::visits::

We were lucky enough to have Kris's parents here to visit for what was essentially a long weekend. They got here Saturday night and I took them to the airport on Wednesday morning. We had a great time. Kathy has been here before, but this was Ken's first time and we had fun showing him around.
Kris and Max took him up on a four wheeling drive in the Land Rover into the mountains where they saw wild turkeys and wore Ken right out. We took them to a delicious Mexican restaurant. We went to the Cowgirl grill where they got to enjoy the awesomeness of the ice cream baked potato. Kathy and I did a little shopping. Ken got to see the office and meet the people that we work with. We got to sing christmas carols--especially Max's current favorite "The 12 days of Christmas" over and over...

I think Kathy's favorite part was Sandy though. She said this was the oldest any of her grandbabies had ever been before she got to hold him. She made up for it though while she was here. The boy was always happily snuggled up in her arms.

I love this picture. Sandy was in heaven.


He has his eyes open so much more lately. It's very fun.

The bummer was that poor Ken had a work emergency come up just before they came out, and so he was stuck at his little makeshift workstation in our living room for a lot of time. But what would a visit from Ken be without a work emergency, really?

At least we have a bunch of computer stuff, so we could make sure he could get stuff done.

But he took a break long enough to play guitars with Max. Max is doing really well with his lessons, and so was able to play with Ken quite well. It was really fun to hear them play and sing together.



Max is lucky to have such a rich heritage of guitar playing and appreciation from both his Grandpas. We expect great things from him as far as guitars are concerned! At least we want him to be able to serenade girls in college...

Even Sandy got a little Grandpa time. Ken was holding him for me while I did something, and when I came back into the room this is what I saw:


It cracked me up. Lucky Grandpa--not everybody gets those special Sandy kisses.

We're so glad they came, and we'll have lots more to show and do next time they make it out here.
And if you want to see some more fun pictures, see Ken's post here.

::the tree::

We love our fabulous tree from the forest. It's huge.
Luckily we have a large front room with a high ceiling, otherwise there's no way it would've fit and we would have all cried.
But happily it fits, though we did have to trim the back branches a touch and take part of the very top off. I think it's about 10 feet tall now, and the bottom branches probably stretch about six feet. It's definitely the biggest tree we've ever had.
You know what's weird about it though? Unless your nose is basically stuck inside the branches, it just doesn't smell that piney. I've hardly smelled it in the house at all. But oh well, that's what Christmassy smelling candles are for, right?

Last sunday I put the lights on, once Kris's mom was in town to visit and could hold the baby. The poor tree had sat bare in the living room for four or five days, just begging for lights. But I could only do so much. It was great to have two free hands for a bit, though the hands missed the snuggly baby.
Here the tree is, all lit up.

I wish I could give you an idea of the scale, but you'll just have to imagine it. Well maybe this will help. Kris had to do the top lights for me, and he had to get a ladder to do it!

And of course he had to reenact putting the star on top so we could document it for posterity.

He's pretty cute!

So sunday afternoon we got out the ornaments and decorated the tree. First thing Max did was get out a glass ball and hang it on the tree. It directly slipped right off and shattered on the bricks. I decided at that point we'd go 95% non-breakable as far as ornaments. So we're missing some of our favorites this year, but that's ok. It gives some of the others a chance to shine.

Max likes to hang things in big clumps. I'd give him a few to hang, then look up and see them all bunched up on one branch. So after he hung stuff I had to go back through and redistribute. But he was very insistent that the Mama Fish ornament hang as close as possible to the trombone ornament, so she could play it whenever she wanted.

And the best part? Now we get to hang out by the light of the tree whenever we want. I love Christmas trees, especially busy ones with colored lights like ours. They're just so fun to look at, there's always something new to see. Sandy loves to stare at it too.

When he's not sleeping that is.

::week 3::

This is late, and it's the last week I've had a picture every day. Some things just aren't 100% practical, right? But he's so cute honestly it's hard NOT to take pictures of him all the time.
Anyway, so here's his week three.

Day 15:

Does it get any cuter than this? We were on our way to watch the BYU vs UT game with friends. Sandy is wearing Max's old football jersey.

Day 16:

Taking a sunday afternoon snooze with Daddy. I love sleeping babies. And sleeping 6 year olds too really.

Day 17:

You've seen this one before--Sandy waiting while we picked and cut down the christmas tree. He was super patient and slept the whole time. What a man.

