Slice and dice

Until this week, the closest thing to surgery I had experienced was having my wisdom tooth out (I only had one wisdom tooth).

The bittersweet decision was made months ago to have my tubes tied in the hospital after Amber was born, so we had it all lined up with Dr. Weaver. At 2pm on November 5th, Jeff and Rose came to keep Amber company while I went under the knife. Dr. Weaver explained the procedure [small 1.5 inch cut under the belly button, then cut, tie, and cauterize the tubes], and the anesthesiologist explained about the spinal morphine and the "semi-conscious sedation." I felt calm all the way until I was in this bright blue refrigerated room right before the procedure. Then I realized how REAL surgery is and how much I did not like the idea of being cut open. I didn't have second thoughts about what I wanted to be done, just about the process of getting it done, if that makes any sense. Thankfully I don't remember a whole lot after that point of anxiety because of the semi-conscious sedation. The one thing I do remember is that they had music playing the whole time--it seemed rather festive for an operating room. The back of my semi-conscious mind was amused. 

I slept off and on for the whole procedure and it actually felt kind of good to be completely numb and have a nap after all the rigors of childbirth. After it was over, Dr. Weaver told us about a small...hiccup that happened when he was almost done with the surgery. Normally there is little to no bleeding in this procedure because it's such a tiny cut and all that, and he always waits for bleeding to stop before he puts things back in their place (shudder). When he let go of one part (I don't know the names of everything) an artery started bleeding, and he had to go back in, find the artery, and stitch it up. The operation took twice as long as it was supposed to! 3 hours instead of 1.5. Amber MISSED me during all that time. Because of the extra stitching, my right side is MUCH more sore than the left side and the incision under my belly button is twice as long as normal. Whew. I hope that's not too graphic or too vague. Bottom line: I'm WAY more sore than I should be. But I'm also safe! No more deathly deadly dangerous pregnancies for me! 

That calls for a brief photographic interlude:

 

It took forever for the spinal to wear off—I was so numb! It felt weird not to feel much. But when it wore off, believe me, I felt plenty. How come people who’ve had surgery always sound so nonchalant about it? It HURTS! A LOT! My stomach felt like someone had kicked it over and over. I’m so glad I never had to have a c-section. I couldn’t even lift my legs into bed it hurt so much. I had to take care of Amber all night from my bed, slightly propped up. Every time she needed a diaper change, I had to call a nurse to do it. It made me feel like the laziest person on the planet, but I really couldn’t move! It was awkward and hard to feed Amber when I couldn’t even roll to my side. BUT I survived and after lunch on the next day (Thursday) it was time to go home.

Jeff had taken my shoes (those nasty fluid-filled crocs) home to wash out for me, and he forgot to bring me other shoes. So I just wore socks and rode in a wheelchair out of the hospital. The nice nurse pushing me walked at a brisk pace across the sidewalk, and every bump jarred my stitched up stomach so much that when we got to the curb, I decided to walk in my socks across the parking lot to the car to spare myself further jostling. I made Jeff go like 1 mile per hour over all the train tracks on the drive home, and it took me forever to climb the stairs. I laughed at how different it felt to climb the stairs slowly because of pain vs. nausea. As unpleasant as pain is, I’ll take it over the nausea any day!

The one side effect of the pain that bugged me was my appetite was practically nonexistent. I starved for 9 months and couldn’t even enjoy food once it was over. Thankfully as the pain slowly receded, my appetite filled the void and now I can eat just fine. FOOD! YUM!!

I’m not healed up yet, but it’s getting better gradually. I have one more day’s worth of Vicodin and then we’ll see how things really feel without that strong medicine! And now for more Amber:

All ready to go home. She didn’t cry the whole way. Just at first.

All snuggled up in her very own soft flannel birdy blanket that I made her. Those rough hospital blankets rubbed her face raw. Now that she has softer blankets, her face is much better.

 

Jay is an old pro already. He loves her so much! Jay had Jeff give Amber a tour of each room in the house when she first came home because “then she won’t be worried or scared.”

I could look at her all day.

So I do.

Birth day!!

Amber is here, and here’s the story. I hope it’s tastefully told. I tried not to be too too graphic, but this is a baby story...

