6 more days!

We have a Christmas countdown, and Ben and Tristan have been vigilant to change it and remind me of how many days I have left to finish up Christmas projects. Lucky for me, I'm almost done now (no thanks to the sewing machine that didn't want to cooperate). Ruth gets a picture frame hairbow/flower clip holder and a floor pillow. I kind of faked it on the pillow but it turned out pretty well. We started using it immediately because for one thing, she had no idea how to open a present. Also, we have a hardwood floor in our main living area so I wanted something comfy to put her on.
The boys get some Angry Birds plush, a pillow shield (for pillow fights) + a dollar store foam sword, some little marble mazes for church, and a geoboard. I even made a couple thing for Neil, as well as a gift for each of his parents, but I can't reveal them yet in case they see this before Christmas.... :)

This cute baby was my first Christmas 'decoration' to get out :)

We make pizza every week (and by we I mean Neil), and since it was Christmas we decided to cut ours in the shape of a tree.  The boys thought it was pretty cool!

Second big snowfall of the season - this time we made a snowman!  Isn't he cute?  Of course, since it's Utah, it rained the next day and melted him down....

And in other news, Ben was accepted into the dual immersion program in our school district.  It means we'll have to drive him to Draper Elementary each day, but he'll love it!  He's going to learn Mandarin Chinese!

Snow fun

OUR FAMILY!

What a crazy weekend it was with the snow! I swear it basically snowed non-stop for about 36 hours! We dragged out the snow clothes for the boys and they went out to play for a little bit when it first started.

I ran out to take a few pictures and as I was snapping this, Ben was saying "Ok Tristan, close your mouth..." and then he threw that snowball in Tristan's face! Luckily Tristan didn't get upset about it, and I convinced them to only throw snow at the back fence. They went out again the next day...

They didn't last as long this time - too exhausting wading around in knee-deep snow!

We also had Ruthie's blessing on Nov 4th. Lots of family, including Preston flying in from Oregon! It was fun getting together afterwards to play some games too :) And we finally got a picture of Grandma Ruth with Baby Ruth :)

We love Grandma Ruth (and Grandpa) and we hope that little Ruthie grows up to be as loving and giving as they are!

Here's some funny things I have heard recently:

Neil (to Tristan): DO NOT jump over the baby!!

Ben: Who made our van?
Tristan: JESUS!!
Ben: Do you mean Heavenly Father?
Mom: Well, He made the stuff FOR our van, but someone else put it together...

Ben: Chris, you have hair kinda like a girl. I think you need a haircut. You should ask your mom for one. Where's your mom? OH, there she is! (taps my mom on the shoulder) He (indicating Chris) needs to tell you something.
At that point, Ben turned away, his job done. A week later, at Sunday dinner, Chris had a haircut, and Ben noticed it! I think he said something like "you don't have girl hair anymore..."
To be fair to Chris, when my boys hair gets long I tell them its starting to look like girl hair, and they got their hair cut just before church when Ruth was blessed and Ben sat with Chris.

Lastly, I posted this on facebook, but I got my pictures back from Angie, who does amazing work. But, the face you bring is the face you get. Tristan brought the face that says "I will kill you in your sleep...."

Kid Fun

Well there are some times, late at night, when we've been trying to calm the baby for close to 2 hours when I think "what did we do???" But then there are times like this morning when she lets me know she's bored of the hippo toy and I go say hi to her and she grins and coos at me :) Then I remember that she'll grow out of this fussiness and she's really quite cute... ;)
Ben still asks to hold her, perhaps as often as once a day, but it's usually only for about 5 seconds, then he wants to give her back. I think he'll have fun when she gets a little bigger and can at least sit up and smile at him. He'll have a blast when she can join in on the rhyming and alliteration games he likes to play so much...
Yesterday we were at the office doing quarterly payroll taxes for our clients and Ben wanted to do alliteration with P (he can't remember "alliteration" most of the time, so he says "can we do rhyming with the first letter? What's that called again?"). He always makes you feel good about yourself when you tell him a word, especially if you use it in a sentence. "Do you want some POTATO chips with lunch?" "POTATO! Awesome!" Tristan can even play, though sometimes he gets mixed up with where the 'p' is supposed to go (chiPs! It has a 'p'!). So Tristan's coming up with some words, and then I smelled something. "Tristan.... (groan) are you poopy?" Ben: "POOPY! Nice one!!" Neil and I busted up.
In other news, Ben got sent home with a note that he needed to do an eye exam. Turns out he's pretty far-sighted and he has a stigmatism in one of his eyes. We ordered some glasses online from Zenni Optical.

