Some News

Wow, a blog post is WAY over due. Oh, the fun we've been having lately!  And the big news (well, big for us) we have to share.

Starting with the biggest:
1. David got hired as a REAL LIFE employee at Los Alamos National Laboratory. So long student status, hello pay raise!  That also means we can plan on making New Mexico our permanent home.
2. McKindrey is a great crawler now, and can walk supported only by one hand. We have yet to encourage her first independent steps, but maybe very soon we will try it. It is so fun to have her more mobile.  She is also getting to be more of an explorer, especially outside.
3. David and I look forward to celebrating our 3rd year of marriage at Santa Fe, snowboarding.  Well, David will be snowboarding, and I will be tumbling down the hill as he tries to teach me. So far I have been successful at sticking to my skis, but I've finally decided to learn something new. Maybe next year I will get David to try skiing.

We enjoyed Halloween-- carved up our pumpkins and even splurged and bought candy to pass out to trick-or-treaters.  Sadly, we only had 11 trick-or-treaters, and ate about 3 bags of candy ourselves (or maybe that wasn't so sad)...

We recently got a bike trailer to take McKindrey on rides with us. We rode to the park yesterday and oh the fun. McKindrey LOVES the park. We go almost every day. The sand, the swings, the slides, the bouncy horses, the KIDS, the grass, the leaves, the dirty bandaids (gross, I know). She can't get enough of it all. The most joyful part of yesterday's park trip was that she climbed up some relatively huge steps all by herself. I so wish I had taken my camera to document the moment. But, David and I were flipping out and pretty much giddy. We are total dorks as parents.

I continue to enjoy working at the children's clinic on Fridays while McKindrey has daddy day with David. Other than that I love being home with her, even when every day is a mix of joy, frustration, laughter, crankiness... you name it. Learning to be a great mom is such a challenge, but it is also a fantastically fun and sanctifying experience.  Now for the good part, some pictures :)

Fall is here

We live just a block away from Chamisa Elementary school, and when school started a couple weeks ago, I could practically taste FALL watching all the kids walking to school with their backpacks, pencils, papers, and lunch bags.  McKindrey really enjoyed watching them, too. David started grad school last Monday. He is taking a class via internet TV, one online, and one for which he watches various lectures around Los Alamos. So far, it hasn't been too crazy stressful with working also.

McKindrey is growing up too fast!  I guess children do that. She's 7 months old now. She is "eating" (read: tasting/gnawing/mutilating) solid foods a lot more. She doesn't like baby food much, so she pretty much has whatever we are having, mostly fruits, vegetables, and bread. She can sit up very well now, and is starting to crawl like an inch worm using her toes and arms. She walks assisted by one of us holding her arms, and stands leaning against the coffee table or back of the couch. She is getting her first two teeth!  They are both coming in at about the same pace, her 2 bottom middle teeth. Other than chewing on a lot of things she isn't particularly more cranky.

I am still working at the children's clinic on Friday and some Saturdays, but I have labor day off, so we are going to relax at home, do yard work, and hit up the pool for the last time (it will close after labor day). We were planning to go camping somewhere, but weren't too keen on fending off the hoards of campers. Especially when it would be McKindrey's first time camping (and sleeping in a tent...away from home and her crib... or not sleeping at all, really). So we came up with the brilliant plan to stay home for labor day, and go camping the following weekend!  Should be fun.

Chantal, a college friend of mine, came to visit us in July. She and her husband were working at Philmont this summer. We had fun eating New Mexican food, going to the Farmer's market and getting smoothies.

We have been making home made pizza with chocolate in the crust.  This invention is something David found on his mission in Brazil-- pizza com chocolate na borda. It's delicious!

David was in a triathlon last weekend, and his team took third overall!  He did an AMAZING job on the biking leg of the triathlon, and his team mates were also awesome.  They had the best time in their age group, and out of all the teams that competed.

I just got a new calling in church, and will be teaching the 10 year olds in Primary.  Can't wait to start next Sunday!

Summer Storms

Last night around midnight there was a giant thunderstorm RIGHT OVER our house. I could've sworn lightening struck us, or somewhere very close by. The rain was so hard, the window in our bathroom started leaking! The most amazing thing was that somehow McKindrey slept through the teeth rattling clashes of thunder. I was so worried about her waking up terrified, but she slept peacefully through the whole thing. Huh.

