Small moments

It has been a rough few days. We have all been sick around here. All I want to do is lie around and sleep or watch TV and not move. But I have kids. And they are sick too, so that means they need even more TLC than normal. When I woke up this morning and remembered I was flying solo and my husband was already at work, I thought the world might end. Okay, maybe not that dramatic... not quite.
When the baby's morning nap time came around, we headed up to rock him. Lately, Clara wants to be with us while we're rocking, and our deal is that she sits on the arm of the recliner and does not make a peep while we rock, or she has to leave. Some times she cooperates more than others. I was all geared up for a battle with her this morning, but instead she nuzzled up to me, laid her head on my shoulder for a few seconds, then planted a big kiss on my cheek. I was sitting there snuggling my dozing off baby and enjoying some snuggles with my big girl too.
I thought about all that cliche stuff about parenthood, about how childhood goes too fast, about how sometimes the moments seem like a struggle while they're happening but we wish them back as soon as they're gone. I though about how terrible I've been about writing anything about our lives, big moments and small. I knew I had to put this one down on paper (or computer screen). I want to remember it.

Bride to Bee

In honor of Alisha, my sister, mom, and I threw her a little bridal shower. We did a breakfast time shower with family. We kept it simple with various honey foods, and one game where we asked Matthew to guess what Alisha would say to certain questions (we recorded him on video beforehand), and then had her answer the same questions. She did really well at matching his answers. It was a fun time.

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A wedding

I remember the day Matthew came home from the hospital. I remember when he potty trained. I remember when he was a cute little grade school kid. I moved across the country when he was about 15 or 16, so the years after that are less detailed in my memories of him. Maybe that's why it seems hardly believable that my little baby brother is old enough to be married.
But he is.

I know I am terribly behind as this happened months ago, but my baby brother married the lovely Alisha, and just like that, I have to admit that my baby brother is an adult.
Their day was lovely. Alisha looked fantastic, they both looked so happy. The temple ceremony was nice, a luncheon with various people gushing about the couple followed. In the evening, an outdoor reception with lots of dancing polished off the day. It couldn't have been better if you ask me. I am so happy for them and so happy that we have another fantastic member in our family.

On cleaning

If I had to choose one word to describe my cleaning style, I would pick...
Perfectionist.
This is not a good thing.
This leads to the following kinds of thoughts: "I can't clean the kitchen today because I do not have time to wipe down every cupboard, clean out the inside of the fridge and microwave, clean the oven door in between the glass, clean underneath the sink, etc so I guess I won't even get started on it right now." or "Yes, I did pick up and vacuum the living room, but it's not clean because the couch covers need to be laundered, the drawers in the entertainment center are filled with disorganized cords, the video games are not alphabetized, and there are syrupy child fingerprints on the arm of the chair."
I am also prone to get caught up on one area for so long that nothing else gets done. For example, I decide I am going to pick the clothes up off the bathroom floor. Then I figure since I am there anyway, I should switch out the shower curtain and towels and launder them with the clothes. And since I am doing that, I should probably clean the shower so the clean curtain is in a clean shower. Eventually, I am sorting through all the hair ties to throw away any that may be worn out, and on and on until I have spent all time that I may have to clean that day on one part of the house that is probably low on my priorities list.
I am pretty sure there is no way that I will ever in my life feel like my house is clean. There is always something else that needs to be done.
Does anyone else out there struggle with finding "good enough" in your efforts to keep your house clean and still have a life outside of cleaning?

Lehi house

We loved the door to door public transportation to get Zack to work from our last place, but it was still an hour each way. Our lease was ending soon, and after a LOT of discussing, scouring of apartment listings, and a bunch of viewings, we felt like nothing was really clicking for us. We didn't want to just settle for something we didn't really like because we didn't want to have to move again for a while. Then we made a weird decision to see some places in Lehi, where Zack works. We found a place we liked, and surprisingly to us, we decided to go for it. Unfortunately, the place was just a home owned by an older couple that they were renting out and in a situation like that, they can cherry pick who they want living in their house. It's a popularity contest, or likeability contest, or something like that. And if you know us, you know we'll always lose in a situation like that. And lose we did. Even though we were the first to view the house and to say we'd take it, they chose someone else. Secretly, I was a little relieved. It was a great house, but had some weird things that I wasn't sure I could live with (carpet in the dining room, no doors on the master bathroom, those folding style doors on all the closets that pinch little fingers). The hunt continued. As we drew closer and closer to moving day, we got worried, and thought about just taking a place we didn't really love. We were still looking at places, but nothing seemed right.

