Merry Christmas!

12/25/2015

Merry Christmas! And welcome Naomi! Beautiful little angel made her appearance on Christmas morning.  We are all so thankful that everything went well and all the travels of the day were safe on the snowy roads.  I was in Cedar City when this little darling made her debut, so I had to wait several hours before I could see her, but Jacob was keeping us posted.  On Christmas Eve I texted them and asked if there were any signs of imminent labor and they said nothing any different from the past couple of weeks.  Then about 6-7 hours later I got a call at 1 in the morning that her water had broken.  For a first time labor it went very quickly and she was born at 5:31 am.  She is very tiny, weighing only 6 lbs 6 oz, and 20 inches long.

Jacob and Kristi celebrated Christmas and opened all of their presents later that evening, but their most special present was Naomi.

Kristi's baby shower

Today was Kristi's baby shower.  The reality of another baby in the family just became even more real as she only has 7 weeks left until her due date.  She got lots of fun gifts for Naomi and she and Jacob are excited to get everything ready.  I am so excited for this Christmas.  I am planning to spend Christmas Eve at Amber and Kyle's house so I can be there Christmas morning for Kasen's first Christmas.  Then I will head back to Ogden to await Naomi's arrival.  Jake and Kristi are hoping that she arrives after Christmas, but before her due date.

I have been working hard on my home and will soon have it ready to host my kids and grand kids on overnight stays anytime we want. In addition to the extra twin bed I already own, I bought a queen size Murphy bed for my office, and my new living room furniture also has a queen size sleeper sofa, so now I just need to get an appropriate bed for babies!  Amber is going to come stay over night when I host Thanksgiving dinner, so she and Kasen can test out the new accommodations.

Great Aunt!

Well on top of becoming a grandma, and I am now going to be a Great Aunt!  Dakota and Natasha announced at his birthday on Sunday that they are expecting a baby around the first of May.  I am so excited for them!  I know they are nervous because they are still trying to finish school, but I know that everything will work out. I am just so tickled to know that another baby is on the way.  I guess it is the season.

Amber surprised us all by showing up at Dakota's party, so I got more cuddle time with Kasen.  He is so precious.  Amber has caught a cold from someone and she says Kasen is sick too, but he didn't seem to be sick when I saw him.  I could hear in Amber's voice that she was isck though... no fun taking care of a baby when you are sick :(  I hope she gets feeling better soon.

While we were on our Labor Day vacation Jacob was finally able to feel Naomi kicking.  Now he says he can feel her every morning.  Kristi is finally looking more pregnant and looks so cute in her maternity tops.

EmmaLee and I went to see 'The Cokeville Miracle' on Saturday.  It's a true story about an elementary school in Wyoming that was targeted by a couple of homegrown nut cases with a bomb back in 1986.  I remember the event, but I had never heard the story that came out of it.  Such a touching movie and, from what I have read, the producers did an excellent job of capturing the story.  The bomb ended up being detonated accidentally, but the only people who died were the bombers.  All of the kids and teachers survived, and the stories the kids told were absolutely miraculous.  They told of angels being in the room, giving them instructions, being a barrier between the bomb/bombers and the kids, and leading them out of the school through the chaos.  Some of the children later pointed out the angels in family photo albums, as loved ones who had passed away, some of them well before the kids were even born, so the kids had never even known them.  It certainly builds your faith to hear of true stories like this.  Miracles do happen, prayer really works, and there really are loved ones on the other side who care about us.

It's a Girl!

Jake and Kristi are positively expecting a little girl.  All of the parents were invited to an ultrasound where her gender was confirmed. Just waiting for her to grow now.

Today my thoughts about being a grandma are centered on my house in Brigham City.  Now that I know I will be moving into it soon, my mind is back on making it a nice place for family and grandkids to visit.  I think about how I want to decorate the grandkids' rooms and what furnishings I should get so that all of my kids will have a comfortable bed when they come to visit. I hope that all of my grandkids will appreciate how valuable family connections are.

More news on Grand Baby #2

I am not allowed to share this on Facebook yet, but I think I am safe to share it here where I have a limited audience.  Jacob and Kristi stopped by this evening to let me know they had been to the doctor today and the ultrasound technician is 90% sure that they are expecting a girl!  So excited for them!  No names are set in stone yet, but one they are strongly pondering is Naomi Jane. 

Guilt and Forgiveness

I realize it will be years before my grand kids experience the pain of guilt and the sorrow of making mistakes that cause irreparable harm, but after a particularly bad week that is the topic that is on my mind.  I guess the only thing I really want to say right now is that no matter how bad you feel and how much you just want to hide from the world, letting your family in to share your grief and to give you an opportunity to unload the thoughts that burden you is so therapeutic and really does help to make things look brighter a lot faster.  Don't be too ashamed to share, because your family loves you too much to want to see you suffer alone.

6/17/2015 Kasen is Here!

