November News 2015 - posted by the Mrs.

Mr. Duncan James Rich lost his first tooth!

You can see that there were some tears shed during this event.

I don't think he would have let Bobby pull it out if it weren't for the $$$ he knew would be coming his way via the Tooth Fairy.

He was motivated.

We finished re-upholstering the chair!

It's not perfect but we are pretty happy with it.

Side by side comparison:

Baby girl's laundry.

It's weird to see so much girly stuff around here.

Hanging out with Charlie and soaking up the one-on-one time.

I got some cute movies of him singing some primary songs. One of his favorites right now is

I Belong to the Church of Jesus Christ...

Family Game Time

Super "Pretendo"

(that's what Duncan used to call it when he was 3)

(Now he calls it Super Intendo :)

You'll also notice from the picture that Duncan tends to move his body and the controller in the direction that he wants Mario to go in.  

Bobby says he gets that from me.

Grandpa came to town to hang out until this little baby girl of ours comes.

It's a good thing Grandpa was there already because at 1:40 am on November 19th I woke up with contractions 5 minutes apart. Bobby and I grabbed our stuff and headed to the hospital. 

Good thing there wasn't any traffic on the road as well. 

The nurse in triage said that when my water breaks things are going to get real pretty fast. I wasn't super excited to hear that and promptly asked her if we can get that epidural soon. They got us to our room and the nurse had all kinds of questions she wanted to ask me so that she could enter them into the computer...same thing happened with Charlie.

The Charge Nurse came in to put my IV line in and then she was gone. The kind nurse kept asking me those seemingly unimportant never ending questions when I began to get this urge to push. When I told the nurse that she started moving a bit frantically and told me a breathing exercise to to keep me from being able to push. Then she ran out the door leaving Bobby and I in the room...it was at this point, when I realized the nurse was panicking that I started to panic. 

I didn't want to hear the reality of the situation but Bobby stated the obvious when he said that he didn't think I was going to get that epidural.

More panic.

Things were really quite a blur of intense pain at this point when my water broke and suddenly there was a Dr. and that Charge Nurse again ready for action.

I distinctly remember saying to no one in particular that I couldn't do this and gripping the side rail of the bed like my life depended on it.

Bob said it was about 5 minutes later when our little Lucy Caroline entered the world.

90 minutes after I felt that first contraction at home in bed, she was in my arms.

After they placed her in my arms and things started to calm down I remember saying (again to no one in particular) 

"I can't believe I just did that".

Talk about a serious adrenaline rush.

Though there was 5-ish minutes of crazy pain, I felt pretty awesome after that.

I was walking just fine after we were all done there 

(we had to finish up those darn questions before we could leave).

and I was only needing a couple of ibuprofen every six hours for the pain

(they had me set to take 3 but I pretty much stuck with two while I was there).

I would not have voluntarily picked to go without an epidural but now that I know what both scenarios are like I think without is a better overall experience...I would just like to be better prepared mentally for such an event. :)

Lucy Caroline Rich

Born 3:07 am

November 19th, 2015

8 lbs. 2.8 oz.

21 inches long

The boys were stoked that they got to go to a hospital and meet their baby sister that they've been hearing about all these months.

Our first family picture all together.

This "pain scale" was positioned right in front of me in my room so I found myself looking at it often.

I came to the conclusion that giving birth naturally is not on this pain scale (at least from my experience).

There needs to be a 10+ on the right side with a face that has eyes pinched shut and mouth wide open screaming.

Tears were not even capable of flowing.

Maybe that's why this is located in the Recovery room and not in the Birthing room.

The view that Lucy and I enjoyed for a few days.

Also, I ate pancakes and/or french toast for most of the breakfast lunch and dinners there.

Why? 

Because I could.

:)

We wanted to have a movie night at the hospital as a family so Bobby bought this movie and some popcorn at Target on the way over to the hospital.

Our sleepy little jaundice baby.

Oh and this happened on Lucy's day of birth...

My dad dropped Duncan off at the bus stop and then headed to go fill the car up with gas along with Charlie. They had to stop behind a truck-waiting for him to turn off of the two lane road. A Jeep came up behind them and wasn't paying attention to the fact that they were stopped and hit the back of them pushing my Dad's car into the truck in front of them. They got sandwiched between two big vehicles.

Thankfully no one was hurt.

The truck and the Jeep came out with mere scratches on the paint job but my dad's car was totalled.

When the police man that showed up at the scene saw that Charlie was in the back seat of my dad's car he went back to his police cruiser and brought back a blue stuffed animal teddy bear for Charlie.

My dad ended up hitching a ride with the Cramer's as they were passing through Boise the next day on their way to Las Vegas which worked out nicely for him.

Again, SO grateful that Charlie and my Dad were watched over.

Bobby took my Dad and the boys to the Airplane Museum while Lucy and I were still at the hospital.

I guess it was a smaller scale museum but they enjoyed it all the same.

