tried sweeping, then I tried vacuuming, then I had to sweep after I vacuumed, then had to mop twice! It took me over an hour to clean this up.  This is about 8 cups of mix... Such a waste haha. Filled up almost our whole vacuum.  Now, even 2 months later I smell hot cocoa whenever I vacuum, not the worst thing!

Then she felt the crash from all the sugar.  Haha.  It scared me to death, I didn't know she had fallen asleep, she played in the tub for a while! I started to drain the water, but the noise from the drain woke her up. There was cocoa everywhere!  Up her nose, in her hair, in her ears, all over the place! 

 We had family here for Levi's blessing!  And little stinker Levi would not nap for anyone except my mom!  He literally spent hours sleeping on her in the 24 hours that she was here. 

 These 3... So much love!  We have one of each, a brunette, blonde and redhead :) 

Words cannot express the love this girl has for her brother.  Words can also not express how much I appreciate her help. She is training me to be a mom :)

We went to DC with the kids and met up with another family there to swap babysitting so we could go to the temple.  Such a fun weekend! 

 We are 0 for 2 with seeing the White House.  The first time Ty and I went, the road that goes past it was closed for construction, and this time it was all roped off and when we tried to get closer, the security guards approached us and told us we couldn't get any closer!  So this is the closest we could get haha.  Someday we'll get an up close pic!

 Emerie quite literally danced around the zoo with her hands in the air half the time. They had a blast! 

Lyndi graduated from Joy School, which has been so much fun the last 2 years!  I can't believe she's going to be in Kindergarten in 2 months!!

 What an awesome group :)  We managed to survive this year with so many things happening!  Between the 4 moms we had cancer, back surgery and 2 babies born! 

Lyndi's been learning to ride a bike this summer.

 Happy boy all ready for church :)

 She falls asleep in the oddest places :)  On the hard floor

 He found his toes a few weeks ago, he sat like this for about 10 minutes one morning haha.  He found his fingers the other day and kept punching himself in the eye with his fist and watching it come toward him!

 He thought there was milk in there haha.  Darn toy bottles.

Hehe, I snuck this one in, I think it's adorable!  Levi is probably a better weight to use than the one Tyler's holding in his right hand :)  Thanks to Shawn Palmer for the weights!

 Multi-tasking at it's finest :)

 We go to story time a lot.  It's twice a week for 2 different age groups, and since I have kids that fall into both categories, we go twice a week ;)  They do the EXACT same thing at both, but we go anyway because they love it!  They made flower stamps out of beets during this story time.

I have to make a shout-out to Tyler. He seriously amazes me.  He has SO much to balance on his plate right now, and he does it all without complaining and without fail.  He passed his board exam with flying colors 3 weeks after Levi was born!  I AM SO PROUD OF HIM!  He is in the middle of his second rotation right now and it has been so nice to have him come home at night and STAY home.  That hasn't happened yet in our married life!  He officially has less than a year of school and then we're entering the grown up world ;) 

Lyndi starts Kindergarten soon and is SO excited to move to grandma's house!  I can't tell you how many times she has told complete strangers at the store or the library or wherever we go that we are moving to grandma's house in the fall.  We will be living there for the last 9 month of Ty's schooling :(  It will be so nice to have help with the kids, but that means that Tyler will be living elsewhere.  To say I'm nervous for the next year is an understatement. But it will be an adventure!  For now we're just enjoying our last little bit of time in Philly.

Our little buddy

This is the story of our little perfect man! Some of it's a bit emotional for me, but needs to be said, in case someone else has had the same experience.

To keep things short, I'll try (try) to sum up the last 9 months.  We were pretty excited it was a boy this time! We both thought it was, but didn't dare hope until we were sure.  About a month after that I had to go back in for another ultrasound to confirm the due date (which got pushed back 7 days, then another 3, not super fun to find out you're not as far along as you thought...). After the ultrasound they told me everything was fine, then about 6 hours later I got a call from the doctor telling me he had a 50/50 chance of having Down syndrome. He had an absent nasal bone, which apparently is really common in Downs. I cried before I even got off the phone. The doctor probably thought I was gonna lose it! I had tyler give me a blessing that night, and in it he said this would be a special experience for me. I can only scratch at the surface of all the emotions I had the next while.  We both felt like it was gonna be fine, whether or not that meant he was fine or that we were going to be fine even if he wasn't.  It was hard to keep it to myself! I felt like I needed someone to talk to, we only told a handful of people, because we never got any answers. I got blood work done which came back normal, but not necessarily confirming he was fine. It's so amazing to me how a thousand things can run through your head in a matter of seconds. I would feel fine and then let the panic set in again.  Panic, concern, confusion, comfort, frustration (aimed at the doctor for telling me), fatigue, calm, panic again, etc. I felt like a whirlwind of emotions was constantly around me.

