Christmas 2009

Well, we have mostly recovered from the usual Christmas chaos. Jacksen and Kellan are now full-fledged cowboys as Santa brought them spurs, chaps, hats and sharp-shooters (pretend, of course!). Miss Megan is revelling in the joy of being a new owner of a Nintendo DS. She has wanted one for over two years and the joy on her face when she unwrapped her gift brought tears to my eyes...both because she was so happy and because I can see many...ahem...discussions concerning that particular device in our future.

After opening gifts at 7 am and rushing off to Aunt Katy and Uncle Bill's for more fun, we spent a few hours at Grandpa and Grandma McCauley's opening even more gifts and playing. Mr. Jacksen was completely exhausted by 8 am, but struggled through until we took him home for a nap in the early afternoon. After some much-needed down time, we drove back to Marc's parents' house for dinner.

Here are some photos from our day...

Aunt Ann's pear fig walnut pie - delicious!

Uncle Sean and Megan taking a rest

Uncle Ryan and Jacksen constructing a cabin

Grandma McCauley and Megan playing on the Wii

Cowboy Kellan

The day after Christmas, Marc and Uncle Sean took Megan and Kellan skiing at Great Divide. Kellan was really excited about wearing his new ski goggles Uncle Sean gave him for Christmas...doesn't he look so cool?!

Merry Christmas from the McCauleys!

Not Me! Monday!

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

Hmmmm....it's easy to think of a lot of things that I have been doing lately - I don't think I've had five minutes of relaxation in the last few weeks. Actually, now that I think about it, I haven't had five minutes to relax since Megan was born! Anyway, it's a lot harder to think of things I haven't done lately. Let's see...

On Saturday afternoon, after an entire day of trying to clean my house and entertain three bored kids, I surely did not escape with the excuse that I had nothing to cook for dinner and wanted to go rent a movie....and then disappear for over an hour while leisurely browsing movies at Hastings (and I certainly didn't rent THREE Christmas movies for my children who already watch too much TV!) only to appear with Papa Murphy's pizza for dinner...for the second time in a week. I'm just not that lazy.

And yesterday afternoon during the kids' naptime, I did not take a nap with them...I have waaaaay too much to do to waste an afternoon like that! (And, NO, that wasn't me who drooled on Marc's pillow either!)

Tonight, while making breakfast for dinner, I did not thoroughly enjoy eating the most delicious scrambled eggs in the world...after Megan informed me that the yellow part of the eggs are actually baby chickens. Okay...that was me...and I admit I was pretty grossed out for a few minutes, but I got over it. What can I say? I was hungry!

And now I am not going to feed my kids totally unhealthy snacks of ice cream sundaes before they go to bed. Sheesh...what kind of parenting would that be?! (NOPE...I'm not going to make one for myself either!)

Oh Christmas Tree!

Last Saturday morning we went into the woods to find the perfect Christmas tree. The temperature was eight degree below zero when we left our house so I wasn't feeling too picky, but I did want to find a tree with somewhat of a triangular shape with maybe more than...oh...five branches. While I was cold and my toes were beyond numb, my kids were acting as if it were a balmy summer day - the cold didn't seem to phase them a bit!

There was a fresh snowfall and the hillside was absolutely beautiful so I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to get a photo of my children for a Christmas card. Well, it would've been a great idea except I found it virtually impossible to get all three of them to look at the camera at the same time. This is what I got:

The snow was pretty deep in some areas and it was hard for our littlest to walk in so he hitched a ride with his Grandma...she was more than happy to help him out!

At the end of the morning, we ended up with a beautiful tree and three very tired children!

Jacksen's Story

Jacksen's arrival into our family was A LOT different than his brother and sister for two reasons...the first is that I did not have to take any fertility drugs and the second is that we were completely surprised. For awhile we thought we might want a third child someday, but around the time Kellan turned two we decided that two was plenty. In April 2006 I found that I was a little "late". I didn't think alot about it at first because that was kind of typical for me. However, after a couple weeks and a few emerging symptoms, I decided maybe I should just take a test...just in case. Even though they say these tests are most accurate first thing in the morning, I took mine after work one evening. I don't think there are enough words to describe my surprise when the second line appeared. Marc was in the kitchen making dinner and I think I just kind of matter-of-factly told him the test was positive. He response was "Are you sure?" As if I hadn't had any experience with these things! He then wanted to read the directions...just to be sure. I very hotly informed him there is no such thing as a false positive pregnancy test. It took awhile for our news to sink, but eventually we were very excited. I had experienced a miscarriage before Megan and another before Kellan so I was a little leary of getting too excited, but the morning sickness that kicked in almost immediately after seeing that positive result was reassuring...for awhile. Let's just say that after throwing up daily for 8+ weeks, I was feeling more reassured than necessary!

