MY DAD

It was my dad's birthday yesterday and it got me thinking about how lucky I am to have such and amazing father (my mom's pretty amazing too but its not her birthday!!) So here are the 6 reasons my dad is better than your dad, or just the six reasons I love him so very much... (it was going to be 5 reasons but I couldn't seem to cut it down so now its six!)

6. He taught me to love sports... Not only did he support us kids in all our sports (even cheerleading, what a guy) but he helped me to appreciate that being a spectator can be just as enjoyable, especially if you're passionate about "your" team. Oh and if I ever have a question about sports or athletes he has the answer, no need for ESPN when you've got my dad around.

5. He is always there to help out... which means I was able to marry the man I love even though he's not exactly "Mr. fix it" Not only can my dad fix it or build it but he is always willing to make the 80 mile drive to come up and help.

4. He taught me its OK to have fun. My first year away at college I remember dad calling and asking how things were going, I started telling him about my classes, grades, tests, etc and he said "yeah but are you having fun?"

3. My friends have always loved my dad. Our house was always the hang out house. My friends always knew they could show up anytime and it was cool. My friends still ask about dad and want to know how he's doing.

2. My kids absolutely adore him and love it when he comes to see them. I realize that its no longer all about me but that's OK. The girls are always so excited when papa Craig comes and McKay can't wait to be tickle tortured. (which i love because its no longer me being tickled)

1. My dad taught me the gospel and showed me by his example how important it is to live the gospel. I've never ever doubted that he knows the gospel is true and that has been an amazing strength in my life!!

I LOVE YOU DAD!!!! THANKS FOR BEING SO AWESOME!

Luc's Blessing

Just wanted to let everyone know we will be blessing Luc on Sunday, March 2 at 9 am. We meet in the PV Stake Center located at 36th Street and Shea Blvd.

5 Recurring Thoughts

Call it hormones or post-partum instability or just being a new mom again but my mental and emotional state is a little.... "off."

1. Was diapering and dressing a newborn always this hard or have my skills diminished? Why can't I seem to get a diaper on him with out making a bigger mess than it was to start with? I must be a bad mom!
2. Do the nutritional benefits of nursing really outweigh the pain I am experiencing? I gasp and or scream everytime I nurse him. This can't be normal. Surely good moms are better at this than me!
3. Should I wake him up? He's been sleeping for 8 of the last 10 hours and its only 2 pm. If I wake him up I won't get anything done and he'll probably want to eat, ouch! I am neglectful aren't I?
4. When did my little girls get so big? Kimball looks like a 5th grader all of the sudden and I swear McKay is going to walk out any minute wearing a mini skirt and blue eyeshadow. Did I miss them being little? Is it too late to enjoy their infancy... ok maybe not infancy but why are they so big all of the sudden? I should have taken more time to play with them while they were little.....
5. I could sit here and stare at this beautiful little angel in my arms all day. (and some days I do) He is so absolutely perfect. How in the world will I ever keep him safe from all the junk out there?

Let me just say I'm not depressed. I re-read this and had visions of my friends calling Seth and telling him that I need to be medicated... I may need medication but not for depression. I love being a mom, I love my children, even when Luc is sucking the life out of me one boob at a time.

I just realized last night while watching American Idol (I almost cried like 3 times... thats a sign of instablity I'm sure) that I needed an outlet... and what better way than blogging?

Beautiful Little Luc

Isn't he just precious? I don't want to brag and I certainly don't want to jinx myself but we are going on day number 4 of sleeping 7+ hours straight!!! What a good baby! Even if it ends tonight I will be forever grateful for 4 nights of sleep when he is just over a week old. Oh wait, Kimball has been up puking for 3 of the those 4 nights but hey at least I was trying to nurse and clean up puke at the same time.

Qwest Sucks!!!

I'm only slightly worried that someone reading this works for or is in some way personally connected with Qwest. Let me just say that after 3 weeks we still have no internet!! They have scheduled us for hook up 3 times and each time after waiting the obligatory 4-5 hour period for the tech to show up we've gotten on the phone and been told there was some sort of mix up and it was scheduled for hook up but "not dispatched." WHAT? Why in the world would you schedule a hook up and then not put it on the "dispatch list." I am ready to scream.

On a happier note, my baby is an angel. He sleeps all the time and I mean all the time. He eats and sleeps and thats about it. I'm sure this will change but for now we are loving it. He only wakes up once at night and goes right back to sleep after eating. What a good little boy.... I'm sure some of has to do with our amazing parenting skills... right? Ok maybe not but we'll take it anyway we can get it.

Little Luc

Just before heading to the hospital.

Luc Steven Avey - 7lbs. 11oz. - 21.25 in.

The girls love Luc.

