Local Recognition

A few weeks ago we went to get our oil changed and the guy at CarSmart asked if we wanted to enter the contest for Nibley Heritage Days. The winners would get squirt guns to shoot off of a trailer in a parade later that week. Of course Abby and Maya were all over it. We came home and they colored their little hearts out and we dropped off the papers. They were both very excited and kept asking when they'd let us know if they won. The city called while I was at my Uncle Glen's funeral and left 2 separate messages - one for Abby and one for Maya - saying they both won!!! Abby won 2nd place overall and Maya won 1st out of all the other 3-yr olds. Parade time!

Here's their pages. They also got movie passes and an ice cream cone

I Don't Work Anymore... I Dabble.

Typing the word "dabble" felt weird.

I haven't collected any of the work I've done since I quit my job 3 years ago in awhile. If I were a real professional I would compile it on a cleanly design-ed portfolio website. But I'm just gonna procrastinate that until my youngest is in kindergarten.

There's still a bunch of stuff from USU. Some of it I finished a month or less before I quit. Most of it is just when they need extra help...

Alumni Calendar

Alumni Christmas Card

Invite

A brochure for the Government and Politics Office

And this I finished right before I quit. The Annual Report

Then, there's the random stuff I did for family and friends...

Playing cards for Christmas

Back of the cards

 I made face cards out of members of the family... here's jake and I

My niece Simi's graduation announcment

My friend Melanie's daughter's baptism announcement 

My friend Hannah's wedding announcement. I did these with a brush pen. She wanted them to look more wild and imperfect. Hannah's from England and her wedding reception was in an old room with wall-to-wall exposed brick. I only saw the photos but it was so lovely.

She married a frenchman so there had to be a version in le Francais

 My friend Rachel's wedding announcement

My friend Roxie's husband Jon has a repair business 

Graduation tickets for my friend Candace

But, out of everything, the place that seems to require the most effort is church. Whether it's food canning specialist, newsletter/directory/program person, or in Primary, church needs a lot of visual communication. 

They asked me to update the bulletin board and I honestly didn't know what to do. So I went to my old standby and printed something on engineering paper.

Birthday present for the kids. I put a little finger light on them.

Freddy Spaghetti for singing time

Baptism invite

And Scout awards. I just did these last weekend.

I'm thinking that being a graphic designer is one of the most useful degrees for being a stay at home mom. Forget that FCHD degree! ha

I haven't put anything on here that I did just for my house. Next post.

Me and My Sis Decided to Bring Back the Past

My sister Amber and I were texting about how we wished we still blogged. And then she posted 5 posts that night. Because she makes things happen! It's hard to start up again because it feels like I need to make stuff up. But that feels overwhelming and I eat a donut to give me energy. Which doesn't actually work. So, I'll just start with today.

Jake works at Black Box Engineering. He has for almost 3 years. A long 3 years. Lots of trips and late nights and overtime. But he is so good at what he does. Everyone is always amazed at how much he knows. He's got the brain for complicated code, but also a creative side, and also a knack for teaching. I'm really happy for him but we've both decided it's time to have more fun and family time. He's still at Black Box but things have shifted so he's more in control of his own destiny. He finds and carries out his own work. Can hire people to help. He can work 1 week and take of 3 if he feels like it. But he's still finishing all the work from before the aforementioned shift-age so the fun hasn't begun yet. Except we went to dinner and a movie last night and hired a teenager to babysit. Maybe that doesn't sound like much but we haven't done that in a looooooong time.

Abby is just finishing up Kindergarten. She likes it ... k i n d  o f.  She doesn't always listen or focus but she made lots of new friends and likes being silly. She's her own person and I really love and admire her. She's pretty competitive, likes playing video games, is a madwoman on her bike, and is starting to get the hang of reading. So, if Jake doesn't ever get a son, I think he's covered for best buddies. Abby has been in speech the last few months and is working on her L's, R's, a small stutter. She's probably gonna get her tonsils out this summer because they're YUGE!

Here's a video from a game 

At the Color Run

One of Abbys friends. I was spying on them. I week later, I asked abby if she ever played soccer at school.
She said she tries to get her friend to play but he always pretends like the ball is a baby. 

