All dressed up...

...but no one could tell.
Tessa's first couple of weeks at church, I put her in adorable dresses I inherited from my sister, but she managed to stay sleeping in her carseat--wrapped up in a blanket--so no one could see. I decided the second week that I had better get some pictures, since I'm sure she won't be able to wear these little dresses for too long.

Jane Austen anyone?

Take the Quiz here!

Gratitude

I have been wanting to do this post for a while as I have been trying to focus on gratitude all month long, and I have a lot to be grateful for this Thanksgiving--particularly special people! So this post is about some of the people who have sacrificed to help us lately and for whom we are extremely grateful!

SHANDA
I can't believe that Shanda stayed with us for 2 1/2 weeks and this is the best picture I have of her. Anyway, I am so glad that Shanda and Talia could come for Tessa's birth. Shanda was a huge support in so many ways! She helped keep me from going insane as I waited for Tessa's arrival, took over disciplining Trenton when I no longer had the strength, kept my children happy and entertained during Fall Break, took care of the kids (including getting them ready for the Halloween party)while we were at the hospital, coached and encouraged me through my early labor, was my cheerleader through it all, paid attention to my emotional and physical needs (pre and post-labor), and much more! I think everyone should have a sister around during childbirth times.

MY PARENTS
This is my Mom with Kira and "Pepperoni Pam Pizza." My parents got to town right before we got home from the hospital. My mom spoiled me with breakfast in bed each morning, took over all of the dishwashing and meal prep, did a ton of mending, and helped me (really did most of the work) make my Christmas presents for the children (can't post pics until after Christmas), entertained my children, and much more!

My Dad took care of several things on my "honey-do" list, drove me to the Pediatricians office, and ran other errands. He helped Barry take down a tree in our front yard, and much more!

HALTERMANS

My mother-in-law took a few days and came down to be with us. Here she and Mikelle are bathing Tessa. Mikelle provided dinner for all of us.

While Becky was staying with us, they helped the kids carve pumpkins and helped entertain the kids. Amber has the energy to wrestle Trenton, which he loves!

Besides, helping us at our house, my mother-in-law took Trenton back to Prescott for the week, which was a huge deal for me. Lots of credit has to be given to my father-in-law, who had charge of Trenton for several evenings, while Becky put on a play for her Relief Society.
He had a great time in Prescott! When they brought him back from Prescott, they all (Mikelle and Amber, too) helped clean the house (you know, scrub bathrooms and yucky stuff like that!) and Amber brought a twin bed for us, so Kira could finally get out of her toddler bed.

WARD FAMILY

I'm almost embarrassed to list all of the people from the ward that brought us food, knowing that in a lot of wards, people are lucky to get a meal or two. We have a really supportive ward and although everyone is in a difficult situation (pregnant, recently had a baby, or something similar), they are all still willing to help out however they can!

So I am grateful to the following for bringing food (and several also brought gifts) and taking such good care of us:

Lunts

Hickenloopers

Horrocks

Rockwoods
Glazebrooks
Gilberts

Broyles
Smiths

Porters

...and tonight, if Barry ever makes it home, we are supposed to have dinner from "The Claim Jumper" courtesy of Clear Creek Associates, where he works!

TRINA

My sister, Trina, came to town for a reunion with High School friends, not expressly to help me, but in the day she was here, she managed to help me sort through maternity clothes, fix a yummy Sunday dinner, and give me some much needed sister bonding time!

So writing this all out is kind of overwhelming and makes me feel incredibly guilty about any complaining I may do. How do people ever do this with out family or the church?

Thank you, everyone!

Knit Together..

There has been a strange phenomenon occurring at the Halterman home, lately--knitting. The strangest part being that the one that has been doing most of the knitting is Barry. I bought the round looms mainly to get Kira going on a project, but Shanda (while she was here) and especially, Barry, have really taken off with it--learning and even inventing new stitches. Barry asks that you keep this quiet because he doesn't want to get beat up by the boys on the playground.

