Elsie Celine Houghton

FINALLY had one second to type this up. It's been almost four months and I'm not even working anymore... I thought I would have had some time by now... but nope! This isn't quite as fresh in my mind now... but here goes, Elsie's birth story:

Short Version: Water broke at 6 Thursday morning, went to the hospital at 8... stopped by my office and chatted for a little while and then got checked in. Got the epidural around 10 and then around 2:45 the nurse checked me and I was at a 6. The nurse had just left the room for MAYBE a minute when I made Casey go get her again. I apologized to the nurse feeling bad she had JUST checked me, but I felt like there was a head in between my legs. If I was wrong and this was a false alarm, I promised not to bug her again. She lifted up the blanket and said "you will have a baby within 10 minutes". Two pushes later, Elsie was born :).

Longer Version:

So Easton was two weeks early and I kinda had it in my head that Elsie would be also. When I went in to my 37 week check up I was barely dilated to a 1 and still high. Then when I went in to my 38 week check we were trying to decide if Casey could go on his family's summer camping trip (I was definitely not going). I told the doctor that I really wanted Casey to be able to go, but obviously wanted him there for the birth of his kid. The nurse checked me and without hesitating said "he's not going". I was dilated to a 3 and fully effaced ( if I remember correctly, crazy how we forget) and since I had progressed that much in a week, there was no telling what would happen. So Casey did not go on his trip, so of coarse Elsie did not come all weekend. Then Tuesday night I was having contractions. I started having contractions when I was like 5 months pregnant... but these were starting to hurt more and more and so I started to time them and I was 3 minutes apart at least. They weren't super painful... but they were consistent. So I went to labor and delivery. By the time we got there the contractions had slowed down... but that's what happened with Easton when he was born. I know they say that if you lay down and your contractions stay strong, then you are probably in labor. Well with Easton and again this Tuesday night, when I got up the contractions got weaker but when I layed down they got stronger. Anyways, after about 2 hours at labor and delivery they sent me home.

Wednesday I was VERY discouraged. Super embarrassed for the false alarm and pretty upset that I was still pregnant. My mother-in-law took me to get a pedicure which was really awesome, then I fell asleep at 7 PM!

Then we were supposed to get up and go to Salt Lake for Casey's best friend's wedding... so of coarse that's exactly when my water broke. BEST FEELING EVER (I was so nervous to know when to go based on contractions). I wasn't having any contractions and kinda felt super lame going to the hospital pain-free when two nights before I was totally in pain. So we called my mom and asked her if she could drive down from South Jordan to watch Easton.  I felt totally fine so we kinda took our time... I took a shower, cleaned my house a little bit, put on the same outfit I was wearing when my water broke this Easton just for kicks and kinda had a nice morning. After my mom got to my house, we headed to the hospital and I stopped by office for a little while and chatted with Sandra... and took a pose in front of the elevators I had walked by for 9 months in anticipation for it to be my turn to ride.

So I checked in to labor and delivery at about 8:30 am. I think I was at a 4 when they checked me first. Then at around 10 or 11 I got my epidural. Apparently epidurals make me puke, but this time it wasn't half as bad as with Easton... it came and went pretty quickly. I was actually chatting with the anesthesiologist... I used to work with him and Casey and I have played hockey with him and his family a few times. Then it was hanging out time.. which isn't so bad if I wasn't shaking uncontrollably (worst part!!). I even worked on my computer a little bit, started to catch up on some of my shows. I was in the middle of the bachelor when the nurse came in to check me and I was at a 6.

 She had time to wash her hands and go out of our room to the desk... still within eyesight when I told Casey to go get her. When she walked back in she looked kinda bugged (and rightfully so) with the "I seriously JUST checked you". . I told her that I was really sorry and if what I was feeling was just normal labor pressure that I would not bother her again, but I wanted just to make sure cause it felt like something was in between my legs! So she left up blanket and with a super surprised look on her face said "Oh, you will have a baby in less than 10 minutes". Then all HECK broke loose. They were kinda going crazy and a bunch more people came in the room... then the doctor. While they were running around we had just enough time to take these "we are about to have another baby" pictures:

 The rest happened so fast. I put my legs on the stir ups... the doctor asked me if I wanted an episiotomy but I don't think she heard me say yes because she asked me to push... I pushed twice, and our little princess was born.

