17!

How did another year go by so quickly?

 

Sawyer and his Papa Doug...

 

We are so proud of the thoughtful, hard-working, young man that he is!

 

All the kids...

Baby News…

No baby yet, she is still snug as a bug resting cozily on the inside.  So unless something happens in the next two days she will make her grand appearance on Friday the 21st around lunch! 

This morning's sunrise through the trees.

We truly appreciate all your prayers for a safe surgery and delivery. 

This afternoon's spring storm passing through...

We will update as soon as we are able!

 

A Meadowlark from this morning...

Pictures…

Kids at papa's...

 

 

 

 

Does anyone else have one of these?

Garrett being a goof ball...

Day at the Ranch…

Papa Ed and the kids...

We spent a wonderfully beautiful day up at the ranch today for Mark’s birthday!

Winter Wonderland 2010…

Well a happy belated New Years to everyone!  It already seems like time is flying.  Over the Christmas holiday we were gifted with a “lovely” stomach virus, the kids seemed to be able to bounce back from it with in 6 hours where us adults took a couple days getting our footing back.  What’s up with that?   It took over a week for it to pass throughout our family, with me catching it last on the night before New Years Eve.  Yuck!

This week has already been a busy one for us with Maddie’s birthday on Sunday and my dad’s birthday on Monday.  Today we have a break and have been snowed under.  Tomorrow and Thursday the kids have 4-H and on Thursday we all get to go in for the big 20 week ultrasound.  The girls and most of the boys are crossing their fingers hoping that a little girl will be found.  (Teigen is too cute right now, he’ll come up and hug my already huge belly and say “I love you little baby.”  “Did you know there is a little baby in mommy’s tummy?”)  It’s hard to believe I’m already more than half way through this pregnancy!  Then on Friday we get to have a fun-filled night in Whitefish, staying at a hotel,  swimming and eating  pizza and cake.  :0)

Today we are enjoying the break and just keep looking at all the beautiful snow that has accumulated over the last couple of days….

 

Heavy snow on the trees...

 

 

Snow on bare branches...

Dugur and animals...

Up the crab apple tree...

Frozen crab apple...

View between the trees...

More later…

Miracle….

 

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Six years and two weeks ago, I was pregnant with a very special little boy.  I was 25 weeks pregnant and my water broke at home.  This started a four-month long  journey that taught us a great deal about faith.   We ended up being flown to a hospital 4 hours away from our children and family.  I remember before we left and while everything was sinking in, being alone with our pediatrician I just started crying thinking this was a hopeless situation and asking what would happen to this little baby.  The  Dr. gave me a tissue and touched my shoulder and looked me straight in the eyes and told me they were doing amazing things with these little guys should he decide to make his appearance. This gave me hope…

In Great Falls we had the best care.  My doctor was simply wonderful.  He would calmly and honestly tell us what was going on, he gave us the best case scenario of the tear in my amniotic sack self-healing and being able to go near term and he told us that if he was born today he would have a 50/50 chance of survival.  It was what I needed to hear.  He stressed the importance of taking things moment to moment.  Everyday the baby stayed inside his survivability odds would increase.  If we could make it to 27 weeks his odds of survival were 90%!  That was my goal.  Plus my doctor was also a sheep guy with his own flock. ;0)

We met with neonatal pediatrician who would be taking care of our son the moment he came into this world.  We were able to get a tour inside the NICU (me via wheelchair) where we saw the littlest babies with wires sticking out all over the place.  That was a bit overwhelming, to imagine this little thing growing inside you snug as a bug and have him laying there… But my doctor thought it would be a good idea to see someone elses baby in there, hear the noises, just incase…

I was so blessed to be able to have my wonderful husband there.  He held my hand the whole plane ride over as he knows I hate to ride in planes.  He slept beside me for 3 weeks in lazy boy that our room cleaner snagged for him.  He read to me when my eyes couldn’t focus due to the drugs they were giving me to keep labor at bay.  He even braved they women’s intimates section where old ladies gave him ugly stares, all to buy me a night-gown and unders as I had been flown over in a hospital gown.  He kept me sane.

God also made his presence known to me.  He gave me an unbelievable sense of peace.  This whole thing was so above us, we were helpless to do anything, but yet I had this sense of peace that everything was just going to be ok.  The doctors even commented on how at peace we were with everything.  When I think back about this time in our lives it is always one of the first things I think of…the peace.

