March has come and gone.

I woke up this morning and realized, this is the last day of March. Where has this month gone? This has been a pretty good month for us, minus the snow storm and rain.

Josh, a friend of ours, and his daughter Lakyn came down for a couple of days. While Jeremy and Josh moved and sorted cattle, and cut wood, the kids and I got to play together and make cookies. Bethany and Lakyn had such a fun time together. I think the only thing that could of made it better is if they would have been here longer!

Lakyn and Boots watching a movie.

Sittin' in our new stroller.

Cody's been workin' on teeth this month. He now has 2 bottom ones in.

You can't really see them, but I love this picture.

Jeremy brought the tractor home and disced up a spot for our garden. At this point, that is as far as we've gotten. It snowed and rained and has been too wet to finish tilling it. We are hoping that all the wind we are having will dry it out so we can get stuff planted in the next couple of days.

We finally, after years of wanting some, got ....... CHICKENS!!!!! I was, and am, so excited. Bethany loves them, and I think Jeremy even likes them more than he thought he would.

All the junk we had to move in the chicken house so we could make a pen.

Building a wall.

She's stuck!

Some of us were excited to see our new chickens!

Others..... not so much.

Even Julius wanted to see what was going on.

Our 3 hens and rooster checkin' our their new home.

A couple of days ago we got 2 more hens from our neighbors.

Bethany got the first egg.

Last week we had to take Baby Huffington back down the road to the Little house on the Prairie, which is her real home. They were having an easter egg hunt and wanted to show her off.

Boots just stood there the whole time while all the other kids got the eggs. I guess she thought hunting eggs was no fun.

Bethany, Cody and I just got home from Oklahoma. Karen has been a friend of mine since grade school and is having her 2nd baby. We decided to go down and spend a couple of days with them and go to her baby shower.

Karen, Thaddaeus and Cody.

A quick review of, Oct.,Nov.,Dec.,Jan.,Feb.

October~
We made a trip home to move some cattle out of a pasture, and lucky for us Jeremys sister Deseri and her little guy Niko were home for a visit too.

Such Drama

I personally don't recommend having babies in vehicles. It's not very comfortable and the next day I could hardly move. We think I must of pulled or stained some muscles in my back. I could hardly lift anything, including my child. It hurt to sit, stand, walk, lay down and laugh. I didn't know this before, but some chiropractors and massage therapists don't like to work on you that soon after delivery, because things can get messed up. Good for them, but not good for me! I made it until Monday and finally found someone that had practice with people after delivery and, lucky for me, she could get me in the next morning. She worked me over pretty good, and I felt a little better, but still hurt for days after.
The next few days were a blur of family and friends coming to see Cody and trying to finish packing and cleaning.
On Thursday, the 1st of October, we finally had everything out of the house. The next day Jeremy took off for Independence and the kids and I stayed with his parents so we could get a few things wrapped up and finish cleaning the house.
Saturday after Terry (Jeremys mom) got off work, we took off to start the next chapter of our lives.
I don't really know what I would of done if Terry wouldn't of came down to Independence to help out for a few days. That night I ended up with a fever of 103* and was pretty much useless for the next couple of days. But there Terry was, taking care of me, my kids, cooking, cleaning, and unpacking. I can't tell you how thankful if was for her!!! She did this all without a complaint, and with a smile still on her face. I cried that Wednesday when she left, and it is making me cry right now thinking about it.
At some point in all the madness, Jeremy ended up hurting his back, which took several trips to the chiropractor to get everything back to normal.
You must be reading this thinking that we are such a mess! We really aren't. I think more had happend to us in those 30 days than has happened to us in our whole 6 years of marriage.

This is Josh Allenbach, our friend and neighbor. This move would of been sooo much harder if he wouldn't of been there to help us out!

Aunt Wynette and Cousin Megan holding Cody.

Grandpa Tom with Cody.

