12/16/2011

Thanksgiving '11

Thanksgiving in AZ this year was a total blast. Because Brandon had to go on a business trip the Monday after Thanksgiving, we stayed in AZ and had him fly out from there so I could stay with family while he was gone. So we ended up staying 10 days! Here are the highlights--
1. Rett is not a car baby. He hates his carseat. It pains me to admit this, because life is so much easier when the baby likes the carseat. But it is what it is. On the 10-hour car drive, he was in his carseat maybe 3 hours. Don't judge. :)
2. The girls were fabulous in the car-- Lanie was better than Lexi even. That was a total surprise. The girls have transitioned fabulously to having a little sibling. They are so patient if I have to help the baby, and they just wait until I can help them. This was a good thing since I was dealing with him in the car so much.
3. Lexi and Lanie need a backyard. Period. They had so much fun playing outside. My sister (in the pictures) bought a bounce house slide thing, and Lanie got so excited every time she woke up and it was still there. She'd say, "Side, Side! It's working!" So cute.
4. AZ in November is fabulous. My favorite conversation--
(Dave) "The weatherman says it's supposed to be rainy and cold tomorrow."
(Rebecca) "Yes, but when is the weatherman right?"
D: "Well, he said that today would be sunny and 75 degrees."
R: "Yes, but it's sunny and 75 degrees everyday."
HA! So true!
5. The turkey trot will forever be fun. Even if my sister has to practically drag me at her pace. Here are some pics of the big day.


Bec and I after the race. I had a baby 6 weeks prior, and she had ACL knee surgery also 6 weeks prior, so we weren't expecting to be fast or anything. It's a 10K, and we finished in 1:02. About a 10-minute mile. Not bad, considering we aren't runners by any stretch of the imagination. NOTE: My number was 1984- the year I was born! Random, huh? I thought that was stinking cool. The family group shot. One of these days, we'll start getting more and more people. :) The littles did the family fun run.
Before the race, with my niece Kinsey. She did NOT want to be there, so I gave my most exciting smile for her. :)

6. My family is big. There was one point where we were at the gym and the instructor asked who was hosting a family dinner. Bec raised her hand, and the instructor asked how many people, and Bec answered, "60". Just Mom, siblings, and kids too. Crazy...

7. The "Proffitt Family Survivor Games" was awesome this year. Really fun to compete as families, even when most of us are competition-obsessed crazies.

8. Lanie will actually sleep on someone's lap. She's never slept on mine of course, but Joy was enjoying a good snuggle. She skipped her nap for Thanksgiving, and was exhausted by 5.

9. I have plenty of nieces and nephews who are ready and willing to hold my baby. That was pretty fun. Now if only we can convince him that he doesn't need Mommy all the time...
10. Ned's Crazy Sub will always be a destination, even though there are WAY better sub places. We went to Firehouse Subs, which were delish, and Ned's just can't compare. But it brings back some nostalgia for me, so we always go. Thanks, sisters of mine, for humoring me and coming with. :)

11. Brandon is still allergic to Arizona. I don't know exactly what it is, but he was wheezing the whole time. And Rett broke out too. Weird...

12. My sis-in-law is amazingly talented. Margaret not only took my family pictures, but also made my Christmas card this year. And they are amazing. AND they cooked us an amazing dinner in Tucson.

13. We need to live closer to family. It's just too much fun. And so much easier when Brandon is out of town. Lexi had a blast with all her cousins, and Lanie enjoyed tagging along.

The end. :) I as usual forgot to pull out my camera 98% of the time.

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12/15/2011

Rett with Elmo

We got this toy with Lexi, and we kind of love it. It's great for newborns, but it's also great for when they're older. Rett had his first experience and started smiling at Elmo. :)

12/14/2011

Lanie's talk

As Lexi was practicing her talk, Lanie wanted to join in on the fun. This is her version. :)

12/13/2011

Lexi's primary talk

Here's a video of Lexi's primary talk she gave on Sunday. Of course, this video is from when we practiced on Saturday. She was fabulous!!! She got up without any help, and she talk loud and clear without a microphone. I'm so proud of my little girl!

