Labor Day Weekend

This past weekend was our first trip with all 4 kids. I usually am very excited about packing when we are going out of town somewhere and we all get our bags ready 1 or 2 days before we leave. But for some reason, I was not all that excited about packing this time. (And it wasn't until the day we were leaving) Not that one little baby needs alot of clothes and stuff for one weekend, I guess just having one more person to pack for...I don't know. Although Teagan actually packed his bag all by himself.

Anyways, we headed up to Williams to the cabin on Friday afternoon. We hit some pretty bad traffic so it took us a little longer than we had planned to get up there. We had an unexpected visitor come too...Papa! We were so excited to see him and have some one on one time with him.

Oh Papa, you little stud muffin, you

Saturday morning the boys went fishing, and the girls even had a chance to go on the boat too.

I was a little nervous when they headed out to the middle of the lake, but they all came back safe.

Those life jackets look real safe, don't you think?

Dad hooked a big one :) Luckily it just went through his shorts and not his skin.

Staten's first fishing trip...kinda :)

Right after the boys were done fishing, they went golfing. It was kinda rainy all day on and off, but they had a good time. And when I say 'the boys' that includes Teagan. He has been golfing that coarse since he was 2. He loves golfing and is pretty good at it. But he doesn't get as many chances to go as he used to.

We took the kids on 2 'nature hikes.' They love to explore the woods. We found alot of cool stuff. We found a bone, a huge mushroom, a baby lizard, R3-D4 (it was actually an old dishwasher that was just sitting in the middle of the forest...when we first saw it Teagan said he thought it looked like R2-D2 from Star Wars, so I said maybe it was his brother, R3-D4), we also saw a deer and a log bench.

Teagan looking for bugs. (Don't you love his backpack?)

I didn't put dresses on the girls to go on our hike. We were at church earlier that day and we just hadn't changed our clothes yet.


The kids checking out R3-D4.

We went spotlighting one night and looked for deer. The kids always love that. We saw quite a few deer, a few bucks and 3 skunks. Kevin is so funny with the spotlight. He hops out of the truck and chases the deer with the light so the kids can see.

The weather was SO nice there! It was hard to come back to the 110 degree valley. But it was Labor Day, which means swimming at mom and dad's. But I forgot our swimsuits...since we went straight to their house from the cabin. So we got a little creative with the kids swimming attire. But darn I didn't get any pictures of it. :)

It was a pretty fun-filled weekend...but it's always nice to come back home again.

Orange what?

So this started out with me sitting on my bed feeding Staten. I didn't have a book near by (which is what I normally do while nursing) so I flipped on the TV. Now, since we don't have cable, the choices are minimum. Well, there was a cooking show on channel 8 called "Christina Cooks." I REALLY like it. She cooks how I do, using no white flour and no sugar. All whole foods. Anyways, I was just about done feeding Staten and Teagan came in to my room and glanced at the TV. She (Christina) was just starting to make some yummy chocolate cupcakes. "oh, those look good" Teagan says as he climbs up on my bed. A few minutes later Maylee walked in. "Maylee, come look at this." Then Livia came in. "yummy!" They all sat there on my bed and watched Christina make orange scented chocolate cupcakes. They looked delicious and I think I might make them for Livia's birthday! I might have to try them before that...just to make sure they taste okay. :)

My Little Helper

Livia is really the best little helper.
(Almost) anything I ask her to do , she does it, and even some stuff I don't ask her to do...like shove Staten's binki in his mouth any time he makes a peep. :)
The other morning I was sitting in bed feeding Staten, probably around 6am, and I heard someone in the bathroom making some noise. I thought, okay, whoever that is will come out in a minute. Well, about 10 minutes later I still heard some noise. I got up and walked in there and saw Livia, doing this...


I asked her if she had gone to the bathroom on the floor (she did that once before and had wanted to clean it up herself). She said "no," so I asked her what she was doing. "me cleaning."
And what a good little cleaner she is, look at that, down on the floor scrubbing away.


You can see in this picture how good she is cause of the blurriness of her hand, scrubbing so fast!
Thanks Livia for all your help!!!

Sisters

This past week Keri was down from Utah with her kids. It was so fun hanging out with them. It's only about once or twice a year that I get to see them, so I was glad that they were down for a whole week. Although, I didn't get to see her as much as I would have liked to. (brand new baby, kids 1st week of school, Keri staying at mom's house who lives 45 minutes away...)

But we had some good times.

Some of the highlights of the past week...

-Eating veggie burgers :)

-Brushing each other's hair (one of our favorite past times)

- Keri giving Maylee and Livia new jump ropes

-snuggling together after Keri's nap (okay, not really...but I tried) lol






Teagan and Drake...they always have so much fun together!

Birthdays, Blessings, School...

The last few days have been pretty eventful. My sister Keri (and Drake and Selina), came down from Utah on Saturday...YEAH! My dad's birthday (don't worry dad, I won't tell anyone your age :) was on Friday so we had a party for him on Saturday. A swimming and BBQ party. Sadly, Maylee and Livia had fevers so they stayed home with Kevin. We usually have chicken but this time we had hamburgers and hot dogs. (Keri was awesome and bought some veggie burgers too!) It was a great time spending time with family that I don't get to see very often. (Matt and Amanda came down too.)

On Sunday was Staten's big day. At only 2 weeks old I was unsure about blessing him, but knowing Keri was going to be here, we decided it would be fine. And it was...no big party or dinner after, just a nice blessing and some family pictures. It was a great day!

