Mikah Lea Garner

Welcome

Mikah Lea Garner
September 27th 2009
11:13 am
7lbs 8 oz
21 inches

Mommy holding Mikah for the first time..but only for a second.
Holding her again and showing off the very unexpected head of hair.
Mikah and Daddy in the hospital before going home.
All 3 Garner kids at the house. Because of flu season the kids were not allowed in the Hospital. I was sad that they would not get to see her right away, but the nurses wheeled us to a room where the kids could look at her through a window from the parking lot...the very hot parking lot. They liked playing with toys in the lobby though. And he decided that he does lover her.
He even wiped her bum when we changed her diaper. It was just a pee pee diaper but he had to use 2 wipes!


Each baby is different and after laboring for about 14 hours at home, with contractions that were between 2 and 4 minutes apart, but not too painful, we decided to head to the hospital. On the ride there they got decidedly worse and I was almost 6cm upon arrival.
Naturally, I asked for my epidural as soon as I was admitted. I've never had any problems with them before, but this time half of my face went numb and my left eye was droopy, I was light headed and had a kink in my neck. And I could still feel some pain! They lowered my dose and gave me narcotics. (Those make you itch after wards!)
I had to push a little longer with Mikah, as her head was turned to the side. In addition, she had "pooped" in utero, so she was covered in merconium when she was born. They said it was "mild"...I wonder how bad it looks if it is serious!
We are all home now and looking forward to spending time with our new family member and having Nate off for 2 whole weeks!
(I need to make my list of things I need him to do!- and the kids will enjoy some special activities with just daddy.)

Making it work.

Earlier this summer we realized that there was a need to stay in our little condo a little longer. Our anticipations had been to move into a bigger house before the baby came, but that was not possible. So I began making arrangements so that we could all fit without feeling too cluttered.

It is fun to look back at pictures of this place when we were first married. It was just us with 3 bedrooms (although small) and very little "stuff". It was "big" and wide open.

It will be fun to look back at this place and see what we have done and how we fit our family in here as it more than doubled in size and we collected more and more things.

I'm trying not to be a pack rat and not to have too much clutter...but well....

I thought I was doing pretty good, but when I look at the pictures it feels like it looks a bit cluttered. I promise it could be worse. Here is what I have done:

Kids Room:
All 3 kids will live in this room. I wanted a little antique look all along and have modified to a more unisex looking room as Jake joined our family and the kids shared the room. I got rid of the white furniture and continued looking for more vintage, or vintage inspired items.
This area is for the baby. I got rid of our old crib and changing table in search of a Jenny Lind style crib and a dresser that I could use as a changing table. The dresser was free from my mom's neighbor and I spent about $25 on paint and casters to make it match the decor better and to make it taller for use as a changing table. It has 6 drawers and is great storage. Also, under the bed I have baskets for extra baby bedding and baby shoes...the rest of the space under there? Well, it will be used for diapers and food storage! I got the bedding at Target on clearance and the "mobile" at Cost Plus Imports. I bought the crib on Craigslist used. The seller requested $40 and I was more than willing to pay that price, especially because she delivered it to me. However, when she dropped off the crib she said that $30 would be just fine! Lucky Day.
Earlier this summer the kids got bunk beds. Maes won't sleep on the top, so we are in the process of putting and extra bar up there to make her feel safer. Also, with the old trundle gone we have room for food storage under the bed and shoe baskets (half off at hobby lobby). My kids have too many shoes. However, the shoe baskets cover up the food storage boxes! I got the kid's bedding at Target and Cost Plus World Market on clearance naturally!
I don't think this is a great photo of this area. I wanted this room to look pretty unisex as the girls and Jake would be sharing it. Near both of the girl's beds I have framed vintage pictures of little girls. This area by this old dresser is dressed up in boy style with my old Anasazi stuff, Native items from Nate's mission in Brazil and various object brought back from Nate's world traveling sister. One item is a utensil used by cannibals in Fiji. You cannot see it in this picture. The globe, which is actually a night light, sort of represents the world traveling and the old fishing boxes have my art supplies in them, but matched the decor too well to just keep them in the hall closet.
I also added an extra set of coat hooks. My kids have a bit too many bags...however they seem to remember things, so I cannot secretly give any away. I need to wait until they are ready. Maesyn has had her backpack for years and I think I'll have her use it until I cannot repair it any longer. Jake's back pack was given to him by a neighbor and hopefully he will use it until it falls apart.
I am trying to look for an extra row of hooks for our living room so that the kids can hang up their backpacks and sweaters right when they come in rather than have them walk to their room where they just drop all the stuff behind their door.
I used to joke that we could fit another child in the house, but it would have to go naked because I did not have any space for clothes. Well, you get creative when you have to make due. We are renting a small storage unit and have some stuff at my parents house as well. I bet I could fit that whole storage unit in any possible nook in our house and at my parents, but it feels nice to have some breathing room and to feel a little self sufficient. I'm glad my parents offered some of their extra space too...so we are still a little bit dependent.

