Erin - Day Two

After a good night's sleep, we do what we have done in the past - we stare at the new kid . . .

while she sleeps.
Brett's comfy spot. Better than previous years! Getting Erin ready to go home.
Strapping her in her carseat.

Putting the carseat in the truck.

We are ready to go. What will we do when we get home?

Stare at the new kid while she sleeps.

We'll take turns holding her while she sleeps.

We'll take pictures while she sleeps. Everyone will get a turn! We'll change her clothes a hundred times while she sleeps.
We'll even get a little sleep ourselves.

First Visitors

Erin had her first visitors just hours after she was born. This is one of my favorite moments. The kids seem to come with their best behavior - calm, gentle, yet excited!

Grandma HatchGrandpa HatchOur First Family Picture

Special Delivery

You would think after 3 kids I would know what I was doing! However, this time around there were new experiences to be had. For one, my water broke at home - around 1 am. It was just a trickle so I was relieved when the triage nurse confirmed that it WAS my water. Since I wasn't having contractions they induced me. They started me on pitocin around 3 am. Around 5 am there was still no progress so they upped my pitocin to "convince" my body it was (or should be?) in labor. That was painful. Since I was working off only 1 and 1/2 hours of sleep, I asked for an epidural. I think it works for me. It allows my body to relax and do its thing. By 6 am I was at an 8 and feeling pressure. Not long after that the doctor was on his way and I was breathing through contractions doing my best NOT to push. That part always worries me. Will the doctor make it or will Brett be it?

Fortunately the doctor made it and so did Erin! When I was given the go ahead,

it was a couple of pushes, and she was here. At 6:50 am on her due date! She doesn't like to be bugged.

Our sweet meeting.

The proud papa!

Content and Cozy.Again we don't like to be bugged.Look how relaxed she looks for her first official clean up.

Was it worth being bugged for?Content and Cozy once again!She looks like an Anderson Baby.

Tonsils Part II

So, I'm sure that you have been thinking, "just how big are Tyler's tonsils?" Here is an attempt to photograph them for you to see. We included a picture of Rebecca's to hopefully act as a reference for comparison. Do you now understand why the Dr. was so agreeable to have them pulled? They are almost touching each other now, and he isn't even sick.

Tonsils

We took Tyler to see an ENT this morning. It was the same ENT that clipped Rebecca's tongue when she was first born. After waiting for a few minutes in the exam room, he came in and asked why we were there. Michelle and I had already agreed that she would do the talking because she knew all of Tyler's problems better than I did. Michelle said that we would like him to look at Tyler and see if he needed to have his tonsils removed. He asked us the reasons that we believed they should get pulled in a manner that came across as if he needed to be sold. He wasn't rude about it, but just kind of like he had heard this story before and he needed a good story to be convinced that Tyler's should come out.

So Michelle listed Tyler's symptoms: snoring since birth, multiple sore throats, swelling every time he gets a cold, swelling to the point that they both touch and cause him to have coughing/breathing issues, drainage problems after a runny nose, etc. So, after hearing the list, the Dr. pulled out the light and a tongue depressor. He asked Tyler to say AHH and pointed the light in his mouth. Before he could put the depressor on his tongue, he said, "OK, I will pull them out. They are huge and he is a healthy little boy right now." He put the tongue depressor back into the jar, because it never made it closer than 18 inches from Tyler. He continued to say that if his tonsils are that big, his adenoids are probably just as big.

He next looked into his nostrils. He said that Tyler's nose had been broken, probably during birth. He said that he has a deviated septum and it needs to be fixed, but we shouldn't do anything about it until he stops growing. It would just have to be redone if we had it done now.

So, he will get hsi tonsils and adenoid pulled. It should be a 15 minute out-patient surgery with about an hour in the recovery room afterwards. We asked about scheduling and told them that our insurance plan changes at the first of the year. Currently, the insurance would cover the whole cost. Next year, we have to pay 10%. So, we asked if we could get it done before Jan 1st, oh and by the way, Michelle is due the 15th, so we need to work it around that as well. As if any of us can know when the baby will be here. I guess we are just difficult. My guess is that we won't hear anything from the scheduling office for two weeks and the surgery will be in the middle of January. Oh well, maybe it will help him stop snoring so loudly.

