Super Pooper!

Macy had a better day yesterday! And so did I as I got to visit with her for over 5 hours. I have a funny story to share, but I'm warning you it is about P**P! When I arrived at the hospital yesterday, Macy had just eaten and was sleeping soundly. I picked her up to start our cuddling, when I noticed she was a stinky girl (all of my babies poop all. the. time.!). I put her back in her bed to start changing her. After I got her all cleaned up I picked up her diaper cream and she peed again. So I got her a new diaper and the diaper cream again. This time she poops, and let me tell you it was A SUPER POOP! I have had babies projectile vomit, but this is the first time I've had one projectile poop! In less than a second she had a huge squirt that shot out of her bed and landed on the wall behind it. With diaper creamed fingers I grabbed the front of her diaper to cover her and catch all the rest of her business, then I surveyed the damage. Oh. my. goodness. what a mess! The entire wall was covered from where it hit and it ran all the way down to the floor in a huge puddle. Of course, the poop also hit about 5 electrical outlets on its way down the wall. I didn't know where to start cleaning first! I cleaned her up and had to change all of her clothing. Next I moved over to the wall and started cleaning it up. I couldn't quite reach the floor (as it is hard getting down on all fours when you're still recovering from a C-section). Luckily, the nurses in the NICU are amazing people! Three nurses helped me clean her bed, and the wall, and floor, then they called in the cleaning lady to scrub them all! Macy you definitely win the prize for most destructive poop ever, ha ha!

She wasn't sure how she felt about Momma bathing her. I'll admit that I'm not that coordinated at holding slippery little babes and washing them at the same time. At home I usually get in the bath with them to hold them, then Daddy washes them.

Okay Mom, this isn't so bad.

Why did you turn me over and submerge most of my body in this cool water? (Notice her gripping the side of the tub!)

Now you've got me Mom. (The nurse showed me a good way to support her head and hold her arm to help her feel more secure.)

I am done with this bath and ready to get out!

Meeting the Fam!

"If the mountain won't come to Muhammad, then Muhammad must go to the mountain."

Since Macy can't come home to her family yet, her family went to her at the hospital!

You are so loved sweet Macy!!

Macy Marie

I am a child of God

MACY MARIE

(named after her Great-Grandma Wanda Marie)

and He has sent me here

JANUARY 22, 2018

has given me an earthly home

OTTAWA, ONTARIO

with parents kind and dear

LEONARD AND JENNIFER

Mommy and Daddy heading to the hospital.  We can't wait to meet you!

 In the operating room, getting ready for the action.

 First kisses.

 We love you already!

 Born at 12:05 pm

Weighing 8 lbs, 12 oz

19 inches long

Brown hair

Blue eyes

Proud siblings- Kaleb, Noé, Gavin, Teague, Hiram, and Ali

 Day 1 cuddles

 I was in a lot of pain and I just kept throwing up the pain killers.  The doctors finally found one that I could keep down and that worked.  I loved getting these sweet snuggles in, but they weren't long enough!

 Day 2 cuddles were much better!  I got to hold her for a long time and nurse her!  I love this sweet girl!

Day 3, we got more cuddles and nursing in.

  Mommy was discharged though and it was so hard to leave the hospital without her.  Tomorrow she has an echocardiogram and if all goes well we can bring her home!

Welcome to the world sweet Macy.  We love you so much!

Belated Epiphany Feast

 We had planned to celebrate Epiphany on its day- January 6th.  Unfortunately, we were really sick then and some very kind friends brought us over a delicious dinner anyway.  We postponed it to January 14th and what a day that turned out to be!  Early in the morning I woke up and went to the bathroom.  When I pulled my underclothes up I noticed they were really wet in the front.  I was worried that my water broke, so I called the hospital.  They said to come and they'd check me.  Nope!  False alarm, baby is sealed in tightly, but now the whole world knows I peed my pants in my sleep, ha!  Also, Kaleb was asked to speak at church that day.  More good friends took him, so he could complete his assignment, but I felt terrible having to miss it!  I heard he did a great job though and I am very pleased with his efforts!  Noé babysat the rest of the kids for us while we were gone and they had a pajama day.  Once we were all back home, Leonard cooked this amazing feast for us.  Usually, we all pitch in and help, but this year Len was a superstar (he always is!) and prepared everything for the rest of us.  After we ate, we went around the table and said 2 things that we are thankful for since we missed doing this at Thanksgiving.

