Shame, shame!

Oh my gosh! I just looked at the date of my last blog post...I am thoroughly ashamed! Over a year and a half! I might have to put myself on time out! Hummmm...time out sounds pretty good. Preferably at a day spa with an endless supply of Diet Pepsi! But I digress...

Oh so many things have happened in a year and a half, surprising huh? I will do a quick rundown of the whole family...Where do I start?!?

TRACEN - is now 13 and in the EIGHTH GRADE! Yep, I now have a teenager in Junior High! Which also means he is passing the sacrament at church! Yikes! He discovered band a few years ago, and is a really good drummer. His band teacher even called him a natural percussionist! He loves it so much Dallas and I bought him a drum set for his birthday this year!

JACOB - is in the 6th grade, and is bitter they are going to a Junior High schedule which means NO RECESS! But so far is enjoying his classes, and is excited to be with his friends again! He also started playing percussion in the band and loves it!

COLBY - is in 4th grade and is still as quiet as ever. (at least one of them is quiet!) He is a really good student, and loves school! He has quite a head for numbers (yes, he gets that from his dad), even his teacher last year asked him if he had a calculator with him!

KYLER - is 4 and is SO excited to go to pre-school this year! All my other boys had two years of preschool, but this one is so smart (he also takes after his father!) I don't think he will be behind in the least. He is such a cutie, too! He loves to make people laugh and will dance, sing, or do about anything to get a laugh from you!

ZACK - ...Oh what do I say? It's a good thing he's cute! He is SUCH a handful! Without going into all the stories, and there is A LOT, if he hadn't been our last child, HE WOULD HAVE BEEN OUR LAST CHILD! He does have the cutest smile, and knows just when to use it!

Dallas - (you didn't think I would leave him out, did you?) is still working at the INL, and got called as the Scout Master not too long ago! Which he LOVES! (too bad you can't hear the sarcasm coming from those words!)

And now to me, the biggest change for me was I got called as the primary president! Come on now, everyone close your mouth's...even though my jaw dropped when my bishop asked me! I LOVE it though! I love being with the kids and teaching them (and being taught by them). I have some awesome ladies that I work with and really help distribute the work load.

Anyhoo, that's the quick version of things. Hopefully it won't be another year and a half for my next post, or who knows what changes I could be posting? I may have another child..........
Sorry, I had to go to my happy place! (by the way, another child is NOT even possible for us!)

Have a great day!

Well, crap! It's almost the end of January 2011 and I haven't caught up my Blog yet!

I have decided, as part of my New Years Resolutions, (which is unfortunately quite long) to post AT LEAST once a month for 2011. I hope its one resolution I can keep.

One of these years, I'm going to be smart and make resolutions I KNOW I can keep!
Like...
1. I will put on at least 10 pounds this year.
3. I will overindulge in food and drink as much Diet Pepsi as I want. (see #1)
2. I will watch all my favorite TV shows
4. I will lay around eating Bon Bon's while watching all my favorite TV shows. (what the heck is a Bon Bon anyway?)
5. I will let my house get so messed up, it could be a candidate for 'Hoarders'
....Well, you get the idea! I would continue on, but I would be afraid of being committed for even thinking some of these degenerate thoughts! I know some of you are cringing at a few of these, but I promise I won't do any of those (except maybe #1 & #2. At least I have succeeded in the past few years! hahaha)
Anyway, we will see how it goes. Those of you following (if I have any followers left), I hope you will see a lot more of me, or at least my Blog! HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I am going to attempt to catch up on my blog in the next week, which may be harder than I like due to my 5 children, which brings me to my first post.

