Take me out to the ball game...

We had a blast watching Uncle Justin play baseball during our visit! He's such a great player and his team was fun to watch. My only regret is that we didn't get to see more of his games!!  His first game was a bit chilly so we stayed in the cars.  His second game however was beautiful outside so the kids got to play outside and have a great time with their cousins!

 During the first game we went to it was a bit breezy outside so Ethan chilled with his pal Grandma Ruth in her car!!

 We also got the chance to go see one of Megan's softball games!  It was fun to watch the little ones play.  It was the same evening as Justin's first game when the weather was so breezy so we were glad that Aunt Jamie was prepared with blankets!!

"Rainbrella" kids

When Cailee was little she called umbrellas "rainbrellas"!!  From time to time we refer to them as that with smiles remembering that sweet little toddler!  During our two week vacation to Grandma and Grandpa's house we went to Uncle Justin's baseball game.  The sun was nice a bright so Grandma and Grandpa set up their umbrellas for shade.  When the sun started setting, I noticed the kids shadows when they were playing behind the umbrellas so we thought we'd have some fun!  I told the kids to make lots of different poses behind the umbrellas and this is what we got!  I'm no photographer, but it was fun!  The kids had a blast and it was great entertainment for them!!

My little gymnists!!

Cailee, Abby and Madie have a new found passion for qymnastics!!  Madie started in January and the two older girls followed in March.  My sweet Madie girl is so much fun to watch!  She is quiet the little monkey on the bars!  She's their little monkey bat!  Their gymnastics instructor is Miss Peggy...often called Miss Piggy by the little kids (my older kids laughed so hard when Madie told them her teacher's name is Miss Piggy...I quickly told them her real name)! 

It has been such a fun thing watching all three of my girls grow.  Cailee is such a cautious child and I really worried that she wouldn't take risks.  She continues to surprise me every time.  One day at practice she decided on her own to do a flip into the foam pit!  I couldn't believe it!  I truthfully didn't think she would do it. 

In May they had their showcase.  It was packed in the gym.  The little kiddos went first.  Madie was so cute.  They had the gym set up with lots of different things to showcase what they've been working on and they would rotate through each.  Madie of course loved the bars!  She is so fun to watch!

Between sessions there was about an hour break before we needed to be back for the girls so we just stayed and got better seats for Cailee and Abby's turn!  I thought it was packed for the little girls...it was nothing compared to how packed it was for the older girls.  There was no more standing room in the entire building.  By the time it was all over Brandon, Ethan and Madie were done being smashed in a small place.  Truthfully so was I.  Ethan was so good up until the end.  He was sooo tired.  I left just a little before with the three little ones to get them out.  

My three cuties!! 

Madie waiting patiently to start!!

 My monkey bat hanging from the bar!!

Madie "Skins the cat"

Madie has improved so much on the balance beam.  She's getting more and more brave each time she gets on!!

Here is the fabulous facility!!

Madie posing with Miss Peggy!  She absolutely adores her instructor!

Due to no moving room, the pictures are all from fairly far away. Cailee is in purple and Abby in pink...doing their floor routine!

   Cailee and Abby on the beam!  They both did so good!  I'm so proud! They had so many kids to get through that they had multiple kids on each beam!

More beam routine!  Don't they look so cute!

Abby on her bar routine!  She did such a great job!  She's improving so much and trying new things all the time!

Cailee's turn on the bars!  She surprises me everytime with what she's willing to try!

It's been such a great adventure for the girls!  I love the facility and staff and feel so blessed that my girls have this opportunity!  They are growing and getting better each day.  It's been so great to watch them!  I'm so proud of you girls!



Birthday Dinner

We went to Olive Garden for Abby's Birthday dinner. She was so cute when they came and sang to her and brought her a banana split! She was so sweet and shared it with her siblings. Abby's a sweet girl that way...wanting to make sure everyone has some!

You've Got a Minute To Win It...Good Luck!

March 2011

As a family we LOVE to watch Minute To Win It. My favorite part of watching it as a family is watching Abby get so excited and worried about the contestants. It's hilarious to watch. When they lose a game she'll get so worried that they "lost a life". For her birthday party this year we decided it would be so much fun to have a minute to win it party! It was a blast. Everyone was such a good sport and we had such a great time.

Abby with the cake, games and party favors!!

