Make room for.....

So, with TJ going back to school we have decided that our tiny apartment will have to do for a bit. And we have come to terms with it. While we came to terms we decided we wanted to make things feel more adult like, right? Well, what about our kids room? That room was tinier than ever and I knew that if we wanted to de-clutter and try to save space we HAD to do something about their room.

So, we got the idea to do bunk beds. We told Marley, if she slept in her bed for a few weeks without crying or needing us to come in than she would get a 'tower bed' (she is into the Rapunzel phase and she also WOULD NOT sleep in her bed. Like at all. It was always on the couch or in our bed and it was terrible-she went to bed super late and woke up grouchy). She agreed to those terms and we set a good sleeping habit again.

I started to look into bunk beds online. Not just browsing occasionally anymore but looking for the best deal. Truth of the matter is- Bunk beds are not cheap! the cheapest ones I could find were about 400 for the frame alone and not the beds or the sheets. I knew this wasn't going to be cheap but we would need them soon to keep the promise and save space.

I first started looking at prices on mattresses, I wanted to find the best deal I could before I wanted to commit to this bunk bed idea. Twin beds are expensive too! I kept seeing beds that started at 150-300. All for a twin bed! Well, as I was almost to my ends on giving up I looked at RC Wiley again and a bed had just gone on clearance. 59.99 for a firm spring bed-and it felt really nice like it would last many years to come. I had to tell TJ about this and he had a great idea!

TJ's dad was in town helping family with projects and TJ had one day off. He talked to his dad about the possibility of building the bunk beds and what the cost would be. And this way I could get what I wanted. He was all on 'board' about it (sorry, couldn't help myself there) and with wood and all the tools to put into it the total cost would be under 150! We HAD to jump on it!

We went down on a Monday after TJ got out of class, we went to pick out the wood and built a bunk bed! This part was so confusing to me, they talked measurements and how they 'wood' do it (see, there I go again!) and they had lost me. All I said was to point me to the wood they needed and I would pick it out based on the color and splints. I feel like we collected a pretty solid group of wood!

Next was picking a stain. I headed to walmart to find a stain I wanted. This Walmart....had nothing! I was there seriously an hour looking for ANY stain. We had ONE night to get this project done and I knew that the stain was the important part to get done so the oils wouldn't ruin the wood. I called TJ with the news and he told me they were already half way done! They had cut all the pieces and were starting to assemble-crazy fast timing for just barely an hour!

Marley had decided she wanted to play at Grandma Carney's house so I went to pick her up and get headed back to the bunk bed madness. It was getting late (after 7 by this time) and I had to go pick up the mattresses at the will call by the airport. They closed at 9. I knew the guys wouldn't be done yet to make it down there to pick up the beds so I had a little adventure.

I had promised TJ's dad to get him some pizza for all the help and they closed at 9. So did the will call. I was going to go to our pizza place down the street but by the time I got to RC Wiley it was past 8:30. So I found one that was 15 minutes away and had it ordered and ready-I just hoped to be there at or before 9! Having two mattresses topped on your car and not knowing if they would fly away is terrifying. Especially when you have a deadline on where you need to be, driving on a busy freeway with wind. I just prayed those mattresses would stay put and that my car could handle it (haha, I say that like I have a wimpy car- I don't....I am just wimpy and freak out ;) )

Long story short, I made it to the pizza place, grabbed the pizza, made it home without loosing any mattresses, AND made it before the guys got there! So I brought the mattresses in (with help from my dad) and took the kids to pick out sheets for the beds. Mind you this is now 9:30ish and my kids go to bed at 7- so they were NOT too happy about this idea.

We get to Walmart and they had absolutely nothing. Nothing super cute and Marley like. They did have Batman which Corbi loved but the set would have been way more than I wanted to spend. So we came home empty handed. Started the pizza and turned on a show while we waited.

The guys showed up around 11 and we got back to work. Now the bed was not stained or sanded or set yet. We knew we would have to do this but not right at the moment (haha). We put them together and my oh my, they were beautiful! My Dad-in-law is so seriously talented! instead of building a separate ladder he build it in with the head and base boards- so creative! And this way we can still make shelving units on a later day. The kids LOVED them (this word is an understatement). They got to play with Papa for a few minutes and we put them to bed, they were out before we got to the end of the hallway!

This was such an amazing project that we did. I am so glad that TJ and his dad got this cool bonding time to help make the kids their new beds. They love them so so much and play on them all the time. Corbi can't climb down so he just normally sits on the top bunk and yells for me to come get him ;) He loves climbing up bright and early in the morning to wake up our threenager, who in return tries to push him off the bed because she doesn't want to get up.

