Annoying comments I can't read are not welcome!

I have a blog to keep people updated. I have it public so I don't have to deal with sending out invitations all the time and people can just read it if they want to. Now I am dealing with people commenting on my blog that is in chinese. I can't read it and if you click on them it leads you straight to a page of half naked girls. I do not have a blog so that I can be subjected to porn, or anyone else for that matter that happens to read my blog.
I have changed my settings so that comments are moderated so that I can delete them. I find it rude and annoying that someone would do this. Does anybody else have this problem?

Love ya Mackinley!!

I should be going to bed, but my blog is sorely neglected.
My baby girl turned 4 on Friday!!! How quickly time flies! I love thinking about what I was going through on the day that they were born at what time. Well, with Mackinley anyways. She was born in the afternoon where as Macey was born early in the morning, so I can't really think about it. I didn't know exactly what I was going to blog about, but now I know. I will let you in on my awesome experience of giving birth for the first time.
Jar and I met in Lethbridge at the end of January. He conned me into going on a date with him the beginning of February. We were engaged the beginning of March, married at the end of June, and pregnant the middle of August. Mackinley was born 4 weeks to the day of our one year anniversary. Talk about quick!
I had a great pregnancy. I got queasy around smells (especially Jar's breath), but never threw up. I didn't gain weight until about 5 months along which was nice. It all came at the end in the form of water retention. I was pretty swollen. I felt great. I loved being pregnant. I loved feeling the baby move inside of me. It was such an emotional, spiritual time of my life.
Mackinley was due the 27th of May 2006. I tried the castor oil trick 2 weeks before her due date because the doctor told me I was dilated more than what I should be. It didn't work. Well, it worked as far as cleaning out my insides, but no baby. A couple days later I tried it again....and again. For those of you who have never tried it. Don't. It doesn't taste bad, but the texture is DISGUSTING. It's like drinking oil, and for some reason it is gross. For those of you who will still try it, don't leave your house to go for a brisk walk until after it has left your system! I am speaking from personal experience. You're better off at home!
Anyways, after some castor oil and some walking my water broke. I was so excited! We lived a block down from the hospital, so we got there and sure enough it was broke and I was going into labor! I was giggly and excited, so I wasn't too happy when they told me I should try and sleep. They gave me some morphine and I did sleep. I stopped having contractions all together. The next morning we waited for something to start, but it didn't. It had to be soon because my water had already broken, but they tried breaking it some more to see if that would help. They called in the nurse to give me an IV so I could get an epidural and some oxytocin. The next 3 hours were the worst 3 hrs of my entire pregnancy/labor.
I always get poked and prodded when getting an IV, but this was the worst I've ever had. The nurse came in and tried getting the IV to work, she missed, so she dug around for awhile. She tried again and didn't get it again. The next nurse came in and tried and poked around for a little while. She proceeded to poke me again with the SAME needle. She dug around for awhile. She got a new needle and poked me again. She used the SAME needle and dug around again. They finally brought in another nurse and she poked and prodded and FINALLY got it. I got poked 7 times and it took over an hour. One full hour of being tortured by psycho-never-give-up-nurse. I had tears streaming down my face. I wasn't crying, but they were coming down like when you get hit in the nose and the tears just automatically come. It was awful.
Once the IV was up and running they gave me the oxytocin to help speed up the contractions. It was working. They upped the drip a little to get going even faster and that's when everything started to go wrong. I didn't have an epidural yet, so I was feeling the pain. It wasn't too bad until I had a contraction and it wouldn't stop. It just got stronger and stronger and wouldn't let up. 5 minutes then 10 minutes. That's when all sorts of nurses and doctors where in there. Someone kept shoving nitroglycerin under my tongue. The doctors where checking me and thought that she was breech. Mackinley started to go into stress and they had to take me down for an emergency C-section. There is something unsettling when you can sense that something is really wrong by the way the doctors and nurses are calmly freaking out. Does that make sense? You could feel the tension. It was scary.
They had told Jar that he needed to get dressed so he could come down, but by the time they were rolling me out they told him he couldn't come. They wheeled me down to the elevator. I am still having this one long contraction. It's been 30 minutes. I was laying on my side death-gripping the railings on the bed. No, I was not screaming. I prefer to suffer in silence. :) While in the elevator, we go to the wrong floor. So we have to wait and go to the right floor. We once again go to a wrong floor. We finally got to the right floor and they kept bumping the bed into the doorway of the elevator. They couldn't get the bed out. It was excruciatingly painful.
They finally got me into the operating room and they put me on another bed. They mad me lie flat on my back and tied my hands down. I know this is standard, but when you have been having the strongest contraction for 40 minutes you wouldn't like it either. They finally put me out. But not before I told the doctor to tell Jaron that I didn't want anybody holding her until I got up there. I didn't think it was fair that I had to go through all of that and everybody else gets to enjoy her before I even get to see her. Selfish? Maybe. Do I regret it? No.
When I woke up the first thing I asked was "What did I have?" A girl.
"Is she okay?" Yes.
So after 19 hrs of labor, an hour of torture with needles, a 45 minute long contraction, and an emergency C-section I finally got to see my baby girl! They took me up to my room and an hour after she was born I got to see her perfect little face! She was beautiful. She had a major cone head though. It was the back of her head that stuck out really far. I wasn't too impressed that I had a C-section baby with a massive cone head. It went away though, so it wasn't too bad.
I instantly fell in love with her. It was amazing. She was the best baby. She was a great nursing baby. I didn't know that I would love nursing as much as I did. She was also instantly a momma's girl. I didn't know they preferred someone when they were that little, but she did, and I loved it.

