Lilyana's Birth Story

  I started this post back almost a year ago but never completed it.  Since today was Lily's first birthday, I thought it was fitting to complete her birth story and post it:

11/24/2012:  We needed to get the the hospital by 7am, the c-section was scheduled for 9am.  But it was black Friday weekend and due to the impending arrival of our 4th(!) child we knew we were going to need to (within the next year) do some room shuffling and we need to invest in some bunk beds.  Kmart had a great sale on bunk beds but they didn't go on sale until Saturday morning. So......I persuaded my hubby to get up at 5:30am, we ran to Kmart, got the bunk beds, ran home dropped them off and made it to the hospital by 7:10am.  The lady that checked us out at Kmart asked when I was due and I told her I was headed to the hospital right after paying for my bunk beds.  She couldn't believe it and laughed and laughed.  It made for a great story at the hospital too.

At the hospital I started to get prepped for surgery.  The anesthesiologist came in and talked to me about whether I wanted to do an epidural or a spinal.  I previously had done spinals but this time he recommended the epidural.  With the spinal there is a time issue, once the medication wears off, you can't add more so if by chance they weren't done, I would have to go under general anesthesia.  So I opted for the epidural.  Getting it put in wasn't fun, I about passed out, but once it was in, I was ok.  So they wheeled me into surgery (funny sidebar, they took me into the wrong surgical suite first, it was set up for a twin delivery later that morning, I was so happy to not be in that room having twins- been there, done that!).  Then they got all set up and numbed me up, made sure I couldn't feel anything (that part is VERY important to me) and had Tory come in.  He was dressed in scrubs and had a mask on, he fit right in.  A few minutes later my doctor said "she's a big baby" and in my head I was thinking 8 lbs, then a minute or two later they pulled Lilyana out and she was big!  We all waited for them to call out the weight and Dr. Bachman was right, Lily weighed 9 lbs 14 oz.

The rest of the c-section was not so fun, they eventually gave me some medication to help me 'relax' or in other words, I don't really remember a lot of the rest of the operation for which I am grateful!  They were a little worried about her blood sugar at first but I knew she was fine.  She has been a great eater from the get-go.

I sent Tory home that first night because I know he is never really comfortable in hospitals and sleeping there is even less pleasant than being awake there.  I also wanted him to have a good nights' sleep since I would be recovering from major surgery.  Well as luck would have it Penelope was sick in the night and Tory ended up being up a lot of the night.  The other kids followed in sickness so none of them were able to come visit me in the hospital.  Its a little sad, since Oliver was born in the midst of the swine flu scare, no siblings were allowed to come visit their moms and new babies.  Then since they all got sick when Lily was born, they missed their chance with her.  So I'll never have my kids come to the hospital to meet their new sibling.  I guess there are worse things.

I stayed in the hospital until Tuesday and then headed home.  It was naptime when I got home so Lily and I headed upstairs to take a nap as well.  But I couldn't sleep and then Oliver poked his head around the corner.  I told him to come meet his little sister.  He came over and started to climb up on the bed.  I instinctively leaned over started to help him up on the bed, big mistake!  It seriously hurt my incision.  Oliver wasn't all that impressed with Lily and asked if he could go downstairs.  Penelope was scared of Lily at first but warmed quickly to her.  Parker has been such a good big brother from the get-go.  He just loves her, its been so fun to watch.  They all love to hold her and think its so fun to get her to smile, laugh, etc.

I'm so grateful my little sister could come help out when Lily was born.  One of my biggest stresses leading up to her birth was planning for care of my other children while giving birth.  But Dantzel really came through for me, she flew all the way from North Carolina and totally pitched in and watched our kids and helped u s out for 10 days or so.  I'm so grateful for family.

Lily has been an amazing edition to our family.  I love how she has just completed our family and makes all of us happier.  I can't believe year one is done but am looking forward to watching her grow up in our family!

