April

April started out with Mckayla sick and us headed to Spokane.  We almost cancelled, but Steve had to pick something up in Idaho that week, so we had to make the trip regardless, and with Mckayla on all her medications for her poor mouth, she seemed to at least have stabilized.  We figured we would go see Grandma and Grandpa and decide from there if we would continue with the trip we had originally planned for spring break that week.  Regardless of any plans, we were grateful that Mckayla continued to get better.  So, our spring break had us visiting grandparents, and on April 2nd the girls were healthy enough we went out and enjoyed a spring day feeding ducks and geese with Jen, Wyatt, and Aubrey at Riverfront Park in Spokane.

After the park I went to Jennifer's baby shower with my Step-Mom Kerry and Steve took the girls home to Papa's house for naps.  It was a fun day.

After a few days of recuperating at Papa's house, MG seemed to be on the way up, with her medicine going down without a fight, her sores healing, and her beginning to eat food again.  So, we decided to continue with our spring break plans.  We headed out on April 4th and visiting Grand Coulee Dam first.

We then caught lunch and headed to visit some old friends from Steve's first job in Mabton, the Tyus family.  After catching up with them for a few hours we headed to a hotel in Chelan for the night where we had a good laugh at our bed being held up by a 2x4 on one side.  The next morning we drove to Cashmere where we had lunch and enjoyed the afternoon with one of Steve's old mission companions, Elder Meyer, and his family.  The girls had a blast playing with their kids, and it made for a great day.  Eventually we had to head for home though.  Considering how stressed we were about travelling at all with Mckayla at the beginning of the trip, we actually had a great Spring break, mostly because we got to spend time with so many wonderful people.  It was great to be able to do one last trip before I wasn't allowed to travel anymore, too!

The next couple of weeks flew by as we tried to prepare for the upcoming birth of our baby girl.  I tried to go through things and clean, while enjoying a total loss of appetite and some nausea.  We got ready for Easter, made sure the nursery was completely ready to go, and just went about our lives.  April 16th I taught my last classes, pulling back at work so I was only doing office work and wouldn't have to worry if I went into labor on my Tuesday work night.

April 17th was exciting as it brought the birth of our newest nephew.  Jennifer was induced that day, and at 7:29 PM gave birth to Enzo Edmund Patrick Rose.  He was the biggest baby in the family yet at 9 lbs 10 oz and 21 inches long.  We weren't able to go see Enzo right away since I was just a few weeks from my due date.

We flew straight from Enzo's birth into a busy Easter weekend.  We opened Easter baskets on the 19th, and although we had planned to do our egg hunt that day too, a combination of nap times, fits, and weather prevented our following through with those plans.

 The girls made out like bandits - as always.  Big hits were MG's Elmo and Frozen poster, Ellie's princess watch, dolls Grandma Moon had sent down with their names on them, and these fairy costumes we picked up.

The next morning tried to get pictures of the girls in their Easter dresses, with only limited success as usual.

 I also grabbed a belly shot since I was awful at taking them all pregnancy again, but thought I was starting to feel some small contractions once in a while, and figured I should document the pregnancy before it ended and I couldn't.  This was April 20th at 37 weeks pregnant.  Given our birth story blog, it turned out to be a good thing we took this picture...

After the girls had their naps, we then headed outside for our egg hunt.  The girls loved the eggs Grandma and Papa Bennett sent up, as well as all the little things we had found to put in them.  Ellie was so excited to get more Polly Pocket clothes in some of her eggs.

 I love this picture.  Our girls are young, but we didn't want to lose the true meaning of Easter, especially where our egg hunt ended up being on the Sabbath, contrary to our original plans.  So, Steve brought up a video about the birth, life, crucifixion, and resurrection of the Savior from LDS.org and we watched it with the girls.  They were so focused.  I may have cried.  Maybe.

 After that Ellie had to put on every piece of jewelry the girls had found in eggs earlier so she could be "like Lilo" from Lilo and Stitch (hula dancing).

 Then we got ready and headed out to enjoy one of our typical Sunday evening activities - throwing rocks in the Columbia River.  Yeah, our Easter was busy.  And fantastic!

