The past 5 months in one blog...

Crumb.  I have been a bad blogger.  Now let's see if I can cram it all in one and get caught up!

APRIL

Easter morning!

We got all spiffed up Easter morning and went to church to celebrate the reason for the season.

Afterwards we stopped by to visit papal and grandma. They are always so happy to see us. (and by us, I mean Arlen - ha!)

Then we left there and went to a family get together and did an Easter egg hunt!

The night before Easter, Oma and Opa came over and we decorated eggs.

I made these cupcakes for Arlen's MDO class.

And he also did an egg hunt at MDO!

The week before Easter, our playgroup met and did an egg hunt too.

  

Arlen and his best bud Casen.  They are in the same class at MDO and in playgroup together.  Arlen just loves his "Case"!  :)

I was blessed to go on my first Falls Creek Ladie's Retreat.  I had such a blast and learned so much. Can't wait for the next one!

What a great group of ladies!

MAY

We participated in March of Dime's walk this year, called March for Babies.  It was a great experience and our team raised over $600 for the cause!

We did a bake sale one day during mother's day out.

 

My parents joined us for the walk

Arlen was carried most of the mile...

My little preemie baby is such a big boy!

The whole Team Arlen team!  We have some awesome family and friends that are such a blessing to us.  :)

Memorial Day we went over to Hollie and Zack's for a cookout.  It was a great time with friends and where we committed to starting a women's ministry at our church! 

I'm so glad God put these two girls in my life!  Very very blessed.

My lovely flag creation.  Memorial Day can't be celebrated without a flag food.  ;)

Ice cream cupcakes!  Very easy, but I had a smallish meltdown when transporting them...  Hot sun and icing does NOT mix.

And Arlen got to play with Gage!

In May, we also went to visit April, Ryan, and Cooper in Chicago.  We had so much fun and ate way too much!  We went to the Shedd Aquarium, a huge indoor waterpark, shopped, and ate some great Chicago food. 

We drove, and it wasn't terrible, but let's just say I won't be doing that again for a long, long time!  Arlen did ok (the phone and ipad helped a lot!), but during the night he was so tired and couldn't sleep sitting up, so we stopped at 4 in the morning and got a hotel room.  We slept for a few hours then got back on the road.  On the way back home we drove straight through but it was all during the day, which was much better.  :)

JUNE

Not a whole lot happened in June, except for our big Alaska trip at the end of June, but that's going to be a whole other post or this one will be the longest one in history.

I did make these cute Sonic cupcakes for my mom's work...

 And Arlen got a new slide

We also went to the Chisholm Trail Festival in Yukon.  My parents went with us and Arlen got to ride a train and pet a camel and see/hear a canon go off.... which he did not like.  =(  

JULY

We celebrated my great aunt's 90th birthday, which is my grandma's twin sister.  I really miss my grandma a lot, I wish she could have seen me "grow up" and meet Arlen, but I know we will be together again and for eternity too!  :)  I love being able to be around Aunt Nelma though, she is so much like my grandma, it comforts me a bit.

I didn't get many pictures because we were in the pool most of the time.  Arlen discovered jumping in and loves it!

July also was Ashlee's baby's 1st birthday!  It was a super cute Hawaiian party and we had to dress up.  I went to Goodwill and found all 3 of our outfits, under $10 for everything!

Dallas and Arlen got Hawaiian shirts and I am wearing a Hawaiian print skirt (which you can't see in this picture...)  Arlen would not cooperate so this is the best family picture we got!

Arlen playing with the birthday boy, Brooks!

My little Hawaiian boy and the ukulele.  (I also got these Gymboree hawaiian swim shorts at Goodwill for a $1!) 

We also went to Yukon's annual touch a truck.  Arlen just loves it, plus this year we went with Casen -his best bud.

 He loves the "big trucks". (Last year we called them "we-o we-o's"...)

This was fun!

Plus, there was a train there.. so Arlen pretty much was in heaven.  ;)

He and Casen rode by themselves like that... I was super nervous, because they went pretty far away, but they did great.  Can you tell Arlen was excited?!

Touch a Truck is such a great experience for him, he gets to climb all through different kinds of trucks and emergency vehicles, and this year the Schwans truck was there handing out free ice cream, and the Lays truck was there giving out free chips and drinks!  Love me some free stuff!  :)

AUGUST

Whew!  Finally in August, where not too much has happened.  We had summer break from MDO which meant... potty training!  UGH.  It's been a rough couple weeks, but I know it takes time.  We made a potty chart (train of course) and he is in big boy undies!  Lots of accidents but we are getting there.

