We blessed Trenton last Sunday, the 5th. My parents were able to make it as well as John's sister Katrina and her husband Patrick. Trenton is now 4 weeks old. At his 2 week visit he weighed 6lbs, 15oz, so I'm guessing he's about 8 to 9 lbs now. 
Its been a week. Trenton is a great baby. We had some small bumps with nursing and the nights are still long but he is mostly happy and content. My mom stayed for a week. Now that she is gone my house is destined to become a disaster and Jeffrey and Sammy may feel slightly neglected. We'll see how I handle things alone!
Trenton's first bath at home, they never like it.
I know this isn't of Trenton, but this is what we are doing this summer besides having a new baby. Jeffrey is playing T-ball and enjoying it. He had his first game last Saturday. All the boys get a chance to bat, there are no outs so they all run around the bases. Jeffrey also got to play 1st base and 2nd base. When he played in the field he would pat the runners on the back and talk to them. He said he told them about his new fish he'd just gotten before the game.
Trenton has come, and early too-hurray!! He was born at 6:21am on June 6th weighing 5lbs, 10oz and 19in long. By far my smallest baby-he's a peanut. So far he has been so sweet and Jeffrey and Sammy are thrilled to have a new baby brother. OK, for documentation sake here is the labor story. I had some contractions Friday night around 9:30pm but they felt like braxton hicks so I didn't pay much attention. We went to bed and I slept fine until 1am when I woke up because of a contraction. This one radiated to my back so I knew it might be the real deal. I got up and they kept coming, 5 min apart. (I think labor and kids throwing up always happen in the middle of the night-why!?) At 2am we dropped the kids off at a neighbors house and headed downtown to St. Joseph's hospital. I was admitted easily. They had to give me fluids before I could get an epidural because I was dehydrated. But I did finally get the epidural. My nurse was watching the heart monitor very closely-and she didn't say anything but I knew something was bothering her because I could hear that Trenton's heart rate kept going down with each contraction. At one point the heart rate disappeared. So nurses and doctors ran into the room. They got a heart monitor on Trenton's head and the doctor was saying to notify anesthesia because we might have to do an emergency c-section. This was very frightening for John and I. But they got me on my side and Trenton's heart rate came back. About 30 minutes later I had some big contractions and his heart rate again dropped. The doctor checked me and I was at 10 cm. She said I had to get the baby out-and I did. I pushed him out in about 5 minutes. Good thing he was little! Turned out that the umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck twice causing the drops in heart rate. We are so glad everything turned out fine and he's a healthy guy.
Ok, this is the funniest picture!! Welcome to the world Trenton!
My two younger brothers Mark and Brent both graduated from grad schools last week. I'm very proud of them both. Mark earned his MBA from Rice University in Houston and Brent his JD from Texas Tech Law School in Lubbock.
Mark, Brooke, baby Courtney, Adam, Molli
Grandpa Dave, Nicole, Danielle, Brent, Grandma Betty
April 25th was Sammy's 3rd birthday. He knew he was turning 3 and that we would have cake but he still didn't understand a few things. He stood outside my bedroom door screaming because he didn't get that he couldn't come in because I was wrapping his presents. If you said "Happy Birthday Sammy", he said "Happy Birthday Mommy!". We had a fun day. The morning started off with birthday hats-even his new stuffed dog Scout got a hat. In the afternoon Patrick, Katrina, and Isabella came over to have cake and open presents. Sammy helped me decorate the cake with sprinkles-he insisted on orange and blue. The cake was a bit crunchy from the mounds of sprinkles.
Sammy got a remote control car-here he is driving it on our new deck.
The kids got to color Easter eggs this year for the first time. It went well, I was afraid of the mess, but it ended up I was the only one to have a spill. The boys decorated their eggs then Sammy ate one. Jeffrey cracked open one of his, didn't want to eat it, then was sad that he no longer had 4 eggs. Sunday morning we woke up to rain which continued all day. The kids ate most of their candy before church. I'm obviously not very strict about candy eating-why prolong it, just let them have it! I was going to hide some eggs outside but couldn't because of the rain. Then I decided not to do all together but my plan was foiled. They found the eggs I'd prepared this morning in my room so we had an after Easter egg hunt in the house today. Now they have even more candy, but don't worry I sneak a few for myself.
Its March Madness-woohoo!! We love this time of year. College hoops, bracket predictions, trash talk between friends and family, what could be better? I've picked North Carolina to win it all. They were my pick last year too and disappointed me but for some reason I'm going with them again. John helped Jeffrey fill out a bracket this year. He'll win the big $10,000 from ESPN if there are a lot of upsets. He's picked Moorhead State to beat Louisville, North Dakota State to get to the 3rd round, and the biggest picks were Siena to make it to the finals against Butler. (Siena because its the name of one of his favorite babysitters and Butler because it sounds like "butt"). Jeffrey predicts Butler to win it all-not going to happen-and if it does we definitely get the money. John got technical this year by creating an Excel spreadsheet to help him predict the outcomes. (he's an Excel nerd!). I just used shear gut instinct. Let it begin!