On November 18, I woke up early in the morning and had some bleeding.  The nurse reassured us that was probably ok.  Later that day I started to bleed a bit more.  At lunch I ate, but something was not right.  Usually the baby would start to kick and tumble a few minutes after I ate…this time he didn’t.  I had Mark find one of the nurses and was put back on the monitor for a little while where it was discovered that our little guys heart was having some pretty serious decels going down into the 80’s where it would normally be in the 130’s before.  We were warned that once the baby started to look too stressed things would happen fast.  A nurse came and explained that he was stressing too much and that it was time.  I was able to call my mom at work and talk to her for a brief minute.  She called my dad at home who called right back.. by that time we were in the operating room.  It all happened so fast but it was calm.

Mark was able to come into surgery and watch the whole procedure, even asking the doctor questions as he opened me up!  A few minutes later little Hayden made his appearance.   His little hands were curled up into tiny fists and he let out a little mew of a cry signaling his arrival.  I will always have that imagine of him in my mind’s eye, so little but yet so perfect, with his fists all curled up ready to fight.  Things in the operating room got very busy, the nurses and doctor assessed him and rushed by me holding on to Hayden stopping only briefly to let me give him a quick kiss on the head.  The room settled back down and I was put back together.  It was determined that my placenta had started to tear away and fill with blood that Hayden had inhaled.

We were taken back to a recovery room where we waited several hours until we were able to go  back to the NICU to see Hayden.  It seemed like forever… but they had to stabilize him, get him set up on a ventilator, and get IV’s started.  When we were able to go back and see him we had to go through the routine of washing hands and gowning up so we would not bring any germs into the NICU, if the little babies in there were to catch any little bug it could easily kill them.  Any time we touched anything we used hand sanitizer.

Hayden Asher Henry (big name for a little boy!)

When we first saw Hayden, I remember thinking he was sooo little and how unfair it seemed to have this little thing who should still be snuggled up tight  inside of me but instead laying there fighting for his life.  He would make little faces like he was crying but we couldn’t here anything because of the tubes running down his mouth to keep him breathing.  His legs weren’t even as thick as Mark’s fingers.  When he curled all up you could just about cover up all his 13 1/2 inches with a dollar bill.  Alarms would sound when his heart beat too slow or too fast.  They would sound again when his blood oxygen levels where too low.  He had ultrasounds on his brain to make sure it didn’t bleed during delivery.  He had his own little velcro cloth sunglasses he would wear when he was tanning under the bili lights.  He had several blood transfusions that would bring him from a pasty white to bright newborn pink.  He had ultrasounds to make sure the valves in his heart closed right.  He had a speech therapist that helped to learn the suck, sallow, breath pattern that would allow him to eventually drink from a bottle and eventually nurse for the first time at 3 months old. He started out eating a yellowish gooey substance that had everything in it a baby at his stage needed, delivered via tubes to his stomach. He was weighed in grams and each gram he gained was celebrated.   He had tests to make sure his eyes didn’t have retinopathy of prematurity.  After one such test he crashed.  His heart rate plummeted, I tried rubbing him briskly to bring his heart rate back up but it didn’t help.  I ended yelling out in help until his nurse was able to put down the other baby she was caring for, she had to sanitize too before being able to get back to Hayden.

Hayden with all of his equipment…

After I had healed up enough and used up all of my time in the hospital we were blessed enough to be able to stay and Mark’s cousins house until we headed back home.  It was so nice to be amongst their kids and family when ours was so far away.  It was so incredibly hard to leave the hospital and not be bringing a  baby home with us.  I was only able to get home once during the three months we were over there.  Mark and I came home for Christmas for a couple of days, I have never been so pulled as to where I should be.  We would call several times a day back to the NICU and found out during one of those calls that he had a bacterial infection, but he ended up pulling through.

When he was only a couple days old he pulled his ventilator out and they graduated him to a CPAP, which blows a constant breeze of oxygen through him.  He wore this over his nose and when he opened his mouth you could feel the air rushing out.  His poor little mouth and lips would get so dry.  We also got to hear his amazing little cry for the first time after he pulled his ventilator out, it would always break my heart to hear it.  I just wanted to pick him up and hold him, but his poor little body wouldn’t have handled it.

