Work, work, work

Well since last post I have taken up a job at the gym that I go to. I accepted the night Customer Service Rep job and work 9PM to 5AM. Tough shift, but all in all not too bad. Night 2 came and went without too much incident. My internet seemed to have crashed somewhere around 1 or 2 AM and no matter what I did I could not figure out what the problem was. I went all over the place trying to see if there was something unplugged or something of that sort. Unfortunately I could find nothing wrong. So I finally gave in and just waited until someone came in for the morning shift. Even they couldn't figure out what the issue was. So looks like I am not the only one confused. But it looks like I am on my own now because the regular night person just had his last shift with me tonight and is now off to his new job. I am fine with it. It is so strange sometimes being the ONLY person in that great big place. Music as loud as I want and playing what I want to hear. Being able to read a book is really quite fun too. It amazes me how quickly the body and mind can adjust to time changes. It's 630 in the morning and normally I am still really tired from lack of sleep from the previous night, but with me not having been to bed yet, I am just winding down. Hoping to get Jr out of bed here right away and going to the dayhome. Chase is already up and dressed. But he is the early riser of the family. I must admit, spending so much time away from my kids is a little strange to me. I have not spent this much time away from them ever. I miss them quite a bit, but I would not be the first Mom to have had to go to work. Rob has taken on the night responsibility with Chase and has not complained about it which makes me happy. I am thrilled that he can hear him at night and am grateful to him for the help he has extended so that I can work and help pull my part in supporting this family that he has worked so hard to provide for in the past 6 years. I only hope that my little paycheck can help to lighten his load a little bit. He is so stressed out these days but I do sincerely love him for trying to not complain about it. Things have been tough but we are trying to come together to figure them out. Hopefully he doesn't have to continue to work the entire weekends through so that we do have at least some time to spend with one another. Anyways, time to go get Jr up and at 'em. Take care and I'll write again soon!!

A new thing that I truly love.

So in my quest for weight loss, I have been looking for alternatives to things that I just simply feel I cannot live without. One thing in particular, spaghetti. I adore spaghetti and crave it a couple of times a month. Noodles alone will kill the any chance of loosing anything. LOL. So I figured that I would try spaghetti squash (which I have on many occasions) I have had a few meals consisting of the sweet and slightly crisp gord. But last night I sat there while my family ate spaghetti with regular noodles and me with my squash and realized exactly how wonderful it felt to go back for a second helping and not feel over full and best of all, not guilty!! I figured that it was time to start eating that more often when I want spaghetti as it is a very safe choice for a food that I love.

And cantaloupe. I have always enjoyed it but never sat down and taken the time to truly enjoy it. It is a pretty amazing fruit. But I tend to be the only person in my house that eats it for some strange reason. It is one of Rob's faves but he still would much prefer to sit down with a bag of chips. Boy is that tough for me. It is so unbelievably tough to change the one that one eats. Especially when you are the only person in the house who has a desire to do it. People complain about gaining weight in this house but then sit down with ALL the wrong foods. And it's so strange how the right foods are the most expensive ones. It's no wonder it is so difficult to want to change what we eat. It's frustrating is what it is.

But here I sit, only complaining about it. I can't ask the other people in my home to change their eating habits. They are going to have to want to do it on their own. Mind you with Rob's help, I have had to not make 2 differnt meals every day. Sometimes if I make something that I know Jr won't eat at all I will make him a little something different. But Rob has gotten a little more strict with him and he has been sitting with us and eating the meals that I make. That makes me happy. So I will keep updating about my venture. Which isn't easy as we all know.

Happy Spring everyone.

Nearly Spring

Well, it has been far too long since I last wrote. I am really bad at this whole blogging thing. I wish I was better at it, but sadly, all I cna do it try and improve myself in this area. So much has happened since I last wrote.

