Other December Happenings

Here's the rest of our December highlights and a lot of pictures:

Over Thanksgiving we installed a mantel on our fireplace, and here it is all decorated for Christmas. I did get Dayton's stocking finished in time too!

I spent an afternoon in Bridget's classroom helping the kids make "gingerbread" houses out of graham crackers and a ton of candy. There was plenty of candy consumed as well as brought home on the finished house.

As part of the décor for our church Christmas party, they asked families to decorate tables with items representing a family Christmas tradition. I chose to display our Christmas book advent basket along with the books we had opened up to that point. This is only the second year we've done this, but we love it! There are so many cute Christmas books out there, and I have a hard time not buying a bunch more. I'll probably add one or two new ones each year just to expand our collection. This year I bought The Polar Express and The Christmas Sweater.

Last year, our kids missed out on getting to see Santa due to some unforeseen circumstances, but this year they got to see him twice. The first was at Kneader's (one of my favorite restaurants) when we got to go have breakfast for dinner with Santa. Chunky Cinnamon French Toast for dinner and see Santa? Yes, please! Felicity was excited up until it was our turn. She bolted in the other direction and started to cry a little. I scooped her up and got her to at least sit on my lap next to Santa. Dayton slept through the whole thing in his car seat.

Our second visit with Santa was at a Christmas party with Nate's extended family. Felicity actually sat on his lap this time without any difficulty. She even ran back to him after her turn was over because she wanted to give him a hug.

Bridget has always loved Santa - even as a baby and toddler.

Even Dayton got a little cuddle from Santa.

As for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, we spent it right here at home with just the 5 of us. We've traveled for the last 2 Christmases and decided after last year and even Bridget requesting it, that we would stay home. I didn't really want to travel with a new baby anyway. We enjoyed our traditional turkey dinner on Christmas Eve.

And then the kids got to open some new pajamas that night. Bridget loved her fleece Rapunzel PJs.

Felicity was pretty excited about her new cupcake PJs.

On Christmas Day we enjoyed watching the girls open presents. Bridget moved from one gift to the next pretty quickly but wanted to play with every single one later that day. Felicity was a little slower at opening because she wanted to stop and play with each toy after she opened it.

Dayton was content to just lay on the floor and watch everyone open presents.

My dad and Bev were going to come up and spend some time with us on Christmas Day, but my dad came down with the flu.

And to finish off the month...New Year's Eve! Our kids don't care about staying up yet, and part of that is probably because we haven't really explained that part of it to them because we don't want to encourage it yet. Heck, Nate and I rarely stay up until midnight either. To make it a fun evening, we've made fondue for dinner and dessert our New Year's Eve tradition. We had a great time and probably ate too much.

Definitely a great end to a wonderful year!

2 Months Old

Seriously, I love this kid. Now that he's much more alert and smiling, I not only get to enjoy snuggling with him, but I get to look into his bright blue eyes and see that cute smile more and more all the time.

He's definitely at his happiest just after he's eaten and had a diaper change. And he's even starting to laugh a little.

I wish I could say he was sleeping through the night and getting on some sort of a regular schedule, but I'm not that fortunate yet. He usually sleeps for a 5-6 hour stretch at night and then wakes up to eat and goes right back to sleep for another 4 hours or so. And he does generally go to sleep around 9 pm and is up for the day around 7:30-8:00. But daytime is still unpredictable. During the day, he loves to be held to sleep. If you try to lay him down anywhere no matter how asleep you think he is, he almost always wakes up within a couple of minutes. So his days of taking long naps seem to have passed unless I hold him all the time. It certainly is making it harder for me to get things done.

And because he started out big, he's still a big boy. Here's his stats from his checkup:
Weight: 16 lbs. (98th percentile)
Height: 24 inches (87th percentile)
Head Circumference: 41 cm (92nd percentile)

I'm certainly getting some strong arms from carrying this kid around all of the time. I should also mention he's in 3-6 month or 6 month clothes, and even a few of the 3-6 month stuff is almost getting too small.

I'm hoping this next month brings longer stretches of sleep at night and a more regular schedule during the day.

Dayton's Blessing

Today was this handsome boy's baby blessing at church.