I healed up good after it all and was excited to do it again as soon as we could. We were pregnant with Macey when Mackinley was 18 months old. But that's a different story. Maybe I'll share that horror of a story in a few months when my baby girl turns 2.

Jammy Days

We have been so busy lately. I'm not one for a busy schedule, but sometimes it just can't be helped. Today was supposed to be another one of those days, but the kids are sick and I don't feel like dragging them around all day. I cancelled our stuff so we can stay home and relax. Hopefully the little ones will start to feel better soon because there is a lot of busyness coming our way again! Busyness that can't be cancelled.
I am a huge fan of jammy days! I like them on days like this, where it's not nice out and nobody is feeling that great. We have baths, get in new jammies, watch TV and cuddle up in our heated blankets. So nice.

Green with anger

Jar and I have been thinking about becoming foster parents the last few weeks. Mostly me, but Jar seems to be on board. When I approached him about it he didn't even ask why....no questions, no nothing. Just "You should look into it". I was taken aback. I was at least expecting a "why?". Not a "why would you wanna do something like that", but just a simple "why". So I've started to look into it. I think I'm trying to satisfy my baby cravings without having to have a baby....but that's a whole different story.
Anyways, there are a lot of questions that we need answered before we commit to this and hopefully we will know this week. I am hoping for this to be a good experience for my own kids. I asked Mackinley the other day if she thought it was a good idea if Mommy and Daddy should let another little boy or girl come live at our house for awhile. I told her someone kids don't have very good houses and they need a good place to live until they have a better house to stay. She looked at me and said, "I don't like our house." I looked up, confused. "What do you mean, you don't like our house?"
"I don't like our house very much. It's green. I don't like green."
Phew! I was a little worried. It only got worse.
I decided I should try and explain it a little differently. "Some kids don't have very safe houses to stay in, so they need a safe place to stay until their house is safe again."
"Daddy gets mad a lot." Oh dear. This is not going very well at all.
I actually thought it was pretty funny, but I felt like I was already failing the home inspection. Jar wasn't too fond of her statement and he has been extra careful not to get mad at anything. This might sound like Jaron is an angry dad, but he really isn't. He's really great with the kids. We both could be more patient and we have been working on this. It's amazing the difference we can see in just a few days of being more patient with the girls.
Hopefully I will have more news about this whole thing in a month or two. Whether we do it or not, we have already learned and improved our home because of it! Mackinley will think our home is improved when the house is no longer green. hahahaha! I love that kid!

