September Photo Dump!

As indicated in my last post, we had a busy month! I thought I'd share all our fun with you by blogging. If you click on the pictures you should get to see a larger version in a new tab. :D Enjoy!

Here are the big kids on their first day of school:



Grandpa and Grandma Kelsey and Grandma Linda all came to visit. We went to the Joseph Smith Birthplace Memorial:



The New England Air Museum:



And Honey Pot Hill Apple Orchard:



Abigail got baptized on 5 September 2009. We were thrilled to have most of the grandparents and my Teta Daria and cousin Ivanna there. (Grandpa Dan, you were missed!)



The next day, Sam got his name and a blessing. Here he is in his adorable blessing outfit from Grandma Kay (he was kinda sleepy when I took these, lol):




We also spent time at the playground:




Mike and Aidan are on the same soccer team this year, the DC United (the DC stands for Diamond Charlie, their coach. Hehe!) Also on their team are their good friends Eric and Dallen. Here's a couple shots from the games. As you can see, we're raising good, religious, God-fearing boys. ;)



My girlfriend Linda Dobbins made Sam some darling knit baby items. Here's a couple shots of his cute Converse-like sneakers and his heirloom Hoover-style blankie:



Sam has learned to make some pretty funny expressions. Basically, stuff you can only do if you have no teeth:



He's also found an unconventional way to soothe himself. No thumb sucking here!



Hope you enjoyed our little trip through September. Now that it's October, there will be forthcoming pictures of New England Autumn and Halloween! :D

Bizzy Dizzy

We are going to be so busy this month! Just to give you an idea, here is a list of what will be happening or beginning in the next two weeks (more or less in order of occurrence):

My mom coming to town
Jed's parents coming to town
School begins
School carpool begins
Trip to the New England Air Museum
Trip to the Joseph Smith's Birthplace memorial
Apple picking
Teta Daria coming to town
Abigail's Baptism and Confirmation
Sam's baby blessing
Mike and Aidan's soccer season begins
Destination Imagination begins (Abby will be on a different team than the boys,
so we'll have it two days.)
Watching Brandon on Julia's working days
Abby's violin lessons
Dr.s Appointments for Sam and I
Sam's immunizations

Yeah, that's just the next two weeks. And that's just what's currently scheduled! *faint*

The upside is, most of those are wonderful things and many pictures will follow. :D

The Rewards of Motherhood

Moms go through so much in the first few weeks of their baby's lives. I totally forgot how bad the sleep deprivation is, for one thing. Watch out for me when I'm driving, seriously. And when babies cry, it's as if every nerve in Mom's body is attached to every sound wave. It's stressful! Then there's the fact that a baby's body leaks fluid at pretty much every pore pretty much all the time. Motherhood is WET! Last night alone Sam sweated, peed, and pooped either on me or in my immediate vicinity, and topped the morning off at 7 am with a quantity of spit-up that spread over my chest, shoulders, neck, and on into my hair.

Right about the time you have just about HAD it with motherhood and please take him back Lord, oh please....your baby learns to smile. There is nothing cuter, nothing more rewarding, in this whole world than your baby's first smiles. The only times I've felt something even approaching this level of amazing were the day Jed proposed to me and the day he married me. Even finding out about a new baby and giving birth just doesn't hold the strength of emotion as when that baby smiles at you. It's like the baby is saying "I know I've put you through a lot, Mommy, but I love you! Thank you for my life!" You are SO welcome, Sam. SO welcome.

The Last 3 Weeks

Sam Hyrum Kelsey was born 29 June 2009, at 19:19pm, and he weighed 9lbs even. (Anyone who knows me knows this is my lucky baby...look at all those 9's! :D). Boy did he seem fat after all my preemies! Since he lost all that fluid his body was harboring, Sam's gotten a little skinnier looking and has some Sharpei-style wrinkles, but he's gaining weight and filling back out. This is a little picture journey of his first three weeks.

Week One:

For the first 11 days, Sam stayed in the hospital's Special Care Nursery to work out some immaturity problems (forgetting to breathe whilst sucking or sleeping) and to work off some jaundice. He also did fun things like a hearing test (the "I'm going to take over the world by mind control!" shot) and EKG's and echocaridograms. Sam spent his whole day with Mommy every day. Sometimes the big sibs or Grandma or Daddy were there too.




Week Two:

Week two was busy! We brought Sam home, so we got to try out his new car seat and my beautiful sling. A friend of Cassondra's makes them, and she made mine for me out of fabric with my artwork printed on it. :D (I'm wearing it wrong in the picture but we figured it out later. ;) ) Grandma Linda was the first to hold Sam at home, but Abby soon followed. Abby loves to read and sing to Sam, who seems to like it too! The boys love Sam but didn't want to hold him at first. We also got to see Ellen Baird and her beautiful Katherine; who at three months looks like she could eat Sam right up! Hopefully Sam will gain enough weight to get Katherine's beautiful baby rolls. Right now he's still skinny.