When he was strong enough to be held, it was so amazing.  It was like holding nothing but just simply amazing.  Eventually we were able to start kangaroo care, which is where he would be able to snuggle naked on my bare chest which was even more amazing!  They would partition off a section of the NICU with curtains and it was just the two of us in a rocking chair, this little bug snuggled up on me.

Another difficult day came when Mark had to go back to work.  I didn’t think I could do it without and it made me depressed when he did leave.  Now it was just me going every four hours up to the NICU.  The majority of the NICU babies never had visitors or a parent there their whole stay.  Parents had to work or take care of other children.  I felt so blessed to be able to be there the whole time and care for my little guy, my parents were able to watch the other kids for us the whole time we needed them too so I didn’t have to worry unnecessarily about them.  Mark was able to stay with me for quite a while and my mom was even able to come over for a week and stay with me.

Everything was ruled by the 4 hour schedule that Hayden was held to. Every 4 hours I would get to go up and change his diaper, weigh it to make sure he was peeing out the right amount and not retaining fluids, and take his temperature.  Sometimes I would get to hold him or do kangaroo care, watch him have speech therapy, help in giving him a bath, watch him be weighed or watch some of the non invasive tests be done.   There were always test results coming back for something.  I remember the first time we put clothes on him.  Even the preemie size swallowed him up but he started to look more babyish instead of old mannish.

We found that when we had visitors (they were able to view through the window in the NICU)  that it was really hard for most of them to look at him.  They would all have the same furrowed foreheads and half smile.  We were very blessed during our stay to have Great Grandma Margaret visit us at the hospital where she was able to see little Hayden and we were able to see her before she got so sick.  Treasured moments.

Hayden’s feet (2lb 6.9oz.) next to Teigen’s footprint (6lbs. 4oz.)

Then the day came when the doctor thought that Hayden would be strong enough to make the 4 hour ambulance ride back to Kalispell.  They ended up having to test him several times by placing him in the car seat he would ride in on the trip over and monitoring his vitals.  I left a couple of days before he came home to get things somewhat back to normal and visit the hospital here.  It felt so weird leaving the hospital it became sort of a home away from home.  The care we both received was so wonderful and the friendships made were so great.  The nurses took a little Polaroid picture of Hayden swallowed up in his car seat (all 4 pounds), his little fist this time raised in what looked to be a wave good-bye.

Hayden had no problem with the ambulance ride over and stayed in the Kalispell hospital for another couple of weeks.  He was weaned off all his many medicines and actually took on to nursing like a champ.  The night finally came when I got to stay and room in for the night.  It was just us alone and I was able to take care of him by myself, just like a real baby!  The next day he was released and came home on oxygen and a monitor for his heart.  We were together for the first time as a family after 4 months, released just a couple of days before his due date weighing a bit under 5 lbs!

Six years later you would never guess the rough start Hayden had in life.  You can still see all the scars on his hands and feet from IV’s and blood draws…but that’s it.  He seems to have a more difficult time dealing with colds than the rest of the kids.  When he was three and Teigen was only a year old they both had RSV.  Teigen was fine but Hayden ended up staying in the hospital for a couple of days.  Other than that though,  Hayden is tougher than a rock!  His first word was “I’m OK!”  If Hayden is crying you know he’s hurt.

This year this sweet little boy has really been enjoying school and can draw the most amazing pictures.  He is really excited for snow and to go sledding.   And he still loves his cowboy stuff.

Happy Birthday Little Man!

 

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Labor Day Fun and Fellowship!

Yesterday we spent a gorgous day in chilly Glacier Park.  We spent the morning with another family, so we had a total of four adults and 13 kids! No need to worry about bears with this crew.  ;0)  We had a wonderful time hiking and in fellowship.  Later in the afternoon we met up with a couple more families and had over 20 kids…there was a lot of activity too say the least!  The weather was nicely cool and very fall like, perfect for hiking.  Here are a couple of pictures from the day…

 

 

The wonderful thing about teenage boys with lots of extra energy....

Sleeping baby boys….

zzz...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some of the kids...

 

 

 

Snuggled close...

 

 

Nice leg warmers, huh?

 

Poor Zayne he had a terrible diaper blow out and of course in the rush to get out of the house in the morning I forgot to pack him some extra clothes, luckily I had an extra pair of socks that worked as great little leg warmers and he also had his snow suit to keep him warm on the hike.