Ok, this closet. I added an extra clothes bar. Maes has her stuff on the bottom, so she can dress herself. I threw a small dresser in here for Jake's clothes. We also have the Sunday box in here, but I might want to find a more accessible place for it.
The two little ones have their clothes up high and then I have some totes of keep sakes, clothing to grow into and the kid's sleeping bags.
Maesyn has a basket of her journals- she loves to write and draw in them. She also has her littlest pet shops stored in here. I put away all of the "chokeable" items a few weeks ago, but I decided that Maesyn was old enough to take care of these on her own.

The Play Room:
I've taken pictures of the insanity of this room a few times. It has not changed too much. The bedrooms are the only rooms with carpet and I thought it would be nice to use this room as the play room so that I would not have to worry about messy carpet. It is sort of a multi purpose room as I have no other place for the bikes or treadmill.
It is organized and I have a space for everything and Maes knows how anal I am about it. She was reluctant to play in a friends play room because it was "messy". I'm just a little nuts about organizing and baskets, and totes.
We gave the kids the old computer. We can play music on it and it fills the house. Maes was sure to let me know that this computer is slow. How does she remember that? We are hoping to get it cleaned up so it will speed up and get the wireless router working so that they can play PBS KIDS and look at the blogs of their far away family members.
My mom bought a cute wood table and chair set for my kids a few years ago from IKEA. She started staining it piece by piece...She had 11/2 pieces done. This week I put it together and Nate finished staining it. Under the table are stuffed animals...then under the easel we have the babies. I think I have a trash bag of stuffed animals in storage as well as one or two (i hope just one) totes of toys. We are rotating them... I sort of think it would be a good idea to give them their old toys for Christmas!!!!
Note to self: my kids don't need anymore stuffed animals...or Toys!
I'm debating if we need that TV in here. It does not get the digital signal, however it plays VHS and the kids use it fairly often...that means that we should keep it. Right?
We brought the toy box in from the living room. Now all of the toys (well most of them) are in the play room. We put a buffet table in the living room and it now stores all of my art supplies and I've gotten some pretty positive comments on it. This toy box has the bigger toys like ....hmmmmm. I cannot remember. You cannot really read all of the font on this. Here we have some baskets of toys...baby toys, horses, wooden blocks and wooden beads. The kid's dress ups have moved to the corner on hangers and the closet is mostly full of toys. I have a little bit of food storage in here, but mostly totes of legos, barbies, cars, tools, little people, dress up accessories, and a bin of balls! I also have the baby backpack in here and Nate has one of his 6 guitars squeezed in too!!!
Although there are a lot of toys in here, sometimes I want to find a way to lock the closet! - No my kids are pretty good about cleaning up, considering their ages!

The Laundry room:
I am pretty lucky to have a laundry room and it is very useful. The previous owner had installed some shelving in here and my mom helped with a second long shelf above the washing machine a few years ago. For my birthday my dad helped me put more shelving up. This is how we use this space.
We got a freezer a few years back and it is so helpful with food storage. On the other side of the freezer I have laundry sorting as well as two shelves for my art class supplies. Now I don't have to find strange places to store the kids stuff in the "seen" areas of the house. I also have my clay stored in this area.
As this is what you see if the laundry room door is open, I tried to store the "cuter" items 0n these shelves. The paper goods and food storage items are in nicer baskets. I think it looks pretty good for "clutter".
I would like to included laundry soap in my 3 month supply, but I recently went through it. Fortunate there is still room for more stuff in here. I also need to get my sewing machine back in here and I have fit some of the baby things....bib basket, booster seat.

