March

I can't believe March is over already. Here is a few of the happenings during the month.

Olivia turned 4. We had a Wizard party with her friends
Zoey turned 6. She and Liv got to go to Build a Bear Workshop and make a bear.

We are loving the Las Vegas Spring and try and go hiking as much as possible.

Kellen's first hike.
We blessed Kellen and had all my family come (except Jason's fam , we missed you).

Here are the boys.

No More Daytime TV

Since I spend a good chunk of the day nursing Kellen I've found myself also watching a good chunk of daytime TV while I'm feeding him. And it pretty much stinks. But whats worse is a few weeks ago, thanks to a certain 3 year old, our tv audio got changed to SAP and we can't figure out how to change it back. As an exciting result many of the tv shows I used to watch are now in spanish. So I've had to find new things to watch like crazy infomercials found on obscure channels that I guess don't cater to hispanics. This has caused two problems:
First, its made me realize my kids are very behind in their life skills.
Has anyone seen "Your baby can read." It has 1 year olds reading words like, 'apple and gorilla'. Well Olivia is still trying to sing her ABC's and pronounce 'm' and 'n' as two seperate letters instead of one letter pronounced 'emen'. Then there's a crazy trend to forgo diapers from birth and begin potty training right away. These crazy women watch their newborns body language and rush them to a potty....newborns sitting on the toilet! One woman claimed her 7 month old was completley potty trained. Well Kellen is already behind on this life skill.
The Second bad thing day time TV has done is given me a crazy urge to spend money on things like 'Snuggies and Shammy's."
So tonight I've decided I'm going to try and not watch any TV when I'm feeding Kellen and instead read. I just requested a big pile of books from the library and hope the draw of 'the wonder hanger' doesn't pull me back.

Has anyone seen our Toaster?

So our toaster broke this morning which sucks because we use it everyday. I went to Target to buy a new one. I had the baby carrier in the main part of the cart so I put the new toaster underneath the cart. I paid for my purchases and left. After loading the three kids into the car, which seems to take forever I forgot to put my purchase into the car. Literally two minutes after I left the parking lot to go home, I realized I'd left the toaster on the bottom of the cart. I did a u-turn and raced back to the store only to find that the toaster was no longer there. I went inside Target to see if someone turned it in, which of course no one had. I was so mad. The best they could offer me was to take my number down incase someone turns it in later, which of course they won't. So all the way home I was fuming thinking about that 30$ that basically just got flushed down the toilet and the fact that I still don't have a toaster. I was in the worst mood. When we got home I went to work on dinner. About 10 minutes later Zoey asked me to come see something outside. On the wall across the street that sometimes has signs for garage sales or lost dogs was a lost and found sign for our toaster, made by Zoey. My heart melted and of course was no longer mad.

6 Weeks down

I went for my 6 week post partum check today. I can't believe it has been that long already. In some ways it's gone by so fast and in other ways, especially the nights, it has been very long. We haven't been doing very much to blog about other than trying to adjust to the new addition. I feel like it has been a very big adjustment...but we have made it, through the circumsion, everyone having colds, learning to grocery shop with 3, remembering all the crap you have to bring with you when you leave the house with a baby, resuming my calling, and night after night of no sleep, to name a few things.

Kellen is a sweet baby as long as he isn't hungry, tired, gassy, poopy, or having girls in his face harassing him. He continues to kill me at night though. Neither of my girls as babies woke up like he does. Last night I think it was 4 times. Twice to eat, once because he had gas pains and once with an enormous poopy diaper. I'm trying all the things I know to get him to sleep better. I've started a night time ritual with a bath and lotion massage. I use white noise by his bed, I swaddle him, I use the vibrating on his bassinett, I've put him in the swing.....but none of these make any big differences. Any suggestions??

Common things happening around our house

Olivia is struggling the most with baby Kellen. She just wants to help but I find myself constantly telling her, "no" way too often. The most common phrases are, "Stop trying to put lipstick on the baby." And "Don't press on his head."
Zoey has adjusted very well and in fact now that she is an older sister to two kids I feel like she has already grown up a ton. Yesterday she sat at the computer and watched Taylor Swifts music video for Love Story, over and over. And at the library she wanted to check out a 'real' book instead of a picture book. So she sits and has this grown up book on her lap. She can read, but is definitley not advanced enough for this book. She flips the pages and keeps telling me how good the book is. Within a span of 5 mintues she was already on page 33. So cute.

Vampires and Babies

So early this morning, roughly 3 AM as I got up for the 6th time to try and get Kellen to sleep I made a discovery. Most everyone I know likes Twilight.....so as I held Kellen in the rocking chair, exhausted and frustrated I caught a whiff of his sweet, delicious newborn smell. And when he finally fell back to sleep and a contended sigh escaped letting me smell his yummy newborn breath it completley drew me in and I was in love again. So I've decided that is how vampires must smell too. That sweet, intoxicating smell that makes you want to get closer despite the danger, or in my case, the exhaustion and frustration. (Certainly more sleep is needed when you start comparing fictional events to real life. )

Baby Kellen and Recovery

Today has been the first day I've felt normal enough to do anything "extra". Recovery this time around has been very difficult for me. I think with the other births I didn't have the same demands.....two other children that need to be places, a house, a busy calling and a husband that works 12 hour days. For some reason I've had alot of anxiety about doing it all this time and seriously didn't get any sleep for way too many days. Things are getting easier everyday. Nursing is always hard for me. I don't know if it's because of the c-section but it takes along time for me to figure it out and make it work. I just read on the news that a woman in California gave birth to 8 babies and is going to try and breast feed them. I feel like a wimp when I read that. We'll just keep working on it. I have had wonderful help from my parents, my in-laws and the ward for which I am so grateful. Here are a few pics....nothing spectacular I need my sister-in-law Nicole to come get some great ones for me. Warning....there may be blood involved in some of them Beware!

THis is me leaving the OR and going to a recovery room. I look terrible but that is pretty much how you feel after surgery. Luckily the 'shakes' and hot flashes hadn't started yet or that would have been a real treat of a picture

Kellen Van Went

The girls love him to death. They fight over who gets to hold him,kiss him, even yes, wipe his bum!
This is the DR holding him up over the screen for me to see for the first time.

This is him all the way out of my tummy.

And this is his head just being pulled out. Yes that flabby orange stuff is my stomach. And yes that is the big gapping hole they cut in it to pull him out.

THis is Joe prepping for surgery. He is very squirmish about blood and guts but he always is so great in the OR.

Except he almost missed the birth this time. I was scheduled to go at 12:30 but got pushed back because of an emergency c-section. They told us it would be at least another hour. So JOe left to get something to eat and seriously five minutes later they came and got me. I tried calling his cell but there was no coverage in the hospital. I was in the OR they were almost done prepping me and my DR finally found Joe.