January 2012

Happy New Year

We had a wonderful time with our family over Christmas Break, but we went home on New Years Eve because we had a lot to get ready before Rachel came and we didn't know how fast she would come, but mom had a feeling that she was going to come soon. :-)

Andrea and Daddy had to celebrate with New Year toys and accessories of course. :-) Thank you Grandma Barclay.

Rachel's Birth

            I had a lot more pre-term labor or Braxton Hicks as they so call it with Rachel.  I had my first set of contractions on the drive down to Manti for Christmas Break.  I was a little worried that she might come over the break, but I knew it would be ok if I took it easy. Christmas break was very nice.  We ate plenty of food, rode four-wheelers, played on the swings, played games, watched movies, opened presents, and much more.  We hurried home on New Year’s Eve, because I wanted to get everything ready for Rachel to come.  The night before Rachel came I had contractions all night long, probably about every 20 minutes, but the next day I needed teach aerobics at the MTC so Steve could get an A parking pass.  I think I may have had her that night, but that I consciously made myself not go into labor until the next day.  The next day I spent getting my syllabi put together for my aerobic classes at UVU.  I took Andrea with me up to my office and organized and stapled everything together.  I remember being in the office and just leaning on the table a few times and breathing deeply to make it through a contraction.  I also remember trying to explain to Andrea that mommy was having contractions and that’s why she was so easily irritated. Around 3:00 I started having regular contractions.  I decided to make dinner, because once you’re in the hospital you can’t eat anything.   Then around 5:00 my contractions were starting to get pretty close.  I still didn’t know when I should go to the hospital, so Steve went outside in the garage to work on his CNC machine and I told him I would call him when I felt like I was ready to go. 

                I kept texting my mom and Kayla because Kayla was coming down to see the birth and my mom was going to come up to watch Andrea.  At about 6:30 pm I texted that my contractions were about 5 - 10 minutes apart.  My mom called me right away and said, “Why aren’t you at the hospital?  You need to leave right now.”  My contractions were getting harder, but they still weren’t consistently 5 minutes apart and I had told myself that I would leave when the contractions got to 5 minutes apart. J  I thought about it for a minute and realized that maybe my mom was right.  I really didn’t know how fast or slow I would go once I got to the hospital, so I might as well be safe instead of sorry.  We called our neighbors, the Hickmans and dropped Andrea off at their house and headed for the hospital around 7:00.  I delivered at American Fork Hospital, so it was about a 20 minute drive to the hospital.  I am so glad we left when we did because contractions are absolutely no fun in the car!

                We got to the hospital and went to a room where they could monitor me for a little bit and check me before they actually admit you.  Kayla and Tyson actually got to the hospital about 5 minutes after we did.  That part seemed like it took forever to me, because I was ready to go to the room to have the baby. I was dialated to a 7 and 90 – 100% effaced by then.  I said, “I’m only a 7 after all the laboring I’ve already done over the past few weeks.”  The nurse said, “You’d be an 8 if I just pushed a little harder with my fingers. You’ll go really fast don’t worry.” I walked past my doctor on the way to my room.  He was already there because he had just delivered a baby.  He came and checked a few times and new that I was really close.  He told me that there was another lady that was already crowning, but she was on an epidural, so he could deliver her first or he could wait with me, because I was un-medicated  and she couldn’t feel anything.  I told him he could go and deliver her baby first.  I wanted to keep contracting until my body was ready.  Steve was there doing counter pressure the whole time, so my contractions really weren’t that bad.

                He delivered the other baby, came back and said, “If I break your water her head will press on your cervix and she will come right out.” I kept saying No, but then after he kept suggesting it I finally agreed.  I turned over and they already had the stirrups up. He broke my water and then said, “Ok, you can push whenever you are ready.”  I didn’t feel at all like I needed to push, so I just kept waiting.  I thought she might drop a little more and then I’d have that huge sensation to push like I did with Andrea.  A few minutes later the doctor said, “You can push whenever you want, what are you waiting for?  As soon as you push she’ll be here.”  I said, “I’m waiting to feel like I have to push.  So, then I decided to do little pushes for a few minutes to try and push her a little further down and hopefully that would bring on the sensation.  It helped a little bit, at least I could feel a lot more pressure.  Then I decided to just go for it and get it over with. J  I started to push hard.  Either my adrenaline was a lot stronger with Andrea and it didn’t hurt as much, or I forgot how bad it hurts, but this time around I understood why people said they hated the pushing part. I had to do a few big pushes and then finally her head came out.  I was so ready to push again and get those shoulders and the rest of her out, but the doctor yelled for me to stop.  So, I waited for a minute as he turned her shoulders just a little bit and then one last big push and she slid right out.  They handed her right to me.  She was a little purple and had a ton of dark hair.  I was so excited to see my beautiful little girl and to have done it yet again.

