Happy Fall!

How could we not love this crisp fall weather?! As you can see from the joy on my kids faces, jumping in the leaves is obviously the highlight of the fall. We (okay - by 'we' I mean Jesse) made a huge pile of leaves right by the swingset. The kids and their dad had a blast jumping in the leaves off the swings.

Halloween is "totally awesome"! The pink fairy princess had way too much fun - see how it took two hands to hold up her trunk or treat goodies? Isaac had more fun that what his expression is showing. I think he was a little annoyed at having to wait to get a picture before diving into the goods.

Spencer came home last Sunday, he had gained a full pound and was feeding on demand, so we were all excited to go and get our precious miracle to bring him home. Now we are all sleep deprived, but loving his adorable ways and seeing his own beautiful personality shining forth. He actually is very laid back and sleeps most of the time. We were thrilled last night when his normal three hour feeding schedule stretched to a full four hours. It's amazing what a difference an hour can make!

Surprise!!!

Happy Birthday!

Spencer Preston Hunter

Born Oct. 18, 2009

5 lbs. 4 oz - 19 3/4" long

Hello Everyone! We have some GREAT news and wanted to share our joy! We had a surprise early arrival yesterday at 12:20 am...Spencer Preston Hunter was born via C-section six weeks early, weighing in at 5 lbs. 4 oz., 19 3/4" long! Mom and baby are doing very well.

Now the story, I'll warn you it's long. Saturday afternoon (around 1pm) I realized that I hadn't felt the baby moving that day. This was really unusual as Spencer was a very active baby - doing flips, stretching, kicking, etc. It really worried me for him to go from super active to nothing except a few flutters, which could easily have been explained as something else. So anyway, I started doing all the things that usually make him wake up and get active. I ate lunch - nothing...I laid down so he could stretch out - nothing...I poked my belly - nothing...juice, sugary foods, etc. - nothing. By 6pm I had myself conviced that something was really wrong and I needed to hear his heart beat on a monitor to reassure myself.

Jesse happened to be out of town (OF COURSE - my kids tend to pick the least convient time get sick) in Chicago at a Neuroscience Conference. I called a friend (Heather) and when I started to explain what was going on I burst into tears. I was trying to keep it together to not pass on the worry to Isaac and Keltsy. Well, of course the kids started talking about how the baby was just sleeping, etc. Anyway, Heather's husband came and got the kids and Heather, being the great friend that she is, went with me to the hospital. They got me hooked up to the monitor and immediately felt reassurance when I heard the heart beat and it was at a normal speed, etc. The doctor monitored the heart for a couple of hours. At this time I had definitly felt SOME kicking, but still not anywhere near what I was used to, but hearing the heart beat was VERY reassuring.

When the baby would move the doctor was looking for the heart rate to rise for 20 points and for it to last for 20 seconds. Spencer's rate was only pulling 10 points for 10 seconds, which made the doctor to want to get more information so he ordered an ultrasound. At this point I was ready to go home - it was 9pm, I was tired, thinking that Isaac and Keltsy needed to get to bed, etc...but who would turn down another ultrasound this late in the pregnancy?!

So I got the ultrasound, again heard his heart beat and for 30 min. I was waiting for him to move. They were rating certain things during the ultrasound and he needed a 8 or 10 for the doctor to feel that everything was okay - Spencer pulled a 2 (and that was having enough amniotic fluid, not really anything that the baby was doing).

While waiting for the results of the ultrasound test I called Jesse. It was around 10pm by this point. Jesse had his presentation, was going to dinner with some friends and Chicago is an hour behind our time zone - so I knew he wouldn't be back to get the phone until sometime after 8. We don't have cell phones so really no way or time to get ahold of him. About 10:30 the doctor came in, told me the results of the test and recommended a C-section. From the ultrasound he could tell the cord was around Spencer's neck, but could tell the blood was still flowing etc. and really they couldn't tell what was wrong. He was really concerned, as they could tell from his lack of movement and Spencer's heart not accelerating when it should have, they KNEW something was wrong, but not knowing what it was he wanted to get him out so they could treat ASAP. Spencer was laying sideways in my belly, with his feet down and head on my right side, so there was no way to try to deliver with him in that position, and the doctor felt that turning him might put Spencer under too much stress.

