five

My baby turned five! Not sure where the time went, but I'm still in a little bit of denial over it. It hardly seems like it's been five years already.

James is currently attending kinder-prep classes with some kids from church in preparation for...kindergarten, obviously. He loves it, even though he gets kinda antsy sitting still. He's still super sweet,friendly, affectionate and loving all while being your average crazy, wild, funny, overly-obnoxious, vocal, and temperamental little kid.

He loves green SO much. He tells everyone how much he loves green. He's obsessed with minecraft, angry birds, and board games. He likes meat and cheese sandwiches, long walks, and grilling with his dad. He adores his little sister. He can instantly calm her and makes her laugh SO hard. It warms my heart to see how much they love each other.

His best friend is a little girl from church. They first met at a ward family dance and they danced together all night long. They've been kinda disruptive in primary with their constant flirtation! We've had what seems like a billion talks with him about what is and isn't appropriate at church, not dating until he's 16, etc. Come to think of it, I don't think he really knows what "dating" even is. This last week he was blowing her kisses during sharing time :/

For his birthday we had a minion party. Our ward has a lot of great kids and it ended up being a pretty big party with 11 kids and 8 parents all crammed into our little house. James had an absolute blast.

On his actual birthday we got him a (green) bike. He hasn't really shown much interest in a bike until recently. Every time we would take him to test one out he would give up on peddling so we didn't push it. Well, he decided he was ready and on his first bike ride he rode for a mile!

Minion craft bucket. The kids made some very original minions!

James' one request for his party: purple minion bean bag toss. I painted it on a foam poster board. I think it turned out pretty good!

Paul carved this out, but we forgot to get the licorice for crazy hair. Ooops! The kids didn't notice.

Caught this funny face mid-swing. It took all the kids getting two turns to finally bust this thing open.

James and his best friend.

And what minion party would be complete without minion cupcakes?

James' minion creation. 

The Lovely Month of May

Our favorite, most stressful month of the year!

We celebrated my birthday by taking the kids to Morro Bay. It was beautiful, but sooo much colder than we thought it would be so we ended up paying a ridiculous amount of money on tourist sweatshirts. James had a blast combing the beach. He found 3 intact sand dollars! I can't tell you how many years on the beach I've spent looking for just one! Beginners luck I guess. There's a really cool playground with a play ship. We got some fish and chips and had a really great time.

The next week, Paul and James went on their first Father & Sons Campout. They went to the beach again and had a blast. They saw a rattlesnake and James was taken by surprise when a freezing cold wave knocked him off his feet. They smelled of campfire and tracked lots of sand into the house when they came home. I read an entire book and snuggled Amelia (and kept a baseball bat at my side just in case) the whole night.

my happy baby

Then James started complaining of a sore tooth. At first we thought it was a case of popcornkernalitis, but after careful inspection I realized that the back of one of his molars had a pretty bad cavity. I hadn't noticed it before because it was on the backside of the tooth. So we made a trip to the dentist. They weren't able to get the bitewing x-rays due to his super sensitive gag reflex, but the dentist said his mouth looked really clean and that there shouldn't be any problems. We made an appointment for the next day to put a crown on the tooth (gah!). We went in and they gave him a "sleepy" drink and had us wait for it to make him drowsy for about an hour, then they took him back and got the x-rays and discovered FOUR small cavities between his teeth. The dentist was shocked because his mouth had looked so good. Needless to say I felt like the worst parent in the world that day. But the dentist was nice enough to take care of all of it while we were there and James was asleep. After that I had some errands to run and while I told James not to bite his tongue or cheeks, I failed to mention that he should avoid gouging holes into his face with his fingernails. For some reason it never crossed my mind that he might do that while his face was numb. But he did do it. It's been a couple weeks now and he's still got a big red mark on his face.

For Mother's Day, Paul made me dinner. James brought home a packet of wildflower seeds from church and insisted that they were sunflowers. Amelia made it through two hours of church without melting down! It's the little victories. Mostly I just snuggled my babies and thanked my Heavenly Father for them. I have the best job.

We went to the YW camp fundraiser at our ward. They had a family dance, pinata and taco dinner. James had a blast dancing! He said he wanted to dance with a girl but he couldn't find one, but then a girl came up and "looked into his eye" and he knew he would dance with her. She's his best friend now.

taking a swing at the pinata

For our anniversary we had a special FHE and anniversary dinner where we talked about eternal families. Paul brought me flowers and that was that. I think it's funny how when we first got married we both felt the need for grand gestures and now we are just happy to have a quiet evening and go to sleep early when the kids go down. I wonder what it'll be like when we're actually old! 

My parents visited for Memorial Day, which coincided with Paul's birthday.  We went up to Sequoia National Park and visited some humongous trees. It was beautiful. We got a year pass so we will be going again. We loved the smell of the trees and fresh air and the cooler temperatures. We stopped for ice cream in Three Rivers on the way back. It was such a great day (despite the A/C in our car giving up the ghost)! Amelia misses her grandma. She got spoiled being held 24/7.

