Did You Think to Pray?

I'm feeling a bit blessed today, and grateful that we remembered to say our prayers this morning!

On Ryan's way to work this morning he was passing a semi-truck. He was in the outside lane when the driver of the truck decided to pass the truck in front of him. He came into Ryan's lane forcing him into the median. Ryan said he almost rolled the car, but he's fine, the car is fine. He was just pretty shaken up for a while.

We are all very glad that he didn't get squashed by the big truck, and are happy that we didn't forget to pray for his safety as he traveled.

It's hard to have Ryan on the road everyday. I worry about his hour long commute in the winter when the roads are bad, but I don't often fear for his safety on days like today when the sun is shining and the roads are clear. You never know what the other drivers will do. So it's good that we continue to pray for him so he may be safe from harm even when the other drivers are being less than attentive.

Challenges of Motherhood

AHHHH!! I can't handle having Canton home two days in a row!! He has a cold so he stayed home from school yesterday, and doesn't go to school on Wednesdays - maybe I should just let him suffer, because the cold medicine makes him CRAZY!
I laid down with the baby for 20 minutes and in that 20 minutes he and Oran got into the game closet and knocked down ALL of the games. There are cards, dice, and game pieces EVERYWHERE. They pulled all of the books off the book shelf. There are books all over the family room.
Canton sprayed hairspray all over the bathroom mirror.
Someone took colored pencils and drew on the walls in the stair well - ALL the way down the stairs on BOTH sides! AND on the walls in the basement. Toys are all over the toy room. The boy's bedroom is a mess. The kitchen sink is over flowing with dirty dishes. I'm buried in laundry.

EVERY single room in my house is a disaster right now >:(
[This is my Angry face.]

Spring Break

Today is the last day of our Spring Break vacation and our second snowy day this week. For Spring Break activities my kids have built a snowman and gone sledding. (Both in our backyard) We've had sick kids, so we've stayed home all week.

Skyler has had a tough time with this cold. Wednesday night was really rough. He coughed all night (from midnight - 5am) he couldn't sleep so neither did I. I couldn't alleviate his coughs and they just wouldn't let up. He threw up again and again, because of the coughing, and had a dry diaper in the morning, very unusual for him. (So I was afraid he was getting dehydrated)

I took him to the Doctor yesterday who said Skyler had an RSV virus and a little bit of bacterial pneumonia. However the doctor said it seemed to be clearing up. I told him that Skyler's been fighting it for a little over 2 weeks and he said it's typical for RSV to hold on for a month or more.

Dr. Clifford said that they can't really do much for anyone under the age of 2. He suggested we use a humidifier, suction him out good with the bulb syringe, and prop him up to sleep; all things we've already been doing. So basically, just 'hang in there.' It's so sad, he doesn't have a voice right now and makes sad little squeaky noises. :(

However, I told Dr. Clifford that Canton and Oran had the bad coughs too and he did give me something for them; Flonase nasal spray. We gave them each a squirt in each nostril before bed and I heard very little coughing from their room last night. So my visit to the doctor wasn't a total loss.

Ryan had yesterday off work. We'd planned to go somewhere and do something fun, but it didn't work out that way. However, he and the boys stayed in the PJs 'til 1:00 watching movies and playing board games. They played 3 different games, and the boys thought it was great!

Around 5:00 the rain finally stopped and Ryan took the boys out front and watched them ride their bikes while I made dinner. (Ryan's co-worker was getting rid of 2 boys bikes and Ryan brought them home. He got one fixed up for Canton's birthday, in August, and just recently finished fixing up the other one for Tate. I picked up a really little bike, for Oran, at DI - the boys aren't happy that it's pink, but it was only $3 and Oran has fun riding it, we thought we might paint it another color.)

It was kind of fun to have the windows open for a minute, listening to three bikes with training wheels rattling across the pavement, accompanied by the sound of happy kids.

That's about as exciting as our Spring Break gets for this year.

I hope you've all enjoyed the first few days of Spring.

Christmas with the Greens

We did lots of fun things for Christmas. The annual Dunn Family Christmas Party was on December 18, we had a Family Dinner on Christmas Eve at my Aunt's house. We had a yummy dinner with Prime Rib, rolls, twice baked potatoes, green beans with almonds and bacon, and a yummy salad. It's the best Birthday dinner Ryan's had in years!

Ryan's brother Neil came over on Christmas Eve and helped us get everything wrapped and set for the morning.

Tate got to be "Santa's Helper" this year, which means he got to wear a Santa hat, read the gift tags and bring everyone their gifts.

Here are some pictures of the fun we had.

This free digital scrapbook generated with Smilebox

A Cute Baby

The Idaho State Journal is holding a "Cutest Baby Born in 2010" contest, and since I happen to have a baby who was born in 2010, I entered.
There were 219 entries, and SO many cute babies!!
The winner gets a gift basket full of goodies from local businesses.
So join the fun and go vote!!

Becoming an Author

I've wanted to be a published author for as long as I can remember.