 I love evening thunder storms in New Mexico. The smell in the air and the refreshment of the breeze, clouds, and rain are the perfect combination. We have had some really hot days lately, and with no A/C, there's nothing like a rain storm to cool everything off. David and I enjoy watching the lightening together, too. Today David and I are going for a bike ride! Earlier in the summer I got a new (used) road bike, and David recently got new tires for his. We want to take them for a whirl! We are also hoping to go swimming with McKindrey this afternoon.

 We have finally finished all our travels for the summer. We went on a grand total of four vacations, including three family reunions and one wedding: Cancun, Las Cruces, Zion National Park, and Silver City. For the fourth of July, McKindrey got to be in the community children's parade put on by our church. We also enjoyed relaxing and barbecuing at the Parkinson's house. Then we watched the fireworks from our roof! It was GREAT.

 Now that we are home for the rest of the summer, we are doing yard work like crazy. We finished removing some giant junipers from the front of our house, and now David and Scott are working on extending the back porch roof. We have many more projects planned, we will have to see if we finish our goal of fixing up the front yard (we decided tha back yard will have to wait until next year).

 One thing in our backyard we have really been enjoying is David's hammock from Brazil. We found the perfect place to hang it under some great tree shade. McKindrey loves to swing in it, too.

 Two interesting facts about us: David is secretly (or not too secretly) a total nerd. He is currently watching a documentary on Denali National Park in Alaska, and I keep hearing remarks like "Whoa, cool!" and "No way!" Ice worms and moose are crazy interesting. I am also secretly a total nerd. I decided that for a whole month, I am only going to listen to classical music (within reason-- I can't control what they play over the loud speaker at Smith's). It's kind of an experiment to see if I come to like classical better, and to see if I feel better in general, and to see if McKindrey likes it :)

 Enjoy some pictures!

Fierce baby.

Fourth of July Parade

Babies make the best expressions!

Playing in the Parkinson's new "water feature" in the back yard.

Grumpy baby on a long hike in Zion.

Back in New Mexico

David graduated from BYU with his bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering in April. His family came up to Utah, and we had fun throwing him a surprise breakfast with his friends, and eating at Cheesecake Factory. Then it was time to pack up our whole apartment. On April 28th, we made the long drive to White Rock from Provo. McKindrey did amazingly well for a three month old! We got moved into our rental house and are pretty much completely unpacked now. It's WONDERFUL having a dish washer, washer and dryer! We like our little home and have some great fun decorating it and making little improvements here and there. A week after we returned to New Mexico we went to Cancun with David's family. It was awesome except that I was sick the whole time. We had fun swimming in the pool, the ocean, and touring some Mayan ruins. The ocean there is incredible! Warm, pretty clear, and BLUE. I have started working Fridays at the Children's Clinic now that we are back in New Mexico. I have the best job I could ask for, but I miss being home with my little girl those days that I work. It's reassuring, though, that David gets to be the one to stay with her and watch her on Fridays. We spent this past weekend in Las Cruces, celebrating my cousin's wedding and visiting with family. It was fun to introduce McKindrey to everyone. Today McKindrey had her 4 month check up with the pediatrician. She is doing great! She is very social, and likes to smile and coo at people. She is growing well, too. Now we just need to work on her sleeping at night... I love the summer weather and it makes me want to go on walks, grill in the backyard, and do lots of yard work. Our yard could definitely use it. It's hard to find the time, though, with a little baby and so much traveling!

Back to blogging! And the story of McKindrey's birth.

Well, it's been a full 2 months and 19 days since my last post on this blog. I've given myself the excuse of "first time mother."

I will do a brief birth story for McKindrey, since I can't possibly call this blog complete without one. And everyone does one for their first child. Who knows if I will be continuing this blog into our second, third, fourth... children.

On Sunday January 27th around midnight (so technically the 28th) I started having really bad stomach cramps... or so I thought.  I went to the bathroom and went back to bed.  But they continued and I couldn't sleep.  I realized that they felt like the worst cramps of my life, and that's how some people describe labor.  Could I possibly be going into labor? I hardly believed it, especially since so many of my friends had false labors, AND I had convinced myself I would probably have to be induced.  Either way, I decided to try to sleep through it, even if it was true labor. Ha! It wasn't working.

So, I've always heard that laying in bed awake doesn't help you fall asleep and that I should get up and do something (maybe return to bed later).  Surprisingly, the dishes were already done, so I just surfed the web, read a Martha Stewart book, and watched Downton Abbey.  At some point, I downloaded an app to track my contractions.  I was having them every 7 minutes when I started tracking them. Around 3am I decided to take a hot shower in case we did go to the hospital today, and to ease the pain of the contractions.  That woke David up and he came in and asked, "Are you in labor?" I said "Maaaaaayybeee...."

