This Week at Our House #48

1. John worked through Wednesday and then was sick part of the week. 
2. I did a lot more this week than I intended to do. I wanted to make the post partum period calmer and more restful. But, there is so much work in a big family. Dishes and laundry, cooking, picking up, sweeping, and vacuuming constantly need to be done. After a week of me relaxing, our older kids were pretty worn out from the constant effort. I had meant to do some laundry and some dishes, but I did a lot more than that. Oh and the heating unit in our dryer died on Monday. We purchased a new one from Amazon. It said it would not arrive until Nov 30th. There was not much to be done, so we hung a lot of clothes to dry. However, fortune favored us and the heating unit arrived Friday and John and the boys installed it the same day. 
3. Ruth got to go to Utah to her grandparents for Thanksgiving. She brought her friend Kyle and he had Thanksgiving dinner with them. Ruth had a wonderful time with family and I was glad that her first Thanksgiving away from home had a homey atmosphere with a lot of recipes that she is used to having. Ruth also visited with her friend Dezi. She was supposed to have Dezi cut her hair on Saturday, but I have not talked to her to find out how that happened yet.
4. Kate made half the Thanksgiving dinner and that really is a big deal. She also made a lot of other meals including reheating Thanksgiving dinner several times for us over the weekend. She has officially earned her Young Women's honor bee just by how much service she has done in the home and how much time she has spent teaching with the sister missionaries.
5. Since it was the first week of vacation, and since John was sick part of the week, Johnny spent the majority of his time playing video games either alone or with John.
6. Adam spent a lot of the week playing outside. He makes up fun games and plays them with the younger kids. 
7. Rachel used the money she has earned to buy herself a lego set that she has wanted for some months. The other kids teased her for buying a Christmas present for herself. 
8. I found this really sweet note that Anya wrote about all of the things she likes about Adam. 
9. John walked into our bathroom and saw Joseph holding his toothbrush. In Joseph's naturally cheery voice he said, "Do you know what Dad? This is great for cleaning sinks!"
10. Josh had to give a talk in Primary. I stayed home from Church with the baby, so John had to help him give the talk. Before he left, I helped Josh write down a few thoughts. But John said Josh absolutely refused to say anything, and after about 60 seconds, he finally said what John told him to say but would only say one word at a time. John was not too happy with Josh. 
11. I moved our toys downstairs on Saturday. I am not sure the move will be good, but it is easier for me to keep them cleaned up and organized when they are right in my way. Arwen has been playing with the toys nonstop since then. She has particularly liked building with the Lincoln Logs. The funny thing is that John showed me a great deal on Lincoln Logs for Christmas and I had said that we should not buy them because our kids never play with the ones we have. 
12. Suzy stayed home from Church with me and got to help me make cookies for the first time. She was really cute about stirring and putting in the ingredients. 
13. Sam is now 2 weeks old. He eats a ton and sleeps a lot and poops a lot. He is starting to hold his head up and he looks around at everyone. He is still just a calm sweet baby. He gets held all of the time, though. In fact, when he is put down, he usually wakes up immediately and cries and that is about the only time we hear him cry.

Tender Mercies

1. The night that the heating unit died in the dryer, John and I were looking through the products we had reviewed on Amazon. One of them happened to be the dryer heating unit we bought 4 years ago. We both commented on how great that was and how we had forgotten about it.The next morning, I realized the heating unit was the problem with the dryer. We both felt like running into exactly what we needed was divine intervention. I am not sure we would have been able to find the same thing so easily or even remembered where we got it.

This Week's Pictures

2 weeks old

Thanksgiving 2016

Thanksgiving was delicious and everyone appreciated the feast, but Kate and I worked non-stop cooking over two days. I said that Thanksgiving 2016 while nice and delicious was just too much work, especially less than two weeks after having a baby. Kate made half the meal and I made the other half. We had 2 turkeys because the cheap frozen ones I wanted to get for 39 cents a pound were all about 15 pounds and I wanted at least a 20 pound turkey. I found a new recipe for cranberry sauce and it was so good that John even liked it. Kate made the orange rolls. They came out delicious. I think they are about everyone's favorite and we are going to make them again for Christmas.

Some Funny Things They Say

Things I forgot to put in the weekly post:

Josh calls Sam a "pee ninja" because he is a new born baby boy and we forgot how quickly you have to change those diapers.

Suzy calls ponytails "ouches" but she loves them and will bring me a ponytail holder and ask for an ouch.

Suzy came to me after the cat bit her hand and said "bad cat" and held up her hand for me to kiss it. I had to kiss every finger and each side.

