Elliot Jeffrey Kearl

It's probably time I announce the arrival of Elliot. He was born October 14 at 7:58 am. He weighed 8lbs even and was 20.75" long. We are so happy to have him in our lives and I am so glad that I am not pregnant anymore!

*disclaimer - there is a lot of reading ahead in this post. I wanted to write out a summary of my feelings leading up to Elliot's birth for my record. Feel free to skip this post*

His pregnancy was nothing short of stressful to me. I started out, like many women do, very sick. I could not keep anything down, I was such a basket case. I spent most of the first 4 months on the couch, while my house went down the drain. I did not clean, I hardly cooked, and it took everything I had to get Clara to the bus every day. Jeff was amazingly helpful and picked up so much of the extra slack.

I had an angel who turned everything around for me. One day, while we were at church, some one very special to us came to our house and cleaned the whole thing for us. The house was at the point where I had no idea where to start, and to this day I think about her and her amazing act of service all the time. I don't think she has any idea how much this meant to me, more than any words could describe. Not only did we come home to a clean house, it gave me the motivation and strength I needed to get it together and push through the remainder of my pregnancy.

After our trip to Florida back in May, I started to feel much better. I was finally feeling somewhat human again. I had started working 3 days a week at work so I could qualify for maternity leave benefits. It's a hard job, that requires a lot of time on your feet, so it was a little rough, but besides being tired it was going well.

In July we discovered the baby was breach at one of my regular appointments. Because I was so early yet, we did not worry about it. Until about mid August, he stayed that way. I remember one weekend being SO incredibly uncomfortable and I am convinced it was because he was turning around. Sure enough, at my next appointment, his head was down. I was so happy about that! Two weeks later I went in for my regular appointment and I remember saying to Carol (one of my amazing midwives) "I am feeling so good, I could stay like this for a while". Little did I know I was about to eat those words. When it came time to listen to babies heart, it was not quite right. His heart kept skipping beats and making funny sounds. Now any mother knows that this is the last thing you want to hear when you go in for an appointment. I remember lying there, listening to babies heart and trying so hard to hold it together. I did not need anyone to tell me something was wrong, I knew it. I was assured by Carol that this happens sometimes and it always sorts itself out. I left my appointment with another appointment for an in depth ultrasound. I got in the truck and was just crying my eyes out. I tried calling Jeff and he was not answering. I tried calling him for about 40 minutes before he finally called me back. I had been driving around downtown to pick him up to come with me to the ultrasound. It was so hard not having anyone to talk to about it. I will never forget that feeling I felt that day, you never want anything to be wrong with your baby. Despite the reassuring words from the perinatologist we saw that day, it was still very stressful to me. It was even more difficult because I had a friend from work who had the same thing with her baby and she had just had an emergency c-section because of her babies heart beat and it was a pretty scary event. I kept hearing everything would be fine, and it took so much out of me to believe those words.

I went for my weekly appointments from that time on. For the first few we heard the irregular heartbeat every time. Eventually, one day I went in and we couldn't hear it. That was a good day.

Shortly after that I remember feeling not well. I did not make it into my last week of work because of how I was feeling. I remember bleeding a little, having lots of back pain and just not feeling quite right. I went in for my appointment one day and we figured I was going to have a baby in the next few days. We were wrong....that afternoon I got really dizzy and had a really bad fever, along with my back pain. After 3 nights of no sleep because of my crazy fever and chills, I went into the hospital. They determined something was not right so they told me I would be spending the night on some antibiotics. That was a horrible night...I was not well. I ended up spending 3 long days in the hospital, but when I left, I felt pretty good.