Maya is 3 but she somehow seems a lot older. She still has more than 2 years before she can start school. When she turned 3 she got a lot more opinionated and tells me what's what whenever she gets the chance. She gets herself landed in timeout a lot. But she can be very agreeable and mostly just wants to have fun and eat treats. She loves playing soccer with us, rides her big wheel like a bat out of hell, and is super funny. Both her and Abby love their nighttime books, right now they love "Those Darn Squirrels" and will shout it out in their best old man Fookwire voice randomly.

Trying to stop taking naps. Can't stop, won't stop

Faye is a feisty little cutie cakes. She is so snuggly and sweet but also throws crazy tantrums. She always wants what her sisters have which causes a lot of fights. They all play well in any combo in 2's but once it's all of them there's a lot of sister strife. She sleeps like a champion and when she wakes up either yells Maam! DADA! or Abby! (She can't say maya yet. She can say Bawa which is our nickname for Maya because that's what Abby called her). She also can say doggy, milk, moo, *elephant noise, binky, night night, and love you. She gives big hugs, especially if you try to scare or chase her. She teases her sisters and us a lot and makes everyone laugh. She makes jokes a lot too. If anyone laughs at her she'll keep doing it until the joke wears out. We got our bikes fixed and bought a trailer about a month ago and have been having lots of fun the last month of spring.

Those 3 nuggets. Whenever I'm away for an hour or less, I miss them. But also, sometimes I think I'm gonna lose my freakin mind.

I heard that 3 kids is the toughest and I can say that for me, it's been totally true. 

I gave a talk about a year ago and it was about service. There had been a question bothering me for a little while. I didn't understand the gospel principle that losing yourself in the services of others would help you find yourself. Because the last year and a half, I felt more lost and out-of-sorts about myself and my life than I ever had. I felt like all day was spent serving my kids and family. So, why did I feel like this. Through studying the answer, it was getting down to the wire on Saturday night and I still hadn't really figured it out. I don't remember how it came to my mind but that night I realized I needed to lose myself because Heavenly Father would replace me with someone better. I still feel like a crazy person most of the time. But I do have faith that if I keep trying I'll eventually come around to who Heavenly Father wants me to be. And I think it'll be my kids who will help me get there. 

Anyway, a little random update for all my readers (Amber ;))

The Day FAYE Was Born

I read somewhere that reading your birth story on your birthday every year could be a fun tradition. So I wanted to write everything I can remember about the day Faye was born before I forget it so she can have it.

Every time I'm about to have a baby I expect it to be dramatic. Like I'm in the middle of the store and my water breaks, gushing on the grocery store floor or I wake up in the middle of the night with an excruciating contraction or something. But all 3 have been pretty similar where I'm close to being in labor and the dr gives me the ok to go upstairs to delivery depending on what I want to do. And once I'm given the option I do it. (It's so hard to wait!) I try to just go with the flow of it all and never actually have any type of plan because... probably because giving birth freaks me out so I don't want to think about it. 

This time I was ok with just waiting it out and seeing how I felt along the way. I went to the dr at 39 1/2 weeks and he stripped my membranes. By the way everything felt, he said there was a pretty good chance my water would break. I had a lot of water in there and the membrane strippage was pretty thorough because he couldn't get any leverage on her head. I was nervous about it breaking because a couple days were coming up where my parents wouldn't be around to watch Abby and Maya without any notice as well as Jake had some crazy stuff coming up for work. After that, the doctor would be out of town. I've never been that concerned about having another dr deliver my baby but with the pressure to need to decide either way, I felt like it would be best to go for it. So he said we could go in that night. When I called, they told us we had to wait because of some emergency deliveries. I was lucky they called me back a couple hours later because there were a lot of moms and babies that night. We'd gone for a walk with my parents and took a last family-of-4 picture and then went in. 

Once we were settled, they put the monitors on my belly and when they had trouble getting a good location for the heartbeat they did and ultrasound to see where the baby was sitting and she was transverse. Which means she was hanging out sideways in there. So they called the dr and he came in to see if they could flip her. He wasn't able to get there for a couple hours because he was speaking at a stake youth thing. They splattered on the goo they use to do ultrasounds and while he was feeling my belly said she'd gone breech... which was my fault because I was pushing on my belly while we were waiting for the dr and I felt her shift. With both hands he did a circular motion and she flipped. Even the nurses were surprised how easy he did it. Dr Horsely is awesome, he delivers a lot of babes. They decided to break my water sooner rather than later so the baby would stay head down. When they said they were gonna break it, I had a small freak out. Because when they broke my water with Maya and Abby it brought immediate pain. And Maya was born less than an hour later. So I said I wanted an epidural before they broke it... I just really, really didn't want the same fast and furious delivery that I had with Maya. 

