In Which Luke Leaves and Comes Back

WELL. Well, well, well. Luke is home! And has been for a few months now. Hopefully that deployment will be an isolated incident, one we only talk about a few times a year while cuddled up together watching House Hunters on Netflix and no one is 3,000 miles away from anyone. It occurs to me how much more quickly time passes now that he's back. I don't feel like I'm perpetually holding my breath.

As my last blog post stated, I began my post-Luke time at my parents house in Washington. It seems like a lifetime ago. Luke came up to Washington for a week and then he was gone. Communication wasn't terrible. He had no cell service, but he would text if he had WiFi. He could call using a land-line and a calling card, so we did that pretty often. Oddly, I realized that it made me depressed to have long, chatty, "I miss you so much" talks so it eventually evolved into a 10-15 minute talk every couple of days.

He could email me at work, so we would do that a few times a day and text when he got home. He also struggled with knowing how available to be, because without WiFi he couldn't text but it also meant that he was pretty home bound. We figured out an okay balance where we were both less unhappy than we could have been but of course there were times when it was just the worst.

But the girls and I packed our lives full of comings and goings and outings and that's what this post is about. There are lots of things I didn't get pictures of, but since this post already has almost 100, you probably aren't too weepy about that.

Pretty sure I already posted this one. Peter is such a doll. He is the funnest uncle ever. 

This swing in the woods! Ivy loved it. 

This is the kind of picture I would send to Luke a few times a day. 

Oh, Ivy. Helping make "soup" in the sink. 

Ivy is obviously super tech savvy. Nice mouse placement.

My life for four months <3

Ivy lounging with Uncle Brian

Lots of long walks with JoJo. 

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Grandpa showing the girls something. They love him.

Ivy treating all her animals to a drive-in movie

A typical afternoon for me - alternating the girls between the hammock/swing/trampoline

Beautiful grandma helping with June at church

On our way to Seattle with MaKayla! We stopped at Moses Lake.

Meeting up with cousins

A visit to the aquarium with Boone and Jordan

Then back to the Souhwicks!

Ivy and Thayne. She still talks about "Fayner"

Interjection here: MaKayla and I planned a long weekend trip to Seattle, but the girls and I had so much fun with my cousin Ali and her family, I decided to just stay. The plan was to stay for a couple of weeks and then get down to Portland and meet up with my parents who would be heading to the coast for our family reunion. It was so much fun. 

A trip to Vashon Island

We went strawberry picking and Ivy picked like one...

And then decided to jump in puddles with strangers instead.

The zoo!

Funny incident: I found a secluded little bench on which to sit and nurse June. When I looked behind me, I saw these guys. 

On the train to Portland! It was so fun. 

And had so much space compared to a plane. I just plopped June down on the floor at our feet

And it went right along the coast, so we saw some cool, beautiful things.  

And then we were at the coast-. Ivy ran right into the ocean, got knocked over by a wave, and went from being a happy little girl to a shivering, salty, and quite unhappy drowned rat in an instant.

Ivy got to see Kahree! Her friend and kind of twin!

Ice cream at Tillamook

And back to Deer Park!

Fourth of July breakfast at Courtney and Alicia's - so good!

Eric and Andy's girls with Ivy

Picking cherries

Boating with my uncle Brad and aunt Julie and cousins.

And on a plane again! To Utah!

Ivy found this old picture of Luke and I at our graduation. She was obsessed. 

Junie meets Declan! Her closest-in-age cousin. There was a little dispute about who would get to gum that cup to death...

And then thankfully someone produced another cup :)

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Ivy and her cousins Liv and Gwen. 

The cousins and their "Frozen" play. 

Ivy gets her cast off! I am just realizing that I left "Ivy falls off the trampoline and breaks her arm" off of the timeline. It happened. Ouch. 

June walks! 

Mikelle's baby Elsie is blessed! So great that we were able to be there. 

Ivy faceplanted. 

Mikelle and Elsie (Mikelsie) stayed with us for a week. It was so great. 

More June walking!

The girls loved spending time with Lara, Catherine, Becca, and Sophia. And Max, the dog. 

