Gotta love that OCTOBER SNOW!?

Can you believe it! It snowed in the middle of October that brought down over a foot of snow at our house.

The kids were so excited in the morning and couldn't wait to get there snow suits and boots on to go out and play in the snow.
Ethan's friend Karson saw Ethan out since our backyards our sort of connected with our other nieghbor and there's no fence and so he came over and played in the snow too. They tried to catch snow flakes on their tongues, made snow angels, had snow ball fights, and then Todd helped Ethan build a snow man "as big as daddy"! They had so much fun and were saddened when it melted a few days later. Gotta love the crazy weather around here!

Adalynn's First Bath

Here are some pics of Adalynn's first bath. She wasn't quite sure about it and cried through most of it. Ethan & Cambree tried to get her to be happy by singing her songs and playing peek-a-boo with her and got quite frustrated when she still cried. I explained to them that babies don't like baths very well and they couldn't understand why not. It wasn't until we wrapped her up in her towl that she was happy.

I also got some pics of her in her jammies afterward with her eyes open. There is another one with her binkie that seems to take up her whole face. It shows how tiny she is I guess.

She is such a good baby and I am blessed. Going insane, but blessed nonetheless!

Adalynn---Coming Home!!

September 13th, after only a week and a day of NICU stay Adalynn came home! We are so happy that she is doing so well and got to come home. She came off oxygen on Thursday and had to prove that she could be off the oxygen without a d-sat and she did!! I was also breastfeeding so going back and forth from the hospital for feedings was getting a little overwhelming. We are so blessed because there are many babies in the NICU that are far worse off and will have such a longer stay. I am thankful that she is well and home.

Ethan and Cambree have been in such a whirlwind the last little whilie with me being on bedrest and then in the hospital and then being gone to the hospital alot. It will be great to get back to normal life again. Although I don't know how normal it will be with now THREE KIDS!!

Both Ethan and Cambree were so happy to have baby sister home!! They are constantly watching the baby moniter and as soon as she makes the littlest noise they get real excited and want to go get her out of her crib. Ethan always wants to hold her and Cambree loves to kiss her head!

Thanks again everyone for all your love and support!!!!

Adalynn Shay Barton has arrived!!!

On September 5th, 2008 at 4:29 pm, Adalynn Shay Barton was born!

She weighed in at 6 lbs 10 oz. & 20 inches long, which is big for only being 35 weeks gestation. Just like my other two pregnancies, this one included a bunch of bedrest, a lot of contractions and preterm labor, tons of pain, and a preterm birth. Although I did make it a lot further into my pregnancy without complications than in the past so that was a blessing. I started having contractions at 25 weeks and made it to 27 weeks before I had to be hospitalized for preterm labor. Then had to be hospitalized again at 29 weeks, 31 weeks, 33 weeks, 34 weeks, and then again at 35 weeks which resulted in her birth. I had gone into the doctor for a checkup and I had changed just slightly from the week before (from a 90% efaced and not quite a 1 dialation to 100% efaced and a 1) but hadn't been to much of a change to have to take the baby. I had been doing non stress tests every week since 29 weeks because she was showing signs of stress so after my checkup I went into the room to do a non stress test. I then started to have really hard contractions that kept coming stronger and stronger and at about 3 min apart so I went into the hospital with talk of having to take the baby if the contractions couldn't get under control. So they started an IV and tried to slow down the contractions and I was told that I was under observation. So several hours go by and my contractions start to slow down to about 10-12 min apart and it seemed like my doctor was going to keep observing and eventually send me home. Another couple of hours later my doctor came in and was going to check me again but thought that the contractions couldn't be doing much. And much to her and my surprise I was 100% efaced and dilated to a 2 plus! So in just a short amount of time I had made significant changes and meant that she was going to have to take the baby since I was a repeat twice C-section and could not let me labor any longer for mine and the baby's safety. Within a half hour I was on the operating table and we had our third little bundle of joy!

