First Christmas at Home

We stayed home for Christmas this year because little Adelyn was only 2 weeks old. It was special for our family to enjoy the magic of Christmas together. Kaity wrote a letter to Santa and asked if we would put it in the mailbox for her. So sweet. I'm glad we took a picture of it. 

  Little Addie slept through most of it. She likes sleeping during the day much more than at night. We gotta work on that. 

Being together as a family with this beautiful baby girl is the best Christmas present.

Welcome Adelyn!

She is here! We are so excited to have the newest member of our family home for Christmas. What an incredible gift.

 

 

Adelyn Mae Carroll was born on December 13th at 1:32pm. She was 8lbs 12 oz and 19.5 inches. My biggest baby!

We were scheduled for an induction for that morning. Markham really was hoping for a 12/12/12 baby, but it just didn't work out. The hospital was totally booked on that day, which wasn't a surprise at all. His last hope was that my water would break on the 12th. But nope.

We checked in at the hospital at 8am. I was at a 3. The Dr. broke my water by 9:30am, and soon after I was having pretty intense contractions. I made it very clear to my nurse I had no interest in natural childbirth. By 10:15, my epidural was in and I was feeling a lot better great. I was able to doze and felt a little loopy while my mom and Markham sat there and tried to figure out why she couldn't access her on-line banking from her tablet. I don't know if it was the drugs or what but it made me giggle a little.

I was progressing quickly and stated to push around 1. It wasn't too bad, and went quickly. Right after she was born the Dr. laid her on my chest and I held her delicate little hands.....precious. Nothing like it.

She didn't cry out and they were concerned about her. I was of course ready to panic but they assured me she was alright. They called in the NICU team to make sure. After a little while and a few tests they concluded she was just fine. Big Relief.

(Warning- content may be too graphic for some readers) Meanwhile the Dr is attempting to retrieve the placenta and it is taking a really long time. I begin to wonder what the heck is going on down there. He is the most calm, wonderful Grandfather type man and put my mind to ease. He said that everything was fine, my placenta was being "stubborn" After 15 minutes or so I was starting feel really light headed and dizzy. They gave me oxygen and a few minutes later he sighed with relief and said my uterus had come out with my placenta, inside-out!! Wait, what?! In his 30 years of practicing he had only seen it happen twice, pretty rare.  It is life threatening and can end up in an emergency hysterectomy because of all the bleeding. Oh wow. I was super grateful that he was so experienced and had stayed super calm. I would have been on full tilt if I had know I had inappropriate organs coming out. I had lost a lot of blood and felt really tired but was ok.

We stayed in the hospital for 2 days. Markham stayed with me the entire time. It was so nice to have him there and just enjoy Adelyn and the peace and quiet. I had great nurses, which always makes a difference.  I would have stayed longer :)  My sweet sister stayed with Kaity and Jackson while we were in the hospital and my mom stayed for several days after we got home to help out. I am so grateful for such a great family!

So now we are just home enjoying our little girl. It is a crazy busy time of year to have a baby but it is kind of nice because it forced me to get all my shopping done early so I wouldn't have to worry about it. I love Amazon and have ordered 98% of my gifts from there. How can you beat 2 day free shipping, by-passing the crowds and traffic?   You can't

So there it is. I wanted to document the details of her birth before it escapes my memory. She is our last baby so I wanted to remember all of it.

8 Years

For our 8 year anniversary Markham took me to this cabin in Heber. It was so beautiful and very nice. Very relaxing and peaceful. We could not believe how quiet and dark it was at night. Crazy!

 We went for a ride in this Rhino. The weather was perfect. My favorite - sunny, but cool. It felt awesome! I love fall so much! Why is it so short?

We slept in, sipped hot coca by the fireplace and enjoyed some down time.  We had lunch at Dairy Keen, a local favorite. Afterwards, we drove down to Provo and went shopping, saw Taken 2 and had dinner at Happy Sumo with Matt and Emma. So yummy and fun. We really have to get away more! It was only for 2 nights, but so refreshing.  Thanks babe, I love you!!

Kindergarten

My little Kaity Paige loves school and learning. She loves dancing and playing with friends. She is a very sweet and thoughtful little girl and is always concerned about others' feelings. She loves her little brother Jackson and can't wait to meet her little sister!

One Spooky Night!

We had a fun and busy Halloween day and night. We spent the morning at swim lessons for Kaity. Afterwards we came home and she took a long shower. We had lunch and started to blow dry and curl her hair for school. She was so excited to wear her costume and have her Halloween Party.  I dropped her off  and went back a couple of hours later to watch the Halloween Parade. She had painted a pumpkin, decorated a cupcake, drew a haunted house and made a ghost. What fun!! Kaity was very sweet and made sure she had a treat for me and for Jackson.