From the time I was very small I drew pictures and made up stories. Hoping to someday share them with others. I wrote for my high school newspaper and actually got an article published in the Herald Journal in Logan, UT - giving me my first taste of publication.

But as time has worn on other things have filled my time - my dream of writing continually gets pushed back and put aside, but recently I've felt the need to create!

I have a few friends who have been bitten by the writing bug as well. Laci, a girl I went to high school with, is now working with an editor that works for a, REAL publisher to complete her novel. My friend Kim recently had some short stories published. And I just read on my cousin's wife, Ranee's, blog that she has recently completed the fourth book for her series and is in the 'final editing stage' for her first one.

I can't help but feel I'm being left behind!

I came up with a story idea and sat down to write. I've only written 3 chapters in the past week, but I happen to think it's pretty good. I read it to my kids, as a bedtime story. They are excited and enthralled and can't wait to see what happens next. So I was feeling pretty good about myself.

Then the man who lives at my house, who shall remain nameless, read it, without asking me first. He pointed out all of it's flaws, and didn't have any complements for me. So now I am feeling discouraged. I don't know if I should continue with this story or just abandon it and start over.

This man said that 'my writing style is too formal,' and that I need some practice so I can 'find my groove.' But I was practicing!! Maybe that's why you should never let people see you Works in Progress!

Public Television

Is this considered culture??



Whatever it is, it makes me laugh - my boys are so funny.

Remembering that it could be worse

I've been very frustrated with Canton lately. He just has more energy than I know what to do with, and if he gets bored, as he often does, he starts to pick on his brothers and makes them cry.
When I remove Canton from the situation things are calm and peaceful, there is no fighting, and, at bed time, his brothers can go to sleep. So it's obvious that Canton is the one causing the problems.
Today I was looking through some old postings on our family website and remembered that it could be worse. I found this post that I made on one of "those" days, it brought back some memories:

It has been a day of never ending messes at our house.

This morning my kids were eating breakfast and Anna called, I left the room for a minute to talk to her. I heard my baby scream and when I returned to the kitchen I saw that Canton had squished bananas into his own hair and and dumped a cup of yogurt on Oran's head.

I got Canton clean and dressed and was working on Oran when Canton came looking for a towel, his blue shorts suspiciously white. His room was absolutely covered in an inch of baby powder. Our new bottle is now more than half gone. I shook out blankets, swept, vacuumed and dusted, but every surface in their room is still covered in a thin layer or white powder.

Next Canton ran to the bathroom shouting he needed to use the potty. (This is a typical occurance as of late, so I thought nothing of it.) He was taking an unusually long time so I went to check on him, only to discover that he pooped in his Pull-Up before he made it to the potty and had tried to clean it up himself. He had the smelly mess all down his legs, and smeared all over the bathroom: floor, walls, toilet, and tub. But that's not all, he'd tried to flush the messy Pull-Up down the toilet, causing the toilet to clog and over flow. Lovely!

By the time I got that cleaned up we had missed our opportunity for lunch at the park. I told Canton that we couldn't go to the park because he'd made so many messes. That made him very upset! He Dumped out the basket of toys and started throwing them in all directions. I tried to ignore his fit, hoping the lack of attention would discourage him, until a wooden block collided with the TV screen, bounced off and hit Tate in the forehead. After a good cry with his face in the corner I had Canton clean up THAT mess himself while I made lunch.

We had Hawaiian Haystacks for lunch using our leftovers from last night. I finished first and decided to vacuum up more of the baby powder before nap time. Back in the kitchen Canton had finished his food, but for some reason decided that Oran needed his to be soup! He dumped his water into Oran's bowl and was stirring the rice concoction. Oran thought it was quite funny, and was squealing with delight when I came in to see him pour the bowl of "soup" all down his tummy. [time for outfit #3]

I grumbled at Canton "Are you done eating!?" "Then go use the potty, before we take naps." I got Oran clean up, and dried off. Again Canton was taking too long in the bathroom. I opened the door to find him standing in the middle of the room, without any pants, holding up a sopping wet roll of toilet paper. "It's all wet!" He said very innocently. He had dropped it into the toilet after he was done using it and fished it out - isn't that nice? And it was our last roll of toilet paper!!!

The kids are now all napping, thankfully. I think I've had enough Canton for one day! And the day's only half over!

Thanks for listening to me grumble... I hope your days are going better than mine.

-July 25, 2008

So, even though Canton is still my most challenging child, I'm not spending my day cleaning poop off of the walls.

A Birth Story

It's been six weeks now since Skyler joined our family. I thought I'd better get this written down before I forgot it all completely.


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I had an appointment with my midwife on Thursday, September 30th - I was a few days past my "due date" so Tracy stripped my membranes and made a prediction. She predicted that we'd be coming in by 8pm that night and that we would definitely have a baby before the weekend was over.

She wasn't too far off, I started having contractions around 7:00pm. The contractions were consistent, but not as strong as I felt they should be. I'd spent many nights counting contractions trying to decide if it were "time," and these felt no different.