This was the only picture I got of the big Lee family reunion. Ivy and cousin Julia eating some random kid's birthday cake at the park. Believe me, I had a mini heart attack when I looked over and saw this, but the hostess assured me that she had given them permission as she had made three cakes and the guests were full. Oh boy. 

It's almost over! Packing up to go to San Antonio

Brian came with us and helped so much. We got a house, unpacked a bunch of stuff, and then...

LUKE!

LUKE LUKE LUKE! 

Ivy was so attached to him. She wouldn't let him put her down all afternoon. It felt so strangely natural. I thought I would have to keep reminding myself that it was over and he was back, but it wasn't like that at all. I feel like looking at all these pictures, I've just forgotten about him being gone. I have to remind myself it happened. And we really had so much fun. We have so many great friends and wonderful families. 

In conclusion, that was a ridiculously long post with way too many pictures. But I wanted to get all caught up. For all those who reached out, hung out, hosted, or supported me/us this summer, thank you. Seriously, sincerely, and from the bottom of my heart. It was such a weird, hard time for me, but you made it not only bearable, but legitimately fun and memorable. 

Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow

As a few of you know, Luke left today to work abroad for four months. It is the pits. We have known this was coming for months now, and, as Luke said yesterday, it has been a similar sensation to tearing off a band-aid at an excruciatingly slow pace. About two weeks ago, I arrived at my parents house up in Washington with my babies while Luke finished up a few things in San Antonio. We got all settled in and then Luke came a week later. We have been having so much fun, all the while knowing that this will be the last week we'll have together for months.

Something else that Luke said today has been playing in my head - essentially, that if we weren't so happy and everything wasn't so great, this wouldn't be so lame. I really feel that way. It will be extremely hard, but that's mostly because Luke is a wonderful husband and father and losing him changes things in a huge way. There is an undeniable rightness about the four of us and three just isn't the same.

That being said, I am going to try to make this summer great for us three. We have a Nelson reunion all planned for the Oregon coast this summer and a tentative trip to Utah whenever I feel like flying there with two kids.

But anyways. The girls seem to love it out here and I feel like this is the best possible place for us right now. My dad comes home from work every day and scoops June out of my arms and settles down to play with her.

And Ivy loves: the swing, the trampoline, JoJo (the family dog), Peter (who she called Pierre), Marielle, and her grandparents. She's loving life. 

So that is that. Happysad. I love my family and I can't wait until we are united again. In the meantime, I would like to see some of my friends in the area. Most of you probably don't live at home anymore (I hope...) but if you visit, let's hang out. 

A Sorry Excuse for a Christmas Card

(Luke and I are not yet legitimate enough to send out Christmas cards, I guess, though I have every intention of doing them next year.)

Happy Holidays! It has been a wonderful, eventful year for our little family. We moved to San Antonio in December of 2012 where Luke started his job, and we are currently in Sierra Vista, Arizona on a temporary duty assignment. We are loving the southwest United States, but are definitely looking forward to seeing family next week and spending Christmas in Utah with the Bangerters.

Our pictures are far from professional this year as we don't know any photographers down here...

Ivy is chronically itchy. It's a hard life.

Ivy is 20 months old. She loves to be outside and to read. She loves to go the the nursery at church and is 100% comfortable around strangers. She is my little companion, always more than happy to help with the cooking or to throw away diapers. Her favorite thing is to retrieve eggs from the fridge, though sometimes she goes rogue and I have to chase her around the house to get the egg back. Doesn't always end well. But we sure love her. 

June is about 4.5 months old. She is happy and chubby and extremely vocal. We are a little concerned that she will outpace Ivy in size before too long, but at least she will be able to hold her own. She doesn't do anything fun yet, but we know that soon she'll be playing with Ivy and plotting against us.

Isn't Luke the best? He is. I'll tell you that right now. He loves his little girls and works hard to take care of us. He also loves his fantasy football and basketball teams - a love that I neither share nor fully understand, but he is very patient at talking me through it. I can't imagine having a family with anyone else.