She immediatly showed signs of a preterm baby and struggled with breathing and was rushed to the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit). She then had to have an IV put in and was put on oxygen to help her rapid breathing. She has lots of dark hair and is the most beautiful little baby a mother could ask for. Ethan and Cambree are so excited to have a new baby sister but they are confused at why they can't see her because kids are not allowed in the NICU. After Adalynn's IV was taken out 5 days later, and they were able to roll her with her oxygen to the window to meet her brother and sister for the first time. It was such a great moment to see them so happy to see the're new sister but confused why they couldn't give her hugs and kisses. Ethan especially wanted to hold her and not say Hi through a window. He keeps asking why the new baby can't come home. The nurse though was real nice and took poloriods of them saying hi through the window and gave them each one to take home. Ethan was very proud of his picture of his new baby sister! Cambree just quite doesn't understand whats going on yet.

Adalynn is still in the hospital but has gone off oxygen and is doing great so far! She has to prove she can be off oxygen without a d-saturation. If she continues to be off oxygen and does well then hopefully she will come home soon!

Thank you all, family and freinds, for all the thoughts and prayers and all the help everyone has given us!! We could not have gotten her here without everyone's help and support! We appreciate it greatly!!!

Potty Time!! But it's NO party!

I thought it might be a good idea to potty train Cambree before I had the baby so that I could relieve some stress when the baby came. I also heard it was easier to potty train girls than boys and I potty trained Ethan at 2 years old and he did great so I thought I was good to go because Cambree was now two years old. Yaaah......I was wrong! It has been quite the struggle!! She did great at first and loved wearing her new "pincess big grirls"!! Shortly after she started to really get the hang of it, she started having a lot of accidents. It was so bad she was having like 7-10 accidents in one day! And the weird thing was that she would go at least that many times on the toilet too. She would go potty on the toilet and then five minutes later have an accident! Well this was getting a bit frustrating and I was about to give up when I was talking to a friend about my naughty daughter and she mentioned that one of her daughters got urinary tract infections quite frequently when they were potty training her. That very day Cambree was going potty and said "Owweeeee" and I knew that something was wrong! (Thanks McKenna!) So I took her to the doctor and sure enough she had an infection. We put her on an antibiotic and she seems to be doing better now and getting the hang of going potty again.

She then observed that everyone else uses the "big potty" and she thought she was big too like "Eshan" and wanted to go on the big potty. It took her awhile but she is a very determined little girl and stubborn like her mother and kept at it until she found a creative way to crawl up their "by self mommy" and amazingly does well. She definitely doesn't let anything get in her way of her goal.

Here Cambree is showing off in her "BIG GIRLS"!

(You notice it's a different pair than the picture above. That's because Cambree is the typical little girl that has to change her look several times a day!!)

Ethan turns 4

On July 9th Ethan had his fourth birthday!
For months and months leading up to his birthday all he requested all his friends to come over and he wanted a Thomas the Tank Engine cake! He didn't ask for one toy! Just friends and a Thomas cake! Easy enough. Of course he didn't mind at all when it came to be that he got to open presents. He especially loved that his friends each brought a present for him. Aunt Brandi and Uncle Jared and "big" Kayden came early to help put up streamers and decorate. Aunt Annie and "little" Kaden came as well as Grandma and Grandpa Barton.

All his friends came and we started playing pin the #1 on Thomas! Cambree ended up being the winner and got her #1 the closest!

We then went into the kitchen to sing Happy Birthday to Ethan and cut the cake. Uncle Jared decorated the cake and did such a great job as you can see! Thanks Jared!! Ethan was very happy with his Thomas cake. It was almost sad to cut into such a greatly decorated cake but we did. Everyone enjoyed the cake. Especailly Cambree. She loves cake!

We then went inside to open presents!! Todd had helped Cambree pick out a present for Ethan but when it was time for him to open it she was not happy that it was Ethan's. She thought that she got to keep it and was very sad to see it go.

Then it was back outside for a little game I like to call Thomas Treasure Hunt!!! Todd was the engine and all the kids were freight cars as Ethan insisted! They all had fun being a train as they hunted for the clues! It ended with the treasure

of goodie bags at the end and that was the que for all the kids to go home. All the friends went home as family stayed around to open a few more presents!

Todd and I got him a scooter which Ethan loved and now loves to ride it everywhere. He spent a good part of the rest of the day riding his scooter outside.

Battle wounds

Ethan and Cambree usually play well together. This day...not so much!
Ethan and Cambree were playing with their wooden blocks and they both wanted the same one. Ethan got it and decided to throw it at her face. (Cuz when you are 4, that seems like the logical thing to do.) So here is Cambree showing the aftermath of getting hit in the face with a wooden block!

