Baby Leo

Where to begin? Well, I guess it all "started" on the 23rd of June. I went to bed with braxton hicks contractions that through the course of the night strengthened in intensity and became closer and closer together. I sat in the rocking chair dozing between contractions until 3:30 am, when they were no further than 3-4 minutes apart. That's when I called labor and delivery. They said it was up to me whether I came in. I waited another hour before waking up James and asking him to check my cervix (sorry if that is TMI for some of you). It was dilated to a "3, maybe 4" so we decided to go in. I'm going to go ahead and make a long story short here. 12 hours after the contractions started, after 5 hours of walking around the hospital, my cervix showed no change and the contractions stopped. It was SO hard to leave the hospital after all of that- with nothing but fatigue to show for it.

Still pregnant and walking the neighborhood.... again!

The next day, the contractions started - lasted about 5 hours (conveniently in the middle of the night)- and then stopped. I was exhausted! I decided to visit Joella Pettigrew - a friend and chiropracter. I had been told by a number of her patients that she could possibly help my labor induce naturally. Plus, I am her visiting teacher, so I thought it would be a great opportunity to kill two birds with one visit! ;-) She adjusted my hips, pelvis and spine and did some accupressure. An hour or so later, contractions begin, only to cease a few hours later. TWO MORE DAYS of this and I'm at my wits' end. However, my Mom is now here and I'm feeling some peace of mind about that at least. Monday the 27th is my OB appointment. I went feeling discouraged and left feeling defeated! The OB told me that I was only dilated to "maybe a 2" (impossible) and that they could to NOTHING to induce labor- even if I went past my due date. My only options were to go into labor on my own or have a c-section. This news (which incidentally was mis-information) devastated me. I cried ALL my makeup off in the car before leaving the hospital parking garage!

Ok, so I get home and I'm determined to go out and buy castor oil, primrose oil, pineapple, a big gulp, and then run a mile or so. At that point, those were the ONLY suggestions I'd been given that I HADN'T already tried! My mom (in her infinite wisdom) advises me to get on my knees and ask the Lord what it is that I should be praying for. I want to pray for labor to begin immediately, but maybe I should be praying for patience? After my prayer, I remembered something that I had recently taught in a Relief Society lesson. Its was about serving one another in Relief Society. The new manual says we should pray for one another and to know how we can serve one another. In my lesson I emphasized this and even shared examples of miracles that have happened as a direct result of collective prayers. I decided to ask friends and family to pray for me. I didn't say for what, but just that I really needed some peace.

The MIRACLE:

Everyone was so sweet about offering their prayers and sending messages of love and support. The power of prayer is AMAZING! About an hour after requesting this of them, familiar contractions begin (around 6:00 pm). I had an appointment to visit Joella again that night and by the time we got to her office, I was having regular and quite uncomfortable contractions. She begins her treatments and half way through I am having to stop and really breathe (or pant - whatever you call it). By the time she's done, they're coming hard and fast- 2 minutes apart! We rush home to grab the bag and hug the kids (who were more than slightly freaked out by my distress). By the time we get to the hospital, I can't walk and James has to run and get a wheelchair. They rush me to a delivery room and check my cervix- 7 -!!! This thing is finally happening! I figure since I'm so far along I'll go "natural." Oh man, one more hour and these contractions are KILLING me. I'm all but screaming and despite James calm coaching and encouragement, I BEG for an epidural. Luckily, he's there withing a few minutes and 4 or 5 contractions later, I'm pain free and able to enjoy the last 2 hours of my labor.


LEO SHAWN MATHEWS was born at 2:35 AM. He was 9 pounds 0.6 ounces and 21.25 inches long. His apgar scores were 8 and 9. He was by far the hardest to "push out" but only 6 hours of labor!






No one had guessed near nine pounds - we all were guessing mid -eights. He showed us! When they placed him on my stomach, I felt this enormous sense of Joy and relief! He was finally here and we both made it through! He was so warm and pudgy and purplish pink. He cried a little, but was pretty happy once they had him wrapped up. Through our tears James and I exchanged kisses and welcomed the baby we had longed for to complete our family - our new son, Leo.




We called James' brother Shawn shortly after the delivery - despite the crazy time of day - to ask if we could give Leo his name as a middle name. James and Shawn are so close and Shawn and Kathy are so dear to us. We felt like giving Leo the middle name, Shawn, would be a small way we could express how much these two people mean to us. I hope they know it. Shawn gave consent and we've had nothing but positive feedback about the name. Well, except for Dustin who insists he will be calling him "Leo-tard."

