Ch...Ch...Ch...Changes

So the past 5 weeks have brought about some new changes in the Sharp home.  Obviously adding another child to the mix has brought about it's own set of challenges.  Gordon is a pretty funny kid.  We are still trying to work with him on nursing, but I am currently mostly pumping and feeding him the bottle.  We've been to lactation consultants and are in the process of having his tongue checked for a posterior tongue tie.  We have been managing, but it gets pretty tiring in the middle of the night.  Mike has been a great help and I appreciate his waking up with the girls and getting them breakfast and doing the dishes while I catch up on a few extra minutes of sleep.  Gordon is beginning to smile more and he sure loves his sisters.  Vivian can't get enough of him and is like a little momma.  She knows his routine and wants to make sure we are sticking with it.:)

Another change is that of Emma starting school.  We really didn't want to send her on the bus, but after weighing our options decided it would be the easiest and safest option all around for her.  It was so sad the first day seeing our little girl leave us.  We followed the bus to the school and met her at the playground.  She was having so much fun and it was so surreal.  We just looked at each other wondering when she grew up.  She seems to be really enjoying herself and doing well.  Hopefully that will continue.  She's been really funny about learning the names of the new kids.  She has made a new friend, Sophia and just told us last night about the "naughty princesses" as she called them.  She calls them the naughty princesses because they like to play princess and won't let her play with them.  Oh man did that bring out the mamma bear in me.  As a parent to sure want to shield your kids from rejection and unkindness.  I hope that she can be resilient because she is such a sweet and friendly child.

 


Vivian is going through her own new stages.  She is becoming more independent and defiant.  She cries when she doesn't get exactly what she wants and she LOVES to tell her mom NO!  Oh boy do we have a little diva.  Sweet as a button, but she is just testing her boundaries right now.  Luckily she has been really good with Gordon so that helps.  We are also trying to get her "piping" more "regulated".  She has had constipation her whole life going at least a week at a time without having a bowel movement.  This then makes it more difficult for her to want to eat and the problem continues.  She is on stool softeners and we are changing her diet.  Hopefully things will continue to improve.

I just got a new calling.  I am going to be serving as a young womens advisor.  I am so excited.  The Young Womens organization is the only one I have yet to serve in and I love the women I will be serving with.  Yay!

With all of these changes we have been blessed with the help and support of friends and neighbors and we are starting to find our new "normal".  We are thankful for our children and the experiences we are having.  There is much to be grateful for.

Sure love this cute family of mine

Introducing Gordon Michael!

This past month has been crazy and hard not knowing when to plan for this baby to come, but in hindsight the Lord knew what he was doing, we should have been more patient. :-)  we were able to celebrate vivians 3rd birthday which was very low key.  We had presents, hungry hippos was a hit, and we went to chuckie cheese for dinner.  She only wanted a Dora cake so we got a small one to share.     I think she had a good day.  She's so funny, sweet, sensitive, impressionable, etc.  We love Vivian. 

Anyway Sunday rolled around liked any other day. Church was wonderful and I had a very positive experience all around.  Once we got home and the kids down for naps I decided to lay down myself for a bit.  Not too much later I felt this gush of warm fluid and knew my water had broken.  I called Mike, who was still at church and told him it was time to go.  I next called my good friend to come be with the girls.  We had planned for every possible scenario so luckily it all ran smoothly.  Mike had just finished his last interview and so the timing was great.  Vivian was born and hour after my water broke so I was anticipating a quick labor.  I didn't really even start contacting until an hour or two later.  I was so worried we would be there forever and I would have to get pitocin.  Luckily that was not the case.  I was so anxious about getting my I.V., but the nurse was so good and got it in so fast, best I.V. experience ever. After a few hours of not really progressing my nurse helped to release the remainder of my "water".  I guess there was still quite a bit left that the baby could not engage my cervix.  After that things started cooking.  My contractions started to become more regular, and more intense.  After about an hour I began to feel a lot of pressure and knew the baby was on his way.  My nurses were wonderful, they were a great support.  Mike is truly the best husband, father and birthing coach.  He was with me the whole way, reminding me to breathe, mopping me with a cold rag, and just holding my hand or singing me hymns.  It was the best and smoothest delivery we've had.  Once it was time to push I was sure ready, but the doctor decided to take his time.  :-(  I swear the nurses could have delivered him for all the doctor did. The baby was crowning and I was told not to push and just pretty much hold it until the doctor came.  Um, for those who've done natural child birth, that is easier said than done.  My body was ready to pop him out.  So finally the doctor came and just took his time putting on his gloves, etc.  By this time I was mad, and said something like, "anytime"!...so two pushes later and our sweet boy was born.  I am always amazed at how your body and go from such intensity to such relief in a matter of seconds. Such an amazing feeling. 
We knew if we ever were blessed with a boy that we wanted to name him Gordon after President Hinckley.Although it may not be the "cutest" name I was so glad he could be named after two of my favorite people.  I know they will be good examples for him to look up too.  Gordon his also a family name on Mikes side. 