12/12/2011

Rett smiling

Smiling babies are possibly the cutest things in the entire world. Of course, with this baby I'm a little biased. :) And Rett seems to always be ready and willing to smile. Just give him a little attention and he'll smile his head off!

12/11/2011

Lexi's Birthday

I'm trying to get updated on some videos from my camera, so there might be a slew of them tonight. :) This one is the girls at Lexi's party singing along to Tangled. Pretty cute!

The girls meeting Rett

Here's a vid of the girls meeting Rett. Two months late, oh well. That's my amazing sister in law Valentina, in case you were wondering who the beautiful girl was. :)

12/04/2011

What's going on here?!

Well, more than a month has gone by. I haven't had my computer, so that's kind of an excuse for my unbloggingness.

A VERY long story short, when they were fixing my computer, Best Buy lost all my data on my computer. And no, I didn't back it up because Best Buy PROMISED me that they weren't going to TOUCH my hard drive. Yes, I'm still frustrated about it. The incredibly good news is that I just replaced my netbook with this laptop in August, and all my data until August is on my netbook. That still leaves me without 4 months' worth of pictures and videos, but I'll take that any day over 7 years' worth. So, best buy transferred my netbook's data for me.

In lieu of me not having any new photos to post yet, I chose 7 photos- one for each year I could have lost- to post here. You see, I have text updates, but no new photos, and because no post is good without pictures, here goes...

2005. Brandon looks like he's 12. :) Love you, babe!
Halloween was fun this year. I need to get the pics from my mother-in-law to post soon. We did a Tangled theme this year, with the girls each as Rapunzel, Brandon as Flynn Rider, and me as Gothel. Brandon's was my favorite costume. Lanie kept looking for me all night, and couldn't find me because I had a black wig on and I was unrecognizable. The girls had a blast trunk or treating at the church.

Linda, my mother-in-law, was indispensable to me when I had the baby. My mom and sister came the first week, and they were also indispensable while they were here. Thank you! But my mother-in-law stayed for more than 3 weeks, and I literally had to figure out how to do everything again once she was gone. Thank you, Linda! You really are the best. I hope I'm half the mother-in-law you are. :)

2006. Cute little Lexi.

We went to Park City with Brandon's family and had a blast. Brandon's mom, dad, sister, grandma, and some cousins came and it was so fun. We took the girls in the pool and hot tub, went shopping a little, found a blessing outfit for the baby, ate a lot of good food, watched Lion King about a million times, and just hung out.

2007. Lexi as a kitty for Halloween. So cute!
We just had a week after Linda left before we went to Arizona. In that week, we had a visit from Brandon's brother Jason, and I thought I would cry I was so stressed. I shouldn't have been, but it was the first day I tried to cook dinner, get the house clean, and keep all the kids happy all by myself, and I cooked the grossest soup for poor Jason. Oh well. Maybe next time.

2008. I was prego with Lanie, and I remember Lex was really cranky for this photo shoot.
We had a ton of fun in AZ, and I think I will detail that in a different post. We stayed 10 days, and it still didn't feel long enough. :)

2009. Cute little Lane.
The girls have been so awesome with the baby. They have had no resentment whatsoever with the baby. I am so lucky. Even Lanie has been so good with him. Whenever they notice him, they just say, "awwww, Baby Rett!" Both Lex and Lane run to get me something when I need it. There have been a few times when I've had to hold the baby while putting Lanie down for her nap, and I was really worried she'd pitch a fit. Naptime for her is a time where we read stories and pay attention only to her, and I thought she'd be upset. Not at all! She sat on the floor instead of on my lap for stories, and happily went in her bed without cuddle time. She's awesome. I really have had it very easy when it comes to jealousy from my kids.