So I called Jesse back, explained what was going on, had him ask the doctor all the question he could think of and at 11pm started getting ready for surgery. Jesse rode the bus to the Conference so he rushed to the airport and rented a car. Being after 10pm there were no flights going out anymore and ALMOST all the car rental places were closed. He found Hertz out in the parking lot was open and made the frantic drive home. I was able to get a blessing before going into surgery, which was very comforting and I'm so greatful for. By 11:45 I was in the operating room and 12:20 Spencer was delivered! I was relieved to see his size and he was crying so I knew his lungs were at least functioning.

The "big problem" that was causing all this panic was that the cord managed to get around his neck THREE TIMES! He literally couldn't move. I got a quick 'welcome to the world' touch and hug. The NICU nurse came at the end of her shift and reassured me that she was so glad I had done what I did, that he wouldn't have made it to term. Jesse made it back at about 3:30am and went down to the NICU to get the status of the baby. Spencer did need a ventilator until 10am the next morning, and they couldn't find a vein so they had to use one in his umbilica cord. But he's off of the ventilator, now has a little tube that's puffs air in his nose and helps him get his lungs filled completely. And they found a vein in his arm to use, so they took out the one in his belly and we were able to hold him this morning. You could tell he likes to cuddle and according to the nurses he REALLY likes his binky!

My mom is come in last night, and our ward has been fantastic with help babysitting the kids and lots of offers for meals, etc. Turns out Jesse is sick with an ear infection, so he can't come back to the hospital - our hospital is keeping out sick people, how funny is that? For me, the pain meds work great :) - and I've been surprised at how good I feel. We appreciate all the prayers we've been receiving at this point and would appreciate any more people would like to send our way.

Apparently, Isaac keeps calling Spencer by his middle name of Preston - who knows, maybe Preston will end up being his nickname.

Thanks for the love and support,
Jesse and Amy (Isaac, Keltsy, and most especially Spencer)

Summer Fun!

Isaac's been playing T-ball this summer, and having a blast with all his buddies! Here's his first game:

His team is warming up for their first game!

Gotta run fast for that ball, then throw it to first!

Ready position...

Team picture day is next week, but the coaches will both be gone and they each have a kid on the team, so we did some less formal pictures this week - I love the way they turned out. You can tell the personality of each kid in this picture.

We've also had fun with visitors as well. Jesse parents came out for a visit, unfortunately the pictures are all on the 'upstairs' computer, and I'm too lazy to go get them right now. We had fun seeing Nauvoo and visiting some church history sites, then Jesse and his dad went to a HAM Radio fest in Ohio.

A few weeks later my sister and her three boys came to visit and we made a trip to the zoo, the Indy 500, and did LOTS of swimming. We all loved having them here, and my kids especially enjoyed their cousins company.

Here's a few pictures at the zoo:

All the cousins looking at the polar bear, sleeping in the hot sun.

My little monkeys, climbing up the 'big rock' outside the monkey cage.

A few weeks later, my parents made a trip out to see us as well. We took them to the zoo as well and it ended up being a really hot week, so we tried to find some indoor things to do, that weren't too exhausting for all of us. Here we are resting in one of the indoor exhibits at the zoo (gotta love Keltsy's face in this one)!

And another with the kids getting ready to feed the giraffe:

And again climbing the big rock outside the monkey cage (I just thought this was a cute picture):

All in all, it's been a great summer!

I've had a miserable head cold for the last three weeks, but am FINALLY getting over that and ready to get my house back in order from the 'mom's sick and not doing it today' attitude I've been having.

