Going private….

Ok, I understand how annoying private blogs are. I myself have done an occasional roll of the eyes when I must “log in” to see a quick update on those I love. But the number of asian people, from countries I can barely pronounce, that are interested in our family blog has reached unnerving proportions causing me to eat crow and close the curtains to our online “journal” . I had a very scary experience recently with someone getting private information from my facebook account, linking it to my blog, and then contacting my grandparents pretending to be me, in an attempt to scam them out of a ridiculous amount of money. My wonderful grandpa was all ready to sell the farm (figuratively speaking) in order to bail me out of “jail”. Thankfully someone started questioning what was going on. But to keep those I love most, safe… our blog will be going private as of August 1st. And after all, if you are family then you don’t care too much about a little thing like “having to log in” to see what the kids are up to, right? lol If you would like access, let me know! Love you xo

Cankles, Heartburn, and Bedrest :)

So I know I have taken a hiatus from blogging for the last couple months. A lot has been going on. Just this last week I started “thinking” about blogging again and almost instantly raised the back of my hand to my forehead in a dramatic attempt to tell myself that it is just too overwhelming to create a post that accurately details our absence, so I’m not going to lol. Instead I’ll just start current and let you all know how a little thing called “pregnancy” is going. I’ll start by telling you that I have always wanted lots of kids. 4… 5… maybe even a crazy 6th. I loved being part of a big family growing up. Always having someone to hang out with and holidays being a blast. However, about a month ago while spending a good hour trying to get into a comfortable position, through tears and a clenched jaw I growled at Jared, “ONE… we should’ve stopped at ONE!” Of course I was not being serious but that should let you know how this post is going to end up lol.

This pregnancy has been almost unbearable for me. My pelvis is separated, my pubic bone is dislocated, I am swelling like a baby whale and gaining an obscene amount of weight even though I am hardly eating. (Seriously… I look like I have rhinoceros blood in me.) I have major TMJ (locked jaw) from all the baby hormones, causing my jaw to remain clamped shut every morning when I get out of bed and then causing a lot of pain every time that I chew. I have been getting very regular, excruciating charley horses in my inner thighs, and insane round ligament pain on both sides of my uterus that is more intense than anything I’ve ever felt before. The baby is measuring 39 weeks even though I am only 35. They can’t figure out what the heck is going on lol.

I’ve been seeing a wonderful chiropractor 3 times a week for several weeks now trying to relieve some of this pain and get my pelvis back in place before delivery. However, after numerous valiant efforts, I have burned wrinkles into his forehead, leaving him also baffled. He cannot budge my pelvis, pubic bone, or sacrum. They will not move…. period. I also feel an intense “pulling” sensation every time I stand up and it gets me instantly lightheaded and short of breath. They have tested me for every possible condition (preeclampsia, toxemia, liver infection, kidney infection, gestational diabetes bla bla bla) and I have been negative for all of them. As far as the tests show, I am normal lol. It is confusing them.

I went into hardcore labor two weeks ago which lasted an entire night and half of the next day. They examined me and said that my poor body was literally suffering from extreme exhaustion and dehydration and that is what brought on labor. I was ordered to bed rest, which Sammy will not allow me to do, so instead I call it “couch rest” , and told to drink gallons of water lol. I am currently in so much pain though that it isn’t hard to stay put. It is so incredibly difficult though. If you’ve never experienced bedrest, imagine being tied to your couch or bed. You’re thirsty but can’t get up to quick grab a glass of water. You notice a layer of dust on your dresser but can’t quick wipe it clean. Your baby comes waddling up to you with outstretched hands and a big grin, wanting you to pick him up and doesn’t understand when you won’t. Your husband tries to be a trooper and pick up some of your responsibilities in addition to his own but can’t do it all and frequently gets irritated by the stress of it all. You’ve never watched “mess” accumulate so quickly in your home without you able to do a thing about it. You are having a baby in less than a month and cannot prepare anything for the event. No baby clothes washed, no nursery readied, no crib assembled, no diapers put away. You simply cannot realize how much you do in any given day, until you can no longer do it and on top of everything, your entire body literally starts aching when you are confined to one spot for so long. So I am pretty much out of commission until after this baby comes and maybe for longer, depending on how long it takes my pelvis to recover.