TJ had to work 10 straight days and we had already planned on the weekend off we would get the beds sanded, stained and set. So to skip all the boring processes, we sanded forever, stained one bed and then went to bed. Saturday we sanded the second bed, then TJ decided it was a great time to get sick. So I was left to staining the second bed and setting them both. This wasn't so bad, it was just repetitious, haha! But hey, the beds are done and back together now!!!

We let the kids pick out their own bedding on what they wanted. Like I mentioned Corbi is in LOVE with Batman. The Batman set was too expensive so I was trying to find an alternative. Both the kids LOVE Star Wars, so I knew we would probably end up getting one set of those.

WE went to Burlington and had a few selections to choose from. Marley picked out Elsa -which was not a huge surprise and she was even happier the blanket was purple (her favorite color). Corbi had a tough pick, it was between star wars and batman and he wanted star wars (we kind of convinced him of that-its nice when you can still do that). But when he got to picking it out he saw a superhero set with iron man and Spider man. (He has a few spider man Jammie's and books that he thinks are pretty cool) So we were there for a few minutes trying to decide which one he wanted. He finally landed back on Star wars and we were on our merry way!

The kids truly are so happy with their new beds and so am I. I love that it is something special we can look at and know that Papa and dad built those, and I helped too. We put so much heart into them and I know they will be with us for a long long time! We ended up putting their dresser in their closet to make a little more space in their tiny room and they just are in heaven!

I am so glad that we did this project instead of buying a set. It gave us some good bonding and special memories but by golly I am so glad it is done and I cannot wait for the poly smell to go away!

 Corbi was SO excited he wanted Papa to help him climb up on the tower bed. Also, the ladder is on both ends!

 Marley and her Elsa bedding she picked out. the blanket is reversible with Elsa on it- she was happy with the purple!

 Corbi has now tried to sleep with Marley a few times because he loves being up on the top. But I am not new to this mom gig, I know they would never sleep!

 Corbi's cool Star Wars bedding

 Once again, Corbi LOVEs being up on top and will just snuggle into the covers and wait for Marley

This is the whole thing. Not completed with the stain job yet but it still looks SO good!

 I know it is hard to see and tell but this is the 'before' stain

And this is the after sanding and the stain.

I should take a final photo with this all done and completed...my kids are asleep and I don't want to risk waking them for a picture of the done done project. (Yeah, I know I am lazy too ;) )

Anyways, I think we are good and done with this 'project bug' for a bit. Though we still have our dresser to do so I hope I can catch it again before I get another 'bug' that will prevent me from doing the dresser project. (huge run-on sentence but, whateve.)

Any who, that's all! Goodnight!

Patience

So it has been some time since I have even thought about blogging, so I figured I would catch up on it. So where did I leave off? Oh that is right, Corbett's birth story. So.....he is almost 2! Hahaha! Crazy it has been that long and he is getting that big!

The kids are doing great, learning and growing and driving each other bonkers each day. They love to play outside and run around like crazy kidlets. they also enjoy seeing who can make the biggest mess in the house; to me its all a tie ;) Marley is 3 turning 13 (we call her our threenager because its all drama queen and tantrums-haha) She does say funny things on the daily and I try to remember all the funny things. The hardest part is disciplining her while she says something funny-keeping a straight face is a new game for me and I still cant win! Corbi is our little short guy. He looks like he is the size of a 12 month old but is so crazy adventurous! He loves to jump and fall off things (we are so lucky he has no broken bones!!!-*knock on wood*) He is starting to talk so much now, he is learning new words every minute. My favorite is when he calls for Marley. He really loves his big sister :)

 Our Sunday walks on our nature walk way by our house. The kids love the go play in the water and throw rocks. They have such an amazing dad who loves to play with them!

 Playing in our Utah down-pour. Splashing in puddles that were bigger than them. They loved it!

 Enjoying outside in the sun. But seriously, this kid gets herself dressed and the things she puts together.

 This girl LOVES Darth Vader. She had a Vader birthday party and got this outfit. Its great because she pairs it with high heels and a purse.

 Overalls are so stinking cute and without shirts...how could I resist!

 Handsome boy crashed after church. Thanks 9AM!

 I love this kid. He is getting better at letting me take pictures of him. McKenzies mom was able to get this one and he was such a ham!

They love going on "neighborhood" walks and their babies. They are obsessed with babies right now. Thanks Daniel Tiger. 