Ramblings

Merry Christmas! Happy New Year!!!! Hope you had a great family day weekend!!! Happy St. Patty's day!!! Is that everything? Oh, Happy Easter!!
There, I think I have everything covered since my last post. It has definitely been awhile! I don't even know where to start!
We have been quite busy this year. We started on some minor reno's on the upstairs. We replaced all the doors in the hallway. We have one more to put in and then we can do the trim and be done with it all!
We just got back from our family vacation. We drove down to Vegas and spent 4 nights there, and then went to Salt Lake for conference. It was a long trip and by the end everyone was tired and just wanted to get home. It was a lot of fun though. We got to see 7 of some of our favorite missionaries that we have had since we've been married. It was great to see them! I also got to go on the roller coaster at New York New York, and the Big Shot ride on top of the Stratosphere! Talk about intense. I love rides, especially ones I have never been on. Especially when they are on top of the tallest building in sight and they shoot you up even higher! Can't get much better for an adrenalin rush from a ride.
I am going to start doing my Personal Progress again. A couple of months ago I was visiting teaching and my companion is the YW's president. We were talking and I found out that they had different jewelery than when I did it, and it was silver. I really wanted it and she said that I could do the new program to get them if I wanted. I really wanted to do it, but it kinda got pushed to the back of my mind. Then while at conference they challenged the moms to do it too. It renewed my desire to start it, so my mom and I both bought the books and journals to start. Last night in bed I was reading through it and I am quite excited to get going on it! I am hoping that it will help with the level of happiness in our home. Don't get me wrong, we are quite happy, but there is always room for improvement! Especially when it comes to me....let me explain quick.
I have low hemoglobin levels. I always have, not low enough for a tranfusion, but low enough they tell me to eat differently. Nothing major. I found out last year though that I have extremely low iron saturation levels. Almost non-existent. They prescribed me some iron pills and that should do the trick. I didn't take them though because they are supposed to bung you up. I did start taking a pill though that is an iron pill, but it comes from a different source other than minerals, so it doesn't make you constipated. Awesome! I started taking it, and then for some reason forgot about them and I didn't take them for months. I think last month was the worst month I have had in a long time! I didn't want to get out of bed in the morning I was soooooo tired! All day I would be tired. I could sleep all day and all night and wake up tired, and it's not just a bit tired. It's major tired. It's mentally, physically, and emotionally tired. It's tired like I've never felt before. It was awful. I thought working out would help, but it seemed like it was making it worse. I had surgery a month ago (another story that I probably won't share, it was minor...girl stuff) and so I thought that was why I was so tired, but I was getting worse and worse. I started to take my iron pills again and within a week or two all the tiredness was gone! One morning I woke up at 7 and I didn't have the desire to lay and sleep just a little more. My kids weren't even up yet. I felt great all day! Every day was better and better! I didn't link the two for awhile and now that I know, hopefully I won't have to deal with this again. So, the point of this story.....it was really hard for me that month to be excited or happy or anything fun. It drained me. I could still do it, it was just hard. When you get that tired everything and everyone suffers. I wasn't spiritually tired, but it started to feel like it. When that starts to happen everything else goes out the window! That is why I am so excited to start this program again. I am hoping that with my feeling better it will just help our house feel that much better after the horrid month I'm sure we all had.
On to some more interesting things! Macey is talking! She doesn't say sentences, but she can copy what you say. She tries anyways. I love this stage! She is so stinkin cute! She can throw the worst fits I have ever seen. Now that she can talk a bit better, they have become less frequent, which is nice. She is quite the girl. She loves jewelry and pink clothes. A couple of weeks ago we were getting ready for church and I put a cute brown dress on her with a multicolor flower print all over it. She screamed and screamed and pulled at her dress until I took it off and put on a pink one. Oh dear! Her daddy is kinda sad about this. He thought for sure she was going to be the tom girl. Sorry Jar, she's all girl! Oh, she also HATES to get her hands dirty! She won't go up the stairs to the garage because she gets rocks on her hands. It's pretty cute.
Mackinley will be 4 next month. Where does the time go? She is quite the mommy. She is almost done ballet for the year and I am excited to see their recital. She is also mommy's little helper, mommy's little sidekick, mommy's little everything. Our whole trip went something like this...
Mackinley: Mommy, you sit by me? (We are in a restaurant)
Me: I would love to.
Mackinley (as Jaron is walking towards her): Daddy, you don't sit by me! Mommy is!
She also always wants to cuddle with me all the time. Which is nice until Macey gets jealous and starts to throw a fit. We have discovered that if we want to get Macey to do something that she doesn't want to we just need to get Mackinley to do it. We have a system. It works.
Yesterday we were talking and I can't believe how fast time flies! This month is full for us with wedding stuff (my sister in-law is getting married, Yay!) and next month has a few big events, and then June my youngest brother is graduating and then it's summer. We all know how fast summer goes, so it's practically September already. Boo! Although I'm sure Jaron wants it to be September because that means hunting season. He has bought 4 guns I think since November and is itching to use them. Buying those guns h
as definitely benefited me though. I think my last post was about my first Lululemon purchases. They are not the last either! Every time Jar buys a gun, I get to go to Lulu. Good deal I think!
Enough of my random ramblings. Hopefully I can get these pictures to work. FINALLY!

