Our New Baby Boy!!!

It's a Boy! Born December 22, 2008
Jason Trevor Strupp
8 lbs. 15 oz.
23 inches

I am so grateful that everything went well and we have a healthy baby boy! He's such a good little guy--I don't know what I did to deserve such good babies. I know he's only a few days old, so I shouldn't count my chickens or anything. But so far he's been the best little baby anyone could ask for.

Here's the story. If you don't want all the gory details, you should skip to the pictures.

It seems I always start having some contractions each night a few days before delivery, so I wasn't too alarmed when I did Sunday night (again) and figured I would go to bed to see if I could sleep through them. I did. At least I did until 2 am and they started getting too close together that I couldn't go back to sleep inbetween. So I got up and decided to finish my laundry and pack my bag, etc. This went on until about 3:30 am when I decided I should probably wake Trevor up and we should go. The contractions seemed really close together and I didn't want to miss my epidural window :) So I woke Trevor up and told him we should go to the hospital. "Why?" he asks. Funny. He was half asleep though.

So we go and they make sure I'm in labor, etc. etc. but I was only dialated to 5. The nurses call my doctor who tells them he is going on vacation in 5 hours and wants me delivered by then. So he told them to hook my up to some pitocin to hurry this along and he was going to come break my water. This from a doctor who wouldn't induce me until 41 weeks. Oh well, I'm fine with hurrying along the delivery. So, we did all that, and I finally got an epidural. Which worked INCREDIBLY well, by the way. Then Jason was born at 8:06 am.

Here is Jason's first picture:


The kids were SO excited to come see their new little brother. They've been so helpful with getting me diapers, binkies, change of clothes, etc. And they always fight over who gets to hold him. I know, this picture of me is really becoming. I would photoshop myself out if I knew how, or at least make the pregnant nose (why do noses get so fat there at the end? or maybe it always looks like this? Yikes.) and remaining belly smaller. But since I can't, here's reality:





Now, I took this picture a few days before having the baby (3 days actually) because people keep asking to see pregnant pictures. It's always fun to look at such a spectacle as Pregnant Kim. I wasn't planning on posting it after seeing what I looked like--but since I had the baby and am no longer pregnant, I changed my mind. So here it is, Kim at 39 weeks pregnant:

Christmas!!

I wanted to post this Christmas Post below the "Baby Boy" post so the other post was the first thing to see :) So, it's just a little out of chronological order.

Anyway, we had a WONDERFUL Christmas. My mom and dad(stepdad) came to be here for me when the baby was born. They brought Amanda and Brett and their little boy (also Jason :) ) So we had a full house and SUCH a fun time! I was really excited to be home from the hospital on Christmas Eve to spend with the family.

We woke up and got our stockings:



Opened presents--not a whole lot of pictures of the mayhem--but we did get one after with all of us by the (dead)tree:



And Jason slept through it all (don't ask me why this is turned 90 degrees?):

Hailey's Birthday

Ah, the business that was November. Somebody told me once (no names...) that they hate it when people update their blogs and post a bunch of posts at once. So...sorry :) There are 3 posts that I was going to put into one huge one. But I didn't want to shrink my pictures and they won't all fit into one post. It takes a whole extra 30 seconds.

Anyway, keep reading after this post.




So, the end of November was Hailey's 4th Birthday. I can't believe how old my kids are getting! It's so much fun watching them learn and grow.

I signed up to have the missionaries for dinner and didn't realize until I got home that it was also Hailey's birthday. But it turned out well--she thought we were having a birthday party for her and she loves the elders. I hope that was ok with them that we sprung a birthday party on them. One day when I'm an energetic and motivated mother, I'll have a REAL birthday party. With kids and all. As for now, she didn't seem to mind it was just the family...and the missionaries.

As for this picture:


I'm a little apprehensive to let you all in on a little secret. I am now a follower of the Twilight series.

At first I didn't want to read them because I had heard what they were about and it didn't really sound like my thing. But then a bunch of girls from my ward asked me if I wanted to come see the movie with them and I thought it might be a fun ladies night out kind of thing. So I went.

I liked the movie, there were mixed reviews. We were all talking about it on the way home and I said something like: I should read the books sometime. To which my friend replied that she would lend them to me when we got to her house. What could it hurt?

I started reading TWILIGHT the next day. I don't know that I put the books down after that. Poor, neglected family. It is pretty fast reading--but I think it took me like 6 days to read all 4. They were surprisingly good! TO any of you who haven't given them a chance: you should try it. I guess it's more of a girl thing, though. I know some guys like them, but my husband wouldn't and I know my brother didn't.

Anyway, that's a picture of the girls I went to the movies with. Good times. So thanks to all of you for taking me!

Again with the house

I know, I know. Who cares what home improvements we're embarking on now? I do. So you all have to sit through it and compliment me at the end on what a good job we're doing :)

We started painting the exterior of our house. It turned into being a much bigger job than I had imagined...like Trevor told me. Don't tell him he's right though :) But we finally finished it and I'm so proud. I got to help on this project again--hence, the proudness.

Here are a few pictures:


This is a picture of when the house was all powerwashed. It looks HORRIBLE. Don't worry, that's not what it looked like before the washing--but the paint was REALLY peeling and so we wanted to powerwash, sand and scrape, etc. Then prime (the white that's done in this picture.



