Christmas Letter

Merry Christmas everyone! Hope all is going well with everyone. We are doing great. We have our tree up and presents everywhere. Indianna is very excited to open them, but she is a good little girl and hasn't opened any on her own... yet.

Indianna is doing really well with the potty training thing. She knows when she needs to go and does her best to tell us when that time is, however sometimes we don't pay enough attention and fail to let her use the potty. She gets pretty upset about it, but hasn't started using actual words to tell us. I think that one of these days she will want to tell us something bad enough to tell us about it in words.

Maylin is also doing well. She is all smiles, slobbering and talking (jibberish). Everyone says that she is the best baby they have ever seen. Karlie and I feel very blessed that we could have two beautiful good little girls to give us some excitment.

Karlie is being a good mom to the three of us and does a very good job of taking care of us. She recently had a chocolate making get together with her sister and sister-in-law (McKenzie and Trisha). The chocolate was really good and helped me gain around 8 pounds. She also has four plates of them still sitting here that has set aside for visiting teaching (they might not be there for very much longer...mmm...)

I have been enjoying learning many things at work. My current trainer will be going to a training course for a couple of months and will be leaving me to fend for myself and all of the AF tires. Hopefully I won't have too many problems with getting things done. A couple of days ago I got to test out our snowblower. It was so amazingly fast and easy compared to shoveling that I am trying to figure out why I didn't save up for one years ago.

We just want to let you know that we are greatful for our Savior Jesus Christ. We know that his sacrifices through love and obedience have prepared a way for families to be together forever. We know that his perfect example and teachings can help us have a full and happy life. We have a strong testimony of the Atonement and the healing powers that it offers. We know that Heavenly Father loves us and has given us his son so that we can be happy. At this time of year we hope that everyone remembers Christs birth and makes an effort to give back by finding a way to bless the lives of others.

Have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Potty Training

We are at it again! AND, I think we are back to where we left off. Indianna has gone on the potty twice in the past week and one of the times she told us she had to go. BUT, now she likes to go every 5 minutes. We bought big girl panties over the weekend and yesterday Indie wouldn't put on her diaper. She wanted her big girl panties. I told her that if I put them on her, she HAD to go on the potty. Well, she didn't go in her panties, but she didn't go on the potty either. She ran to the potty every 5 minutes. Finally at nap time, I switched her over to a diaper. Does anyone have any new ideas for me? She loves sitting on the potty and playing with stickers. I switched her over from candy to stickers.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I thought I would just list things that I am thankful for. These are not in any particular order and are just a few of the many things I am grateful for.

1-That I am still alive
2-My beautiful sweet girls
3-My husband
4-Family (including in-laws)
5-Jesus Christ
6-Freedom
7-The Gospel (including temples, prophet, etc.)
8-Friends
9-Mine and Brad's Employment
10-My education

I think my favorite quote is appropriate for Thanksgiving.

"To bad we can't forget about our problems like we do our blessings." I hope we can all reflect on our many blessings this time of year. I know I am greatly blessed. Happy Thanksgiving.

Not going private

Ok. I really like Janessa's idea, so we are not going private, but we are taking off all last names and ask that if you have our page as a link on your blog, please take off our last names. I am also going to be changing our web address, because it has our last name within the title. At least I think I can do this. We are going to change it to: bnkfamily.blogspot.com I will leave this web address for 2 weeks and then I will be changing it over.

Going Private

Ok. We are really thinking of going private. I didn't think much of this, until I read the Reid family blog and watched the news video on dangers of blogging. Even after, I thought "well, nobody would ever know where we live." I mean, when we moved into this home, I was working as a social worker. Not a good thing to have your address public. So, I agreed that our phone number could be listed, but not our address. Thinking that was actually true...I checked out whitepages.com and sure enough there is my address. I really doubt anything would ever happen, but better safe than sorry. I just want to protect my girls. I really struggle with this, because I have come in contact with people I haven't heard from in a long time. I wish there was a way to leave the blog open, but make sure that anyone who looked at my blog, needed to login under an email and that I could see who is looking at my blog. I do have the world map at the bottom of my blog, so this kind of helps me see who looks at my blog. I have to admit, there are some places that I don't know who is looking at my blog. I'm sure people do like I do and click on someone elses friends or family blogs. With that said, list your email in the comments and I'll send you an invite.