Week three:

Week three has brought lots of changes and excitement! Sam weighs well over 10 pounds now, and has taught himself to suck his thumb. He hasn't, however, figured out how not to poke his eyes or how not to insert his fingers into his nostrils. We're hoping he works out those kinks soon. (In the thumb picture, you can also see his crazy mohawk curl! :D) Aidan finally decided it would be okay to hold Sam. Abby still hogs him. And Sam went with Mommy and Daddy to (FINALLY!) pick out a mini-van! :D (We'll have a whole separate post for that.) Grandma Linda went home, sadly, but she left our house in great order and with all kinds of chores and instrument practice to keep the kids busy.

Bowling does not bring on labor.

Unfortunately. Still, we had a grand time at Aidan's bowling birthday party. The place was empty and so the guy running it let us have two lanes for the price of one, so the adults bowled without bumpers and the kids bowled with. :D It's a good thing the place was empty, too...there was no A/C and it got reaaaally warm in there.

Bowling in New England is definitely different than Western 10-pin. You still have ten pins...but they're little and skinny. You get a one-size-fits-all ball with no holes, it's like a shotput or lawn bowling ball. You also get three throws per frame. I don't know if we played all the rules right or just did our own thing but it was super fun!

Here's some pictures. :D

Happy kids:


The girls get strikes!



Sam comes along in his inconvenient carrying case:




Happy family:




Alas, as vigorously as I bowled, no labor symptoms. And that was after a full day at Wal-Mart, Home Depot, and Jed's eye doctor, hehe. Sam is just too happily swimming in there to come out. I keep telling him his fingers and toes will be all wrinkled, but he doesn't seem to care...

Weekend Fun

We had a fun weekend! We thought we wouldn't get to go out on any more dates, but because nothing was happening with Sam and Mom was here to be with the other kids, Jed and I went "out". So, yeah, it wasn't a movie or a dinner but I did get Chicken McNuggets and delicious Strawberry Shortcake Sundae out of the deal!

We had to drop Michael off at a birthday party, which happened to be held at a state park that has a dairy farm on the premises. So after he was settled Jed walked me up to the dairy's ice-cream shop and we shared a big, goopy strawberry sundae over delicious shortcake biscuits. The walk, although short, was quite eventful. First we found the world's smallest frog! :D He was smaller than my thumbnail. Jed caught it and gave it to me so he could get the camera:




We also found some lovely vines that intertwined to form a heart. We thought it was so neat that it would do that naturally! I must have taken 10 pictures from 10 angles but looks like the first one was the best. Then, while we're walking along, some huge bug (probably a dragonfly, but I never saw it properly) flew down my shirt! If you've never seen a woman that's 9 months pregnant screaming, squealing, laughing and flapping and jumping around, trying to get a large winged bug unstuck from her cleavage, you've missed out on pure comedy. Jed was practically crying from laughter. Anyway, fun times. Top that off with a trip to the grocery store and the used bookstore, and I thought we were going to need to head to Labor and Delivery Saturday night. But alas, no baby.

So we're still pregnant, which is a miracle for us, but has also become rather tedious. ;) I must have complained a lot though because my dear evil twin Farlander drew me this comic:


So we'll let Sam decide when he comes out. Up to a point anyway...if we go past our due date I'll be demanding Pitocin. ;) I was excited to go full term but there's no way I'm enduring overdue!

moan, whine, complain

Hi guys. Sorry about not updating...it's mostly because I have no new pictures and because I only have complaints. I should be really excited that we've made it this far into our pregnancy, because it's the farthest we've ever been, officially 37 weeks 1 day. And I do feel blessed that we kept Sam in so long and that I'm healthy. But 9 months pregnant doesn't feel healthy in any way, shape or form. I measured...I'm more than four feet around. Around, not tall. I can't turn over well in bed and I get charley horses in all my major muscles. I'm in constant pain and I waddle really bad. Sam doesn't like my practice contractions and instead of lying low for the duration like my other kids, he kicks at me, adding insult to injury.

Jed and the kids have been wonderful. They're helping with everything from buckling my shoes to bringing me water to doing my chores. I avoided bed-rest, which is wonderful because I still need to make meals, but I can't do much else or stand longer than 5 minutes so I feel useless. Jed took us out for our last Saturday as the family we've been for the past 6 years; from now on either Mom and/or Sam will be with us forever. We went to Johnny Rocket's and feasted on burgers and fries and chocolate milk. It made me kind of sad because we've reached a good time where everyone's pretty comfortable with our lives and routines and our place in the family, and now it all will change. I know that it will be wonderful in many ways but the list of cons is long as well (buckets of diapers, anyone?).

From what I've seen so far it will probably be hardest on Aidan; he's excited to be a big brother but his behaviors are regressing (toileting accidents and needing to be fed to finish a meal) and I don't know how to help him with this. We read the kids a book called "Babies Don't Eat Pizza" and they loved it; but then Abby picked out a book at the library called "No one asked me if I wanted to be a big sister". That made me sad cause I thought she was cool with it all. I guess only the next couple months will tell.

Maybe all these downerisms can be attributed to the weather; while I'm feeling blessed and grateful not to have Cassondra's oppressive Las Vegas heat, we've been sunless for two whole weeks. So me, the tomatoes, and the strawberries are all pale and drab in mood. I'm sure I'll feel better when Mom gets here Thursday and can help with the laundry. And maybe we'll have sun later this week.

And maybe I'll have the baby any minute now and it will be all better because I can hold him and cuddle him. :D That's all I really want.