Milestone Pictures

On Sunday my wonderful sister, Angie, took pictures of our kids. Kenzie's now 7 months, but we're saying these are her 6 month pictures and Zack will be 3 on June 7th, so these are his yearly pictures. They turned out perfect. Thanks again Ang for putting up with us. It really saved us a lot of $ with you doing this and they are better and totally what we wanted.

Enjoy:

California Family Vacation April 2010

The last week of April, we spent 6 fabulous days in California. We spent 3 days at Disneyland and the others just hanging out at the Los Angeles Temple, at the hotel pool, and doing tourist stuff. We had a blast and didn't want to have to come back to reality. We can't wait for another vacation hopefully soon. Enjoy the slideshow of our trip.

That's not Grandpa

Children are so smart and funny.

Everytime we go to Evanston to visit Paul's family, we go through Heber. On Main Street there is a park. At that park there is a statue of my great great grandfather, who founded Wallsburg, not quite sure why it's in Heber, but not the reason for the story. Anyway, everytime we drive by we wave to him on his horse. Zack has gotten into it and we've told him that he's his great grandpa. So, we were driving down Main Street in Springville the other day and there too is a statue of a man on a horse. Zack sees this and waves to him and says "Hi Grandpa!".

With a little chuckle, we tell Zack, "That's not grandpa." His response, "Yes, it is!" We go back and forth for a while and decide it's not worth arguing with an almost 3 year old. So everytime we drive down main street in Springville, he continues to wave and say hi to his "grandpa". They do actually look a lot a like, except for the size they are very similar. I took pictures of the two of them and I'll let you decide.

Heber - the real grandpa

Springville - not grandpa

What we've been up to

I really hate the internet sometimes. I've already done this post once before, but I got kicked off before I could finish and post it. Now I need to remember to save every once in a while.
Anyway...it's been a while I know. I'm just going to do a quick update by adding pictures and captions. They are in no order. Hope you enjoy...

Mom's (Shauna) Birthday party - January at our house

1/2 the grandkids playing cars. Zack, Isabella, Camden, Jaxon, and Jordan

Adri & Paul chatting with the adults.

Dave, Skyler, Jaxon, and Zack

The blanket that I made for my mom's birthday. Mom holding Mackenzie, Angie holding Baylee.

Mackenzie and Asher. Mackenzie is 2 weeks older than Asher, but so much bigger back then.

Easter dinner - Dave's family moved to Georgia just a couple days after this so it was kinda a going away dinner.

Dave, Brayden, & Paul in the adult conversation

Susan, Mom w/ Asher, Dad w/ Mackenzie

Jordan and Zack running in the back of my parent's house

Adri and Baylee

The 3 babies. Asher, not too happy, born Nov. 5; Baylee, born July 1; Mackenzie, born Oct. 20.

Easter morning: Zack, Paul, and Mackenzie

Zoo - March

Zack measures to be a juvinile and Paul much taller than an adult male

Zack, Paul, and Mackenzie in front of the elephant that spits

Paul & Zack by the giraffe's.

Jordan World Circus @ UVU - Jan or Feb??

Jaxon, Adri, & Baylee

Asher, Mom, and Susan

(back to front) Skyler, Camden, & Jordan

Mackenzie, Becky, Zack, & Paul

Just yesterday...hanging out on mom and dad's bed.

Our new addition to our family - Cinnamon

We got Cinnamon at the shelter in Spanish Fork. She is our outside cat that takes care of our vole (mouse/mole) problem. They have burrowed all over in our new grass in our back yard. We're not too happy about that.

Yard Adventures

We were able to get our fence up this year and with that we decided to get a play set for the kids. This took about a month to put up with all the other projects and aweful weather we were having. Zack loves it and mom is so excited to let him go outside and play and wont have to be chasing him all over the neighborhood with the fence in now.

Thanks to Chad, Maren, & Jack for all your help with the swing set.

Mackenzie's Room

This is just the beginning of her decorations that we are making. We are hoping to finish here soon. I'll post more when we do get it done.

Family Pictures

Well, it's been a while. I guess my excuse is still the same, we don't have internet at our house so I don't get to blog as much as I should. Anyway, we got Mackenzie's 3 month pictures done just Thursday (so she was really about 3.5 months and we're going to blame that on Kiddie Kandids since the went out of business and they did it the day we had an appointment) and we did our family pictures with Zack when he was 3 months so we decided to do the same with Kenzie. Enjoy the pics:

Mackenzie's Blessing Day

Sunday was a special day. Mackenzie Ann was given a name and a blessing by her dad. There were many people there to share with us in that special occassion and we wanted to thank all those that came. The weather was really bad so not as many as we had hoped would be there, but we thank you also for wanting to be there and we know you were there in spirit.
Mackenzie was so beautiful and so was her blessing. She was quiet the whole time. She slept - that really helped. Here are some pictures from that day of her and our family.

She's Here! - Labor Story & Pics

Mackenzie Ann

finally decided to join our family on Tuesday, October 20th at 5:10 pm. She was 8 lbs. 2 oz. 19.5 in. Labor went really well and was only a little more than 3.5 hours long compared to the 20 hours with Zack. Mom and Mackenzie are doing well and we want to thank everyone that has been so supportive and helpful during this last week.

