We went to Lagoon on Saturday with Jared's family. We decided not to bring Kairi and I'm glad because it just rained the whole day. Kaden went on a few rides: Odysea, a car ride, and the merry-go-round. He seemed a bit too small to go on anything else. If we go next year we'll take him on a lot more and maybe Kairi could go on some too.

I bought Kaden this pool a while ago and never felt like it was warm enough for him to use. I've been sad because the weather has been so rainy lately and I wanted to let him swim. Jared thought Friday was warm enough so he used a couple of 5 gallon jugs to fill it with warm water from inside. Kaden loved playing and was sad when he had to get out. I can't wait to let him play in it again.

We decided to get a couple new fish and do a complete makeover on the fish tank.  I had Rich and Morgan help out to drain and clean out the tank and then we filled it back up with all new rocks, a volcano and dragon. The volcano lights up and the top part changes colors as bubbles come out of the top.  We had all the fish in some buckets sitting on the counter and one of our biggest ones that we got from Jamie jumped out of the bucket and landed on the kitchen floor.  I was gone to the pet store when this happened but Allie said there was some blood and she figured the fish was dead.  She decided to pick it up and put it back in the pot and he seems to be doing fine now, but I picked up another of the same fish while I was at the pet store just in case.  Here are pictures of the new stuff.

I pierced Kairi's ears today. I was going to wait and make it her choice when she was older. . . but I just couldn't wait. I figured she would end up doing it anyway, so why not now. I remember growing up wishing mine were pierced, and I hated wearing the clip-ons, they hurt my ears.  She seemed to take it pretty well. Of corse I felt like a horrible mom after hearing her cry, but she stopped within a few minutes. She fell asleep on the way home and when she woke up she was happy and smiling. They look so cute on her. There are more pictures in the gallery.

I have been playing around with a photo editing program and think I'm finally getting the hang of it. I'm probably doing everything the hard way, but at least I'm getting the results I was looking for. This is the first picture I edited. I'm excited to do more.

And here's a cute one of Madrox I just did.

Kairi's Birth Story

    I knew I wanted to have another baby shortly after having Kaden. Jared and I had planned on having two and I wanted them close together. We found out early June 2008 that we were going to have another baby to look forward to. The due date was March first and I decided early on that I didn't want to find out what the gender was. Being our last, I wanted it to be a surprise. I was hoping for a girl, but would have been just as happy with another boy.

    Morning sickness came along faster than I remembered. Luckily it wasn't nearly as bad as last time and only lasted a couple of weeks. Having Kaden around made the pregnancy go by quicker. He kept my mind on other things and before I knew it I was already at 20 weeks. I decided to do the routine ultrasound just to be sure everything looked ok. I made sure to tell them I didn't want to know the gender. I also decided to just schedule another C-section. I figured I might as well since this is my last. So I set a date for Feb 25th.

    The second trimester flew by as fast as the first. But the third started dragging. Kaden liked being picked up a lot and it was putting a lot of stress on my back trying to take care of him. Thankfully he learned how to walk and that helped out a lot. They checked the baby's heart-rate at ever check-up, and it too was lower than usual. They wanted me to be monitored a few times, I had to explain that Kaden's was low as well and I didn't think it was anything to be concerned about.

    It was finally February. Jared and I knew for sure that we would name the baby Kairi if it was a girl, we'd had the name picked out long before we even had Kaden As for a boy, I made the decision up to Jared and he still didn't have anything picked out. I made many suggestions but nothing really stuck.

    A week and a half before my scheduled C-section Kaden came down with a cold. Which he got over pretty quickly, but I ended up catching it from him. I woke up Feb 16th feeling the worst I had in my life. I had a terrible cough and could barely get out of bed and Jared had to go into work. I knew I couldn't watch Kaden so I had Jared's mom come get him to take care of him for the day. I went back to bed but the coughing was putting a lot of stress on my stomach and I started having contractions. I decided to time them since they weren't going away. They were 10 min apart and had been going for at least 2 hours. I knew that wasn't close enough to be real labor, but decided to call Labor and Delivery anyway since the contractions were so consistent. They told me to come in to be monitored just incase. So I called Jared and told him to come home early so he could go with me.