Isaac is looking forward to starting Kindergarten in a few weeks, we start the middle of August here. We should be finding out who his teacher is within the next week or so. It'll be fun with just me and Keltsy for half the day during the week, at least until the baby comes. I think they could use a break from each other, although they do love each other, they love to bug each other as well. I could see a big difference in their relationship when preschool was over and they were didn't get that little break during the day. It'll be nice to have my routine back as well.

I'm always sad to see the remnants of summer pass, the fireflies, the fireworks, swimming, summer reading at the library, but I look forward to the changes that come in the fall...look at me, it's still July and I'm already missing summer!

We had the exciting doctor's visit today - found out we're having a boy! The sleepy boy wasn't very cooperative for the face picture, but here's my favorite profile picture we were able to get.

We saw he had the hiccups, but the video ended up in slow motion. We do have some video of him stretching his legs, but I can't seem to get it to upload.

So far the names we like are Andrew Preston and David Max - well, those are the names I like and we haven't debated on yet. Jesse keeps suggesting Ebenezer - but that's definitly OUT!

Yay! I can post pics!

We finally caved and bought a new memory card reader. Ours had been broken for awhile, but we finally got a new one and can post some fun pictures of the things we've been busy doing!

First, as a conservative family we wanted to voice our concerns over what we view to be some reckless spending that's going on in Washington. So, we attended our local Tea Party and were so glad that we did.

The organizers made a huge effort to keep the protest as non-partisan as possible and it was neat to be a part of something bigger than us yelling at the television :).

I thought Keltsy was just cute in this one.

Second, Isaac came home from Preschool on Friday, super excited because they had a "Rodeo Roundup" in school. They made all these cowboy related things and he told me he was "smart about cowboys" because he knew that the bandanas were to help keep the dust off the cowboy's faces. He kept saying "yee haw!" for the picture, but I think we got a cute one.

We've had a pretty good week, I've been tired, but felt great on Thursday and caught up with the housework that needed to be done...even Isaac asked me when I was going to clean up - that's how bad it got. But of course, now I'm really tired again and the house is a wreck. I can suffer, though, a baby is worth that sacrafice :).

Sale!

I'm having a shop sale - MyBUG. If you'd like to follow sales and updates on my shop, you can check out MyBUG's Blog at www.mybugonetsy.blogspot.com!

WE'RE EXPECTING!!!!

We're expecting! This came just in time, we were going to start a round of fertility treatments this next cycle, but it looks like Heavenly Father had other plans for us! Our expected due date is Nov. 25th. We are super excited and still a bit in shock and disbelief. I'm only about six weeks along, so your prayers for a safe pregnancy are appreciated.

We still don't know what we're doing with Jesse's work, we'll let you all know as soon as we have some idea of where/when. It will probably be a few more months before we know what's going on with that. We hope to be out closer to family, but we do love it out here so we'll be happy where ever we get planted.

Recipe!

I've been trying quite a few new recipes lately and thought I'd share what my family has enjoyed here and there. Not necessarily a regular column, but definitly something that will be repeated. I thought I'd start with my bread recipe. I got it from "America's Test Kitchen CookBook" and have adapted it to fit my ingredients and kitchen. It's yummy, and now that we are exclusively on homemade bread we eat it all the time - literally.

In 2 C. glass pyrex measuring cup:
1 C. Milk
1/3 C. Water
3 T. Butter/Margarine

Microwave for 1 min. 30 sec.

While liquid is in the microwave, add 3 T. honey to your mixer (mine's a KitchenAide, LOVE IT, and recommend it to those who make a lot of bread).

Pour liquid over the honey in your mixer. Add 2 1/2 tsp. yeast, 2 tsp. salt and mix with the bread hook dough. Slowly add 1 C. all-purpose flour and 3 C. bread flour (bread flour is the secret to good homemade bread, took me a few years to figure this out, but it does make a HUGE difference). Mix thoroughly until dough pulls away from sides of the bowl.