2010. My little mama's girl. She's so sweet.
I've quickly learned that Rett is a little homebody. He is not good in the car, doesn't like being out, and does so much better when we stay home. DARN! That does not work with my lifestyle. :) How am I supposed to take him to the gym every day??? We'll have to work him in slowly...

2011. I think Rett looks like Lexi, with a different chin. Lex has my chin, whereas Rett is all Brandon. :)
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11/09/2011

Rett... isn't he cute?

Things are going great with our sweet Rett. He's a cutie. He actually slept 6 hours last night. In a row. I'm not expecting him to do that every night, but it sure was nice. :) Too bad we went out last night and I wasn't sleeping too...

Anywho, my awesome mother-in-law took some pics and here are some of my favorites:

He has some really funny faces he makes.

He's still a little jaundice, but that's okay.
You gotta love baby feet...
These next ones are all pretty funny. It's hard getting 3 kids to take a good pic.
Gotta love Lanie's smile. I think I was bribing her at this point to smile.
This one's not bad...
Rett loves having his mouth open. He does this a lot. :)
Again with the mouth! It's hilarious.
Awww. Love this one.
I think this one's the best with all 3.
This one cracks me up. Cross-eyed with his tongue out. Little jokester...
He's so cute!
Love those eyes!
That mouth. Seriously, in most of his pictures his mouth is wide open.
This one is so sweet. Lexi is awesome with Rett.

10/24/2011

All about LEXI!

My sweet Lexi. She wants to hold the baby all the time, and she's very good at it. She is such a responsible little girl, I have to constantly remind myself that she's only 5 years old.

She's such a little sweetie.

Lexi finally got a birthday party! I don't believe in parties, I know, I'm a party pooper. I never thought she was old enough to actually enjoy a party. But for her 5th birthday, she was ready. And she had a blast! We had all her friends for a Rapunzel party. We started out with some coloring...



And then my picture taking got a little spotty... Then we had magic tricks by her dad. And frankly, we could have had Brandon doing magic the whole time and they would have been happy. They loved it.
After magic tricks, we played "find pascal," where they got a prize if they found pascal. Then we played "Pin the tail on Maximus," also pretty dang fun. After those 2 activities, we had Lexi open her presents (probably the funnest part for her), and blow out the candles on a small cake. We had a small cake because we had the kids make their own ice cream sundaes instead of eat cake. That was a hit as well. Then we put on the movie and watched Tangled. The girls loved it, the boys not as much, so we turned it off after about 40 minutes, and we had a pinata outside. The kids loved beating up the pinata, and LOVED getting the candy.

Then I went upstairs to feed the baby. The party winded down, and I went back to help clean up afterward. Lexi had a blast, and that was my whole goal anyway. She'll probably have to wait until her 8th birthday for another party, so I hope she had enough fun to last 3 years. :)
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10/15/2011

Introducing...

Everett James Wernli, 7lbs 3oz, 20 in, born 10-11-11 at 2:50am
Isn't he adorable? :)

My doc induced me just like I wanted. Are you ready for the birth story? I know you are all curious... :) If not, scroll down to the bottom.
My doctor wouldn't induce me unless he knew the lungs were fully developed. So, Monday morning, at exactly 38 weeks, I was scheduled for an amniocentesis. We did the amnio, and then it's a waiting game to hear back from the lab. Around 1, I was getting antsy to find out the results, so I called the lab, and they said they faxed the results a few hours before. So, I physically went down to my doctor's office to ask about the results. Because I'm pushy like that. They looked up the fax, found that the lungs WERE fully developed, yay, so they called the hospital to get me on the induction list. They said hopefully they will get me in by 5pm that day.