Here's an after picture of our painting job. I know--it's pretty much the same color. But I'm so original I figured it would be easier to cover if we went with the same color, but nothing too dark so we didn't have to use two coats. We may as well have, because we had to prime the whole house anyway. Oh, and Trevor doesn't think the trim is dark enough or that there is enough contrast. But I'm not about to redo it.



Trevor took this picture because he got a bunch of slack from the neighbors for letting me climb up on the scaffolding when I was 8 months pregnant. Bunch of whiners. Plus, Trevor had no say in it. In his defense, he tole me I shouldn't be up there--but what's he going to do about it when he's at work? Don't worry, I was REALLY careful and it was REALLY stable scaffolding. Trevor's friend from work had his dad drive it to us from Tulsa. It's like 4 hours from here! We don't even know his dad, just drove it down for us. There are some nice people in this world.

The Wildlife Refuge with Grandma and Grandpa Strupp

Trevor's parents came to visit us in November--I have just been a little too busy and preoccupied to post all these new posts. So...bare with me.

We took Trevor's parents to a few places around town. We had a LOT of fun, although they were probably bored out of their minds because we live in such an exciting place...they even kept begging me to let them help us finish painting our house. I couldn't let them do that on THEIR VACATION. Plus, I was having fun doing it. So I declined. We were so glad they were able to come visit. I hope they felt like it was a restful vacation even though my kids would NOT leave them alone!


Hailey and Ashley on Mount Scott. Overlooking the lake.



At the wildlife refuge, feeding the groundhogs. They were pretty tame, as you can see--they would come up and eat from our hands!


There are other animals like buffalo, longhorn cows, etc. to see on the refuge. But feeding the groundhogs was the highlight :)

Tagged

Ok, I've been tagged by a couple people--one was "Six Random Things About Me" and one was "Seven Random Things About Me". I'll pick six :) So, here goes:

Six Random Things About Me:

1- I don't like shopping. I already used this for one post a year ago. But it still remains true.

2- I've self diagnosed myself with adult ADD. Not really..but sometimes I start a story and get off on tangents and totally forget about the point of the story in the first place. And I don't like long movies because they're too painful to sit through. Also used in a previous "tag" post of mine. Maybe I should just go back and copy that one...

3- I've recently found I really love to paint. Not art painting, I'm just not that creative. But house painting. I painted our house (inside) a couple years ago when we bought this house--because then I found I could help with the whole "remodel". But that was less fun because the house was freezing (middle of winter, furnace didn't work yet) and it was late at night (we were living in a rental while we fixed up this house--Trevor would work on the house during the day, and I would go paint when he got back at night.)

Anyway, the point is--we're painting the outside of our house now. It's taking way longer than expected and it's kindof a long story--but when Tyler's at school and the girls are taking a nap, I go and paint outside. It's such beautiful weather and I feel like I'm accomplishing something. It's kind of therapeutic.

4- I like country music. I guess that's a random thing. I like other music too, but I started listening to country when I worked at Hallmark and they played it all day long. Good stuff.

5- Ok, only two more to go. Hmm. I make my husband take me to all the Christmas Balls the military has. Actually, we've been two years in a row. They were both stupid. So maybe not this year. Plus, I would look like a cow (a pregnant one--I might need that tent, Paige :) )

6- My husband has more shoes than me. This isn't saying anything about my husband having a shoe fettish--because he doesn't. I just don't have a lot of shoes because I think they take up too much room in my closet...and it probably goes back to the not liking shopping thing.

So, there it is. Six random things (sorry I couldn't come up with any more interesting tidbits...) I don't know who to tag either, so if you feel like sharing...feel free :)

Halloween

Halloween was a lot of fun this year. We had a ward Fall Party where the kids got to play lots of games and do a little trick or treating inside the church.

On Halloween night we went trick or treating--I know, if anyone pays a lot of attention to what they dress up as every year, you'll notice it's the same as last (well, Tyler was a power ranger 2 years ago) but it was their idea. Tyler and Hailey's costumes are a little small, but they wanted to squeeze one more year out of them.

It was really fun taking them trick or treating. The kids wanted to go trick-or-treating with some friends, so we had the Jones over to our neighborhood. They ended up watching my kids the whole night while I was in the back of the pack slowly moving along with Ashley. :)

Trevor decided he would have some Halloween fun and decorated our garage. It looked really cool but I couldn't find any really good pictures of it, so this will have to do.




This is the front, there's a door cut on either side to walk in and out.



Inside the garage there was like a "U" shape walkway where you walk past a scary looking dummy, then to Trevor for the candy and then out.

In the center of the "U" he had a graveyard with some tombstone's, skulls, ghosts, etc. etc.

Oh, and to top it all off, he had a fogger to fill the garage...but not just any fogger. He made a cooler with a tube to "chill" the fog before it entered the garage. Apparently this is supposed to keep the fog low. It looked pretty cool, but I do like to tease him when he gets ideas like these.

It was a big hit with the neighborhood kids, but in hindsight--I should've stuck around to stand outside and give candy to those poor tiny scared kids. Some are just too young for that. I know my kids were always scared at houses even remotely scary. Oh well, next year if Trevor decides to do it again, I'll remember to stick around for the little ones.