Here he and Trenton are modeling some of his creations.

The Alien and the Astronaut...A Halloween Tale

Once upon a time there was an alien girl and an astronaut. The two had a great time playing together at a church Halloween party, but alas, photographers were unprepared and failed to catch this phenomenon on film. As Halloween night approached, photographers were anticipating another opportunity to capture a photo of the astronaut and the alien together. But shortly before Halloween, the astronaut was called away on a special mission to the distant planet, Prescott. Meanwhile the alien was excited to experience the earthing tradition known as "trick or treating." So the astronaut and alien were apart for Halloween. This must be why they look so unhappy in their pictures, but sources close to the astronaut and the alien, report that they both actually had a great holiday!

Happy Halloween!

Here's a picture of our little punkin' for Pumpkin Day!

Tessa's first costume

Tessa and I ventured out for the first time (not counting the pediatrician) to our Gourmet group dinner on Saturday night--I really didn't want to miss it! Costumes were optional, but I figured this was the best chance for her to wear the Halloween costume I made for her while awaiting her arrival. I was a gardener and she was my prized peony. Before we got in the door, Amberly announced that she won the best costume contest for sure. I think the ladies enjoyed passing her around, and it was great to get out and enjoy some girl time! Thanks Amberly and Ashlee for a great evening!

Tessa Photos--Round 1

Kira & Trenton LOVE Tessa!

People ask how the kids are making the adjustment to having a new sister, and so far, the answer is, amazingly well! They are both so excited about their new jobs as big sister, and big brother, that they have been nothing but soft and sweet and loving to Tessa. For those of you who have seen Trenton wrestling lately, you will understand why that is so amazing.

These pictures were taken the first time the kids got to meet their new sister at the hospital. First is a close-up of the shirts they were wearing for the occasion, which Shanda made with them while Barry and I were at the hospital (can you see why I'm considering nominating Shanda for sainthood?)

Trenton has been very welcoming of Tessa because her being here solidifies his position as a big brother--not to be mistaken as a baby any more. He is systematically rejecting anything "babyish" because he is a "big brother." For example, he was happy to relinquish the hooded towel he has been using to Tessa, because he needs a big towel now!

Here are a few of his comments about his new sister:

“She looks pretty, she looks cute, and very unusual.” (He has said this more than once. I have no idea where he got it!)

“She’s the cuter!”

“She’s the cutest baby in the whole wide world!”

“Daddy can I see your fruit leather man?”---OK. This has nothing to do with Tessa, but I had to write it down. He is referring to Barry's knife, not something to eat.

It seems like Kira had some choice comments, too. Mainly they come in the mornings when it is time for her to go to school. She says something like, "I just can't bear to go to school and leave baby Tessa here all day!" Followed by something like, "when can you bring her to school?" To which I reply that won't be for a while citing germs, etc. Today she was trying to come up with a way to protect her from germs and take her anyway. "I wish I could just take her to school by myself!"

So at least while she can't argue or get into any of their things, the newest Halterman is being warmly welcomed by her siblings!

Labor Day! (Warning: LONG post!)

I really thought I would post sooner, but I usually have a little bundle attached to me, and can’t do more than type one handed.

This post is mostly for the benefit of my sisters, as we delight in sharing our stories and our bond as women. I will try and spare too many gory details, but if you are squeamish--or male--you may want to skip this post entirely.

These belly shots were taken a couple of hours before heading to the hospital.
My birth experience with Trenton had been very positive (except for being 4 days overdue), so I was hoping to kind of replicate that one. (Same hospital, midwife group, birthing techniques, etc.) But this was just a different experience. That started when the midwife told me at 37 weeks that I might be ready to have this baby at anytime. With Trenton, on my due date they told me I wasn’t even close. I think I mistakenly assume that the more I do this the easier it will be. Especially since my body did so much work before hand, I thought the birthing process would be a piece of cake.