Waiting to be induced is a nightmare. I just stayed at home and walked around not really being able to do anything because all I wanted to do was go to the hospital. At 3:30, the hospital called and said if I didn't come right then, I probably wouldn't make it in that night. So I left right then. :)

I made it to the hospital around 4, got checked in etc., and waited for them to hook me up to the pitocin. Brandon was with the girls waiting for his brother and sis-in-law to come to babysit, and to tell you the truth, I was missing him. I called him and asked if there was any way to find someone in the complex to watch the girls for a while so he could be with me. He said that Brittany just so happened to offer assistance, and that he'll take the girls to her place so he could come. Thank you so much Brittany! It was weird being at the hospital without him, even though I wasn't much in labor yet.

Anyway, they hooked me up to the pitocin around 5pm, and then it's a waiting game until things start happening. I started at 2 1/2 cm. 2 1/2 hours later, I was at a 3. 2 1/2 hours later, so 10pm, I was still at a 3. Dude, that's 5 hours and 1/2 a cm! And I was in a LOT of pain. At this point, I had an epiphany. The exact same thing happened with Lanie! I almost think that my body won't really progress until I get the epidural. I think the epidural helps my body to relax. I didn't go anywhere with Lane until I had the epidural, and then it went really fast. So, I decided to stop suffering and get the epidural.

I love that epidural, btw. Then I started progressing about 1 cm per hour. I hit a 6 around 2:15am. But once I hit a 6, it took me 15 minutes to get to a 10. The nurse came in around 2:30 because the baby's heartrate would get pretty low each contraction. She changed my position to see if that would help, and it didn't. She decided to check me and was pretty surprised to see I was fully dilated and ready to go. As soon as I got into birthing position the baby's heartrate went right back to healthy. They decided to not let me push until my doctor got there (Lanie only took 3 pushes, so they didn't want to risk it). My doc got there around 2:40 and they got everything ready. I don't know if this happens to other women, but I get a serious case of the chills when it's time to push. I can't stop shaking for some reason. So I had them pack on the warm blankets. It happened with my other two as well, so I kind of expected it. In two contractions and about 5 pushes, our little Everett was born!

My doc, who had been a little hesitant to induce me at 38 weeks because he didn't really want to do an amnio, admitted I was right about inducing that early because it was a pretty tight fit for getting him out and had he been any bigger, it would have been a much harder delivery. That made me feel better because I had felt like I was being high maintenance and pushy about inducing early, but hearing that it helped things really made me happy. The delivery was as smooth as can be.

Welp, that's it for the delivery. Here's what we've been up to since...

Poor little guy has jaundice. Most Proffitt (my family) babies have a slight issue with jaundice where we have to go to the hospital several times to get the bilirubin levels tested. I had to with both my girls as well. Some needed lights. But usually the levels go down steadily and after a few days it's a non-issue. Not with poor Everett. His levels have only increased, and they had us get some lights at home to have on him non-stop. The picture above is how we hoped he would sleep last night. That's the bili bed, and he hated it. He only lasted about 45 minutes before we decided to stop torturing him. Good thing they also gave us the contraption below...

It's a little wand thing that fits on his back so he can be mobile, can be held, and can be snuggled. So, that's what he has on him 24/7. We're really hoping that it helps his levels. He gets them checked tomorrow morning, and if it doesn't go down, they might have to admit him to the hospital. We hope and pray that doesn't happen!

We are loving our little Rett. He's a sweety, and a really good baby.
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10/09/2011

Dinner time

Anyone else feel like dinner time is a battle? After 2 minutes your kids are done and want to leave the table. So, we try and invent ways to keep them at the table with us. Here was our, well, Brandon's latest ploy.

Aquarium and Penguin

Lanie loved the penguins

Aquarium

Love these girls!

The Last Hurrah

Since I'm hoping to be induced tomorrow (Eek), we tried to make Saturday as fun as possible before we're holed up with a newborn for a while. :)

We had free aquarium tickets, so we started the day with the aquarium in Sandy. The girls had a BLAST. I will post a video later. FYI- the sting rays at that aquarium are incredibly friendly, and the girls got some serious petting action from those sting rays. They would literally swim right up to you and pop their head out of the water for you to pet.