Chase is nearly 9 months old now. The time has flown by so fast. It seems like the more kids you have the faster the time goes for us as parents watching them grow. He crawls and still has no teeth, but I am satisfied that he will have strong healthy teeth. He babbles on and on in his baby talk and Rob and I just love it. He has such an amazing curious little personality. He's really getting fun. It's amazing how Chase and JR differ. The two of them are completly different. It is hard to believe they came from the same parents. But Chase is really a good baby. Just doesn't sleep as well as he probably could and eats ALL the time.

JR is doing great. His speech has really come along well. The school team at his school are hoping to try and refer him to a full time kindergarten class that is specialized for children with speech issues as he is still not exactly up to speed on that. But they are continuing to work hard with him as are we at home. He is almost 5 and turning into a little man already. He is so independant and has an imagination the size of Texas. It's really fun to watch. He enjoys school and I hope that he continues to enjoy it.

Rob has started a job in an office here. It's a marketing company that supplies the wholesalers and contractors in various plumbing products. He is enjoying it for the most part. It has been a really hard adjustment going from the tools to an office job and working weekends for extra spending money. He works a lot. But he likes money so it's worth it in the end. LOL. He had a nice long vacation a couple weeks back. Drove down to Arizona to visit Ron and Louise and do some 4x4ing and really enjoyed it. It was really what he needed although that man doesn't know how to slow down or relax. So even on vacation it was always go, go, go!! I think I physically spoke with him on the phone for maybe an hour in total in 13 days. So he was constantly on the move or in the desert somewhere. He also spent 2 days in Vegas and that was when he decided that that would be the place he wants to take me first. Then we can hold off on Mexico or someplace hot until the boys are both old enough to get shipped off for a longer period of time.

As for me, nothing much changes for me. I signed up to walk 60 kms in the summer for the Weekend to End Women's Cancers. I am really looking forward to it. It is going to be an incredibly hard thing to do but so rewarding. It is still far more easier to walk 60k than to fight breast or cervical cancer. I am very excited to be part of making a difference in this field. I also signed up to a brand new gym that is opening this week. And also looking forward to making a difference in my life and my health. I have a bit of weight to loose and am anxious and excited to do so.

So all in all, life in the Souster home is going well and we are all happy and healthy. Excited for summer to come and do some camping.

Introducing...

So the day has come and gone already. But regardless, I just finally have a moment to sit and write. July 4th was an incredibly eventful day for the Souster family. It's unbelievable that the one thing that I didn't think was really going to happen did. Chase was born on Grandpa Souster's birthday. How funny. I just didn't think that it would turn out that way, but lo and behold it did. And we couldn't be more thrilled. Chase Anthony Patrick came into this world fast and furious on Saturday, July 4th, 2009 at 12:30 P.M. The whole story is actually kinda humorous as things went completly backwards for me. Not once with the other 2 children that I had, did my water break.

So here I am on July 3rd getting ready to eat an ice cream sandwich and watch a movie, when all of a sudden, I felt this small gush of fluid. "Holy crap!!" I said as I jumped off the chair. Louise and Rob were looking at me like I lost my mind. I looked at them and told them that I think my water just broke. And just as those words came out of my mouth, chaos erupted in my home. I called Katharina my doula and told her the situation. She asked if contractions had started and I told her I felt nothing at all. Not even the smallest of Braxton Hicks. So she said that I should call the labour and delivery ward of the hospital and so I did. They told me that I should come in as things could potentially start quickly. So I hung up and immediately Rob gets on the phone making calls to people to tend to JR and Louise almost seemed to be in a panic. I think I was the calmest one at this point..LOL.

So my water broke at about 730 PM and by 8 we were at the hospital all checked in and in a case room waiting for something to start. I was under the impression that when ones water breaks (especially mine) things start and progress. My past has proven that once my water is broken, things go at lightning speed. So I was totally confused when absolutely nothing at all was happening. So Rob came home to get some sleep and Louise stayed with me at the hospital.

