Our life lately. . .

Things are still going well with our family of five. I am so happy that our boys love each other.  So far we haven’t had to deal with any jealousy issues.  I’m still trying to figure out how to balance preschool and our other activities along with a newborns naps and nursing times.  Overall, things are going great and right now I’m looking forward to adding working out to the schedule too.  The boys love their snuggle time with Owen and sometimes our biggest struggle during the day is who’s turn is it with Owen.  Excitement over the baby have worn down a little bit with the boys, but they still have so many precious moments with him.  Here are two that I captured this last week: 

 

(pretending ‘nap time’ together.  Noah read him a book while Hyrum gave kisses.)

Brett went to New York for work and came back with prizes.  The boys loved their new PJ’s.

We harvested the Spearmint from our garden.  The boys loved picking all the leaves.  I’m excited to add them more in my cooking and have herbal tea when we have sick tummies.  I dehydrated a bunch for storage and we made a couple of yummy smoothies.  The flavor is so strong that one leaf goes a long way.

 

And last, but definitely not least Hyrum is learning how to play Basketball at our community gym. So far he seems to like basketball more than soccer.  It’s cute watching him practice dribbling.  His favorite part of practice is stealing the ball.  Hyrum really wanted to show Dad his cool moves, so Brett came to the practice today.  It was fun having the whole family there.  Noah made some nice shots too and practiced passing the ball.  

 

Life at Home

The last few weeks have gone by so fast!  I can’t believe that Owen is already approaching three weeks old.  I think no matter how many kids you have each one teaches you something new about being a parent.  This is the first baby we’ve had while Brett has been out of school and working in the ‘real world’.  Life is less crazy now in a lot of ways and I am so glad to be where we are.  With our other boys I followed the ‘nurse when they make any noise’ rule.  They were great babies, but really had no routine and I always felt like I couldn’t do anything, because my schedule was so unpredictable (sometimes I would nurse every hour, sometimes every two).  This time I decided to follow the Baby Wise technique and I have been loving it!  Owen is such a GREAT baby so far.  He always has a four hour stretch and then a two and a half hour stretch of sleep at night.  I don’t need to rock or nurse him to sleep at night either.  It’s great!  I’m actually very optimistic that he will sleep through the night before too long.  Anyway, the last couple of weeks have been full of fun.

 

Grandma Rushton came and stayed with us for two weeks.  She was my right hand, left hand, and everything else too.  We were very grateful that she could come and be the fill-in Mom for the boys while I was gone and when I couldn’t get around very well.  The boys really miss her and still ask when she’s coming back.  I was so glad that Owen came when he did, but I must admit that I had planned on doing some canning and ran out of time.  My mom was kind enough to offer her help so that I could get my yearly canning in ( I really love canning).  We now happily have 26 quarts of delicious peaches and 14 pints of sweet applesauce.  My mom ended up doing almost the entirety of applesauce herself, because we started the process just as some crazy boys got home from camping. 

Brett wins Dad of the year when he took the boys camping.  It was a great experience for them.  What I hear from the boys is that they melted big marshmallows and went on a hike.  They also had story time together where Brett told the kids about the Restoration and then Hyrum made up a story about the Squirrels and the Fly Kings. . .he has quite the imagination.

Another highlight was BYU’s win.

We were also very happy to have some of the Partridges visit us just after my mom went home. Owen has a cute little cousin that he got to hang out with.  She’s just a few weeks older than Owen and they look like little twins together in their cute unplanned coordinating outfits.  It’s great having cousins so close in age.

Oh, and Hyrum and Noah are loving their little brother. Hyrum loves holding and snuggling Owen.  He can sit on the couch and hold him for about 15 minutes without getting fidgety.  They both love giving him kisses and cuddling.  Earlier this week Owen was squeaking a little bit and Noah ran to him and kept shoving his blankie's tag in his face saying, "Tag! Tag! Here's your tag!"  He started getting frustrated until I explained that Owen doesn't know how to use his tag yet.  Noah, in his cute way, then explained to Owen how to use it. I can't remember his exact words, but he explained how he could suck on the tag or twist it with your finger inside.  I am loving how well things are going with their transition of three boys.  

 

OWEN'S DAY!!!

