REALLY???

I want to get the blog posted about Jeff's birthday! We had such a good time and Christopher is 1 week old. So much to talk about and then Big Ed has a heart attack. He was exercising last night, like he has been since Diane passed away. He said he was feeling pains and then realized he was having a heart attack. He got in his car with his daughter and drove himself to Kaiser Hospital here in Roseville and sure enough he was having a heart attack. Within 20 minutes of being seen, he was in surgery. I am so glad he didn't ignore it, he would not have lived thru the night if he had. Eddie has had so much in his life lately, losing his Mom and a new baby, then his Dad having a heart attack. They are moving in with us until they can get a new house bought! The house they were in sold so they have to move until they get into a new house. So many live changing things to happen in a small amount of time!

Alyssa's new Best Friend

Alyssa and Katie are best friends. Since Borders closed and Katie had to stay home and look for a job, she and Alyssa have become buddies. Petra has loved that she can drop off Alyssa with Katie and go to Doctor appointments and now that she has Christopher, it has been even better.
The other day Alyssa was here taking a nap. She woke up and I could hear her talking to her bears. (she and her bears have long conversations as she goes down for a nap and when she gets up.) I went in to get her and the first words to me were. I NEED Katie. She always says Katie's name with a capital T. KaTeee! I told her, Katie is taking a nap also, but she insisted she needed Katie, so we opened the door to peek and sure enough Katie was sound to sleep. Alyssa didn't care, she ran over "Katie, I need nuggle" So Katie woke up, pulled her up on the bed and they had a snuggle. Then she very politely said, "Katie change me!" (this child is really ready for potty training) She likes Katie to put her to bed at her house and and here at our house.
But! yesterday Alyssa was here while her parents took her brother back to check his Jaundice levels, Petra called and asked if we minded if she took her nap here, they wanted to go to the grocery store on the way home. So I told Katie, put her down for her nap. Alyssa likes to know what is going on so we try to tell her the scenario when we can. She thought she was just going to be here while the baby was getting checked. So when Katie started the nap routine, she wailed "no Katie, not today!!" she was so indignant about it, but as soon as she was put in the crib in Allie's room, she laid down and fell asleep. When she woke up, her Mom and Dad were here and she told them "Katie say Nap!" this was said with great disdain.
This year I am seeing Heavenly Fathers plan in action. So many times things have happened, and I wonder "why?" then soon I see why, it is always a good reason! Katie has been here to help with Jeff's hospital stay and recovery from his neck surgery. Grandma/Mom broke her hand and Katie did all the Doctor appointments made the rest of Grandma's
Christmas presents, and drove her everywhere, since she couldn't drive with her cast, and Petra had a baby, there was Katie to the rescue. Yep, there is a plan! Now poor Katie needs to get a job to save her sanity.

So much for resolutions!

I was so gun ho! I was going to blog at least every other day, NO MATTER WHAT. Yeah, well tell that to my family.
Sunday morning was pretty typical, I got up, made some muffins, I knew I was going to be at meetings before church, and we like to eat muffins during our YW meetings.
I made the apple muffins we always made as kids, they are so easy and yummy. So anyway, off to church I go, I am in meetings and explaining how we knew there would be no baby this week because the Doctor had told Petra it would be at least a week. So, I could get things ready for New Beginnings, but possibly not be there. As we got thru a couple of meetings I noticed my phone was lit up. I checked my text and sure enough, Petra was telling me her water broke. So much for having a free week before he was born. Petra wasn't having any contractions but called the Doctor and let them know. They told her to come in, they didn't want an infection to set in.
I rushed home, changed clothes and gathered what I knew I would want at the hospital. Before I left the church, I told Katie to go to Petra's because we were leaving for the hospital, and CJ and Alyssa would need to be watched. When I got to Petra's they were not in a hurry, as Petra was feeling fine and wanted to shower and get things done before she left. We sat and watched TV and chatted until we knew we needed to go. We got to the hospital at about 4 pm and started the process of checking in. Because she was in no pain they were pretty relaxed about the whole process.
This was the face before they started any thing.
We hung out waiting for them to decide how they were going to get this process going, they kept thinking she would go into labor on her own but no such luck.
Finally at 5:15pm they put the strip in to induce. It was at 5:35 before she felt anything and 7:30 pm before the pains were strong enough for her to be uncomfortable. They came in to do the epidural and she was able to rest while her body was doing the work!


This picture was at the end, Christopher's heart rate was going down so they added oxygen and made sure she was hooked up to everything they had.
Finally at 2:35 she started pushing and he made his appearance at 3:03, all 7 lbs 9 ounces of him. He was so adorable right from the first. The Doctor looked at me and said "want to cut the cord?" Ed was OK with it as he had done the others and for the first time I got to do it. After being the one on the table delivering the baby it was pretty fun to do the other part. I have been there for all of my grandchildren, but this was a first for cutting the cord.
He was unhappy about being out in the world without any clothes and let us know it.(such a modest little boy) As soon as they covered him up he was fine. He is the same way several days later, as long as he is covered up he is a pretty content baby.
He likes being all wrapped up, he is so snuggly.

Here he is at 10 hours old, he looks like he is 10 days old. We thought WOW this will be such an easy night. Wrong again, he didn't like the nursery bed, he flat out refused to lay down in it. Ed took the kids home so they could sleep in their own beds and I stayed at the hospital with Petra and Christopher. So Petra and I decided we would watch a movie and play with Chris, we then we got tired and thought we could just lay him down as he was so sound asleep. NO! thru out the whole night the longest he lasted in the bed was 45 minutes. So after Sunday night when we sat up waiting for him to be born and Monday night when he wouldn't lay down in the bed, I was really tired. Poor Petra was so worn out, but since he as been home he loves his car seat and bed, he even went 4 hours at night.
He has a little jaundice and has had to go back to get his blood tested every day, his last test was 12.85, we are hoping today will be better! Well, I didn't blog every other day but at least I caught up a little!

NEW YEAR, NEW RESOLUTIONS

I have walked with Judy for the last 20 or so years, if I want to remember something big, in detail, that happened in my life, I have Judy check her journal. It is so embarrassing that I don't keep my own journal and have to ask Judy to remember something in MY life. So since the beginning of the year I have been vowing to start blogging and using it as my journal. I see Maureen's blog and realize she can look back and see what is happening in her life by going thru her blog. So we will see how long I can keep this up.
Today we went to not only Violet's first birthday but Jenni Marie's 9th birthday party. It seems just like yesterday we were in the delivery room watching Jenni be born. She was so cute with all her hair, and now she is a beautiful young lady.

We went to Leatherby's for ice cream to celebrate Jenni's birthday, they asked her to stand on her chair so we could sing to her. Not our Jenni!! they finally settled for her standing next to her chair, which she did, but not very willingly. She is shy like her Mom was but is much better at talking to people she doesn't know than her Mom.
She had Ella Richardson and her cousin Eden with her for her party. Every year Randi says "no more parties" but then can't stand it and does one anyway.



Violet is growing so big, she is the big "1" now and getting cuter everyday.

Her party was in the middle of her nap time so she was a little tired but so fun to watch opening presents. She and her Dad would open a present, she would look at it and want to play with it and he took it away to open another present! She had so many people at her party, they booked the multipurpose room at the church. It was fun with all her cousins there running around with balloons and fruit and veggie trays. I wish I took a picture of the cupcakes, Liz made them look like flowers!
After all the fun parties, Katie and I snuck off to the movies, we saw Big Miracle. It was a really good movie about saving a family of whales. Well tomorrow is coming soon, I have Young Women meetings so I must close, but my vow continues!