Some other funny things I've heard recently:

Ben: Do you have some double fudge (cakebites) you can share with me?
Mom: I do, I'll share one with you because I love you!
Ben: I love double fudge. And you. I think I love you more than double fudge.

We have 2 shallow bowls that the boys use at dinner sometimes.
Mom: I think these are plowls. Plates + bowls = plowls.
After some laughter...
Ben: This is my tummy. Or sometimes we say belly. Maybe we could call it 'telly'.... or... bummy! BAHAHAHAHAHA.
(He wasn't the only one cracking up. Tristan was in hysterics which put the rest of us into hysterics too)

You know how your child picks up on what you say?
Tristan: So Ben, what did you do at school today?
Ben: (doesn't answer)
Tristan: Hello?? I'm talking to you, Ben! WHAT DID YOU DO AT SCHOOL TODAY?!?!?

Also, at Ben's Kindergarten assessment (before they assigned him a classroom), part of their instructions on every portion was something like "and if you need help or get stuck let me know and I'll help you." We had already looked over the list of what they planned on asking him, and he knew all of it. But he's a literal child. After a few little tests, he started finding things the teacher could 'help' with. One of them was a missing number test. When the teacher read the part about needing help, Ben said "I think I don't know how to say 8." As he started the test, he was naming off numbers. All of a sudden he said "Oh, I think I don't know that one." The teacher said "Just go to the next one." And Ben said "NO, you're supposed to say '8'."

First of all, I'm super grateful to my Aunt Angie for taking beautiful newborns, and I apologize for waiting so long... I swear I'll remember next time that we should come closer to 5 days, not 25... :)

So, Ruthie is 4 weeks old now. We are still working on her routine. Sadly, the generic Zantac they had her on for reflux wasn't quite doing the trick. They changed her to Prevacid last week - which made us jump through a couple of insurance hoops, but they covered it - and she's still really having a hard time with daytime sleeping. She'll be totally passed out, dead to the world, and all of a sudden she's awake screaming, rinse and repeat every 20 minutes or so. I think it's actually gotten worse the last couple days :( It seems like before, she'd do that maybe twice, and then she'd be asleep for at least an hour before waking up again. I called the doc today, but the one I see isn't in the office today. I opted to have them call me tomorrow rather than do a "sick" visit today. Neil has drill and I'd rather not try to pack all the kids with me...

Ben had a field trip today to Farm Country at Thanksgiving Point. He told me "It was pretty fun, but you took me there before." We did, last year, on their $3 special - I guess with his memory I shouldn't be surprised that he remembered that.
He's been having a hard time when I go to pick him up from school. He wants to go home with someone else, or have someone come home with us. Today was extra bad, I think he watched his friend Josh go home with someone else and he wanted to go too. I texted Josh's mom to ask her when they could get together again. She texted me back and said I could pick them both up tomorrow after school. I showed Ben the text and then I had to go care for Ruthie. When I came back, I found that he was texting Josh's mom! Luckily all he had sent was "ok" to her saying she'd come get the boys after her appointment tomorrow, but he was in the middle of texting something like "If you want to do" (he had tons many spaces between each word, which isn't showing up on here). He told me he was going to text "if you want to do that it's ok" I'm glad he can read and even respond to digital conversation, and I'm also glad I can catch him before he makes me look weird :)

Tristan is energetic as ever. We were showing the house to my dad and we were in the backyard at the swingset and I'm pretty sure Tristan was about ready to climb across the top of the monkey bars. I'm sure it's a matter of time before he ends up with a broken bone or stitches...

The boys have been a little more interested in Ruthie now, they both like to talk to her when she's hanging out after eating. Ben has been holding her, and once he ran in her room when she started fussing and said "I'll rock her!!" Tristan like to inform me about what she doesn't like, identified by her crying when I'm doing it. For example, if she cries when I'm changing her, Tristan will say "Mom, she doesn't like it when you change her."