 Kaleb- Getting to live in India;

Having more opportunities for fun with my friends in Canada.

 Teague- Getting to own the stuff we did before it got destroyed (what a little sweetheart, not sad that all of it is gone now, but happy we got to enjoy it while we had it!);

The egg that went "bleh" on Fuller House (he is so funny!).

 Hiram- Everybody (bless his heart!);

Goomba (his stuffy from Mario Bros.).

 Leonard- Macy joining our family soon, and how her arrival made me reevaluate life;

Central Heating.

 Gavin- My wonderful family that I care for and cares about me (my kids are so sweet!);

Learning how to do the dab (ha ha!).

 Ali- My cousins and puppies;

Chocolate.

 Noé- My family and friends;

Being able to eat beef again.

 Jennifer- That our family is reunited again and about to become 9 members strong;

That we are back in our home and were able to do the repairs and renovations it needed for us to be comfortable living in it again.

We picked up a French Silk pie for dessert and it was divine!  Afterwards, we sang Christmas carols for 2 hours.  How lucky am I to have a family that wants to sing Christmas carols together for 2 hours?!  I love my family so much and am so thankful for them!!

Moving forward towards PEACE

(Peace by Jonathan Ogden)

Now that 2017 is over I need to put my final thoughts of the year down, so I can let go of them and move on.  Anyone who has read this blog knows all of these things already, but I need to say goodbye to them.

2017 was probably the hardest year of my life (and I've had some hard ones).  We moved to India in the summer of 2016 with the hopes of staying for 4 years.  However, I suffered from horrible depression and anxiety while we were there that led to us making the decision Leonard and I promised we would never do and that was to live apart from each other for a year so he could finish his work assignment and I could hopefully find peace again.  The kids and I lived with one set of parents for the summer and moved in with the other for the school year.  All of my parents are AMAZING, but it's hard living under someone else's roof and out of suitcases for long periods of time.  I missed my home, I missed my things.  However, I did not want to move back to the cold weather and far away from our extended families again, but since Leonard's job is here in Canada that's what we had to do.  After our tenants moved out of our home we discovered that they caused serious damage to it in the 16 months that they lived in it.  We had planned on painting the whole interior of the house and replacing the flooring on the main level.  However, we had to replace all of the flooring in the whole house, all of the kitchen appliances, and all of the light fixtures.  We still need to replace all of the kitchen and bathroom counter tops as well as the windows and front doors.  We also need all of the air ducts cleaned.  After the snow melts we will have to do A LOT of work on our yard too.  When we moved to India we put all of our furniture into long-term storage, but brought everything else with us.  We had hoped to live there for 4 years and didn't want to feel like we were vacationing, but that we were living!  Some of our things got destroyed in India when our apartment flooded, but then most of our earthly possessions were completely destroyed during their shipment from India back to Canada as they were packed up during the monsoon season and obviously not packed properly!!  This was heartbreaking to lose almost everything we owned!  I know they are just things, but they are our things that have made up our lives!  Some things are irreplaceable and the things that are replaceable cause a headache to replace!  All of these worries have been very hard to deal with, but the biggest worry in my heart is my soon-to-be baby daughter's health.  When I learned she had Down syndrome I felt like our world had fallen apart.  Can I be the mother this sweet girl needs and the mother the rest of my children need and the wife my husband needs?  When I learned about her heart defect I learned how much I love her already and want her to live and am so scared about all of the health issues she will face in her life.  I have a strong faith in Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and in the Holy Ghost, but I'm not going to pretend that my faith hasn't faltered during this time.  I have felt forsaken and abandoned as each new thing piled on top of the other bad things we were already dealing with (like this sickness we've had now for 2 weeks).  However, I hold on to things tightly, so I was able to hold on to my testimony even when it got slippery.  I know God lives.  I know He knows me.  I know He loves me.  I know I will be okay.  I know it will take time to heal though.

Now I'm ready to say goodbye to 2017 and welcome to 2018!  This is going to be a good year!  We are going to get re-settled back into our home.  We are going to have a beautiful little girl join our family.  We are going to serve at church.  We are going to serve at work.  We are going to learn at school.  We are going to participate in extracurricular activities.  We are going to travel (probably just small day-trip road trips, so loved ones come and visit us!).  We are not going to give up on our dreams.  We are going to try our best to love and serve God and our fellow man.  Life is hard and knocks us down, but we get back up and are stronger for it.  This is going to be a great year!

