The Smith Corner

It's Fall already!

2011-10-20T19:44:00.000-07:00

I meant to get pictures of Kash when he was 6 months old.....well needless to say after trying to decide where to go to get them. We ended up finally getting some. Our photographer Emily Herbert did awesome and we loved the. She suggested we do some of the family too. So we got a bunch of the kids and of all of us too. Love love love them and so glad that we were able to have a great evening to do them and some pretty good cooperation from Kash and Kalli.

Here's some of my favorites although there were so many that I ended up choosing just a few!

Kash was 9 months in these pictures. Such a cutie! And kind of a little monster too:) He's into everything!

Easter time

2011-05-21T21:27:00.000-07:00

Well I think I feel like I'm always trying to keep up with the little ones. Kash is crawling now and wants to be in EVERYthing! Kalli loves that it's warm outside and wants to be out every moment she can. If dad leaves to go outside without her she's scrambling to look for her boots. Pretty cute. The other day was priceless. We were looking at horses and Leland had his arms crossed and she kept checking on him to see what he was doing while he was talking to this guy. So I told him to change what he was doing and he put his hands on his hips and sure enough within about 15 sec. she had her hands on her hips. So cute! She's been being a little copy catter lately so we really have to watch what she's doing! Her latest is "dang it" about everything. Which surely is better than what it could be, but I'm wondering how many times she's going to say it tomorrow in nursery.
Easter was great, Kalli had the hang of gathering up all the easter eggs and candy. Luckily she wasn't crazy about it and fighting for them, but just had a good old time filling her basket.

Our first easter egg hunt was with Abbie and Haley's work! What a riot! Very fun!

Then we had one at the Lewisville park. Tons of little kids and tons of fun!

and pictures with the Easter Bunny!

Pretty sure the morning easter egg hunt at our house is on the other camera, so someday I'll have to get them downloaded. It was pretty fun, to watch Kalli. Pretty sure Kash slept through the Easter egg hunt.

Kash in his new Easter church outfit, What a cutie! So smiley!

It's so hard to get a good picture of them both looking and not pulling faces, but here's one of them both in their Easter dresses and suit. One of the first nice days outside!

Then came the Easter Egg Hunt at Grandma and Grandpa Barney's. Very fun! Hope we can keep doing this every year, all the grandkids loved and everyone else was pretty entertained!

Kate and Kalli hunting together!

We got to go to the temple when Teshia got married, Kalli got to stay and watch a movie in the car with Kara and Melissa while we were in the temple. And when we were done got her to pose.

a good "I'm going there someday" picture

Hanging out with cousins at the reception

Leland had to work, but I got to go with the little ones to Twin Falls for Nick's graduation from nursing school. Got to see the Falls and they were beautiful. Full of water with all the extra water we're having this spring.

Trying to get Kalli and Kash to pose together, didn't quite work, but a good memory

Another attempt

Congratulations Nick! Way to go!

Looking forward to a fun summer. So glad it's finally warm and we've been able to hang out outside sometimes. Need to get the garden started, Nick borrowed a big tiller and got the big job done, yeah, thanks again. Now need to start getting things planted. Our latest adventure has been to find a minivan. Yes had to breakdown for convenience and get the dreaded minivan. Grrr, I know those that have them love them, but I swore I'd never. But the alero was dying and just felt like getting a little car wouldn't be as convenient as the minivan, so I guess we'll see how it goes. Leland already had a few calls from his coworkers making fun of him, but oh well. We decided tinting the front windows may be a good idea. Hahaha. I know it's not that big of deal, and we'll probably fall in love with it.

Leland just got a new position at his job and now is the new West side deputy. Hopefully it will be a move that he will like and it will be all good. It does give him more flexibility with his schedule, but also makes him on call all the time on his four days off.

Guess that's probably most of the latest news. Need to get some kids to bed, before it gets even later. Church tomorrow and they should have been in bed long ago.

Happy Summer! Hope to see you camping!!

