"My Baby Laura"

My life lately is "a day late and a dollar short" as someone used to say. I have to end my year of blogs by telling "Laura's story". Her birthday was December 1, so better late than never, right?

Because Rick was OLDER when we got married, we immediately wanted to have a baby. It seemed to take forever....we were married 2 1/2 years when Laura was born and I was almost 21! Yea, forever is relative when you are young and clueless! We were so excited.

We had decided to wait to buy most things until after my baby shower. Laura wasn't due until December 14th and my shower was scheduled for the 5th. Plenty of time. We had been at Mom's for Thanksgiving I believe and I had just gotten a perm. I don't think you are supposed to do that in your last month...but again, I was clueless. I have quite the frizzy curly hair in hospital pictures. (not seen here). I started having contractions at 1:00 am or so Monday morning, we went to the hospital around 5 I think and I was dilated to 8 about 10 am when I was begging for an epidural. Laura was posterior or sunny side (she was coming out face up instead of face down) so they needed to turn her. Thank goodness I had the medicine first! What I do no now that I didn't know then, if I would have waited 10 minutes for the medicine, she probably would have popped out! Maybe not since she was sunny side. Laura was born around 1:00pm, which wasn't bad for a first delivery. Laura was 8lbs and 12 oz.

About the time Laura was born I had several friends who had lost babies and I was a little petrified. I used to go in and put my finger next to her nose so I could feel her breathing. I struggled with the whole nursing thing because my Mom didn't nurse any of us. At 2 weeks Laura weighed 6 lbs and something! My milk had never really come in and Laura had been born with a lot of fluid and she slept a lot. It took about a month longer to get my milk to come in and get her back where she needed to be. It was scary! I don't think there were the great books out that there is now that would have helped me.

Laura survived despite her parents! She had several close calls as a young child that we were blessed to have positive outcomes: high fevers, car door that flung open while riding down the highway, tasting oil, stitches and then several others when she was a teenager. Laura has been a spiritual giant most of her life. She has taught her parents many life lessons and character building experiences.

We had some rocky years while Laura was a teenager and it didn't help that when Laura was between 16 and 17 that I was pregnant with Daniel. Too many hormones in the same house. I do believe that while I was pregnant, though, I was given an extra sensitivity to the Spirit and had many promptings that made a difference. We survived those rocky years and I am blessed with a wonderful daughter and a wonderful friend. Laura amazes me everyday with her incite, spirituality, and grace. She is a great wife and mother and a beautiful daughter of God.

I love you Laura and feel so blessed that the Lord sent you to our home.

More Jacob

Jacob was (and is) quite a cutie. To say that he was challenging as a little boy, would be putting it mildly. I was always one step to slow!

Jacob's Story

Jacob turned 22 two weeks ago. My how time flies when you are old! Jacob was my first "baby" of the family and held that title for almost 10 years. He evidently still resents having his spot taken...but he needs to get over it!

Jacob was number 4. We moved to a bigger house in Clemmons that gave the kids more room to play. Rick worked furniture market twice a year where he was essentially gone for a month with premarket, market and post market cleaning for this one building. I had two deliveries where I barely made it to the hospital. Jacob wasn't due until Halloween, which was after market, but I had a history of going early. Rick didn't carry a pager or anything, so I generally had no way of getting in touch with him when he was in this building working. His dad kindly let him borrow his pager...which was helpful. It gave me peace of mind. I had changed doctors after Joseph so I had Dr. Anderson all primed for a quick delivery. On the day Jacob was born and it was during furniture market, I was having contractions all day and about the middle of the day, I felt my water was leaking. I hadn't done that before, but I paged Rick and got him to come home. The Dr. sent us on to the hospital in the early afternoon thinking we would be delivering pretty quick. This is where we learned how my labor really works. I had hard contractions, about 15 minutes a part....for quite a while (until time to push). I finally got to an 8 and my Dr. comes in and says he needs to take his father home (they had made a quick stop by!) and he would be right back. He no sooner got out of the hospital when I started needing to push. Thank goodness he lived close! He barely made it back to catch Jacob. Jacob was born on October 19th weighing in at 9lbs. 7 oz. I had gestational diabetes with him (and Joseph and Daniel) and even though I dieted correctly...he still was a good size. I have great memories of Jacob as a little boy. He did add to my gray hair though. At 18 months he could open all my doors and leave....and sometimes did. We had to put locks on everything....including the refrigerator. His favorite game was to take the eggs out and watch them break on the floor! I remember tying the front door closed because he had gotten up in the night and opened it and I thought he had gone outside! If you gave Jacob a handful of keys, he would figure out which went to what lock. He got into the vehicles a couple of times and used keys to knock them out of gear. I knew the Lord had a great work for him....because we didn't lose him when he was young. Jacob found out about the tooth fairy and thought it would be a great "get rich quick" idea. After he lost one of his front teeth, he forced the other one out. He didn't have any top teeth for a year! He found a dog skull in the woods and told his dad he was going to pull those teeth and collect money from the tooth fairy.

