HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

We just finished carving our pumpkins and lighting them up. We found if you wait until Halloween day, pumpkins are SUPER cheap. So, here they are and we hope all of you had a fun Halloween-full of candy :)These are pictures of my pumpkin-it's a cat with a moon. My carving was significantly easier than Eric's.

And here is Eric's pumpkin. It's a skeleton pirate-in case you couldn't tell. His is much cooler than mine.

I just found out that you can double click on the posted pictures and they will blow up bigger. What a cool feature. Sorry if I'm a little behind the times and you all already knew that.

The Long Awaited Pictures (and a story)

We're finally home and doing well. We've had quite the adventure. On Wednesday night, we checked into the hospital because Heather's contractions were quite strong and pretty close together. They almost didn't let us check in, because she was only dilated to 2cm. But her extreme discomfort convinced them to let us in. Heather labored hard all night. We didn't get any sleep. At 5 am, she's checked again and still only dilated to 2cm. It was pretty disheartening after all the work she'd done. The contractions had been getting progressively more intense. At 6:30 am, Heather decided to take some morphine for the pain, so we could rest. We got about an hour and a half.

The OB resident came and told us that they want to give her pitocin to get the labor moving along. We ate breakfast, and by the time they got the pitocin started, she was dilated to 3cm. Yay! For a while, the contractions died down, but after her water broke, they started to pick up. We asked for the OB to come check her again, and when that happened an hour later she was dilated enough that we could start the epidural. We asked for the epidural.

The anesthesiologists took their sweet time. Over the next 45 minutes, the contractions became very, very intense. Heather did an awesome job staying focused and breathing through them. When the anesthesiologists did show up, the resident performing the procedure took two tries to get the thing in, failing, and then the attending physician stepped in and did it in two seconds. It probably took ten minutes to get in because of that.

Finally, Heather got some relief. She was able to get about a half hour of sleep, which she really needed. At 3:30 pm, she had dilated to 5-6cm, and Harvey had dropped to +1 station! (At +4 station, the baby is ready to be born.) The next hour was pretty easy going thanks to the drugs. At 4:30 pm, her dilation was 9cm, and she felt like she needed to start pushing.

The doctor wanted Heather to avoid pushing as long as possible. So it was over an hour before the doctor said she could go ahead and start. Harvey was in some distress during the contractions. The doctors decided to move us to an operating room, to allow for more options in case they were needed (like using the vacuum pump to help Harvey out). So she was rushed over their while I put a weird suit over my clothes.

By the time Heather got to the other room, Harvey was almost crowning, so they let her go ahead and push him out herself. She was brilliant. Harvey ended up having his hand up against his face and his cord around his neck, which was the cause of the distress. The doctors guided him out with Heather's stupendous effort.

Harvey David Hutchinson was born at 6:27 pm, weighed 7 pounds, and was 20 inches long.

After delivery, Heather developed a monstrous headache, which was diagnosed as an epidural migraine. If she stayed laying down, and had some pain killers, she was fine. But sitting or standing up became increasingly painful. Once we were home on Saturday, it got progressively worse, to the point where the pain was nauseating when she would stand. So we went back to the hospital around 4 am on Sunday, to get a procedure done called a blood patch, that could fix the pain. Thankfully, it worked, and as we left around noon on Sunday, she was feeling much, much better.

Sunday went well, but as the evening passed, Heather felt more ill and a bit feverish. The doctor who performed the blood patch had told us to come in if a fever appeared, so back we went, this time around midnight. They checked her out and determined it wasn't a complication with the blood patch, most likely it was exhaustion. Due to everything she'd been through, Heather had only gotten about 8 or 10 hours of sleep in almost 5 days. So they sent us home with a prescription for a sleep aid that can be used while breast feeding. She feels much better now that she's gotten some sleep.

Harvey is doing great. He's a champion breast feeder, knew what to do right off the bat, and helping Heather get it right. He's also very mellow, sleeping through all the chaos of going back to the hospital twice, and generally being awesome. We're blessed to have him.

Now the promised pictures. Here's a sampling of shots of our new tiny man.

