birthday fairy

We are heading out to a birthday party today. My friend's daughter, Alyssa, turns 5 this year. It's hard to believe we've managed to eke out 3 years as friends in the same location. We were able to celebrate Alyssa's 3rd birthday in Germany in 2006...and now, here we are, still celebrating in Kansas! As military families, this is too often a RARE occasion. You usually move on in 2 years, or your friends move the year after you get there...it's a never-ending cycle that sometimes hurts the heart.

But as blessings go, I wouldn't change it for the world. Because I am sure that I'll end up somewhere with one of my friends again!

Anyway, I made this cute card for Alyssa's birthday!

Hannah's birthday...

I haven't posted about this yet, mostly because I didn't have all the pictures offloaded. I LOVE my new Canon and have been shooting like crazy, but the picture files are much larger and it takes me longer to process them (size them down and save them for email/publishing)...and I tend to procrastinate.

Anyway - Hannah had her 7th birthday party on Sunday (my goodness...SEVEN already! Where did the time GO?????), and her theme this year was NOT Tinkerbell (though she wavered on that for a bit!). She chose "Bindi The Jungle Girl" for her theme. I ordered the deluxe kit from Birthday Express. It came with 8 of the following: goodie boxes (shaped like thatched huts, and filled with stickers, a mini (think beanie baby) monkey, an animal finger puppet, an alligator water squirter, binoculars and a whistle...a LOT of stuff!), plates, forks, spoons, placemats,...then it had napkins, candles, confetti, streamer ribbons, ballons, (including a mylar, of course) and a large green tablecloth.


Hannah and Bindi, in balloon form....

It was fun. She invited 4 girls from school (3 from her class and one from last year's class), and her friends Ashlyn and Alyssa (we've known them now since 2005 and were in Germany with them!). Along with Scotty and Hannah, that made 8 kids in the house...but they were SO well-behaved!


The crew, just before the musical squares. We asked everyone to dress in their jungle attire! Khakis and white shirts seemed to win out!
Some of the best moments were decorating frames. I spent $1 per frame at Target in the $1 spot...each frame came with stickers, gems and glitter glue. I got a few extra tubes of glitter glue, some paper flowers and a pen to mark their names. This kept them busy for QUITE a while...they ALL loved it, including Scotty!


Scotty shows off his decorated frame, and Hannah adds finishing touches.


After this, we went downstairs for a few quick games of Musical Squares...not chairs (no room). We use the squares from the Candyland DVD game. That was a blast.
the kids try to find an unoccupied square...and Sidney is victorious, while Katy is a gracious 2nd placer.

Then cake and ice cream.


jungle cake - note the waterfall....fun and easy cake this year!

The cake was REALLY fun and easy to do this year. I had originally thought that a cake topper came with all the birthday-themed stuff I got...but I was wrong. I thought about how I could make a jungle-style cake, and that was the result. A chocolate cake...then I used white icing (homemade buttercream, nothing less!) to ice the "pond" white, otherwise the "water" would not show! Then I used prepackaged "piping gel", tinted it that wonderful blue color (I used too much tint, lol) and put that over the white. Before I added the gel, though, I made the "grass". That was just the #234 "multi-opening tip" (from Wilton) I just kept adding it. I didn't use white icing underneath, since I figured the chocolate could be the "dirt" in the jungle. Topped with three vinyl animals from Walmart (only 88 cents EACH, and toys for the kids after!), piped with words (and for the record, I didn't use any lettering templates this time...that's REALLY my handwriting!)

The placemats I got had puzzles and things on the back and that entertained the kids for longer than expected. We actually had to beg them to stop so Hannah could open her gifts!

She really enjoyed all the gifts she got from her friends. I do think though, that her favorite was the Webkinz Pink Poodle....



We had our neighbors over for cupcakes on her REAL birthday (the 15th!)...and then she got to open all the goodies from family. She TRULY loved everything...from the warm blanket and pillow (Tinkerbell!) from Grandma, to the Nintendo case and game from Auntie Sue and Auntie Donna....she got lots of "activity" things like color explosion "stained glass" from Aunt Alice Kay (with a WAY cool top to wear!), a Tinkerbell "white" color explosion, Tinkerbell paintset...well, suffice it to say she has NO reason to say she's bored anymore!

I can't believe this little girl's already turned 7...seems like just yesterday she was kicking her way out of my c-section (she's got the scar to prove it!)

Happy Birthday, Suzanne!