Jammie time

2011-04-04T22:20:00.000-07:00

Well why I'm at it tonight might as well add jammie time. Plus it's easier to do while they are sleeping...I was saying Kash is so good, but he was not liking me doing this while he was awake. He wanted to be right in the middle of it and no toys were making him happy. Mostly he just needed to go to sleep. But he was much happier when I was paying attention to him. We just went in for his 6 month appointment last week and he was 18 lb. 2 oz. 6o something percentile with his weight and I can't remember his height but he's in the 80th percentile with that. Not sure where he got his height? He doing great and impressed Dr. Edwards with all he's doing. Sitting up all by his big boy self. Now he's starting to get mobile and reaching all over for things and trying to pull himself up.

Kalli loves her little brother.

Kalli's "cheese"

Kalli gives good kisses. Kash looks a little worried :)

Big grins

Of course I can't get both of them to look at the camera at the same time and grin

This one of Kash is priceless and Kalli's all cheesers

Sleepy time. They are out and mommy should get that way too!

A little catching up

2011-04-04T20:34:00.000-07:00

Once again it's been forever since I've updated this. Couldn't believe it was still Halloween stuff when I look on here last. Way past due for and update and I know I'm missing a ton of stuff. But here's a little bit of what's been going on.

A few weeks ago we went swimming at Green Canyon. Alex and Whitney's cousins Kelsey and Kinnley went too and Abbie, Brock and Haley. Fun Fun. Kalli had a bunch of fun in her little life jacket swim suit, but got a little too dareful at times. Kash loved just lounging in the little floaty. They both seem to love the water....hopefully they will swim like their daddy and not sink like mommy :)

Kinnley chilling with Kash

Alex and Kash

A few pictures of Kash back in February I think it was. He was just starting to really smile a lot. Soo cute!

With his pillow from Grandma Barney

Cute cute! He's such a good baby! Hanging out in his pj's with daddy!

Kalli's 2nd birthday! Holy cow hard to believe it's been that long. Grandpa Barney had surgery the same day so we met everyone at Perkins that night so we could all visit him too.

She even blew out her candle!

Ben helping her unwrap her little doodle board. Can't remember what they are called, but she loves to draw on it.

Her new boots! She loves them, probably too much. We got them a size too big thinking that she would be able to wear them for the fair. Pretty sure she might have them worn out before then.

Good times, thanks everyone for coming!

Showing off one of Grandma's babies she was making while waiting for Grandpa to get out of surgery. They are cute cute!

Riding her horsey to see Grandpa

Grandpa and Kash! Kalli was too scared of everything on the hospital bed to pose with Grandpa

Welcome Kash

2010-10-26T14:40:00.000-07:00

We are so excited to have Kash here. I ended up working Sunday and by the end of the shift the contractions had started. For so long I had wondered if what I was having before was contractions, but these were regular and seemed pretty obvious. So I headed down to labor and delivery to see what their thoughts were on it. I ended up being in labor and at 3:35 Kash was born. The first epidural didn't and I may be a wimp, but thank heavens the second one did. I guess if I had some other form of pain medicine I might have been ok, but holy cow those contractions hurt when I was waiting to see if it was working. The second epidural was bliss and everything was much better then.

He was 8 lb. 9 oz. and 21 inches long. So as far as weight literally almost twice as big as Kalli was. Maybe it was from him being my second or I'm not sure, but it was a little more tender of a recovery than it was with Kalli. He's four weeks old today and I think we are finally figuring things out together. Kalli loves her little brother and is always wanting to feel his hair and touch his face and tries to give him his pacifier all the time, whether he's sleeping or not. She finally isn't stealing his anymore, well not that much, but she has seemed to find comfort in her thumb and has started sucking it. Grrr. Never before really ever did, guess it's her little thing since she has to have the attention shared now. We've given in a little and let her keep on of the pacifiers around thinking it will be easier to take that away than to chop off her thumb.

He's a cutie with lots of dark brown hair, opposite of all Kalli's blonde hair that she was born with. When he finally goes to sleep at night he sleeps pretty good, but half the time he won't lay down so we have to figure something else out and he's ended up sleeping on our chests a bunch as we fall asleep trying to get him to sleep. We are so excited he's here and safe and healthy and that we got to come right home with him. Yeah!

