An Eventful Week

This week has been interesting. On Monday night Gabby randomly started coughing and barfing in her bed at 10:30 at night. She continued to throw up several more times until she stopped completely around midnight and woke up feeling fine and dandy. We will get back to more sick stories in a minute.

I can't remember what night it was but Corbin and Gabby had been in their room quiet for a long time when all of the sudden Corbin came out crying and yelling that Gabby pulled his tooth out. Sure enough he was bleeding and had a tooth in his hand. Gabby followed him crying and sharing her side of the story. Apparently Corbin was biting Gabby's blanket and she yanked it away and his tooth got caught and voila' it got yanked out. That was unexpected, especially since we thought they were asleep. So Corbin lost his first tooth! He already has a new tooth underneath so that bad boy must have been ready to come out. The tooth fairy put money in a shoe outside his door since he has the tallest bunk bed in the planet and we didn't feel like figuring that one out. Corbin was so excited to get $1. He said something like "I've been wanting money for years." Ha. It was our first time being tooth fairies. It's kind of fun to reach new milestones.

On Friday Corbin's class had a Thanksgiving feast and the whole family was invited to come. We came with our army of very small children and ate with Corbin's class. I just love his cute little kindergarten class. Kindergartners are cute!

On Thursday morning I woke up and my right ear was totally plugged (more on that later). Friday morning I woke up and my stomach was not feeling great. We had plans to go with a bunch of people in our ward to Catching Fire that night. I wasn't too thrilled that I was still deaf in one ear and not feeling great, but we already had reserved tickets and my brother and his wife were actually going to come over and babysit our kids while we went! That was so exciting. I asked Jory to watch Ryan because I wasn't comfortable leaving him with a sitter and she offered to come over and watch everyone. How exciting is that? I was still not feeling great but asked Scott to pull out the Christmas decorations. I had been talking about it all week and Corbin and Gabby had kept asking me so I decided to just do it. Scott pulled out all the boxes and left for work and about 5 minutes later Piper woke up crying from her nap and throwing up. Seriously! Of course Corbin and Gabby had gotten into everything and pulled it out and now Piper is throwing up in the middle of the living room. For the next four hours I tried to untangle Christmas lights, catch Piper's barf, and put up the dang Christmas decorations that were everywhere. I had to give up and sat and rocked Piper forever and helped her barf every 10 minutes or so. The best was when I was feeding Ryan and trying to catch Piper barf. Scott finally got home at 6:00 to a great big disaster and by 7:00 everything was somewhat under control. Obviously we didn't go to the movie and I was able to find someone in the ward to buy our tickets. Phew. Piper actually by 7:00 had eaten some dinner and not thrown it up and she didn't throw up again. She slept great that night and woke up feeling perfectly fine.

Okay so Saturday morning, my ear is still plugged even though I'd tried lots of different home remedies. It is really annoying to have a plugged ear by the way. That morning I was nursing Ryan and noticed that I had a sore spot. Within an hour I was completely inflamed and it just continued to get worse throughout the day. We drove to Alex and Anna's house so Alex could do some repairs on our car that morning and I was talking about my ear and decided that I just needed to go to a doc in the box. I went and sure enough I have a blister on my ear drum caused by bacteria. Weird! They prescribed antibiotics. I went and filled the prescription. Meanwhile I am certain I have mastitis at this point and continue to try to nurse, pump, and rest as much as possible. I am now on day 2 of antibiotics and my ear is still completely plugged and my mastitis is not good. I am hoping that the antibiotics will take care of both problems soon. Although if I don't notice improvements with my mastitis by tomorrow I am calling my doctor to make sure these antibiotics will work for my mastitis as well. Needless to say I have not been feeling good all weekend and I sure hope I feel better soon!

Piper! She is the queen bee of dirty looks I'm telling you. She got a bloody nose and I wanted to take a picture, apparently she didn't agree with that decision.

Gabby took this picture, I thought it was a cute one of Corbin.

Daddy carrying the kids to bed but not before he's "the daddy monster" for awhile.

We made Indian headbands and the girls wore them long enough to get the picture taken and that's about it. 

Silly Corbin

Corbin lost his first tooth

My Friday afternoon disaster room. That was a long four hours people!

Weekly Update

On Monday we woke up bright and early and took Scott to the airport. My parents came for a quick visit Monday morning to meet Ryan. We visited for an hour and then met some of my other family members at Sizzlers for lunch. I think it was my first time taking all four of my kids somewhere. We quickly ate and headed home. Ryan was a ticking time bomb and was crying and hungry at the end and it was time to go. 

On Tuesday after we picked up Corbin from Kindergarten we met Anna and her sister and their kids at McDonalds. My kids kept calling it Old MacDonalds. Ha! It's a little crazy to go somewhere with 4 kids 6 and under. Just saying! It was pretty good though. Piper (terrible 2's) is the most unpredictable in these situations. She's not great about being obedient, but we get lots of practice everyday. That night Scott's flight didn't get in until after 9:00 pm. Both Gabby and Corbin fell asleep on the way home. Piper was awake as can be. She was ready to party on.