Today you turn 39! And next year, you can celebrate the 1st anniversary of your 39th Birthday!

Hey, at least you're younger than me!!!!

I hope you get lots of squeezy hugs and sticky, wet kisses from your kiddos today...and a few not-so-sticky/wet kisses from the MAN!


Here's the card I made for you - it's in the mail!!!!

This Man...

For three months and six days of every year, he is older than I am. Today starts that small period.

Happy birthday to the man I love!!!

I not TWO no more!!!

That's what Scotty said this morning when I wished him a happy birthday! He couldn't wait to tell his dad. "Daddy!!! I not two no more - I FWEEE!" Three years ago, I gave birth to this vivacious little boy. What a roller coaster ride that day would be. My due date was not till the 10th of March. I was pretty sure I would be early, as I had been 2 1/2 weeks early with Hannah. I was very concerned, as 2004 was a leap year. That meant there was an additional day in February, and I didn't want my son to be born on February 29th (though it would have been cool for him to say he was only 4 on his 16th birthday...but I digress). Luckily, I felt nothing all day on the 29th, which was a Sunday.

Monday morning was no different. Scott got up for work, and nothing seemed amiss. I had been having contractions for a month, so I was completely used to them. Scott left at around 7:20 a.m., and I was dozing on the couch. At 7:30 a.m., I felt a strong contraction, but ignored it. When the next one came fairly close to the first one, I decided to start timing them. After a few, I realized they were about 6 minutes apart. I waited for awhile before calling Scott to tell him. I’d had a few bouts of strong contractions, but they usually went away after 45 minutes or so.

These didn’t! At 8:30 a.m., I called Scott to tell him I thought I was in labor. He said to time them for another ½ hour and if they were still consistent, he was on his way home. I decided to start packing the rest of Hannah’s suitcase. At 9:00 a.m. I called Scott again and told him to come home. He got home, I was just eating breakfast, and trying to finish packing. The contractions were pretty strong…I couldn’t do or say anything during them. I had just finished paying bills, and wanted to drop some off.

We loaded up the car and headed out. First, we stopped at GA Power to pay the electric bill, then stopped at Columbia County Water to pay the water/sewer bill. We went to the ATM to get cash, then headed out to drop Hannah off at Michelle Smith’s house, where she would stay for a few days. We then headed to Re/Max Augusta to pay the rent (it was the 1^st, after all!)

We made it to the hospital at about 11:00 a.m. They put me into a labor room, and said I would be admitted as soon as they determined that I was truly in labor. My contractions were 4-5 minutes apart and STRONG…of COURSE I was in labor! But I had to deal with all the questions and tests, etc. Finally, at around noon, they decided I really was in labor and admitted me. They checked me and I was already 4 cm dilated. The first thing I asked for was an epidural! I knew it would take some time, so I wanted it right away. Well, they drew blood to make sure my platelet count was good (should have remembered what someone told me, that I should ask for blood to be drawn right away because it takes some time).

It was 2:00 p.m. before they got the results of the bloodwork and started my epidural. By this time, the contractions were coming hard and fast, and I was feeling an urge to push, or so I thought. My water still had not broken, either. They sat me up to give me the epidural, with my feet on a chair below me, and the tray table to lean on. Scott was telling the anesthesiologist that he had two minutes between my contractions to get the epidural going! The anesthesiologist was a bit of a klutz, though. He dropped the tray of iodine, and it splattered all over Scott’s new tennis shoes.

Still worse, I had a contraction, and I swear I had to push! Right then my water broke – and it was a huge woosh. It went EVERYWHERE! The nurse who was holding my hand got the worst of it. Scott ended up with a bit of fluid on his pants, but not on his tennis shoes, though. I felt MUCH better after that, and the epidural took effect shortly thereafter. They then decided to check me again, and wonder of wonders, I was 10 centimeters dilated and fully effaced…I was ready to push! I really didn’t expect it so soon. I dilated 6 centimeters in 2 hours!

Well, I started pushing. It seemed easy enough. The baby was at plus 2 station, meaning he was 2 inches below the pubic bone – a good place for him to be. I kept pushing, but his heart rate would REALLY slow down. It was very scary. There were a few times that they couldn’t get a rhythm, so they decided on an internal scalp monitor for his heart rate. There were still alarming decelerations in his heart rate; his heart would actually STOP while I was pushing, and the rate wouldn’t start up again! Talk about scary. They kept poking my belly, poking him in the head, doing whatever they could to get his heart rate up.

