Peter Danial

I thought I would do a blog post about Peter.  I still need to do one on Thomas, since I haven't done one since he was a few days old., but I have a bunch of pics of Peter ready to go, so I'll do him first!  He was born May 4.  Our little Star Wars baby.  Peter is a name we love and hesitated to use for the first 2 boys because we were worried Peter Palmer sounded too nursery rhymish and Marvel characterish.  We decided to get over it this time around and are so happy we did, because Peter is the perfect name for him!  Danial is his middle name and it is from one of Jeffrey's best friend's growing up.  It's spelled differently than the traditional Daniel, so there is no question as to who we got it from. :) Peter has been such a sweet baby from day one!!  We had nursing issues, and I discovered a link between nursing and my post pardum depression, so on day 3 of nursing, we quit! No looking back and no regrets (only a couple of times of longingly watching the sweetness of Heather and Melinda nursing their babies). He was such a good baby, he was my only baby who loved to be swaddled, nice and tight! He slept well and was happy and content when awake.  He was, of course, loved by his older 3 siblings and this time around, my older 2 were actually really helpful with a newborn, so I was able to leave him in their arms or watchful eye to get things done.  Peter has also been my only baby who has sucked his thumb!  It's the most adorable thing I've ever seen!  He has a fox blanky/stuffy which he holds in his hand and up to his mouth, while he sucks his thumb.  He only sucks his thumb while holding his fox, and I usually only give him his fox while he is in his bed, so he associates it with sleeping. I don't know what we'll do one day when we want that to stop, because I can't fathom taking his precious little Foxy away!  But I won't worry about it today. :)  Up until a few months ago, Peter was a little angel, never into trouble, happy as can be.  Content to play and pitter patter around.  But alas, he is taking after Thomas.  He's still as happy as can be, but he is into everything!!  Takes books off of shelves, dumps out everything, eats dog food (and sometimes poop), and climbs as high as he can!  I am pretty sure that is typical little boy behavior though, not just something Tommy did and now Peter is doing.  Because I had Jacey first, he was my "norm", and Jacey never did stuff like this.  He would rather look at books, and do puzzles, and find every letter and number in the house and tell me what they were.  He was more of an intellect, rather than physical.  So though I shouldn't be, I'm still surprised by how active and exhausting little boys can be!  Peter has been melting us lately with the new words he's been learning.  He says Daddy, Mummm, Hello, Hi, thank you, there you go, yes, oh, wow and what. We are all so in love with him!!  I love that older siblings can be fighting and Peter can break the tension by his sweetness and goofiness!  He loves to dance and shake his cute little tushy! He smiles so easily and has a contagious laugh!  Jeffrey can get him to laugh the hardest by tickling him.  Speaking of Jeffrey, he is such a Daddy's boy!!  Which is so nice for Jeffrey, because Thomas is completely a Momma's boy!  I'm jealous of him, but I guess it's only fair!  Peter has a mouth full of teeth, only needs his two bottom eye teeth and he'll have 16 in total. He's been walking since just before his 1st birthday and is now mastering the stairs.  He is progressing from crawling up and sliding on his belly down, to actually walking up and stepping down.  Crazy how fast he's grown!!  My only complaint about Peter, is that he doesn't snuggle enough!!  He will give you a hug after he wakes up, and he'll stay in your arms while drinking his bubba, but other than that, he doesn't want to be held or cuddled.  It's a little heart breaking, but we're hoping we can just snuggle him into liking it.  He wouldn't be a true Palmer without a love of snuggling! ;)  Oh yeah, the other adorable thing he does is give kisses!!  He puckers his lips and makes a "mmmm" sound and leans forward just a little bit.  He goes 10, wants you to go 90.  :)  But it's always worth it, such delicious kisses!  He also blows kisses.  We just love him!!!  This is just a brief glimpse into his life.  He has been such a dream baby and we are so grateful Heavenly Father blessed us with him!!

