Visitor

The last week of April, my best friend from college Melony came to visit me. Sterling was gone to Vernal that whole week, so it gave me something to look forward to. She arrived on Wednesday and left on Sunday. It was great to see her again.

It was actually pretty funny because when she and her husband booked her plane tickets, they booked it to include May 1st, which was their one year anniversary. When I asked them about it later, Melony sheepishly told me that 'they somehow forgot' what that day was. I guess if it's the first time you're celebrating it it might be easy to forget. I was glad she was there to spend time with me though.

We spent our days sitting around, playing with my kids, shopping, talking the usual girl-talk: clothes, men, shoes, cute jeans, work, more clothes, you get the idea. We went down to the BYU bookstore and shopped there a bit and just had fun being together again. I miss having her live close by, there's just something about having a best girl friend near you.

We realized late Saturday night that we hadn't taken any pictures, so these are the ones that she gave me, and coincidentally are the same ones on her blog. That's what you get when you forget a camera.

Not the most flattering picture of me, but she looks great.
Mel went to see her brother and sister-in-law and their kids while she was here, so, I took advantage of her absence. Since she spent her anniversary with me, I made a cake for her. I had to call her mom and husband to see if they remembered what their wedding cake was like, but neither of them could remember what kind of frosting they had. In their defense, Mel and James didn't get more than the 'feed your new spouse' bite of cake, so I don't blame them for not remembering. Afterward we baked the cake, Sterling and I made another dessert to cover the cake smell. Mel has a nose like a hound dog when it comes to cake. (I learned that while we were roommates and I tried to bake a surprise cake for her birthday once. She knew as soon as she walked into the apartment.)
This was the cake. It's likely the nicest looking cake I've ever made. Sad, right? I'm no pastry chef. Her colors were bright pink and green. I didn't have a green flower, so I made one from construction paper. Tacky, I know. But it's the thought that counts.
It was so much fun to see her again. I have the best friend any girl could ask for. I just wish she didn't live all the way in Arizona so I could see her more often. Mel, I love you girl and couldn't ask for more in a friend. You're the best.

Two months and four years

Today Sterling and I are celebrating our fourth anniversary. Unfortunately, we're celebrating it separately. He's out in Vernal tracking grouse, while I'm here with the kids. However, he took me out last weekend to dinner and a movie. It was great to get a kid-free date with him again.

Also, today, Austin is two months old. It's amazing how fast time flies. He's already gotten so big and he's smiled and laughed. It's so fun when I get my face down next to his, and he looks at me and breaks into a huge toothless grin. Amazing how such simple things can make you feel so loved.

Austin, you're such a sweet little boy, I'm so grateful for you. Two months has gone by so fast, and I've enjoyed every second of it.

And Sterling, thank you for four wonderful years. I hope the next will be even better. I love you.

Haircut

So, Cami finally got her first haircut. I've just been letting it grow till now and haven't really cared what it looks like. She won't let me put pigtails or anything in it, so it just kinda does it's own thing.

Now you ask, if you've been fine with her hair until now, what motivated you to finally cut it? Well, I'll tell you. Before I had kids I often looked at other women with their kids at the grocery store and their kids didn't have their hair done, their clothes were covered with food, their faces were dirty, etc. and I always told myself that I would never be one of those moms who just let my kids run wild and free.

Then, I was looking at Cami one day and I realized: that's exactly what I'd become. She was wearing lunch on her face and clothes and her hair had grown out to a mullet. My child looked like a dirty little hillbilly. I was not happy with myself for letting it get like this.

I hope I don't sound critical of other moms out there, because I'm learning how hard it is to handle more than one child and I realize now that it's really just easier to let your kids be kids and be dirty, but I never wanted to be like that.

So, I sat her down a few weeks ago and finally gave her a haircut! She wasn't too enthusiastic about it. She was far more interested in what was in the bathroom drawers, but I managed to at least chop off the mullet.
Here's a picture of the mullet. It's just a few long strands hanging down the middle of her back, and when her hair dried, it clumped together and then it looked like a nasty rat tail. Gross.

Here's the after picture. Her patience was just about exhausted by that point, so it was hard to continue to get her to hold still. But, the rat tail is gone and it's more or less the same length. I'm so proud of her for putting up with it as well as she did.

Sleepless nights

Remember how I said that if I got one post a month I was doing okay. Well, here's my April post. I'll try to post again, but can't promise anything.