After about an hour of pushing, I’d made very little progress. It turned out that Scotty was presenting anterior, or sunny-side up – facing up instead of down. That meant that he was trying to push the largest part of his head through the smallest part of my body. It wasn’t going to happen. Dr. Yingling came in and recommended a cesarean section. I REALLY didn’t want one, and wanted to try again, perhaps having them turn the baby…but the doctor didn’t recommend it. The baby was in fetal distress and wouldn’t handle too much more of it.

They upped my epidural dose, and we headed to the operating room. Scott put on his scrubs and was waiting for me. They brought him in, and I was pretty comfortable on the table. I could still wiggle my feet and toes, and they were surprised. I was able to push myself off the gurney onto the operating table, and they said I should not have been able to do that with the amount of epidural I had, but somehow, I could still do it! I was numb from the chest to the knees, however, so they weren’t too worried.

All of a sudden, all hell was breaking loose. The doctors had been calling for someone to “catch” the baby…and they needed someone who had a sterile hand to push the baby back up the birth canal. I could hear them saying all of this, and asking if someone had removed the internal monitor from the baby’s head. Then, with such flair, Scotty decided to punch his elbow through my existing scar tissue, causing my uterus to rupture. Talk about being scared! All of a sudden, there are more doctors and nurses around me. The anesthesiologist is trying to start a second IV line on me, but he botched it, so he had to try a 3^rd time. He had been trying to get heart monitors hooked up, but the lead doctor was yelling that a second IV was more important, in case a blood transfusion was necessary.

She was calling for a type and cross-match, and I casually stated, “oh, my blood type is A-, if that helps”…she was incredulous that I could still speak! She came up to me and told me that if I started feeling light-headed or if I passed out, they would immediately put me under general anesthesia and kick Scott out.

Scotty's First Picture

During all of this, baby Scott came into the world. I never heard him cry, didn’t see him or anything. Scott was torn between going to see the baby and staying with me. I really didn’t know the severity of what was happening to me. I was worried about our little boy. I finally talked him into going to the baby. I wondered when he would cry. It took about 5 minutes before I actually heard him, and it brought tears to my eyes. Meanwhile, they were still trying to stop the bleeding from the rupture.

They got the bleeding stopped rather quickly. I told Sc ott to head to the nursery with the baby, I’d be fine. The doctors were checking my chart and realized I had requested a tubal ligation if I had to have a c-section (hey, while they’re down there, why not?). So they took care of that too. They were able to repair the uterus and didn’t have to remove it (which often happens). As they were preparing to close me up, I asked if they were going to stitch me or staple me. The doctor replied that he was going to put in staples. I said, “oh…I wish you could do the invisible stitches like I had last time, the scar healed so nicely.” So they said they would, although they normally didn’t do that when there was a high risk of infection (uterine rupture + unsterile field, since the scalp monitor had not been removed before they took Scotty out). But they did it anyway. To hear the doctor tell it later, I BEGGED him not to staple or stitch me!

Once I was wheeled into the recovery room, it was my sole goal to get my body parts moving as quickly as possible. I knew from experience that until I could move my toes, they wouldn’t release me to my room, where I would FINALLY see my baby! I was in recovery for awhile, and Scott came in. It was then that I realized the extent of what had just happened. The possibility of death, both mine and Scotty’s, was SO much closer than I had realized. When Scott told me about seeing the baby being brought to the table, blue and lifeless, the lack of crying came back to me, and I realized he could have died! They were doing a lot to him to get him to breathe. Scotty had a low initial Apgar test. I never did hear what the numbers were. His 2 and 5 minute Apgars were better. I left the recovery room about an hour or so after the surgery. It was STILL another hour or so before they finally brought that little boy in to me.

He was perfect, in every way. He had a few more “battle scars” than Hannah, due to having actually made it into the birth canal, but he still had a mostly round head. And THEN I heard him cry – boy, he had the lungs of a 2 year old! LOUD and PROUD. We bonded well as a family. The doctors and nurses later astonished us with the story of how he turned over in the nursery…not once, but TWICE! He did NOT want to be on his back!

Whenever I think about how close to death he was, how close to death I was, I am so thankful to God - His hand was definitely in our lives that day!

Happy Birthday, Little Man - my bugaboo, buggerdoo, Bug, Boo, Scotty Mac....I'm so glad you're here!