Kalli loves him bunches and is so funny. She likes to make the sound he does when he eats and always goes up in his face saying Hi!

Summer stuff

2010-09-03T21:35:00.000-07:00

We had a great visit from Aunt Trinette and her girls and Grandma and Grandpa Smith. I know I should do better with the camera and don't even know where all the pix of everyone all together are. grrr. But we did have the camera when we went to Leo's.

So yeah who's a little focused on his speed car racing game?

I wondered if she would, but Kalli loved the slide and even went down by her big girl self

Good Food!

Riding the airplanes little rides was great.

With Nicole :)

Couple pictures from Easter that were just too cute not to put in.

Kalli found her new best friend.....just not sure if it's Rhett or Howdy :) She loves riding Howdy with Rhett

Well we did get one good camping trip in this summer. Lots of fun and had a good time, just wish it could have lasted longer.

We did a lot of this....sitting around and some fishing and cooking some food....mostly eveyone played with Brock's Potato gun which I just realized we didnt' get any pix of!

Kalli had a great time and was pretty good, but loved being way too close to the fire.

It was way hot and we all had a fun time at Hiese, Kalli loved the water, and especially playing with Kara.

With daddy

It's been forever....

2010-07-22T22:09:00.000-07:00

I'm definately not very good at keeping up on this. I kept thinking I would do it and just peeked at it today and realized holy cow it's been forever! So much I could write about, but it I do it'll be forever. Leland finished his POST training this spring and passed! Yeah! So excited for it to be done and to have our family back together most all weeks instead of just the weekends. He's been working and mostly enjoys his job, just not so much stupid people :) He's also kept busy riding Torque and trying to keep him going and then doing a bunch of the irrigating on the farm. Pretty sure we didn't know how much extra work that was going to be. We're so glad he passed his training and that he loves his job.

Kalli is so cute and so naughty :) Well not really she just loves to get into everything. And I being very large with child do not always do well with chasing after her. Speaking of, due October 4th or I can only hope closer to the ultrasound date of September 25th we are expecting a little boy! Yeah!!! My mom can only tell you how excited I was when we were at the ultrasound and he had a little outie :) Leland was in Boise and thought I was lying for sure when I called. Kalli and I celebrated with McDonalds that day! I know big spenders.

Kalli loves mowing the lawn with us, and then has to get on it every chance she has. But I guess I guess I don't mind that too much, because at least that means she's not trying to play in the dog kennel or dog house.

Kalli has been so fun and cute. Her latest is wearing everyone's shoes and or her dad's hats all over and getting into her pony tail holders. Oh and yes LOVES dog food! Well at least getting into it and brings us a handful with one in her mouth. Yuck!

She found her belly button and has to show it off :)

Uncle Nick has a new kitty. She was so funny chasing it around half bent over trying to catch it. Now she motion with her hands for the horses to come over and kisses at them. So funny!

Realizing how long it's been I forgot that I never even mentioned the broken arm story. Oh well it's long over. She's a tough cookie. She had a cast for I think it was 2 weeks and was such a trooper. Pretty tough since it took us a couple days to realize that we needed to get it looked at. This was after a long day of seeing doctors and then going to visit grandma at work to show off her new pink cast!

Uncle Brock gave her her first tatoo :) I couldn't find a picture after everyone had signed it. Better have one, but couldn't seem to find it.

Bath time was a little different, but we did good and only got it a little wet once :)

Yeah it was much easier coming off then going on!

Her first piggie tails. So cute!!

Kalli's Pix

2010-02-03T18:06:00.000-08:00

Here's a couple pictures we got of Kalli and us.

We finally got some of Kalli for Christmas and for her one year old. She was quite a trooper getting lots of pictures taken that day! She's fun, has quite the personality and keeps us all on our toes. We're soo glad she is doing so good....you'd never know over a year ago she was in the hospital for 2 months.

