Where did I go?

Hello...is this thing still working???? Gosh it has been a long time! I am probably talking to myself but that is okay since I like doing it and do it quite often! Man there is a lot to catch up on since February. First of all, we got out of the Motel and moved last May. We moved back to where we came from! It is great to be back. Different than before, but good to feel like we are accepted! A little over a month of living here I ended up having my gal bladder out. That was tons of fun! Chloe turned one last summer. I can't believe she is now 15 months old. Where is my baby going? She is lots of fun though and so are her big brothers! Rex's job on this ranch is busier than our first ranch we worked on but not as busy as the last one. It is funny...people say how they would love to live and work on a ranch but they don't. I don't think they know how hard it is at times. Your husband is pretty much married to the place and the cows and it sure makes it hard to go places together. I do like the opportunity it gives to allow our kids to learn to work though. Ev loves riding his horse with his dad! I love what he thinks work is right now! I wish we could keep that attitude about work growing up! Montel is growing up! He just turned 3 and talks up a storm like his brother!! They sure do keep tabs on each other and also fight really good! I love what good friends they are! We both have busy callings in our church. Rex is a clerk over our branch and I am the Primary President. It is nice to be serving but it sure makes for some long Sundays at church! Now we are just taking on the Holiday season! I love Christmas! I am excited for it since the kids are getting older and are more into it now! Well, I don't have much else to say! Well, there is plenty more to say I just am going now!

That Old Grey Mare She Ain't What She Use to Be.

You know, I could swear the clothing industry is conspiring against us. Clothes nowadays sure aren't made that great. They must be thinking that the more crappy clothes they make the more clothes people have to buy because they fall apart so fast. At least, that is what is happening in our household. Montel was given some cute footie pajamas, Carter's, for Christmas and after the first wash the thread that holds the cuff on the sleeve was 1/3 the way unraveled. We bought him a package of underwear and after the first wash the elastic waist bands have started unraveling. Everett was given some pants for Christmas that have an adjustable waist band and after the first wash, no joke, the adjustable waist band is unraveling and can't do it's job. Montel destroyed the receipt so I can't take them back. I just bought 4 pairs of socks 2 weeks ago, cute ones cause plain jane white ones just don't do it for me, and 3 of the 4 have holes in them even before I wore them. They came 2 pairs to a set and I wore the one good pair first, not knowing about the holes in the other pair and now I don't know what I should do. I don't know if they will let me take them back or not. Oh have you felt the quality of jeans lately?? They sure don't feel like they are good quality anymore. Wranglers have held up for the most part though. So, I guess clothes just aren't made to last anymore. They probably hope they fall apart before they are out of style and you have to go purchase a brand new wardrobe. That would make them more money and these days that is all that matters to most people.

Promise Yourself

Promise yourself to be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind. To talk health, happiness and prosperity to every person you meet. To make all your friends feel that there is something in them. To look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true. To think only the best, to work only for the best and expect only the best. To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own. To forget about the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future. To wear a cheerful countenance at all times and give every living creature you meet a smile. To give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you have no time to criticize others. To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.

-Christian D. Larson

This is what I need to be living by. I remember exactly where and when I got this quote (not the day and month). It means a lot to me and I guess I really need to get working on it a little more!

Yo Ho Ho and A Bottle of Rum...

Okay so there are some days that I think a bottle of rum would help me get through this crazy little thing called life, but alas, that is not the answer right! I heard today on Studio 5 a Mormon Housewife Blogger say that it is when the house is clean, the laundry is done, and the kids are down for naps that we women blog (or something to that effect). I guess that is my problem as to why I don't blog very often anymore. My house is never clean, my laundry is never done, and all my kids down for naps at once is a miracle in my home! Right now, I am sitting at a cluttered desk with a fridge and stove in the front room and Mr. Larson laying laminate flooring in the kitchen. The basket of clean laundry is off to my left waiting for a passer by to fold and put it away. Two of the three hooligans are sleeping. Tel is down in his and Ev's room with Ev watching a movie and playing around. Chloster is on the couch sleep jamming to music from the 90's! I love 90's music! I am puttering. I feel like I should be helping Rex but am in the way and so I am playing cheerleader and have now succumbed to the computer. Dreadful place I tell you what! It was over here whispering my name ever so sweetly and sucked me right in!

