2 months

my sweet baby boy is 2 months already! time has flown by, but i am so grateful he's getting older, more aware, less colicky, and he even gives us some gummy grins once in a while. he is our little butterball, and he is so loved! his 2 months stats are:

weight: 12 lbs 6 oz

75th%

length: 21.5"

10th%

head: (didn't get the measurement)

50th%

soooo...needless to say he's taking after his sisters. he is one short chubby little dude! (and one day in life i'll have a fancy expensive camera that takes awesome pictures. probably when the kids are all grown up and there's nothing left to take pictures of!)

life savers

this

plus this

equals this:

the short story: as you probably all know, greyson hasn't been the happiest baby on the block. he has mild reflux, so he's been on prevacid and he's been sleeping in his carseat, in the bassinet, next to the bed since he was born. if he sleeps laying flat, milk just comes right back up. monday night he would not go to bed for anything. finally after midnight nate took him downstairs. i woke up to feed him about 4am, only to find him fast asleep, laying flat, IN THE BASSINET. i was shocked. i also realized after vacuuming around him several times, he sleeps so much better with white noise. so tuesday i ran and got him a sound machine with a projector. now at night we swaddle him, stick him in the bassinet with ocean waves next to him, and he falls asleep on his own between 9 and 10. no kidding. it ONLY took us 8 weeks to figure that all out. PHEW! yes, the sound machine was $20. but all you moms out there, let's be honest...it's worth $20 A NIGHT if you ask me!!

feedin' the ducks on labor day, abby kept yelling at the ducks because they would steal the bread before the huge fish could grab it.

this is about as close as emma would get

 love my ems

i LOVE baby stretches. and i love his double-dimples on his chin when he stretches!

 i have ONE question...

did you get tickets for the gun show?

 such a good helper all day with her brother 

behind

i'm behind (but getting used to it!) as usual, so here's a few pictures to catch up....

greyson's blessing was last sunday...and a big thank you to all that came to share that special day with us. nate's amazingly domestic mom made (yes hand made!!) greyson a full-on tuxedo complete with cumber-bun, bow tie, tails, the works. heather made some cute white shoes to go with it. and amazingly enough, he didn't cry once during his blessing! it turned out to be a great day. aside from the fact that i realized afterwards my camera was on the lowest resolution setting. (thanks girls for playing with my camera)...

carrie took some family pics with her fancy camera...i'll post them soon....

 getting dressed for the big day

 handsome man!

 ENOUGH with the pictures already mom!

 my dad and carla

 some of the kiddos

found this pic on my camera. this is abby at the top of the shower. ??? whatever.

 greyson used to konk out walking the girls to the bus stop in the morning. he loved sleeping in his stroller...for a week or two.

 caught red-handed. if he could figure it out more often, i think he'd be a big time thumb-sucker.

 tubaroonie time

 thank HEAVENS for caitlin and the big helper she is with greyson.

 church clothes on...ready to go. screaming in true greyson style

 1st day of preschool...did i say she was allowed to grow up? :o( love my little ems

 the stansfields stopped by for a short visit (and got the cops called on them in the middle of the night...someone reported a 'homeless man sleeping in his car outside our house'. their car is a new lexus SUV!!! how funny....)

 best friends, distance does nothing to make these 2 grow apart. they'll always be best friends.

 lils and ems, best friends too. we just love these girls to pieces!

 all the kiddos. dylan is getting so big, such a cute little boy. wish we lived closer to you guys!!

so that's the picture update. as for life nowadays? let's see, my body finally kicked it into gear and i'm doing great now.  greyson has decided screaming is a way of life for him. especially from about 7 or 8-11pm. he SCREAMS and screams. and screams. he's a tad better for nate when nate is home at night, but he's quite the handful. he's better during the day, but definitely has turned out to be quite the high maintenance bebe. he's getting chubby though, and starting to smile. we all love him so much! caitlin and abby have started dance company quite a few hours a week, and they are doing great. along with preschool, emma has started dance as well. she loves it! finally no more watching the girls' classes, begging to be in a class of her own. so life is good. i'm slowly starting to get caught back up in life, but i've come to the realization that until greyson grows out of this fussy stage, i won't be near as productive as i would like to be. and that's ok. one day at a time, right?

nooo..say summer isn't over...

i am in some serious denial about school starting, and summer being over. boo. however, the girls were thrilled that school started today. their teachers are great, and it's nice to have them both going all day. they find each other on the playground, and sit together at lunch. fun to have sisters! and a good thing too, abby's teacher tried to put her on the wrong bus until caitlin convinced her which bus she really was supposed to be on. phew. abby wouldn't have handled that very well.

 of  course caitlin had to strike a pose. surprising.