 My first attempt at giving him a "real" haircut and not just a buzz.

 First day saying "Hello" and "yes" (he surprised us with the yes!)

 At the park!

 First day saying "thank you"!

 Everyone love him!

 Watching his older siblings on a ride at Calaway Park.

 A rare nap out of his crib.

 

Always smiling!

Being the sweet and lovable boy he is!!

 Bubba and fox in hand!  And his sidekick, Frodo. This is a common sight.

 Enjoying a beautiful fall day in the backyard.

New-to-him jammies.  Buzz Lightyear for Halloween maybe?

Fall Kids' Pics!

We had a get together at Heather and Charlie's place at the beginning of September and Heather texted me that morning telling me she would take some fall pics for the kids if I wanted.  And of course,  I did!  So we throw together some nice clothes and did their hair and off we went.  These are such cute pictures and I love that she always manages to capture real smiles and personality.  Thanks Heather for the pictures, we love them!! (Sorry, I had to post them all, color and black&white.) :) Click on individual images for a clearer picture!

I'm Back!!!

Life as I know it is changing!  I'm leaving Facebook for good!!  :D  I am such a time waster on it and as embarrassing as it is to admit, I'm totally addicted! I can't just cut back, or limit the amount of times I check it.  I've tried several times, I just can't do it! So for my own well being and the well being of my family, I have to eliminate it from my life.  I already feel so much freedom!  I am on it until the end of the month to finish up some stuff I've started in a couple of groups, but come November 1, I'm done!!  People do this all the time, say they're leaving Facebook and then get back on a little while later, so I know there are doubters out there, but I will prove them wrong!  I'm done!  I still have instagram because I love my chatbooks!!  And I will now be starting up my blogging again.  It's nice to have a place people can keep up to date with my life (if they so desire) and somewhere to journal what's happening with my family. I've never been very dedicated to my blog (my last post was 3.5 years ago, haha!), but hopefully with no Facebook to get in the way, I'll be able to blog once a week.

This past weekend was Thanksgiving and we had no dinners planned on either side of the family.  With my parents on their mission in the Congo, my siblings and I are hit and miss on planning family dinners for special occasions.  This time we didn't.  On the Palmer side, Cyndi was in Hawaii, so we are planning to do our dinner when she is back in town.  So that left us alone this weekend.  I've never made a turkey before, nor did I have the desire to try now.  So I bought a pot roast and planned to make a traditional Draper sunday dinner for Thanksgiving. Potatoes and yorkshire puddings are easy and I've done a thousand times, but this was my first time doing a roast and gravy.  Turns out it's super easy and I should have tried it years ago.  Jaclyn loved helping me in the kitchen.  In the morning, we stuck the roast in the crock pot and then we made pumpkin ginger snaps to have for dessert with ice cream.  Next, she learned to peel and chop potatoes and then make yorkshires. It was so fun to work side by side with her, she loves to cook and bake and try things for herself, not just observe!  The total opposite of me as a child. :)  Thank goodness for that!  She made name place settings and her and Thomas made some handprint turkeys to cut out and decorate with.  It was such a fun, relaxing afternoon.  Thomas and Jeffrey mowed the lawn, and Jacey was good to play with Peter and keep him out of the dishwasher, his latest obsession! I just realized this is the first time I've mentioned Peter on this blog.  Haha!  My last post was about Thomas just after he was born, in April of 2011.  Well Peter was born May 4, 2014.  But I'm not backtracking, I'm only going forward from here.  Thankfully, I have an actual journal I write in and I've documented Peter's birth there. :)  After we had our "fancy" dinner, we played a game to see who would help Mom with the dishes in the kitchen.  My family used to guess the right number to choose who would help (choose a number between 1-100.  30! Okay now choose between 30-100.  80!, choose between 80-100) Every one would take one turn guessing and the person who finally guessed it would have to help clean up until the next person guessed the number and they'd trade out.  For us, we got two dice and took turns rolling them.  The person who got doubles would help me until the next person got doubles.  The kids actually thought it was the best thing ever and laughed and laughed when they had to help! It was so nice to have cheerful help and it got the job done much faster!  Plus I just enjoyed the company, I didn't even mind doing it all by myself,  I just liked having everyone around me.  We ended our night with cookies and ice cream and played some Wii U Nintendoland games.  Mario Chase and Luigi's Haunted Mansion to be exact.  The kids' favourites.  They love it so much more when Jeffrey and I play.  Which I get!  Doing anything with mom and dad makes it so much more fun!  I remember that feeling from when I was little too!  Even now, when my parents play games with my siblings and I, it's more fun!

