My Kids

I haven't talked about my kids very much in the last while. Here are some pics I have recently taken of my kids...

Dalan is in the "CHEESE!!!!!!" stage when we take his picture (that is if you can get him to hold still long enough to get his face in the shot!). CHEESING for the camera obviously includes squinting his eyes...what a goof ball!

For those of you that know Dalan, know that he is the energizer bunny! This is not a kid that will fall asleep where ever he is... until a few days ago!! I walked into Dalan's room expecting to find him watching the latest craze at our house (Kung-Foo Panda!) to put him to bed, and this is what I found!! I was amazed!

I think every parent wonders if their first child will react to their new sibling. For us, we got lucky with Dalan! He loves Audree!

Kalab was trying to iron his shirt for work the other morning and couldn't hold Audree, so he laid her in Dalan's bed. Dalan thought it was the coolest thing that "sister in my bed! I lay with her daddy? I lay with sister?" Good thing Kalab thought to take a picture of the moment...we will need this picture for future use to show Dalan and Audree that they liked eachother at one point in time! (Again, we have the "CHEESE")

And last, we have been looking over the features of our two kids and deciding what features are the same. It is shocking to me their hair is so different! We never expected to have a dark hair infant because Kalab's hair was strawberry blond and mine was blond when we were born. But, we LOVE the dark hair! Both kids are about a month old in these pics.

What a CRAZY Sew-a-thon!!

Okay, I have sewing coming out my ears!! And heres way...I have a neice that just had twin boys this past week. Just so you know, it has been a little scary. The twins were born prematurly at 33 weeks, with one babies lungs underdeveloped. But on a positive note, both twins have been taken off the machines they had on and are doing well on their own. I'm not sure when they get to go home, but all is looking well.

Well, to the sewing part...since that's what this post is about! This neice lives in Idaho and I couldn't make it to her shower, so we never gave them a present. Since my in laws were here, I wanted to send a gift for the babies home with them to save on shipping (can we say expensive!!). I decided I wanted to make both babies car seat covers like the one I made for Audree a while back (I blogged about it and put pictures on an earlier post if you want to look at it). It was a ton of fun to pick out themed covers for boys since I have only done a girl one. So, the themes...they have two dogs they love and Josh played soccer and coaches soccer now.

Now for the "a-thon" part. I forgot how LONG these covers take me to complete. For someone who is an amazing sewer, i'm sure these wouldn't take that long, but I am for sure not! Each cover took me 3, 3 1/2 hours each (lets just say my seam ripper is my best friend when I sew!). Also, as anyone knows who have kids, I couldn't just sit down and sew either...oh no way! Between changes bottoms, feeding tummys, burping babies, feeding husbands (an absolute must if you want a happy marriage!) and all the other mom responsibilities, I was distracted. All though, my mother law loved the fact that I had to sew the whole time to get the covers done before she left, because she got to hold Audree non stop! And I wouldn't have been able to finish them in time if I wouldn't have had her there to hold Audree (she is a cuddly baby and thinks she needs to be help 95% of the day!).

All though the covers took my whole weekend, I enjoyed sewing them (now I have to hope they hold together...I wonder if they will withstand the washing machine??). Kalab thinks I could sell them. The supplies alone (not on sale) cost $25 to $30. To make it worth my time and cover the overhead costs, I would want to sell them for $45 to $55 each. Any one think people would buy them for that much?

As for now, I am planning on making more for fun for family and friends who are having babies (I have three coming up in the summer...yeah!)

Audree's Name

We here at our house are doing well with our new addition to our family. The adjustment of going from one kid to two has been a little bit of a roller coaster as many of you other parents know. With that being said, Dalan has been doing surprising well. These past three days have been the hardest...everyone went back to work and I was alone. Even though I call these "hard" days, overall I think they have actually been pretty good. I can tell Dalan is wanting more attention, but he hasn't been doing purposfully naugthy things or telling Audree to go away, etc.