About the Saturday before she was due, I started having contractions that would develop into a pattern (15 mins. apart for an hour or so) and then stop or subside. Some of these contractions would be really strong. This went on for the next several days. I already wrote about Tuesday (my due date) getting sent to the hospital. That was a discouraging fiasco that just made me nervous about going to the hospital when it was time, and running into the same Nazi nurses that I dealt with that day.

Wednesday night at bedtime contractions were about 5 mins. apart for 40 mins. or so. I was sure this was it, but we needed some rest, so I put on the hypnobirthing CD and figured I would be woken up when it was time to go to the hospital. We slept through the night.

I woke up with strong contractions early Friday morning (actually around midnight) but they were 15 or so minutes apart. I was pretty sure this was the beginning of the end, but since they weren’t very close together, I let Barry sleep so he would be able to help me later. I got out of bed by 1:30 and went to sit on the birthing ball and deal with contractions. They kept coming, but never got closer together. So I tried to get a little more sleep (not more than 2 hrs. the whole night).

Barry stayed home from work and Shanda helped me deal with contractions all morning. They seemed to stay at about 12 mins. apart when they were strong. If they got closer together, they would feel less productive. This started to get frustrating because, I figured that by my third child, I would know definitively when to go to the hospital. I was getting too worked up analyzing the contractions, so Shanda offered to play Boggle with me. Shanda doesn’t like to play boggle with me because she usually gets five or six 3-letter words, to my 30 or so 4 and 5-letter words. I think she was just being nice, but even in labor, I still beat her soundly.

We decided to take a short walk to the mailbox, and that seemed to do the trick to get the contractions closer together. We finally decided to head to the hospital, but had the plan that if the contractions lessened during the drive, we would head to the mall and walk instead. We didn’t end up needing to do that.

The good news is that everyone we dealt with at the hospital this time was very nice and supportive! The bad news is that when we arrived, they didn’t have a single bed available—not in the labor and deliver rooms, and not in the triage station. We had to labor in the hallway. It wasn’t the calm quiet hypnobirthing environment I had envisioned. So many people around coming and going. Thank heavens, Shanda worked with us on the counter-pressure techniques, because that is how we managed through the couple of hours in the hall.

Finally they were able to get us into triage. For some reason, as soon as we got on the monitors, my body froze and stopped having contractions. For the 15 mins. or so that we were on the monitor, I had one contraction. They didn’t talk about sending me home, since I was nearly at a 5, 3 days past due, and had visibly been laboring, but I still felt anxious. I went for a little walk, and came back to triage to labor on the birthing ball. Contractions started coming close together. We were promised the best room in the hospital in just a few minutes. Unfortunately a woman came into triage that was dilated to a 9, so they decided she had better have the room instead. They put me back on the monitor. This time the contractions were strong and like clockwork--about 2 ½ minutes apart. Barry kept applying the counter-pressure on my hip bones, until I thought he was about to rearrange my pelvis permanently, so they let us off the table and back to the ball.
It seemed like an eternity until we were able to get into the beautiful labor and delivery room, and into the Jacuzzi tub that I had been craving. AT this point I was at a good 7, but the contractions were strong enough that the water alone wasn’t enough for coping. We tried to come up with some creative ways for Barry to apply counter-pressure in the tub, but it was a challenge and I was afraid he was going to be as sore as me the next day from the positions he had to use. I asked for the midwife to check on the baby’s position, since we had been concerned about her being posterior and frankly I had expected labor to go much faster than this—especially at this intensity. She did say that her head was at a bit of an angle and had me prop up on one hip for a couple of contractions. After that and a new position to labor, it wasn’t long before I felt the pushing urges, and I was, in fact, complete.

