Ickie, Ickie, Ickie

I would first off, like to thank my husband and my mom for everything that they have done for me this past weekend.

Thursday night I went to bed shivering with a headache, but didn't think too much about it. It didn't help that JD, once again, had a hard time sleeping for more than 2 hours at a time. When I woke up I still had a headache and felt cold enough to sit in front of a portable heater. It was a very hard day to get through, to say the least. Olivia did fairly good, but JD cried a lot in the morning before I was able to get him down for a nap, that didn't last very long. When Frankie got home from work, he decided to take Olivia to the Sky View homecoming game to watch Uncle Yab play. So it was just me and JD for a little while, so I was able get some down time. Then my mom offered to take both kids for the night giving me a chance to get some much needed sleep. As sad as it was to be away from my babies for the night, I knew that I really needed to catch up on some rest. Later that night, I discovered that I was running a fever, making my rest all the more important.

On Saturday, we lent our car to my brother Yab to use for homecoming. It appeared that my fever was gone and I was feeling much better so I didn't think much more on the night before. But once again, that night, I was back and forth between shivering like a Californian in Alaska and sweating like and Alaskan in California. It was decided that I was going to go to the Instacare the following day. When I woke up Sunday morning I had broken my fever and was completely drenched in sweat. I was so wet and so were my sheets, it wasn't fun.

At the Instacare the Dr. confirmed the suspicions of my husband that I had a breast infection, not fun at all. So now I'm taking some pretty strong medicine 4 times a day. And the thing that sucks about it is that I have to take it on an empty stomach, which is kind of hard at times. After the Instacare, Frankie took me and the kids out to Smithfield to get help from my mom, and he went to church. He also was so sweet and cleaned around the house for me, since this infections has just floored me for the past couple of days and toys were everywhere. It made me so happy to walk into a clean house, that always makes me excited, especially when I wasn't the one who did it.

So here we are on Monday and I'm feeling a little better because I'm finally able to keep my fever at bay, which means my headache is also at bay. My milk supply has dwindled a little, but for me that honestly isn't a big deal at all since I have enough milk for twins just about. So here is to feeling better.

Oh, and JD is starting to smile a little here and there. He gave me a big smile on Friday, which just made all of the crappiness of day disappear.

Habb vs. the Hellfire Challenge

Yesterday was my brother Habb's birthday. In celebration of this day my parents took him to Salt Lake to Kobe Sushi where he took on the Hellfire challenge. A few weeks ago my dad was watching Man vs. Food where they came to Salt Lake to Kobe Sushi to take the Hellfire challenge. Because Habb is such a lover of really spicy hot food, my dad thought that it would be something he would like to try. So for his birthday that is exactly what he did and my parents were kind enough to let us tag along as a family.

The rules of the challenge are this: To begin the challenge you need to eat 1 piece each of a level 4,5 and a 6 sushi roll or two number 6. If you make it past this then you can begin the challenge. The next step to the challenge is that you need to eat two pieces of a 6 and a half roll. Once you eat those then you must eat an entire roll of a number 7, which is 6 pieces. They will allow you to drink or eat other things along with the sushi as long as it is provided by them. So that is the challenge Habb took.

Before

When my dad first mentioned that Habb would be attempting this challenge, I thought that it would be fairly easy for him considering how much that kids loves spicy hot food. But watching him attempt this challenge really changed that view. The poor kid was sweating, tearing up and many other things. It was so hot for him that he even agreed to drink milk, even though he is lactose intolerant. (My mom asked if they would allow them to get soy milk for him, but they said no.) Seeing Habb really struggling with each piece, I began to realize that the warning signs they had put up in the restaurant, were very necessary.

During

As hard as it was for him to complete this challenge, complete it he did and his prize: a picture on the wall of fame and a T-shirt. And every time he wears that T-shirt to the restaurant he will get 10% off his order for the rest of his life. The chef also told us that the challenge that was aired on TV was a lot easier than what Habb really ate. They toned down the hotness of the spices so the show host could complete the challenge. In all reality, only 4% of the people that attempt the challenge actually complete it, so way to go Habb. It was a fun filled Saturday night, even if he did get sick at the very end, but that is because his stomach was rejecting all of the milk that he drank. Once it got rid of that, he did a whole lot better.

Our Hellfire Champ

Happy Birthday Habb!!

His Story...

Ok, Angie. Since you insist on hearing all about life from the perspective of the Frank, I will divulge a few of my secrets.

There has really been a lot that has transpired in the past couple of months. I'll say this, in terms of all that has happened, I haven't felt so many highs and lows since my mission. To sum it up, we found ourselves in a situation where we were being strongly persuaded to move by some of the people in our neighborhood. Unfortunately, though, I seem to have developed some stubbornness issues and I had no desire to leave my neighborhood. So, when our dear friends, the Cleggs, offered us their apartment, we couldn't refuse. The week of moving, however proved to be one of the most eventful weeks we have ever lived through. It started with a tragedy, however.