At my doctor's appointment 4 weeks before I was due (this was October 2009), I had been dilated to a 2 1/2. Dallas had been joking the rest of the month that he should drive out to work every day just in case I went into labor on my own. We both laughed at that since I had never gone into labor on my own with my other pregnancies. I was scheduled to be induced on November 13, so my husband and I were sitting around on Monday the 9th talking about the baby coming. He again joked how he should drive to work and we started talking about my water breaking. We got into a discussion on how gross it would be to have my water break while walking around, and how I was glad that was one thing I had never experienced... should have known better!!! I didn't even knock on wood or rub a lucky rabbits foot, or anything! Most of Tuesday (the 10th) went as usual, me trying desperately to get things done (like washing baby clothes & getting the baby's room ready) while fighting to keep my 2 yr old out of EVERYTHING!!! My other boys get home from school between 3:15 and 3:45. Tracen had a Veterans Day program at school the next day but had no information about what he was supposed to wear or anything, so I called his school. I managed to get a hold of the teacher, and we ended up talking for a good 25 minutes. Apparently Tracen hadn't brought home any information on parent/teacher conferences, and we had missed it. So we went over his grades (he got mostly A's and B's, plus a C in math) and talked about his behavior. As soon as I heard we missed the parent/teacher conference, I started making faces at Tracen and hissing things at him like, 'You are in SO much trouble!'. I thought he had hid the information on purpose so I wouldn't find out he had bad grades. Then she told me his grades and since they were good, figured it was an accident. Unfortunately, I had made him cry before I stopped and felt bad. His teacher and I also talked about his ADD and the medication he was on (I had called the doctors office earlier that day and spoke with his nurse about his medication, which didn't seem to be working, and she told me the doctor wanted me to hold off changing any medication until after Thanksgiving), and she (the teacher) said Tracen couldn't concentrate hardly at all in class (which is why we put him on the meds in the first place) and if I needed her to, she would talk to the doctor about it. After I hung up with her, I immediately called the clinic and left a voice message for them to call me back. You may wonder what this has to do with me having the baby, but I wanted you to understand the drama that was going on at the time. It was around 4:20 when I left the message, and I started to talk to Tracen about the call with his teacher, and apologizing for making him feel bad. During our conversation, something very strange happened. The closest I can come to describe it is, it felt like a bubble popping, then I peed myself... only, the pee didn't stop, it just sort of continued to trickle.

I will pause here for dramatic affect...

for you to come to the right conclusion...

your almost there...

Right!