I don’t’ know how some women can push for hours and hours. When those urges come, I almost can’t not push. I wanted to be slow and controlled, but that wasn’t happening. I thought I had delivered her head, but instead it was the bag of waters that ruptured like Niagra Falls, causing the nurse and midwife to leap out of its’ projectile path. Barry was still trying to tell me to relax (as a gripped the sides of the bed and tried to gain some control of my pushing action), but at the same time, the midwife was encouraging me to push her out as the baby’s heart rate was dropping. Barry announced when the head was delivered that she was a brunette and not a red head. (He and Shanda had a bet going and he lost). The whole pushing experience probably lasted about 5 minutes and she was out. Here! At 8:31pm, Friday, October 19.
We looked at her and loved on her and then let her try to nurse which she took to immediately. All of my children have been born hungry! I think that first nursing session lasted around an hour and a half. Barry and the midwife (as she stitched me up) tried to guess size. He thought about 8 lbs., she said 7lbs. 11oz. Remember, several people, including the midwife, thought she might be small. When we finally got her on the scales, she weighed in at 8lbs. 6.9oz.—two ounces larger than Kira—and 21 ¾ inches long—just shy of Trenton’s 22 inches.

We enjoyed our time bonding in the labor and delivery room. But instead of being moved to one of the nice recovery rooms on the same floor, we were told that we would be in the older wing of the hospital in what the nurse lovingly referred to as the dungeon. The good news about this is that if we had had any complications, they wouldn’t have put us there. The day before, there had been lots of c-sections, and the nice rooms were full. Instead of nice paintings on the wall, all I had to look at was a poster with a pain chart.
Sleepy Mommy and proud Daddy

They agreed to discharge us Saturday night, after Tessa was 24hrs. old and could have some of her tests completed. Unfortunately, they were so understaffed that we didn’t leave the hospital until midnight.

It was so nice to come home. Shanda had managed to have the house quite clean (despite spending all day getting the kids ready for and taking them to the Ward Halloween party), and my parents had arrived and were there waiting and ready to spoil me with things like breakfast in bed for the next several days.

So while this could have been a much more difficult and complicated labor, I'm still after that elusive "pain-free" childbirth experience they talk about in hypnobirthing book. I am very grateful to Shanda and Marenda (who acted as long distance doulas) for their coaching and help. If I had intended to just get an epidural, this would have been a very difficult labor, because I'm sure I wouldn't have been able to, until I had already been dealing with strong contractions for a long while. I'm glad I had their techniques in this situation! Maybe next time (assuming there is one), I'll take a class, and hope to labor in calm comfortable place, instead of a hallway.

She's Here!!!

Much more to come...Check back for all of the details!

The Waiting Game

So the official due date has come and gone. I did actually spend several hours yesterday at the hospital, but not because I thought I was in labor. I was sent over after my appointment for some monitoring and an ultrasound. I later found out that I never should have been sent in the first place. I left the hospital with two pieces of information I had when I arrived:
1--The baby's head is down (knew that...it's pretty obvious).
2--I was not in active labor (knew that, too).

I can't wait to get the hospital bill for all of that information!

Seriously, I will spare the details, but it was a frustrating morning! In the meantime, I am still dealing with lots of contractions, but not enough to be in active labor. I think that makes it feel like I am more than one day overdue, because at least since Saturday, contractions have been starting and stopping and each time it's easy to think that it may be the start of the real thing. So it is hard to plan or do anything else with my life.

My goal right now, is to just relax, try not to think so much about when this will happen, not pay so much attention to every contraction, and just be happy when it does happen. (Easier said than done, though!)

In the meantime...Awesome Autumn Activities

Today I am watching contractions and the clock, to see if they will develop into enough of a pattern to warrant a trip to the hospital. I was about to say I didn't think so, but then, I just had another contraction. Who knows?

IN THE MEANTIME...we have been busy making preparations for baby and other crafty endeavors. I am so glad that Shanda has been here this week. One of the reasons is that Barry had 74 hours for the week when he got home from work late last night. It has been great to have a sister to help with the kids and keep me company!