Kalli's ONE!~

2010-01-08T17:01:00.000-08:00

Monday the 4th we celebrated Kalli's First Birthday! Pretty hard to believe that it's already been a year. We had a little celebration and had cousins and aunts and uncles and grandma and grandpa. Pretty fun!

She got to try out her own cake and absolutely LOVED it! I have no idea where she got her love for sweets :)

She got a bunch of toys and some more clothes so we can finally put away all the ones that are pretty snug on her. And her daddy's favorite.....we got her a little aquarium to set up in her room and have some fishies to look at......when she should be sleeping :)

Kalli's Grandma and Grandpa Smith got to come out and spend Thanksgiving with us. Kalli loved playing with her Grandpa!

Christmas was fun. Oddly enough our Christmas tree stayed up the whole time without any little girlies pulling it over. In fact oddly enough Kalli was really good about the tree and only pulled off a few of the unbreakable ornaments we had put down at the bottom.

We spent a lot of the day over at Grandma and Grandpa Barney's with my family. First time we've all been here for Christmas in a little while. It was a fun day. Leland had to work, but only got called in at 630 in the morning and then not until about 430 at night. So we got to spend most of the day with him.

I think this was my mom's favorite gift. Abbie and Brock had one of their friends blow up one of my mom and dad's wedding pix and framed it. Very cool!

This one probably came in a close second though. Yes my mother is armed and dangerous now. Dangerous being the key word! :) My mom wanted a gun for Christmas so my dad got her a gun. So now all the boys are jealous :)

And a little surprised. Apparently I missed Wade's reaction on camera, but Amy said it was priceless!

Let it snow Let is snow Let is snow....please

2009-12-10T22:22:00.000-08:00

Well it's been forever since I've been on here. Leland's working and Kalli is sleeping so I figured this might be my bestest chance. Winter has hit here, but not so much the snow yet and we would love it to come and warm things up! Last weekend I think it was we went out and found us a Christmas tree. Haley and Nick, Abbie and Brock, and us went out on search for a new tree around Spencer. We'd never been out that way looking and had heard good things. Well let's just say there wasn't a ton, we found one and it might be kind of Charlie Brownish, but we cut it down together and it was a fun time. Kalli even got to go a long. She started out on my back, but Leland thought I was being too slow and going to fall down the mountain with her. So the manly man had to take over :) She did good. It was cold cold cold and we had her all bundled up, by the time we were done deciding which tree (yes it did take awhile) we were all ready to get back to the truck and get warmed up.

Let's see where to get started. Leland got promoted in his job and now has his own car with flashing lights. He got moved up to patrol and is just getting off his training and is now officially really and truly out on his own. He's really liking it and I keep reminding him that he has to be nice and not give tickets....so far so good, just a lot of warnings. :)

We headed down to SLC in October for Kalli to have a check up with her surgeon. She hadn't been eating spoon fed foods very good at all and our pediatrician recommended to go and have the surgeon see what he thought. Well wouldn't you know, literally like a day after I made the appointment she started going to town and eating great. And by the time the day for the appointment came along she was cruising along. So we just had a nice visit and got a picture of Kalli with Dr. Scaife.

Yeah!

I guess most of our updates have to do with Kalli. She's growing and getting big. Crawling all over the place and getting into things. She says dadadada all the time, and sometimes I like to think she says mama, but I think mostly that's just noises that sound kind of like it. She started crawling probably about a month ago now and her latest news is she's finally getting her two bottom teeth in. We haven't been in any big hurry for that...I've heard the later they come in the better so one can only hope.

We had a fun little Halloween. Leland had to work so I just took Kalli to a few places and let everyone see her cute flower costume. She was a cutie!

Rita had some puppies. Leland stayed up with her all night while she was laboring and finally at around 3 am they all showed up. Amazing how fast they grow. We still have 2 left that we are trying to sell. The 2 left are actually our favorites and if it wasn't the dead of winter, I'm pretty sure Leland would have to keep one of them. We were hoping for some extra Christmas money, but guess a bunch will have to go into getting the Alero worked on. Oh well you can always plan on something coming up when you think you might have a little extra. Here she is right before. She let's Kalli crawl all over her. She's been outside most recently and it's been kind of different not having her in here to entertain Kalli. Hopefully we'll get the last two sold soon and she can come back in.

