There is no doubt that these little guys come with a special spirit straight from heaven. Sometimes he looks at me in such a way... I'd love to know what he'd say if he could talk.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Trailing Clouds of Glory
There is no doubt that these little guys come with a special spirit straight from heaven. Sometimes he looks at me in such a way... I'd love to know what he'd say if he could talk.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
It's a Boy!!
Gabriel Emerick Samuelson was born today (Sunday-4/19/09) at 3:27 p.m. He is completely healthy and handsome, even with a little bruising. He weighed in at 8lb. 6oz. and was 20 in. tall. Here are some more details though:
Last night while we were making home-made pizza Laura started having contractions pretty regularly. We were planning on having the baby later in the week, so this was the first time we actually considered having the baby very soon. After we finished eating the pizza (we weren't going to go to the hospital on an empty stomach!) Laura lay down and the contractions went away. "Whew, just false labor," we thought, and foolishly stayed up way later than we should have.
A little after 5:00 this morning Laura woke me up and told me the contractions were back--3 to 4 minutes apart, this time while she was lying down. We had procrastinated putting together a hospital bag for Laura, but the contractions didn't hurt too bad, so I threw one together and Laura even had enough time to have a shower like she wanted...for whatever reason. I personally could barely even eat breakfast. Anyway, my parents agreed to watch Ethan all day, so as soon as they arrived we gave Laura a blessing, then went to the hospital.
The contractions were getting pretty serious a while after we got to the hospital and Laura progressed from being dilated 3cm to 5cm within the first hour. They had a hard time finding Laura's veins when they wanted to put an IV in her. That's never fun, but after they got a liter of IV fluid in her, Laura was able to get an epidural. The doctor and the anesthesiologists that were on call this weekend came from home in their normal clothes, or from church in their church clothes--we kind of felt bad, but not really. Laura felt awesome after the epidural and we were able to get a short nap.
A couple hours later Laura wasn't progressing very fast, and the epidural meds weren't potent enough to completely kill the pain. Another anesthesiologist had to come in and reconfigure the amount of medicine. From 8cm to 10cm was the longest wait. We were both hoping that it would progress really quickly, but it seemed to take forever. The nurse tried shifting Laura's position to see if that would help, but all that did was lose Gabriel's heartbeat--he really wanted to play hide-and-seek there for a while.
Eventually Laura was ready to push. She pushed for 2 hours when Ethan was born, so we were surprised when after only 15 minutes the nurse told Laura to stop pushing or the baby was going to pop out. The nurse hurried and called the doctor, but she almost had to deliver the baby herself because it took him 15-2o minutes to get there. It seemed to go pretty quickly after the doctor got there, although there was a hold-up while the doctor made sure Gabriel didn't inhale any "bad fluid" let's call it. You can see how mean they were to Gabriel in the video and how bruised he got. Laura got torn up a little, but not nearly as bad as with Ethan, so we're very thankful about that.
Laura says they gave her "the royal treatment" with a big custom-ordered dinner, heated blankets, and a bunch of gifts for us to take home. I'm so proud of her--the doctor commented on how good of an attitude she had.
A shower, a new room, and visitors, but I need to go to bed because I have a big day ahead of me tomorrow. I'm going to take Ethan to go visit Laura and Gabriel, but I also have to prepare a bunch of stuff for the classes I'm going to teach tomorrow. My syllabus is still a mess; I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to make tomorrow work. Oh well. Here's a little visual about how the day went:
Last night while we were making home-made pizza Laura started having contractions pretty regularly. We were planning on having the baby later in the week, so this was the first time we actually considered having the baby very soon. After we finished eating the pizza (we weren't going to go to the hospital on an empty stomach!) Laura lay down and the contractions went away. "Whew, just false labor," we thought, and foolishly stayed up way later than we should have.
A little after 5:00 this morning Laura woke me up and told me the contractions were back--3 to 4 minutes apart, this time while she was lying down. We had procrastinated putting together a hospital bag for Laura, but the contractions didn't hurt too bad, so I threw one together and Laura even had enough time to have a shower like she wanted...for whatever reason. I personally could barely even eat breakfast. Anyway, my parents agreed to watch Ethan all day, so as soon as they arrived we gave Laura a blessing, then went to the hospital.
The contractions were getting pretty serious a while after we got to the hospital and Laura progressed from being dilated 3cm to 5cm within the first hour. They had a hard time finding Laura's veins when they wanted to put an IV in her. That's never fun, but after they got a liter of IV fluid in her, Laura was able to get an epidural. The doctor and the anesthesiologists that were on call this weekend came from home in their normal clothes, or from church in their church clothes--we kind of felt bad, but not really. Laura felt awesome after the epidural and we were able to get a short nap.