So the anesthesiologist came with the needle and the same jokes about redheads that he brought the previous times. While I was leaning forward as he put the needle in, I felt a pressure/pain down low. They had given me a catheter 1/2 hr before to make room to get the baby's head down low, so I assumed the pressure I felt was her head dropping. When it was done and I leaned back I looked at my belly and saw a big lump in my ribs. I looked at the nurse who was also staring at my belly and said, is that a head again? She put the ultrasound wand thingy back on and sure enough, the baby was breech again. All the water in there made it possible for her to move around pretty freely in there I guess. The dr came back and flipped her again. It was more difficult the second time because she was turned the other way. When he flipped her he attached a heart monitor to her head because they were worried with all the moving around that the cord could get wrapped around her neck. And the monitor on her head would track her heart more accurately. They watch the heart rate with the contractions because if the cord is wrapped around the baby's neck, when a contraction hits, it'll tighten around the neck and it would be reflected on the heart monitor. 

Once she flipped the second time the dr broke my water almost immediately so she wouldn't be able to flip back. I kinda felt bad I insisted on getting the epidural before they broke my water because she probably couldn't have gone back if the water was gone. But I didn't r e a l l y regret it because as soon as he broke it the full-blown pain and contractions hit. The epidural had nearly kicked in though so it really took the edge off, but without it, I wouldn't have been a happy lady. I relaxed for about 30 mins, they had me turn on my side for about 5 mins (which propelled labor) and I was ready to push. A few pushes later and our tricky little baby was here! 

She looked more whitish-blueish than Abby and Maya, which scared me, but they weren't concerned about it. They wiped her off a little and gave her to me to snuggle. She didn't look as much like Abby and Maya to me when I first saw her, which is weird because now she looks exactly like them. Minus the dimples I guess. She has the same hair, the same eyes, the same expressions, the same size and shape. Like she belongs with her sisters. 

We'd been thinking about the name Faye for a month or two and while we were in the hospital Jake read all about the name and we decided it fit her. It's derived from the English/Irish word for fairy. As we read about the trickery of fairies it seemed to fit her. Her and her little up-turned nose and higher cheekbones. We had thrown a lot of names around and sometimes they'd stick for a month or two but it seems like we'd keep talking about more. Faye finally stuck.

We love our little Nesbit nugget and I'm excited to see her grow with her sisters. Abby and Maya already love her even though she cries a lot. 

Looking back on how it all went, I feel so grateful for her safe arrival, for good doctors and nurses, for technology that helps make sure the last leg of the baby's journey is safe, and for medicine that makes the momma's last leg a little more comfortable and enjoyable. I feel grateful that even though I was wishy-washy about making decisions, that I made the one I did. If my water had broken and she was breech, things would've been a lot more scary, especially with how fast my babies come once it's broken. 

I've thought about how we get answers to prayers and how everyone communicates with heavenly father a little differently. I'm thankful for Him nudging me in the right direction the way He did. I know things don't always turn out the way we want them to, so I'm thankful little Faye could make it safe and sound.

The day chubbanugget came to earth

She was born Monday, December 15th. Same day as her grandpa Nesbit and her cousin Bayli and my cousin Melanie.  I was hoping she'd come 2 days earlier so she could have the 12-13-14 birthday but maybe she'll be a good sharer. 

I'd been having contractions for a couple weeks and man, I was feeling pretty lousy. I really hated the idea of being induced but I was feeling like my body was ready and needed a little push. I also was pretty sure that I was further along than they said I was. I mean, what does science know anyway right? So when I went to my appointment on Monday morning said I wanted to get this karasite out and the doctor checked and said I was ready. So we went to my parents to hang out with Abby and grab our camera and went back to the hospital at noon. I was pretty nervous to be full-on induced but I felt like I was ready so it would be ok. By 1:00 we were settled in and watching BBC Sherlock. As soon as I started getting pitocin my contractions were regular and consistent. The nurse helped me feel less nervous when she said I really was ready for the baby to come. My first nurse was Lexie (Singleton-no relation) Sutherland who lived down the street from me growing up. She was only my nurse for an hour and my next nurse was Elise Zollinger who is my age and I went to school with. Everyone asked if it was weird to have old high school friends as my nurses but it really wasn't. I think it shows they are good at their jobs - professional and all that. My doctor is my old stake president... so it doesn't seem to bother me having people I know looking down there :)

