Settelly is One Month Old

So today our little Settelly is one month old and I can hardly believe it. It seems forever ago that I was pregnant but it dosn't seem like it could possibly be a month already that I gave birth to my little girl. Settelly is such a joy to our family, she adds such a sweet touch to us!! She seems to make the boys a little more tender when they are near her. She is such a good sound sleeper, she sleeps through everything, including her brothers rough housing!
She is very strong, just like the boys!, she was holding her head up for short periods when she was first born and has gotten much stronger!! She loves to look around and she will even reach out a grab your finger with a very firm grip!! She loves to smile, I love it when she first wakes up and she looks up at me and starts to smile, it is just the sweetest thing ever!!
I love having this sweet angel baby in our home, it all seems so amazing to me, she is definitely a little gift from heaven!! Happy First Month Settelly!

The River

Yesterday was one heck of a hot day, it got up to 109!! Bryce and the kids and I went with a bunch of friends down to the Yamhill River in Carlton where there is a great swimming hole with a rope swing. We all went running into the water to keep from melting!! Bryce, Brody and I all jumped from the swing a few times, it was great fun! Kale floated around in a boat with the other little kids and even little Settelly got in the water, her first swimming experience, I think she really liked it, but she eventually got a little tired and had to take a nap!! It was so nice to get in and cool off, I think the water had to be in the 80 degree range, it felt so good!!

Two Weeks Old

I cant believe that little Settelly has been in the world for two weeks. It seems like just yesterday that I was wondering if I was ever going to have her!! It's fun to watch her with her big borthers and how much they love her. I love to watch Bryce goggle over her, he's just like a little kid at christmas with a new toy!!
Settelly is such a sweet and pleasant baby, she is so quiet and content with life it seems. She loves to be held, which is fine with me I've always felt that I will hold my children as long as they will let me, cause it's really only for such a short time. Settelly is such a blessing to our family, sweet little girl!

Bryce's 30th Birthday

It's hard to believe that we could be thirty this year, Bryce's birthday was on Friday and with everything going on lately I almost let it slip bye. But being the good wife, well I try at least!, I at the last minute called all our family and friends and threw together a BBQ/potluck. I even made his favorite cake, extra large to boot!! We had a great turn out and lots of good food!! It was fun and I am very glad I went to the trouble of putting it together because you only turn thirty once! Bryce tried to get out of getting sung to and having to blow out all the candles by slicing the cake while I was outside but i caught on and quickly ran in to save the cake and gather everyone to sing. He was a little embarrassed but he wasn't getting out of it that easy!! I love you Bryce, and I am most thankful that you were born!!

Bryce's Hay Shed

This is Bryce's big hay shed he is building in Gaston. It is 100' x 290' and the posts are telephone poles that are I think 60' tall, he had them shipped up from Southern California. The boy's, Settelly and I went out last week to watch them put up these monstrous trusses that are 100 footers. It was very impressive to watch how efficiently the guys got them swung into place and the perlins run across them. They put up nine the first day and have twenty more to get up. The boy's had so much fun out there on the job site, rock piles, wheel barrows, moving equipment with Dad. By the time we went home the boy's were filthy from head to toe and totally worn out. When I pulled in the drive way I just rolled down the windows so the boys had a nice breeze and left them sleeping soundly!! They played hard and had fun, even Settelly and I got a little nap in!!

By the Way!!!

Oh yeah, by the way!!! Settelly weighed 8 lbs 2 oz's and was 21 and a half inches long!! The other remarkable thing is that I feel absolutely incredible for having just had a baby. Just hours after she was born I was up walking as if nothing had ever happened. With the boys I felt crippled for the first two weeks!! Amazing what our body's can do when they are given the chance to perform naturally without medical intervention's to numb the pain and take away our natural abilities to give birth. I know cause I've given birth twice in the hospital, both times with epidurals and once with pitocin, baby's wont stay in there forever and I think babies would be born with less complication's if doctors weren't in such a rush to get it all over with. I'm so glad that I gave myself and Settelly this opportunity at such a quality birth, by far my best ever. Now our little family is complete, two beautiful boys and our precious baby girl!!

