Camping!

We went camping last weekend up in Williams with my family! But, before I go any furthur, I have to make a confession... we stayed in a hotel. I know, I know, that is not real camping (although, I'll have you know, even of those who really "camped", only Trent and Trevor slept in a tent and Grandpa Dennis under the stars! The rest were in motor homes.). :)

Anyway, the day before we left on the trip, Morgan got a cold, along with a fever. The fever was gone by the next day and we figured he would be just as miserable at home as he would be out in the fresh air, so we decided to go, but to stay in a hotel since it still gets very cold at night. I think he enjoyed camping a lot, actually, with all those grandmas, grandpas, aunts, uncles and cousins to squish on him!

Camping was a blast! We had LOTS of family: Grandpa Dennis and Grandma Vickie, who hosted the event on their property; Uncle Bubba, Trevor and Taylar, up from Phoenix; Uncle Dan and Great-Great Grandma Dea (do you know anyone else who can say they went camping with their great-great grandma?!); Papa John and Grammy Jamie with Darrell and Trent; and Uncle Don and Aunt Pam who brought Chewy, their dog, along for his first camping trip!

Along with Chewy, the other trip mascots were Bud, Rocky, Bocifus, Foxy Lady, and Husso.

It was a big crowd!

The next few posts will be mostly pictures from our trip! I had fun with my new camera, however, I felt a little frustrated. I was more interested in simply capturing the moment and it was frustrating to have to focus so much on simply learning the basics of how to use the camera. Uncle Dan taught me a few tricks, though, so it was fun to get to practice a bit!

Some of the pictures were taken by Darrell, too.

Enjoy!

Darrell had lots of fun getting pictures of the camp fire!

Grandpa and Grandma, the camp hosts

Grandma Vickie and Foxy Lady

Grandpa Dennis, Grandma Vickie, Uncle Dan, G-Grandma Bryant, Darrell around the fire

Malachi loved putting on Trent's helmet!

Beautiful Indian Paintbrush

Trevor caught lots of butterflies!!

Trevor, Taylar and Trent with their butterfly nets

Malachi admiring the kids' catches. I love the dirty face - evidence that he had lots of fun playing!

Trent adding his catch to the collection

On the lookout

Darrell's only catch of the day...

Trevor was the butterfly catching champ, though Darrell has the record for the biggest catch!

Great-Great Grandma Bryant and Foxy

(From from to back) Travis and Malachi, Grammy and Morgan, Trent, and Trevor
on a hike near a watering hole close to the property

Throwing rocks into the water - Malachi, Taylar, Trevor, Husso, Trent, and Darrell

Mo was worn out from all that hiking.

Trevor and Bud

Morgan hugging cousin Taylar

Grammy and Malachi enjoying the warm fire and s'mores

Travis playing with his knife

Putting on the layers as it got colder - I love that little bucket hat!

Malachi - probably doing his little kung fu dance that he made up

Travis taking Malachi for a ride on the quad

Stitches

A few days after the accident - notice the black eye on the left!
Here you can see yet another scrape he got a few days after his stitches!
Putting gauze on before we left for the ER

Not a happy camper

Fell asleep mid-pull on his See-N-Say as we drove to the Kingman ER

What a trooper - stitches are in and we're on our way home!

It's already been a few weeks since this incident and most of you have seen pictures already from Facebook, but I wanted to get it posted on my blog, as well.

We were visiting at Grammy Jamie's and Malachi and Trent were roughhousing. Malachi fell and landed on a Wii remote and got a nice gouge right above his eyebrow. It didn't bleed as bad as we would expect it to, but we wanted to take him to the ER to see if it needed to be glued or stitched. Poor Muncle Trent felt awful. So we left to go back to Kingman, and Malachi fell asleep on the way.

The trip to the ER only lasted about 3 1/2 hours, so that was nice! As soon as the doctor saw him, he said he'd need stitches. I almost cried! They put some numbing ointment on him and we waited for 1/2 hr. for it to kick in. During this wait, Malachi was playing around and tripped and hit his face on the bed. The next day, not only did he have a nice set of stitches, he had a black eye!

So it was finally time to put the stitches in, and I decided to leave the room. I could still hear him screaming in the waiting room - it was awful. I came back just before they finished and heard them say, "All done!" and Malachi excitedly repeating, "All done! All done!" As the doctor and nurse left, Travis had Malachi say, "Thank you." It was the most pitiful sounding thing you'll ever hear!

When I walked in and saw Trav holding him, his hair all tousled, his face bright red, tears staining his face, 5 stitches that made me think of Frankenstein's monster, I broke down and cried! My poor little guy! But by the end of the evening, he was running up and down the halls with Nora and Elsie.

We took the stitches out 4 days later. The wound has recovered very well. So that was our first experience at the ER - possibly the first of many, though we hope not!