Now that we are "mostly" organized and ready for the baby...maybe I can relax the next few days before school starts. We still need to get a car seat and I really want more hooks behind the door...I think it will never end really, it is not in my personality. But I'm glad that Nate and I worked together to get this done.
Now, we just have to keep things CLEAN!

Sedona Day Trip

Yesterday we headed up to cooler weather in Sedona. Maesyn calls it the "orange place" because all of the rocks are orange. The area is called Cresentmoon Recreation Area, or something along those lines. It is one of the most photographed areas in Sedona because you have a great view of Cathedral Rock. Maesyn loves looking at all of the rock formations as we drive through the town.

It was a bit crowded, but not too bad. I do hate seeing discarded diapers on the hiking paths. I think we need to bring a trash bag and gloves on our hikes.... but on the other hand... we paid $8 to come play here...is there someone to clean the place up? But honestly. WHY? Why do people leave their crap all around?
We love this spot because it is very kid friendly. We can play on the rocks and wade in the water, there are deeper spots for when the kids want to swim in deeper pools when they are older. For now, Nate and Jake and Maes jump between the dry spots and wade in the little streams that run over the red rocks. It was slippery in parts where moss was growing and I totally wiped out on our way in and Nate did later. The kids wiped out numerous times, but we were all in good spirits.

Sometimes hiking with the kids can be a little difficult. There is another area up the creek with a rope swing (and dirt, which the kids enjoyed playing in) and we had to walk to get there. It is aways great when there are fun things along the hike to make the hike part of the adventure rather than just the destination.
This time of year some of the wild black berries were starting to ripen.
Nate and I braved through the thorny vines and picked hand fulls for the kids.

And they ate and ate.

Lots of people passed us as we were picking and the kids told them all about the black berries. One family let their kids each eat one, but others seemed hesitant. I think that they were not sure if you could eat food in the "wild". I did not mind...at lease the bushes were not picked over and we left pleanty for the animals.
Speaking of which, we saw lots of animal poop, and the kids loved that. We saw a bit of people poop too (and TP) again WHY? There are toilets here too!

Mexican Vacation 2009

After all of the drama of our car trouble (which is still not over) I have settled down enough to post about our vacation.
Every year we go to Kino Bay Mexico. I think Nate's family has been going for about 15 years now and this is our 7th together. Even with our kids, that keep us very busy, this is the most relaxing vacation we take.
Granted it is very hot in Mexico in July, the water is quite warm and we swim and play a lot.
This is where we stay on the beach. There are 4 condos, and our group used the 3 on the end.. How else do you accommodate 20+ people?
Naturally Nate and Jake took some opportunities to fish. They did not catch anything. They were given some tips on some good fishing places but it was just too hot to sit and fish. It is just as much fun if you don't even catch anything.

Jake is fishing in his underwear. He was very busy potty training this trip. I think that his boxer briefs are so dang cute!!!!
It has been a tradition for a few years to bury the kids and give them fish tails. I was not sure that we would do it this year, it seemed like there were a lot of bugs- I called them sand fleas because they jumped and would bite you- but the tradition carried on. The year they were on their tummies.
I also make "sand Jakeis" and "sand Maesyns." We also make sand castles the whole week long. Jake made sure to take all of the shells of of "himself" before we went in for the night and Maesyn was upset that a large crab had a hole near her head and was wandering around "her" the next morning.

