This is real

I will break my snoop bloggy blog silence tonight by talking about something that enrages/scares the daylights out of me. Regardez:

And

I cannot believe what is being marketed to young girls these days. Can. Not. 

The first picture I took in a toy aisle whilst looking for a very specific gift for my daughter. They are called Bratz dolls. The huge blue eyes, the teeny nose, the huuuuge unnatural collagen lips, and the stripper makeup is Just. Too. Much. I know these dolls have been around for a while but I don't remember them looking so lady-of-the-night when they first came out. Hooooooow does anyone think that marketing this doll to young girls reinforces anything but negative ideas? I was in disbelief when I saw the ad. 

Picture number two I took in Target. In the girls' section. Ava is one size away from shopping in that section and I was so sad to see one of her favorite cartoon characters (Rainbow Dash) referencing the song Blurred Lines. (If you don't know the song you have probably been living under a rock.)

I'm sad that money comes before morality in marketing to preschoolers, kindergartners, and elementary aged children (I expect it with older age groups). I'm sad that there are 6 year olds that know the song Blurred Lines. I'm sad that there are little girls growing up thinking that they need to have tons of makeup and tiny noses and huge lips to be beautiful. I'm sad that there are parents who buy that crap for their kids. I'm sad that innocence can get lost so young, so easily now. 

And I'm mad. Mama Bear has been awoken. I'm ready for a fight. A big long one where Ava is the winner. 

She is so very beautiful, from the inside out. But it will become so easy for her to forget that. 

Ava's Room

I realized that I have never posted pictures of Ava's awesome room and the awesome bed her daddy made her. Or did I? Whatever. I'm posting them anyway. 

Walking into her room - pink chalkboard wall on the left covered in plus signs inside circles....little concerned about that. 

Her sweeeeet bed (and the "nest" where she sleeps....also concerning):

Books within reach. They ALL end up in her bed at some point. 

And her "stage" (she's making my married dress):

 

With Henry taking 3-4 naps a day in his room and me having moved all my LPM/office stuff into my room upstairs, she will definitely be playing in her room more often (because heaven forbid she be somewhere in the house where I am not). I can't wait to see all the plays she puts on!

Just normal stuffs

Oh, hey blog. How are ya? I'm busy these days.

After I had Ava I overheard a lady in an old ward say something like, "you're not a real mother until you have 2 kids." As you can imagine, I was incensed. I was pretty sure I was a mom....yup I had the physical and emotional scars to prove it (hahaha! I make it sound so traumatic)! I couldn't believe anyone would say such a thing.

And then I had my second kid. Although poorly worded, her comment makes sense to me now. I'm not sure how one tiny little human makes us all suddenly create 5x the laundry......but he has. There's more to be done and to stay on top of it all I have to employ the "leave a room better than you found it" technique and I am becoming a morning person (DUN DUN DUUUUUUUN!!!!). Both of these things, I thought, were against my natural woman. Turns out I just needed the right set of circumstances for these particular changes to happen. These are strange times, my friends. But, I can honestly say that I have never been happier in my life.


Well played, life.

Henry's birth....almost a month later

For those of you who care, here's how Henry's birth went down.

I woke up at 3 am on a Saturday with a contraction, right before my water broke. I thought I just needed to pee (wouldn't be the first time this pregnancy I peed my pants. TMI? Meh.) but after taking care of that business I realized that my water was breaking. I woke Danny up and got ready as my water continued to break. I waddled to the car with a beach towel between my legs and we headed for the hospital (after alerting my sister).

Now. I was all set to do a waterbirth with this little guy buuuuuuut I couldn't because A) the midwives weren't on call and the docs can't do water births (stupid insurance) and B) after my water broke his head was still too high so there would have been a risk of bacterial infection if I had gotten in the water.  So they checked my dilation - I was at a 6! Good job, body! - and then they broke the news to me and offered me a shower room with a shower chair. I took it.

I got out when the contractions really kicked in and headed back to my room. I turned on some super soothing music I had downloaded not even 24 hours before and hummed into my contractions until I felt like I was going to die. About the time I told everyone in the room that I didn't want to do it anymore, I was at a 10 and ready to push. I pushed on all fours.....kind of... and it went so much faster than pushing on my back with Ava. About 15 pushes later, the doc was able to help maneuver Henry out (you don't simply push out babies that are as big as he was). And there he was, in all his chubby, 10 pound 12 ounce glory. All told, it took 5 hours for Henry to make his way into the world.

It is such a surreal moment, meeting your tiny human for the first time. Also? The absolute relief after the baby and the placenta come out is indescribable. I am a huge fan of not being pregnant anymore. And being able to bend over. And sleeping on my stomach. Sigh.

Henry and I chilled for about 45 minutes while the doc stitched me up and I nursed and ate something myself. I lost a lot of blood when I had him because of how big he was but I noticed a lot of blood on the bed in the 45 minutes following the birth. The nurses kept massaging my uterus and I could tell they weren't happy because it wasn't staying firm. My nurse suggested that I go to the bathroom - it could be that a full bladder was to blame. The helped me stand up and I delivered a liver-sized clot and immediately started vomiting. That's when I could tell something was wrong. It got very busy in my room and the doctor came back in.

Now, at this point, I was mentally spent. I had gone through labor and delivery with no drugs and my ability to withstand pain was completely gone. After she had put her hand up inside of me to feel what was going on (so. much. pain.), my doctor continued to deliver more large clots. She then had a nurse fetch her "instruments"and she went in to find the source of the bleeding. The morphine didn't even touch the pain and I'm sure you could hear my screaming from the other end of the unit. Later, what happened became a little more clear.

