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Friday, October 22, 2010

Scotland-Braemar

I know I got a wee bit sidetracked with life, but I still wanted to put up some pictures of Scotland from my last two trips. I love visiting Scotland, and even though my parents are now in The Netherlands, I can't wait for the time when I can go back to Scotland and visit the friends I made there! There isn't going to be much of an order to the postings of my trips, but I'll try to include a little information with them.

A beautiful Winter sunrise in Scotland!

This is Braemar Castle. It is the ancestral seat of Clan Farquharson.
http://www.braemarscotland.co.uk/history/index.htm


The village of Braemar: The upper course of the river Dee flows through Braemar. The kidlets had a wonderful time at the bridge watching the river beneath them. (Who can blame them when there is this fun little turret.) They hold some of the Highland Games in a field near Braemar.

Rynie and my friend Melanie, who came to visit Scotland with us. I think Rynie now has a new best friend! They went for a walk to see a different part of the River Dee.

We woke Little Miss to walk around Braemar, this is her "I'm not sure I"m happy to be here." face. Of course, since she is a budding fashionista, take note of the turquoise bead necklaces she had to wear with everything. Her Floolie brought those back from Egypt for her. We later found out it was painted mud because she wore her beads in the bath tub and they disintegrated. That was a nasty mess to clean!

The River Dee.


I love Scotland in the Winter! Let's be honest, I love Scotland any time I've been there and it's been a wonderful opportunity to visit.

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Temple Square

We took the kidlets up to Temple Square to look around since they've never been there before.
Walking along some of the gardens.
The Assembly Hall.
Sitting with Dutch while the kidlets are in the Assembly Hall.
Little Dutch just snoozing away.
The purple bear, an ever constant fixture in our life.
Little Mister, I can't believe how big he's getting.
Some of the gardens outside the Assembly Hall.
Not sure what is going through her head, but Little Miss decided to bust a few moves.


Sitting along some of the flower beds.
Time for a rest!



What a funny little guy!
We did a Birthday Party for Little Miss on Monday. We kept it low key and just did a dinner with her cousins and grandparents.
While she wouldn't say thank you because she gets shy about talking in front of a lot of people, she was more than happy to applaud her presents!



I think the baby cradle was a big hit! Now hopefully Little Miss will stop tossing her baby into Little Dutch's bed while he's trying to sleep.



Aunt Kelli showing Little Miss her cake while we sang Happy Birthday to her!


She loved having us sing to her.

Since she wouldn't blow out her own candles, we had to recruit Rynie, Cousin B, and Cousin A to help!

Monday, September 27, 2010

Rynie's Birthday

I figured since it is a little girl's Birthday today, I should put up some of the pictures from Rynie's Birthday. He had a few buddies over to play in the water during the day, then he had a dinner with his cousins and grandparents!


To start the day off, he and Little Miss had to inspect his presents. They were enthralled with them. In fact, it was almost killed Rynie to have to wait for his dad to get off work to open his presents. Then, to get ready for playing in the water, we filled up the kiddie pool and since there was water in, off came the clothes and they were in the ice cold water!


They stayed out in the water until their lips were blue and they felt like popsicles when you touched them. In fact, we had to fight Little Miss to get her out of the water because she was in seventh heaven!

Then, some buddies and cousins came over and the water fun began! After spending over an hour with Kelli filling water balloons, I think they were all done in about 45 seconds! They also played in a fun, wiggly armed sprinkler and played with the bubble machine!


Little Miss sure loves her cousin B!


This is what Little Dutch did the whole time!


While we were cooking dinner, we had some entertainment courtesy of Little Miss!


Sneaking into the cake! And getting caught.

Saturday, August 14, 2010

Introducing...

Little Dutch
Born: 5 August 2010 at 7:13 pm
7 pounds 7 ounces, 21 inches long

On Thursday, August 5, I was having lunch with my friend, Sarah, and from about noon onward I'd felt a few random contractions. They weren't consistent or of much duration so I didn't really pay attention to them since between noon and 5pm there were maybe four and I wasn't due for another twelve days. Around 5pm though, I had three contractions and they were fairly close together. I decided I should probably pack the bag for the kidlets and start timing them to see if they were a random anomaly. By shortly after 5:00, I realized they were three minutes apart so I called Hubby and told him not to dawdle on his way home from work and we called his parents since they were going to take the kids. His parents were in Salt Lake with Tyler, and wouldn't be here for a while so we called my friend Melanie and she came over to sit with the kids until Hubby's parents could get here. By 6:00, Hubby was home and Melanie was at our house, so we got everything squared away and left for the hospital.

We got to the hospital, and they set everything up to monitor me and Little Dutch. About fifteen to twenty minutes after we arrived, the L&D nurse came in to check how things were progressing. I was already at a seven and since she'd just had me explain how things had gone so far, she had the other nurses page Dr. N with a *1. Evidently that means drop everything and come now. They'd asked if I wanted an epidural and I said sure because Little Dutch had been pinching a nerve in my hip for the past almost month and I was tired of dealing with it so they paged the anesthesiologist.

Since it was right around shift change, I had twice the nurses setting everything up. The L&D nurse told me that if I felt anything change I needed to let her know immediately, then she went and scrubbed up. About 2 minutes later *something* was different so I told her and she came back to check me visually (this was about 15 minutes after the first time she'd checked) and everything was ready to go. We were just waiting on my water to break. She told them to call Dr. N and he wasn't answering so they figured he was scrubbing up. The L&D nurse told me to just do whatever my body felt like doing and just go with it. She said that she was ready and if we needed to we'd just get going without the doctor. That was a bit of an interesting thought.

Dr. N walked in the door, broke my water, and immediately there was another contraction. He told me to push and Little Dutch's head was out. He told me to stop pushing and I informed him that it wasn't happening so he told me to keep pushing then. Then he told me to open my eyes and Little Dutch was here. Needless to say, the anesthesiologist never made it. I think we all realized that idea flew out the window about 2 minutes after they paged him. The upside though, as soon as Little Dutch got here, the pinched nerve stopped being pinched. Hallelujah!



Trying to catch a sneak peak of Little Dutch at bathtime. Hubby is inside the nursery with Little Dutch.

Little Dutch's first bath. Not a lot phases this little man. He sleeps through the noise of his older siblings very well.

Honey helping Rynie hold Little Dutch for the first time. He is already plotting the good times and imaginary things they will do together.

Little Miss wanted to show Little Dutch her hair flowers. She was really interested in finally meeting her baby. Rynie just about wiggled out of his skin because he was so excited to see and hold Little Dutch.

Little Miss wanted to share her dolly with her baby! The sharing didn't last for long, but she was excited to share for a few moments.

Jake and Shannon came to visit the next morning. I think Jake has another little buddy. Look out Shannon, you're next!

We are very thankful Little Dutch arrived safely and it has been wonderful to watch the kidlets interact with him. And no, Dutch isn't really his name, but it's a nickname he has already aquired from his Bumpa Black Cow. Hubby doesn't want real names used in public places on the internet. If you want to know his name, feel free to contact me through my email on my profile!