After a long day of hiking and hanging out with friends we headed home where Mark cooked a wonderful steak dinner for my birthday.   This morning when I woke up I definitely felt a year older, and a bit stiff and sore!  The kids even made a happy birthday banner for me and made the cutest little cards today. (This is definitely the most wonderful thing about being a mom!)  Hayden must have made me about 20 bracelets out of paper and stickers or out of sparkly ribbon and jewels he borrowed from his sisters-they’re too sweet and I have quite the collection now!

Thanks to the Miller family for such a wonderful day and to the Dunham’s for braving the wild west and taking the kids on a great hike! ( That’s all they’ve talked about today.)  Thanks for the wonderful fellowship too as Mark and I both enjoyed spending the day with your families.  More pictures later!

14

I am already a week behind getting this out~ but last Friday Tori turned 14!  I’m starting to feel old~lol!  She had a nice little party with two of her best pals.

The Girls...

But the highlight of the night was this from Papa Ed…

Excitement...

What could it be?

A Black Angus Heifer Calf...

 

She was born a twin to a bull calf and is termed a freemartin

What is a “Freemartin”?

Freemartinism is recognized as one of the most severe forms of sexual abnormality among cattle.  This condition causes infertility in the female cattle born twin to a male.  When a heifer twin shares the uterus with a bull fetus, they also share the placental membranes connecting the fetuses with the dam.  A joining of the placental membranes occurs at about the fortieth day of pregnancy, and thereafter, the fluids of the two fetuses are mixed.  This causes exchange of blood and antigens carrying characteristics that are unique to each heifers and bulls.  When these antigens mix, they affect each other in a way that causes each to develop with some characteristics of the other sex.  Although the male twin in this case is only affected by reduced fertility, in over ninety percent of the cases, the female twin is completely infertile.  Because of a transfer of hormones or a transfer of cells, the heifer’s reproductive tract is severely underdeveloped and sometimes even contains some elements of a bull’s reproductive tract. A freemartin is genetically female, but has many characteristics of a male.  The ovaries of the freemartin do not develop correctly, and they remain very small.  Also, the ovaries of a freemartin do not produce the hormones necessary to induce the behavioral signs of heat. The external vulvar region can range from a very normal looking female to a female that appears to be male.  Freemartinism cannot be prevented; however, it can be diagnosed in a number of ways ranging from simple examination of the placental membranes to chromosomal evaluation.  The cattleman can predict the reproductive value of this heifer calf at birth and save the feed and development costs if he is aware of the high probability of freemartinism.  In some cases, there are no symptoms of freemartinism because the male twin may have been aborted at an earlier stage of gestation.  more here

 

So Tori is trying not to get too attached to her as she will be used for meat, the difficulties of farm life.  But never-the-less she is enjoying having a bottle calf again and the calf is too cute to watch as she jumps and leaps and plays with Butterscotch. 

Garrett with the calf...

 

Tori had an exceptional birthday and with all the kids’ birthdays it just seems that time passes so quickly.  The days seem long but the years pass by too quickly!

 

PS~ Tori says “Thanks” to ‘K’ and ‘K’ for hanging out with her and for the awesome scrap booking kit!

Happy :0) Birthday Beau…

I’d like to take a moment and wish a happy belated birthday to my little brother, Beau.  He is a Hot Shot on the Hungry Horse Fire Crew and out fighting wild land fires now, carefully I’d like to think anyway!   ;0)  I’m hoping this year is better than last year for Beau…

Newpaper article from last year...

 

The article can be found here…

 

News

Lightning survivors recount strike at Star Meadow

By JIM MANN/Daily Inter Lake

Published: Friday, June 6, 2008 12:09 AM CDT

Woman recalls ‘bright yellow light over my shoulder’

The Flathead Hotshots logo — a lightning bolt and flames over the state of Montana — has taken on deeper meaning since two members of the elite firefighting crew survived a lightning strike last week.

Heather McEvoy, 25, and Beau Morin, 29, have recovered since the May 29 strike on a ridge in the Star Meadow area southwest of Whitefish. They and fellow crew members say their training played a huge role in a quick and calm response after the incident.

Nine members of the 20-person crew were on the ridge securing firelines and felling hazard trees the day after they carried out a prescribed burn on 64 acres.

Just before 1 p.m., a sprinkling rain quickly turned into a heavy downpour and then hail.