Since Barry hasn't had a chance to get to the storage unit to get any of our Halloween/Autumn decorations, I bought and made this little pumpkin display.

These are the Halloween invitations we came up with for Shanda's Halloween party she is throwing back in Colorado when she leaves us. We finished assembling those last night.

This was actually our activity a few weeks ago for family home evening. We made caramel apples and had intended to deliver some to friends, but instead have been enjoying them ourselves.

Ah the sweetness of Autumn! (Just keep bringing that thermometer down!)

Prayer Perfect?

Trenton loves to say the prayer, and often feels picked upon when he doesn't get the chance. The other night he started to say the prayer..."Heamenly Father...Thank you for this day..." He then proceeded to start saying a lot of gibberish. I was dissapointed at his lack of respect and tried to give him some more appropriate things to pray about. The gibberish continued until I insisted more firmly that he say what I was saying. We ended the prayer and I told him that prayer was not a time for silliness. His response, "I just wanted to pray in Spanish!" That night we gave him a short Spanish lesson.

The following night he was in tears that someone else had been called on to pray. I told him that when he was reverent he could say his own prayer. It started out much the same way until he started praying for our automobiles, something like this: "Bless our van...bless it that it will get painted and get numbers and turn into a race car...and bless our race cars that they will win." We tried, but Kira, Shanda, and I completely lost our prayer composure. He has quite an imagination!

Updates

This is the home we were supposed to move into in December. Alas, the time for our contingency has expired, and we have not sold our current home, so we had to cancel our contract today. I am still hopeful that we may be able to come back in a couple of months and buy it (or one like it) as a spec. It is a little depressing, if for nothing else, how much effort had been put into this purchase so far (picking carpet and tile was stress, enough!), but in this crazy market there was no way that we could gamble that the home would sell before we were obligated to purchase the new one. In the meantime, I really need to have the house off of the market for the rest of Oct., since I this little one could make her debut anytime, and we will have company for most of the month.


Which brings me to my other update. I am officially due on Oct. 16, but have been told since my midwife appt. on Sept. 25, that things are progressing and this baby could come anytime. I was thinking more in terms of Oct. 20th since Trenton was 4 days late. It was good to be warned, because with all of the other chaos (house, other kids, Barry's busy work schedule), we have not been ready. My sister, Shanda, got here yesterday and that takes away a huge logistical burden (what to do with the kids when I go into labor). But Barry says he still needs a few more days to get on top of things at work. This picture was taken a little more than a week ago. We went on a date and I was having lots of contractions, so I asked Barry to take a quick belly shot, incase we had to go to the hospital that night, and hadn't documented the belly.

When there is something concrete to post, we will let you all know. In the meantime, we are getting a little more prepared (and excited) each day!

Kids' check-ups

Kira and Trenton had their well-visits (finally) yesterday. I am happy to report that they both seem to be in very good health. Kira about lost it when she learned she needed a shot--she had been told that she was done with shots until she turned 10--but otherwise the visit went well.

Stats:

Kira
weight: 45lbs. -- 50%
height: 48 1/4 in. -- 80%

Trenton
weight: 38.2lbs. -- 95%
height: 40 in. -- 95%

Anyone want to take bets on when little brother will outweigh big sister? I keep warning her that she needs to be nice to him, because the day is not too distant.

Summer Lovin'

I thought I was about caught up with any pictures/posts to share from the summer, but found a few more on the small camera that I had to share.

Kira found willing dance partner in the Nelsons grandson at their anniversary party. These two danced the night away! They actually looked like they knew what they were doing most of the time.

Trenton and friends at the splash playground for playgroup. Here he is stopping the flow of water by sitting on it

Is it horrible to post pictures of my son grabbing a girls behind? I promise he was just fascinated by the way the diaper part expanded in the water, but it was hilarious watching the scene unfold!