So it has been a whole week now and it seems like so much longer.  He seemed to be eating pretty well, but he wasn't having wet diapers.  We took him in for his check up and he'd lost 9 oz., in 3 days.  No good.  So we had to give in to the pumping and bottle feeding for now.  I was so sad the other night when I tried to nurse and he wanted nothing to do with me.  Very sad.  At least I can do what I can for him in the form of breast milk.  Hopefully once he recovers from his circumcision yesterday we'll be able to get him back on the breast.  He is gaining weight now and is the sweetest thing ever.  He cries like a horse, "neigh, neigh".  We love him so much and can't imagine our family without him.  The girls, grandma ann, and aunt Melodee have been loving him up.  Happy 1 week
+ Gordon!

Counting Down the Days

I have never been at this point in a pregnancy before where my "baby counter" on my blog is actually still going down.  Normally I will have already had the baby and my counter says I still have 30 days left.  :)  So as of tonight I have 9 days left.  I go through a lot of different emotions.  There are some nights where I am so ready to be done and just get it all over with and then I have days where I get apprehensive about the actual labor, etc.  We are just praying that things will go o.k. and the baby will be safe.  We have been very blessed to have great friends and ward family here in California.  It would be 100 times more stressful if I didn't know I could call a dozen people at a moments notice and they would take over the kids for us.  At my last appointment my doctor stripped my membranes.  We thought maybe we'd get started sooner than later, but I still haven't been having too many contractions.  I guess I am still measuring small so I have been going to non stress tests twice a week and my doctor wants be to get another ultrasound to see if the baby is getting bigger.  It's crazy because they can't even get me in until Wednesday.  It just seems silly to be waiting to do these things kind of last minute.  I don't know, hopefully everything is o.k.  Vivian is going to be turning 3 this next week.  It is amazing how fast time flies.  She's such a funny kiddo.  We have been very blessed to have these sweet kids.  I sure love them and they are ecstatic to have a baby brother.  (Perhaps a little too excited)  We don't know when we are going to be getting back to Utah.  Hopefully we'll be heading there around Thanksgiving. 

A whole lot of random Craziness!

The past few months I have sure put my blog on the back burner.  As I am nearing the end of this pregnancy there are just so many things that have gone to the bottom of my priority list, BUT you are all in serious need of some updates.  I hope that I can get my pictures to work for this one because I have a ton to share.  So, get ready for a really long post. :)  (Also I was able to finally get some pictures put up on my last post if you want to see those beauties)

O.K. first, for Easter
 weekend we decided to take the opportunity to go and visit the Andal family in Las Vegas.  Emma had been begging to see her cousin forever and we didn't know when we'd get a chance to see family with the new baby coming so off we went.  There was a van we wanted to check out there that didn't work out, but we ended up finding our van at the next place we checked.  The Andals were such a great help since they watched our kids for us the whole time we were gone.  What a LONG process.  We love seeing family and wish we lived closer to everyone else as well.  We took them out for lunch the next day as a thank you and I was CRAZY ornery.  As we were driving the van I started to notice that my seat dug into my leg and I was just pregnant stressed with everything that I was a BEAST!  So embarrassing.  I was not fit to be in public.  :)  Hopefully I will be forgiven.  Anyway, the kids had a great time with their cousins and we always enjoy our time as well, such great hosts.  It was a short, but sweet trip.  When we got home we found that someone had "Egged" our home and the girls were so excited to be able to come home t an Easter Egg hunt.  We don't usually do more than an egg hunt and coloring eggs because we want to celebrate the true meaning of Easter, but it was fun.