So, here I am standing in the hallway, having stopped in mid sentence, with Tracen looking at me funny, when I finally come to the only conclusion that makes sense, even though it didn't make sense, because it had never happened before! I look at Tracen and say, 'I think something is happening with the baby!' I grab my cell phone and call Dallas and say the words I had never said before (not outside a hospital or even without a doctor's help), 'Dallas, I think my water just broke!'
There is silence at the other end for a minute, then he says, 'You're kidding, right?' To which I reply, 'No, what do I do?' And then told him what happened. He tells me to call the doctor, but before I do that, I called my sister, Teri, since she was going to be in the delivery room with us. So I call the clinic and tell them I need to speak to my doctor because my water just broke. When he got on the phone the first thing he said was, 'This is a new experience for you isn't it?' He also told me to get to the hospital as soon as possible and I told him Dallas wouldn't be home until almost 6:00. He said if I could, call someone to drive me there. Well, by now it's almost 5:00, I know Dallas and my sister are on their way, or will be soon, I don't want to call someone to watch my kids and call someone else to drive me, nor do I want to go to the hospital without my husband. Plus, I needed to shower anyway, so I go ask the older boys to watch Kyler, but I can't find Tracen. I finally find him in the bathroom, and he had been crying. I asked him what was wrong and he mumbled a few things, but the jist of it was he thought something was wrong with the baby (and he might have caused it because of the call with his teacher)! So I reassured him, explaining that nothing was wrong, the baby just wanted to come on his own! I finally convinced him everything was okay and that he wasn't at fault and I jumped in the shower, and by the time I was ready, Dallas and Teri had gotten to the house. Dallas jumped in the shower real quick, which was good, since it gave me time to pack my bag for the hospital since I hadn't done it yet! I threw the most essential items in my bag, grabbed my coat and waited for Dallas to be ready. For those of you concerned about what was to happen with my boys, and you know you were (in the sense of 'what poor unsuspecting fool was going to watch them'), my mom had originally planned to take time off work to watch them, but only Thursday & Friday because she had a work deadline on Wednesday. Thankfully my nephew, Connor, was able to come up to watch them until 9:00pm, then my mother-in-law was able to watch them overnight and get them off to school the next morning. All I can say is thank heavens for family!! Anyway, where did I leave off...oh yes, I was standing in the dining room with my sister waiting for Dallas. After a minute or two, I wondered what was keeping him. Now, I hadn't had any contractions at this point, but I did want to get to the hospital before the 'crowning moment', if you know what I mean. So on the one hand I wanted to be in the car already, but I wasn't standing there tapping my foot, looking at my watch, or anything. Which brings me to why Dallas hadn't come out of the bedroom (he's going to kill me for this story... I love you dear!). My sister yells, 'What are you doing? Let's go already!'. Dallas walks out the bedroom doorway and looks sheepishly at us and says, 'I couldn't decide which watch to wear!'
I have to add another side story here, about a year or two ago, my father-in-law started watching ShopNBC (I personally think it was a slow TV day with no car racing, golf or sports on, haha) and started buying nice watches for everyone in the family. Somehow, Dallas caught that same (fever, slow TV day...???) thing and now has a small collection of nice watches... and on occasion can't decide which one to wear, or ends up changing it after he gets one on!
So that has been a bit of a joke, Dallas was willing to assist in a home birth just so he could wear the right watch! Needless to say we made it to the hospital in plenty of time! I did have two contractions on the way there, and then I did panic a bit, especially since, going with my luck, we hit EVERY light red! I get into my hospital bed (and the love-erly hospital gown) and was checked and was STILL dilated at a 2 1/2, almost a three, although I suspect the nurse just told me that so I wouldn't throw my bedpan at her! (okay, so I didn't have a bedpan, but I thought it sounded better then throwing a hospital pen at her!!) I then settled down to play the waiting game! After a little while, not as long as I would like to admit, I asked (begged) for, and got my epidural.



It was the hardest epidural I ever got! The actual shot wasn't too bad, pretty much the same as the others I have gotten, but the guy comes in and has me sit up, then tells me I need to move because I was in the crack of the bed. I moved and then he said, 'You're still in the crack' to which I DESPERATELY wanted to reply, 'Can't help it! My crack follows me wherever I go!'. Then he was trying to get me to relax and drop my shoulders, to the point he is PUSHING my shoulders down saying, 'Relax, relax!' All the while I'm thinking, 'Easy for you to say, you're not on the business end of this needle!', and out of the corner of my eye, I can see my sister and husband's head bobbing in quiet laughter! He finally got me relaxed enough to get it all set up and then it really was a waiting game. I SLOWLY dilated, and around 1:30 am, we all (Teri, Dallas and I) decided to try to get some rest. We shut the light off and I rolled onto my side so I could see the machine that was monitoring my contractions. I had just dozed off when I felt this uncomfortable pressure. I looked at the monitor, but it didn't show much activity, so I ignored it. About 30 seconds or so later, I felt it again, only worse. Looked at the monitor and, again, not much activity. I had just closed my eyes when I felt it for the third time and it was MUCH stronger, so I (tried) to roll over to push the call button, and apparently I must have flailed more than I thought because Teri & Dal both asked me if I was ok.
The nurse comes in to check me and says, 'Oh! Looks like he's ready! Better call the doctor!'
As the first nurse goes to call the doctor, another nurse comes in and starts prepping my room for the delivery.
When the first nurse comes back, she takes a quick peek at how the baby is doing and turns to me and says, "I'm going to need you to push now."
I look around the room thinking, 'Wow, I swear she just left to call the doctor. I know he has a fast car, but he's here already?' The more I look, the more I realize, unless he snuck in and is hiding in the bathroom, he's not here.
Again, the nurse says, "I'm going to need you to push now."



