Som’s Blog

This is only 8 weeks late, but I figure better late than never, right? I don’t want Preston thinking we forgot about her. Our baby girl, Preston Jean, was born on February 19 weighing in at 6 lbs. 15 oz, and was 20.5 inches long.

She made quite the dramatic entrance into the world. She was actually scheduled to be born via c-section at 9:30 in the morning on February 19th. Due to the circumstances and difficulties surrounding Allen’s birth, both we and my doctor felt it would be best to wait until her due date (which was February 18th) and if she had not come by then, proceed with the scheduled c-section. I was dreading the surgery, but wanted a healthy baby more than anything, so I agreed to it.

On Thursday, the 18th, I actually went in to labor, only I thought it was false labor because all of the symptoms pointed to that. I spent the whole night with awful contractions until Som convinced me we needed to get to the hospital. My mindset was, “Why go to the hospital now when it’s just false labor and they are going to send us back home, then we will have to come back again in the morning?” Well, it wasn’t false labor. We left for the hospital at 5:00 am, checked in at 5:25, and she was born at 6:10 am, about 3 hours before our scheduled c-section. Oh yeah, and I rode in an ambulance because I waited too long. Yes, I am brilliant.

We are so excited to have Preston join our family! She is so adorable and sleeps well. I think that is my favorite part so far–Allen never slept, so this is a welcome change!

Allen loves his baby sister! He is always asking to give her loves and smooches. And he thinks he is so cool when we let him hold her. I am so glad he has adjusted well to his new role.

So, this post is many weeks late, but what can I say? I’m busy being pregnant and lazy.

Allen at our ward Christmas party with Santa. I thought he would be more wary of Santa, but he did fine. Probably because he saw there were gifts involved.

Vigorously decorating his Christmas cookies. The boy loves sprinkles!

Decorating a gingerbread house with his cousin Eloise.

Our gingerbread house was only good enough to win third place this year.

We took Allen sledding on Christmas Eve and he absolutely loved it!!! He would giggle all the way down.

Allen was actually excited to open his gifts from Santa (a Woody doll and Yo Gabba Gabba mega-bloks) and play with them. But he wanted nothing to do with the presents from Som and I. He was content to play with his blocks and kept saying no when we asked if he wanted to open more. I take that as a good sign–it means he’s not super-greedy, right?

We received our first snow on Sunday night, so yesterday I took Allen and his friend Elijah out to enjoy it. They loved it!!! They wanted to make sure they dusted the snow off everything they could reach, and of course ate a bunch of the snow also. Allen kept calling it “ice” because he loves to eat ice, and this was just as good to him!

Here they are Army crawling down the hill.

Poor Allen cried when I had to bring them back inside, but it was below freezing, so it’s not like they could stay out there all day.

So, we haven’t taken the time to post anything this summer because we were far too busy enjoying it. It was the best Alaskan summer we have ever experienced. The weather was perfect most days, which is very unusual for Alaska, so we took advantage of it and spent most days outside just enjoying the sunshine. Allen became quite the pool baby–his favorite thing to do was go hot tubbin’ with the ladies! (We refer to it as hot tubbing because we still have to fill the pool up with the warm water from inside the house.)

He loves the water!!!!

We took a trip down to Utah in June for my brother’s wedding (which ended up being on the same weekend as Som’s brother’s wedding, so Som had to fly back early in order to make it to both). We spent most of the time in the Salt Lake and Cache Valley area, but we did take a drive to the exciting metropolis of Vernal, Utah, where his wife is from.

Allen’s favorite part of the reception was when we left and took him to Krispy Kreme and showed him the donuts. He couldn’t believe his eyes!!!

Soaking up the sun with his cousin Eloise at the Hyrum Dam.

Enjoying the afternoon with his cousins at my sister’s house in Hyrum.

Ready to jump into the pool at our hotel in Vernal–it was great because they had a kiddie pool that he could walk around in. He was in heaven!!!

Having a popsicle with his albino cousins.

Back in Alaska we took as many trips around the state that we had time for.

Hiking Byron’s Glacier. Of course Allen spent the whole time either throwing rocks into the water or trying to jump in himself.

My brother and his family came up to visit in June and Allen loved playing with his cousin Sea Bass (Sebastian, who had just turned one before they came up).

Giving Sea Bass a smooch overlooking the sea lions at the Sea Life Center.

On the beach in Seward. It was such a beautiful day!!!