On Wednesday I decided to brave story time with Ryan and the girls. It worked out pretty well. They have a room just for kids and I was able to feed Ryan fairly easily there. It's a little nerve wracking to nurse your baby with a 2 year old on the loose but Piper stayed put and it worked out. 

We sold our trooper and bought a new car all within 24 hours last week. Scott has wanted a small car with good gas mileage for years. We jumped on craigslist and found a Mazda Protege for 1700 bucks and called on it. Scott checked it out and put our car for sale. Our car sold within a couple of hours. The next day Scott took the craigslist car to the auto shop to get it checked out. It being a '97 it of course had some things that needed some immediate attention. Scott was able to negotiate the price down to 1400 bucks and we bought it. We got some of the repairs done this week. So far so good! I can't wait until we fill up the gas and figure out the gas mileage. Ha. 

Scott ordered the first season of Breaking Bad edited and we finished watching that show this week. I love watching shows with Scott, it's my favorite thing. We enjoyed watching that crazy show. Now they just need to edit the rest of the seasons so we can finish watching it. We also watched our edited copy of Slumdog Millionaire and The Bank Job this weekend. We have tons of edited R movies if anyone ever wants to borrow some.

I've done some shopping here and there this weekend too. I only have limited time in between feedings but I've been able to sneak away and spend some of my birthday money so that's fun. I took the three kids to church today and Scott stayed home with Ryan. It was good to go to church even if it meant wrangling the kids in sacrament meeting by myself. We did alright except when Piper tried to go up on the stand. 

Ryan is an awesome baby. I don't know why but for some reason the trend has been that my baby boys are as chill as can be and my baby girls are not! Ryan is great to just chill on the ground and hang out for awhile. Gabby and Piper were never happy on the ground, I think this is part of the reason they were both late walkers. For the most part Ryan gets up twice in the night to eat and goes back to bed at night. I've been Baby wising him this week. It's so funny because you work really hard to get them to wake up and by the time they are awake it's time for them to take a nap and by the time they fall asleep it's time to wake them up and feed them again. It's a total pain to do, but it works like a charm.

On the way home from the airport.

Gabby whistling while she sleeps. Don't mind that's she's sleeping on the floor in the bathroom in her Sunday dress, all per her request! These crazy kids of mine.

Birthday Week

We've survived another week at the Cannon household of 6. On Monday Jeff and Janet drove up to return our kids to us. They spent the evening visiting with us and met baby Ryan. I made my pumpkin birthday cake a few days early so we would have someone to share it with. It was fun to have a visit from them. My kids sure love their Nana and Papa.

 I took the girls to story time on Tuesday. By the time we were getting out of there I felt like that might have been a bit ambitious. That night I went to enrichment for just a bit as Scott had an elders quorum meeting that night. We've had some rough nights and rough days but things are already getting smoother around here. For several nights in a row Ryan only wakes up twice to eat and goes back to bed so that is great. I think he will be really easy to sleep train as he is a very laid back baby. He should be sleeping through the night in no time. I can't wait for that, I don't do well without sleep.I just love this baby and think he is so cute and sweet. We end up sleeping together for several hours every night as we both sleep better that way. I figure he will be sleeping through the night soon enough so I am going to enjoy our little cuddling time for now.

Wednesday was my birthday. We all went to Tucanos with our family for lunch. With my birthday coupon and with kids 6 and under eating for free we fed our whole family including tip for $18. Amazing. They lost money on us for sure! I don't know if they've seen a 5 year old consume so much meat. Corbin loves that place, that little carnivore. That night Gabe and Christy brought us dinner and a Marie Calendars coconut cream pie, oh my! They stayed and visited for a bit and it was great. They made my birthday for sure!

Ryan got circumcised on Thursday. That was horrible! I hate that. Corbin got circumcised in the hospital and I think that is way better. It's already done and over and healing right away. To have to anticipate it and deal with it later is much worse in my opinion. I ended up just dropping him off while they did the procedure. I did not want to be in the doctors office and listen to that! It would break my heart. It is looking much better now but ouch, just ouch is all I have to say about that.

On Saturday I went out with some of my friends for a birthday breakfast. We went to Kneaders. I love their breakfasts so much. That was fun. Afterwards we went to Hobby Lobby and I got supplies to finish my enrichment craft from Tuesday night.

Things are good. The kids have responded great to Ryan. They mostly just ignore him which is fine by me. I went in the office to get Ryan today when he started crying and Corbin was in there and said, "he's been driving me nuts." Ha.  Gabby gets frustrated when I am feeding Ryan because it takes forever and she almost always wants me to be doing something for her or with her. "I've been waiting for so long" is a common phrase coming from her mouth. Piper doesn't act phased by the new addition at all. If he cries she will say, "baby crying." She also says, "baby, brother." That is about all. Scott leaves for Texas for a few days so I am on my own, wish me luck.

