Maxwell Henry

We are overjoyed to announce the safe arrival of Maxwell Henry Archibald.  He was 7 lbs 2 oz and joined us at 5:05 am on December 14th.   Brittney and Maxwell are both doing great and we are so excited to be all together.

Brittney had been having more Braxton-Hicks contractions than any of the other pregnancies over the past couple of weeks, with spells of consistent contractions spread out over days.   At the checkup on Wednesday, she was already at a 3, which was a new thing to be even that far along so early.  The doctor stripped her membranes and we went about the rest of the day like normal.  Brittney had mild contractions through most of the day, but they were light enough to be hard to notice if she was doing anything besides just sitting still.

As we were getting in bed around 11 pm she said that she had had several in the last 10 or 15 minutes, and I could tell by the look in her eyes that they were gradually causing her more and more distress.  We decided to start timing the contractions and see how often they were coming.  The hard thing was that we were both already tired at the end of a long day and ready for bed. A few times in the past week or so this had happened before and Brittney went straight to bed to try and get some sleep in case she went into serious labor during the night sometime. This time, Brittney laid there for a few minutes but said that the discomfort was too much to sleep through.  At least she had fallen asleep on the couch for maybe an hour earlier that evening watching a show while I was doing some work on my laptop.  The contractions were coming 3-4 minutes apart and lasting about a minute each.  And they gradually got more and more painful as time went on. We were worried about waking up our 'on-call helpers' for no reason if the contractions were to stop. Brittney kept saying, "ok, we'll call them after one more really serious one." She probably said that 10 times.   About 1:15 am we decided that this was probably really happening and that we should go in to the hospital.  Our first 'on-call helpers' weren't actually able to come over when we called for the 2nd time to say, "This is really for real, come on over" So we made another call to our dear friend, Sharon Leigh, to come over and be with the kids during the night.  Brittney took a shower and got ready and I gathered everything we thought we would need.  Sharon came over but also needed to be home to teach seminary in a few hours so we needed to make sure the kids could be ready to leave our house for school by 6:00. We packed backpacks, and got out their clothes and wrote notes to teachers for pick-up arrangements in case labor went all day.  By the time that we left Brittney was having to stop and focus on dealing with the pain of the contractions.  It was really happening.

We arrived at the hospital around 2:30 am after having run a few red lights on the empty streets after waiting for way too long for them to change.  Brittney was needing to moan slightly through contractions and was experiencing pain and shaking a lot. We entered the hospital through the emergency entrance. Brittney put her head down on her arms on the counter trying to get out, "I'm in labor."through another contraction. Fairly quickly she got put in a wheelchair and taken up to the labor and delivery ward.  She got changed and into the hospital bed around 2:45 am.  When the nurses first checked Brittney she was already at an 8!  This was definitely really happening and being so far along gave us hope that we had already gone through a lot and that we might have enough energy to make it to the end. The nurses for the most part left us to ourselves and dealt with the contractions for about the next hour and a half.  The nurse measured Brittney again and said that she was almost ready.  Brittney asked the nurses to get the doctor to break her water for her, knowing that in the past that has really helped get to the end game sooner. Nobody came (apparently there were 7 babies delivered that night). After a half hour Brittney's water broke on its own and we had the nurse check things again.  She said that things were good to go.  Brittney hadn't really gotten the urge to push yet, but it gradually came.  The nurse helped Brittney through the beginning pushes and pretty soon the moment for the final few pushes was there.  The doctor arrived just in time and at 5:05 am out came the baby!

His mouth was full of fluid and so it took about 30 seconds for the nurse to get it cleaned out. We've never had to wait very long before to hear that beautiful cry and those 30 seconds seemed REALLY LONG but once the fluid was all cleaned out we heard some good strong crying from him.  We put him on Brittney's chest straightaway and he calmed down after a little bit.  The afterbirth process seemed harder than any previous babies, and it was clear that Brittney was both at the end of her rope and in a lot of pain.  She held baby and they both just cried. It seemed to take forever before that was all through.

Brittney was able to keep Maxwell on her chest for almost an hour and a half, during which Brittney gave him his first experience with breast-feeding, and after a few false starts he did pretty well.  Brittney really wanted to change gowns and get Maxwell and her all cleaned up (he had peed on her fairly early on) and so asked the nurse to come clean, measure and wrap him and make sure all was in order. The nurse swooped him up and took him away to do all that stuff.  We were surprised how long this process took - a few hours!  In the meantime we switched rooms and got settled in. I frequently went down to watch how he was doing in the nursery and he seemed to be sleeping like a champ.

