The Joys of Potty Training

So we've been potty-training Gabi for forever, but this last stint we've really gone all out, and she's doing awesome. It has been super nice because she can pretty much do everything herself. I just tell her it's time for her to go potty and she goes, does her thing, flushes, and washes her hands. She LOVES being so independent. It's great that I don't have to walk her through all the steps, especially with a little babe and a toddler, that is until today. Today she decided that a whole roll of toilet paper would do just fine to wipe her tiny tushie. Oh boy was that toilet clogged! She felt super bad and kept flushing hoping it would go down, almost flooding the toilet. Oops! When I went into the bathroom, not knowing what had happened, she was busy washing her hands and said, "Mama, I put in the paper wipes and it's stuck. I dunno what happened." I was so confused and kept asking her what she was talking about. Exasperated she finally said, pointing to the toilet, "Just look mom!" So I did and wow. Yeah, she has never done this before so I didn't know what to do. Who knows what my face looked like, shocked, angry, surprised, bewildered, a combination of all of them- she looked like she was about to cry when she said, "Oh mama, I so sorry! I so sorry mama!" She felt super bad, poor thing! Hopefully she won't be doing that again any time soon!

Brynlee, The Last 2 Months!

We have loved having Brynlee in our lives! She is such a sweet baby and is so happy. It's still hard to get her to go to sleep at night, but she has such a happy disposition. She is growing so fast, I can barely keep up with everything! She loves her sisters, she always smiles for them, she loves to smile and coo, she loves being held and rocked, and she loves being free from the dreaded diaper! :) She also loves her baths and playing with her little caterpillar. We love her!

Brynlee the day she was born

Gabi and Brynlee- Proud Big Sister

Brynlee 1 week

Tummy Time!

Brynlee at 2 Weeks

Playing with her toys

Brynlee at 3 Weeks

Brynlee with her Valentine's Day Flower

Brynlee 4 Weeks

Blessing Day

Brynlee at 5 Weeks

Brynlee Laughing

6 Weeks old

 Tummy Time again!

7 Weeks

Wearing somthing mommy wore when she was a baby!

Brynlee 8 Weeks

 Brynlee at 9 Weeks (2 months)

A bad case of the sickies

We have all been sick lately, except Isaac. Lucky! This mama has been the most sick. I felt yucky Friday, but then it hit hard Friday night. I had the shakies and the achies and a borderline migraine. Brynlee was a little sick with a cough, but the other girls were mostly okay. Isaac was wonderful and let me sleep most of the day Saturday while he watched all the girls. Seriously he has helped out so much! Especially lately since I've been slightly incapacitated. Me, Brynlee and Madi all stayed home from church on Sunday because I was super weak and still really achy, Madi was starting to get sick, and well, Brynlee was better, but of course I would have to feed her. So Daddy and Gabi went to church.
 Gabi absolutely loves church! She gets so excited to go and sing songs and color. Isaac said all the way home from church she sang, "Choose the Right" at the top of her lungs. Gotta love it :) She also loves to tell us about everything that she did in class (including if anyone was nice or mean to her lol!) she's very thorough! Her favorite church songs as of late include, "I love to see the Temple," "Choose the Right," and "Popcorn popping." As she calls them. She has also mastered the first article of faith, so we're on to the second one, which is a little bit harder, but she's doing great.
Okay back to the sickies. So yesterday I hit a new low in being sick, it's super annoying not being able to take very much medicine when you're preggo or nursing. I felt so so sick. Once again, Isaac pulled through and was amazing. Not only did he let me take a nap when he got home, but he cooked dinner, gave the girls a bath, cleaned up after Gabi's puking incident- which all happened while I was sleeping. On top of that, he had to put up with a wife who was tired and grumpy and worse, really whiny. Then, he let me go to bed early while he stayed up with Brynlee- who doesn't typically go to bed until 1am, and he had to get up at 5:45am!! When he texted today at work he was in a super good mood! Superman? Seriously?! I am so blessed to be married to such a wonderful man!
So hopefully we all get better soon! We are so looking forward to spring and being able to be outside some more!