Sam was not very happy and did not want to be in the picture. So, Matt tried to help out, but it looks like he is in time-out or something, facing the corner :)

Today was Maylee and Teagan's first day of school!!! They were very excited (one, more than the other). We picked out their outfits and made their lunches last night so we would be all ready for the big day. After I picked them up from school (it was 500 degrees outside, I think Staten got a sunburn from being out there for 5 minutes) I asked them what their favorite thing was. Maylee said "eating lunch" and Teagan said "recess." So, my kids aren't thrilled about the academic part of school, but whatever...

Livia jumped in the picture before I could say anything...and I was in a hurry so I figured it was okay.

I am very excited for when it cools down so we can walk to school again!

I am Grateful for...

At the beginning of the year, one of our mutual activities was on gratitude. I talked to the girls about not only being grateful for the usual things (family, house, gospel, book of Mormon, ect.) but to remember and be grateful for the little things, like chap stick or pencil sharpeners. :) Then each girl made a gratitude journal , in which they were suppose to write something EveryDay that they were grateful for. Well, I thought it would be a good idea for me to make one as well, to help me remember the little things to be grateful for. I've been pretty good at writing in it (missing a day here or there), but something that I have been very grateful for lately is the solar oven that me and Kevin got for Christmas last year from my in-laws. The reason I am SO grateful for it...our oven broke about a month ago. So, it has been nice to still be able to cook things (and to keep our house cool!) I even baked Teagan's birthday cake in it. I have also cooked granola, cookies, blueberry muffins, and a pasta dish. It's actually kinda fun once I got the hang of it.

Here is our dinner from tonight...

The kids loved it! (not that it has anything to do with being cooked in the sun oven, but still...

Not part of the plan

Some of us are planners, others are not. Well, I am.

Last week my doctor told me that he would break my water Thursday night at 9pm. Sounds good, I thought. I was not really wanting to be induced, but breaking my water was a little different. So, Thursday night we ate dinner and then headed to my parents house to drop the kids off. The hospital called right then and said they were super busy and they would call me when I could come down, maybe a few hours, maybe not til the next morning. We took the kids to my parents and hung out for a little while. I was planning on it only being a few more hours (even though they said it could be longer) so Kevin and I decided to go see "Harry Potter" while we were waiting...I didn't think I would be able to sleep anyway. We went to the 10:30pm show which got out about 1:30am. (The hospital had still not called). It's got to be any minute now. Let's go for a bite to eat...Kevin was hungry. So, we went to Denny's to eat and...wait for the call. Nothing. We finally decided to go to my parents house and go to sleep. I laid down on the couch with my cell phone on my lap. I fell asleep (about 2:45) and about 5 minutes later my cell phone rang. Yeah! The hospital said to come down in one hour. Kevin set the alarm and we went to sleep for about 30 minutes.

We get to the hospital and get all situated by 5am (NOT part of the plan...I was suppose to already have the baby by then). Then the nurse tells me that she is going to start me on pitocin...which was also NOT part of the plan, I didn't want to be induced that way. Blah, Blah...4 hours later I am having Major contractions...Major! And I am only dilated to a 5, which was what I was at about an hour before. Umm, Not part of the plan... So, a little frustrated (and emotional) I tell Kevin that I want an epidural. "No, you are doing good." (I told him to say that to me) After a few times of me sweetly asking, he calls the nurse in and I told her I was ready. As the anesthesiologist(sp?) was sticking the 10 inch needle in my back, I was thinking, "this was Not part of the plan!" I didn't want to have an epidural, but I was not dilating and I could take the pain no more. Okay, well at least everything will be easy now. :) The nurse sits by my side and helps me calm down a little while my contractions start to feel a little less intense. My doctor was going to be coming in so the nurse decides to check me. Wow, an 8, that was fast. (I dilated 3 cm in 10 minutes) Dr. Huish walks in and asks how I am doing. "Ah, better, but I feel like I have to go to the bathroom." Hmm..pressure?" He checks me and says "Oh ya, you're ready to go...start pushing." I did...and do you know what else I did? I yelled..not part of the plan (I am not very vocal when it comes to pain, so I was not expecting myself to yell out things like.."this hurts!" and "sweet maria!" After a few pushes baby comes out and Kevin says "it's a boy!" then I say "shut up!" (although we never found out what we were having I really thought it would be a girl. So this was very happily, not part of the plan).

Staten Wayne Lunt was born at 9:55am and weighed 7 lbs 8 oz. (although he was not known as Staten until some time later)




About 6 hours after he was born the nurse took him out to do a regular check-up. She had not come back for awhile and I was starting to wonder what was taking so long. About 45 minutes later she came back with another nurse. She told me that they noticed his skin was a different color and that his breathing was way too fast...among other things. So, they would need to keep him in the special unit nursery for a few days while they did some testing. They took me in there to see him and I did not like what I saw. A breathing tube in his nose, an IV in his tiny little hand, plugs and cords hooked up to machines and monitors that were beeping. And I couldn't even hold him. :( So sad...

The nurses were really great, one in particular that I liked, Margaret...after being in there for awhile and her telling me and Kevin what was going on, she said, "sorry, I know this wasn't part of the plan." She was right, this was definitely not part of the plan. (Like so many other things that had happened the last few days). By the next day he was doing better. His breathing was almost normal, he was eating, and by the next day he was doing great and we got the word that all his tests came back negative and we were able to go home! Yeah...Happy day!


He is the cutest little thing and my kids adore him. It's kinda cute and kinda annoying that they fight over who gets to hold him or sit by him in the car.
Everything is great now, we are at home and doing well. Although it did not go all according to my plan, it all turned out. And I think that is how life is, you just gotta go with the flow.