Brittney was really anxious to have him back and got all ready to go walk to the nursery herslef to see him but they brought him back before she got out the door.  The rest of the time at the hospital has been spent feeding him and trying to get some rest ourselves.  We were both so tired after a night without sleep.   Around 1 pm I went to get the kids out early from school and Freddy from the Leigh's so they could all meet their new brother.  They were all super excited and so well behaved.  Freddy was a little tentative and skittish around Maxwell but his words were filled with wonder and joy.  It was so fun to be all together.

After the kids visit I took them home to get clothes packed for one more night at friends' houses.  Freddy and Gwen slept at the Leigh's and Alec and Charlie at the Gines'.  Then I got some food and made my way back to the hospital.  After dinner we turned in. Brittney tried to sleep in snatches throughout the night, feeding Maxwell every 2 hours or so, but attended to all her and Max's needs by herself giving me get a decent night's rest (for a hospital) and we are both feeling a bit more rested today, although still significantly more tired than normal.

Everything has gone well today and we are checking out of the hospital around 1 pm.  Maxwell weighs 6 lbs 13 oz at discharge and has been doing so well with his eating today.  Yesterday he was so tired and we had to try really hard to wake him up enough to eat.  I always am so much less worried about things once the feeding seems to take hold.

We are so excited to head home and start our new life together as a family of 7.  Wow, that will take some getting used to!  We are so grateful for all of our friends and family for their support and love.

Last weeks before being a family of 7

With the bookshelf made and baby #5 close approaching we decided not to tackle any new projects and instead focus on cleaning up. Enter (quite belatedly) Nesting Mode. I had a list of big things on the horizen for a couple of months: Primary Program, Charlie's Birthday, Halloween, Faith In God special meeting, bookshelf, then Thanksgiving was the last one before I thought baby would be born. (Freddy's birthday was actually before the due date, but I really feel like this one would come early.) Chris worked hard and cleaned out the shop area of the garage and put up some shelves to organize tools. We had a big bon fire to burn a small portion of the LARGE scrap wood piles we've been hoarding.  I love this picture because its all my boys looking so handsome. Have I ever mentioned how much I love Chris' profile from behind? 

The weather has been nice - really November is like the perfect month (weather-wise) here. The kids have been playing outside alot. They found this run down shed in the back woods and explored it enough to find a bunch of random supplies like bricks, old window screens, metal poles, fencing material etc. They pulled a bunch of this stuff out and starting building a fort along the edge of the yard. They like to bring out nerf guns and 'snipe' bad guys/zombies. 

Chris' robot team had a demonstration for the end of their semester and I took the kids to see him/them after school one day. We've been taking Alec's friend, Twain home from school every day so far this year so he came too.  We're all excited to see how this robot team does in the NASA robotic mining competition in FL this next May.

With Thanksgiving behind us we can decorate and really celebrate Christmas! We bought a tree at a local all-profits-go-to-Charity tree lot. It was only $25! I let the kids help decorate the nice tree this year because I was too tired to fight them on it. They did awesome. I really love our tree and it helps everything feel like Christmas.  We ordered a new couch (with Thom and Brittany's family coming for Christmas and overlapping with my parents for a few days after we really wanted everyone to be comfortable). I can't wait for it to come.

Our Branch is trying something new this year for our Christmas Party - led mostly by my good friend Audra. We're doing a 'Night in Bethlehem.' Chris got asked to be the roman centurian that comes to every classroom and demands their attendance on an upcoming date to be taxed. He did pretty awesome. Chris has a solo at this party, and the primary kids sing a song, and my boys participate in a small group boys group, and I have a solo. Its 3 days before my due date. We'll see what happens. :)

On the second to last day of preschool, because some kids were sick and another kid's family decided that they couldn't make December work so they just won't come this month. (UGH!) we ended up with only 2 kids. It was a real blessing in disguise because Alec had a Christmas concert that I really wanted to go to but thought I couldn't because of preschool.  I arranged things last minute so I brought Freddy and our 1 preschool friend to Alec's concert. It was fun to surprise Alec and get a feel for his life at school.  His team sang Deck the Halls, Joy to the World and All Around the Wold at Christmas Time. They did great!

