when Carrie was born

So I wanted to record the birth story, of sorts.  It wasn't too exciting, but I think that is a good thing.  So when I went to my 36 week doctor's appointment I was very swollen.  I have never had a problem with this before, but I really wasn't too concerned.  My blood pressure was very high- somewhere close to 150/95- I don't really remember because before this the numbers meant nothing to me.  The nurses seemed very worried, but the doctor seemed to be quite calm (since then I have realized that's just his personality, which is a good thing in a doctor).  Anyway, I had gained like 7 pounds in 2 weeks in water weight.  The doctor gave me an antibiotic and had me do some tests at home.  A nurse told me to go home and lay down and stay down as much as possible.  When I came back 2 days later I had lost almost 5 of those pounds in water weight- yes I went to the bathroom a lot.  Unfortunately my blood pressure was still very high, so he said we would be delivering earlier than expected.  I went to get an ultrasound at the hospital, but I had to wait for 4 hours for an appointment.  Luckily there are some people (the Adams) who were in our branch when we were in Mexican Hat who let me and two crazy boys come stay at their house.  They fed us lunch and even watched the boys while I got the ultrasound.  I hope I can grow up to be as giving as them.  The ultrasound said I was 37 weeks along and the baby was healthy and 7 pounds, all good news for an early delivery.  The doctor said we will wait for the test results, but probably deliver sometime the next week.  Thankfully my mom was able to change her plans and come a week early.  I am so glad she came before we actually had the baby.  So the test came back positive for pre-eclamsia and we scheduled the delivery for early Thursday morning.  At this hospital they have you come in the day before to do blood work and get some "instruction."  So Devon and I went up on Wednesday afternoon and planed to stay in a hotel since the hospital is 2 hours away.  At the hospital my blood pressure was even higher than it had been, but the doctor seemed not too worried, especially when we said we were staying in town anyway.  We went to the hotel and watched TV (and decided we haven't been missing much since getting rid of TV).  We went out to a little mom and pop place for dinner.  The owner found out I was to deliver the next day and told Devon to come back for a celebration dinner on the house.  Anyway, we went to bed but I really didn't sleep, too nervous for the next day I guess.  At about 3am our phone rang- that was weird.  The hospital was calling and apparently our doctor had a very strong impression that I should come into the hospital then instead of later, so we went.  I so grateful to have a doctor that would listen to the spirit and follow it, even though he didn't know why.  They actually called all of the hotels in Monticello because I was mistaken about the one we actually had reservations for.  Nothing happened, but he did have me start an IV with medicine for pre-eclamsia to prevent seizures  (I am glad I didn't know that's what eclamsia really is).  Besides taking forever to get the IV's in everything went smoothly.  They delivered at the scheduled time, 7:30, well actually 7:47.  One thing that was odd was that they put the spinal block in when I was sitting up, I have never done that before, but it worked.  They gave me some great medicine after the block wore off so I didn't feel anything the first day.  Really the recovery has been pretty good, still painful but good all things considered.  At first I thought "This is the way to go", I didn't have any traumatic labor, I was only in the hospital 4 hours before I had a baby.  Now I am pretty sick of recovering and wish I felt better, but I guess you can't have everything.  We do have the most important thing.  Carrie was born healthy and only 5lb 11oz.  She is very tiny, but very sweet.  She spent about 30 minutes in the incubator- but that's the only extra.  We are so lucky to have her sweet spirit in our home.  The boys love her, and she has here daddy wrapped around her little finger already.  she's not much of one for sleeping at night, but she's worth it.

Why is everything about baby Carrie?

So the other day Spencer said "Why is everything about baby Carrie now?" Well, mostly that's how little babies are, and she is so cute.

We got one other new addition to our family.  The boys, especially Spencer love jumping!

Spencer is trying to read to Carrie.  She can't even focus yet, but I'm sure she enjoyed the thought.

James loves holding baby Carrie too and trying to help her- sometimes a little too much.

Isn't she a beautiful girl?

She actually looks a lot like the boys did as babies, although she is still not quite as big as either of them when they were born.  We went to the doctor yesterday and she was almost seven pounds at 3 weeks. We love having this little girl in our family.

Carrie LaVon Gosney

Carrie LaVon Gosney was born Thursday, Feb 21 at 7:47am, she was 5lb 11oz and 18 inches long.  We had a scheduled c-section, but ended up scheduling it early because Sarah had pre-eclamsia.  Everything went well and she is home now.  The boys love their sister.

Sledding

We have a great sledding hill in our apartment complex. It's really small, but that is good for little kids and it is shaded the snow stays there for a long time. Almost every day for the first 2 weeks in January the boys went sledding. They never got tired of it, or the snow melted before they got tired of it.