I was so excited cheering on Abby and Marissa that I forgot to take pictures of the actual game. They transfered gummy worms from crushed up cookies to another bowl only using their mouths! They both did a good job. This is Abby after the game with a messy face!

Cailee was really good at this game! It was funny to watch her...she was VERY enthusiastic about the game!

Nicole was a good sport and helped me be a block balancer!

It was so funny watching the kids try to move the cookies down their faces! I think a few of them actually did it.

Gift Time!

What do...

Abby and Dr. Suess have in common?? A birthday celebration in the same week! Last year (yes I'm that far behind) Abby's birthday at school was celebrated during the Dr. Suess celebrations. Her teacher asked parents to be part of a secret special readers thing, so I volunteered to be a secret reader the day of Abby's birthday celebration. In honor of their birthdays I made a Dr. Suess book cake...I Wish That I Had Duckfeet. I love that story so I read it and then we brought the cake out. One of my favorite parts was when a cute little boy asked if we could "open the book"...haha! I loved that he thought the cake was a real book. The best part though was the smile on Abby's face!

I like to look for rainbows

I like to look for rainbows

Whenever there is rain
And ponder on the beauty of an earth made clean again

I want my life to be as clean as earth right after rain

I want to be the best I can

And live with God again.

Our beautiful daughter,

Cailee Ann Crossley

turned 8 July 14, 2011.

Photographs by Darcee Case Photography

And the story goes like this...

So five months later and I still haven't written down E's story...ahh!
So here it goes:

The morning of his birth...we got up, got ready and headed to the hospital. We got checked in a all set up on the monitors. After months of not so fun contractions things had actually slowed down. I really couldn't believe it. I was still having them, but they weren't very close together. It was almost comical and I maybe would have laughed had I not been so done. Cindy came in a while later after assisting with a c-section to check things out. Well, she could not feel his head. I really thought I was going to be sent home and would be waiting another week. She had the ultrasound machine pulled into the room and we took a look. Thankfully he was still head down...just what they call a "floater". His head wasn't engaging where is should but was down so we were able to get the sitatec going to help contractions push his head back down.

After monitoring for a little bit I was able to get up and walk around. About that time my Mom came so Blake, my mom and I went for a walk! The hospital recently added a new wing (the maternity wing was part of the new section) so we explored a little. The stairs seemed to help the contractions pick up more and we headed back to the room so they could check to see how Ethan was doing. I had wireless monitors (which were soooo nice) so they stayed on me the whole time. You had to be in or close to the room for them to register on the monitors. I laid in the bed for a bit and found that Ethan didn't love the harder contractions, so the next few hours were spent on my side. Laying on my side made the contractions slow. I really was starting to think he was never going to come out! Once he looked good those few hours I was able to get back up and sit on the medicine ball. That actually was really nice. Blake rubbed my back and I just layed my head on the bed.

Cindy came in at 4 that afternoon and checked to see where his head was. It had finally dropped enough to break my water!! We had to wait till his head engaged enough so that the umbilical cord wouldn't go first and get smashed by his head and end up in a c-section. I was excited for my water to break but nervous because I was only dialated to a 3...almost 4. When Cindy first said three my shocked response had her changing her mind to 4. We all had a good laugh and I told her we could compromise at a 3.5!

After breaking my water the contractions picked up A LOT!! With the wireless monitors I was able to get in a nice warm tub and thought I'd be able to soak and ease some of the contractions. I hadn't been in very long when my sweet nurse came in and needed to check the monitors. Apparently my Mom had been listening to his heart rate (thankfully...I'm so glad she was) and told the nurse it sounded like it was dropping fairly low. She adjusted the monitor on my belly and agreed that he didn't sound great. I made it through the next contraction and had to get out. Cindy came back in the room (she had another patient to check on real quick) and made a comment about how I didn't stay in the tub long. We told her what was going on and she, the nurse and Blake got me into bed and on my side pretty quickly. Ethan didn't love my left side, so we flipped to the right side. He still wasn't doing very good so they got an IV going and oxygen on me so quickly. I was so impressed with how calm and quick they were.