He decided to stay up with me, and we watched some movies, finished packing our bags, and David cleaned the snow off the car (it was snowing pretty hard).

Around 6am I called the on-call midwife, because I had been having contractions about 4 minutes apart since 3am. She recommended I try to stick it out at home longer.  So I made a goal to wait until 8am when the midwife delivering babies that day came on duty.

I made it to 8am, and boy were those contractions hurting by then!  The only thing that got me that far was Aunt Boni's advice that "You can stand any pain for 1-2 minutes." Anyways, the on-call midwife wasn't available when I called, so I spoke to her nurse who said I could either go to the clinic to be checked or head to the hospital. I decided to got to the hospital, because if it was real labor, I wanted an epidural ASAP.

David and I got to to Timponogos Hospital around 9:00 and got checked in.  The nurse Deb came in  for the moment of truth-- how far progressed was I?  Turns out I was fully effaced and 5 cm dilated!  I was so happy to be in labor and already half way dilated!  I asked for my epidural and the nurse had to give me a liter of fluid before I could get it, so we got that pumping in and an hour later the anesthesiologist came in to give me my epidural. I have scoliosis, which made it really tricky for him, and he had to poke me twice for the epidural.  But man once it was in, I was so happy!  I was once again happy to be having a baby!

I kept progressing on my own, and once I reached 10cm around 1:30 we allowed for rest and descent another hour.  By then my initial bolus of anesthesia from the epidural had worn off and I was thinking of pressing the magic button to get more numbing, but my midwife told me not to so I could feel in order to push effectively.  That was a rough hour of hard core contractions!

I started pushing around 2:30!  I was on my left side, but McKindrey's heart rate was going down, so they flipped me to my right side and gave me some O2 and all was good.  Then around 2:59pm, McKindrey was born!  I loved holding her warm little body right up against me while David cut the cord.

Summer got to be there for everything, and was an incredible support and photographer. We got to see Shaun and McKay that night.  My mom got there the next day (it was still snowing hard outside so travel was difficult). I enjoyed 2 days in the hospital eating great food I didn't have to prepare, and holding my beautiful little girl!

I can't believe she is 9 weeks old now! Slowly we are figuring things out.  Baby's are a BIG investment of time and patience, and even physical stamina! She is a joy, though, and smiles A LOT. Her full name is McKindrey LeAnne Parkinson.  McKindrey is from the Shelley family tree, and LeAnne is David's maternal grandmother's name. McKay pointed out that she has 5 capitals in her name.  That was not on purpose! We just liked the combination of names.

Born January 28, 2013 at 2:59pm
20.5 inches long
7 lbs 14 oz.
born at 41 weeks, a week past my due date

Well, David will be finishing his Bachelor's degree in chemical engineering here at BYU in the next 3 weeks!  We will be moving to New Mexico, too.  It will be a very busy next couple of weeks. We can't wait for all the great things that await our little family of three!

Leaving for the hospital!

I have monitors on my tummy under the sheets, which account for my extra huge, lumpy appearance!

With our nurse, Deb, and our midwife, Michelle.

With Dad in the hospital.

Pictures taken at 5 days old!

About a month and a half old... I think. All bundled up for a walk, making a classic "McKindrey face."

Hurry up and wait!

Well, it's that time in pregnancy where every day feels like a century!  I'm not necessarily uncomfortable physically (although I am looking forward to the perks of no longer being pregnant), mostly I'm just anxious to have a cute little baby already!  We are due this upcoming Monday, January 21st, Martin Luther King Jr. day, 4 days from now.... you know the one.  However, I have a feeling she will be late.  Most first pregnancies are, right?  I'm trying to enjoy my last days on Earth prior to eternal motherhood.  This is what the midwife recommended, rather than going crazy trying to induce labor, but I will admit I get a little tweaky and excited when ANYTHING happens that seems remotely related to labor. Ha!

Last weekend some good friends threw me a baby shower here in Provo.  We played some fun games, ate pancakes, and were serenaded live!  It was very fun, and I was reminded of how lucky I am for friendship :)

Last night we went to the BYU basketball against St. Mary's.  It was a close game the second half and we thought we had won when we scored a two pointer that put us ahead with only 3 seconds left.  Amazingly, a St. Mary's player recovered the ball and shot from nearly half court...and MADE IT.  We were all astounded.  And very sad.  BUT, it was a fun game to watch, and we had great company.

Baby shower games!

BYU basketball game.

9 months pregnant! This picture makes me look a lot like the Pillsbury Doughboy...