We got back from Alaska the first part of August, then Lindsay and her kids were here for a few weeks, then we had April, Ryan, and Cooper stay with us for a week.  It was almost of a month of getting to spend lots of time with my family, and I just loved it.

Arlen also "moved" into his big boy bed a few days ago and that's going really well.  He stays in bed at nighttime, but nap time is not too great. For the past month he has just not wanted to take a nap.  He plays in his bed and completely takes off all his clothes... which is not great since he's not potty trained.  But I have recently started something different at nap time, instead of making him try to sleep, we just have a "rest time".  He can read books or even lay down in the dark guestroom and watch a movie.  Anything to where he is laying down and resting.  It has been working so far, he lays there for a couple hours and gets some quiet time (and so do I!).  :)  I'm hoping he will fall asleep but it hasn't happened yet.

He loves his big boy bed!

 

Arlen playing with Kylie and Korbin

Playing in the mud with Cooper

This is after Cooper dumped mud on Arlen's head... haha!

We also celebrated Papal Arlen's 75th birthday!

 4 generations of Tennyson men.  3 Arlens and a Dallas  :)

Arlen and Shirley with the awesome cake Lindsay made. It's a mattress and Arlen absolutely loved it! - Papal Arlen, my Arlen just wanted to lay down on it. :)

In August, we had our kick-off event for our new women's ministry, Ladies of Love.  Hollie, Whitney and I have started this ministry and so far it's going great!  We have several women who want to be a part in serving in different areas of the ministry so I am super pumped.  With God on our side, I know it will be a huge success! 
Our first big event was Mugs and Muffins, and thankfully, Whitney keeps a blog going for the ministry so here ya go....  http://fbcywomensministry.blogspot.com/2011/08/mugs-muffins-2011.html

Oh yeah, and our house has still not sold... I'm sure we will end up taking it off the market and moving on... by not moving.  ha, oh well!  Maybe next summer.

Alright that's done!  Now hopefully I can keep up with this blogging thing a little better.  And I still have to post about Alaska...  Oh boy.... 

Til next time!  ;)

Baby #2

Oh baby fever... the day after Arlen turned two, it hit.  I know I'm not totally ready for another baby yet, but it's definitely on my mind.  Arlen HAS to be potty trained - no doubt - before a baby comes along, and I'd like him to be a bit older.  He still gets a little jealous and isn't super great around babies.  For me, the age he is at (with the temper tantrums and stuff) would be extremely hard to be pregnant or have a newborn, I know a lot of people do it, but it just sounds tough!  My ideal scenario would be, to get pregnant October or November this year, putting the due date in June or July.  Arlen would have turned 3 in that time and I think he (we) could handle it by then.  ;)

That's my "ideal, perfect world" plan, and as we know, God has His own plans.  Arlen being born premature changed everything I knew (and didn't know) about pregnancies, labor, babies, everything...  I am in a situation where I didn't have a normal pregnancy and that makes my whole "birthin' babies" future questionable.  Should we even try?  Can I even carry a baby full term?  What if the baby comes early again?  What if they are even earlier and have problems?  Could I live with myself if I put my baby's life in jeopardy? .... So hard.  It's something I will never know ahead of time, I just have to trust God that if He blesses me with the gift of another baby, He will take care of us.


Hardly a day goes by that I don't think of Arlen coming early and what we had to endure.  It was hard, the hardest thing I have ever been through.  I blamed myself for "doing' that to him and not giving him a "normal" start of life.  I know there wasn't anything I could have done different or changed, but the guilt was/is there.  That being said, I don't want to go through that again.  Especially having a child at home already.  


But God was my rock and strength and peace during that tough time, and He is the reason we made it through.  I have total faith and trust that He will always take care of us, no matter what happens.  I leave our future baby birthin' in His hands.  What better place?!  :)


Now, for fun, when I get that crazy, gotta have a baby right now! feeling...  I watch this at 3 in the morning...

Such a cute and tiny, little guy!  He was just a few weeks old here, probably around 5 pounds.  I like to try and video everything, the good and the... not so good.  ;)

So, for now, I will relish my wonderful sleep at night, love on my amazing son and husband, and wait for God's perfect timing!

NICU

When I was pregnant, my mind and life was consumed with pregnancy and baby thoughts all day and night.  I was excited, happy, anxious, and maybe a little nervous.  From baby names to nursery themes, breastfeeding, diapers, strollers, and all the baby things you constantly think about being pregnant (especially for the first time), the NICU never, ever crossed my mind.  I don't think I even knew what it was.  I heard about babies being born early and surviving at 25 and 28 weeks even, but it never dawned on me what all that actually meant.

I had a great pregnancy.  No morning sickness, no swelling, a little back pain, overall a healthy and happy pregnant lady who was due on March 2, 2009.


