The Lundgreen Family: Happy 4th of July

**BEWARE! EXTREMELY LONG POST BELOW!**

A lot has happened since Kamry’s birthday so I’ll just start with Kamry’s 1 year photos. We took these up on USU Campus back in May when it was freezing cold so Kamry really didn’t smile for very many of them, but I tell you what… they are still adorable!

The sneeze in sequence is adorable! I had to print those pictures.

My brother-in-law Ryan (Melanie's husband) retired from the USAF in June and me and mom went to his retirement ceremony. (It was in the middle of the week so pretty much everybody had to work.) It was at Hill AFB, and this is me and Kamry in front of one of the planes. As you can see, even in June I looked massively pregnant. Believe it or not, my belly got bigger!

Every year we go to Bear Lake with Nate's family and this was a picture of Kam in her cute bikini at the lake. You can tell by the bruise on her head that she was just getting the hang of walking.

Kamry and Nate on the 4th of July. Her little outfit was so cute. She barely had enough hair, but I was able to put it into a little pebbles pony tail on top of her head.

Nate had to make a delivery for work up in Moose (just outside of Jackson Hole) so me and Kamry went along for the ride. Being very pregnant and swollen, this was not a fabulous idea because sitting in truck that long made my ankles HUGE! And at this time, Kamry was not liking the car seat at all and was being a screaming beast of a child the entire way there and pretty much the whole way home until she fell asleep. We were seriously regretting that trip by the end of it.

In July my hands started going numb at night. And then after a few days they were numb all the time. It was really weird, but it didn’t hurt or anything so I figured it was just part of pregnancy. Then about a week later I started having really bad pains in my wrists and up my arms when I slept. These pains were so awful they would wake me up and I was almost to the point of crying. It finally got to the point that I couldn’t deal with it anymore so after googling some information I diagnosed myself with “Pregnancy Induced Carpal Tunnel”. At my next Dr’s appointment I asked her about it. Yes Yes Yes. I should be a doctor because my diagnosis was correct. SERIOUSLY!? Toxemia the first time, and now pregnancy carpal tunnel. It could have been so much worse but I was feeling bad for myself at that moment. I had tried creams and stuff and nothing was working so I ended up going to an Occupational Therapist once a week for 3 weeks for therapy. It helped, but never completely took away the pains.

At my 35 week appointment I was measuring at 41 weeks so my doctor was a little nervous. She figured that it was just excess amniotic fluid but she wanted to do an ultrasound to be sure. We did it and she said there was A LOT of fluid, which is a good thing, but the baby was measuring really big. At 35 weeks Paislee was measuring at 8 lbs. 8 oz. HOLY CRAP! When she told me that I about died. I just knew I was going to have a huge baby. My belly was big enough to prove it too. That measurement could be up to a pound over, but still, that’s a big baby after Kamry’s 2 lbs. I was hoping she would say that we could take the baby then, but that was not an option. I had to keep going.

Of course, because I am me and it was a really hot summer I was swelling really bad in my legs and feet again. All part of pregnancy. Each week when I went to the doctor I kept feeling even bigger, but at 36 weeks I went down to measuring at 39. I had felt Paislee shift up into my ribs so that was probably part of why I was measuring so big before. At 38 weeks, Paislee hadn’t dropped even slightly and I was still at a 0. Nothing was happening so I just told my doctor to schedule me for the C-section at 39 weeks because I was not about to wait for her to come on her own.

September 1, 2011

Nate and I had to be at the hospital by 5:30am so it was a very early morning and of course I wasn’t allowed to eat anything past midnight. I thought I was going to DIE of thirst! The last couple months of this pregnancy I couldn’t get enough water in my system. I was drinking like a camel! I somehow survived and was taken back to surgery at 7:30am. It was a very different experience because there was no emergency this time. It felt strange almost to know that in a few minutes we were going to have a baby. They got me on the table and the anesthesiologist proceeded to give me a spinal block. I didn’t realize there was a difference between that and an epidural, but there sure is. I remember with my epidural with Kamry I couldn’t feel anything but I could still move my feet and legs. He put the spinal block in this time and I felt a rush of warmth go down my legs and they were like “ok, put your legs up on the table.” YEAH RIGHT! I tried but I was completely paralyzed. I couldn’t do anything and my legs felt like they weighed 1000 pounds each. They were like “yeah it’s working right” and then they laid me down on the table. It was really weird.

Nate was able to watch this time too. He couldn’t see a whole lot because my big fat belly was blocking quite a bit, but he saw a little. Before the baby was about to be pulled out he grabbed the camera out of his pocket. I had checked the batteries before we left and they were good, but I grabbed extras just in case. Well, they were pulling the baby out, so he turns on the camera to get a picture and it dies. Batteries are dead. He was wearing scrubs over his clothes, so he had to dig below the pants and into his pants pocket to try and get the extra batteries. He missed the very beginning of them pulling her out, but he got some good pictures anyway. I was so mad! I hate cameras! Oh well. These are some the pictures he took. (I didn't include the ones when they were pulling her out.... they look pretty nasty, so I just went with these ones.)

Paislee Marie Lundgreen born September 1, 2011 7:58am 9 lbs. 6 oz. 20 inches.

When they broke my water, it went EVERYWHERE! It splashed all over the doctors and all over the floor. My doctor was like “Oh my gosh! That is A LOT of fluid!” She was even surprised. But none of us were very surprised to hear how big she was. With as big as my belly was, and how big she measured before, we were expecting over 9 lbs. Nate looked down when they were putting in my staples and was like “holy crap! You’re skinny!” It’s weird but it made me feel good to hear that J

I was hoping that I wouldn’t throw up in surgery like I did with Kamry but I still did once and dry heaved once. It was too bad this time. Later that day though I was still on my clear liquid diet and all of a sudden I had the urge and threw up all over myself and my bed because I didn’t have anything to catch it. It was pure liquid and surprisingly it didn’t hurt, but it was pretty gross. They got me a bucket and a little while later I did it again. It was weird though because I felt perfectly fine. Needless to say, I waited until Friday morning to eat anything solid. I stayed in the hospital until Saturday morning and then I was discharged. Nate’s parents kept Kamry for us so Nate was able to sleep good at night and we didn’t have to worry about meeting people every day to have her watched. It was really helpful.

