Catch-up

Its amazing the difference that one short week can make.










Look how much she's filled out already!











Loving her tummy time














Cute Kinley girl

















So much has happened in the past 4 months, its hard to know where to begin. It is also daunting to think about all of the things I want to write about in this blog/journal, so I'm going to start with easy things like cute pictures of my two little girls!

So, these pictures are all from my first saturday back at work. Mckinley brought all of her little dwarfs out, put them all around Lauren, layed down next to her and asked daddy to cover them with a blanket. So stinkin cute!













Did I warn you that there would be a LOT of pictures?
This is my strong baby girl rolling over at 7 weeks for the very first time!

The first 6 weeks went by so fast, and I couldn't believe how quickly it seemed normal to have 2 kids. We also had a lot of fun with family coming into town for Lauren's baby blessing (which I know, I'm horrible, I didn't take a single picture of! If anyone out there has pictures of her in her blessing dress, I would so appreciate a copy!) My mom was here for several weeks, and my sister Becky was here for 2 weeks with her kids, which was so great. Mckinley absolutely adores her cousins, and asked for them every single day for literally 2 months after they went home. Like I didn't miss them enough already, she had to remind me that they were gone every day!

After that, life got hectic. It feels like we spent the entire month of August in the hospital. Bill had been having trouble breathing for several months and a really terrible chest cough, so he went to the doctor for a check-up. They took a bunch of chest x-rays and found a lot of stuff in his lungs. They sent him in for blood work and breathing tests, then scheduled him for a chest biopsy to make sure he didn't have lung cancer. The biopsy was supposed to be a 2 hour out-patient procedure, but it turned into a 3 day hospital stay. The doctor doing the bronchoscopy scraped a hole in his lung during the procedure and it collapsed. He was put in the ICU for the next 2 days with a chest tube. I am so grateful for all of his family being close by. They brought meals and sat with him in the hospital when I couldn't be there, and babysat til 1 in the morning so that I could be with him whenever Lauren allowed me to. The next week he went back in for a follow-up, and the xrays showed that his lung was on the verge of collapse AGAIN. He got a third chest tube (the doctor placed the first 2 in the wrong place, but lucky number 3 finally did the trick. I really don't like doctors sometimes.) and finally the hole in his lung was able to heal. All of this to find out that he does NOT have lung cancer, which is such wonderful, relief-filled news. But he does have Sarcoidosis, which is much less wonderful news. He has been slowly improving on medication, and they have lowered his dosage so hopefully he will be off steroids by the end of the year.

The week after his second hospital stay we had our third hospitalization, only this time was for Lauren. Bill went in to check her one night around 9, to find her barely breathing, her face and chest covered in mucus, her chest cavity swollen almost double, and almost completely non-responsive. My sweet neighbor friend came over in about 30 seconds to stay with Mckinley while Bill and I ran Lauren to the emergency room. I have never been so grateful to live 2 blocks away from 2 different hospitals. Once she was stabilized, we were transferred over to the hospital in Provo, so that they could monitor her for 24 hours, and I was able to spend the night with her there. After countless tests, tubes, and needles all poking my poor little girl, the doctors determined that absolutely nothing was wrong, and that it was an "unfortunate incident." Have I mentioned not liking doctors? They pretty much just said, "There's no reason your two-month old almost died, so not much you can do to prevent it. Good luck sleeping for the next year."

Like I said. August was not our best month.

Since then though, life has slowly calmed down for us. Other than a few bouts of flu (one for the entire week of my birthday. Awesome.) we are doing well. Everyone is happy (depending on how much sleep Lauren lets me get) and healthy. And I have fun Halloween pics to post next, but for now I'm going to bed. Sorry this was long, but like I've said before, this is the closest thing I have to a journal, and I'm trying to catch up!

Lauren Brothers

Wow. Months have passed again, and it is time to play catch-up. I guess the biggest change in our family is that we now are a family of four! (and have been for 3 1/2 months, but who's counting, right?) So, I'm going to write down the whole story about labor and everything, since this blog is the closest thing I have to a journal. If you're not interested, feel free to skip it and just look at all of the cute pics!