I actually took a camera, and this is what happens when Brandon is posed in a pic with the girls. Exaggeration.


I had to get in a pic too... and Lanie was kinda done with the picture taking thing. She wanted to look at fishies...

Then Lexi took the camera and took a pic of Brandon...
We shared a caramel apple, and then we came home. During naps I went and got my hair done. Yes, I am vain and I wanted my hair all nice and pretty for when the rest of my body will be not-so-pretty. I also got a pedicure on Friday. Ladies, you understand. When your privates are out there for all the world to see, you want at least your toes in the stirrups to be nice.

I got home from my hair appt, and then we got a sitter for the night and went to dinner and the BYU football game. It was so much fun, and it's so nice to have a night to myself with my husband. Man, I love that guy.

Now, I feel completely ready for Monday. And I'm so excited to see my boy!


In other completely random news, I have found my favorite pet and it's our turtle. I totally love our turtle. Weird, I know. I think he likes me too. When the girls are asleep at night he'll wander around until he finds me and then stays close. It's kinda cute. Anyway, this is how the turtle sleeps, and I think it's hilarious. He has one leg straight behind, and one leg out to the side. He's sleeping in this picture, and yes, he just sleeps in the middle of the floor.
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9/28/2011

The benefits of having a sewing machine

Gosh, I've had a lot of sewing projects lately. I think most of it stems from the fact that we have to pay $6000 of our baby bills up front before insurance will pay for any of it- yes, our insurance stinks. We thought it would be $3000, but recently got surprised by the double expense of it. So, I've been trying to 'boyify' our baby stuff myself instead of buying things. So, here's what I've been up to...


We needed boy curtains for the baby room that weren't hot pink. So I bought brown ones, and hemmed them because they were too long. Easy peasy, I know, but there's a point to this...

I have these basket things that go under our bassinet that have pink cloth liners. I used the extra material from the curtains I hemmed and made brown cloth liners.


Then the bassinet needed boy ribbon instead of pink, so here's the finished product. I just bought the ribbon, and then the baskets are on the bottom. Total cost: 3.75


I also think the bassinet it a bit uncomfy with just a teeny tiny pad to go inside, so I made an additional pad. It looks like a body pillow a bit, but it fits perfectly in the bassinet under the original vinyl pad. Cost: $6.00 Joanne's was having a sale...


A few months ago I got a new laptop because my cute little netbook broke. My netbook fit in my purse, my laptop does not. So, I needed something to carry my laptop in. It's essentially a purse, but it fits my laptop perfectly. Total cost: $5.00


I'm a big time swaddler mom, and all my babies have been winter babies. With the girls, I got a hand-me-down travel swaddler where there were little feeties in the blanket so you can buckle the baby into the carseat while still being swaddled. I LOVED it with my girls, but it's pink. I searched all over the internet for a boy swaddler, and this was the best I found. But, I didn't like that the bottom went all the way to the baby's waist. Who wants to spend the time shimmying a baby in up to the waist? So I just seam-ripped the sides and made it a flap instead.

Also, I'm a silky mom. My girls love their little comforts, and I wanted a silky for my boy. BUT, I learned with my girls that I want two identical ones, so I can wash one and the baby can still have another, and I didn't want them huge. I didn't want them teeny tiny either, like the little ones they sell at the stores. So, I made them. A) It was cheaper, and B) They are the perfect size. I know they look exactly like something you'd buy at the store (not quite original), but they are custom fit and cheaper. And yes, I put a tag on the bottom right. I couldn't help myself. My girls love the tags on their silkies. I think the total cost on this one, for two blankets, because of the soft baby fabric on top, was $20. Not great, but that darn baby fabric is expensive!


Tomorrow, if I remember, I'll take pics of just a couple of things I did in the girls' room. :)