Christmas Weekend!

We had a great Christmas this year doing our usual routine. After waiting all day for a package to arrive (a present Cade had ordered) we finally left for Mesa at 8:00 on Wednesday night. On Thursday we spent all day finishing our Christmas shopping. Friday we had lunch at Carol Ann's house, visited Grandma Joyce, and then had our fondue Christmas Eve dinner at my mom's house. Before opening presents this year Ashley decided that the kids should act out the nativity. She had the bright idea of putting the star from the top of the tree on the ceiling. Sadly, it fell during the production onto baby Jesus, aka my baby Conner. Thankfully he wasn't stabbed to death and we were able to carry onto the presents. Its fun having little kids around for presents, they get so excited, even if they do get jealous and want their siblings' presents all the time.

Conner excited about his first Christmas present - $2 from great grandma Johnson

Not quite so excited for books

Ashley with her See's

Jen with her food storage

Grandma Mason



After that Cade and I left for Cottonwood. By the time we got there and ready for bed it was 1 am. Conner woke up to eat at 3:00 and before we could get back to sleep it was 4:00 and time to get up for presents again. I might never understand why the Johnsons still get up at 4 when there are no kids anymore. Its so much easier to enjoy your new "toys" all day with at least 5 hours of sleep. After enjoying our Christmas day Cade and I went home to get ready for Conner's baby blessing the next day. It was one of his worst night's sleep. For some reason he cried most of the night and we were already so exhausted, it was terrible. He was still crying in the morning and I thought for sure the blessing would be a disaster, but thankfully he fell into a deep sleep on the way to the church and slept perfectly through the blessing (and the rest of the day). We had a great time seeing all of our families and appreciate everyone coming out to his blessing, including Cade's friend Tara that we didn't get a picture of.

Our handsome boy

A funny face

Rodgers family

 Johnson family

Our little family



Car Accident

Last week we were in a car accident, a first for Conner and I. We were driving on a highway going about 65 mph on our way to Flagstaff. Some idiot decided he wanted to pass a line of cars. That would have been fine if there wasn't another car coming in the other direction! So after this guy passes a few of the cars he speeds up in order to get back in the lane before having a head on collision going about 90 mph. Of course speeding up only brings him closer to hitting the other car and I was just about to close my eyes because it was going to get really ugly. But then Cade slammed on his brakes in order to make sure the guy had room to get back in our lane and to keep us out of the possible accident that would have definitely been fatal. With a few yards to spare the idiot gets back in our lane and the car behind us rear ended us. And big surprise, the idiot kept driving and couldn't have cared less about the accident he had just caused. Thankfully everybody was fine. Conner let out a squeal but then just kept on sleeping even though his carseat flew back and he was sitting there vertically a few minutes. It was pretty scary to have our newborn in the car for that, but luckily his carseat did its thing and there wasn't a problem. According to the guy who hit us, he was cited for following too closely and someone called in the license plate of the idiot.

We were pretty proud of our car, it took the hit pretty well. There were lots of dents on the back but it was still drivable. The other guy was driving a truck and had to get towed. Of course the most annoying thing is now waiting for our car to be fixed. We are just waiting to hear what exactly the damage was, whose insurance is going to pay for it, and how long its going to take. Our truck is a stick shift and I've never learned how to drive it so Cade has to drive me everywhere I need to go and of course if we're going then Conner goes. So we are spending lots of good quality family time together right now!



Our Little Guy

And he sure is little. At Conner's 2-week check up he weighed 6 pounds, 15 ounces putting him in the 9th percentile for weight. He measured 19 inches long, being in the 5th percentile for height. You may have noticed that it appears he shrunk since birth (measuring 19.5 inches) but the nurse at the pediatrician's office informed us that they measure height slightly different than the hospital. I'm not really sure how it could be different, but apparently these measurements aren't quite precise. Our pediatrician said that he did not gain enough weight from week one to week two so we had to go back a few days later for a weight check. Luckily by then he began eating more and gained 6 ounces in 4 days so he is back on track.

We've been having fun taking care of Conner and are trying to adjust to very little sleep. I won't name any names but one of us handles a crying baby at night a LOT better than her husband, who isn't handling night time wakings well at all :) During the day Conner easily falls asleep in his swing, his carseat, his stroller, or anyone's arms and doesn't always wake up to eat. And then at night he wakes up frequently, acting like he is going to starve to death and ready to hang out with us. Its getting pretty annoying and today I've been waking him up just to feed him, hoping it will make the night go better. At any rate, our best sleeping time is from about 5 to 10 am so don't bother trying to get a hold of us in the morning. Here are pictures of Conner with various loved ones.

Cousin Jeter

Aunt Ashley and cousin Tyson

The growing Rodgers family

Daddy

Grandma Rodgers and Great Grandma Mason

Great Grandma Joyce

Good friend Gaffy

First tummy time



Baby Conner Has Arrived!

The baby is here and what do you know, I'm still alive! Here's the low down on how it happened. Its going to be long and detailed for my own record so feel free to skim. On Wednesday morning I had a doctor's appointment and was dialated to 3 centimeters but had no other signs of labor. My doctor was going out of town for Thanksgiving so we set an induction for Sunday night, just in case. That night Cade and I decided to take a long walk to see if we could get things going. It worked. When we were getting ready for bed I noticed some leakage but I had been leaking all day thanks to my doctor's appointment. But this was a little more. I asked my mom if she thought maybe my water had broke and she didn't. So I kept getting ready for bed but was too anxious to sleep. Cade called the hospital and they said I should come in to get it checked. Here we are leaving for the hospital at 12:30.