I know this blog is already long, but a few other fun things from April:
Mckayla had her 18 month check-up and was 29 lbs (96th percentile) and 34.25 inches tall (98th percentil).  She may make Ellie our runt...  Also, being 18 months old meant that MG started attending nursery at church full time, just in time for me to only have one baby to care for at church.  We had been taking her to nursery for the first hour starting a few weeks before to help her adjust, and it worked.  About this time she started staying in class all on her own.  It didn't actually last, but we did eventually get there.  We have a fantastic nursery leader, Sister Hess, who was/is always great at reading Mckayla and knowing if she needs distraction, space, etc.  We love her.

Steve also had to interject some science into our month.  The high school he works at had some liquid nitrogen for another project, and he brough the left overs home to show the girls.  They loved it, of course, especially Ellie.  Here Steve is showing them how the cold shrinks a balloon, and demonstrating his 'teaching face'.

 Mckayla wasn't sure about putting her hands down in the steam, but she was so interested.

 This was literally Ellie being a cheerleader and telling me, "Take a picture of me Mommy, and I'll yell "SCIENCE!""  She loves being Daddy's little scientist.

 Tuckered out after learning, and watching a movie as a family.  These girls sure do love their Daddy, and I think it goes both ways...

After all those adventures, April ended with our biggest adventure of all:  Miss Kassidy.  The story of our crazy doctors appointments, unexpected hospital trips, and eventual delivery of Kassidy is on another blog, so if you want to see that, you'll have to go back to it.  But, she sure was worth it all. Yeah, March may have been rough, but April sure was a great month for the Bennetts!

March

March was a ROUGH month around our home.  For everyone.  Sure, there were fun things too.  Ellie gave her first Primary talk in church at the very end of the month.  Mckayla showed her first real signs of potty training when she peed in the toilet for the first time on the 23rd.  I decorated the nursery in anticipation of our new little girl with The Very Hungry Caterpillar decals - which I still LOVE.  I also trained a new instructor to take over my Parent-tot classes at the pool and taught my last class at 34 weeks pregnant.  Ellie amazed me with her new ability to write her last name on the 15th!

However, our month began and ended it seemed with illness and was filled with dread for me most of the time.

In the beginning of the month, I learned that I would have to do all of my lifeguarding skills over the span of three Saturdays in order to keep my certification current.  Normally, I feel very confident in my lifeguarding abilities and don't really sweat recertifying.  However, with my Symphesis Pubis Dysfunction requiring physical therapy as it was, I was not hopeful that I would be able to swim my distance swim which required breaststroke, the most painful kick with my pelvis separating.  I wasn't sure I would be able to do two minutes of treading with only my kick.  I wasn't sure I would be able to perform the correct holds for a spinal victim with my big belly, let alone support myself and someone else during a deep water spinal using only my very painful kick.  I was terrified of failing, and even more terrified of seriously injuring myself.  So, Steve, my physical therapist, and I decided I would try - nothing more.  If I hurt, I was done, and it was time to let go of a certification I don't really use at work anymore anyway and am simply keeping as a safety net.  March 8th was my first Saturday, and I got through most of the water work fine.  I did attempt one water entry that made me cry, and was done with it, but it was good enough to move on.  As if I wasn't worried enough about how I'd get through the water skills portion of my testing, I started having an allergic reaction to the tape my physical therapist was putting on my back for extra support while I was swimming.  I had to go (extra nervously) into my final water skills assessment without my tape, and endure the itching, red, puffy spots on my back for a month or so before the reaction finally went away.

In the end, I was stiff and sore each Saturday evening, but I did it!  I was so relieved, so grateful that I had gotten through it, so thankful I wasn't injured, and honestly it showed me how strong my skills normally are that I was able to do them all 7 months pregnant.  I finished my final skills assessment and tests exactly 33 weeks pregnant, and very proud of myself.

In the meantime, while I was dreading recertification, things at home were rocky as well.  Ellie came down with some sort of virus that was bad enough we took her in to her pediatrician to make sure it was nothing more.  She looked so pitiful it was heartbreaking.  She had some kind of virus that acted like terrible allergies, making her eyes puffy, watery, and red, while she had bad cold symptoms on top of it.

It was a big deal when she finally started eating some again.  And it was so like her that the only thing I could get her to eat on this day was salad.  That kid loves her salad...

It also was not much fun that she passed that wonderful virus to Mckayla.  It didn't hit MG quite as hard, but still was no fun.  It mostly just turned her into a snot monster for a while.

But, we got through that illness.  Ellie got to return to preschool after a long hiatus, and we were happily moving on to fun things.  We had a play date with friends.  My sisters Jennifer and Julie came for a visit along with Jennifer's children Wyatt and Aubrey on the 17th.  We were having fun!