And on to the reason for this post. I have had several people ask where we got Audree's name and middle name. The name Audree has been picked for several years...within the first year of Kalab and my marriage. One evening we decided to go out to dinner (I remember it was a big deal because we were dirt poor!!). We decided to go to Ruby Tuesday (I could do a whole blog on our bad experiences we have had with eating at Ruby Tuesday!) and had a waitress named Audrey. Kalab asked out of the blue if I liked the name for a girl. I thought about it... and I did...a lot actually. There was no changing Kalab's mind after that point about our future baby girl's name (assuming at that point we would get a girl). When we became pregnant with Dalan, Kalab hoped for a girl at first just so we could use the name. Of course we were happy when we found out we were having a boy, but had no names what so ever! The only good thing that has ever come out of our dining experiencing at Ruby Tuesday's was our daughter's name...at least it was something!

Audree's middles name, Clair, is purely my decision. I'm not sure what triggered me to consider using it as a name for my daughter, but none the less, I LOVE it. Kalab is okay with the name, but has never loved it. Kalab's dad's name is Kelly and we thought about using that as her middle name. Although I like the name Kelly and it has family meaning, I was worried about not getting another girl down the road (assuming we even have more children...right now, the out look is dim! You'll have to ask me again in at least a year!). Plus, I would love to use the name Kelly for a boy middle name as well. I think Kalab eventually gave in when I pointed out that he picked and held FIRMLY to with both Dalan's first and middle name and Audree's first name. I'm guessing he firgured it was time for me to get the name I really, really wanted (I wanted to give Dalan the middle name of Carter...I was over ruled the last week of my pregnancy with Dalan).

Enjoy the pics!! I was inspired by a friend Katrina who just has a baby girl a week or so before us and had taken some ADORABLE pictures of their little girl and posted them on their blog (by the way Lund's, your daughter is beautiful!!!). I don't have a very good camera so my pics didn't turn out anything like my inspiration of Katrina, but at least I tried and I have some pictures.

NYNY North Mission Reunion with Stoker

Hey everyone, I wanted to let you know that I have been in contact with President Stoker and we are looking at doing a Reunion with him sometime between April and the first part of June. I proposed to have the reunion in two parts. The first part would be on Friday night as an adult only devotional with President and Sister Stoker as the speakers followed by a pot luck dessert social. The second part will be Saturday late morning and this will be for our families. I would like to have some fun activities that the kids and adults will enjoy. Things like three legged races, gunny sack races ect. It might be fun to have a big blow up slide or a jump house for the kids as well. I also had the thought of doing a BBQ on Saturday as well. I would like to know what every thinks about have it over two days or if you would prefer one day. I just know that catching up with each other isn't easy when we are chasing kids around. So if you know of other missionaries who have blogs please send them to my blog for details of the up coming reunion. Please help me by getting the word out about the Reunion and check back for the date, time and location. I am just waiting on President Stoker to let me know when he can come in from CA.

Kalab Stokes

Audree Clair Stokes

Audree Clair Stokes was born at 7:01 pm on January 12, 2009. She wieghed 7 lbs 7 oz and was 22.5 inches long.

The day started off by the hospital calling us at 8:00 AM and asking us to come to the hospital because they were ready to start the enduction. We arrived around 8:15 and spent the next 30 mins getting Emilee started with IV's. One of the reasons Emilee was in Labor almost 12 hours is that Emilee tested positive for Strep B so she had to be on antibiotics for 4 hours before we could have the baby. They started Emilee on the the anitbiotics around 9:00 and then about 9:30 they started her on pitocin. When we arrived to the hospital she was dialated to a 3 and didn't really change until after they broke her water then she went from a 3 to a 4 with in seconds. They broke Emilee's water at 1:30. Emilee got her Epideral around 1:45 and that was the best thing for her. We waited several more hours and Emilee only dialated to a 5 around 5:00 pm. Our doctor was a little worried because she wasn't progressing very fast. So they inserted an internal monitor to see how storng the contractions were. With in the next hour she went to a 6 and by 6:45 Em was a 10 and the baby was right there ready to come. Our doctor came rushing in and with in just a few minuets she was born. Emilee only had to push 4 times before Audree was born.