I thought they would take a quick look and let me know, but I had to get all gowned up, get blood drawn, hooked up to monitors, and then they checked it out and my water had broke. Here I am waiting to find out if I'm in labor or not. Notice the happy face, I hadn't felt any contractions yet.

That didn't last long though. Within about an hour the pain had kicked in and I was soon moved to the delivery room. Time just flew by at that point. I was feeling contractions pretty close together and the pain was rapidly worsening. I found it pretty strange that the nurses were mentioning getting me pitocin to get my contractions coming more regularly/quickly. I was wondering how that would be possible. I was also dying of thirst and began asking for ice chips and they kept telling me they had to wait and see. I think they were waiting to see if I was getting the pitocin first or not, but I'm not really sure. Since the pain was getting so terrible I decided I wanted to know how far dialated I was in order to see if I should give in and get an epidural. (FYI: I'm not against using epidurals, but they really scare me so I wanted to avoid it if I could handle it. Plus we are self paying for this whole thing and I knew the epidural was an extra $600.)  I was told since my water had broke that every time they check it increases the chances of introducing germs and causing problems and "since it was my first baby I still had a long way to go anyway". So I gave in at that point and asked for an epidural. They told me that it would be about 20 minutes so they could give me some IV fluids first. In the meantime the doctor came in and checked me to see about giving me pitocin and what do you know, I was dialated to 10 centimeters. That explains the severe/rapid pain!!! It turned out the monitor wasn't on me right and hadn't been picking up all my contractions. I'm not sure why they couldn't figure that out just by looking at me writhing in pain every minute or two. The doctor also said it was fine for me to have ice chips. Finally, some relief! It was too late for the epidural but I was fine with that, I only wanted it because I was told I still had hours of severe contractions to go and I no longer did. Its funny how hormones mess with your body. The first half of labor I was FREEZING and my whole body was shaking (of course it still took 3 times of me asking for a blanket or saying I was cold before the nurses actually did anything about it). But then suddenly out of no where I was sweating like a pig. Anyway around 6:00 I started pushing. My blood pressure was high when we first arrived so they had me on oxygen.

I actually kind of liked the pushing part (compared to labor that is). It was a lot less painful than the contractions had been getting and I had more time to relax in between. All that didn't last long either. A little after 7:00 the doctor came back in and said it was time to get the baby out. I think more because he was busy with other things than anything. Once he started fiddling around down there things got really painful again. I was actually getting pretty mad at him. It felt like he was literally pulling me apart, but Cade has informed me that's not quite what he was doing. I did have enough strength left though to let Cade know that he now owes me the $600 I saved us. They kept asking me if I wanted a mirror to see the baby's head or be positioned so I could feel his head. I was wondering if they were insane. Of course I don't want to see, I'm pretty sure seeing yourself being pulled apart only increases the pain. Finally at 7:22 on Thanksgiving morning (one day past my due date) Conner Russell was born. He weighed 6 lbs 13 ounces and was 19.5 inches long.

They started to put him on me but I let them know I wasn't quite interested in that yet. I had torn and the doctor was still busy with the placenta and stitching me up. I don't know how other people can sit and enjoy the baby right then, I couldn't even think about holding him yet. I wasn't exactly cooperating while the doctor was trying to stitch me up. He kept asking me to open up my legs more but I figured since a baby had just come out of there that surely they were open wide enough. I kind of started yelling a little with all the yanking and pulling, partly out of pain and partly just to let the doctor know I was mad at him and wanted him to stop being so violent. Ok so I was a little delirious at this point and not thinking rationally. He then decided that I needed some narcotics to relax me. After that he finished in about one minute but I was out of it for the next hour or so. They gave me Conner but after a minute or two I had to pass him on because I wasn't sure I could hang onto him. Shortly after that I fell into a deep drug induced sleep.

When I came to again I finally got to really look at his adorable face.

I was very impressed with Cade's coaching skills. He did everything I wanted him to and instantly stopped doing anything that bothered me. Like when he and the nurses kept telling me with every push for an hour that they could see the baby's head and that I was "almost there" and I told them to shut up and stop telling me the same thing over and over again, Cade stopped saying it right away :) He also stayed by my side after the delivery while I yelled at the doctor instead of going over to see Conner. And even though I told him during labor that I no longer cared about having pictures, he knew that wasn't true and took what he could in the middle of it all. Since the delivery he has filled me in on a lot of missing facts. For some reason I kept my eyes closed almost the entire time. Closing my eyes and listening to the tv in the background helped to relax me but its made my memories a little fuzzy.

Emma

Russ (Grandpa Johnson)

Getting ready to go home. (Before you bother commenting Carol Ann, I do know that I came and left in the same outfit, but don't worry, I had only put that outfit on after my midnight shower for an hour and its different pants).



Hair Today...Gone Tomorrow

I've been wanting to cut my hair for a long time, but to appease Cade I didn't. Well I couldn't stand it any longer. I heard that Luxe Salon and Spa will give free haircuts to people donating their hair to Locks of Love so I went there. It was great. The lady cut my hair, shampooed it, and then styled it for me and the salon sends off the hair so I didn't even have to pay the postage. She spent an hour on my hair and it was free (except for the tip)! She also said that my hair was so thick that I was donating twice as much hair as most people. Here is a picture of it. I had a before picture but it turned out so ugly I couldn't put it on here so you can look at previous posts to see what my hair looked like before. I didn't measure but it looked like about 11 inches that I cut off.