Cute

The girls wanted to take a picture with month and a half old Lucas. What cute kids!

Park Day

Every year we have a week off at the end of February (coinciding with the President's birthdays). So while Jonah is off playing at Mason's house, the girls and I (Lucas too) went to a park downtown. It had lots to do!
There were two separate playgrounds, one for older kids and one for younger. In between the playgrounds were a whole bunch of things to do. One was a spinning thing that all the kids could get on. I just can't remember what it's called.... drats! It's the kind of thing that parks don't have anymore probably due to a high probability of injury!
The girls had a great time and I'm sure that we'll go back someday... this time with bread for the ducks!

80th Birthday Bash

An 80th birthday is always a reason for celebration! Born February 23, 1931, my Grandma Betty has always put family first. Our group photo shows just how big her family has grown! She has been a great example to all of us, we love her dearly!
Recently she had an operation for a cochlear implant. She was very brave to come out to the party unable to hear. It will still be a few more weeks of healing before her implant can be turned on. In the meantime we had a visually stimulating party. A big cake, many smiling grand-kids and a Skype chat with Granddaughter Angela, grandson David and their families. We are always quick with hugs and pads of paper to help communicate. I put together a slideshow of our family with pictures from all of 2010. Hopefully when her implant is turned on she will be able to hear the music that goes with the pictures.

Blue and Gold

Tonight was the Blue and Gold dinner for cub scouts. Jonah has been working hard earning many activity badges. He's showing off his awards (above), we are very happy with his hard work and dedication. As a den leader, I am always up in front giving out awards. Lucas helps me give out awards to my little wolves. One of my other den leaders also has a small baby (also in a Moby wrap). We look like mommy twins up there. We like to joke that they are our little wolf cubs!

Blessing Day!

Lucas Gabriel Matthews
2/7/2011

We blessed our baby boy today! Here is our family trying to take a good picture despite the very windy conditions! Grandma Myrick & Jonah
Grandma Myrick and Aunt Christina's family were the only family able to make it to the blessing. Sickness raged all through the other families and they decided to keep their germs at home. My great friend Christy, drove all the way down from Camino, Ca for our special occasion. She came with the healthy kids and left the sick ones with her hubby at home. Thank you to everyone who sent good thoughts and kept their germs home!

We had a wonderful picture session after church. My mom wanted pictures with all the kids.
Grandma Myrick and Katie John
Sariah with Grandma
Keira and Lucas were good kids through all the wind!
The blessing was beautiful. John blessed him to not be a burden in such a large family and that he would take care of his mother. :) It makes my heart smile to hear such wonderful things! My mom took some notes, hopefully I'll get those and add them at a later date.

Impressive Milestone!

Our first official family outing was to my Great-Grandma Mary's 100th birthday party. It was a good thing that Lucas came early enough to allow an adequate amount of healing time so we could attend the party of a lifetime. The party was amazingly huge! The rough estimate was 157 attendees!! Family from near and far came to celebrate the wondrous milestone. My cousin Patrick and wife Karisa even drove in from New Mexico (a surprise to everyone) to help celebrate. With Lucas being just two weeks old, I sat in the corner of the room keeping to myself and not touching anything that might have germs. I was able to chat with family that we only see every two years or so. They had a beautiful slide-show that spanned her whole amazing life. Jesse had worked really hard on gathering all the pictures and putting them to music. Grandma Dixie talked to everyone for a few minutes and one of the interesting things she said was that currently Grandma Mary has 139 blood descendants (that's not counting any spouses!) Now that's amazing!
Uncle Steve made a cake in the shape of a grand piano. She loved it. She was only supposed to spend a small amount of time in the big crowd, but they couldn't pull her away. Being the center of attention was clearly making her happy even though she probably didn't really know what was going on other than it was a party. I have a picture somewhere with Lucas and Grandma Mary. They are 100 years apart in age! I am grateful for such an amazing family history and family members that are so dedicated to their posterity.

Package from Grammy

Katie John got a package in the mail today! Grammy sent her birthday present from WA and it has arrived! Apples to Apples is such a fun game and the girls have played it twice already today. Katie John is so sweet to play with everyone with her new game!
Also included in the package was a care bear for Keira and Sariah to share. They love care bears and are always giddy over new additions to their "family".
Who knew the box itself would be a fun present!
Sariah and Lucas pose for a cute picture. Sariah is my number one helper with Lucas. She is always checking in on me and asking if I need something. She is always willing to help with diapers, cleaning or holding Lucas. I appreciate her helpfulness.

A Thousand Words

This picture says it all!