Flour your counter top and pour your bread dough onto the counter. Knead by hand on the counter, adding more flour until dough is no longer sticky and to desired consistency.

Spray bowl with cooking spray, put your dough in the bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise until double (about an hour).

Punch down, shape into loaf and put into sprayed metal loaf pan. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise, again 'til double in size or to desired size of loaf. Heat oven to 350 degrees, along with a bread pan that's half full of water. This keeps the humidity in the oven high so the crust isn't too hard or over cooked. Bake for 35 mins.

Remove from oven and from bread pan onto a wire rack. While still warm, rub the outside of the loaf with butter/margarine.

This recipe freezes well, see my previous posts abour freezing bread dough.

This May Not be Kansas, but it's Still Scary!

The threat of tornados is still scary to me here in the midwest. We had these in Alabama as well, but the weather man there was AWESOME and you could turn on the news and know where the tornados would hit if they came down. Here in Indiana it's just pretty much "A storm is coming TAKE COVER!"

We also get straight line winds that make me nervous and wishing for a basement. A couple of nights ago the wind was just howling, and the next day I was picking up some toys scattered around the backyard and found some shingles. Uh, oh! Yep, a few had been ripped off the roof in the night. We were really blessed that some shingles had been leftover from a back porch area that the previous owners had added onto the house, and the fact that they left the leftovers was so amazing. We didn't have to go hunting for matching shingles, but Jesse was out on the roof until well after dark last night trying to get them attached. Of course the weatherman predicted rain today, so it HAD to be done yesterday...then it didn't rain at all.

Good news though, we have a fund raiser this year that I think will be a success. The YW are selling ward cookbooks for $5 each and we've had a ton of Relief Society sisters making multiple orders. There are 95 recipes in the books, they were all submitted by the RS sisters, most by email, so it wasn't terribly hard to put together and they only cost $1.62 per book to make. Meaning the majority of the funds raised will go to the girls. I'll post again if it's as big of a success as I'm hoping.

Jesse also got two raises this week, he got a merit raise AND a cost of living raise. I told him this meant we had no excuses for date night anymore :). We just can never seem to justify the cost of dinner and a movie, plus the cost of a babysitter...but once a month shouldn't hurt, especially since we only go to the dollar movies.

We've also discovered RedBox rentals. We had been limiting our movie watching to the dollar theater then just buying the movies we wanted at Christmas. For the cost of seeing a "real" movie, we figured we could just own it. Now that we have found Red Box, we can 'preview' the movie for cheap and decide if it's worth the $15. Of course movies that we KNOW we'll like we go ahead put it on our 'to buy' list (like Star Trek, Narnia, or the Bourne movies), but this just gives us one more option. The only bad thing is the RedBox we go to is in McDonalds and those fries are SO, SO TEMPTING!

Is it Spring yet?!

Isaac today said "It's been MORE than six weeks of winter!" and I agree! He of course was talking about the whole groundhogs day thing, but I am READY for spring to come. It's just a rainy, yucky day today. We spent the morning at the library and now I'm being lazy on my computer instead of mopping my sticky kitchen floor.

I've found a powdered milk solution for our family. I've been trying to use our powdered milk, so we can rotate it and actually use the milk. I honestly can't stand the taste though, so I've been using it in my Slimfast breakfast shake and occasionally for baking. Some nice lady at church gave the suggestion of adding non-fat dairy creamer to it to make it more rich, so I tried it and it worked! I make the milk in 2 qt. batches and add 1/4 c. creamer (the dry kind) and it is good. Definitly cheaper than "real" milk, and in a pinch we could drink powdered milk with minimal moans at house. Jesse would probably still complain, but he's spoiled :).

My "house" plants are dying. We bring the outside potted plants inside every winter, and by spring they are a miserable mess. They always make a comeback once they put back in their natural habitat though. I like living in a humid environment that rains frequently. I don't have to think about taking care of the plants.

