Ever Tried Sucking on a Basketball?

Emmitt has!

Definitions of engorged on the Web:

congested: overfull as with blood wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

Of or pertaining to something that is overly filled with fluid, especially a blood vessel

en.wiktionary.org/wiki/engorged

NOTE: OVERLY FILLED

Breast engorgement occurs in the mammary glands when too much breast milk is contained within them. It is caused by insufficient breastfeeding and/or blocked milk ducts. When engorged the breasts may swell, throb, and cause mild to extreme pain.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engorgement

NOTE: MAY CAUSE EXTREME PAIN

engorgement - An area of the body that is filled and stretched with fluid or distended with blood, www.beautynationpl.com/en/medical_terms.asp

NOTE: STRETCHED OR DISTENDED

engorgement - condition in which breasts become overly full of milk. Engorged breasts may feel swollen, hard, and painful. Engorgement can lead to blocked milk ducts. www.storknet.com/cubbies/pregnancy/glossary.htm

NOTE ONCE AGAIN: PAINFUL

distended or swollen with fluids.haabet.dk/SpencerSystem1952/Glossary.html

engorgement - The distention, or swelling of the breasts, usually in the early days after initiation of natural or induced lactation, caused by vascular ...stargatelibraries.com/Glossary.html

engorgement - On about day three postpartum, sometimes the breasts become hard and swollen (engorged) as the milk comes in.www.womenscareofwi.com/wcofwi/services/glossary+of+terms.asp

NOTE: SOMETIMES???

It is a good thing Emmitt takes after his daddy - he likes basketball, he is a great eater, and he is pretty persistent when it comes to something he wants!

Straight from Heaven

Well, he is here. It still seems a little weird to say "HE" to me, but I will get used to it.

Emmitt was born on Tuesday and we are so happy he is here.

Here is the growing crew at the hospital about 1/2 hour after he was born. Kelsey is super happy about a baby brother but NOT about the name. Kendal was just happy to see mom and really didn't get a chance to see brother because she is sick and grandma took her away for a few days. Matt and I are both happy he is here and super healthy and that I am no longer pregnant. Matt said I was getting a little testy, that is putting it mildly.

The rest of these pictures are from today. It is amazing how fatherhood can just wipe you out? No, I can not complain, Matt has been very helpful and understanding today.



My cousin LeEllen made this delicious blanket for him. He is so snuggly and cute! Thanks LeEllen!

Emmitt has been my smallest baby at 8 pounds and 1 ounce. He seems so tiny compared to my other babies! What a sweet little bundle straight from heaven!

Kendal was so WILD in church yesterday. She has been on one today too. Is it spring fever and she is feeling her oats or something else? Goodness, she is so WILD! Yesterday during Sacrament Meeting she was all over the place. In the past I have been able to handle her pretty well and keep her entertained, but she was everywhere! Then, she started singing. Not the nice hymns when she was supposed to, but while the Sacrament was being passed and you are supposed to be so quiet! Matt and the girls watched Madagascar 2 again on Saturday night so she started belting out "I YIKE EM TUNKY!" over and over again, which translated is "I like em chunky," the song from that movie we love so much at my house lately. Kelsey and I were giggling so hard trying to keep her quiet so that just egged her on. Matt had no idea what she was saying so hopefully nobody else caught it either. Kelsey thought it was hilarious and would whisper "I like em big" then Kendal would finish it off with "I like em chunky." It was a bad thing.

Today the girls didn't have school because of the end of the term or something. Plus it did try to snow for awhile this morning so my girls have been cooped up today. Kendal has been spanked more today than in the entire past 2 weeks. Is she really that bad or am I just super fat and impatient? You be the judge.

Friday, here I come! I have been telling people that I am not quite ready for this little baby to exit my body yet because it is perfectly taken care of right now. It naps, it eats, it doesn't cry, it doesn't poop, it is totally taken care of. BUT, I think I am ready now. I have been having some good head butts down under and kicks up high that tell me hopefully this little one is getting ready too.

By the way, I don't need any comments like the ones I get from my "old guy" friends at church. Dick offered to take me for a ride up Lake Creek the other day, Jay told me a few weeks ago that I was "looking like I was done", I won't mention the names of the fellers that tell me how LARGE I am because there have been a quite a few. It is all okay, they are sweet old men and I am glad they are my friends. I hope they mean it in the nicest way possible! I did get a wish from one "old guy"on Sunday on my way out to the car. He said "good luck this week Rachel." I thought that was super sweet. Anyway, no harsh comments on my appearance PLEASE!

