Birthdays and Kidney Stones

A lot of things have happened recently but I suppose I will start from the beginning… Conner and I went to Idaho Falls for my sister and niece’s birthday parties. We decided to make a vacation of it and stayed for almost a week to have some fun. I figured that it would be my last chance to get away for a while before we have little Jayden. We celebrated my sister Alissa's Bday: Conner LOVES to sing "Happy Birthday" and always thinks that he gets to blow out the candles...

After singing he always yells "cake!" (my favorite part too...)

Here is my niece Kynzee, aka the birthday girl. She LOVED being sang to so much that we did it all over again.

Conner helped blow out her candles AND open her presents.

After finding out that the presents were NOT his:

I have the cutest little nephew who LOVES smiling at everyone... love him!

We were also able to spend a day with both of Nathan's little sisters. Conner loved playing with all of his cousin Naomi's toys. He thanked her with a hug:

I was also able to go out to eat with one of my best friends. Conner and I had a ton of fun visiting everyone!

Now for the "not so fun" part:

The morning after I got back I started cramping and feeling sick to my stomach. Later that evening I felt like I had to use the bathroom REALLY bad but when I tried I could only go a little bit and still felt like I needed to go and it hurt. I started having contractions and feeling sick to my stomach. It was 1:00 in the morning when we finally decided to go into the hospital to find out what the heck was going on. When I got in there they tested for a bladder infection but that wasn’t it and found out that I was dilated between a 2 and a 3 and 80% effaced. When I got up to use the bathroom I started having the WORST pain on the right side of my back. The nurses said right away that it was my kidney and gave me some pain medication… demerol is great stuff… and they sent me to have an ultrasound on my kidneys. They found out that my right kidney was inflamed and wasn’t able to send any urine into the bladder. They couldn’t see any stones and wondered if maybe the baby was sitting on my ureter tube. They decided to send me to have a C.T. Scan and found out that there were small stones in both sides and that the baby was probably not allowing them to pass. They gave me two options A. To put stints in the tubes to allow the stones to pass but that there was a great possibility that it would put me into labor and they would have to remove the stints anyway. Or B. To take the pain for as long as possible (he really wanted me to reach 37 weeks… which was five days away) and then he would induce me and let the stones pass. I decided to last as long as I could but it hurt SO bad! The kidney pain was causing me to have contractions and was making me really nauseous. I was having a hard time eating or drinking anything and started throwing up Friday night so we called the doctor Saturday morning and he told us to come into the hospital to be induced. We called my Mom to start driving to Twin so she could be with Conner. While we waited for her to get here the pain in my back started to get better and the nausea went away and I was able to keep food down. We figured that the pain would be returning soon and still went into the hospital. They hooked me up to an I.V. to rehydrate me and told me that the baby must have moved and that the stones may have passed without me knowing, relieving the pressure on my kidneys. The only way to know for sure would be to do another C.T. Scan but didn’t want to do another one because it isn’t good for the baby. Since I was feeling better they didn’t feel good about inducing so early so we came home. (I was relieved and disappointed all at the same time.) They said if the pain came back that they would induce otherwise I’m going to carry this little guy until he is good and ready to come out on his own… and who knows when that will be!

Throughout all of this I learned a few things: I already love this little baby sooo much and was so concerned about him the entire time. I have an amazing husband who loves me so much and I know that he would do anything for me. And I have a sweet little two year old that loves me too. He was so sweet through all of this. He kept saying “mama sick” and would bring me things to help me feel better and was constantly giving me kisses. We are so lucky to have so many people that care about us! Thank you everyone for your prayers!

Conner at Two!