Day 18:

Stripey velour suit day. He looks so cute in it. And he's awake, wow!

Day 19:

Propped up in the corner of the couch wearing one of Max's old outfits. I could eat him up.

Day 20:

Me, trying to actually get something done while the boys were in Phoenix. Can you see the dirty dishes in the sink behind me? I didn't get them washed. But Sandy does love the carrier. It's just hard to do anything that's right in front of you when he's in there. But it's nice he enjoys it. He falls right to sleep usually.

Day 21:

A phone picture we took to send to Dad and Max so that they could see how cute his outfit is and how cute HE is.

And that's week three. I can't believe how fast the weeks are flying and how big he's already getting. Slow down baby!

::out with the boys::

Kris had a conference in Phoenix over the weekend, and like the awesome husband that he is, he thought it might be easier for me if Max went with him. It was true, and Max was SO excited to get to go with dad.
I think they generally had a great time. These are some of the pictures that were emailed to me over friday and saturday.
A huge hotel breakfast--I can't believe he ate all that!

Max's little workstation for during class time. Lots of fun entertainment.

Producing cool stuff like this:

Love it!!

Testing the temp of the pool water with a changing color car. Max swam, Kris was too wimpy for the colder temps.

Max getting to be the dummy for demonstrations of headgear. This one cracked me up! We had to make sure he earned his plane ticket somehow!


I'm glad they had such a good time together, and it did make things tons easier for me--love you Kris!!

::the tree::

On monday morning we set out to find a christmas tree. We were all prepared for the adventure with cold weather gear and snacks. We headed south to the confusing areas on the little map where tree cutting was allowed.
It was a cold cold day.
We were excited and I was a little nervous, hoping we didn't get stuck or something up in the mountains with a brand new little baby and another sweet boy that whom I don't want freezing.

The dudes in the back:


We drove and drove and finally reached one of the forest service roads. We headed up the crazy bumpy road and I sat in the back and held little Sandy's head so I wouldn't have to worry that it would bounce off.

We kept seeing nice trees, but then we would realize that they were HUGE. Like really really big. Our sense of scale was all off in the mountains. We looked and looked and then finally saw a couple of good candidates halfway down a pretty steep gorge. We stopped and Kris went down there to check them out.

We were only supposed to get a tree that was 10 feet or under. We had to eyeball it because even though we remembered everything else, we didn't remember a tape measure.

Baby slept and slept through the whole adventure, thank goodness, because it was awfully cold out there. He was tucked in all warm and cozy and enjoying the extreme vibrations of the land rover.


Here is our tree. We also liked the one to the right.

It looked so small to us after all the others we'd seen on our way.

The scenery:


The crazy boys:


The slightly nervous mom and slightly obedient boy:

Why I'm letting him hold the saw here I'll never know.

Kris had to have Max's help cutting the tree down--they'd been talking about it for quite a while. So Kris rigged up a rather ingenious solution to the problem of the extremely steep bank.

Max looks like he's on his way down from Everest or something.

There they go--Sultan was freaking out. See him there in the picture zooming under the tow rope? He wanted to go down to the tree so bad, but was smart enough to realize it was just too steep for him.
But he was still sad about it.


They cut it down. "TIMBER!!!!" said Max. Then they had to get themselves and the tree back up to the car.
No small task, but Kris can do anything.


Luckily the tree isn't really too heavy. The trunk isn't super thick.

Then they had to figure out what to do next with the dang thing.

And up it went. It was snowing by this time and I wish you could feel the cold air. My hands were freezing!


Taa Daa!!
Then we drove him in a big snowstorm by way of Dairy Queen. Yes, there is a Dairy Queen in the middle of nowhere quite a way south of our house. It's pretty funny.
Sandy stayed asleep until we got home, such a blessing.
Then we got the tree in the house and realized it was HUGE! Definitely at least the 10 feet and probably more like 11. When Kris stuck it in a bucket to wait for our stand it brushed the ceiling, and our ceilings are really high in this house. I couldn't believe how big it was! So funny that our sense of scale was so off.
If only I had a picture of it to show you. Soon enough. It's sitting here waiting for me to put lights on it. Who knows how long it'll take me, especially since I'm going to need a ladder for the top part! But pictures will come.
And that's the story. Pretty epic.