Tuesday, November 4th, 2014:
On my birthday, I had a doctor appointment at 9:15am. I agonized back and forth for the entire week before the appointment whether or not to have my membranes stripped. That just sounds bad, doesn't it? Having a finger swiped between the amniotic sac/baby's head and my pelvic floor sounded incredibly uncomfortable to me. Dr. Weaver offered to do it at last week's appointment, but I chickened out. This week, he checked found that I was dilated 4cm--two more than last week! Then I finally got brave and let him strip my membranes. And after all my worries, it didn't even hurt. It didn't feel good, but it was done in a few seconds. Then Rose and I went to the church gym for a play group with our friends. When we got home around lunchtime, I was feeling kind of crampy, which, according to my research, is normal for post-membrane-stripping.

Rose and I snuggled up for a nap after lunch, Rose on the couch, and me in my chair. Rose fell asleep in about 5 seconds flat. My cramps kept me awake for a while and then they started to feel more contraction-ish. I had about 3 contractions in that hour before giving up on the nap idea. I was still in my chair when another contraction came. It was a tight one but I had just spent the last hour convincing myself that I was not in labor, so I thought nothing of it until...POP! My water broke. It was 3pm.

I sat in my chair for a split second, processing the sensation that I just sat on a large, full water balloon and popped it--it felt just like when my water broke with Jay. I swear there was an audible popping sound. I said "ohmygoodness, did that just HAPPEN?" and quickly heaved my pregnantness out of the recliner to save the upholstery. I managed to make it to the bathroom before the flowing fluids seeped out into my socks and onto the floor. Rose actually stepped in it before I warned her. Thankfully I had the presence of mind to bring my phone with me. 

I stood there in a puddle of...Amber juice...and called Jeff to get him on his way home from Sunnyside (a 20 minute scooter ride). The next 20 minutes I kind of just stewed in my puddle and wondered what to do next. I felt so scatterbrained and jittery--was this happening?? I texted Dr. Weaver and called my sister Em and freaked her out a little, hee hee. Then the contractions APPEARED. BOOM. I used a contraction timing app to time about 5 of them and they were suddenly 2-3 minutes apart, 45 seconds long each. There's nothing quite like a zero to sixty labor. I felt a kind of panicky "ahh! I'm not ready for labor! I don't want to do this right now! OWWW!" I called the Whites and Dan and Leslie came right over to take care of the kids. 

I was still seeping and standing in the bathroom when Jeff arrived. He brought me a towel, and I contrived to spare our carpet any lasting damage on my way to the car. Dan and Jeff gave me a very quick priesthood blessing while I stood in the middle of the floor with a towel between my legs. Then it was off to the hospital. It was so surreal! I had been waiting for this and suffering for 279 days so of course it felt surreal! On the way to the hospital (a 15 minute drive) those contractions picked it up a notch and I was just gushing fluid all over the place. I had one of those big hosptial pads to sit on, but it was saturated in seconds, along with the towel. So I sat in a puddle on top of the waterproof barrier in the van, sloshing slightly with the motion of the vehicle. OW contractions! 

When we got to the hospital, my pants were soaked and there were puddles squelching in my crocs when I walked. It was so cliche and absurd that I was kind of laughing at myself between horrific contractions. We slowly made our way across the parking lot and into the hospital, where they told us we were supposed to go to the ER to check in, even though it was still regular business hours. How were we supposed to know that? There was NO WAY I was about to walk around to find the ER. So we made our way towards the labor and delivery department, figuring they'd take care of our non-checked-in status. Or at least catch my baby. The lady from the front desk chased after us and said we had to go to the ER, and then left us standing there. Finally Jeff said loudly, CAN SOMEONE TELL US WHERE TO GO PLEASE? MY WIFE IS IN LABOR! And a nice man in scrubs led us not to the ER, but right where we were headed in the first place--labor and delivery. 

Luckily, Dr. Weaver had called ahead and they were mostly expecting us. I changed and peed in one more infernal cup and then eased myself onto the bed, where the nurse checked me and shocked me with the news "you're complete." As in completely dilated. Umm, come again? It was just over an hour after my water broke. Where was my doctor?? They went and called him. He was finishing up his last patient at the clinic in Grandview (that glorious 15 minute drive). He must've sped on the drive over because he appeared remarkably quickly and the room was all bustling for a baby. I kind of felt push-y but not 100% but I figured let's get this over with, so I pushed once and then Dr. Weaver felt inside and said that nope, I actually still had 2 cm left to dilate!! Noooo! If I was a mean laboring woman, I would have probably had some choice words for him at that point. But I was feeling really pathetic and exhausted and in agony. So I just deflated and sank back in disappointment. He offered me an epidural. I had to do some careful thinking in my frazzled pained state, and I ended up saying no to the epidural. I managed to find my little voice of logic waaaaay back deep in my head. It told me that when I'm at 8 cm things go FAST. So I said no. 3 contractions later, I was 10cm for real and 3 more pushing contractions after that, I was looking at baby Amber. I’m happy to share birthdays with her.