 The nurses told us that she actually broke record for UVRMC... she was the first girl born after 17 boys... the longest streak of boys they have seen. My hospital stay with Elsie was SO SO SO much better than with Easton. The nurses were much better and nicer. I feel like with Easton I had 1 good nurse the whole time I was there... with Elsie it was just 1 bad nurse. We did have a scary minute where she was choking and turned pretty blue. We called the nurse in and she got the mucous out, and took Elsie to the nursery. She got her stomach pumped and apparently had a TON of mucousy stuff... somethings that's really common was babies are born fast. 

We struggled a bit to get her nursing but it was so much better with her than Easton. However still, the next couple days were the very hardest in my entire life. More to come on my next post as soon as I get time :)

Easton Lately

I just LOVE this little boy. He is almost 20 months old and he is mine and Casey's pride and joy. He LOVES cars. That's pretty much his whole world. He also loves bubbles, swimming and his Dada. He loves cheese, ice cream, dried mangoes, noodles, grandma's raspberries, goldfish, Naked juice, and he calls all fruit "apples". He'll pretty much repeat anything we say and he can talk quite a bit, but his words are mostly cars, trucks, bus, bubbles, pool, ball, mama, dada, grandpa, grandma, Ava, baba, cheese, binky, blanket, and cracker. Sometimes in the car, he will frantically say "cars, trucks, cars, trucks...." for minutes at a time. He especially loves fire trucks.

 He also LOVES these girls...

And of coarse, he loves his mama. I absolutely love to see him light up when I pick him up from daycare. I love going in his room in the morning and since Casey is the one to wake him up most of the time, he gets a surprised and then happy look on his face.

Fresh Produce

We are LOVE-ING all this fresh produce from my mom's garden. Absolutely delicious, and nutritious. Easton especially likes the raspberries :)

 The other morning when Casey and I were still in bed but I was on my phone, Casey asked me if Easton was awake or not. So, I pulled up our Foscam to see....

 

YUP! He was awake. Haha. And so so cute, even if this night-vision picture looks a little creepy.

 

DATE NIGHT! Casey and I went on likely our last date before our family goes from 3 to 4. We went to Molly's (one of my favorites) for dinner and then to Nickel City. Casey LOVES Nickel City. He acts like a little kid on Christmas.  It was a total blast and will be a very fond memory :)

37 WEEKS

Thirty seven weeks, barely dilated to a 1 and she's still "high". Murmur.

 We got Easton this car track and was planning on giving it to him when Elsie was born saying it was from her. Casey just couldn't wait. He was too excited to give it to him, so we decided to give it to him early. We still told him it was from Elsie, but he was too distracted by it to care what we were saying. HE LOVED IT. There's never been a toy keep his interest (that I can think of or know of) for longer than about 5 minutes. He didn't even last 5 minutes on his big slide. But he didn't even look up for like three hours! He was totally obsessed. It was adorable.

 This was taken when we had dinner with all of Casey's friends. I'm sad we didn't get a shot with the group, but it was fun seeing everyone! We had dinner at Malawi's and Easton started being pretty difficult and so I had to leave early. 

Grandpa Cal came and watched Easton one morning I had to be at work. Easton LOVED it!

Fun Saturday

It's been a huge bummer that Casey has had class on Saturday for most of the summer. It was pretty exciting when his Saturday class was finally over! We made a day of it. 

We went to Seven Peaks with Jordan and Kryshelle...

 

Which Easton was a huge fan of having Dada at Seven Peaks... he's so used to me, I think it was a real treat to have Casey there with us. He was out like a light!

Then we wanted to do something a little special with Easton since pretty soon he won't be an only child anymore! He likes cars so much, we decided to check out "Planes". I think it was a little scary for him, but he did pretty well!

Dada's shoooes

The other day Easton found it SUPER important to show me Casey's shoes. I'm not sure why... but he kept picking them up and saying "dada's shooooes, dada's shoooes". I know he LOVES his own shoes, and when he wants to go outside he will put my shoes on me, but Casey wasn't even home so I'm not sure why he was so concerned with dadas' shoooes, but I thought it was adorable.