One of our closest friends to our family unexpectedly slipped beyond the veil. When he left, it left a void that, for some reason, I still somewhat struggle with trying to fill. I suppose the most difficult thing for me to realize was just how much I had really tried to be like him without even realizing it. What deepened my loss was learning just how much he had looked up to me and deeply admired me. The funeral services were probably the most beautiful, and yet the most surreal services I had attended to date. For one thing, though I wasn't a member of the immediate family, they treated me as though I was. Also, I gotta say this: it's one thing to be in the presence of someone you've lost and still feel close with that person, but when his or her presence is so close that you swear you can see him sitting in the stands out of the corner of your eye, it just leaves you really wondering just how thin that veil really is. I could have sworn I heard him laughing and even crying a bit at some of the things that were said about him. It's amazing how a singular experience like that can leave you feeling such a strange sense of unity and brotherhood to the amazing man I called Benjy. I'll miss my dear friend and older brother. I hope I can be the honorary uncle he would wish me to be for his beautiful, beautiful daughters. I love you Brooke and Bailey.

So, upon returning to Logan, we made some plans for a very busy upcoming week. You see, we had planned on moving first, then having the baby, but our little Chili-Bean kinda decided he had plans of his own and he decided to come earlier than anticipated. So I found myself quite blessed indeed when my friends, neighbors, and my amazing sister and niece came to help me get moved. Though Angie couldn't be there to help, it was so nice to leave the work-in-progress that was our home and visit her and our Chili-Bean in the Hospital. It was also nice to have them return to the new house when we got unpacked. There was a bit of a strange feeling, though, to be moving into the home we had always dubbed as the Clegg's place. It is hard to know that they are gone now, but I find solace in knowing that they are chasing broader horizons and bigger dreams now.

So let me talk a bit about my Chili-Bean. JD officially dubbed the nickname, Chili-Bean, because he has this funny tendency to go extremely red when he cries. The hospital refers to this type of crying as purple crying, which I worry about, but then again, it can be pretty funny at times. He just goes extremely red... plus he farts a ton. So he is now the Chili-Bean. Part of me acknowledges the fact that he may be a bit colicky at times, but then again, I guess he is my son after all. :) Another perk is that our Lady-Bug just adores him. I have been so impressed with her gentleness. My sweet Olivia just loves getting attention. It helps me realize just how careful I have to be when it comes to responding to everything she does, whether it's dropping a whole toilet paper roll in the toilet, eating chap-stick, or playing with her mother's breastpumping parts by placing them on herself. It was so funny! She is incredibly observant. I love watching her learn! She can be such a character at times. It is so crazy to realize she's going to be 2 in less than a month now. Man, how the time is flying!

Over Labor Day weekend, I decided to leave Angie and the Chili-Bean and take our Lady-Bug on a new adventure. What I thought was going to be a nice trip to be with a few family members turned out to be nothing short of a delightful reunion with some old and new faces of the Workman Family. Altogether, I'd estimate that there were at least 50 people there at one point. See, our Labor-Day trips date back to as early as when I was 13 or so. Every year, around Labor Day, we'd get together with my aunt and uncle from Colorado and we'd go camping. For a season, we'd alternate between going to Colorado and having them come into Utah to camp. By the time I left on my mission, we'd easily hit attendance numbers in the 20s, but this time around, I have never seen so many people that came to enjoy each others' company. The one person who stole all the limelight and attention from everyone else was none other than Olivia herself. I must say she had a blast just running around, getting dirty, and four-wheeling. She had a blast. She just simply gave me no opportunity to really keep her clean. She loved playing in the campers, the trailers, and even with all the dogs. She was all about having fun and it left me feeling so relieved that I didn't have to baby her so much. I really enjoyed telling and hearing stories around the campfire and reminiscing on old times with old friends... no pun intended.

Work has been quite interesting indeed. Though I don't particularly find myself fancying what I am doing, I will say that it has become a bit easier to transition from service into strictly sales than I thought it would be. I'm posting good numbers, which makes my boss look good, which makes his boss look good, and so on and so forth. My life is a very simple one, really... and that is certainly a different twist on things than I thought it would be. I can't help but feel, though, that something big is coming. I feel as though I am on the threshold of something huge that we have been prepared for. I look forward to the challenges and the dangers that lie in the great unknown. My family is my everything and, despite their antics, I certainly couldn't live without my children.

Well, there you have it, Angie. There's a brief sum of some of my perspectives of this crazy adventure you and I call eternity. Ain't it a fine life?!

Playing around in one of the trailers

Peek-a-boo daddy!

What a beautiful model

Ahh, so peaceful

Hey dad, don't you know I need my beauty
rest if I'm to pose for your pictures?