    On the way to the hospital I told Jared he should decide on a boy name incase the baby came that day. I didn't really expect that to happen, but my C-section was scheduled in a week and he needed to pick a name anyway. He told me he liked the name Luke. It wasn't my favorite but I was ok with it. I was pretty sure we were having a girl anyway. The whole pregnancy just felt different. I had less nausea, very different cravings, and was much more emotional. I couldn't wait to find out if I was right.

    When we got to Labor and Delivery they hooked me up to a monitor for an hour. I was starting to feel a lot better by then, I was still having contractions but they were getting further apart. I was sure they would send me home after the first hour. But they didn't. I was having really bad lower back pain, they suspected a kidney infection (. . .I don't know why) so they decided to a urinalysis. Which, after another hour waiting, the results came back clean, as I knew they would. They said they were going to send me home and started getting the paperwork for me to sign. Then after another 30 min they came back in with the Doctor and said they noticed the baby's heart rate dropping every time I had a contraction (I don't know why it took them almost 3 hours to notice this). They told me they wanted to do the C-section now. I was very unprepared, but was just as excited. I was dying to meet my little one and finally know whether I was having a Kairi or a Luke. Jared called his mom and let her know, and we made sure we had someone to watch Kaden the next few days.

    They got me hooked up to an IV and everything and took me into the OR where they gave me an epidural. Things went a lot smoother than I remembered with Kaden. When they started to deliver the baby they asked if we were ready to know what it was. Of corse we were, I had been waiting about nine months to find out. When they finally said "It's a girl" Jared and I smiled to each other and I felt an overwhelming feeling of joy. I was so happy to have my little girl, I knew it the whole time, but actually hearing the words made it real. It gave me a feeling of completion, knowing I now have my perfect little boy and precious baby girl. They wrapped her up and actually let me see her for a few moments before taking her away with her dad.

    After stitching me up they took me to my room. I was expecting Jared to be there but he wasn't, after what felt like hours he finally came in and said they were doing tests on Kairi. She had fluid in her lungs but otherwise was fine. They brought her in to be with me and I couldn't wait to hold her. She was so tiny and perfect. I had them take her back to the nursery for the night and just bring her in when she needed to eat so I could get some sleep. I was still feeling very sick and had a terrible cough so I thought it was best. Halfway through the night the came in and told me they decided to put her in the NICU because of the fluid in her lungs, and they wanted to put her on antibiotics which took 48 hrs to fully administer. I got to go home the next morning, but Kairi had to stay another night to finish the antibiotics. Everything went well though and she came home the next morning a very healthy baby.

With allies last post, it got me thinking that it would be nice to have a website for each of the kids and document their lives with text and pictures in a timeline fashion.  I have created the websites for them and will work on creating the pages to put up, but until then be sure to bookmark their pages which are

Kaden
kaden.triptows.com

Kairi
kairi.triptows.com

I decided to write up a description of Kaden's birth story - how things went through pregnancy and when he was born and some of my feelings as I experienced it all. So years from now I can look back and remember what happened, as I'm sure as I get older I wont be able to recall exactly how things went. And I'm sure Kaden will be interested in knowing as well. I'll write one up for Kairi too.

Kaden's Birth Story

    Christmas 2006, Jared and I decided we finally wanted to start a family. We found out early February 2007 that I was pregnant. We were very excited with this being our first. The due date was October 16th. Nine months seemed like forever to wait. The first few weeks were great but I began to get terrible morning sickness later that month which lasted up to the beginning of May.

    14 weeks into the pregnancy we decided to go to Fetal Fotos to do a gender ultrasound, and found out we were having a boy. We had been going over names for a few months but couldn't really agree on any for a boy. Hayden was on the top of my list but we were still undecided. Jamie; at the time, was thinking about naming her boy Kaden. Jared loved that name and decided if Jamie didn't go with Kaden then that would be the name for out little boy, otherwise we would go with Hayden.