I took this past year to work on me. I started a weight loss journey to feel better about myself. I was focused this time on being more confident in myself. I was in a pretty low place and not happy. PPD hit and I just wanted to feel better about me. I put on so much weight after having two babies back-to-back and nursing that I wanted at least a year that was dedicated to me. So that is what I did. I started working out daily and eating better and watching my portions. It took some time but I finally got to a point that I was happy weight wise. I lost over 40 pounds! But even better is I gained so much confidence in myself. I cut off weight and majority of my hair. I went for the spunky fun mom that I wanted to be. I also got to the point of wearing pants all the time and I hardly ever stay in yoga pants. I just feel so good about myself right now, so its a really good feeling! I have since felt good enough to stop taking meds for PPD and sometimes its still a struggle but I just remember to work on myself and it seems to help. I always try to find time in the day for me. And I look forward to it when I am having a rough spot. It also rocks because my kids love to work out with me- it is super cute watching them participate and just want to spend time with me!

 Like I said, I cut my hair. And I am wearing PURPLE lipstick. I got real spunk. 

This was me in January, March(?), April (?),  And August

TJ has had a life change! haha, his story is way cooler than any of us. He has started going to school again and decided to do a job change as well that would work better for going to school. So he goes to school Monday-Thursday and works those days as well. He is going to school and work full time and still be a dad as well. We are just starting this journey but I am so proud of him and his hard work and dedication to our family!!!

Okay, so here is the main part of this blog post. With the news of school and work out of the way, we have decided we are going to be staying in our tiny two bedroom apartment for awhile (probably the duration of school). So we decided since we cant move and get more space, we would make the most of it! We did a 'grown-up' remodel of our place so we felt more at home and not like our place was taken over by toddlers!

We got new shelvings that have cubbies to hide all the toys and extra stuff that was laying around. Our living room actually looks more open and such. Next step is to take new family pictures for the fall and put them up on our wall.

Next was our room. We wanted to change things up so we could have more room for a computer desk so TJ could do his homework in a quiet space that wasn't taken over by children. So we did a little remodel but that is for another day. THat project is still not complete. (Sorry El, more patience)

Okay, so now what the moment I have been waiting for. I have been wanting a new table SO badly!!!! If you know me, you know I HATE the table we have right now. I hated the chairs, I hated the added drawings on the table. I just HATE the table and have wanted a new one since forever. Well, I was trying to think of ways we could get one with our budget. Nothing I liked was in our range! (go figure) So I did the next best thing. I took matters in to my own hands and I decided to redo our chairs.
Yup, you heard right. I decided to suck it up and use what I had. SO now I am going to walk through the how-to process. This took about two days and it was not all that hard, but our hands sure hurt from all the hard work!

I hated the covers we had. They were hard to clean and just looked awful! (the colors blended in with the floor so it was just gross). I was thinking of what I could use that would be easy to clean and still look nice. Then I remembered my wonderful mom LOVES to buy lots of fabric. LOTS. So I went scrimmaging in the forest of bins of fabric! I found 6 pieces I thought would look nice and brought them home for TJ to see. He aprroved so we got to work. So far I have spent 0$ on our project. Winning!

Now the next step. I knew that the thin fabric would not approve of a chair, we needed something to be strong and durable, easy to clean with having two little ones that make messes easily. I looked up clear vinyl. As silly as it looks, I was looking more for practicality. Like I said, two young messy toddlers and I like clean.
I googled prices for vinyl and the cheapest I could find was at Jo-Anns for 4.99 a yard. I had NO idea how much that would cover, and I needed to cover 6 chairs. So I did some thinking while at home Depot picking up staples. What about a shower curtian? It is clear and vinyl, and its big enough to cover at least 4 chairs! So we tested it out, and by golly it worked!!!!! Guys, I spent less than 9 bucks on vinyl going the shower curtian route than picking some out at Jo-Anns. (I am guessing I would have needed about 3-4 yards. that could have easily been 20$)

Anyways, we got to work removing staples from the chairs from the previous remodel job (this was tough work and our hands are still sore). Then we put the fabric over the chair and the vinyl on top of that. Then for the bottom we added a different color to give it more fun!

We ended up hair-drying the chair to shrink the extra vinyl down, so that was a......fun.....process. I felt my dryer was going to quit on me!

But in all the days work I find this a success story and really like how they turned out. Our next project is to stain the table and possibly the chairs but again, a project for another day. I do have a few more projects for the Fall season so be on the watch out!

Pictures of our project!

 *shudder* hideous chair cover. You can kind of see the floor matching the chairs.

 My kids know how to make a mess of anything! markers, food, I think blood too, maybe? Its a gamble. 

 This was the 'fun' process of removing a gazillion staples from each chair. Seriously, the people before us used so many staples to make sure they didn't budge.

