I love to see the Temple!

If you ask David and I how we have felt about being stationed at FLW, Missouri you will hear every time that we love it but we don't like being so far from the temple and airport. We will never take for granted living in a city with a temple again. We have made a diligent effort to go often even though it's a 4 hour round trip day. Most temple trips we would switch off and just take turns inside.

 We went the last week of April and I took the kids on a walk around the grounds. Really after being in a car for two hours they just wanted to run and play. So I took them to a grass field on the grounds and let them run their hearts out.

 As they were running and playing I looked up at the temple and felt so grateful to know they are mine for eternity because of the temple and the priesthood.

 On another Gospel note... I asked for new scriptures for my birthday. I've had these scriptures for over 10 years. I got them a few months before I entered the MTC. They have been loved and it's going to be so hard to switch to brand new fresh clean pages without all my notes and highlights.

It's a new chapter with new scriptures that finally have Jacobson on them! The church is true!!

Once upon a time...

We became a family of 7 and actually documented it! Easter morning David was sick but the rest of us were dolled up so I begged him to put on a suit and snap a picture with us.

 5 kids! How did this happen??

 And oh how we will miss these Missouri cousins!!

March

I couldn't let March go by without a blog post and definitely without a picture. 

Hannah loves to make Scotty laugh and "coo".

I have other pictures but if I wait till I upload them I wont ever do it. So here's an update on the last month or so. Scotty is 8 weeks tomorrow and can I just say 5 kids seems like so many more than 4? Even just sitting in the living room during FHE I feel like they've multiplied somehow. The kids have been extremely helpful. Ashton is constantly throwing away diapers and all the girls including Lucy have become great at putting the binky back in his mouth whenever they hear him cry. It's been especially gratifying to see all the older ones choose to be great helpers on a regular basis and to feel so invested in how Scotty is doing.

Since I last blogged we had a visit from my parents, David's parents (and Aunt Boo), the stomach flu that hit everyone except Hannah & I, and Scotty caught RSV. It was a miracle he was not hospitalized and his 6 week old little body managed to fight it off on his own. I don't think life will ever slow down from here and I hope it doesn't. I love these kids. I even find it humorous that Mallie is writing her name on everything she can find (ie walls and tables) because she has her redeeming moments when she yells Mommy every time I pick her up from preschool. I love that Lucy is starting to talk and always gives the blue binkies to Scotty. I love that Hannah keeps telling me she wants to grow up and be a mom just like me. I love that Ashton runs out the school doors and through the pack of kids every single day to give me a hug. I love this mothering gig so much that I can forget everything else that makes it exhausting. I love my partner in all this who came to teach part of Sunbeams with me today and got on the ground in his suit and pretended to be an egg hatching into a chic while I nursed Scotty.

I have had so many moments lately where I look around at all of us in the same room and say to myself, "this is it - this is as good as it gets!" And you know what? It absolutely is.

Originally I ended the blog post there but this picture was sent to us from a friend on our ward. The USO on post has a family game night once a month where they serve dinner and all sorts of activities for the kids. On Friday night they served breakfast for dinner there were breakfast and donuts galore and our photographer friend caught this picture of Lucy. We've taken to calling her "poncho" lately because she always seems to have food in her hands. My Dad especially will love this picture as she won him over while they were here and he'd give her pretty much anything her little heart desired and this picture captures her in all her glory. Lucy continues to be one of the easiest happiest little kids I've ever met and has adjusted to the big sister role seamlessly.

18 months and 2 weeks

These two were 2 weeks and 18 months respectively in this picture.

Lucy really loves Scotty. So much in fact that she tries to poke his eyes, take his binkies, roll him over and take him out of his swing on a regular basis. We try to keep her as far away from him as possible.

I want to document Lucy at 18 months. She is still the mellowest kid we have. She is very self sufficient and has the "just happy to be here" mentality. After a meal she gets out of her high chair and climbs immediately on top of the table to see what she missed out on. She's so darn cute so we let her just climb on top and eat everyone's scraps. She has a two word vocabulary, "Daaaah" for David and "Bup" for up. She gets her point across with pointing, facial expressions, and doing the grabbing motion. She is my only child so far that I'm not ready to send to nursery at church because I still feel like she's just so little. Don't worry I'll still put her in there... I just feel like she is SO little! She really is the best little girl. Happy 18 months Lu!

First Pictures

Here's the obligatory first picture of baby and Mom. I think I am still thinking at this point that that was a crazy delivery.

David holding him for the first time. It's fuzzy pictures like this that made me wish I had brought a real camera. None the less you can see how happy David is.

The kids the next day. My friend said I should label this one "5th child problems".

 If Scotty ever doubts how much he was wanted I'll show him this picture.

Speaking of loved... I catch David doing this often. He still can't believe he has another boy!

I love this little squished face boy.

The first few kids never got to come in our bed. This guy basically lives there. As you can see we all adore Scotty!

Scotty's Birth Story

It's long and will make David cringe because I'm too lazy to go through and edit it. Enjoy!

