asher sparks heller

well better late than never! thanks to jill, i am once again going to update my blog. i have had this for over a year now and she didn't even know that i had one. since my last update, we have rented out our house, moved to spokane and best of all had a new little baby named asher sparks heller.

he was born on the 3rd of june, which is the day after steven's birthday. this was a good thing because steven wasn't in to sharing his day. the 3rd was a sunday (which explains why my hair was so done up) so we went to our 11 o'clock ward and just after sacrament was over i started having contrations every 4 minutes. i told steven after sunday school and he suggested we wait and see if it continues. well i made it through half of relief society and i was just really uncomfortable so i got steven out of class, we left the kids with his parents and away we went. we arrived at the hospital at 3:30pm and he was born at 7:40. i never felt any hard contractions at all, it was great. i got there and they said i was dialated to a 4 so they broke my water and gave me an epidural. a couple hours and two pushes later, the little ash man was here. he came out so fast that his face was all bruised, he was what my doctor calls a smurf baby.

by the next day he wasn't quite so blue he just looked like he had been in a fist fight with black eyes and bruising on his upper lip and nose as well. it was so sad but fortunately, it all went away.

having three children is crazy. the 2nd day he was home, lily woke up in the morning and threw up all over the couch. steven had ran to work for a few hours so i called his mom and she came over to help. all i kept thinking was don't let the germs near the baby. just as i got all of that cleaned up my little jackson woke up. he was all cuddly and cute and the next thing i know is he was throwing up all over me. i thought what have i gotten myself into? since then life has definately settled down and it is much easier to deal with. babies are easy, toddlers are not.



asher has been such a blessing to our family and i am very grateful that he is here. now that he is almost 3 months old, he is smiling and cooing and is the life of the party. steven has been especially taken with him. his first 7 or 8 weeks of life was spent sleeping. steven was constantly cuddling with him. maybe it is because he is steven's twin.

thanks for listening! i will try and update more often, thanks for the reminder jill.

jana

jackson has allergies

about a month ago, i decided to give jackson some enfamil lipil formula and after drinking about 5 ounces, he immediately got HIVES all over his body. it was really scary because i was worried that he wasn't going to be able to breath. fortunately it never got to that point and all i had to give him was 1/2 a teaspoon of benadryl and he improved pretty quickly. the following picture is what he looked like when the HIVES began, they continued to travel down his little body and covered his tummy and back and started on his legs before the benadryl kicked in.


until about 6 months he was pretty much only breastfed and if he did have formula, i gave him nestle goodstart and he had no problems with that. i didn't really understand dairy allergies and thought that it couldn't have been the dairy since he was fine with the nestle which is also dairy based. i just assumed that it was something that enfamil has in their formula that nestle didn't. we a couple of weeks later i stupidly gave him a couple of bites of my ice cream and once again - HIVES. i then knew that it was the dairy. i researched and found out that people are allergic to the proteins in dairy and in nestle goodstart they have been partially broken down which is why he wasn't having the same reaction as when he had the enfamil.

we today jack went to an allergist and his allergies were confirmed. he is not only allergic to dairy but he also has problems with soy. my mom said that my brother had the same problems and he grew out of them so i am keeping my fingers crossed that jack grows out of them as well. it would be a really hard life keeping all dairy out of your diet. i couldn't imagine it. infact, i was still nursing once a day and the doctor said that i should either stop nursing completely or cut dairy out. so my baby is now done with nursing. i am just glad that i was able to nurse him for seven months. i think it was the best thing i could have done for him.

Happy Easter

today i took little lily for her first easter egg hunt. it was at the lakeland hills park and there were hundreds of plastic eggs all over the basketball court for the children 2 and under. i thought we had an easter basket for her but i couldn't find it so she ended up carrying her halloween basket. she was really cute. i thought she would be timid but she really went for it. she ran out when they said go and was grabbing egg after egg and throwing them into her little basket. thankfully, steven let her and i have a little mother/daughter morning and we went to the store and got donuts and milk and then went to the park. she had a blast. unfortunately we didn't have a camera so here are some of the easter pictures that we had taken of her and jack in the daffodil fields 2 weeks ago.

i love my babies

3.22.06

last night we returned home from portland. steven took me and jack there for my birthday present. lily stayed home and went to the zoo and played with my mom and mike. it was really cute when i walked in and saw lily because the first thing she said to me was baby? then she gave me a hug and steven came in with jack and she went crazy. she was clapping and laughing and just so excited. it is amazing to me how much she loves her little brother. i can't wait until jack is a little older and they can play better.


today in the car on our daily outing, lily was making faces at jack and laughing and i could hear him in his seat laughing at her. i am so thankful that they have such a connection even though he can't run around and play with her yet. i am thankful that they are so close in age. lily has yet to be jealous of him. if she wants my attention and i am holding him, she just asks me to put in back in his bouncy chair by pointing at it and saying back? i use the question marks when she talks because it seems like everything she says is a question. i just love the way she talks!

within the last couple of days, we started to implement "timeouts." she is actually pretty good about it. so i tell her that if she does something one more time, (usually whining), she is going to go in "timeout." if she doesn't stop the behavior, then i put her on the floor in the dining room against the wall. to my dismay, she actually sits there. i never leave her there very long but when i go back to talk to her about what she has done wrong, she usually says sorry and then gives me a hug and kiss goes about her activities. for the next while i just have to say, do you want to go in a "timeout?" and that is enough. she is the cutest little girl i have ever seen. i love her so much.

lastly, jack has started something new while he is eating. he kicks his little legs up and will try and touch my face with his toes. if i kiss them he can hardly stand it. he will giggle and try to eat at the same time. i just love his little body. i am so thankful that i have a little boy. i have to admit that i only wanted to have girls but he has been the best addition to our family. i couldn't have asked for a better fit than him. i love my baby boy.