So, I don't know how many people read all the way to the bottom of a post where it has the date and time stamp. If you do, you'll see that this post is being added at about 1:30 am. Now, you may ask, 'what are you doing up so late?' But you must be forgetting that I have a new baby. Ah, now doesn't that just explain it all?

Austin usually eats last at around 10:00 at night. Before that it's a steady feeding every two hours. Sometimes he wants to eat every hour, it gets old real fast. Back to the point. Once he eats at 10, I know that I now have several hours of down time, so I start doing things that I don't like being interrupted to do, like playing on the computer or reading a book or budgeting or other fun stuff like that. Soon I glance down at the clock and realize that it's nearly 1 in the morning. Oops, so much for going to bed early like I planned. Again.

By then I realize that Austin will be up to eat again at any time (he still only gives me four or five hours at a time each night), and that is why I'm up right now blogging. I know he'll be up within a half hour to eat and there's just no point in going to sleep before I have to feed him again.

So, since I'm up, here's some of the pictures I've taken of him recently. My mom has been pestering me to post more pictures of him so she can get to see what he looks like. So many people say that he's the spitting image of Sterling. I still don't see it.

We have a picture of Cami just like this. Sadie makes such a good little doggie mommie.

Cami also had this as her first bed. It only took about two weeks for Austin to grow out of it. He has his own crib now.

Like most moms, this is what I spend half my day doing.

Poor kid is going to be traumatized from having the camera shoved in his face all the time, but he's just so cute.

There's just something about a sleeping baby. So precious.

Relaxin in his chair. I wish I had a seat like this with a vibrator in it.

Oh, I hear a baby cry. That's my cue...

He's here!

My mom emailed me the other day saying that my little countdown thing for my pregnancy said that I was 40 weeks and 5 days along. Yeah, well, I'm actually not.

Austin Thayne Fenwick was born at 4:20 am on Friday, March 12th. He was 6 lbs 3 oz and 19 inches long. I should have posted sooner, but it's busy being a new mom, again!It was a wonderfully easy birth. Ladies, prepare to be jealous! Gents, feel free to stop reading now. I started having back pains the evening before while I was at my EMT class on campus. Not so much fun. I was in some serious pain. I got home and they kept getting worse, but I still wasn't sure I was in true labor. Some of you may know how that is. You just aren't sure and you don't want to be sent home from the hospital, so you wait and wait until it gets really painful. Well, we ended up leaving for the hospital at 11:00 pm. I don't know what it is about me having babies in the middle of the night. Our neighbor came over and stayed with Cami, who was sound asleep, until my mother-in-law arrived from Salt Lake. It was very nice and convenient.

I was talking to my mom the day before and she mentioned how some women have a lot of energy the day before the go into labor. That must be what happened to me on Thursday, because I vacuumed the house, actually took a shower, did my make-up, shaved my legs, painted my toe nails (how I reached them, I'm still not sure), and went to my EMT class where I walked around taking pictures of our MCI for several hours - that's all another story though. I was pretty proud of myself. I was especially happy that I managed to get my make-up done so I didn't end up doing it at the hospital like my sister did. :)I was admitted shortly after I got there, I was only dilated to a 3 and 40% effaced. They got me hooked up to the IV, which was done by a nursing student, who did very well. Last time I got a huge, painful clot in the vein from the IV needle. Not this time, she did awesome. However, the veteran nurse who drew blood the following day completely missed the vein in my arm so I had a dollar bill sized bruise to show for it. I think I'd rather have totally inexperienced students sticking me from now on, thank you very much.

I had to wait two hours to get my epidural. When the anesthesiologist came in, I actually asked to see what the needle looked like. Morbid, I know. He, very wisely, waited until after it was in to show me. For those of you who are unsure about getting one because it's a huge needle, it's unnecessarily hyped up. And this is me talking, me with the really strange fear of needles (which Sterling talks about here). The needle is no bigger around than a needle that they use when you donate blood. If you can do that, you can do this. No worries. And it's really not painful at all. I don't remember much about it with Cami's birth. I was too busy throwing up at that point. But this time was easy.