So, my due date was June 9th. Bill's work has a Lagoon day for all of their employees and families, and this year it was on the 10th. Since Mckinley was 11 days late, we were pretty confident that we could make it. True enough, the 9th came and went. Friday morning came, and Bill and I decided we really needed to paint our room. Brilliant idea #1. So, we put the first coat on by 9:30, then piled into the car to head to Lagoon.
We had a great time walking around the park, eating the yummy BBQ that Certiport provided, and I loved watching Bill and Kinley on rides together. We all did the ferris wheel, then called it a day. Kinley was so tired she passed out on the car ride home.




We got home, put her to bed, and then put the second coat of paint on our room. The next morning I headed off for my 10 hour work day. I kept getting contractions all day long, but didn't really pay them much attention, since I was pretty sure I had at least another week left of being pregnant. I got off of work at 6, went home, got Kins into bed, and then decided that I really needed to go grocery shopping. Brilliant idea #2. Wal-mart was a zoo, of course, and by this time my contractions were very consistently 15 minutes apart. After waiting in line for an hour, I finally got out of there, and, brilliant idea #3, decided that since apparently this baby was coming soon, I needed to go get Bill a Father's Day present. I finally got home at about 11, and rather than go to the hospital, just got into bed. My first labor took like 36 hours, I figured I had plenty of time!

By midnight, my contractions were 10 minutes apart, and I spent the whole night watching the clock while Bill slept. By 7, my contractions were 5 minutes apart and hard. At 8, Bill called his dad to come stay with Kinley, and I made waffles while he drove over. We got to the hospital by 8:30, and I was dilated to a 5. They started me on antibiotics at 9, which needed 3 hours to get all through my system. That was a looooong 3 hours; I was dilated to a 10 and ready to push by 11a.m. but I had to wait for an hour for the antibiotics to do their thing. Finally, they came in and told me I could push! Three pushes later, at 12:16p.m., we had our second baby girl! She was 7lbs 9 oz, 21.5 inches long and BEAUTIFUL!!!! After hours of debate, and plenty of opinions from 3 different shifts of nurses, we named her Lauren.

When the nurses cleaned her up and handed her to Bill, one of them said how cute her little blonde hair is. (She said little because there is very little of it. She's pretty bald on top, but she has a sweet old man fringe in the back that is super cute). Anyway, Bill took one look at it and said, "Blonde? That's not blonde. Wait a few hours, and when my other daughter gets here, you'll see blonde." So, the nurse looked again and declared her a red head! I just laughed. And when Grandpa brought Kinley over, the nurse agreed that Lauren was definitely not blonde in comparison to Kinley.

So, that's how we went from a family of 3 to 4. I think I'm going to have to do the rest of the catch up some other time. Today was my birthday, but I've been sick all day and now it is past time to go to bed. The one good thing about not feeling great is that it forces you to sit on the couch a lot and get really bored and finally update your blog. I promise it won't be 4 more months before I do another one!
The always necessary side-pregnancy shot right before delivery.
So stinkin cute!

Kinley was so excited to meet her baby sister

Cute daddy and Lauren

Kinley LOVES Lauren, its so fun, she always wants to be right next to her

Four days old, and sleeping like a baby :) Sigh, if only that had lasted...

Vote For Bill!

So, Bill's company has this video competition going on right now, with some really fun prizes (like a camcorder that would come in super handy with a new baby due in 8 days). So, the deadline was last night at midnight, and we decided to make a video at 11pm. What can I say, we do our best work under pressure?

Anyway, we made it into the top 10! Unfortunately, now it is out of our hands, and we need help from you guys, our faithful friends and family. All of the videos have been uploaded to youtube, and the winner will be whichever video gets the most "likes." Not views, its whoever racks up the most "likes" by June 10. So, please please PLEASE go check out our video here, take a quick minute to set up a youtube account, and "like" the video. Its only 1 minute, so it won't take much time, and it could really help us out! If you are interested in seeing the other top 9, they can all be found here, just in case you really get into Certiport's video campaign.