Settelly's Birth

Sorry that it has taken me forever to put up pictures and a post, I have been adjusting to having three children now! Well here is the story of our precious little girl.
On the evening of June 28th we went out to Grandma and Grandpa Roberts, just like any Sunday evening. I hadn't had any contraction's for the last three or four days and was beginning to think that I was imagining this whole baby thing!!!!! I had tried every natural thing to encourage this little baby who was now almost a week over due, but she was being stubborn. So that evening we were getting ready to leave and Bryce suggested a jump on the trampoline, so I thought "WHY NOT"!! So I got up there and jumped for about a good minute and was totally out of breath. Feeling just fine with no sense of what was about to come we went home, put the boys to bed and went to bed at about ten o'clock Sunday night. At 11:45 that night I shot straight out of bed with a massive contraction. When it passed my first thought was, Is it possible to skip the first two fazes of labor and go straight into active labor?, because if this isn't active labor I will never make it. Then less than a minute later I had another massive contraction. At this point Bryce was timing them and was concerned that they were so strong and less than a minute apart. He kept telling me "ITS TIME TO CALL THE MIDWIFE" but i guess that I really wanted to be sure so we waited until 12:30 am to call her. She could hear me in the back ground when Bryce called and said "its time to get to the birthing center". So Bryce called my parents next and my Dad headed for our house so we wouldn't have to wake up the boys. By the time my dad got there I was scared to death of getting in the car because the contraction's were so hard and close but I got in, told Bryce to drive like heck and grabbed onto the handle of Settelly's car seat (which was already locked into position in the middle of the back seat) and held on for dear life. I had six contraction's on the seven minute drive to the birthing center and when we got there I told Bryce get me out of this car before I have another one. I got out made it ten steps had another contraction and blew through the front door. Standing there were my three Midwifes smiling, I went right passed them into the room kicked my sandals off on the way and hit the edge of the dresser had a contraction and then less than 20 seconds later had another contraction, this one was totally different, all I could do was bear down, she was coming!!
My Midwife Patricia told me it was time to get in the tub. I got in and a less than thirty minutes later my beautiful baby girl was laid on my chest, she never cried, she just looked straight up into my eyes and stared at me. I could not believe it, I've never seen a baby born like that before, so unstressed and unaffected by birth. This was one of the most incredible experiences I'd ever had. Truly the most gentle birth ever, she was never taken away from me, all the weighing and measuring was left for later, no being frantically wiped off by nurses or poked at she was put directly into my arms, what a most beautiful birth, my only regret is that I wish that I could have given my boys such a gentle and beautiful birth. Start to finish my labor and delivery was only two hours long, I guess that three weeks of contraction's really paid off!!!

Pacific City

We had such a great day on Saturday, we loaded up and headed to the beach to play! It was a beautiful day, hardly any wind and it was warm. Brody went up the sand hill repeatedly and ran or rolled down and Kale enjoyed playing in the sand. The boys of course had to chase the waves and then took turn burring each other!! The best part was that Little Settelly really enjoyed the ocean too, something about that pull of the ocean!!! She got really active and moved around in my belly a lot while we were there and then was asleep the whole way home and all night. When we got home we barbecued fish and had fried potatoes and squash and ate outside around our fire and of course had smoores to boot!! What a great day!!

The new shop and office!

Wow, we have had so much going on lately, how we manage to keep up I don't know!! Here is the new shop and office going up, Bryce is incredible he keeps everything rolling smoothly. The trusses are going in here. When it's done there will be seven bays and an office on the north end. Bryce has been pushing hard to get this going for the main reason of the office. Our office has been in our house for well, the last six years or so. And now that we have a secretary/book keeper we all want our own space back! Shirlene and Bryce are looking forward to having a functioning office with separate rooms so that Shirlene doesn't have to compete with Bryce when he's on the phone!! And I am looking forward to having my house back, especially with our little girl on the way!!

Baby Girl!!