We tried with little success to get some rest. Louise has problems sleeping without her meds and we were both just far too anxious. But I managed somehow to get a little bit. I woke about 4 and was put on the monitor for a bit and it showed that still nothing was going on at all. So the nurses suggested that I take a hot shower to try and relax myself and get some more sleep. So I did just that and still woke up at 6 not able to sleep anymore. So since Louise was up, her and I talked about what was going to happen. The doctor on call for the night told the nurses that I was given 12 hours before they would pretty well force me to go on the drip which was something I was not wanting. But I know the risks to babies if they go too long with no water. So Louise and I weighed out the pros and cons of starting things going. We both decided that it was best that I bring it up to the nurses to start the drip and then I could still feel like I was in control of the situation. So at 7 when the nurse came in to check on me, I told her that we should get things going. She agreed and got right to work. She started my IV and then threw me on a very slow drip to try and see if we could just stimulate my natural oxytocin to kick in.

After waiting for things to kick in for about an hour, they came in, checked me and still no contractions. So they uped my dose. This pattern continued from about 730 AM to about 1130 AM when the resident on call came in to check me. She said that the problem could be what they call forewaters which is created by my waters breaking somewhere up higher rather than lower and the force of the baby's head pushes down and creates a pocket that prevents proper dilation. Sure enough, when she checked, she could tell that that was exactly what had happend. So she waited for a contraction to start to try and break the pocket but since I wasn't having any contractions, that was next to imposible to accomplish. So the resident uped my dose once again and joked how nobody on the ward expected me to have to be put up to the dose that I was at. I could hardly believe it myself.

Rob had gone to call my Mom and Dad and tell them that still nothing was happening. This was at 1145 and he came back in we were talking about pretty well anything we could think of at this point when all of a sudden I felt this incredibly strange feeling and twinge of pain. It was the oddest thing I had felt all night and day since my water broke. It kinda hurt too. Everyone was looking at me wondering what in the world was going on. Rob asked me if I wanted him to get someone and let them know that something was going on and I told him that I wasn't too sure. Sure enough less than 2 mins after that strange pain, I started to have my first real contraction. And holy crap was it intense. I breathed through it with ease and thought that if that was all it was going to be, then this was going to be a breeze. Then after that one subsided, another 2 minutes passed and another one started. More intense than the last. And I felt the incredible urge to push. So Rob went out to get someone and tell them and the resident came in and checked me. Not just 10 minutes before when she checked me I was at 5 cms and zero percent effaced, now I was 100 percent effaced and 7 cms. So they started to get everything together and ready for the delivery and I asked to go to the shower with these incredible pains and so Katharina helped me into the shower and in the midst of having all this pain I managed to sit for a moment on the seat in the shower. Bad idea. I felt the urge to push again so I squatted on the floor of the shower and was screaming that I needed to push. So Katharina said that I needed to get out of the shower onto the bed. So I left the shower and slowly made my way to the bed. With the contractions coming right on top of each other it was difficult none to say the least. I put the head of the bed almost all the way up and Katharina got behind the bed and held my hands as I dug my head into the bed through the contractions. She kept me breathing right and truly was my lifesaving grace that day. The resident came in and checked me said that if I got on my side, I would have this baby in 10 minutes. Wrong, I was having him in less than that just the way I was, on hands and knees. The resident asked if I would get on my back because after the test push, I was ready to start. I just presented her my butt and she got the hint...LOL.

I heard the resident laugh and say, "Well I guess this is just the way we are having this baby...I am going to need another pair of hands in here to help me catch him." I told them that I needed to push and the resident told me that I could do whatever my body told me to do. And I listened only to her, Katharina and what my body was telling me. It only took about 3 good pushes and there Chase was in all his 6 pound 15 ounce glory. He was gorgeous and I was feeling fabulous. With all said and done, I only had about 14 contractions and 7 mins of pushing and all natural. Just the way I wanted it. I was so thrilled that it went more like the way I planned than I thought it would. It was pefect and well worth it.

So there it is in print. The story of Chase coming into this world. A beautiful day indeed.

