Friday, February 20, 2009

this beautiful girl is 6!


okay, i promise this is the last birthday post!!! The joke around here is that we only procreate in May on Tim's birthday, thus resulting in so many February birthdays:)

Some thoughts on Sydney at 6...
*She is quite the little lady, and refuses to wear jeans. We invest in tights over here.
*Her favorite color is still pink.
*She LOVES to craft. Therefore, there are ALWAYS little scraps of paper floating around underneath the kitchen table and random google eyes stuck to the table. She comes by it honestly though :)
*She shows her love by making us crafts and putting them on our pillows... it's really sweet. in the summer she fills dixie cups with flowers and places them all over the house. in the fall she tapes pretty leaves to everyones walls :)

*Her dolls, barbies, ponies, pollys are tucked away in her closet and never see the light of day... no interest.

*She is a very responsible little girl. She has been taking care of April (her pet hampster) for a year now and does an excellent job!
*She LOVES to organize.
*She loves to dance... especially with her dad.
*She is our "other" firstborn. She is the leader/boss of the kids......sometimes a little too much :)

*She's our "go-getter". From the second she wakes up she has ideas of what we need to play, create, get done etc.

*She is my little helper. She loves to wash the floor, windows, dishes, dust, clean toilets etc.
*She is the sweetest girl with a very easy going temperment. She is always looking for ways to help others. She is very kind and thoughtful.
*She does an excellent job of looking out for her brothers and sisters.

*She will make an awesome mother someday! She loves her little sister and is a HUGE help with her.

Happy Birthday Sydney, we love you! You are a beautiful gift from God!

my attempt at a flower garden cake

we did a little combo party at home, since stella didn't know when her birthday was, and syd thought it would be fun to share :)

Monday, February 16, 2009

my baby is 1!


i cannot believe this girl is one years old already! it truly seems like she was just born. In many ways we treat her so much younger than we treated the others at this age. Seeing how quickly they grow up, i so appreciate her babyness.

some thoughts on stella at 1....
*she LOVES her brown bunny. If we don't know where she has disappeared to, we can usually find her in her room trying to pull it through the crib slats. If they are separated for a period of time, she lets out a loud squeal when she sees it.

*she loves her brothers and sisters and follow them around wherever they go. She has a special fondness for Dylan (oddly enough) even though he bugs her the most.

*she takes 2 naps a day
*she likes to eat....alot
*her nickname is "grill" (Dylan started it when she was born b/c he always says girl wrong.)
*says mamama, dadada, bababa (said mama first:)
*she has a love/hate relationship with dog food
*she has already learned her colors and won't eat anything green you toss on her high chair:)

*she wakes up every night crying- some nights she's up every half hour

*she has 5 teeth- 2 on the bottom, 3 on top

*she is the latest walker of all of our kids- perhaps she's carried around too much:)
*her personality is very sweet, yet demanding- she definately knows what she wants!

Stella, you are so loved! You make us laugh our heads off all the time with the funny things you do. You amaze us when you learn new tricks. The kids look out for you and still fight over who gets to play with you and hold you. You are such an important part of our family.... Happy Birthday Grill! We love you!

for my own record keeping i thought i would post her birth story, so feel free to tune out....

We found out the good news the Friday of Fathers Day weekend 2007. We went camping with the kids for the weekend in Pentwater, and I took a test just before we left. We were very excited to be pregnant! After having a miscarriage in December we were ready, and had been trying for a couple months. My due date was February 12. I had an ultrasound right away to make sure everything was okay this time. The ultrasound bumped my due date date up to February 5. (In my mind I still went with Feb 12 with the hopes of not being overdue:)Everything progressed normally. We camped a bit over the summer and I went to New York with friends in the fall. It was fun to share this pregnancy with Michelle and Michelle and Jamie.

In preparation we fixed up the basement bedroom. Tim laid the new carpet over New Years, and we moved the boys downstairs. They did really well. We left the babys room the blue checkerboard that it was, b/c if we were having a boy it would be perfect!

Two weeks before my due date I was dialated to "a good 2, close to 3". We got our hopes up and thought for sure this baby would be on time. The next week at my appointment I was still only dialated to 2. My due date came and went, I was dialated to 3. Tims dad was due to fly out to Brazil for a mission trip on Feb 12. He had not missed the birth of any of our February kids, though he was gone to Brazil on both of their due dates! Dylan was born 2 weeks late and Sydney 3 days early. Well his flight to Brazil was delayed a day b/c of a snow storm, so I thought maybe I would have the baby before he left after all... no such luck. I thought perhaps Valentines Day- nope. If I didn’t have the baby on my own I was scheduled for an induction on February 20. This made me sad b/c I would be in the hospital over Sydneys birthday, and I really didn’t want to be induced again after Dylan.
Anyhow, I had a non- stress test the on Wednesday Feb 13. They were concerned b/c the baby didn’t move around much, so they ordered an ultrasound to check my water levels. The ultrasound showed that everything was fine, but the tech told me it looked like the baby was around 9 lbs. (give or take a lb. of course) Nothing happened. I was scheduled for another non- stress test Friday, Feb 15. I was actually having light contractions during this test, and I watched them on the screen. Everything was fine and they sent me on my way again. I left there and ran some errands. I started having more contractions as the day went on, and I started to suspect that this might actually be the real deal. Tim took the excavator home with big plans to start digging the hole for our house addition in the morning. We had pizza for dinner, and made plans to go look at windows and some flooring in the morning. We both had a feeling that since we were making all these plans, they weren’t going to happen. By 10:00pm that night my contractions were 10 minutes apart and painful. We went to bed, but I hopped out every 8-10 minutes to walk the contractions off. I finally gave up on sleep around 2am and just wandered around the house. They stayed 10 minutes apart through the night, although they lasted about 2 minutes, so it felt like they were closer. The night progressed on and at 4:30am I heard Dylan crying downstairs in his bed, which was an every night occurance for him at this point. Since I didn’t have the energy to deal with him, I woke Tim up and sent him down. When he came back up I started to feel really nauseous. This made me nervous, b/c I always throw up shortly before I deliver. We called Tims mom and she came over.