Just two days after taking that test, I was visiting my younger sister, Katy. She had been trying to conceive her third child for a few months and thought maybe she could be pregnant also. Interestingly, the test I purchased was a buy 1 get 1 free so I gave her the second test. We were so excited when we saw it was positive - our babies were due within just a few days of each other!

My pregnancy with our littlest was uneventful...except that I was single-parenting our two older kiddos while Marc worked fulltime and worked on building our house every evening and weekend. Mr. Jacksen was due on Christmas Day, but I was scheduled for a C-section on December 19th. Because I have a blood disorder, my doctor ordered ultrasounds and fetal monitoring every Friday afternoon for the last ten weeks of my pregnancy. On Friday, December 15th, I went to the hospital for my final ultrasound and monitoring. The ultrasound technician mentioned that my amniotic fluid was quite low, but she didn't seem alarmed. When I waddled to the maternity ward for my fetal monitoring, I happened to mention this to the nurse. She left my room and came back less then a minute later...she said "Honey, your fluid isn't just a little low - it's dangerously low!" A few minutes later, my doctor wandered into the room and announced I would be having a baby that afternoon. Even though I was more than ready to be done with the pregnancy, for some reason I burst into tears. After several phone calls, I located my husband who raced to the hospital. Little Mr. Jacksen was born at 4:44 pm that day. Afterward, the nurse explained that was the lowest level of amniotic fluid she had ever seen for a baby who survived and my doctor said our baby would not have lived through the weekend. I have no doubt the Lord saved our child and I am so grateful! After all that excitement, Jacksen was our easiest baby and has been our most relaxed child ever since!

Jacksen's Birthday

Our littlest turned 3 yesterday! Hard to believe it's been three years since he came into this world....seems like just yesterday. To celebrate his big day, we had pizza and cupcakes with Grandpa and Grandma McCauley and Great Grandma Samson...he was delighted!

Jacksen with his new "big boy bike"

Jacksen in his new bathrobe

Our littlest getting ready to blow out his candles

Rock Star

Megan peformed in the annual Jim Darcy Elementary School Christmas Program yesterday. This year's program was called "Surfing, Santa, Seashells, & Song". The kiddos sang non-traditional Christmas songs with a beach theme. Megan told me that she felt like a rock star when stepped onto the stage. I'm thinking her most amazing music teacher may have created a monster!

I know you can mostly just see parents' heads in this photo, but if you look carefully you will see our Megan in the front row wearing a black dress with a blue lei and blue visor. Unbelievably, this is the best of all the pictures I took...maybe I should try to arrive more than 30 minutes prior to the program next year...sigh...good thing I took a photo of her before her big performance!

The Last Week

The last week has been full of ups and downs....the kids have been fun....lots of sad moments packing away Grandma Morrison's belongings and planning her funeral...great times with S.P. (my very cool cousin!)....wishing I had a few moments to update my blog....

Now that it's too cold out to do anything else (-16 with the windchill right now!), I am finally getting around to decorating and making up for lost time with my blog! I spent most of the past week working with my family to plan a memorial service for my Grandma. The service was Friday morning - it was the perfect tribute to such a beautiful person. It was so nice to see relatives and family friends that I haven't seen for awhile. I am sure my Grandma was smiling down on us all!

We spent Friday evening enjoying cocktails, snacks and lots of laughs with my Aunt and Uncle and cousin, Sean. They are so much fun to be around - we had a great time! Here are some photos of our evening:

Jacksen and I

Andrew and Jacksen Sweet Jacksen

Yesterday I was finally able to clean my house, do laundry, and do some Christmas shopping. My sweet mother-in-law and I did some marathon shopping yesterday afternoon....I just need a few more hours to get it all done! My goal is to get most of my shopping done this week so I can concentrate on baking next weekend....so much to do and so little time to do it!

You know...I love Christmastime, but I feel like I always spend the entire month of December running around like a crazy person....