As for Neil and I, things are busy as usual. I've got my new Ebay store, The Scrap Barn, up and running and I've already filled a few orders. There's still lots for me to do, and after comparing my actual inventory with what was listed in my store, there's quite a bit more for me to post, plus the Paparazzi jewelry I picked up... Neil is working on the extensions for personal tax returns (today is the deadline) and then it's time for quarterly payroll filings...

Here's one more look at the princess!

2 Weeks Old

We reached that 2 week mark yesterday! She did see the doctor last week, the day after I posted I think, about her reflux. They gave her generic Zantac, which is what the boys all had. The doc said if it worked for the boys it should be fine for Ruthie. She, like the boys, has "silent reflux" which means she basically has baby heartburn and sometimes spits up but swallows it back down again. Before the Zantac, she'd make a terrible face when that happened, but now she doesn't. Unfortunately, she's still having a really hard time staying asleep. She'll fall asleep and I'll lay her down, but then she starts fussing again. I was thinking we'd have to change her to Prevacid, which the insurance will cover but only after I submit a couple forms. At her 2 week appointment, the doctor said that they ask parents to wait until the baby has had the Zantac for 2 weeks before determining whether or not it's working. He said it's possible that her throat needs to heal a little and that's why they ask for 2 weeks, so I've got another week to go. It wouldn't be so bad except during the day I'm in her room about every 10 minutes until she finally falls asleep for reals, and in the evening it seems a little worse. She also wants to "eat" except if I let her eat again she usually spits it all back up. I'm guessing eating soothes her throat, so even if she isn't hungry she wants to nurse. Of course, spitting it back up just hurts again... :(

In other news this week, we finished putting together all the desks at the new tax office. We originally wanted to get the office up and running for quarterlies (due Oct 31), but it looks like we won't quite be ready for that.

A couple nights ago, I was rocking Ruthie and Neil was getting the boys in bed. Tristan decided his name was "Ben" so we had Ben 1 and Ben 2. Then Neil said his name wasn't "Dad", it was "George." Tristan said "Ok Da- I mean, Ok George! His name is George... I can't believe it!!!" I was trying so hard not to crack up and disturb the baby, but it was hilarious!

The boys also watched me painting some Halloween decor just before Ruthie was born and they've been waiting for October so that I would put them up. I heart Tristan say one day "It's almost October, and I'm gonna be SO EXCITED because Mommy is gonna put BOO UP ON THE DOOR!!!" He now points out the door every time we're in the front yard :)

At home

It's been a pretty good week for us. We were able to leave the hospital at about 10:30 on Wednesday. I've been feeling great - though I will say that the afterpains hurt a lot more this time around... but, that has downgraded to a few mild cramps here and there.
Ruthie is doing pretty well as we try to get her on the EASY routine. The first night home she slept until 6am or so - I guess we were all too tired to get up and eat. Plus she was probably glad to sleep in a nice comfy bed with no one poking or prodding her or messing up her swaddle in the middle of the night. After that, it was more like 3-4am and then again at 6-7am. The E(eat) has been pretty good, but she still wants to sleep a lot, so I end up waking her up 2-3 times during the feed to make sure she gets enough. I'm taking her to the doctor tomorrow because it looks like she has reflux just like the boys did. Guess that's just something my babies will have :( At least they have medicine for it! After she eats, she's not up for too long before her nap. Interestingly, she does NOT want a binky most of the time. It actually seems to anger her. I think it's related to the reflux - drinking milk probably soothes her throat and that dang binky doesn't have milk in it. We tried a night without her having a binky and she slept just fine so maybe she just won't need it. We'll see what happens if/when they get her on some meds.

The boys mostly just ignore her. Ben completely ignores her, but Tristan likes to say "HI BABY RUTHIE!" really loud. I'm sure she'll be a good sleeper with 2 loud brothers ahead of her ;) I'm sure they'll get more interested in her when she does something other than eat and sleep. It's been an adjustment for them, and they get pretty touchy sometimes over nothing. The kindergarten has a very specific pickup routine - the parents stay in the car and have a window sign with the kid's name. The kids are supposed to go get in the car and then the parents pull forward if they need time to get the kids buckled. Ben had to be carried by his teacher to the van when Neil picked him up on Thursday. His teacher was very understanding though, and said his behavior is typical for having a new sibling in the home.

