Wyatt's Birthday

Wyatt is 3 years old!  I love Wyatt so much, he is such a Mama's boy!  It can be hard, because he's almost always right next to me, but he's so cute!  Wyatt is still obsessed with his little brother Logan.  He kisses him, hugs him, rubs his head, and asks to hold him endlessly.  A few months ago Wyatt was evaluated by a Child Development Center and was found to be behind in a few places.  Since then we've had two ladies come to our house once a week to work with him a child development specialist and an occupational therapist.  He has grown so much in the last few months!  It's been a lot of fun to watch him play with them each week.  He'll be starting preschool at the end of the month and it will be fun to see the growth that comes from that.  Wyatt loves to sit and figure things out and see how things work.  He loves STEM toys the most.  He loves learning new things and trying to see how he can help me around the house.  Like by putting all of the clean baby blankets into the washer for me!  I think this year will be fun with Wyatt.
I wasn't planning on doing a party, just dinner and a cake because of my family being in town.  So the girls took it into their own hands and planned a party for Wyatt!  Three of my sisters were able to come up and spend the evening with us.  We ate dinner, had cake, opened presents, and played a game.  It was simple and fun!

Lehi Mini Vacation

A few weeks ago Louis and I were talking about the idea of doing some sort of local overnight vacation as a family.  We decided to go to Lehi, UT and go to the Museum of Natural Curiosity! 
We started out the day by stopping at a park and playing after a long two hours in the car.

Logan got to have his first ride in a swing and he enjoyed it!

After the park we headed to the museum, and had a quick picnic on the lawn before heading in.

We spent over three hours at the museum and I didn't take a single picture!  We were having too much fun!  I was uncertain if we should spend the money to go to the museum, I hate that parents have to pay to go in when it is a place clearly for children.  It ended up being worth it though, the kids all had so much fun!  We would definitely go back again.

This is after the museum, can you tell the kids were worn out?

After the museum we went and walked around Cabela's then got Chick-Fil-A to bring back to the hotel.  After eating we went swimming!  It was my favorite part of the whole weekend.  We had the whole pool to ourselves for an hour and it was a blast! 

At the end of the night when all of the kids were in bed Louis and I enjoyed some hot chocolate.  It's a tradition of ours to drink hot chocolate every time we stay at a hotel.

Sunday morning we decided to surprise Louis' brother's family at church.  We went to church with them and spent a few hours at their house afterwards.

This is Lydia and Logan, they are just over 2 months apart.

I think the most fun thing about the trip was that we kept everything a surprise from the kids!  In the morning we just said we were going to go to a park, they just didn't know it was going to be two hours away.  Then we told them we were going to the museum.  After we got Chick-Fil-A Louis said it was getting late so maybe we should just go to a hotel for the night.  The kids got so excited!  That night at the hotel Mary said to me "Thank you for this fun day!"

July Happenings

July was a busy month for us!  My parents came home from their mission, all of my siblings came into town, two of my sisters stayed at our house throughout the month (not at the same time), 4th of July, fireworks, the rodeo, Wyatt's birthday, Logan's baby blessing, family reunion, non stop fun!  I'm not sure where to start, I may just post a bunch of pictures with some descriptions underneath.

Sammy and Mary worked together to do a "Welcome Home" chalk art for Gram and Grandpa

Sarah was sweet enough and patient enough to let the kids help make cookies

My kiddos in their 4th of July attire

Evanston city does a super fun Independence Day Festival every year.  It has become our tradition to go every year and the kids have so much fun!  This was one of my favorite memories of the whole day.  Avery and Mary wanted to do this game where they stand on these pedestals and try to knock each other off.  It was hilarious to watch them try this because they could barely hold the bars up and reach far enough to hit each other.  In the end, Avery decided to throw her stick at Mary.  It worked!  Mary wasn't amused.

Ethan really wanted to try this obstacle course, I wasn't sure he would be able to climb to the top, but he did it!

