April 2014- Two Birthdays and a "Birth"day

Aspen's birthday is April 1st but it worked out better to celebrate it a day early this year, so technically these first pictures are from March.

Aspen couldn't resist tasting the fondant (I made marshmallow fondant) while I was making her cake, she loved it!  This was my first time doing fondant on my own, the only other time I had used it was when I made those Halloween cupcakes and those were mostly just assembling I didn't really get to do much with the fondant.

I think it turned out pretty good for my first time doing fondant on my own!  And Aspen loved it!

The ruffles didn't turn out great and I had to do the ribbons in the back to cover the seem, but all in all I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

Excited to have everyone over!

I didn't have a picture of her actually blowing out the candles, I only had a video, so this is a screen shot of it.

What a cute birthday girl!  Time goes by way to fast!  Can't believe she's 3!

Frozen!!!  She absolutely loves Frozen!  And this movie has been well worth the money!

I love this surprised face!  Sophie was her little helper through all the present opening.

She was very spoiled, she got a lot of dress ups, dress up shoes, and dress up jewelry, all her favorite stuff!

We put Hunter in T-ball for the first time this year.  He's in the middle with the red shorts.

They would do a few coach pitches, then use the tee if they needed to.

He was quite often early but was starting to get a pretty good swing.

The hardest part for him was realizing that it's a team sport.  He loved to get the ball... So much that he would get upset if the other kids got it before him.  We had several fits and had to have many discussions about being a part of a team, so overall I think it was good for him.  He always wanted to go and he wants to play again so that's a good sign!

He looks pretty happy here!

We love when it's warm enough for sprinklers!!

They love it!!

Look how dripping wet her hair is!

Time to warm up on the cement.

This was at another parent meeting for Hunter's preschool.  We had a scavenger hunt (we weren't allowed to do holiday stuff so we had to call it that, not an Easter egg hunt.)  Hunter is in the gray in the top right corner, Aspen has the striped shirt in the middle.

The little kids got to go first, I thought it was funny that even though they went first Hunter still had quite a bit more than Aspen.

We had some confetti filled eggs (real egg shells cleaned out then filled with confetti and tape over the hole) the parents were all cracking them over peoples heads, so when we handed Aspen hers that's what she thought she was supposed to do with it!  She thought the confetti in everyone's hair looked pretty so she cracked hers on her own head haha!  We tried our best to shake out all the confetti outside of our house but we were still finding pieces of it in random places throughout the house weeks later!

This girl and markers... I don't like markers!

Can you tell she was loving dyeing Easter eggs!?

What a handsome smile!

He was getting fancy with his egg dyeing this year, he figured out how to do 2-toned!

All done!  Grandma Lisa helping show off Aspen's blue hand!

For Easter weekend we went camping with the Ewell's.  We ended up just going from Friday to Saturday because I knew I was going to have to have my counselors covering my Sunday's for a while after I had the baby so I wanted to make sure I was home to do my sharing time on Sunday.  We went to Enterprise and went fishing in the morning, then Easter egg hunt in the afternoon.

Hunter loved all the rocks around!

Aspen decided it was fun to go potty outside this trip, we would be in the tent trailer playing games and then hear "Mom, I went potty!" and then see a diaper swinging in the air!  It was pretty cute but unfortunately she didn't ever squat quite right and would get the back of her pants wet every time... Luckily I brought several extra pairs of pants!

Finding her an egg.

We were only missing Gavin's family and Joslyn's family, so we stayed in our tent while everyone else stayed in the tent trailer.  Can I just tell you it was a much bigger challenge getting in and out of the tent than I thought it would be!  Never again will I sleep in a tent 38 weeks pregnant!

Cute little egg hunters!

This baby kind of got in the way, it was hard for people to get around me in the tent trailer haha!

And I hadn't realized how big my belly was til I saw this!!!

Where me and Aspen were sitting during lunch we could see the back of Jaron and Caitlin's heads, Aspen turned to me and asked "Mom, what's that girls name?"  I said, "That's aunt Caitlin, you know her."  Aspen responds, "No, the other girl."  I of course start chuckling, "That's not a girl, that's Uncle Jaron."  Aspen asks, "Why does he have long hair, girls have long hair."  Hahaha!!!  We all burst into laughter!  He had been growing his hair out for awhile and we would make fun of him every time we saw him, but never where Aspen had heard us, that comment was all on her own!  Him and Tyler both were growing theirs out, they luckily have since cut it!

