Eli's Jog-A-Thon

Today Eli participated in his very first Jog-A-Thon!

First off, Thank You-Thank You, to all those who donated!

Eli did awesome, he never once stopped, he ran a steady pace the whole time, he did 14 laps, and continued to lap the other kids as he did it!

Eli is the 4th from the right, in the gray pants with the orange stripes.

Here they go!! Eli is 2nd from the right.

Here he is as the race finished!!
And this is Eli and his best friend Dale!

My baby is 3

So, Mara had a birthday last week....can you believe it, I can't believe it.

There is no possible way my baby girl, is that old! ( And I would post some old baby pics, but they are still on the old computer...sorry!)

Mara is into princess big time, so we had a big princess party!

And for those interested here is her birth story:

Tuesday morning ( 4 days after her due date!) I got up with Solomon at about 5:30 and turned on the cartoons for him. I then headed back to bed. All of a sudden I was woken up by a contraction, my first thought was, "hey, this is how it happened last time!". So I rolled over, and went back to sleep, only to be woken up again.

Jakes alarm went off, it was 6:20, and I said, "I think this might be it"...to which he says, "oh yea"...and I realize he isn't listening, so I say it again...and he jumps out of bed and tells me he is getting ready and to call my mom since its going to be rush hour soon, so we need to go. So I start getting things together. They arn't they close, probably still 10 minutes apart, so I dilly dallied and finally we headed out the door just after 7am.

We got to the hospital in good time and went up to L&D. They hooked me up, yes, contractions, no not real close. Then they checked my cervix, a 5 1/2! So, they were going to keep me. By that point the contractions were really hurting, and I was surprised they were not closer together. So, we get into my actual labor and delivery room and its close to 10am, and I am really in pain, and still my water hasn't broken!! They check me again and I am at a 7. So while I am sitting there the nurse is talking to someone at the door, and then comes back and tells me its the anestisologist and before he goes down to do a c-section he wanted to know if I needed anything, so I said yes!!! He came in and gave me the epidural, which I was so happy for by that point! And still, no water broken and still the contractions are only about 5-7 minutes apart! I was dying with the pressure!

I paged the nurse finally and told her I needed to push, I needed the bag broken, something!!! So she checks me and tells me I am at an 8-9, and my bag in bulging. She tells me they wont break my water since they want all the antibiotics in since I am GBS positive, but if it breaks on its own then thats fine obviously. So, I sit there breathing just praying the bag breaks!
Then again at about 12:15 I page her telling her she needs to check me now! So she does, I am complete, but STILL my bag was not ruptured, and they want to wait to break it until 1pm, because they can't put in the other set of antibiotics until 1:00. Then another nurse comes in at 12:45 and puts the antibiotics up. They page the doctor who is down in the cafeteria on break. Finally she makes it up there!!!

At this point I have my eyes closed just bearing down on each contraction, its the only way I can get through them. The dr is standing there explaining to a med student how to break the water, and so her hand is up inside while I am pushing. She is talking and then the nurse says, "You need to hurry and get ready dr". So I hear them start bustling ( my eyes are still closed). And I start pushing like a mad lady. Less than 5 minutes after my water was broken Mara Karren Heninger was born! She weighed 8 pounds 7 oz, 20 1/2 inches long, with a head size of 14 inches.
The contractions never got closer together than 3-5 minutes, so its good I didn't wait to go to the hospital! And I made it to a 7 with them still 7-10 minutes apart!
She and I both had a lot of popped blood vessels from the pushing part going so fast, mine were all down my neck, hers are all over her face and her eyes were bruised, but besides that its all good!

Nature Center

A few weeks back we went to this nature reserve in town, its just down the street from Eli's school, it was really neat, and FREE!

Here is Jake telling the kids about the Native American huts

They had these condor wings for the kids to try on to see just how big they were!



Wild turkeys were all over!
I love love love love-this picture
And then we saw deer! Lots and lots of deer!

Basketball

The boys have been playing on a city basketball "team" this month, tomorrow is this last Saturday, it was fun watching them learn how to block and pass, funny too!

Daddies are the best

For as busy as my husband is, he is so much better at taking the time to sit and play!