Lilyana: 9-months old

Where does time go, is my baby girl really 9-months old?  I've decided that I really like this age, Lily is just so much fun these days.  She has been doing the army crawl since 6/7 months but in the last month she's finally realized that regular crawling is faster and less painful.  She also learned to pull herself up on anything and is starting to cruise around the furniture.  Lily has discovered the stairs and loves to climb them--we are in the market for a gate!  She is on a pretty good schedule and gets up between 6:30 and 7am, takes 2 naps a day and is ready for bed by 7 or 7:30pm.  She loves solid food especially when she can feed herself but boy she can make a mess!  At her 9-month appointment she weighed 20 lbs and 12 oz.  She has her 2 front bottom teeth which popped out around 6 months and two weeks ago her top two teeth made their appearance.  Her eyes are still as blue as ever which makes her dad so happy.  She loves watching her siblings, especially when they are running around, she will be so excited when she can join them!  And she has recently discovered dogs, she gets SO excited when she sees a dog, its so cute to watch :)  

Here are some pics of our sweet little caboose.

Lily makes a beeline for the dishwasher anytime I open it, she loves it!

 Lily LOVES fruit:

 

 Her siblings love to hold her:

Enjoying the sand at the beach on the 4th of July:

Chowing down on a pickle:

When I have laundry going, I'll often find Lily in the laundry room watching the washing machine go round and round:

Here is the sweet face I get to see when I go in to get Lily up from her crib:

Don't grow up so fast Lilyana!

Parker and Penelope's first day of Kindergarten

The day Parker and Penelope looked forward to all summer finally arrived: the first day of Kindergarten.  They were so excited!  They were thrilled with their new clothes and shoes and backpacks.  Here is Parker waiting in front of his class:

And here are Parker and Penelope together.  They, unfortunately, are not in the same class.  I did request them to be but the principal feels very strongly that twins should be split up.  I'm not terribly worried about them being apart, I just think it would be easier (for me) to have them in the same class and they do love each other.  We'll have to see how it goes.

 Here I am with my oh-so-big kindergarteners:

 With dad:

 And here is Penelope in front of her classroom:

 So excited to see what is going on inside:

 Penelope got a little nervous when we went into her room but we quickly got her situated and said goodbye.  This is where I teared up and had put my sunglasses on.  I didn't want to scare her or give her reason to not be excited for the day.

 Then we  walked down to Parker's classroom and got him settled in

 Saying goodbye to dad:

 My last look at him before leaving:

 Just over five hours later, I was picking them up.  Unfortunately, the camera was on video so I didn't get a shot of Penelope coming out of her classroom but here is Parker with his teacher:

 They both said they had a good day and told me lots about it.  And they were both excited about going back the next day so that is a good sign.  Here's to hoping the rest of the school stays this positive!

Oliver started preschool!

The day finally arrived.  Oliver got to go to preschool instead of just helping drop off and pick up Parker and Penelope.  He has been looking forward to this day for a long time!  I'm so proud of him, he asked if I could come in 'just for a minute' like he does every Sunday when I take him primary but I told moms don't go to preschool but that I would be back and pick him up, he walked right in and sat down.  My friend Heather was the mom helper and told me that for the first little bit he wouldn't look at anyone or answer questions but he finally settled in and got involved.  He told me his favorite part was listening to the song "Going on a bear hunt"  He also said he colored a bus (on a paper), ate a snack of yogurt and graham crackers, played with trucks and rode a bike outside while wearing a red helmet.  All in all I think he had a great day.  I wanted to get a picture of him and his teacher but the school is working hard to streamline pick-up and drop-off so I didn't get a chance.  Maybe on Thursday.  In any case, here are the pics we took before and at the beginning of Oliver's first day of preschool:

They each wanted a turn holding Lily in the picture so we did it.

   I was really nervous letting Oliver hold her though.  But no one dropped her, success!

 

 Love how Lily's tongue is out in this one:

 

 Saying goodbye to dad:

 Parker and Penelope start kindergarten tomorrow so they came with us for drop-off, here they are watching Oliver through the window:

Here's to a good start to a hopefully great year of preschool for Oliver!