These were our baskets that the Easter bunny hid at our house Sunday morning.

Aspen found hers!

Hunter took a little longer but did find it!

Showing off his new flip flops!

So towards the end of my pregnancy my arm would go numb sometimes, it was mostly at night when I was sitting on the bathroom counter picking at my face (yes, it's a nightly thing and it drives Ben crazy!)  When Derrick graduated chiropractor school he moved back here and bought a practice from a retiring chiropractor, so I talked to him and he had me come in to check it out.  As he was checking my neck he felt a lump, (he also wasn't too thrilled to learn that I knew the lump was there and had known it was for months, I'm not sure when exactly I noticed it, but I knew it was at least 6 months) he figured there was a good chance that could be part of what was causing my hand to go numb, so he told me to make sure to talk to my doctor next time I went in to see who he thought I should see for it, since Derrick is new down here and wasn't sure the best doc to refer me to.  So my next baby doc appointment he referred me to an Ear, Nose, and Throat doctor.  When I called them to set up an appointment their next appointment was too close to my due date, so they had me wait to set one up til after I had the baby.... More on my lump in the next post.

So all my hard work of trying to stay off bed rest paid off!  I never ended up on bed rest!  I was very strict on everything I could to try to help with my blood pressure so that I hopefully would stay off bed rest this time.  I didn't drink pop, I didn't eat chips (too salty), I didn't eat popcorn (that is part of the reason I go to movies, so this was hard), I didn't add salt to anything if I could help it, I stopped eating fried eggs because they don't taste very good without salt haha, I didn't even salt my pinenuts!  The hardest for sure was the no chips, I have a slight chips and salsa addiction.  I had also been going to Zumba and toning classes 2-3 times a week for several months before and a couple into my pregnancy as well (I stopped when hunting season came around and Ben was gone so much it was hard to find a day that I could go.)  It was all worth it though to stay off bed rest!  It was also nice to find that I do like working out, just took staying off bed rest to motivate me to try a Zumba class, my neighbor is the instructor and I had only ever done a little at home but I love the group classes!!  I tried to take it easy towards the end to help as well, my blood pressure kept going up each visit, but it was never high enough that he needed to put me on bed rest!  It was however high enough that he felt it would be best to induce me a week early... I had secretly hoped I would get to go on my own this time, oh well better to be safe!  When my doctor said he wanted to induce me he asked if the 24th would be ok, it was a Thursday so then Ben would just have to take of Thursday and Friday and then he would have the weekend home too.  My only hang up was that my birthday is the 26th, so that would put our birthdays right next to each other.  So I waited til I could talk to Ben, we decided that would probably be the best time to have baby, so we set it up.  I realized that baby would be the 24th, Ben is the 25th (different month) and I am the 26th, so that part was kind of cool.  We knew for a week when we were going to have our baby, so we knew over Easter weekend that I only had til Thursday before having baby.

This is the night before our 4 became 5!!!