Climbing

I have a good friend who has offered to help keep me sane by taking me out to do things that I don't normally make time to do. He has been rock climbing now for a few years and has posted about his climbs on his blog. Back in April I told him that I would be interested in going with him to watch sometime. Growing up, my family went to Yosemite every year. One of the things that we would always do is stop and watch the climbers on El Capitan. We always watched through binoculars. So, I thought it would be fun to go with my friend and see it up close. He was more than willing to take me, even though he knows my inabilty at most things I've done with him. So, after six months of saying I would go with him, I found an opportunity. The scouts in the ward were going to go camping on Mt. Lemmon overnight. My friend was going to go and then take his son to complete the requirements for the climbing merit badge the next day. So I took the opportunity to go with them. It turned out to be really fun. I had never been rock climbing before and had only been indoor climbing once before. We went to the "Practice Wall" which is where people go for their first time (or so I'm told). It is where they take the girls when they go for girl's camp. Anyways, we get there and set up the ropes and put on the gear and he gives me about 30 seconds of lesson and says go over the cliff.

At first, I wasn't sure if I was nervous or not. I don't normally like to look over the edge of cliffs while standing, but I don't have any problem if I am laying down looking over the edge. Like when I have been on the top of Half Dome in Yosemite, I didn't mind looking over the edge, as long as I was laying down. I guess what I am trying to say is that I'm not afraid of heights, just cautious around opportunites to fall. I wasn't ever nervous about falling or concerned about the heights. So I made it about half way down the face when I felt comfortable with the rope and harness and my ability to control how fast I went down. Once everyone was down, we took turns climbing up. I learned how to belay another climber. I had a great time. I learned to be confident in the equipment and I knew that it would keep me from falling. That allowed me to just have fun trying to get up the face and not worry about falling if I didn't quite get my feet in the right position. The shoes are painful, but it was interesting how they basically stuck to the rock.

I work with one of the guys from the stake who does the climbing with the girls at girls camp. After I told him, the next day he invited me to go climbing with him and his wife the next Saturday. Long story short, I ended up getting both friends together and the four of us went climbing again. That is two weekends in a row that I got out and did something fun and didn't worry about things. I have been asked if I am hooked. I'm not sure if I am hooked or not. I need to build up a lot of strength to continue. But, it is definitely something I would like to try and see if I want to get hooked. It just takes time and money.

Here are a few pictures. This is me going down for the first time.

This is approaching the top of my first ascent.

These are from the top after we were done for the day. It must have been fun, we were still all smiling.

This is from the second weekend. This picture reminds me of all the pictures that I have of my family out in the meadow in Yosemite looking up on El Capitan trying to find the climbers.

Halloween

We started by going to the pumpkin patch for FHE on Monday night. The kids picked out a big pumpkin that sat on the ground and looked up at passers by. The guy running the place saw us with three kids, a pregnant mom, and only buying one pumpkin. He took pitty on us and sent the kids back out to each pick out a tiny pumpkin. I told him that we were OK and didn't need them (we didn't want to have to carve more than one), but he insisted. So we came home with a big one and three small free ones.

The kids had a parade at the school on Friday morning. We went and watched the kids walk around the school grounds. It was actually a little cool that morning, but not as cold as it was the previous two mornings. Tyler went as Luke Skywalker but the school wouldn't let him have his lightsaber on his belt because it was considered a weapon. Rebecca was the same pumpkin that she was two years earlier.

Later that evening we went to the ward party. The kids got to play with their friends and eat all kinds of junk food.

On Saturday the kids and Michelle carved the pumpkin while I was out playing with some friends. Tyler did a great job at gutting it and everyone took turns carving a part of the face. They opted to do a Mickey Mouse face. It turned out pretty good thanks to mom's help. We won't make any comments on the knife safety.

And to top it all off, they got to go trick-or-treating. There weren't many kids out in our neighborhood this year. In fact, we only had five kids come to our house. While we were out, we only saw two other groups. Most houses told us that we were the first ones that came to their house and so they put a large handful into each kid's pumpkin. It wasn't too long before Meagan was complaining that her pumpkin was too heavy to carry.