I was sad at first when I realized we weren't having a big Thanksgiving celebration with any family, but during and after our day yesterday, I was so thankful that we had this opportunity to celebrate it alone!  It is for sure one my favourite Thanksgivings to date!! I am thankful for my kids and Jeffrey, I am so blessed to have such a special, loving family!!

Life With Three

I've been meaning to blog for a while now, but life is a bit busier than usual and I was never that good at blogging to begin with. First of all, I just want to say that the transition from 2 kids to 3 has been my easiest transition EVER! Getting used to having one baby was harder than this, but getting used to two kids was sooo hard for me! And I've heard from many moms that going from 1-2 kids was the hardest, and from other moms that 2-3 was the hardest. So I did a lot of praying that going to 3 kids wasn't going to be harder than 1-2, cause honestly, that was hard enough that I probably would have had a nervous breakdown right now if this was harder! :) One thing that has been awesome is all the meals that we've received!!! I've never had people bring me meals before. Aside from my sisters and one or two close friends. But I got so many this time, it has been sooo nice!!! And Cyndi watched my kids every day for either the morning or afternoon, sometimes both, during the first week that Jeffrey went back to work!! It's been so nice to be taken care of! And again, can I just promote the placenta encapsulation!! HONESTLY IT HAS BEEN AMAZING!!! I encourage anyone who can stomach the idea to PLEASE DO IT!! Purebirth.ca. AMAZING!! I have had so much energy. Aside from having to nurse my baby every three hours, I don't even feel like I had a baby!! It's been so nice!! And it's been over a month now and I still haven't had any emotional breakdowns or signs of depression. Truly a miracle!!!

Thomas is such an amazing baby!! Since day 1, he's slept long hours in the night. As short as 5 hours to as long as 9 hours. It's amazing to actually feel like I sleep through the night. Makes the day a lot more manageable! I've had some nursing/milk issues, so I've had to pump a LOT and supplement that milk to him. He lost a lot of weight after he was born and didn't make it back to his birth weight by the two week mark. After all that pumping and supplementing though, he started gaining again. I was happy about that, but I sure don't like all the time spent pumping. Plus it HURTS! He is a very mellow baby, so easy! I think I've been so lucky, because my first two were easy as well! I guess that's what I get for being an angelic baby to my own mother. She said I didn't cry for the first however months of my life. Even when I got the mumps, I just kind of whimpered. :)

The kids have adjusted pretty well to having a baby in the house. They both love him to death. They want to be around him an annoying amount of time! It's hard to leave him anywhere without having someone stopping to touch him or try to put the soother back in his mouth. I'm trying to teach them that if he's not crying, he's happy and we leave him be!!!! Haha, Jaclyn literally just stopped his swing to kiss and maul him as I wrote this. Sighh... The only time Jaclyn shows any hostility towards us or the baby, is when she gets in trouble for doing something to the baby that she shouldn't. Only then does she get jealous, by trying to hit him, or professing her hatred for him or us. It's frustrating!! It's hard to share time with three children so that none of them feel left out. Obviously I know that the baby can cry and won't feel left out if I have to choose between the baby and the older kids. But it's still hard. That's probably the only thing that's been harder this time than it was when Jaclyn was a baby. There's less of me to spread around now! Oh well. We're managing!