Indianna's Birthday Party

Yes, I'm behind on blogging and Brad posted about Indie opening her presents. This is her birthday party with the kids. They finger painted and broke a pinata. Indie loved it! But, she also loved her cake!

Helping mommy make the cake

The Finished Cake

Kanyon's Masterpiece

Indie's Masterpiece

Indie hitting the pinata

Indie blowing out her candle

Indie after enjoying her cake

What Little Girls Do

Ok. So I have been reading in other people's blogs about what naughty little things boys do or what little boys do when their parents aren't watching. Well...girls are a little bit different. Here is a picture of what little girls do when their parents are not watching.

Yes. That is lotion all over her face. I can't tell if she was eating it or if she was just putting it on real thick. AND I can't seem to figure out how in the world she got that lid off.

One other cute thing. The other day, Indie was feeding her baby doll all kinds of fake foods. Well, the next thing she does is she pulls up her shirt and puts baby next to her. Yes...she was trying to nurse her baby. She is all GIRL!

Indianna's Birthday Present Opening

Indianna with one of her presents from Grandma Cook.

Indianna's favorite big present was an easel with a chalk board on one side and a white board on the other. It also has a roll of paper that comes up and over either side so that she can color/draw on the paper. The easel is also equiped with a tray to put all of her art supplies (chalk, crayons, dry erase markers) in.

Opening her first thing of colored chalk.

Indianna really got the hang of opening birthday presents, however she is still so peticular about each little piece. Most little kids seem to tare into presents like their life depends on it ... not Indianna ... she takes her time and pulls every piece off one at a time and then hands the piece to Karlie or myself before she goes to the next piece.

At Denver & Trisha's Wedding

Ammon Reyes and Maylin Rose Lundell at the Salt Lake Temple grounds.

The Cook Family and the cute couple.

The Cook Family again with the cute couple (they must like the in-laws)

On the Temple grounds with all of the grand kids

One of our family pictures during the two day event.

Since I have been a slacker in the whole blogging thing I thought that my first post should be accompanied by some pictures (the real reason is that Karlie has been on my case for awhile). Ok so I hope you all enjoy these pictures and I will try to make some more posts for fun.

Maylin's Baby Blessing

Maylin was blessed on the 12th of October. She looked so pretty in Brooklyn's pretty white dress. Brad gave her a wonderful blessing. I think she's going to be my little missionary.

WAY BEHIND ON BLOGGING

I know...I know...it's been way too long since I blogged. BUT, two kids is very busy and we have been really busy as a little family. So...keep checking the blog and read all the stuff that has been going on. I'm going to start with my visitor from Germany. My friend Denise came and visited at the start of this month. It was so good to see her and meet her boyfriend Alex (Not sure if I spelled his name right). He is such a sweet guy. I'm so glad she found such a great guy.
Crazy thing lately. I have been lucky enough to run into so many of my old friends lately. I love the blog, because that's how I have come in contact with some. Although I've been busy and may not be the best emailer or caller, I love hearing from everyone.

Lots of Pictures

McKenzie took these pictures the other day. I just love them. She could almost be a professional! Too bad, Indie doesn't know how to smile for pictures. Maley is already catching on though.

I took these ones and actually caught Indie and Maley smiling!!

One of the Best Times of the Year

I absolutely love conference. As a kid, we didn't really pay too much attention to the Saturday sessions, but on my mission, my appreciation grew immensely. To hear from the prophet and apostles and be spiritually uplifted, there's nothing better! I have to admit, I have my favorite speakers and they didn't disappoint. My favorites: President Monson, President Uchtdorf, Elder Holland, and President Eyring. Here's a quick summary in case you missed them.

