Griffin

Just a fun post on Griffin. He may have been going through a growth spurt because he was falling asleep at the oddest times and places, other than his bed, which was really the own place we usually could get him to take a nap.

 

After church, one of his nursery teachers caught me in the hallway and said that he had fallen asleep in class and was still asleep. This is what I came into the classroom to find :) 

These next three were at home. I had been trying to sleep train Creed so I was constantly in his room. I'd given Griff my phone to keep him busy and would always come out to find him like this!

And Griffin has finally been potty trained going #2! Thank goodness. He really wanted a big firetruck and I happened to find this one in an Easter clearance basket so voila!

Family in Town

Griffin turned THREE! It's crazy how time has flown...he was just my baby...it feels so weird to have a newborn now, feels so new to me since Griff is "so grown up". He's got so much spunk, is such a great helper, loves doing what Kort is doing (good or bad :/) He weighs 33 pounds. He knows his ABC's, loves singing songs anywhere he goes (his favorite is Feliz Navidad (don't know why!), can count to 20, and can carry on conversations with us!

We had family come into town for Creed's baby blessing. My sister was finally able to be there! With our last two kids, I was always having the baby a couple months before hers was due, so she was too far along to come, and then I'd be too recent of having the baby to go see hers, so we'd never be able to go to each other's baby blessings :)

Brandon, Barb, and Leland were able to join us as well! We missed Quinn, Kaitlyn, Bailey, and Mia who had recently moved to Massachusetts so they were unable to come as well as Tyler, Caeli, Oakley, and Beau, also in Massachusetts, and Justin and Sara back in Idaho. Thankful my parents could come, as well as Clay's, who unfortunately weren't able to be at the actual blessing. The day before, Saturday, everyone was helping put rock in our front driveway area for landscaping. Clay's dad was kind of having problems and so early afternoon he came in and felt pain in his arm/heart. We weren't sure what was happening as he still felt ok, but decided it was best to take him to the ER. They ran scans (CT, ECG?) a few times and nothing showed up. Well on the last one, it showed that he was having a heart attack pretty much right then. They got him prepped for surgery as one of his arteries was 99% blocked. He got a stent put in and to make a long story short, was in the hospital until Tuesday/Wednesday, hence why they weren't at the blessing. However, it was truly a blessing that he was here at our house, around family and not out working by himself or on some job run for work back in Idaho where he wouldn't be able to help himself. He got the great care that he did. They were supposed to fly back home Wednesday but the doctor said he couldn't fly for about 10 days, so they had to change flights, car rental stuff, and get all their medications switched and filled here. The boys loved having extra time with Cita and Grandpa. 

We took family for a ride around and did a quick stop at the end of the day (Monday) at Turner Falls. 

We headed to Blue River in Tishomingo and stopped at Miranda Lambert's store, Pink Pistol, and did some souvenir shopping. 

We also did some Easter egg hunts!       

It was a crazy household as everyone was staying at our place, but it was fun to have people here since we live so far away from everyone and hard to get back to Idaho with the kids and work and time and money. ha ha 

RSV

At 3 weeks, Creed started to not feel very well, seemed like to be getting sick as the other boys were probably passing a cold on to him. I took him in to be checked and they tested for RSV, but luckily he wasn't that bad and didn't have it so they said just use a humidifier and suction his nose. Well, a week and a half later he wasn't getting better so I took him in again and they tested again and did an x-ray and sure enough he had RSV. That day was miserable. I had dropped Kort off at school and tried to hurry and make an appointment first thing that morning so I could just head over to the doctor's office from the school. I got an 8:50 appointment and Creed hadn't eaten for over 6 hours so I thought I'd just feed him in the parking lot. He never ate (mind you, this is one of the reasons I was taking him in because he just wasn't eating hardly anything). After being there for 2 hours, I tried nursing again and he never really ate. Left to go to Walmart to pick up the prescription for the nebulizer. That was a total joke. I don't know why I still go there. They can never get our insurance right there. How hard is it to get a new baby onto the SAME insurance that the rest of our family is on? In the meantime, Griffin is freaking out, tearing into bags of candy that we had thankfully already bought, wanting to be held, screaming, yadda yadda yadda. At this point I really didn't care that people were staring. A couple ladies did offer to help though and Creed was thankfully still sleeping in the carseat. Finally the Pharmacist asked for the insurance card and asked if anyone else in the family had the same insurance...uh, DUH! He had it fixed within minutes. I had already gotten to the point of just paying the price of the medicine without insurance just so I could get out of there. Then we headed to another pharmacy to get the nebulizer. That took another half hour, it's already after noon, and Griffin finally started to calm down. The rest of the day was just as crazy. Anyway, enough of that venting. 