Brynlee's Debut Part II

Where was I...so we got to the hospital. Since it was early in the morning we had to go through the ER entrance. They didn't really believe I was in labor...shouldn't do that to a woman in labor! I assured them that I was and they called the Dr and sent a nurse down to get me. We headed on up and they weighed me and had me get settled in and then sent me walking while they were waiting for the Dr to come. The contractions started coming really hard then and we could barely walk around. After doing about 4 or 5 laps, they nurse said the Dr was ready to check me. I was at a 4, so he decided to keep me and see how fast I progressed. Isaac slept while I paced the room and bounced on a birthing ball. I was exhausted! I decided to try and go all natural with this babe. The nice thing about not having and epidural is I was able to get up and walk around, which seemed to hurt less when I had contractions. The birthing ball was a big help to. I actually dilated pretty quickly, faster than I have with either of the other two. So the decision to go all natural was not steadfast. If I got to a point where I didn't think I could do it, then I was open to and epidural. I dilated super fast and the next thing I knew was that they were calling the Dr because I was already to a 9. Since my babes come fast, they were worried that the doc wouldn't be there in time. They kept telling me, "If you have the urge to push DON'T!" Well, I didn't, so that wasn't a problem. The doctor got there around 9:30 and checked to see where I was at, still a 9. They had me start pushing. That hurt, a lot. I pushed and pushed for forever when after about an hour the Dr said' "Well, you're still at a 9. I thought pushing would flip this baby since she's POSTERIOR!!" So, seriously, for the last hour I wasn't pushing to deliver my little bundle of joy, I was pushing to FLIP HER! No fair! I was already exhausted. I hadn't slept in over 24hrs, and I had been giving every ounce of energy to FLIP HER! Even though that was super horrible, I had actually been coping with the pain pretty well on my own (a lot better than I thought I would!) so I decided to keep going, not like I could have had an epidural at that point anyway. They had me flip over on my hands and knees in hopes that would flip the baby. I had to stay in that position for 45min! By then the contractions were pretty intense. It was all I could do not to cry. I was so weak from lack of sleep and pushing that I could barely hold myself up. They went and got the Dr and let me flip back over. I was seriously so tired that I fell asleep between every contraction. The doc came back in and said it was time to start pushing. This time to hopefully have the baby! The contractions were incredibly painful at that point. I seriously was in tears. Because she was still posterior pushing was super painful. I pushed for a long time. I don't even know how long, but I'm sure it felt longer because of how painful it was. When she finally flipped she came out super fast- well except for the fact that the Dr wanted her to come out slow so I had to push, stop, push, stop...like 10 times. I think that was the worst part! (Sorry if that's TMI for some of you :) ) Having a babe all natural was seriously bar none the most painful thing EVER! That being said, I recovered so much faster than I did with the other two. I was up and walking within half and hour and actually walked to the recovery room. I felt a lot better after and wasn't in as much pain. Mostly I think that's due to the fact that I didn't tear at all this time. Thank goodness!
When Brynlee came out Isaac and I were both like, "Oh my goodness! She looks just like Madi!!" She really did look just like Madi did when she was born. It was kind of crazy. We joke about how we were probably supposed to have twins when Madi was born but Heavenly Father knew this mama couldn't handle it, so Brynlee had to come a little later.
I don't think I will ever forget the first time I got to hold Brynlee. Isaac brought her to me and she settled right down. I spoke and she looked right at me, and then Isaac spoke and she looked right at him. At that moment everything felt so complete. I gave her a little Eskimo kiss and she just looked at me. Ahh...my sweet little baby was finally here!
We love this little girl so much!!