And I am just counting down the days until I get to see family again (4!) and enjoying the mild weather. I thoroughly enjoy being home with Ivy and June and not-so-secretly hope that I have only girls forever. Perhaps a little brown-eyed baby boy will change my mind some day (not an announcement) but for the foreseeable future, Luke will be sadly outnumbered and outvoted. He doesn't seem to mind.

We love you, our families and friends. We miss you and want to hear from you. Call! Write! Visit!

Sierra Vista

When Luke started working for the government, we were told that he would need to attend counter intelligence training at Fort Huachuca in Sierra Vista, Arizona to become a CI agent. Which is what he was hired to do. So obviously we assumed we would get that training done ASAP. Instead, as you probably know, the government has been kind of a B lately. So we were prepared to go in April and then again in July. Instead of going, we were all furloughed and shutdown.

BUT! Now we are here! It has been almost exactly a year since Luke started and we've basically been sitting on our bums waiting, but who cares? We are here now.

We are living in a fully furnished vacation house, which is great. We stashed all our stuff in a storage unit in San Antonio and just brought clothes and my glorious Kitchenaid. It made unpacking really easy. The house we live in is nice - very Arizona-ey with a rock backyard, which is Ivy's favorite feature. There are three bedrooms, and since we have June in our room, I might do a playroom for Ivy, sans toys....since we didn't bring any. At all. What was I even thinking?

For now, our tentative plans are to go to Mesa for Thanksgiving and Utah for Christmas. I'm still a little traumatized from the 12 hour drive with Junie, who, like her sister before her, hates car seats with her whole heart.

I really, really want to make friends here. I know we are only going to be here for 5 months, but Luke will be working longer hours and Ivy is getting to the age where it would actually be fun to join a playgroup or something like that.

Ivy found one of her Christmas presents during the packing up times. She loved it, so I guess it's cool.

Our house! Complete with an unpronounceable Spanish street address! 

What can even be said about June's neck fat? You can even see a little dimple in there. It's too much.

Ivy is just a little lovey. Her favorite words are "happy" "Shooonie" "pika" and "bum."

June in August

     Let me first off say that it has been 2+ weeks since this blessed event took place and I am sorry about the lack of timeliness on my part. The truth is that having two children is CRAZY. Having one child is a little crazy sometimes, but having two is all crazy at all times. Right now I have one again, since Luke took Ivy to church, so I can mostly manage.

    Secondly, I apologize to those faithful blog readers who thought they had the inside scoop on our second baby's name and then felt shocked, horrified, betrayed, and disappointed when we named her something else. It was actually a fairly last minute decision. We were set on Helen, but in the days before her birth, I found myself not loving the name. People would refer to random things as "Helen's," like "Helen's clothes" or "Helen's diapers" or whatever and I was very turned off by it. Maybe it's just that Helen doesn't seem like a baby name, but I think it just wasn't meant to be for this baby. So when Luke asked me if I was sure about the name Helen, I said no, and we started more or less from scratch. We had a short list, but when Luke suggested the name June, it immediately shot to the top for me, but we decided to wait until we saw her to make a decision.

    My official due date was September 5th, but I had been measuring a week bigger at my last ultrasound, and I was hoping to have the baby sooner. On the weekend of August 24th-25th, I was having lots of cramps and feeling generally terrible. I was certain I would go into labor soon, since that's what happened with Ivy, but I didn't, and at my appointment on Monday, I was just mad. It's so miserable to have nothing to show for it. At least when I was having cramps and feeling all gross, it could have turned into legit contractions and then a baby, but that all stopped and I was impatient as all get out. So when my doctor told me he would induce labor that Thursday, I said heck yes. Our great friends, the Coopers, offered to take Ivy whenever we wanted, so we decided to bring her over Wednesday night.

   Thursday morning at 5:30 AM, after sleeping about 4 hours total, we checked in at the hospital. I was feeling all sorts of conflicting feelings. I was excited and a little nervous - it's really not too fun to get all sorts of IVs and have nurses all up in your business. All that pre-baby stuff. Blegh. It turns out, in my case, being induced was really, really not fun. And to be honest, I'm not sure I would ever voluntarily do an induction again. Part of that was my fault, I think, because I wanted to feel a few contractions before I got an epidural, and the timing just ended up being bad bad bad.