Amelia loves her grandpa

Amelia is in her stroller in front of us...we didn't abandon her for a photo-op

At the ice cream/candy shop in Three Rivers

still picking at his face

We went to dinner at the Black Bear Diner. Kind of a fun place after our nature filled day in the mountains.

On Sunday we celebrated Paul's birthday (and James got an early present from Grandma and Pee-pa). Paul wanted a patriotic cake so I obliged. I was nice and didn't put 38 candles on his cake.

It's been a super fun, super busy month (as usual)! 

and then we moved...

for the 9th time.

Paul got a job with another company and they wanted him to start right away...in California.
I frantically started packing and trying to find a place to live. I had near-daily panic attacks up until I found us a house to move to.

Our San Antonio house

The trip out here was horrendous. HORRENDOUS. If you are ever thinking that maybe a 4 day car trip with a 3 month old is a good idea-- FLY. I wish I had flown with the kids. Instead I got to drive the car with the kids. Alone. And it was so loud that I couldn't talk to anyone on the phone or anything.

I love Western landscapes. 

Little Miss Amelia clocked in over 18 hours of relentless, loud, nerve-shredding screaming. James, as usual, was the perfect road-tripper. He never complained or asked the dreaded, "are we there yet?" Even as Amelia would cry for hours on end, he would just stare out the window without uttering any sort of complaint.

We left early Saturday morning and drove all day until we reached the Holiday Inn in Las Cruces, New Mexico. We were all so ready to get out of the car. Google predicted the car ride would be around 8 hours but we knew that with a big truck and multiple stops for the kids that it would take a bit extra. It took us 12 hours. Not great time.

Such a tender moment. He loves her so much.

I was thinking ahead and brought some Easter baskets for Sunday. We hid James' in the hotel room and he was really surprised. Then we headed to see some friends in Arizona. Once again, what should have taken us six and a half hours ended up taking 11. We finally rolled in to my best friend's part of town and stopped off at a church building to park our huge moving truck and feed the baby. Went to start up the car and the battery was dead. I was just grateful that we were so close to our friends and could get a jump. I wish that we could have spent more time with them. That made me sad.

At this point we knew that what we had slated as the final day of driving would end up getting us close to our final destination, but there was no way we would make it in time to pick up keys, so we ended up staying over night in Bakersfield, just two hours away from our new home of Hanford, California. Monday was the hardest day by far. Amelia screamed all day. She rarely slept. My nerves were totally shot. James was so on edge he just started bawling for the last hour of our trip, which made me cry. I can handle one crying baby, but two? Ugh. So there we were, flying down the 99 just crying our eyes out. That's when Paul went ahead and booked us a room, ordered us a pizza and we all passed out.

How the kids felt about being out of the car in Bakersfield.

On Tuesday we slept in, ate breakfast and made the last leg of our journey. Miraculously, both kids slept through it. Probably from all that carrying on the day before.  We drove through the neighborhood and parked the truck at the house. I was feeling pretty proud of myself for picking a good neighborhood. It's so hard to blindly rent a place that you've only seen online. It's a good part of town and while we are only going to be here for a year and half, at least we aren't on the edge of the ghetto like in San Antonio.

The hotel had a pancake machine. 

Well, then we picked up the keys and went home to check out our new place. I realized that the lawn was looking pretty dead. That should have been a giveaway that the previous tenants were slobs. When we opened the door the smell of wet dog hit us pretty hard. It was terrible. The place appeared to be very dirty. There were holes in the walls, dirt and dust everywhere, the bathrooms smelled of urine. At this point, there was no going back, so we called up the rental place and told them that they needed to come smell the house, because it was really bad. They ordered some deodorizer treatments for the carpet (apparently they'd had it cleaned but then never let it air out). They told us that they paid a cleaning lady to clean the place and that it had been much worse. We went to Walmart and stocked up on cleaning supplies and I started mopping the walls down. That's when I realized that what I had originally thought to be dirty walls were actually poorly painted, mismatched colors. So the walls have these shadows from darker and lighter paint streaks. I mopped them thoroughly anyway to satisfy the OCD in me.  I will never understand people who treat property that isn't their own with such disrespect.

Playing soccer in the backyard in California

The Elder's Quorum came to unload the truck in the evening. This is around the time that I realized we had a spider infestation. So I started spraying bug poison everywhere, which actually made what seemed like a million spiders and random bugs flee into the house. Luckily they met a timely demise. I don't like bugs. After the Elder's Quorum left, I put the kids to bed and I went to bed. Paul went to the garage to look for something and apparently there were hundreds of roaches! He spent a good hour in the garage trying to spray and keep them away from the things we had in there.

So here we are nearly a week later. The boxes are mostly unpacked. We are getting another deodorizer treatment for the carpets, and the grass is coming back to life. I think that this house is totally worth the week's worth of deep cleaning and care that we put in. We are in a great neighborhood, and a wonderful ward. I'm really excited to be in a small town for a change. Brings me back to my Aguanga roots.