She was born at 4:52pm, less than 2 hours after my water broke. It was FAST and FURIOUS. The pain was intense. In my other two deliveries sans pain medication, I felt the contractions all over my stomach, top to bottom. Breathing helped relieve the pressure and agony a little. But this time, I felt 90% of the contraction deep down low so all the careful breathing in the world did nothing to relieve the agony. I still gasped for air, but it didn't have much effect. The other thing that was different from Jay and Rose's births this time was when Amber was coming out, she felt enormous and bony and it HURT! Even after her head came out, OW! I swear, I felt every bone as it emerged. But then she was out and for the first time ever I miraculously did not have any tearing! I also survived labor without throwing up! Firsts all over the place. 

Amber Kay White was born November 4th, 2014 at 4:52pm. She weighed 7 lbs 9 oz and was 21.25 inches long. Our biggest baby yet by half a pound and 2 inches! We love her so much. Grampa Dan and Grama Leslie brought Jay and Rose over to visit about 2 hours after Amber was born. While our family of 5 was together for the first time, I just laid there and basked in it. It felt wonderful to be not pregnant and have all my sweet faces around me. Postpartum euphoria set in and practically made me float through the next few hours. It's just so easy to be happy when I'm not pregnant! I felt like a giant heavy weight had been lifted from not only my body but also my soul! Does that sound cheesy? It's the only way I can describe the relief I feel now that I'm un-pregnant.

 

“Hi, Amber! I’m your big sister!” That’s the first thing Rose said to Amber when she held her. Love. Jay and Rose were SO excited to see Amber and hold her. They put their grubby hands all over her soft head and talked to her and held her. Happy Mommy heart.

I think Grama and Grampa were pretty excited to see Amber too.

 

Jeff left with the kids for the night around 7pm, and it was just Amber and me. I ate a refrigerated hospital sandwich and called my Mom. Then it was baby loving time. That first night alone together in the hospital is one of the things I was most looking forward to for the whole pregnancy. I love snuggling with my new baby and ignoring everything else. This time it was a little bit different than the night of my dreams. When I nursed Amber, I started having MAJORLY painful cramps. They made my whole body shake and suddenly I found myself puking. Yep. I survive labor without so much as a gag and then the simple act of feeding my baby set me off. I ended up receiving 1000mg of liquid Tylenol plus a shot of my beloved frenemy, Zofran, through my IV. After a little bit I stabilized but I felt yucky for most of the night. There was no food for me to eat except another refrigerated sandwich or some cold cereal in a cup. And I only had till 4am to eat before my pre-surgery fast began. I managed to eat two very unsatisfactory cups of cereal before then. I spent Wednesday morning astounded at how good I felt physically--low bleeding, happy mood, no nausea. I felt great in spite of being hungry and thirsty. My body can do amazing things when its not pregnant! 

Sweetface.

AMBER IS HERE! SHE’S HERE! SHE’S HERE! SHE’S HERE!

WAHOOOOOOO!

[next up: postpartum tubal ligation]

Halloween

Quick side note: something about being 8.99 months pregnant brings out my sarcastic un-amused side. Sorry. I’m not a naturally cynical or vindictive person, I’ve just been pregnant, nauseous, exhausted, and completely uncomfortable for 276 days straight. It wears on a body. So the following views on Halloween are probably as exaggerated from Normal Shaina’s thoughts as my giant stomach is exaggerated from Normal Shaina’s stomach [maybe]:

 
                                                                 [5wks vs. 38wks]

This belly was not feeling very festive on October 31st, 2014. But it survived Halloween anyhow, somehow. I decided that “some are born liking Halloween, some adore Halloween, and others have Halloween thrust upon them.” I put myself in the third category. Living in the Halloween Hotspot of Grandview definitely thrusts way more of the costumed candy customs onto me than I would normally choose for myself. I know I don’t have to participate, but I don’t want to be that lame. I just wish that we could drive to our ward’s trunk or treat, have a pleasant hour and a half of Halloweeniness with our friends and then come home and be done with it. Instead we had the first trick or treaters ringing our doorbell incessantly during dinner at 5:15pm. I did my best to put on a cheerful face and say nice things about the costumes while passing out expensive sugar to mostly ungrateful Spidermen and Elsas. Thankfully I think I tricked most treaters in that way.