I look at her and open my mouth to say something, but I was raised 'if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all'...okay, we all know that is a lie, but realize I am fairly drugged at the time and extremely tired, to boot! What I want to say is, 'No, no! There will be NO pushing until I see a doctor! And not just any doctor, MY doctor. So sorry, find someone else to do your pushing!'
She must have sensed some of that on my face (or I may have said it out loud, not sure, as I said...drugged), because she looked at me and said, 'Honey, if you don't push and relieve some of the pressure, it could harm the baby. The doctor will be here in plenty of time for the birth, this push is just to relieve pressure.'
Maybe thats not exactly what she said, again, I revert back to the fact I was drugged. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy that sort of drugging, have asked for that sort of drugging on occasion in my home (to no avail!), just explaining my fogginess. (wish I had a good excuse for the daily fogginess I live with, but will chalk that up to being a mother of 5 boys!) So I reluctantly pushed and immediately felt less pressure, then she tells me to relax. We do this a couple of times, and each time she tells me to push I look around for the doctor, who was still absent. Finally, the doctor showed up and within a short time (a couple of good pushes) out comes our newest family member, born November 11, 2009 at 2:27am, weighing 8lbs 2oz and 21" long, Zackary Kay Orr.
I post this, realizing it has been exactly one year since his birth! Happy 1st Birthday Zack!

It has been awhile since I have had a toddler, five years to be exact! Sometimes, I get caught up in what I am doing and forget that silence, while nice with the older ones (for the most part), is rarely good, and often dangerous (or at least worth 20-30 minutes of clean up when found!) with a 2-yr old! This morning was one of those times. As I was cleaning my kitchen (yes, I occasionally do that), I didn't realize I was enjoying the silence when here comes Kyler out of his room. I look at his arms in stunned silence.

Then the silence breaks and I yell, 'Kyler! No, no!' So, he runs into his room and I follow him, but before I get in, he pulls on a set of Mr. Potato head glasses.

Of course, it worked, I laughed then snapped some pictures.

Thank heavens they were dry erase markers and no wall or child or toy was harmed!!!

On a side note, as I was posting this blog, this is what happened:

Sigh, it's good he's cute!

When I went to my doctor appointment last week, my doctor informed me that since the H1N1 flu (swine flu) is going strong in our area, and since it hits pregnant women very hard (as of last Thursday there were 5 pregnant women in the ICU of the Idaho Falls Hospital), that I shouldn't go out to public places, i.e., HOUSE ARREST! So, I be a good girl and do my best to stay away from lots of people, make my kids wash their hands twice as much and use LOTS of hand sanitizer. So, Monday, around noon, my oldest son calls me and says the school wants me to come pick him up because he started coughing when he got to school and just sort of got worse. I ask him questions on the way home like, does he feel sore, does he feel warm, etc., all the flu like symptoms I could think of. All he says is he coughs and has a little headache. Well, every winter, for the past 2 or 3 years, he gets a cold with a nasty cough that lasts for a month or sometimes two, so I thought maybe that was what it was. We get home and I decide to take his temperature, which was 103.2 degrees! Then he says, 'I couldn't even bend over to tie my shoe I hurt too bad.'...mmm...doesn't that fall under the 'sore' category!!! So I banish him downstairs and wash my hands for about 30 minutes then call my mom to take him to the doctor. They were there for about 2 hours when my mom calls and say he is positive for Influenza A, but since the swine flu is the strain that is going around and it is so expensive to test for it, they would treat him like he had it. So, the irony is, I am under house arrest so I don't get swine flu, AND IT'S IN MY HOUSE!!! We have taken some pretty good precautions though, he pretty much stays downstairs, we have masks and gloves and lysol and disinfecting wipes and hand sanitizer that we use A LOT! He seems to be doing pretty well, but then again, the poor thing isn't able to go to school and is locked up with the Wii! I hope he will be able to cope!