::::

We went out adventuring yesterday and got ourselves a wild christmas tree from the mountains. We're pretty proud of ourselves.
More photos and story to follow--tomorrow hopefully.
I wish my mom was still here to do the dishes for me, that was way too nice. I'm totally behind now that she's gone!

::sandy's story::

*****Warning--birth story to follow. If you're squeamish you might not want to continue, though I'm not going to give _too_ many details. If you're just dang bored with all those birthing stories floating around the web these days you may want to skip the following. It's long and not too action packed. But there are those that I think are interested and I'm writing this down so I don't forget someday!
I'll start out by giving you a short summed up version:
I almost waited too long.

And here goes:
Sandy was due to come on the 11th, a thursday. The 11th came and went and no baby. I had actually been hoping the baby would come a week or so early so that we could easier make the trip to Utah for thanksgiving. But no, he has a mind of his own.
And besides the fact that Lechelle (our sis-in-law) came out to help that week in case we needed her, it was ok that he didn't come on the 11th. It was a super busy workday for Kris, and friday was also.
So friday night we went out to dinner with some friends and played games at their house while Lechelle took care of Max for us (it was so nice!)
Then saturday morning came, and I work up feeling some contractions. No more though than I'd been feeling for about the last 3 weeks.
But they kept coming every once in a while. And they kept getting more intense. I started timing them at one point when Kris took Max to karate, but as soon as I would start timing them they'd basically stop completely. So it would be like one an hour or something.
But they did keep getting more painful.

The fact that I couldn't eat much along with the stronger contractions did make me think something was probably going to happen relatively soon, but I thought maybe in the middle of the night. So we let our friend who was going to watch Max for us know there was a good chance she'd be seeing him.

Then our realtor came over, we had seen a house we liked in the neighborhood and wanted to work up a nice low offer on it to see if the seller would bite. We spent about an hour or so working on that, and I only had one contraction the whole time. But after she left it started getting even a little more intense. The boys went on a bike ride and I watched football for a while. Then when they were back I went and lay down and tried to time the contractions again. They really hurt by then. They were about 10 min apart at the closest, so I just kept thinking that we weren't close enough. The last thing I wanted to do was go to the hospital and get sent back like happened with Max. That is just a drag.

--Quick aside--I had thought I probably wanted to do a natural birth this time. There are just so many benefits to it, and since women have been doing it for thousands of years it seemed doable. But I figured that if I got to the hospital when most of the early labor was done it would maximize my chances of actually going through with it and not asking for medication--

So I got out of bed at some point and I told Kris there was a chance we should go to the hospital soon. He went to feed Max some dinner and left me to make sure my hospital bag was complete. But I couldn't do much. Suddenly it seemed like the contractions were coming and coming and not stopping. Like maybe they were a few minutes apart, but so long and strong that there was no break in between really. And it was not fun. I called to Kris and told him we needed to GO. And we went. We called my friend who was watching Max and she was able to meet us at the hospital and take Max in the parking lot. That was nice because by that time I was basically in tears, things hurt so bad!

It was 6PM when we got to the hospital. I couldn't walk and had to be pushed in a wheel chair which was a little embarrassing, but that's how it was at that point. They started to try to check me in. Then one of the nurses noticed my face at one point and asked if I was "feeling pressure." I said YES! And then they rushed me up to the OB triage without checking in. (I think I heard somebody yelling at them about this at some point, but oh well.)
Somebody checked me in somehow and I'm not sure how it happened. This is how my bracelet ended up looking:

They might have asked me how to spell my name at some point and that's what I could've said, I was in pretty sad shape and people kept asking me questions I didn't have the breath to answer.

They checked me and said I was at a 6. Then my water broke. Then they left and didn't come back. Forever. It felt like ages, and things just kept getting more and more intense and painful. I was dying for some meds I tell you. Then suddenly I felt that pushing sensation. And having done this once before I recognized it. And I yelled. I yelled about needing to push and finally a nurse came in to check me, soooo slow and realized I was at a 10! So they finally moved me to an actual room and the on call doctor showed up.

Because good old Sandy was so big I think it took more pushing than everybody expected since they kept telling me "This is the push!" and " Just one more push!!" and it was all a load of bunk. It was LOTS of pushes. Crazy lots of pushes.
And as you've probably guessed, it was way way too late for an epidural, so I got what I was shooting for. I forced myself to go natural. And I lived.