A listing popped up on KSL and we set up a viewing but kinda counted it out because it wasn't as close to Z's work as we wanted.

Then we saw it.

It was perfect! It checked every box on our must haves list and a lot of the ones on our wish list too. So we took it, and we did something we never thought we'd do... we moved to Utah County.
This is also a home owned by a private owner, but they picked us based on more defined specifications, and not just some touchy-feely whatever.
We have been here since early July. We are still getting somewhat settled, but I already feel more settled here than I did in the last place. 
Moving day was a big chore, but our families really chipped in and made it go fast and easy. Here's the one picture I got from the move-- the chart showing everyone which room to take the boxes to.

This is a 2 story, 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath townhouse (no one lives above us except ourselves!!!!). I have photographed the lower level only right now since the upstairs is going through some upheaval, but even the lower level has changed a lot since I actually took the photos. 

This is the living room in the back of the house, where we actually do most of our hanging out, watching TV, etc

 I have some decor hanging above the couch now. Too lazy to go take new pictures right now.

 Half bath on the lower level

 Dining space/pantry

 Kitchen

A little story: before we moved into the house, but after we'd already picked it, we ran into bar stools on clearance for a smashing deal at Target so we bought them. When we moved in and the first stool was assembled, we realized it was too tall for the counter.  (yeah, we didn't even think to  measure first. Go us!). Luckily, we were able to sell the stools for a profit, and got these other ones, which are the right height, for a very good deal also.

 Hallway from kitchen to the front of the house. The door knob and barely visible door to the left is the bathroom. The more visible door on the left is the closet, and the door in the other room is the front door. 

 View from the front door to the back of the house

 Looking left from the front door. We actually have a couch on this wall too now, which makes the room look much homier, and much less like a big empty cave.

 We moved Zack's desk upstairs now too so this area is empty right now. We're planning on putting the Christmas tree there.

 Front door/shoe rack

So there you have it. Upstairs pictures to come soon.
So far, Utah county isn't as horrible as we thought it would be. We were promptly put into the nursery in our new ward, so we haven't really gotten to know anyone. The commute to Zack's work is much nicer, about 10 mins by car and 20-25 by bike. We have a Thanksgiving Point membership and have been taking full advantage of that now that we live so close. All in all, we are very happy with our choice and glad we really found a place we can enjoy.

West valley

We absolutely loved our apartment in south salt lake, but the neighbors, not so much. The place clearly didn't have the most awesome construction so even the every day living noises of our upstairs neighbors (walking around, music, snoring) was intrusive. But we couldn't fault them for that. Unfortunately, it was much more than that. They kept strange hours and had 2 very energetic children. Almost every night in the 11 o clock hour, they would come home and make the biggest racket... I'm talking yelling and jumping off things and running around. They woke our baby up almost daily for months. Between the 11 PM nightly ritual and the daytime noise, it was often more than once a day. We tried to be understanding. People make noise. But our baby was just learning to sleep and everyone was suffering when they woke her up over and over. We tried talking to them. We tried banging on the ceiling with a broom. We even got the landlord involved. Nothing changed. As our lease expiration approached, we realized we were going to have to move. It was hard decision since we liked the layout of the apartment so much, but it had to be. We searched for an new apartment for a long time, and nothing really seemed to click. We kind of wanted to try living in a big complex since we had such a good experience in one in Philly. Maybe that was the problem. Anyway, we finally found something that was ok, and we were running out of time, so we took it. We were able to get a 9 month lease, so we weren't committing for too long. We knew we were expecting another baby and thought we might want a 3 bedroom place after the baby came and didn't want to be stuck in a long lease in the 2 bedroom. We were also able to get a first floor unit, which is really nice for moving in and out.  So it had 2 bedrooms, 2 baths. Here are some pictures I took of the place.