When Suzy is mad, she stamps her foot and yells, "jerk, jerk, jerk."

When Arwen met Sam she said, "He's a boy but he still loves me even though I am a girl."

Johnny groaning through a chick flick, Whsiper of the Heart, and declaring again and again that they are too young.

Adam said he likes to play "chest" with "ponds".

Rachel told us that her husband is going to be named Samuel Washington Rose. She said that Rachel Rose sounds really good, so his last name has to be Rose.

This Week at Our House # 47

1. This week was spent getting to know baby Sam. John worked most of a full week, but didn't worry about much else. John has been trying to get a computer thing called Hadoop running so he can learn it to use for work purposes. It has been really hard, but he finally got it up and running. I know that made him really happy.
2. I am always surprised at how long it takes to recover from having a baby. There was a time when I would have the baby and get right back into the swing of things, but that has not been the case for several babies. My body takes more time to heal. It is hard for me to be patient. I took it very easy this week, and now I am trying to slowly get up and do little things like the dishes. I did enjoy snuggling my cute little baby. The newborn time goes by so fast. I love how squishy and cuddly Sam is and I know it won't last.
3. Ruth had two firsts this week-- the first snow of the season in Rexburg and her first line dance. She said she is not country western, but she is definitely quite happy.
4. Kate has made dinner, done all of the laundry, washed lots of dishes, made several batches of cookies, swept, vacuumed, cleaned bathrooms, disciplined little kids, did her school work, and more to help me recover. She has also enjoyed lots of baby cuddles. 
5. Johnny did a lot of dishes and house work too. I have often kept the dishes for my own chore, so I think the kids are a little shocked at how many dishes our family actually makes. 
6. Adam really likes holding baby Sam. He is also really terrible at washing dishes, so I think he needs more practice.
7. Rachel needs more practice washing dishes too. I think Adam and Rachel will now be the go to dish cleaners until they can do it, have the dishes come out clean, and remember to wash the counters and sinks. Rachel will not like that I wrote this about her. She should know that we lover her and think she is adorable as well as not a very good dish washer.
8. Anya loves to hold baby Sam and she is really good at holding his head still and chatting at him.
9. We finished our last week of school before our big vacation. I am so glad to give Joseph a break and not have to nag him to do his work or listen to the book I am reading or to tell him to pay attention or to focus. 
10. Joshua has always insisted that his name is Joshua not Josh or Joshy. He is now trying to insist that Samuel is not Sam or Sammy. But I am really liking Sam the best. Josh was also pleasantly surprised to look back at his baby pictures and see that they look a whole lot like Sam. I am also pleasantly surprised to wrap up the first semester of home school with Josh starting to read.
11. Arwen has quite the little tongue in her mouth. She has learned to say the rudest things. We are going to have to work on that. 
12. Suzy to our surprise adores baby Sam and is very protective of him. When the nurse came to examine him on Monday and do the pku test, Susan was very distressed, crying for him, and trying to guard him by standing in front of him. When Sam cries, Suzy will come over to him and be very concerned. It's cute. But when the nurse was here, I eventually had Kate take her upstairs so she was not too traumatized by the pku test.

Tender Mercies

1. Kate was the main tender mercy this week. She helped happily everyday.
2. It's great that our vacation landed so closely to when the baby was born. 

This Week's Pictures

Samuel's Birth Story

Samuel's labor was the hardest of all of my labors. I went in Saturday afternoon and the midwives gave me some herbs to start contractions. They really worked. I wished I had known about them before now. After contractions were going, the midwife tried to break my water, but the baby had turned and she could not get to it. So I took more herbs and bounced on a ball to bring him back down. An hour later he was in a much better place, so they broke my water. Hard contractions began immediately. I got in the birthing tub. I could feel Samuel's head slide down with every contraction and contractions were coming at about 2 minutes apart. It was not long before I was fully dilated and ready to push. I began pushing on my knees, but after each push, Samuel's head would come down more and then go back up. I tried lying back and pushing with the same results. Then my contractions started to slow down. They may have been as far as 10 minutes apart near the end and we were a little concerned they would just stop. I tried pushing upright and then leaning forward, but it was clear that Samuel was making no progress. The midwife said that it was likely that his head was pushing into my pelvic bone and then going back up. She suggested that I try lying flat on my back to see if that would slide his head under. I did, and then with just two more contractions he came and the midwife delivered him. I had never had to push so much or to change positions so much before. It was harder for sure, though, he was born just two hours after my water was broken, an hour of that was pushing. The midwife handed him to me, and while I looked at his face, John discovered the gender. At that point in time, my contractions had completely stopped. The midwife waited a half hour and then helped my placenta come out without contractions. We were glad that everything turned out as well as it did. My body is older and did not perform as well as it has in the past. It is clear that my muscles are spent after delivering 11 full term babies.

