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Friday, November 20, 2015

Introducing our final baby, and some other random updates!

Well, I suppose since my baby was born almost 7 months ago I should probably let you all know about it! You can read the full birth story here. The short version is that our 6th little boy was born at 38 wks, April 29, 2015, at 11:05pm after a lot of prodromal labor but a fast active labor, all natural. He got a bit stuck at the end and had Erb's palsy of his left arm from nerve damage, which luckily was better within weeks. He was 9lb 6oz (my biggest baby!) and 20.5". It took us a day to decide on a name since his gender was a surprise and we couldn't agree on one before. We finally chose Michael Thayne (Thayne is my dad's middle name). He is a sweet smiley little guy, even if he doesn't sleep well at all lol.

He's starting to sit up a bit now, rolls from back to front and then gets mad about being stuck on his belly. He babbles so much lately and is drooling all over from teething. He wakes way too much at night still but remains cheerful even if mommy is a zombie lol.

Although I'm a little sad that Rachel will never have a sister and I will never have another baby, it's for the best. My health would make another baby more difficult and we are all pretty crazy over here with 7 kids already lol.

After Mikey was born my gestational diabetes did not go away. I had bad results on a glucose test and an a1c of 7.0. I was sent to an endocrinologist who did more bloodwork and on July 31 I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes and Hashimoto's (autoimmune thyroid disease).

Type 1 Diabetes. Not something I ever considered. To say it has been an adjustment would be an understatement. My life revolves around my blood sugar, insulin, watching what I eat, and exhaustion. I am grateful for the technology that at least makes this easier to handle. I have a continuous glucose monitor (cgm) that checks my blood sugar every 5 minutes without me having to prick my fingers so much and makes it easier to adjust how much insulin I need. Because of that and eating better my a1c is around 5.0 now. I'm glad we caught it early, before I could get really sick, and have been able to ease into things.

Quick updates on the kids;

Jason- He's in 5th grade now. He turned 11 in September. Still a short skinny little guy for his age but lots of that preteen attitude starting to come through. He's doing well in school, and would be getting better grades if he wouldn't keep "forgetting" his homework. Favorite things are Minecraft, Legos, and playing with his friends.

Jacob- Jakey turned 9 in June and is in 4th grade. He's so smart, but sometimes has behavior problems at school still, which have been better lately. He really enjoys scouts and playing Minecraft and Legos with Jason. A few months ago we found out he needed glasses (and we had him retake his school pics with them actually on his face lol).


Nathan- Nathan just turned 7 a week ago. He's in 1st grade and full-time school now, which he loves. He's reading more and getting better at it every day. I can't believe how big he is getting. He got a bike for his birthday, he was so excited. Too bad it's starting to get cold now so he won't get to ride much before next spring.


Isaac- My little stinker. Still keeping me on my toes and so active. He loves playing with Mikey and Rachel. He gets to have me to himself for a few hours most days while the little ones nap and the other boys are at school. I've been meaning to start some preschool work with him, but haven't yet. This pic was a few weeks ago when he fell and bit through his lip and had to get 5 stitches on the inside. He was such a trooper.

Caleb- the twins are 4, almost 5. Caleb is still in preschool for his speech and other delays. He goes 4 days a week this year, 12:30-3:15. He's doing so great with it. He's also got quite a stubborn streak.

Rachel- my sweet girl. Turned 2 in August. Such a girly girl. Loves dolls and dresses and bows. She's like a little ray of sunshine. She does have her toddler tantrums too. She just started speech therapy and I really think she'll progress quickly with it. She got glasses in April and then eye surgery July 29th to fix her eyes turning in. She did great.


Here is our latest family picture, from June when Mikey as blessed.
 And a fun one from Halloween:


Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Life is busy

I often forget about my poor little blog here. I used to be such a good little blogger, updating and posting pictures all the time. But the more kids I have, the lower on my priority list blogging has fallen. Here's a bit of an update for anyone who still actually reads my blog.

October 2014:

I'm going to skip back a bit further than my last update to a very important item that I didn't post. On October 10, 2014 my father-in-law passed away unexpectedly from a heart attack. Such a shock to the whole family. We spent a week up in Idaho with the inlaws for the funeral and to spend time together. It's still odd when we are there not to have him poke his head in the kitchen every morning to ask "Are the eggs on?", or to come in from his shop and turn the thermostat down that I've turned up just for me to turn it back up again when he goes back out, or calling the boys monkeys.