3 crazy weeks

these past 3 weeks have just flown by. a quick little synopsis of 'the birth story':
we arrived at the hospital at 8:30am (after waiting since 5am for 'the call' to come in). we were extremely lucky, they only had 2 rooms left, and us and the other resident couple steve and amanda were able to get the last 2 rooms. otherwise we probably would have had to wait until the next week!
they started pitocin right away. nate broke my water after about an hour (as per my OB's ok). the monitors all said i was contracting regularly, but i felt no pain. they kept turning the pitocin up, still no pain. finally after about 2 hours or so i started having insanely painful contractions. i begged for an epidural, and the anesthesiologist was there in about 10 minutes. pretty good service :o)

he started an epidural/spinal block. i don't know why he did a combination of both, but it worked, so i was happy. our room was huge, with windows covering one whole wall. it was a beautiful view of the mountains, and nate's clinic was right across the street. my OB had 2 lectures in didactics at nate's clinic that afternoon. so he came to check my progress after his 1st lecture. that was at about 2:10. i was dilated to a 9, so he had me do a 'test push'. after that i was complete. they broke down the bed, and in a matter of minutes (and only 3 pushes) our sweet baby greyson was born. it was so peaceful, the room was rather quiet, my OB was calm and collected, and it was just perfect. they cleaned him off for a minute, then brought him to me for 'kangaroo care' (skin-to-skin). what a sweet little angel, i just couldn't believe how perfect he was.

doctor daddy

1st time the girls met their new brother

biggest baby yet!

grandma debs

grandma nielson

grandpa brian

nate's mom was there to take pictures right after he was born, and my dad was waiting in provo to see him really quick before he had to go back to work in SL. my mom brought the girls right up, so they all got to see him before he was even bathed in the nursery. nate took him to the nursery while the nurses got me ready to move to mother-baby downstairs. there was some sort of miscommunication, and my pitocin didn't get turned back on. i started to hemorrhage really bad, so they had to give me a shot in my rear and do some other things to get the bleeding under control before they'd let the baby come out of the nursery. it was scary for a little while, but soon enough everything was under control.

i'm not a big fan of staying in the hospital, so we came home the next afternoon. everything seemed to be going great for about a week, until the next sunday. i ended up getting mastitis worse than i've ever had it. high fevers, and my body hurt so bad i literally couldn't function. when nate was gone, either my mom or nate's mom would come over to hold the baby and take care of the girls. by last tuesday my bleeding was still really bad, and i still had a fever. they sent me to the hospital wednesday morning for an ultrasound, and sure enough there was retained placenta. so last wednesday i had a d&c. it went well, and we were home by that night.

(the girls sleeping on the air mattress in the playroom. of course greyson didn't want to be left out!)

(i'm trying to add pictures so you don't get bored stiff....)
we were blessed that during the 3 days that i was horribly sick, greyson slept all day and all night. he was an angel, and i'm so grateful that we had all the help that we did. my stubborn body is still working on healing. i had another appointment today for the bleeding, they're going to try a medication again for 2 days, and if that doesn't work, then it's back for an ultrasound, and possibly a repeat d&c. i am just hoping and praying that my body just heals on it's own this time.

all-in-all greyson has been just an angel. nate has been amazing to help out so much, and the girls are great helpers as well. i am dreading school starting monday (i start to cry just thinking about it) because caitlin and abby help out with the baby so much, it's going to be hard with them gone all day. but they are sooo excited about school. 

last thursday-saturday was nate's residency family retreat in park city at the newpark hotel. i got the green light from my OB to go as long as i took it easy. it was exhausting, but fun and the hotel was so nice. i LOVE nate's residency, and all the residents, families, faculty, everyone is just amazing. we couldn't have had a better residency program!

this was our hot tub on our balcony at the hotel. the girls loved the bathrobes...they were in heaven

caitlin got this bandana at her friend's birthday party the other night. i found her sleeping like this. ??? weird.

olympic park in park city. you can ride the bobsled track in one of these (for the low low price of $60 each!)

 hot tubbin' it. i soo wish i could've joined!

watching the skiers jump and do tricks into the water. amazing.

 alpine slide-emma with daddy

 mark was nice enough to take caitlin up while nate took abby

 the older girls slept in the corry's room, so emma scored this bed all to herself. she thought she was pretty big stuff.

pool time fun

my sweet baby boy

 i just love him to pieces. i could kiss his soft (ever-getting-chubbier) cheeks all day

 tired post-call daddy, tired post-up-all-night-baby

  handsomeness. i love him!!