The next day, Tuesday, Clay was heading to the airport to fly to Boston for work. He was almost there when I called him after having a meltdown because Creed wasn't eating and had major spitup/vomit. There was no way I could handle the week without him with a newborn having RSV that I'd never dealt with and I had no idea if he would have to be hospitalized or not. He just simply said he'd turn around and that was that. His boss was so kind about everything and even told him to stay home if he needed to. 

Creed was wheezing a little, but more than the day before and just sounded really congested. The rest of the week we had the humidifier and diffuser constantly running, giving him the nebulizer treatment as often as we could, suctioning his nose (the nose frida is awesome!), and just trying to get him to eat as much as possible. It's now a week later and he has improved, been eating much better, not wheezy, sleeping more soundly, had a nasty cough for a few days but that has been getting better. He's been "vomiting" every other day, which the doc said was because of the RSV, so hopefully that will go away. I'm just glad Clay stayed home :/ He's leaving for Kansas for 3 days tomorrow for work and then has to go back to Boston the next week so here's hoping Creed is on the mend!

This is how he got to spend his 1 month mark :(

3rd Musketeer

Why, hello there! It's been quite some time since I've been on here. So a lot has happened. Pretty much a year has passed. We bought a house, got pregnant, and have now had the baby, hence the 3rd musketeer...another boy! We found out we were pregnant the end of May (2015). I got called into Young Women's and went to Girls' Camp in June. It was during that week that all the nausea hit and I couldn't eat all the yummy camp food! I usually have been back to "normal" around 18 weeks, but for some reason it went on until about 21 weeks. Clay and I both thought we were having a girl this time. The hospital here/my doctor's office seemed to do things differently with tests, etc. and for some reason they did the testing for chromosomal abnormalities, down syndrome, etc. and never really told me they were doing it. Out of no where I get this huge bill from just taking my blood for the testing. Long story short, after I had been mad for a while and some phone calls, I logged into my account only to see it was paid/wiped off. Such a huge relief! So because of this testing, the doctor already knew the gender even before the ultrasound. I just had her tell me right there at my appointment. She said it had a Y chromosome (I hope I'm remembering correctly!)...trying to remember my science from high school...she just said it was a boy. A part of me just sank and felt bummed. Really thought it was a girl. Fast forward to now, so glad it's a boy :) I don't think I could handle a girl with so much emotion and high maintenance. 

Last family picture of the 4 of us, the night before we went to the hospital. 

So here's the baby story.

Due date was January 25th according to my last menstrual period. Other due date was February 3rd according to my ultrasound, but my doc decided to keep it with the 25th. Doctor can induce up to a week earlier and they seem to like to do that here. Clay and I talked it over - if I had "two" due dates and if the February one ended up being more accurate, I didn't want to be induced super early, so we chose for a few days before the 25th. Clay's mom was coming to help and so she flew in Wednesday night, had Thursday to get some routines down (dropping Kort off at school, picking him up), and relax before Friday, the 22nd - due date. 

We had to be to the hospital at 5:00 a.m.! It took a while to get everything situated, IV put in (I probably hate this the worst!) and all the paperwork. I had eaten breakfast, but while she was putting the IV in, I was just getting lightheaded and really hot. I wanted water so bad! Since I couldn't, she gave me ice chips! Thank you! The first nurse, Tracie, had "started" me on Pitocin at 6:30. I was 4.5 cm dilated, 80% effaced. It was the end of Tracie's shift and the new nurse, I believe Sharon, came in to check on me. I told her I wasn't even feeling the Pitocin (at a 2) so if she could up it or whatever. She looked at it and said "it would help if it was on!" This was a hour later. I got the epidural at 8:00. Didn't hurt too bad, just a lot of pressure on my back. They said it was a different type of medicine which only made me numb around my core, and I could still feel my legs mostly. It was kind of weird. My doctor (Summer Kirby) came in at 8:30 to break my water. I thought my pitocin would have been kicked in and once I got my water broken, things would have gone fast like they did with Griffin (um, 15 minutes after my water broke I had him). But since the pitocin hadn't been started at the time it was supposed to be, I hadn't really made any progress. They upped the pitocin to a 4 and I tried to take a nap for a hour. I started feeling contractions and thought, hey, I have an epidural, there's no reason why I should be feeling this pain, so I called in the nurse to up the epidural. She showed me a button I could press to make more come out but would stop when I had enough. It still didn't seem to be helping quick enough and the contractions were becoming more painful. She had the anesthesiologist come back into give me some more (it had been about 2 hours since I had gotten started on it and it was probably wearing off). Yeah, still wasn't working quick enough. The nurse told me when I started to feel pressure in my pelvis to let her know, which it was so I told her. Also, my back was absolutely killing me! Apparently this is what it felt like to have back labor! The baby's spine was rubbing up against mine and I felt like I had to give a push. I think the nurse was somewhat freaking out because she had already told my doctor to get over there now! I gave a push with her help and she helped turn the baby and I felt instant relief as the baby had changed positions and no more back pain! The doctor still wasn't there and the nurses were trying to hurry and get things into place. I had to start pushing. The nurse helped me through a couple contractions and just then the doctor ran in, got dressed and I started really pushing. The dang epidural was NOT working and the contractions were just killing me. I was squeezing Clay's hand so hard, and not wanting to be the screaming lady in the hospital, I was grunting loudly. ha ha While pushing, I was definitely feeling the "ring of fire", which I had never hoped to know what that was. Oh.My.Gosh. It felt like he was taking forever to get out with that big head :) Finally, whoosh! I had never felt so exhausted in my life! The baby was placed on me, doc was rolling up the cord, Clay cut it, and just as I was about to push out the placenta, she basically had it already pulled out. I had ripped, so as she was stitching me, I still felt those twinges with the needle because the epidural had pretty much worn off. 