President Monson - Talked about Change and how we should live and be happy with TODAY.

President Uchtdorf - Talked about faith, hope, and charity

Elder Holland - (Probably my favorite talk) Talked about how angels still administer today.

President Eyring - Talked about unity and finding common beliefs and likes with others rather than differences.

I'll attach the talks as soon as they are availabe on a word document.

Also, the women's conference was awesome and my favorite was President Uchtdorf. He talked about what we can do to be happy. Two things - Create and Compassion. http://www.lds.org/conference/talk/display/0,5232,23-1-947-37,00.html

Two Weeks Old

Maylin had her two week appointment a couple of days ago and she is growing. She is now 8 lbs. 3 oz. and 21 inches long. I can't believe it's already been two weeks. I guess she is looking a little bit older. Overall, Maylin is a pretty good baby. Compared to when Indie was a baby, she's an angel! She has her fussy times, but she's does well.

More Pictures

Bath time with two kids. Need I say more!

Indianna threw a fit until I finally put her in the sink for a bath. She did NOT want to bath in the bath tub.

I would do it all over again

After what seems like complaining about the whole situation. I want everyone to know, that if I had to, I would do it all over again for my beautiful baby girl! Here are some more pictures.

Indianna, Maylin, and Brooklyn

My two girls

Part 2 of the Horror Story

So, I had a bad delivery right and things should be good now right? Well after the delivery, I started to get this horrible headache. They told me that they had given me enough medicine to last 24 hours, but could give me some morphine if needed. Well, not that my cut hurt, but my head was hurting. So, I asked for the morphine. Wouldn't you know it, the tubing in my IV got clogged again or something. No big deal, another new tube and we are on our way. I stayed on my pain meds as much as I possible could, but mostly for this headache. Monday night it hit. I was so nauseated and my head was killing. Machel ordered a shot in the hip for the nausea and Ted came in to assess whether I had a spinal headache. Luck would have it and as Ted said, "I'm not surprised, you have the spinal headache. There are two options. One is the passive treatment. You stay on your pain meds and drink lots of caffeine OR we can do a blood patch. Where we take blood from your arm and put it into the spine to seal up that leak." Hmmm...let me think about this...I'll take option 1. There's no way I was going to let them stick another needle into my back. In the mean time, my pulse was high and I had a bit of fever, so they had to draw blood to make sure I didn't have an infection. My legs were as swollen as a hippo and supposedly my blood count was really really low, so Machel ordered an Iron supplement for me. A couple of hours later, Dr. Naisbett comes in and says that the hospital doesn't have any Iron supplements and canceled the order. WHAT? Seriously? What kind of hospital is this? He told me to just take prenatals when I get home. Tuesday, my head felt fine, but there was this constant ringing in my ears, which soon developed to a load thumping noise and everything anyone said, echoed in my ears. It was horrible! So, on Wed. morning bright and early, I decided to do the blood patch. I was suppose to go home that day, and thought to myself "there's no way, I'm going to be able to care for my girls if I have this headache." I told the nurse at 6:00 am and she said she paged the anesthesiologist. At 8:00, the nurse came in and was like packing our stuff. Not really, but she sure was in a hurry to get us discharged. She couldn't believe the anesthesiologist hadn't been in yet, so she paged him again and said he was in surgery and he would be in at 10:00 am to do the procedure. Waiting for the horror of it all dragged on forever. 