Grandma Roberts' house

After Christmas we went to Grandma Roberts house in California. We left pretty late in the day because we heard a storm was coming in and we tried to beat it. We did not, we added about 2 hours to our trip with the snow. Also our check engine light came on again (Devon and the shop guy here had just replaced all the ignition coils that morning). Thanks to grandma Roberts car guy we finally got the real problem fixed, at least the light hasn't come back on yet (knock on wood). Otherwise we had a great time. The weather was great and warm, we got to go to a lot of after-Christmas sales, and it was nice to just visit and relax.We also had a great New Year part with a cake that looked like a clock (made especially for Spencer) and noise makers and sparkling cider.

Here is grandma with the boys right before we left.

Grandma has the best lemons, we picked some the morning we left and made some delicious lemonade.

One day the Tom and his family came to visit.  The boys loved having people to climb on, and it was great to see everyone.

I just had to put this picture in, this is the first time I met the Roberts family, they have grown a lot! McKay was younger than Spencer then, life goes too fast sometimes.

Christmas Day

We had a great Christmas. This is the most excited Spencer has been for Christmas, he was going crazy.  I don't know how, but we didn't get any pictures of Christmas Eve, which is my favorite day of the year. We invited a family that is just starting to attend church, but they didn't end up coming, so we kind of winged it. We invited our neighbor also for dinner, and he joined us for Christmas Bingo. Fewer people meant more prizes for us I guess. Then we went to the "Christmas light parade." It was snowing and windy, but we sat in the car. I kept trying to find out a real start time- but everyone said sunset (which is not a time). We didn't go until after dark, but still ended up sitting in the car for an hour. We did the nativity with puppets while we waited, and then the kids drew on the windows because it was so foggy and now they really need to be washed. The floats were pretty cool once they came, but I think next year we will just walk down to the school and walk around them since that's where the parade ends and they stayed there for a few hours. Then we opened pj's from Grandma Gosney and talked to them over a google hangout which was fun, but we didn't get pictures of that either. I wish we had taken a picture of the food Spencer left for Santa- ham and jello. He probably gets tired of the cookies anyway. We also left some apples for the reindeer. The boys were sooo crazy by bedtime! We said they had to stay in bed until 6, but we ended up getting up at like 5:30 the next morning. I think the days of sleeping in on Christmas morning are officially over.
We accidentally started a new tradition last year since Christmas was on Sunday we just did Santa stuff before church and then brought out the other presents after.  We really liked spreading it out, so only the Santa gifts were out on Christmas morning, then we brought the rest out after breakfast.

Now you can see their cute Christmas PJ's.  I love how excited little kids get about presents.

Spencer got a Magnetic Dartboard.  It has been well used, and works really well.

James just wanted a present, but he got a castle which he played with all day, and many days since then.

We had Gosney breakfast burritos for breakfast.  James threw up- do not be alarmed he has the Gosney gag reflex and just didn't want to eat, so he gagged when Devon fed him.  Too bad he had to change out of his cute PJ's, but no other harm done.

I made quilts for the boys- okay I've been working on these for years and they still need to be bound, but December really was crazy, I tried. 

Spencer got a "bub" from his cousin.  It is a little plastic figure you can color and design, and he thought it was the greatest thing ever- I never know what he will like.

Here is James kissing his hot chocolate.  He is a funny boy.

My grandma made pillowcases for all of her grandkids and great grandkids- that's more than 50 pillowcases.  She also chose specific material for each one, and she could not have been more right with my boys, she chose exactly what they like.  Grandma's are amazing.

They opened grandma Coombs' present while on the internet too, so we don't have pictures, but they have been wearing their jackets everyday.

We spent a lot of the day doing this.  I love there pictures.  You can tell James doesn't really know how to throw a dart- these things were amazing, they still would stick.  Spencer and James look so involved in the game it makes me laugh.

We also watched some new movies.  Spencer's new favortie is Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang.  We watched it on the Christmas and on the way to and from California.  It is a good long movies- good for trips.  They have been singing the music since then.
We had a great Christmas.

Other things in December

December was a crazy month, a little too crazy and too expensive for me. The check engine light kept coming on in our van and we keep paying too much to get it fixed and then it would come on again, then Spencer had to get a ton of dental work done (I really do brush his teeth everyday) and so I had to make a trip up north with the boys and no Devon, and it was a very expensive month. In between the craziness though it was fun, I just wish the holidays could mean things slow down instead of get crazy.
So on to the good stuff, Devon took the boys to his classroom one afternoon so I could get some rest and Spencer made this colorful dog.  I don't ever know what is going on in his head, but it's creative.

One day it snowed a little so we made tiny snowmen.  It actually snowed a lot more before Christmas (mostly on the days I was traveling) but somehow we have not made bigger snowmen yet.

We have an elf that flies to our house after Thanksgiving and watches to see if the kids are good.  Every night he flies back to the North Pole to report to Santa, and then he usually lands in a new place (unless he was really comfortable in the old one).  Spencer loves this elf and named him "Present."  When we were gone he insisted that Devon take pictures of where he landed to show us.

James loves to sing, he is always singing something- here is a little Jingle Bells

These boys love to dance, here are some new moves.