Nate likes to give me a hard time because I didn't make Dayton's blessing outfit like I did for the girls. But it's not my fault that patterns for boy's blessing/christening outfits are either way too summery for this time of year or way too girlie/ugly. Instead I bought an outfit and made an alteration to it. The cute little vest he's wearing had a super big and ugly collar that went all around it. A few minutes was all it took to remove it and sew the vest back together, and it looked much improved. What a cute boy!

 

The blessing was perfect, and I'm happy to say that Dayton didn't fuss at all. I'm so grateful to the wonderful woman in our ward who has the amazing ability to take notes short-hand, so she's able to take notes during the blessing and then transcribe them so we have a written copy of his blessing. She did the same for Felicity, and I love it!

 

Those that participated in the blessing circle were Nate, Bishop Bradford, Grandpa Scott Waldron, Grandpa Ian Wilkinson, Uncle Brant Waldron, and Great Uncle Blaine Holmes.

 

Afterward, we squeezed people into our house for some lunch and family time. It was a beautiful day!

A family picture with Nate's parents on the left and my dad and his wife on the right.

I'm so lucky to be this sweet boy's mom!

Bridget's 6th Birthday

Last year I promised Bridget she could have a friend party for her birthday this year, but I obviously didn't know at that time that I would have a newborn baby to take care of this year. So we decided to give Bridget the option of having a friend party or she could have a family party plus both a mommy/daughter date and daddy/daughter date of her choice. Thankfully she chose the second option which greatly helped my stress-level. I think she ended up getting the better deal in the end though because her birthday celebration has lasted for several days.

With her birthday falling on the day before Thanksgiving this year, it made for quite a busy several days for us. Her celebration actually started the Sunday before with Megan coming up to spend the evening. We had cupcakes and she got to open her present from Megan since Megan wasn't going to be here for her birthday. She was extremely thrilled with the unicorn Dream Light Megan got her.

On Tuesday, she got to take treats into her kindergarten class since they didn't have school the next day.

On Wednesday (her actual birthday), we started the day off with birthday cake pancakes and letting her open one gift. As you can see from the picture, Felicity was more than happy to help her blow out her candles, and Bridget was pleased with her Disney princess slippers.

Because Nate's family has their big annual Pie Night the night before Thanksgiving, we chose to celebrate her birthday at lunch that day. Nate's parents came as well as my dad and our good friend and neighbor Susan who's like another grandma to her. We had pizza (her choice) and then a Coldstone ice cream cake. I would love to have made her a cake, but I needed to lighten my load this year.

She could hardly wait to open presents and got some very nice thing including this shirt..

...and this Merida Barbie doll.

 

 

For her mommy/daughter date with me, we'll be going bowling and out for ice cream. For her daddy/daughter date she wants to go see the new Disney movie Frozen. Like I said, I think she chose wisely and got the better deal this year.

 

 

Happy 6th Birthday, Bridget!

1 Month Old

It's amazing how the last month of pregnancy truly feels like an eternity yet the first month of Dayton's life has flown by. Maybe part of that has to do with the fact that most of my days and nights all seem to blend together, and I'm lucky if I know what day of the week it is let alone the date. And maybe part of it has to do with the fact that taking care of 3 little kids is busy and exhausting.

Dayton continues to be a good baby. He's been a very good sleeper and eater, although we did have a few feeding issues after we got home from the hospital. I think he had the pacifier a little too much once we got home and that combined with me being engorged made for a tricky couple of days, but we got it figured out.

He's currently eating every 3-4 hours, but it seems more frequent just because his feedings take so long. I must admit I didn't realize how spoiled I was that the girls were such fast eaters (15 minutes usually). Dayton is usually 25-30 minutes and sometimes longer. When I'm up with him in the night (usually twice), I'm lucky if I can feed and change him and be back in bed in 30 minutes. Sometimes it can take almost an hour. It will certainly be nice when that time between feedings grows or if he happens to get faster at eating.

It took a little over 3 weeks for his cord to fall out, so he didn't get to enjoy a real bath in the baby bathtub until just recently. He always cries right when I put him in, but then he loves it and cries when I take him out.

For the first 3 weeks he preferred to be held if he was awake, but he's now starting to enjoy sitting and staring at things and people more from the swing or bouncer.