Because I have not read a book just for me in about 10 years I decided to take 2 books on the trip. After this summer's experience I have concluded that it is best to read the cover and some of the reviews before diving into a book.
My first book was "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy. A friend told me about it a while back and I thought it sounded interesting. I loved a few nonfiction books I'd read on survival situations. ("Into Thin Air", and "Into The Wild")- however, had I read the reviews I would have been reminded, and prepared for the graphic, carnal nature of the story. I could not put the book down and I think Nate and I both read it in 2 days. I think I was eager for something good to happen so I could not stop reading until it did, or until the book ended. I guess that made it a good book. I was not disappointed with the end and thought about it for days.
The other book was "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings." I'm not a very literary person, and after I was finished Nate kept asking me why the caged bird sings. I still don't know. I also love books that talk about rising above difficult circumstances, I've enjoyed reading "Man's Search for Meaning." "The Hiding Place", "Hansi" (Not a well known book- but about the Holocaust), and "The Color Purple." They are enlightening and inspiring. However, I did not like reading about the assault on the young girl. (Nobody does). I think that it was a bit more difficult because I now have children of my own. I think that "The Road" was difficult too because of that reason.

The kids would watch movies and play house when it was too hot to go out. Kourtney, Nate's youngest sister, would indulge them. Jake was the dog. (Nate always wanted to be the Monkey when he played house with his sisters).
We also went to visit the street vendors on our way to the tide pools and at the pier in old Kino. We have a friend named Francisco that does Iron Wood carvings and gives us a good deal. Jake bought 3 dolphins. A mommy, daddy and baby. Maes bought 2 as well as jewelry and a little swivel head turtle. The kids earned their own money this year by practicing swimming. Maesyn can earn extra money by doing chores too. I figured that I spend money on trinkets when we travel, so why not make them work for it. Granted swimming practice is an easy thing to do, but they are sometimes reluctant. They earned 10 dollars for this trip and can earn 10 more for the next. (easiest money they ever made).
Maesyn also got together with her aunt and her friends and made jewelry. Another Mexico tradition that my family will be involved in via Maesyn, as I don't wear jewelry.







In addition to our time on the beach in front of our condo and reading books, we also went to explore the near by tide pools. The kids loved finding little snails on the rocks and tiny little crabs, some just the size of your thumbnail. Nate would also bring them hermit crabs that he would find snorkeling.
Nate and Jake were both stung by Portuguese Man 0 War. Some days there were a lot of them washed up with the tide. They are not very big. We would walk around and pop them (with our shoes on) but this turned out to be a bad idea, as one stuck to one of Maesyn's flip flops and it's tentacles rubbed against her opposite leg, and they still had some sting to them. I'm pretty sure I sat on one at one pint while we were building castles as part of my bum started to sting pretty bad!
All in all we had a great and relaxing (although eventful) trip. We are glad to be home and resting up for our trip to San Diego. We look forward to no car trouble and cooler weather on our trip as we prepare for the new school year.

The End.

Christopher Creek

Hungry to use my new rain and shade canopy, we had a camping trip scheduled for this weekend. However, half way through the week things started going wrong, wrong, wrong... and we concluded that if we went camping that the forest would probably burn down. So instead we took a day trip and picnic to Christoper Creek.
Fishing on the rocks. Jake loves to fish and Nate has really gotten into it too. Nate caught a trout and let it go (well, it let itself go) and the kids kept catching crawdads.
These kids were bottomless pits and always starving the whole time. Maes was pretty worn out after fishing for crawdads and eating.

oh you want to know about our bad week. Ok.

