Here’s more hiking in the fall, because fall is the best time to hike. Even when I am pretty out of shape because I had a baby two months ago. Just Joe and I, + baby because baby goes everywhere with me. It was nice to spend some time away from the children, which I love but can also be loud.

I love where I live, it’s a beautiful small town. By the way, two-month-old babies are hard. But luckily he is calming down and things are getting a bit easier.

The kids had fall break and I wanted to go do something. I love to travel. But with a fairly young baby, I didn’t want to go somewhere far or very long. So we went to our default location of Dead Horse Point. That’s where the kids picked to go, and it’s always a great vacation to visit cousins and see some beautiful sites.

We went and saw the sunset, hiked, and mostly enjoyed our family. On the way there we stopped at my Grandparents, and the way back we stopped at the Springville Art Museum and Provo Library.

I was glad that I didn’t go far: by the end of our car ride back, Zack was very ready to be done with his car seat.

Fall is a great time to spend outdoors. We haven’t been out much since Zack was born, but lately, we’ve been trying to change that a bit.

We went hiking at Tony’s Grove. There was snow and Curtis wore flip flops. He didn’t enjoy the hike much after a while.

We also went exploring up in Mantua. I love walking through the campground in the fall when no one is there. It has lots of fun places to explore.

Henry’s preschool had a field trip to a corn maze and pumpkin patch. He adored the big straw pyramid and spent a long time climbing and crawling through the tunnels. The kids also finished up their football season. Neither of their teams won that much, but they both had a lot of fun.

I am happy with the way Peter is growing up. He has learned to be obedient and the kind: he’s the first kid to pitch in and help out. He excels with all his school work. He knows what he wants and what he doesn’t want. He hates getting surprised by about anything and struggles to try new food. He loves basketball, and the NBA and more basketball. 

We had a great time on his birthday. We went to his cousin’s house for a party and went to Boondocks to play.

Having a baby is pretty great. But then as I was just starting to get into a good groove, I got a bit sick, baby also got sick and live gets thrown off again. We are both recovering just fine now.

Everything takes a lot longer, especially because Zack prefers to be held all the time. Literally. He sleeps better with a warm person next to him. When I was sick, I wanted a nap so bad and had a tender mercy from the Lord when he slept by himself so I could take a good nap.

This is Henry’s first day of preschool. He is loving preschool: super excited to go and loves to show me all that he does. 

This is Zack’s current version of a smile. 

This little guy is doing just great. Gaining weight, nursing well (which is a happy surprise because I basically didn’t nurse him for the first three weeks of his life) and he’s generally happy. If he’s being held. It’s a lot of work though, just to help someone eat and sleep and poop. I’m glad he’s so cute. 

The remaining children are all doing pretty good at school. Henry loves preschool, and the other kids slipped into their new grades without any fuss. 

The boys started fourth and second grade.

And Zack came home after 19 days in the NICU.

So life is pretty good.

Around midnight: I get up for five minutes to turn on the irrigation. (We have old-fashioned flood irrigation.) Then as I’m going back to sleep shortly thereafter, I roll over and I feel a gush of fluid, and I know…my water broke! No questions about it. I get up, wake up Joe, and we realize we have to go to the hospital. So the next while was spent packing and figuring out where to go that is covered by our insurance and takes care of preemie babies. I’m still wrapping my mind around the fact that I’m going to have a baby.

Checking in, getting all the paperwork in took a while. And then we waited. I had antibiotics, a couple of steroid shots, and some iffy contractions, and a few attempted naps. Eventually, it turned into Pitocin. Finally, it was a little bit harder to watch the show we were watching but not too bad…and the pressure moved lower…and I knew I was getting close.

So I called in the nurse, and sure enough, we headed over to the OR. (They always deliver preemies in the OR.) And within ten minutes of getting there, and one good contraction, my little guy was here. Pink, small but not too small, and crying just a bit. I held him for a minute, and then they whisked him off to evaluate him.

At five weeks early, he was 5 lbs 11 oz, and 19 1/4 long. No problems with breathing, a little cold but otherwise just perfect for his age. The strangest thing of most lasting impact is an extra thumb on his right hand! (I have no problem with that, it just makes him an interesting baby and we will figure out if we need to do anything about it down the road.)

Even though this wasn’t the birth I expected, I’m happy with how everything went. I had plans to deliver at a birth center, and I frankly wasn’t very happy with the care I was getting and had a lot of doubts. Going to the hospital wasn’t a disappointment. Labor and recovery were easy for me: I was watching TV through my contractions up until the end, and that lasted about twenty minutes. (I’ve never had an epidural not because I am a strong person, but simply because I have easy labors.)

Baby is doing well, and I’ll write more about him later!

We found out about this little adventure on a blog and headed up one Saturday. We combined a visit to the caves with a picnic at Second Dam. And then when Henry fell into the stream and got all wet after proclaiming boldly, “I can do it myself!” we went home.

Curtis is wearing a Superman cape because he is awesome. We also rowed the canoe clear across the lake this same day. I say “we”, but it was mostly Joe.