The 12 days after Christmas

Since we weren't able to do most of our pre-Christmas traditions this year, we decided we'd do some fun things to celebrate after Christmas until the day of Epiphany.  We were able to salvage our 24 days of Christmas book from the mold fiasco, so we read 2 days' worth each day.  We also did one fun and festive activity.  Here's the list:

~See lights on Taffy Lane
~Bake cookies
~Read Christmas books one-on-one to the kids (all of our beautiful books got destroyed, but we picked up a few new ones)
~Watch A Christmas Carol and drink hot cocoa with marshmallows
~Have a Christmas Music Dance Party (we were really sick by this point, so we listened to music while assembling IKEA furniture)
~Play board games until midnight (for New Year's Eve- again all of our games were destroyed, so we picked up a few new ones of these too)
~Watch favorite Christmas cartoons- Charlie Brown, Frosty, Garfield, and Claymation while eating popcorn and drinking egg nog
~Cut paper snowflakes and hang them in the window
~Have a Christmas carol sing-along (our voices were gone, so this has been postponed)
~Make fudge (this has also been postponed because all of the stores are out of marshmallow creme and have been back-ordered for 2 weeks!  Mom said she will bring us some when she comes to visit, perhaps we'll make it for our Valentine's Day treat?)
~Watch It's a Wonderful Life while eating peppermint ice cream
~Have our first Epiphany Feast (we bought all the ingredients to make all of our favorite feast dishes, but our terrible sickness has us also postponing this event)

These are the cute snowflakes that we made.  I think they turned out so well and I love seeing each child's different creative skills come out!

Christmas Day

We began our Christmas morning with family prayer and then ate breakfast!?!  On Sundays we usually only eat one big meal after church, so technically our dinner the night before was peanut butter pie.  We were all pretty hungry when morning rolled around and the kids decided they wanted to eat before we opened presents.  Fine by me!  We had our traditional breakfast quiche that was prepared the night before, so all we had to do was heat it up.  

We arrived back in Canada on November 11th and have had snow since November 19th.  However, we got dumped on during the night and everything looked so pretty covered in white!

(Notice how deep the snow is.  Can you even see the difference from our front porch height and the sidewalk below it?)

Fat, fluffy snowflakes sprinkled down on us all throughout the day.

My best gifts under the tree!  I love these yearly family photos in front of our tree.  I hope I am always surrounded by my loved ones on Christmas day!

This year the Christmas Eve Elf brought us fuzzy socks with our pajamas!

Stocking time!

All of our kids got to open 5 gifts this year- one from Santa, their parents, their grandparents (the other grandparents sent lots of money which we bought new flannel sheets, fluffy blankets, and soft pillows with), the Montminy family, and we got 6 other gifts from family friends so each kid got to open one.

Ali's favorite gifts were her new Disney Princess dolls, My Little Ponies, and Kevin Henkes Mice books.

Hiram's favorite gifts were his Secret Life of Pets toys, new DVDs, and Piggie and Gerald books.

Teague's favorite gifts were his PJ Masks toys, Beanie Babies stuffies, and Ready Freddy books.

Gavin's favorite gifts were his Lego Ninjago weapons, Jedi/Sith Lightsaber kit, and his Diary of a Wimpy Kid books.

Noé's favorite gifts were her new clothes, boots, and Wonder books.

Kaleb's favorite gifts were his music stand with several books of music for the piano and tenor sax, his Drakkar Noir cologne, and his Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard books.

Leonard's favorite gifts were his new shirt and ties and his new CAR!!

Well, we had to get another vehicle for Macy's arrival, so instead of upgrading the mini-van to a full-size van we got a second car that Len can use for work too.  It's a new 2018 Toyota Corolla.

Jennifer's favorite gifts were her Pandora bracelet and charms and her new KITCHEN APPLIANCES!!  We usually don't splurge like this, but our tenants destroyed so much it just made sense to start fresh.  Santa got a great deal too!

We can't forget sweet Macy.  She got a big teddy bear and the Sparkle Town Fairies books.

Another favorite gift was all the Christmas cards we received.  Thank you family and friends for remembering us!

The rest of the day was spent calling both sets of grandparents and Leonard's brothers; Rita came over in the afternoon to spend the rest of the day with us; we ate yummy finger foods we just popped in the oven whenever we were hungry; we ate cream puffs; we watched A Christmas Story; we built an IKEA book case; and we played Ticket to Ride (and I won big time!).  It was a wonderful day celebrating the birth of our Savior!