On January 10, 2009, I woke up with a little cramping.  It was very minor and came and went pretty quickly that I just kept trying to ignore it.  After a few hours, I called my sister (my expert in pregnancies and babies) and asked her if it was normal to have period cramping while you were 33 weeks pregnant...  She, of course, said NO.  She directed me to immediately call my doctor, who directed me to immediately go to Labor and Delivery.  Even while driving to the hospital, it never crossed my mind I could have him early.  I guess I just figured the doctors would "fix me".  After arriving there, a nurse hooked me up to some monitors and found that I was having contractions.  She said I wasn't dilated and gave me medicine to (hopefully) stop the contractions.  After a few hours, they were worse and closer together.  They sent me home with the medicine to keep taking and told me if I'm still having contractions the next day to come back...

January 11, 2009.  Still had contractions, at the most 10 minutes apart, so I went back.  Got hooked up to monitors again, more shots of medicine, still not dilated, and an ultrasound to see if the baby's lungs were developed enough "in case he's born today"...   The ultrasound tech said he was roughly about 5 pounds and his lungs looked developed.  My contractions were bad, really bad.  Excruciating pain every few minutes was making me go crazy.  Since I wasn't dilated any, they sent me home to go on bed rest.

January 12 and 13, 2009.  Kind of a blur, lots of pain.  Lots and lots of pain...  The night of the 13th, I noticed some "leaking".  Very slight, but I was concerned.

January 14, 2009.  I called my doctor that morning and told her about the leaking.  She told me to go to Labor and Delivery.  I was really scared and worried about the baby.  Dallas dropped me off at the door to the hospital, but the walk to the L&D desk was unbearable.  It was like something in a movie, clutching my belly, saying I was in labor... the pain was so bad.  They did everything like the past two times, but this time tested the leakage to see if it was amniotic fluid, and it was...  I was told I was being sent to Baptist Hospital, because they had a NICU and I was having the baby today.  Those words didn't even process in my mind.  Part of me was glad I would finally stop having the horrible contractions, but I couldn't fathom having him that day.  I was in shock.
 

About 5 hours and one (awesome) epidural later, I delivered a beautiful and tiny baby boy.  4 pounds, 5 ounces of pure miracle.
They let me hold him for a few seconds, then took him away to evaluate his status.  They determined his lungs were good, but they wanted to quickly get him in an incubator for warmth.  Dallas was able to carry our son, Arlen, from our room to the NICU.

 Once he was hooked up to his monitors and the IV was in (hours later), I got to go see him.  My heart was broken.  This was not what I had planned for my child birth.  This was not in any of the books I read or shows I watched.  I was not prepared for having my baby 7 weeks early and to then not even be able to hold him or feed him or kiss him whenever I wanted.  I never thought I would be going through this.  

They let me hold him and try to feed him every few hours for just a few minutes at a time.  Feeding wore him out easy so at first he ate a lot through his feeding tube.  I praise God that he didn't have any health concerns.  Which is huge for premature babies.  His only "problem" was that he was small.  He lost almost a pound after birth, so their main concern was to get him to gain weight.  But to leave the NICU he would have to know how to feed from a bottle and not rely on his tube.

Each day he was there felt like a year.  Once I was discharged from the hospital, my day started by driving to the hospital (15 miles away) for his 9 am feeding.  He ate every 3 hours, which is the only time I could get him out and hold him.  So I stayed at the hospital til 3 pm, went home for a couple hours to eat, do laundry, etc., then back to the hospital by 6 pm.  Most nights I got home at midnight.

It was exhausting, physically and mentally.  I cried a lot, and prayed a lot more.  I don't know how anybody could go through something like that, and not have God in their lives.  He gave me peace and comfort and strength to get through it.  He also gave me my sister, who drove 10 hours with her 2 kids to make it there the day I had him.  She was my constant companion, came to the hospital almost every day to help me.  I am so blessed to have a sister like her, I love her so much!

They first told us he could possibly be in the NICU for a month, but he only stayed ten days.  He got back up to his birth weight and they told us we would be bringing home a 4 pound baby.  I have never been so nervous or happy in my life!  I was thrilled to be able to have him home, and actually start our life.  Ten days in the NICU is so short compared to most of the babies there, and I am so thankful.  His situation could have been a lot worse.  Those ten days felt like years, and my heart goes out to the parents who have babies there for months and months.

I read a quote while he was in the NICU, "From small beginnings, come great things".  He was so, so tiny.  21 months and 20 pounds later, it's actually hard to remember he was that small.  I am so blessed to have him in my life.  I love being his mother and can't wait to see what great things his life brings him.  I love him so much!!