What a cute face!


Okay, here's a real face picture.


And here's the entire outfit. Our little pumpkin.


Harvey next to his best-friend-to-be, Simon West.


This shot is included mostly for the great facial expressions of Heather and Simon.


Dad doing what he does best. (Harvey inherits my baldness, unfortunately.)


Mom with her baby.


You know what they say: Close with a close-up.

Pumpkin pictures

Well I said on the survey that we would be carving pumpkins and posting the pictures. So here it is. I took a group shot so I'd only have to post one picture. Jaxson's pumpkin rotted before he could carve it so he doesn't have one. He's actuall holding his cousin, Mikey's, pumpkin. The other kid in the picture is Charlie's neice, Shelby.

Baby Harvey is so CUTE!

We are home now from our little jaunt back to Michigan. We had a really good time. I needed to have that visit. I was ready to see everyone again. It was a great vacation and I'm already counting down until our Thanksgiving vacation. I thought I'd share the pictures I took of Harvey and then my kids in their costumes. We went to the Flint ward's trunk or treat party. They had a great time. Halloween is a really fun holiday. Alexis is a spider queen, Merrit is Batman, Makayla is a princess, Chelsea is a giraffe, Jaxson is Tigger, Charlie is Superman and I'm a punk rocker. I actually had a stick on nose stud and lip ring with some long, silver fake eye lashes. I was HOT!

Recycling

Did you notice how I took the alien costume that Hillary wore and turned it into the fairy costume that Kari is wearing? Pretty good huh? Wasn't she cute?

Someone's coming

In case you hadn't heard, Heather is in the hospital at this moment bringing Harvey into the world. Kurt, of course, is there to give her moral assistance, since that is really all a father can give at this point in the process. More to follow.

blah, blah

I hope you like the new Halloween picture!

Things here are moving slowly today. I've cleaned, I've watched The Price is Right (my new favorite show), I've exercised, I've napped, I've even blow-dryed my hair. I'm amazing, what can I say? It's raining outside, it has been all week, which stinks because that means my walks are off. I've been doing my workout videos, but I crave the sun! Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the rain (that is definitely one of the things I missed the most in Utah) but it's starting to get old. I wish the rain would leave here and move to California. I feel bad for the people that have been moved out of their houses. I'm sure it's awful wondering if your house is still standing, and not having any way to know. It's like Katrina again...only different.

I know! I'll run to the library when Addie wakes up from her nap. Yay! That will give me something to do!

Cute picture, Jana. I see you didn't pick one of you that we could make fun of your shoes :)! I particularly like that the wings match your body suit. Mom sure was creative with that one.

More Pics

We took some pregger pictures this week, too. I'm pretty much down to pj's and sweats so I'm not looking as cute as Kari. I'm due anytime, though we opted not to find out if or how dilated I am since we know it doesn't really indicate when I'm going to pop. We're crossing our fingers that one of the early-bird guessers will be right. Hope to have more exciting news to post soon.

The other side

Just wanted you to know that Addie rolled over yesterday from her back to her stomach. That means she can go both ways now! Woohoo! Now we'll have to be especially careful where we put her when we're not looking...and so it begins...

Forgive us. We were learning how to use the short video function on our camera and it's not very good, but it's something. I don't think we'll do this very often, because it's taking FOREVER to load!!!

Look at me!

These are pictures of my belly that we took on Friday. This week is 26 weeks-over half way done!! He gets bigger every day (and so do I) and is equally as active. I went to the doctor on Friday and she said that everything looks great. She said my belly is on the bigger side of normal, but that it was nothing to worry about. I have, in total so far, gained about 20 lbs and I'm pretty excited that it isn't more...I thought it might be. And I asked her about their policy of inducement so I could find out how late I might be. She said they would only let me go one week past my due date. So the latest he could be born is February 3. Of course we hope he comes on his own and comes early but it's good to know that it won't be much longer than January 27. So, if any of you-besides Mom and Dad- decide to come out and visit, the first or second week of February would be great! :)

Halloween picture

Mom says she is very proud of that costume; there is a lot of love in it.