Conner is growing up way too fast… It is crazy that he is already two! I definitely think that so far this has been the most difficult age because he has such an opinion but it is also so much fun because he understands so much and he is getting really good at communicating with us. For the sake of journaling here are a few things that he is doing right now:

• He knows his colors really well and is obsessed with naming off the colors of random things.
• He is learning his shapes. He knows star, circle (he usually says “round”), square, and triangle.
• He likes us to sing him the alphabet and show him each letter. He knows O, S, W, and Y.
• He likes to count objects when there is more than one of something. (He usually skips 4 though…)
• Every night, after I lay him in bed, he waves and blows me kisses until I close his bedroom door.
• He loves to color and play playdoh. (He has to tell me the color of each crayon and each can of playdoh.)
• He loves to sing, especially songs with hand motions. (His current favorites are “Wheels on the Bus”, “I Like to Eat Apples and Bananas”, and “The ABC Song.”)
• His favorite show is still Dora and he would watch it all day long if I would let him.
• He randomly walks up to the hamster cage and says “oh cute!”
• When he asks for something and I give it to him he usually says “Thank you mama.” And I don’t even have to ask!
• He is a VERY particular child. He gets upset if I put his black shoes on him when he wants to wear the “white ones.” He will not go to sleep if he is not wearing socks. He gets upset if I do something when it was “Conner’s turn” to do it. He won’t color with broken crayons. He will not take his sippy from Dad when it was “mama’s turn” to fill it up. I could go on and on… I once complained to my Mom about this and she told me that I was the same way. I guess that is what I get! Haha!
• He is such a story teller. He will tell Nathan and me about things that happened during the day.
• He LOVES to be my little helper. He feels so important when I ask him to do little jobs for me. It is his official duty to get more toilet paper when a bathroom runs out… and he is very proud of himself afterwards.
• He insists on saying the prayer every night. It usually consists of “mama, dada, papa, Conner, dada, mama, Conner, Amen!” He will occasionally throw other random people in there.
• Whenever I am doing something that makes a loud noise or when he hears something fall he asks “Okay mama?”
• Occasionally he will ask “hand?” and will just want to hold my hand while he drinks his sippy or watches t.v. Love it!

Conner is always making us smile and we couldn’t imagine our life without our crazy little boy! I think that the best way to describe his personality is like the commercials for Sour Patch Kids candy…. which I happen to think are pretty funny... “They are sour and then they are sweet.” He can be naughty but then he is so sweet that you can’t stay mad at him very long! We love him sooo so much!

Black...

I thought that it was supposed to be slimming…

32 Weeks

Only eight weeks left… the end is in sight! The little guy is healthy, strong, and super active. Sometimes at night I swear he is trying to break out of the womb. I’m at the point that I am feeling very uncomfortable and am ready to meet this little guy. On the positive side… the good thing about heartburn is that smoothie flavored Tums are tasty… :) The only thing better than feeling a baby move inside of me is being able to hold that little baby and I can’t wait!

Buddies

This post is going to be out of order but it’s better late than never! My sister Alissa, her husband Ryan, and their two cute kids Kynzee and Kayden came up to visit two weeks ago. It was such a warm weekend so we were able to take the kids outside to play and for a bike ride. Conner and Kynzee are little buddies and it is so cute to watch them play together. Here are a few cute pictures of them hanging out…

We loved having them here and were so glad that they were able to come visit… we wish that they lived closer so that we could see them all the time!

Conner the Birthday Boy!

I can’t believe that Conner is already two! His birthday was on Sunday but we celebrated it on Saturday. Conner woke up to his first present of the day: his “birthday mobile.” He loved it and made us push him around the house all morning honking his horn and yelling “GO!” Conner kept saying either “Mama’s turn” or “Dada’s turn”… I let it be “Dada’s turn” the majority of the time.
For lunch we took him to Arctic Circle so that he could play on the toys and he didn’t want to leave even though we had been done eating for a long time.