It's so nice have warmer weather now! We've been able to get out a few times now to enjoy the sun and let the kids run wild!! I love it and the kids love it more!! I'm so excited for this summer and all the fun things that we're going to be able to do! We've got some plans to go out to Invermere and possibly Sandpoint as well. At least the kids and I do. Jeffrey's going to be working and I'm not sure if he'll be taking any time off. But it should be fun! Nothing better than sunning and swimming!

Okay, here are a few pics of our little Tommy. Sadly, we haven't taken NEARLY as many pictures of him as we have of our other kids. It breaks my heart, but when is there time???

Thomas Cameron

I know I'm going to be grateful to have this all recorded, but I'm slightly dreading going over it again. Wasn't the best time I've ever spent. :) So saturday morning, literally as Jeffrey was walking out the door I had my first painful contraction. You know....one that actually meant something. I yelled that out to him as he left just so he was aware that things might start happening. Throughout the morning I kept having more, nothing regular, and nothing major. It was enough though to be uncomfortable and to not want to have to take care of Jacey and Jaclyn by myself. So I called Cyndi and asked if she could come pick us up and spend the day at her house. We wanted to be there anyway because Kandice and Brady were in town for a short time and we wanted to see them as much as we could. So most of the family was over there for the rest of the day and it was so nice to have other people to help with my kids and to visit with to keep my mind off of what was happening to my body! Jeffrey joined us after work and we were all about to sit down to a delicious steak dinner that Cyndi had prepared, when my contractions started to pick up a bit. They were getting a little more intense and more steady, being consistently around 15 minutes apart. It was 7ish at that point and we decided to head home (after we ate really quick...we couldn't resist) and get things ready for the home birth. We left the kids and headed home to tidy up and get the bed "birth" ready. At one point, my contractions stopped for about half and hour and I was nervous that I was jumping the gun and that perhaps this was false labour! I was a week early afterall and I've never been early before. And I'd always "induced" labour with castor oil, so I thought for sure since I wouldn't do that this time, I'd go over. Thank goodness they picked back up again!! Cyndi brought the kids home just after 8 (my contractions were on average 6 minutes apart by then) and helped Jeffrey get them into bed. By 9 o'clock the kids were sound asleep and I was definitely getting into the more intense-have to breath through them to endure it- contractions. They were getting closer so we called Carol. We had already talked to her that night, before we left Palmer's and she actually was in SW calgary babysitting her grandbaby. Luckily, Mark and Emily's movie was full (not lucky for them) so they were actually on their way home and Carol was free to leave and come help us!! Funny how things work out like that!! I guess it's not funny, it's actually just one of those things that shows me how Heavenly Father micro manages our lives more than we realize. Anyway, so Carol headed up to our house to check me out. I was about 4 cm dialated and was definitely in active labour. The next 3 hours were pure torture, as the contractions got worse and worse. I had flash blacks of being in the ambulance with Jaclyn and it made everything feel worse and brought back some of that fear I had in those moments. Jeffrey was great, always by my side, letting me squeeze his hands and putting pressure on all the right spots on my back. He joked at one point that he used to think it was fake when women would hurt their husbands' hands on movies or tv shows when they were squeezing them during labour....but he was now a believer! Haha! It was great to be at home. I laboured on the bed for a while, the birthing ball, the tub...actually I did a rotation of those three places. It was just so nice to be able to try different places and positions to find what was the easiest place to get through the contractions. Obviously there was no easy place, but some helped more than others. I didn't like labouring in the tub when I was pregnant with Jacey, but I wanted to give it another chance because I've only heard good things about water births. It was a lot better than Jacey's birth, but I still didn't love it. It felt nice in between contractions, but it still felt like it magnified the pain a bit. Luckily for me though, I just so happened to be in tub when the baby came. I wanted it to be there because I knew it would be the easiest place to contain the mess. It was my second time through the rotation of bed, ball and tub when I went from just having contractions, to going through transition and having to push! And man, was that the worst few minutes of my life!! I know everyone will think that Jaclyn's labour is the worst thing I could have been through, but I feel like this one was worse. With the memory of Jaclyn's birth, plus the pain of this one, it was like DOUBLE. I felt like I was back in the ambulance and it was a moment where I felt completely out of control and full of fear!! I "kind of" freaked out (that's an understatement) and Carol had to get right in my face to bring me back to reality and let me know that everything was ok and that it was all normal and I was about to have this baby! Anyway, so I barely had to push, or rather, I didn't push for very long and I felt that amazing, incredible, miraculous RELIEF that comes with having a baby out of your body!!! I cried purely out of relief for about 5 minutes afterwards because I was DONE!!! I felt kind of guilty about that later, because Jeffrey was crying too and I think he thought we were crying for the same reasons, but we so weren't. He was crying about the miracle of birth, and meeting our precious little baby for the first time. You know, normal reasons. And I was also in awe of and was so excited to see our baby, but my mind was consumed with other things at the time. Anyway, so after discovering that it was a boy (our intuitions were right) and having those first few bonding moments as parents and son, I was rudely bombarded by more cramping. I never remember delivering the placenta. Well I guess I remember delivering it, but I didn't remember that it was a painful thing, but man, it felt like I was having another baby! And the cramping didn't stop. I felt kind if jipped because that relief that I was craving and thought I was going to have, was gone. I know that after birth cramps are worse with every child, but these have been so much worse than I imagined. And they still haven't left. I have been living with a hot pad on my lap ever since. Anyway, after I got warmed up and all those after birth "shakes" subsided, I was able to nurse little Thomas. He ate like a champ! I had to stop him after an hour so we could bathe. He would have kept eating, it was awesome! We both got in the bath and cleaned up. It was soooo nice to be at home, especially at this point, because afterwards, I was able to get into bed, put Thomas in his bassinet next to me and just relax. There was no packing up and driving home from the hospital. It was amazing!! Cyndi was there (which was perfect because about 10 minutes before I had him, Jaclyn woke up crying and she was able to go in her room and help settle her back down) and so she was able to see him and hold him right afterwards. She slept on the couch the rest of the night to help out if the kids got up again. We were so grateful for her help and presence! The midwives packed up all their stuff after making sure baby and I were both good and healthy and then they left. It's been so nice to work with midwives, especially Carol, because they are so thorough and they come to you!! I love that I haven't had to go anywhere to get Thomas checked out or anything, they've been visiting me at home and will be back again tomorrow to see us.