They are pretty cute. We call one of them Frank the Tank and he's probably our favorite, even though we thought for sure a brindle one or the one with all the white on it's face would be. He's just got a great personality.

Guess I should get some sleep and hopefully I can be a little better keeping this updated :)

Summer adventures

2009-08-14T15:04:00.000-07:00

Well it's been a long time since I've updated. We were finally able to finish our pasture after working on it what seemed like nonstop before our trip to Colorado. We ended up letting the horses out on it a couple days before we left. Leland wanted to just stay out and sit on the swing and watch the horses nibble on the pasture. Pretty excited to get them out on pasture.

First we had to go get some logs and poles up in Island park. Rita and Kalli were great up there. Kalli just has a million things to look at so we put her on our backs.....well I guess mostly it was me, because Leland was doing most of the hard work. But we got all of our logs and ended up getting home in time to play softball that evening. Here's Kalli looking at Rita when we sat down to eat something and take a breather.

We headed to Colorado to see Leland's family and go the the Manassa Pioneer Days celebration. It turned out to be a fun trip. We spent a few days hanging out with Leland's family before the celebration started. We went to the Great Sand Dunes and played in the sand for a little while. Trinette and Leland's kids built a big river in the sand.

We got to go to Leland's dad's cabin and roasted hotdogs and marshmallows and had a great time in the outdoors. What a neat place for a cabin with a creek running through close. So pretty! We also got to go swimming. It was a warm swimming pool and we all had a great time. Kalli loved it. Learned to splash and really enjoyed being in the water.

They go all out there for Pioneer days. From what I gather, Manassa was settled by Mormons way back when and there's still a large percentage of LDS people there. During their celebration it goes from a small town of what I guess would be close to the size of Menan to a town filled with around 10,000 people (at least that's what I thought I heard). They have a parade both days that's probably the best parade I've ever seen. Lots of floats, plus the regular fire trucks, tractors, old cars, and horses.

Leland's Aunt Debby's float. Wow it was the coolest! The horses went around and they had music and everything playing. It was spectacular. I can't imagine the work that went into it.

Leland's dad's float. It was very cool! Lady Liberty made through the whole two days with her arm. Cassandra was pretty worried it was going to fall off the last go through.

Then this turtle float is just one of the other ones. It was a great parade!

They also have a carnival set up with some rides, a 5K run, demolition derby, Motocross, fireworks, and probably more. Kalli got to ride the carousel with her daddy :)

We were pretty worn out by the time we were heading home. We ended up driving a new vehicle home (well new to us) that Leland's family found for us and helped us get. Wow they are awesome and we love it! Made the drive home much nicer. We ended up making the trip in a couple days to save our sanity and maybe Kalli's too. She did great for the trip, but she was ready to be out of the car seat for a few days after we got home.

Once we got home we have been trying to catch up on things. We finally got Kalli's room painted and as of today we have carpet. Yeah! Now we can get all of her stuff moved into one room. And hopefully get her moved into her room, if I can survive moving her away from the bedside. I might be a little comfortable with her right there to look at her and check on her when I wake up. The past week we've been trying to help get the horses ready for the fair. So we've been out driving quite a bit. Which has been nice. Leland gets to have the whole fair off so he's super excited. I think we'll end up being down there most the week.

Leland just celebrated his 39th birthday! He ended up having to work, but we had cake and ice cream and he got to blow out candles and make a wish. Any ideas what his wish was?

We're starting Kalli on baby food. We have actually been doing it for awhile, but haven't been really faithful with it. I never had any idea how much work it is to feed them, the bottle is so much easier. So with our trip to Colorado we haven't been as diligent as we'd like to be.