Anyhoo...I have been stuck in a little rut of looking at the glass half empty lately. Okay I'm not gonna lie maybe for several months now. I think my hormones from pregnancy and having a baby are still flip flopping around in this tired body of mine. Yes, I know I have 3 kids under the age of 3 1/2 to be exact and that I should be tired and I am but I feel extra blahness going on inside me. I want to feel content again about our lives and right now we, I guess you say, are in transition. Transition for what?? Well, to get out of this funsucking Motel that is for sure. Whether we stay here in Pepsitown or move on to a different pasture, I have not a clue and sure would like to have one sooner than later! I keep pleading with The Man Upstairs to show us the way, but we feel stuck. What fun is that when you feel like you are not going anywhere in life? It sucks! I heard about and then read an interesting article called "Why Can't I Stop Reading Mormon Housewife Blogs?" By Emily Matchar, www.salon.com/life/feature. As you can tell I don't know how to link it properly! Anyways...it talks about how Mormon housewife bloggers make the whole motherhood, housewife role look like a fantasy. As we all know, we bloggers don't always try to put up the negative things in our lives on the blogs cause we don't want to appear "depressed" or "unhappy". Well, I can say that I occasionally put up the negative stuff on mine. Why act like everything is hunky dory all the time? That isn't real life. Real life is medical bills, demanding kids, frumpyness, tiredness, orneriness, happiness and those sweet tender moments with our families! I am really trying to have a positive attitude right now. I hope that soon I can look at life again as having my glass half full. Yes, I have to make that attitude adjustment. I am trying to get out of this funk. It will just take some time cause in real life, it doesn't happen overnight. So, Heaven please help me!

I Am Still Alive!

Where? Oh Where has Shauna been?? Well, since Chloe has been born I have been a little bit ummm busy I guess you could say. September I spent trying to recover from the c-section and taking care of 3 young bambinos, one of which got me up every night. The first part of October my brother, Justin, got married and I spent a few days making his cake for them (I have a pic of it, but it is on my camera still, so I will work on getting that later)! Then a week after that we blessed Chloe and I made her a cake for the dinner afterward! I thought it was pretty cute!!!
Then, almost two weeks after that I had some really bad all over abdominal pain and couldn't sleep very good that night. I got up the next morning and it had all localized to my lower right abdomen. I couldn't stand up and walk very easily cause it hurt. Rex came in for lunch and I told him that I thought i had appendicitis and he got online and looked up the symptoms. I pretty much had all of them but the fever part. We were still unsure cause we thought well maybe something with the healing of the section went bad or maybe a kinked colon. So, we made an appointment with a doctor to have me checked out and he thought it might be my appendix too. I was devastated because our heath insurance sucks and we have already paid a lot out of pocket for the section and didn't want any more huge doctor bills. Well, lucky us that is what we got and I was into surgery about an hour after seeing the doctor. The doctor did try to cut some cost by not having to do a CT Scan and just did an ultrasound to see that my appendix was inflamed and he made it so we didn't have ER charges cause we were after hours and we didn't have to pay for the ultrasound. he was awesome. So, it was a good thing that we did go in when we did cause when the doc was in there removing the appendix it was starting to ooze it's poisonous fluids. So, it could've been a lot worse. Rex's dad and Milly and My dad and Tami ended up taking the boys for us for a week to let me get some rest and do some healing. That was so nice and we are so grateful for them being able to help us out that way! So, I have been recovering from another surgery. Plus, I broke out in a rash from the tape on my incisions and have been trying to get rid of it and the itching for 11 days now. I just got back into the doc to get help for that. We also, celebrated two birthdays here!! Rex and Montel's! I made a cute Woody inspired cake for Monte, but the pics are on my camera! I have some Halloween ones I will have to get on here as well. I can't believe my Montel is 2 already! Time goes so fast! I think he has had the mentality of a 2 year old for quite some time now cause the terrible twos have been here for awhile! Well, that is all the time I have right now. Oh, did I mention why it is a challenge to get my pics off my camera?? Our computer just died and it had a spot for me to stick the card into it instead of using the cord. Well, I have to go dig up the cord to be able to getting them off my camera and onto the slow laptop the motel owns. So, there you have it!