I am grateful for Jacob. He has provided much laughter and joy over the years with his quick wit. When Jacob was little he would read the encyclopedias at night. He has a great spirit, a great heart and great skill. I love you Jacob.

Daniel Meet Jenna

I am not sure if this was really the first time Daniel and Jenna Hansen met, but it was pretty close. It was a shower for baby Jenna. I do remember Daniel being very jealous of Jenna with his Kathy. Kathy had a built in car seat that he usually sat in, and when we got in Kathy's car and Jenna was in it, he through a fit! It has been fun to watch them be good buddies. Now they are grown, (or they think they are) and are still friends.

Baby Daniel

Daniel's first Halloween! So cute! I see some Bell baby similarities. Remember the chair incident? Daniel climbed through one of our ladder back chairs and we couldn't get his head out, so Rick had to saw a leg off.

Daniel's Story (belated)

So I got ready to blog about Jacob's birthday and realized I had totally skipped Daniel (which says a lot about my state of mind when it was his birthday....August 29). So I am here to repent and tell his story.

Rick and I were open to having another baby starting when Jacob was 5 or so. It didn't happen, so we figured we were done. Around Christmas time one year I was walking through the house picking up toys and the spirit whispered, "You're going to have another baby" and I remember thinking..."wouldn't that be funny". You see, Jacob had just turned 9 and Laura had just turned 16, and I really thought we were done at this point.

So life went on and I didn't give another thought. I was teaching preschool 2 days a week and working in an office for CES every other minute the kids were in school. This was also the year Joseph's baseball and football teams had done so well and there had been tons of extra games in both seasons so they overlapped. Rick and Joseph had been to Florida for the Pop Warner Superbowl. It had been a crazy year! We had some teenagers who were pushing our buttons, to add to the mix. In February I was having all this trouble with my stomach and my hormones were a little out of control. I was tired all the time (I attributed it to my schedule, adding girls going to seminary, etc.). I took a work trip to Charlotte and wore lose clothes the whole time and even ate Mexican and my stomach didn't bother me. My clothes weren't fitting too well, but I wasn't gaining weight. I mentioned this to a friend who said...are you pregnant.....No...I think I am beginning menopause though. I came home from the trip and she met me at a cub scout function with a brown paper bag. She told me to take it home and take "the test" the next day. And I did........the rest is history, so to speak. Daniel was due September 18.

We had a ward picnic/FHE at Joanie Moser Park on a Monday night. One of the boys set my chair up for me...one of those old style beach chairs that the sections folded a bunch of different ways and evidently didn't quite get the leg up just right, so when I sat down I fell hard to the ground. It was only 6 inches are so, but when you are pregnant....that is a ways. I never felt quite right after that. On Thursday night we sat the family down and had a big name discussion. Evidently, even though Rick and I had successfully named 4 children, we weren't capable of naming this one by ourselves. I had had my first ultrasound and we new it was a boy. After much discussion (I wanted Caleb) Daniel Blake was decided upon. I finished covering the car seat with a new cover that night....I still had 3 weeks to go. Contractions started and the water started leaking and we got Laura up about 5:00 and headed into the hospital. Daniel was born at 7 something Friday, August 29. When I called my boss, Gary Delozier to tell him I wouldn't be at work....he teased me about being in the delivery room, and I had the pleasure of having a great come back---the baby was already here!

While I was pregnant with Daniel I had many choice spiritual experiences that were life saving and life altering concerning the rest of my children. It was a testimony to me of the Lord's tender mercies during trying times. I know Daniel was sent to our family when my other children were 17, 15, 12 and 10 because they needed him then. We have all been blessed by having him in our family....and continue to be daily. I love you Daniel.

Trick or Treat Bags

Check out these cute "Trick or Treat Bags". My children had some similar that are still used today (20 +) years later...so talk about "going green". They are lined with a contrasting Halloween print. The Black and Orange pumpkin is lined with a candy corn print. The Purple pumpkin is lined with orange and while dots. The bags measure approximately 14 x 10 inches with a 19 inch handle. These are for sale, so e-mail me at yayasdoodles@gmail.com if you are interested. FYI- these are not listed on my Etsy site.