Desmond's Blessing

We had Desmond's blessing on March 15th. We were lucky enough to have Aunt Ang, Alice, Lesley, and Lindsey and their families and Nana and Papa and Grandpa and Grandma all in attendance. We had a great time and were so glad to everyone join us.

The winds of change...

As many of you know, we have been looking diligently for a house since we moved here to no avail. Before I go on let me say that we still haven't found one but things are looking up. One of the factors in our house buying has been that we wanted to stay in our ward. We have a very small ward and I figured that at some point they would change the bounderies because there are other wards in the Stake that are bursting at the seams. My worry in the back of my head was that we would go to all the trouble of staying in the ward only to have half our friends gone within the year because they moved the bounderies. Well last Sunday John came home from his meetings and said they were having a meeting at 3:30 to change the ward bounderies. I was school girl giddy. It was one of the last factors to fall into place for us to buy a house. I won't mention that John knew on Friday night and didn't tell me! Anyway, it turns out that we lost only a small portion of our ward and gained a whole lot more! So now our house buying options have opened up a little more and now I can buy a house without wondering about what the wards will look like in a year.

The reality is that I still probably won't find the house that I want but now we're reconsidering building because land prices have dropped. The prospect is very exciting and very scary at the same time. I love the idea of getting the house I want but then again what if I pictured it wrong and I end up hating it? Or what if we do build our dream house and then have to move for some reason (we're not planning on moving but you never know)? Anyway, it would also take a long time to build but at least there would be a light at the end of the tunnel.

I'm just glad that the stars finally seem to be aligning for us.

Pay it forward

Here's how it goes: the first three people to post a comment on this post will receive a handmade gift from me (Robin or John)! It could be something crafty, something crazy or if you live close enough to me, even something edible. What it will be and when it will arrive (sometime this year) is a total surprise. The catch is that you must participate as well. Before you leave your comment, type up a pay-it-forward post on your blog to keep the fun going. Then come back and let me know you are going to play. Then you can just sit back and wait for the arrival of your gift! (Please make sure I have a way to contact you, or you might be waiting a long time.)

How do I love thee...

This is a lot of pictures but I had to post these for posterity sake. This Valentine's Day Madison decided to hand make valentines for each of the kids in her class. What I loved the most was the personalized messages on each of them. She's at the perfect age where she's old enough to be able to write little notes but not too old to get embarrassed about what they say. If you click on the pictures you'll get a much bigger image and it will be alot easier to read them. I found it hilarious that about 75% of them mention hair. Maybe it's because her whole life people have commented about her hair.

Some pictures of Desmond & Collin

Here's a couple of pictures of Desmond.


This is Collin adapting to his new life. I was on the phone one day and holding Desmond so instead of waiting for me to lay down with him for his nap he crawled into Desmond's swing and went right to sleep.


I just thought this was really cute.

A whole new world

After a couple of months of many people telling me that Madison couldn't see anything, I finally took her in for an eye exam. Last year I took her for one and her vision was 20/60 which the Dr. thought didn't warrant glasses. I figured "how much could her vision have changed, really?" Well turns out it changed a whole lot. Her vision is now 20/200. Needless to say she got glasses this time. When we picked them up, the lady put them on and Madison said "mom, everything looks so different." Poor girl. But now she has them and she loves being able to see and frankly I think their adorable. Incidentally, they are basically a miniature version of my glasses.

One week ago today

So it's been one week since I went into labor. It all started around dinner time. About 5:00 Wednesday evening I noticed that I was having contractions pretty regularly. I'd been having maybe about 5 a day for the last month but these kept coming and were more like 5-6 and hour. They weren't painful but it made me think that I should probably do all the last minute things. As the night wore on it became apparent that I would end up in the hospital sometime that night. By about 10:00 the contractions were getting a lot more painful so I labored at home for a while and at 1:30 we dropped of the kids at Alice's and headed to the hospital. It was perfect I got all checked in, they handed me the gown, I got dressed in it - twice (I put it on backwards the first time) and then I went to sit on the bed and my water broke. At this point it was 3:00 and I was at a five. By 4:00 my epidural was under way and at 6:00 I was at an eight. Everyone figured I would have the baby around 8:00. But then everything halted. I stayed at an 8 for another 6 hours. They gave me pitossin to get my contractions to be harder in the hopes that it would help me progress. By noon I was fully dilated but Desmond was still quite high up. We tried pushing but it didn't do anything. My doctor checked me at some point and determined that his head was cocked to the side and it was preventing him from coming into position. We figured we could just keep going and hope that he moved into position. About 3:00 my Dr. came back and said that we would try pushing again and if that didn't work he would use the vacuum and then if that didn't work we would have to do a C-Section. At that point I didn't care what we did I was done. We got all geared up to push and after one push John, the nurse, and the Dr. all exclaimed wow, great, etc. After 2 pushes John said "the head is out!" Next push he was born. We were all shocked and I couldn't have been happier. What a great ending to the very long process. I've never had the pushing go so well and it's always my least favorite part. So although the whole process was very long and I had a little break down about half-way through I feel like I can't complain because the end went so quick. Little Desmond came out looking a little rough and had a side cone head but he was in great shape otherwise. Throughout the process he never showed any signs of distress and seemed to be just a happy little camper hanging out in there.

So far I've been taking it very easy and figure I'll just allow myself to heal before taking on life fully again. I sit around a lot and spend a lot of time feeding Desmond and holding him. My mom decided at the last minute to come into town to help out and it has been so wonderful. She takes care of the other kids and the house so that I can just rest. It's also nice to have company around so I don't start feeling too cabin feverish. We'll see how I do when she leaves but for now I'm just taking advantage of having her here.

Desmond is doing great. He's a great nurser and does great at sleeping off and on. Enough to feel like I get some occasional good sleep. He's not a cryer yet and he's a great snuggler. So far it has been a good week.

This is what Collin likes to do with the baby. Overall he is so good with him. He frequently comes up and just pats him softly on the head and talks to him.


P.S. Many people have asked where we got the name Desmond. Apparently there is a show called "lost" with a character on it named Desmond. We don't really know anything about that but we both really like the Beatles song "OB-LA-DI, OB-LA-DA". It talks about Desmond and Molly and we just fell in love with the name.

It could also be that we've watched every episode from a certain show and think there's a guy on there with a really great accent and fantastic hair and we just HAD to name our son after him. Or maybe we just liked his name.