 Tada!!!!! one chair down (purple is Marleys fav color so she gets the purple chair. The long process of drying the vinyl to shrink. *LOOOONNNNNGGGG*

 Hidden pop of color on the bottom to cover the bottom piece of wood

 And the final product!! I used all matching designs just in different shades (Thanks to my mom for her quilting days and getting matching fabrics in all sorts of colors)



Okay guys, that is it! All in all I spent 9 bucks on  shower curtian vinyl and 3 bucks on staples. The next step is to stain so if anyone has helpful tips on staining a table.....I am dreading that already because I have little patience to get little details and have it not show.  Help a sista out!!!

A promise to myself

As I sit here, staring on the screen, I have no idea how to really start what I am wanting to say. A million thoughts are going through my mind and I just am not content with all this not being written into words. This post is not a pity me post but more of a self booster. Something I- and I know others as well- are struggling with; body image.

Recently I went through the incredible experience of growing a child inside of me, and giving birth to our second child- a boy! When I first found out we were expecting another bundle of joy, many thoughts raced my mind. First, and foremost, was the 'I'm-having-a-baby!' phase; and then turned to a 'how-am-I-going-to-handle-two-kids-under-two' phase....which lead to many other phases and so on. But one phase I struggled with was 'I'm-going-to-get-big' and its the phase we all dread. The whole part about getting big/gaining weight, then the part of losing the baby weight after. I'm not sure if I am alone on this but every doctor appointment I dreaded getting on that scale-when the numbers went up, my heart sunk a little, when they went down (all thanks to the "wonderful" morning sickness that overcame half of my pregnancy). Yes, I knew I was growing a human inside of me, but I just couldn't get over the fact that I couldn't stay the same size/weight while doing so.

So now here I sit, my little guy will be turning three months here in a little over a week, and what do I have to show for it? I still look like I did three weeks postpartum and it is putting such a damper on my self  esteem! I look at all those women who are blessed with bouncing right back to the pre-pregnancy pants right after they have a baby, and I envy them-why cant I be that lucky to pop a kid out and look like I came out of a magazine, gorgeous as ever? Why couldn't I have been blessed with those beautiful genes?

Before I got pregnant I had been working really hard on getting back to my pre-pregnancy size after having our daughter. Here I was 8-9 months PP and I was pretty serious on hitting the gym about 4+ times a week, and had been since month 6. I was starting to like what I was seeing-results! Not necessarily huge weight lose but a few pounds here and there. I even felt so much better about myself which is a big win! Then I got pregnant, we were very happy and excited and this is what we had wanted (just didn't expect it to happen so fast ;) ) but I was dreading what would happen to my body and how big I was going to get. Both of my pregnancies I gained 29 pounds exact, now I take into consideration that both of my babies were 9 pounders and that the placenta wasn't just a weightless sack of meat. That was still an additional 15 or so pounds that I was going to have to deal with.

A lot of moms after they get the go-ahead from the doctor they hit the gym for an hour or more a day to get their body back. Well, here is the thing: 1.) I breastfeed, so working out vigorously can do a damper on your milk supply and I don't want to lose this bonding experience I gain when I breastfeed. 2.) I do not have hours to go run to the gym and work out. I am very blessed to be able to stay home with my children and my gym time is limited for when my husband can be home with them. So that leaves the mornings (which I prefer-just not the butt-crack of dawn when I am getting very little sleep already) or at night when my husband gets home from a long day at work. To be honest, I don't want to load our crazy toddler and crying baby to run off for an hour, and quiet frankly when it hits 7-8 o'clock at night I don't want to do ANYTHING! let alone run to the gym. I am doggone tired from the hectic/fun day I had entertaining a toddler and keeping her from trying to pick up brother or drop things on him. All I want to do is curl up next to hubby and watch some Netflix! So, I maybe hit the gym 1-2 times a week for maybe a quick run to not really focus on weight loss but to have a few minutes and rejuvenate myself.

So why is this such an issue for me? Why am I being so down on myself for having these curves and extra "cushioning"? I should be feeling on top of the world really, in less than a 3-year time span I have been pregnant, given birth to not one, but two beautiful children! I have grown my children inside my body, pushed those 9 pound suckers out, and then have supplied food for them to flourish- WITH MY OWN BODY! Man, I should be feeling like Wonder Women right now, right? I have been given the gift that some others do not get to have, yet all I am worried about are the stupid stretch marks and left-over weight. And I realized, I need to be nicer to my body- it has been through a lot and instead of making myself feel worse about my appearance, I should be okay with too-wide hips and that baby-pooch covered with lines. My body gave me the greatest gifts I will ever receive (with a little help ;) ) and I am going to be better at showing it a little more love. Not only for me, but because I also know, that one of those little gifts I gave birth to is watching my every move, absorbing like a sponge and the last thing I want her to do is worry so much about her body image. I want her to enjoy her time being a kid, and know that whatever size she turns out to be, that she is beautiful and one day her own body will do great things and be grateful for what she has.