Play written by: Jeffrey
Characters/played by:
Doctor Jeffrey-Jeffrey
Nurse Jeffrey-Jeffrey
Patients- Me and Sammy
Act One:
Sammy and I pull up to the doctor's office building and park in the parking garage. Next we take the pantry elevator to the second floor. Sammy insists on pushing the buttons. I make the "ding" sound when we reach our destination. We step out of the pantry and climb the stairs to Doctor Jeffrey's office.
Nurse Jeffrey: Please take a seat in the waiting room
a minute later...
Nurse Jeffrey: Sammy! Sammy doesn't want to go so I volunteer
Nurse Jeffrey: Do you have your cards?
I pull out our insurance cards and hand them to the nurse. Nurse Jeffrey takes the cards to what the kids call "Spencer's room" (because John's brother Spencer slept there for a month last summer). He begins to type on the end table while looking at the cards.
Nurse Jeffrey: OK, everything looks good. Come to the room.
I go into the boy's room and sit on the bed.
Nurse Jeffrey: How are you feeling? I heard Sammy coughing, he'll need some medicine and five shots. I'll do your blood pressure last.
Me: What is your name?
Nurse Jeffrey: I'm nurse Jeffrey and I'm a boy, the doctor is Dr. Jeffrey and he's a boy. OK, I'll go get the doctor.
The nurse leaves closing the door behind him. Two minutes later Dr. Jeffrey comes in. He is dressed in scrubs and has a stethoscope and the charger to John's electric shaver draped around his neck.
Dr. Jeffrey: I'm Dr. Jeffrey. Sammy is sick so the nurse will give him five shots later. First I'll listen to your heart.
He puts the stethoscope in his ears and listens to my heart.
Dr. Jeffrey: (Very seriously) sounds good now I'll listen to your breathing. Good breathing. Now I'll look in your ears, both ears look good. Now I'll listen to your blood.
Jeffrey puts one end of the electric shaver charger in his ear and the other end on my thigh to listen to my blood.
Dr. Jeffrey: OK, the nurse will come back now. Will you get Sammy? He needs his shots.
The doctor leaves and the nurse comes back. I grab Sammy but he's not into this pretending to get shot stuff so that's out. The nurse takes my blood pressure. Then Sammy and I leave-we don't even have to pay a co-pay!
The End!
John thought I needed to record this-but its disgusting in my opinion-yesterday Jeffrey drank some caffeine free Pepsi for the first time. It gave him lots of gas and he kept burping extremely loud; however, he did say "excuse me" so I wasn't overly annoyed. He had one particularly loud and long burp that enabled him to burp a whole sentence. I have no idea what he actually said. John was impressed and seemed almost excited that his son had such talent! I suggested that maybe someday Jeffrey could learn to burp quietly, but John scoffed at me. I'm surrounded by gassy boys! I guess the best I can do is teach them to say excuse me. Maybe I am turning into my mother-whom we coined "Miss Manners" growing up because she grilled us on our eating habits.
For Christmas, John gave me a treasure chest full of little envelopes. One said take a class of your choosing, another was for a massage, another was for a night of shopping. One was for a trip to get out of the cold. It hasn't been too cold this year, but that doesn't mean we couldn't still take a trip. I decided on Scottsdale, AZ since I found a good deal on a resort there. The rate was good and they gave us $100 food credit per day. So we left the kids behind and enjoyed the sun for two days. First thing that I loved seeing was green grass, I didn't realize how much I'd missed green plants! I also loved wearing my sandals and the desert landscapes. John got to golf of course-that's what Scottsdale is all about. If you want to learn more about his experience there you can visit his golf blog. Unfortunately the only picture I took was of him golfing. I got to drive the golf cart and read a book. The next day we went to a preserve one hour from Phoenix to bird watch and hike. In the afternoon we checked out some beach cruiser bikes the resort offered and rode around the man made lakes in the area. It was a fun trip and so nice to get away for a bit.
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Random Photos:
I forgot to post these months ago, so for documentation sake here they are.
This is Jeffrey before his preschool's Christmas concert. They sang Little Drummer Boy, hence the drum.
This is Jeffrey and his friends Paige and Andrew on a preschool field trip to the Littleton Museum.
Another of Jeffrey trying out John's guitar. He's shown interest in musical instruments. I recently started taking violin lessons-because of John's Christmas gift-and he is very interested in the violin. He watched my starter DVD one day and then was so excited to point out the parts of the violin and could name the correct notes of the four stings.
I'm a little late at posting but here's a few photos from Jeffrey's birthday party. Jeffrey has been talking about his birthday party for about a year so this was bigger than Christmas for him. He helped me plan the cake flavor, decorations, and he made up the "schedule" for the party. (A little type A personality I think). Most of my pictures came out blurry so you can't really tell that we had 12 kids in the house. John forgot he had a class that day and so missed the festivities, but my neighbor's daughter was able to help out. We played a pin the medal on the Power Ranger game, throw candy into a box, and a fishing for candy game. Jeffrey was pretty funny opening his presents-it was like a feeding frenzy. I tried to get him to slow down and thank his friends, and he did thank them but didn't slow down.