Pinewood Derby 2011

Jonah's last pinewood derby! John and Jonah have been working on his car for a while. They started early knowing that our baby could very well come days before the derby. Lucky for me, baby Lucas arrived two weeks before so I was able to attend this fun family event.
Jonah's car, the Blue Hornet, raced well. He didn't place in the top overall winners, but he did place 3rd in his den. John was watching all the race times and guesses that Jonah's car was about 8th fastest out of 30-ish cars. Good job Jonah (and John)!

First Bath: Lucas

Today Lucas gets his first bath. He's not sure he likes the water and what's this big camera doing in my face?
Look how his little wash cloth looks like a hat! By this point in the bath he was ready to be done. All this water and picture taking was making him nervous!
Happy to be dry.
Tuckered out from such a new experience he falls asleep practically before he's done getting dressed. Cute baby!

More Lucas

I wanted to document Lucas on the baby blanket that I made him. I wanted to make a textured blanket this time around. The super soft and fun materials are expensive so I've always stuck with flannel or cotton in the past. Not this time! I spent about an hour searching for and matching up fun materials. The blanket turned out better than expected!
Besides the blanket, our fun boy is also very cute! He is sleeping well and already gaining weight. He smells so wonderful and I love snuggling him!

Yard Work

January is a cold time for yard work. It just so happens that our backyard oak tree has finally been condemned and today is the day for half the tree to come down. Why pick today you say? It's because the half that is coming down hangs over the neighbors' yard. Our neighbors moved out yesterday because the bank would take possession today. This was our chance! Our thinking is that we'll have a small window to get this big branch down without anyone making a fuss in the more than we'd like to admit likelihood that it falls on the other side of the fence.
John gets out the rope and ties a weight to the end and throws it (many times) up into the tree and wraps it around one of the branches. The goal is to pull the heavy branch, as it falls, onto our side of the fence. Now, with 25 feet of branches above the chosen cut spot (which is 15ft above the ground) it's going to be a very tricky thing. It is really all about timing. Sadly our timing was off in many ways.
First the chain kept coming off the saw, which created a much more lengthy project. Secondly due to a slight distraction, I failed to notice the slack in the rope as the branch shifted right before it fell. Once it was going down the darn thing was so heavy there wasn't much I could do to change the trajectory of the fall. Thirdly the branch fell into the neighbors yard, scraping the roof and brushing electrical wires and breaking a fence slat just as the bank contractors were parking in the driveway. They came very quickly into the backyard to see what was going on.
John was very apologetic to the concerned men. VERY quickly we had the clippers clipping and were working to get the branch back on our side. Probably 10 minutes later we had the branch out of the neighboring yard. The broken fence slat was the only evidence that anything had happened. Thankfully the kids worked hard and we had about half of the branches clipped into manageable pieces before our green bin was full.

It is a sad thing for us to chop down this tree. I love oak trees. Growing up on a property covered in oak trees, I have a soft spot for their quiet beauty. When we bought the house we were excited to have an established "non-lame" tree in our yard. Sadly our yard plan failed to notice that the tree shaded our planned garden area for a portion of each day. After a few years, more and more of our garden was being shaded as the tree grew about 2 feet each year. Now we've also come to the realization that the oak leaves are contaminating our garden. All these added up to the sad fact: the tree needed to be removed. It's a two year process, so next winter the rest of the tree will likely come down. I'll miss the shade, I'll miss our tree. :(

p.s. and yes, I'm very aware that I didn't take any pictures of the tree stuff. Please be distracted by the cute kids!

Smiley Boy!

John took this picture of Lucas in an attempt to capture his cute hand position. Lucas had such a serene look of happiness as John snapped the picture, you hardly notice the hand at all! He is six days old in this picture.

End Result

Whew! I made it! After all those weeks of posing in the same spot with a growing belly I thought it appropriate to take a picture of the end result. Baby Lucas is almost a week old in this picture, it's been about a week since the last pregnancy picture was taken. I'm really glad I documented the last months of my pregnancy. It will always be a fun memory for me!

A Baby Story

I have some time to fill you in on our little Lucas! It turns out that the baby shower was right on with timing because Sunday night I felt a need to finally get some organization going. Now that I knew what I had and what I needed I could get started, especially because I realized that this would be the last opportunity for a whole week that I'd have real help. We worked for about 6 hours straight getting things organized, cleaned and put away. I was amazed at the progress we made in just a short time. At 8 1/2 months pregnant it's not that easy to move around, but I felt very energized. All that work caused some minor contractions. I lay on the couch the rest of the evening resting. Sadly I was uncomfortable all night and didn't sleep much at all, maybe a few hours at best.