I have so many appreciated offers for help. My ward, 2 or 3 family members, and a couple close friends have been my saving grace! I feel very blessed to have them. I have very kind neighbors whose generosity never ceases to amaze me. They have just started bringing us dinner 3 times a week (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday) and stopping by every once in a while to give Sammy someone to play with during the day. I couldn’t be more grateful!! My sister came up the other night to clean my house for me and I wanted to cry I was so appreciative lol. I also have a couple friends and inlaws who have continuously offered their shopping services to me, which means so much. I have found that the hard part is taking people up on their offers . It is so uncomfortable to immediately jump in with a task that you really need done in response to a polite offer to help. It catches people off guard lol. It is even more humiliating though to call someone up on their casual offer to help from 2 weeks ago. You just have to pray that they were sincere when they mentioned it and not care about losing all your dignity lol. But seriously, someone asks me what they can do for me and I go blank. What do I say?? I can’t say, “YES! Thank you!! Could you go clean my bathroom?” or “I’m so glad you asked! Could you go fertilize my yard?” “How bout doing my dishes, going through my mail piles, dusting my furniture, sanitizing my toilets and doorknobs, pulling the weeds in my yard, cutting back the grass that is going to undoubtedly take over my flower beds, caulking and painting the new doors we have on our nursery, getting out all my baby stuff and washing it, moving an entire bedroom from one room to the other to make room for the baby, installing the infant car seat base in my car, feeding Sammy 3 meals a day, feeding my husband 3 meals a day lol, getting my mail, taking out my trash, etc. etc. etc. The list never ends.” You can’t ask people to do those things. They would hate you lol. It is pure insanity to not be able to do your normal daily tasks.

We have been planning another home birth but in light of my pelvic trauma, I talked to my old OB doctor and asked about the possible option of having a c-section. I am scared that if I am in this much pain while I am stationary, labor and birth will cause permanent damage and possible shock.  But I was told by the doctor that it isn’t an option unless there is some reason why my pelvis WON’T allow a baby to come through it. Pain is not a reason because they can medicate. However, I don’t want to deliver in a hospital, just to be medicated (meaning I’d have to deliver on my back… meaning I would most likely break my tailbone again) during labor, only to experience months of tailbone recovery with two little ones to care for. So I can “come in” and have a doctor look at my pelvis but I don’t know if I can arrange that with me being unable to move lol. And to be honest, I don’t have high hopes that it will pan out to anything because the whole reason that I am in pain is because my pelvis is separated, leaving ample room for the baby to move through it. We’ll see. Grrr I want to have my cake and eat it too please. I want to have an easy pregnancy, painfree labor, not break my tailbone, and be immediately ready to function after the baby is born. Is that too much to ask?

Pregnancy. It is just destructive isn’t it?? My only hope is that is will all end well and when I hold my sweet new little one, this 9 month long nightmare I have been living will just be a faint, fuzzy memory of the past… It helps to look at the pictures of our little guy, like this one, that were taken by ultrasound several weeks ago. During that ultrasound, I couldn’t help but cry as I watched him, all curled up, in amazing detail (we did a 4-d ultrasound). It was like he was here already. I watched him suck his thumb, yawn, and hiccup, right there in front of me. That amazing hour long video of my baby tugged at all of my motherly heart strings and made me forget, temporarily, how miserable is has been to get him to this point lol.