When we got up to triage I threw up a few times. They said I was only dialated to 6, but said they would keep me since i was sick. I got admitted to a room just before 7 am and I had my mind made up that I wanted an epidural this time. It was shift change, but the doctor that left reassured me the anesthesiologist was on his way up. When the next nurse came on I asked her again, and she told me she was sorry I got some bad information- the anesthesiologist was at home and they would call him. This new information made me a little desperate, one might say i went into wuss mode, so they gave me a shot of demerol to get me by. This helped me to calm down until I got an epidural. After the epidural, they broke my water and then kind of left me alone. They came back around 9am to see how I was doing. They shut my epidural off b/c I wanted to have some feeling . I was complete, but the baby was still up high. They had me push once to see what would happen. I did, and they all freaked out and told me to stop because her head was already there. They got the room all ready, and we waited for another contraction. The next contraction came and in one controlled push I had her out. They were holding her at such an angle that I couldn’t see if she was a boy or a girl. She didn’t breath right away, and i was so concerned that i forgot to ask what she was. After she cried, I asked Tim why nobody was telling me what we had…he said it’s a girl! They gave her to me and Tim cut the cord.
Stella Jane was born at 9:33am Feb 16 8lbs12 oz with a head full of black curly hair.

Thursday, February 5, 2009

my kitchen

We are nearing the 1 year anniversary that marks the beginning of our kitchen, mudroom, bathroom addition/remodel project. Let me be the first to tell you that this year has tried my patience...it's been a year of mud, sawdust, insulation, drywall, and lumber coming and going through the door. Drywallers in my kitchen for 2 weeks straight, holes in the wall covered by plastic, my desk contents in plastic storage totes by my nightstand, the coffee pot in the bathroom, eating off paper plates in the living room, piles of insulation falling down in the middle of the kitchen- always when i'm least suspecting it i might add, and layers of dust everywhere....which proves to be tricky when you are trying to keep some order for 4 little people.

When we bought our house 5 years ago, the plan was always to remodel the kitchen. It was a sweet combination of 80's dark brown cupboards and counters, complete with brown and orange vinyl flooring curling at the edges. We toyed with the idea of adding on for a few years. There were other things that needed to be fixed on the house.... the roof needed to be replaced, the deck needed some serious help, the sunporch needed some tlc., and the list went on. We were always in a quandry, because if we were to someday add on to the house it made no sense to fix any of these things now, b/c we would just need to do it again....and let me tell you how much we love doing things twice :)

Well, we finally got to the point that we needed to make a decision already; either we do it or we don't and get on with the repairs that need to be made. We decided to go ahead with it... with the understanding that we would do the majority of the work ourselves to save money, and i would need to be REALLY patient with the time that it takes. Tim spent the early part of last fall/winter drawing up the plans, getting permits, taking our sunporch and deck off and getting stuff re-routed etc. Then we kind of sat around waiting for Stella to be born. Well, on the Friday that i was 3 days overdue, we were ready to just get on with it, break ground and get things rolling. While Tim was loading up the excavator to take home, he set his cell phone down on the tracks because it kept falling out of his pocket. Well, as the story goes, he ran it over, and of yes I had been having contractions all day of course!

Well, he made it home and i had Stella early the next morning.... so the digging had to wait. We laughed and made it our goal to have the kitchen finished by the time Stella turned 1. Well, next week marks the big one. Though we are not going to achieve our goal, we are getting very close! Thankfully Tim had a really busy summer/fall at work making his free time pretty sparse- which is a good i suppose :)

Sorry to make this drag on. I've taken a ton of pictures along the way, so I tried my hand at making a little movie. I will definately post more pictures and less words when we are all finished. Don't mind the music- I know Toby Mac isn't really kitchen remodelish- he's just my new fav.....enjoy!

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

this kid is 4!

This picture is a good summary of Dylan. Spiderman complete with orange fairy wings, army hat and scooter with gun holster.

some thoughts on dylan at 4:
*if you were to use the phrase "every family's got one"--dylan is ours
*his personality is the sweetest combination of tough boy and affection.
*he will make you laugh just about every time you talk to him.
*watch out if he kisses you...he will give you tongue.
*he tells us at least 20 times a daythat he loves us.
*he loves to play with legos & gi joes and loves the days when both kids are in school so he has all the toys & mom to himself.
*he NEVER stops talking. He will repeat himself until you acknowledge him.
*he loves to dress up in costumes, especially his "ninjer" costume (teenage mutant ninja turtle)
*he loves to follow Tim around with his tools and work with him.
*we usually find him in our bed about 4 mornings a week.

some dylan phrases that we hear on a daily basis that have grown endearing...
*stop it grill!
*nuh uh, so what?
*whatch you say?
*can i have washmouth?
*why is nobody wiping my butt?
*i'm drinking all of daddys orange juice.....hee hee hee

What does he have to look forward to now that he is 4:
*wiping his own butt
*tying his own seatbelt

Happy Birthday Dylan. We love you all the way to the moon!