Well, my nearly destroyed camera is hanging in there and managing to get some cute pictures of the kids. Unfortunately the settings inside are messed up and even after my efforts with a photo editor, the end results sometimes look a bit wierd. Also, Christian was playing with the camera and I forgot to clean the lens afterward so there are some blury shots. If the view screen was working I would have caught that!

I thought this picture was so cute of Faith! She's just growing up before my eyes.
Speaking of that adorable little stinker pot, he plugged up yet another toilet! He threw another toy into the kids' bathroom toilet and flushed it. Tony has yet to go through the rigamarole of taking the toilet apart to remove the obstruction. We finally decided that the kids' bathroom and the guest bath have to stay locked at all times and we will just use the master bath potty. The door to it sticks pretty bad so Christian can't get it open but the rest of us can. Tony also put a locking handle on the pantry door so we can keep him out of there as well. Here he is - CAUGHT! - playing at my computer.

Part of the problem is that he's too smart for his own good. Last week he brought me this little plastic chip (next to a penny for a size reference) and kept saying "Ho ho," "Ho ho." I was confused as to why this was a Ho ho when I finally figured out what it was. A week and a half before, a little plastic resin Santa figure had been dropped and shattered in the kitchen. This was a little piece of Santa's beard that Christian must have fished out from under the stove or fridge!! I'm surprised that he could remember the event and recognise what it was, and if he hadn't told me, I'm sure that I wouldn't have known.

Wednesday was the big windy snowstorm that caused so much trouble on the road, especially south and west of Salt Lake. It took Tony about six hours to drive from Springville back in to Con Way (which is just south of the Salt Lake Airport)!!!! He finally got home at half-past midnight, luckily safe and sound.

On Thursday evening, the kids and I went to my mom & dad's for a Valentine's pizza party. They always get my favorite--Chicken Garlic from Papa Murphys! Mom had balloons and some cute little gifts for the kids and Tony's mom & Tammy brought by some balloons and candy for them.

At home, Tony had stuffed bears and M&M's for the kids and these beautiful flowers for me (and Faith, who enjoys bouquets much more than I do). Unfortunately, he was too exhausted for much Valentine celebration because of the previous day's ordeal so he went to bed early.
I got the kids down and then settled down at the computer for a romantic evening with some Michael Buble music (which you could have heard on my blog between Feb. 19-25) and searching out digital scrapbooking freebies.

The next day Christian was having a blast with his balloons and we started up a game of chase which got him laughing. He sure loves those "boons"!!



Here is the darling paper kitty that Faith made for Christian's Valentine's Day gift. It's 3-D with the legs bent down and the tail bent up and has stripes down the back and legs. What an artist!

On Saturday morning around 11, I got a call from Joy that she thought she might be in labor and leaking amniotic fluid. I got ready and then waited for my mom to get to our house with Sierra. Just after noon Jordan called and said not to come yet, that Joy wanted to just labor in the car parked there in the hospital parking lot for awhile because it was quiet. Finally at 12:59 Jordan called to say they were going in to the hospital and I raced over there.

Joy said that when she checked in she was already 7-8cm dialated and I started doing Hypnobirthing techniques with her. With Sierra she had an epidural, but none of the medications they put in it helped at all and the anesthesiologist said that it was because of Joy's body chemistry. This time she didn't want one since it most likely wouldn't do any good and figured that counting on that pain relief last time and not getting it made going through labor immensely worse. Hypnobirthing helped to relax her so she could deal with the contractions.

It was so amazing! Joy did it without any drugs, just me talking her through self-hypnosis techniques. She looked like she was asleep most of the time, but was in a kind of trance, concentrating on relaxing every part of her body and letting it do it's work. Dr. Hall said to me, "I didn't know you were a doula." Of course I'm not, doula's are professional labor coaches, so it made me feel great that he thought I was doing a good job. I had taken a Hypnobirthing class when I was pregnant with Faith, but ended up getting an epidural and didn't do it myself.

After a few minutes of pushing and only a couple of loud grunts from Joy, Lilianna Celeste Savage arrived at about 3:15 pm (sorry, I forgot to ask the exact time of birth and had my back to the clock during the delivery). She weighed 8 lbs. 4 oz. and was 20 inches long. Dr. Hall said that it was the most controlled natural birth he had ever seen. Joy, you are AWESOME!!!

When my mom told Faith that Lily had been born, she ran over to the calendar she had made in school, wrote "Lily's Birthdae" on it and said "I will keep this calendar forever!" The next morning I took Faith to see her new baby cousin. She was so excited! While Faith was holding Lily, the nursery nurse came in to examine her. When the nurse handed the baby back to Faith she was crying, but settled right down in her cousin's arms. Faith was very proud of being so good with the baby!


Yesterday I made this, my first digital scrapbook layout!!

If you click on it then you can see a larger version. [edited to add: no you can't! For some reason you can see a larger version of the other pictures, but not this one. Maybe the file is too big. Sorry, mom--you were right!!!] I don't love it, but I think it came out allright. I did it as part of an online challenge where you look at a specific layout for inspiration and then make your own and display it on the website. The lack of journaling, interesting title placement, and swirly embellishment were all features "scaplifted" from the inspiration. The ripped part with the laces just came on the paper I had gotten as a freebie, but someday I hope to be able to make something like that. Of course the cutest part of this layout is the subject :)

Last night the kids and I went to help clean our church. Faith was such a good helper and only left her brother behind stuck in the women's restroom screaming and pounding on the door once!
Christian's favorite job was replacing the handprints that I was cleaning off the glass doors.
On the way home I stopped to get a picture of this beautiful sunset. I posted last time a picture taken out our back door, now this one taken less than a block west of our front door. I feel so lucky to be surrounded by such beauty!!

And now a final, classy picture to end this week's blog.