On September 11 we had Paislee’s newborn pictures taken. She wasn’t exceptionally cooperative, but we were able to get some really cute pictures!

It was a bit of a transition having a new baby with Kamry but she actually did really well. I was worried about her trying to kill the baby, but she has been so sweet. She gives her kisses and instead of stealing her binky all the time, she now tries to give it back when it falls out of her mouth. She still hasn’t figured out that it’s not okay for her to sit on Paislee, but she is doing pretty good overall I think. Paislee has a little bit of colic so at night she gets pretty uncomfortable, but she isn’t too bad. From what I hear from other moms she could be a whole lot worse. I had her sleeping in her bouncy chair because the vibration seemed to soothe her and helped her sleep better, along with the help from being on an incline. I recently have put her back in her basinet and she seems to be doing just fine. She hasn’t been getting near as uncomfortable at night, so I think she is getting over her colic spell.

We blessed Paislee on October 16 at the Church in Lewiston. Nate's dad blessed her this time. My dad came, but was really sick and before we could even bless her he went home sick. He was sick for a few days after that too. I felt bad for him, but I totally understood. My brother Brent completely forgot we were blessing Paislee that day and I called him at about 3:10 (her blessing was at 3) and he had to hurry and drive up from Preston so we waited for him and the extra waiting time was just too much for my dads stomach. But her blessing was beautiful and Grandpa Allen did a great job.

Kilee was playing so cute with Kamry and we thought it was even cuter that they were walking around holding hands. ADORABLE!

My friend Sheena that I grew up with lives in New York now and she came home in October for a visit. This is Paislee with Sheena's little boy Hudson. Hudson is exactly 1 month older than Kamry (born on August 1). It was so fun to visit with Sheena and get to see the kids together.

For Halloween, we had both of the girls dressed up like Pumpkins. Well, Kamry was dressed up, but Paislee was in a onesie that said “Baby’s 1^st Halloween” and it was orange so I put her in black pants to match Kamry and they were both “pumpkins”. We trick or treated to each grandparents house and then went to the Lewiston Halloween Carnival. It was fun going back and kind of re-living my childhood. I did the cake walk with Kamry and we won a cake on our first go around! Then we did another walk and each of the girls won a stuffed animal and then Kamry did the fishing pond and got a little toy.

There was a kid there that had a snake wrapped around his body and we were thinking how real it looked when my brother Brian told us it was real. We looked over and it suddenly peeked it’s head over this kids shoulder. This kid had a freaking 4 foot long boa wrapped around his body as part of his costume! I tell you, I didn’t take my eyes off that kid the rest of the night. I had to make sure he didn’t come anywhere near me! I HATE SNAKES!

Thanksgiving this year was with my family. My grandma fell and broke her hip about a week before Paislee was born, and she did a little rehab time at Sunshine Terrace but was home in time for Halloween and was able to come celebrate Thanksgiving with us. She is a trooper and did really well with her recovery. Thanksgiving was a great time to spend with Grandma and the family.

I have a few random pictures below that were taken the past couple of months.

Kamry was so tired she didn't even make it to lunch time.

Kamry loves to sit on Nate and be goofy. She climbs all over the couches and step all over Nate.

Kamry loves to give kisses. She gives Paislee kisses without even being asked to do it. It's SO CUTE! I think they are going to be great friends.

We took the girls to see Santa on the 23rd of December at the Mall. Kamry didn't cry but she didn't want to sit on his lap, so she was only on there for a couple seconds. Of course, Paislee didn't do anything. She was just happy to be held.

For Christmas we had Christmas Eve with Nate’s immediate family. The extended family party was becoming too much of a hassle so they stopped doing it this year and we did just the immediate family at the house. They taught us how to play a card game called “Scum”. It was so fun and we played it for a long time that night. The next morning we woke up and opened presents and then had to quickly get ready for Church. The Bishop asked me to play a Piano Solo of “Joy to the World” so for the first time in 5 years we went to church in our ward. My turn came, and I got up and started to play my song. I didn’t anticipate the vibrations for the grand piano to be so strong they would knock one of my pages off the piano. Luckily, it was close enough I could grab it, so I just took my right hand off, kept playing with my left, grabbed the music and put it back up without missing a beat. And luckily most of the audience couldn’t see it happen because of the angle of the piano. I think overall I did a really good job on the song. I really liked the arrangement I found too.

After church we went up to Nate’s parents for lunch like we always do. Then we opened gifts and headed over to mom and dad’s for the rest of the evening. It was a really nice Christmas and especially nice because my brother Brent got engaged on Christmas Eve to my new sister in law Angie Dunkley! They decided to get married on New Years Eve (probably the shortest engagement in Utah ever) but we couldn’t have been more happy for them. They got married at Angie’s house with just the parents, Meghan and Angie’s daughter Shantell present. No siblings were invited. Some people would think that would be rude, but I was perfectly fine not being there for it. If that’s the way they wanted it, that was fine with me. I’m just very happy for them. They make a really cute couple.

Paislee was so tired!

My best friend Kelsey came over the other day and the kids were having so much fun. Baine and Kamry were right up by the TV when Mickey Mouse Clubhouse came on, but it wasn't too long before they were back playing with the toys.