Updates

I don't think anyone ever reads this blog, but I don't want to clean and if I am posting something I feel productive. I have some news: I am going to have a baby! The thing is, it's not mine. I am carrying this baby for my brother-in-law David (Ben's brother) and his wife, Katrina. They have been wanting children for the last 12 years, but are unable to have them. I am a good pregnant woman, so I said "I'll carry a baby for you", and they agreed. I am 15 weeks along and they are very excited. It's a good experience and I'm sure it will end up being one of the most rewarding things I ever do.

On a different note, our family is doing great. Mary just started 2nd grade, and is loving it. Sara is in kindergarten and is a great student. Baby Ben isn't much of a baby anymore, he is 18 months old and loves playing with the daycare kids all day long. Ben is still framing and the daycare is full and busy.

Summer came and went way too fast, other than a couple trips to Bear Lake and a camping trip with my family we didn't get away much. The girls played with their friends and Ben and I worked all summer. In a few more years I think we can afford a real vacation, something I am looking forward to.

Sorry I have no pictures this time, but I promise my kids are all super cute! Maybe I'll post again in 6 months or so.

NORWEX

Anyone need Norwex products? Call me, I am now a consultant. I never saw myself as a sales lady, but the opportunity presented itself and I took it. Norwex is an innovative way to clean your home. It's a way to improve your quality of life by reducing chemicals in your home, thus reducing chemicals in the environment. As an added bonus, it saves you time and money. I have been using Norwex products for the last 3 years and love them. I wanted to order more, but couldn't find anyone in the area that sold them. So, I decided to sign up as a consultant to get what I wanted at a discounted price. I received my starter pack for free and after reading through the information, I realized that I could easily make $600-$700 a month selling the product part-time. So, considering that Ben's job is very unstable lately, I figured I'd give it a try so when Ben is out of work we can still afford to pay the house payment. Check out my website at wendysnorwexonline.com and let me know what you think!

2010 Top 5

I have been terrible at posting lately, but I thought that I should at least list the top 10 things that highlighted our year. Then, I realized that our lives are so boring that I am lucky to find 5. Here goes (dotted with some random pictures of the kids):

NUMBER 5. "911, What is your emergency?" Our family has never had the need to call 911 until we had our baby boy. There have been 3 calls in the last 3 months. The first two don't really count, Baby Ben just has a knack for dialing 911 when he plays with our cell phones. So, we get calls back making sure everything is okay, but nothing too exciting. The third time was for real.

I was on my way home from a child-care training course one night when I got a text from my next-door neighbor that said, "Is everything OK at your house?"
I immediately called her to find out what was wrong with my house. She told me that there was ambulance and fire truck parked out front and emergency personnel going in. I told her that I wasn't there, but that Ben was home with the kids.

I then called Ben to find out that Baby Ben had been choking on something and couldn't breathe. Luckily, by the time 911 got there, he had swallowed whatever he had been choking on and everything was fine.

I hope this isn't a preview of raising a boy, I don't think I can handle too many 911 situations.

NUMBER 4. For over a year now, I have had my sister help me do daycare. I figured that I should increase my child-care licence to be able to have more children in my program to make more money since there are two caregivers. I did all the paperwork and had the inspections, but my home is only big enough to increase my license by one. So, I can now have 9 children instead of 8. Not really a big deal, but it does qualify me to get $1,000 in grant money in 2011 instead of the $600 I got in 2010.

NUMBER 3. Mary is now in first grade. She stays at school 6 hours a day. It seems weird to me that my baby girl is old enough to not need her mom all day long. She is a good student and I know she is fine, but I worry about her during the day. Sara is starting kindergarten next school year and then I'll have another kid worry about when they're not with me.

NUMBER 2. Considering the current condition of the nation's economy and all the financial turmoil going on, #2 is more about what didn't happen instead of what did. Due to some bad investment decisions and financial choices we made, I am glad our house didn't fall into foreclosure. Money had been tighter in 2010 than ever before in our family, but we still have a place to live. 2011 will be better, I can just feel it!