To my surprise, the baby had somewhat already latched on to start nursing! He probably did for 20-30 minutes each side/ish. We moved to our room a couple hours later. We had been trying to agree on a name for this boy. When we got to the hospital in the morning, Clay was set on Carter. I had seen the name Creed on a blog's instagram page earlier that week and had been thinking about that one. We had also been thinking of Conrad through the whole pregnancy. Well, once the baby was born and we had been around him enough, Clay decided he was a Creed :)

Creed Robert Fenton

Born 1.22.16 at 10:41 a.m.

9.2 pounds, 21 1/2 inches

 Carol brought the boys by after picking Kort up from school. They were so excited to meet baby brother! 

Dinner time rolled around, Clay went home with them to help with bedtime and came back around 9:30. I tried sleeping as much as I could. I never woke up the baby as he just woke up when he wanted to eat, which was probably around 4 hours? It was around 5:00 that Tracie showed up, was going to take Creed to do checkups and she was not quiet about everything. I was SO tired! Our nurse for the rest of the time was basically Natasha. She was wonderful! We talked about the OKC Thunder team, and other stuff. Before she left, we asked if she could get us one more box of formula and a nipple shield for me to help with nursing. Britnee was the nurse before we left the hospital. I had never wanted to leave to go home so fast so I was already trying to pack up and get dressed in normal clothes before we got the discharge ok. We asked Britnee for a little bit more formula. She said the Enfamil kind we had was basically promotions for them and had Good Start for the WIC patients and in order to continue getting the Good Start, they needed to get rid of the Enfamil, so she gave us the rest they had, which was 6 boxes! It was so nice. We got to leave around 2:00, headed to walmart to get prescriptions and some lunch from A&W and go HOME! 

This was one week old!

It has now been 2 weeks since we brought Creed home. I had done good for a couple days emotionally, but once Clay had to go back to work, I'd have a breakdown for a minute before he left for work. Carol was so good about getting the boys up in the morning, getting them breakfast, making Kort's lunch, and taking him to school. She'd play with Griff during the day so I could catch up on some rest. I never really seemed to be able to fall asleep, but it was nice to just relax and close my eyes and lay on the couch. Carol would pick Kort up from school, take the boys to play outside and make dinner. When Clay got home from work, it was all such a sigh of relief and I felt comfortable and less anxious. Creed would actually nurse somewhat well with the shield, but we also used the formula to supplement until my milk started coming in, which probably was about a week later. I really tried to wean him off the shield and latch on, which now 2 weeks later, we definitely have nursing down! He can be somewhat of a slow eater, but takes about 15 minutes on each side. I still get some moments of anxiety because I'm afraid he's going to wake up too early from a nap, or won't fall asleep once I put him down. Thankfully he's done pretty good at night and I can fall back asleep pretty quickly, unless it's an early morning feeding, which then I'm pretty much just laying in my bed for a hour or more. He's feeding basically twice during the night. He's had some nights where he slept for 4 hours, others have been 2 :S ugh. I get probably and average of 6 hours of sleep, depending on if I go to sleep as soon as he does, or get some before he wakes up, after the boys go to sleep. His naps during the day are pretty much 3 hours. I really haven't been having him do awake time, just making sure to be awake in the light, and dim lights at night. I can kind of tell when he hasn't gotten enough to eat when I put him to bed if I'm holding him, swaddled, and trying to burp him and he just bobs his head. So we top him off with formula or I try and nurse a little longer. If he's quiet for a little bit after we put him down, but then starts making noises, he will most likely fall asleep on his own. If he's not quiet once he's been put down, he either has a burp or needs more. 

