Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Washington (and Oregon)...

Rainy old Washington is just how we left her... Rainy and cold! I must say it's nice to be "home", Washington will always be HOME! Even though some things have changed even if the 5 months since we were here last, there is just so many familiar things...

We are currently driving to Oregon, just past Cabellas. Other then the new pavement it is exactly the same drive, stupid people, lots of semi trucks and no yellow license plates (atleast until we get into Oregon)... It is weird being here and seeing so much green, even though we've only had snow in AK for a month. You just get so used to seeing WHITE! The trees even still have leaves on them.

Ford did amazing on the airplane, did not sleep well last night however. I think he was just all wound up from all the new things, hopefully tonight is better. Atleast he is asleep now but will soon need to eat, though I do not plan on waking him up, so maybe he will sleep for 4-5 hours and we can get the bulk of our driving done.

I am SO FREAKING EXCITED to see my Aunt, Uncle, Cousins, Lyrik, etc etc and have them meet FORD! of course I'm excited to see Luke's grandparents as well, but introducing him to my family is really important to me, especially since I used to spend EVERY summer with them :)

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Slacking, kind of....

Hey Everyone,

So I haven't been blogging as much as I should. We are getting ready to go to Washingon and Oregon for Thanksgiving, we leave in 6 days!!! We will be down there for 5 full days/nights and we are taking all of the Christmas presents for the family down there so I've been super busy making presents and buying the ones we need too... I just ordered our Christmas cards today. Shutterfly.com has 40% off cards through the end of today (code Card40) and then free shipping on purchases of 30 dollars or more (before coupons!!!! Code Ship30) I also had a coupon for a FREE 8x8 20 page baby book (could be any 8x8 book they have up to a 29.99 value, though they are 20% off right now) so I paid 19.20 for 50 cards, a book AND got free shipping!!!!!! I LOVE deals like that.... I highly suggest going on and ordering your cards or gifts today! If you sign up today you also get 50 free 4x6 prints (expires 12/31 so I'm going to wait until I have pictures from Thanksgiving and Christmas!) And if you facebook or blog (like my blog below) your purchase as advertisement you get 10 off your next order, so next time I order from them I will use that too!!! They always have GREAT deals, this is the first order I've done from them, normally I use another website so I may be moving all my business over here... The other website takes FOREVER to ship (birth announcements took 2 weeks to get here!)


Ford is growing like a weed!!! He went in last monday (11/7) for his 2 month check up, he was exactly 2 months. His birth weight was 6lbs 5.5oz and he was 19 inches long. As of 11/7 he was 10lbs 8 oz (4lb 2.5oz gain) and 21 inches (3 inch gain)... so needless to say not only am I a MILK COW, it's GOOD MILK! He also got his shots :( He cried for a little bit and didn't really act himself for a day or two... but he is okay now, besides a stuffy nose... The doctor says babies don't have allergies this early in life, but I'm not so sure. We do need to get a humidifier and see if that helps, maybe I will go do that tonight!

Okay, well, I have more gifts to make and need to make sure I catch up on ALL our laundry so I can pack this weekend!

Love to everyone and I hope that everyone is getting as much stuff done as I am this week! <3

Photo Card

Tis The Season Christmas
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Sunday, November 6, 2011

Winter Wonderland

AH... I love Alaska after the first couple snowfalls!!! I was destined to live here! Ford even loves the snow! I popped him in his bumbo this morning and took pictures of him in the 4ish inches we got early this morning... He was sitting there looking ALL around, happy as a clam!! It snowed more this evening and I'm sure we will get even more tonight. I can't wait until Ford is walking next winter and can play in the snow :) it will be SO much fun!!!!

We are very happy about the snow so far this winter, Luke went riding yesterday. Ford and I stayed home and worked on Christmas gifts. Hopefully we will get lots more snow and get lots of snowmachining in this winter!!

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Pictures from the first 8 weeks!















Birth Story... REDO!