We can also get an idea where Jim gets his love for high top tennis shoes.

Diapers, diapers everywhere

With Harvey's arrival just around the corner I thought I'd quiz the Hairs and the Hicks as to which diapers are worth my time and which to avoid. I have some from my shower but I'd like to have a couple of extra packs (apparently nesting to me means buying droves of stuff to fill our pantry and diaper closets). So far, it looks like Sam's Club has the best prices even compared to diapers on sale and with coupons in the other discount stores. Do any of the stores have particularly good store name brand diapers? Thanks for any and all advice. I thought Kari might find it useful, too.

When will Harvey arrive?

I wonder when everyone thinks Harvey is going to be born. Let's do it like a pool, without adding money (does that defeat the purpose of a pool?), and have everyone put on their comment when he will be born. I believe he's due on October 28th, right? Whoever is closest, WINS! If you win, I'll send you some stickers. That's a good incentive! Kids can play, too, just put their name by their answer so I can get the stickers to the right person! Oh, and I hear Heather doesn't want him to come on Halloween, so if that's your choice, try not to jinx it for her.

What day will Harvey come?

Funny Jaxson

Jaxson has come up with this little thing he likes to do with the pockets in his pants. He came up with it all by himself and thinks he's quite clever because of it. He pulls out the inside of the pocket and says, "See my bubble?" He calls the inside of the pocket a bubble because it kind of looks like one when you pull it out. These pictures are him showing off his bubbles.

Welcome to Rubberville!

I had the first visit from my visiting teachers yesterday. They are a mother/ daughter team and are very nice. The family has 7 kids. They had five and then got pregnant with twins. I don't know if it was an "oops" but can you imagine if it was? What an "oops" to have!

They informed me that we live in an area known to the locals as Rubberville. I guess there used to be a factory close to here that was the Rubberville factory. This neighborhood was where all the workers at the factory lived. The factory isn't there any more, but this neighborhood still remains a pretty cheap place to rent. This, we all know, doesn't attract the most cream of the crop bunch of people. We already knew we weren't in the best part of town, but my visiting teachers confirmed that to me. What's sad is that this neighborhood isn't as bad as a lot of the neighborhoods in Flint. I'd actually compare this one to the one that was just a few blocks over from our house in Flint. Not really life threatening, but not really a place I'd like my kids to get to know people in. We are facing that right now in this neighborhood. Our kids are getting to know the local kids and wanting to go over to their houses and stuff. It's hard for me to know how far to let them go. I really want to keep them safe, but not over-protected and sheltered. I just pray hard that Heavenly Father will keep them safe.

one large roll for mankind...

Adelyn rolled over today! At first I thought it was a fluke, so I put her back on her stomach and she rolled over again! She did it several times when Jason got home as well, so he was able to see it! Wow, she's learning something new every day!

Our little vacation

Hey guys! It's been a little time since we last wrote anything. We just got back yesterday from our little trip to southern Utah and Vegas. It was a blast! And really relaxing. I had too many pictures to post all on the blog, so I put together a little album. Click here to get to it and if it asks for a name and password, the name/email is kartright@juno.com and the password is fish13. Also, don't click on them to be the slideshow, just click on the first picture and view them one by one-then you can read the captions- ENJOY! We also went to Angela's baby blessing yesterday. It went well. Her new baby's name is Dylan Elmo-awesome! Elmo is Courtney's maternal grandfather's name...so it's a little better than naming him after the puppet. So our trip was great and now we are back into the thick of it...work and school and pregnancy (not that that went away or anything, it was just a little more bearable). I am now a little over 6 months along and I look HUGE! I'll take some pictures here pretty soon to show you what I mean. We hope that everything is going well and we do like that people are posting more often. We love you guys!

Our house hunting weekend

http://public.mlswis.com/cgi-bin/view.cgi?20071010155631153554000000&id=1
If you go to this link you can see the houses we looked at on Saturday. The ones we liked the best are the third (614 Randolph St) and the fifth (2635 Maple Grove) houses. We didn't get to see the one on Green Bay Rd., but we'd like to. Our realtor just couldn't get it scheduled for that day.