So, as I was saying about the van.  I was so upset because every time I got in the van to drive it the seat would just dig into my leg and I couldn't find anyway to fix it.  I would get ornery and irritated at everyone and thing and I was just getting ridiculous.  Mike was not so pleased either since it's not like we could just take the van back or trade it in for a new one.  We had been saving up for a long time to get it, and it was just so disappointing.  Anyway, after a couple weeks of this, my patient husband took some time to just brainstorm with me.  We eventually discovered that by putting a raise under my foot of just a couple inches it really helped with the problem.  So, a slab of 2 inch Styrofoam later and all was well.  Oh, what a relief.  It seemed so silly, but to me and my pregnant body, I was pretty beside myself.

Oh, that reminds me that I never talked about my blood clot scare.  So we were going to be leaving on this trip to Vegas and I started having shooting and throbbing pain in my leg.  I have varicose veins and just decided that this was a side effect of them, but wanted to be safe since we would be in the car for a long time.  My doctor advised me to have it checked out and after 4 hours waiting at urgent care they took a blood test to discover that I had an elevated level or blood clots.  Because of this I was then sent to the ER to have an ultrasound performed on my deep veins in my leg.  It was a little scary at this point, but to make this story shorter everything turned out to be fine.  We got the go ahead and continued with our trip plans.  It was a little hairy for a bit though.  Just thankful I didn't end up having deep vein thrombosis.  Wow, I feel like I am getting old.:)


Vivian is pretty much potty trained. It was a pain to start out with, but luckily she has finally caught on.  She still has accidents at night, but that's not big deal.  I'm just glad we got her trained before the baby comes.  Hopefully she won't revert:)

We are getting fruit.  We sure need to prune our trees this coming year because they are huge and out of control.  We are getting a lot of plums and nectarines.  I made my first batch of jam for the year, plum/nectarine, and it turned out pretty good if I do say so.

Emma is so excited to start Kindergarten.  She is very creative and loves to use scissors and make things.  She made this cow.  She just grabbed some scissors and glue and went to town.  I was very impressed!  How Fun!

Rust finally got a haircut.  He gets so mangy, but nothing a good cut can't fix.

 O.K. so on to more fun things.  We went to Murray Family Farms again for our traditional blueberry pancakes and fruit picking.  We just got a few berries, but the pancakes are worth the cost in and of themselves.  Yummy

 We finished up preschool for the year and had our last field trip to Round table pizza.  It's fun because the kids get to go back and make their very own pizzas.  It's a big hit!  Every year preschool has a different dynamic, but it is always fun and my kids love it.  Vivian can't wait to be in preschool FULL TIME!

 We were able to celebrate our 7 year anniversary last month.  A sweet sister in our ward watched our girls while we went to the temple and out for lunch.  It was such a nice day.

We got butterflies again this year.  It is always fascinating watching them go from caterpillars the size of ants to these huge caterpillars that make a cocoon and then emerge as butterflies.  We just love it.  Emma was very brave this year and wanted to hold all the butterflies.  She was in charge of finding them flowers and she loved her job.

 So technically we have 6 more weeks left before Baby Brother Sharp is due, but at my last doctors appointment they said I was measuring small again.  I went in for the ultrasound and supposedly he is measuring right on target for his gestational age.  My uterus usually stops growing at this point so we'll see how it goes.  We'd love for him to stay in as long as he can and grow some more, but we are kind of used to whole being induced a month early scenario.  Either way we just want him to be healthy and safe.  The kids are so excited, especially Emma.  She is going to be a BIG help, or at least she wants to help in a BIG way.  I may have my hands full, but she sure LOVES babies.   Good times.  Here are some cute pictures of my kids.  They are getting so big.  I love then to pieces!!!!

Irked

O.K. I began this really long and juicy detailed post with some great pictures, and AGAIN my stupid computer will not let me upload them.  Sorry that this is not the juicy post you were wanting, but I am so annoyed at this situation I may give up for today.  :)  I unfortunately erased all my photos from my phone or I would just write a post from there.  Anyway, we'll see what I can figure out.