Could life get any better? I submit that it cannot.

I'm feeling a little nostalgic today. Maybe it's the fact that Christmas is right around the corner or that I'm feeling very blessed in life right now. Probably a little of both.
This is my all time favorite time of year! I love everything about it....except for the snow....and the cold. Stink! It's cold out there this morning!!! The furnace was turned down and still ran most of the night. It kept me awake, but I guess I wasn't freezing all night. It was nice to wake up to the hoar frost this morning. It is one of my favorite scenes in nature, which reminds me yesterday evening had the best moon. It was big and bright and the sunset had the fog pink at the top slowly turning a dark blue at the horizon. Beautiful!!
I normally am not one to be excited about presents for myself at Christmas. Don't get me wrong, I love getting presents, but that's not what I get excited for. This year, I'm pretty excited. It's probably because I know what I'm getting. Maybe if I knew every year I would get more excited about it. I think there is a link between knowing and the level of anticipation. My lululemon gear is sitting in the bag under the tree and it's all I can do to not pull it all out and try them all on. 3 more weeks!
We are having a really good week here at the Mallard's. And for all of you who don't know how it's pronounced, it ma-LARD, not like the duck. I kinda have a beef with that. I told Jaron that I was shallow enough that if I didn't like someone's last name I wouldn't even think of dating them. I thought "Mallard is a good last name", but I didn't think about how it was hard to pronounce for people, let alone how much it would bug me. Could be worse. I could be Mrs. Chevapravatdumrong. And yes, that is a real last name.
So back to our good week. The girls are starting to play better!!! Macey is still a turkey (she is at the moment throwing a major tantrum) but I can see a glimmer of a difference. The glimmer gives me hope! They both really are great girls. Mackinley told Jar that he had winter on him when he came in with snowflakes on him. How cute is that! I love that kid! I am so in love with my little family. Jar is such a good daddy and hubby. My favorite image in my head that I have of the 3 of them together is when Macey was probably about 7 weeks old. Jar was holding her in one arm, had Mackinley on the other side and he was painting Mackinley's fingernails. It was pretty darn cute. We are pretty lucky to have him.
Well, my mudding and taping is calling, well shouting, my name. We are getting more carpet put in next week and I need to get ready! The hallway and the 2 girls rooms are being done, so it's not too bad, but we had to redo the part of the dining room that attaches to the hallway. What a mess! Oh well, in one more week we will be done with reno's until next year. It will be nice to relax and enjoy the time and money we've put it. It does look really good. I for sure will be posting pictures after the girls rooms are done. I finally found my card reader, but I have so much on my card that it will take a long time to get it all off. I tried last week and it said about an hour and a half. I needed it in 10 minutes, so it didn't get done. That will be a goal for next week I guess. Get it prepped for Christmas!!! Did I mention I was stoked for Christmas?