Just like last year, I purchased two bags of 150-piece Hershey’s variety mix candy at Costco, for a total of $30—the max I could bear to invest in the stuff. We gave one piece per person, and when Jeff was at the door he refused to give candy to high schoolers. The candy was gone in 2 hours. When Jay and Rose got back from trick or treating with their modest 1/3-full buckets, I let them each pick 5 pieces of candy to save and one to eat right away, and then they willingly dumped their candy into the bowl to hand out. And then they happily handed out candy the rest of the night. Biased parent alert: Jay and Rose are AWESOME! As usual, I don’t know how much of it is nature and how much is nurture. But they are great. Anyways, if you add up those numbers, we had at least 350 trick or treaters at our door in two hours. We put up our “out of candy” signs at 7:20pm, when the neighborhood was still positively crawling with trick or treaters.

So really, we only had to deal with invasive trick or treating for 2 hours (unless  you count the kids who rang the doorbell in spite of our out-of-candy signs). But we could still hear all that movement outside and it felt like we had to batten the hatches and hide from the candy-seekers once we they had cleaned us out.

WHEW. It wasn’t all bad:

 

Harry Potter and Cinderella were excited. This year I did not have the brain cells to invent costumes for the kids like I normally enjoy doing, so it was off to Goodwill for us. And we scored these great costumes for $5 each! I have an inexplicable prejudice against mass-produced store-bought costumes, but I was pleased that Jay and Rose did not look too generic. And they loved their costumes. Rose felt so beautiful, I could tell. Jay felt powerful. He drew on his own scar, nice and thick. Uh-oh, these costumes were so easy and inexpensive that I may go back to Goodwill again next year…who needs homemade costumes anyways?

[I may or may not have snacked on a Reese’s or two while I was handing out candy]

The cousins visited us! Layne was a mouse and Tate was a cat. And yes, Jeff dressed up in his Regency tailcoat that I made him for Valentine’s Day this year. He wore it to school all day too. All he needs are some polished Hessian boots (and maybe a cravat that’s not made of an old curtain hem) and he’d be a true gentleman of the ton. Yes I’m reading a Georgette Heyer right now. Ok, maybe homemade costumes are worth it after all.

Maybe Halloween isn’t so bad after all either.

Pumpkins and a visit

Yesterday was a great day. My Mom drove the 3 hours to visit us for the day and we loved it. While Jay was at school, Rose soaked up the one-on-one Grama attention with piles of books. I soaked up some food that she brought, along with good conversation. She made us dinner and a batch of bread. AND unloaded/loaded the dishwasher. I felt so relaxed and happy at the end of the day instead of worn out and cranky like my giant pregoself usually is after 12 hours of awake time. It was a peaceful happy day.

 

We love Grama Meri!

In other news…it’s pumpkin time! A few weeks ago, our friends invited us to come get pumpkins from the flourishing pumpkin patch in their yard. They had at least a hundred! So we drove over and each selected a pumpkin, with an extra for baby Amber, just in case (sigh, if only). I felt kind of bad because on the way there, Jay was saying how he wanted to pick a big big big pumpkin. When he found a nice large one, I jokingly said “how are you going to carry that to the van?” thereby unwittingly destroying his desire for a large pumpkin. Poor Jay! In spite of my best efforts to assure him that Jeff would carry the big one for him, he picked a regular sized one instead and insisted on carrying it to the car himself. Rude mom-moment! Sorry Jay!

In keeping with boring wimpy pregnant Shaina, I did not actually carve my own pumpkin this year. I “helped” Jeff carve one a few weeks ago at a friend’s house and then I helped Rose do hers this week. That was plenty for me this year. Did you know it kind of takes abs to cut, scoop, and carve a pumpkin? Yep, and I sure don’t have any of those right now. I was out of breath after a few scoops while I helped Rose with her pumpkin. Whew, but we made it through and here’s what it looked like:

 

[they were mildly grossed out at first]

[but not for long]

This is the first year that Jay and Rose both cleaned out most of the pumpkin guts on their own. It was awesome.