Tuesday night I cramped all through the night. Afraid that it was pre term labor we went to the hospital just before 6 am and stayed until lunch time. They hooked me up to monitors, gave me fluids and ran tests. As I waited I worried:
What will happened to the baby if she is born at 26 weeks? Will she be ok?
What if they put me on bed rest? Our tight budget includes me working for 6 weeks before the baby arrives. What will we do?
What about our 2 vacations that we were saving for and planning for. The kids have been talking about Mexico for months.
Then I cried with all of my worries.
Their conclusion.... kidney stone. Yeah, when does someone say "Thankfully it was just a kidney stone."?
I spent the rest of the day with dull cramps and rested. Nate stayed home from work to help with the kids. By the end of the day I was so depressed at all that I had not accomplished that I was in tears (again).
Jake also pooped in my parents pool.
On Thursday I tried to pull things together, I felt well, but I was scheduled to go to day camp. I had already spent hours coordination all of the adult leadership as well as making sure that everybody had all of their gear together and the correct paper work. Now I was unable to go (my follow up appointment was scheduled during day camp and I was not sure what I was allowed and not allowed to do). I scampered to find help as I continually told my kids "After I'm done doing all of this work for day camp...." to any request they had. I only planned to spend a little bit of time on cub scout and day camp preperations, but then I found out a parent that was scheduled for the following day was called into work, so I had to find a replacement not only for me, but for Friday as well.
I was happy that a mother stepped up in the end and found care for her child (who happened to be sick) so that she could cover for me... there are angles.
All the boys were off to camp and I went to my appointment. My regular Dr. was not there, but I needed a follow up. I found out that my attack was just minor, my kidney was inflamed but they did not see a stone in the ultra sound. (I was worried that there was one in there and I had more pain in my future). My big question was "Can I still go to Mexico on vacation? " the answer "I would not recommend it." However, all my tests looked good and she told me to check with my regular Dr. when he got back from vacation (the earliest I can see hims is 4:40 pm on Tuesday- we leave on our trip on Wednesday in the dark AM).
You see, a kidney stone attack can send you into preterm labor, so it was not about my discomfort (which I was willing to go through even on vacation-so we would not have to cancel - Maes has been asking about our trip for months, remember?). If it happened again it could make me go into pre term labor. To stop it I would need to go to the hospital and I I would not want to go to a hospital in Mexico.
So I called Nate on the way home to tell him what I heard. Of course he said "That Sucks" we all know it sucks. And then he said "Planning a new vacation will cost more money and take some time." We all knew that as well. So in my hormonal and slightly depressed pregnant state I cried...wait....I bawled. And hung up on him and then when he got home I bawled some more as I explained to him that he was supposed to say "It is ok, I'm glad that you and the baby are OK. We will plan the most fun vacation that we can and don't worry about a thing." Now to rail on Nate like that was sort of crappy. You see, Nate is the PRACTICALLY PERFECT husband- and just because he did not say the exact perfect thing at that exact moment does not mean I should rail on him.... I know that most wives (hopefully) think that their husbands are great, but if you knew all of the things that Nate does to be so great then you might start to covet him, and that is a sin. So I won't share them with you all at once (but he has been known to say that I can have all of the shoes I want because girls are supposed to have lots of shoes.). So, Nate is pretty great and I would never ever trade him for another husband and sometimes I feel bad that he is stuck with a nutty wife that gives him grief.
But now I will go on with our bad week.
On Friday morning Maes woke up asking how many days until Mexico. I told her that we might not be able to go until next year, but if we cannot go then we would plan another very fun trip. "Nothing is as fun as Mexico." (we all know that as well). I sent her to her room and cried.
I checked my e-mail. The person that I was counting on to cover our missing parent for day camp (only for part of the day mind you) had sent an e-mail that said she could not help with day camp. No "sorry", no explanation. I cried again. You see, I told our scout master that I would cover if we could not find anybody. So, I put off my kids again for one more day that week as I prepared for day camp.
I also had to take our car in to get its emissions checked (yeah, the certified vehicle did not have it's emissions checked by the dealership before they sold it to us, what else did they forget?) On a good note, our friend from our ward works at the dealership and I don't have to go back there. She will bring me a check to reimburse me and then also bring us our plates!!! On a bad note, I cannot find my credit card that I last used to pay for emissions.
I took my kids to Nate's great Aunts house to be watched. Maes cried and cried because, although Grandma was there to watch her-( she was there to help our great grandma Wheeler while Dianne was out of town) Maes thought the house was scary. Jake was fine until he saw his sisters angst, then he clung to me. It is hard to leave your kids like that.
So, out of the house and into the van to take the boys to day camp. Oh, I lost my keys while I was there and got blisters because I was wearing converse with crappy socks (yeah, no chaco's
I called Nate to drive out to bring me our spare set. Found out that Maes had thrown up about 3 times on my parents couch and carpet.
Nate drove out, and once we got there, the staff member that had my keys (the entire time I was looking for them) also arrived in the parking lot and clicked open our car. It just happened that way. He did not need to go open my car with the keys, just turn them into lost and found so I could retrieve them. He was a jerk...but I won't go on about that.
Saturday... slept in. Kids whining. Bath time a disaster. More fits and fights with the kids. Sent Nate to a baptism on his own. Got mad at everybody. Put the bunk beds together, cleaned the house and finally we set out to Christopher creek. Our friend said it was a half mile hike at the most. NOT TRUE. Maes hated it, her feet hurt right away and then she was STARVING. When we arrived we saw that the area was not really kid friendly...cool but not easy for them to get around. Maes let us know over and over again that she liked the place with the orange rocks better (Sedona). Jake did pretty well. He is a good hiker and did not complain. But he is little, there for slow. On the way out Maes said she was so tired and tried to just crawl out. Not Ok. As we hiked I told her the names of all the plants that I knew. She loved it (I need a book of Arizona plants so I can tell her more). It made things easier. We also told her that she had to hike fast and in between Nate and I or else the mountain lions would see that she was slow and an easy target (true, but sort of mean). Although I am very impatient with the kids at home, I think I win in patience with them while hiking (I'm not all that patient, but I think I was a little more than Nate, just a smidge).
The car ride home... Jake kept yelling (then whispering) to Maesyn to "shut off" he though he was saying "shut up" and he knows it is naughty. Maes would yell and scream in response "Jake is saying the bad word that Tanner says. " Jake did not get any french fries for his behavior.