Thanksgiving and a Preschool Update

Time for a little preschool update. We've had some really fun preschool days learning about corn and harvest and thanksgiving. The other kid who was barely too young for the deadline, dropped out and let me know the morning of the first preschool day in November. :( I don't feel like I can advertise the spot much knowing that theres just two weeks before Thanksgiving break and then I'll be so close to my due date that preschool could be put on pause any minute.  I am really sad and kinda annoyed at people dropping out last minute. I wish there was something I could do to make every kid love it as much as most of the kids seem to. Oh well. The rest of the kids have definitely settled into the typical routine just LOVE coming. Their parents say things like, "She wishes she could live at Preschool" or "She asks me every day if its Preschool" or when the kids cry because their parents come to pick them up and they don't want to go.  I kinda like that. 

I had contemplated not really cooking a Thanksgiving dinner this year since being a few weeks away from my due date. Chris and I were both intrigued with the idea of just going out to eat for Thanksgiving dinner like my sister, Tiffany did 2 years ago when she had a baby due in December. If this baby came as early as Freddy did, he would be born a few days after Thanksgiving Day. But then two of our favorite families here suggested doing Thanksgiving all together and mentioned how our house was the biggest one.  I also liked the idea of using our nice new kitchen to its fullest capacity. A few extra people were added last minute and we ended up hosting dinner for 22 people.  We did the turkey, jello, rolls, drinks and blueberry cream cheese pie.  Everything was delicious and seeing so many favorite people is always super fun.  I also love the extra push to get the house looking really clean and nice; although it was all pretty exhausting. They were really helpful and had everything cleaned up before the bulk of them left including the extra tables put away and the floor swept! It was lovely.   We are so grateful for good food, family recipes, and great friends.

Building a Built-in Bookshelf

One of the built-ins that we had planned on doing was in the space created in the landing when it was converted from a bedroom to a landing during the first remodel. Here's the space from way back then:

Where the wall is pink in the photo above was a perfect space for a built-in bookshelf. We used an old bookcase to house most of the books in the meantime. The problem was, we needed way more space for our children's books.

So with Thanksgiving break around the corner and us not going anywhere since baby #5 was due pretty soon after, we thought it was a perfect time for a project! (correction - I thought it was a perfect time... then again, I think almost ANY time is a perfect time for a project - I love projects!)

We've accumulated enough tools and some exposure to skills over the course of the last year or so and Chris is super sweet to delve into uncomfortable new worlds for me. We took a few weeks to plan it out and more than 1/2 of the wood was scraps from our remodels.  So the project only cost maybe $80?

By far the trickiest thing was getting the crown molding on the top with the angled ceilings. UGH. Glad that's behind us.  It has sooo much more space for books and we even have plans to put a small TV and Wii there during the Christmas break so when we have Thom and Brittany's family over we can send the kids up to the landing for some screen time and enjoy some quiet down by the couch in the family room.

Freddy's cute, an electrical ditch and a Robot Field Trip

Freddy is so adorable. He loves to snuggle still and is so quiet at nap time... he just doesn't like to sleep in his own bed upstairs for naps because its too far away from me. Which, kinda stinks sometimes. I can usually get him to go if I bribe him with a handful of marshmallows or some other treat to munch on as he falls asleep.  I love how he loves to dress up and its fun to see him wearing costumes I've made years ago... I just wish he'd stay in one costume at least longer than it takes me to put it on him! 

The wooded lot next to ours sold earlier this year to a nice family with two kids just older than Alec. They cleared some land and are building a house! I love that the neighborhood is getting some new families.  Apparently, the easiest way to get electrical power is to access it from the powerline on our property.  The electricity guy has come to talk to me about it a few times during business hours without notice so Chris has never been home. I hate making decisions on my own, I can never remember everything they say just right and its hard answering Chris' questions. But with Chris hating to make phone calls, we usually just get stuck with whatever I can remember. Anyway, this is just a long way of saying we now have an electrical ditch going across the side of our front yard. Apparently they hit 2 water lines as they dug.  That's crazy because its SO out of the way from where I would imagine our water lines went. So weird.

Chris and the MSU robotics team got to be involved with a big PEAK field trip that the 2nd graders went on... so Freddy and I tagged along and watched Chris give a presentation to Gwen and her PEAK friends and teachers. One of the things I love about living here is the unity and comradery  between the public schools and the university. Also with the small town feel of seeing people you know in most large group situations.  Chris is great with kids, I love watching him do the stuff he's good at.

