Christmas Eve 2013

Christmas Eve this year was pretty quiet. All of my siblings were with in-laws (or on a mission). But Mom invited Gma Spencer & Dad invited Granny T & Ken. Mom & Evan made a delicious dinner with steaks. We shared our favorite Christmas memories. ( I wish I would have written them down!) Granny T found the almond!!

 For our nativity, Riley was Mary.

 Hyrum was a shepherd moonlighting as a wiseman.

 Machi-machi was an angel that wanted to hold a baby too. And she didn't like her halo.

 Then we gathered around the piano and sang Christmas hymns and carols...which I loved!



Christmas 2013

Christmas 2013 was a BLAST! PJ Elf came after Christmas Eve dinner at Grandmummsie's house and left the kids with the John Deere jammies.

 

Christmas morning, Lindsay found the kitchen and loved it. Then she opened her "beebee" and was excited!

Riley had asked Santa to bring her a purple Violet dog and to wrap it in purple paper with a pink bow...Santa came through! Woohoo!

Me & Kelsey preferred sleep over presents, but it was still fun to watch the kids open their gifts. Evan surprised me with a wireless speaker to go with my phone or ipad. I was totally surprised! His other "gift" to me was tickets to "Wicked" this summer...of course, I bought them ;)

Hyrum asked Santa for a remote control helicopter...he got that, but Poppa Bernie & Gma Vicki gave him TWO pocketknives and a bow & arrow. He was one excited boy!

*This is Uncle Justin's old bow because Hyrum's new bow is a little hard for him to draw back still...so he has to practice on this one until he's strong enough to use the new one!

And I got Evan boring clothes, 2 nice dog collars, and a whistle to use for training his dogs. It was a GREAT Christmas!

Jeb's 9th Birthday

One of my favorite things about having Jeb buried in Malta is that we get to celebrate special dates at the cemetery. For his birthday, Riley helped me make 9 blue cupcakes. It was windy and the wind tried to blow out his candles before his siblings could, but we got it done!

The kids were jumping all over his mound & headstone and it made me smile, thinking that if Jeb were here with us now, the kids would be crawling all over each other, wrestling.

O Christmas Tree! 2013

At the ward auction, Jared Gardiner, one of the young men, auctioned off the service to get a Christmas tree. Mom bought it for us and the day after the auction, Jared & his dad knocked on the door with a beautifully smelling Christmas tree. It was AWESOME! Two days later, Ev set it up for me and then he & the kids decorated the tree for me. Again, this was AWESOME as well. So, the tree only has half our décor and I love the ribbon around the center. Gma Vicki said it looks like a belt! Riley said, "I'm so excited that we 'decorationed' the tree!" She put all of her ornaments on one limb at the bottom. I think they were all knocked off by the end of the season.

 

Thanksgiving 2013



This year, Thanksgiving was in Malta at Mom & Dad's. Kelsey was 3 days old and in this picture...

Evan is holding a baby doll as Kelsey sleeps peacefully upstairs in her carrier! Hehehe.

Edgar & Elizabeth came as well as the sister missionaries. It was fun & the food was wonderful! We did lose Lindsay once in the chaos. She was in Janeen's bathroom, playing in the toilet with the bath toys. It was all good :) I loved it because I was on Kelsey duty. We also had a lovely nursing discussion...Janeen, you missed out :) And the food was AWESOME! Ev dutch-ovened the turkey. So good!

Kelsey Israelsen

Welcome to the world, Baby Kelsey!! 

I made it to the induction date (again), Nov. 25th. It's kind of nice to know when you're going to have the baby. It's easier to plan things. And I walk into the hospital smiling, which is rare.
7:30-got to the hospital
7:40-Start the IV
8:00-first "check". 3"easy", 80% effaced
8:30-broke water, not much came out. Recommended getting the epidural asap
9:00-epidural in with 1 poke..!.yaya!! *Anesthesiologist did a great job, but I was so nervous, I was shaking
10:30-4+
11:45-5
12:20-5-6 cm, tried to break the water again. Aunt Decca came up with the name "Dam Baby" because her head was so far down the amniotic fluid wouldn't come out
1:08-7 cm, feeling some pressure. Ev guesses 2:30 (he had guessed 2:00 the first time);  Mom guesses 2:15- Decca guesses 2:45. *Mom & Decca go get lunch in the hospital cafeteria
1:20-I have Ev call the nurse in...feeling MORE pressure. She was kind of doubtful, but she came in anyway. She checks. Not quite a 10 but with the contraction, she called Doctor Dowdle. Ev texts Mom & Decca, but the don't believe him at first.
1:??-Dr. Dowdle runs in. Gets put together. "Oh this hurts!"
1:35-Mom RUNS in with first big push=head!! Wait for a moment. Push...kind of. Dr. Dowdle twisted her shoulders and she was out! (big shoulders...like all of my kids)

19.5 inches
8 lbs. 8 oz.

