Princess Pumpkins & More

Who is her mother? Yup, she got into markers and went around like this all day.

 

For family night, we decorated pumpkins:

I found these Mr. Potato Head pumpkin decorating kits at Target. It was fun. The pieces were really just like Mr. Potato Head pieces (not sharp at all) so after many different attempts, we finally figured it worked best to make a hole with a nail and a hammer in the pumpkin and then push the pieces into the pumpkin.

 

Here are the finished princess pumpkins – we grew our own pumpkins this year.  The light green color worked well with the princess decorations, I think.

 

Tonight, Bill went to a Young Men/Young Women Murder Mystery Dinner. They were asked to come as 1930s gangsters:

 

And once the girls saw the camera was out, they needed their pictures taken too. So we took more pictures with the princess pumpkins.

 

 

A couple of stories.

 

The other day, Abby took a nap while Sandy played. After awhile, I fell asleep. Then Sandy came and joined me. So, when Abby woke up, Sandy and I were both sound asleep. She came in and I asked her to go play and let us sleep. She came back after a few minutes and I had a great idea.

“Abby, let’s play a game. You be the mommy. Me and Sandy will be the kids and we are taking naps. Shh! You don’t want to wake us up.”

She left for about 15 minutes then came back in. I told her we were still sleeping.

She went and got her stool from the bathroom, turned on the light, “GOOD MORNING!!”

“Abby, shh! We are still sleeping!”

“It’s morning! Wake up kids, it’s time for school!”

How can you argue with that? So I got up and played with her and Sandy got to sleep a little longer.

 

I realized I never posted about General Conference earlier this month.

Sometimes there are those moments where one of the girls will look up from what they are doing and comment on something one of the speakers said and I think – oh, they are listening!

There was only one of those this time. When Sister Dibb told the story of 19-year-old Brooke who died and her parents were comforted that she had lived a good and righteous life, Sandy said, “Mom, I’m coloring this picture for you so that when I’m dead you can look at it and it will make you happy.” Hmm. So we had a talk about how usually – not always – but usually parents die before their kids and hopefully none of us would die for a very long time.

 

Luckily when they asked everyone what their favorite talk was in Primary the next week, Sandy said “About the boys on the bikes!” Elder Nelson’s talk about the missionaries was a good one and I’m glad she really was listening to some of it at least.

 

I carefully prepared several quiet activities to use during conference. Abby found my change bucket, though, and playing with the coins entertained her through most of the first session. Whatever works, I guess.

Pumpkin Walk & Fishing

We drove up to Logan for a Pumpkin Walk.

On the way into the pumpkin path there were several of these photo boards. The girls liked getting their pictures taken as Disney princesses.

 

Then we walked through the exhibits. The path was lined with hay bales and jack-o-lanterns.

 

There were many scenes made out of pumpkins. Here is the Bachelor. The heads are made of pumpkins, even the rose was made of a small gourd painted red.

 

There were several scenes from The Hunger Games:

 

It wasn’t just pumpkins, I was amazed at this dinosaur made of gourds:

 

Pumpkin spiders:

 

Even a pumpkin snowman (the pumpkins are painted white and stacked to make his body).

 

On the way out, there were more photo boards:

 

Another fun, free fall activity that I would do again next year. I found out about this (and the Scarecrow Festival last weekend) from Enjoy Utah!

Bill wanted to take the girls fishing, so after the pumpkin walk, we went up Logan Canyon to find a little stream we could fish.

The girls were excited about fishing for about 5 minutes.

 

Until they decided it was more fun to throw rocks in the water.

 

We didn’t catch anything.

Scarecrow Festival

We went to the Scarecrow Festival at The Homestead Resort in Midway. It was fun, I’d do it again next year.

 

Free admission, free wagon rides. There was food and pumpkins to purchase if you wanted. The fall leaves were spectacular.

 

There was also a scarecrow contest. We voted for our favorites. The girls loved this little purple girl:

 

I thought this was pretty impressive:

 

The Wicked Scarecrows – Elphaba and Glinda

 

 

 

Spotlighted

Sandy was spotlighted in her preschool class today so we made a poster.