                Oh, the nurses were very nice to me.  They kept telling Kayla that my laboring was not normal. They said, “She is not only doing a very good job, but she is the most pleasant patient we have ever had.”  I did keep saying funny things in-between contractions.  During the pushing one of the nurses asked if I was going to have seven kids like the family that I grew up in. I said, “Yeah… (breath) maybe (breath)” then went back to pushing.   The nurse said, “Wow, if you said yes while in the middle of labor, then you’re going to have 12 kids.”  I thought that was pretty funny.

                Even though the pushing part hurt a little more this time, the contractions were a lot easier.  Maybe that’s because I knew what to expect and how to have Steve help me with counter pressure, but despite the pain, I would do it all over again and most likely will do it all over again a bunch more times just to have my beautiful children.  They most definitely are a gift from God and I feel so blessed to be able to experience pregnancy, birth, and parenthood.  I know that I have grown so much because of it.

                Rachel weighed 6 lbs. 10 oz. and was 19 in. long. She was the exact same size as Andrea!  She was born at 9:24 pm. It's a good thing we left the house when we did, because she was born 2 1/2 hours later.

 Sorry if this reveals too much, but this is the best picture we got with her just minutes after she was born.

 Rachel's First Bath

 Just before Rachel's first bath.

 All nice and clean.  Steve and I both got to go down and see her get her first bath.  They made me take a wheelchair, but I was able to stand up and watch once we got in the nursery.

 I still can't believe all of that hair.  Everyone kept commenting about it.  It was so cute and even looked frosted at the tips.

 She's so adorable!

 Her first footprints right into her baby book.

 The next morning Kayla and Tyson brought Andrea to see her new little sister.  She actually adjusted really well. She was so cute with Rachel.

 She kept staring at her knowing that she was a delicate little baby.

 She got to bring her own new baby too. Rachel gave Andrea a few accessories for her new baby doll, Maggie.

 Just before we left the hospital Steve fell asleep with Rachel in the chair. Birth takes a toll on not only the mother, but the father also. :-)

This is Rachel's first outfit on her way home from the hospital.

Tausha's 25th Birthday

Kayla and Steve planned a 25th birthday party for me.  It was absolutely perfect.  Even though I just had a baby, I was able to celebrate being a 1/4 of a century old. I earned those years. :-)

 It was so wonderful to have Shantel and Rebekah come. We are all pregnant or just had a baby in this picture.

 Andrea and Mommy play on the floor a lot so Rachel can be included.

Presents from Grandma Bentz for Mommy's birthday.

 Andrea taking pictures of Rachel with her camera.

 Look how small she was compared to the camera.

 She's already so alert.

 Now that we have church at 1:00 we have a lot more time to spend on Andrea's hair. Look how beautiful.

 Mommy was craving chocolate cookies and Andrea was a wonderful helper.

 Andrea and Rachel's first bath Together!

 Grandma Bentz made Andrea a book showing all the different stages of Andrea's life and how she can now help her sister Rachel through all of those different stages.  It was super cute because it completely focused on her, but also helped her be excited for her new sister.

 Finally the sun came out, so I took Andrea to the duck pond.

 Andrea is doing fantastic this semester in dance, so I had to take some more pictures.

 Look at her beautiful flowing arms.

 She got to go for a ride on a train.

Andrea and Matt have the same smile in this picture. :-)

December 2011

December was a great month.  Mommy was so close to having her baby.  Andrea got to be a lamb in the nativity for dance class. It was such a beautiful production.  The weather was nice enough for us to go to the park a few times.  Yea for Christmas!

November 2011

     Andrea had a fantastic 2-year-old birthday party.  We made an Ariel cake and had cupcakes.  Daddy made the cake look fantastic.  She had lots of family and friends at her party. In fact, we played pin the princess in the castle, and all the kids wanted to help her open her toys.  Andrea is so adorable and very social.  Talks so much and talks so well. She has been completely potty trained now for a few months!

     I knew that I would be too pregnant to go to Arizona for Christmas, so we went there for Thanksgiving.  I was still pretty darn pregnant, but it wasn't too bad.  We hiked to Y Mountain, went to the park, ate lots of food, and many other things.  

September 2011

       Well, during the month of September we watched Ben and Tuesdee's dog while they went up to a condo in Park City.  The previous week we had watched Chancho and he broke a hole through our fence.  Steve was in the backyard grilling and I sent Belle out with him.  He didn't realize that I had done that so he came back inside without Belle.  A few minutes later we realized that we didn't have Belle anymore.  We looked all throughout the yard, but Belle wasn't anywhere to be seen.  We walked up and down our streets and Steve took of on our bike looking for her. Finally I had to call Ben because we couldn't find her anywhere.  I was wondering if anyone had called her number on her dog tag and if they could somehow get those messages from their home phone, either through a neighbor or something. 