September 21st was the date scheduled for my c-section. At 38 weeks I was feeling very pregnant and ready to burst. My body was exhausted and I was doing everything I could to not go into labor too early before my mom got here. Luckily, we have been blessed with great neighbors who were willing to be 'on call' just in case I went into labor early. On Monday (Sept. 19th) morning at 3 am I woke up with a little spill feeling. I was pretty confused by the sensation, because it wasn't a gush of fluid like I

had with Hyrum when my water broke. I sat in the bathroom for a while before I finally decided to wake up Brett and figure out what to do. After some discussion we decided to just go back to bed and make a trip to the hospital at a decent hour in the morning. It didn't take long after laying down when the contractions began to come stronger and closer together. By 5am my contractions were five minutes apart and I was not feeling very happy. I was also certain at this point that my water had broken, it was just not a gush like I expected. We called up my neighbor who kindly came over to stay with the boys. When we got to the hospital there wasn't too much waiting before they began prepping me for surgery. Going into this delivery I'll be honest in saying that I was very scared. The thought of someone cutting me open (I always visualize a chain saw), digging around in my insides, and then removing a living being from my body makes me a bit faint. Anyway, before I went into the OR Brett gave me a blessing that I was so grateful to receive. I really felt a calm come over me and peace that everything would be alright. The surgery went very well. I had every confidence in my ObGyn and I felt like the whole surgery was done in half the time that I expected. By 7am I was holding

our cute little Owen on my chest before they took him back to get cleaned. We are so glad to have this cute little man in our family. We had a hard time deciding officially on a name. In the days prior to his birth we began calling him Baby Bubbles. Hyrum and Noah were VERY disappointed when we let them know that he would not be known as Bubbles to the world. They still call him Baby Bubbles sometimes, so I'm pretty sure that will be a nick-name keeper.

We feel that Heavenly Father really blessed us during this pregnancy. The Doctor let us know that he was Coombs positive,

but we never experienced any complications from it. I am A- with an

anti-C antibody and little Owen is O+, had our blood ever met in the

womb we would have had some unhappy complications. We're so glad

that he stayed where he was supposed to and my body stayed where it

was supposed to:). Having him come in the morning to us was nice, because we had the whole day to spend with him and for the family to meet. Hyrum and Noah loved him from the moment they met him. It was a great day and we are so happy to have Bubbles with us. Blessings never cease.

Magic Happens

A (Utah Ute fan) friend at work sent me this earlier today:

This was my response:

Baby Bubbles!

So he's finally arrived, baby bubbles (as the boys call him)!  I'll let Steph tell the details when she's up to it. But here's the events of the weekend.  On Saturday Steph was having some painful cramping/contractions so we went in to the hospital to get checked out.  About 2 hours later we were back home.  Sunday was fairly uneventful (at least as far as pregnancy goes).  Then Steph's water broke around 3:15am (why is it always so dang early). After waiting just a little bit her contractions were clocking in around every 5-7 minutes and since we knew we were having a c-section we didn't want to let labor set in too much so away to the hospital we went.  Big thanks to Stephanie Grant for coming over in the middle of the night and staying with our boys!

So beautiful, even at 4am mid contraction

Yes I'm wearing BYU apparel. . . GO COUGS!

At 6:59am our little guy was born.  Owen Edwin Partridge weighed in at 7lbs 6oz, and is 20" long.  Here are a few pictures detailing his first few hours on this side of the veil!

Less than 2 minutes old!

Still trying to figure things out.

Hello mommy. . . nice to finally meet your outsides!

Would you turn that flash off already!

Are we done yet? I seem to be the only one without clothes and I'm cold!

Score!

Hyrum improved a ton with his soccer compared to last year. It's still a blast watching 3-4 year olds running around on the field.  Tonight was his last game and he was SOOO excited to have scored 2 goals (even with a little help from the opposing team on the last one:)).  He still has a lot to learn about the sport if he wants to continue playing, but I did get a kick out of him explaining to me that the red team were the bad guys and he had to get the ball away from them.

 And this is great proof of the success that was had on the field considering the lack of attention span for one picture:)

Noah loves walking around with his tummy poking out and talking about the 'baby in his tummy'.  Brett got a shot of the boys in action.  They're excited for their new little brother, as am I.  The past few days have been pretty tough on my body.  Usually when I stand up from a sitting position it takes me a moment to align myself, because I always feel like he's about to fall out.  . . really.  I've been having a lot of contractions and am pretty surprised I haven't gone into full labor yet. . . we'll see what the weekend brings:)

Has anyone else been having problems with blogger and their pictures getting centered weird, or is it just me?

SOS and Age SOS

It's a great week! This weekend some of the Partridges were in town for a BYU soccer game and to visit Grandma Partridge. It was really nice being able to spend time with the family. Brett got to watch the game and go golfing. I was very happy to discover that my two older nephews were looking to earn a few dollars. . . best thing for a 9months pregnant women to hear:)! I put the boys to work and they did a great job doing some of the work that I have quit doing.

Oh, and Brett and I are both growing the ripe old age of 29 this week. It's going to be a fun year as we approach the big 3-0! It's a great time to be adding another little baby into the family.