The next morning I had my 38 week appointment. Keira was off at her friend Eve's house for her regular play day (I get Eve on Thursday's) so I was able to go to my appointment alone. I had contractions here and there but not really painful, not regular and when I rested they went away so I wasn't worried at all. I just knew they were going to stop. At my appointment Dr. Downes noticed that I was contracting and told me to rest up. She guessed the baby was currently about 7 1/2 pounds. I had told her I was sure this baby was over eight pounds because I felt this baby from "stem to stern". This baby had already dropped but he was still in my ribs. The first baby to be in my ribs so late in the pregnancy. We joked that we still hadn't picked a name yet and weren't any closer to picking a name. I went home to try to rest.

While waiting at the school to pick up the kids I noticed that the contractions were starting to be more painful. The kids were very disappointed when I wouldn't let them stay and play, we went right home. Still sure these contractions would go away if I just got some sleep, I laid down on my bed for a few hours of rest, sure enough, they calmed down. I think I drifted off for about an hour or so. When John got home from work we started our normal dinner and bedtime routine. After the kids were in bed I had time to try to relax. The contractions had come back and were relatively regular but only 12-15 minutes apart. By 11pm the contractions were coming about 10-12 minutes apart and more painful than not. My brother Shaun and wife Katie were our designated kid watchers, so John and I debated calling them to put them on notice "just in case". We ended up calling. After a call to Kaiser around 12am we made the decision to go in. Shaun was a good sport and rolled out of bed, arriving at our house by 1:00am. We talked about the possibilities: 1) they send me home. In this case Shaun should just sleep on the couch. 2) they keep me. In this case Shaun would sleep on the couch and shuttle Jonah to school (for a science field trip in the bay area) and then take the girls out to Mama's.

Kaiser Roseville is the new hospital we have to go to, and it's much farther than Kaiser Morse, where all our other babies were born. Being the middle of the night the traffic was non-existent and we traveled the distance in about 25 minutes. We had called in advance so they shuttled me right in, but John had to stay back with security until his badge was printed and ID checked. In the car ride up my contractions sped up to about 5 minutes apart, and in the triage room they remained consistent. That meant they were keeping me! Our labor room was nice and big. The nurse took all my information and had me sign all the papers to order my epidural. From here things get a bit fuzzy. I remember that when they gave my my epidural my blood pressure dropped and I almost passed out. They fussed around me for a bit and thought I was doing better when it happened again! My hearing got fuzzy, I felt sick to my stomach and light headed. The anesthesiologist had to stick around for a long time after that for sure! After that things settled down and we were able to discuss names. Now that we were down to the wire we needed to compromise and figure out what our little boy would be called. Since I really liked the name Luke, John came up with a solution: Lucas.

Lucas Gabriel Matthews was born after only a few more hours of labor at 7:55am, 1/11/11. The joking at my baby shower about Tuesday being a good birthday came to pass. John called Shaun a bit before to see how things were going at home and to let him know that for sure we were having the baby. Shaun dropped Jonah off at school and was taking the girls out to Wilton when he got the call that we'd had the baby. Poor Jonah was on a field-trip so he found out later that day from his teacher, who'd found out from the school office, who found out when John called to tell them our girls wouldn't be in school that day. I volunteer at the school every Monday so the secretaries had been watching my belly grow and knew it would be anytime now.

John was amazed at how big Lucas was. Even the nurse midwife who delivered me exclaimed at his size. The final verdict of 8lbs 13oz, 21 1/4 inches was just amazing! I think his cheeks alone added half a pound! Lucas didn't even cry until they finished weighing him and started scrubbing him down. Even then he hardly made any noise. Total exhaustion soon set in from such little sleep that I was quickly drifting off while Lucas slept in his bassinet and John went home to get a bit of sleep before he went to the school to get Jonah at 3:30pm. They both came back later to see the baby and visit a bit. My sister Christina brought our girls later in the evening, they were ecstatic and all wanted to hold the baby. My good friends Tina, Holly and Shavon came to see me about 7:30pm and friend Tiffany came later around 8:30pm. With such a busy day behind me I was very tired and anxious for sleep.
John came mid-morning the next day and watched Lucas while I took a nice hot shower. Packing up was easy and discharge didn't take forever. Before we knew it we were out the door and heading home a little after lunch. If you notice his super cute hospital hat, I picked it out myself. I don't save outfits, I save the hats our babies come home in. I have them all stored away and labeled. I did have some anxiety about having a cute hat to bring him home in. Being unfamiliar with Kaiser Roseville, I didn't know if they had cute handmade hats the way Kaiser Morse did. Thankfully my stress was for nothing. This picture makes him look very small, but he's a big boy! Lucas eats well and so far is sleeping well. We are working on switching his schedule from day to night sleeping. I hope it goes as well as our last two babies. I am thankful to be home with a happy, healthy baby!