About a week and a half later it was time. I started contractions around 11pm, got out of bed around midnight and just walked around my house. They were very irregular, but quite painful. Jeff stayed home to get Clara and Donovan to school, but then I told him to go to work because I had so many false labor scares already. I called my sister in law (who is another angel I know) to ask her to take Donovan for me and get Clara from the bus. I needed to know that my kids were taken care of, and I was in no state to do that at this point. Around 7 that night I called Carol to tell her. I was still not regular, but they sure were painful. I remember having this stop and go with Clara for about a week before she was born and I did not want this again. Carol told me to call her later that night to let her know if they were worse or better. It didn't take long after that. Around 8pm they came full force. No breaks between contractions and I was struggling. We went to the hospital and Carol and Mary (another amazing midwife) were there for me. Once we got settled in, they slowed down to every 2 minutes or so. I was 5-6 cm. We got to the hospital around 9pm and after a couple of hours we decided to break my water. Shortly after that my back pain got REALLY intense. I remember thinking, take the back pain away, I will handle any contraction you can throw at me. Unfortunately, the back pain did not go away and upon examining me it was determined that baby was still very posterior and he was turned the wrong way. I remember feeling my back and being told that bump in my spine was the babies head. I tried to stay calm, but I really suck at being calm. I got an epidural and was able to relax. Jeff slept for a good 4 hours. I was checked again about 10 hours after being admitted to the hospital, I had not changed at all. I was not progressing and babies heart rate kept getting higher and higher. An OB came and and I was told I would be put on pitocin and if that didn't help after 2 hours, I would need a c-section. I could not believe after such a long time of laboring that I would end up with a c-section. So on to the pitocin. About 10 minutes after getting that, I felt a lot of pressure. After being checked, I was 10 cm and ready to go! I remember hearing cheers in the hallway from the hospital staff when they found out. It was time to start pushing.

With Clara I pushed 3 times. With Donovan I barely pushed at all, he came out so fast. Elliot was a little more work. After pushing a couple of times, I remember asking if he was even coming. I was not used to pushing so much and so hard. It took about 30 minutes of pushing (keep in mind, this is my 3rd child). As his head popped out, he started turning. So imagine this, his head is half out and he decides at this point he is going to turn himself around. Go figure. Both my other babies were similar, face up, very posterior, but they both turned before making their appearance. Not this guy. He sure is something else.

With all this said and done, I could not be happier. I would LOVE another baby, but I just don't have another pregnancy in me. I can handle the newborn, lack of sleep, crying etc, but I can't handle 9 months of what feels like torture to me.

I remember at the end of my pregnancy thinking that this baby was going to be a basketcase because I had been one throughout my pregnancy. I wish I could say I was wrong, but I am not that far off. He has definitely been my most challenging baby. The first couple of weeks he would just cry and cry and cry. There was no way you could put him down, unless you wanted to subject yourself to a newborn babies scream. Even once you got him to sleep, you could not put him down or he would wake up instantly. It's easy to tell that he has stomach issues. He curls his knees up and just cries. I wish I could do something to help him out. I have tried cutting certain foods from my diet. I have tried swaddling him and using a sling, they don't work. Thankfully he does like the swing most of the time. He has been getting better, he has about 3 or 4 bad days a week, but the other days are pure heaven, when I can just enjoy my baby and play with my children and even get some laundry done. He does sleep VERY well most nights. To be guaranteed 5 hours between feedings, he needs to be elevated and kept very warm. So he spends almost every night right beside me. I don't often sleep in my bed, mostly on the couch. It's worth it though to get some sleep, as he drains a lot of energy from me during the day.

I do love this little guy and I am so very happy he is in our lives. Our whole family is so in love with him. Donovan is so proud of his little brother and has taken on the role of big brother very well. He is always trying to make him happy, always squishing his cheeks, giving him his soother, talking to him and rubbing his feet. I can't wait to watch these two as they interact with each other and play together.

Kids room

I should be sleeping, but I am not. I wish I was able to, but sleep has already become a thing of the past for me. Luckily, I must be in that nesting stage because I still have quite a bit of energy throughout the day and have been accomplishing so much lately. This weekend we set up the babies room, I made a bunch of freezer meals, made tons of muffins, reorganized the bonus room and still had time for a date with my husband! I don't see sleep coming anytime soon, so hopefully this energy lasts a while longer, I still have a few things to tackle on my to do list.