Sandy was finally finally born at 7:30PM. It was a crazy short time from when we entered the hospital to that point, but it honestly felt like forever to me.
The great thing was, Max was able to come and see him that night instead of waiting until the next day. Max was probably there by 8 or 8:30 holding him and being involved. It was very sweet. Max had told Kris on the way to the hospital "Tomorrow is going to be the greatest day of my life!" I thought that was so cute.

I think I fared way better with this delivery than with Max's. I think the epidural really slowed things down with Max and made it into more of an all day ordeal. I'm glad I had it though because I think that first babies are the toughest, and it would've been really painful and traumatizing without it.
But when you look at pictures of me after Max was born vs. pictures after Sandy, I look so much better in the Sandy ones. More alive, way less beat. It really doesn't make any sense. I was going to post a photo from Max's birth just for comparison, but they were all so bad I couldn't bring myself to do it. So you'll just have to make do with the ones from Sandy and imagine how awful the others are.


All in all it was a crazy insane quick experience, and I was so glad to have it over with. And so glad that Sandy was finally here and we knew if he was a boy or a girl! That was worth all the waiting.
So there you go, longest birth story ever. And the moral? Just don't wait any longer than I did unless you want to have a 9lb 3 oz 21 inch baby in the car in front of your six year old. Yikes.

::week 2::

Thought I'd follow up week one with pictures from Sandy's 2nd week here with us.
A couple of days are just phone pictures and a touch cruddy, and I've been struggling with the light in the house. It gets dark so early these days and the afternoon sun is very harsh. But I think the photos are fun anyway.

Day 8:

My aunt and uncle were on their way back home to TX when they had some car trouble. They had a forced layover at our house and we really enjoyed our time with them, watching football and playing with little squishy babies. In this picture we were out watching the sunset, which of course was gorgeous.

Day 9:

Daddy and son loooooong afternoon nap on the couch. Perfect sunday afternoon activity.

Day 10:

Boys in front of the fireplace. Kris loves lighting fires in there with the good smelling pinon wood.

Day 11:

I love this little elephant suit. He's already too big for it though. Baby on the table in the late afternoon light.

Day 12:

A couple of phone pictures. This was his first "bath". Mostly just a hair washing. He really enjoyed the hair washing part, not so much any of the rest of it.

Day 13:

This is a terrible phone picture, but it's supposed to show how dang long this baby is when he finally stretches his legs out instead of staying all crunched up like a little frog.

Day 14:

Saved the best for last. Does it get any cuter than these two brothers?

That's week two for you. It sure goes fast.

::tender mercies::

We have had such an outpouring of support and love from friends in the community and in the ward since the baby was born. It's made life for me a lot easier. Relief society sisters have been bringing dinners to us, two of our patients families have brought us dinner, we've had calls and visits and offers of help. We were invited to Thanksgiving dinner and told we weren't to bring more than one item. It's been really amazing and taken a lot of pressure and stress off both Kris and I. We've had good food to eat (more than enough good food) every night and haven't had to think about it.

But the other day something happened that was kind of amazing to me.
One of my most favorite foods at Thanksgvingtime is pecan pie. I just love it. It's delicious and so bad for you and reminds me of home. I'm the only one in the family that really likes it. Max won't even try it (crazy kid) and Kris prefers pumpkin pie if he were given a choice.
So I wanted to make one for us this year even though we weren't having Thanksgiving dinner at home. I needed to make that, and a sweet potato casserole to take to dinner and something else I can't remember now. I sent Kris to the store for the ingredients and he wasn't able to get one of the things that I needed. Then he started getting worried about me and told me I was doing too much anyway. This was probably true. I keep thinking I'm fine and I do a bunch of stuff and then I wear myself totally out.

After Kris got back from the store I got a phone call from a number I didn't recognize. Turns out it was our neighbor across the street. I've never actually met her in person, though Kris and Max have a few times. She was calling because she wanted to make us a pie. She wanted to check and see if pecan was ok?

Uh, yeah! I told her pecan pie was my favorite thing in the world and we'd love one.

Wow, does that seem like a bizarre coincidence or what? So because of the kindness of a sweet neighbor who wanted to take care of us, I've been able to eat delicious homemade pecan pie without having to make it myself.
Is pecan pie really a blessing? Not to my hips probably, but to my soul? Yes.
It really did feel like a tender mercy. And it feels like the windows of heaven have been wide open with everyone's sweet generosity and there really isn't room enough to receive it all. Thanks to everyone and to our heavenly father that has blessed us with such good friends and such a great place for our little family to be.