Family Visits, 10 Weeks, and Piles of Everything

Since Amelia's birth we've been lucky to see my parents and my sisters in separate visits.
In February my parents came out for a few days to see Amelia blessed at church. We showed them the Alamo & Riverwalk in downtown San Antonio, had some fun at Bass Pro Shops, and took them to Mamacita's. We were so happy to see them and so sad to see them go.

In March Rosi and Reanna visited for Spring Break. We went to Sea World, Freddy's (twice!), a couple of malls, Peter Piper Pizza, and spent countless hours binge-watching Vampire Diaries and eating loads of junk food. I'm so glad I was able to see some of my family. It's so hard living far away from them!

Amelia is ten weeks old. She's gained 4 pounds and grown 4 inches since she was born. She's a smiley, adorable little chunk of noisy baby. We love her tons despite her loud and demanding nature. She pretty much insists on being held all day-including naps...

which leads to piles of everything...

everywhere...

Maybe someday I'll be able to get something done.

Hopefully.

Introducing Amelia

Amelia was born on January 8th at 1:40 pm. She weighed 8 lbs 1 oz and was 20 inches long.

Here's the long version:

I was prepared to beg my doctor to induce me at my appointment on the 7th, but instead he surprised me and entered the room informing me that my blood pressure was up and that the baby needed to be evicted as soon as possible given my history with pre-eclampsia.  I was already 3cm dilated and 70% effaced and he figured it would take about 8 hours or so from induction to birth.

My last day being pregnant

So on Wednesday morning we dropped James off with some friends and headed to the hospital. We arrived a little before 6am and got admitted. I was taken to a labor and delivery room and Paul was told that he could join me in 30 minutes. After 40 minutes he arrived with a nurse, who told him that she needed him to go wait outside the door for a few minutes, where he was told by another nurse that waiting in the hall is prohibited and to take his butt back to the waiting room.

Our labor & delivery room

Apparently they have to ask you if you are being abused and no one else can be in the room when they ask. Lame.

Around 8:30 the most cruel nurse entered my room to get my IV started. She put a tourniquet on my arm that was so tight it turned my arm purple and left a mark on my arm for 4 days! I was bawling for the five minutes that she took to get the IV inserted in my wrist. It really hurt. A lot. Worse than giving birth. Seriously.

At 9:00 my doctor arrived to break my water and start the pitocin. Paul and I messed around on our phones and chatted. I insisted on many cups of ice to quench my hunger. I was surprised how fast the contractions started and requested an epidural around 10:00. The anesthesiologist had to insert it twice to get it right, but it worked and I spent the next couple hours sort-of-sleeping and watching my contractions get worse and worse on the computer screen. I was exceedingly grateful that I couldn't feel them as they looked pretty intense.

Breakfast: ice chips & pitocin

Around 1:20 my doctor came in to check me and let me know that he was passing me off to his associate since he'd been there all night, which I was fine with since the other doctor came highly recommended by several friends. He guessed it'd be another 4 hours based on how I'd been progressing. At that point I was 6cm dilated and still 70% effaced and the baby was in -2 position.

Within a couple minutes of my doctor leaving I started having really intense contractions to the point where the epidural wasn't helping. I pushed the little clicker thing a billion times, but nothing helped. At this point I was hysterically crying from the pain and the computer showed that my contractions were so close together it just looked like one bad contraction on the screen. Paul called for a nurse, who called for the anesthesiologist. He gave me a big dose right into my back, but the pain was getting worse and worse so the nurse decided to check me again. I was 10cm, 100% effaced and baby girl was ready to come out!

Tons of people rushed into the room and began preparing for the baby. I was still crying from pain and in total shock that I was having a baby RIGHT NOW. My doctor thought I had hours, but really I only had 20 minutes! Three pushes and Amelia was born! Luckily the epidural DID work for that! Apparently it just couldn't keep up with my pain threshold during those few minutes that my contractions were so intense.  The doctor sang "Happy Birthday" to her as she was born.

It was such a different birth experience from what I had with James. They cleaned her up on my chest and we got to hold her right away unlike with James where he was whisked away to the NICU.

Recovery has been awesome. It's been one week since she was born and I feel great!

First time holding Amelia

Me and my babies, ready to go home!

 I can't tell you what a relief it is to have this beautiful little girl in our lives. After all the ups and downs the past few years,  her presence has brought such a sense of peace and completeness to our home. I feel like the big hole that's been in my chest for years has been healed. I'm so grateful that my Heavenly Father sent us this little girl.

Our friends decorated the house while we were at the hospital. I love this letter from James: Dear sister, please don't touch my legos. Love, James. Ha ha!

All ready to go home!

A few interesting facts:

• When Paul and I were trying decide on a name we scoured through American history and family history names. We are sort of old school that way. I made a list and then we spent a couple of months trying to agree. Ultimately, she was named after her third great grandmother, Eliza Amelia Young and Amelia Earhart.

• Amelia was born on Elvis's birthday