My Pregnancy

I must admit, I have to get on my blog to figure out how far along I am - as of today, I'm 31 week. Only 61 days to go! Only....

This pregnancy has been different than my pregnancy with Malachi in many ways. The nausea was much worse with Malachi and the back ache began much sooner, but this one has waited till further down the line to give me trouble. I've really had a hard time with my back, and have had to delegate the vacuuming to Travis! Malachi is getting trained very well to pick up things off the floor for his mommy, too!

I am so thankful, though, that besides the back ache, everything else is great! The baby is growing well and moving a lot. The heart rate is perfect - pretty mellow at about 140 BPM. And my blood pressure has remained at a good level.

Travis and I always enjoy our visits with our midwife, Jill Colin. This last visit my mom was able to come with us to meet Jill. We probably spent about 2 hours with her doing the normal visit routine plus just chatting. Her office is in her home, and we were her only clients that day. It was fun, and I always learn a lot. I really appreciate her emphasis on preventing issues in pregnancy through diet. It has really given me some accountability and encouragement to make good choices in my diet. For example, she really encourages getting a lot of leafy greens towards the end of the pregnancy to build up iron in my blood. That way, if there is a problem with blood loss during or after birth, the blood I do have is healthy.

I am to the point in my pregnancy where I should be going in for an appointment every 2 weeks, but since everything is going great and we have to drive all the way to Vegas, she is allowing us to wait 3 weeks. So as long as things are going well, we'll be able to spread out the visits some.

We got a list of supplies we must collect for our home birth, such as lots of towels, healthy food, honey (for an instant energy boost if needed), lots of bottled water, olive oil to prevent tearing and also to help clean the baby’s first stool. I put in an order for a “birth kit” which contains all of the sterile things, gauze, bulb syringe, etc.

Yesterday I spoke with a woman who does birth tub rentals for both hospital and home births (yes, you can have tub put up in a hospital – and it is definitely worth looking into!) Our insurance will most likely help with the $400 rental fee, too! And if $400 sounds like a lot of cash, just consider that an epidural is $500 – and there are no needles, no IV’s, no being stuck in bed... Anyway, birth tubs are about 3 feet deep, round, and big enough to stretch out in. Pain management through labor using water is so effective, it is often called the “aqua-dural”. Water is very relaxing, it makes movement MUCH easier (moving around with a big belly is NOT very easy!), and it helps prevent tearing. I am looking forward to experiencing this birth in a different way than I did with Malachi.

Malachi knows what babies are, and he knows that a “baby” is in my belly. Now, whether or not he associates the babies he sees in pictures with his mommy’s bulging belly, I don’t really know! But I love it when he comes and kisses my belly, and he always points at it and does the sign for “flower” apparently my navel looks like a flower to him. It is so sweet.

If you’d like to see a post on my pregnancy and birth with Malachi, click here.
I am very interested in childbirth education and maybe one day becoming a certified doula after my own kids are grown. If you have any questions regarding pregnancy, birth, home birth or water birth, please let me know. Also, if we know anyone who may have questions, please give them my email or other contact information!

It's been an eventful week, and here are some snapshots of all our adventures! I had lots of pictures to post, so I divided them up.

We took a vacation to Missouri and stayed in St. Louis a few nights, visited an old friend, went to a wedding, went to our grandparent's vacation cabin and visited Branson - all in a week! It was busy but we were blessed with safety and lots of memories!

I am now almost 22 weeks along in my pregnancy - over half-way through! Over this last week I have been feeling the baby move a lot! I am so thankful because I had been a little worried that I wasn't feeling him/her move as often as I should.

We have decided not to find out the baby's sex. We didn't find out with Malachi and it added so much excitement and anticipation that we decided to keep it a surprise again! Yes, we are even willing to put up with the onslaught of baby "prophets" who are sure the baby will be a boy/girl because of how high/low I am carrying, or the position of the stars, or the heart rate, or whatever else they think is significant! :)

While I am rambling on, I want to add one more thing - a product pitch, if you will. I have terrible allergies and am prone to getting sinus infections. I recently discovered (through my grandma who has worse sinus problems than me!) the nasal pot. You fill the little plastic container that resembles a tea pot with warm water and pour a small packet of salts in it to make a saline solution. Then, you pour the fluid into one nostril, it travels through the sinuses and come out the other nostril.

I know you're thinking I'm crazy right about now. I hate getting water up my nose as much as the next guy, but this little sinus rinse has saved me from a couple of sinus infections! The day we left for our vacation, I woke up with a sore throat and tell-tale signs of an on-coming cold and sinus infection. I did the sinus rinse twice a day for a few days and neither the cold nor the sinus problems ever took root. And it actually feels really good to get all that junk cleaned out when your head is all congested. You can buy these at any drug or grocery store.

I feel a little awkward posting that little spiel, but I hope someone will find it useful!

Enjoy the pictures!