Okay since I deleted the original on accident:

September 6th, 2011-- I was in a super good mood, so I made Chicken Cordon Bleu for dinner from scratch with cous cous and veggies... Luke was supposed to be leaving for Kenai in the morning so he kept bugging me about having Ford, since he didn't want to be 2 1/2 hours away when I went into labor! We finished dinner and were in the middle of watching, America's Got Talent (about 8:30) I was leaning on Luke, in a weird position when I felt a POP. There was no huge gush of water or anything, so I sat there for a minute debating in my head if it was actually my water breaking. I got up and went into the bathroom, my pants were a little damp so I changed to see what would happen, while I was changing I sent my sister-in-law, Jill, a text message and asked her if there was a POP when her water broke, she couldn't exactly remember because she was in active labor when it happend but she said from my description she was sure my water had broken. I walked back into the living room and Luke asked me, "So are you going to push this baby out tonight or what?" So I responded with, "Well, I think my water just broke, so probably..." Of coruse he had a moment of panic and asked if, "We should leave, NOW?" I told him I wasn't having contractions (it's okay upto 12 hours after your water has broken but because you can get infections it's important that labor starts as soon as possible) so I was going to take a shower and such. After my shower, I folded laundry, text messaged my mom to let her know, called my grandma and got everything ready to leave. Around 10pm I started having small contractions 10 minutes apart, nothing major, they didn't hurt, after a couple of them, I told Luke we should get things in the car so that we could leave, He went out and started it and put our bags in it.

As soon as we got out to the car (about 10:45) I started having pretty painful contractions that were 45-60 seconds long and only 2-3 minutes apart, you are supposed to go into the hospital when they are 5 minutes apart, so I knew my labor wasn't going to be super long since they were close together. We stopped at the Holiday station so Luke could get an energy drink (He'd been up since 5AM). We got to the hospital at around 11:15, got checked into triage and had to get hooked up to monitor the contractions and they had to collect some fluid to make sure it was my water. The nurse asked if she could see how dilated I was since she was collecting fluid anyway, I told her that was fine, that I was a 2 a week before at my 37 week appt. She was AMAZED when I was a 6, so she said even if it wasn't my water (which it was) that I would be admitted because I was in active labor.

Walking to my delivery room, I was telling the nurse I wanted to go naturally, then almost puked because of contractions so by the time I got to my room, I told her that I actually wanted an epidural. They got me settled and checked me again (about 12 am now) I was a 7-7.5 so they put a rush on the epidural!!! I needed a bag of fluids before I could get it so they were trying really hard to get my IV in... to no avail, it took 3 nurses, 7 tries to get it in!!!! (My arms were bruised for over a week) Once I got it in they turned it up as much as they could so I didn't have to wait for my epidural very long, my contractions were 2 minutes apart and 70-90 seconds long so I wasn't getting much time to relax in between them. I got my epidural around 1am, it was BLISS!!! The worst part was the topical numbing injection... that BURNED, the actual epidural wasn't painful at all and started working after about 3 mintues! I could still feel the contractions but they didn't hurt, which was really nice! The Midwife, Tonya, then came in and checked me again, I was a 9!!! So she told me to rest a bit since I was content and Ford was happy, that we were going to let him settle into the birth canal on his own and if I felt like I needed to push to call the nurse in... Luke's Aunt and Uncle were there so we let them stay with us for about an hour. Around 2:45 the nurse came in, to see how I was doing, I told her I felt really good and there was a bit of pressure, she called Tonya to come and take a look and see how far down Ford was. As soon as Tonya lifted my sheets she was like, "Well, I can see the top of his head, so if you want to start pushing we can!" We were all REALLY SUPRISED he was ready to go, so we decided to try. My contractions were about 4 minutes apart then but were a good 60-90 seconds long, so I pushed with each contraction and rested inbetween, while I rested we were all talking about horses giving birth, crazy people and how the new fad is to keep your placenta and turn it into pills and take them as a daily vitamin... Tonya hadn't heard of this so she was really suprised by it! Luke was making jokes with the nurse and we were all laughing, which was pushing Ford out even more. It only took 10 contractions and about 40 minutes for Ford to come into this world. Tonya announced after she put him on my chest, "You just literally laughed your baby into this world, deffinetly the best birth I have seen in a LONG time!"

FORD EASTON was born at 3:48 AM on SEPTEMBER 7th, 2011... 19 inches long and 6lbs 5.5oz

There is absolutely NO words to describe how I felt the first time I saw Ford, it is such an unbelievable feeling to know that he is ALL MINE! Love at first sight truely does exist and if you think it doesn't, HAVE  A CHILD!!!! I truely truely enjoyed my delivery, if I knew every delivery would go that smoothly I would have more kids!

Irritated!

Bah hum bug....

Downloaded the app so I can blog more often, since I can do it one handed while holding Little Man... Well, I deleted some blogs on accident. One of them being the one RIGHT after Ford was born with pictures and my birth story... Of course there is no "backup" so I'm SOL now :(