But don't worry....Cambree does fight back and it came back to bite him (literally) a couple of weeks later when he was wrestling with her and she kept screaming for him to "GET OFF EESAN!' He kept at and at it until she decided to take matters into her own hands or rather her mouth and took a bite out of his little butt! He had a big bruise with teeth marks. Considering where the bite mark was I will spare you the pictures I took of his bruised bum.

It's a GIRL!!

I know that it has been awhile since my last post and most of you know already but for those of you who don't know yet we are having another girl!
We took the kids with us to the ultrasound so that they would be able to see the baby inside mommy's tummy! Cambree kept lifting up her shirt and saying, "my turn" and "babies my tummy" while poking her tummy! Still to this day she thinks she has a "babies" in her tummy! Ethan thought the whole experience was cool and loved being able to see the baby's bones and legs and arms and heartbeat. I'm not sure if he really saw what we were showing him but he kept saying he saw it. So when the tech showed that it was a girl we looked over at Ethan and asked if he was excited for another sister and he said yes. We thought this was good since he had been so adimate about having a brother. Later that day though I was talking to him and saying how happy I was that we were going to have a sister and that he was happy too. He seemed to not be understanding so I told him, you know that because we are having a sister that means you won't have a brother. He immediatly got upset and gave me a scoul and said "hey....no...but I want a brother mom." So we had to have a long talk about how great it was to be a big brother to two sisters and how much they will love him and what a great big help he would be.
And today I am happy to report that he is very excited to be having another baby sister! He asks all the time," mom... is it time for the baby to come out your tummy yet? I say,"no..not yet." Ethan rolls his eyes and sighs. Like he is the one that is inconvienced by the baby not being able to come out yet.
This pregnancy has been less complicated in some ways but more complicated at the same time. I went a lot longer without going into labor (@ 27 weeks). The other two were 23 weeks with Ethan and 20 weeks with Cambree. I started having contractions about 22 weeks and have been able to keep them under control until 27 weeks. So now I am the fab drugs to keep labor at bay and on a partial bedrest. We do though have an increase in other risks since I have malformed uterus and have had two previous c-sections like placenta abruption and placenta ecreta just to name a few. My doctor is watching me very carefully and we hope to be able to catch anything early! My doctor says I will never have a full term baby with my complications but we really work hard to keep them in as long as possible. So that is were we are today. We are a day away from being 29 weeks and just taking it a day at a time. Every week gained is a blessing!
So that's our baby update!
Soon I will post Cambree's and Ethan's birthdays!

NO NAP!

Cambree has definatly hit the terrible two's! She insists every day....NO NAP!! We usually have to perform reverse phsycolligy on her and tell her that you will be taking a nap in her big girl bed with her dollies and her blankies. Then she has a fit and runs to her bed gathers her blankies and dollies and says..."MY big gril bed!!....MY dollies!!.....MY blankie!!" So I say ok and usually she lay down and nap. On this particular day she kept getting out of bed and escaping. "G' mornin mom" she would say as she would open her door to come out. I would say nope it's time for a nap and we would start all over again. This went on for what seemed like forever and then it got quite and I went into check on her and this is what I found.

She had taken off all her clothes and was completly naked except for one sandel was on her foot. She had wrapped herself in one of her blankies and fell asleep on her gumdrop pillow. She slept like that for 2 hours. What a silly girl!

Cambree turns 2!!!

May 19th----Cambree turned two years old!!


Of course being the princess that she is (or more like she thinks she is), Cambree recieved a lot of princess dress up stuff and lots of new clothes for her birthday. And we can't forget the princess play phone that she hasn't been able to put down. She carries it around constantly and has conversations with people.

She regularly calls and says, "Ello Daddy! You work. OK. Bye Bye Love you!", or "Ello Annie. uhnto play! OK. Bye Bye. Love You!" She also calls "Gampa and Gamma" and "Bandied" and "Jarwed" and we can't forget her calls to her little playmate a couple houses up the street "Ello Konnor. You play wiss me. Ok. Bye Bye. Love you!. She is just so hilarious sometimes.

Ethan picked out a My Little Pony for Cambree which she loves too!! Although I don't quite think Ethan was too happy with her getting all the presents!



We then sang Happy Birthday to her and she was amazed by the "fi-uh" on the candles. She loved all the attention she was getting! And when all was said and done she was one happy little girl!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CAMBREE!!!