At 6:41, they started the pitocen, which causes contractions.

At 7:58, my doctor broke my water, and I asked for an epidural at the earliest convenience. My contractions were still manageable, but I knew from past experience that once my water is broken, things get a whole lot more painful and intense.

At 9:03, I was given an epidural, but then the anesthesiologist was called away on some emergency, so I basically had a needle in my back doing nothing. I was given some medication to take the edge off, but eventually it wasn't enough. It would take off the pressure, but the knife-like, stabbing pain remained, and I told Luke that I felt like I was being tortured. I was freezing, starving, and essentially chained to this bed, able to eat nothing but ice chips, and I was beginning to seriously hate myself for wanting an induction. I think if I had gone into labor naturally, then at least I would have had the assurance that my body was ready and that the contractions were happening at a natural pace and I could sort of anticipate them. Not so with this induction.

At 10:16, I was at a 6, still waiting for the anesthesiologist to come back and bring some sweet relief.

At 10:24, she finally did, but it still took another half hour for it to kick in.

At 11:00, I felt some really intense contractions. Luckily, at that point, I was numb to where I could feel the pressure and the movement of the baby, but not the stabbing pain. It was actually an awesome feeling, and I told Luke to call for the nurse.

At 11:03, I was at a 10 and ready to push. The baby wasn't quite where she needed to be, so I pushed with the nurse and we waited for the doctor. Luke had told me that he wanted to cut the cord this time, something he hadn't done with Ivy, but he was still unsure about watching the whole thing. When the time came, though, the doctor was like "Get on down here, Dad!" and he did. I'm sure it was a little scarring, but it was so powerful to share that experience together.

At 11:35, she was born! They plopped her right on my chest, which was a little weird, but I instantly started to cry and I couldn't stop smiling. She started squalling immediately and her skin turned bright red before my eyes. Wow.

She was amazing. At 7 pounds, 5 ounces, she was bigger than Ivy had been, and looked generally healthier. She started nursing right away and was so alert. Sadly, my epidural seemed to have kicked in full force after the fact, and I couldn't walk at all until 3:30 or so that afternoon. They relocated us to the recovery room and I couldn't wait for Ivy to meet her sister. Luke went and got me some Chick-fil-A chicken nuggets and McDonald's hot chocolate, which I recommend as a perfect reward for childbirth.

We decided that Luke should take Ivy home after the Coopers dropped her off at the hospital, and I would stay overnight alone. We wanted to leave hospital as soon as possible, since our insurance charges us $500 a night, so it wasn't too big of a deal, but needless to say, I was totally ready to go home in the morning. They poke and prod you every 4 hours, tell you lots of stuff you already know, whisk your baby away all the time, and while I am grateful for modern medicine, I missed Ivy SO much.

So then we came home the next day and everything was magic. Luke took a few days off and then Nick and his family and Kristen and Gavin came down for the weekend. Then last week Luke's mom arrived and kept things spotless and fed us and tomorrow will be the first day that it's all me. I'm terrified, to be honest, but one thing I have going for me is this:

Ivy has never been anything but loving to June, or "Shoo-nee" as she calls her. There is nothing cuter. 

Here is a little video of them meeting for the first time. She was kind of indifferent, but has since graduated to kissing, soft touches, sniffing and sometimes licking. Why? I don't know. Why not?

Junie meeting Aunt Kristen

Reading with Grandma

And this is June today. She had gained almost a pound and a half by her two week appointment, and is not far from graduating out of newborn clothes and diapers. I just hope she doesn't pass up Ivy too quickly. That might be awkward for all of us. 

And that is how we became the parents of two children. Like I said, it's crazy. But I think things will get easier when June starts sleeping longer and at more regular intervals and I can plan things. But for the foreseeable future, I plan on staying home and keeping my girls well-loved and adequately fed. That is a formidable task in and of itself, but I'm loving it so far.