NUMBER 1. Of course, the #1, most exciting thing that happened in 2010 was the birth of our son. He is such a joy to have around and always has a smile for everyone. Not only was he born this year, but has also learned to sit-up, roll over, crawl, pull himself up and walk around furniture, eat solid food and get whatever he wants with one of his cheesy grins. We love his so much!

4 months old

We are loving having a baby in the house, and Ben is a really good baby. The girls love taking care of him. They can both change his diaper all by themselves and they like to do it.

It seems easier having a baby in the house this time around. When Mary was 4 months old, I was pregnant with Sara. When Sara was 4 months old, I was chasing around Mary who was 17 months old. I feel like I have more one-on-one quality time with Ben than I had with the girls.

I forgot how awesome it is to watch a baby grow and learn. It almost makes me want to have another one (almost, but not quite).

9 Weeks Old

Kindergarten Graduation

Mary graduated from kindergarten yesterday. Her class did a graduation and slide show in the classroom and then all the kindergarten classes did a progam in the gym. She is very excited to be moving on to first grade.

HE'S FINALLY HERE!!!

Here are some pictures of Ben. He is so cute.
The girls have been so excited to have their baby brother here. The first thing Mary wanted to do was change his diaper. I don't have any pictures of Sara holding him yet, but I'm sure I'll get some soon.
So far, he has been a pretty good baby. He is alert and wants to look at everything.

This is a picture of him a just a few hours after he was born. His hair looks really light in this picture, but it is actually dark.

The hospital experience was not bad at all. I would prefer to have babies at home, but it was way better than I expected. Here's the story of baby Ben's birth:

I had an appointment with my midwife on Thursday at 10:00am. She put me on some fetal monitoring device because I was 8 day past my due date. She just wanted to make sure everything was okay. She didn't like the results because baby Ben's heart rate wasn't going up as much as it should be. She consulted with a doctor and he suggested that I either be induced or that I do more monitoring and a ultrasound.

I didn't want to pay for more monitoring or an ultrasound, so we decided to just go ahead and have the baby. She sent me over to the hospital. I got there at about noon and they told me that they didn't have any room for me and told me to go home and wait for their call in a "few" hours. I waited and waited, finally at about 5:30 pm the midwife called and said that they still didn't have room and I needed to wait a "couple" more hours. I waited some more, then at 9:00 pm they called and said they would have room for me at 10:00 pm.

We got there at 10:00 pm, and got all settled in. I didn't want any kind of medication, so the midwife broke my water at 11:30 to see if that would be enough to start labor. It was enough and by 1:00 am I was in full blown labor.

I was doing awesome for a few hours and then by about 5:00 am I was so tired that I decided to have an epidural. They told me it would be 20 minutes until the guy could come to give me one. I said okay, but by the time he got there, I was ready to push. I pushed for 6 minutes and Ben was born at 5:47 am. He was my smallest baby at 8 lbs. 8 oz. and 18 in. long.

Everything went great. I didn't need stitches, which surprised me because I needed them with both the girls. I was happy that I didn't end up having any medication before or during the birth. I did let them put me on Pitocin after he was born because they said it would help with the bleeding and I have a history of heavy bleeding after birth.

I was hoping to spend the least amount of time possible at the hospital. My goal was to be there less than 12 hours. We ended up staying a total of 14 hours, so I almost met my goal.

The nurses were very nice and understanding and didn't make a fuss about me doing things different than most people. I requested to not have baby Ben get any of the shots that they give most babies, and they didn't make a big deal out of it. They told me that usually people stay for 24 hours after the baby is born, but when I told them I wanted to get the heck out of there, they did all they could to make it happen.

All in all, everything worked out the best it could. So far, I feel great. This has been the easiest recovery out of all my deliveries, but it is only the second day. Hopefully, it continues that way!