It's Not Me, It's Picasa

Before

After

Before

After

Several of you guys asked about the pictures I took of Maddox. Unfortunately I didn't get a new fancy-shmancy camera, but I did find my new best friend--Picassa. I've used it before to make collages and stuff, but I didn't realize all the glorious editing options. Just go to http://picasa.google.com/ and download the program. Once all of your photos have been uploaded, click on the photo you want to edit. All of the editing tools pop up on the right, just mess around and go to town. My favorites are the sharpening (the more you cick it, the sharper it gets. It's under the "effects" tool), the"I'm feeling lucky" under the "basic fixes" tools, and the "highlights" under the "tuning" tools. Once you've edited to your heart's desire, then click "hold" on the bottom left to save it in your photo tray. Once all your photos are edited, click on the "export" button on the bottom right and you can save them to a folder on your hard drive so that you can upload it to your blog. Hope that makes sense!

Before

After

Oh, and here's a little plug for the recipe blog since our contributors have been dwindling....hint, hint :) (http://www.whowantsdinner.blogspot.com/)

Traditions

Here are pictures from the annual festivities. I won't lie, the pumpkin carving was a memorable experience, just not in a good way. The kids were fighting and cranky, the baby was crying, Jason didn't make it home in time, the dinner got burned....but dangit, we carved pumpkins. Thankfully the ward trunk or treat did not disappoint and was a much better start to the holiday fun.

After carving pumpkins, I thought it would be a fun family activity to make caramel apples. The extent of family involvement included me making the apples while the kids did this:

Love It!

Lookey, lookey how cute is this?? A huge thankyou to my talented friend, Chelsea who makes these totally cute necklaces. Check out her website, they would make the perfect Christmas gift! http://sayitwithcharms.blogspot.com/. Now my kids will always be close to my heart (cheezy phrase not included :)

Life With Three

(The hardest part of having three kids is trying to take their picture! Aiyiyi! I won't deny that I used up half the halloween candy as bribery)


They say that the thid one is the easiest and so far I have to agree. Of course he still does sleep all the time, but when he is awake he is just so chill. He lays there so relaxed just looking all around. He doesn't do too bad at night either. I usually go to bed around 9:00 and leave Maddox with Jason to watch Sports Center all night (except on special occasions like Thursdays "The Office" night. I have to gear up by taking a nap so that I can wait up for Jason to get back from basketball and we can watch it together. Long gone are those late nights together, it's sad). He usually sleeps for 4 hrs after his last feeding, then gets up again about 3 hrs later then goes back down until morning. The nursing isn't going quite as planned. I had high hopes with the herbs and prescription from my doctor, but I am still lacking in the milk department. Oh well, I tried my best. I haven't given up completely, I'm doing both for now and I have to admit that I had forgotten how much I love the convenience of the bottle. I'm not as stressed about it as I was with the others, in fact, I'm not as stressed about a lot of things. I feel like this time around I kind of know a little more what I'm doing and with such a big space between him and Jayden I don't feel so overwhelmed. I don't worry about spoiling him, if he cries I hold him. I don't worry about sticking completely to a schedule, if he's hungry I feed him. I don't worry about forming bad habits, if he starts waking up at 6:00am I snuggle with him in bed until he goes back to sleep. I don't worry about trying to keep him awake during the day so that he sleeps better at night, if he's tired I let him sleep. I think we're both a lot happier. My recovery is also soooo much better this time around. I still don't know what was worse, the C-section or the 4th degree tear, but this episiotomy thing is a piece of cake (sorry, a little too much information). And I've managed to keep my emotions in check this time around too. Jason was expecting the infamous phone call on his first day back to work where I'm sobbing and pleading for him to come home, but so far I've been doing great. Things may change in a week or two, but for now I'm enjoying each day at a time.

Sharin' the Love

I think the hardest part about the adjustment for me is making sure that Kylie and Jayden don't feel neglected. I've noticed that my patience is shorter and I can't even count how many times a day I say "not now, wait until I finish feeding Maddox". So we've also been trying to do some special one on one time to help them adjust to the change. Last Monday while Jason was still home from work I let Jayden skip school and they had a boys day out. They went to the mall and picked out his Halloween costume, saw "Wall-E" at the good old dollar theater and even squeezed in some quality Chuck E Cheese time (I forgot to send the camera, but if you've seen one Chuck E picture, you've seen them all). Jayden was in heaven. Last night it was Kylie's turn and we had a blast with the girls going to see "High School Musical 3" and then getting ice-cream afterwards. We stayed out way past mine and Kylie's bed time, but I loved just hanging out with my little chica. It was weird to leave Maddox for the first time, I totally missed him but it was also nice to be able to give her my undivided attention. I knew it meant a lot to her too as she snuggled up to me in the theater and whispered in my ear "you're the best mom in the whole entire world!"

First Bath

He hated it. My other two loved taking baths, but not this little guy. It surprises me because he is such a mellow (knock on wood) kid. I feel bad that he screams the entire time, but I seriously can't get enough of the way he smells afterwards (yes, even with my smelling disability I can still catch a whiff :), or the way his skin is so soft, or the way his hair just poofs up, or the way he snuggles up to me after being so exhausted from crying....

I Could Eat Him Up.

I'm completely smitten. I'm head over heels in love. I'm total mush in his teeny tiny hands. I seriously can not get enough of this boy. I could sit and hold him all day long....