The house on Randalph St. has an extra lot next to it that we could buy with the house. The contractor that owns the house owns the lot and would be willing to sell the two together, for more money, obviously. The house was just finished being built this year and looks great! If we bought this house we would build a garage in the back of the house and turn that one car, attached garage into more living space, probably another bedroom. The down side to this house is that it is across the street from a railroad track and there is a proposal in the works to bring a train station to that area and it would be right across the street from that house. That is also where the bus terminal is, so all the city busses make their transfers there. That means that there will be a lot of people in that area, and most may not be the greatest of upstanding citizens.

The house on Maple Grove is an older home. It's very similar to the house we owned in Flint. It's been well cared for and is bigger. It has a decent sized yard, not as big as the other house's side lot though. The yard would be about the same size as what we had in Flint before we bought the side yard. It is in a nicer neighborhood, from what we could tell. Probably the worse downside to this house is the yard is smaller than the other house. There isn't central air in this house either, where as the other house does, but we've lived without central air before.

We are going to try to go to the temple soon so we can pray about these houses there. We feel like we may just keep looking for the time being and go back to these houses in a little bit. We just really want to pick the BEST house for our family, in all aspects of it.

Fun picture

Mom and Jim decided (independently of each other) to wear the colors of Halloween, Thanksgiving, fall, whatever; you should enjoy this picture.

October ramblings (with pictures)

As many of you know, Mom and I went on our annual October trip and some of you may have known that we were planning to visit many cider mills in this area. We started out yesterday morning (Friday Oct. 12, 2007), with our good friends Bruce and Catherine Youngs, and explored the mills Northeast from here (Rochester, Rochester Hills and Romeo). We were able to visit a total of eight mills (and one that is normally closed on Friday but had workers there pressing cider for the weekend, but did not have any available to purchase) and were able to purchase cider from all eight (although one was only a cup of hot cider so we couldn't compare it to the cold cider from the other mills). It is remarkable how much different cider tastes depending on how is was made. The very last mill we visited on Friday had the best cider of the day but one other was rated three stars by Mom and me (we didn't enlist the Youngs in voting on the cider yesterday but did it today as we drove around). We rated one star as bad, two as decent and three as real good. Only two rated three stars yesterday, Verellen Orchards (the best one) and Rochester Cider Mill. Three rated two stars and two rated one star (with the final one being the hot cider that didn't really compare to the others because it was spiced up so much -- but the warmth of the hot cider was very welcome at that point of the day).

Today (Saturday Oct. 13, 2007) we concentrated on cider mills that are Northwest of South Lyon (Fenton, Flushing and Montrose) and were able to visit six mills and three of them were rated three stars, Spicer Orchards, Al-Mar Orchards (a certified organic orchard) and Montrose Orchards (Mom was partial to this one [not necessarily for cider reasons, however] because it was started by James and Ivy Hill and was run by Sandy Hill until two years ago when she died). Two others were two stars and one was one star. Let me tell you, the one star joints are lucky to be in business because their cider was horrible. All in all, we have had another great October expedition and look forward to next year's, although Mom is struggling to come up with ideas for it. Here are a few pictures of the places of most interest -- rating stars behind names (although I didn't get pictures of all the real fun places).

First Day:
Yates Cider Mill **



Rochester Cider Mill ***

Miller's Big Red Apple Orchard **

Verellen Orchards ***

Second Day:
Diehl's Orchard and Cider Mill *

Al-Mar Orchards (Organic) ***

Montrose Orchards ***

Historic Parshallville Grist Mill and Cider Mill **

Heather - Congrats on your last day of work!
I hope it goes well and that you and Kurt go out
tonight to celebrate.

Time Killer

I had some free time at work yesterday and went back and read over the posts from last year about this time. It was fun to see how much all of our lives have changed since then. So, if you have a few minutes to kill and want some heartwarming family feelings, check out the archives. This blog has been such a great gathering spot. Thanks, Jana, for setting it up.