With both Hunter and Aspen we got called at 6 a.m. to have us come to the hospital, we had decided we would keep the kids home with us so it would feel more normal for them, and Brandi was prepared to come over whenever we got the call... We woke up to my alarm.  We did not expect that.  So we got up like normal and got Hunter off to school (Dixie was surprised when Ben showed up with Hunter and not my sister), I got in the shower, Ben was cleaning out the car.  When I got out of the shower I couldn't decide what to do!  Do I get ready for the day, do I sit around and just wait, what do I do!!!  It was torture!  Haha luckily it really wasn't that long, they called right after I had decided to at least blow dry my hair, at 10 am.  So we took Aspen over to Brandi's and headed to the hospital.  Once we got there they got me all hooked up and ready to start me... but the nurse couldn't feel babies head so she was worried baby had flipped around in which case we wouldn't be starting me we would possibly be doing C-section if the doc couldn't get baby to flip around.  So we had to sit there and wait until my doctor got there to confirm babies position.  He got there around noon and he had a portable ultrasound machine he put it on the lower part of my belly and said yep that's a head.  We were a little annoyed that that was all it took!  We waited almost an hour for him to take 2 seconds to confirm it!  Really little things like that the nurses should be able to do!  Well now that we were sure babies head was down we started the pitocin.  Since we got started so much later than our other two babies and the other two took 12 and 11 hours we were starting to wonder if we would really end up having our baby on the 24th after all!  My doctor also broke my water, this time it was a bit uncomfortable.  He tried to break it several times and it never really "broke" til a while after he left.  He figured it was just the position of baby blocking it from fully breaking at first.  We also discussed epidurals while he was in there.  I was pretty hesitant this time around because it had been so rough with Aspen.  He was really nice about it and had the nurse go find out who the anesthesiologist was that day and then let me know that he was a really good one, but that it was still up to me to decide.  I decided to just wait and see how it went.
After a while I decided to try the medicine that they put through your IV that is supposed to take the edge off the pain.  My sister had told me that she only ever does a half dose of it, so that's what I asked my nurse to do.  She looked at me funny when I said only half, but she did what I asked.  Within seconds of the medicine being put in the IV I felt super loopy!  It was horrible!  I could barely keep my eyes open and when I did open them it was almost like a dizzy sensation!  About 5 min after she gave me it, I told her I did not want the rest and wouldn't ever want the rest!  I don't think it even did anything to the pain!  That stuff is definitely not for me!  At about 5 I decided that I really didn't like the pain, I just looked at Ben and said "I hate this, but I'm scared to get the epidural!!"  Of course he couldn't help much, he did anything he could, like pushing on my knees, that seemed to help a lot when I was in labor with Hunter, but it wasn't cutting it this time.  So I ended up deciding to go ahead with the epidural.  Who knows how I lasted 10 hours with Hunter!  Right before he came in I told my nurse that I needed to go to the bathroom, she said he was right there so there wasn't time.  The nurse had let the anesthesiologist know that I was pretty nervous about the epidural, so he asked what had happened before.  I told him and he just acted like well ya that can happen, but that he would do his best to get it in the first time.  So he got started, they had left the monitor bands on my belly while he was doing it, I don't remember them leaving them on the other times.  Since it was on I could hear the whole thing!  It wasn't too bad until I heard a pop!  In my already very nervous state that really scared me and I totally jumped!  I hadn't realized it was that bad til I asked Ben after he left and apparently I jumped pretty bad.  He asked me if I wanted to keep going or if I wanted him to stop, I just said "I don't know!"  He just said well if you want me to keep going you have to hold still, the whole time he was talking he was still doing it anyways.  I didn't really say much and he just kept going and got it in, once it was done I apologized and asked if I was the worst ever.  He said no... not the worst.  Haha very clear that I was close to the bottom of the list!
After he got the epidural in the hooked up the catheter, ew.  I hate them, but like I had told my nurse I really needed to go!  Right when she got it in she said, "Wow! You really did need to go!"  Sorry for that but it was just kind of funny!  Oh, another funny story about my nurse, when she put the IV in I asked her to put it in my left arm and she kindly moved things around so that she could do it how I wanted it, I hate it being in my right arm since I'm right handed.  I don't like the IV at all and very rarely move my arm that has the IV in it, the sooner I can get them to take the IV out the better!  Anyways, she got the IV in (I don't look while they put it in) and I looked down at it and said, "Ew."  She looked at my arm and said, "Oh, Honey, that's just a little blood."  Then wiped my hand off.  I was not at all grossed out by the blood, I could care less about that, I could see the needle going in my arm.  So once I explained that to her she was very sweet and put several pieces of tape on until you couldn't see it anymore!  The nurse that took my IV out was not very impressed with all the tape haha!
Well it seems to be my trend to have my babies right at shift change!  And I again, had that crazy feeling of a head between my legs!  When I told Ben that again (I've done this on all 3 kids) he kept telling me to call for the nurse (he didn't want to check for a head for the 3rd time, haha!)  I'm very timid about pushing the call button and even when I'm needing to go to the bathroom or needing something I usually just sit there and wait for them to come in again, I hate calling for them!  So we sat there and waited, then finally my new nurse came in to introduce herself, and I let her know that I thought it was time to have the baby, faster than the others, on the other 2 I waited til they asked if they could check me, then I said yes please!  On this one I asked her to check me right after she introduced herself, I'm getting better, haha, now if I would just get over my issues with calling for them!  She took one quick glance down there and said "We're having this baby!"  She went to call the doctor, and shortly after my original nurse came in and told me I had good timing because my doctor had told her last time he came and checked on me that he was hoping I wouldn't have the baby in between 6 and 7 because he had a meeting, it was a few min after 7 when she told me that.  She then left and the other nurse came and told us he was on his way, then disappeared.... We didn't see anyone for another 20 min!!!  Really I need to get over my issues with calling for them!  Most of that 20 min I was fighting the urges to push!  The other kids I hadn't really had that, I was so numb with them that it wasn't too bad waiting a few min, and I also had nurses right there working with me the whole time with the first two, once they called the doctor they never left the room til after I had the baby.  So this one was very different, I couldn't figure out why there was no one in there!  Didn't they know a baby was trying to come out!  That 20 min was very stressful!  I kept telling Ben to go get a nurse and he kept telling me to push the call button!  Neither of us ever did haha, finally nurses started coming in a getting stuff ready, but they never worked with me at all just kind of got stuff ready around us til the doctor got there.  Definitely a very different experience from the first two!
Once my doctor arrived he informed us that our baby had hair!  I love when babies have hair!  That was my only wish with Hunter was that he would have hair!  I was pretty excited to hear that, and it also made us think we were having a boy since Hunter had hair and Aspen was mostly bald.  Our doctor had us and the nurses all guessing what baby was, the room was about 50/50.  Our doctor and us all guessed boy, even based on the heart rate he was leaning more towards boy, he also said that the boys are always the lucky ones with hair.  Baby arrived at 7:35, right around the same time Hunter and Aspen arrived, this one just came much faster!  When our baby came out the doc asked Ben to call it out... he looked at baby, I looked at baby, we looked at each other and he said "boy???"  The doctor laughed since our baby was a girl!  Neither of us knew for sure, she was a bit swollen down there so we were a bit unsure.  I'm sure she will hate that I put this on here when she's older but it's too funny not to share.  Later in our room Ben asked why I hadn't just said it when we looked at each other, and I informed him that I hadn't known either!  The doc figures that she just had a lot of the pregnancy hormones from me and that's why she was swollen, a few days after she was born she all the swelling was gone!  The doc had me take a picture of Ben cutting the umbilical cord, he said I would want it later, I'm not so sure that I will, I spared you from that picture since I'm still not sure myself if I should just delete it!  Babies just aren't cute when they first come, they look much nicer clean!