On another note, I have to announce that Sammy is now officially potty trained!! He was SOOOOOO much easier than Jeffrey-really it was night and day. He got into this "I want to do everything myself stage" so I thought, well you can go potty by yourself then. He's still in that "fun" stage. I admit I'm not very patient when I have to wait for him to try things out on his own. Shopping with him these days is a nightmare-but I just keep in mind that it will all pass...someday.
We had our ultrasound last Thursday and its undeniably another baby boy. He looks healthy and beautiful according to the tech. I was a little disappointed it wasn't a girl but had prepared myself mentally for the boy. A month or so ago John and I had dreams on the same night about having another boy-they were different dreams but still the same night, that's saying something. In my dream, I was giving birth to him and I named him Trenton. I'd never even thought of that name before-but turns out we both like the name so we're sticking with it!
We headed south this year for Christmas. It was fun to visit with my family. Everyone made it minus my brother Mark as his wife Brooke is expecting soon. We played outside on Grandma and Grandpa's new swing set and at Yuma's new park; which was very impressive, its a huge castle with slides to get down and tons of different ways to climb up and down. We had dinner with Great Grandpa Nelson and my sister Lindsey and Shawn who live with Grandpa now (they recently moved from Kansas back to Yuma). John flew in Christmas Eve as he had to stay in CO to work. He and my brothers Brent and Paul golfed the afternoon he got there-they walked onto a closed course and played 9 holes for free-isn't that a bit dishonest? Christmas Eve night we had Aunts, Uncles, and cousins over for dinner and a program. At the end of the night Santa showed up. Saturday we headed to San Diego to go to the zoo. The kids had lots of fun. It was pretty crowded so we waited in line for about 40 minutes to get on a tour bus. But I learned lots of interesting things like that pigs don't really sweat so you can't say "sweating like a pig" and our cell phones are made out of materials from the rain forest so recycle your cell phones!
"Pappy" got a new train to put around his Chrismas tree. This is Jeffrey, Sammy, Hunter, Riley, and Taylor (my brother Paul's kids) watching the train go around.
Christmas Eve:
The kids got to help Grandpa tell the Christmas story. From right: Hunter as Joseph, Riley as Mary, Danielle as the angel, and Jeffrey as a shepherd. We didn't have any wise men. Not pictured: Tanner as the littlest shepherd.
The disorganized nativity. Baby Jesus is in the shoe box.
Jeffrey singing and playing Jingle Bells while we waited for the big surprise-Santa!
Our kids were terrified of Santa but after a few cousins sat on his lap Sammy made the plunge. Jeffrey hid behind the couch and refused to surface.
Christmas Morning:
Jeffrey checking out his GeoAir from Santa.
Sammy with his new garbage truck.
Brent and Nicole. Brent came to town sporting a new goatte. Apparently once he wore his black rimmed glasses and facial hair on campus (Texas Tech) and was mistaken for a professor.
Danielle-Brent's daughter-enjoying the festivities. Oh and a nice shot of Brent's feet.
San Diego Zoo Trip-not many pics
Jeffrey, Sammy, and Danielle waiting for the Balboa train outside San Diego Zoo. Jeffrey kept saying "I can't wait to ride the train" while jumping up and down.
The "if your child is under 2 you have to ride AND pay" parents.
Thrilled to get front row seats.
We decided to NOT have turkey this year. John and I both don't like turkey. My brother Mark gave us the great idea to have prime rib instead. So we did it! We broke tradition and had prime rib and ham and all the other sides. My sister in law even made stuffing, she insisted we had to at least have stuffing. I got my camera out and took photos before the crowds arrived and then forgot all about my camera while they were here. But I promise we had 10 adults and 9 children in our house; the Bria family, Ridge family, Duris family, and Christenson family. We had tons of yummy food and fun was had by all. The evening was topped off by the Twilight movie for the women, Wii playing by the kids, and football watching by the men.
We're expecting number 3! I'll be 11 weeks on Thursday and the due date is June 11th. I've had my fill of nausea, uncontrollable hunger, irritability, fatigue. And I'm starting to bulge already which didn't happen so fast with the other two. For the past week I've felt pretty good, just tired. Yesterday I went to the doctor and saw "it" on the ultrasound. It moved around for us, wiggling its hands and feet. I'm hoping for a girl but will be happy with a boy-I know how to do boys. Jeffrey insists its a baby sister. So we'll see if John came through for him.
Sammy has recently been "painting" on the computer. He has learned to use the mouse, clicking on the colors he wants, holding the button down a bit to paint. I took this picture the other day after thinking how amazing it is that a 2 year old is using a computer! I wonder what technologies will be available when he is my age? (you can also see he was eating Halloween candy. I am posting this pic knowing full well I'm also exposing my dirty desk-somehow I never get around to cleaning it!)