Them Mckayla started to get a fever, and I checked her mouth after cousins left and saw a couple of sores.  Bugger!  We had to call our play date friends and my sister and say we probably had some kind of virus with a fever and sores.  Why is it my kiddos always get sick right after a play date?  But still, Mckayla seemed to be doing ok, although she was getting grumpier.  These are pictures of the girls singing, dancing, and having fun just a few days later.

Sisters much?

And then, because we had a trip planned for the end of the month to begin Spring Break, things got ugly.  As I was dreading the end of my lifeguard testing, Mckayla got worse.  And then worse.  And then even worse.  Her mouth was COVERED in sores.  Her gums and mouth were bleeding constantly.  She couldn't eat anything hard, chewy, or acidic.  All she wanted was milk and her binky.  It just about made me want to cry when she'd come up in the morning with blood on her pajamas, caked onto her binky, and crusted all around her mouth.  She had trouble sleeping (big surprise) and was sweat soaked whenever she did sleep.  She wasn't even grouchy, just cuddly and so pitiful.

Our pediatrician gave us a prescription to try and help heal up her mouth as quickly as possible, since we couldn't do much more than control her fevers, numb the pain as much as possible with orajel on her binky, and wait for the virus to pass.  Poor Mckayla was beyond sick of medicine, especially since it seemed like the antibiotic burned her open sores.  Here is what one dose looked like, and she got several of these each day....

Yeah, March was rough.  And April didn't appear to be starting out real well either.  We survived it though, and were stronger for it.  I got recertified despite the stress and tears leading up to it, and we at least had everything we could possibly throw at Mckayla's illness.  So, we headed into April hoping it would simply be smoother than March.  And April did provide us with lots of fun things!

February

I know, I know.  Just leave it be, ok.  It's July, but deal with it.  Way back when.... I already posted about the snow days and some of our fun science from February.  So, we pick up at Valentines Day.

Our family tradition is to dress up in nice clothes and have a really nice meal in as a family.  The tradition started our first year with Ellie as a baby and our not having anyone to babysit, so I decided to surprise Daddy when he got home.  Now, I love that our tradition has grown and makes Valentines Day exciting for the girls too as our celebration includes them.  It has become a lot more work than that first year, but I look forward to continuing the fun tradition for years to come.

Here were our girls dressed up and waiting for Daddy to get home. 

 I love that in this picture they both tried to run away from me with the same mischievous look.  Yeah, they are sisters...

 

 And here I was at 28 weeks pregnant.

Our dinner of crab legs, steak, asparagus, potatoes, strawberries, crescent rolls, and sparkling cider.  It was delicious!

 The best picture we got of our family.

 A picture of Ellie's fancy hair.

 The best picture of MG from the day by far.  She loves her snuggles with Daddy.

A few other quick pictures.  This wasn't a big occasion, but we loved this Broncos diaper baby Kerry and Dad got us for our baby gift.  So cute!

 Also on February 27th Ellie finished her last swim lessons so we could take it easy and prepare before the baby came.  She had a lot of fun this last session with Miss Makayla again.  Hopefully we'll finally get her back in the water here soon!

And, I think that wraps up the random bigger things from February.  The only other thing worth mentioning that happened in February was that my pelvic pain from the pregnancy got so bad so suddenly that I had days I could hardly move around the house without significant pain.  I talked to my doctor and confirmed that I had SPD - symphysis pubis dysfunction.  Basically my body produced too much of the hormone relaxin.  As a result the ligament that connects the pubic bone is too soft and allows the pelvis to twist and tilt, causing pain - sometimes a little, and sometimes a lot. After crying at my last doctors appointment we set me up with a physical therapist Steve saw after his ankle surgery and really liked - who also happened to be in our ward.  Dr. Goates got me started with some electric stimulation therapy and core strengthening exercises to help support my pelvis and lower back.  He also constantly realigned me to make sure I wasn't working towards popping my pelvis out (No thanks!) by doing things while I was poorly aligned.  Physical therapy made a significant difference for me in just the first couple of weeks, and I was so glad Steve had seen Dr. Goates and insisted we get in to him right away!  And, that's how I went into March, going to PT once a week and counting down the weeks till our baby would come, praying that my SPD wouldn't get worse and I would still be able to function until then.