I of course was a wreck. I pretty much held on to the side of the bed and Blake's hand (not sure when he got feeling back into his hand...lol). I only talked when I needed to and mostly asked if he was ok. I didn't get an epidural and I have to admit that when I started to feel like I was going to throw up I told Cindy I wanted to get one. I had previously discussed that I was determined to not get one and she was so awesome to stall. They gave me some anti-nausea medicine to help and it did for a little bit. At five something she checked to see how far I had dialated and had mentioned that I would have him before mid-night. I pretty much paniced thinking there is no way I can do this for 7 more hours. I told her if that was the case I wanted an epidural...she changed her statement to I would have him in the next hour. The quickly put my resolve of no epidural back into place. My Mom was debating if she needed to go get my kiddos (who were at my friends houses...thanks Katie and Mindy) for the night but decided to stay once he was going to come within the hour.

Right before the six o'clock hour she checked and things were ready to go!! She said it was time to push and I questioned if it really was okay to push...My Mom laughed and said that she wasn't going to tell me to push if it weren't ok. I laugh about it all now...I was definately irrational in my thinking. I gave the first push and I'm pretty sure the words, "I DON'T WANT TO DO THIS ANYMORE" came out of my mouth (haha). Not that I really had a choice at that point. I pushed again and "GET HIM OUT, GET HIM OUT, GET HIM OUT" came out. With one more push he was out!! I really couldn't believe he was here. It almost felt like a dream. It had been so many months of contractions that I was starting to think he'd stay in forever. They asked if I wanted to hold him and I said I think so...lol. They laid him in my arms and I just couldn't believe that he was here. He was really swollen and purple but beautiful! They asked again if I wanted to hold him and this time I said yes of course. I got to hold him till they needed to do all their stuff. It's always so awesome to watch everything. They do it right there in the room and I'm so glad they do. He was so swollen that everyone thought he would be over 8 lbs. He was 7 lbs 2 oz and everyone was surprised.

Once my Mom got to hold him she left and went to go get the kids. Blake held him and then they wanted me to nurse. We tried for a while to get him to and he had no interest in it. I was worried because all my other babies latched on right away and had no problems. We stopped for a while when the kids came to see him! Madie was zonked out on my Mom's shoulder...she was so tired. We tried to wake her up, but she was too tired. They other kids just fell in love with him. Everyone took their turns until it was time for them to head home and go to bed.

We were moved to the Mother/Baby floor and settled into our room. I tried throughout the night to nurse but he had no interest. He gagged a lot and spit up bubbles a lot. About 2 in the morning the nurse took him to suction out his belly and I got to sleep till about 5. They brought him back in to try to nurse again...they got a ton of stuff out of his belly so we thought he'd be hungry. Nope. Still wouldn't nurse. They checked his blood sugar levels periodically to make sure he was ok. Blake came to the hospital early (my asthma and allergies were acting up and I completely forgot to bring my enhaler).

When our sweet pediatrician came she decided to try suctioning his belly one more time. The nurses took him to do all the tests, ect that they have to do and suctioned him out. When they brought him back in he was starving! They said they got two more vial things of stuff out of his tummy. Poor guy. He had a few latching on problems but was definately hungry. It took a few days but we got the latching thing figured out!

The rest of the day was great with a few visitors (Nicole and baby Kate) and a big sister who was finally awake to meet her little brother. We were checked out that evening around 5ish. We were happy to get home. I knew that I would get more sleep at home than at the hospital. My Mom takes night duty and brings them in for me to feed them then takes them again. It serious is the best thing ever.

We are so happy to have our sweet baby boy in our family. Five months has gone by so fast. It's sad that it's taken this long for me to finally journal about it. We love our little snort!!

Days 1-3 of a new me...

Now that we are done having kids I have a great desire to get my body back into shape. I haven't worked out for such a long time...I mean REALLY worked out. Thanks to family and a recent birthday I am able to work out at the rec center for a few months...YAY!! A friend of mine, Katie, has been telling me about a spin class she goes to and it sounds like a hard, fun work out so I thought I'd try it out.