Kasen finally made his grand debut 1 week over due on June 17, 2015.  Amber was scheduled to go in Wednesday morning to be induced, but she knew from around 2 am that she was already in labor, so he would have been born that day even if she weren't induced.  Everyone is so so excited to have a baby in the family.  I went down Tuesday night and stayed the night at their house, and then went to the hospital around 9 AM to see how things were progressing.  Kyle was keeping updates going out to everyone in groups texts until around 9:30 AM, and then he needed to put the phone down and really give attention to helping Amber.  From that point, every time I got an update from one of the nurses I would relay it to EmmaLee, and she would relay it to the group through texts since my phone would not reply to the group.  They had Amber pushing for about 3 hours straight as he was still quite high in her pelvis.  Then he was positioned kind of posterior (face up) for a little while and they were trying to get him to turn face down.  They had Amber lie on her side through a few contractions and he finally turned.  He was so big though that she was still having a hard time pushing him out.  They finally gave her he option of either an emergency c-section or using the vacuum.  She opted to try the vacuum, so they attached a vacuum suction to the back of his head and she only had to push through a few more contractions and he was born.  He had a big bruised spot on the back of his head that was really tender the rest of the day.  He weighed 9.9 lbs and was 20.5 inches long.  Big strong boy!

6/8/2015 Baby Forsyth

Here is another ultrasound of Jake & Kristi's baby that was taken today. Everything is going well, and in a couple months we'll be able to know the gender. 

Amber & Kyle's baby is due in 2 days.  She is dilated to 4 cm and if she has not had him by Wednesday then her doctor will strip her membranes at that appointment.  The whole pregnancy seemed to fly by until we got to these last couple of weeks, and now time seems to be crawling.

Grand Baby Number 2!

Jake and Kristi had an ultrasound and everything is going great.   Kristi has had some morning sickness, which is to be expected, but nothing she can't handle.  I am so happy for them.  The due date for the baby is December 31, 2015 so it looks like he or she will be a Christmas or New Year baby.

Good News

Jacob called me today to let me know Kristi had passed her test... of course with graduation right around the corner I assumed he meant a test at school, as he intended me to think (the little trickster), but then he followed up with the clarification that she passed her pregnancy test!  Yes they are pregnant again!  She's only a couple of weeks along again, so we are all praying for them to have this one carry.  I'm so happy for them and I'm so happy for the family to once again be able to enjoy the excitement of two babies on the way.

Amber had her latest ultrasound at 31 weeks and Kasen is measuring ahead of schedule, so she is hoping he comes a little early.  I was amazed at the detail they can pick up in ultrasound pictures these days... look at that cute little face!

Progress

I am not very good at making timely updates, but here goes.

So out of the joyous news of my first entry, things unfortunately did not work out on all fronts. A couple of weeks later when we were all in the Temple for EmmaLee taking out her endowments Jacob let me know that Kristi had miscarried.  I was so heartbroken, not only for their personal loss, but for the loss to the hopes of the family to have two grand babies so close together.  I cried and I worried how the fact that Amber was carrying a baby would impact Jake & Kristi's recovery from their loss.

The doctor says everything is fine for Kristi to try again immediately, but there has been no new announcement yet. I worried about how Kristi would do since she has really never had any serious trials in her life and I have to say that she has done amazingly well, or at least appears so. I am sure she and Jake have mourned in private more than we know, but she has been very optimistic and even offered to plan Amber's baby shower. Still, it's difficult not to tear up at the thought of how painful this must be for them.  A parent never wants to see their child in pain, and it's even worse when you can do nothing to help ease it.  Some things just take time to work through.

We spent December doing a hasty preparation for getting EmmaLee off on her mission.  We had a wonderful farewell breakfast the morning of Dec 28th and then dropped her off at the MTC on the 31st. Her first letters hinted at some surprise at adjusting to the MTC, and then all of a sudden we got a call a week later that she was coming home.  After some episodes of anxiety, an emotional roller coaster, and some prayerful consideration with leaders at the MTC, EmmaLee's sense of where she needed to be was no longer on a mission.  She was kind of lost as to where she was going to go next but has now gotten back on at Vivent Solar full-time and will be moving into an apartment in May.  She will also start back in school this fall, but she will take school a little slower than when she first started as I think that was a little overwhelming too. She has always enjoyed working at Vivent though, so I believe that is a very good option for her to be focusing her energies on right now.

As for Amber, she and Kyle have had their own set of trials in spite of everything going well with the pregnancy.  They finally sold their home in January and moved into a new apartment in Cedar City, but they have continued having to live apart as Amber finishes school.  Her classes are on Kyle's days off, so even when she goes to Cedar City he spends a lot of the time working.  She has also had a lot of discomfort with her pregnancy from morning sickness, to abdominal cramping every evening, to heartburn, to aching joints.  She will graduate at the beginning of May, so I am hoping she can just spend her last month of pregnancy enjoying being with her husband full time, relaxing, and just being able to enjoy getting ready for her little son, Kasen.  The time seems to be flying by so fast.  We'll have a new bundle of joy in the family before we know it.

My take away from the events of the last several months reminds me of some recent posts on facebook about happiness and a quote by Gordon B. Hinkley:

“Anyone who imagines that bliss is normal is going to waste a lot of time running around shouting that he’s been robbed. The fact is that most putts don’t drop, most beef is tough, most children grow up to just be people, most successful marriages require a high degree of mutual toleration, most jobs are more often dull than otherwise. The trick is to thank the Lord for letting you have the ride.”