Harper and his girly ways

I though it would be funny to let everyone in on Harper's secret, he is really a girl at heart....So everyone thought that I had 1 boy and 1 girl, well you may just be wrong. Here are some pics to prove it..Harper loves to wear my head bands and he loves to put on lotion and at the Cinderella party he was wearing necklaces around the house. Looks like Danny needs to buff him up a little!

Mattson Family Christmas

Christmas has finally come and gone, and thank goodness for that! Don't get me wrong, I love Christmas but it can wear on your nerves and your money also. I can say that we had a good one, and next year should be just as fun with Laney probably going to be in the walking stages and Harper will be able to say 'Merry Christmas' and maybe understand who Santa is. For now I just happy that we had the blessed Christmas that we did!

Here are some pics for everyone to see....
Harper got Play dough from Me and Danny and Grandma Richards got him Play dough toys

We also got Harper a Alphabet phonics thing for the fridge...I can safely say that after 2 hrs of it already I am tired of it.... But he loves it!

Harper looks like he is happy but this is really a cringe because Laney was touching him and he didn't want to sit next to her! But they still look cute.

Here are our stockings. Danny's is blue, Mine is green, Harper's is red and Laney's is purple. This was Laney's first Christmas and the little bear in her stocking his her first stuffed animal. I can imagine her dragging it all around the house when she is older.

Harper playing with the aqua doodle that we got for him. He LOVES it!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone! We love all of you and for those of you who are far away we miss you too!

Delaney's Blessing

I have been so busy this month that it has been hard to have the chance to post blogs. So this one is about our little Laney Bug. She was blessed earlier this month 12/7/08 by my father Scott Richards. The blessing was short but sweet and it made me think of all the things to come in the future. I only want the best for my kids and it is so hard to be able to provide everything.

The blessing dress that she is wearing was my blessing dress. So just in case you don't know how old I am, this dress was used almost 25 yrs ago. It was really nice of my mom to keep this dress for me so that my daughter could wear it. Thanks Mom, I love you!

Here she is Delaney Jessalyn Mattson

More family pics

Mom and Dad with all of the grandkids: Emma, Orion,Olivia, Ethan, Ella, Harper, Samuel and Delaney

My sister Erin and her husband William and son Samuel

Me and Danny with Harper and Delaney

My sister Rebecca and her Husband Nate with Emma, Ethan & Ella

Rebecca's family again

Johanna did a great job! Thank you for being so patient with all of us.

Family Pics from 12/6/08

Recently my family had the opportunity to have someone take some professional pictures for us and they turned out great! I wanted to show everyone the best family picures that we have ever had!!
Melissa with her kids, Orion and Olivia

The whole Richards family

All of the Richards kids

The Richards kids

The whole Richards family

To Danny

Today is my Husbands birthday and it is a big one today! He's 30...I would like to say Happy Birthday to Danny. I love you and know that you are a good man. Thank you for you!

Sam and Delaney

This is a picture taken last week of Delaney and her cousin Sam. Sam is 4 1/2 months and Delaney is a few days shy of 1 month....Look at the size of this kid! He could roll over on Laney and you wouldn't even know that she was there! Sam is my sister Erin's son, and she has to wear a brace on her wrists because she is having pain from the weight of carrying him around. Don't get me wrong, he is VERY sweet and adorable but he is also a hefty boy.

Laney Bug's Room

After a month of our Little Laney sleeping in a bassinet by my bed I decided that she needed to have her own crib in another room so that I wouldn't constantly hear her moaning, groaning and stretching all the time. I needed some peace and quiet! Laney has a bad habit of being very noisy when she eats and then carries it after the feeding to when she lays down to go to sleep.

So this weekend Danny and I cleaned the house and took the couch out of his computer room and moved it to the living room and set up her crib in there. I then got to decorate one side of the room to be girly. Here are the pics of her new room. The bed theme is brown and pink polka dots courtesy of the best seamstress ever, Pam Price! Thank you so much Pam!! And the rest of the room is Lady Bugs which have dots on them, so do the dragon flys on the light switch.

The reason I chose lady bugs is because her nick name is Laney Bug, as I am sure you already caught earlier. She is a cute little bug and I just love her room, I can't wait to do a whole room as cute as this someday when she gets her own room.

Halloween

This year was Harper's first real year of trick or treating, last year we took him but he was only 9 mos old so he didn't know what was going on. This year Harper got to be a turtle, and he looked so cute! My sister Rebecca let Harper use it because she knows my obsession with turtles that I have had since 6Th grade. I couldn't have asked for a more perfect costume.