Wow, I really have not done a good job at keeping up with this. March has long since passed and here I sit with less than 6 weeks until we will have this baby join us. That is so very exciting and scary all at the same time. My body is ready to have this baby, but our home is not. Neither Rob nor I have really gone to any measures to ready or prepare ourselves for the joining of a new family member. Realistically I think that we both have tried to ignore the fact and I am afraid that we may ignore it until the time comes when it is too late. And then panick will set in for Rob more so than me. At least our baby has a bed. Which is a good thing. But that is about all we have. We have a bassinet. No special room that he will call his own yet. Our office still occupies the space that would be his room. I don't feel all that great about that as the time is coming quickly and I am fairly certain that I am not going to have the energy to do all of those changes on my own. Although I may have some help come June 30th when Louise is flying in. Bless her heart for coming to be here with us and help us in whatever way possible. She may not know babies, but she sure knows cleaning and I look forward to the helping hand she will give in those precious first few days of our sons life. I know it would be so difficult to do it on my own with needing to care for JR and the new baby all at the same time and dealing with being tired to start and Rob most likely not being able to get off work. I also look forward to my parents coming here and bringing Ashleigh. It will be so nice to have all three of my kids with me for the first weeks of Chase's life. I am truly looking forward to it. Anyways, just a small note for now. I will come back and catch up more later.

Wow...I can hardly believe that we are at nearly six and a half months. We are literally 14+ weeks and counting before our new little man joins us. Hard to believe. This pregnancy has gone by so fast. It seemed slow for only a few weeks there, but now it all of a sudden sped up again. JR is so cute about it too. Nearly every night before he goes to bed he says goodnight to Rob and myself, and then he gives us hugs and kisses, but when it is my turn, he also says goodnight baby and kisses and hugs my tummy. He is going to make a great big brother I think. As long as he can get past the jealousy that he may have when he doesn't get 100% of our attention. But hey, he sure isn't the first kid to have to go through this. We seem to be having quite the tough time trying to come up with a name for this Jellybean. Rob and I can't seem to agree on anything at all. It is frustrating to an extent for me as I have found a lot of names that I like, but he seems to not even want to think about it. I am afraid that this will be baby No-Name until he is born. Maybe even beyond that. But one thing is for sure, we won't be leaving the hospital until he has a name because we are not allowed....They have to have the registration papers signed and filled out properly before you can leave. So that is a good thing at least.

Rob has not had much work lately but he has been doing a little bit. Things are really slow for the business right now with the economy being where it is. But he has a meeting tomorrow with a company in sales and marketing. Which is something he has been looking to get into for a while. He would do very well in the field as he is very knowledgeable about plumbing that I am pretty sure he would end up being the top person in his field. And yes, I think he is just THAT good. :-) Maybe I am just biased, but I am supposed to be. And the best part is, this company sought him out. They came to him. So obviously they heard about him from someone else who has complete faith in his abilities also. We will still keep the company for some side work if it comes in for a little extra on the side because we, like everyone else out there, can use all that we can get these days.

JR has been doing just fantastic in school. We just had his second IPP meeting and they are recommending him for another year in the program. Sadly from his speech assessment and the testing they did, his in-home consultant says that he may not be eligible based on his scores. Which is frustrating for us because we feel that he will fall behind if he is not in the program. The way it works (which is another frustration) is a child with great communication skills but no comprehension is able to be accepted into the program, but a child with good comprehension and not a lot of communication skills is not elegible for the program. So I am apparently not to be holding my breath. So next year we will most likely be having to pay for a preschool program that doesn't have the accesibility to the therapist that he needs and it will hinder him for the rest of his school years. That is the way I am taking what was said to me. It saddens me very much that JR (who is such a smart kid) will most likely end up in special needs classrooms because he wasn't able to use the program available to him to his full potential just because he can understand better than the other kids. He still can't fully communicate. Anyways, enough of my little rant. He is still a great kid and we all love him!!