The kids and Grandma came the next morning. They were so cute, saying, "Welcome to the family Leo!" and giving him lots and LOTS of kisses. My mom stayed with me for a while and had a chance to bond with Leo as well. The hospital stay was actually quite pleasant. Leo took to nursing pretty well and the staff at the Bremerton Naval Hospital is excellent. Food- not super, but I've had worse! ;0)


This one is my favorite (look at Annie):

Coming home was surreal as it always is. Of course all three of the other kids somehow appeared to have grown several inches overnight. With Grammy's help they had made signs and put balloons up.



It was so sweet- they were SO excited. They all scrubbed their hands and took turns holding Leo.



As the day wore on, despite my Mom's help, the scope of my new responsibilities on top of the old ones overwhelmed me. At the same time, it was really exciting. We had been through so much to get to this point. I think about the last year and a half and can see how we were led through it, but remember still the times when we both felt like giving up - or like it was too much.

As usual, it was SO HARD to see my mom go. She really took over the kids, meals, and most of the housework! I was spoiled I guess. We were blessed to have several ward members bring dinner that second week. It made catching up on the housework much less overwhelming not to have to worry about fixing a big meal every day.

I absolutely LOVE the newborn stage. I could ALWAYS have a newborn and be so happy. This time, however, getting that afternoon nap has been an extra challenge. With all the kids home for the Summer and James not home until dinner time, there have been a couple of days when I have had to hire a babysitter just to catch up on sleep! Its worth it, though. If I'm not sleeping, I'm ornery and yelling all the time and really everything/ everyone suffers.

Leo is a sweet boy. He smiled at me for the first time when he was only 1 week old! Now he smiles at all of us and for the most part is a happy baby. He is fussier than my last two babies, but not nearly as fussy as Dillon was, so I'm counting my blessings. When he's upset and wants to be held all day, I just put him in the sling and he usually calms down pretty well. Hopefully soon we'll get on a good schedule.

Tuesday was his 2 week check-up. He weighed 9 pounds 11 ounces, so he's already growing super fast. He's a solid guy and can hold his head up really well. I'm sad that the newborn phase is coming to an end because I think this is the last baby for us. I guess its bound to happen some time! Every day I can hardly believe I have four healthy children. Amazing.

Final score- Girls 1, Boys 3!

We found out our little bean is a boy bean! He's so darn cute and it still amazes me that in a couple of months, he went from this----->

To this! ----->

Look at his cute little face! His nose looks like Dillon's did. The bottom left photo is of his two little feet. Can't wait to meet the little guy. The kids have already got a nickname for the baby. A couple of months ago, we were getting ready to leave somewhere. The kids were all in the car and apparently discussing what they'd like to name the baby. I got into the car and realized- just after they'd asked me what my opinion on the matter was- that I'd forgotten to grab the keys. When I said, "Crap! My keys!" They thought that I was suggesting that as the baby's name! Poor baby. I guess we'd better come up with a real name for him! Regardless, knowing these guys, "Crap-my-keys" will probably be a nickname of his for a long time if not forever!

When we were in the ultrasound room, the tech said, "Ok, will Annabelle be the only princess?...... YES! Its a boy!" and Annabelle shouted, "NO IT ISN'T! ITS A GIRL!" She was so mad. I can't blame her, but I'm sure once she realizes that she'll get much more attention this way, she'll get over it. ;0)

Speaking of Annabelle- last week was her first week of preschool! Does she look excited?!?



It was really one of the toughest decisions I've had to make- whether to send her to preschool this early or not. But I knew she needed something and I couldn't come up with a better solution. The school is really close to us and the days and time were perfect! She has friends from church in her class and it just seemed to be the right decision. Now, its only been a week, but James and I both have repeatedly commented on how much happier and more content she seems to be. We can see that she really just needed something that reinforced her need for a little independence. Like before she would fight us during every meal and end up not eating much, if anything, and then constantly ask for snacks afterward. Now she eats most of her meal and, though she still loves her snacks, doesn't fight us when we only offer her the healthy stuff. I know its weird that these two things - starting preschool and our "food issues"- would be that closely related, but it does seem that way, and that's just one example of many! I guess it was a good move.

Charlie-bo-barlie turned 6 last week!

I visited his classroom to deliver cupcakes and balloons. It was a lot of fun! Wouldn't you know it though, I was ONE cupcake short! Cute Charlie said he would give up his cupcake so his teacher could have one. I was so proud of him, and of course she insisted she was much to full to eat a cupcake, so he ended up getting to eat it. :)

Later that day Charlie opened his first present (legos of course) and then we all headed to Toys R Us where he got the "birthday treatment" and got to pick out another (yes, legos). He also got to pick where we went out to eat. James and I were fully expecting him to choose McDonalds, or Chuck-E-Cheese, but he said, "I want the place with the pancakes that have chocolate chip eyes!" He even got a free piece of pie! At home it was cake and ice cream (yes we all had tummy aches) and off to bed. It was super simple, but he's such a great kid. He never expects or demands anything. As long as he gets to spend time with his family and has plenty of time for his legos, he's good. :)

Here's a plane that the boys made from their legos. Its not a "set" with instructions, they just put it together themselves using pieces they had. Its a "1947 bomber." You can't see it in the photo, but underneath there are bombs that can be dropped on the enemy and a tail-gun in the back. I love my creative little guys!