I'm always trying to hurry this newborn phase up so I can get through these baby blue times and have this forever of a period get over with. It's been a little easier this time around to feel in love with this baby since my hormones aren't AS wacked out as they were with Kort. I like to read their birth stories and how I coped with things, etc. on here so I'm trying to write as much as I can on here. I'm still in the frame of mind though that I hate change. It's been a little harder this time because Griffin is basically 3 years older and it's felt like it's been super long since having a baby and starting from scratch. We were just getting comfortable with the boys and being able to start actually doing fun things with them and now we're back stuck in the house with a newborn, at least for a while. I'm just trying to be optimistic that I know things will get better, we'll get in a better routine and I'll be able to start living my life again - going to the gym to workout, etc. Carol stayed for a week and a half and Clay is basically taking about 2 weeks off, so I'm super glad that he is to still help me get back into somewhat of a routine. I think the thing I'm most worried about is probably having to wake up Creed to take Kort to school and same as picking him up from school. It may not sound like a big deal, but I hate waking a sleeping baby when they're doing good in their bed. But I think Creed will gradually get a good bedtime and wake up hopefully right before 8 when we have to take Kort. I can slowly get him into our routine. Just trying to take it day by day, week by week. Anyway, that's all for now. We'll see when I blog again :)

Summer Recap of 2014

Wow! It has been months since I last blogged, but I have a good excuse for at least some of those months. Not to get into too much detail, here's a quick overview of what we've all been up to since Springtime.

* From the middle of April to the middle of July, I was taking 6 online credits from BYU-Idaho to renew my teaching certificate. I realized that since they are good for 5 years, it had indeed been 5 years and was expiring this September. I kicked things into gear so fast, got interviews done in the nick of time, and got registered. I would have my classes done before it expired and would be good. Flash forward to the end of August/beginning of September . . . I completely forgot to send in my renewal papers!!! I was beyond freaking out. After a couple phone calls made, LUCKILY, they have a month grace period, but leave it to me to procrastinate, again. I did get it sent off though before the end of the grace period, so now I'm just waiting for my certificate. Let's just say it's been a stressful 6 months. During classes, I was trying to fit in studying and papers to write during naps and bedtimes. Clay never saw much of me :( He's wanting to get his MBA here soon so he just says that's what's to come for him in the near future. Just glad it's done and over with. At least for the next 5 years.

*I surprised Clay for Father's Day with an introductory flight at the airport in Enid. He got instructed on the basics and was in the pilot's seat before you knew it. He was able to take off by himself, fly, and get some help with landing with the instructor next to him. I was in the back seat feeling sick the whole time. Clay's always thought it would be awesome to get his pilot's license, but after doing this and knowing how much time and effort (and $$$) into it, that was just enough for him :)

*It was actually right before the flight that we went to this indoor shooting range, owned by a guy in our ward. It was very helpful as it was live ammo and real life scenarios that would be projected onto the wall. You would literally be yelling at the robbers, etc. and the person in charge running the system could trigger what would happen based on my reactions. It really put things into perspective. 

*Kort has been doing so good and memorizing the Articles of Faith. He had passed off the first four here and got candy for each one. He has since gotten up to the 9th, which I have been lazy on helping him, otherwise he might have passed them all off by now! He's such a smart little guy and loves singing  along with them in the car. 

*We have moved once again! Hopefully this will be final. We are now in southern Oklahoma (Ardmore) where Clay is the Operations Supervisor for the wind farm here. We had movers come and pack everything and had hired cleaners, but after all was said and done, I would have just cleaned the house myself than have them come back because they didn't do the job right the first time. 

*Clay drove down with the movers while I stayed behind with the cleaners. Clay got the truck unpacked in one day and headed back to Enid. We were going to Idaho for a couple weeks between jobs and decided to drive, so once Clay got back, we just left and chose to drive through the night hoping it would be better with the boys sleeping. 

*AND never do I want to do that again (although we obviously had to drive BACK to Oklahoma). I realized I'm horrible at driving long distances at night, the boys didn't sleep well at all, woke up as soon as the sun peaked and well, the rest is history. 

*We came to Idaho for Bailey's blessing (Quinn and Kaitlyn's) and met up for dinner by the Falls with Justin and Sara. We drove the bike down which was awesome, but by the time we headed back home, it was pretty chilly.

