Monday, October 31, 2011

Random pics!

I love these girls!!!






Paige's dancing endeavor

Paige is such a dancer. She is constantly twirling, leaping and dancing. She has such a dancers body and I wonder if she'll have a talent for it. This year, we decided to stretch the budget and enroll her in a dance class with Energy Dance (just down the street from us). To start off her dancing debut, she took a little day camp dance class with her "best friend", Clara. The class was done by the Weber State dancers. They danced at a half time during a WSU football game. Paige was over the moon. She was so cute.












Now she's going to dance class every week. While I observe, I realize that she's kind of in her own little world and a little spacy. It's kind of funny to watch her but I know she loves it so we'll see where it goes. Here are some pics from the half time show as well as Paige's first day at dance. Ashley likes to immitate her.


Brett is 4 months!!


The time has flown by. Two months ago I was thinking about doing a blog update on him turning two months. That didn't happen. Now Brett is 4 months old and has grown so much. I just took him in for his checkup and he's 13lb 5oz and is 24? inches tall. Such a cutie.
Brett is such a happy little guy and talks (coos) all the time. He's now starting to grab at his toys when he's sitting in the bouncer and he'll reach for my phone when I'm holding it in front of him. He laughs at everything and is particularly taken with his sisters.
They both love Brett so much but Ashley has more of a fixation on him. She is always aware of where he's at. She'll sit by him, climb on him, kiss him, hug him, crawl on him and LOOOOOOOVE him!!! Wherever Brett is, Ashley is. Sometimes it drives me crazy and I'm constantly telling him to leave him alone. Other times, I'm telling her to go make him laugh and keep him entertained. Poor kid is probably confused. His daycare providers, Shanette and Shanel, think he is the happiest and easiest baby. They are constantly wishing all of their babies were like him. Pretty awesome compliment.
One thing I wish was that Brett would sleep completely through the night. The girls slept from 8 to 7 by two months. He will go to bed really good at 8 and then we'll "dream feed" him around 11. He'll then go back to sleep until 4-6. So early. We'll see if we can change those hours to stretch out a little bit!! He's trying really hard to sit up and roll over but those aren't happening yet. We will also start him on solids soon so an update to come. Just glad to have this little guy as part of our family.








Scott's twin



For October, Scott and his coworkers are growing out their beards. I don't like it. It's scratchy when I kiss him and it's starting to get a little grisly. Tomorrow's the big day when he cuts it. Yeah!!! The funny thing is that with his full beard, he looks just like Jesse Tyler Ferguson from Modern Family. They share a great sense of humor. Scott now has a Celebrity twin.

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Fun summer stuff

We've had a great summer filled with lots of fun events which of course I did not capture with my camera. Paige took swim lessons at the Ogden Athletic club but could not pass the basic level class because of her fear of putting her face in the water so Scott took her out to our pool to practice. She was much better but is still pretty hesitant with it.

Ashley on the other hand is quite the daredevil in the water. She jumps in with no fear and will dunk her head in the water all the time. It makes me laugh how much of a water bug she is. She got the hang of putting her body upright in the pool with her lifevest on and can do so much. I have to watch her like a hawk and she is no longer allowed to take off her lifevest during meal times if we are by the pool. She jumped in without it and luckily my brother-in-law was there to prevent a drowning. She was reprimanded pretty heavily for that one. (My personal fear of having a swimming pool!!) We've had a few family and neighborhood parties in the pool along with some playdates as well!

We had a family reunion with my mom's family. It was fun to see my two aunts and my two cousins and their families. We wish we could see them more frequently but we had a great time anyways.

We've been pretty busy with Brett but hopefully had a little bit of fun through this summer. Here are a bunch of random and fun pictures.