As for myself, I have just been keeping busy with making things and plans for Jellybean. I have been crotcheting and looking through books and such. Other than that, nothing too special going on with me. So that is that. Take care everyone

Some days just are better than others...

You know, some days are just way better than others for updating your blog. Although I know for a fact that I am not nearly as diligent as Roxanne. Woman, I wish I had half your talent and ability to do all of the amazing things you do in a day. But this morning, waking up to what I woke to, holy makeral, I just had to sit and take a moment to reflect on the happeneings from the past few weeks.

Just after Valentines day, my Grandmother passed away. She would have been 78 on March 15. We are all so glad that her struggle with her health is over though. She had so many troubles that it was so hard to see her suffer. Her funeral took place a little longer after she passed than most do as my Auntie was away in Florida and there was no way we were having Grandma's funeral without her baby there. So my Mom came up from Utah a little early and went to the funeral home and dressed Grandma and did her hair and makeup and just spent some time with her to say good bye in private. My Mom is so good at doing that. Being able to dress and makeup the people that we love that have passed on. It takes an incredible person to be able to do that. But then again, it is just their body, their spirit has moved on to better places. I took the kids down to the funeral on March 3rd and the service was just beautiful. We were blessed to have a gorgeous day in between all of these yucky days that we had been having. The funeral took place in Cardston where the norm is an incredibly windy day being so near the mountains. It was +7 degrees, mix of clouds and sun, and not an ounce of wind. It was so very peaceful and just the way that Grandma would have wanted it. She looked so beautiful with the work that my Mom had done. I had not seen her that beautiful in so many years. She reminded me of the Grandma I knew and remembered. My Dad officiated the service and it was just a small graveside one and it was just beautiful to see family and even two of my Dad's brothers came to the service which showed their deep support of my Mother and her family. (I know the picture is a little small, but you can click on it to enlarge. I have no clue how to scan into a good format that isn't huge on my computer. ) It really was a gorgeous program and everything about the funeral was great. So that was last week.

Now on to other things, we had an ultrasound on Monday the 2nd and found out that we are indeed having another boy. We still have no clue what we are going to name him, but Jr is under the impression that we are going to name him Bart. (I think not!!) But we will let him think that for now. Rob and I just can't seem to agree on a name for this little guy so you know what? We may just leave it alone and name him when we see him. I don't think that is a terrible thing to do. Although all the people asking us is kinda starting to drive me nuts. We have no idea what we are naming him and haven't even come up with any possiblilites whatsoever. So let's just leave it at that for now and if we come up with something, we will be sure to let everyone know. But for now, he is still Jellybean to me. And I am pretty sure he always will be :-D. What I can't believe is that the ultrasound place charges you 15 dollars to get just 1 single picture of your baby. Seems a little far fetched to me. I am not entirely sure how they can justify that at all. And the one that we got was super crappy because the poor boy just was not about to sit still. So here it is just for curious eyes. (Ok, so I am so not good at putting pictures where they belong, I still need a little help with Blogger to learn to put my pictures in their right places. Care to donate some time Roxanne? LOL!)

And since Roxanne tagged me in her blog, I may as well do this thing now seeing as I am sitting here. The 6 Random things about me.....

1. I have this one on my Facebook but it is one of my favorites. I am not, nor have I ever been an imaculate house keeper. You can't eat off my floors and there is dust on almost everything. My floors are not always clean and I have a collection of many things in nearly every corner and surface of my house. I like to call it my organized mess. I do however hate the fact that I am not very good at cleaning and am at times embarrassed about it. But I will not apologize for who I am, being clean or not does not reflect on the type of wife and mother I am. I do not agree with people who judge others on the way they keep their home. My home is tidy and I am working every day to improve on my skills simply for the fact that I don't like living the way that I used to. But I will not walk into someone else's home and think that because they are neat freaks and have nothing out of place that they are snobs, neither will I think that someone who's floors you can't see at all are bad people because it doesn't seem as though they have time to do it. I have seen people with both types of houses that are equally as busy with the same amount of children. So yeah, I really don't like people who justify judging someone else just by the way they keep house.