*We met up with Mom, Dad, Brittney and Louis, and Gillian at the Idaho Falls Zoo. It was a fun time just being together since I hadn't seen Louis yet, it was the 2nd time ever seeing Brittney, and been forever since seeing Gillian! The boys had so much fun!

*We headed north to camp in Island Park and what's a trip there if we don't just keep going to West Yellowstone! It was literally a drive there, go to the candy store, walk around for a couple of minutes, and headed back to the campground (like a 30 minute drive). It was worth it though :)

*We finally made it back to Oklahoma to our new place. We had gone to church once and the next day we had visitors (the Nuzman's) who came and brought these yummy cookies! It was much needed! We've been doing pretty well at getting adjusted to the place. Our ward is super friendly and have been so kind to invite us (ok, me and the boys since Clay's at work) to pool parties and what not!

*Our good friends from Enid, the Leach's, stopped by on their way home from Texas, while we also got to make some new friends. 

*It was my 10 year High School Reunion which I didn't go to, but this is one of my favorite pictures of some of my closest friends. Miss you all!

Another trip to Idaho!

Back at the end of February, Clay had some time off of work (paternity leave?) that he hadn't used so we figured we'd use it before it was gone in March. We mainly went for him to help his parents clean out the old house. Clay worked most of the time, and Carol and the boys and I ran errands or were lazy at home.

We had dang connections in Denver, but luckily the boys weren't absolutely unmanageable. HOWEVER, Kort somehow managed to slip past the flight attendants when we were getting off the plane and hop in the cockpit! Ummmmmmm. The other pilot was on his phone and telling me he was ok, thank goodness! I really wanted to whip out my phone and take a picture, but I don't know if that would have been pushing it too far?! Anyway, oh I wanted to whip Kort's butt for that. ha ha

Griffin learned to climb the stairs! We don't have any at our place so who knows, maybe he could've a long time ago. He did fall down once though. Yikes!

Kort REALLLLY wanted to ride in the dump truck, so we let him! He LOVED it! Probably because he didn't have to be in his car seat and wear a seatbelt. Whoops. 

We took advantage of our favorite babysitters and had a couple of date nights!!! Quinn and Kaitlyn asked us to go to Craigo's, whatever it's really called now, and then to the movie!

This is what we saw. Loved it. Kept me in suspense the whole show. 

This is what they did to the barn. The shingles were a pain.in.the.butt. That's what took most of the time. They found out later they could've just take a back hoe to it or whatever type of tractor and destroyed it. 

We finally got to do a session at the temple. It's been a while since doing one of those because of time and the boys. 

It was a great break!

Kort's first dentist visit

One day at the beginning of April, I noticed Kort's bottom front tooth was loose! I obviously looked up the age when kids started losing teeth. All I kept finding was that four was the earliest for kids, but the norm is around age seven. Well, we knew something was up then. On a Sunday morning, it was all swollen around the tooth. We talked to a General Dentist that is in our ward and asked what it could possibly be. He said probably an abscess and we should take him to a children's dentist. That night, that bump on his gums had what it looked like puss wanting to come out, but yet thick and not runny, whatever. I know, disgusting. He said touching it hurt.

Monday morning, all the swelling was gone. His tooth was still loose. I made a call to the children's dentist and luckily they got him in that afternoon. I kept telling Kort that they were going to take pictures of his teeth and then we could see how cool they looked afterwards. Obviously he had no idea who or what the dentist was, so he went with it. However, once we got there and they put him in the chair to take x-rays, he was not having it. They did have it real kid friendly and told him he could have an ice cream after, he still did not want to sit there. They went to the next step. They cleaned his teeth.

He would barely lay still long enough for the lady to clean and floss them. Luckily they had some bubblegum flavor fluoride stuff or whatever it was. The dentist came to look, but didn't do much because he needed x-rays to fix the problem. So, back to the "chair". It took 3 ladies to hold him down and to take one simple picture, and they barely got a shot of his loose tooth. With that info, the doc said there was an infection beneath his tooth that was eating away his roots, so the tooth would have to be pulled no matter what. He said it was most likely due to some sort of "trauma", getting hit in the mouth, etc. I have no idea when that could've happened or what from, but I guess something did happen.

Flash forward a couple weeks later, we worked on making his tooth more loose because we knew he wasn't going to go back and have the dentist pull it out. Finally one morning, I was using my tweezers to kind of work with it, I just twisted it a little and out it came! It didn't hurt him at all. The only part he freaked out on was me trying to put a kleenex in his mouth to stop the bleeding, which ended shortly after.

We told Kort about the Tooth Fairy, so he put his tooth in a zip lock bag and that next morning the Tooth Fairy brought 2 quarters!! He's been pretty excited :)