      Long story short. Ben started driving down to help us find her before it got dark.  We found her by the railroad tracks and she ran away. Then we found her again by the cemetery just as Ben got there and just as it was getting dark.  We drove and ran around that cemetery for over two hours.  We kept finding her and scaring her away.  Finally Ben brought his van drove around, opened the door, called her name, and she ran and jumped in. We were able to go home and have hot chocolate together and some good times, but it was quite the adventure.

      We ended up having a blast with Belle. We took her for rides in the bike trailer down to the park and cuddled on the couch. a great Labor Day weekend.

August 2011

     August was great.  I headed back from Manti with about a week to spare before Steve came home.  I got everything ready to teach aerobics at UVU and Law Partner stuff organized for the big start to the school year.  Our opening social was awesome! We had two inflatable toys, a bounce house for the kids and an obstacle course for the adults to race through.  We had races and prices.  I think it turned out really well. 

      Grandma Bentz, Grandma Boy, and Auntie Sharon came out to visit for Education week. It was fun to spend so much time with family.  We had a picnic at the temple with popsicles.  I was starting to look pregnant and feel a little better.  

       While on our summer trips Andrea's cousins kept taking her to the bathroom.  She was showing a lot of interest in it, so when we got home we potty trained her.  Honestly she was completely potty trained by the end of one week, but she still had little accidents every now and then.  We wanted to have her potty trained so she could start taking dance lessons!  I let her run around in only a dress with nothing on underneath. It was so much easier for her to get on the toilet in time to go potty.  The trickiest part was learning how to pull her panties down.  That took her a few weeks, but then she was completely potty trained before she was two! Yea!!!!

July

       Steve was doing an internship in San Jose and Andrea and I did not go with him. Andrea was not yet two-years-old, so she still flew for free, so I decided to take advantage of it.  We started our trip off by flying to Arizona, then driving to San Diego for a week.  I had only been away from Steve for about 3 weeks, but I was missing him so much while in San Diego.  He surprised me and drove the 8 hours all the way down on a Friday night after work.  He came up behind me while I was sitting on the bench with mom and dad waiting for the fireworks to go off.  I was so excited and happy that I started to cry and threw myself around him including wrapping my legs around his waist and hugged and kissed him.  I was so happy that he would do that for me and Andrea.  The next morning Andrea didn't know how to react towards Daddy. She acted as though she were mad it at him saying, "Where have you been? Why did you leave us?"  We only had Steve for two days, but it was worth it.  We drove back to Arizona for the 4th of July, then headed up to Show Low for the rest of the trip. 

        After Arizona I flew to San Jose to spend a weekend with Steve and get to know the area a little bit in case we decided to take a full time offer and move there the next summer.  It was a wonderful weekend.  He was staying with the Buchanans.  They were a fantastic family.  We went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, drove around a bit, went to church on Sunday, and had a big family dinner with the Buchanan family and their children.  It was a great, but short trip.  

     We then flew to Texas and spent a week with Camille. We went swimming, Aubrey put on a neighborhood talent show, watched Elliotts baseball games, and watched Harry Potter.  From Texas we drove to Utah taking the Highway 89 trail.  It was quite the crazy trip with five kids, a dog, two adults, and morning sickness, but definitely fun.  We had to sneek their dog into the hotel, because we didn't want to have to pay extra for a dog hotel. We stopped at a lot of fun places.

      Once in Manti we spent time swimming at the new city pool and up at the cabin.  It was a wonderful summer, but I definitely missed my hubby.

June - Arches trip with Friends

      Steve and I took off the weekend and had Grandpa and Grandma Barclay watch Andrea while we went to the Arches with our friends.  Steve has worked his IT job on campus with these friends for two or more years and we have built a really strong relationship with them.  We knew that their working together days were coming to an end because Jason just graduated and took a job in Oregon, Brandon will graduate this December, and Steve will graduate this April.  Once they are no longer students they can no longer work in their current office.  So, we decided to take a big trip all together before we all started heading our separate directions.  We had a little planning meeting one Sunday and decided on the Arches.  It ended up being a wonderful weekend even though several things went wrong, but that's actually what made it so fun! :-)
       We began our trip by going golfing together with Brandon and Annie in the morning, then we hurried and finished packing our things and headed for Manti.  Obviously we hurried a little too fast, because we forgot our tent, dutch oven, and flashlights.  All of which are pretty essential things, but lucky we stopped in Manti first.  We realized we forgot our tent and dutch oven when we got to Manti, so mom and dad let us borrow theirs.  We decided to stay the night in Manti so Jason and Alysha could meet up with us.  Then we packed everything in mom and dad's suburban and headed for the arches.  The weather was crazy this year.  We had been getting tons of rain, so the river was so high that half of the camp grounds were under water.  It took  a while to find a spot, but we finally found one.  Immediately we tried to set up our tent so we could claim our spot.  After about 15 minutes of trying to put different pieces together we just assumed that we must not have all the parts.  It was a big Boy Scout tent that I had never seen before, so I personally had no idea how to set it up.  Eventually we gave up and rolled the tent back up.  Come to find out later, we really did have all the parts, but we just didn't know how to set it up right. :-)
        Finally we headed for the park and hiked to the doubles arch and took some great pictures.