Every night he reads the kids a story, they got Narnia from Uncle Andrew and Aunt Shannon for Christmas, and so that's what they are reading right now! But, tonight Mara didn't want to listen, so after he was done he pulled out her new "Littlest Pet Shop" and sat and played with her. He is great with her, she is his princess and he totally lets her pull the Princess card. I've told him he is going to regret it! Earlier this week I overheard this conversation-

" Daddy I think I need a drink of your soda"

"No Mara, you can have it, drink yours"

"But daddy, I am your princess and you are supposed to share with your princess!"

Wanna guess who drank daddies soda? LOL!

Thanks Jake for being so amazing! I love you.

New Years Eve

Well, New Years came, and neither Jake or I were really up for a party, so we hunkered down at home ready to watch a movie with the kids and pig out on Chex mix and donuts when we heard the sad news that Jakes cousins son had passed away.

Ours hearts go out to her and her family, and we certainly begin the new year thinking about her and hugging our little ones a little tighter.

Christmas Day

Started early...about 6am....

The kids woke up to find that Santa had left them presents in the beds!

And then they ran out to the living room, tossed open the stockings

Later in the day we headed over to my parents house and they opened more presents, and ate more food...and just had a great Christmas Day!

Merry Christmas Eve!

Merry Christmas! Since I have so many pictures from our fun family Christmas I am going to seperate them a bit so that your eyes don't go cross eyed from picture after picture!

This is the first year we have done a big Christmas dinner on our own, and if I say so myself, it turned out very well!
The family was thrilled to get started! And I think Solomon might have just about eaten his weight in stuffing!
Later in the evening it was time to open the annual jammies...it looks to me like that might need them given their nakedness...
I think the jammies were well received!
Then it was time to wrestle with daddy, even our dog Ruby got into it!

Next came the time to drive around and look at Christmas lights! So be bundled the kids up and off we went!

Eli's first race!!!!

So Eli's school has been having the kids run laps every day, so that they eventually have ran a marathon - 26.2 miles. And since they have been running, they invited the kids to run the end of the Marathon that came through Sacramento last week, 2.62 miles.

Jake took Eli downtown REALLY early! Eli did great! He ran the 2.62 miles in just under 21 minutes, he never stopped once, and ran the whole time!! He wouldn't even stop at the water stop because he didn't want to loose his time! :-)

Here he is at the begining, before he started running.

And here he is after finishing his first race!!
Eli, mommy is so proud of you!!

Solomon's 5th Birthday

WOW, WOW, WOW...my little man is 5. That just blows me away!!!

Solomon decided to go for a Wall-E party this year!

Here is his birth story that I wrote not long after he was born: Feel free to skip if you would rather not know! LOL!

Solomons due date was at the end of November 2003 ( American Thanksgiving). We anxiously waited, hoping for something to start on its own, since I was really hoping for a VBAC.

Sunday night, December 7th, we were out at my mother in laws house having dinner like always. I felt uncomfortable, but nothing to really make me think that he would come soon. I was sure hoping though, as I was 9 days over due! After dinner I just went and sat in my father in laws recliner and tried to get comfortable, my back and my hips ached.

We left at about 8:00pm and went home and put Eli to bed.

The next thing I remember is getting up at about 3:30 needing to pee. I stumbled out of bed to the bathroom. When I wiped there was a green tinge, but with sleepy eyes I wasn't sure. I stood up like they tell you to do to check if your water had broken, not even a little trickle. I headed back to bed. A few minutes later I had this pain, the pain like you get after you ate way too late at Denny's and you need to go number 2! I thought to myself, "I am not getting out of bed again, I just went pee", it was hard to get out of bed at this point as you can imagine! The pain subsided and I rolled over. A few minutes later I had the pain again, "alright" I thought, "I'll get up!". As I got up I noticed my garments were wet. I didn't feel anything come out! I headed to the bathroom. Nothing. I changed my underwear, didn't smell like anything, so I just figured I must have slept more than I thought I had and just sweated a lot.