Lucy and I came home to this cute banner that Bobby and the boys made...

Duncan's own banner/poster that he made for our homecoming.

Trying to help Lucy's jaundice by putting her in the morning sunshine.

Not sure if it was the heater that we had blowing on us by the dinner table or if Charlie was just super tuckered out but he fell right asleep during dinner.

The boys sharing thoughts on a book about sea animals.

Lucy all bundled up and napping in the bouncy chair.

Merry early Christmas to us!

Joanne got this on a good deal from Costco and we've been enjoying it ever since.

The boys figured out really quick how to get it to play songs and love to play their favorites over and over again. :)

Using the keyboard box as a bobsled on the stairs.

Good times.

Duncan and Charlie keeping themselves entertained while I keep up with Lucy.

Yay for the first snow of the season.

This kept these boys having fun and getting fresh air for awhile.

"Hi mom!"

Thanksgiving Day

Bobby played out in the snow with Duncan and Charlie for awhile - throwing snowballs and shoveling the walkway. I loved watching the fun they were having from the family room window - like it was a home movie.

Then they came inside, had some hot apple cider and turned the keyboard bobsled into a convertible bus.

Duncan had big plans for this transformation that involved taking apart the cozy coupe and re-purposing the parts. We convinced him to settle for paper plate parts.

We had an unconventional Thanksgiving this year for obvious reasons.

This pumpkin pie from Costco was all we had energy to plan and carry out.

I have no idea what we would have eaten for dinner (Chinese maybe?) but my visiting teacher surprised us by bringing over a tasty homemade Thanksgiving casserole the day before.

It was a very humble table spread but that gesture of love made our Thanksgiving special.

(This same visiting teacher called me yesterday to see if we had already gotten a Christmas tree because she was going with her family to cut down a tree from the mountains and wondered if we wanted them to get us one while they were there) - this lady is awesome.

p.s. that's whip cream in Duncan's mouth and Charlie is getting startled by the whole experience which led to whip cream all over his face and clothes. :)

Lucy and I

Bobby, Lucy, and I courtesy of Duncan

Our little gang.

Duncan earned enough money to buy this mail truck and he's been glued to it ever since.

I love the personality and brotherhood in this picture...

Cramers stopped by on their way back from Las Vegas and offered to take some pictures of Lucy while they were here.

We love this new little addition to our family and are grateful that she arrived safe and not too quickly!

Quotes:

11/8/15

I overheard this conversation between Bobby and Duncan while they were doing bedtime teeth brushing:

Duncan: "Did you have any sisters?"

Bobby: "Yes"

Duncan: "Aunt Marianne?"

"What happened when she came?"

Bobby: "Everything changed"

Duncan: "Were you disappointed?"

Bobby chuckling: "No"

Duncan: "How did everything change?"

Bobby: "There was another girl in the house besides mom"

----------------------------

11/12/15

I love this quote from Charlie...

Charlie: "Mom, pretend I'm having a great day playing baseball, ok?!"

------------------------

Duncan and Charlie can be heard starting a lot of their sentences to each other with this:

"Let's pretend..."

October in All of it's Glory - Posted by the Mrs.

We love October because we start it off by celebrating the birth of this handsome little guy:

He's a character and half 

(you'll catch that in the following pictures)

These were taken at a point when they boys were needing haircuts super badly but I wanted to snag some pictures anyway on the chance that the weather didn't cooperate later.

This was Charlie's response when I asked him what he thought of his baby sister...

:)

OK - here's a collection of our Charlie being Charlie.

(I didn't ask him to do any of these poses or faces!)

These are pictures from Charlie's very birthday.

You'll notice down in the bottom right corner that we have the laptop open.

That is because we are skyping the opening of presents and candle blowing to Bobby and Joanne.

They were at the ER waiting for Bobby's appendectomy to take place...he's on morphine so he may not remember much of this virtual party we had.

Yep, Charlie's birthday sort of turned out a lot different than we were expecting.

So glad that Joanne could be there to help me carry the load!

Needless to say, Conference weekend was timely for lounging around and enjoying the comfort of the couches!

Bobby was a great sport even though the surgery had some complications rendering a longer recovery and a take home catheter!...followed by a UTI.

(sorry for the extra details but this is our family journal afterall :)

This is the way we all felt that weekend...

Charlie cruisin' down the driveway on the wiggle car.

Duncan earned enough money to buy this watch that he's been so excited about.

(thankfully it was $4 on clearance at Target...otherwise he would have been saving up for forever to get one!)

He has loved having a watch and though telling time isn't something we've really tackled, the interest is there and it will all come in due time ;)

School pictures!

I just love this boy and his handsome face!

I found this amazingly comfortable swivel rocker at the thrift store for $5 but the color wasn't exactly in our color scheme for the room.

We've tried Rit dying furniture fabric without much success so this time we are attempting to re-upholster the beauty!