“There was a little rumbling and I saw a downstrike” on a ridge not far to the northeast, said Bert Smith, the ranking supervisor that day. “It all happened really quick.”

Martin immediately told crew members to start hiking out, a distance of about a quarter mile to where their Flathead Hotshots rig was parked.

McEvoy and Morin were at the rear of a group of four people, walking near a large larch tree.

“The big larch got hit,” Morin recalls. “I remember kind of seizing up and falling over backwards. She fell over backwards.”

Morin said there was a thundering concussion, and the lightning charge arched from the larch to a smaller fir tree nearby. He tried to get up quickly to help McEvoy, who was on the ground screaming, but found that “the whole left side of my body was numb.”

McEvoy said she remembers “a bright yellow light over my shoulder. I knew it was lightning. I thought I was done. I thought they were going to be doing CPR on me.”

She quickly realized that she was fine from the waist up, but from the waist down she was numb. The numbness faded, she said, and was replaced with a sharp, pulsing pain in her lower right leg.

She found that she hadn’t suffered any actual burns, but she had swelling and discoloration in her lower leg and foot.

“I was on borderline shock,” she said. “I was crying one second and laughing the next.”

One crew member in the group, Ichiro “Ichi” Stewart, is a trained emergency medical technician who raced to help McEvoy and then radioed for Smith, who was at another location on the burn, about a half mile away. The call for help was quickly relayed to the Flathead dispatch center in Kalispell, and the ALERT helicopter was called in from Kalispell Regional Medical Center.

Hungry Horse District Ranger Jimmy DeHerrera said word of people being hit by lightning spread quickly among Flathead forest staffers, who at first didn’t know that Forest Service personnel were involved.

Once they learned that it involved Flathead Hotshots crew members, he said, there was deep concern.

Smith said the crew, which is accustomed to reacting as a team in high-stress situations, responded quickly and with composure. While Stewart carried McEvoy out of the woods on his back, Morin walked, and other crew members gathered up gear. Smith handled communications.

It took about 40 minutes from the time of the lightning strike to the time McEvoy was aboard the helicopter and in the air, Smith said. Morin was transported by ambulance and both were released from the Kalispell hospital that night.

“We’re like brothers and sisters. We take care of each other,” Smith said.

The Flathead Hotshots crew was formed in 1965, and is one of 93 “Type I” firefighting crews across the nation.

Reporter Jim Mann

Copyright © 2009 – Northwest Montana Daily Inter Lake

Logo...

Picture of Heather and Beau...

 (Sorry the picture is a bit runny, the article has been hanging in Sawyer’s room for the past year ;0)

“We’re like brothers and sisters. We take care of each other,” Smith said.

This is so true.  Everyone of the people on his crew hung around the hospital until they were both released, taking turns to visit and check in on them.  You could tell their concern in just they way they talked…it was too neat to know that they all looked out for each other and to know they would take care of their fellow firefighter!

At this time I was very pregnant with Zayne and my blood pressure was up a bit so on a whim I had stopped by the medical office where my mom works to recheck it.  It was literally minutes earlier that mom had received the phone call about what had happened to Beau and that he was just being transported to the hospital.  It was so completely nerve racking waiting that half hour, wondering what his condition was like.  As the article stated the quick action of those around him was where a lot of thanks belongs.  The ordinary people just doing their jobs…and doing what is right…thanks guys!

Later we found out that after he had been struck and Heather was flown out by helicopter that he hiked the distance back out to where the rig was to await the ambulance…what a guy!  Or maybe a ding-dong!!  (I can say that cause I’m his sister, right? ;0)

A better picture of Beau from 5 years ago holding newly born Orion and older brother Luke…

 

 

He looks so different all clean cut, without his beard! Lol

 Happy Birthday Beau and stay SAFE!

 

Happy 16th Birthday Sawyer!

BTW, this is Sawyer’s favorite song!  ;0)

It’s sorta funny how the addition of a baby can make two people’s lives merge together to become a family.

First Family Picture

 

 

Too Cute!

 

Where does the time go?

 

Lugging Hayden around…

Sawyer has grown to be such a great young man, he is constantly helping out with farm chores to lugging kids around, he is even becoming quite the bbq’er!  The past 16 years have passed way too fast and we are so proud of our oldest…we hope you have a wonderful day and we love you very much!