Well, actually, we made two posters. Her preschool teacher gave us a poster to fill out/color, but Sandy really wanted to put photos on it, so we made a photo poster. Then, she colored the other one.

Here is her drawing of our family:

I read an article recently about a pediatrician who asks his patients to draw a family picture because he learns a lot about the family dynamics. Not sure what he would learn about our family, but probably something…

Here is her self-portrait:


In the car on the way home from preschool, Sandy said:
“Ms. Celeste loves all her children. We show her we love her by obeying her. And she shows us she loves us by letting us be the spotlight kid and the line leader.”

Peter

After researching options, I decided that I wanted to be induced and give birth. I talked to my doctor. She wasn’t sure if that was an option, but she was supportive and called the hospital to see. They said absolutely.

Tuesday morning, we dropped the girls off with their grandma and headed to St. Mark’s hospital. The staff kindly indulged my request to do one more ultrasound just to make sure. Then they gave me Cytotec to induce labor. (which, for future reference, I think is way better than Pitosin which is what was used to induce my labor with Sandy).

After a 16-hour labor (compared to 8 hours with Sandy and 3 hours with Abby), we had a baby boy and we named him Peter. We got to hold him, he fit in the palm of my hand, but he was my baby – hands and feet and even eyes, nose, and mouth. He looked perfect – the doctor agreed, there was nothing that gave us any indication as to what went wrong. (So I guess we’ll never know, in this life at least. We were told that testing is expensive, not covered by insurance, and not recommended until the third miscarriage.)

The doctor and nurses that worked with us were kind, compassionate, and supportive. The nurse took pictures – and printed them so we could take them home. We had a chaplain come in and speak with us, a couple of times, actually.

I feel so blessed that I was able to go through labor with the support of the wonderful staff. The pain of labor was amazingly cathartic, being able to see and hold my baby brought me so much peace.

Our families and friends have been so supportive. We have truly felt the prayers that were said in our behalf.

After some discussion, we decided to bury Peter. So this afternoon, Sandy and Abby went with Bill and I to a cute little cemetery, the Elysian Gardens. We sang a primary song and Bill dedicated the grave as Abby and Sandy danced around with balloons and asked questions about their baby brother. 

This week has been emotionally intense - there has definitely been grief and pain and loss but there has also been so much spirituality, kindness and beauty.

No Heartbeat

I went to my 14-week OB checkup Wednesday and the doctor couldn’t find a heartbeat. “”This isn’t anything to worry about, sometimes it’s just hard to find,” she said.

Today we had an ultrasound. When the picture of a tiny, but fully formed infant came on the screen, I noticed immediately the absence of a heartbeat. Maybe I’m just getting better at knowing what to look for in ultrasounds, but both ultrasounds with this pregnancy have been so amazingly clear. The ultrasound technician did a vaginal ultrasound to be sure, and we could see the tiny cavity where the heart should have been beating. The last thing she did was check the sound waves. They were flat.

The baby measures at 12.5 weeks, which is when we assume whatever caused the heart to stop beating happened.

I haven’t had any cramping or bleeding. The only sign is that my nausea has subsided, but I assumed that was because I was in my second trimester.

Monday afternoon we will meet with my doctor (she was out of town today) to discuss options, such as a DNC.

We told the girls. Sandy was concerned she or Abby had done something to cause it, she was convinced it was because they sometimes like to lay on my stomach. We assured her there was nothing they could have done that would cause this. Her next explanation was, “that baby’s spirit just wanted to go back to live with Jesus, huh, mom?” Yes, Sandy, our baby is in heaven with Jesus. Abby’s comments as we told them were “so sad.” and “You cry, mommy?” Yes, Abby, mommy cried.

I really appreciate the thoughtful, kind messages we’ve received today. I haven’t been answering my phone much or responding to all the messages we’ve received, but if you sent us some kind words, please know that we really appreciated your message.

Crazy Hair Day

Sandy wanted her hair a different color for crazy hair day at preschool. Her initial request was 6 different pony tails, each a different color. This was the compromise:

Pigtails. One red. One black. Using hair spray coloring that I had leftover from last Halloween and conveniently happened to be her school colors.