Thanksgiving & Keaton's blessing

My sister and her family and my mom all came to our house for Thanksgiving. It was the first time my nieces and nephews meet Keaton.  He was all smiles for them and quite the attraction. I think he appreciated having the extra guys in the house.

My mom hates tie- dye and was worried that when we moved to Oregon we were going to become hippies.... so of course my kids wanted to put this outfit on for Grandma's arrival. She was not thrilled with it.

My nephews are very into sports and especially baseball. I knew that Jeremy Guthrie was in town visiting family and I called his mom and asked if my nephews could meet him. She was very gracious and offered to have them over to the house. The boys were so excited they could hardly stand it. He talked to them about priorities, signed baseballs and took photos with them. He is a really fantastic guy and such a good role model.

While all my family was here we blessed Keaton. The blessing was beautiful and he did not cry at all durring it. Whew. He was even sporting a bow tie like his dad.

Happy 41st Birthday Eric

You know you are old when there are so many candles on your cake this happens...

Ever since I have known Eric he has wanted a john Deere riding mower/tractor. We have joked about it for years, I have given him a little toy one and this morning in his card he got this photo that said "Even though you stand out in your field... we think you should be riding." 

Then later in the day while all the girls were getting haircuts, the real thing was delivered to our house. Eric had already been mowing our field when we got home. He let the girls take turns trying it out.

Happy Birthday babe, I love you!

Family portraits

I realized that the last real family portrait we had taken was when Lucy was 3 years old.... so I called a photographer and asked her to come take some photos on our property. We had a great time and I loved the photos. Here are just a few of my favorites;

Halloween

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays and usually we go all out with tons of decorations and dinner parties, but this year I was a little busy with a new baby. We did put up some decorations but we didn't throw any parties. A huge thing for our girls is Witchalena, she comes the week before Halloween no matter what. But this year even though she left treats there was no treasure hunts or hidden treats. Everything was left on the table with the lesson/poem for the day. I was proud that she even showed up, but Ruby told me she was really disappointed that Witchalena seemed lazy this year. I have to agree with her, Witchalena did not have the energy and time she normally has. Hopefully next year she will do better. I did however snap some photos of the girls in the morning.

As for Halloween night, I only snapped a few photos of the kids costumes.
Keaton went as a skeleton (an appropriate costume for the son of a radiologist).

Ruby and Lucy went as twin witches.

Haley went as a cereal killer.

That would never happen to me...

*** Warning, if you have a weak stomach you probably don't want to read this. Actually... no matter what you probably don't want to read this****

Eric rarely comes home from work late, but he was on call and had a procedure to do so he texted me that he would not be home until 7pm.  Being two weeks postpartum I was having a hard day.  I found myself crying at everything and being frustrated that I could not accomplish anything. I decided that my one goal for the day was to return dishes to people that had brought us dinners. So after dinner Ruby and Lucy left with me to go to three houses to return dishes. The girls were a huge help running the dishes up to the doors so I could stay in the car.

On our way back to the house as we turned down our street Eric turned in right behind us. It was 8:30 and dark outside, I could not believe he was getting home so late. Right as I drove through our gate, Cami walked in front of my car and stopped(not uncommon as she thinks she can heard the car). I waited until I could see her shadow on the passenger side then I started driving up the driveway. Immediately I realized I had had driven over Cami.  Before I could say a word, Ruby and Lucy were screaming because they knew exactly what had happened. Eric saw what happened, got out, picked her up and put her in the back seat of his car and drove her to the emergency pet hospital immediatly. I was trying to comfort Ruby and Lucy who were ballistic while I was totally nausious. I told the girls that Dad and the Vet were going to do what they could do and all we could do was pray that she would live. When Eric came home he did not say that much, just that we needed to wait and see. He let me know that he told the Vet to keep her comfortable, but we were not going to do surgery if that was necessary. He calmly reminded me that she was a dog and we were not going to pay thousands of dollars to save her. He was very kind and kept telling me he saw what happened and it was not my fault.