Paige's into wearing her boots with her shorts (with Ashley usually following suit)




Paige's personal photography


Tents and more tents

Paige has a recent obsession with making tents. When I say obsession, I'm not exaggerating. She wakes up in the morning and the first thing she does is gather the free blankets and pillows along with any other object that could be part of the construction. This obsession is okay because it promotes creativity and ingenuity. The problem with it is Ashley who is not allowed into her tents. Paige will sometimes build a much smaller tent for Ashley but it becomes a problem when Ashley wants to join her sister in her tent. The fighting and screaming at Ashley then begins so extremely you'd think she was losing a body part. A little too obsessed!! The tents change throughout the day and are made in different rooms ranging in Bretts (which we had to stop due to his napping) to their bedroom and the green room downstairs. I've become a little tired of folding the large amount of blankets she uses and have narrowed her choices of blankets down considerably. Here are a few of her tents.



Paige's first day of preschool


It is time again for Paige to go to preschool. This is a new preschool for her with Teacher Betty (our relief society president). I'm looking forward to this year because it's four days a week with an experienced teacher. Paige is so smart and is so creative with a huge amount of imagination. I think Teacher Betty will help bring her back to earth and provide a structured atmosphere by still making it fun. She also attends with her cousin, Ry and they have so much fun. Paige already loves it and comes home singing new songs everyday. The one thing she tells me about everyday is the purple princess dress she wears during dress up time. Oh my princess who is always in her dream world. She makes me laugh. (Her new obsession is Rapunzel with Ashley being the chameleon sidekick, Pascal. I am the mom (or wicked witch, however you look at it) and dad is the dashing Flynn Rider.) Here are some pics of her first day.
Paige with Teacher Betty


Paige and Ry


Everyone wanted to hold Teacher Betty's hand


They will be such good friends!

Friday, July 15, 2011

Brett is here!!



Brett Koamalu is here. He arrived on Friday, June 24th at 3:54pm. He weighed 9lbs 3.8oz and was 21 inches long. Big guy, huh!! Let me fill you in on labor. As with the rest of my pregnancy, the labor and delivery were completely different from the girls. Since nothing could get this baby here including a bouncy dune buggy ride from my neighbor, than the induction was scheduled. At my last apt. before the delivery, the doctor was concerned with how big I was. She hoped that it was more fluid than baby but during a quick ultrasound there was plenty of both.
Friday morning arrived and after dropping the girls off at the babysitter, we were at the hospital bu 8:15. They got the IV in (but I think it was infiltrated due to pain and swelling but who am I to argue with the nurse) and the pitocin dripping. Not much was happening and then at 11:30 they started my epidural. A nurse anesthetist started it and at first I didn't think it was working very well. My right leg was completely numb but my left could feel everything. She kept reasurring me that the main area we wanted numb was my female area. Dr. Lesser came at 12:30 and broke my water which I didn't even feel and then I started to dilate more even though the baby wasn't dropping very fast. During this time, they kept rolling me to get the baby to drop and things to pick up. Every time they rolled me, I was super nauseated. Unfortunately it was mainly dry heaving.
Finally things started getting going by 3:15. The nurse started having me push during contractions and then Dr. Lesser took her place and started working on getting the baby out. Scott was standing next to me and he said that Rosemary was working pretty hard on getting the head and the arm out. At that time, the nurses all rushed into the room. One nurse stood on the couch next to my bed and began pushing on my stomach trying to get the other shoulder under my pelvic bone. There was another nurse on the other side pushing on that side of my stomach. I could tell things were tense and then Scott leaned over and told me he had the cord wrapped around his neck. I then became a little worried and we focused on watching them work on him. He squeaked a little bit but there was no crying. Rosemary basically showed Scott his son (who was extremely blue), clipped the cord and then handed him over to the other nurses to work on getting him breathing. As he started to cry, tears were coming down my eyes. The atmosphere then relaxed and Rosemary thanked us for keeping our cool and not being overly emotional. She said the total time was 90 seconds to get him going and that it was a long 90 seconds for her. The nurses were even trying to figure out whether his APGAR score should have been 1 or 2 at birth. Scary but we were blessed with a knowlegdeable doctor and nurses who worked so well as a unit. He's here, healthy and huge!!!!
A big thank you to the Stone's for watching the girls overnight and to everyone who visited! We are extremely blessed to have so many people look out for us by providing us meals and stopping for a visit.