Long over-due Ellsie post

This post is long over-due, but I want to have it written anyway!
In June 2014 we went to our ultrasound to see our 4th child (which we knew was a boy, because we were a boy family!). I watched the ultrasound as the tech moved around and there it was, I was sure it was a boy. Just as I said, "Oh Look it's a..." The tech interrupted and said "It's a girl!". I was shocked but excited. I really had planned my life around having a bunch of boys and was excited about it, I had no idea what to do with a girl!  Now that we have her, I can't believe how much she has changed our family, for the better of course!
After 3 pregnancies of being induced and babies getting smaller and crankier, I was determined to wait this one out and have her when she was good and ready. That is, until I hit about 38 weeks pregnant and reality got a little out of focus. It's so funny looking back, how irrational pregnant women are. A week feels like eternity when you are dying to hold your baby, know she's safe and healthy, and to get comfortable again. At 38 weeks I started talking myself into being induced because the dr. estimated her to be much bigger than my other babies were. I held out until 2 days short of 40 weeks, but mostly because I wanted my doctor to be there and he was going to be traveling a lot the next week or 2. I was induced on a Sunday morning between all of his trips and days gone. Adam and I shipped the boys off to grandma and grandpa Powell's house the night before and headed to the hospital at 7 a.m. I was all hooked up and ready to go by 8 and the doctor came and broke my water on his way to 9:00 church (about 8:45). He joked and said he'd be back to check on me after church and told us that he'd love to get out of teaching Sunday School, so if I'd hurry that would be great! I got my epidural shortly after he left, which was kind of a disaster. While I waited for the epidural I was given some Fentanyl in my IV to help with the pain, but it made me head spin and I was so sick. When he got there, the anesthesiologist poked and prodded for a while as he said "I can't tell if I'm hitting bone or just a tight muscle or something". He placed the needle and re-placed it and them finally felt like it was good and left. I was numb for about 20 minutes before it wore off and I could feel everything above my thighs (of course, my legs were like jello- it worked REALLY well there.) They tried giving me another dose, but it didn't help and the contractions were getting much stronger. I'm a very obedient person (well, no, not really, but there's a first for everything), so I followed the doctors orders to hurry up and by 10:30 I was ready to get that baby out! The nurses called Dr. Kirkman and he hurried over after turning on a video for his sunday school class. I did all I could to keep myself from pushing while I waited, but he got there just in time to catch her as she came out. It was painful, but it was quick and she was perfect! Ellsie Rhealyn (Name comes from grandmas Rhea and Sheila Marilyn) was born at 11:05 a.m. 7 lbs. 1 oz. 18 1/2 in. with beautiful red hair.
When the anesthesiologist came in, he did the usual "Here are the potential risks of epidural, sign here". He told me that there are basically 2 things that can go wrong. 1. For a very small percentage of women, the epidural just doesn't work. 2. For an even smaller percentage, the patient can get headaches caused by the epidural. Both are unlikely.
While I was recovering, I got a slight headache and asked for some tylenol. The nurses told me to let them know if it got worse. It did. By that night I had a terrible headache and barely even wanted to hold Ellsie. I slept most of the night to try and get rid of it (usually I don't sleep after having a baby because I have so much energy and adrenaline). The next morning I was feeling a little better, so I decided to go home rather than stay another day. The headache was better as long as I was laying down, but when I'd be upright for a few minutes it would come back. By the time we pulled into the driveway (and then caught our chickens that had escaped from their coop and were running in the neighbors yard), my headache was back full force. I got into the house and went straight to the couch. It got so intense that I couldn't even move and all I could do was cry and close my eyes. I talked to the nurses at the hospital and they said that if it gets worse I could come back in and they'd do what is called a blood patch where they take some of my blood, insert another epidural and push the blood in to plug the hole where the spinal fluid was leaking and causing the headaches. I did NOT want to get another needle in my back after all of that, so I went to my chiropractor instead and he adjusted me but said it would probably still just have to heal on it's own. I spent the next 3-4 days not really doing anything other than nursing the baby and laying in bed because I was so miserable, but eventually the headaches started to taper off. The worst part of it, I remember thinking, was that I felt great other than the headaches. My recovery was so quick and I wanted to get back to life, but I just couldn't be upright! It was a long few weeks, and luckily I had a very happy baby, so it was much easier than it could have been.