This is a drawing of Charlie's that I've been meaning to scan and post.

I guess the reason why I love it so much, is because Charlie doesn't really like to draw or color. He usually only does it when he has to for school. So one day, just after we moved here, he brought this to me (kind of out of nowhere) and I just cherish it. As you can see, he's drawn the whole family - including "crap-my-keys!" SO cute.

3 months, 3 states, 3 holidays, 3,000 miles on the cars- Longest post ever...

It has taken me 2 weeks to figure out how in the world to catch myself up after this 3 + month absence from blogging. Honestly, I have started this post probably 4 times. Anyway, I'm done over-thinking it and I'm just going to start already!

Flip Flop

So call me John Kerry, but after the last post I had this total change of heart about the house we put a deposit on in Washington. I really liked it, but knew that it was going to be a bit tight for our family. So.... I started looking again and found THE PERFECT house in the very same neighborhood! Of course, I hadn't actually looked inside this particular house, but I had a good feeling about it, and the pictures confirmed it had a lot of the same details and fixtures as the other - just a lot more square footage. James was out to sea, and when I told him I thought we should look into switching houses, he thought I was crazy. Well.... the very next day THIS happened:

So, after a couple of days going over it in my mind and both James and I praying hard about it, we decided to go ahead. We're so happy we did! We lost a little money, but not as much as we had feared, and in the end it was totally worth it. The house is AMAZING. We couldn't be happier. Here are a couple of photos:

The park across the street

The kitchen

The front of the home

The two best things about the home are the cute duck pond in the back and that the home lets in a lot of light. When the sun actually does come out, we don't miss a single ray :)

BABY

Ok, so back to the bigger news of the B- A- B- Y, some of you might know how we've struggled with the decision to try for another and how earlier in the year we suffered two devastating miscarriages. We are happy to say that this baby seems to be growing normally and next week we will know whether we are expecting a boy or a girl!

The morning after Daddy got home from his last underway - the kids wouldn't let him out of their sight - or grasp as you can see! ;)

Halloween 2010

Most of the next month is a complete blur. Luckily I have photos to prove that during the moving process we actually maintained somewhat of a life! Here are some photos of Halloween:

Black & Orange day at the school

O2 Ward "Trunk-or-Treat" activity. OH HOW I MISS THIS GIRL!

Good 'ol O2.... Miss everyone so much!

Nimitz Tour

In Early November, we had the opportunity to take some dear friends down for a tour of the Nimitz. We being complete and utter dummies forgot to tell them all not to wear open-toed shoes and we ended up having to come up with appropriate shoes for half of them last minute. It was super funny. We had 10-year old girls in 4-year old boys shoes and Kami ended up wearing some of James' trail shoes - STYLIN'!! :) That whole mess made the trip that much more memorable.


We ended up having such a great time and afterward we went to Old Town and had some yummy Mexican food. We had a girls table and a boys table, and wouldn't you know they serenaded the BOYS!?!?

Packin' Up

It was a tough decision, but rather than try to pack up Dillon's artwork, I decided it would fare better in photograph form than in a box. He is so talented, don't you think? Am I just super biased? Regardless, here are my favorites from 2009 & 2010:

The next couple of weeks were C R A Z Y. Between the morning sickness, packing, planning, sinus infection, anxiety x 10, and wrapping everything up with Primary, School and both the old and the new houses, I was a complete emotional wreck. I think I'll just wipe the memory of those two weeks from my mind! On the last day of school, Dillon's class did a little Thanksgiving play. It was adorable and afterward, his teacher called him to the front and had the entire school wish him well. As hard as he tried, he couldn't contain his tears, and frankly neither could I! It was so sweet.

Shippin' Out

Even though the movers were a couple of days late, we ended up leaving on time. My sister drove up to Utah with me (bless her), which turned out to be a good thing because we got stuck in an awful snowstorm on the way up. STUCK on the freeway with three kids and a van full of..... not winter gear, or, might I add, a port-a-potty! We dined on cheese crackers, apples and almonds that evening. YUM! When the boys couldn't hold it any longer, Aunt Haley hiked them out to the snow-heavy bushes and just as they had begun their... uhem... business, the traffic started moving! After being stuck for four hours, there was about 8 inches of snow on the van, but we somehow made it out and eventually arrived at my dad's late that same night. What an adventure!