Check out her web page from her hospital photos:

http://www.utahportraits.com/hospital/index.php?pg=baby&action=view&BabyID=102009mad

This is the first time Zack gets to see Mackenzie in person, when we are taking her home-the hospital wouldn't let anyone under 14 in the hospital because of the swine flu problems

The labor story (short version):

So, Monday I go to the doctor in the morning to have my membranes stripped. He says it could take a couple hours or not even helping me start labor. I am dilated to a 5. By 10 pm I am having contractions about 10 minutes apart. Not sure if they are really contractions because I thought I was having them before and the nurse at the hospital told me they weren't contractions. Anyway, I sleep that night thinking I might have to go in the middle of the night, but oh well. I'll at least wait until my water breaks. Morning comes and I am having one consistent "pain". Paul goes to work and tells me to call after I decide what I'm going to do. I am in so much pain I can barely stand up and can't even walk. I tell Paul to finish up his deliveries and to come home to help me get myself ready as well as Zack since I can't very well do it on my own. 12:30 we drop Zack off at my mom's and we are at the hospital. They check me and tell me my contractions are about 5 minutes apart. I tell them not to send me home so the nurse tells me she'll just call my doctor and tell him that I'm at a 6 - even though I'm still a 5 - and that they are going to keep me. At 1:30 I have my epidural. I really don't remember it hurting like that with Zack, but I guess it just depends on the way the guy does it. The epidural is working really well. I can't even move myself back to my back by the time they are ready to move me. Lots of waiting going on now. At about 4:30 the epidural starts wearing off and I'm very uncomfortable. The doctor ups my dosage. Does not work. I'm still in pain. At 4:50 Paul left the room for some reason. 4:55 the nurse calls my doctor and says we're starting to push. 5:05 my doctor shows up. 5:10 pm, Mackenzie is born. We get no sleep because Mackenzie is quarantined in our room because both Zack and I had bronchitis and Mackenzie had a stuffy nose and they didn't want the other babies to get sick. Totally understandable. She's slept really well until last night when I think I may have gotten about 2 hours of sleep. I think she has her days and night mixed up.

Nothin'

Still nothing. Apparently your levels can go up, which is what happened with me on Friday.

I have an appointment with my docotor today so we'll see what he says after that. I'll keep everyone posted.

Possibly only 3 more days!

Well, it is very possible that I will be induced on Friday. Let me start with first, Monday, I had my weekly doctor visit. Because I go to my family doc, they don’t have an ultrasound machine so I have to go to the hospital. He ordered a Non-Stress Test for Tuesday at Timponogos Hospital, where I will be delivering. In this test, they check first my amniotic fluid levels in radiology and then they sent me to the other side of the hospital in Labor and Delivery for fetal monitoring. My doctor then tells me that if my levels are below 7 he will induce me.
**Side Note** Normal would be in the 20’s. With Zack, my levels were at a 3, thus he was born a week early.
This time, my levels measured at a 3.97. They called my doctor and he asked they check it again. Checked it again and came back at 6.94 or something like that. Dr. decides to keep me on the monitor for a little longer and check blood pressure 3 more times within 15 minutes. Everything looks good so he says to go home and come back for the same tests on Friday. This way, baby will only be 2 weeks early instead of 2.5.
With the way things go for me it looks as though I will be induced on Friday. I guess this gives us 3 more days to get everything ready and we should have no excuse if we aren’t.

The Latest

Well not much news, but I went to the doctor yesterday for my weekly appointment and thought I would update a little.
I am doing my usual with the high blood pressure during pregnancy as well as swelling in the feet and hands and protein in the urine. Their watching me again for toxemia as they did with Zack. I am dilated to a 3 and about 70% effaced. I now only have about 3.5 weeks so I'm good to go whenever and can according to the doctor and how I'm progressing. We may or may not have an October baby. But some people tend to stay at a 3 for quite a while and my dr. will make me go 10 days past my due date before he will induce, unless there are complications, like what happened with Zack and lose all my amniotic fluids.
Wish me well. I'm so ready for her to come even if we aren't completely ready in the house or even have a name for her yet.

Little Update

So, I thought I would do a short update. Not much is going on, thus the long time between posts.

I still have 5 weeks until my due date and I'm counting down the days daily and sometimes more than once daily. I have been so uncomfortable for the last month especially and havn't slept well. We also have made two trips to the hospital in the last week to make sure everything is ok. First one, I was having pains/cramps all along my left side when I would lay down. I called my insurance company nurse and she told me to go to the hospital. This was at 1:00 am last Friday morning. We were there until 3:30 am and all they could come up with was that it was my nerve and to try not to lay on my left side. Thanks for the great advice, right! The second time was yesterday morning. Wednesday night around 9 or 10 I thought my water broke. I will spare you the details of the reason for thinking this, but I did some reading that night and the next morning and then called my doctor's office and they told me to go to the hospital and have everything checked out to make sure that it hadn't. Did it and they sent me home after a couple hours and a few very uncomfortable tests. So, nothing again.

Also, just something to let you know, we are looking forward to Halloween this year. We really want to have a party, but since it's a week after my due date, this is very unlikely. We are doing some really fun stuff in our yard, since we finally have a yard, so just a heads up to come check it out next month.

Hope all is well with you all. Sorry for the boring update. No pics this time.