This is him after he was done trick or treating, he was already to eat all of his candy and when I wouldn't let him have another piece he went ape and had a fit. What's new?

This is his very first house that he went to. My parents neighbor Sis.Nelson who I have known for the 20 yrs that we lived next to her. He wanted to go in her house like many other houses.

This is Danny having to carry Harper off of the play ground equipment so that he could do the costume parade at the ward trunk or treat. He was so mad because he wanted to keep playing.

This is Harper and I walking around the circle in the costume parade. Seconds after the girls behind me (who shall be left nameless unless you know who they are in the pic) had just run over my heal with the stroller and I was in pain because they got me real good!

It was really fun for Danny and I, we enjoyed watching Harper have so much fun and it was one of those moments, you know....Our little boy is getting so big, I can't believe that he is already almost 2 and he just looks so cute....etc....

I can't wait until next year when I get to dress Delaney too!

Delaney pics

Johanna Hallenberger came over today to take some sample pics of my pretty little girl and while she was doing that I was able to slip in a couple of my own pics of her.

12 days old

The dreaded "Harper"

Sorry that it has been so long since I have blogged, not that people have missed it I'm sure...

It has been a very long week and a half since Delaney was born! Not only have I had to deal with the normal lack of sleep with a newborn but I have also had to deal with Harper being sick and getting everyone else sick. Let me tell you more..

Starting Friday the 17Th in the morning I woke up to get Harper and found him covered in throw up and so was his bed and carpet, it really made my morning! Danny of course was on his way out the door to go to work so I had no help. Luckily my 4 day old Delaney was sleeping so I was able to get Harper up, bathed and his bedroom cleaned up of yuck. The whole day Harper continued to throw up and into Saturday. Sunday he hadn't thrown up, it was just some runny poo so I figured that he was better and decided to accept the invitation to go to my parents house for turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie.

This is when everything conspired, however no one new what was about to happen. Monday night Danny woke up at 1am and started his flu episode, he was the first of many to catch Harper's sickness. Next came my sisters Amanda and Shannon, then me, My parents, my other sister Erin and possibly my niece but they can't be confirmed.

So this whole week everyone has been sick, not very fun at all. As for me I got over it in a day and no I didn't throw up for all of you who know about my throwing up streak. Right now I am trying to deal with baby blues that seem to have hit pretty hard and Harper, he is driving me nuts. He is always crying for me or crying about something. He is acting out because of the baby and it is stressing Danny and I out. I knew it was going to be hard, but I already need a break from one of them and it would be Harper. So if anyone wants to take a kid for a few hours so I can take a nap or a break let me know!

And I know this is off topic but I weighed myself and I have lost 18 lbs so far. I only have 6 more pounds to lose and I will be at my pre pregnancy weight, but I am going for more than that so wish me some luck.

Delaney's Doc appointment

Delaney and I did eventually get to the doctor appointment, just a little late. The doctor said that she was doing well but that she had a little jaundice and she wanted me to take her to the hospital to have the billy ruben tested because she thought that it was getting kinda high.. For those of you who remember I had the same problem with Harper and he ended up being admitted to the hospital for 24 hrs after they found his billy ruben levels sky high.

I went to the hospital to get her blood work done and I was nervous that she was going to have to be admitted. After we got home the doctor call a little later and informed us that it was just under the level to be admitted so we dodged the bullet for the time.

I gave her an ounce of formula for dinner and before bed to help her get some fluids to clear up the jaundice since all I had was colostrum still. But good news this morning my milk came in, so now she is getting full meals instead of snacks. It's kinda fun having your boobs grow over night, it just sucks that they get full and hurt and leak etc..

Locked out!

Yesterday I had an appointment to bring little Laney to and Connie Wilkes offered to watch Harper so that I wouldn't have to take him, nice right? She is awesome....well we were taking Harper and the car seat out to her car and like a normal person I shut my door after I walked out. When we got Harper in the car I realized that I didn't have his sippy cut so Connie waited while I ran back to the house. I got to the door and I couldn't open it! I thought for a second that the knob was stuck, but it wasn't I couldn't get it open. I started to freak out and Connie came over to see what was up, I told her that the door was locked and I didn't have a key under the mat and the key pad on the garage door was dead... So she thought about the back door which I knew was locked but we went back to check just in case and of course it was. I'm sure that you can imagine at this time I was balling my eyes out because my 2 day old baby is inside in the swing.
Thank goodness Connie hadn't left before I had gone back inside because I would have been screwed! So we called Danny and he finally answered the phone after 3 phone calls, because he isn't supposed to have a cell phone at his desk. He was able to come home but it took him 15 minutes to get back. The whole time I kept thinking how stupid am I? Not only that but I had walked outside with a towel on my head because I had just gotten out of the shower, so I looked like a retard.
When Danny unlocked the door and we walked inside she was still sound asleep in the swing and fine. Danny had to rush back to work and I had to take her to her appointment. What a scary thing to happen though. I thought that it only happened in the movies, apparently not, the movies are just re enacting what the stupid people like me are really doing.