I know my husband will roll his eyes at me for taking so long to get to this point but gosh darn it, I am happy with me. I want to wake up in the morning and not focus so much on what I will wear that day to hide that baby-belly, but more on what crazy adventure we will have that day. I want to look my daughter in the eye and say that body image isn't everything and it shouldn't consume our lives and actually mean what I am saying. Yes, I will continue to go to the gym as often as I can but instead of bullying my body because I am not losing the weight as fast as I hoped, I know it will happen overtime. I will continue to tell myself that I am beautiful, that my husband didn't marry me because of my jean size, that I need to set a good example for my kids because truth-be-told happiness isn't measured by the circumference of your waist. These are the things that are truly important to me, because no matter what happens, I will never be truly satisfied with my weight- whether I be 180 lbs or 108, but I know if I keep bullying myself about it, it wont just hurt me but the ones I love most.

So I promise today, to love my body more. To look at my body in the mirror and tell myself that I am beautiful. I will continue to sing "All about that Bass" not only because of the catchy tune but because I feel like my body size doesn't matter for those 3 glorious minutes.Continue going to the gym because it makes me feel good. I will look less into the tabloids about how fast so-and-so lost baby weight because a ton of that is really sketchy stuff anyways. I will brush off feeling uncomfortable around super skinny because we are all made differently.If someone makes a comment about me and my weight I will be honest; I really don't care, I am awesome, and I like me! And I will always tell myself no matter if I am a size 14 or 4, that my body is amazing, because my body made me a mother.

A Baby Birth story

This is the birth story of the arrival of our handsome little guy.

Nine months....it had finally come down to the day we were going to the hospital. We had decided to set an official date to be induced to welcome our son into the world due to him being a big baby and the fact I had kidney stones and was in discomfort due to those. So anyways.

We had just spent our last morning with it being us and Marley, it was a bittersweet time knowing our time of being just her was about to go out the window...I was a little emotional about it that morning and dropping her off wasn't any easier. We arranged for our good friend to watch Marley while we hung out at the hospital (she has a little girl the same age as Marz) so I knew she was being well taken care of, and probably not missing us too much. (Though it didn't help when we were leaving she stayed at door watching us with such a sad face)

We arrived and got checked in at 9 that morning, very quiet and peaceful. It didn't even seem real to me- that's how quiet the labor and delivery floor was! After getting settled in we met our delivery nurse and had the routine questions and paperwork to fill out. By 9:30 my doctor had stopped by -showing up in....get this....camo pants and crocs! No joke, and this is why my doctor is so awesome! Haha!- There was a little mix up and we had lost our nurse because she was being called to another doctor but really it was my doctor that was calling for her. When we finally got both the doctor and nurse in our room together they broke my water. I hadn't had my IV or anything put in yet but they checked my dialation to see if I was even able to have my water broken yet. I was at a 4 with already mild contractions (I didn't feel anything) so I got the okay to get things started. 

We had a little floozy with my IV and ended up having to switch hands, which made me pretty queasy and was put on some oxygen to keep me comfortable. By 11 my IV was in and my mom had arrived, I was starting to have regular contractions but still not really feeling anything. By 11:30 my nurse stopped in and said they were doing a low dose of pitocin since I was already progressing so fast and we talked about the epidural schedule. They had a c-section scheduled for 1, so my time frame to get the epidural was going to have to be now or after they got out (estimated at about 1:30) My contractions weren't bad and I decided to wait it out and see how I felt in an hour or so.

 We passed the time jamming to some Billy Joel and playing Phase Ten, and it was great! Super calming, though my mom would watch the monitor EVERY TIME I had a contraction and I could see her tensing up just waiting for me to react... but I really couldn't because I had learned from Marley's birth to breath through them and relax the body (Thanks to my awesome doula and midwife for coaching me on that!). But hey, I knew I was contracting because every time I would have a contraction my mom would rub my feet, so I consider that to be a win-win! ;)

Around 1:00 I could start feeling my contractions and had gotten up to pee (its really confusing when your water is leaking as well because I felt like I was peeing but it was really just water from my uterus-haha!) and that was when the contractions didn't really go down, but rather stay consistent and no breaking in between. I was still able to breath easy and still relaxed; plus I was up and around so I could sway my hips back and forth to relieve the discomfort. My mom had gone to get some lunch and by the time she came back I was thinking about calling my nurse to see what times they could do the epidural since they had c-section schedules to obtain. Just when I was about to call my nurse -and this is how awesome she was!- She walked through the door with the epidural cart and said she had been monitoring me from the station and figured I might be in some discomfort and snagged the epidural cart so they had to come into my room to get it! She was so amazing, and the anesthesiologist soon enough came by looking for his cart ;)

After that was all said and done, the epidural started kicking in at 2, and I pretty much made my nurse stay in the room to check because I kept feeling like pushing. So this is how it went; I had to check TJ's texts to time how fast I progressed and all.