The biggest highlight of the day for the girls was getting to ride in the paddle boat with their Dad!

Can you guess who did most of the work with peddling?

Louis' sisters Kami and Tif brought Avery, Mary, and Ethan to the rodeo here in Evanston.  

They had such a good time!  

Fireworks at Weber State with John and Courtney and Sarah and her girls

My girls have quite the knack for coming up with extravagant ideas.  In July they made big plans to open a bakery.  They named their bakery Cookies and Creamies Bakery.  We made giant chocolate chip cookies, muffins, and pie.  We were hosting dinner for some of my family that night and for dessert the girls opened the bakery.  I brought out the money I have for the girls' allowance and had people pay with that.  The girls were absolutely thrilled that people came to their bakery!

It was so much fun having Jessica stay with us, the kids all loved her!

While everyone was here my niece Madison was able to go through the temple.  

It was nice being able to be in the temple with a lot of my family.

We did a little weekend reunion with my family.  Louis always has to break out the hammocks!

We played a few minute to win it type games, this one I believe is called the elephant walk.

You put an orange down one leg of panty hose, put the top of the panty hose on your head and swing your head back and forth to knock over 6 water bottles.

This one is cookie face.  

You put an oreo on your forehead and use your face muscles to move it to your mouth!

We did a water fight to end the night

toe touch competition

Don's birthday was the next week so we surprised him with cake and a pinata

The last Sunday in July was my parent's mission report as well as Logan's baby blessing.

It was the most family we have had for a blessing I would say.

Big Phill and Lil' Phill (and Louis)

We're missing one person, so this is almost everyone from the blessing circle.

Clearly we had a busy busy month!  After everything from that month we were ready to get back to our regular schedule and routine and get ready for school to start at the end of August!  I am grateful for all of the memories that were made in July, hopefully they are ones that are remembered by my kids for years to come.

Hospital Stay

About a month ago I spent quite a while typing this story out, when I was done it wouldn't post.  The next day I got back on to see if it would post just to find that it had all somehow been deleted!  It was devastating after spending all that time working on it to see it gone.  So it has taken me a while to want to come back to type it up.
As most of you know, Logan had to stay a few extra days in the hospital after he was born.  This was due to low blood sugar levels.  We are grateful that the issue was discovered and taken care of.  On Saturday afternoon we were getting all ready to be discharged, they had taken Logan to do his screening in the nursery to make sure he was ready to go home.  They don't normally check blood sugar levels, but the wonderful nurse noticed that Logan was shaky every now and then and decided to check them.  Sure enough they were low!  This has the potential to cause a few problems and was something that needed to be monitored in the hospital.  I was still discharged, but was able to stay in my room with Logan while he was still there.
They didn't know what was causing the low blood sugar, sometimes it just takes babies a while to figure out how to regulate it on their own and they think that's what was going on with Logan.  So to begin they had me feed Logan every two hours instead of every three hours.  That was exhausting, especially doing that all through out the night.  I don't think I got more than 3 hours of sleep that night, and it was all broken up.  Along with feeding him every two hours they had me try to top him off with formula, at this point I honestly don't remember their reasoning for it.  During this time they also pricked the bottom of his foot every three hours to check his levels to see if they were going up.  After 24 hours of this Logan blood sugar levels still were not going up so the doctor had them put him on a glucose IV.
So on Sunday afternoon they took Logan back to the nursery and hooked him onto an IV.  It was very sad seeing him hooked up to an IV, but I knew I had to keep it all in and stay strong otherwise I would start crying, and with the sleep deprivation and crazy hormones who knows if I would have been able to stop!  (I did let myself have a good cry after leaving the hospital)  The plan was to have Logan on the IV for 24 hours and at that point slowly start weaning him off of it and see if he could keep his blood sugar levels up on his own.  All the while they were still pricking the bottom of his foot to check his levels.
It was a very hard time for me watching my newborn baby not doing as well as he should be.  On Sunday night Louis was able to call his coworker Mike, who lives nearby the hospital, to come help give Logan a blessing.  I am very grateful for the healing power of the Priesthood.  The blessing was able to give me some peace with the whole situation.
The IV was doing its job and brought his levels up.  Monday afternoon they started lowering the dosage and late Monday night they took the IV out.  After that Logan just had to keep his levels up for three consecutive readings, so over the course of 6 hours.  Thankfully he did keep his blood sugar levels up, and he was able to be discharged from the hospital Tuesday morning after 4 long days!  It was so good to finally be home with my family and to have Logan there with us.

