An Amazing Opportunity

I know that I should have blogged about this almost 2 weeks ago, but it had been a really crazy week that week. On February 2nd I got to have one of the most amazing opportunities anyone gets to take part in during their lifen the birth of a child (not my own). At 9:30am on the 2nd I took my good friend Chisti, who was 41+4 weeks, to Balboa to do a labor check. When we went in we were hoping for enough progress to keep her there, but the chance of that happening was not good considering the 2 weeks of checks before that. When the midwife came in and checked her she was at 3-4 25% which wasn't much progress since Friday and it broke poor Christi's heart thinking she would have to go another week like this. The midwife went out and pleed Christi's case and came back in about 3 minutes later (probably felt like 30 to poor Christi) and told us "lets get you in a room you're staying." Apparently the in-charge Dr really felt sorry for her and let the midwife get this show on the road. They started the pitocin at about 1030 and things were on their way. We had a great time laughing and joking, especially when Christi was sitting on the bed through contractions on Danielle's phone trying to access myspace to update it. The nurse learned very quickly that Danielle and I are a bunch of goofballs especially when she'd come in to up the pitocin. We kept telling her "put it at 55" even when it was only at 20. It was a great day and things progressed nicely throughout the day and into the evening. They broke Christi's water with "the hook" which made us ALL laugh because, if you've never seen the hook, it looks like a crochet hook and Christi was threatening all week to use a crochet hook on herself to get him out. Christi did AMAZING breathing through all the contractions and with the support of Danielle and I made it to about 8cm before even thinking twice about an epidural. Once it was time to push Christi was all business and that little "runt" was out in about 6-7 pushes. Eli Austin-Wayne Alexander was born at 920 pm (or 2120) weighing in at a "small" 9lbs 8.9oz and 21 inches long. CONGRATULATIONS Christi and thanks so much for letting me be a part of such a great moment in your life.

 

Super Bowl Sunday

Well Josh had to work Super Bowl Sunday so we did our normal routine on Sundays and had some fun. We went to Church, came home EVERYONE took naps and then went outside to play because we didn't have small group that night. Before we went outside Kenzie asked if they could get wet and where else other than San Diego, CA can you run through the sprinklers on the 1st of February. Mackenzie thought it was the funniest thing in the world that she was running through the sprinklers, but Rylan would rather play in the bucket under the hose until it filled up enough he'd tell me "plweas mommy" because he wanted me to dump it on his head. I know this is a short blog, but I've got a longer one coming this afternoon, but I wanted to get this on here first.

 

Adopt-A-Family

Yes I know I'm blogging out of order, but I didn't realize I had these pictures in order to do a blog about it. There is a FANTASTIC organization for military families called Operation Homefront. They have a lot of different ways that they help our service members and their families from emergency flights for the death of an immediate family to instructional classes. One of the big things they do every year at Christmas is a program called Adopt-A-Family where you can apply to be adopted by a family or company in the area and they provide presents for the kids for Christmas. This was the 2nd year we participated (thank you navy for messing up our paychecks) and the group that adopted us (which was a department of homeland security) SPOILED the kids. The jammies they have on were bought by one of the people from the office that adopted us and there were a TON more presents which included some stuffed animals, a neat wagon that had building blocks for Rylan, a really fun game called Fix The Mix for Mackenzie which is teaching her how to hear something and remember the order it was told to her and she has to figure out how to put it back in that order. I think those were the FAVORITE gifts of Christmas this year. We were blessed beyond words by this company and hope that this next year we can be financially set to be able to adopt a family this year instead of being adopted.

 

Mackenzie's First Dance

Well last night was a first for Mackenzie she got to go to a dance. The ASYMCA (Armed Services YMCA) did their 2nd annual Father Daughter dance and I told Josh he had to take her this year. Last year she didn't go because Josh didn't think she was old enough to enjoy it, but this year she enjoyed it even though they were only there for about 2 hours. The dance was from 6-10, but we all knew she wouldn't make it that long because she woke up at 630am and then took about an hour nap so by the time Josh and Mackenzie left she was yawning. Actually she was yawning the whole hour I was doing her hair because she was tired, but she sat and let me finish her hair and she looked adorable if you ask me. From what I've heard (since I was not part of the dance) they got there and got their professional pictures done and then went to find a seat. Josh said they sat down for about 5 minutes while some instructional dancing lessons were being given that Kenzie probably wouldn't have understood (in other words Josh didn't want to learn the dance). After the instructional dance was done they gave out ice cream and after Kenzie had her ice cream she went to the dance floor with her daddy. Apparently the conversation of the hour with Kenzie and Josh was "daddy I'm going to dance like a ballerina. How are you going to dance" "Like a pumpkin Mackenzie" "daddy Pumpkins don't dance". She had been asking all week how daddy was going to dance and finally got an answer. Kenzie twirled all over the floor and was so enthralled in twirling that Josh said he'd have to call her name because she'd be so far away from him that she couldn't find him when she'd stop and look up. The photographers apparently too a lot of pictures of her so I can't wait for them to be loaded on the ASYMCA website to look at her in action. She got a cute picture of her and her daddy from the professional photographer and a nice "Tiffany's" bracelet that he wanted on as soon as she woke up this morning. She had a great time with her daddy and Josh actually said "next year we'll get there earlier" so all in all it was a success and they had a great time together just Daddy and Kenzie.