2. I come from a mix of two very different families. I was adopted as an infant and was adopted into a very religious Mormon family with very deep morals and beliefs in a lot of things. When I was 21 I met my biological mother and discovered the very big difference between my families. Both my Mother and my Mom are unique and wonderful individuals. My biological mom Yvonne is a firey woman. She is easy to loose her temper (not unlike myself) when she knows that no matter what, she is right and you are wrong. However quite the opposite with her children. My Mother Cheryl, is more patient than any one person I know. Sometimes more patient than she should be. Yvonne is high energy and a go getter. Cheryl is soft spoken and diligent. Both have the biggest hearts. Their families mean the world to them and they ask nothing more than to love and be loved in return. Their children and grandchildren are their world. I have two very wonderful examples of the type of woman I want to be as I grow and learn from them both. They are indeed my best friends and I love them both so much.

3. I believe that Rob is truely the one that I was meant to be with in this life. He compliments me and infuriates me in every possible way. They always say that opposites attract and I tend to agree, but even with the two most opposite of people, there are bound to be so many similiarities that it is hard to remember which are which. I have tried to sit and think of what my life would be like had I have never met him, but luckily, I have yet to come up with any good scenario of what that would be like. After nearly five years together, my heart still flutters and a smile crosses my lips when I look at him, or even see a picture of him. He makes me laugh even when I don't feel like laughing and I have loved to learn to accept the parts of him that I didn't used to like. He makes me completly happy and I have loved getting to know him and look forward to the many more years that I have to continue to learn about him.

4. My adopted dad Ron is my hero. I am pretty sure that he never knew that, but he really is. The things that I have watched him do while I was growing up just had me in awe at times. He always had the softest shoulder when I was hurt or crying or when my mother was hurt by the life that I was living, but was so strong and solid when he knew there were things wrong going on. He was a rock for our family when we thought that we were not going to make it when he lost his job. He did whatever he could to make sure that we would keep the roof over our head and food in our mouths. And his greatest love in this world is my mother. I have the greatest respect in the world for a man such as him who would make the most difficult desision to choose his wife over his child. The way I used to treat my mother was horrible and he said to me once that though he will always love me because I am his child, he would in no way sit back and allow me to do the things I was doing to my mother any longer. And she would always come first. What a strong impact and realization that was to me. I thank him to this day and know that his example is one of the greatest and what a man it takes to love a woman just as much as he loves my mother.

5. It is so great to see the two very different children that I have brought into this world. They both are so unique in their talents and their attitudes and personalities. Ashleigh is so good at art. She can draw so well and I am so proud of that. Her reading also is above her grade level. She is in the fourth grade and is able to read at a seventh grade level. What a great accomplishment for her. And she is such a wonderful bog sister who is so typical when it comes to her "pain in the butt" brother. She is a little sad that she gets to have another. LOL. And JR, what a little character. He is so vibrant and colorful. We have learnt to just appreciate the things that he has come to learn to do without the ability to communicate well. His life is so full of energy and amazing things. His imagination is so great and almost everything is a big monster or a race car. I can't wait to see the new things that come of these kids of mine as they continue to grow and expand in their lives and knowledge. I also am so anxious to see the new personality of Jellybean too. If I gave birth to these two very different children already, a third will only be that much more different I hope. I want to see all of the talents that life can hold for my kids.

6. Lastly, I think that I watch far too much television. I have far too many shows that I watch but thankfully, I am starting to bring that down. My daytime television time has come down dramatically. It is mostly now when I am curled up in the evening with my hubby that I watch the most now. I still think that with so many creative projects on the go that I should sit down and do them more than sit and watch TV. But that is yet another of my great downfalls.

So that's it for me. I am supposed to tag some other people, but I have absolutly no idea who actually comes in to my blog and reads. So yeah if you come in and read this and feel that it is something fun that you would like to do, then TAG!! You're it!! Take care and I hope that all is well for everyone in cyberland!!