I started this project in January I think. At the time I wasn't even pregnant, wasn't really thinking of being pregnant, and was really excited to make a fun room for the kids. The room that is now the babies room was going to be the kids playroom....well now it is another project that I am working on!

This was Donovan's room, it was all blue and had a truck theme. When the kids begged to share a room so they could have bunk beds, we decided, why not? Then I started thinking, what is a gender neutral theme? This is all I could come up with. Thankfully the internet is full of resources and it all pulled together nicely.

I am not an artist, but I found this awesome website that sends you outlines for murals. All you have to do is trace them and paint them. I traced the room in January, painted a little and then decided to have another baby. Well....I did not work again on this room until July I think. Now that I am feeling a lot better, I have been able to complete it and the kids are really happy about that! I am pretty proud of myself too, it was a lot of work, but SO worth it!


I love the window valences. I have since put one on the other window. I found some bamboo and rafia and went at it. It was actually a lot of fun making these.

The mural had no sun anywhere....I figured we couldn't have a beach room without the sun, right? Well I was SO excited when I found this sun light. It is perfect for their room!

I have started the babies room. Jeff painted the room for me, we set up the crib and furniture this weekend and now I am getting to the tracing. Hopefully this one won't take me 8 months to complete!

Where to Start

Well, it has been a while. A lot has happened, obviously, since my last post. I don't even know where to start, so I will just update all of our current news.

We recently returned from a trip to Florida. We love it there, it is such a great family vacation. I would love to take the kids to Hawaii, or Mexico, or Jamaica (Donovan asks to go there because a girl in his class went), but every time we look into a family vacation, we always end up back in Florida. It's the fail proof vacation. It's fairly inexpensive, it's almost always hot, and there is so much to do to keep the kids and me entertained. Jeff would be happy sitting in the hotel room all day reading, so he doesn't count. This time the trip was not geared around Disney, as sad as that made me. We were able to use Jeff's Hilton points from his traveling last year and we got 7 nights free, so we picked the hotel with the best swimming pool and this is what we got.

Let me tell you....I don't think swimming pools get much better than this. I am NOT a swimmer, in fact it has got to be my least favorite thing to do with the kids. With this pool, there was a huge lazy river, so we didn't have to do anything, just follow the kids down the river. I had an air mattress and it was heaven. There was a water slide...which I couldn't go on, but the kids got to go and the loved it. The hotel was gorgeous and the staff were so friendly...I would definitely stay here again.
We did manage to get one day of Disney. At the beginning of the year they announced if you give a day, you get a day. So if you volunteered a day you would get one free day at Disney. I signed up right away. The plan was to take the kids by myself, but then something happened (more on that later) and our plans changed. So Jeff kindly volunteered a day so he could come with us. I am so glad he did. I think he enjoyed Disney this time around, but he will never admit that.




Donovan got to ride Splash Mountain for the first time. He was finally tall enough. He was scared at first and spent most of the ride ducking into Jeff, but he loved it in the end and wanted to go again. I really wish I could have gone with them, but it was a lot of fun watching them as well.

Before we left the kids each got to pick 3 characters to meet. That was all we were standing in line to see, no exceptions. Clara picked Tinkerbell, Princess Tiana and Minnie Mouse. Donovan picked Goofy, Mickey and Donald. Lucky for us, 4 of those characters are at a character meal, so we forked out the outrageous price for one of those meals, and we didn't have to stand in line at all to meet them. That was nice. The line up for the fairies is always really long, but we went early enough that we didn't wait long at all.
Donovan was SO happy he got to meet Terence. We had never met him before and he was the only one Donovan wanted to sign his


We spent the weekend hanging out in the hotel. On weekend evenings they have a movie by the pool. We watched Ice Age 3 while the kids swam in the pool. They had popcorn for everyone, which was a really nice touch.
I got to spend some time shopping, which was super fun. I have been working more lately so I had a little more money to spend on this trip. I splurged on a couple of big ticket items that I am really excited about. After a weekend of hanging out we went to Sea World. We have been to Florida 2 times before this, but never visited Sea World, so this time we went. The kids loved it there. Jeff and I, not so much. It was super expensive there and the entertainment was not so exciting. I don't think we would ever go back there, but we are happy we can say we have been.