I held her for a minute. She was all covered in gunk, but she was holding onto my finger with her long fingers

*Decca runs in! She missed the birth by seconds.
Nurses take baby and clean her. Dr. Dowdle helps placenta out & pushes on uterus. I have a small tear

Skin to skin. Automatically latches on. Nurses for 30 minutes-ish!

She's here! She's beautiful and healthy. We decided on Kelsey that evening right before Dad & Mom got there with the kids. Later, Janelle & Sara came.

"Happy to be done being pregnant" Mommy & baby Kelsey.

 Checking out new baby sister

 First family photo. Lindsay had just woken up from her nap and she didn't not like seeing me in the hospital. She didn't want to come to me at all!

 Sibling initial inspection. Hyrum was really curious to see the umbilical cord. When he saw it, he was a little weirded out :)

 They all loved the baby, especially Lindsay

 

Preggo Decca (with "Stevie?"), Grandmummsie, & Poppa Jeff

This was a few days after...

 Just home from the hospital. Riley wanted her to see her pink tractor. That was probably appropriate ;) Sweet baby girl (aka Sweet Pea)

 Family photo at Thanksgiving at Grandmummsie's.

We sure love our new baby! She has a calm, peaceful spirit about her. She's been a fairly easy baby. She usually screams when she's hungry and that's about it.

Jeb's Grave Rededication

I didn't think we would ever move Jeb's grave. But after driving through a blizzard last year to stop in Garrison for 2 minutes, not even seeing any friends there, and having a 4-hour detour on our trip to Arizona, Evan and I started discussing moving Jeb's coffin to Malta. We felt really good about it and decided to do it.

 

So, November 20th, Evan took Cort Wilson, a mortician out of Burley, down to Garrison to get Jeb. Robert Bennett was there with the backhoe, Edith Dearden was there in behalf of the cemetery, Jim White as a sheriff's deputy, and LaVon Rowley....well, I'm not sure why he was there other than just to be there ;) Just hearing that those people were there made me cry. They are the remaining few of our Garrison Branch friends that are still there.

 

November 21st,(almost 1 month away from Jeb's 9th birthday) after Evan, Cort, Dad & JC buried the coffin, we had a little graveside dedication...and it was COLD! Ev says it was just like the day we buried him. I don't remember the cold of that day-I was too numb to think about the temperature.

 

Dad conducted and we sang "I am a Child of God." Dad, Me and Hyrum bore our testimonies. Evan gave a beautiful prayer and rededicated the grave. We didn't even sing "Families Can Be Together Forever" because we were so cold. We let go of nine balloons that headed DUE SOUTH with the wind. After, we went to Cattle Country for some hot cocoa.

 

It was very tender for me. I cried but I cried a lot of happy tears. With Steve's death, being 9 months pregnant with Kelsey and it was so close to Jeb's birthday, it was a very emotional experience and tears were very close to the surface. Everything about Jeb happened in Garrison and it was kind of bittersweet to take him from there...kind of like closing the last door to that place but I love having him close to us here in Malta. As Dad put it, Jeb is actually one of the reasons our family is in Malta. Love you, Jeb.

What does the last month of pregnancy look like for me?

Me in the NST room at the doctor's office. They do non-stress tests twice every week for the last 6 weeks of pregnancy. It's kind of a pain, but also comforting to know that the baby is ok :)

Nutcracker

Grandmummsie got tickets for the Nutcracker. Since Decca & Poppa Jeff bailed out, I got to go with them. I was surprised how cute it was and Riley was dazzled! She still has her program and calls it her "Nutcracker Book". I'm not sure if she is destined for ballet school but she loves to dance at home to the Nutcracker Suite.

Reasons to Skip School

A few days after his birthday, Hyrum had an appointment with our new dentist, Dr. Jared Johnson (a 2nd cousin to Poppa Jeff) to get his teeth pulled. I have a feeling it is the beginning of many years with orthodontists for our family....SIGH.

 

I don't know a lot about teeth, but apparently these are monster teeth. Hy did great. We went to McDonalds to get some ice cream for the boy, but he couldn't eat it because of the numbing stuff. Then the pain meds started to wear off and he was in PAIN. He screamed bloody murder almost the whole way home until we reached the turn off to Malta and suddenly he stopped. And although he hurt the rest of the day, it wasn't as bad. And he was pretty proud of his teeth.

 

They were sooo big, he got a $1.25 for each tooth from the tooth fairy.

 And then a little while after that, Hyrum got to leave school to watch the guys poor cement in front of the little white shed. He had been asking lots of questions about cement trucks since Karen Fowles got him a lego cement mixer for his "birthday" and so Ev thought "we can't let schooling get in the way of his education" and got him out of school. I don't think he was sad about leaving school for a little while.... ;)