He is starting to fill out a bit.

Tummy time.

Papa time.

Sleeping time.

This girl cracks me up.

I started working on my craft and my kids had to join in. They helped me paint the blocks.

Finished project.

Welcome Baby Ryan

We welcomed our second son into our family last week. As I mentioned in the blog post last time my sore throat was getting really bad on Sunday. I was worried that I was getting strep throat which would have been terrible because strep throat is the worst and because then I wouldn't be able to have my baby on Tuesday like I wanted. I nursed my throat for 2 days. I drank hot drinks and hot broths and rested as much as possible. Scott and our home teacher gave me a blessing. On Monday morning I wasn't totally better but my throat had improved significantly. I continued to just rest as much as possible. My good friend even brought us a delicious dinner. Bless her! We got everything packed up and went and dropped our kids at my brother's house to stay while we were in the hospital.

At 6:00 in the morning on Tuesday I called the hospital to make sure that the induction was still a go and it was! If they are busy with people going into non elective labor they will bump you. We got ready and headed down to the hospital. There's not much to tell with the birth story. My nurse STABBED the IV into me. No joke, it was quite shocking and blood came squirting out everywhere! Things got better between us after that but I wasn't so sure how we were going to do being in labor together all day. We warmed to each other and I ended up quite liking her. I have found with having 4 babies that your laboring nurse can make a big difference. I had a hard time with the epidural working for about an hour or so. This is par for the course for me. I always need an extra dose and some adjustments. Luckily it worked out pretty well. By the time I had to push it was wearing off a bit but it wasn't bad at all. I kind of liked being able to feel the contractions a bit so I could control my pushing better. I probably pushed for no longer than 15 minutes and our baby was born. He practically birthed himself. By the end I wasn't even pushing because he was pushing his own way out. He cried immediately. This is the first time any of my babies have cried straight from the gate. He was born at 3:24 pm. He weighed 7 pounds 15 ounces. He was 20 inches long.

He has the funniest cry ever. It's really high pitched and he often sounds like a cat or dog moaning. It's funny. He was not happy and they handed him to me and he calmed down immediately. I have never had any of my babies warm to me so quickly. He just melted in my arms and stole my heart forever. He loves being held and he is super calm and chill to just hang out in your arms. So far he is still the sleepiest baby ever. When he decides to wake up one of these days we will have to see what he's really like. He's done pretty well at going back to sleep at night as well. Of course it's still exhausting being up feeding a baby multiple times in the night and getting them back to sleep. The last couple of nights Scott has taken over and only given him to me to feed and then taken him right back. It's been awesome.

We had a hard time deciding on a name. Naming a child is hard. We finally decided on Ryan Fielding Cannon. Fielding is a big family name on Scott's side being a descendant of Mary Fielding Smith. I also felt like it's the only way I could name any of my kids after Scott's dad Jeff since his legal name isn't Jeff. His middle name is Fielding so there you go! When Scott was getting his Masters at BYU we were very good friends with another couple named Piper and Ryan. I told Piper that I loved her name and would probably name one of my kids Piper. I also said that I really liked the name Ryan too and joked that we would name one of our kids Ryan also. Well guess what I did! So funny. I love Piper and Ryan Johnston and now I have a Piper and Ryan of my own. Kind of funny!

Nursing is a big cluster cuss as usual. I have been fighting off clogged ducts for several days now and been bleeding and all kinds of fun stuff. Nursing is not easy for me. You would think after years of nursing that I wouldn't have problems but I do. I  guess the problem mostly stems from me producing enough milk to feed triplets. I guess it's a blessing and a curse. At least I know that my babies aren't going to be hungry. I hope that things normalize soon! Nursing is not my favorite! I hope I can stick it out.

We left the hospital on Wednesday afternoon and went and picked up our kids. The next day was Halloween and I tried to rest as much as possible while still somewhat taking care of my kids. That afternoon we carved a few pumpkins and Scott took the kids trick or treating. Wow they got a haul. I don't even think they were gone for more than 45 minutes and they got a ton of candy. Tons of GOOD candy! It was awesome. The next morning Scott met his parents in Burley and they traded cars and took our kids for the weekend. Thank you Jeff and Janet! It has been really nice to be able to just rest whenever I want to but man I am ready for my kids to come back. I miss them! It was WAY too quiet around here. They come back tomorrow and I can't wait. Scott and I have had a lot of fun just hanging out together. Yesterday he took me to the mall for a bit to do a little birthday shopping. We've spent a lot of time watching shows and relaxing and hanging out.

Thumb sucker.

Serious face...Scott! He's a dork!

He's super fun to cuddle with. 

He's got giant hands and skis for feet.

Ha!

Our kids costumes were a little "special." Don't mind Piper's red outfit underneath. Pretty sure she would freeze to death as a little fairy. Corbin wanted to wear his giraffe costume from years ago. Look at those clam diggers. Gabby changed her outfit 3 times at least and finally settled on her Little Bo Peep costume from last year. Whatever dude.