We certainly love this little guy, and hopefully the next few weeks bring longer of stretches of sleep at night because this tired momma really needs it.

Nate's Birthday

Another year has come and gone for Nate. Even though birthdays aren't a big deal to him, he obliges me and lets me try to make it somewhat special for him. Sadly, he was unable to take the day off from work or even work from home, so it was more his kind of celebration than mine.

I spent the afternoon making his cake (German chocolate) and was grateful both Dayton and Felicity took good naps at the same time making it much easier for me.

That blanket he is holding has Dayton in it even though you can't see him at all.

We didn't go out to eat because I didn't want to take Dayton out to a restaurant, so we got takeout from Zupas. I should also mention that some people Nate works for took him out to lunch at a hibachi house, so he got a really nice lunch too.

Because I am the giver of practical gifts, Nate got a new desk chair for his birthday. With as much as he works from home, it was time for a new, comfortable chair since our old one was one we purchased when we got married over 7 years ago. It was far from comfortable anymore.

Happy birthday, Nate!

Happy Halloween

Our Halloween festivities this year were pretty much the same as last year. The only added activity was my good friend and Relief Society President invited us over the week before Halloween to paint pumpkins and have pizza with her kids and grandkids. She's definitely taken us under her wing lately, and I've really appreciated it. Sometimes it's hard to not have grandparents and cousins close by.

The Sunday before Halloween, my Aunt Jennine invited us over to participate in the Halloween activities and dinner she does with her kids and grandkids. It was lots of fun and we appreciated being included.

The day before Halloween was the Halloween party at church. For the first time in 4 years, I didn't have to be in charge of or help out with the party. There was a costume parade, chili cook-off, and trick-or-treating.

On Halloween, Bridget got to wear her costume to school for the costume parade there and had a Halloween party that afternoon. That evening we did a little trick-or-treating in our neighborhood and then took the kids to see Nate's Aunt Linda as we always have. This was the first Halloween since Nate's Grandma passed away, and I have to admit it was sad to not make our usual stop to see her too.

Here's the kids in their costumes:

Once again, I made Bridget's costume. She chose Merida from Disney's Brave this year. And yes, the red actually washed out of her hair very easily.



With Felicity's crazy curls, she makes the perfect Annie. I even showed her some clips from the movie so she would know who Annie was. Having a new baby made getting costumes made a lot more difficult this year, so my super-amazing friend Sandy (mentioned at the beginning of this post) helped me out with this one. I handed her all the materials and some measurements, and she whipped this dress up in an afternoon. Love it!

Not many people got to see Dayton's cute costume since he slept through the Halloween party covered up in his car seat, but he still needed to be cute for his first Halloween. He's definitely the cutest skeleton I've ever seen. I picked this costume up at a consignment sale for $2! Next year, he'll get a handmade costume too.

Happy Halloween!

Dayton's Birth

As I expected, my due date with this pregnancy came and went. I must admit I was pretty grumpy about it too because I was so ready to be done with pregnancy and hold my baby boy. As I sat in church on my due date (10/13/13), I seriously felt like I was going to be pregnant forever - no contractions at all up to this point, and I was 3-4 cm dilated and 70% effaced at my appointment just 4 days before. If I had known what was going to happen that night, I certainly would have made an effort to go to bed much, much earlier.

At 2:30 am, I woke up needing to go to the bathroom but soon realized it was much more than that. I crawled back in bed not sure if I was having real contractions or not. They were different than what I had with Felicity. With her, I would feel my whole abdomen get tight and then relax. These felt more like cramps and were really low in my belly. Nate was sleeping away while I timed them, but after just a few I was sure they were the real thing because I got the "baby shakes" really bad just like I did with Felicity. I'm honestly surprised I didn't shake Nate awake as I laid there for 45 minutes timing and shaking. It wasn't until my 3rd trip to the bathroom during that time that he woke up. Then he timed them with me for quite a while. They were really irregular, short, and not very intense at first, but soon they started getting stronger, lasting almost a minute, and became more regular. I hate having to wake someone in the middle of the night to come stay with our kids, so I held out as long as I could and finally started getting dressed and throwing last minute things into my bag about 5 am. We called my Aunt Jennine at 5:30 and she was there a little before 6 am. At that point my contractions were only 2-3 minutes apart, and I just kept praying my water wouldn't break or I'd be in trouble.