So there u have it! I’ve gotten several scoldings from family members who have just recently learned that I am on bedrest and are upset that they weren’t informed at the start, but all of this isn’t exactly the kind of thing that you just call people randomly to share lol. So I’m sorry. This is my way of making amends. Now you are all up to-date. Lots of love, Cor xo

My Kitchen Helper

About a month or two ago, Jared decided to hire someone to help me with the housework. Only there is a slight problem… my new help is so so SO cute that I can’t stop watching him! It more than DOUBLES the time it would take me to do it on my own, but I just don’t mind. When he smiles at me, my heart melts. I want to spend the rest of my life with him. I love him so much that I don’t even mind when he helpfully takes every dirty dish OUT of the dishwasher, to inspect it, as I put it there. He is so dashing that I don’t bat an eye when he impressively cleans out the refrigerator and throws all of its contents on the ground, requiring a 15 minute pick-up and occasionally cracking glass condiment bottles. He is so charming that I can only smile dreamily as I watch him re-wash my clean glass patio doors with his tongue, creating a blurry mess that I then have to re-clean. And I love the fun game that he creates for me, where he takes every kitchen tool/appliance/utensil that he can carry and carefully organizes them for me. In fact, he organizes so well that I often can no longer find them, even after several days of searching. Ahh, I am smitten. He is by far, the BEST housekeeper that I have ever had. I would recommend him to others but I’m afraid I’ve hired him full time for… well forever. My life is good.

First Snow Of The Year

A few weeks ago we got the first snow of the year. It started out of nowhere and kept on coming. It all melted by the end of the day of course lol, but I took Sammy outside to have fun. He was quite thrilled, just like his mommy!

On Hallows Eve….

What a fun Halloween! Our icy, frigid weather let up for a night and was just the perfect amount of warmth to let the kids stay out longer, and chill to keep the sweat off their brows during the workout that they experienced. We got to have Riley for this Halloween!!! Yay! We don’t usually get to have him when a holiday arises so this one was extra special.

We carved fabulous pumpkins, about which Riley said, “wow, we are REALLY good at this” lol. We all gutted, Jared drew the faces onto the pumpkins, and I carved them. It was a real team effort lol. We made a Halloween treat, Almond Roca Bars, that Riley said was “quite possibly the best thing I have ever tasted!” lol. We watched “The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown” and then wondered why we watched “The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown.” lol It is a classic cartoon that teaches kids way too many fun “names” to call each other, like “stupid”, “idiot”, and “blockhead.” Which we get to hear constantly all throughout the film. Plus they just yell at each other the whole time, mercilessly tease each other, and are really mean. I don’t think that will be one that we watch with our kids every year lol.

We allowed the kids to steal the spotlight and look fabulous! Riley dressed up as Shaggy and I was completely SHOCKED at how many people knew who he was lol. Sammy was a gorilla and made me laugh every time I looked at his tiny hiney. We snagged a family picture and in it, you can see Sammy going crazy over the blinking, red, self-timer light on my camera lol.

Sammy didn’t exactly go “trick-or-treating” per say, but he did get dressed up and we joined his cousin Max for a walk to grandma’s which resulted in a dum dum sucker. I think Sammy thought he had died and gone to heaven lol. He had it in his hand (wrapper still on) and I turned around, took a couple of steps so that I could get a picture, and he had already put it in his mouth and sucked completely THROUGH the wrapper lol. After he tasted “sucker” it was all over lol. He refused to look at me for any pictures or pay attention to absolutely anyone around him. When he sucked the sucker right off the stick, he cried and cried that I wouldn’t let him keep sucking on the paper. It was so cute. So after a quick 45 minute neighborhood jaunt, Sammy and I came home, I peeled off his now-soaked-with-drool-from-his-sucker costume, and I snuggled him to sleep while dad took the first shift and set out with Riley on the longest Halloween night of our life. They took our neighborhood by storm and came back after a respectable 2 hour mission, only so that us “parents” could swap places and then go back out for another 2 hours lol. Riley came back with more candy than I have EVER seen a child get in one night. His bag must have weighed 25 pounds! You couldn’t wipe the grin off his face for a million bucks. He was beyond proud. But instead of racing home to “dig in”, he raced home to “count” his candy lol. Such a great kid we have! He carefully counted for what seemed like hours and then proudly proclaimed that he had a total of 275! Halloween sure is fun when you have kids.