The Boy

Thankfully I was starting to feel a little bit better. My arms still hurt and I was pretty sleep deprived, but there was no time for sitting around doing nothing. There was still packing and cleaning to do, hopefully before the baby got here. The week was a little stressful. Jeremy needed to be in Independece by the 2nd of October to start his job. We couldn't move until then because the guy who was leaving was still living in our new house and wouldn't be leaving until then. Luckly, he was living by himself and said we could bring some of our stuff down and put it in an extra bedroom and in the garage. We thought it'd be a good idea to try to get some stuff down there before the baby came, but didn't feel like it would be a good idea if we both went, just in case I want into labor. Thankfully a good friend of our was willing to go with Jeremy and help him unload stuff, so I stayed home and kept going through and packing stuff. At this point things were so up in the air. The only thing we knew for sure was when Jeremy needed to be in Independence. So, as for finishing the move....do we just let Jeremy go on and me and the kid(s) stay for a few weeks? Do we go ahead and move everything to Independence and stay with Jeremy's parents for a little while? No one know exactly what to do. Emotions and stress were starting to run high by the middle of the week. It seemed like all I heard were things like, "I can't believe that baby isn't here yet", "if that baby would hurry up and get here things would be so much easier" I know exactly what people meant. If it would come then we could figure out a plan. On Wednesday I called one of my best friends in tears. (I was a little jealous, she had just had her baby a couple of weeks prior and I wanted mine here, too!) I just needed someone to talk to and I know she'd understand. She and I decided that since my due date was the 25th and it was the afternoon of the 23rd I should try some herbs. What would it hurt? If you are ready to go into labor they would get it started, and if you weren't ready they would do nothing. So, after I calmed down and got off the phone with her I took 2. A little later I talked to Jeremy and we decided that it didn't matter what everyone said, and I souldn't take anymore herbs just yet. So we just keep on packing and loading stuff for Jeremy to take to our new place. That night we went to bed pretty late with plans to start again in the morning.
At 2:15 in the morning I was woken up by a big contraction. I wasn't sure if it was a real one or if it was just a false on from doing too much, so I laid there to see if I'd have another one or not. Sure enough, I did about 8 to 10 minutes later. My midwife had told me at a previous appointment that if you think contractions are starting to drink about 24 ounces of water in under 30 minutes. So I got up and chugged some water, then decided to go and take a quick shower while I was waiting to see if anything happened. I was in the middle of my shower and another one hit so hard I could hardly stand. I got out of the shower and called the Birthing Center, and the midwife answered, she was just releasing a new mom and told me the she would stay there till we got there. As I hung up with her I went and got Jeremy and Bethany up. He called his mom because she was going to come with us and stay in the waiting room in case Boots got scared and didn't want to be in the room. We left the house and picked up his mom on the way to Yoder about 3:30am. By the time we got to Inman my contractions were coming pretty hard and regular. Sitting in the front seat of a vehicle and having back labor is not a good combination! Between Medora and Hutchinson, my contractions were coming even closer and I could just tell I wasn't going to be very long before I was going to start pushing. By the time we hit Hutch, we decided to call the midwife and see if we should keep coming or go to the Hutchinson Hospital. We all decided that even if I did need to start pushing, that usually took a little while and that we should keep going, since it was only 10 more minutes to Yoder. As we got to Hwy 50, Jeremy decided we should run the stoplight. My body had taken over and it was ready to get that baby out whether I liked it or not! We got to Yoder in record time and, as we turned onto the road to the Birthing Center I felt something coming out. I figured it was just my water sac because it hadn't broken yet. A few blocks later there was a big bulge in my pant leg and there it was.... our baby, born 2 blocks from the Center at 4:23am! Jeremy was still driving like a safe, crazy man. The Center is kind of hard to find in the dark, and he hadn't been there very much. He found the driveway and, in my opinion, took the corner a little too fast. I guess I was more worried about their flowers than anything else, because I kept saying "don't drive over the flowers!" When we got stopped Jeremy jumped out and opened my door and got my pants off and the baby out. By then, the midwife was there to check out the baby and, since it was pretty chilly, sent Jeremy in to get some warm towels out of the dryer to wrap it up in. Everything checked out good enough that when Jeremy got back he cut the cord. They wrapped the baby up and handed it to Grandma Terry in the back seat. My midwife wrapped me in some towels also and she and Jeremy helped me into the Clinic and to my room to get cleaned up. What a mess! Halfway into cleaning me up she saw that I still had my underwear on and was so suprised that the baby came out with them still on. I know some of you are thinking they must of been granny panties, but no they weren't, I promise!
While all this was going on Terry was hanging out in the lobby with the baby and Boots. She was so excited that her baby was finally here, but wasn't too sure about what all had just taken place.