Welcome Delaney Jessalyn

I'm sure that many of you have been wondering if I have had the baby yet or if you knew that I had her you wanted to see and know more about the whole delivery. Well I went in on Monday morning and got the process started for induction and was blessed later that day with a wonderful 'little' girl. Let me give you some fun details....



Danny and I got up at 5am to be at St. Luke's at 7am.

7:05 the nurse took us to our room

7:15 had an enema (you may think yuck, but I say thank goodness)

7:45 was started on Pitocin

8:00 Nurse Rose did exam and I was 3cm dilated still

8:15 Dr.Klomp came in and broke my water, contractions started in minutes

10:00 wimped out and got an epidural

10:45 Nurse put in catheter so that I didn't pee myself Ya!

11:00 exam put me at 4.5cm dilated and 60% effaced



(yes that is less effaced than Dr.Klomp had put me at on prev appts)



11:15 I was given ephedrine because my blood pressure had dropped

12:45 exam put me at almost 6cm dilated and 90% effaced



At this point Nurse Rose wanted to change my position to help Delaney come down more, so I was put in a sitting position pretty much. Delaney's heart beat was suddenly gone, the nurse calmly tried to find it. After what seemed like minutes and she couldn't find it she panicked and had me move to my side, still nothing so I moved to my other side. She was finally able to find it but it was in the 80's so she grabbed an oxygen mask for me and called for help from another nurse. At the same time this was happening my wrist/arm that had my iv in it that was getting antibiotics for group b strep, it all of a sudden started to hurt really bad. The pain got worse and worse, it was pressure and burning and well it is hard to explain. But i came seconds away from ripping it out of my arm, the nurse said she had turned the drip off but it was going to take a min or so to run through the iv. It was very hectic in the room! Delaney's heart beat finally went up but very slowly and my arm finally felt better but after the iv ran for a few minutes. It was scary! After that the nurse didn't want me to sit up for fear Delaney wouldn't tolerate it again.



1:45 my exam put me at almost a 7 dilated and 100% effaced

2:10 I was fully dilated and had just a little rim so she didn't want me to push yet

2:25 I felt like I needed to push so she checked and I was ready

2:30 started pushing

2:45ish Dr. Klomp came in and took over

3:00 exactly little miss Delaney was born!!! it was wonderful



Danny got to cut the umbilical cord, I didn't have to have an episiotomy and I didn't tear. No vacuum for Delaney either. She did need to have some oxygen because she was a little blue on the tummy. Every thing went so well!



Delaney weighed in at 7lbs 3oz and 19 1/2 inches long

Her hair is strawberry blond and she has blue eyes

She is nursing VERY well

Hospital trip ends in aggrivation!

This morning at 3:50am I woke up to turn and thought that I felt some contractions, so naturally I couldn't fall back to sleep because that was all I could think of. I was feeling pain like hell in my lower back and also in my left abdomen, and it was about every 5-10 mins. Sometimes the pain was strong and sometimes just really light so I thought that I was having contractions. I laid in bed and fell back to sleep after about an hour and woke around 5:30am and I had a huge shooting pain in my left abdomen that made me think "okay this is really a contraction" so I got up and took a shower.

After the shower they were really soft again so I laid back down with Danny until about 7:15am and at that time I called my parents house and Amanda came over so that Danny and I could go to the hospital. In the back of my mind I didn't know if I was going to be admitted because the pain was only on the left side but some people only have back labor so we went.

We got there around 8:30am after having to drive through crappy connector traffic and checked into labor and delivery. The nurse hooked me up and checked me, I hadn't changed in dilation or in effacement and the monitor showed no contractions. She was concerned that I was having pain but that they weren't contractions so she checked my urine and said that there was white blood cells and I might have a UTI so she wanted another sample to confirm. Dr. Klomp wasn't ready to admit since I was technically not in labor but if I walked around and had a change he would, at that point Danny and I walked around the hospital for an hour. When we came back to labor and delivery the nurse said my second urine sample came out clean, in other words no UTI. The explanation for my pain is 'ligament stretching' because she is lowing in my pelvis.