Today we had lunch with my parents and stopped by to visit Grandma Ruth and Grandpa Andrews on the way home. We of course were sent home with plenty of treats and rolls. We're glad that Grandpa is doing well, he was in the hospital for a few days because they found blood clots in his leg.

On the way home from Lehi, Ben was singing the days of the week song. Tristan yelled "BEN! You're singing it wrong! It goes 'Sunday, Friday, Tuesday, Saturday, Monday, Wednesday, Sat-ur-day'" Neil and I cracked up. Tristan is very dramatic and was EXTREMELY agitated with Ben for singing it wrong :)

Hello Sweetie!

So we arrived at the hospital at 7:30 AM on Sept 17th. We got all checked in and my doctor came and broke my water right away and got me hooked up to the Pitocin. It was REALLY frustrating to hear that I was STILL a 2 - but it made me really glad that I was there for the induction. I mean, I've been at a 2 for the last 2 weeks. I guess Ruthie was just too comfy in there!
At around 10:30 or 11 I decided the contractions were just too painful to handle anymore, so we got the epidural hooked up. It was a little better than with Tristan - I could kind of feel my feet and I could tell when I was having a contraction, but I wasn't feeling any pain :) Sadly, I was not quite a 4 after 3 hours, so I was a little worried about how fast things were moving along. After the epidural, they were able to increase the Pitocin. They made me lay down on my side after that, so Neil and I watched some shows on my laptop and I kinda dozed a little.
At about 1:00 or so, the nurse came to check me again. She said "Oh...." which was a little concerning. I was hoping she wouldn't say that I hadn't progressed much. Then she said I was a 9! She notified the doctor and they started getting the room all set up for delivery. At about 1:45 the doc came in and we got ready to push... and waited... and waited... for a contraction. It probably really only took a minute or two, but it sure felt like it took 5 minutes! As soon as it came, I pushed 3 really good pushes (I testify of the benefits of using a mirror) and there she was!

Ruth Kayla Baxter, born at 1:52 on September 17th (the 17th grandchild of Afton!) weighing 8 lbs and 20.5 inches long

She was quite upset when she was born. She cried off and on for about 2 hours, which was different from Ben or Tristan. They were pretty chill once they got wrapped in a warm blanket. She also swallowed a lot of fluid before coming out. They pumped 8 CCs and she was still coughing and crying pretty wetly. By now (she's what, 28 hours old?) it's worked itself out.

She's been a great baby so far. Not too much crying, and some pretty good awake time. She's been frustrated this afternoon/evening because my milk isn't in yet and she's hungry. We ended up having to give her some formula because she wasn't staying latched on. She'd start nursing and then get all mad. We finally gave her about an ounce of formula, and now she's all swaddled up and sleeping away :)

No Seriously...

Well I guess I should first say that I'm grateful that such things as inductions exist... but come on! I have not dialated at all in the last week?!?! That's just rediculous! I couldn't hear what the doctor first said when he gave me options for inducing because that paper on the exam chair is so crinkly and loud, so I just said "As soon as possible." I think he might have said "later this week or early next" but after he checked me he said "Do you want Monday/Tuesday? Weds/Thurs...?" Well hello, Monday for sure! He told me to head over to the nurses station and get set up for the induction. That nurse was pretty funny. "Oh you poor thing!" She called to get it set up with Labor & Delivery and gave me my little instruction sheet, which I'm familiar with since it's my 3rd time around. She still walked me through it (I'm sure she has to), but then she started giving me idea on how to get labor moving. "You should walk a lot. Go shopping or something..." among other ideas. I smiled and nodded, but inside I was thinking "Silly nurse, this is my THIRD baby that wants to stay in there... I think if there was something that worked, I would have found it by now!"

So yeah, on Monday morning at 7am I'll be calling to make sure they still have room for me, which they probably will. Let's see... Ben was born around 5pm. Tristan was born a little earlier than that, and we had to delay Pitocin for 3 hours with him... so maybe Ruthie will come early afternoon? One can only hope... The nice thing about a planned induction is that I can make sure my house is clean before I leave, and I can take plenty of stuff to keep me occupied until she's born. Plus since we live within like 5 minutes of the hospital, I can send Neil home for whatever we forget :)

In other news, the water heater was installed yesterday morning, so I actually got to run my dishwasher and take a shower at my own house again! Hooray!