And then he was born. Totally normal. Totally healthy. Totally perfect. Then I mostly felt angry at myself for not trusting that feeling I had when we first got the phone call. What a waste of energy for the last half of the pregnancy!

He was 2 days late, which was the earliest of any of my kids.  I'm so grateful he came on his own, but really surprised at how quickly he came.  He came just as quick as Emerie, but emerie had a little medical help, so I thought maybe this labor would be slower.  Nope! I was an 8 when we got there, and since the whole 3rd trimester I spent getting blood drawn over and over keeping track of my low platelet count, they had to draw it again when we got to the hospital. They said it would take 45 minutes to get the tests back which would determine if I was allowed to get an epidural or not.  I knew I didn't have 45 minutes, so they wheeled me in to the delivery room and I had him naturally... I'm very glad I had the experience, and it is true that you feel better immediately afterwards than with an epidural. HOWEVER, if I ever have the option to get an epidural again, I will take it!  The only reason I survived was because it was fast haha. AND I came to find out afterwards that my platelet count had magically gone back to normal within a week, so I could have had the epidural if they didn't have to test me first... Lovely :) Contractions started at 8:00 pm, but I thought it was false labor (again!) so I told tyler he could go with friends to make his pinewood derby car, a mistake I probably won't make again. By 9:00 I knew the baby was coming, so I told tyler to come home, he got there at 10:00, got to the hospital at 10:15, ran a red light, passed a car in the middle of an intersection, and had the baby at 11:45. And he's perfect. He's a momma's boy :) Plus he looks like Tyler, which made me really happy. Such a handsome boy!

Levi Dorian Page
8 lbs 8 oz
21" long
11:45 pm
February 24, 2015

Another 6 months have come and gone already!

I'm late posting this one too... but Tyler has all but finished classes!  He has one more month in January and then he's done with classes, now it's just rotations, baby being born and boards, piece of cake ;).

In September Lyndi started Joy School again. I've loved doing this with the group we have.  Lyndi loves it and counts days in between until she can go back.  The other day she told me she wanted it to be preschool all the time so she could have fun all the time instead of just at preschool, haha.
We had a campout for church that was so fun!  The girls both miraculously slept all night, although Emerie somehow ended up going from in between me and Lyndi, over top of Lyndi's head in the tent over to Tyler's head by morning... without waking up... haha.  Lyndi wants to go camping more now.
We found out also in the beginning of September that our baby was a boy!  Tyler claims he knew it all along, well I guess so did I, but I think we both hesitated to say it out loud just in case we jinxed it haha.  He is an extreme wiggle-worm, stronger and more wiggly than even Emerie, which is saying something. I went with my friend Torrey to a consignment sale right after that and bought a ton of clothes for super cheap so now we're all set... for the first 6 months!  Well, as far as clothes go... I'm realizing now with 7.5 weeks left I have to lot to get still! We went to a Fall Festival with friends that have all moved away and on with their lives.  It was fun!  We bounced on these giant pillow things, went and picked apples, went through a haunted alien invasion house thing, and looked around at everything that had to see!  While we were waiting for the tractor to pick us up after we picked apples, Emerie was playing in the dirt and all of a sudden found a spot that was not dirt, but mud and slipped and fell in it!  She was covered in this weird mud and was crying.  Good thing she was new to being potty-trained because I had an extra outfit on hand.  After using about 100 wipes to clean her off she got some new clothes, but no shoes, I forgot extra shoes... It was funny and sad at the same time!

In October Emerie turned 2, which is crazy to me, but she milked her birthday for all it was worth haha.  She gets it!  Tyler also turned 29 in October!  We actually made sure we all got up before him and made him breakfast in bed, which is... 6  birthdays overdue!  Lyndi was so excited to make him breakfast in bed, she loves that kind of thing.  Emerie sang happy birthday to herself all day on his birthday too.  For Halloween we carved pumpkins and Tyler made one look like he was eating a fake arm that we had on hand.  Emerie did NOT like that, she cried and wanted to save the poor man that was getting eaten by a pumpkin!  We had a chili cook-off for church that was really fun! Lyndi was Rapunzel this year and Emerie was her side-kick Pascal, which nobody understood, I guess it's been too long since Tangled came out haha, and Emerie wouldn't keep her tail and hat on, so she just looked like she was wearing pajamas.  But it was cute!  Tyler and I even dressed up as mummies.  Emerie has issued with masks, or people with pumpkins on their heads, haha.  There was a boy with a clown mask on at the party and she grabbed on to my neck and didn't let go until I distracted her with some food.  The next night we went Trick-or-treating and we had a blast!  It was chilly, but the girls got loaded (since when is it tradition to hand out King-size candy bars, or handfuls of candy to each child?) and when we got home we broke open the hot chocolate and watched a movie.

