Halloween 2008

Kyler was a cowboy.

Kaylee was Mickey Mouse.

Kenyon was a Fireman.

Evelyn was a Frog.

We went up to Salt Lake to spend Halloween with Grandma Henningson. We went down to the cafeteria to eat and then did some Trick-or-Treating at the hospital. It was fun to be able to spend the time with Grandma and to let her see the kids in their costumes. Grandma is doing really well and is hoping to come home next Wednesday or Thursday! We are so excited to have her home, and we are so proud of all the hard work she has put into her physical therapy and recovery. We love you Grandma!

Evelyn

I think we might have us a thumb sucker. I will wake up in the middle of the night because she is sucking it so loud I can hear her from clear across the house. I guess it isn't too bad if it helps her sleep the 8-10 hours at night that she has been doing.

With everyone getting a good nights sleep we are all happier, especially Evelyn!

Evelyn is Eight Weeks Old!

Kenyon: Just some fun pictures!

Update on Grandma Kay

Yesterday, October 15, 2008, we (Kendall, Dad, Wendy, Russell, Kyler, Kaylee, Kenyon, and Evelyn) went to visit mom. She is now in the Spaeciality Hospital in Prove. They had all the monitors and such off, which was nice to see. She is doing really well and is working hard on her physical therapy so she can come home soon. They figure that by the beginning of next week they will move her once more. This time it will be to a different facility. It is a rehab place by the Provo Hospital. There they will work on physical therapy with her for 3-4 hours a day, which will be difficult but good. While we were there they brought in her dinner. She is now on a normal diet and is enyoing it, even though it is work to feed herself and chew. Anyway, that is all for now. Thanks for your prayers!

Grandma Henningson Finally Holds Evelyn!

Yesterday Kaylee, Evelyn and I rode up to Salt Lake with Dad, Kendall, Braxton, and Charlotte to visit Grandma Henningson. She is still in the ICU but is doing a lot better. They were able to bring mom out into the hall so she could hold Evelyn and see Kaylee and Braxton. It was so nice to have mom finally see and hold Evelyn. We are going to go up Sunday so Kyler and Kenyon can see her too. Mom is getting better everyday. They have her off the ventilator for several hours everyday and she is doing physical therapy and is getting a lot stronger. She can hold a pen and write things down, which is really nice because we are not so good at reading lips (she can't talk because of the trac for the ventilator). They are hoping to be able to get her out of the ICU within the week and then in a rehab center in Provo shortly there after. Hopefuly things continue to go well so that happens. We love her and are glad she was finally able to meet Evelyn!

Evelyn

I was talking to my sister Jenny the other day and she said I needed to post some recent pictures of Evelyn, so here they are.

Kaylee and Kenyon

I was looking through our pictures and found these of Kaylee and Kenyon together. They sure do have fun together, sometimes too much fun. All I can say is I'm glad they aren't the same gender or we would really be in trouble. Enjoy!

Evelyn's Blessing

We had Evelyn's blessing today.

Russell did a really good job. I'm so grateful that he is worthy to bless our children. He is such a wonderful husband and father.

Evelyn likes her dress so much that she decided to pose for a few pictures.

We hope you enjoy them.

Evelyn's dress is the same one that Kaylee wore and it was made by my mom. The sweater was made by my mom's mom. It was neat to have the dress for her to wear since Grandma Henningson couldn't be there. Grandma is doing a little better every day, and they hope to be able to move her to a rehab center in Provo soon. We can't wait for that to happen, so she can meet her new granddaughter and for the other kids to get to see her.

Kenyon & Evelyn

Kenyon loves his baby sister ...

... and Evelyn loves her big brother!

Evelyn Marie Olsen

Evelyn Marie Olsen was born August 25, 2008 at 1:31 pm. She weighed 6 lbs. 14 oz. and was 20 in. long. Once I finally started progressing good things went really well. I was woken up at 6 am with pretty bad contractions. We decided to go to the hospital at about 7 am. Russell's mom came up to watch the kids and we got to the hospital, in Gunnison, around 8 am. The epidural (the best things ever) went in around 10 am. I had been looking forward to the epidural for months. Anyway, the doctor broke my water around 11:30 am and I started pushing around 1:15 pm. She was born on the 4th set of pushes.

Mom feeding Evelyn her first bottle

Kenyon holding Baby Evelyn

Grandma Olsen

Kyler

Grandma Slim (Russell's grandma) Grandpa Slim (Russell's Grandpa)
Kaylee and Kenyon helping mom feed Evelyn

Kaylee feeding Evelyn
Grandpa Henningson


Baby Evelyn sleeping peacefully after a busy day.

It was so nice to have a baby close enough to family that they could come and visit so soon. Aunt Charlotte, my Aunt Linda, and my Aunt Marilyn also came and visited but Russell didn't get pictures of them, sorry. Anyway we came home yesterday, August 26th around 6 pm. Evelyn and mom are dong well, actually mom is feeling better than she has for 2 months. As you can tell from the pictures, she is loved and her siblings are really excited for her to finally be here. We can't wait for her to meet Grandma Henningson and for her to give Evelyn a bath, since that is grandma's favorite thing to do for babies. She is slowly improving and is more alert everyday.