2:19 - I got checked and I was at a 4-5

2:30ish - I call my nurse and tell her I keep feeling like I need to push, she checks and that 'maybe 5' was a 'definite 7'

2:47- she was still in our room and decided to check before she left and I was at a 'call the doctor and tell him to get on his way over to the hospital' (he lived like 5 minutes away)

-during this time, they got the room set up but my nurse didn't want me lifting up my legs because she didn't want to end up delivering my baby without my doctor-

2:55 my doctor rolls in still in his camo pants and crocs, scrubbed down and got everything ready, and the mirror set up so I could see

3:00- "Lets give a little push" One push later and his head was out. "alright lets give another push"

3:05-  "Look down" Corbett Rhyder entered the world! 

It was amazing! I could feel the pressure of him crowning but it was such an amazing feeling and it was really cool to see it as well, and no, it didn't hurt. All I got was a little skid mark but needed no stitching! Wahoo!!!!

TJ and I tried betting on his weight but I guess Corbett didn't want any unfairness; TJ said 9.6 and I said 9.2; he came out at 9.4 so we both considered it a win for us all! 

They took him to get cleaned up and I ordered lunch, which was nice but I really wanted to hold my son! But something wasn't right, they were examining him and had some concerns about his little manhood, so it seemed like forever before I got to hold him. They told us a pediatrician would be by later that evening to talk with us about what was going on, but nothing to worry about during the meantime.
The nurses just loved him and kept calling him the 'toddler' baby because how big he was ;)

Marley was still at our friends house during all the hype and it was starting to get late in the afternoon so my mom headed out to grab Marley so she could meet her new little brother! In the meantime I enjoyed some snuggles with my little guy and got cleaned up from delivery.

When Marley arrived at he hospital, TJ went out to get Marley and bring her into meet her little brother. She was not so thrilled to see me holding him and was not comfortable with TJ letting her go. This was all new to her and so I knew it was going to take some time, but she warmed up right away! She would want to hug him but was done with him two seconds later. :)

Corbett was even nice enough to get Marley a 'birth' gift (I did some reading and found that siblings adjusted better to a new arrival with a gift from them so they don't feel left out from the attention being shifted). It was a nice new baby (just like her brother) that she could help feed and care for. It cries like a baby and has a bottle to help feed and calm the baby. This was a great gift to also teach her that mommy was going to take care of the new baby and she had a new baby to take care of as well. 

We enjoyed the wonderful time we got to spend with Marley and it was hard to see her leave that night to go and sleepover at Granny's house. We knew we were going to have a rough couple of days so we tried to get some sleep.

It was a long night of nurses coming in to check on us, and for some reason our room was bipolar and was really cold- so TJ was up and the couch/bed wasn't the most comfortable place to be. Lucky for me though, his discomfort and lack of sleep allowed him to help take care of Corbett. But we still had nurses in every few hours to help us out as well. Normally after a baby is born they tend to get hungry, but our little Corbett was not wanting to eat at all. The nurses didn't seem too worried but we were up a lot trying to get him to want to nurse.

On Saturday we had a nice calm morning just Corbett and I (TJ left around 4am to go home so he could sleep) and by around noon we had a train full of visitors that we loved having come shower us with love! Marley was loads of fun and loved kissing on her new little brother. She also loved my cake from the cafeteria. I had figured out from that point it was going to be a little difficult watching two kids....during the time I was feeding Corbett, Marley had gotten into the cake from the cafeteria and torn into little pieces ALL over the room....it literally looked like the window was open and snow had fallen all over our suite! (The housecleaning ladies thought it was hysterical and didn't mind cleaning up that mess. Haha!)

Saturday night TJ decided to head home and get some rest so he could be well rested and help out with Marley for when we headed home. It seemed like the night was dragging on...I was just too anxious to get home I barley slept a wink! TJ said he would be there first thing in the morning to pick us up, so by the time 6 rolled around I was up getting everything gathered to leave.

I had everything ready to go, had my breakfast, my doctor had come by and gave me my discharge papers, my nurse had everything ready for me to leave and we were just waiting on the pediatrician to come by to release Corbett to come home. Oh and we were also waiting for TJ to come and pick us up. I called him and he was still asleep after 9, he picked up the phone and sounded awful! Turns out the minor cough he had on Friday had turned into something more....the flu.