The kids got to feed the dolphins, it was really neat. That was the highlight of the day for me.



We spent some time exploring different Disney hotels, they sure have some amazing hotels. We also spend a couple of evenings at Chip and Dale's campfire sing a long. We roasted marshmallows, made some s'mores and got to meet Chip and Dale. It was lots of fun.






However, all trips come to an end. I must admit, I am planning our next trip already, but it will be a while this time. Not until next October and I think we will leave Jeff at home...we'll see.

Other news....we are pregnant. That is why I couldn't go on a lot of the rides with the kids. We thought we were done, but I guess we are not. Just found out it is a boy. I figured it would be since we moved the kids into one room around Christmas time and of course we picked the boy room for them. So I have been working really hard at painting the kids room to a neutral beach themed room, which is going to look awesome once I finish it. But...I am left with a pink room. Of course the baby is a boy, more for me to paint! Plus we can't agree on a boys name. Good thing we have 4.5 months to figure it out!!

We are headed to Victoria with my office in a couple of weeks. I am excited to have a vacation with just Jeff. It's been a rough few months with me being so sick that we haven't had much quality time together. Good news is I am starting to feel better, so hopefully we can really enjoy our time away.

Rough Week

Well I feel like a baby, but it really has been a tough week for me. We had to make a really hard decision, but we know it's the right one. We listed our new house today in hopes that we can sell it in a reasonable amount of time. It is so tough for me because this is the house we built for us. We put everything we wanted into this house and besides the fact that it is WAY too big for us, it is everything we could ever need. However, we just couldn't sell our last house, and paying two mortgages is just not going to work for the rest of our lives. We figure we can't sell our last house, hopefully we can sell this one. We know we are going to take a loss on it, but hopefully not too much. Good thing is, we are young and will easily bounce back from this in a few years. Although, I have to admit, it will be really personal to me when some one has something bad to say about this house, as I truly love everything about this place. In the end, it's just a house and we are extremely grateful that we are so blessed to have everything we have and that we have a great house to move back to. Here's hoping that our house sells! I will miss living so close to a couple of really good friends but hope that we will find the time for each other even if we don't live as close anymore.

Just when I was thinking the worst part about my week was losing my house, I had a wake up call. My grandma fell and seriously hurt herself. My grandparents are extremely healthy for their age, but every now and then, something happens that reminds me they are getting older and I need to treasure all the time I have left with them. It has made me realize that I don't dedicate enough time to them, and I don't spend enough time helping my kids get to know them. My new goal is to spend more time with them and help them out more than I do. I take for granted that I have them in my life and I want my kids to remember their great grandma and grandpa long after they are gone. They are great people and very entertaining to be around.

Now I can't just post negative things, especially since I haven't posted in so long. So here are some things from this week that I am grateful for.

I am grateful for my kids. I love them so very much and I had so much fun planning Donovan's Cars birthday party this week. I can't believe my baby is 3!

I am so happy for a loving husband who does so much for me and our family. He truly is the best husband I could ask for. I am so grateful he has such and amazing job that pays him so well and provides him with great opportunities.

I am grateful for family. I love that Jeff has such a large family and I know that we can count on them for anything. I have spent the last few days watching 2 of our nephews and they have taught me so much. It has been a lot of fun getting to know them a little better. Although, I must admit, I am grateful that they have been as good as they have been. They sure have made it easy for us.