.....Of course when I do sit and hold him all day, this it what happens.....Kylie turns Jayden into a superhero tinfoil robot.
Even superheros have to eat sometime

Three Kids and Thirty-three

A birthday shout out to my main squeeze! This was definately a low key birthday for Jason, but it was nice just being together with our little family. After playing super dad and super mom for the past week, I think Jason was ready to take full advantage of the "no working on your birthday" rule. The kids were so thoughtful and wrapped up pretty much every toy they owned to give to him for his presents (don't mind that I'm in the background nursing while cooking breakfast. It's all about multi-tasking these days). We sure love you, Jay/daddy! We can't tell you enough how grateful we are to have you, thanks for all you do!

Maddox Jay Young



Maybe it was the 5 hours I spent cleaning the house that day. Maybe it was the hour I spent walking circles around the cul-de-sac that evening. Maybe it was running the bases during kickball that night. Maybe it was the bike ride to and from the park, or maybe it was the sobbing prayer I said after losing my temper with my kids and telling Heavenly Father I couldn't handle pregnancy anymore....whatever it was, something worked. Monday night I had gone to bed around 10:30. Jason was up still and when he came to bed around midnight it woke me up. He was quietly trying to tip toe in the room and I think I gave him a heart attack when I realized that the sheets were soaked and I screamed in excitment, "my water broke!" I immediately jumped out of bed and ran around like a mad woman trying to get my hospital bag packed, call Chelsea to come watch the kids, call my mom to tell her the good news and of course put my hair extensions in so I wouldn't have crazy hair for the post-delivery pictures :). I felt like it was something right out of the movies. This whole time I had been worried about going in and being sent home because it was false labor so I always thought it would be so perfect to just have my water break and know that it was a for sure thing, so I guess my sobbing prayer really did work! We woke Kylie up to tell her so that she could help Jayden in the morning since we wouldn't be there and of course she was sooo excited. Chelsea was so nice to come stay the night with the kids and as soon as she got here we were off. I had a couple of contractions along the way, but nothing too bad. When we got there I think they doubted I was in labor because I was so giddy, excited and not in any pain. Thank heavens for the get-in-free-cause-my-water-broke card. I was just surprised at how much water I had in there. I thought most of it had gotten out in the sheets but with every contraction it would gush out all over. Sorry, I know that's gross, now just imagine having to sit in it. We got there around 1:00 and I was still at a 4 when they got me all hooked up. They decided to start me on pitocin right away, which I thought was weird because my doctor said they didn't like to do pitocin because I was a VBAC and that's why they wouldn't induce me. Oh well, I was just happy to get things going. I held out on the epidural until I was at about a 6 and I seriously don't know how anyone can go drug free, I was about to die. I almost bit Jason's thumb off while he was giving me the epidural (love you, babe) but everything was good after that. Last time I kept having panic attacks from the epidural because I hated not feeling in control of my legs, but this time was much better because he didn't do as strong of a solution so I could still wiggle my little toes. It also meant that I could feel alot more during the delivery, but I was okay with that. He was face up which was kind of slowing things down a bit, but the doctor was able to reach in there and turn him around (it hurts just thinking what that would have felt like without an epidural!). I wish I would have been better about remembering the times, but it was probably around 7:45 that I started pushing. All those spin classes didn't pay off because I was still so exhausted from the pushing! I could feel so much more pressure this time and I was just begging him to get that kid out. Finally with a little snip-a-roo he was born at 8:06, weighing 7 lbs 3 oz and 21 inches long. It doesn't matter that this was my third time having a baby, it was still the most unbelieveable feeling in the world to see him for the first time. He is so perfect and we are all so in love with this kid. So it was really funny because my friend Kristen was due a week after me and the whole time we were saying how fun it would be if we were in the hospital at the same time. She was scheduled for an induction Monday night, of course I was so excited for her but also kind of sad that I wasn't having my baby too. So one of the first things I thought of when we were headed to the hospital was that we really would be having our babies together! Her little guy was born 2 hours earlier (we both were in labor for 7 hours), they weighed the same and Maddox was only 1/4 inch longer (which I'm crediting towards the big cone head). She was staying right down the hall from me and it was fun wheeling our little babies back and forth to visit eachother. It was also nice having someone to keep me awake during the dreaded discharge class. I also loved having my bishop (we've got the greatest bishop) and friends (I've got the greatest friends) come and visit at the hospital. After having no visitors with Jayden since we were new to the ward, it really meant so much to have so many people excited for this little guy to come. Thanks so much girls for coming to hang out, and sorry you guys got kicked out by the cranky nurse! We came home Wednesday evening and have loved being together with our new little family. Kylie especially can't get enough of him. She was sobbing when she had to leave him at the hospital to go home. She left a little Barbie that she had gotten from her happy meal in his bed so that he would remember her. All the nurses kept thinking he was a girl because of the doll, it was kind of funny. She would be happy to just sit and hold him all day long, it's so sweet. She just wishes that I didn't have to "milk him" all the time. He's even growing on Jayden and it was cute to see him snuggling with him in bed this morning (we let the kids have a sleepover on the floor in our room last night because they were so excited to have him home). The only thing he's not too fond of is his name. I spent most of the pregnancy trying to convince Jason to name him Damon and Jayden picked out his middle name, "Zachary" (that's his absolute most favorite name in the world). Jason wasn't totally sold on Damon and a couple weeks before he was born we finally agreed on Maddox. Jayden was ticked and refused for the longest time to call him by his real name. Even on the way home from the hospital he put in one last plea saying "you and daddy can call him Maddox and me and Kylie will call him Damon Zachary". It was a valiant effort. I've also loved watching Jason totally melt over this little guy, he's already got his daddy wrapped around his little finger. Welcome to the family little Maddox!