Living Room 

It was small. Not much room for Clara to play.

 Kitchen

Clara's Room

Walk in Closet for Clara

It looks like I never got around to photographing the patio, dining area, hall bathroom, our bedroom, or our bathroom. A quick verbal description for memory's sake: patio off the living room with a big storage closet, which was really nice to have. Off the kitchen was a dining area, but for us, it became an office/misc area after the baby was born and we had to move stuff out of our room to fit him. In the hall was a large hall bathroom, and laundry machines. Our bedroom was at the end of the hall, and was medium sized, with a master bath. The master closet was in the bathroom and wasn't separated by a door or anything (not my favorite, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be).

Honestly, I'm not surprised at all that I didn't get pics of these rooms. When we moved in, I was newly pregnant and sick sick sicky sick. So I was either sick, quite pregnant, or had a newborn baby the whole time we lived there. The place never really got pulled all together in the first place as far as unpacking and hanging out decor and all that. We knew in the back of our minds that we would probably leave at the end of the 9 month term anyway. The place did have some perks. Zack could ride public transportation door to door from our house to work. He did have to ride 1 trax line to another to the frontrunner, and it was an hour each way, but I had free access to the car at all times. It had enough space for us. It was ok. But we could still hear the neighbors more that we liked, it was literally right next to the freeway, we decided we weren't fans of the huge apartment complex scene after all, and we really got cramped once the baby came. Plus the length of Zack's work commute was really starting to wear on us. So when our lease was coming to an end, we decided to get out of there. 

A birth story

This will be a long post with lots of over sharing. As always, feel free to move onto the next one if you desire.
My pregnancy with Lincoln was not fun. I started feeling pukey sick before the pregnancy test even read positive. We moved into our apartment in West Valley while I was in the worst part of my morning sickness, so that was kind of a fiasco. It took months to get that apartment put together. It never really did come all the way together in the end. I laid on the couch for weeks just feeling like I was going to die and praying that somehow my toddler and I would survive the day. We stayed in our pjs and watched movies most days.  Somehow I was still pushing my way through 2 days of 12 hour shifts at work each week. Around 16 weeks or so, I started feeling a little better, and actually probably felt less nauseous this time than I did with my last pregnancy from then on. But I felt huge and exhausted and was barely holding it together. As my pregnancy went on, they loaded me up with nursing students at work every single day I worked for weeks. I was stressed.
It wasn't that surprising when I showed up at my 32 week appointment and had protein in my urine and a high blood pressure. Because of my history of preeclampsia, but doctor ordered some labs, a urine test, and bed rest. That meant no more work. Other than that, I was not able to adjust my activity level too much because I have a toddler at home. I tried to pick her up less.
My labs came back okay and my urine protein level was a bit below the diagnostic threshold for preeclampsia, so they diagnosed me with gestational hypertension. From that point on, I had to go see my doctor once per week. Additionally, I had to go to the hospital twice a week for a non-stress test.

Non stress test

Zack and Clara came with me to a couple of my non stress tests. Clara enjoyed sitting in the chairs like mommy.

Essentially, they hooked us up to a monitor and watched to baby's heart rate for a certain amount of time to watch for any signs of distress. If he was not active enough during the test, they would stick a buzzer on my stomach and buzz it to wake him up. I always hated when they did that because he would startle like crazy. Poor baby.
Guys, lots of that stuff sucked. 3 appointments per week is a lot. Plus, I absolutely couldn't drag Clara with me to my non stress tests by myself because I was strapped to a chair the entire time, so I had to arrange babysitting for that almost every time (thanks so much to Zack's mom who did the bulk of that for me!). Some weeks, I secretly hoped my blood pressure would soar into critical range or that my urine protein level would finally reach the level for preeclampsia so I could just have to baby already and quit dragging my huge body to the appointments. Terrible, right? I was also stressed about taking so much time off work without actually having a baby in my arms.
Because of all the problems I was having, I thought they might induce me at 37 weeks like they did with Clara, but my doctor was convinced that we should push on to 39, so we did. She did strip my membranes at 38 weeks, but nothing happened as a result.
I turned 39 weeks pregnant on a Sunday, so we scheduled my induction for Monday, May 12th. They wanted me to call at 6:00 that morning and they would tell me what time to come in for my induction.