10:00 came, 12:00 came, 1:00 came, and he still hadn't shown up. Finally at 2:00 he came in to do the procedure. I ask him what are the risks of this procedure and he says, "Well, your situation is a bit different. Because when Ted hit your spinal, normally fluid leaks into the catheter and that's how you know you hit the spinal. But, that didn't happen with you. SO, it's very possible that I could put blood into your spinal fluid, you could get an infection, be paralyzed, and he listed about 5 other concerns." So, with that in mind, he says, "Ok. Should we try and do this thing? Well, let's not try, let's do." Already shaking and nervous, now I was about in tears. How in the world could I let this guy "try"? Yeah, I started crying instantly. It took him several jabs and he kept saying what Ted said, "I can't seem to find it" and he said "I'm going really slow so we don't have any problems." and finally my favorite, "I just can't find it, I'm going to have to have you sit up." That's when I thought to myself, if I sit up, this procedure is over. Just then he found it, and they drew blood from my arm and it was finally over! I laid on my back for an hour. The headache did not go away. Since I was laying flat, I asked the nurse to take out my staples since we were being discharged any way. I ask her, before doing anything, "is this going to hurt?" "no, you might feel a pinch, but nothing compared to what you just went through." BOY, was she wrong! She goes to take out the first one and I yelled and screamed. Then the second one, again even worse. And then the third one, I couldn't take it any more. I said, "I thought you said, this wouldn't hurt!" She said, "they just don't seem to want to come out. It's this tool. Let me go get another one." So, she comes back with a brand new "tool" and again pinched me to death. Brad instantly jumps up and comes over. After looking at the "tool" and what the girl was doing, (seriously...maybe 2 seconds) he says, "you're using them up side down." So, instead of losing the staples, she was crimping them down tighter. She flips the tool over and takes out the other staples. I didn't feel a thing...when she was using the tool right. But, what about the 3 or 4 staples that she had already tightened. She couldn't get them out. I felt her shaking as she kept trying. Finally I said, "Can we maybe take a break for a minute?" She says, "yes" and leaves the room. About ten minutes later, she comes back in with another nurse who says they are going to give me a shot to numb the area so they can get the other staples out. And there you have it! Part 2 of the Horror story. Not to mention other little things like the pain meds that they scan, 2 of them didn't have bar codes on them so they couldn't scan them and when they were taking blood from my arm for the blood patch, they couldn't find a "wet" swab to sanitize the area. They were all dry. I think they opened like 3 or 4 swabs, before they found one that was wet. The last nurse says, "I don't know what it is about this room." So...either the room is jinxed or I have really really bad luck. You decide.