I have pretty bad varicose veins and they got noticeably worse with this pregnancy. Apparently, there were some bulging varicosities right near all these lady parts and when the doctor removed her retractor she nicked one. I went from clotting to squirting blood everywhere. They rushed me to the OR and, thankfully, were able to get the bleeding under control without having to remove any of my parts. I have to say, while it was the scariest thing I've ever experienced, that OR sleep was the best sleep I've ever gotten.

So you have 3600 cc of blood in your body. They estimate that I lost around 2000 cc during this whole ordeal. I entered the hospital with a hemoglobin of 13 and was discharged, 3 days later, with a hemoglobin of 5.7. I could barely walk without getting winded and lightheaded and exhausted.

I suppose it sounds dramatic but it is very true that if this were a different century or if I lived almost anywhere in Africa today, I would not have survived all of this. I had a beautiful birth all planned out in my head and on paper but nothing went to plan. I was quick to see though that Heavenly Father put very capable people into my life to take care of me through it all. I felt that strongly as I was being wheeled into the OR. The OR was such a cold, sterile place but I could feel nothing but comfort as I realized that I wasn't ready to die and pleaded with God to help them stop the bleeding.

I'm okay. Henry is perfect. And I am so incredibly grateful.

Baby boy's nursery

So my sweet husband and sweet father built a new loft bed for Ava (since the crib-turned-toddler-bed is needed for her brother). Let's just say that it is freaking awesome and I am jealous of it every day. 

I had planned on the loft bed and the baby crib fitting in the same room and had a whole decorating scheme in place and ready to execute. When we actually assembled the bed, however, it was way bigger than I thought it was and we ended up having to switch things around. It was stressful at the time but now I'm really glad it ended up that way. Two kids in two different rooms and all of Ava's stuff in her room. She's still mad about having no toy room sometimes but she will get over it, eventually. Right? Or maybe this will be the seed of her teenage angst...... Oh well. She'll live. 

Anyway, since then, I've had a lot of fun decorating this little boy's room. 

The only thing missing is the changing pad cover annnnnnnnnnnnd a baby. The former will be a cute orange something and the latter will, hopefully, be flesh-colored. Both will be adorable. 

House Stuff. So much of it. All spring and summer.

We, here at The House of Fun, have been working tirelessly to get our crap together before the arrival of baby number two. We have done a whole lot of little and big projects this summer to get things more or less in order so that we can just enjoy this little man. Plus, newborns and house projects don't really sound like a fun mix.

Here is a little of what we've been up to.....more updates to come.

We painted the trim on our house black and added some black shutters. No more jungle green!!! Yay!!!
Before:

After: (maybe we'll get around to a new porch next year....)

I got kind of really bored with the curtains I made out of drop cloths sooooooo I painted them! Most affordable window treatments ever.

Before:

During. I know it doesn't seem like a big deal, painting a few curtains, but you have to remember that I have 7 windows in my living room/entryway. 7. So that was a lot of measuring and taping and whatnot.

After: I love them.

Danny redid the upstairs floors ALL BY HIMSELF in July while Ava and I escaped to GramGrandpa's house (because of the fumes). When I say redid, I mean he sanded, vacuumed, mineral spirited, stained, and polyurethaned SINGLE HANDEDLY. THIS MAN DESERVES AT LEAST A BAKED GOOD OR SOMETHING.

Our room before: (pretty bad, eh?)

Annnnnnd after: (sorry for the blur. Also, I will mention that this room got repainted in this past spring and I looooove the color).

Ava's room before:

And after (this room was also repainted this past spring):

I still cannot believe what a HUGE difference refinishing the floors made up there. My husband is kiiiind of the best.


THEN. While Danny was in Las Vegas on vacation doing really really fun things with his family for a work conference, Shannon and I decided that we would do a few small projects to surprise him when he got home.

Shannon started off with the built-in bookshelves in my living room. I have hated the "shutter doors" on them since we moved in and Shannon was itching to do a project.

Before:

After painting the insides white and the back green (sorry about the night picture, but that's like, apparently the time of day when projects get completed around here):

All the books in. I still need to arrange everything in an aesthetically pleasing configuration of books that humans go nuts over annnnnd figure out where to put all my Let's Play Music stuff, but you get the idea. So much better. 

And for our last before and after of the evening we will TURRRRRRN BACK TIIIIIIIIIIIIME. 

To the year 2011. 

When these were my stairs:

You can't really tell the armpit-stain-off-whiteness from that picture but it was there. Trust me.

So, for our other project, Shannon and I refinished the stairs whilst Daniel was off gallivanting. It was a pain in the butt. More sawdust everywhere, only being able to do every other stair at a time, sanding the banister, removing the railing and sanding it, and, oh yeah, the SAWDUST EVERYWHERE. AGAIN.

Buuuuut, as of this evening, this is what my stairs look like:

Totally worth it, don't you agree? Even with the big belly.

Man, remembering how much we've done has exhausted me.  

Look for the second installment soon. 

Preschool

Ava started preschool this past week and she absolutely loves it. How did she get this big??

I asked her what she wants to be when she grows up and she said, "A MISHARY!!" (translation: a missionary). Annnnnd THAT'S what happens when you have really awesome sister missionaries over for dinner a lot. Your kid wants to be them.