Halloween

Two princesses and a pumpkin.

They thought it was so fun to dig out the “eewey eewey pumpkin gooey.” Ok, I let them use knives, but they were really into it.

Anna woke up on Halloween saying, “It is Halloween today! I am so excited.” We went over to Nana and Papa’s house for Halloween night. The funny thing is when we took the girls trick or treating and Anna refused to go up to the houses to do it. She would wait for us on the sidewalk while we took Elise. Elise thought it was the greatest thing. Silly Anna.

I wanted Anna to have a good experience so I asked her later that evening if she wanted to try it again and go trick or treating. She said, “Only if Elise holds my hand.” Elise, the younger sister took her big sisters hand and helped her trick or treat. After one or two houses Anna got so excited about it that she said, “Let’s go to lots of houses and get lots and lots of candy!”  The girls even got brave enough to go to the scary witch house on the corner and came back and told me she was really a nice witch.

Grace Teresa Slack

After a long wait and a difficult labor, our sweet girl finally arrived just as pure and perfect as can be. We feel so blessed to have this little angel in our family.

A brief overview of my Birth Story: Wednesday evening I went into labor on my own and labored at home for several hours, When contractions were getting really intense Kent and I headed to the hospital and my mom stayed with the girls. I labored with Kent at the hospital for another 5 hours with really strong contractions coming every 3 minutes, trying to avoid the epidural for as long as possible. At around 5:30 in the morning, exhausted, spent, and dilated to a 7.5 I opted for the epidural to give me some rest.

Then it happened as it always does, but worse this time; my blood pressure plummeted. It felt like death; there was ringing in my ears, dizziness, nausea, I couldn’t breath, I cried out for help. They gave me oxygen and ran to get some kind of blood pressure medicine. The blood pressure was 60’s/30’s, but finally came up and I started vomiting. The baby’s heart rate was dropping at that point into the 60’s and would not come up. All the nurses ran in trying to turn me and get her heart rate back up, ready for an emergency C-section if not. After a minute or two her heart rate finally started coming back up again. This scenario happened several times and was really scary. It was awful! I know that there were a lot of prayers said for me and the baby, and I know there was power in those prayers, that Heavenly Father was protecting us and helped us through. I felt there were angels in the room comforting us too, through those scary moments. Kent was also such a great support for me through it all, there at my side the whole night encouraging and supporting.

At around 12:30, after 7 hours, and only 1/2 cm of progress, they started the Pitocin. The next thing I knew, I felt a lot of pressure and the urge to push. They called the doctor and it took him 2 mins 43 secs to get from his clinic to the room, as he promised us earlier that morning. After only about 5 mins of pushing she was born at 1:12pm. I could not hold her right away as there was meconium in the amniotic fluid, and they had the team waiting to suction her out right away. She weighed 7 lbs even and was 20 inches long.

She was fine and healthy and they finally let us hold her. She was beautiful, but had darker features then I had imagined she would, different then my other two, which I love.

We decided to name her Grace after two amazing women in our lives. Grace is the name of my paternal grandmother who I adore and admire so much, and Grace is also the name of Kent’s paternal grandmother who we both respect and admire as well. For her middle name we used Teresa, for Kent’s mother, an angel in his life. I heard Kent whisper to her, “we will give you the middle name Teresa after your grandmother who is one of the most hard working, selfless, loving and giving people I know.” One of my most dearest amazing aunts also has the name Teresa so it all just seemed right. So there you have it Grace Teresa Slack.

Nana and Papa brought the girls to meet there new little sister. They loved coming. Anna was fascinated and entranced by her new little sister. She would not leave her side and constantly wanted to hold her and look at her. On the other hand, Elise was a typical 2 year old. She was interested for 3 seconds, looked at her, patted her head and was off, more interested in all the neat things in the hospital room.

Nana and Papa were also pretty excited to meet their 4th grandbaby.

