Visitors/my help after Violet was born

My mom and little sister Amber came and helped me after Violet was born.  It was so good to have them.  Hard to see them go!

2011

Up and at ‘me again...after 6+years

We enjoyed our time in Texas and were very happy to have residency over. Now we are in Illinois. Karl is working Great Lakes Naval base as an oral surgeon. Carson left on his mission 13 months ago to Fortaleza, Brazil and Haylee is in her first semester so college at BYUI

Rebecca is 13 now and always looking for something to do so I told her she could start this blog up again. It’s so fun to go back and look at what is on here from years before I would love to continue it.

Violet

Heidi Violet Chandler

My Dr. finally agreed to induce me on the 15th.  At 11Am they started me on pitocin.  Karl had been on call the night before and met me at the hospital.  I wasn't dialated much, but had finally started to eface a bit (which is why my Dr didn't want to induce me), but I know from past babies that I really don't go anywhere until I'm either very over due or I'm on pitocin.  The pit doesn't bother me at all.  Usually I move pretty quickly once I'm on the pit.  My other inductions I have had the baby in 4-6 hours from the time they started me on the pit.  With about an hour of hard contractions.  This time I just slowly progressed.  So I sat and talked to the nurse and Karl tool and shower and then a nap.  We talked names a bit while he was awake, but still didn't decide what we wanted to name her.   Around 5PM I was at 5cm and and the baby was still quite high.  I looked at the nurse and said, I don't think that we are even going to see this baby by 6PM, which is when her shift was up.  I got tired of sitting in the bed and decided to stand.  After a couple minutes I felt and heard a weird pop.  I have never had my water break on it's own.  I didn't know it actually made a pop sound.  It's a strange feeling!  That was about 5:15 a couple minutes after that they contractions kicked in and before I knew it I was ready to push.  The nurse ran and called the Dr.  Told him baby was coming and that I had gone from 5cm to 8cm in 5 min.  Well the Doc thought since I wasn't moving very fast earlier in the day that he would be fine finishing up what he was doing.  

I had the nurse telling me to be calm and DON'T PUSH.  Well, I didn't push, but baby pushed her way out.  They grabbed a Dr. from the hall and she delivered our sweet baby. 

Because of the quick delivery she was quite swollen.  Not the cutest baby when they first gave her tome me, but she is a doll now.  She is very loved by all her siblings!  I keep thinking that the newness will wear off, but it' not.  Everyone still begs to hold her every morning and they all fight over who gets to sit by me and Violet at church.  And now she is crying, so that's all for now.

Waiting...

 Waiting for the baby to come...Eldon finished off his soccer season.  He had a great team this year.  Great coach.  They really learned to play as a team.  It was a lot of fun to sit and watch his games. 

 In September Karl had to request his time off for the year.  I asked my doctor if he would induce me the week before my due date and he said yes.  Well when we got to the middle of October I asked him about it again and he paused and said, "oh, I'm going to be out of town that week."  He then said that he would induce me Sunday the 11th, but after my apt with another doc that week he told his nurse no he wouldn't.  AHHH.  So Karl had the week from the 4 to the 11th off.  I was due on the 14th.  So we just had a stay-cation wit the hopes she would come on her own.  That doesn't really happen for me, but we still had hope that she would. 

We gave each kid a day and let them pick what they wanted to do.  Haylee had Sunday and just wanted to sing songs around the piano and play boar games.  Monday Eldon chose to go to the movies.  A rare thing for our family since it costs at least $50.  We saw our first 3D movie. Tuesday we ran errands most of the day and in the evening Becca wanted to play LIFE.  So while the other kids went to church activities that's what the rest of us did.  Wednesday Carson chose the finish up his hiking merit badge and found a 10 mile hike he could do.  Last minute I decided I didn't want to sit at home and figured I go and do what I could with the little kids.  We hiked 7 of the 10 miles and still no baby.  Thursday was a beautiful day and Lydea wanted to go to the beach.  It was a lot of fun.  We had a great time digging for clams, running up the sand dunes (I didn't do that), flying the kite, and just playing in the water.  By Friday I think I had over done it.  My feet were very swollen.  Karl was bummed because he knew his vacation was coming to an end and we just sat around and waited for grandma's plane to come in.  It was a nice break.  It would have been really nice if our baby would have come, but she didn't. So Karl went back to work on Monday and me, the kids and my mom sat around waiting for the baby to come...

Zac's birthday

I'm trying to get caught up a bit.  I figured I'd go back to Zac's birthday.  He turn five.  It's crazy all of a sudden it feels like he is so grow up.  Makes me sad.  He was my baby for so long.  He's learning lots right now.  I do a little school with him each day.  He is doing great.  He is almost to the end of his reading lessons.  It's not his favorite thing to do, but he is liking it more and more as it gets easier.  Math is his forte right now.  He whizzes through lessons.  He memorizes his math fact quickly and understands concepts.  I love watching him learn. 

 I was quite impressed with his cake that I made.  He wanted a dragon and I couldn't find one online so I made it up.  It wasn't perfect but we thought it was cool.  I always get impatient with the frosting.  I really need to take a class on frosting cakes or something.  I put the wings on backwards so we decided that it was a sea dragon!

Eldon's scouts were all going mini golfing on Zac's birthday which I kind of made Zac's birthday activity.  We got there late because of Eldon's soccer game that morning so most of the other scouts were almost done.  It was unlimited golf.  The weather was beautiful and  the coarse was empty so, my kids and a friend that we had with us ran the mini golf coarse at least 3 times.  They had a great time.

 

Randomness from Zac...

I love driving around with only Zac in the car with me.  He says the funniest things.   Today we were driving through some construction and he asked me what the big orange barrels were for.  I told him they told people not to drive there and that they are full of sand so if people do try and go there it is not good for their car.  His response was, "So if a blind person was driving and hit one that would not be good."   I wasn't sure how to respond to that one.  I kind of think that if a blind person was driving that would be one of the better things for them to hit.

The one that is my favorite from the last couple months though is...He was singing and started to make up new words to the song, "It's a hard knock Life".  He thought they were pretty funny and made me promise to keep them a secret from the other kids.  Then out of the blue he say, "but you can tell Karl if you want to."  It doesn't sound nearly as funny written down, but it was very funny at the time coming form him.

Zac is such a joy.  I am so grateful I have him to lighten my mood some days.   I can't believe he is going to be five the end of this month.  Makes me kind of sad.  I'm just not realy for him to grow up quite yet.