3 Weeks and Counting

Yesterday was JD's 3 week birthday. Because so much has happened since he was born it seems like he has been here for a much longer period of time. I am slowly, but surely, adjusting to my new life as a mother of two and let me tell you, it hasn't been that easy. I have heard from lots of people that having two children isn't that bad, in fact it can be easier because the two children can play together. Well, I haven't reached that point yet, so right now it is pretty difficult to have two children. I guess it doesn't help that I'm still trying to get my house in order from the move. I have it in working order, but not presentable order. Maybe someday soon I will feel comfortable showing my new house off, but not yet.

Since moving in there has been so much to do. Poor Frankie spent three days just deep cleaning our old apartment in hopes of getting most of our deposit back. We lived there for 5 years so of course there is the usual wear and tear, but for the most part we did take care of the house. It was cluttered, but I did clean it. So that was a fun project, NOT!

Once we had that out of the way, Frankie took some time to go camping with his family over Labor Day weekend giving me a chance to just bond with my new little man JD and of course clean the house. Mostly I spent the time bonding with JD through sleep.

Of course, I didn't expect JD to sleep through the night, but I did forget how hard it is to go without so little sleep. And it is even harder this time, because I can't just sleep when the baby sleeps, because I have Olivia to watch. So I only get the one nap and the rest of the day is spent in a daze trying to slowly clean the house, play with Olivia and feed JD. JD is starting to stay awake more during the day, so I'm hoping that he'll start to transition his days and nights. As nice as it is for him to be awake more, it also makes it harder, because he just does not want to be put down. He fusses if he isn't constantly being held, so I hope that he can get past this soon as well because I have a hard time getting dinner on the table in a timely manner when he is crying because I can't hold him. I know that we will get there, it is just a matter of surviving until we get to that point.

So enough about my sleep deprivation and more about our family. Olivia is growing up so fast. Her vocabulary is growing, but she still can just talk up a storm in her own made up jibberish. She loves her little brother and is very soft with him. She loves to pat his back after I've fed him and then rub it. She loves to hold him as well. When she wants to hold him she'll just say "Me, me!" and hold out her arms while beckoning with her hands to bring JD to her. She has also become a very good jumper and climber. Unfortunately, she is beginning to see that she can climb something and then jump off it, thankfully nothing has happened yet. She loves to have an audience for everything she does, so she is constantly asking me if she can do something to draw my attention to her, even if she wants to drink out of my water jug. Her favorite movie is 'Tangled', she could watch that movie all day long if I let her, but I reserve it for times when I really need her to be out from under my feet. She has adjusted quite well to our new home and is loving the new layout. She loves driving her little car around the kitchen and putting her doll in the baby swing. There are just so many new things that she is learning every day that it is hard to

remember them all.

I forgot to mention that Olivia is obsessed with putting on shoes

Here is Olivia at the beach with her cute cousin Charis

JD is doing his part and growing very well. I'm very thankful that I have a good milk supply to help him grow. It is kind of funny, when a new baby comes into a family everyone tries to see if the baby looks more like mommy or daddy. But when it comes to JD, he looks like Olivia. There are little things that you can see clearly came from one parent or the other, but honestly the best way to say it is that he looks like Olivia. JD is also learning to smile, several times in the past couple of days he has almost smiled at me. Of course, he has smiled plenty in his sleep, but I'm looking for that smile where he knows he is smiling at me or dad or whoever he smiles at. There are so many milestones ahead for him and I'm excited to see them all.

Here is a comparison of the two

JD

Olivia

As for me and Frankie, not much has changed. Frankie did have a birthday on September 1st and is now 28. I know that technically we aren't that old, but there are times I feel really old and other times I can't believe that I'm really 26. Sometimes I still feel like the 20 year old who just got married. So that is the Workman update for now. I'll have to see if Frankie is willing to post about his camping trip.

Ready......Or Not.....Here I Come!!

Jon Desmond Workman

Believe it or not, but that title totally describes everything about the last week and a half. It has been the most hectic week and a half that I've experienced since I was in high school. So here is our story.

At the beginning of the month we were given notice that the terms of our lease agreement on our apartment were changing due to some circumstances concerning our cats. So it was either get rid of our cats and we can stay there for an extra $25 a month, making rent $500. The reason they changed the lease is a whole other story that is really, really annoying, and gets us going, so we just will pass over that part of the story. So needless to say, we didn't want to get rid of our cats who are a part of our family, so we started the process of looking for a new place to move. Around this time, our friends and neighbors, the Clegg's, were preparing to move to South Dakota for graduate school and were looking to sell their apartment. We talked with a loan officer and were accepted for our first home loan. And on the bright side, our monthly payments will be about the same as the rent on our old apartment, so the logical choice for us was to purchase their apartment

As scary as it has been to get a mortgage, it will finally be nice to actually own our home. We have loved the townhouse that we've lived in for the past 5 years and are very sad to move, but at least we truly have a place to call our own. But really, the moving part is only half of the story to be told here, and the more hectic part as well.

