Happy Halloween

Our Halloween festivities this year were pretty much the same as last year. The only added activity was my good friend and Relief Society President invited us over the week before Halloween to paint pumpkins and have pizza with her kids and grandkids. She's definitely taken us under her wing lately, and I've really appreciated it. Sometimes it's hard to not have grandparents and cousins close by.

The Sunday before Halloween, my Aunt Jennine invited us over to participate in the Halloween activities and dinner she does with her kids and grandkids. It was lots of fun and we appreciated being included.

The day before Halloween was the Halloween party at church. For the first time in 4 years, I didn't have to be in charge of or help out with the party. There was a costume parade, chili cook-off, and trick-or-treating.

On Halloween, Bridget got to wear her costume to school for the costume parade there and had a Halloween party that afternoon. That evening we did a little trick-or-treating in our neighborhood and then took the kids to see Nate's Aunt Linda as we always have. This was the first Halloween since Nate's Grandma passed away, and I have to admit it was sad to not make our usual stop to see her too.

Here's the kids in their costumes:

Once again, I made Bridget's costume. She chose Merida from Disney's Brave this year. And yes, the red actually washed out of her hair very easily.



With Felicity's crazy curls, she makes the perfect Annie. I even showed her some clips from the movie so she would know who Annie was. Having a new baby made getting costumes made a lot more difficult this year, so my super-amazing friend Sandy (mentioned at the beginning of this post) helped me out with this one. I handed her all the materials and some measurements, and she whipped this dress up in an afternoon. Love it!

Not many people got to see Dayton's cute costume since he slept through the Halloween party covered up in his car seat, but he still needed to be cute for his first Halloween. He's definitely the cutest skeleton I've ever seen. I picked this costume up at a consignment sale for $2! Next year, he'll get a handmade costume too.

Happy Halloween!

Dayton's Birth

As I expected, my due date with this pregnancy came and went. I must admit I was pretty grumpy about it too because I was so ready to be done with pregnancy and hold my baby boy. As I sat in church on my due date (10/13/13), I seriously felt like I was going to be pregnant forever - no contractions at all up to this point, and I was 3-4 cm dilated and 70% effaced at my appointment just 4 days before. If I had known what was going to happen that night, I certainly would have made an effort to go to bed much, much earlier.

At 2:30 am, I woke up needing to go to the bathroom but soon realized it was much more than that. I crawled back in bed not sure if I was having real contractions or not. They were different than what I had with Felicity. With her, I would feel my whole abdomen get tight and then relax. These felt more like cramps and were really low in my belly. Nate was sleeping away while I timed them, but after just a few I was sure they were the real thing because I got the "baby shakes" really bad just like I did with Felicity. I'm honestly surprised I didn't shake Nate awake as I laid there for 45 minutes timing and shaking. It wasn't until my 3rd trip to the bathroom during that time that he woke up. Then he timed them with me for quite a while. They were really irregular, short, and not very intense at first, but soon they started getting stronger, lasting almost a minute, and became more regular. I hate having to wake someone in the middle of the night to come stay with our kids, so I held out as long as I could and finally started getting dressed and throwing last minute things into my bag about 5 am. We called my Aunt Jennine at 5:30 and she was there a little before 6 am. At that point my contractions were only 2-3 minutes apart, and I just kept praying my water wouldn't break or I'd be in trouble.

I look terrible in this picture, but it's just before we left to go to the hospital, so I was living on 3 hours of sleep and in pain.

We got admitted to the hospital quickly, but the bad news was that they were really busy and it was also shift change time for the nurses at 7 am. I got gowned up and walked and walked around my room waiting for a nurse. Finally a nurse came in, and I told her I really needed to get my IV so I could get an epidural. She checked me (I was 6 cm and 100% effaced), so they very quickly got me my IV and got the anesthetist in there. I didn't know that once you hit 7-8 cm, your epidural might not work. Luckily, I got mine just in time and ended up being very, very numb. My doctor came and broke my water about 7:40 am, and about an hour later, he was ready to come. Thankfully, I was so numb, I didn't feel the need to push because we had to wait about another 20 minutes for a nurse to help her with the delivery.

I pushed through 3 contractions (about 7 minutes I think), and he was here!

When he came out, I asked my doctor what she thought about his weight because I was expecting him to be about 8.5 lbs., but she said he was well over 9 lbs.!

I was shocked when they told me he was 9 lbs. 12 oz. and 22.5 inches long! I can't believe he was that huge! No wonder I'd been so uncomfortable the past month. Soon after, Nate asked me if I was ready to commit to the name we'd been thinking about, and I was. So we named him Dayton Scott. Dayton is just a name we both liked, and Scott is after Nate's dad.

After I got moved over to postpartum, we let Jennine know she could bring the girls to meet him anytime. They were both so excited and each wanted to be the first to hold him.

We had a few other visitors during the time I was there. Jennine got her turn to hold him after the girls, and Megan came to visit after work that night. My friends Corey and Desaray and their 2 girls also came that afternoon, but I forgot to get a picture. The second day, my dad and Bev came to visit too.

Some of our visitors

Our first photo as a family of five

My stay at the hospital was really nice. I had wonderful nurses in labor and delivery as well as postpartum. I also got to spend a lot of alone time with Dayton since Nate had to spend more time at home with the girls this time. There was lots and lots of snuggling going on. Love it!

One of the other things I was REALLY looking forward to was the spa services they offer for free with the cosmetology students from the Applied Technology College. This program wasn't around when I had Bridget, and they were on Spring Break when I had Felicity so I was hoping I wouldn't be disappointed again this time around. Luckily, I got my pedicure!

Dayton Scott

Born October 14, 2013

9:04 am

9 lbs. 12 oz.

22.5 inches long

Look at those cheeks! They've certainly been getting a lot of kisses. We are so thrilled to have this little boy join our family and grateful he's healthy and all went smoothly with his arrival.