These past few days have been sooo much better than with any baby I've had. Aside from the massive cramping that is. Thomas and I have figured out nursing with no problems. That has always been a problem with my babies. He loves his binky, the second night he slept for 8 hours. He is just a happy baby and has given me very little grief! One of the biggest things so far is that I haven't felt like crying 24/7. Without fail, on day 3, when my milk comes in, I cry all day. But here we are on day 4, milk has already come, and I am a different woman this time around! It's a miracle!! One that I could accredit to a few things. First being the lack of nursing problems. That has always been a reason for tears in past postpartum periods. Second is placenta encapsulation. Yes, I am indeed ingesting my own placenta. Thanks to purebirth.ca (thank you Emily for referring her to me) I was able to call a lady to come pick up the placenta the next morning and she took it away and basically dehydrated and ground up my placenta and put them into pill capsules. So now I am taking those pills daily and there are supposedly many benefits. Just to name a few; a boost in energy, a boost in milk supply, and the BIG one for me, helping curb the dreaded postpartum depression. And so far, I'd say it's working!!! The third reason, and the one that I am also giving the most credit to, is that wonderful Book of Mormon challenge that our ward did. Not having postpartum depression is something specific that I prayed for all the while, basically asking Heavenly Father to let this be one of the promised miracles that I could receive for accepting and achieving the Book of Mormon challenge from the Bishop. So whether or not the placenta encapsulation was the means for this miracle to come to pass doesn't matter so much to me. I am just happy that so far I've received this answer to my many prayers!!! Now I know that I could totally be speaking too soon and I know as well that having emotional ups and downs are normal anyway, but I've never felt this good at this point and I'm hopeful that it's going to continue!! I'm so grateful to Jeffrey who has taken the week off to be at home with us, to help out with Jacey and Jaclyn so I can focus on Thomas and getting my rest. I'm also so grateful to the many friends and family that have brought us meals/food and for giving Jeffrey a break by taking the kids for a few hours! I'm surrounded by so many loving, giving people and I don't know why I am so lucky to have that, but I sure am grateful for it!!