When we got back lots of family started coming into town. Uncle Kevin, Aunt Lena, and cousins Lucy and Isak came down from Washington. Aunt Lindsey and Uncle Nate came up from Rexburg. Grandma, Aunt Teresa, and cousin Kynzee came up from Idaho Falls. Aunt Chelsea came from Utah. We started the party once everyone got here… we ate pizza and then sang to Conner and ate cake. Conner has really been liking Buzz lately so I went with that theme. (He does like Dora more but a Dora cake would have been way too girly…)


Conner sneaking M&M’s off of the cake… He is the birthday boy so he gets to do what he wants.
I made an ice cream cake but we forgot to take it out of the freezer to let it thaw a little bit. So I let Nathan use his super strong muscles to cut it.Once we started singing “Happy Birthday” to Conner he knew exactly what to do. He started blowing out his candles before we even finished the song.
Afterwards Conner opened up his pile of presents. He had lots of help from Kynzee. (I’m sure that he will return the favor on her birthday.)
He got Toy Story potato heads, a Jack in the Box, Play-doh, books, clothes, a sing along CD, Buzz plate/bowl/cup set, and a Nerf gun. Here is Uncle Kevin showing Conner how to shoot his new gun.

We were glad that so many people were able to come celebrate with us… we had so much fun and Conner loved all of the attention!

Kevin, Lena, Lindsey and Nate were able to stay the whole weekend because Monday was Presidents Day. We had so much fun with them here. We all got Nerf guns and had lots of battles. (We kept finding Nerf darts all over the house.) We played the Xbox kinect… sooo much fun! It was so funny to watch everyone play the dancing game. I even took my turn busting some serious moves! Haha! The girls gave the Dad's babysitting duty and went out shopping. I got a few things for when I no longer have a big belly and extra chub... it might be a while before I can wear them but buying big clothes is not as much fun. Here are a few pictures of our weekend!

Lindsey, Lena, and I

Conner giving Isak a big hug...

Hanging out with Uncle Nate...

Conner is being helpful by washing Lucy's hair...

Thanks for coming everyone! We loved having you here and had a blast!

New Pets!

Nathan has had a fish tank for most of the time that we’ve been married and I’ve always told him that fish are the lamest pets. His tank was down to two fish so we went to the pet store to buy him more and while we were there I convinced him to put hamsters in the tank instead! That meant flushing his two fish… I thought that it might make Conner sad (he loves the fish!) but he just flushed the toilet, waved, said “bye bye fishies!”, and walked out of the bathroom.

I named my little hamster Gus Gus, from Cinderella… I know that Gus Gus is a mouse in the show but close enough right? Isn’t he a cute little furball?
Nathan named his Skelator, from He-man… good thing he isn’t solely responsible for naming our children!
We got a ball for them to run around in. I wondered how long it would take for Conner to kick it… two seconds! I have a feeling that Conner is going to greatly decrease their life expectancy…

Conner is going to be two years old in just two weeks… he’s not my little baby anymore! I’m a little worried what the “terrible twos” will bring. Conner is already a busy body who loves mischief and definitely has a mind of his own!

Getting into Mommy’s mascara… (Most of it is on his eyelids.)

Getting into the sticky labels...

I love this bath picture because it shows his silly little personality. Lately Conner has been really interested in learning his colors. Some days he knows them really well and gets them all right but some days he thinks everything is blue... either way we think he is pretty bright! I have a video of him coloring and naming the colors of the crayons but for some reason I can NOT get any videos to load!

Conner also is learning to count. We will hear him counting his toys as he is playing with them. Usually it is "One, Two, Three, One, Two, Three..." over and over again but lately he has been counting further. I got a video of him counting all the way to fourteen! But once again it won’t load so you’ll just have to believe me. :)

Diaper Duty

I heard the door on the entertainment center open so I went to see what Conner was getting into. He had all of the diaper changing stuff out and was changing Dora's diaper! haha!

Wiping

Rubbing on some Desitin... we wouldn't want Dora to get a rash!

Putting on baby powder

And the diaper!

Isn't he going to be the best big brother? Do you think that if I encourage him he will want to change Jayden's diapers for me?