In November we went out to eat with a bunch of Tyler's classmates and they threw us a baby shower, it was so sweet!  None of them have kids, so some of the girls were saying it was good to shop for baby things to get it out of their system haha.  I loved all the clothes and things we got!  Plus it was at the Hibachi Grill, so it was delicious too!  my sister, niece and mom came to visit for a week.  It was nice to see them!  I haven't seen my sister and her baby for a year and a half or my mom for almost a year.  We honestly didn't do much that week haha. We mostly sat and talked, which is was girls do I hear. My mom helped me go through baby clothes and get rid of a lot of girls stuff, sniff sniff.  My sister interviewed at 3 PA schools including Salus and got into all 3, of course ;)  We went downtown the last day they were here and it was gorgeous weather!  I love going to Independence Hall every single time.  It makes me feel so patriotic and strangely close to the people who started it all.  We went to my mom's for Thanksgiving and I got a lot of fabric to make receiving blankets, including a pattern with mustaches on it, it makes me giggle every time I look at it, it's hilarious!  After stuffing ourselves full of food every day we headed home and began December.

I felt like I had so much time in December and then it passed so quickly I'm not even sure what happened!  Tyler finished finals, and then we had Lyndi's birthday party and then he flew out to Utah for a week to bring us back a car, which I'm so excited for!  We are just about way overdue for 2 cars.  The day before he left there was a Christmas party at church, and the girls were both sick, but Lyndi wasn't as sick so she and Tyler went and came home with homemade ornaments with pictures of the girls on them.  They did the nativity with all the kids and Tyler said right before they went up on stage he told Lyndi he was going to give her a thumbs up, but she said that would be embarrassing for her so she told him not to.  When the kids were on stage Tyler gave her a thumbs up anyway and she yelled back down at him that he was embarrassing her!  Haha, such a funny girl.  That night we had Lyndi's birthday party and then Sunday Tyler flew out to Utah.  What a long week!  But we survived in one piece.  Makes me feel like I might survive maybe when he's gone doing rotations.  I took Lyndi shoe shopping for her birthday and she picked to eat out at McDonalds, and she LOVED shoe shopping!  She wants to go back :)  Tyler got home with his dad a week later and they brought gifts of home-grown canned food :)  I LOVE the apricot jam that they make.

Christmas was so fun this year!  We had friends over for a dinner on Christmas Eve and everything was delicious and the kids had fun with each other.  We might end up doing that more often, it was so fun!  We did the nativity for the first time with the girls after everyone left, which was chaotic and funny.  I wish we had a video camera!  Then we watched Frosty the Snowman and the girls went to bed.  Tyler and I stayed up finishing those last minute gifts and then went to bed.  We had planned on leaving all the Christmas lights on all night, but where the girls doors are glass, we decided it was better not to.  Then Tyler (the Christmas 5-year old) went and woke everyone up, as he does every year at 6:30 to do Christmas.  The funniest part was Emerie opening the movie Frozen.  I knew she'd react exactly as she did and I missed recording it!  She saw it, gasped, and squealed "I. got. FROZEN!!!"  Haha.  That afternoon we headed over to my mom's and stayed for a few days, ate lots of yummy food and candy, played games, went to see the last Hobbit BEFORE it came out on redbox, rare for us haha, and went over to my mom's friends house, where the girls were introduced to her dog, Emerie got licked all over her face and neck several times before she finally didn't like it and Lyndi didn't like it to begin with.  Granted it is an overly excited dog when new people come over!  We ate some really good cinnamon rolls, Tyler got some Playstation time in and then we went home.

Sorry, these always turn in to novels, but I don't ever feel like writing here more often. 

Happy Birthday Lyndi!

I'm way late posting this one... but Lyndi turned 5 on the 16th!  5!  I reminisce every year on her birthday. She was the girl who made me a mom.  I still can't believe some of the things that she is doing already.  She was born with more brainpower and maturity than most adults I know, especially me! ;) 

This year for her birthday we celebrated a few days early because Tyler flew out to Utah and was gone on her real birthday.  She picked out a strawberry cake and put yellow frosting on it and decorated it herself, complete with a half melted Ariel candle on top haha.  She kept asking when her friends were going to come over and what we were going to do for her birthday, but I decided I'm not the mom who does parties every year for every single child, so we are doing every other year for now.  So this year was just a family party, to which she proclaimed "This party is not as fun as my party with my friends last year."  Haha!  She had a candlelight dinner (compliments of Tyler's creativity) with Ramen Stir-fry and grapes for dinner, then we opened presents and Emerie was NOT happy about not being able to open anything or take away Lyndi's toys haha.  Then we sang to her and ate cake!  Happy birthday to this little girl.