I went home last night and spent the night at home to be with Dalan and this morning when I got back to the hospital Emilee told me that Audree slept through the night. She only woke up when Emilee needed to feed her. We are doing great today and so is Audree. We are so excited and happy that Audree is finally here at last.

Accidents Happen Unfortunately!!

Audree is coming tomorrow and we are counting our blessings that Emilee and Audree are okay and eveything is ready to go for tomorrow. Friday, Emilee had a competition with her Drill Team she coaches. I was planning on picking Emilee up from the competition that night, so her Assistant coach picked her up that morning. The night before, a storm came in. The weather was warm enough that it rained. Later that night, the tempuratures dropped and it began to snow. Of course, the rain freezed and made the roads sheets of ice. While driving to the school that morning, Emilee's assistant hit some black ice and fish tailed for several feet and ended up hitting an electiric pole head on. Both of them were okay, but I was very concerned when Emilee called me (of course I was still asleep in bed!). Emilee complained her sternum hurt from the seat belt and was instantly concerned about Audree. Our Dr. sent us to the hospital to have Audree checked out. Luckily, she responded just fine and everything came back great. Emilee has very tender seat belt bruises across her shoulder blade/upper chest area, her sternum, across the side of her belly, and down by her hips were the lap belt crosses. It was a nerve racking morning, but Emilee is fine except for the tender bruises and a little stiffness. We will keep you updated on the delivery tomorrow. We are very excited...Emilee can't wait to sleep on her stomach again. She has been talking about it for a long time!

Our Christmas in a Nut Shell

Christmas this year has been a blast! D is finally to the age where he is understanding the idea of Christmas, Santa, and presents. We had the opportunity to see Santa twice this year. The first time, D didn't really care about Santa himself, but the display of reindeer and snowmen he had around him. The second time was at an extended family christmas party. He sat and talked with Santa for a very short period of time...then he just wanted the candy that he knew was the wrapped present Santa was holding for him. He took it out of his hand and jumped off!

Christmas Eve here at out house was fun also a lot of fun. My Mom, Dad and brother joined us. Unfortunately, we didn't have anyone from K's family here because we just had everyone down from Idaho for Thanksgiving. We made a delicious dinner and (smart as I am!!) made things for breakfast the next day that could be put in the refridgerator over night. All I had to do was pull out the breakfast caserol and pop it in the oven! Genius! No dishes to clean! After dinner we played games and enjoyed the evening. It was very nice not having to be somewhere or do something. My Mom made D a pair of Christmas pajamas that we let him open that night. At first, since they're clothes, we wasn't into them, until my Mom showed him she had a pair of twin pants. He was eager to put them on after that. Then we set out cookies for Santa and carrots for his reindeer on D's special chair we have just for this. D set the chair by the fire place. Usually when its time to go to bed, D is the type of kid that crys. Not this night! He knew from all the talk that Santa was coming...he gladly welcomed bed!

Christmas Morning, D has forgotten about Christmas, Santa and presents. When we reminded him that Santa has come, he was so excited and hopped and hopped and hopped! He was excited! He saw the plate of cookies and carrots and thought we needed to put more out for Santa and the reindeer. We had to explain that Santa only comes once a year. He didn't get that concept...he ran into out room this morning (that day after Christmas) and told us Santa had come. D was so good when we told him he had to wait a half hour or so for everyone to get ready to open presents. Of course, since he is the only child of ourselves, the only grandchild for 2 out of the 3 sets of grandparents, and the only nephew on one side of the family, he made a killing! D made it about 3/4 the way through his presents before he was done with opening and just wanted to play. As with most 2 year olds i'm sure, the toys were the hit. He wanted to play with each one immediately as they were opened. All clothes were held up and literally tossed to the side. Very boring according to him! For K and I, we kept Christmas small this year and it was great. It was kind of nice. We each put more thought into what we got eachother. Even baby A (who is still showing no signs of wanting to be born yet!) got a few presents...a blanket, and a soft teddy bear.