I look terrible in this picture, but it's just before we left to go to the hospital, so I was living on 3 hours of sleep and in pain.

We got admitted to the hospital quickly, but the bad news was that they were really busy and it was also shift change time for the nurses at 7 am. I got gowned up and walked and walked around my room waiting for a nurse. Finally a nurse came in, and I told her I really needed to get my IV so I could get an epidural. She checked me (I was 6 cm and 100% effaced), so they very quickly got me my IV and got the anesthetist in there. I didn't know that once you hit 7-8 cm, your epidural might not work. Luckily, I got mine just in time and ended up being very, very numb. My doctor came and broke my water about 7:40 am, and about an hour later, he was ready to come. Thankfully, I was so numb, I didn't feel the need to push because we had to wait about another 20 minutes for a nurse to help her with the delivery.

I pushed through 3 contractions (about 7 minutes I think), and he was here!

When he came out, I asked my doctor what she thought about his weight because I was expecting him to be about 8.5 lbs., but she said he was well over 9 lbs.!

I was shocked when they told me he was 9 lbs. 12 oz. and 22.5 inches long! I can't believe he was that huge! No wonder I'd been so uncomfortable the past month. Soon after, Nate asked me if I was ready to commit to the name we'd been thinking about, and I was. So we named him Dayton Scott. Dayton is just a name we both liked, and Scott is after Nate's dad.

After I got moved over to postpartum, we let Jennine know she could bring the girls to meet him anytime. They were both so excited and each wanted to be the first to hold him.

We had a few other visitors during the time I was there. Jennine got her turn to hold him after the girls, and Megan came to visit after work that night. My friends Corey and Desaray and their 2 girls also came that afternoon, but I forgot to get a picture. The second day, my dad and Bev came to visit too.

Some of our visitors

Our first photo as a family of five

My stay at the hospital was really nice. I had wonderful nurses in labor and delivery as well as postpartum. I also got to spend a lot of alone time with Dayton since Nate had to spend more time at home with the girls this time. There was lots and lots of snuggling going on. Love it!

One of the other things I was REALLY looking forward to was the spa services they offer for free with the cosmetology students from the Applied Technology College. This program wasn't around when I had Bridget, and they were on Spring Break when I had Felicity so I was hoping I wouldn't be disappointed again this time around. Luckily, I got my pedicure!

Dayton Scott

Born October 14, 2013

9:04 am

9 lbs. 12 oz.

22.5 inches long

Look at those cheeks! They've certainly been getting a lot of kisses. We are so thrilled to have this little boy join our family and grateful he's healthy and all went smoothly with his arrival.

Surprise Baby Shower

Over the past 2-3 months or so, multiple people (including my sisters Megan and Jessica) have asked me if I would like a baby shower. My response was always pretty much the same. I feel weird about having a second shower. I don't want people to feel obligated to get me a gift when I have most of the essential baby items already. All I'm really in need of is clothes, blankets, diapers, and wipes and I'm good to go. So that's what I planned to do - buy it all myself. I wasn't too worried because I can gradually stock up on diapers and wipes in the coming months, and I'm certainly not opposed to used baby clothing since most of it is in pretty good shape because they outgrow it so fast.

But my two little sisters are amazing. They love to throw parties and decided that since I wasn't gung-ho about the whole thing, they would throw me one anyway as a surprise. And boy was it a surprise! I had absolutely no idea, and it turned out to be so much fun.

They started forming a plan the end of July and involved my cousin Lori, who offered to host it at her home. Megan sent out invitations through email to my extended family, a few close friends, and some of Nate's family. Jessica lives in Oklahoma, so they picked a date they hoped would work so she could be here for my shower as well as for my cousin Lisa's wedding.

Lori's plan to get me to her house completely worked too, and they even got Nate in on the plan to make sure I would get there. Lori invited my family over for dinner at her house and told me she was inviting my friend Desaray's family over as well since Lori and her family just moved into Desaray's ward a few months ago. So my family and I showed up with the dessert I brought to go with the dinner. When I walked into house, the first thing I noticed was the large number of chocolate covered strawberries and cupcakes all over her kitchen table. It really confused me because I brought a dessert too and didn't understand why we needed so much dessert, and then I heard the big, "Surprise!" As I looked over into her family room, it was filled with my closest friends and family which completely amazed me. It was almost overwhelming to feel such love and support from so many people.