Words of wisdom from Jeff, after laboriously helping Jay carve a face on his pumpkin: “the hardest part about helping a kindergartener do something is not doing it yourself.” Yes.

Rose gave hers lots of freckles after I put the face on it. I let her pick what shapes she wanted for the eyes, nose, and mouth, and then how many teeth she wanted. Then she decorated it with dots.

It was raining outside when we put out the pumpkins, so I couldn’t quite get the glowing pumpkin picture of my dreams, but rest assured I did try, however briefly. That blasted porch railing covered up the 2 week-old pumpkin that is currently molded to our front step—literally. White mold is fluffing out its back and the whole inside is black and oozing juice. Very Halloweeny.

We only had 2 tea lights left from last year so I improvised with two of our big decorative candles just for the picture. After briefly admiring the glow, we carefully removed those fancy candles and put them back in their wall sconces in the family room. They were nice and big for those giant pumpkins, though—there’s something to be said for a candle to match the pumpkin size.

[Amber’s pumpkin remains uncarved]

[As does mine]

One more week!

Big news

1. PEANUT BUTTER is back in my life! Pregnancy has caused me to hate peanut butter for the past 8.5 months. If you’re at all familiar with Normal Shaina, you know that she adores peanut butter. These past few peanut butterless months have been rough all over. I always have PBJ for lunch! What could possibly fill that void? I kept trying to eat peanut butter, but I never got past the smell. Then on Sunday I decided to try again. Strategically, I packed myself a PBJ sandwich to eat in the parking lot right after church, when I’m usually desperate enough to eat anything marginally palatable. It worked! I have had PBJ for lunch every day since Sunday. Today I actually had two PBJ-wiches for lunch because I used the skinny end of the bread (I’m notoriously bad at making normal, evenly sized loaves of bread).

2. Rose and I went to the library yesterday. We have not gone since school started almost 2 months ago. It is so hard to get out when I feel so heavy and slow, especially when the library has weird operating hours which are mainly during my afternoon naptime. But it was open yesterday morning, so Rose and I braved the unusually rainy gloom and drove the mile down the street to our library. We had to restrain ourselves only to check out our usual 13 books. My strategy to get all the books back in time is always to check out the same number of books so all we have to do is count them and we know if we’re missing any. Easy. So yesterday, we picked our 13 books and Rose relished being able to have the self-checkout scanner all to herself (when Jay comes they have to take turns). She carefully scanned and swiped each book. She was so careful, in fact, that the computer kept timing out and it took like 10 minutes for all the books to be scanned. Eventually we made it back out into the rain where I had to work hard to remember how to even use the windshield wipers in the van because it rains so rarely here. Fresh reading material reminds me how much I actually do like reading stories to my kids.

3. After a relaxing [lengthy] phone conversation with my Mom this morning, I found myself with a new hairstyle:

"Mommy, your hair is dun (gonna) be so byou-tay-full (beautiful). I wike (like) your hair. It's so pretty. Your hair is so turful (colorful)."

Numbers

Let’s do a little math:

9 – 8.5 = .5 of a month left

40 - 38 = 2 weeks left

280 – 266 = 14 days left

Today is the 38 week mark. Wahoo! 2 weeks left! I’m eight and a half months pregnant. Lucky ducky Shaina. I find myself trying to decide which end of pregnancy is the longest, but I really can’t tell. The barf-a-thon beginning feels slow because starving to death while puking my eyeballs out is disgusting and exhausting. But the belly-is-big at the end feels slow because there’s no guaranteed day or time that it will be over. It could be today. It could be two weeks from today. It could be any time in between. OR (heaven forbid) it could be three or even four weeks from today [eeew, not going to think those thoughts]. Historically I have had on the due date or one day after deliveries. So I’m not hoping very much for anything earlier. But I know from that one day late baby (Rose) that even one extra day of pregnancy is nightmarish. I’m doing my best to keep the look-how-far-I’ve-come perspective rather than the how-much-longer-will-this-actually-take viewpoint. Usually I fail, but those numbers up above help a little. I’ve come a long way!