Again, in the pool, this time with Sea Bass (yet another albino cousin–is everyone on my side of the family really that pale???)

Just had to throw this picture in because, really, how precious is he???

In July we took a trip down to Homer with some other members of the family. It remains our favorite place in Alaska.

Allen’s helping Aunt Mary do some clam digging.

Our little family outside the Salty Dawg Saloon on the Homer Spit. It is supposed to be world-famous, but I doubt anyone has heard of it unless he or she has actually been there (although, when we were in Utah, I did see someone with a Salty Dawg sweatshirt on, if that counts for anything). It is one of the nastiest establishments ever and I don’t recommend actually stepping foot inside, but it is an Alaskan landmark.

Playing on the beach during low tide.

In August we took Allen to the state fair. He is still too little to ride any of the rides, but he sure loved looking at all the animals.

He loved the petting zoo since he got to feed the animals right from his hand (and he snacked on the animal food a little, too).

His favorite part was the rainforest exhibit (particularly the turtles). It was great because they usually just have educational games in the kids’ exhibit, but this year they had it all decked out with actual rainforest animals. You could even get your picture taken holding an alligator or crocodile (no, thanks) or any other animal they had (including an albino boa constrictor–it was huge!).

I suppose the biggest news of the summer is that we are expecting our second baby in February.

Can’t you tell how excited Allen is about having another baby around???

It was a sad day. Allen has had long hair since the day he was born, so I decided it was time to try something new. He has had 5 or 6 trims so far, but this time we took the clippers to it and it is all gone. I was a little worried about shaving it all off because then he wouldn’t be a baby anymore. He looks like such a little boy now! He is getting so old!

Here he is right before we took the clippers to it. Poor, unsuspecting child.

All the hair. Kind of gross, I know, but I wanted to show how much came off.

Enduring the clippers. He actually did really well and just sat there most of the time.

The finished product. He was really itchy and didn’t want to sit and smile for the camera, obviously. I think he looks so much older now. People didn’t even recognize him. My dad had to look at him real close before he believed it was him (it probably didn’t help that my sister told him he was Allen’s cousin).

I would love, love, LOVE to win this giveaway! These shelves are so great for food storage (and way out of our price range right now!). Shelf Reliance is giving away one of their Harvest shelf systems. I spoke to one of their reps and he said this is the best option for people that need the shelves shipped to them (most space and biggest bang for your buck, basically, if you have to pay for shipping, which I would since nothing is available in AK). Anyway, check out their website and enter to win if you want some food storage shelves.

www.shelfreliance.com/blog

I took Allen to the zoo for the first time last week. It was a great day to go–nice and sunny, and all the animals were out and about. Allen loved looking at all the animals and birds (he is a HUGE fan of birds!).

Allen with the polar bears. They are so fun to watch!

The sad little eagles. They can’t fly (one of them only has one wing and has been at the zoo since 1973). It makes me sad to think they just have to sit there instead of being out flying.

The wolves were Allen’s favorite to watch. Laurie and Eloise ran up and down their fence, so all the wolves came over to play and ran along with them. Allen loved it.

The alpaca. They are such funny little creatures.

Another food storage blog I frequent, http://everydayfoodstorage.net, is having a giveaway for her new book that is being released this Friday. It is called I Can’t Believe it’s Food Storage and has a lot of great information about getting started with your 3-month supply, as well as your long-term food storage, and 100 recipes using your long-term food storage. (For some reason I cannot get the links to work in my posts–sorry!)

Allen had a great Easter weekend. We dyed eggs with my family on Saturday, then had an egg hunt with the grandkids on Sunday after church. Allen wasn’t exactly sure what was going on, but he definitely wanted in on the action once he saw candy was available.

Allen helped dye the eggs….

…but what he really wanted was to drink the dye! He is always asking for food or drink–you’d think we starve the kid.

After all the excitement, Allen was too tired to do more than sleep on our Sunday walk.

I have been on a food storage kick the last few months and was lucky enough to find a great website that sends out bi-weekly “babysteps” checklists throughout the whole year. It is great because you get one every two weeks and work on just that checklist, so you don’t get too overwhelmed with getting all of your food storage done all at once. At the end of the year, you have all of your food storage (a year supply) plus your emergency preparedness (72 hours kits, etc). I love it! Now they are having a giveaway of a binder with all the babysteps checklists, as well as a bunch of other great stuff, and I really want to win! (I really prefer everything to be on paper, not just on the computer!) So check out the site:

http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net