I'm starting to think about our garden this year. I say "our garden", but really it's Jesse's. We have a five foot square patch of dirt we plant a few tomatoes and few other veggies every spring and Jesse takes care of it all summer. I have a gardening friend at church that has volunteered to give us a shoot from her blackberry bush. She says it grows like a weed and it's domesticated so it doesn't have thorns. I love blackberries, so I'm really excited to see how it does in our back yard.

We still don't really know what we're doing come August. Jesse's contract is up with Lilly then, but his research hasn't been going as well as he expected, so it's kind of "wait and see" for us. I'm hoping he'll either get offered a permanent position or get his contract extended for another year. There are a few finishing touches on the house to have it be ready to sell and another year would be awesome. BUT, if he ends up finding a job somewhere (hopefully closer to family) we'll take it and hopefully sell the house.

We've started seeing another fertility specialist! We aren't in a rush mode to get pregnant again (although we've been trying for the last two years), but we'd like to have some answers if there are any. I really like this doctor we're seeing, he's on the same page as us with getting a diagnosis if we can find one and tweeking the hormones as necessary. He agrees that it's probably my pituitary tumor messing around with my hormones a little. In fact, this doctor's sister has a pituitary tumor, so he's familiar with these tumors and feels comfortable being my endocrinologist for the remaineder of the time that spend here in Indy. I'm really excited to see what's up, even if the diagnosis is that we're done having kids. It's the not knowing that's hard part. The economical side of me is wanting to hold onto the baby stuff "just in case", but if we're done I'm ready to get rid of things. I'd definitly like to purge our house of a lot of "stuff"!

It's a Jungle Out There!

Last Thursday the Young Women in our ward has their annual New Beginnings/Young Women in Excellence night. The theme was "It's a Jungle Out There", a hodge podge of ideas my presidency got off the internet. It was FABULOUS, we got tons of great feedback and there were tears shed by many (always a good sign)!

To start, the girls had been working on learning the YW Theme in sign language, and it was a little rough around the edges, but they did it and it was really cute. The Mutual Theme is "'Be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity' (1 Timothy 4:12)" - and we talked about how each girl's example is like their own light. Then each of the parents stood up with their daughter and told what kind of a light their daughters reminded them of. One was a lava lamp (bright, cheerful, full of energy and bouncing around), another was the light of the moon (gets her light from 'The Son', reflection of Christ), we had a sunflower (light like the sun), a beautiful candle painted by her grandmother, an energy saver bulb (she saves her light, and even after being switched off still has a little 'glow' about her), and many more. This was the time the most tears were shed.

Then the parents were taken on a "jungle tour" where they went around the church and the YW talked about the value experiences and projects they have been working on throughout the year. Then back to the "watering hole" for refreshments.

It was a very nice night and honestly the stress of planning, preparing, a fretting was very much worth the effort. Everyone had a great night!

Bread Dough Update

Just an FYI, you CAN freeze bread dough! I just let it rise once, punch it down, wrap in saran wrap and put in a bread pan and freeze until hard. Then wrap it again in tin foil and put in a freezer bag until later. When I notice I'm running low on bread I take the dough out of the freezer, leave it wrapped up and put in a bread pan to thaw in the fridge. I usually do this the night before, so the next morning I put the thawed dough into a greased bread pan and let it rise covered lightly with saran wrap. This is really good to do on Saturday evening, so when we head to church on Sunday morning, it's all ready to cook when we get home. Then we can have a warm loaf of bread with our "Sunday Meal", which is usually some good comfort food.

My kids are the cutest!

I think my kids are the funniest people on the planet. Isaac has preschool at the local YMCA, and often after I'm done working out, Keltsy and I will go play in the "Prime Time Center", which is a fancy indoor play place. The superivsor of that room is a good friend of ours. She is always authoritative in her bright red shirt, but super fun and knows all the kids names. The other day Kelsty and I were in the Center, and the supervisor came in with her kids. It was her day off, she just came to play, and Keltsy ran up to her and asked, "How come you're wearing clothes?" The little munchkin had noticed that she wasn't wearing the official red shirt...it actually took me a minute to figure out what she was talking about. She often says random things like that. Like the time she announced to the missionaries, "I HAVE SKIN!"