OGRE

The past few days have been so nice and so we have spent most of the afternoons outside cleaning out flowers beds, picking up garbage that somehow finds my yard, and just sitting on the deck in the sun. Yesterday Kendal and I were walking from the front porch to the back deck and she said to me "I wanna pet a ogre." I asked her to repeat it a few times so I knew what she said. She does have a thing for the movie Shrek and calls him an Ogre every now and then so it wasn't that new to me, but the petting part had me puzzled. I said to Kendal "I don't know how we are going to find an ogre for you to pet. How about just a monster?" (She loves Sully from Monsters INC movie)

We went to the back deck and the conversation was forgotten until today. We were once again on the back deck and our 2 cats were basking in the sun with us. One cat's name is Serafina and one is named Shrek. She walked over to Shrek the cat and said "Hello Shrek, hello Ogre" in a sweet little high pitched voice. It was so cute. It finally sunk into my thick head what she meant the day before about petting an ogre. She is a funny little girl. I told Kelsey the story and she just about rolled over laughing. She thought it was so funny too.

Nice Weekend

Matt goes down to Salina about once a week, either on Saturday or his Tuesday off of normal work. I have not been down there in a LONG time so we all went down for the past weekend. It was a good time. I was so glad it was good weather because all I wanted to do was go up to the ranch and watch my girls run wild.

We did just that.

Saturday evening consisted of a perfect very laid back hot dog roast at the ranch. It was wonderful. I got in my ranch fix and the kids got in their cousin/4-wheeler/hotdog fix.




This is Kendal and Aiden getting the best of their hot dogs.

This is Kelsey and Judd. They always seem to get along really well. I think Kelsey wishes she had an older brother!

This is Kendal, Alissa, and Adrianna on 'their' bench.

Fashion is unimportant to Kendal. Thank goodness it is unimportant for a hot dog roast!

I kept trying to put the chips away so the kids would actually eat their hot dogs. Alissa kept giving me her little smile so I had to give up the Doritos. She loved them - with company or solo!

It was a super evening and it was a great way to spend it. I love being outside, apparently I love hot dogs because I ate 2 of them, I love that spring is just around the corner (maybe it is really here!), and I love watching my little girls get dirty and have a good time.

I am including this picture for my mom. She hasn't seen my tummy in awhile. 11 days until my due date - getting a little nervous and excited!

This is the load of kid cousins at the ranch on Saturday. Sunday's bunch was even larger with Paige, Lainee, and Lilly, but I was too lazy to take any Sunday pictures.

Thanks Cranes for a nice nice weekend!

Hubcap Heaven

"Don't have a laptop? Well, everyone else does and you can get one too, even if you have bad credit or no credit at all! Just call The Orange (or blue or yellow or whatever) Hippo and we will get you a new laptop, and maybe even a free MP3 player or digital camera! Yes, you can have a new laptop with bad credit. Bad or no credit is not your fault! Let us help you"

That is what I heard on the radio yesterday. Well, something like that anyway. Kendal had an appointment with her neurologist at Primary Children's Hospital yesterday and once I leave my beloved valley I no longer get my MOST beloved KTMP radio station. Once I hit Park City or Provo, I have to listen to other radio stations. I usually just turn it off, but I was trying not to listen to Kendal's Leapster game. I feel for all of you that have to listen to that crap everyday. Honestly, I feel badly for you. I think at least every other advertisement or commercial I heard yesterday had the words "bad credit", "mortgage rate", or "how to get it FREE" in them.

Now, since I don't have normal TV, cable, or satellite, I listen to MY local radio station, and I don't really enjoy or visit CNN.com or even KSL.com daily, Matt says I don't truly live in this world. Well, HERE I AM! I do live in this wonderful world! I just choose not to fill my little world with all the BIG world garbage! I know, I am naive in the current events of the day. I really am. I should be better that way, but still, I don't need pushy, LOUD, obnoxious radio or TV salesmen telling me how to live and what I NEED. How do you people deal with it everyday? The sarcasm, the noise, the "your a victim" spills, the harshness, the UNIMPORTANT clutter that it all gives you? Yuck, I felt dirty and defiled just listening to it for a couple of hours!

