Me and My Silly Girls

I have no particular reason for posting this picture other than I just love it! Just me and my three goofy girls. Love em! :D

As for a brief update, Madeline is 2 weeks old! I took her to the doctor's for her 2 week checkup and she's doing well. She gained back to her birth weight plus a little more, so I must be feeding her well! Of course, she wasn't terribly thrilled with getting jabbed in the foot for the PKU test, but she recovered quickly from the distain :).

Katelyn just loves Maddie to death. She's a great big helper and wants to smother her little sister with loves. Katelyn and Aiden love playing with each other, which helps keep them busy while I'm trying to take care of Madeline. Aiden has also started to give Madeline some more acknowledgement, more so than when we first came home from the hospital! She likes to go up to Madeline when she's kicking on the floor and "pet" her baby sister. She looks at any adult watching and says "Soft!" with pride....silly girl!

I'm doing rather well myself too after the delivery. I've still had very little pain, which has helped kick me into gear with what is my new normal! Balancing everything has come a little easier to me than I had imagined, but I'm still waiting for some big bomb of craziness to drop. Just watch, I swear it's going to come! Haha! ;)

Madeline's Birth Story

A week before Madeline was born, I was in to visit the doctor and he asked me if I wanted to go with an elective induction. I eventually decided to go with the induction, mostly for Katelyn's sake. I wanted to make sure she was around for Madeline's arrival (as she was very concerned she would be gone at her dad's for visitation when she came), so our family as a whole could be a part of it. We set the date for the 15th.

I woke up at 5 a.m. on Saturday and couldn't get back to sleep for another hour (didn't have to be up until 6 a.m.) because I knew the day had come! Nate asked if I just wanted to go ahead and get up, so we did. We showered and got ready to go, and then we called the hospital at 6 a.m. to make sure it was still okay to head in and be there at 7:30 a.m. They said that things were still okay and we were set to go. Since we were all ready to go, Nate and I decided to go grab some breakfast before getting to the hospital. As we were walking out the door, the hospital called back and said a few women had showed up in active labor, so they said they'd call back in an hour to update us on when to come in. We still headed out to breakfast. It was pretty nice to have a little last-minute impromptu date before going to the hospital!

Well, time rolled by and the hospital hadn't called back yet. We called at 8:30 a.m. and although the babies had arrived from the previous baby rush, a couple more had come in to Labor and Delivery just as the others were done (Welcome to Utah, right? Haha!). So, they asked us to call back again at 10. Since we really had no idea what to do to kill time for an hour and a half, we decided to go shoot the breeze at my dad's house until then. We didn't want to go back home because we knew if we walked back in the door and no new baby in our hands, some big sisters would be quite disappointed! So, 10 a.m. rolls around and they finally give us the go ahead to come in at 11 a.m. Yay!

We got there at 11 a.m. and got registered. Although we finally got to get started, things still didn't get to go as quickly as we had hoped! After getting me hooked up to the fetal monitors, they tried for over 2 hours to try and get a good heart tracing on Madeline, but she was flipping about to and fro (not unusual at all for my babies!), they couldn't ever get a good tracing so they could start the Pitocin. So, they tried everything from positioning to oxygen to see what she'd do and they finally got a tracing long enough to go ahead with the Pitocin. Just to double check, they did a quickie ultrasound to make sure she was head down after her gymnastics routine! Once they did that and things looked good, I was finally started on the Pit about 2:30 p.m. After a couple hours, about 4:30 p.m., I decided to get my epidural. I didn't want to wait too long because I just about waited too long with Aiden. I kept having severe contractions with Aiden, so it was a lot harder to get my epidural in. I figured I better be safe and get it while I was still able to hold still! Right as I decided it was time for my epidural, Dr. Kasteler showed up to break my water. Bless his heart, he let me get my epidural in before he broke my water! Woo hoo! Since my water broke on its own with Aiden, Nate got to witness them breaking my water. Needless to say, he was horrified haha! All I could do was laugh at him, since I couldn't feel a thing, which was fabulous! My water was broken at about 5 p.m. Dr. Kasteler headed back home and was going to come back when it was time for lil Madeline to make her appearance. Around 6 p.m., Madeline started having some late decelerations during the contractions and I was only dilated to about a 6 at this point. About 7:15 p.m., I hadn't gone much further and was at a 6.5. From this point, it only took 40 minutes for me to go from 6 cm to 10 cm and we were ready to go! Fortunately, Dr. Kasteler had come back to the hospital before anyone had the chance to call him to tell him I was ready.