I am grateful that one of my very best friends has bought a house in the city again. I have missed her so much and I am so excited to have her back! I feel so selfish saying that, but I honestly am extremely happy about it! Edmonton's loss, my gain! I am also grateful that we might be living in neighboring communities, it sure makes it a lot easier to move.

Turns out I have a lot more things to be grateful for then to complain about! So I will just quit complaining now!

Hello From Disney World

We are having such a fun time in Disney World. Not only is the weather way nicer here than back home, but it is SO much fun!!
It's only our 3rd day here, but we have a lot of pictures already. I can't wait to share them all!!
http://disneyphotoshare.com/myglobe/8D67623B2486624E31

Here is a sneak peak for now!!
Please know that it is not really snow, just Florida's way of pretending they have snow at Christmas! They honestly have fake snow during this light show we were at! We definitely didn't need that.

Clara Turns 4

Clara turned 4! I can't believe that she is that old already! I truly love how much fun she is and all the things she teaches me, but I sure miss my tiny little baby. So now that she is 4, she is a very important princess. Everything should go her way, because she is 4 of course. She wants to buy everything she sees in the store, and will often have a fit when she can't, that is also because she is 4 now. Those are her words, not mine! Every time she has gotten into trouble this past week, she responds by telling me, "well you know I am a really big girl now, I am 4". Nice. Seriously though, she is the best 4 year old girl I could ask for. She is so full of love and happiness that she is constantly reminding me what the important things in life are. She is always telling me how much she loves me and the four words, "I love you mommy", still melt me heart every time she says them. She is a smart girl and it always amazes me how much she learns every day. I love her so much and I loved watching her on her birthday, she was so happy and had so much fun, and that is what being a kid is all about!!


So we celebrated by having a pirate and princess party. It probably would have been just a princess party, but I realized that there were more boys she wanted to invite than girls, so we made a slight change. It worked out perfectly.

These are the invitations for her party. I spent a lot of time planning them out, but I am so happy they turned out so well. They were a big hit.

Here is a picture of her on her birthday, early in the morning. I arranged for princess Aurora to call her and wish her happy birthday. It was absolutely priceless to see her face once she realized who was talking to her.
Here is a picture of most of the kids at her party. It was almost impossible to get them all to sit in one place, so this was the best I could do. I never did a head count, but I know there were a lot of kids.

Here are all the princesses from the party. It was so fun to see them all dressed up. It worked out well too, because we didn't have an duplicate princesses!

We took the kids on a treasure hunt and this is what we found! It was almost impossible to break, like most pinatas are. Jeff finally went at it and beat it pretty hard. Then the kids got to go scrambling for the treasure inside.

I did not attempt to make a cake, and I probably never will again. I have accepted I am just not one of those moms. I love the look of homemade cakes, but mine are just a disaster. I hope my kids don't hold it against me when they are older. My mom always made me my cake when I was little, but I just don't have it in me. It was SO easy to just order this cake, and pick it up, and it was really yummy too!

Here is my very own princess Aurora. I was getting ready to take a picture of her and all of a sudden she starts posing like she is a super model. I don't know where she got it from, but it was something to see. I showed Jeff the pictures, and he asked me why she wasn't smiling in any of them. It was true, no smiles, just serious princess faces. What a funny girl!

Halloween Dance

We went to my sister in law's elementary school dance this weekend and we had a blast! It was fun to dress up in our costumes. I bought them last year and I have been waiting to wear them. I am so happy we got to go out in them! Donovan was a little afraid of all the people, but Clara danced up a storm! She even made her way up to the front where all the big kids were and partied it up with them. It was hilarious! She is quite the spunky dancer.

These are pictures from when I first pulled the costumes out. I was worried Clara would be mad she wasn't going to be a princess, but she loved the fact that we all had matching costumes! I couldn't get them to take the costumes off for the rest of the day. It was really cute! Then we HAD to pull out the Incredibles movie and watch it in our costumes. That was a lot of fun. Donovan even fell asleep in his costume.