Thanks a ton! Sorry to ask this of you guys, but I really want to win that camcorder!! Make other people go vote for us too!

Behind again

So, Happy (late) Mother's Day! Mother's Day was great for us, since we also celebrated our 4th anniversary on Sunday. Crazy, I know. We didn't even realize that it was our anniversary until like, 2 days before (hey, at least we both forgot together). We had Bill's parents and Christine over for dinner on Sunday night, and Mckinley absolutely LOVED having a captive audience. She had a blast showing off for "Teeny" and "Gampa," and discovered a new favorite toy (see video). Kinley is such a riot, I can't believe how much fun she is. She loves to go outside, and chants her little mantra of "socks, shoes, coat, side, yeah?, k!" nonstop until she convinces me that its time to go outside. I love it, she is so cute. She loves talking, and learns new words everyday.
My one complaint is that she has recently discovered her diaper, and absolutely refuses to leave it on at night. She can take off every pair of pajamas, onesies, pants, nylons, etc, and then off comes the diaper. We thought we'd won the battle when we started duct taping her diapers on about a week ago, but she figured that out last night. I went in to check on her about 45 minutes after we put her to bed, and she was standing naked in her crib, holding her diaper in one hand and the piece of duct tape in the other. So frustrating! I can barely get her diapers off with the duct tape on, how did she pull it off? Grrr. I'm really hoping that this phase ends soon.
On a happier note, she still loves babies, and is getting very good at being soft and gentle with them. I was holding my friends 2 week old baby today, and Kinley ran over and gave her a hug (softly), and then climbed up in my lap to look at her. SOO fun, she is going to be such a great big sister. Speaking of which, we have less than a month to go! Crazy, I can hardly believe it. We still don't even have any names picked out! But, now that we've finished some home projects, we'll devote some serious time to prepping for baby girl #2, and hopefully do a post about all of our projects we've been doing in the next few days.




Me and Kinz



My creative daughter built me a tower of all my pots and pans. Love it.

Updates Galore

So, big shocker, I'm behind again. Here we are, a week shy of V-Day, and I've said nothing since Thanksgiving! Christmastime was a lot of fun, and very busy (hence the no blogging for 2 months), and it is really nice to finally feel like we are settling back into life as usual. I probably should mention the fact that we are pregnant again, since I only have about 4 months left to go (oops, my bad!). We are due June 9, which probably translates to about June 20th, if this pregnancy is anything like the last one. Oh, and it is like the last one, in that we are having another girl! We are really excited to add another little girl to our family, and I LOVE finally not feeling sick anymore! I thought that we were having a boy this time, because I have been so much more sick this time around, but I guess this little girl just wanted to make sure we knew that she will be her own person, and not just follow in Kinley's shadow. It makes me nervous though, because Kinley has always been such a great sleeper, I really hope her baby sister isn't opposite in that, too. I guess only time will tell, eh?

Hmm, let's see... What else have we been up to...

Two weeks ago, Bill gave me an awesome present. He sent me to AZ to spend a few days with my sister! Becky is so great, she found us an amazing deal on airfare, and she even split my ticket with us to make sure we could go visit! We had such a blast; she has the sweetest family, and it was so wonderful to spend time reconnecting with her. Mckinley was in heaven; she loved waking up every morning and having kids to play with. Not to mention spending all day outside at parks. She has been having a hard time adjusting to it being 4 degrees outside and not being able to play with her cute cousins all day. Its been hard for me too, I loved getting to talk to my best friend all day long, and now I'm back at home talking to myself until Bill gets home from work. Oh well, totally worth it! Mckinley even did great on the airplane, she was such a little trooper.

Speaking of Bill's work, he is loving his job with Certiport. It is challenging and something new comes up everyday, but he is thriving on the pressure and loves learning new things. It's really fun to watch him be so excited about his job.

Well, I can't think of much else to say at the moment, so I'm calling it quits. Here's a bunch of pictures for the past 2 months. I'll try to get a pic or two of me up in the next few weeks, once I start showing a little more, so you can all have proof of pregnancy :) Happy Valentine's Day!