I know that it wasn't the smartest move to be moving and having a baby all in the same week, but honestly, we didn't have much of a choice now did we. But in our defense, we did have something of a plan that would have worked out just fine. Because our new residence is literally in the back yard of our old residence, we figured that we could move the small items over and get them in their place and then have one day where we got help with moving the big items and then we would be moved in allowing me to be induced on Thursday evening, the 25th. I honestly think that it would have worked out just great, but unfortunately, that isn't how it all played out.

Michele and Casey were set to move out on the 22nd which is when we would begin the migration of our smaller items and then our big items. So on Sunday evening we put Olivia down to bed and began cleaning and putting some items together so start moving them the next evening. I new that this week was going to be hectic, but I was prepared to face it all, but JD had other plans for us.

As we began our cleaning and organizing, I made sure that I took frequent breaks, due to the fact that I was 9 months pregnant. I had also been having contractions throughout the day, but they hadn't been painful, so I just labeled them as Braxton Hicks. But as the cleaning wore on, they began to get a little more uncomfortable, but once again I put them from my mind. You see, with Olivia I was induced at 39 weeks because of the diabetes, so I honestly didn't know what it was like to go into labor on my own. So you can see why I wasn't considering the fact that I was in labor as I cleaned around my house. As the hour got late, we headed to bed to prepare ourselves for a very hectic week. I was only able to lay in bed for a few minutes before I got very uncomfortable, so I relocated to downstairs to try a different environment. But as the minutes wore on, my contractions got worse and a lot more painful. Now I was finally thinking "I might be in labor". But I didn't really know how to tell if it was true labor or false labor. I really didn't have the luxury of going into the hospital only to be told that I wasn't in labor. I had a 22 month old that I didn't want to wake up. So I downloaded a free contraction timer on my ipod touch and began timing. When they really seemed really close and extremely painful, I finally accepted the fact that it was go time so I woke Frankie up, called mom to come watch Olivia and headed to the hospital.

We arrived there around 5:30 and were immediately shown to a room. Thankfully I was already preregistered with the hospital, so I didn't have to do much paper work. In our room I put on my hospital gown and got hooked up to the monitors and was ready to get settled in for a couple of hours of labor. But of course I really didn't get settled until I got an epidural because I was in a lot of pain. I don't know how women can do it without an epidural, because it was really painful for me. But all I can say is, power to those who can tough it out because I can't. I was there for about an hour before I received my epidural. One very painful hour. Once I received my epidural I was prepared to settle in for a few more hours, boy was I wrong about that.

With Olivia I was in labor for 18 hours because my labor was jump started. So even though I wasn't expecting an 18 hour labor, I wasn't really expecting a 6 hour labor either. They called my doctor at 7:45 while he was at the gym. He would be right in after he was finished there. Shortly after 8 he came to check on me and to break my water (I wasn't sure if it had broke on its own or not). He came in, said hi to me checked my dilation status and then looked at me and asked if I was ready to push. I was totally shocked to see that I was already dilated enough to push. I felt like I had only just got my epidural. Dr. Olsen left to scrub up and the nurses got everything out to prepare for our new little baby. At 8:58 am on Aug. 22nd our beautiful JD arrived in a whirl wind. He was 6 lbs 11 oz and 19 inches long, almost a 1/2 lb lighter than Olivia. He was a week early, but he was ready to be here even if we weren't quite ready ourselves. But ready or not, here he came.

The rest of the day was spent resting while Frankie ran around like a chicken with his head cut off trying to get everything ready to move without me. I felt so bad that I couldn't help him get things ready, but honestly I was very glad not to be pregnant anymore. Already it was easier to get comfortable and get some sleep.

I know that there were so many people from our ward and our neighborhood who helped Frankie out and I'm very grateful to all of them, I'm just not sure who everyone is so I'll just throw a thank you out there to everyone. But the person I really want to thank is my mom. I couldn't have done it without her helping out with Olivia. I'm so blessed to have her for a mom, and to have her living close to us right now.

I checked out of the hospital Wednesday afternoon, but I didn't go to our new home, I checked into my parents house so Frankie could continue to get things put together. It was nice to still have the help of my mom with Olivia while I got into the swing of being the parent of two. It is going to be hard, but I'm up for the challenge. But it will be easier to be the kind of parent I want to be once I get this extremely messy house in order.

Olivia's first meeting with her little brother

JD meet your mom

JD and Daddy

Just sleeping life away
First family photo

Every time she sees JD she asks to hold him

Proud new parents

Ahh, home at last

Now I can sleep without getting poked and prodded