I think the next part was the most painful of all. The midwife tried to get the placenta out while I pushed and she tugged on the cord, like normal, but the cord broke and there was no other way to get it out than for her to manually do it. I would rather never have to do that again! Sometime in the middle of all the drama she called the other midwife to come in and take care of the baby. After it was all over, the baby was still pretty cold, so they brought him in and had Jeremy take his shirt off, and had Jeremy lay by me with the baby on top of him. Then they covered us all up with warm towels out of the dryer. I felt pretty bad for Jeremy because he does not like to be hot and gets that way pretty fast, but he was a good sport and didn't complain. I on the other hand was still freezing and my body was still in shock, I was shaking so bad it looked like I was having convulsions. It was pretty homely and a bit funny!





A little while later the baby and I took a bath, and got cleaned up. At about 10:00am we were sent home.

The Labor Day Oops '09

I've decided to go back to the beginning of September, not really because I want to relive/remember it, but because I think it might give you a better picture of what a crazy month that was in our lives.
The first week was great. I was 37 weeks along and everything was going great, other than I was getting HUGE and my legs and ankles were swelling. This was very strange to me. With Boots I didn't get very big at all and had no problems. It was just a waiting game.......was the baby coming early or late? No one knew, but at this point and time they were estimating that it was over 8 pounds. I personally was hoping it'd be early!! We also found out that Jeremy had got the job of his dreams down in Independence, KS. We couldn't have been more excited about the job...... the timing, not so great. They wanted him to start October 1st. No big deal really, that is the longest amount of time we have ever had to pack and move, but, the question was, when was this baby coming?
The weekend of Labor Day, started out like any other weekend. We wanted to go camping with some friends of ours, but for some reason we all decided not to go. I don't know what we did on Saturday. Sunday we went to church, then had supper with our neighbors. Sometime as the weekend progressed it was decided that we should just camp out back behind our house. Great idea, right!?! We didn't have to spend any money, it was close to our houses, we didn't have to get all packed up to go anywhere. So Sunday after a fun supper we walked across the road and started a fire and the evening began. Monday morning we all got up, went in the house and ate breakfast and all went on our merry way. We spent the day together not doing a whole lot of anything, probably started packing a bit. I can't remember if it was later that day or the next day, we noticed Jeremy had a bit of poison ivy, not really a big deal, he gets it all the time. Then I started getting it. That was a little bit stange, since I had only had it once before and that was almost a year earlier to the day. (we weren't even sure that is what it was at that time). Anyway, a few days went by and it was getting worse and worse.

Soon I had huge blisters up both arms, and I could hardly bend them. Everything I did hurt! It itched, and oozed. We called the clinic, they told me there was nothing they could do because I was pregnant. Then we talked to a paramedic who is a friend of ours and he agreed. He also said that it was the worst case of poison ivy he'd ever seen! So, I was left with trying oatmeal baths and various herbs, which I think would of worked great in milder cases, but didn't do much in this case. I did give in a few times and took some benadryl, but that didn't do much either. It was hard to eat, and it was hard to sleep. I was just drained. By this time I was just praying that the baby wouldn't come early like I'd hoped.

Jeremy was great. He helped me so much! He took Bethany with him as much as he could. He was still driving truck some and working another job and trying to get stuff ready for our up coming move. I didn't go anywhere except my 39 week appointment at the midwife clinic and supper at Jeremys parents. By the 16th it started to heal up a little bit. But here comes the kicker.....then it showed up on my face and ears!! My eyes were pretty much swollen shut, I constantly had blisters breaking and icks running down my face. Talk about nasty!! I won't put up a picture of that, it's too gross!




By the time Cody was born on the 24th, my arms were healing and I could open my eyes all the way. My face and ears still felt a little sand paperish, but, for the most part, the ordeal was finally over.

What am I doing!?

What has happened to me? Why am I doing this? I don't have time to do the things that I already have to do, let alone adding a blog to my list. Who on earth is going to be interested in what we are doing and what I have to say? These are all things I have asked myself in the past 24 hours.......but, I've decided to at least try.
Since we moved last September I've felt like it's been harder to keep everyone up to date on what's going on with us. Yesterday a friend of mine sent me the link to her blog and let's just say, I was inspired. It was fun to look back on the things her and her family have done in the past and see what they are up to now. We just don't have enoungh time to talk about everything on the phone, and we don't get to see each other very much.
So, in the next few days I am going to try and go back to September and tell everyone the long overdue story of Cody's birth, and then get everyone caught up to this point, and go from there. It is my hope to post at least a few times a month.