He did look pretty cute in his hospital gown

Logan's sad little feet after being poked and poked to check his levels

Heading home

Logan Phillip Brandley-Birth Story

Friday morning I had a doctor appointment, I was hoping hoping hoping that I would have progressed enough for him to send me over to the hospital to be started. I had been at a 4 and 90% effaced the week before at my appointment. My doctor had mentioned that if I progressed any more he would probably send me to the hospital to be induced so we didn't chance me having the baby at home! That is what got me through that last week! Prayers are answered and I was to a 5 at my appointment! I texted Louis at work and told him to meet me at home and we would head over to the hospital. 

We got to the hospital around noon and got admitted around 12:30. I was group b strep positive so I needed to get 2 rounds of antibiotics given 4 hours apart before the baby was born. With my history of fast labors they decided to hold off on pitocin and just get the antibiotic started for now. I figured since we'd have the time and I'd never had one before, I'd ask about an epidural. The anesthesiologist came and talked to us telling us how everything worked and possible side effects and what not and I decided to go ahead with the epidural. (remember how I tried to get an epidural with Wyatt, but he came too fast?) I got the epidural done right before the pitocin was started just after 2:00. It went really well and it was amazing being able to rest the few hours before Logan arrived. My blood pressure did drop and it affected the baby's heart rate, I was put on oxygen and it did help. I was put on oxygen when I was in labor with Avery as well, and honestly it helps me relax more and helps the labor along. 

Just after 4:00 my doctor came in to check me and I was at a 9. He broke my water at 4:15 and left to fill out some paperwork. With the epidural it was harder to feel when the baby was coming, but we knew it was going to be pretty quick. After a few minutes I could feel the pressure of the baby coming and called the nurse in. Sure enough I was complete and ready to push. My doctor had just started heading out of the hospital and had to be called back. If I hadn't had the epidural, I'm not sure if he would have made it. It was a totally different thing pushing with an epidural compared to pushing unmedicated. I couldn't tell if what I was doing was effective or not. The nurses and doctor were great with coaching me though and after about 10 minutes of pushing (it would have been shorter, but Logan's shoulder got stuck) the baby was here! Born at 4:35, 7 lbs 15 oz, 21 inches long. He was a bit purple, but I was still able to hold him right away while they suctioned him and tried to get him breathing better. They took Logan to help him a bit more and get his coloring looking better. He was brought back to me and I was able to cuddle and nurse him.

We didn't get into the recovery room until about 7 that night so we waited until the day after Logan was born for the kids to come meet their brother.  I was most surprised with how interested and excited Ethan was about meeting him.  Ethan walked in the room first and came right over to me holding Logan to check him out.  The girls were of course excited, Mary said "He's so cute I just can't look at him anymore!"  Wyatt mostly liked exploring the hospital room, but did check Logan out for a little bit.  They all love their little brother though and I know it's going to be lots of fun having him in our family.

This labor/delivery was different from my others in a few ways. I'd never been induced before, I'd never had an epidural, and I've never had a baby in the p.m. all my others have been in the a.m. hour!  We all love Logan and are grateful he came to complete our family.

Click here to read Avery's birth story

Click here to read Mary's birth story

Click here to read Ethan's birth story

Click here to read Wyatt's birth story