Maylin Rose Lundell

Maylin Rose Lundell

Well, our little one is finally here. She's now 10 days old, but this is the first chance I have gotten or felt like blogging about it. I'm going to tell the whole story, just because as sad as it is, it's almost funny how wrong things went.

At 12:15 my water broke while I was in bed. I hadn't even fallen asleep yet. I couldn't sleep. We got everything ready and went to the hospital. I was excited to be delivering at Ogden Regional because I have heard about how much better they are than McKay. With all the horror story that follows, I have to say, their nurses are a lot better than McKay's postpartum nurses. We arrived at Ogden Regional around 12:45 and by the time they got us to a room and all the paperwork filled out it was about 1:00. They put us in a room and told me to change and that they would be back to check me and get everything going. At 1:30, I was having major contractions and was in horrible pain. After waiting a half an hour, I finally sent Brad to go and see if they forgot about us and to get my epidural ASP. They finally came in and checked me I was at a 3 plus. They told me that I couldn't have my epidural until I went through one bag of liquid in my IV. So, they put in my IV and I suffered through the contractions for about a half an hour. The "Anesthesiologist" (Really a CRNA?) came in and had me sit up for the shot. This was different than McKay, at McKay when I had Indie, they had me lay on my side. Well, while "Ted" jabbed needles back and forth in my back. He kept saying he couldn't find it. First try, "I can't find it." Second try, "I got blood that time in the catheter" and the third try, "I got it." WOAH, I said "why do I feel like I'm going to tip over?" I felt like I was on a very rocky ship. They laid me down in bed and the next thing I said was, "why are my hands numb?" They told me because my blood pressure cup was just getting done. YEAH RIGHT! Next thing I know, I am gagging and throwing up and then I couldn't swallow and I felt like I couldn't breathe. It instantly went up higher and I couldn't hold up my head? I just kept repeating, "I can't breathe." They kept reassuring me that my oxygen levels were fine, but how they knew that I don't know. Brad tells me that they couldn't find a finger pulse thinger that worked. They kept running in and out trying to find one that worked. They finally told me that "if we have to, we will breathe for you." I'm sure it wasn't life threatening, but for me and my family it sure did feel like it. The nurses started to panic. I heard one nurse yell to get "Ted" in there "NOW!" and that she "I'm not going to do this alone." Grandma Indie, asked one of the nurses "Is she going to die?" and the nurse said, "I don't know!" My mom had to leave the room she was so nervous. My dad and Brad gave me a priesthood blessing and they said, my body instantly calmed down. After an hour of suffering, the numbness wore off. Machel had arrived and I was feeling all contractions again. Machel checked me and I was a "10" and ready to push. Machel says, "we are having this one natural." After an hour of suffering for air and experiencing the pain, I said, "I can't do this." I pushed for a couple of minutes, before Ted arrived back in the room. Machel says, "Don't you dare give her another dose!" Ted argued back that he knew he hit the spinal now and that he would give me a smaller dose. Ted says, "well isn't she in pain." Machel yells back, "she's in transition! What do you think? Yes, she's in pain!" Without saying another word, Ted gives me another dose. Although I didn't say either way if I wanted it or not, I sure was glad that he gave it to me. I became numb and started to push. The problem: every half an hour Ted had to give me another dose and every time he did, the contractions stopped. They got the "pit" hooked up to my IV to help with contractions. After an hour of pushing and not making any progress, Machel and I decided a C-Section would be best. While they are setting up everything for the C-Section, Machel kept trying to turn the baby's face and having me push. She looks up and says, "why isn't the pit dripping?" The tubes weren't working and so, here I had been pushing without any pit. Machel thinks I might have been able to deliver vaginally, if it weren't for the tubes not working. During the C-Section, I felt panicky as my chest became heavy again. I think this was just nerves, but Ted, decided it would be best for everyone if he just put me out. So, out I went! I woke up to the sounds of my family holding baby Maylin. Maylin was 7 lbs. 15 oz. (no not a 10 lb baby, phew at least that turned out ok). She was 20 inches long.

I realize how long this blog is, so...I will blog about the other days to follow later. Here are some pictures. By the way, pictures were not a priority during delivery as you can tell, so we don't have a lot of early on pictures.

Indie's first time being introduced to Maylin. Yes, she's a bit hesitant, but I was also hooked up to all machines still.

Grandma Terry with my two girls.

Almost the whole Cook "fam damily"

Maylin

Big Babies are Suppose to Sleep Better Right?

Ok. So, the baby is still not here yet. We went for our final appointment until next week when Machel is suppose to start me on the 4th. For those of you that haven't heard the "big news", does anyone want to guess how big the baby is measuring? 8 lbs you guess...no bigger...9 lbs you guess...no bigger...9 and 1/2...no bigger...10 lbs...you're getting closer...10 lbs. 2 oz. YES!!! I'm serious...it's not a joke. Of course...the measurements could be off a bit...maybe a pound or two if I'm lucky. Machel stripped the membranes before she even measured the baby. Then after, she wanted to "check" my cervix again, when really she was trying to break my water for me. It didn't happen. I'm still dilated to a 2 and 85% effaced. Not much has changed. She wants to see me on Tuesday if I haven't gone by then. I think she's going to try and break my water again or find some way to justify starting me. So...everyone pray that the baby will come soon and that she won't be too big! Oh and NO, I'm not having any contractions.

Family Home Evening

Ok...all you parents of young kids. We need ideas for spiritual family home evenings. We are pretty good at figuring out some activity to do with Indie, but when it comes down to the spiritual part or lesson, we have a hard time thinking of something that will keep Indie's attention. Mostly, we have just shown her pictures of Jesus and give a one minute talk on how much Jesus loves us. Any ideas?

Just to show you how desperate we are for the spiritual part. This is what we did last week for family home evening. It started with the idea of finger painting, then went to pudding, but we didn't have chocolate, so it ended up being vanilla pudding. Here's the pictures.