I was let out around 11am and Danny and I drove back home so that Danny could go to work. What a fun morning, right?

Prego update

So I had another, well my last doctors appointment today and I was really disappointed. Seems like I have been trying everything to get this baby out and nothing is working but I still thought that it would have helped with the progress and it just feels like it hasn't done squat.

Last week the doc said that I was 2.5cm almost 3cm and logged it in his computer as 2.5 and I was 80% effaced. Well today I went in and informed him that I was having some minor (really minor) contractions yesterday, and he was like well that probably means that you have made some progress, so I was happy. He does the exam and he says well you are now a firm 3cm dilated and still 80% effaced and she still is pretty high! Aaahhhh!! I thought for sure that I would be like 4cm dilated and 100% effaced or close, but I wasn't...

So as for right now I am scheduled for Monday morning that's 10/13 to be induced. I have to be at the hospital checked in at 7am. I have to gripe about this for just a second. I don't ever get up that early unless it is to go to the bathroom, and for some reason my stupid self thought that I wouldn't be required to be in there til like 8-9 am which isn't so horrible. Now I have to ask someone to be at my house at 6:30am so we can leave Harper. Pregnancy is such a complicated thing when you have another kid(s) to add to the equation. I don't know how my parents did it with all the kids that they have. They must be nuts! For right now I am looking at Monday for Delaney but you never know it could always happen sooner, I am keeping my hopes up for Friday now, it would be easier for the weekend days. Think good thoughts for me!

Just waiting now!

So yesterday I worked what seemed to be all day long in prep for the delivery of Delaney. I felt like I had so many things to do, it was overwhelming to me. Lucky for me though Danny helped out with the house cleaning. As for me I got to:

• clean out Harper's closet to fit more diapers/clothes etc..
• go through boxes of clothes that have been given to me for Harper and Delaney
• separate all of the girls clothes so I only had the 0-3mo size out for right now
• decide which cute outfit to bring Delaney home in
• washed 1 load of old Harper clothes, 1 load of new, 1 load of blankets,& 1 load of Delaney
• that means that I had the pleasure of folding all the clothing
• got the car seat cover washed and put on
• washed the bassinet cover and put on
• charged my ipod (got to have tunes to help with distracting from pain)
• arranged Harper's dresser so that I could put Delaney's clothing in

When all was done I was so tired I told Danny that he was in charge of Harper for the rest of the night because I just didn't think that I could get off the couch. It is so nice to have it done. Now all I have to do today is pack a bag and do our laundry and relax of course.

Now it is time to just wait!

Prego update!

So for those of you who care and want to know continue to read, if not then I suggest you stop.

Went to the doctor this morning for my weekly check up and everything went very well, I now have hope that this baby is actually going to come out. So from last weeks 1.5 cm dilated & 50% effaced I am now 2.5-3ish cm dilated and 80% effaced. Dr.Klomp was very happy with my progress and seems to think that I'm not going to make it to my induction date of 10/13 that it is going to happen in the next week! I am so happy!

Of course now I am getting close and I really haven't gotten everything together, so now I have to pack a hospital bag, chose an outfit to bring her home in, get the car seat ready, do some laundry for her and put it away, set up the bassinet etc.... so much to do and I have no energy to do it.

wish me luck....

Pregnancy update

So I had my weekly doc visit this morning just thought that you guys might want to know what was going on...

Last Friday I was 1 cm dialated and 20% effaced, this Friday I am 1.5 cm dialated and 50% effaced! Woohoo....so not a ton going on. I did feel some slight contractions last night, unless it was just gas but I am 75% positive that it was contractions.

The doc said that I should start the ball rolling so he told me to have sex, sex and more sex! May sound fun to you but at 9 mo pregnant it is a big task and frankly I am out of practice lately also.

Hope you enjoyed that little tidbit. If nothing happens then I will be going in to be induced on 10/13....just wait and see!

Misc. stuff from the past few weeks!