Moving on, so, we got to the hospital at 11:00 pm, with Cami it was at midnight. I got the epidural at 1:00 am, the same time that I got it with Cami. And my water broke at 4:00 am, nearly the same time that it broke with Cami. Is this getting a little weird and coincidental? I thought so too. However, that's where the similarities end. After that things went really, really fast. The doctor arrived at about 4:10. I started pushing at 4:16 and two contractions later we had a little boy at 4:20! Whew! So easy!He's very cute. I know every mother thinks that about their child, but really, he is! He doesn't even have a cone head since the delivery was so incredibly fast. Sterling got to deliver him (he would have delivered Cami as well, but she had the cord wrapped around her neck) and since he was holding the baby while they suctioned his nose and everything, I got to cut the cord. It was actually pretty cool. I kinda thought that it would be anti-climatic since everyone builds it up so much, but no, it was actually really neat.He's a very tiny little guy, almost a full pound smaller than Cami was. So far we think he looks like my dad, with his squinty little eyes. So cute! My mother-in-law says he has the Fenwick nose though. He's had a fair bit of jaundice, but it's going down slowly. We, fortunately, haven't had to put him on lights or anything. Already he sleeps about four to five hours at a time at night. I'm still sleep deprived, more so than I ever was with Cami, but it's getting better.The last two weeks have just flown by so quickly. He's already put on over a half pound in weight. It's amazing just how fast they grow. I'm trying my best to enjoy it while it lasts. I feel great. My recovery time with him was a lot faster than it was with Cami. I have tons of energy, despite my lack of sleep, and have been doing great. Cami seems to be adjusting about as normally as any other first child does. :) For those without kids: she's jealous and cries a lot more and whines and does whatever she can to get attention. It's to be expected though. She loves to look at him and pat his head and even gives him kisses. It's actually very sweet. I just count myself lucky that she hasn't tried to smother him with a pillow, yet.Over all, we're doing well. I'm just happy to have him here 10 days earlier than we expected. We had an inducement scheduled for Mon the 15th. The Ides of March. I'm happy he came on his own instead. Sterling hasn't been able to start with his master's project yet because of the snow out in Vernal, but I'm just fine with that because it means he's been around to help control the circus that is now our home. He seems excited to have a boy. Not that he won't take Cami fishing and hunting as well, but it's just nice to have a son. I'll try to be better about posting pictures and giving updates. I'm doing great til now if I get one a month. I'll make more of an effort, but with two kids now, it'll be tough.

Pregnancy woes....

I just have to say that the last three or so weeks of pregnancy are by far the worst. I know others would disagree and say that the morning sickness is the worst, but when you're prone to hormonal imbalances BEFORE you get pregnant, like I am, when it comes down to the last few weeks before you deliver, you are one of the moodiest people in the world and nobody wants to be around you at all. At least, that's how I feel. I've been very moody recently and yelling at Cami and Sterling all the time. I feel awful. It's just hormones. They suck. Sterling, I just hope you know how much I love you and I'm so glad you put up with me because I know I've been hard to live with lately.

So, that said, people have been asking for pregnancy pictures, so here's a few. This was taken about a week ago, so say 36 1/2 weeks pregnant. Cami wanted me to pick her up while I was trying to take this picture.


I feel like I'm very small still, but what do you think? Here's from my first pregnancy at about 28 weeks along.

Is it just me or do I look almost the same in these two pictures? Weird.

Truth is that this little guy actually has been measuring on the very small side. For those of you who don't know, they measure from your pubic bone to the fundus (the top) of your uterus once you hit about 30 weeks. You're suppose to be as many centimeters as you are weeks along, give or take two centimeters. Well, at my 36 week appointment, I was only measuring at 33 centimeters, so my doctor had me go in to get an ultrasound at the hospital.

They didn't give us any ultrasound pictures, which I'm a little sad about since our first set weren't very good. But they told us that we are definitely still having a boy. :) No question about that.... They did some measurements on him to make sure he was growing alright and said if it was a problem with the placenta - that it wasn't providing him nutrition like it should - then they would have to take him early. So that's what they were checking. They did several measurements: his head circumference, his abdomen circumference, his femur length, the amount of amniotic fluid in there, etc. Stuff like that. Averaged out, he was about 34 weeks and 6 days in size, whereas I was 36 weeks and 2 days along. So about a week and a half smaller than what they were expecting. They guessed that he weighs about 5 lbs 10 oz. right now. Which is great news for me! I'd love to have another small baby!

What I found funny though was that the measurement for his femur marked him at 33 weeks along, but his head circumference put him at 38 weeks along. Great. I'm going to have another gigantic headed baby.

Over all they weren't worried. What they found doesn't change my due date at all and he seems to be growing alright, just genetically small. Too bad, I was hoping for tall boys, but with my genes in the mix, changes are all our kids will be midgets.

I thought I'd post a picture here of my countdown. Two weeks baby!! It's been enormously satisfying to rip off a ring every evening and seeing it dwindle down so much that it almost can't hang on the fan anymore. Soon it won't be able to at all! That makes me so happy!