Went to see my Midwife on Wednesday and baby is still down as far as she can get and doing fine as can be for a little baby sitting on her head!!! My Midwife Patricia painted the position that Settelly's in, it was really fun!! When I walked back over to my Mom's ( where the boy's were) I asked them if they wanted to see their little sister and Brody got this confused look on his face and Kale just stood there. So I pulled up my shirt to show them and they thought it was really neat, Kale was the best though cause he got this big smile on his face and pulled his shirt up to look at his belly and was a little disappointed to find that he didn't have a painting on his belly. It was really cute. Only eleven day's to go, hope it's not long!!

Brody's Last Day of School!!

So Brody's last day of school was on Tuesday the 9th, he is now a free man!!! I spent the last two day's of school with Brody, on Monday was Field day and then on Tuesday I brought in ice cream and toppings for his class to have a little farewell party. Then they had their awards assembly, which Brody and his cousin Daylynn both got an award for "Most Improved". Great Job Brody!!! He had a good school year and has made fairly good progress, we have started him on vision therapy with a Dr. in Salem so we hope that with that through the summer he will be dynamite come the next school year!! We also found out that we will have only a four day school week next year, which could actually be pretty nice, that means that we can runaway for the weekend and play longer!!

So I have three and a half weeks left till my due date, but last Friday when I went into see my Midwife she said that the baby is fully engaged and rather deeply engaged. She said I could have her any day or go all the way to my due date, I am hoping to make it at least another week then she will be closer to six and a half pounds but wouldn't mind going until Brody is out of school on the 9th. We will just have to wait and see!! SO anyway that last Friday that I went to see my Midwife Bryce and I had put the boys to bed and were laying in bed talking when I started to feel crampy and gradually got stronger until I knew it was full blown contractions. They were pretty strong and were coming at about two minutes apart, so I tried to relax and think past the pain and I managed to dose off. When I woke up around two a.m. I decided to start getting things ready to go cause this just might be it. I ran around the house finding the video camera and camera and various chargers and packing my bag to go. Then I decided to finish some sewing I had started and by five a.m. I was so excited that I had completely blocked the pain until I sat down long enough to realize that there was no more pain!!!! So off to bed I went, at least it was a good practice run and I'm sure it did a bit of dilating so maybe when the real thing happens it wont be so long!! Anyway I have some good contractions here and there but am still waiting and trying to finish a few more little projects!!!

So here is another nesting project that had to be done before baby comes, my wood floors!!!! They are so beautiful, I love them and it's so nice to finally be rid of the nasty carpet in our dinning room, I mean really, who puts carpet in a dinning room? The boys love the floors too cause they can have sock races all the way down the hallway!! My house looks complete inside now, no more holes in the flooring or walls needing to be finished, it's all done. Some other crazy projects I have done are rearranging our bedroom and painting the wall that the bed is on, it looks so nice and then I got a wild hair since Allan (one of our workers, he did the floors for us) had all the saws set up on the back patio and the nail gun in the house I thought that I would take the opportunity to rip apart our closet and redesign the layout. So I did and Allan did an awesome job helping me redo it and make it much more functional!! I have been crazy busy and cant wait to have this little baby, maybe then I will come off of this nesting high!!!

So I have really gone off the deep end with this whole nesting instinct!! I was feeling bad that I did such cute and fun things to Settelly's room and the boys had just the run of the mill bland room. So I took the boys to town and had them choose a blue for their room, earlier that day Kale and I ran up to Tigard to buy a set of bunk beds we had found new on Craigslist. That evening I set to work taking apart their old beds and moving all their stuff out of the room. The boys camped out in Settelly's room for the night and actually didn't mind one bit!! By the next morning I was slinging paint and by late morning Kale and I were assembling the bunk beds. The room was all back together that afternoon and it is so cute, the boys just love it. Of course then they had to decide who got the top bunk, so I told them to take turns sleeping up there. The first two nights they both slept on top and then by the third Brody decided that he liked being on the bottom. A lot simpler than I had expected!!!