So, yesterday was quite a day. It was the one year (anniversary?, birthday?, ?) since we lost my sweet baby Justin. I had a weird day with many mixed emotions. On the one hand I couldn't believe it has been a whole year since it happened, some memories being so vivid it was like it happened that morning. On the other hand a whole lot has happened in that year and some memories I had to struggle to recall. I also feel a little guilty for being pregnant, like maybe I should have waited.

My family sent me flowers, and they were supposed to come yesterday, but were accidentally delivered on Monday, and I thought how sweet my family was for that, but was surprised I didn't cry. I was really touched, but thought, 'maybe I can handle this one with no tears'

Then today, I get another bundle of flowers and the lady said, 'My boss wanted me to tell you these were ordered on Saturday.' Most people would think how odd, but I knew right away they were from my husband. Those of you who don't know my husband wouldn't understand, he's not big on sending flowers, but whenever I get flowers from my family for my birthday, he always jokes that the florist must have forgot to deliver the ones from him. So, I'm thinking, 'How sweet he sent me flowers!' There were lots of purple and some pink, some lilies and lots of carnations, which are my favorite flower. (although I found out later he had to call my sister to see which flower I liked best! You think, after fifteen years of marriage...) Then I read the card... he wrote it as though it was Justin who was saying it and it said the sweetest things, and it had a little stuffed bear tied to it, I bawled for half an hour!

I'm extremely embarrassed that it has been so many months since my last post, but this summer has been crazy!!! It also doesn't help that my little one, Kyler, really keeps me going! He is a busy, busy boy!

First, I ought to finally announce that I am pregnant, and we are very excited! I am due on November 17, although I will probably be induced on the 13, since my body doesn't go into labor on its own! And before all the gender questions come pouring in, yes, my luck has held and its another boy!!! We had an ultra-sound on July 13, and before we walked into the clinic I told Dallas, 'I know it's a boy. I'm so sure of it, I will bet you $100.00 (that I didn't have)!' And sure enough, there is no question, it is a boy!

The last month of school went pretty fast, and all three boys got pretty good report cards (yeah!), and I feel like we have been gone or busy A LOT of the month of June! We have 5 birthdays in June, so that keeps us a little busy. The first weekend (5-7) we went down to Bountiful, Utah to visit my sister and have a BBQ. The weekend of the 12-14 we worked on our lawn and flower beds and had a BBQ with Dallas' family for his and his mom's B-Day. The next weekend was Fathers Day and we worked more on our yard. That next week my sister came up from Utah so I was in Poky a lot and we worked on some stuff in my moms house, and that weekend (26-28) we went back to Utah for Taylorsville days where they have a rides & booths & food & fireworks. Dallas' Aunt Barbara has invited us to go down to that for a couple of years now, it's a lot of fun.