That evening...

Our door bell came alive at 6! Trick-or-Treaters out in full force!  Our ward consists of about 5 streets so we know practically everyone. We left a big bowl of candy on our door step and set out with friends. We spent about an hour and a half walking the neighborhood. It felt like a candy procession. A lot of people didn't even bother closing their front door and just sat on the doorstep to dispense goodies to about a billion kiddos. It was a lot of fun - One of our favorite nights of the year.

Markham was a surfer this year and got quite a few laughs. He was hard to recognize as it got darker. It was funny to watch people try and figure out who he was. Roxy joined us trick-or-treating and was a pretty darn  

cute hot dog. She got some of her own laughs.

This year the baby was little hand prints and footprints on my shirt, next year we will have 3 little munchkins in costumes! 

Hope everyone had a fun night!!

Happy 6 Years Kaitlyn!

Birthday Time!

Miss Kaity Paige wanted to have a friend party this year, the first one we have ever had. Usually we have a family party  so it was a new and fun experience. We were lucky enough though to have cousin Parker here from Logan, which was great.  All the other cute friends live on our street! Ethan, Tatum, Gracelyn, Sadee and Kenzlee.  

She wanted a Hello Kitty cake again this year. We still love Hello Kitty very much!

 

We had pizza and went bowling. Everyone had a great time.

 

Kaity and Kenzlee are very good friends. She lives right across the street!

 Happy birthday my sweet little girl! I can' t believe it was 6 years ago when we brought you home from the hospital. Time has really flown. I feel super lucky and blessed to be your Mommy.

Looking forward to Haunting!

I just love Halloween! So much fun. The kiddos are excited to wear their costumes out trick- or- treating. I have had them since the end of September. Kaity is of course still very into Hello Kitty.

 

Happy Haunting!!

Kiddie Kandids

 

Brigham City Temple

Kaitlyn had been telling me for awhile that she wanted to go inside a temple. Since this is something that children don't typically do I was excited to take the kiddos to the Brigham City Temple Open House. They were so good.

We practiced walking reverently for a week. As we walked from the parking lot to the aquatic center for swimming lessons, we practiced  how we would act in the temple. I am sure people were puzzled as we walked with our arms folded, only speaking in whispers as we maneuvered through the busy scene. Oh well, it was great practice.

It was very sweet to see my two little kiddos dressed in their Sunday best, arms folded, walking through the temple that day. I was grateful for the chance to take them there and hopefully leave an indelible mark on their little hearts, hoping they would feel the special peaceful spirit of the temple and always strive to go back.

After the tour I wanted to get a picture of them outside. This picture was awesome in my mind. But unfortunately it was super crazy hot, my shoe choice was a huge mistake and my bladder was inflicting great pain. (I wasn't about to use the blue portable potties that lined the street, because A) They are just disgusting and B) What would I do with the kiddos while I was exposing myself to this cramped cesspool? It just wasn't going to happen.) So choosing not to walk to the other side of the temple, I took a couple of bad pictures with the sun blasting their poor little eyeballs and that was that.

As I buckled them into their car seats, I asked both of them what their favorite part was.

Kaitlyn pondered for a few seconds and said,  "The Jesus pictures and the sparkling lights"

Jackson was much less reflective and said, "The cookies."

My Proud Little Farmers

I had to snap this cute picture of the kiddos when they came in the house to show me the prize they had just picked, "Look mommy, look!!" their proud little voices proclaimed.

All Grown Up

Kaity and Ethan - friend and carpool buddy, waiting for school to start.

Thank goodness for carpool

The day has come...

 My little girl is officially in Kindergarten. She has been looking forward to this day since the last day of preschool last spring. She asked me, "Am I going to learn anything new today mom?"

Mrs. Perez will be her teacher this year. She is very excited!

Lord Stanley...brought to you by Markham

For my first official blog post ever, I present to you the Stanley Cup!  Trevor Lewis (he'd be the one in the Kings Jersey) won the cup this year and shared it with the state of Utah.  He's the first Utah native to have his name inscribed on the beautiful hardware.  I was able to see it, breathe on it, and touch it.  Once in a lifetime!

Too Cool for School

 

 

My little man will be hanging at home with me while Kaity is at Kindergarten, sniff sniff. I'm afraid I'll be a total train wreck on her first day of school. Good thing I have my little buddy to keep me company.

A Fun Pastime

Playing Hedbanz. We recommend it.