More pictures from October:

First pic of the new little one, just chilling.

Halloween



November 2014:
Rachel at 15 months

Jason got his Bear, Jacob got his Bobcat

Nathan turned 6

Nathan lost his first tooth


December 2014:

We moved to our new home December 20th. Yep, right before Christmas. It was an insane, crazy time. The house was a disaster of a mess for weeks with all the moving and Christmas mess. But we found a place for everything and got settled in. The house is much bigger than our old home, which is great for our big family, but not so much for trying to keep it clean lol. Especially with me being pregnant and not having energy to keep up with everything. Oh, and we did get a white Christmas! Woke up to snow Christmas morning, which only lasted a few days.

Old home


New home

Christmas


January 2015:

The boys started at their new school, which they love. I was worried they would have a hard transition but they made friends right away and love their teachers. We celebrated the twins 4th birthday too. We also had the warmest January weather I've ever experienced after the snow melted the first week. The kids were often playing outside in short sleeves.

On January 20th my husband's grandfather passed away. We had just seen him after Christmas a few weeks before and he seemed fine so it was a shock that he was gone. In 3 months my poor mother-in-law lost both her husband and father, which has obviously been difficult for her.We went up to Idaho again for his funeral.

Gorgeous views from our new home

Grandpa Farnsworth
.

Huge garage shelving project me, Nate, and my brother Ethan built


February 2015:

Although I have had a really easy pregnancy, in fact I hardly felt pregnant at all the first 4 months, I was again diagnosed with gestational diabetes. Even though I had expected it, it still sucked to get the official diagnoses and have to start the diet. I was actually diagnosed in January just before we went up to ID for grandpa's funeral, but I didn't start the diet until after we'd come back because I knew it would be hard to keep up with while out of town dealing with everything. February was a stressful mess because of it. Last pregnancy I had an easy time getting my blood sugar under control. Not so much this time. Took weeks of trial and error to figure out how to get my meal numbers down without cutting too many carbs, and even longer and more worry to get my fasting numbers down. I was really worried that I'd end up being put on meds, but luckily just before my next appointment they had started to stay more in range so I get to avoid meds for now.

Watching the Super Bowl. Patriots won!

Ice cream

28 weeks

March 2015:

Nothing much else going on except for  being pregnant and having a messy house lol. I get to start weekly appointments and NSTs now, which is a bit of pain working them around kids school schedules and the appointments being 30 minutes away. I am 32 weeks now and should probably start preparing stuff, but since the gender is a surprise this time and the GD makes the pregnancy pass so slowly, I haven't done anything yet. I plan to get some yarn this weekend so I can start on a crochet blanket for baby. Oh, and we bought a new 12 passenger van cuz we'll be outgrowing our minivan!

Beautiful "winter" day

New 12 passenger van


Baby Butz Cream Review

My little girl has a bit of a sensitive bottom. She doesn't usually get bad rashes, but if a diaper is left on a little too long she gets a very sore, very red backside and is not happy about it. I was very happy to be sent a jar of Baby Butz Diaper Rash Cream to try out and review.

Baby Butz is a natural products that does not contain parabens, chemicals, perfumes, alcohol, or gluten. It is hypoallergenic and the main ingredients are zinc oxide, lanolin, petroletum, and cornstarch. As you can see it is a nice mild cream with ingredients meant to soothe and protect.

Shortly after I recieved the cream baby girl got a bad rash, the kind where they scream when you are changing their diaper. I put Baby Butz on her rash that night and by morning it was almost all gone! After using it again, her rash was cleared up that day. It really worked well and for some reason my little girl just loves holding the jar while I change her lol. Maybe because of the cute logo?

There was only one downfall to this diaper rash cream. It is extremely thick and hard to spread. For a baby with a sore, red bum that is not good. She did not like me putting it on because I had to use more pressure to spread the cream around, which of course hurt. Most rash creams are a lot more spreadable. For this reason, I have avoided using Baby Butz very often, because even if it works well, I don't want to be hurting my child just to apply it.

So overall impression- great cream for clearing up rashes, but needs to be more spreadable.

*Disclaimer: I received a jar of Baby Butz Cream for free in exchange for an honest review. All opinions on this product are my own.*