Daddy was teasing her with address labels

She LOVED opening presents on Christmas

This is her favorite hang-out. She pulls all my pots and pans out, and then climbs in. Sometimes she wants me to shut the cabinet on her, too. Nutso!

She found my shoes after church and had a blast clanking around the house in my heels

Helping me mop. Adorable!

Hello December!

Can anyone else believe how quickly this year has gone by? I have been a blogging slacker for months now... I've missed my birthday, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Bill's new job, and a host of other life events our family has gone through in the past 4 months. But, I'm not really in the mood for a long winded breakdown of our daily minutiae (and I'm sure you'll all appreciate that), so I'm just going to do a quick recap.

My birthday was great, I'm one year older and theoretically wiser, which I'm sure will come in handy soon. Halloween was a blast, we went to several parties both with family and friends. Bill dressed up as a farmer, I was a scarecrow, and Kinz was a pumpkin. We were the harvest family, or something like that. Halfway through November, Bill was offered a new job working as a financial analyst, and decided that it was time to make a change from AXA. He is now working for a company called Certiport, and loving the hectic pace and challenging work. It has been a tough adjustment for Kinley and I, since this is the first time Bill has worked a 9-5 type job. We both were spoiled by him coming home for a 2-3 hour lunch most days while he was working with the school districts. Oh well, it is fun to see him come home so amped about his job, and we can deal. Thanksgiving was wonderful, with a lot to be thankful for, as always. We spent our holiday with Bill's family, which was great. We ate too much food, stayed up too late, and played a ton of games. Definitely a winning combo.

In other news, Mckinley is a doll. She is so much fun and keeps me entertained all day long. She loves giving kisses and hugs. and has started chattering more and more. She loves spinning in circles until she gets dizzy, dancing to music, climbing on everything, playing on stairs, and lately, folding her arms. We love her so much, most days I can't believe how lucky we are to have her in our family. Well, this isn't as short as I'd thought it would be, but I'm done for now. Hopefully it won't take me 4 more months to post something new this time. If it does though, happy December to everyone, and make sure to drive safely and stay warm!


In her daddy's shoes. Did I mention she loves shoes?


Yep, that's right. She's sitting in a shoebox.

Happy Birthday Mckinley!

So, this is a few days late, but our baby girl turned 1 on Monday! Wow, I cannot believe how quickly that first year went by, it's crazy. We decided to have a "small" birthday party of mostly just siblings and grandparents and a couple friends, but we still had about 40 people. It was great, we had so much fun with everyone who could make it. I also helped throw a baby shower for one of my high school friends on Saturday morning, so we were very busy all day long. Mckinley stayed up 2 hours past her bedtime playing with her cousins after the party, and we got to spend some time with Tyler and Shelley, and later with Julie. It is always so much fun to spend time with family and friends, I just love it. By the end of Saturday night though, our little family was very ready for a restful Sunday. Unfortunately, that didn't quite pan out. We were called into the Stake President's office Sunday morning, and Bill was asked to serve as our Ward Clerk. He started right into it and didn't get home until 6:00 Sunday night. Bye-bye restful Sundays, hello 7 am meetings.

Mckinley is now unstoppable around the house. She is walking all over the place, and loves her new freedom. Luckily she jabbers nonstop while she wanders, so we can always hear which room she's exploring at the moment. She loves taking laps around the island wall between the kitchen and living room, and looking outside through the sliding glass door. I'll post some videos of her walking soon. At her one-year check-up, she weighed almost 18 lbs, and is 28" long. This skyrocketed her from almost the 5th percentile in weight all the way up to the 10th! Atta girl!

Listen to this sweet rendition of "Happy Birthday."



It took a little while, but she finally got into her cake, and she dyed her hair pink with the frosting.





One cake wasn't enough...





Here are some of the Brother's Clan that came.





And some of my family


Here's the b-day girl climbing up on her booster seat.

Long post! I'm calling it quits for now!