After a couple hours of consistent contractions Elise called the dr and he headed up at 3:00 to break my water. As soon as he did it I asked to have an epidural because OW. The guy with the needle came in with the juice at 3:30 and everything was in at 3:45 but holy crap it hurt. As big needle guy is walking out the door he says it'll take 15-20 mins before I'll feel the effects and I thought, ohhhh noooooo, I have to deal with this for 20 more minutes?!?!? The next contraction brought full-on panic because it felt like I needed to push which meant nugget #2 wasn't waiting for no lousy epidural to work. I'm pretty sure I grunted and groaned like a cow. I told Elise and she checked me and I was at an 8. She checked again a few mins later and I was at a 9. So she called the dr and said "You need to get up here right now... Yeah, it WAS really quick." I remember yelling at Jake "what time did the epidural guy leave?!?" And he was panicked and was like "uhhh, maybe 5 mins ago?" I'm not really sure what happened after that - I had my eyes closed for about 20 straight minutes. The dr came in at some point and suited up. I put some fingernail prints in both jakes and my own hands. I had my hands clenched so tight that they froze closed until it was over. I remember telling everyone that my hands won't open and everyone kept reminding me to take slower breaths. I wasn't prepared to feel it. I didn't know any breathing exercises except for the heee heee hoooo's that 90's sitcoms had taught me. I pushed (a closer description is that my body squeezed) a couple times and I thought, Oh man, this hurts so bad, she needs to come out, I can push harder than that, give up the hope the epidural is gonna kick in. So I put everything into it and I remember hearing the dr say stop! Stop?! I opened my eyes (they'd been closed long enough that I was a little blinded by the bright lights) because I wasn't sure I heard him right and out she came, dimples and all. Jake said she came shooting out so fast the dr had to catch her. It was ridiculous how much pain I was in one second and the sweet relief I felt the next. She was born at 4:04 so about exactly an hour after the Dr broke my water -- I'm sorta afraid if my water ever broke on its own I'd end up delivering in a grocery store or something. She looked so much like Abby when she came out. The first thing I noticed with both the little nuggets were their dimples and then their hair. They were both little and soft little feminine faces. And they both looked so healthy with their lungs blazing and their voices screaming which of course made me so happy. They wiped her off and gave her to me to cuddle with for a little while before they did all the other checks. She weighed 7lbs 13oz and was 20 inches (I think she was a little taller though because a week later she measured at 21)

After she came out and I was all stitched up they pulled out the epidural (thanks for nothing!) Luckily it hadn't taken much effect after the fact so I didn't have all the negative effects without any of the positives. 

During this baby growing period I've been nervous about her being okay. She moved so much less than Abby and my brains were worried a lot. But I could tell I had a lot stronger (crazy) hormones this go and hoped my anxiousness was due to that. I felt so much relief and love when a perfectly healthy Maya baby was handed to me. Now that she's out we've been amazed how much more she sleeps (like a normal newborn) than Abby did so I'm guessing that's why I felt her move less?

Abby wasn't allowed to come visit us because no little kids were during flu season. So when Jake and her picked us up in the morning she was a little mad at me. She started crying when I tried putting her coat on and was grumpy during the ride home. When we got home, Jake got Maya out of her carseat and asked Abby if she wanted to meet her baby sister. The look Abby gave them was pretty deadly. She wasn't happy about the situation at all. I had read that it helps to give the older sibling a present from the new baby but I didn't think Abby would care. Luckily I had a few presents under the tree already wrapped for Abby so we had her unwrap it. After she unwrapped a beautiful stuffed kitty cat she loved her sister. Or maybe happy to ignore her is a better way to put it. It took a few months before Abby was really happy to interact with her baby but really, she was always very nice and loving to her. 

So, there's the story of the day chubbanugget was born. May she always read it on her birthday.

Before we left. I wish I didn't feel embarrassed the minute someone takes my picture.

Born!

 That face!

 After we told her the baby brought her a present.

The only pic we took of Christmas. Not pretty. But real and I love it