Another Update

Well, I'm still pregnant and I'm not too excited about it, but I guess it's good for Evelyn. I'm still having the contractions pretty much five minutes apart. They are progressing me very, VERY slowly. If I have not had Evelyn by Thursday, August 28th, my doctor will induce me. It's nice to know that there is a definite end in sight.

We have decided that we will have the baby blessing on Sunday, September 7th. Our Sacrament Meeting is first and starts at 9:30 am. We will have a lunch at our house probably around 1:00pm, but the time is not finalized on that yet.

For those of you who don't know, these past few months have been difficult for my family. About mid-July my mom was put in the hospital for bleeding ulcers in her colon and for blood clots in her legs and lungs. Both of those problems are serious, but they are also difficult to treat when you have both of them. She was in the hospital for about a month when they sent her home for her to get stronger so she could have surgery. She was only home for about 5 days, when she was rushed back to the hospital for emergency surgery. They removed her spleen, because blood clots cut off the blood to it so it died, they removed her colon, because the ulcers were not improving and causing more issues, and they scrapped an abnormality off her liver. She had the surgery last Tuesday, August 19th, and still has not completely come to yet. She is in the ICU and is slowly improving, but still has the blood clots to deal with. It has been really difficult on my dad and the rest of our family. I have not been able to go see her in the hospital, because she is in Salt Lake (about 2 1/2 hours away) and I'm nine months pregnant and very uncomfortable so I can't travel that far. Hopefully we will be able to go up shortly after Evelyn is born, and then hopefully mom will be more responsive too. Anyway, I guess I've vented enough for now.

We will post pics as soon as we can after Evelyn decides to join us.

Update

Sorry that I haven't updated our blog for so long. I've gone to a couple times with pictures and stuff and got distracted by kids and never finished. I guess it is ok to post something without pictures, so here it goes.
We have been really busy here. Russell finished Student Teaching in May and through May and June he had an evening class on Tuesdays and Thursdays and Young Men's on Wednesdays, so he was really busy then. He finished that up and has now completed everything needed to graduate, but they only process them at the end of the semester, so he won't be official until sometime in August. It feels good to have all the work done though. He has applied for a couple of jobs but didn't get them, so he is still at home with the kids and I am still working.
I enjoy working, especially since I've started to do more engineering and design work. We have been really busy and I'm surprised how much it wears me out, but I guess I am 8 months pregnant.
An update on the pregnancy. I started my contractions quite a bit earlier than I expected. I was expecting them to start about now, which is 6 weeks to go, but no they started June 13th. I'm so grateful for Ambien, otherwise I wouldn't get any sleep. For those of you that might not know my background, with Kaylee the contractions started 5 weeks before she was born and for Kenyon it was 4 weeks. They are not too painful, just uncomfortable and about 10 minutes apart no matter what I do. I guess it is a good thing that they don't progress me any, just wear me out and make me uncomfortable. I guess it isn't too bad, because I have not yet said this is the last pregnancy I will do. It is the last one I will do while working full time, but not for sure the last one ever. I've also had several infections, so I am on antibiotics until Evelyn is born. I'm still hoping for her to be born around the 13th of August, which is about two weeks early. Kyler was 8 days early, Kaylee was 11 days early, and Kenyon was 14 days early. If Evelyn follows suit she will be 17 days early, which will be the 13th. I guess we will have to wait and see.
That is all for now. I will try to get some pictures on soon, but no guarantees.

It's A Girl!!!

We had our Ultrasound today. I guess I'm getting used to them, because this is the first time I could actually see the lips and some of the other weird things they look at. I really enjoyed it.

Well, we found out that it is a girl, so Kyler and Kaylee are excited. I'm pretty sure that we will name her Evelyn Marie. I've had that name picked out since before we found out Kenyon is a boy, so since we still like it after 2+ years I doubt we will change our minds.

Evelyn is waving "Hi" to everyone.

Either she is ready to defend herself from her older siblings, or she wants to get out really bad.
This is just a cute picture of her foot.

They also moved my due date up one week, so now the official day is August 30, 2008.

Let's Go Fly A Kite!

On Sunday, April 6th, my brother, Kendall, showed up for Sunday dinner with kites for all of the kids. He had a Mickey & Minnie one for Kaylee, a Cars one for Kyler, and an old Spiderman one for Kenyon to drag around. We tried flying them at my mom's and dad's but the wind wasn't cooperating very well. Kaylee was able to get her's to fly long enough to get some pictures.

After the afternoon Conference session, we drove to Gunnison, where it always seems to be windy, and let them try again. Kyler did much better with more wind. After we got his in the air, it didn't come back down until we brought it down to go home.

Thanks Kendall for a fun filled Sunday afternoon!