By 10:00 the strength of my contractions had lessened so I went to bed feeling discouraged; doomed to spend another day in my uncomfortably pregnant state.

Around 2:00am my contractions were strong enough to wake me up, they were coming about every 5 minutes and were hurting. I laid in bed watching the clock for a while until I was hurting so much that I could no longer lay there.

It was the middle of the night and everyone was asleep so I got up and got into the shower, hoping to get some relief from the pain, but every contraction was hurting more and more.

I wrapped a towel around myself and went back to our room. I prodded Ryan until he woke up. I said, "I need you," and "I don't think we can wait much longer."

He got up and while I did my best to dress myself, in between contractions, he called my Mom, who lives an hour away, she said she'd come and stay with our boys. Then he called my Aunt, who lives in town, they had plans to go out of town that day, but she agreed to come and stay with the boys until my Mom got there.

We left the porch light on and the door unlocked then we headed out into the dark, wee hours of the morning.

I was afraid that the ride to the hospital was going to be torture, but I only had one bad contraction and then, lucky me, I got a break until we got to the hospital (which is about 15 minutes from our house.)

We got to labor and delivery a little after 4:00am, I changed and we answered all of the questions (as I paced the room trying to make it through each contraction.) They called Tracy and then the nurse wanted me to lay on the bed so they could check me out and monitor the baby.

"You want me to lay on the bed for 20 minutes!?" I asked, it seemed like an impossible thing to ask of me, at the time, but I agreed (mostly because she insisted.) We discovered that I was only dilated to a 4 and my heart sunk. I was sure that I was farther along than that, based on the level of pain I was in. I thought I must be close to the end and when I found out I wasn't I began to doubt whether or not I could make it - I didn't think I could keep this up, the way things were, for very much longer.

When Tracy got there she said, "You're only at a 4, do you want to stay, or would you rather go home and come back in an hour or two." I said I wanted to stay, Tracy shrugged and sat down to fill out some paper work. But after watching me through a couple of contractions she causally said, "This seems pretty active to me." See, I do know what I'm talking about!

As the pain got worse I was having a hard time coping. I couldn't figure out what was wrong with me and why I was having such a hard time. I kept thinking, "It wasn't this hard with Oran."

I was trying to stay positive, breath, and work with the pain. My water broke during one of the contractions and the nurses were quick to throw some towels on the floor so I wouldn't slip and fall. I felt like I wasn't in control, and like I couldn't even see, I was blinded by the pain (if that's possible.) All I could do was hang on to Ryan and Tracy. My contractions were right on top of each other, there were no pauses and no time to breath in between.

Tracy decided to have me get into the jetted tub and see if that would help me relax a little. She checked me before I got in and I was only at a 7. The nurses filled the tub and Ryan and Tracy helped me get in. I was only in the tub through one contraction, Tracy thought it looked like I was ready to push so they got me out of the tub (even though I protested. Portneuf Medical Center is not licensed for water births.)

Ryan had one arm, Tracy had the other, one nurse was trying to put my gown back on and the other was trying to towel me off all while we walked from the bathroom to the bed.

They had barely gotten me situated on the bed when I had to push, which I did, I yelled, "Help Me!" because everyone but Ryan had turned away to get the equipment ready. Tracy and one of the nurses came back to help, while the other nurse scrambled to gather supplies.

[When Ryan tells the story he says, 'She laid down, and Pop, there was a head!']

I felt like I didn't see anything from the point when I left the tub up until I was holding Skyler on my tummy, as Tracy dried him off, but Ryan insists that my eyes were open the whole time, I don't think I believe him.

Skyler was absolutely perfect, he wasn't bruised or misshapen (probably because it all happened so fast.) He entered the world on October 1, 2010 at 6:03am, less than 2 hours after we got to the hospital. He didn't need oxygen so I was able to hold him and feed him right away. They didn't even take him for his first exam (until later.) Everyone left and Ryan and I were left alone to bond with our new baby.

Tracy later made the comment, "That was kind of a wild ride," I decided that was a good way to describe it. It was a traumatic birth experience for me, I couldn't even talk about it for a few days and actually had nightmares about it for a couple of weeks following the birth.

But, I am glad that I was able to do it without any pain medication, even if it wasn't as great an experience as my third birth, it's still nice to know that I can and I did!


_____________________________________________________

Everything is fine now - we are adjusting to life with four boys, and are glad that Skyler is part of our family.


He is so very sweet and we all love him a lot.

Oh Boy!

Introducing Skyler Grant Green



Skyler joined our family Friday, October 1, 2010 (10/01/10) at 6:03 am he weighed 8 lbs. 3 oz. and was 20 inches long.

We have another little boy at our house. It's hard to believe it's already been a month! The past few weeks have flown by in a sleepy haze of late night feedings and constant diaper changes. Life is slowly coming back into focus as we get back to a routine.

Skyler is a good baby, he's often content to sit and observe things going on around him, but he likes to be held and snuggled all of the time. We all love him and think he's very special. He fits into our family very well, and we are all glad that he came to our house to live.