I got back in bed. Another pain, by the this time Jake had woken up and noticed I was groaning. He grabbed his watch next to the bed and handed it to me and rolled back over intending to go to sleep. As the next pain came, which I soon realized was a contraction, I hit him and handed his watch back and told him to time, it hurt too much to keep my eyes open. After a few minutes we realized they were 5 minutes apart already. So, Jake got up and went to take a shower while I finished packing my bag, I called my mother in law to tell her to meet us at the hosptial so she could pick up Eli. I called my mom to tell her it was happening. By the time Jake was ready to go contractions were 3 minutes apart.

We hurried through the cold snow and got into the car. Before we could even drive away from the curb it happened, my water broke, gush, I yelled, "I am sorry I can't stop it!". Jake nervously laughed at me as he gunned it to the hospital. We got there and parked, I made it to the door and then before I could make it though the second sliding door I had a massive contraction, so I stood there in the cold clinging to the wall while Jake went to get me a wheel chair. The nurses rushed us up to Labor & Delivery. They never even made me sit in triage. The had me change, and hop into bed, I was 3cm. They got all the IV's going since I was GBS positive and left us there to labor.

I remember Joyce coming in at one point to take Eli from us, who was very nicely sitting in the chair playing with Daddies Palm Pilot to keep him busy. I sat pretty much straight up with my eyes closed making a slow deep groaning noise. The contractions got to the point where there was no end, they were continuous. When the nurse came in I told her I wanted the epidural. It took another hour for the anstisiologist to get there. At that point I was at a stretchy 6!! Woo hoo! He gave the epi to me and I told him I loved him.

Not long after that I noticed I was feeling a LOT of pressure and pain. So I hit the epi button. I knew I didn't want to hit it a lot, I wanted to be able to push effectivly. Nothing, still pain. Finally I told the nurse I felt like I need to go number 2 again. She helped me to the bathroom since I was connected to the IV. When she went out I tried to go, and found that pushing really helped the pressure and pain I was feeling, so I kept doing it. Jake came in after a few pushes and asked what I was doing, "pushing", "don't push! you don't want to have him in there!". The nurse came in and checked me while I was sitting there, "wow, you are at a 10, go ahead and push a few times here and when you can come to the bed for a practice push". A few pushes later and the only time I yelled at Jake ( since he was telling me to get off the toilet while I was pushing ), I made it to the bed. First push, his head was there. Off runs the nurse to get the the dr, the NICU staff, and respritory since he had meconium.

The tell me to grab my legs, I can't reach them I tell them, I have short arms, my belly is in the way, 2 nurses run towards me to grab them. The dr then tells me he wants me to scoot back, yea, away from him, "I can't I yell, the babies head is right there!" I feel people trying to pull me up, they didn't move me far". Contraction after contraction came, I needed a drink...ice chips, oh heavenly!

Finally, Solomons head is out, "stop pushing" Dr. Munoz tells me, he needs to clean Sol's mouth and nose out first. Next push he flies out, 8:58am, the dr cuts the cord and the wisk him over to the warmer to check his air ways for meconium. Jake goes with him while I get stitched up.

I look over, trying to look past all the nurses, and I see this big pink baby with very little hair crying, and I can't help him! I kept staring, almost in shock. He was mine. I just went through labor, I just delivered him! He is our baby! They finally bring him over to me and he latches on right away, and we sit there nursing. They weigh him, 8 pounds 13 ounces, 21 inches long. Bigger than Eli, I delivered a baby bigger than my first and under 6 hours!

The nurses clean the room up and Eli comes in with Joyce and Duane, Jake puts him on the bed with me. We tell him this is Solomon, his brother, he just came out of mommies tummy. He tells us he is funny, and thats all. He holds him, and smiles, says, "funny baby, funny funny".

My baby, a VBAC, a big baby, with no meconium at all in his lungs, no intervention, 10 days late. Everything the doctors had told me not to get my hopes up for, and there is was, it all happened.

Rainy day fun...

or not??The picture does not do the mess justice! It was from my back sliding door, through the living room, down the hall way and into the bathroom...and then back down the hall way, through the living room, and out the sliding glass door.

I was glad the boys were having fun useing their imaginations outside...but sheesh!!

Oh, how I love my new steam cleaner! Oh my gosh...love the dang thing!! Took all those little foot prints out of my carpet, and has allowed my soon to be 5 year old to see his 5th birthday!!