Riley's 1st Science Fair

Riley had his 1st Science Fair this year. Each student in his kindergarten class picked an arctic animal. Then they had to draw a picture and write 3 facts about their animal. Then they had to make a model of that animal.

Riley chose the Killer Whale.

The 3 facts he chose:

1. They are the largest of the dolphin family.

2. They eat other whales.

3. They use echolocation (Although, if you ask him to repeat these facts he calls it echocorrosion.)

Here is the picture that he drew himself and the model he made out of salt dough.

(Can you see the water coming out of the blow hole? Riley just had to have water.)

William E. Heath June 3, 1921 - January 11, 2010

When my Mom went back to Virginia, she thought she was going to help my grandma. A week or so after she arrived she went to a doctor's appointment with my Granddad. They found out the he had tumors in his lungs and on his spine. The doctor said that he probably had a year or so left to live. At my Granddad's age there really wasn't any treatment that he'd be able to handle, it might even cause him to die earlier. The best thing to do was to make him comfortable. He decided that he wanted to move to Utah to be closer to his kids and grandkids. They started making the preparations.

A few weeks later things seemed to be progressing a little faster than the doctor thought they would. It no longer looked like my Granddad would be moving to Utah. There was no way that he'd be able to handle the trip. This was really hard on us, because for a few weeks we knew that our grandparents would be coming soon and we'd get to be with them for the time they had left on this earth. The reality now was that we'd never get to see my Granddad alive again.

Christmas came and went and then Chase was born. My mom told my Granddad that he had a new great grandson (another little missionary is what he said when he found out I was having another boy) and he said, "Chase" and smiled. At this point my Granddad wasn't too coherent. He was able to listen to anyone who spoke to him, but he wasn't really able to respond. A week and a half later he passed.

This was a devastating loss to my family. He was the only Granddad I ever knew. He was the best Granddad I could have ever hoped for, I loved him so much. He gave everything to his family and he loved us all so much.

The worst part was that I was not able to go to his funeral. Chase was only two weeks old and he was still having problems with jaundice and I still wasn't feeling so great myself. The trip to Virginia was just not possible for me. It was very hard for me to know that my whole family was in Virginia and I couldn't be there to say good-bye. My only comfort was knowing that I will see my Granddad again and I know he is in a better place and with his loved ones that passed before him, especially my Aunt Polly.

One of my favorite memories was playing Uno with him. When I was little, I always had to sit next to my Granddad. And whenever I got a Draw Four or Draw two, I would get this silly little grin and I would tell him that I had a lovey. I don't know why I started calling them lovies but I couldn't wait to give them to him. He would just smile and laugh in his cute little way. I loved his smile, he would just light up the room. You could always see how happy he was to be with his family.

Me at the zoo with my grandparents

Riley hanging out with Great Grandpa

I will miss him so much but I am so grateful for all the time I was able to spend with him in this life and I look forward to seeing him again in the next.

Troubles!

Things went really well during Chase's delivery but things were not so great after. That night I got the worst headache I've ever had. It was excruciating when I sat up and it made it very difficult to take care of Chase. I told the nurse and she said that I might have a spinal headache. A side effect of the epidural. They said if my headache didn't go away I might have to have a blood patch. A blood patch is where they take blood from my arm and then inject it into my back to fill in an air bubble that is causing my headache.

Unfortunately, my headache did not go away and I had to have the blood patch. I felt instantly better and I was grateful for the relief. The next day was New Year's day and we were able to go home. That night my headache started coming back and getting worse. The next day I had to call the Dr. and they suggested that I go back to the hospital and have another blood patch done. Apparently, it can take more than once to fix the problem.

I went back to the hospital and this time they injected a larger amount of blood into my back. Again I felt instantly better and I was ready to go home. As we started to go home I felt a headache coming on again but I thought this might be because of sleep deprivation or dehydration.

Two days later, Monday, I was feeling worse and unfortunately I was all by myself. Cody's parents had to go back to work and since my Mom was in Virginia, she was not able to come and help me out. Cody had to go back to work because the school district does not allow you to take off the day before or the day after Christmas break.

I called the Dr. once again and they talked to the head anesthesiologist and they determined that I needed to come in and have a consultation. I had to call Cody and have him leave work to take me to the hospital once again. After speaking with the anesthesiologist he determined that I still had a spinal headache and I could either wait it out or have another blood patch. He said that if I was a normal person (yes, we all know I'm not normal) he would suggest to just drink caffeine and it would cure itself, but since I was a brand new mom and I needed to take care of a newborn, he would suggest I do another blood patch. Now the blood patch was kind of painful and I really didn't want to do it again. I finally made the decision to once again have a blood patch and once again I instantly felt better. And thankfully, this time it did not come back! I now had a horribly bruised back, but that was something I could deal with.