I don't think there's anything else going on to report about... If anything exciting happens between now and Monday I'll post about it, otherwise I'll start posting when I get to the hospital on Monday!

Trying to Blog Again...

I keep telling myself that a blog is a great way for family to keep in touch, and a great place to journal about cool/funny/exciting things that happen in our family. So I created a family blog. I wanted it to have some kind of cool name but I could never think of anything I really liked... I made 2 posts on it, and then I didn't post anything for two years. I'm going to pretend like it's because I was so busy...

I mean, up until December 2011 I was in school, and from Sept-Dec 2011 I was doing my student teaching, which is a lot like having a full-time job where you don't get paid and you have no idea what you're doing most of the time. You just hope it turns out well, or at least that you don't ruin the classroom for the "real" teacher... After that, we were pushing hard to get Neil's CPA license finished up (done!) and I was pretty sick with baby #3 for a bit. Sometime in about June or so, we started looking for an office space for the tax practice, and realized it was time for us to move too. After some frustration in looking at decent houses in terrible areas, we finally increased our price limit and found a house that someone built for me a while ago. No, seriously! It's the perfect house for me. 5 bedrooms PLUS a good sized storage room and craft room, a laundry chute, and the best part for my kids - a good backyard that came with a nice big wooden playset (swings/slide/sandbox/monkey bars). We were really lucky that they had nice neutral paint and carpets everywhere, and everything was in great shape too, so all we had to do was organize our stuff and call it good! We are down to only 1 room that isn't organized at all - the craft room. And honestly, with a baby coming REALLY soon, it's not like I'm doing much crafting anyways!

A week ago, Neil came out of the shower and said I might want to wait until he can look at the water heater because he showered COLD. He didn't have time to look at it before taking Ben to school and heading in to work, so I looked in on it. It was leaking (I mean, it's 22 years old...) so I texted my dad to confirm that it was probably dead or dying. He called me back right away and helped me figure out where the pilot light was and get it re-lit. I did my errands and got a nice warm shower when I got home. When Neil got home I showed him the water heater, which was still leaking a lot (and unfortunately getting under the walls a little bit). We decided it would be best to shut off the water to the heater (and the gas). We had already called to get a few bids in for replacing it, the cheapest being $1000 because of the code work we needed to do for it. Luckily we know people who know stuff, like Neil's dad, who suggested we check and see if the water heater would be covered with our home warranty - which it is! :D So the plumber came last Thursday and looked at it, told me how to drain it out so it would stop leaking into the wall, and said they would get it ordered and call us in the next day or two to set up an appointment to come back and install it. They are apparently super busy all the time because they handle all of Farmer's Insurance's home warranty plumbing needs, but the tech did write "Emergency Service" on our sheet. However, it's Monday, and I STILL don't have hot water. That means I drive to Neil's parents to shower and I make a pile of dishes to wash later. Saturday morning we got out the pressure canner pot to boil water and spent about 1.5 hours washing the dishes that had piled up over the week. Not really looking forward to doing that again... At least I can wash clothes in cold water. I've always washed darks in cold and whites in hot, but I don't think it will hurt to wash the whites in cold for a week or two - so at least we can still have clean clothes! I also called the plumbers this morning and left a message that I REALLY needed hot water because I haven't had any for a week and I'm about to have a baby. As far as I know, they haven't called yet...

My next doctor's appointment is on Wednesday. That will be my 40 week appointment, and hopefully I can get an induction set up as a backup plan. Apparently it's my mom's fault - she was always about a week past her due date before she delivered... The nice thing about scheduling an induction is that you know exactly when you'll have the baby. The night before, you can do whatever you think you might want to do before having a newborn (like sleep!) and you can make sure the house is totally clean. I keep telling myself I need to keep it all cleaned up, but it's a little more awkward without having hot water to wash dishes or run a dishwasher. I'm settling for semi-clean for now... :) My intent is to give another update on Weds after my appointment, but I AM extremely pregnant and prone to forget things...