The Story

Alright, so, birth story for Chloe!

As most of you know, we had a scheduled C-section for Chloe right from the beginning due to the fact that my pelvis structure isn't favorable when it comes to giving birth vaginally, and the likely-hood of it ending up in an emergency one anyway was high enough that I just decided it wasn't worth the risk. So planed it was. We were referred to our doctor here in Pocatello from our doctor in Rexburg who he did his residency with (if that sentence even made sense...). And we love him. Doctor Kyle Clifford. But we found out that family practice doctors can't do C-sections here in Pocatello, only OB's can. So we had to meet with another doctor who would actually perform the surgery. Doctor Jones. They are actually good friends and are both bishops! So we knew we were in good hands :)
The C-section was planned for the 19th of June and the pregnancy went very smooth the whole way. Two weeks before game day the doc measured me and I was already 2 cm dilated. But Chloe stayed put. Except, she must have known she was coming on the 19th because I started having contractions around 11:30 pm the night before! They got a little more intense once we woke up and got to the hospital. One nurse even said the monitor said I was having them 2-3 min apart right before we headed into the surgery room! So I still got to feel a few contractions :)
Once in the surgery room, they put in my spinal block and prepped me all up and got to work!
All went smoothly and I'd say it was even fun. We were able to just feel the excitement without the drama and pain. The doctors just chatted (Doc Clifford was there assisting in the C-section with Jones)and--side note--I asked them to check to see how thin my uterus was looking (see if it's safe to have more children etc) and he said because I had been contracting it was thin-ish, but I'd be totally fine with at least one more :).
It all went pretty fast too. Chloe was born 15 min after they started and the whole thing was done in under a 1/2 hour. Oh, and did I mention Adam got to watch in all through a little window in the curtain they put up? He loved it. I'm not so sure I would have lol.
But It really was my dream experience. Chloe never left Adam and He was holding her waiting for me in the recovery room where I got to nurse Chloe right away. She came out starving! And she is a champion nurser (my boobs hurt like crazy).
Then we just had our regular hospital stay which lasted for not even two full days. And so far so good :)
Here are more pictures (she get's lot's of good daddy time):


As for William, he is really adjusting well too. He's starting to get more of an attitude so I think we're officially entering the terrible two's, but he loves Chloe and points to all her facial features and toes etc :)
Adam never missed a beat and continued on with some projects. We now have a dishwasher all hooked up and working and he found a hidden closed that was behind dry wall in William's room. So they opened that up and he's now just finishing it up with a new door, paint, carpet, and shelves. Does he ever stop? No. Pretty sure his work ethic is too much for me to keep up with. All I can manage is tidying and dishes lol.
Anyway, all is good and life is getting to a new norm.

Introducing... Chloe Michelle Brewer!

Chloe Michelle Brewer is here! Born at 6:45 AM on Wednesday, June 19th. 6lbs 9oz and started crying right away :) Healthy and hungry and happy. I'll give more details of birth story later. But for now, here are some awesome pics :)
Going into the hospital (4:30 am)

All garbed up! (and having contractions at 2-3 min apart (says the monitor)

Fresh out of the womb.


Nursing for the first time (just a few min later!)

First time with big brother!


Loving on the grandparents :)


See my pretty face? (always looking for something to suck on)



Entertainment brought to William by... Daddy :)


Happy little family :)

We got home June 20th at 6 pm (I'm not a big hospital stayer). We all look and feel well! So far, Chloe is an excellent nurser and is already on a 3 hour schedule, waking twice at night to feed. William is a little grumpy with everything being disrupted, but will adjust soon enough. Thanks for your prayers!

Projects, and Pooping, and Birthdays--Oh My!

Ha! look at me keeping my promise :) Here is the update of our recent goings on (and there's actual pictures for this blog post!).

So first off: The main thing recently has just been PROJECTS PROJECTS PROJECTS! We've had a big list of things needing to get done for a while, but with Adam finishing up the semester and work picking up for him too, there just wasn't much he could do. It all had to wait until school was done. And since it's been done he's been true to his word and has been working his buns off! (he works real hard out is the sun all day for work and then comes straight home to do more hard work--mostly out in the sun...)
The main thing this whole spring, as mentioned in the last post, has been the yard. All we want is a nice lawn, is that so hard to ask?? Well apparently so. This is how our yard started out this year:
Dirt, weeds, dirt, weeds...

And some patchy grass in the front...

So we took the advice on the helpful Lowes guy and just roto-tilled up the whole thing and raked out the weeds. Then we proceeded to lay top soil and seeds (and by "we" I mean Adam did all this :) ) and watered like CRAZY! (and when you're watering by hand, it's no small thing)
The good news: We grew grass!!!
The bad news: We grew tree sprouts!!
Our not so beautiful Dutch Elm tree lets off millions of these not so wonderful seeds each spring apparently, and who knew we'd be growing a forest of them this year. So this was the result:
Patchy grass

With a bunch of elm trees growing among them


I'm reminded of the wheat and the tares parable. Especially since many people suggested letting it all grow together and attacking the trees with the lawn mower when they got bigger. We really have no idea how resilient these trees are, but we made an official decision. WE ARE GETTING SOD. And for a not so bad price either :) And while we do regret all the time and effort and money spent on the grasslings, we are SO HAPPY to just be done with it and just focus on moving a sprinkler head around once in a while.
Don't judge us. We were just too overwhelmed with the baby coming next week, and family coming on and off throughout the rest of the summer starting next week. Can you blame us for not wanting our house to look it's best? I mean, the best it can look for a trailer home...

