2010 Recap

I had wanted to put together a Christmas letter this year but didn't ever get the chance, so I thought I would do a recap of the year on the blog, starting from where I left off back in March. WARNING: Its virtually impossible for me to tell a short story...I won't be offended if you just want to skip over this post because you have better things to do like watch t.v. or wash your hair.

April:  We started off the month by taking the boys on a "staycation" up to Salt Lake for Easter weekend. We had a great time going to the Children's Museum, saw "How to Train a Dragon", had lunch at Tucanos, swimming at the hotel, ordering pizza and just hanging out together. We came home on Easter Sunday and found that the Easter bunny had remembered to bring the boys their baskets and gifts and finished the day with a nice dinner at my parents house. The next day was Brett's birthday where we celebrated with dinner at Goodwood BBQ and had cake and ice cream after. That week was spring break so we enjoyed the time at home relaxing and not teaching piano or going to school! Brett also traveled to Washington and Nebraska for work in April.

May: This was an eventful month! On May 1st Brett and I celebrated our 11th anniversary but we saved our date for later in the month (more to come). Instead I was able to attend a baby shower for my sister in law Juli, followed by shopping with the girls and dinner with the family- still a really fun day! Brett spent a week in Las Vegas for work and then Aidan graduated from preschool the following week. We loved his preschool and were so impressed with his reading skills and all that he had learned by the time he was done. The following week was a real treat (this is where the anniversary comes in)...
Brett had to go to the Bahamas for work (isn't his job rough?) so I got to go with him! It was quite the adventure getting there as we didn't really know up until the week before if we were actually going to go, but I'm so glad that it worked out. We flew my sister, Jordan, and her two kids out for the week so they could stay with the boys. She was the real hero- we couldn't have done it without her and are still so grateful for all that HARD work. I was 8 months pregnant when we left, which is not exactly how I envisioned my first tropical trip, but it was what it was and I'm still glad I got to go. The first 3 days Brett didn't even have to work so we bussed into town (we were in Nassau) and explored the local markets (shopping!!), restaurants, and buildings. When Brett had to actually work, the real vacation came for me. By then I had relaxed and let go of my anxiety of being away from the kids (so far, so long) and spent 4 blissful days sleeping in, having breakfast, and then laying by the pool (which was on the beach) for a few hours. I read (The Hunger Games- so good!), slept, swam, had yummy frozen drinks and just RELAXED.  That was usually followed by me going back to the room and taking another nap (did I mention I was 8 months pregnant?) and then Brett would come home from work and we'd head out for dinner and walks on the beach. We had such a wonderful time and I was so grateful for the opportunity to relax and spend some real quality time with Brett, especially before Chloe was born. I'm thinking I could use another one of those trips right about now, especially as my heater is blowing like crazy and I'm looking outside at all the frozen snow.

June: Two weeks after we returned home from the Bahamas, we hopped in the car (did I mention we bought a new mini van in March? We LOVE it!!) and drove to Nebraska. We hadn't been there since Aidan was 9 months old and felt that it would be hard to go out after Chloe was born, so we made the trek. The doctor insisted that we stop every hour and let me walk around and spend the night at the half way point- its not really ideal to travel anywhere when you are 34 weeks pregnant. We did have a nice time, though,  and will be making the effort to go more often to be with Brett's family. We stayed with his brother Dan and Nikki and their family and they took great care of us. Nikki is a labor and delivery nurse which was comforting to me, that late in the pregnancy. We went to a new children's museum, a fabulous new park, bowling, and just relaxed. We got home just in time for the birth of my nephew Mason and I'm so glad we didn't miss it!

July: We started out the month by heading down to Meadow where Juli's family has a house. Its in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do and we love it. Its just so quiet and relaxing. We usually take a big trip to the Oregon Coast with my family each year, but with Juli just having Mason and me about to have the baby, it wasn't a good year to travel. We were able to spend 4 fun days down there and come back in time to help bless baby Mason with all the family there, as well as the 4th of July the following day. July is always a crazy month for us and it was even more so this year.  We had celebrated my brother Joseph's birthday in Meadow, my mom's and niece Lauren's a few days later, followed by my mom and I going out for lunch and pedicure's on her actual birthday. The next week we celebrated Ethan's 3rd birthday at Salem Pond with family and friends followed by going to see "Toy Story 3" and out to Brick Oven later in the week. We took the boys to the Fiesta Days carnival, had 2 girls nights out to celebrate my birthday, and had a fun Fiesta Days (although I was severely disappointed that the baby hadn't come yet). Thankfully (or not?) we were able to get through all those birthday celebrations as Chloe arrived just two days after my birthday.