This girl is so "old".  She is so much more mature and thoughtful than most kids her age and I've seen it ever since she was a baby.  Emerie will throw a tantrum because Lyndi's playing with her own toys and she will just hand them over in order to stop the conflict haha.  We get mad at her sometimes for doing it, because Emerie needs to learn not to throw tantrums... but Lyndi does it anyway.  She's so funny! 
She learned to read this summer and it's been so fun to listen to her in the car or at the store, yesterday she sounded out "Blueberry Smoothie"!  Her world is opening up for her.  She got a little lego set for Christmas and she was reading the "destructions" (instructions, I can't get her to say that yet). 
She seems to catch on to my panic and stress and will just jump in and do things for me without me even asking!  She will go in her room and clean it up or fold laundry or something and then have me close my eyes and she'll show me the "surprise" she did for me.  It's so sweet!  A lot of times Tyler and I feel bad getting mad at her when she does something bad because she's good and perfectly obedient 90% of the time. 

A few other sweet and cute things she does.  She asks these deep and thought provoking questions that I'm not sure how to answer, but makes me think we're on the right track in teaching her things, although no credit can probably even go to us, because that's just how she is.  She uses these huge words in random conversation, perfectly placed, it's so amazing to me.  She gives me hugs that are so gentle because she doesn't want to hurt the baby :).  She will have us do family prayer on the couch so I don't have to go kneel down on the floor.  She will sing Emerie songs at night when she's crying.  She draws pictures of me and Tyler with a big heart over our heads.  She asked a few weeks ago while I was eating dinner how the baby knows when to open his mouth when I'm eating.  That one made us laugh for a while.  She has named him Hercules, Arthur, and all kinds of other names.  She may be disappointed when she finds out it's not any of those names. She has the sweetest disposition!

Happy birthday to my "old soul"!  We love her so much and are glad we've had her for 5 years, looking forward to many more!

Family Photo Shoot 2014

This is my favorite time of year, because we get to see our family through good pictures!  And now so do you :)

My brown eyed, brown haired girl :)  I love this one!

My blue eyed, blonde haired girl, I can't believe how different these two are, in looks and personality!

This guy.  Even holding my belly haha. 

Haha, I always love the faces of the girls, it's either not looking at the camera or caught trying to say something, or not smiling...

Happy Birthday Emerie!

Every year, several times a year, I think to myself "How is my child doing this already?" "How is she that old already?" "How did she learn to say that or do that?"  And every time I think it's because I don't stop and remember those little moments often enough.  I'm so thankful for the technology we have so that we can remember things without necessarily keeping a written journal!  I can remember my kids through other ways.

I just have to brag about this girl a little bit, well, a lot I guess.  She has continually blown me away in the things she learns and does!  When I found out I was expecting, I made a list of 3 pretty big things that I needed Emerie to do before the new baby comes:

1) Get rid of the stinking pacifier!
2) Potty train with coincides with
3) Getting into a big girl bed

In the middle of August we just decided to go cold turkey with the paci.  We had tried weaning, but it has proven with both my too-smart-for-their-own-good kids, weaning has proved a nightmare.  They will work the tantrums and screaming until we cave if they know eventually they're going to get it back!  The first night was long, but she ended up screaming (quite literally) for only 1/3 of the time it took Lyndi when we did it with her.  So after an hour she wore herself out and then it was about 10-15 minutes every nap and bedtime for a week.  Boom number 1 done.  Then a few days later she decided ON HER OWN that she was done with diapers!  Whaa??!!  She ran into the bathroom and potty trained herself!  Before she was 2!  She is so insanely independent (which is incredibly frustrating at this age) and wants to do everything Lyndi does, which has proven to be really great as far as potty training.  "No, I do it! No help, no help!"  So number 2 was done!  Then a few days later we decided that she couldn't stay in a crib with underwear because she would get up at night needing to go potty, so we took the side off and boom number 3 was done.  These things were supposed to take months according to my timeline, but not according to hers! 

I think she's a good mix between independent and dependent.  She needs to be touching or snuggling something or someone most of the time, but will refuse help even when we can see that she needs it.  I love this little ball of energy.  She will be a great match for her little brother.  For her birthday the only way I could get her to do anything was to put "birthday" in front of it.  Haha, we were at the park and she refused to go home so I told her we were doing a birthday lunch, and she came right home, then it was time for a nap, which was also refused, so I said birthday nap, and she ran right in to her room and tucked herself in!  When she wouldn't get in the car to go get pumpkins, I told her we were getting birthday pumpkins, and she climbed right in.  She loved painting her "birthday" pumpkin, opening presents and eating ice cream with her fingers.  She's starting to speak more clearly so I can tell more of what she actually understands and it's so fun!  She's still way up in the 90's for height.  She has never been under 95% and for her 2 year check up she was 96%, weight was 87% but her head is only 37%.  I can't believe she's 2 already!  Such a big, loving girl!