House hunting

We are going to check out a bunch of houses on Saturday with our realtor. He said he has about 6 scheduled and is waiting to hear back on a couple more. With any luck we'll find our dream house on Saturday. Hopefully, we'll be able to buy it if we find it.

new pictures

Addie's first piggy-back ride while messing around with Dad.
One of the gifts from Kurt and Heather. It's wonderful at keeping in her binky while she sleeps!
Watching General Conference. She's learning already!
She has just discovered how cool toes are!
It's so fun to see her develop this new skill! She's also starting to swat at rattles and toys. This is a fun stage!
Pink toenails, just like her mom!

Curious...

So, I'm just wondering who it was that answered the survey with "No, and I will post pictures". There was only one, and I was wondering what pictures they were planning on posting if they aren't going to carve a pumpkin. That's all.

our great parents

I wasn't able to fall asleep a couple nights ago, and my mind started wandering. You know how that goes. Well, it occurred to me how fortunate we are to have parents that are still together and still quite happy in their marriage. As I've been thinking about it the last couple days, I feel compelled to write about my thoughts. In fact, now that I think about it, all of the in-laws' parents are still married, too. Charlie's, Heather's, Jason's, and Eric's parents are all still married as well. Considering current statistics (which seem to fluctuate every time I hear them reported) our family is beating the odds!

As Jason and I have started raising Adelyn, we've been faced with so many obstacles. Our opinions differ on some parenting practices, we're much more strapped for money, and he's started at a new school. All this just within the last 3 months! These added stresses have tested our committment to each other in ways we've never experienced before. Now, add 20+ years to those experiences. That's what Mom and Dad have gone through, and their love for each other is still just as strong, if not stronger. I can't imagine the many trials they've had, yet they've made it this far. I really look up to them and am fortunate I can model my marriage, in many ways, from them.

I just wanted to share these thoughts with all of you, but especially to Mom and Dad. I appreciate the love you have for one another, and that you're not afraid to show it. Thanks for showing me how important it is to focus first on the marriage, and second on the kids. (I could have done without the kissing in the kitchen, though!)

Charlie told me he saw Rick and Jay singing in the father/ son choir for the priesthood session of General Conference lastnight. Did anyone else see them? I think that would be such a neat experience. I'm a little jealous of them.

Jimmy are you alive?

So I was just wondering if we would ever hear from Jimmy again. It would be nice to know what he's been up to. Fill us in, hey, Jimmy, won't you?

Actually, we were 2nd

We got our package on Friday-Eric wrote a comment on Hillary's post, but obviously someone didn't read it...sorry, Jana and Jason, but we beat you out :) And we absolutely LOVE the baby stuff you guys sent, Heather and Kurt. Super adorable and I love the bath set with the slippers...I can't wait until he can wear the slippers, it will be awesome! Thank you sooo much guys!

Many Thanks!

We received Kurt and Heather's package today, and just wanted to say thank you for the prizes! That means we got 2nd place!! We think the toys are really cute, and appreciate you thinking about all of us--I'm sure Addie will love them very much!

A New White Coat

Jason's class had their "White Coat Ceremony" last night. It is basically an award ceremony for all the 2nd, 3rd and 4th years at the optometry school and the 1st years all get their Doctor lab coats. For me and Addie it was quite long and boring, but seeing the smile on Jason's face as he wore his new garb made the evening worth it.

Jason loves optometry school. He wrote about it on our Hair Family blog (http://www.jhairs.blogspot.com/) and tried to copy and paste his comments onto this blog as well, but we couldn't get it to work. Go there if you'd like to see how much he's enjoying himself, but I'll sum it up for you. He's very very busy, but loves what he's learning. He enjoys operating new gadgets and associating with other who share his passion for optometry and health professions in general. Yay! Although this has been a difficult move for me, I know it was the right decision for our family. We feel very fortunate and blessed to be here.

Pictures

Thought you might like to see the kids on their second day of school. I forgot to take pictures on the first day. This is also the house that we are living in right now. When looking at the house, we live on the right side. It's not perfect, but it works for us right now.