(sorry, these are a little out of order)





Our little Sweet Pea :)

Brynlee's Debut

Finally...a post about the day Brynlee made her debut.
Okay, so for a little background info...Gabi and Madi are exactly 19 months and 1 week apart, Madi and Brynlee are exactly 19 months 1 week and 1 day apart. Not planned. At all. (the fact that they are almost the exact distance apart) What was completely planned was having little Brynlee. When Madi was four months old I felt very strongly that we were supposed to have another baby. You can imagine my reaction to this feeling. Nope. Madi was only four months old and only two months earlier we almost lost her. Nope. This mama couldn't deal with any more anything any time soon. But the feeling persisted for several months. We finally decided, when Madi was 10 months that we would go ahead and start trying since we knew another little babe was waiting to come. We didn't think much of it until...oh about a month later when we discovered I was preggo. So, there you go. Some think I'm super crazy, and sometimes I feel super crazy, but those little babes are so sweet and precious.
Alright, now for the much awaited story....
It all started- quite literally- the Friday before, the 20th of January. The 'ol doc stripped my membranes and told me I may or may not go into labor that weekend- I wasn't due until the 29th. The baby dropped alot that day and I was super uncomfortable, contractions were coming more often, but not at all regular. We decided to call my mom and see when she could come down from Boise to watch our other girls in case I went into labor. She was able to come down Saturday afternoon, and since I hadn't gone into labor yet Isaac and I decided to go walking. So we packed up the car "just in case" and headed to Twin Falls, where the hospital was located and also the mall. So we went walking in the mall (and shopping  :) ) for a very long time. By long time I mean probably a total of 3hrs. We stopped two times- once to eat and once to kick up our feet for a bit. Nothing. Bummer. So after getting our grocery shopping done, we headed home- about 20min away on the freeway. On the way home I started having contractions about 2min apart. Oops! They had told us to be careful with this being our third because the 3rd baby tends to come faster. Well, we got home unloaded the groceries and kept timing the contractions. For an hour the contractions were still 5min or less apart. So, we called the Dr and they said to come in. At about 2:22ish we entered the hospital...more to come tomorrow...


A picture of us on one of our breaks

Alive and Well

It was not my intention to neglect our blog, but alas, life has a way of speeding right by when you least expect it. I am still going to post about Brynlee's Debut and what we have been up to since her arrival loaded with pictures, of course, however today I'm just going to give a general update.
So three kids... whole new ballgame, entirely. I've had a lot of people tell me that adding the third couldn't be easier of an adjustment, while others have told me that the third is the hardest, and after that it gets easier.I have to admit, three kids has been incredibly hard for me. Adding the second was a breeze. Madi was so easy going and was sleeping 8hrs a night at 6 weeks old. Brynlee (at 7 weeks)sleeps 4, on a good night- and that is after 3hrs of holding her and rocking her and trying to get her not to cry. non. stop. I've discovered that with three kids you really need and extra arm...or two. Maybe it's because my kids are close in age, or that they are all girls, or that Brynlee is super colicky and has reflux really bad. Maybe a combination of a lot of things, but boy, I'm really learning the meaning of the word patience.
All that being said, we all love our sweet little Brynlee to pieces. Gabi seems to be her favorite. Her eyes light up and she smiles any time she hears Gabi's voice. Gabi is really good with her too, especially good at calming her down. I love how she says, "It's all right sweetie, mama will be right back. Don't you worry honey, you're okay." She's such a little mama and loves being a big sister. Madi loves her too, but is less patient with her crying. She's always willing to "help" especially with bath time. Brynlee loves to smile and laugh....my favorite! She's really starting to chat more, and chats a lot with Gabi. Brynlee loves to lay on her blanket on the floor and look around and "talk"- although she is very social and has to have someone by her all the time.
Life has been crazy busy lately, but we wouldn't change it for the world. We love our little girls and their different personalities. Thank you all for your love and support!

Brynlee at 2 weeks, 5 days