Scarecrow Festival

Last week we checked out the Scarecrow Festival at Cornbelly’s (Thanksgiving Point) and it was so much fun! Definately recommend worthy. All sorts of activities for kids and ample carnival food for the dads.

They had what was called “the giant pillow” that all the kids could jump on. Riley and dad took their turn and then Sammy wanted to join them so dad took him up there as well. He smiled cautiously the whole time but then when dad brought him back to me, he immediately threw up all over himself and me lol. Poor little guy.

We got to watch piglet races, baby goat races, fall down slides with our legs crossed lol (we all laughed really hard that Riley was crossing his legs the whole way down), find our way through the corn maze, eat the biggest hot dogs I have ever seen in my life (I opted out of that one ), and take a hayride out to find the perfect halloween pumpkins that we could take home with us. All in all, a great day! I just LOVE fall!!!!

Merry Christmas!!!

Our little Sammy just didn’t want to cooperate for a family photo. We took a couple with him wailing in them and then took a couple without him. So just imagine a happy Sammy curled up on dad’s lap and there you go! Presto: Family Christmas Photo 2008! lol We wish all of you a very Merry Christmas this year, full of heart warming memories and wonderful opportunities to serve and love those around you. xo

Called To Serve

I had to dedicate a quick post this Christmas season to two of our favorite missionaries. My brother, Elder Luke Ellison, currently serving in Goiania, Brazil; and my sister, Hermana Tara Ellison, currently serving in Antofagasta, Chile. We are so proud of both of them. Jared and I both are blessed with such wonderful families. I am so proud of each member of my family for different reasons but that is for another post, another day. For now, I want to share with you a powerful story that brought tears to my eyes and was a needed reminder that we are not alone.

My sister Tara is nearing the end of her amazing mission experience as she prepares to come home in January of 2009. Luke however, is just beginning his journey. He just entered the MTC at the end of September. The MTC that Luke was sent to, was in the foreign land of Brazil so he didn’t have the 3 months of foreign language prep that most have under their belt before entering the lands where they will be serving. He was just dropped right in, as green as they get. Luke struggled with the decision to serve a mission but once he made up his mind, he was fully committed and impressed all of us with his unwavering dedication to preparing for this calling. The day came when Luke would be dropped off at the airport to begin his 2 year service. He was beyond excited despite the million hour flight with no TV. Once he landed and his new surroundings sunk in though… he was completely shell-shocked. Scared in the very essence of the word. His first email home came a week later as he shared a dream that he had had after praying for help.

“I dreamt that I was a soldier. It was a dark night and I was sitting with my men around the campfire, surrounded by our tents. There was one man who was standing guard in the tower above us. All of the sudden the man in the tower cries out that the enemy is coming. I leap to my feet and quickly start dressing myself in my battle armor but none of my men pay any heed to the watchman. I rush forward alone to face the enemy and then I stop, terrified. There is a wave of black rushing towards me. I am going to fight alone, and I am going to die. I know this, but I will do it anyways. Just then I feel a hand on my shoulder. As I turn around, my fear disappears. It is a Soldier of God. He has a Sword of Fire and a Shield of Light. He is so bright that I can’t make out his face. Then I see them. The legions of heaven are lined up behind me. I am filled with the spirit of God. As I turn forward, my fear is nonexistent as we rush the adversary forces head on.”

Luke added to his account that every time he remembers that dream, he feels the spirit so strongly, his eyes fill with tears, and he knows he is there for a purpose. He says, “With God on my side, it is impossible for me to fail.” 

What a great message for us all.