On top of my issues, Chase had jaundice. The day we came home Chase's bilirubin count was a little high. The hospital delivered a machine called a bili blanket. It was this little rectangular pad that glowed that we were supposed to put under his clothes 24/7.

My little glow worm

Every other day we had to take Chase to the hospital to get his foot pricked. After about a week we were finally able to take him off of the lights because his levels came down. Then we had to test him again and unfortunately his levels started to go back up.

The Dr. decided that we needed to run some more tests to make sure they weren't missing anything. We put him back on the lights and had more blood tests done. I was so worried that there was something more seriously wrong. Thankfully all of the tests came back normal and after another week we were able to take him off the lights permanently.

All good things happen in blizzards!

It was 12/30/2009! The day had finally arrived, Chase was scheduled to be born today. At 6:20 a.m. we got a telephone call from the hospital telling us that they had a room for us as soon as we could get there. They told us to take our time because the roads were really bad. Perfect! We had had another huge storm and there was a lot of snow. Just over 9 years ago Cody and I were married during a blizzard and now we were about to have our second precious baby boy in yet another blizzard.

Cody's parents had arrived two days before, so they were all prepared to take care of Riley while we were at the hospital. We slowly made our way to the hospital once again and finally got there at about 7:30 a.m.

Around 2:30 I started feeling a lot of pressure and I knew the time was getting close. I was doing much better this time. I only threw up once as opposed to when Riley was born. At about 3:15 the nurse came in and told me that the Dr. was delivering another baby and would be in soon. The Dr. finally came in around 3:30 and 3 pushes later Chase was born (3:34 p.m.). He was 6 lbs 12 oz and 18 1/2 inches long.

Riley was thankfully able to come and see his new baby brother. There had been a few scares with the H1N1 flu and there had been restrictions that no kids would be allowed in the hospital. These restrictions were lifted just a few weeks before Chase was born. I was so happy that Riley was able to come and see us. He was able to go watch Chase get his very first bath.

Grammy and Papa Bear Thompson came to welcome Chase (their 8th Grandson and their 10th grandchild) to the world.

I told my family not to come. It had continued to snow all day long and there were over 100 accidents on the freeway. My Mom was still in Virginia because she had found out that my Granddad had cancer. My Dad came home from Virginia but I really didn't want him driving in the snow. This was my parents 12th grandson and 15th grandchild and this would be the first one that my Mom would not be able to see for a while.

Scott and my Dad came the next day. Hope didn't come because she had sick kids and she didn't want to risk any of us getting sick. Carma and Chad, Cody's sister and her husband, came and saw us the next day also.

It was one of the happiest days of my life. It took us a long time to bring Chase into our lives and I am so grateful that he's finally here.

I'm grateful to my Heavenly Father for entrusting this precious little boy to us. I'm grateful to a wonderful husband who is always there for me, and I'm grateful for Riley and Chase and the joy that they bring into our lives. And most of all I am grateful to know that my family can be together forever!

Our first Christmas in our new home! (2009)

It was our year to go to Idaho for Christmas, but since I was going to have a baby in 5 days we were not making the trip. Since my sister's were also going to their in-laws for Christmas, my parents decided that they would go and have Christmas with my grandparents in Virginia.

So this year we were going to be able to spend Christmas as a family in our new home. We also invited Scott over to spend the day with us.

On Christmas Eve, Riley got his Christmas jammies from Grammy Thompson and we made cookies for Santa.

We had a very quiet Christmas morning, since we only have one kid. Riley started playing with his new toys, Bakugan! (What he asked Santa for.) Then we turned on a movie for Riley and then Cody and I took a nap. It was a nice relaxing Christmas.

(Nice hair)

Scott came over later and we had a nice Ham dinner. Then we played games until about 1 in the morning, which was a little late for me. But I made it, no Christmas baby for me! Now Chase could come whenever he wanted.

Not time yet!

December 22, 2009 was an eventful day. It was the last day of school for the year and everyone was preparing for the Christmas break.

That afternoon I started having frequent contractions. So I called Cody to see when he was coming home, hoping that his principal would let them leave early. I had been really nervous that I would go into labor while Cody was at work and I wouldn't be able to find someone to watch Riley or take me to the hospital. This was the last day that I'd have to worry about that because Cody would have the next week and a half off of work and we'd definitely have Chase before he went back to work.

Cody was able to come home early, but my contractions were only about 15 minutes apart so nothing to worry about yet. This was all a little new to me, with Riley I never had steady contractions. In fact, I never really remember having contractions at all until I was induced.

