Random pics of Evie

Evie's first bath...

First nap in Mama and Dada's bed...

Showing off her long legs...

             


Showing us her cute pink outfit and bow...

Bright eyed and bushy tailed...

Christmas 2011

Here are a few snapshots of Christmas morning at the Thayer house.

Samuel opening presents from Grammy and Grandpa and our neighbor...

 

Samuel and Brian after opening stocking stuffers.  Samuel shows us the meaning of "bed head"...

Mama helping Evie with her stocking...

Dada showing us one of Evie's presents...

Evie crashed about half way through opening presents.  That's hard work for a 2-week old...

Dan showing us one of the many books he got for Christmas...

Danny's helping Samuel with the toy he got him...

Baby tanning bed

When Samuel got dangerously high jaundice, the doctor explained it was because his and my blood type were incompatible - in short our red blood cells were fighting.  So one of the first things we asked when Evie was born was for her blood type to be checked ASAP.  Sure enough she and I are incompatible also, so hospital staff were on alert from the get-go to be on the lookout for jaundice. 

By the end of day one she was already showing signs of it, so we got her into a bili-bed right away.  Her levels kept going up, although not as bad as Samuel's since she was under photo therapy lights a full day sooner.  We were released from the hospital on Wednesday with a home bili-bed and instructions to have blood work done Thursday.  Sure enough, her levels continued to increase. Friday she had a checkup with her pediatrician and we had blood work done again.  Her doctor called us a few hours later telling us it had gotten too high and she need to be admitted to the hospital for stronger photo therapy.  I packed a bag knowing we'd be in the hospital for at least a few days and Evie and I got checked into the hospital Friday night around 7pm.  Here's Evie in her baby tanning bed...



Since we caught her jaundice quickly and it never got dangerously high, we opted to have her admitted to Jefferson Regional Medical Center in Festus, which is only 50 minutes from home, versus a hospital in St. Louis that is an hour and a half away.  Her pediatrician's office is also right across the street so they came in to check up on her each day.  Initially her jaundice went up a little, but by Saturday night it started going down and continually did.  By Tuesday morning, she was well below the danger zone and we were discharged.  Thank goodness for modern technology!

This little piggie went to the market...

Our hogs have been a challenge this year.  Not really the hogs themselves, but rather transporting them.  Back in April, when Dan was hooking up the trailer to go to auction, the truck got stuck in the mud and took us a week to get it out.

Fast forward to the beginning of this month when it was time to take the hogs to the meat processor, the same truck blew it's transmission.  So we were scrambling to find a truck to haul them in.  Good 'ole U-haul to the rescue!

Next, we had to find a larger trailer.  Six hogs-worth of customers replied that they were ready for their orders, which is how many hogs we can haul in our trailer.  The day before Dan was to leave, we had 3 more hogs-worth of customers say they were ready.  Dan went to talk to our neighbor who raises cattle and he was gracious enough to let us borrow his larger stock trailer.

Our hogs pasture a little ways from the house, and it hadn't rained in a while, so Dan hooked the trailer to the U-haul and backed it down to the hogs.  Of course, it was wet enough and got stuck.  So in the pitch dark, Dan hooked our tractor up to the U-haul and got it unstuck and finished backing it up to the hog loading area.  Unfortunately, right as he did this, it starting pouring rain, so loading of the hogs would have to wait for morning and we'd have to hope for the best to get the U-haul and trailer out of the soggy pasture.

Early the next morning, with it still raining, Dan went out to assess the damage.  Sure enough we had a soggy, muddy pasture.  Dan called our awesome neighbor, Sam, and asked if he could help us, since me being 9-months pregnant was of little help.  Sam came to the rescue.  With Dan pulling with the tractor and Sam driving the U-haul, they got out of the pasture with no issues.  Here's what the caravan looked like:

Fortunately, the 2-hour drive to the meat processor was uneventful and he made it home without incident.  With that said, we now need to replace our truck since we've decided we don't want to put $2500 into the truck to fix the transmission.  So, if anyone out there is looking for a parts truck, let us know! :)

Evelyn Elizabeth Thayer

I was scheduled to be induced on 12/12/11 because 1) it was easier to plan for Samuel's care since he's diabetic and 2) the last ultrasound at 38 weeks showed Evie was getting pretty big.  The weekend prior to being induced was pretty miserable.  I had severe cramping and spent most of the weekend on the couch, although I had cramping through much of my pregnancy, so I wasn't too concerned.