 Here we took the skirt off of the chair which we think shaved ten plus years off of it.

A game the whole family can play:

Pass the Balloon.

I don't move very fast these days and Bobby, in his recovering state, couldn't do a lot either.

Yay for slow motion balloons! 

If these bears didn't cost so dang much I'd have a hard time not giving in to the love these boys have right here.

We moved on to go get our produce and Charlie couldn't help but find his way back to the bears.

The first (and last) leaf pile of the season.

The boys were LOVIN' every minute of it.

If these pictures had sound you'd be hearing giggles and squeals galore. 

They got me with a bunch of leaf pile tosses and then Duncan sweetly brushed me (and the baby) off. :)

Best Friends

I was trying to find the right paper products for Bobby's mutual activity he was in charge of and this is what I turned around to find:

Makin' themselves at home in the toilet paper section...

We have this coupon for Costa Vida that can be re-used until June of next year. It's $10 off when you spend $30.  

We have come to love this coupon. 

And our boys now know and love Costa Vida with their glorious Horchata, Tres Leches and Flan desserts, and scrumptious flavors that blend so well together.  

Grandma came to town and brought lots of stuff to entertain, feed, and use.

The boys especially loved the Dune Buggy and Race Car that Grandma and Grandpa provided.

Here's our swivel rocker chair in it's scariest state.

It's at this point that we wondered if it we were crazy to try this.

(there is a home fabrics store here that is going out of business where we (actually Bobby!) found the to-die-for fabric that only cost us $30 total!)...how could we not give this a shot.

Stay tuned...!

Duncan spotted a genuine British mini cooper.

The windows were down and the first thing he did was stick his head inside the right window (where the steering wheel is located) and ask how fast this thing goes.

Not the first time we've heard him inquire on the speed capacity of a vehicle.

Getting a much needed car wash with a bonus observation window.

The boys were glued.

I made a trip to the cannery with the boys and they got lots of special attention from the grandpa's there. Duncan and Charlie thoroughly enjoyed the behind the scenes tours, along with the privilege of pushing the big green button to open the oversized door when we hauled our load out.

We decided to take the skirt off of our beloved family room trampoline since we discovered the hidden beauty behind that fabric.

I'll have to post a picture but I really love how it updated the piece.

Duncan and Charlie loved 'getting' to help with the project.

 

Parent - Teacher Conference

Duncan's teacher was impressed with how nicely Duncan writes his letters and numbers and in her words, "...especially for a boy."

I loved getting to hear how he's doing and progressing with school.

We stopped by Krispy Kremes to grab a family Saturday night treat that we promised our boys.

When we got there we found all kinds of sweet police force stuff going on. They were doing fundraising for the Special Olympics. A certain number of police officers had been on the roof all day long - then once they had earned enough donations, that particular officer got to come down. 

There was a SWAT car that Duncan and Charlie got to sit in the driver's seat of, a bullet proof hummer with guns slats to shoot out of, a police car that Duncan 'got' to sit in the back of (not really a place you want your picture taken), and a super remote controlled robot that is used for disarming bombs etc.

All this plus the fact that the police officers were giving out candy made for a very eventful evening for these two little guys.

Charlie and I made chocolate doughnuts at home while Duncan was at school and Daddy was at work.

We'll have to keep toying with recipes (and not bake them too long either).

We headed to our ward's Fall Harvest party.

Duncan and Charlie wanted to be puppy's again this year - works for us!

The classic doughnuts on a string game...never gets old to watch.

Charlie did give it a good try before resorting to his hands. :)

 Duncan made up some pumpkin face designs and picked his favorite, I drew it on the actual pumpkin, Bobby did the muscle work, and Charlie was moral support - what a team.

I forgot to mention a few posts back that we sold our old retro table.

I love this set's character but it didn't go with our Mootzie chandelier that we love so much.

The table and chairs sold to a real estate gal that stages the homes she sells. She had a mid-century house she wanted it for. 

We made a little money off of the sale which isn't too bad considering the chairs and the table aren't even original to each other.

(the chairs were originally from 70's college desks that we cut off and the table was the only part that was really mid-century modern).

 Quotes:

This one is old but I don't think we ever recorded it.

One day Charlie mixed the term garbage day with an inquiry as to how we were feeling and said,

"You OK garbage day?"

Now we throw that out occasionally when one of the boys gets hurt.

Probably doesn't make any sense to anyone else but it's there for us to remember :)

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10/13/15

For a long time Duncan was using a sand timer to time his two minutes of brushing. When that got lost for awhile, we used a timer on Bobby's smart phone. The boys were seriously mesmerized with the numbers, how they changed, and getting to press START and then swipe the screen to turn off the magical chiming.

Pulling the phone out and announcing that it was time to brush teeth with the phone timer could get them to the bathroom faster than ever before.

Charlie and his awesome observations:

At some point during one of these brushing episodes Charlie pointed to the milliseconds and said, 

"This one is faster than a jet ski."