143 – 9 = 134 pounds at my barfiest

134 + 9 = 143 pounds at the halfway point

143 + 27 = 170 pounds right now

175 = how much my husband weighs

I’ve never really been one to weigh myself or care about a number on the scale. We don’t even have a scale at our house. I’m glad never to have been plagued by that concern. What matters to me is how I feel. So I hope it’s not weird for me to mention my weight. I’ve found that some things that I think other people will think are strange are not actually strange and there’s no way to know what really counts as strange because everyone is different. SO, since it amuses me, I’m going to talk about how much I weigh right now. I’m not comparing or judging or ANYTHING lame like that. BOOM.

Yesterday I had [another] doctor appointment, and when I stepped on the scale I was amused to see a 169.8 on the screen. That’s basically 170. Pounds. No WONDER I feel so tired, achy, and heavy all the time. I mean, I’m 6 feet tall so 170 is not really that unusual, especially at 8.5 months pregnant. The heaviest I ever managed with my previous pregnancies was 165. Since this pregnancy has been light years worse than the other ones, I think it’s kind of impressive that I managed to gain more than ever before. What exactly do I eat, anyways? Still not sure.

Maybe I have no clue about weight in general, but I don’t think I look like I weigh 170 pounds, even as a 6 foot tall 8.5 month pregnant lady. That’s why my weight amuses me, especially when people want to talk about my stomach. I can surprise pretty much anyone by pulling out my weight gain. Say what? Half the people who feel the need to comment on my size say  “you’ve grown” or “you look bigger” and the other half say “you are small!” or “you are all belly!” I think all of these comments apply. Yes, I probably have grown and therefore look bigger, and that growth makes my puny un-muscled limbs look small, thus accentuating the ballooning belly. While I’m complimenting myself, I have to add that I am doing a stellar job of kindly accepting all kinds of comments without rude or cranky retorts. I have only snapped once at a belly comment this whole pregnancy, and I still feel bad about it (my poor mother in law).

Jeff has been joking for months about how I could be heavier than he is at some point during this pregnancy. I always said “you wish!” Then I hit 170. I guess we’ll see in the next 2 weeks whether or not his absurd dream comes true, ha ha. 

Peace out. I mean…2 WEEKS LEFT!

October Album

Today was a rough day in the life of Prego-Shaina. I had at least two pregnancy meltdowns involving HUNGER and a lack of food inspiration. I swear I am starving to death to grow this miniature human. My medicine keeps me from puking when I’m hungry, but it still lets me feel extreme hunger! How is my appetite still growing? It’s impossible to keep up. Every single day for the past 262 days I have had this thought at least once: “how am I going to make it?” I know I will, but IT IS HARD! It’s the battle of the bodies. Amber is winning. I need some happy thoughts, so I thought I’d post all the everyday pictures that have fallen between the cracks so far this month.

 
Rose has been taking afternoon naps with me more often than not this week. It’s funny because when she falls asleep her snoring/loud breathing usually wakes me up from my nap.

 

I tried sitting her up to wake her up…ha ha ha.

Jay has had two stomach bugs this month, poor guy. Mostly they’ve been on the weekend, but to be safe he stayed home from school a day for each bug too, even though he didn’t act sick. PJ play day for the kids!

“Mommy, tan you may pwease take a picture of me?”

On Monday, Rose and I went to the Tri Cities together: Goodwill, Target, and Costco. After the errands, we indulged in pedicures. It was only my second-ever pedicure and it was wonderful. Every large pregnant person should get one. It is so worthwhile not to have to figure out how to bend down and take care of those far-away toenails! And it helps that this place is an affordable $20 job.

Rose sat next to me, watching the game show channel while I had a divine foot and leg rub. She said she didn’t want the lady to do her toes.

While my toes were drying, Rose changed her mind and decided that she did want her toenails painted. So the cute lady painted them pink with a layer of sparkles on top.

Admiring our pretty toes.

Homework time!

One Monday during family home evening, Sasquatchette visited our house. During the lesson, Rose stripped and started running around with her shirt on her head. We were cracking up. What was that lesson about again?

Jay harvested the 4 carrots that survived when he poured some seeds into our pansy pot last spring. He was pretty excited, and he ate them right down.

 

Rose accessorizes like a pro: hair ties for rings and headbands for bracelets. She’s set.

We don’t know what color Jay’s eyes are. But those freckles!

Sunday lunch is usually a Jeff special. Jeff lets the kids request what they want, and usually it’s crepes. Jay put a “chef hat” on and wanted to try flipping a crepe himself this week.

Rose likes to help with the mixing.

Horse and carriage.

 
Matching shirts!

My kids. I feel better already.