I usually get a cold between the 36-38 week mark. So right on schedule after the influenza left our house I caught the lingering cold that Mallie and David had post flu. On Sunday night, Feb 2nd, we unwisely decided we should let Lucy cry it out because she had been waking up teething and wanting Tylenol for the past few nights. So Sunday night we didn't get to sleep till about 1:30pm coupled  with being congested and coughing it was a bad night for me. We both woke up exhausted and David called in sick for the first half of the day. I remember at 6:30am waking up to a contraction that hurt like crazy and thinking to myself, "I'm not physically or emotionally prepared for a baby today - I'm getting an epidural if this is going down today." I was so tired from a bad night of sleep and from being sick I didn't even want to think about having a baby. I took the kids to school and came home and went back to sleep for an hour.
I packed up the girls at 3:30pm to pick up Ashton and was talking to Jodie and Emily in the parking lot telling them I was totally cranky and that Emily would probably have to watch the kids that night. At this point I didn't think I was really in labor I thought I was just being funny about my bad mood. So I took the kids home started feeding them a snack and Ashton asked to play the dot to dot game in his coloring book. After 20 minutes of drawing lines, a score of 47 to 43 boxes and a few hard contractions later I put on a tv show for the kids. David walked in the house for all of 2 minutes to grab something for a 4:30 meeting and headed out the door. I thought about mentioning the contractions but I wasn't sure if it was the real deal. So I said, "hi and goodbye" without a second thought.
The rest of the afternoon I have documented on my phone between phone calls and texts.
4:00 My mom texts me and asks how I am and I call her back. We talk for 22 minutes. During this time I'm screwing back in the dishwasher from frozen pipes, feeding the kids, and cleaning up the house. She tells me I've had a couple of contractions just while on the phone with her and asks if they hurt to which I respond, "Oh crap, I'm having a baby tonight. I need to go pack a hospital bag and shower."
4:30 I text David "I'm in Labor - No joke" he replies "Do I need to come home? This meeting is going to be awhile." I say, "Yes, come home."
So while I'm waiting for him to come home I shower, pack a hospital bag, start packing the kids jammies to go to Ben and Emily's and start seriously doubting my ability to have a baby. I text my older sisters and say, "Don't judge me I'm getting an epidural tonight."
5:10 David walks out the door to drop the kids off and Mandy calls me. I tell her I'm too grumpy to talk and that I cannot have a baby tonight because I'm already wussing out because it hurts so bad.
5:20 David comes home and I am an emotional wreck. Side note: The only time I ever get emotional during labor is during transition. So the fact that it is this early and I'm losing control is a sign of how tired I was. I start walking around saying things like, "Why are we still having kids?" and "What do you even wear when you're in labor?" and then I asked David to give me a blessing. I was contracting through the whole thing but I still vividly remember almost everything he said that I really needed to hear. Definitely a tender mercy during this time since I've never felt so out of control during labor.
5:40-45 We drive to the hospital and I am having hard contractions over and over. As we pull into the parking lot I look at David and I say, "It's too late. I know I'm too far for an epidural."

By the time we get upstairs the contractions have slowed to every 7-10 minutes and aren't nearly as painful so I begin to think I'm only at 5cm or so. The nurse says, well let's hook you up to the monitor. And I say, "No check me - I want to see if I have time for an epidural." She checks me and says I'm at 10cm and they start to set up all the newborn stuff in the check in room. I'm so relieved at this point to know that my meltdown was because I was indeed in transition at home when I was telling David I didn't want to do this and asking why we were still having kids. Once I knew the hard part was done I knew I was in the clear and I was totally capable of going natural. But I still had no feelings of needing to push at all. So I tell the nurses to calm down and let's just wait it out for a bit. For an hour and a half we waited. I seriously could have taken a nap. Contractions were only coming every 10 minutes and they weren't even painful.  I had 6 nurses in the room just watching me at one pointing because they could not believe I was still in labor (completely dilated no less) and I was not in any pain. Finally, I decide to let one of the nurses check me and help break my water. She does, contractions don't change at all. Most women push as soon as their complete - aside from Ashton's birth I've never had to push. All the girls have just come out. So I was waiting forever for the urge to push. It just wasn't happening. At 7pm, there was a shift change and we had some new nurses walk in. One of them convinces me I should just try and push and see how it feels. I'm getting tired of being a side show in L&D at this point so I decide to give it a whirl. Laying down was uncomfortable so I got on my hands and my knees and decided I finally felt like I could push with the contractions. The doctor came in and asked David if he wanted to glove up and help catch the baby. David got really excited about it which I remember thinking was really cool since I've been doing all the baby catching for the last 3 births. The rest was textbook I push a few times the doctor cleared the cord around the neck and David caught Scotty.

I'll post more pictures tomorrow. I've got to say 5 days ago I had a natural delivery and the only part of my body that is sore is above my wrist where the dang IV was. Scotty is darling and David holds him ALL the time. There is something to be said about waiting for another boy!

Scott Stephen Jacobson

8lbs 20.6 inches long

2/3/14 7:26pm