2015

It's now New Years Eve 2015, so I suppose it's time for an update! Probably a long one, so if you just want the highlights, scroll to the pictures and don't read the whole post! This year has been a whirlwind of a roller coaster, but it's been a great adventure and I've learned and grown a lot. In February, Adam was really hitting a breaking point with work. He was working ridiculous amounts of continuous over-time, and his team was being treated very poorly by the upper management. At the same time, I was feeling like maybe we needed to be exploring more out-of-the-box ideas. I had had a friend approach me about joining his network marketing team for doTERRA Essential Oils multiple times and every time I turned him down, but this time I decided that maybe we should consider it. We loved Essential Oils and I found myself sharing them with people I didn't even know, so I decided that maybe we could make a little money off of my work. We joined his team in February and were off to a great start. I was teaching classes 1-2 times/week and sharing oils like crazy and loving it. It was really fun to see other people use them and see great results and get excited. Right after we signed up, I had a terrible allergic reaction to the skin care products which contain Melaleuca (which I knew I was allergic to, but used anyway). I was never able to get over that allergy and soon it go to the point that I was unable to be around any essential oils without some kind of reaction to my skin, so we were more or less forced to walk away from doTERRA. In the meantime, we had been praying about Adam's work and where to go from there and seeing that doTERRA wasn't the answer we had hoped for, we searched other options. We felt strongly that we needed to sell our home, though we weren't sure why or what was in store for us. We talked to a realtor and were sure we were going to need to short-sale (sell it at a loss) in order to be able to sell since our housing market was just recovering. I felt uneasy about a short-sale, but also felt like we needed to sell. I think I had hoped that by selling our home, we'd feel more able to seek out other job options out of our area, and we were also bursting at the seams in that little 3 bedroom house with 6 people. After talking with the realtor and praying about how we were going to make it work, we decided to just take a leap of faith and see where it landed us. We put the sign in the yard and the next day, before getting it listed online, the realtor came to me and said that he had run the comparables differently (our house was 100 years old, but completely remodeled about 20 years ago, so the remodel changed the way we'd list our house) and we wouldn't need to list it as low as we thought and we might even make some money on it. I agreed that if we could at least break even, I'd feel much better about it. The house was in great condition, but we fixed up a couple of small things and got it listed. The listing was live on Friday, we had a showing on Saturday and an offer on Sunday. By Monday night we were under contract for $500 less than our asking price! It was crazy how quickly it went and we were shocked, but excited. We had decided that we'd move in with Adam's parents until we decided where we were going. In the meantime, Adam had just taken a job with an electrical company that was working on LDS temple remodels and would be traveling to California for 2 weeks at a time to work. It was bitter-sweet because we knew the work environment would be amazing and the people would be great, but of course, he'd be gone a lot. He quit his other job, and prepared to go to California. He was supposed to leave on a Monday and on the Wednesday before a former co-worker told him about a job in Logan. It was more or less a guarantee that he'd be hired, but the guy who did the hiring was out of town until Tuesday. So, we had a choice to make.... Go to CA and skip this opportunity, or stay home and hope it worked out. We prayed and went to the temple and went straight from the temple to tell the other company that Adam was not going to take the job in California. Everything went great with getting the local job and Adam is still loving it.  That was in the spring. We moved out of our house at the end of May and in with Adam's parents. We had a lot of fun living with them and being near family for the summer, but with Adam working back in Cache Valley, and liking his work again, there was no reason for us to stay there and it was silly for him to be commuting an hour each way every day, so we started looking for a house. As we searched, we (I) started to get a little discouraged because what we though we wanted was a large yard like we had before, but a much bigger and newer house and it was hard to find that without living in an area we didn't like or a house that wasn't what we wanted. While spending the day looking at houses one day, we both commented that maybe we needed to just keep looking because none of them felt right, or we needed to change our expectations. There was 1 more house to see, so we decided to go see it, but I was dragging my feet a little because it was back in Providence not far from our other house and I was kind of hoping to start fresh in a new and a more rural area with a newer house. As we got closer though, I got more excited about it. We pulled in and the minute I walked in the door I felt like I was home. It was nothing like the other newer houses we'd been looking at that felt cold and not very welcoming. It was just like our other home which had such an inviting feel to it. We walked through the house but Adam and I had already pretty much made up our minds about having this house. We told our realtor that we wanted to put an offer on it and move in as soon as possible. We closed on the house the end of July and moved in mid-August. It is about double the size of our last house with 3200 sq. feet and 6 bedrooms! We are loving all the space we have and the yard is exactly the same size as our last. We'll have a lot of work in the spring and summer to get our yard where we want it with gardens and fruit trees, etc, but for now it is beautiful with mature trees for the kids to climb, hills to sled on and a little fort built under the grapevines for them to hide in. We are about 4 blocks away from our last house, which puts us just far enough away to be in a different community, but close enough to see our old friends and have the same small town feel. Our neighbors and church family have been so welcoming and loving and we couldn't be more grateful that we followed the promptings we had this year and ended up here. The kids are growing fast, of course. Deegan and Griffin began piano lessons in October and are loving it. Deegan is a natural and has picked up on it much faster than his teacher expected. Griffin plays really well, but has a hard time staying on task (he's 5, what did I expect?!). Deegan is in 2nd grade this year and joined with a few other homeschool families in a distance learning charter school that he attends on Mondays all day and then we do his regular homeschooling the rest of the week. We are both loving it. It gives him some time away from the house to be with friends and experience new things and it saves me from stressing about doing all kinds of projects and extras to keep him busy. Griffin is in Kindergarten and loves being home with me to do his school work and play with his siblings. He's a smart, smart kid, but boy does he hate to sit still! He has more energy and goofiness than all of my other kids combined! He's very clever, and consequently very funny and he knows it. He tells us all of the time that he knows everything, how to do everything and that he's so funny (and he's mostly right, if we could only get him to KNOW how to stay on task!).  Ritter is a typical 3 year old with emotional ups and downs and all arounds. He had surgery in June to repair a hernia and did amazingly well. He was in and out in just a couple of hours and up and running shortly after that. We were scared for complications (See Griffin's whole 3 year old year-2013), but all went well. He is our natural athlete. If there is a ball, kicking or hitting involved, he's on it. He loves basketball and soccer and obsesses about bowling. Ellsie is... our wild card child! She's nothing like any of the other kids! She was the easiest and happiest baby, but once she realized she could move and get around, her red-headed personality came out. She crawled at about 7-8 months and started walking at 9 1/2 months. It was only a few weeks after that that she learned to climb over the child gate, out of her highchair, wiggle out of buckles in the shopping cart and throw a mean tantrum! She is very attached to her mommy, has her daddy wrapped around her finger and is adored by her brothers. She turned 1 on Nov. 2 and has the stubborn determination of a 16 year old! Life is finally feeling like it's back to normal, but of course, I'm sure it won't stay that way for long before I get bored and get myself or my kids involved in something else! We have been so blessed this year and are so grateful for all who played a part in that (especially Adam's parents who rearranged their lives and house for us over the summer). My testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ has grown immensely and especially my testimony of prayer. I am so grateful for the opportunity I have to talk to my Heavenly Father as often as I need and that I know He will listen and guide me in the way I need. Here's to a new year full of new adventures and learning!