A couple hours later, we were watching the BYU Bowl game and I noticed that my contractions were getting closer and closer. Eventually they were 5 minutes apart and I knew that my Dr. told me to go to the hospital if my contractions ever got that close. So I slowly started packing an overnight bag for Riley. We were lucky enough to have many people that were willing to take Riley. We chose to take him to a co-worker of Cody's named Laura since she lived close to the hospital. We called Laura and told her that we were on our way to the hospital.

As we pulled out of the driveway I realized how bad the weather was outside. It was one of the worst storms we had had so far. Great! Just what we needed. We started driving down S.R. 73. A couple of miles down the road we ran into the police blocking the road. They told us that there was a horrible accident and we needed to travel through the Ranches of Eagle Mountain. We didn't know where we were and we had no idea had to get to the main street of Lehi from here. Cody was in a little bit of a panic and told the police officer that I was going to have a baby! The officer seemed a little alarmed but didn't really care. He just told us to find our way through the Ranches. We started winding through until we found a road we recognized.

By this time, it had taken us quite a bit longer to get to Lehi and Laura was getting a little worried. She was going to meet us at the hospital so we didn't have to make an extra trip to her house. We finally made it to the hospital around 8 p.m.

They got me hooked up to the monitors and checked to see if I was dilated. I was only at a 2. After a couple of hours of constant contractions, now at 4 minutes apart, they checked again and there was no change. The Dr. did an ultrasound to make sure that Chase was good and then they sent me home. They said that even though I was having regular contractions, since there was no change, I was not in labor. The Dr. then said that if I got to the point that I couldn't talk through my contractions then I needed to come back. This was very frustrating to hear since it had been since a long trek to the hospital and the weather was still bad.

At this point it was now or never, or at least not for 4 more days. If Chase came right now we'd be able to come home Christmas Eve. And since I did not want to be in the hospital on Christmas Day and miss our first Christmas in our new home, he was going to have to wait until AFTER Christmas. So we picked up a very disappointed Riley. (Not because his brother wasn't born but because he couldn't spend the night at Laura's.) Then we carefully and slowly drove home. By now my contractions were 2 minutes apart but I could still talk. We got home at about midnight and we all went to bed.

I then put myself on bed rest, sort of, until after Christmas. Oh and in case you were wondering, we were able to watch the rest of the bowl game in the hospital and BYU beat Oregon State 44 to 20!

Decorating for Christmas 2009

Now that we have a home and not a small little condo, we have a lot more to decorate. We started by putting up Christmas lights for the first time!

You may notice that only a small portion of our house has Christmas lights. This is because Cody was scared to death of our roof. He climbed up to the top of the roof and he looked down and told me that he now needed to change his pants. Then Riley was thoughtful and said, "Dad, don't fall." I wasn't too keen on the idea anyways because the roof is really steep. Cody said that if he was able to put the lights up that they would be there forever because he was never going to get up on the roof again. I told him to get off the roof and we proceeded to put the lights up around the shortest portion of our roof. Next year we'll try to put them up around the garage!

Now that we have a living room and a family room, we decided to put up two Christmas trees. I put my Christmas tree in the living room

and Riley was able to decorate his own tree. He actually made all of the ornaments, he swirled paint inside plastic bulbs and glued sequins on foam ornaments. Then Riley asked Cody where his tree was.

Riley also made a gingerbread house all by himself (I just put the frosting on for him). I personally love the tree marshmallows on the roof.

I was able to put up our stockings, I even added one for Chase. And we put up our beautiful nativity, my favorite decoration.

I just love decorating for Christmas!

Thanksgiving Dinner 2009

The Sunday before Thanksgiving, I got a call from my Dad saying that my grandma had fallen out of bed and was in the hospital and my Mom was on her way to Virginia to be with her. He followed this announcement by saying that Thanksgiving was cancelled. I was still in shock and didn't say anything at this time. Later that night, I talked to my sister Hope and we didn't like the idea about Thanksgiving being cancelled. We both had in-laws that we could go to, but I was 8 months pregnant and I was not about to drive to Idaho Falls. Hope had to work the graveyard shift at the hospital the night before Thanksgiving so she didn't want to have it at her house, so we decided that we'd have Thanksgiving dinner at my house.

Now that we had our own house, we actually had room for everyone. This was going to be our first Thanksgiving in our own home! I called and invited my Dad and he said he'd talk to Scott and decide if they were going to come or not. They decided to make the trek down to Eagle Mountain.

With some coaching from my Mom, thousands of miles away, Cody and I made the turkey, the dressing, the gravy, the rolls, and the pies. (My award winning pie of course) Hope brought a fruit salad and mashed potatoes. Scott and my Dad brought the cans of green beans, green and black olives, and the cranberry sauce. Even though my Mom wasn't there, we were able to come together as a family and have a great Thanksgiving dinner. Scott informed me that I did a great job and that my Mom would've been proud of me. That was the greatest compliment I could've received.