Well, on to better things. The neurologist - He is really happy with the amazing progress Kendal is making. He was very pleased with her physical abilities and also the way she responded to him. I was really hoping he would say "Let's start tapering Kendal off of that medicine she hates to take every night and morning" but he didn't. We get to have another EEG in July (that will be the 2 years seizure free mark) and if it reads normal THEN we get to TALK about tapering her off the meds. Not such bad news really, but like I said, I was hopeful for NOW!




After our appointment at Primary Children's we headed to the amazing HUBCAP HEAVEN on 33rd South. I have wanted to go there since November 2006, when Matt first lost the central part of one of our hubcaps. It took me 2 1/2 years to replace a hubcap! How pitiful is that?!?!? Then last week Matt took the car to Ogden to have someone work on it (it no longer spontaneously makes the irritating signal noise!) and another FULL hubcap was lost. There must be hundreds of hubcaps on that road between here and Ogden because it has a record with us. So all of last week and this week I (but mostly Matt) has been driving my car without 2 hubcaps! I felt so self conscious about it. It was like I was naked or revealing some PRIVATE part of my car that should not be revealed!

I called a few good ol boys down home that have salvage yards and nobody has Malibu hubcaps. Nobody, not even HUBCAP HEAVEN did! So, the Heaven boys set me up with 4 new hubcaps. They were all into the SHINY chrome and all prettying me up and I told them I needed the most basic, plain hubcaps because I was not that kind of girl. They laughed and put these ones on for me. Matt says they are still too "loud" and he also made another racial comment that I will not put on our blog. But you know what? I have 4 hubcaps! Hooray!! Derek our neighbor told me that the only way he knows it is my white Malibu is the missing center hubcap. So just in case anyone else recognized me that way, I included the picture for you!

Strawberries

Last week when the weather was nice I cleaned out my strawberry bed. I have a TON of strawberry plants coming up! If anyone wants some strawberry starts, let me know. When this last storm we just had finally melts and it dries out a bit I will dig you some strawberries.

Cake in a cup

My sweet neighbors brought me a delicious surprise today - chocolate cake in a cup!
It was the perfect serving size, even though I shared with my two little cake eaters. Here is the recipe, just because it is nice to know you can have chocolate cake in a few minutes. Is there anyone else out there like me? Sometimes I need a little treat and I don't want to wait!

5 minute chocolate cake

4 tbsp flour

4 tbsp sugar

2 tbsp cocoa

1 egg

3 tbsp milk

3 tbsp oil

small splash of vanilla

In a large coffee mug, mix all dry ingredients. Then mix in egg, oil, milk, and vanilla. Microwave on high for 3 minutes. Cake will rise over the edge of mug, let it cool and eat!

I just happened to have an open tub of icing in the fridge that we smeared on ours and it was wonderful! My neighbor Debbie suggested dusting it with powdered sugar. Try it out and see what you like. I am thinking a Snickers melted in the middle of it would be nice too!!!

Thanks Kami and Debbie!

Kristen in TF, if you read this you need to email me! cranes@thebluezone.net It was great to hear from you guys! Amelia, same goes for you. You can't just comment and then I have no way to chat with you!

Countdown

This paper is hanging inside the medicine cabinet in the girls' bathroom. Every morning when Kelsey brushes her teeth, she marks a day off. It is her countdown calendar for when the baby comes. She started it a few months ago and I can not believe how diligent she is - she is right on. Today she asked me "Mom, what is 70 minus 50? Something with a 2 right?" I said "Right, it is 20." She then told me "20 more days until we get to see our baby!"

It's here again!

It's here again - my favorite night of the month - quilt guild meeting.
The Design Challenge starts this month and the theme this year is Baskets of Friendship. We are supposed to take a 9 inch basket block that we have made to guild meeting tonight along with 2 notions in a cute little basket to trade. We will come home with another basket block that someone else has made and directions of what to do next. How suspenseful it has been! Here is my basket block. Blue and brown, I must be thinking 'boy boy boy.'





I also finished my block of the month quilt top that we have been working on as an Enrichment activity the other night. I had a post earlier about what color of sashing fabric to purchase. I tried hard to find a green that worked for me, but it ended up dark brown. I do like how it turned out though. Thanks everyone for your helpful comments of what to buy.

Here it is on our bed. That is where it will eventually live. Matt likes it and is excited for me, but I haven't told him that it won't actually go on our bed until after the fair. Hopefully I can talk all the Enrichment ladies into putting theirs into the fair too and we will have a great show!

Well, off to figure out what to have ready for Matt and girls to eat tonight while I am far away in a beatiful place called quilting.