My dad always said life isn't fair

We went shopping this week so I could buy some new clothes for myself. I don't really need new clothes I guess, but the ones that fit (my skinny clothes...yay!) are at least 2 years old. I didn't wear them last year because Macey was still just a wee babe and I couldn't fit in them, so some of them only have one season of wear. I still would like to buy some more. I didn't find any though.
Jaron doesn't like to go clothes shopping. He is a major pain in my rear end when we go. Not that he won't let me spend the money, it's the fact that he can't stand waiting around. He's constantly asking if I'm done, or he won't look at what I'm showing him and give me an opinion of something. He would make a terrible gay guy. He is pretty patient though when we are shopping for him. We went to wholesale sports first. We were there for a good hour waiting for the paperwork to his new gun to finish. While he is standing ogling guns I have to keep both kids happy in a non kid-friendly store. Boo-urns. But I did it without complaining....about any of it. And just so you know, I am not complaining right now, I am explaining.
So off to the mall we go. Jar was actually pretty good, because he wanted to even out the tally. He spent so much, so I should spend so much so that I didn't count the gun as his christmas present. He's so thoughtful.
I didn't find anything for myself and I was okay with that. Until Mackinley got her ears pierced. She was pretty adamant that she get them done and so I let her. Since it was unplanned she didn't get emla cream put on like I normally would've done, but she's a pretty tough girl.....I thought. The poor thing thought she was going to die I'm sure. I did feel bad for her. She didn't cry too hard for too long. But she whined for the next....well she's still whining. She absolutely loves them though. Anyways, we did this at the end of the shopping trip and I didn't feel like dragging a crying kid through any more stores. But I definitely felt like buying something nice for myself, even if it was a super cute dress from le chateau that was 200 bucks! I resisted and we left. Jaron with a new gun....Mackinley with new earrings.....and me carrying Macey. Oh well, maybe next time.
I did get a pumpkin pie blizzard that day, so that was great. And after the mall I got a donut and hot smoothie from Timmy's, so that was pretty great too.
We got home kinda late and as we drove into the driveway lo and behold a stupid muskrat is running toward my house! The thing was ginormous!! Jar got out to get rid of it, but the thing was stone stupid and ran toward Jar and got booted around. It sat on the woodpile and Jar went to go get something to catch it in. By the time he got back it was gone. Ewwww! It's lurking around somewhere. Hopefully it has left and went back to the water.
Crazy day, but fun. Today we drove out and went shooting the new gun. I have to admit I'm kinda wimpy, and after shooting 8 rounds, my arm is sore....still. I just checked.
We got trim put up today!!!! Hallelujah! It looks amazing. Jar did awesome. We still have more to do and then I promise I will put up pictures. I can promise this because I finally found my card reader. I was getting kinda worried for a bit there, but it turned up.
Now that I have typed this up I have realized I have had a pretty busy week. And it is not finished yet. Monday, tuesday was cleaning and laundering. Wednesday was Christmas baking with my mommy. Thursday was shopping. Today was trim and shooting guns and hanging out with friends. Tomorrow is super saturday...yay! and Sunday.....well, I don't even want to talk about sunday. Sunday's are the worst day of the week. At least Jar is home this sunday. Only 3 and a half more months til nursery. Only.
Off to bed for me! I am excited to lay in bed and watch a movie. A nice way to end the day.