We arrived at the hospital at 5:30am.  After a quick exam, they asked if I'd had any contractions over the weekend.  I told them 'no', only cramping.  Turns out the cramping were contractions because I was already dilated 4cm.  They decided to go ahead and induce since there was no telling how long it had taken to get to 4cm.  At 11am, they broke my water to speed things along.  I was dilated to 10cm around 3pm, but they wanted to wait to see if the baby would drop more on her own.  After a long, slow day (even the nurses and my doc though my labor would progress much quicker), they had me start pushing around 5:45pm.  After just one push, Evie decided it was time to make her appearance - a little too quickly though because my doctor wasn't there yet.  They called my doc (who is in a medical building attached to the hospital) and the nurses were doing everything they could to get Evie to stay put.  My doctor came running into the room, huffing and puffing from taking the stairs so he didn't have to wait for the elevator.  It was a pretty funny sight.  They had him in his delivery gear in no time, had me push once or twice more and Evie came into the world at 6pm sharp.  She was 8lb,12oz and measured 22 inches long (although her first checkup at 5 days old showed she was only 20 1/2 inches).

I'll spare you the pictures of her right after she was born, because, well... babies right after they're born are kind of gross.  So here is a pic of Evie at 17 hours old...



The cute little Santa hats are made by hospital volunteers for babies born near Christmas time.

First ice storm

We had our first ice storm back at the end of November.  It was really weird because St. Louis (1 hour north of us) didn't get any at all.  And South of us, didn't either.  It was just a narrow strip of a storm that came through our county.  Here are a couple of icy pics...

Old Iron Days

Every fall a craft festival is held about an hour from us called Old Iron Days.  It's an old-timey festival held at Maramac Springs State Park showcasing how things were done centuries ago... blacksmithing, glass blowing, basket making, corn brooms, sorghum, etc. It's a fun event to just browse around and talk to the craftsman.   The weather was perfect for the event this year!


Here's Samuel getting a ride on Dada's shoulders...

We also watched sorghum stalks being crushed by a mule to extract the cane juice and then boiled down into molasses…

I also picked up this cute handmade corn broom that a craftsman was making at the festival...





It's a small event, but we have a lot of fun.  It's also at one of the prettiest State Parks we've been to, so we'll definitely keep going back.

How time flies...

Well, I've gone and done it again.  Two weeks have passed and I've not done a single blog post.  I've had the best intentions.  Really, I have.  I've even started a post a time or two, but then something comes up.  It's been a crazy couple of weeks...

We had to get 9 hogs to the meat processor last week when our hauling truck's transmission decided to blow.  We had to scramble to get a rental truck to haul the hogs, which wasn't fun at the last minute. Not to mention borrow a bigger trailer the evening before because several people didn't tell us until last minute that they were ready for their orders.  I'll be sure to do a seperate post on this!

And then there's the fact that I'm 9-months pregnant, so I'm trying to get a bunch of loose ends tied up - food made and froze, Samuel's gear packed and ready to go, house clean, Christmas tree up, blah, blah, blah.

Last but not least, I work all day.  Thankfully, yesterday was my last day before starting maternity leave.  I have a few days to finish up before I'm induced on Monday, assuming little girl doesn't decide to come before then.  Thank goodness for 3-months of paid maternity leave.  What a huge blessing!

This is where a lot of people would say "I'm not trying to make excuses, but...".  But I really am so I'll just fess up to it and tell you that I'll get on the ball and gets some posts done soon.