Before I carry on, I have to expand on Friday the 12th, because a lot happened that day alone. Kyler has had double ear infections 8 out of the past 12 months, some times for the whole month, so we finally got an appointment to put tubes in his ears that morning. Everything went well, the whole thing only took about 13 minutes and we were out and on our way very early (we had to get there at 6 am, the procedure was at 7 am, and we were gone by 7:45am). They told us it was a simple procedure and he would feel better when he was done than before he went under, but I was still worried. My sister, Teri, had my other 3 boys and since neither Dallas or I got much sleep the night before (even after I finally went to bed after 1:00 am, I still couldn't sleep), we decided to just head home. At home, he acted great. He played and ran around like nothing happened. I was feeling much less worried about side effects when he fell asleep around 11:00, so I started straightening up a few things around the house. Shortly before noon I laid down on the couch to get some sleep and Kyler woke up screaming! I felt so bad, apparently laying on his ears irritated them and stupid mom hadn't thought to give him any Tylenol! It took me an hour to get him back to sleep after giving him the medicine. Once he did fall asleep, I got some much needed rest. Later on, after we all woke up, I decided to take Kyler outside to play. The day or two before (one of the days it actually didn't rain) Dallas had mowed so we had pulled all the hoses off the lawn. One of my brilliant children decided it would be a good idea to put one on the back step right outside our door. As I walked out, stepping over the hose, helping my 20 month old walk down the steps, I thought, 'I ought to move this hose before someone tri...' That was as far as I got, as I was the one who tri... over the stupid thing! In trying to save Kyler (as in, not crushing him with my gigantour feet or body!), I bent and twisted my right foot and ankle to the point that the TOP of my foot was scraped up and I could barely step on my foot my ankle hurt so bad! For all those concerned, no child was hurt (including the wee one inside me) when the rampaging Rhino fell down the stairs! (and luckily, no one saw it either!!!) Later on that night, we planned to go to Pocatello to pick up the other three boys. I got the van loaded with our various diaper bags and purses and such and took Kyler outside to load him. He is one of those kids who doesn't walk anywhere, he takes off running. He saw our sliding van door was open so he, of course, takes off running toward it. Right before he got to the van, he tripped and hit his head on the sliding door. I head right over to him and hug him thinking, 'He is going to have one heck of a goose egg on his head!' As I'm trying to calm him down, I see this funny maroon-ish spot on the concrete and think, 'That almost looks like a spot of blood, how funny...' Then I look down at Kyler and see the blood POURING out of the gash in his forehead! I scream, 'DALLAS HE'S BLEEDING BAD!!!" So Dallas takes him out of my arms and into the house and with a cold wash cloth manage to get the bleeding down enough so we can get to the clinic for what I assume will be stitches. We get to the clinic and wait, for what feels like forever, but really wasn't too long. They take us to one of the 'special' rooms in the back (trauma room or suture room, or something like that), and we did have to wait there for a bit. (As we waited for the doctor, I was thinking back on the day and remembered thinking earlier, 'Now that he has the tubes in his ears, we probably won't be into the clinic for awhile, hopefully just for check-ups!' How ironic, huh!) When the nurse finally came in, she had this syringe in her hand and I thought, 'No, not a shot to numb it!', but then realized there was no needle in it. She informed us it was full of a numbing solution and she would squeeze some of it on the wound so the doctor could suture it. Dallas picks Kyler up, (because heavens knows, I'm a complete basket-case!) then proceeds to squirt the solution all over Kylers head, in his eye, and on Dallas! She sort of laughs and says, 'Oh! It was a little thinner than I thought!' I'm thinking, 'Why the he#* are you laughing? Let me squirt some of that into YOUR eye and see who's laughing!' She helps Dallas wipe it up and she gets it ONTO his head this time and says we have to wait for it to take affect then left. After another long wait, the doctor comes in and says she wants to try a butterfly bandage instead of stitches, which I'm not so sure about, but she said he would have a scar either way, so Dallas says fine, do the bandage. We finally leave for poky, MANY hours later than we planned, picked up the boys and headed home. Just about the time we hit Blackfoot I remember thinking I was glad the day was over and couldn't wait to get to bed. That was definitely a bad thought, since on our way into town Dallas hit some white animal (cat or rabbit or ??) that ran across the road! don't sic PETA on us, it was very dark and there was no way to avoid it!) I can definitely say that was one of my top 10 worst days!!!

This was the picture my husband took with his phone while we were waiting for the doctor.

(no, he has had no drugs at this point!!!)

And July has just been a day trip here and a day trip there, work picnics to go to, etc. We had hoped to do some camping, but dallas got a new job at the INL at the end of June (I will save that story for another post) and they had him working a lot of overtime, so free weekends were scarce! On the days I was home, I tried to clean and get laundry done! At any rate, I feel like the first two months of summer just flew by! (It didn't help that it rained the whole month of June!)

This post was long enough, so I will save the month of August for another day! (And what a month it was!!!) Hopefully it won't take me so long to post next time, maybe just a few days!!!