And that was our week...

Wait... at the creek the lid to our bait worms fell in the water. Nate noticed it floating out of his reach. Although there was litter everywhere we are a slight bit granola and would not allow ourselves to contribute (in fact, on the way out Nate pointed out all of the trash and we were a bit sad that we had not brought trash bags to help clean up a little... although we really did not have means to pick up trash as our hand were full of kids and their stuff). At any rate, it was getting late and cool and I did not want Nate to get his clothes wet swimming and then be cold and risk a chafing on our hike out. So I suggested he get naked and swim out to get our little bait lid. It was fun to watch, and Jake pointed out Nate's bum cheeks ( my kids love bum cheeks) and then asked where daddy's swimsuit was.

Wild Life World Zoo

At the beginning of May we went to the Wildlife World Zoo with Tara and Mandi and Tara's room made Sharon and Cousin boy Reagan. This is a new zoo and it was not crowed ed and not really manned with lots of employees. Thus we reached into cages and pet animals that would not eat us.. and Reagan shared his sippie with a Lama.
It was an amazing zoo, but they do not allow outside food. We picnicked in the hot parking lot, but then I took some snacks in for my pregnant self to much on.
All in all we had a great day. How often do you get to feed a Giraffe?

Feeding the birds some apples. They would land right on you to eat! Maesyn was very brave to feed the birds.
Aunt Tara and Nate and Jake and Maes. Jake was content to just watch!
Lamas.
Feeding the Giraffes. You just drop the food on their tongues.

They have really long tongues.
It is kinda yucky!

Oh and they did have a fun petting zoo, no pictures because two goats started to eat my skirt and I had to leave.
And they had some prairie dogs that were nursing like 500 babies while standing on all fours. I felt a special closeness to them.

fishing, fly fishing.

This little man was born to fish. He went fishing 2 times on Saturday! He never wanted to leave, in fact when they had to leave that evening he threw himself on the ground into a fit!

Jake was very observant of the men fishing. He saw that they would whip their poles back to cast and that they held some extra line in their hands. He did both of these things when fishing and would point out that he caught a "bee." It was actually the fly on the end of his line. He also said that we would catch "eighteen seven" fish for me. He did not catch any but was content to be there the whole day!
Here he is with Nate. He insisted on being by him. Nate would scoot away because he did not want to catch his fly on Jake when he casted, but Jake was moving right next to him. He even squatted down when Nate did.

This cute girl fished for a little bit.

But then she did this:

and this:

And took pictures like these:

she spent some time with her grandpa:

they went off and found some straw to put in their mouths like huck finn.