ANYWAY, Adam is out there digging up the dirt now to prepare the ground for the sod tomorrow. He's hating every minuet of it I'm sure :)

Second thing: Potty training is still a big thing right now, but less and less so every day. William tells me when he needs to go most of the time, and the other half of the time, I just ask him and he'll tell me he does need to (or I just make him try). And he pees every time. He's mastered the task of forcing pee out. Now he just needs to figure out the pooing sensation a little more. He's not bad at it, but he just hasn't mastered the task as well as peeing yet (which makes sense since it' not as often). He gets a skittle every time he goes and sometimes I think just seeing the bottle on the counter reminds him that he needs to go, or should try (because he wants one lol). Also, when I know we're waiting on a poo, he gets to watch Thomas on a portable DVD player while he sits on the pot till it comes out. That's helped in many occasions. Although there have also been times where he's "lied" and says he has to go and I turn on Thomas and 15 min later there is still nothing in the toilet lol.
There are also times where he needs his blanket, bear, and doggy to be with him while he goes. Some times he puts doggy on the little potty and claps for him for going :)

But all in all he get's the concept and is doing well!

(AHHHH!!!! little miss muffet moment! I'm sitting on my tuffet (my bed) and along came this BIG spider down the wall right next to me!!! No worries, I squished it with a book. And I'll make Adam clean the remains off the wall later..)

Ok. Where was I?
Oh yeah, The rest:
William loves fire trucks and so we went to the fire station open house a couple weeks ago. He liked it, but was pretty scared to get on them. As you can see in the picture where he's crying...

But he loved the cookies, suckers, and plastic fireman hat he got. :)

Then Adam had his 25th birthday!! Rather uneventful, but we went out to eat at Arctic Circle (free kiddy cones and all), and then he got brownies with candle wax melted into it, and a few helpful tools to get mad at on future projects to add to his wonderful collection in his newly organized tool shed. P.S. Thanks Mom and Dad Brewer for the fun card! It has provided Adam with ample entertainment over the last few days (particularly with William who has shown a fear of pop-ups recently--especially with ones that light up and sing "you're a shining star!" lol).


Notice the green wall behind him...

Adam also painted the living room with some of the paint we got from an estate sale (just another one of the many projects). He complained that the green made it feel like you were in a bat cave, or the jungle. We're pleased with the result, although, we wish it were a little darker of a hue. It's like a warm off white/ light tan?

(and I'm going to paint that frame a dark brown eventually).

And... besides other random projects not worth mentioning, that is all :)

P.S. William just woke up and told me he needed to go pee, and he went and then went back to sleep :) :)

Faith IS like a seed...

While there is much updating in general I should be doing on this blog, I'm just going to write about a few experiences today that I feel like sharing. (an update might come at the end, or in another post soon).
Today during Relief Society I all the sudden really wanted to bear my testimony... BUT today isn't fast and testimony Sunday. So, I decided to grace you all with it here on the blog instead :) Lucky you!

So about 3 weeks ago Adam and I were talking about all the things we wanted to get done before Chloe came (potty training William being one of them), and I just told him I was too overwhelmed with everything else to try to potty train 3 weeks before a new baby arrived. He told me it was up to me and if I decided not to that was fine. The next day on Monday morning I was all caught up in trying to make the decision when I decided to include the Lord. (I didn't think of it before because it just seemed like a small thing that I didn't need to pray about to decide to do it). But as soon as I started to pray and discuss my concerns both ways, I started to feel a strong desire to just start and go for it. So I got done, got up, and walked out to the living room with a garbage bag and told William we were going to throw away all his cloth diapers because he was going to start going pee and poo in the potty now (he had fallen in love with this potty movie before-hand so I'm pretty sure he understood where I was going with it, plus we had been "casually" having him do his duty in the potty for a while now. Also, we just pretended to throw the diapers away).

Details aside, I found I was really too tired to potty train diligently, and it was hard for me to be as consistent as I needed to be. I really felt incapable of doing what seemed to be an insurmountable task! I prayed constantly for Heavenly Father to help and guide me, and there were many a moments where I completely regretted trying to potty train him.

Now, at the same time, Adam and I finally came to the point where we were able to plant our grass seed. Not too many days after planting and watering it like crazy, we were already starting to loose hope (even though it takes like 8 to 10 days to germinate). One day I found myself watering and thinking about how it really is hard to believe that such a big result--like a full lawn--can come from just tiny seeds that seem like they're doing nothing for days and days being watered 4 times a day (by hand I might add), and being hit by a full hot sun in-between. (it also didn't help to see birds picking at the seed all the time and watching some weeds come in faster than the seed could germinate...). I also compared it to how William was doing with potty training. I just had to do all I could and continue doing those things while I waited for the "seed" to take place and grow in his mind to show he was catching on.
And there came a point in both endeavors where we just wanted to give up. Wednesday was the point in potty training (we had been at it for 9 days). Yesterday afternoon was the point with the grass as Adam and I both noticed more weeds and no grass yet.
But I felt I had to give William a few more days, and I told Adam we at least had to give the seeds the full germinating period before we broke down and bought sod :)-
As it turned out, the next few days with William proved what he needed. And soon after the grass discussion, I decided to go out and look REAL closely at the grass seed--low-and-behold little grass sprouts were everywhere! And are even bigger already today.

And as I read from the lesson today, a quote by Lorenz Snow, it had a special meaning for me. It said,

"When things come up that require an exertion on our part, we should bring our wills into subjection to the will of the Father, and feel to say, what is the will of our Father, whom we are here in the world to serve? Then every act that we perform will be a success. We may not see its success today or tomorrow, nevertheless it will result in success."


And that is basically my testimony: that there are many things that happen in our lives that require a lot of exertion (like, a LOT of exertion) and if we pray to seek God's will in all those things He will guide us and help us succeed.

John 5:30 "I can of mine own self do nothing."


The End (actual update to come in a few days)