Thanksgiving in Utah

Thanksgiving week at my Dad's was awesome. The kids LOVED playing in the snow, sledding with unlce Nate and making snowmen with Haley's boyfriend's 3 daughters. They are bar-none the world's BEST babysitters! :)

Thanksgiving day James finally made it up and we had two amazing meals - one at my Dad's (that he and I are quite proud of), and one at James' parents' home. The kids had so much fun with their cousins, though when it came time, it was super hard to say goodbye to Grandma and Grandpa who left for their 18 month mission to North Carolina the next day.

Home -WET- home

The trip from Utah to Washington was also a bit treacherous. It took us an extra half-day, but we made it safely. The movers were, once again, late but we got the kids started in school right away and when the stuff did arrive, we took a big sigh of relief! Western Washington winter weather is typically cold and rainy, but apparently, its been unseasonably cold and wet this year. We've even had snow a few times! After having lived in Arizona and then Southern California, we've had more weather in these past two months than we have in the last seven and a half years! On the first sunny day after our arrival, we took the kids for a quick tour of the area. We drove along the coast, saw Seattle across Puget Sound, watched some guy "crabbing," and took some photos of the shipyard.

WELCOME USS NIMITZ!

James had to leave later that week to re-join the Nimitz for its 4-day float up the Pacific Coast. The day the Nimitz arrived was a huge deal. The whole community was out to celebrate and we were there super early in the morning to take part in all the festivities. There were tons of news crews there and people giving the military families free stuff. The kids danced to the live D.J. as well as the Navy band. When we finally spotted the "68" slowly making its way along the inlet, the crowd went nuts! We could see all the sailors "manning the rails" and knew one of them was Daddy!! It took about and hour for the shop to rest in the slip, but once it did, this huge sense of relief swept over me and I realized it would be a whole year before I had to say goodbye to James for that long!!

Rather than take part in the rest of the day's events, we just grabbed our sailor and went home to just all be together.

Christmas card 2010:




So the boys really love their school and of course the kindergarten classes did an adorable little program on the day school let out for Christmas break. Charlie was a reindeer and pretended he knew every word to every song that the other kids had been practicing for weeks. ;0)


After school let out that day we took the kids across the ferry to Seattle and spent the rest of the day sight-seeing. This statue was the boys' favorite.



I can count on one hand the number of days Mt. Rainier has been visible since we arrived. I'd count today, but you can only see the very top!

Marge the big white Barge

In this photo you can see across the inlet to the Nimitz, which is now up on blocks. That big white thing on the right is the barge where James now works. In his own words, "Its big, white, empty and it floats." Exciting!

Christmas 2010

Beware - I'm about to post like a million photos of Christmas! It was so super fun having my family (well- the ones that could make it) here! Since the weather didn't cooperate, we spent a lot of time indoors playing music, balderdash, cards, Wii, Kinect, and just being really silly! Dave - if you have that video or photos of us playing Just Dance II, I want to see! Nobody can beat me at that game. NOBODY!

Christmas Eve

Christmas Morning

(Dustin- they spent hours looking through those lego magazines that day! Who needs actual legos??!!) You may not be able to see the package of Hello Kitty nail polish Annie is holding in this next photo, but just looking at it makes my blood boil a little. Annie used it to "color" her new bedspread. Guess Santa assumed a 3-year-old would know nail polish is only for finger nails.

Silly-ness

Quick Trip to Seattle

The day that my brothers left it wasn't raining, so James and I took them across the water to the city for a quick lunch and tour. It was super short, but super fun. Frankly Nate was dying to get home to his girlfriend and about driving everyone NUTS. "Oh I have so much to do! I have to get home tonight!" Whatever Lover Boy! Next year you'd better just bring her with, will ya?

For Dillon's birthday, we decided to take him to the Pacific Science Center to see the Harry Potter exhibit. Well... apparently you have to reserve tickets and once we got there we could see we were totally out of luck, so we hit the children's museum instead! Luckily, we got to see the HP exhibit just a week later when Uncle Shawn and Aunt Kabby came for a visit.

A Visit From their FAVORITE Aunt and Uncle

(who live in Arizona and who names are Shawn & Kathy)

Ferry ride

Space Needle

Looking to the northwest

To the south

To the east

And to the Northeast

The Harry Potter exhibit was SO COOL! No photos allowed inside, but everyone totally loved it from Shawn down to little Annabelle. It was everyone's favorite part of the day for sure.

We always have such a great time when these guys come. Come again soon S&K!

Gosh - can that really be all? If you read all of that, pat yourself on the back.