And well that's just a cute picture of Kalli. She's growing and doing great! She's pretty fun. She's been loving out being with the horses. We use the backpack that Trinette gave us and we're just out and about with the horses and driving. She talks to them and likes to try and grab them. She's sitting up pretty well by herself. Just a bit unsteady still, but is pretty much like a normal baby now. Such a cutie!

Our newest addition

2009-06-22T09:41:00.000-07:00

This is a little late in coming, but I was kind of trying to wait for a nice sunny day to get some cute pictures. Well rain rain go away! We need to get the pasture dried out and cut to so we can get some horses out on it. Our newest addition arrived somewhere between midnight and 2 am on June 9th. Leland was working days so I was given the job of checking on Roxie every couple of hours, to make sure all was well with her baby. At midnight I went out and she was pacing and I thought, pretty good chance it will be tonight. Course I've thought that many times when I've checked on mares all night and a week later they still haven't had it :) So then I woke up around 2 am and went to check on her and lo and behold there was a little one stumbling around looking for some chi chi pie as Leland calls it. I ran in to tell Leland who's been so excited for the colt to come that he could hardly stand it. After running out in his underwear to find yes indeed I wasn't crying wolf this time. He decided to go get dressed and we spent awhile out there, making sure it was sucking and dried off enough and just looking at HIM in awe. Yes he is a HIM and he's palamino too. We got what we wanted !! Yeah! We've been out playing with him and he loves to be scratched and so far is very friendly.

And he's doing great even with all this lovely rainy weather we are having. Running and bucking around the corral.

Rita and Tucker making friends....

Camping and such.....

2009-06-17T17:55:00.000-07:00

Here's a picture today of Kalli sleeping. Lately it's either been sleeping like a cute little baby or needing to be entertained. There's no more cute cuddling anymore.....it's let me see what's going on. And don't just sit there let's go go go. She was loving being outside, when the weather was nice, but lately it hasn't been so nice out.

She was styling some new sunglasses while she was out shopping with Daddy.

And no longer is the bumbo chair safe!

We went camping a couple weekends ago. It was one of those, do it now or we will never get another day to be able to go with Leland and I's work schedule. Needless to say the weather wasn't spectacular. We were able to get dinner made before it started raining and Nick and Haley joined us for tinfoil dinners and smores. Then when we finally decided we better get out of the drizzly rain we had my parents camper trailer. So it all actually went pretty well and we stayed relatively dry. Just a little more dirty than we'd love to have it. The rain put us to sleep and the next morning it was drizzling on and off. We almost had breakfast finished before it started again.

Kalli stayed warm and cozy!

On the way home from camping we stopped at Heisi and Kalli had her first swim. It was still kind of drizzly but the warm pool was pretty nice. Kalli liked it okish. She's still not in the stage of splashing and playing in the water in her baths. She likes them and talks and smiles, but hasn't gotten into the splashing and laughing at it yet. So it was kind of just a glorified bath experience for her. She liked watching the people and didn't love getting splashed, hopefully next time it will be a little warmer weather and be an even better swim. Sorry we didn't get any good pictures of it.

No buckin bronc....yet :)

2009-05-29T12:21:00.000-07:00

Well Leland did it! He's been on Torque a couple of times now. Woo Hoo! Seems to be doing good. He says he'll be on him riding out and about before too long. Makes it hard if it's just him and Kalli at home and she's watching from the stroller. Sometimes she's not entirely entertained by it.

Yes we have already had a discussion on this shirt. Go Nascar! He said it was a good one to get out and get dirty.

Kalli's blessing and more....

2009-05-24T19:29:00.000-07:00

This is late, but I feel like I'm still catching up. Kalli was blessed on April 12th. We had to try and fit it in between Leland being gone to POST training in Boise and me going back to work. Turns out it was about the only sunday we could do it and it was kind of a special day too. This year that was Easter and it was also our 1 year anniversary! So pretty cool!

Kalli's Grandma Barney made her blessing dress and did all the embroidery on it. She used the same pattern that was used to make her own blessing dress. So we all think it's pretty extra special!