Chloe's birth: Just wanted to get down a few notes about her birth. I had been having mild contractions since the middle of June and we all felt pretty strongly that Chloe was going to come before her August 1st due date. I really wanted to let her come on her own, since both the boys had been induced, but just got to the point where I was too miserable and HOT to wait any longer so we went ahead and scheduled her to be induced on July 29th. We left the boys with my good friend, and neighbor across the street Carly, and headed over to the hospital by 6:15 in the morning. I had Ethan in 5 hours so the doctor was convinced it would only take about 3 hours to have her but I didn't really believe it could happen that fast. By the time we got checked in and got everything started it was about 9 am., which is around when my parents showed up. They messed up on my epidural and had to do it twice (which is the part I dread the MOST!) but other than that everything went so smoothly and sure enough, she was born just under 3 hours later at 11:39 am. I pushed once and as I was getting ready to push again, the doctor yelled at me to stop pushing (I wasn't) and she all but fell out. She was 7 pounds 6 ounces and 18 inches long with a head full of dark curly hair.  I felt so good after and really felt like we had escaped some of the problems that I had with the boys. Unfortunately that didn't last long. I started to shake really bad after (like I always do) and it lasted for almost 2 hours which made me pretty nauseous and gave me a bad headache. The headache wouldn't release as the day went on and the pain felt as bad as a migraine, yet it didn't have the same symptoms as a migraine. Over the next couple days, while in the hospital, they tried everything from the normal pain killers to migraine medicine to muscle relaxers and nothing would touch it. It only helped to lie flat on my back and then the pain would almost completely go away. That symptom is similar to a spinal headache, which is a symptom they warned me about before the epidural, yet no one believed that is what it was because of how it came on. I was so glad I had arranged for the boys to go to my best friend, An'Jalee's, that second day so my mom could be in the hospital with me. Finally after being in excruciating pain for 4 days, the doctor finally diagnosed it as a spinal headache caused by the epidural. When I was having my epidural done, I had some fluid return which is why they had to do it again...turns out they punctured the area around my spine which drains the fluid around your brain causing the headache. I was released from the hospital on a Saturday and by Monday we were back in the emergency room having another epidural done so they could do a blood patch and fix the hole. I felt much better within a couple days, but unfortunately between that and the hormones, a couple days later I started having horrible migraines that piggy backed on each other and ended up having 6 in one week. The first two weeks of Chloe being here was mostly spent with me in bed trying to sleep through the pain. I was so grateful for Brett and my mom and my sister being here to take care of all the kids and me for those two weeks, as I was completely useless. It was extremely frustrating and upsetting and enough to make me think hard about ever having an epidural again. I guess on a good note, I was on so many pain killers that I never felt any pain recovering from the birth...I was just so grateful to see that first month end and get back to normal.

August: Besides everything I just wrote about Chloe's birth, we helped my brother Joseph, and his family move to Logan to start school up there, Aidan started playing soccer with Brett as the coach and the biggest event was Aidan starting kindergarten. He is in the afternoon kindergarten with Mrs. Kariuki as his teacher. Since he missed the deadline by two weeks the year before, it felt like a long time coming but I was so glad that we were able to have him home for an extra year. He has loved school and is learning so much and doing really well. Brett and I are anxious to hear about all he is doing and encountering as he is starting this life away from our home. He is such a sweet boy who feels things so deeply, I don't know how my heart will ever survive all of my children's ups and downs. Thankfully school is mostly just a great time for him and I'm enjoying the little bit of quiet I get each day while he is gone and the other two nap.