The Every-day Things

One thing nice about Kent starting work at 9:00am is that we always get the mornings together. The other day, Elise woke up saying that she wanted to go on a hike, so we took the morning and did a short hike on south mountain which was so nice.

It was Papa’s birthday last month, so we had the girls make birthday cards for him. I told them to choose the stickers for the card that they thought he might like, hinting at the wild animal stickers, etc; however, they were sure papa wanted princess, fairy, and ballerina stickers on his card.

Saturday afternoon I was so tired I just fell asleep on the couch. Kent took the girls outside for a while so they wouldn’t disturb me. Anna drew pictures of me all over the sidewalk sleeping on the couch with a pillow under my head and a baby belly.

The girls and I decided that because it was fall we were going to make pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. Anna was really excited and kept telling me how she loved pumpkin cookies, though I don’t think she has ever tried them. Well, I don’t know what she thought pumpkin cookies were made out of, but as soon as I put the pumpkin puree in the bowl for her to mix, she started crying that she did not want that pumpkin in her cookies.

It was quite comical because as soon as she tasted the cookie dough she stopped crying and insisted that we make pumpkin cookies again, which we did.

Oh, What do you do in the Summer Time…?

Now that summer has officially ended I will re-cap some of our daily summer activities. Arizona Summers are hot; so most of our time is spent indoors, though we do go out for small bouts of time so we don’t go CRAZY! So here’s what we do in the summer time…

The girls like getting out the macaroni bucket and making cakes and pies with macaroni or pretend lunches, and we pretend eat it, or they just sit in it and play.

Finding rolly pollies is a outside favorite thing to do. Then watching them crawl around and roll in balls.

Oh, and reading books. We go to the library about every other week to choose 10 new books and the girls love reading. They always want us to read them stories but sometime they will just sit down themselves when I say it is quite reading time and look at the pictures.

Oh, and popcorn parties are a frequent favorite. We have an air popper and the girls will stand on a chair pour in the popcorn and watch it pop. Then we usually go outside or sit in a circle in the family room and have our popcorn party. It most definitely is a favorite treat.

The Summer here is monsoon season so we get fun warm rains. We could only find one umbrella this day so Anna insisted she was going to use it. Carefree Elise just said OK, and went and picked up the bucket on the porch and put it over her head for her umbrella. When Anna saw Elise walking around with an bucket on her head she thought it looked pretty fun so she said, “Elise, let’s switch.”

Taking their dolls on a walk in the baby doll strollers is also a very enjoyable activity.

Tea parties are often requested. We always use the toy bucket as a table and the girls just love pouring their own tea, usually water but sometimes they get Gatorade if they are lucky. They will say “darling” and love the variety of eating this way. They always want me to join in with them.

Making bubble crowns is a very mermaid thing to do. It sure makes bath time fun.

Blowing bubbles usually last until they spill all their bubbles, which does not take them very long to do. Notice when Elise concentrates that little tongue of hers comes out. I wonder where she got that from?

Dressing up like princesses and dancing to princess music is quite a common occurrence here. The girls like putting on the same thing and being princesses together.

Their wonderful daddy made play dough for them and they request this activity quite often. They like taking the cookie cutters and making lots of shapes.

Girls day and Nana’s house. Yes, the girls favorite place to go is Nana’s house. It basically is their second home. We would go over there at least once a week, and all summer long they got to swim and play in Nana’s backyard. And having girls day and hanging out with the family and cousins is always a treat.

Another absolute new favorite for them is putting together puzzles. They absolutely love it and don’t tire of it. It is requested daily. I have to sit there with them and help them a bit but they are getting good. Anna can do a 24 piece puzzle on her own and Elise can do an 18 piece on her own now. I figure it is good for them. It will build their problem solving skills, their fine motor skills and, concentration.

And most possibly the #1 favorite summertime activity…We swim in a pool to keep ourselves cool. Oh, the girls love going swimming and really got comfortable in the water this summer. They have learned to swim pretty fast with their floaties on and just love playing out there.

Is that what you do?… So do I.