Parker

Parker is a delightful 5-year old.  He is such a good boy and has a strong desire to do what is right.  He is, as we say, without guile.  He is in swim lessons and LOVES them.  He loves being in the water and is working so hard so he can swim in our community pool without a life jacket.  What a change from a couple years ago when he first took swim lessons and cried through most of the lessons.  Parker loves legos and spends a lot of time building things and playing with his men.  He was quite obsessed with superheroes at the beginning of the year but it has been overtaken by a love of Star Wars.  He sees things in black and white and always asks at the beginning of a book/story/movie if there is a bad guy and who it is and who gets the bad guy.  He reminds me every morning to read from our Book of Mormon Stories and his favorites are always the ones with clear cut good guys and bad guys.  He loves doing things with his friends and when we go somewhere he always asks what friends will be there. His good friends are Mikey Oleksy and Carson Young.  He is so excited for kindergarten and is ready to make new friends.  He doesn't love sitting down and working on writing and reading but once he gets going he tries so hard and is getting really good with writing his letters and numbers.  He has memorized Articles of Faith 1-8 and he says really thoughtful prayers.  He often tries to take on the role of parent and reprimand his siblings, I'll say to him "Parker, you are not the mommy, I am the mommy."  He's my early riser and is up between 6am and 6:30am.  He's very modest and gets dressed right away.  He doesn't like to be sticky or dirty and washes his hands a lot.  He is a good eater and loves string cheese, pepperoni, mac and cheese, fruit, pizza and water.  He loves water and chooses it over juice or soda.  He is not shy, yesterday at the grocery store he told the cashier "My name is Parker and I'm five."  He has a naturally loud voice, I'm often telling him to use his inside voice.  He learned to ride a bike without training wheels this summer and he's a natural!  He loves riding his bike and goes so fast. He loves, loves, loves his daddy and always asks when he'll be home and what days he gets to stay home.  We love having Parker in our family!

Let's go to the movies

Our kids have never been to the movie theater so I decided this summer we would take them!  Monsters University seemed like the perfect movie: rated G, they had seen Monsters Inc., and it was coming out this summer.  So we bought some movie treats, got dad to come home and work while Lily slept and we were off!

All in all the kids did well.  Parker asked a lot of questions (with his not-so-quiet voice) and I kept having to shhhh him and tell him to just watch.  And of course he couldn't make it through the movie without going to the bathroom once, he truly is his father's son.  Penelope wanted to eat all the candy I brought before the movie even started and about 3/4 of the way through Oliver kept asking if we could go home!  But, they still talk about the movie and act out their favorite parts.  I think the outing was a success!

We have a six month old

I can't believe we are already here (plus a couple weeks).  Lily is halfway to one, crazy!  To mark the occasion Lily decided to pop out her first tooth (lower right) and she started sitting up unassisted (mostly).

 At her six-month visit to the doctor she was just shy of 18 lbs which I thought was big but then we met a 6-month-old boy at church who weighs 24 lbs!  Stranger anxiety has already set in, she knows when mom doesn't have her and gets very concerned pretty quickly.  Luckily she still goes to dad!

She still LOVES being around her siblings and really loves when they interact with her or sing to her, its pretty cute.  Here she is on the floor in the playroom, she loves being in there because that is where Parker, Penelope and Oliver generally are (plus there are fun toys to suck on!):

 

We have started solids but from these pics it doesn't look like we have taken the conventional route.  Here she is gnawing on a carrot:

And here she is taking a little sip of mom's shave ice:

We have also started things like oatmeal cereal and peas but those just aren't as exciting so I don't have pics of them!

 In honor of her turning six months, we got some professional shots of her done--ok, not really, my friend (who took pics at the twins' birthday party) has a little studio in her front yard and her family is raising money to go to Disneyland next year by offering photos shoots of kids for pretty cheap so we decided to take advantage.  Here are a couple (of many) that I love:

 

We sure love our little Lilyana Kai!

Water baby

Even though we live in Hawaii, I haven't really let Lily get in the water yet.  I've been trying to protect her skin and what not but it was time to introduce her to the world of water (outside of the bath).  Well she took right to it.  We went to our pool last week and she loved just floating around in her toy watching the action.  Then on Memorial day we went to the beach and she had a great time in the ocean with dad and mom.  I think we may be raising a water baby!