A couple hours later Laura wasn't progressing very fast, and the epidural meds weren't potent enough to completely kill the pain. Another anesthesiologist had to come in and reconfigure the amount of medicine. From 8cm to 10cm was the longest wait. We were both hoping that it would progress really quickly, but it seemed to take forever. The nurse tried shifting Laura's position to see if that would help, but all that did was lose Gabriel's heartbeat--he really wanted to play hide-and-seek there for a while.
Eventually Laura was ready to push. She pushed for 2 hours when Ethan was born, so we were surprised when after only 15 minutes the nurse told Laura to stop pushing or the baby was going to pop out. The nurse hurried and called the doctor, but she almost had to deliver the baby herself because it took him 15-2o minutes to get there. It seemed to go pretty quickly after the doctor got there, although there was a hold-up while the doctor made sure Gabriel didn't inhale any "bad fluid" let's call it. You can see how mean they were to Gabriel in the video and how bruised he got. Laura got torn up a little, but not nearly as bad as with Ethan, so we're very thankful about that.
Laura says they gave her "the royal treatment" with a big custom-ordered dinner, heated blankets, and a bunch of gifts for us to take home. I'm so proud of her--the doctor commented on how good of an attitude she had.
A shower, a new room, and visitors, but I need to go to bed because I have a big day ahead of me tomorrow. I'm going to take Ethan to go visit Laura and Gabriel, but I also have to prepare a bunch of stuff for the classes I'm going to teach tomorrow. My syllabus is still a mess; I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to make tomorrow work. Oh well. Here's a little visual about how the day went:
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Easter and Semester Break
We keep surprising ourselves when it comes to blog posts. I guess we've been taking a lot more videos lately (probably because things are more exciting now that the weather is warming up). Anyway, here's another montage for your enjoyment.
Our Easter was pretty non-existent, and consisted of just 8 plastic eggs filled with candy, some Cadbury eggs (Richard's only request), some Dove truffle eggs (my choice), some Capri Suns and a can of Pringles (which happened to be Ethan's favorite thing). No baskets, no bunnies, just odd things that we picked up at the store on Saturday and ate that night after dinner. We did Easter dinner with Richard's family the next day, even making them some of our famous Huckleberry ice cream though, and the easter program at church was cool.
Ethan did get some early Easter trinkets from his Grandma Z and aunt Heather. You see them in the film --the biker bunny and the light up egg wand. He really enjoyed those, in fact, he got rather possessive once he realized there were jelly beans inside the first toy as you can see. The one other thing we got Ethan for Easter was a sandbox. We just bought a large under-the-bed storage container with a lid (to keep out neighborhood cats) and filled it with sand from the nearby sand dunes. Of course, this was easier said than done --as soon as we got to the sand dunes we found ourselves in the middle of a downpour, and luckily some nice guy helped us get the full sandbox into the trunk of our car (I'm sure that when he saw a nine-month pregnant lady considering lifting something like that he couldn't help but stop). However, when we got home and Richard tried getting the thing out of the trunk, it collapsed, shattering into peices. He took the sand out, and puzzle-pieced the thing together with packing tape (we weren't about to waste the 13 dollars we spent on this thing). It actually works fine --and will probably last for a while, maybe even until we move. Ethan loves the sand, and will sit for a long time out there playing with it right in front of the big windows where I can watch him --which is why we got it in the first place. He's really enjoyed the warmer weather lately, and always wants to be outside rain or shine. My sister Heather got him the little blue galoshes and he loves the fact that he can put them on himself. He really enjoys the puddle out front, and I just love how cute he looks in them --with his pants sticking out of the top he looks like he's got little knickers on.
Another thing you'll see a lot of in the montage is Ethan knocking down towers that Richard has made. Since Richard has been between semesters and had a break from work this week, he's been getting up every morning with Ethan and this is one of their favorite things to do while I sleep in. I have a sneaking suspicion that there's so many videos of this because Richard likes to show off his amazing creations. The only "blocks" we have are Jenga pieces and Dominoes, but he comes up with some pretty impressive stuff. I think it's funny how many different ways Ethan has of knocking them down.
This week we decided to get in a lot of socializing before the baby comes, so Monday we did dinner and tennis with Richard's brother Ian and family. Thursday we did a barbecue with the Andersons --whom you may recognize from last Summer in Jackson, and then Friday we did a Pierogi dinner with Richard's sister's family, where we played some rockband, and enjoyed the backyard with their boys. It was a great week. Now we're all set to have our baby! Um... yeah. Well, at least it won't interfere with all those plans now, but there's always more I could do to prepare (I still wanted to get some peas planted this weekend, but I guess that will have to wait). Either way, we're only 4 days away from my due date! Who knows though, he could come any time. We'll keep you posted.