Here is our sweet baby girl!  Weird lighting in the picture, for some reason it looks like I have a milk stache!

I just love holding baby hands!

She is 7 lbs exactly!

And 20 inches long.

First bath

Gotta wash that hair!

I love how much hair she has!!

All cleaned off and ready to go to our room for the night!

This is getting to meet Ben's parents, she kept playing with her tongue!

Brandi and Ben's parents came to meet her that night.

Ben stayed at the hospital with us.  And for some weird reason they didn't remove my catheter until I wasn't numb anymore, (luckily that didn't take long since I only ended up having the epidural in for 2 hours) I can't remember when they removed it with the other two but I was thinking it was before I went up to the recovery room with them, I don't remember them throwing the bag up on my bed with them, I think I would remember that since it's kinda gross!  It was a very strange sensation having them take that out when I could feel it!  I didn't really enjoy that part!  I did however enjoy my turkey sandwich they brought me for dinner!  I have told Ben in between all the kids that we should get pregnant just so I can have one of the hospitals turkey sandwiches!  You usually hear that hospital food it horrible, lucky for us our hospital has great food!  Ben had a steak and said it was really good too!

My parents came the next morning and brought our cute kiddos to meet their new sister!  We wanted it to be special for them, so Hunter was the first person we called after we had her to let him know if he had a sister or a brother!  Ben was wanting to text everyone right away but I made him wait til we had told Hunter the news, then the texts were sent out!

Can you tell they fell in love with her instantly!

We were pretty sure we were going to name her Timber (we had agreed on that name for a girl, and had a couple other possibles for a girl, but hadn't ever really agreed on a boy name), but we didn't pick her middle name til right before we left the hospital.  I had been playing with our parents names trying to combine them somehow for the babies middle name (the mom's if it was a girl and the dad's if it was a boy.)  Her middle name is Lexie, combining Lisa and Dixie.  I think both our mom's liked it!

Timber Lexie Ewell ready to head home!

This is right after we got home.

Hanging out in dad's lap

Aspen looks pretty excited to hold her baby sister!

Hunter is definitely a proud big brother!

So precious

I took these two pictures to try to compare the 3 kids as babies, I have a similar picture of Hunter and Aspen where they look like twins, so I had to have one of Timber too!

Time for her first "bath" at home.

Can you guess who was taking pictures for me?

Then daddy got home and took over the job of photographer.

I don't really remember what we did for my birthday, I think mostly just snuggled our baby!  We love this cute little baby girl that has joined our family!!