We headed back kind of early to make dinner, because I knew dinner might take a while.  While cooking dinner back at the camp ground we were suddenly stopped by an extremely large sound that sounded like a gun shot.  I looked at our neighbors and they were staring at us.  I honestly thought they had just shot a gun at us, because that is how loud the sound was.  Steve quickly said, "Check the tires."  All the boys rushed over to the suburban and started checking the tires.  They could tell that one of them had just exploded.  It still had most of the air in it, but big pieces of rubber and burst off of the tire.  Within minutes Steve and Jason were gone in the suburban trying to get it on the road and out where we had cell phone reception.  A few minutes later Alysha took off in their car to go and find the boys.  The only problem was Jason didn't take his phone with him and she didn't know Steve's number.  Back at camp Brandon, Annie and I got dinner ready.  They were gone for at least two hours.  Finally they all came back.  Steve had called my dad and found out that the spare underneath was a full sized tire, so he got underneath the car, took off the spare, finally got the jack out, and changed the tire.  He was filthy when he got back, but everything was just fine and they all made it back together. :-)  Dinner was great and we had a nice relaxing evening.  Steve and Brandon slept on cots and Annie and I slept in the suburban.  I actually think the boys got the better sleeping arrangements, but that's ok.  Annie and I stayed up talking until everyone else had long been asleep.  We were just like sisters having a campout together. :-)
 

      Nicole and Brian were able to meet up with us that night as well, so the next day we had an amazing breakfast prepared by Steve and then we headed out to the park for the day.  Steve's breakfast recipe: 1 lb of bacon, 1 bag of Potatoes O' Brian, 1/2 - 1 lb of cheese, 12 eggs. Cook them all and mix them all together.  We put them on tortillas for a yummy breakfast burrito.  Thank you for an awesome breakfast honey! :-)
       We saw several fun things in the park.  Devil's Garden, Sand dune Arch, Landscape Arch, etc.  Here are some awesome pics.

 The girls having fun in the sand! :-)

 Brian and his wife Nicole were the daring ones who decided to climb even higher. It definitely made for a good picture!

 Definitely putting off the vibe boys!

 Steve climbed pretty far up the slate canyon area of the park.

       Now for our last crazy story of the trip.  Our last hike of the day was to be the Delicate Arch (the arch on the Utah license plate.)  We were a little less than half way up the trail when an elderly couple from the Netherlands hiking back down from the arch.  We were on slick red rock and the wife tripped just a few feet away from all of us.  She tripped and tried to catch herself with her hands, but then rolled a few times before stopping.  We all rushed over to her to help her up and see if she was ok.  As soon as we got her sitting up it was obvious that her wrist was broken.  Her arm and hand were on completely different levels, not in a straight line at all.  She was in a lot of pain, so we all worked together and laid her back on backpacks and arms.  Steve and Brian took off running for the parking lot where they could get service and call 911.  It was such a neat experience because the Lord totally put us there for a reason.  Even though they were from the Netherlands they could speak German and Nicole had studied abroad in Vienna and spoke German, so she was able to communicate enough with them.  Two other couples ended up stopping.   All of us were from the Provo area and all of us were LDS. We were able to ask the husband if the boys could give her a blessing and they accepted, so the men gave her a blessing and immediately she started to calm down.  One of the other couples who stopped was an EMT and had a nice first aid kit with him.  He used different clothes to wrap it up and make a sling while the girls all held a T-shirt about her to create shade.  Then eventually she felt well enough to start walking down the hill along with the help of the boys.  The forest rangers got there by the time that we were almost all the way back to the parking lot anyway, so she ended up walking the entire way back to the ambulance waiting for her in the parking lot.  It was also another little miracle that there was a surgeon in the Moab hospital that could operate on her wrist that day.  Long story short, we never made it to the delicate arch, so many of us have still not seen it, but our experience was so much more worth it.  We were able to share the gospel in some little way with this cute elderly couple and make some friends.  We had a blast with our BYU friends and we will always cherish this small weekend trip to the Arches with them!