It was a great day, except that Leland had to leave right after dinner to head back to Boise. We're so glad he's home!! and he passed!!

We all knew he could do it but he was pretty nervous for awhile there. Now the question is will he go back sometime for 13 more weeks if they ask him?

Kalli's Grandma and Grandpa Smith were excited to see her. They came with his sister Trinette and her family about a week after we got home from the hospital. It was good to have them all come.

We ended up having a shower after she got home since she surprised us a little early. This is the cute diaper cake Abbie and Haley made for her. She got some really cute stuff!

Let's see if we can get this started.....

2009-05-13T19:51:00.000-07:00

Well it's now been at least over a month since I've been meaning to get this started. I swear I don't know where the time goes anymore. Kalli keeps us running most the time. Between her, work and nice weather keeping us outside whenever we can.....I struggle to get the extras done. Kalli is just over 4 months old now and we've been home from the hospital just over 2 months. She's really doing great, still eating good and growing really well. At her 4 mo. doctor's appointment she weighed 10 lb. 4 oz. So we are climbing the curve, but still show that she's below the percentiles. The doctor said it would take her probably 18 months to 2 years to catch up. But she's climbing and that's what we are looking for. She seems to be doing all the things that a normal 4 month old baby should be doing. So we are very happy about that. She smiles and coos and goos and tells us lots of stories. No really good giggles yet, but almost. She's starting to like her toys and always wants to be seen. She's just got to where if you leave the room she knows and she wants to see someone or be with someone or else she'll let you know.

A quick little run of events since Kalli decided to surprise us and come 6 weeks early. My water broke on Jan. 3, out of the blue. We just finished tomato soup and grilled cheese and I was trying to work on the bulletin board for primary.....next thing we know Leland is wading through my water in the kitchen trying to find shoes and get me out in the car. I was a little distraught to say the least. Kalli decided to be welcomed here at 5:44 pm the next day, Jan. 4. 20 hours of labor, but since I didn't even start really feeling the contractions until about 3 the next morning it really wasn't as bad as it might sound. And anyone who wants can call me a wimp, but my epidural worked fabulous and I would totally recommend it!

She did great! We were a little distraught about having to keep her in the NICU in Idaho Falls for awhile, but little did we know we had an even bigger adventure coming. The neonatologist came to our hospital room just after we turned out the lights and thought we might get a little sleep. Kalli was born with a tracheoesophageal fistula....meaning her stomach and her esophagus didn't meet together. The esophagus ended in a little pouch and up from the stomach the tube was connected to her lung. Leland flew with her the next morning on a life flight plane from SLC to Primary Children's medical Center. With all of the tests they were doing that day they also found out that she had a perforated bowel. So she went to surgery that night and ended up with a little stoma for her ostomy. They decided she needed a few days recovery, and waited until Friday to do her fistula repair. It ended up being fixable. Yeah! It was a snug repair, but they were able to sew it together and 5 days later she passed her esophagram with no leaks at the repair site. Kalli turned out to be a great eater. The only problem was she kept dropping her heart rate when she ate and sometimes even when she wasn't eating. That kept us in the hospital longer than expected and we ended up still being there when it was time to do the take down of her ostomy. She had kind of a rough recovery from that surgery, but once she turned the right way and started eating her goal feeds soon after getting her ventilator tube out. It seemed an answer to lots of prayers because once she started eating again her heart rate stopped dropping as dramatically and after our 7 day count down of no bradycardias and then a few more to show that she was gaining weight good we were on our way home, March 6th.

I suppose that's not the shortest version of Kalli's beginnings, but relatively it's a shorter one. Now we're home and she doesn't have to have her milk thickened anymore. She's small but almost a regular healthy baby. At four months she's almost outgrowing her newborn clothes. She gets to be with me for 4 days and then with her daddy for 4 days.....but I'm pretty close to declaring we're going to eat rice and beans every night if that's what it takes for me to go part-time.

Well we just finished her first rice cereal and I'm hoping bed time is coming soon. Hopefully I'll keep this updated at least semi regularly once i get it all figured out. :)