    We went in for our 20 week ultrasound June 19th and found out our little Kaden was going to be born with a cleft lip. We didn't really know what to think at first, we never expected anything like this to happen, but we couldn't really be sure of anything until our follow-up ultrasound the next week. They did a 3D ultrasound and confirmed that he had a unilateral cleft lip on his left side, they couldn't tell us anything about his palate until he was born. Jared and I were very sad and I cried about it, but shortly after we both knew it wouldn't matter in the end, we would still love him just the same.

    Early September at nine months, Jared, Shawn, Tonya, and I went to a park to drive RC cars, and we were walking across wet grass when I slipped and fell on my stomach. I started having small contractions and was very scared that I may have hurt Kaden. We went to Labor and Delivery at the hospital and they monitored him for an hour. Everything turned out fine and we were very relieved.

    When I started going in for my weekly check-ups, they would tell us every visit that Kaden's heart-rate seemed a bit low. At one time they were so concerned they sent me to be monitored for an hour to make sure everything was ok. They decided Kaden just naturally had a low heart-rate.

    October finally came and I was very anxious to meet Kaden. Sleeping and walking was very uncomfortable and I was hoping everyday that he would just come. My doctor told me if he didn't come by the 23rd then I could be induced. Kaden's due date came and went and I was getting very impatient.

    On the morning of the 18th I started feeling contractions stronger than I had before and didn't think much of it at first. But I started having them more often as the day went by and I knew the time was coming. It wasn't until 11PM that night that I decided we needed to pack up our things and go to the hospital. I was put on a monitor for an hour when we got there, but I wasn't making any progress and they decided to send me home with some pain medication.

    I was very tired and decided to try sleeping, hoping the medication would help with the pain. It did nothing. I got maybe an hour sleep total and at 4AM decided we needed to go back. I was put on the monitor again for another hour and was dilated to a 1. They decided to keep me and walked me to a delivery room.

    The contractions were terrible and I wanted my epidural. They hooked me up to another monitor and an IV and I had to wait an hour for the IV to drain before I could get the epidural. It was around 7AM when I finally got it and I was happy, but I started getting uncontrollable shakes, a side effect from the epidural. They continued monitoring me and waited for me to further progress, I was dilated up to a 7 and a half and they told me Kaden's heart-rate was gradually going down. They put me on oxygen and did what they could to get it to go back up but it didn't seem to help and decided it was best to do a C-section before anything got worse.

    So they increased my epidural until I was close to blacking out and rushed me to the operating room. Jared was there with me a minute later. I could barely keep my eyes open and felt a lot of pressure on my stomach. At 9:13AM October 19th my little Kaden was lifted into the world. I couldn't see him but was told he had a full head of hair. I heard his cries as they handed him to his dad and I started to cry too. Kaden's first cries were the most wonderful sound I'd ever heard as the realization came to me. . . I was a mommy.

    I didn't get a chance to see him until the next day when I could get up and walk around. He had been taken to the NICU for having fluid in his lungs and he was not eating very well. He was given antibiotics and put on oxygen for a few days. His eating was not improving and they decided to put in a feeding tube. Kaden was in the NICU for a week and a half and I visited him twice a day when I couldn't stay at the hospital any longer. They decided to send him home on Halloween. He still had the tube, but once being home his eating greatly improved and it was removed a week later. I don't think it was really necessary to keep him in the NICU for so long. He just needed his mommy's love and attention.

I am working on allowing for comments on the news posts so everyone can easily post comments about what we post here.  I will also be making a news archive system but that wont be done for a while, ive been SOO busy lately and have not had much time for anything.  I have thought about adding a forum on here, but only if people will want to use it. Go to the contact us page and let me or allie know if you would post on the forum.

I LOVE YOU ALLIE!!!

Today is mine and Jared's 5 year wedding Anniversary. Five years already? I guess when I really think about it, five years does feel about right, it's just gone by so fast. Jared is deffinately the love of my life, aside from the two beautiful children we have together, and I'm very proud to be his wife.

On another note, I'm done with the playroom. I just got sick of painting so I decided it's done. I finished up around the jeep and did some touch-ups around the trim. So here's the finished project. There are more images from further back in the gallery.