Our Busiest Time of the Year

This is the busiest time of the year in our household. There's something every week - Jonas' birthday, Halloween, Jen's birthday, Brooklyn's birthday, our Anniversary, and Thanksgiving.  Needless to say, we have a lot of ice cream in our freezer right now.

Halloween was fun. Kyle took Ethan and Brooklyn trick-or-treating in our new neighborhood.  Jen got to stay home and meet all the trick-or-treaters who came by.

Jonas was a pea pod.  For many years Jen has thought it would be cute to dress one of her babies as a pea pod.  She bought this costume years ago, hoping someday we'd have a newborn to dress in it. Thanks, Jonas, for helping Jen cross this off her bucket list.

Ethan has wanted to be Luigi since spring-time.  Brooklyn wanted to be Darth Maul for about as long.  After a lot of work trying to convince her otherwise, she finally changed her mind and decided to be a butterfly. What changed her mind, you might ask?  She was worried that being Darth Maul would scare the baby.  

What kid hasn't done this after coming back from a productive night of trick-or-treating?

One evening, the kids dressed up as Buzz and Woody from Toy Story.  For the entire night, they pretended to be the characters. Whenever they noticed us looking at them, they'd collapse on the floor, like a pair of lifeless toys. Kyle overheard Ethan instructing Brooklyn how to smile like Buzz when she was a toy.    

Jen had her birthday on November 2.  It was the third anniversary of her 29th birthday.  We had a delicious cake we found on pinterest with layers of brownie, coconut pudding, chocolate mousse, whipped cream and toasted coconut on top. It was awesome.

Jonas' umbilical cord fell of when he was 12 days old.  This happened to be on a Monday, so for Family Home Evening, we gave him his first bath at home.  The kids were so excited all day to see their baby brother get his bath.  

One random day when Kyle had the camera, Brooklyn put on a happy banana face... 

...and a sad banana face.

One evening, Brooklyn was rude to Jen.  She refused to say sorry, and Kyle refused to tuck her in her bed until she did. She is a stubborn little girl. She sat at the top of the stairs waiting for us to change our minds.  We ignored her until she fell asleep.  We're not looking forward to teenage Brooklyn. (Please note that the coloring in this photo is off. Our walls aren't that greenish yellow color :)

Brooklyn had her fifth birthday on November 12.  We had a little party at home, where she opened her birthday presents. She can be a real sweetheart - she knew that Ethan would love to help open presents, so she said they could open them together.  Her favorite present was the Crayola Marker Maker. It is a kit for mixing your own marker colors. She needs a little bit of help with it, but it has been a lot of fun.

We had a family party on her on her birthday, and a friend party on the following Saturday. Brooklyn wanted a rainbow butterfly cake for her birthday. Jen compromised and kept her cakes pretty simple this year (thanks to the demands of a newborn) and made a rainbow cake on her birthday, and a butterfly cake for her friends. Jen was going to make the rainbow cake a bit differently, but Brooklyn picked at the cake while it was cooling so it became a half circle cake. Luckily, Brooklyn still thought this was "the best birthday ever."

At her friend party, we had all kinds of butterfly related activities.  We started off with a craft where the girls made butterflies using coffee filters and Crayola markers.  

Then we played pin the butterfly on the flower.

...followed by breaking the (homemade) butterfly pinata...  

Then we opened presents, ate cake, and played some games. It was a great opportunity to get to know some of the girls in our neighborhood.  We're really looking forward to all the friends Brooklyn will have.

This month, we celebrated our eighth wedding anniversary.  We had a simple celebration at home, involving chocolate fondue and lots of other goodies. 

Yesterday was Jonas' one month birthday. He has been a wonderful baby. He doesn't cry very much has been so much fun to snuggle and hold. Sadly, he lost quite a bit of weight after we came home from the hospital. He hasn't been very good at nursing so Jen has had to pump and bottle feed him for the last two weeks. Since doing so, he has been gaining about 2 ounces a day. He is our first baby to be willing to take a bottle, so we are enjoying the freedom that it provides. We hope he will get better at nursing as he gets older, but for now we are glad he is finally growing. We expect that his newborn clothes won't fit him too much longer. He currently weighs about 8 lbs 6 oz.

For those of you who are curious, here's how the rest of us looked when we were babies. Who do you think Jonas looks the most like?

New Arrival

At Jen's last two doctors appointments, she was dilated to a 3, the baby was at a -1 station, and she was 75% effaced. As a result, we sent our kids up to Grandma Morrey's house the day that Ethan went off-track (thank goodness for year round school).  Just about every night for the next week, Jen had false labor pains, and there were a number of times when we almost decided to go to the hospital.  But, the pains always went away, so we kept on waiting.

We had an induction scheduled for October 23.  We called the the hospital the night before, and asked if they would be able to take us.  They told us that they had made an appointment at 8:30, but to call back at 7:30 the next morning to make sure it was still OK. When we called at 7:30, they told us they were too busy, and to call back at 10:00. When we called at 10:00, they told us to call back at 12:00.  When we called at 12:00, they said it would be all right for use to come in at 1:00.  It was nice to drive to the hospital without being in labor.