Beautiful Baby - Beautiful Mom

Well she did it! Denise finally had Luc and we couldn't be happier. I'm sure most of you know by now, but Denise had the baby on Friday morning. (No the Qwest guy still hasn't shown up so I'm posting a little from work.) On Thursday Denise started contracting more often and more regularly throughout the day. By the time I got off work we had told her parents that we would head to the hospital in a few hours. So Denise took a turn or two around the yard to keep the contractions coming and we went to Panda Express for some fuel. Then we headed to the hospital.

When we got to the hospital they checked her and said that she was only at a 3! Denise was distraught to say the least. The triage nurse told her that if she wasn't at a 4 in an hour that she would have to send her home. Then she told us to start walking the halls and stairs to help things along. Denise was a real trooper and she put in a solid hour of walking and marched up and down about 14 flights of stairs. When the nurse checked her again she was at a 5. Thank goodness! I don't know what would have happened if they'd sent us home.

So they checked us into our room and started some pitocin and epidural. Denise was very greatful for the epidural. The doctor was awesome and she was even relaxed enough to rest for a couple of hours. We thought the pitocin would get things moving more quickly, but nothing major happened until I was out in the car catching an hour of sleep at 4:45 AM (the room was a little crowded with both of Denise's parents and her sister who has had 4 boys, but never seen a birth). I got a call on my cell phone that she was finally at a 10 and they were going to call the doctor.

Dr. Simon came in at about 6:45, prepped Denise, she pushed about 6 times and out popped Luc at 7:16. And I mean popped. On the last push Denise launched him out and the doctor had to literally catch him in the air. I've never seen anything like it.

Luc looked pretty crazy at first (like all babies), but now he's great. He's actually headed to his first doctor's appointment now. Denise is doing really well too. Her mom is in town through today and then my mom will come and help on Wednesday and Thursday. McKay and Kimball love Luc! They want to hold him and touch his face. Now we just need to work on being gentle around the baby!

This is Seth and I am blogging for Denise because the Qwest guy still didn't show up. In fact, he (or she) isn't coming until February 13th! Denise was pretty upset when she learned that and she only felt the tiniest bit better when they told us that they would knock of $20 from our first bill since we have to wait so long for our install. Denise wanted me to tell Qwest where I can shove the 20 bucks, but I don't think it's appropriate to share on a family blog.

We also still don't have our little baby boy yet. Denise is due on Monday, but she's pretty tired of being pregnant. She's walked around the block. She's walked on curbs and steps and then this morning we resulted to castor oil. Both Denise's mom and one of her sisters have used castor oil successfully in inducing labor so we thought we would give it a shot. Denise drank some oil de castor this morning with a big glass of OJ. Testimonials on the intranet (a.k.a. The Source of all Truth) said that castor oil will cause diarrhea so it's best to stay close to home after you drink it. I personally don't think she drank enough because castor oil is a natural laxative and she didn't have any quick trips to the bathroom at all today. The good news is the last time I called home (2:35PM) Denise had three contractions pretty close together. She was headed to the couch to see if they continued. Hopefully that means things are getting ramped up and tomorrow we'll call you all to say that Luc has arrived.

One final funny story about the castor oil. We are becoming the clepto family. Last night when we went to Walmart to buy the "juice". Denise found the castor oil right away, put it in the basket and we went back to buy juice. We obviously got sidetracked along the way because we made a wrong turn and ended up by the toys. The girls wouldn't be stopped so we let them play for a few minutes. After toys and juice we headed up to the check-out and realized that the castor oil wasn't in our cart. Both McKay and Kimball had been in the cart at different times so we figured one of them left it on a random aisle and some poor, uninformed worker would have to scour the entire store to find where castor oil goes (in the pharmacy in case you didn't know). Denise "jogged" back and grabbed another bottle of castor oil and we checked out. When we got home we unloaded our bags and Denise found the extra bottle in her purse. Apparently when the girls were playing they couldn't be bothered by items in their cart so they put the bottle of oil in Denise's purse for safe keeping. This is twice in two weeks that we've stolen something from a store. One more time this month and I'm calling it an epidemic and turning Denise in to the police. Guess what our FHE lesson will be on next Monday...

Internet Detox!

Ok I'm done with not having the internet, almost as done as I am with being pregnant. If either Qwest or this baby doesn't show up in the next 2 days I may go insane! I'm at the library and there's a little timer at the bottom of the screen telling me I have 26 minutes to finish all the internet surfing, blogging and email checking that I have missed over the past 10 days! So thats it.

Any guesses on when this baby will come? I have an appt in 45 minutes and I'm hoping the dr will say "oh wow you're at a 7 you better head on over to the hospital!" Hoping, not actually believing it will happen! Wish me luck.