Madeline REALLY must have wanted to get into this world quick because it literally took 1-1/2 pushes for her to come out! Frankly, I didn't even think I had tried that hard to push her, so I was so surprised it took so little for her to get here! Madeline Erin was born at 8:06 p.m. at 6 lb 3 oz and 19 inches long. Madeline's late decelerations were explained once she came out because she had a nuchal cord x1. Not only that, she had the cord completely twisted all over her body! Can't say I'm terribly surprised with how squirmy she was inside me haha! She, thank goodness, came out crying immediately, so all concern if she was okay was cleared up immediately. Nate cut the cord and they put her right on me for a few minutes. When the nurses took her to clean her up, Dr. Kasteler and I started chatting a bit. We started talking about his good timing with showing up at the hospital when he did, and he told me that even though no one had called him from the hospital and he had just barely gotten home, something told him that he needed to come right back to the hospital. With Madeline's decelerations and my quick progression, it's a good thing he listened to the Spirit, eh? Hearing that from him just truly added to the special event.

I had very little blood loss and I didn't tear at all either, WOO! Dr. Kasteler told me that in his 17 years of practicing medicine, he's never had anyone lose as little blood as I did, which probably explains a lot of why I have felt so good in the following days since she was born. I ended up staying in the hospital only 24 hours because I feeling so great! Not a ton of pain and my energy was pretty high (not that it will last long haha), so I was almost going stir crazy in the hospital! I would have left sooner if it weren't for getting all of Madeline's tests and what not done before we left. It was nice to come home and sleep in my own bed, for sure!

We've all decided that Madeline looks a lot like Katelyn when she was born. We were expecting Madeline to pop out looking a lot like Aiden, but were surprised when Madeline came out with dark blonde/light brown hair!

As kind of a funny side note, after Madeline arrived and family showed up, the nurse who helped deliver Madeline recognized me. After she saw my SIL, she connected the dots and realized that we had gone to high school together! She graduated the year after I did, but it was more or less a funny moment. It's a small world (just wanted to make sure I got that song stuck in ALL of your heads :D)!

We are so glad that Madeline is here to complete our family! I've got three little princesses running around and couldn't be happier!

Here are a few more pics of Miss Madeline's birthday!

Saturday is the day!

Well, it looks like Saturday will be the big day that we welcome lil Madeline into the world! I've been scheduled for an induction Saturday morning. We can't wait to meet our sweet baby (and my body can't wait either haha)!

Stay tuned for updates, pictures, and all that will follow with Madeline's arrival!

Soules 2010 Review

I didn't get as many Christmas cards out as I would have liked this year, plus I didn't send out an update or yearly review on the family, so I figured what better place than the blog to do so!



Katelyn-
Katelyn is 5-1/2 years old and is deeply immersed in her first year of "real school" as she likes to call it...Kindergarten! She's thrilled to death to be going to school every day as opposed to a couple days a week with preschool the year before. She loves her teacher, friends, and everything she is learning! She soaks up everything like a sponge and is learning more in her first year of Kindergarten than I think that we ever did when we were kids! She kicked butt with her testing at the beginning of the year and I can only imagine she'll get even smarter as the year goes on. She is a wonderful big sister to Aiden and soon-to-be Madeline. Katelyn is a big helper to Mommy and also plays so well with Aiden.

Aiden-
Aiden is 18 months old and sprouting up before our eyes! She has a mouth full of teeth and we're FINALLY done with her teething (only managed to last a year!). She speeds around the house with her new learned skill of walking, now turning into running! She also is turning into quite the little jabbermouth too! She seems to learn a new word every day and also just yammers on in jibberish quite frequently. Aiden started Nursery right at the end of the year and she's still getting used to being away from Mom and Dad during that time. We're still experiencing a little bit of crying once she realizes we're gone, but she recovers quickly and gets back to playing, thank goodness!

Madeline-
Miss Madeline will be making her entrance to the world here in a couple weeks. We're quite excited for her arrival. We're very curious as to how Aiden will react to not being the baby of the family anymore, but once she gets used to it, we're sure she'll learn to be a wonderful big sister with Katelyn to show her by example.

Nate-
Nate has made a job change this past year and is currently working for the Church. He is truly loving every moment he works in this new position. Nate has also decided that he is going to back to school to obtain his Masters in Administrative Communications. Right now he is working on testing and applying to the program and we'll find out in a couple months if he makes it into the program this fall!