Halloween!

We continued the Halloween festivities with our Branch's annual Truck or Treat and Chili Cook off Party on Friday the 20th. The Primary usually is in charge of this, but I was a little burnt out and we still had the program coming up in a week and the party would be when Chris was out of town AND the day before Charlie's birthday party so I told the Branch Council that if they wanted to do this, we'd need to divide all the responsibilities up. People still wanted to do it, so we assigned out tasks and called it good.  I was hoping to not actually be 'in charge' of it and just have a assignment, but alas, old habits die hard and people just kept assuming I was in charge and treated me as such.  Besides without a real leader, some of the last minute details can come as a surprise and I ended up running around like a crazy chicken the day of trying to make sure it all ended up ok.  I missed Chris' help tremendously, but was so glad my friend Shuniqua was around to help me hand out candy and get set up. 

Freddy was Captain America, Charlie was Iron Man, Alec was a soccer player, and Gwen was a ballerina. 

Being very pregnant, I thought resurrecting my cow costume from when I was pregnant with Alec was in order. Something had happened to all of the spots, so the kids helped me draw them on.  Also, I had to make new teats for my udder. We had about 20 minutes to get EVERYONE costumed and loaded up in the car. It was such a busy day.  We had a really good turn out and I thought my friend's Lexi and Troy (a scarecrow and a farmer) costumes completed my look so we got a picture.

The kids had a blast and everything turned out just fine. People were so helpful in cleaning up so I didn't have to be the last one there. Shuniqua and I won 2nd place for our Chili again (which we made the day before) and the kids got LOTS of candy.  I let them stay up sorting and trading with each other because I really wanted Chris' help putting them to bed. His airplane was delayed though so I ended up doing it by my self anyway.  He had been in Ohio on a business trip for one of his projects for 2 nights. 

The next weekend, Gwen was invited to go to party at our neighbors barn just across and down the road a bit from us. She got to reconnect with her two best friends from 1st grade. Super fun.

We managed to squeeze in Pumpkin carving the night before Halloween. Freddy was old enough to really get it this year and he came up with his design and scooped out his seeds all by himself. ("with blood dripping down") Alec did his entire pumpkin all by himself - including the cutting! Gwen and Charlie came up with awesome designs too and were heavily involved.  Some traditions are just more fun as the kids get a little bit older.  A friend told us to wipe bleach along the inside of the pumpkins after they're carved to get them to last longer.  We tried it and it worked a little bit. They probably lasted 2 weeks. 

Halloween day was a Tuesday this year so we had a fun little party in preschool.

Then after a quick dinner of peas and potatoes while Gwen was at ballet, we met up at a friends neighborhood and went trick or treating for 30-40 minutes, then drove to another neighborhood of someone in our branch who invited us to come there and did another 30 minutes or so. The kids got SO MUCH CANDY and the weather was so nice. I was exhausted by the end of the day and had to visit the bathroom twice at various friend's houses. This baby is sure growing!

Chris and I put the kids to bed just a tiny bit later than normal and still had time to watch a movie on Plex (we love you, Jared!) that is acclaimed as the most true-to-the-book version of Frankenstein.  

Primary Program Success!

It was a little less stressful this year getting together the primary program since I'd already been in charge of it the year before. I kept some of the things I thought worked well, dropped the ones that didn't and added a few new tricks. This year, it went SO SO SO good. We had so many compliments and had almost everyone in tears by the end. :) Plus, I DIDN'T come home and cry this year, so win win!

We have less kids this year (only 13) than last year (20) and so some things were eaiser... like interviewing the kids for their parts. I kept a lot of the kids talks throughout the year too and used some of them for their parts so some kids I didn't even have to interview. I knew I wanted to use our two oldest primary kids (Alec and his friend Benjamin) to be narrators again and so I sat down and wrote out an outline with the two narrators talking back and forth to each other tying together the monthly themes.  Then I created a list of questions for each theme that I could use in my interviews with the kids. I really enjoy taking the kids one by one out of their class or sharing time for about a 5 minute conversation where I ask them some of those questions and try and explore their life experiences regarding the gospel topics.  Kids really do say the darnedest things.  I record the interviews so I can make sure I have their exact wording. Then I pick 1 or 2 questions that they had a lot of good stuff to say about, trying to balance it out amongst all the kids so each monthly topic is covered by 2-4 kids. It worked out that everyone had two parts this year.