We got checked in, and they hooked Jen up. When they checked their progress, she was still dilated to a three.  One of the reasons that we decided to do an induction was that Jen tested positive for Group B Strep, and had to receive some antibiotics at least four hours before the birth to protect the baby.  She got the antibiotic, and at the same time started the Pitocin to induce labor. Within a couple of minutes, the contractions started.  They never were very painful.  The nurses kept checking her progress, and increasing the pitocin because she wasn't progressing very far.  They were going to break her water to speed things up. At that time, Jen decided to get her epidural.  This is always the scariest part of labor for Jen.  It worked really well. Jen felt like she was cheating a little bit.

At about 5:30-6:00 pm, they checked Jen's progress, and she hadn't progressed beyond 3+.  We started to get worried that they'd want to do a c-section because things weren't progressing fast enough. The nurses assured us that we didn't need to worry yet.
Shortly before 7:00, the nurses suggested having Jen lay on her stomach, because sometimes that will help move things along.  Within a minute of moving to her stomach, Jen got the urge to push.  She told the nurses, and they helped her roll back onto her back to check her. Sure enough, she was fully dilated, and it was time for the baby to come.

The doctor was in the room within a few minutes, and after five to ten minutes of pushing, the baby was born at 7:16 pm.

This was a really good hospital experience. Very little pain through the labor process, a very well placed epidural, and an easier recovery than with the other two kids made this the best delivery yet.

Probably the hardest part of the whole process was choosing a name.  We had it narrowed down to three names, but it wasn't until the night before we had to leave that we made our final decision.

And now, without further ado, we are proud to announce the birth of
Jonas Russell Morrey
Birth Date: October 23, 2013
Birth Time: 7:16 pm
Weight: 7 lbs 4 oz
Length: 21 inches
Duration of labor: about 5 1/2 hours

When Grandma Morrey heard that Jen was pushing, she gathered the kids together, and started the two hour drive to Salt Lake.  Around 9:30 pm, the kids came in to meet their new brother.  We could see the excitement in both kids eyes. Ethan looked at him, but didn't want to hold him. Brooklyn was eager to hold her new baby brother.  

At about 2:00 that morning, it was time for Jonas' first bath.

The next day, we had fun trying on a few of the different hats Jen had made for him.

 After two days in the hospital, it was time to come home

We are in love with him, and are happy to have him in our family.

We're Back

Well, we've been in our home for about a month now, and we've started getting back into the swing of things. Unfortunately, when we unpacked our desktop computer (the one with all of our photos from the summer), it didn't boot.  The pictures are all still there, but we just can't get to them right now.  So this post will cover everything that was on our camera...

While we were staying at Kyle's parent's house in Logan, waiting for our home to be built, we went on a number of hikes.  One of the last adventures we went on was up Green Canyon, where we climbed up to a cave.  The kids loved climbing the walls and getting dirty.

We took a trip to San Francisco in September to witness Kyle's brother, Justin, get married.  He had the gall to get married the week that we were closing on our house - we even had to shorten our trip to get the finishing touches wrapped up.  We had to spend some time on the phone with our builder and lender trying to make sure everything was in order. But we weren't about ready to let that ruin our vacation!

Jen was almost eight months pregnant and got really tired walking around San Francisco, but we weren't about ready to let that ruin our vacation either!

As part of our sightseeing, we took a tour of Alcatraz, which we really enjoyed and recommend.  Sadly, our camera battery died just as we were leaving, so we didn't get many pictures :-(  

We also visited the pier, and drove up to the Muir Woods (a redwood forest just north of San Francisco). 

  

It was fun to get to spend time with Kyle's family, and it was very nice that Jen's parents were so willing to watch the kids for us while we were away.  

The wedding itself was really nice.  Justin's wife is half Chinese, and they had a yummy luncheon with Chinese food that Jen hadn't had since her mission - it's hard to find that kind of food in Utah.  That evening, they had a beautiful reception at a very nice house. They had a sit down dinner and dancing. It was the classiest wedding we've ever been to. It was much more elegant than our reception in a stake center gym.

When it was time to go home, the seven of us piled into the SUV with all of our luggage, and it was a very crowded drive to drop us off at the airport.  We were glad that we flew.

A few weeks back, we though it would be fun to take the kids to Build-A-Bear Workshop so they could build a new stuffed toy for their new little brother.  They picked out this cute little puppy for him.

The workers at the workshop filled the puppy with stuffing, and then each of the kids got a heart to put inside.  Before doing so, they touched the heart to their nose, and made a wish...

Then they put the heart in the toy...

 And gave him a bath...

Then they got on the computer, registered the baby's new toy, and gave him a name -- Charlie.

 Then we checked out and brought home the new little bundle of joy for our future bundle of joy.

While we were at the mall, we visited the new Lego store.  It was almost like Christmas in October.

After looking out of our windows, watching the leaves changing color, we took the kids on a hike to see Autumn in action. There are a lot of trails near our new house, so we picked one that looked fun, and headed out.

With Halloween drawing near, we thought it would be fun to take the kids to a Pumpkin Patch to pick out their pumpkins.  After a quick search online, we learned about a patch just down the street from our house.  It even included a straw maze for the kids.  They had a blast running around the maze again and again.

Then we ventured out into the pumpkin patch to select the perfect pumpkin.

After choosing their pumpkins, the kids went back for a few more laps around the straw maze.

The buffalo in the field behind our house is feeling pretty lonely.  LOL.

The baby is due in just ten short days.  Jen is getting tired of people telling her how small she is, especially with how huge she feels. Here's proof...

Stay tuned for our next post, which will likely include a beautiful new baby boy (who can come now that, after a month of searching, we finally found the screws for his crib amid all of our boxes).