September: This month was mostly just spent adjusting to life with three children. Its definitely been an adjustment. As I'm writing this, I'm feeling grateful that everyone is doing so much better. For a few months it felt like someone was always upset with me for not having their needs met...its been a lesson in patience for all of us. I took August and September off from teaching piano and really enjoyed just being home and having down time with all my children. Aidan turned 6 on September 16th and he celebrated by having 3 of his friends come over for a pizza and movie party. Chloe learned to sleep better through the night, smiled at us and by the end of the month she weighed 10 lbs 3 oz and was almost 23 inches long. Brett finished the month by spending 3 days in Portland for work, which was the most stressful work trip for me since I had yet to be alone with the kids. Thankfully I had great help from my mom and sister-in-law, Julia each night at dinner and bed time.

October: We started the month off with our fun annual family trip to St. George to watch my dad run the marathon.  The day after we got back, I started back to teaching my piano studio. I was pretty anxious to return to work, wondering how to balance all of my life but thankfully I had cut my studio down to nearly half the students I had last year. I've slowly added on a few more as the year has gone on, but was so grateful to have a slow start. I have also cut my teaching hours back so that I'm done working by the time Brett gets home which has allowed us to have dinner, work on homework, and do bedtime rituals as a family. I feel like it has made all the difference in the flow of our evenings. Over fall break I was able to have a fun Park City shopping day with my friend, Carly, and then Jordan and her family made an unexpected visit and we took the kids to Cornbelly's at Thanksgiving Point for a fun fall day. Sadly, our Rodeo bit the dust again, only this time we decided to let it die for good which has put us down to one car for a while. Thankfully it is a car with low miles and under warranty. We were hoping to have a little more time with that Rodeo since we had paid it off, and were sad to see it go.

November: Most of the month was spent helping my parents work on the studio addition to their house, in an effort to help them complete the work before their deadline and Thanksgiving. It has turned out beautifully and we were able to enjoy Thanksgiving dinner in the new studio with all our family. Brett's mom came out for Thanksgiving week and we were excited for her to meet Chloe as well as spend time with the boys and us.

December: This month was busy as usual with all the holiday festivities. I was anxious to get all our Christmas shopping done early because Brett's work flew him, Chloe, and I out for their Christmas party in Vancouver, Washington where their office is. It was really fun to get to meet all the people he works with and explore the area there. One of the days, while he was working, they took all the wives to a beautiful, old historical home in Portland that they had decorated for Christmas, for a tour and then out to lunch. I was anxious to go since I didn't know anyone but had such a fun day with these women and look forward to getting to see them again next year. We have been so blessed to be able to work for a company that he enjoys so much and who are genuinely glad to have him there. He has spent the whole year working on developing a training product to take into these different agencies and now that it is selling and getting a good response, it has been really rewarding. I am proud of all the hard work he is doing and grateful for the flexibility that this job has given us.

We were also in charge of our ward Christmas party, which was a lot of work and glad to have over. My cousin Kaitlyn got married and we were so glad they did it here so we could participate in the wedding shower, endowments, temple ceremony and luncheon. It was so good to have my Uncle Brent and Aunt Lynn here from Wisconsin and my cousin Daniel back from Russia. We miss having them all live close by and enjoyed the long visit from all of them. We were able to have dinner with our friends Cheyenne and Meredith, here from Virginia for a visit, and have our annual Christmas party with our best friends the Burningham's and Gleaves. Jordan and Danny and their children stayed with us for the Christmas break, which was a bit crazy but wonderful at the same time. I miss my sister more than anyone else and am always so grateful for any time I can spend with her and her family. I have such an affection for her daughter, Lauren (who is 2), and really enjoyed time talking and playing with her. It makes me excited for Chloe to be that age. My whole family was here for the holidays and we loved being able to hang out most of the days and also spend New Years Eve all sleeping at my parents. I love my family and my siblings so much and even though there are a lot of us and it gets loud and crazy, I enjoy any chance I can to spend time with them.

The boys had a great Christmas and were the most excited about getting a Wii, which we have all actually enjoyed a lot. My favorite is Just Dance 2- its great exercise and just really fun! Chloe loved eating the paper and all the bows, Brett got a few days off that we didn't expect, and overall it was a really wonderful month.

This year has been so good to our family, especially with the birth of our sweet Chloe. Our family feels so wonderful with her in it and I'm so grateful for all the blessings and lessons that we have learned this year and look forward to what is to come!