Last weekend Harper and I decided to go out and watch Daddy mow the lawn because we were board inside and it was a great cool day. Harper was following Danny back and forth on the lawn as he was mowing his rows. When he got closer Harper would start to run back to me in the back corner of the yard sitting on my lawn chair. It was really cute. However when Danny turned off the lawn mower and turned his back to do something else Harper would approach the lawn mower himself and try to move it. Yet again really cute. Danny helping Harper
Harper helping himself
Harper on the potty, He likes the tp
He just looked so cute!
This is Harper snuggling up to me tonight. I got him to kiss my belly which he never does, and when Danny got out the camera he wouldn't even dare pose for us so this was the next best thing. And look how freakin' huge I am! My tummy is spilling over, or muffin topping if you prefer. Sorry if you think this pic is too reveling, but I don't really care what you think!

My Non-Mormon Baby shower

This past weekend I had what I like to call my "Non-Mormon Baby shower", it turned out to be really fun even though many people that were invited/rsvp'd didn't show. I would like to blame the lack of attendees to the horrible weather that we had that day. Anyhow Nichole and Ronie who are pictured next to me threw me the shower and did a really great job. And they also provided 2 kinds of spiked punch that looked very good, everyone seemed to enjoy a drink at 11 am.

We played baby bingo in which they laid out many baby products on a table and we had 1 min to memorize as many as we could, then we had a bingo sheet we had to fill in with the products that we remembered from the table. Afterwards they selected random pieces of paper with a product on it and you got to cross it off. Since everyone got to fill out their own bingo card it made it so a little bit more difficult, anyhow I called Bingo first but let the others continue for the prize.

We also played guess the baby food, I'm sure that everyone knows that one. The 6 jars were passed around and everyone could either taste or smell or both to determine what they thought the baby food was. I was the only one there that had dealt with baby food in the past 5 yrs and I lost badly, Sue (bottom left) who was the oldest (but very young at heart) won the game and she doesn't even have grand kids!

Last game was the toilet paper game....my personal favorite and my choice. The most pieces of toilet paper that were selected to represent my pregnant belly was by Marie (top left), she guessed a whopping 17 squares! She lost! Liz (bottom middle) got the correct number of squares which was ONLY 13 squares...not to horrible. You can try and do it yourself to get an idea of how big I am right now.

I was given many great presents and all of them were so girly. It was very different from Harper's baby shower. Having a girl is just so much fun, every thing is pink and fashionable and of course adorable but I have so many 0-9mo clothes I don't know what to do. Side note, my neighbor Theresa (bottom right) was sweet enough to bring Harper some little cars so that he wouldn't be left out.

All in all it went very well even with the lack of ladies and I just want to thank Nichole and Ronie for a great shower and all of the great presents they got me, it meant so much to me!

Harper is an old lady magnet

I totally forgot to blog about Harper's latest granny encounter so here it goes.

Danny and I went out to Sizzler on Friday because he finished his training (ya!) and because I was craving a big juicy steak. Anyhow we were sitting at a table and Harper was in a high chair at the end and we were feeding him off our plate. I got up to go back to the salad bar for another plate and when I came back a few minutes later Danny informed me that a elderly lady was leaving and when she passed Harper she stopped to say how cute he was. I guess she said a few nice things and flirted with the boy and walked away, then she came back with a dollar bill and said that she used to do this to her grandchildren and gave it to Harper.

How freaking' sweet is that? It just made me laugh...so we are going to start a piggy bank for Harper and see if we can start making some money off of his good looks and charm.

Some recent events.....

My last blog was about Harper going pee on the potty but I didn't have a cute picture to go with it, so I took one the other day... As far as his progress I put him on the potty a few times a day and he usuall goes. He averages 2 times a day right now. It is so cute because I tell him to push and he makes straining sounds and we usually get a toot out of it too. He likes the candy part after he pees, so hopefully he will catch on and learn how to tell me he has to go. Seems the all he is talking about lately is 'poo poo' and potty, good topics!
Mr. Harper and Me

Friday my Dad took Harper to run arrons while I went to the doctor for my check up. Side note for that I had high blood pressure for the first time ever in my life, he said nothing to be worried about yet. And I have officially gained 16 pds over my pre pregnancy weight, I wish I could say that it was weight lost but when your pregnant what do you expect?

Any how he went out with my Dad and when I got back my Dad said he still had some things to do and would be out a little longer so I took advantage of the no Harper time and did something that I had the itch to do but was scared out of my wits to do.....as you can see I cut off all of my hair....This is the shortest it's been since about middle school I think, But I am really liking it. As far as the color I did it myself out of the box to avoid spending 30$ to go to the hair school, well big mistake! I know have blondish/orange roots and I hate looking at it, I don't know what to do.

So here are some pics to give you an idea of my new me.

From the front

From the back

From the side

Full frontal Delaney included