One other funny story about pregnancy. Any of you out there who have been pregnant before will sympathize with this. About a month ago or so, Sterling and I were out in the front yard doing a little bit of yard clean up since the weather was nice. I have the Achoo Syndrome, like most of my family does. We think it's a Scandinavian trait. Anyways, I turned and looked up into the sun and sneezed several times. After the third one I turned to Sterling "Crap, I just peed my pants." He started laughing really hard and asked how much. I told him it was enough that I needed to go change. And I took off for the house waddling with my legs spread apart. That just got him laughing harder. Aw, the joys of being pregnant.

Sadly, this was not an isolated event. It gets very difficult as you get farther on to control your bladder. It also doesn't help that you've got a little person inside you kicking at your bladder when they want to stretch. I told this story to one of my friends and she not swears she never wants to get pregnant. Honey, I'm sure there are people out there who could tell you worse stories than mine.

So, to wrap up, since I didn't really say anything about Cami in this post, let's end with some pictures of her.

Master's Project

This is Sterling giving you an update on our recent news. As most of you know, I recently applied for graduate school at BYU. Well, after a long and tedious process, I was just advised by Dr. Larsen that he would like to recommend me to work on his sage grouse project coming up in March.

(Dr. Larsen)

Now, he cannot accept people into the graduate program as that decision is left up to the graduate committee. However, with a professor willing to sponsor me, I am pretty much guaranteed acceptance. So, hopefully the committee will meet soon and will officially accept me as a master’s student at the university.

What’s that you say? What is a sage grouse, and who gives a flying leap about them? Well, this is a sage grouse, also known as a prairie chicken:

This is a male, and during mating, they puff up these air sacs in their chest and perform a rather elaborate mating dance trying to impress the ladies who watch from the sidelines. They live in large open areas of sagebrush, and during mating season they gather in a more or less bare patch in the sage brush called a lek, and males strut their stuff.

So, who gives a flying leap about these birds? Well, for many years, they have been sought after as a game species for hunters, and they are also enjoyed by many people for the mating rituals that I have described. Recently, however, these birds have seen a dramatic decrease in their population. Several studies were performed to see if they should be considered endangered or not. While the controversy of listing them is still up in the air and in the hands of the politicians, the studies have discovered perhaps the main cause for their decline. As I stated, these birds live in large, open areas of sage brush. Many of these large areas have been reduced to smaller sizes. Additionally, the open areas are being dotted with various types of tall structures. Raptors, such as hawks and falcons, perch on these structures and can easily pick off the grouse.

(Notice the two oil rigs behind the grouse)

Because of the habitat problems, birds have stopped using the limited number of leks (strutting grounds) and overall have just had a hard time surviving.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not an environmentalist tree hugger. My license plate cover says “save a tree, shoot a tree hugger”. I don’t believe in the concept that we should preserve everything and that man is evil and destroying the planet. However, I don’t believe that we are entitled to exploit the world we live in with no regard for the consequences. I believe that we should be responsible stewards of this earth—using the resources we have, but ensuring that they will be well taken care of.

That being said, here is the purpose of my project. The state of Utah has five core populations of sage grouse that they consider to be vital to the survival of the species in the state. In an effort to find out what these populations need to survive, the state is willing to pay thousands of dollars (mostly from the sale of hunting and fishing licenses) to study each population. This way, we can ensure their survival, but also allow other entities to use the land around them without a major affect on future numbers. So far, the project has done wonders, and bird numbers are recovering quite well. However, the state has only conducted this study on 4/5 populations. Guess what, I will be studying the fifth.

Sponsored by BYU and funded by the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, and under the direction of Dr. Larsen, I will go out to the diamond Mountains near Vernal Utah to study this last major population.

(More or less the area, Vernal is in the background)

I will trap,

measure and weigh,

and radio collar about 100 grouse.

I will then track them over the next several months to record their migration routes, leks, and other habitat being used.

Over the spring and summer, I will be in Vernal at a bunk house for four days and three nights, and then I will be back with Erika for the rest of the week. I will probably have a crew out there working with me also. Starting in September, I will be taking classes, compiling data, and traveling to Vernal about once a week to collect more data.

So this is what I will be doing for the next couple of years. Things are not for sure until the graduate committee makes their decision, and even then, the project might not be exactly as I described it. But as far as I know, this is what awaits me.

And may I add as a side note, this is the most messed up and non-user friendly program I have used since elementary school when computers were being developed. I can't believe Google would produce a program so bad for posting blogs.