Isaac is equally hilarious. He likes to play tricks and tell jokes. His favorite is one he got from a TV show "What do you call a cow that cuts the grass?" "A lawn moooo-er!" Whenever he tells a joke, he asks, "Does that make sense?" He knows that the joke has to 'make sense', but isn't quite sure what makes sense and what doesn't.

Bread Dough Experiment

I've been trying to save some money by making our own bread. It actually has been coming out really yummy (you have to use bread flour for good bread dough - took me years to figure this part out), but the biggest hassle is always having the time to make it when we run out. I just searched online to find out exactly how to do it. There seems to be no one set way to do it, except the general consensus is to defrost overnight in the fridge before allowing to rise at room temp. Since school is still out today, I think I'll do the big bread dough experiment...I'll let you know how it turns out!

Snow Day...finally!

We've been waiting all winter for it and it finally came! We got about six inches of snow over the last 24 hours, closing schools all over Indianapolis. We had fun this morning, I shoveled the driveway and the kids played/cried in the snow. Keltsy is not a fan of cold, but she SO wanted to play. The snow came up to her waist and she couldn't really walk around in it and just got frustrated and cried. I showed her how to find snow that had already been stepped in to get around. Our neighbor friends were also outside shoveling, and they had kid sized shovels, making play time even more fun. Isaac climbed "the biggest snow mountain ever!". He wanted to have a snowball fight, me and him against Keltsy. Too bad the snow isn't sticky, it just falls apart, so we couldn't do snowballs or make a snowman. It was a lot of fun, though...and then hot chocolate tops off the day!

My Laptop DIED!

I am so bummed...our laptop went on the fritz about two weeks ago. We hurried and copied all our files to our desktop so we could reconfigure everything, but it's still not working. It sort of figures, on the heals of becoming re-energized about our budget something unexpected would come up. Jesse thinks if we get a new "ram" for it (whatever that is...) that it may fix it, and he thinks that's not too big of an expense, so we'll be trying that. Mostly, it's just such a pain, because I used to check our email 50 times a day, check people's blogs, work on my etsy shop, stop into some message boards, etc. throughout the day. It's really not very convenient having our desktop in our bedroom...in fact I can hear my kids screaming right now and I've got to go settle some battle...

Okay, battle settled. See, with a laptop I could just look over and yell much more convincingly than when I'm WAY up stairs and not within sight, sigh...hopefully we'll get our laptop back and I'll be more active in keeping up with all this again!

BUT, I have used this mini laptop break to learn how to knit! I'll post pics soon, the hat I made looks a little rough, I dropped a few stitches, but the booties turned out really cute! I'm excited to experiment with the different stitches. There's a lot more I can do with knitting than crochet. It's kind of fun to increase my "skills" (as Napolean Dynamite would say).

New Year...New Numbers...

That's it...it's final...our budget for 2008 is calculated and we definitly need to reevaluate our spending habits and make some cuts. I'm not complaining about our finances, we've been extremely blessed and I truly believe that we've been protected and blessed due to our tithing contributions. BUT, this is a wake up call to once again go through our finances and see that we have places where we can dramatically cut in our spending.

We have been good about a lot of things: we still live in the stone age of not having a cell phone, we're on basic cable (mainly for the internet), we don't have any debt except for our mortgage, we have eaten out maybe five times this year...really though, that just makes me more ashamed that we don't have better control of what's going out.

For 2009 we have a New Year and new goals! I am setting a goal for 2009 to sharply cut our spending. With Jesse's contract with Lilly running out in August, our future is a bit uncertain when it comes to employment and with the status of the economy I think it's prudent to be a little more urgent with our savings goals for this year. If I find any great money saving tips, I'll definitly be keeping you all posted...I'm all about cutting costs whenever possible.