John and I and the baby waited in the birthing center for 6 hours to make sure everything was fine with the baby and me and then we headed home. Samuel was born at 6:23pm and we got home 8 hours later at about 2:20am. In all, we were away from home fir about 14 hours-- 4 of those were spent driving.

In the end, John and I were both very grateful that I chose the birth center even though we had to drive two hours to get there. Because I went to the birth center, I was allowed to try 4 different positions to push the baby out. In the hospital, women are really only allowed to push from one position and if the baby is stuck they will use some kind of medical intervention to get the baby out. We were also very grateful to be able to get home to our own bed and our other children. If I had gone to the hospital, they would have had me stay 48 hours instead of six. We would have had to take the kids into a hospital to meet the baby and that is always hard. In the end, neither John nor I questioned the wisdom of driving two hours to give birth.

This Week at Our House # 46

1. This was the week we were expecting the baby, but he did not come until Saturday night. I will write about that in another post later. Basically John just worked all week and came with me to my final midwife appointment. And of course he was there for the birth and very happy to meet the little baby that looks more like him than all of our kids. 
2. I had a hard time focusing all week while anxiously hoping for the baby to arrive so I spent too much time on Facebook reading too many opinions on the election and finding myself in too much silent disagreement. I was terrible at getting dinner made too, but we had a very nice sister in our ward drop off a lot of food from a banquet her husband was in charge of on Wednesday night. Thursday was my midwife appointment and we decided that if the birthing center was not busy, I would come in and take some herbs and such to get labor going. It turned out that they were not busy, so I got there in the afternoon. Samuel was born at 6:23 pm and John and I and Samuel were home by 2:20am. And that is the biggest reason I am glad to have driven the two hours to have the baby in a birthing center.
3. Ruth was sick for a couple of days this week. She also had a huge art project and had to miss out on hiking with her friends and roommates. I made the kids wait about 4 hours to find out the gender of the baby. I have several texts from Ruth saying please and what is the name. That was fun.
4. Kate is my right hand man. She had a lot of young women stuff this week, but was always diligent about putting the family first. She babysat most of the day on Thursday and for 14 hours Saturday. She plans on making dinner again today.
5. Johnny has been computer programming and John has been buying him things to make it easier and more possible for him. Johnny of course helped Kate with all of the babysitting this week. He seems quite happy to meet his newest little brother.
6. Adam and I planned and did a little homeschool project. We mixed silicone with food coloring and corn starch to make rubbery toys. It was much harder than it looked.-- a lot stickier and a lot harder to get the right consistency before it dried. But it made really awesome bouncy balls. Joseph, Rachel, Anya, and Johnny did it with us. We will try again in a few weeks. Adam is in love with his baby brother. I just love seeing Adam hold him.
7. Rachel is in love with the baby but has been a bit emotional about getting to hold him as much as she wants to. Rachel was the only one that was successful at making a molded toy with the silicone mix.
8. Anya is in love with the baby too. She came to greet him in the middle of the night when we got home and just had the biggest, sweetest smile. 
9. Joseph is glad that the baby is a brother. And now Joseph is losing the title of the biggest baby. Samuel was definitely bigger. 
10. Joshua has been in trouble a lot this week. He was goofy about his school work, and disobedient with everything else. Hopefully he will have a better week next week.
11. Arwen is delighted with the baby. She wanted a sister, but was very excited about getting any baby. She was the first to greet him this morning.
12. Suzy was antagonistic about the idea of the baby and when Kate showed her the picture we sent in the kids in a text. Suzy said "No baby!!! No, no, no, no." She also said to no to holding him and kissing him and everything. But when she saw him this morning, she smiled real big, held him, and sang rock a bye baby.
13. Samuel is a strong, healthy, perfect little baby. He is so very, very calm. He is alert and seems to enjoy looking around at all of his siblings.

Tender Mercies

1. The birthing center turned out really well. The two hour drive has been very hard, but the benefits of being able to get right home to our other children was well worth it. Home birth was not an option here, but even then it would have cost us a lot more than the birthing center which took our insurance.
2. Kate's willingness and capacity to do hard things.

This Week's Pictures

Welcome Samuel Thomas

We had our baby last night at 6:23pm. He weighed nearly 9 lbs and was 20 inches long.  He is very calm and seems to enjoy looking around at all of his siblings. He also loves to eat and eat and so far is champion nurser. He looks just like John. We are so happy to have him here safe and sound and a part of our family.