A Blessing in Disguise

Like I said in a previous post...I need to be more grateful, and am, for today's technology in bringing babes into this world we live in. We went in on Monday, the 30th, to do the version. First of all, for those who don't know what that entails you can watch one on you tube, but they get you hooked up to an IV, give you a drug to relax the uterus, but makes your heart race and feel over anxious and then give you some pain med to try to alleviate some of the pain from the manual turning. My doc said that morn that he thought we had about 80-90% chance for success with this procedure. Lo and behold, my little girl knew better! At one point, I had the doc and two nurses pushing on me and her to try and turn her but she would not budge. They told me we could wait a little bit and see if she would turn on her own and then we could try again or just do the c-section. The chance of us trying again and it working was low and I was not going to put me or her through it again so I opted, quite sadly, for the c-section. We had a few hours before the doc could round up his help and get it done, so we sat in the hospital stewing. We get down into the OR and I am scared spitless. Who likes or wants to be awake and know that someone is hacking into you? I am not one of those people, but the things we do or are forced to do! The anethesiologist could tell I was scared and worried about not being numb enough for the baby retrieval and was talking to me and trying to deter my mind. Also, the smell during the procedure smelled like all of the branding fires that I have ever been to. I am sure Rex felt right at home! Not to scare anyone who has never had a section, but I am not hiding the facts so you aren't as shocked as I was about all of this! The doctor finally got to the point of pulling her out and said wow she has the cord wrapped THREE times around her neck. I started crying just thinking about what if she had flipped to head down and the cord strangled her. It was later that the doc said that if she had then that probably would've been the case. I don't know if it was her womanly strength or the strength of a Good God that kept her put, but I am ever so grateful for it and that she came the way she did. If I had to choose, knowing all would be all right, with the next one, if there is a next one, I would not choose another c-section. Recovery has been extremely difficult and PAINFUL. Anyways...after they got her out they checked her out and weighed her and she weighed in at 8 lbs 10 ozs!! She was 20 1/2 inches long and as cute as a button! We have named her Chloe Marie! Then, Rex and her went up to the nursery while they finished putting my uterus together and back inside. Yes, they take it out of you. Shocked?!? I was! I got done and they sent me to recovery for an hour. When I had 10 mins left the nursery nurse calls down and says my baby is having a hard time controlling her oxygen levels, is in the NICU, and is extremely mad and she wanted to bring her to me to see if feeding her would relax her. They couldn't find a monitor for her so I ended up being wheeled into her and she was mad! Rex was a little worried but he passed her off to me as soon as he could! I got her eating and immediately she was up to 100% with her oxygen levels. Rex said was telling me just how mad she was and that he just kept telling the nurse to get her to her mom and that she wants her mom. After about 10 mins the nausea from the surgery set in and I ended up puking and having to leave her there. About 10 mins later her and Rex showed up to my room saying she was just fine! It made me feel pretty good that she liked me enough to need me that bad after being born or that she knew that she needed me!! I guess it felt good because you don't get all the time together or be as involved after a section like you do a regular delivery and I was missing that.
What a little darling she is! Everett loves her and is so excited about her that he had to show and tell anyone who came into the hospital room. He wants to hold her a lot and try and make her happy! Montel looked at her, touched her, and called her sister and then wanted nothing to do with her. He wouldn't even be in the same picture as her or go by someone holding her. He kept coming to my bed and saying "Mom" but he wouldn't really let me touch him or hold him. I finally got him to a couple days after her arrival! Chloe so far is a good baby! She does, however, want someone to hold her all night inorder for any of us to get some sleep! I hope that isn't an indicator of being high maintenance! We are so grateful for her and to have her here safely! Here are a few pics! Enjoy!

More thoughts

I just happened to be watching Baby Story on TLC the other day and this lady had to have a c-section and she basically summed up how I would feel or think I would feel. She was watching her husband and nurses take care of the baby right after they got her out and she said it was really weird that she wasn't able to touch or hold her baby and just had to watch. After having 2 babes vaginally and having the doctor just throw them up to me and letting me help clean them up get make sure they are crying good, I think that would be hard for me to not be able to be involved. That part is really the only part I get to be involved with after they are born cause I am usually so numb from the waist down that I can't get up and help with anything else. I guess though whatever gets her here safe and sound is all that matters. I should be grateful for modern technology and docs being able to perform c-sections, because had I lived in the early 1900's it is very much likely that both me and the baby wouldn't make it through childbirth. I only have a couple more days before we decide what has to be done to get her here and I am still trying to come to terms with it all.