Nate left, and the party got started. They did a pasta bar for dinner along with the delicious desserts. Everyone ate and then we played a game while I opened gifts (they actually had a couple planned but ran out of time). I got so many cute clothes, some diapers, and a few other things. I wish that I'd been able to visit more with all of the people there, but Nate left both Bridget and Felicity with me at the party which made it hard for me to relax and visit.

Because it was such a surprise, I didn't think to take pictures, so all I got was this one with me, Jessica, Isla, and Megan. I'm so grateful to them and all the hard work they went to in order to pull this off and am so appreciative to all those who came. It's definitely something I'll never forget!

Bridget's First Day of Kindergarten

Bridget's first day of Kindergarten is finally here!

She was excited and a little nervous, but she's so ready for it!

In some ways it seemed like this day couldn't come fast enough. For a while now, she's been getting so bored in the afternoons while Felicity is napping. More often than not she expected me or electronics to entertain her, so this will be a welcome change for her - especially since it's full-day kindergarten.

On the other hand, it seems like it was just yesterday that she was a baby. I have a vivid memory of rocking her in the rocking chair when she was just a few days old and thinking to myself how quickly she would grow up, and that she'd be in kindergarten before I knew it. And here we are!

Several months ago, I wasn't sure where I was going to enroll her in school. The elementary that's about a 3 minute walk from our house is a Title 1 school meaning the majority of students are low-income. I wasn't sure if I wanted her there and considered charter schools as well as another elementary in the district that's a 5 minute drive from our house. I went ahead and did a boundary exception request to have her go to the other elementary school but was told we had to go ahead and register her at the one by our house, and we would find out just before school started if they had room for her. As the months ticked by, I realized more and more that she would do really well in full-day kindergarten which they only offer at the Title 1 schools in the district, so that's where she's at. I haven't been super-impressed so far, but hopefully volunteering in her classroom will help me feel better about it. I also know that what we do at home to supplement her education is more important than school. I'm determined to move within the next couple of years so that she won't have to continue there.

Anyway, as I walked her to school and dropped her off in her classroom, I was excited for her to start this next part of life and couldn't help but walk away a little teary-eyed. I hope she does well, makes friends, enjoys her teacher, and has fun. Our days at home will certainly be much quieter without her.

31 Weeks

As of yesterday I'm now 31 weeks along, so I figured it was finally time for a profile shot of my belly. The good thing is looking at this makes me feel like I'm not as huge as I feel like I am.

 

Today I went for another check-up and got to have an ultrasound to see if he's head down yet, and he is! Let' just hope he stays that way. This picture is just a profile shot of his face. I actually got to have a lengthier ultrasound at 27 weeks simply because the doctor didn't seem to be in a hurry and the baby was breech at the time making it hard for her to get the good pictures she was wanting. Sadly, Nate wasn't with me because I didn't know I was having an ultrasound that day, but I loved watching our little boy for several minutes. I even got to see him swallow which I've never seen on an ultrasound before.

Everything is still going well with my pregnancy. At 26 weeks, I opted to skip the 1-hour glucose test (which I failed with both of my girls) and go straight for the 3-hour test at the hospital. Luckily, I passed just like I did with both of the girls.

Also, about the start of the 3rd trimester, I started having some pain in my inner-thigh and groin area. This isn't anything I've ever had before, and it's getting worse the farther along I get. Some days it makes it very painful to walk or rotate from side to side in bed. Nothing seems to help it either. From what I've read and since discussed with my doctor, it's due to an over-production of the pregnancy hormone relaxin. It causes my pelvis to misalign at times especially when climbing stairs or doing anything weight-bearing while standing or walking. It's actually not uncommon in pregnancy and many women have it to varying degrees. A friend of mine gets it so bad that the entire last trimester she's on bed rest and has to use a wheelchair. So far, I'm managing okay most of the time, but I'm trying to follow my doctor's advice by staying off my feet a little more, not lifting Felicity unless I absolutely have to, and trying to minimize going up and down stairs as much as possible. I just hope it doesn't get much worse in the coming weeks. Other than that, I've been doing pretty well. It's been one of the hottest summers on record which I haven't enjoyed, so hopefully some cooler temperatures will come our way soon.