Life is finally slowing down!

I can't believe I went so long without blogging... Oh well, such is life. I'm doing it now so I guess that's good.  This post will be overloaded with pictures, I'm sure...

I never posted that I was pregnant, so for those who weren't aware, I was pregnant... until 11 days ago when I gave birth to a beautiful baby GIRL! (there will be a whole separate post on that one).  When we went to the ultrasound, we were all convinced that we were having another boy, and were perfectly happy with that- I'd accepted that I was going to be a "boy mom" and was LOVING it. We joked with the US tech that it would definitely throw our life into a little bit of a frenzy if it were a girl, but we were sure it was a boy, so no problem! Then she said "Looks like some big changes are coming to your home...It's a girl!" I didn't believe her and made her show me a couple of times to be sure. Adam's response was "Well, this baby just got a whole lot more expensive!" How true that is, but it's been so fun already!

 (The boys drew my outline on the sidewalk- baby and all)

Our summer was relatively uneventful besides just spending a lot of time playing outside and enjoying our relaxing life with a little side of morning sickness all along. Ritter ended up having 2 more seizures in May and June, both accompanied by Croup. He hasn't had another one or croup again since, so I'm a little nervous how this winter will treat him, but he has had a couple of fevers that did not cause seizures, and I'm hopeful that maybe he's outgrown it?! It is not fun to watch your child have a seizure, and it only got slightly easier the 2nd and 3rd time. It keeps me on edge anytime I leave him or if he feels even the slightest bit warm.

 Adam and I made a quick impromptu trip to Colorado for a weekend to celebrate 9 years of being married. It was fun to go back "home" and show Adam all around where I spent the best and worst of my teenage years!

Kickball for Griffin

 

After the kids were almost approached by a sexual predator at the park this summer, and our sheriff's dept. was so helpful in finding him, we took cookies to say thank you and let the kids see the jail.

In early spring, we decided we wanted to get chickens for our backyard. Each of us picked out a chick and it has been a lot of fun to watch them grow and to gather eggs from the backyard. The kids (Griff especially) love to play with them and chase them around the yard.

In August, Adam and I flew out to Illinois to interview for a job in a town called Bourbonnais near Chicago. We were both excited and nervous about the idea of moving (right before having a baby too). I spent the day driving around and exploring to get a feel for the area and see what kind of homes were available while Adam spent the whole day interviewing, touring, etc. Shortly after lunch, I was getting a little discouraged because I felt really uneasy about the area and the whole thing just seemed like it wasn't right for us. I got a text from Adam about 20 minutes later when he had a short break between meetings and he told me that he was feeling like this wasn't the right place for us. There was nothing undesirable about the job, the area and the pay was almost double what we make now, but it just felt wrong. It was such a relief that we both got the same answer without even having to think twice about it. We feel really good staying in Cache Valley where we know it's a good place to raise our children, we have a lot of support around us and Adam has a good job. Until that interview, we were both a little antsy to move somewhere new, but I think both of us are pretty set on staying here, or at least in northern Utah for a long time.

First day of School pics

We have continued to homeschool and Griffin has been teaching himself to read and write (with just a little help from me, but not much because he's still young and I don't want to push until he's older).
Deegan is doing really well and working a grade level ahead of where he should be. He's become a major bookworm. If he has a book he is interested in, he'll read for hours. We try to get to the library every week because if not, he's bored with the books already since he's read them all at least once in the first few days.

 I hesitate to say this, because it always brings trials to my life, but right now life is just good! Today is the first snow of the winter and the kids are LOVING being outside in it while I am loving snuggling my sweet baby girl!