This meant that A. TJ could not hold Corbett, and B. he could not be around me since I needed to well enough to take care of Corbett and keep him healthy.

So during this time of figuring out what we were going to do with TJ being sick and how we would take care of Marley (since I couldn't get up and take care of her and Corbett) the pediatrician finally came by to check on Corbett, and hopefully give us good news to go home.

What a regular check up to be released turned out to be a new twist to this birth story...

Okay, this is the part where I talk about what is happening with our little boy and his manhood...if it makes you uncomfortable, you are free to close this screen now.

When Corbett was born he had what is called a hydrocele (fluid surrounding the testicles) the doctor mentioned that it is common and nothing we did was wrong. Well we had noticed the swelling had been going down over the weekend. When the pediatrician looked he noticed the the color was getting darker and the swelling was coming back. He was concerned, trying to flash light through it to see if the fluid was coming back. Nothing came through, indicating it wasn't fluid. So he ordered an ultrasound to be done.  We waited and waited longer until the ultrasound tech could come by. (Since it was Sunday, the hospital seemed to be on a more chill schedule and everything was slower)

When the tech came to get Corbett, I had a hard time keeping my emotions in check and broke down in tears, the tech wouldn't be able to tell us anything until after discussing with the doctor and reading the results, so just the waiting alone was agonizing. Our amazing nurse let us know that the tech did mention that there was little to no blood flow in his testicle. Even though it was sad news it was news nonetheless. Now it was just time to wait for the pediatrician again.

Meanwhile, I was a mess. TJ was super sick (with the FLU) and could not comfort either Corbett, or I. So he called my mom and had her come and be with me, and TJ made arrangements for Marley to stay with our friends for awhile until we figured everything out. TJ headed home so he could get some rest and we were hopeful to be heading home soon as well.

The pediatrician finally came in to give us some less exciting news: He was in communication with the Primary Urologist along with Ogden's urologist, and the decision was made that Corbett needed to go to Primary Childrens Hospital to have surgery done. Saying there was little to no blood flow to his testicle and in fear it was dieing, and in order to save it he needed to have surgery done that day.

This is no news a mother wants to hear- that her newborn baby needed to have surgery and wasn't sure that he was going to be okay. So we hurried and got things put together to leave. Our discharge nurse was phenomenal and basically got everything packed and gave us additional things we might need. (Fun fact: The discharge nurse we had with Corbett, was the same discharge nurse we had with Marley!) She was even a shoulder to cry on before my mom arrived, so she really made this easiest as the situation could have been. We got loaded into the car and headed out...the opposite direction from home....

Bringing home a new baby makes you want to drive slow and easy- I mean you have some really special cargo with you!- but knowing Corbett needed to be at Primary's ASAP, I really wanted to put my lead foot on that gas pedal (good thing I was not driving). But we made it to Primary's and not knowing where to go we ended up in the Emergency room entrance. Being the dead of winter and cold and flu season, the ER was FULL of sick kids and having a two day old baby made this situation even more emotional and made for an even more paranoid mom!

We got sent into a room and the never ending questions began again (you would think the list wouldn't be that long for a two day old baby). I was tired to say the least and kept falling asleep sitting up. It had been a few hours since we left Ogden and my pain was coming back (postpartum pains) so we were getting things in order to get my medicine ordered at the hospital. My mom was awesome and took care of Corbett when they came in to give him his IV and get prepped for surgery. So she sent me out of the room to call TJ and give him an update.

I came back in and we met one of the surgeons who would be helping operate on Corbett; and it helped knowing he really was in the best capable hands. So we headed up to the surgery floor where we met with the pediatric urologist and the anaesthesiologist who were going to perform the surgery. We had a brief chat with the urologist who described what they were going to do (good thing my mom was with my because the lack of sleep plus over-emotional melt downs I was not paying the best of attention) and then the anaesthesiologist came to tell me what his role would be in as well and the best method of putting a two day old baby under. My mom had left to get my prescriptions taken care of and I sat and held my baby until they took him into surgery. A nurse came over with some tissues and ushered me off to the waiting area and told me the surgeon would be by after the surgery to come get me.

My mom had made her way to the waiting room with prescriptions in hand and we decided it had been a long day and we needed food to eat. So we headed to the cafeteria to grab some grub and keep my mind a little busy while my little baby 'bett was in surgery.

There are a lot of little moments and times that seem to pass on forever, this was another one of those times as we waited for the surgeon to come and get us. I had been crying -like usual that day- (and it didn't help that our entire family was split up...we were all in different places and not together. And that was very hard on me) and the surgeon came to tell us how the surgery went. He told us when we went in to check the testicle it was completely dark and dead so it meant he was born with it already dead (which was good-that meant he wasn't in any pain when it did happen) so they had to remove it and sutured the other testicle down to prevent any future twisting to happen. He was also kind enough to check on his shaft as well. He told us what he noticed and made future notes that we would be needing to see him in 6 months so he could get that issue taken care of.