The next day the doctor called and told me that Cami was doing much better and they had taken her off oxygen but she still was not eating, drinking or going to the bathroom. The doctor thought this was just because she was nervous. I was relieved and decided to run by the hospital after Keatons 2 week Dr appointment because Cami would be happy to see me and I could get her eat. When I got to the hospital and saw Cami, my heart sunk and I felt like I was going to throw up. I was absolutely not prepared for how bad she was. She had blood coming out her nose and mouth. The right side of her mouth looked like it was hanging off. I put a some chicken (her favorite) in her mouth and it fell out. She had a tube stapled into her head and down her forehead and into her her nose. She had dried blood all over her legs and could hardly stand. She laid on the floor making crying noises from the pain.  I could not believe that I had done this to her. I totally lost it.  I could hardly drive home I was crying so hard. I knew we were going to have to put her down and I could not handle it.

 After 3 days in the hospital the Doctor called and said that Cami could come home. It has been two weeks since the accident and today there is a beautiful, healthy, happy Cami running around our yard.

I know there was a reason Eric's procedure took so long. I know it was not a coincidence that Eric was driving in right behind me. I know that Heavenly Father was watching over me. I know that logically a 90 lb dog cannot survive the weight of my car. I know that Cami is alive because our prayers were answered.

Guess what...

Professional photos of Keaton

My good friend Janet gave me a gift of having a professional photographer to come over to my house and take photos of Keaton when he was only 2 weeks old.  I am so glad that she did this because I was still in survival mode and never even thought about doing a photo shoot for him.  Here are some of my favorite photos from the shoot.  Warning... this post contains some nudity that Haley and Eric find offensive. I personally think it's cute :)

Keaton photos in our kitchen

Grandma Bonnie meets Keaton

Grandma Bonnie flew in today to meet her new grandson and hang out with the girls.

 Her visit was timed perfectly because he has just started opening his eyes a lot. The girls now call him bright eyes.

Who do you think he looks like?

Harvest day for Keaton

Because I have c sections and don't really give birth Eric kept referring to September 29th as "The harvest day".  This photo was taken about 30 minutes before heading to the operating room. 

Eric took a bunch of photos of the surgery, but this is the only one that doesn't make me want to vomit.
The surgery took longer then normal because I had a lot of scar tissue that he needed to clean out.

After they pulled him out, they checked to make sure all was well and wrapped him in a blanket and handed him to Eric while they finished the surgery. He was our biggest baby weighing in at 7 pounds 4 ounces and 20 1/2 long. He has seriously kissable cheeks!

 Then we all went back to my hospital room and the girls got to watch the nurse give him his first bath.
They were asking Eric all kinds of questions about the surgery so he pulled up a video of a c section on tube and showed it to the girls explaining the process. I can't believe they have not had nightmares about watching that.  They wanted me to watch it and I had to pass.

The girls are all totally in love and obsessed with their new brother.

Keaton heading home from the hospital.

Getting ready for the little man...

My friends threw me a beautiful shower/ brunch. I took a few photos before but totally forgot to take any during the shower. I'm so bummed because the room was filled with women that I love and I wish I had documented it better.

As I was opening gifts I put each gift back in the gift bag it came in. When I got home I stacked them all around the fireplace and when my girls got home they got to have their own shower and open all the gifts themselves.  They were so fun to watch and so excited for this little guy to arrive.

I finally finished the little blanket for the girls to give Keaton when they visit him in the hospital.

I have received multiple requests to post photos of my prego body and I really don't want to, but since this is the only journal I keep I may regret not having a photo of my big belly. So here it is. The ultrasound says he is only about 6 lbs so I am guessing the other 29lbs are all in my face, bum and chest.  I shouldn't complain because with all my girls I gained 45-50 lbs.

I never thought I would be sporting blue gel toes... but my cute friend Jill told me that I had to have blue toes for when my little boy gets here. I listened to her and not only to my girls think I am so cool now, I actually kinda like them.

One week to go!!!