DAY 1:
Day one I attended a spin class. It was a spin circuit that day...I would not recommend your first day of working out after not having worked out in a long time with this class. Boy did it kick my rear...and by that I mean I about passed out, got a major headache, threw up kicked my rear. Embarrassing. Sadly I have to admit my ambitions were greater than my bodies ability. We started on the bike...did fine. Started feeling it a little. Then we went to something called the deck of cards. Now I'm a person who loves games, but this deck of cards was no game. She shuffles the cards, counts out half the deck and draws from it. Each suit has an exercise that goes with it and the number on the card indicates how many of that exercise you do. First set had to do with mainly the upper body (arms mainly). I managed to make it through this with jelly arms at the end but still standing. Next we got back on the bikes. Made it through this too. Then back to the deck of cards. She told us what each suit stood for and we began. This time there was a lot of up and down motions...bad bad bad. Oh man did this ever send my head for a spin. I'm not 100% sure if it was my head below my heart or what, but it didn't end well. My vision started to go and a little ringing in the ears began. I felt really dumb stopping but I didn't feel like passing out infront of a bunch of people and making the entire class have to stop. So I took some time trying to regain my head, but couldn't seem to get a grip on it. The wonderful instructor was so sweet and asked if I was ok. I said I think so, just feeling dizzy and light headed. She said I should walk or try to ride for a while. I tried the bike first, but not such a good idea. I about fell off with my head still in a fuzz. So I took a few laps around the track to try and get my head to settle.
Unfortunately it didn't ever stop completely, but I felt like I could get back on the bike and thankfully was able to finish the class on the bike. We got done and I went home. I felt pretty awful...my head started pounding. I got the kiddos ready for school by taking a few times of laying down in between doing hair. I got done and tried going out to see if they had their stuff all ready and it hit my hard...ran to the bathroom and threw up. My sweet kids kept asking if I was ok. Madie came in the to see what I was doing and Cailee being such a great big sister kept her out and told her that she didn't think she wanted to throw up too.
I took the kids to school and ran to a friends house for some IBProfin (I ran out right before Christmas...why oh why didn't I pick some up when we ran out...).
Thankfully my sweet baby was having a good day I was able to finish feeding him his bottle and lay him on my legs while I laid on the floor by a heater. He fell asleep and Madie and Brandon watched a cartoon while I closed my eyes for a while. The IBProfin had a chance to kick in before Ethan woke up and my head finally got under control.

So I can officially call day 1 very interesting.

Day 2...
Cardio workout. Thursday workout ended much better than the previous day. I ran on the treadmill and worked out on the elliptical. I felt a lot less light headed after that workout. I was able to go 20 min on each and felt good about it. I know I'm really out of shape so I have to keep telling myself to give it time and keep going. My husband has been such a great encouragment. He wakes me up each morning and tells me he's proud of me. I'm so grateful for that.

Day 3...
More cardio. I did a repeat today of Thursdays workout. I've been watching my heart rate the past couple of days to see if that's the cause of the light headedness(have no idea if that's actually a real word, but it is in my world). It seems like I have no problem getting my heart rate up, infact I'm struggling not getting it to high. Today I peaked at 195 bpm and the target heart rate for my age is significantly less. I seem to reach my target heart rate with the warm up, so I'm not sure how to fix that. Then getting my heart rate back down has been some what of a challenge. So far I haven't died, so I figure I'll just keep watching it to see what happens.

It does feel good to be proactive about how I feel about myself. I'm frustrated with clothes not fitting, but I refuse to go buy new pants because I don't plan on staying where I'm at for very long. I have goals I plan on achieving, one being that I want to run a 1/2 marathon at some point with my sisters!! I don't really enjoy running a lot but it's a bucket list item that I'd like to check off. And who knows, maybe I'll enjoy it more than I think. I like to physically challenge myself from time to time and right now this is it.

Note to self: You are stronger than you think. You've endured much and have the ability to do this. It's a goal you will achieve. You have a wonderful support system...lean on them when you hit a wall.

Introducing...

Ethan Lynn Crossley
Born: 10-11-11
Weight: 7 lbs. 6 oz.
Length: 20 in. long
Time: 6:00 pm

The picture story

The morning of...

Look at that BIG belly...wow!
I couldn't believe he was FINALLY here...I felt like it was a dream.
Our sweet baby boy!
Proud Daddy and his new baby!

The kids couldn't wait to meet their baby brother!
Abby gave him lots of hugs!

Cailee and Abby posing with Ethan!

Grandma snuggling and showing off her newest grand-baby!

Snuggling with my sweet baby!

Cindi, Ethan and I

Madie fell asleep on the way to the hospital the night Ethan was born and we tried to wake her up, but she was too tired. My mom brought her back the next morning to meet her baby brother! She was all smiles. When she walked in she said, "The baby's out of your tummy?"

Ethan looks big in this picture...he was still really swollen. He actually has a tiny head.

Brandon's second time holding his brother!! YAY a brother!

His beautiful (I mean handsome) dark hair!

Daddy getting Ethan ready to go home...per tradition Daddy got him changed!

All ready to go! We are so happy to have him here!