Jen-
I have been truly enjoying my time being a stay at home mom with Katelyn and Aiden. They are growing up so fast and I am grateful for the opportunity to be able to see them do so. I am still doing some medical transcription, but I'm no longer doing it full time so I can spend more time with the kids. I also took some time to myself here and there, doing small things to either take time to myself or better myself. It was great to take time for the little things and helped to improve my outlook on life!

All of us-
We've been able to do lots of memorable things this past year. Among the highlights, we took our first major family trip together as a family to Oregon! We spent almost two weeks covering a lot of the state, from spending time with some of my friends and family in Salem, living it up on the Coast for a couple days, and then spending a few days with Nate's grandma in Grants Pass. Nate and I also had the chance to go down to Vegas this summer to be with Rachel as she went through the temple for the first time. We were so glad to be a part of it! Nate and I also celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary this past year. We didn't do anything elaborate since we were saving our pennies for Madeline's arrival, but we were able to take a couple days for just the two of us, sans children! Woo hoo!

We hope that all of you had a wonderful and blessed 2010, and pray that the same will come to you in 2011!

Temple pic giveaway

Want to see some awesome temple pics? Check out the link below! She's also doing a giveaway too, so enter if you so desire! :)

Check it out!

State Fair

We really wanted to take the kids to the state fair this year, and we're sure glad we did! The girls had an absolute blast looking at the animals, playing, and eating fun food!





Aiden kept pointing to all the animals and, just like the zoo, got frustrated when she couldn't touch most of them. She got her hands on one or two, so that ended up appeasing her! Katelyn loved petting the animals. She also thinks that we need to get our own goat. Why a goat? No idea! She just wants one something fierce now!





The girls loved playing at the Little Hands on the Farm exhibit. Aiden was so excited to have her own little bucket and play right along side her big sister! Katelyn was having so much fun, she kept trying to sprint an exhibit ahead of us! It was just too much fun for her! When they got done "working on the farm", they each got to pick out a treat. Katelyn got cereal and Aiden got her favorite, crackers!











We spent a few minutes looking at booths and what not, but that never lasts long when you have the kids in tow! We decided that it was time for a snack and we headed off to get some twisted taters (aka ribbon fries)! For those of you who don't know what those are, it's essentially a big potato thinly cut into one giant ribbon of potato, fried up like regular french fries, and fun to enjoy! They're one of my favorite things to get at the fair. In fact, I know EXACTLY where the booth is each year! ;) We all dug in, but of course, Aiden was after them more than the rest of us! She'd scoop some off of the plate, take a bite, and head back to the plate for more long before what she had in her hand was gone! The girl knows good food when she sees it!





I love being able to do these fun things that only come around once in a while with my family. Reminds me of when I was a kid and even makes me feel like a kid!

Live List: Anniversary Picture

So, I've got some serious updating I need to do on my Live List. I just need to sit down and let you all know what I've accomplished so far! We'll start with the most recent check off my list!

After Nate and I took a quick snapshot of ourselves out to dinner on our first anniversary a year ago, I decided that it would be fun for us to take a picture of ourselves every year on our anniversary. Nothing fancy, just a quick picture, freezing a quick second in time. That way, we can look back and see how we've changed. We can also show our children the pictures as they get older, to which they can laugh and say "You look so young and dated!", because that's what all kids say about their parents pictures in their younger days, right (I did with my parents haha!)?

We celebrated our anniversary on Saturday, since it actually fell on Sunday. We had a great weekend, just the two of us. We went up to Midway and explored Swiss Days, which I'm so glad we did just the two of us because I might have lost my head chasing children up there! We stopped in Heber on the way home at a quaint little cafe for dinner. Grabbing a bite to eat at some random Mom and Pop diner in small towns is one of our favorite pastimes, so although it may not seem like much, it's one of our favorite things to do! Once we got home, we wanted to see a movie. We decided we were too tired to actually go to the theater, so instead we reverted back into 10-year-olds and went to the store to stock up on junk food. We took our haul back home and snuggled up to watch a movie together. Nate's parents took the kids for the night, so we could be alone for one night. Good times! :D

Sunday we went and picked up the kids from Grandpa and Grandma's house. While we were there, I had Lisa snap our picture. Ignore the bare feet and swollen preggo legs, I ditched the heels as soon as I could! ;)



It's been an amazing 2 years, my dear! I love you so much and can't wait for all the many more memories that we'll share together!