Speaking of Jacey and Jaclyn, they are absolutely in LOVE with Thomas! Anytime we emerge from the bedroom, they RUN to my side so they can "pet Thomas!!" That's what we get for getting a hamster before a baby. They treat him like an animal, always asking if they can pet him. Haha!! Sadly, both my kids got colds right as we had him, so I've had to make sure they stay out of his face and that hasn't been easy for any of us!! I can't wait for them to get better so I don't have to be so paranoid about all their love!! Anyway, we are just having a great time getting to know Thomas better. He is absolutely adorable. He has Jaclyn's nose exactly, and Jacey's mouth! He looks more like Jeffrey than Jacey does, if that's possible!! Today he's wearing one of Jeffrey's baby outfits, one that we have a picture of Jeffrey in..and it's like looking at twins! We are so blessed to have three healthy kids and have so much love in our home!! I love looking at the kids crowd around Thomas trying to kiss and caress him. And I love watching Jeffrey sleep with him in his arms. I just love my family so much and am honored to be apart of it!

ps. Tommy's stats @ birth - born at 12:38 am on April 10/11, 8lbs 4 oz, 21 inches long.

Happy 3rd Birthday Jaclyn!!

Before I can post about the most recent happenings in our life, I have to document Jaclyn's THIRD birthday!! I can't believe she's that old already! She's my baby!! It started out rather early, I woke up in the night and found my husband MIA, and I tracked him down in the kids' room sleeping. I couldn't resist taking pictures when I discovered the position they were in! It was too adorable!
First thing we did when it was actually time to wake up, was get Jaclyn dressed up in her "ladybug dress". She asks me to wear it all the time, to which I usually reply "No, it's just for sundays". But how could I turn her down on her birthday??? So she got all dressed up. We decided to open presents in the morning so that Jaclyn would have some fun new things to play with throughout the day. She loved all her presents, her favorite being the bean bags I made her! Hooray for little kids not knowing how bad something is! :) This is pretty much the first thing I've sewed on my own and as easy as it sounds, they still weren't perfect. But I was happy with them and Jaclyn doesn't know any better. :) I made a poster for her too so that she had something to throw them at/through. Jacey and her played throughout the day and had lots of fun!

Later that evening, we had Jeffrey's siblings over for some cake and ice cream. The kids had a lot of fun and Jaclyn loved her rainbow cake! I still can't believe she's 3! I guess it does feel like a million years since she was born, but it doesn't seem real to me that I have a 3 yr old and a 4 yr old. Crazy! Jaclyn is such a sweet girl, but she's got a lot of fire in her! She is no pushover. In fact, she's more often now the pusher rather than the pushee. She's definitely coming into her "terrible threes". Everything's a bit more of a challenge with her, but she's just trying to figure out the whole independence thing. It's a lot more work, but we love her and she's worth it! She's still the super loving, snuggly little girl she's always been. She's always been more of a Daddy's girl, but to Jeffrey's dismay, she's gotten a little more attached to me. Always wanting mommy to do things for her. And even though that just means more work for me, it also means more affection from her. :) I like it! I'm trying to think of more things to say about her, but let's face it, my brain isn't functioning at 100% right now. She's a doll and we absolutely love her and everything she brings to our family!! We are grateful for her in our lives! Happy Birthday Jaclyn!!