It kind of sounds like a long process, but it goes by pretty fast and it allows each child's part to be so authentic and heartfelt. It makes for a program that truly is full of the children's individual candid testimonies.  With the older kids, I throw in some of the monthly scriptures at the beginning or end of their part that goes a long with what they're saying.  The kids parts seriously make the program. They spoke of honest things like, "Sometimes I get mad at my sisters when they do a wrong move during a chess game" or "I spit water all over my sister and even though it wasn't even that bad she planned to spit water on me. But I know she forgave me because she eventually played with me again. Sometimes you don't have to say the words, I forgive you, to forgive someone. You have to just let it go and move on."  or "I try to be like Moroni by showing my faith. I believe in church and I go to church. I believe in reading the scriptures and I read them every night. I'm up to 13 verses a day and I'm already in 3rd Nephi." or  "Jesus was a nice guy. He loves everybody. I can love everyone too. I give my family hugs every morning." (that last one was one of Freddy's parts).

We held one Sunday practice during class and sharing time the Sunday before the program and then met again for about an hour on Saturday, the day before the program.  My good friend is the music leader and she did an AMAZING job teaching the songs throughout the whole year, so that the kids knew all the verses to all the songs without needing any kind of prompts. Plus, she picked a really special new song that the kids just love. Its called, I will be what I believe. The end has the chorus of Army of Helaman overlapping with the chorus from the song. We asked the YW and YM to come up and sing the Army of Helaman part with us and it turned out SO GREAT.

I sat on the floor by the mic, so I could help with parts for the non-readers, and get the stool ready for our shortest kids.  I organized the program for the kids into colored groups. Each song has a color and the kids who have a part after that song are in that color group. I have a flip chart next to me that shows the color group we're currently on and the color/song coming up. Then after each song I just hold out the flip chart and mouth, "Yellow group" and the kids usually remember which color their are (or they can see their name written) and get in the right order for the microphone.  I have the program itself divided by these groups too, so that I have one piece of paper on the podium for each group to read off of and I switch out the next group's sheet during the standing up of the songs.

I had the sister missionaries and Chris come sit up on the stand to help the kids since we had no teachers available to sit up there during the program (one of them is the pianist and the other couldn't make it) then my one counselor I put by the microphone controls to monitor those and help the children line up in the correct order for their parts.

All of this helped me to be able to focus and listen to what the kids were saying and sort of just enjoy the program as it went a long. If we had extra time to fill at the end, I wanted to be able to be in the zone and share my own testimony, but as it turned out, I didn't have to say anything! No adult did, except the Branch President who kind of bore a short testimony as he closed the meeting.  (He was in tears too, by the way) Really almost everyone was.   Like one little boy in our primary was so moved by the song, I will be what I Believe at the end that he started crying (like scrunched up face, wiping away tears with his sleeve) crying.  I had tears myself, and when it was all over and I was gathering up my stuff I could see red eyes on almost everyone in the congregation.

Alec did an amazing job narrating. He had so many parts and added animation to his voice and spoke slowly. Its crazy to think that he's going to be the oldest kid in Primary in just 6 months and then he'll be 12 in a year and move on!! what?!?! Charlie had some really cool insight in one of his parts and laid out some good doctrine on the sacrament and repentance in his other.  I liked when he said something like, "Choices and consequences are like a fox and his tail. One end always goes with the other. You get to pick your choice but you can't pick the consequence." Charlie even volunteered last minute to read one of the 'guest' parts I had written in, in case some of our less actives showed up and wanted to participate.  Gwen did a great job as well and is a really good singer.  I love how I can count on her to sit by some of the more rowdy kids and not get rowdy with them.  A few people told me Freddy kinda stole the show. He ended up on Chris' lap for 1/2 of the program and Chris helped him do some of the actions for the Wise Man and the Foolish Man song and apparently Freddy's face was of PURE JOY and delight. Also every time he got up to say his parts, he would take his time stepping up and take a big deep breath as he looked out at the congregation before starting. Super super cute.

Mostly I think I feel so good about it because its OVER! And besides every day stuff like teaching preschool, Thanksgiving, and Freddy's birthday, it was the LAST BIG THING on my plate before the baby comes. Well, I am planning on doing a small Faith in God show and tell meeting sometime in November but thats going to be during the 2nd hour and pretty low key, so it almost doesn't count.