Kimberly's Birthday

My birthday this year turned out to be a very nice day, although if you asked Nate he would disagree because it didn't go quite like he had planned.

He made a nice breakfast, took care of the kids the majority of the day, cleaned most of the house, did a bunch of yard work, attempted to make a birthday cake from scratch for me, and made dinner. He felt bad because he ran out of time to get the whole house cleaned, didn't get the yard work finished, and then the cake fell quite a bit after he took it out of the oven. He made the exact same cake for me last year, so we're not sure what happened, but it was too late in the day to try and make another one so I told him to just take the girls and go buy one. Bridget's a chocoholic like me and picked out a beautiful and delicious cookies and cream cake.

We also met Megan and my cousin Lisa at Macaroni Grill for lunch. We hadn't been there in several years, but it was one of my favorite restaurants when I was in college. Sadly, it was not nearly as good as I remembered. The free birthday dessert I got was really good though, and they sing happy birthday in Italian to you so it wasn't all bad.

Like I said, it really was an enjoyable day for me. And now I'm hopefully another year wiser as well as older.

The evidence that he did in fact try to make my cake.

The cake we ended up enjoying

Trip to West Yellowstone

As far as vacations this summer, we kept it pretty simple by only going on one inexpensive trip to Nate's parents' and the cabin. Felicity still proves to be a terrible sleeper away from home making vacations not very restful, and we didn't want to spend much money this summer due to the arrival of our baby boy this fall.

We left for West Yellowstone on Tuesday the 23rd and headed straight to the cabin for an afternoon of playing on the beach and in the lake as well as visiting with my extended family. The weather was plenty warm (a little too warm for me but cooler than home), and we enjoyed our afternoon there before heading over to Nate's parents' house on the other side of the lake.

Bridget and Felicity enjoying the lake with second cousins Jackson and Abbie.

On Wednesday, we headed back over to the cabin for another day with my family and some more playing in the lake.

Playing on the beach with my cousin Steve's kids (Ashley, Madison, and Tyler) and my cousin Lori's daughter, Gwen.

Wednesday night, Bridget and I went on a mommy daughter date to the Playmill Theatre in town. I have many fond memories of trips to the Playmill during my childhood and youth and was excited to be able to share it with her. We went to Beauty and the Beast, and she loved it! In fact, as we walked out and drove back to Scott and Alice's house, she kept saying over and over, "That was so great!" It was the first play/musical she's ever been too, and I look forward to many more trips to the Playmill with her in the future.

The rest of our trip was spent at Nate's parents' or in town for what was supposed to be a family reunion with his siblings and their families. It ended up just being us and his brother Matt's family. Bridget and Felicity had a blast over the next few days playing with their cousins Tanner and Jackson, and Grandpa kept busy keeping them all entertained.

Here's a few pictures documenting the rest of our trip:

The girls loved getting their picture taken with as many of the animal sculptures as possible located around town.

More animal sculptures

One of our usual outing is a trip to the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center. We only spent about an hour there because the weather had turned a little chilly that day plus they've been there a few times before. I think they spent as much time playing on the playground there as they did looking at the bears, wolves, and birds.

One of Scott's projects while we were there was putting together and fixing up a playhouse/swing set for the kids to enjoy.

We also played several rounds of horseshoes one evening.

And while we're enjoying the beautiful weather and scenery, we can't leave out doing a fire pit and making s'mores.

Grandpa and Uncle Matt also took the kids (minus Felicity) target shooting. I didn't know if Bridget  would be interested in actual shooting and thought she might just watch, but she surprised me. And when they got back she had a large bump on her forehead that Grandpa felt pretty bad about. He'd been helping her hold the gun and he let go for just a second in which time she shot the gun and it recoiled hitting her in the forehead. She's pretty tough though and wasn't bothered by it. Instead she kept telling the story over and over of how she "shot herself in the head."

 

Other than that, the kids played all sorts of things outside, followed Grandpa around, and went for several RZR rides. Hopefully we'll have a better turnout for the next "reunion."