Waiting to find out what time to go in to the hospital

I set the alarm and got up super early and the answer was that I should call back at 8. I did so, and they still weren't sure but told me that I should call back at 9 if they hadn't already called me back. I had a feeling that they would call and say "come now" so I got all ready. Lo and behold, when they called just before 9, they basically said "how soon can you get here?" Off we headed.
After getting Clara all squared away, we arrived at the hospital around 10.

If I remember right, I was dilated to a 2 and 80% effaced when they started my labor. At 11:00, they started my on pitocin.  After about an hour, I did start to have some pretty painful contractions, but I got up to use the bathroom and the contractions basically went away after that. When they checked me at 1:00, I was dilated to a 3 and 80% effaced. They went ahead and broke my water. Just like last time, it was a TON of amniotic fluid that came out. It was actually pretty comical. We were all just cracking up and fluid just kept coming and coming.  Soon after that, Zack left to get some lunch, and while he was gone, my contractions really amped up.  With Clara, I asked for the epidural pretty much as soon as I felt a twinge of pain.  This time, I tried to power through it for a while.  I had not been at the hospital for very long at that point and I wondered if I was just being a total wuss.  But my nurse came to check on me and actually asked if I was ready for my epidural and I said that I absolutely was, so they sent in the anesthesiologist. Zack got back from lunch just in time for my epidural at 3:00. Soon after the epidural, I felt way nauseous so they gave me some zofran via IV and I felt much better. At 3:30, I was dilated to a 4.5 and 80% effaced. A check at 5:00 showed me dilated to a 6 and 90% effaced. At 5:45 I was dilated to a 7 and 90% effaced. At 6:50, I was dilated to a 9 and 100% effaced. Throughout all this time, I was pretty comfortable and relaxed. My epidural this time made my legs WAY more numb than the one I had with Clara. I couldn't really control them at all. I had to get help any time I wanted to move, which was a little frustrating.

I was also anxious to get the baby out maybe, but otherwise fine. My nurse had a student with her, so I had 2 people checking me every time, but that wasn't a big deal to me. I was a nursing student once, so I get it. Around 7:00, there was a shift change and I got a new nurse.  

At 7:30, they had me start pushing. I was feeling some pressure and such, but I was somewhat nervous about starting to push already because the nurse said that the baby was still a little high. That's probably part of the reason I ended up having to push for quite a while. With Clara, I was at a teaching hospital and the room was just full of people when I was pushing. At one point, they pulled one of my doctors out of the room to sing happy birthday to her, I remember. Everyone was just chatting away and it felt kind of lighthearted and stress free in a lot of ways, like a big baby party. This time, it was Zack, my doctor, and my nurse, and frankly, I thought it was more awkward that a room full of people.  I felt like we should be making conversation or something, but I was super worn out from pushing after a while and did not really want to talk. Then the doctor and nurse started gossiping about workplace politics, which seemed like a weird thing to do in front of a patient, but what do I know.
Finally, at 8:51, our baby boy was born.

As he came out, the doctor and the nurse both said that he was a big baby, and when he was weighed, he came in at 9 pounds even, 21 inches long.

The pushing really wore me out this time, much more than it did with Clara even though I pushed longer with her, but other than that, it was pretty easy and comfortable. I did have to get some stitches, but enjoyed just cuddling my baby and trying to feed him. I love those first moments together.

First family photo (sans Clara)

Our view from the recovery room was not as good as the view we had in Philly, but we were surprised and happy to have a view of the capitol building and downtown.

When Clara met Lincoln for the first time (the next day), we had her bring him a stuffed bear that she made at build a bear. We had some toy cars to give to Clara as a gift from Lincoln. She loved it.

Meeting baby brother for the first time

Even though LDS hospital would not have been our first choice, we ended up there for a lot of complicated reasons. I don't regret it. It was a nice experience, all of the staff who cared for me were excellent, and we brought home a healthy, chubby little baby to join our family.