The surgeon took me back to see our little boy who was groggy from the anesthetic but was hungry so that was a very good sign! I got to sit and nurse him before we got moved around again onto another floor, and we even googled TJ to update him from the surgery and let him know everything went well.

Then came the more moving around (I swear we ended up walking a 5k maze in that hospital) and we got settled in our new room for that night. They wanted to  keep him overnight to monitor him and how he was coming out of the anesthetic haze.

It was a long night on a very uncomfortable chair/bed so my mom and I switched every few hours so we could kind of get some rest. It was a long night and I could not wait for the doctor to come check on Corbett and  tell us it was finally time to go home.

You would think I would be used to this answer by now....no we couldn't go home yet, they still needed to monitor him and make sure he was eating and having enough wet diapers to be able to come home. But since he was still groggy he wasn't really into eating too much....so that put us in a tough spot. So onto more waiting.

My mom had called into work and had someone cover her day so she could stay with us and my brother even offered to come and be with us as we waited, but I just so badly wanted to leave and go home. And even more, I wanted my Marley.

After a looooooong day, they came to check on him and noticed his umbilical cord was having some puss come out and causing redness around his belly. My goodness, could my baby just be okay for five seconds!?! So we had to wait even longer for the doctors to find out what was going on with that and if we needed to stay yet another night. When they came back a few hours later they told us it was not something they wanted us to have to stay overnight for (yay!) but to keep an eye on it and let our pediatrician know what was going on. And then they said the sweetest words I had ever heard....we could go home!

So the nurses rounded up the discharge papers, we gathered our bags and were headed out to go home!

And this was our crazy birth story. I now have to say my wonderful speeches about the people that really were so wonderful to me/us during this time. First is the wonderful nurses in Ogden regional who really made my stay amazing and were so awesome in taking care of us. They really do do a wonderful job and I will always recommend them to anybody who is having a baby to go to Ogden Regional. My doctor was phenomenal and allowed my body to do its thing and not rush anything...just allowed my body to take its time in bringing our sweet Corbett here.

TJ had it pretty rough being sick and not being able to be with us but he really held it together for us and I could never have done it without him (literally, haha!) From our friends who watched Marley on Friday to the ones who took care of Marley over the weekend so my mom could be with me and TJ could rest.

I really cannot give enough gratitude to my mom, she really was amazing. She was my proxy husband at Primary's and took over for me when I just couldn't and made sure I was taken care of as well. She missed work to be with us and make sure we were okay. She was there playing games before Corbett was born to after when we finally brought Corbett home. She even came in on Monday night (after the exhausting sleepless night on Sunday) and cleaned my apartment a bit so I would rest...she is truly an amazing woman, and I am SO glad I get to call her mom and learn so much from this incredible woman.

This was really a long birth story! (sorry!) Now I have lots of pictures so, enjoy!

Last moments of being pregnant!!!!!!

 Me and my amazing mom!

My handsome husband :)

 So this was the only decent picture I found of when he came out that didn't make me feel completely violated if I put it on the Internet. The first time I held my son!

 Getting all cleaned up!

 Marley meeting Corbett for the very first time. She was so cute and kept playing with her hair. Its a habit she picked up when she is nervous and doesn't know what to do. :) Oh goodness, she just melts me

 Opening her gift from her brother

 She became the pro of un-wrapping over the past few days

 She needed to get ALL the paper off before she would even see what she got!

 Some of our wonderful visitors! (My aunt and cousin-who also just had a baby)

 Her new baby that she can feed (and cries, when you put the bottle in the mouth the baby stops)

 Waiting for me to take the bottle off the babies wrist (she did NOT like the bottle being attached to the baby...that is my little OCD girl :) )

 "Okay, I am all done holding brother, let me down to play!"

                                           Sunday morning after we were all ready to leave.

 This was Friday morning before we left for the hospital. Our last few moments with our little girl as an only child.

                                       And she likes to spend them being silly ;) Love her!

                                                          Saturday afternoon snuggles

 She wanted her own picture taken as well :)

                                                          Our precious little boy :)

 Dad and son :)

 This little sweetheart just kills me! I love her cheesy smiles!

 Poor sleepy little guy. We monitored his pain level and only needed one dose of Tylenol on Monday morning and half a dose on Tuesday morning. 

Getting dressed to finally head home! Still looks groggy from pain medicine, but at least we were heading home :)