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Sunday, December 27, 2009

Merry Christmas



Ho Ho Ho. We hope that everyone had a very Merry Christmas. We sure had a special one, since it was Holden's first Christmas. It was also the first Christmas where Griffin "got it". He knew who Santa was (although he called him Tanta). I took Griffin to to see Santa on Christmas Eve, thinking that if nothing else I could get a photo of him with Tanta. To my suprise and delight Griffin not only recognized and greeted him he did not cry and was so excited. He hopped right up on him lap and stared and smiled. When Santa asked him what he wanted for Christmas he patted his head and said "a hat". To Griffin a hat is a helmet. He loves to wear helmets and try to do all of the things that Steve does. He will go and get into the bindings on Steve snow board (so we got him his own) or the skate board or the paraglider. So i knew that Santa had not finnished Christmas shopping yet and he better make a stop and get Griffy a helmet. He must have done so, because on Christmas morning there was a "hat" waiting for Griffin with a bunch of other things he must have wanted!


This pic was from Christmas afternoon between jammie changes, but I love it and could not help snapping a shot of Holden's darling little face!



This year was Griffin's 3rd Christmas. On his first Christmas Eve Steve and I started our family tradition of Christmas Jammies. We all get new PJ's that we get to open on Christmas Eve. I tried like 10 times to get a picture of my babies in their Christmas Jammies and everytime I snapped, Griffin leaned in to kiss Holden. So I guess THAT is the way the picture is meant to be!





As most know, Steve got laid off in Feb of 2009. It was hard and it got harded when I got pregnant after 17 months of trying and then deciding to wait...(of course). Well, in October our prayers were answered and Steve got a call asking him to come back to the oil field to work for Shell drilling! While he was out of work he had gotten his EMT and that must have given him a leg up, since thousands of guys were laid off and 6 were called back! This blessing came at the right time, just a few weeks before the baby was born. He had to choose between being home for the birth of our son and being home for Christams & Thanksgiving. He chose to be here for Holden's birth. So needless to say, we celebrated the birth of our lord and savior, Jesus Christ, without Steve. I will admit that I cried on Christmas morning when we were not togther and few times throughout the day when Griffin got excited or either of the boys did something cute. Luckily I had stayed the night at my Mom's house on Christmas Eve, so at least I was surrounded by family Christmas morning, but it was not the same. So the solution is that when Steve gets home of New Years Eve, we are going to pretend it's Christmas Eve and do it all again. I gave each of the boys 2 of their gifts from us on Christmas so they will still have more presents to open and I am going to cook a prime rib dinner. That way we can still have some family memories and photo that include daddy!

I also want to take a minute and express my love for Christ and how greatful I am to God for sending a savior to ransom me. What an amazing blessing Faith is. I am astounded by how much love is in my life because of my relationship with Christ. I am so blessed to have my family, my beautiful-healthy children, a husband whom I love more every minute and can't seem to ever get enough of, and most of all to have a Heavenly Father who loves us all enough to send his son to be born on Christmas day to die for us.

Merry Christmas & a very Happy New Year!

Monday, December 21, 2009

Another beautiful son

HOLDEN SCOTT SKARDA
December 9th, 2009











Weight: 7 lbs 6.2 oz
Length: 20 inches
He is wonderful and so sweet. He looks more like Steve than Griffin did...I am amazed that that is even possible, but it is. He is a snugglie and content baby. I am just in love with him and trying to soak up every minute of this newborn phase.

Griffin is just soooo cute with him. He helps me change his diaper and get the binkie and push the swing and always has a kiss for his baby brother, whenever he cries. The other day Holden was crying and Griffin kissed his forehead and said (in the most gentile voice) "you're alright...you have mom". I am so in love with my boys and am delighting in every moment with them.

On the icky side, his birth was VERY rough. I did not think that it could get worse than 52 hours of labor 2.5 hours of pushing, followed by a c-section and loosing 1/3 of my blood...but IT WAS. I was not at all scared when I was told that I would have a sheduled c-section. In fact, I took great comfort in thinking it would be a piece of cake. I could not have been more wrong. I was given a spinal block to numb me during the surgery. I was also given a topical anesthetic on my skin. Well, the spinal did not take and my Dr. nor I found out until after the first cut. I felt the entire surgery. The Dr.s and anesthesiologist had no choice but to proceed to deliver the baby through the pain and my SCREAMING. They had already cut me, so it was too late to flip me over and try the spinal again, and they could not put me under all the way because of the risk to the baby. They worked very fast but that 4 minutes was the worst pain I have ever felt! My poor husband was in room. He was begging them to help me and trying to comfort me but he was as scared as I was. For the next 3 days, I could not walk or feel ANYTHING down my right leg. They had 2 specialists and a physical therapist come and no one knew what was going to happen or IF it would ever be normal again. As it turned out...what had happened was that the spinal some how traveled down a nerve and caused the numbness. It is fine now... but how scary!!!
All in all this recovery has been hard, made harder by the fact that my husband had to go back to the Oil Rig 3 days after for 2 weeks, (which really a huge blessing since only 6 people, out of thousand whom were laid off, where called back to work) but I am getting through it and all thou getting him here was so hard, I have never been happier and have the most delicious feeling of completeness.