Speaking of keeping you posted, It looks like our final decision for Graduate School in the Fall is Boise State University! Yay, now I can see a little bit into our future! So come mid August, we will be moving to Boise. Wish us luck!
Our Easter was pretty non-existent, and consisted of just 8 plastic eggs filled with candy, some Cadbury eggs (Richard's only request), some Dove truffle eggs (my choice), some Capri Suns and a can of Pringles (which happened to be Ethan's favorite thing). No baskets, no bunnies, just odd things that we picked up at the store on Saturday and ate that night after dinner. We did Easter dinner with Richard's family the next day, even making them some of our famous Huckleberry ice cream though, and the easter program at church was cool.
Ethan did get some early Easter trinkets from his Grandma Z and aunt Heather. You see them in the film --the biker bunny and the light up egg wand. He really enjoyed those, in fact, he got rather possessive once he realized there were jelly beans inside the first toy as you can see. The one other thing we got Ethan for Easter was a sandbox. We just bought a large under-the-bed storage container with a lid (to keep out neighborhood cats) and filled it with sand from the nearby sand dunes. Of course, this was easier said than done --as soon as we got to the sand dunes we found ourselves in the middle of a downpour, and luckily some nice guy helped us get the full sandbox into the trunk of our car (I'm sure that when he saw a nine-month pregnant lady considering lifting something like that he couldn't help but stop). However, when we got home and Richard tried getting the thing out of the trunk, it collapsed, shattering into peices. He took the sand out, and puzzle-pieced the thing together with packing tape (we weren't about to waste the 13 dollars we spent on this thing). It actually works fine --and will probably last for a while, maybe even until we move. Ethan loves the sand, and will sit for a long time out there playing with it right in front of the big windows where I can watch him --which is why we got it in the first place. He's really enjoyed the warmer weather lately, and always wants to be outside rain or shine. My sister Heather got him the little blue galoshes and he loves the fact that he can put them on himself. He really enjoys the puddle out front, and I just love how cute he looks in them --with his pants sticking out of the top he looks like he's got little knickers on.
Another thing you'll see a lot of in the montage is Ethan knocking down towers that Richard has made. Since Richard has been between semesters and had a break from work this week, he's been getting up every morning with Ethan and this is one of their favorite things to do while I sleep in. I have a sneaking suspicion that there's so many videos of this because Richard likes to show off his amazing creations. The only "blocks" we have are Jenga pieces and Dominoes, but he comes up with some pretty impressive stuff. I think it's funny how many different ways Ethan has of knocking them down.
This week we decided to get in a lot of socializing before the baby comes, so Monday we did dinner and tennis with Richard's brother Ian and family. Thursday we did a barbecue with the Andersons --whom you may recognize from last Summer in Jackson, and then Friday we did a Pierogi dinner with Richard's sister's family, where we played some rockband, and enjoyed the backyard with their boys. It was a great week. Now we're all set to have our baby! Um... yeah. Well, at least it won't interfere with all those plans now, but there's always more I could do to prepare (I still wanted to get some peas planted this weekend, but I guess that will have to wait). Either way, we're only 4 days away from my due date! Who knows though, he could come any time. We'll keep you posted.
Speaking of keeping you posted, It looks like our final decision for Graduate School in the Fall is Boise State University! Yay, now I can see a little bit into our future! So come mid August, we will be moving to Boise. Wish us luck!
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Colors, Hiding, and Being Cute
Well, here's yet another one of our montages. As far as life goes, we're doing great. Richard just finished his first semester of teaching, and he feels really good about it. I'm so proud of him! I think the students really liked him, some even telling him that he was their favorite teacher. This job has really been so good for us in more ways than I can name. I'm especially loving the fact that he has so much free time right now, and I really want to make the most of it, but it's hard when I don't really have the energy to go out and do anything. Still, it's been so nice to have his help around the house and with Ethan. I'm really getting spoiled. This summer it will be so nice to have his help with the new baby. Aren't I so lucky? As for the baby, we have less than two weeks til my due date! Ahhh! Today I have really been in preparation mode, wanting to get everything organized and such in time for the baby, but I've already worn myself out. Of course, I also spent all morning making a large batch of oatmeal cookies as well as some chocolate butterscotch rice krispy treats for Richard's students (no wonder they like him so much). Ethan spent most of the morning watching a movie and "helping" me with dishes --meaning he played for more nearly an hour with soap bubbles in the sink. He's such a funny kid. Anyway, we're still waiting to hear from WSU in Pullman before we make a decision on grad school, but right now it's looking more and more like we might end up in Boise. I'd be perfectly fine with that. We'll let you know when we make our final decision. We'll also let you know when the baby comes --which will most likely be our next post, but who knows? Till then, enjoy these clips of Ethan.
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