The Joys of Having A Big Sister

Kale had jaundice pretty bad after he got home, so the doctor sent over the jaundice biliruben light machine thing. He had to be on the lights for four days "all day except when feeding". (And when I felt like he just needed some time off to be snuggled!) He had to go get blood work done three days in a row. It is the saddest thing when they have to take blood from their arms. We had to do that with Mylin too, and it is not fun. He also had to get blood work done to check his Carnitine levels (to check for that weird deficiency I have and Mylin had). I also had to get a urine sample from him to get tested. Which was...an experience! Thankfully Tim's mom was here to help me with that! Anyways...Kale's first few days home were pretty crazy, but luckily he had his big sister to take care of him!

(The blue glowing underneath him is from the lights)

I was in the other room and came back and Mylin had put her blanket on him (she does not like to share her blanket!) and had pushed a chair next to him and was pushing him in the swing. It was seriously the cutest thing ever!

The big sister!

The lights...

Mylin made sure he wasn't alone with the lights.

Seriously every time I turned around, there was another toy in with him and the lights! We put Kale in the swing with the lights because he seemed to like it there the best. He was not a fan of the lights at first.

Even when he's napping, Mylin doesn't want him to be alone! I guess sleeping with dolls is what happens when you have a big sister!

Kale Timothy Nicoll---2/7/12

He's here! Kale Timothy was born on Tuesday February 7th at 10:53 AM. He weighed in at a petite 9 lbs 6 oz! I knew he was gonna be a big baby, but I didn't think he would be that big! He was 20 inches long. The doctor induced me a week early and I was so grateful he did. He said that if we hadn't induced, he would have easily been a 10 pound baby! We went in to be induced at 1:30 Tuesday morning. Yeah, it's a horrible time. I didn't sleep at all before going in because I was starting to freak out, so I was already tired going to the hospital. I won't give you all the birth details (Although I know some of my friends want to know the whole story! If you do, let me know!) but everything went pretty well. The doc said afterwards that he probably should have done a C-Section, but all in all, everything went well. It was a bit easier than with Mylin, being that I only had to push for like 15 minutes instead of hours!

Mylin was excited to see the baby, but as soon as she saw me hold him, her little lip stuck out and she started bawling. Bad. It broke my heart! Then she same and sat by me on the bed and was like hysterically crying. I finally got her calmed down and then Kale started crying. Then I got him calmed and Mylin started crying again and then I realized I was already overwhelmed with two kids! But after a while, Mylin really started to love Kale. She didn't want anyone else (like my mom or the nurses) to hold Kale.

First bath.

Thankfully my momma was here to help us. She came a few days before I had Kale and stayed a week. We seriously could not have made it through that week without her! It was such a blessing to know Mylin was in good hands while we were at the hospital. (It was the first time I had ever left Mylin over night.) So thank you mom for all the help!! Tim's mom is here this week and has also been a huge help. YAY for grandmas! You both are awesome!

Our first family of four picture. Mylin loves pointing out his toes, eyes, nose, etc...

He looks just like Mylin when he cries!

On the ride home from the hospital.

Kale had some presents for Mylin for when we got home from the hospital. (The first few days being home were so hard. Mylin was having a reallllly hard time adjusting and that meant a ton of tantrums and crying and screaming...but we are doing better everyday!)

She was so excited for her Tangled presents! A Rapunzel doll and dress.

Well....I have a lot more pictures to post and hopefully I will get those up soon--but you never know. This two kids thing is kinda hard! But it is so great at the same time. We love our new little man.

Snow

While we were in Arizona, it snowed! All of the kids were pretty excited to go out and play in it. At first, Mylin was really concerned about it. She just kept looking around and saying, "Uh oh!" She had no clue what was going on. Eventually, she figured out that it was okay and she had a lot of fun playing in it. For some reason, I took more pictures of everyone playing in the snow than everything else on our entire trip--combined! So be prepared for a ton of snow pictures. These aren't even half of the ones I took!

I couldn't get a smile out of Mylin. It seriously took her forever to even play in the snow! Koy and Mia were loving it though! I love Koy's hat.

On Christmas Eve, we went sledding. We built a fire and roasted hot dogs and made hot chocolate. I think one of my very favorite pictures of this trip is the one with Mylin and my grandpa. My grandpa is so cute with her and was always taking her for walks and holding her. Mylin is crazy about him too! (Side note...we were in church on Sunday and saw a picture of Elder Perry and Mylin started screaming, "PAPA!! PAPA!!" Not that he looks anything like him, but still!)

Here are just some more pictures I liked of sledding. I obviously didn't sled, but I did fall down once. It was pretty icy and I just fell right down, but luckily I just landed on my knees.

One day at Tim's parents house, Tim took Mylin, Gavin, and Jordin on a sled behind the arctic cat. Jordin was not a fan of sledding though! They also got to pet the miniature horses and get the eggs from the chickens! They had a great time!

Our Christmas- 2011

We had a great Christmas this year. We went to Arizona and were able to see all of our siblings and their families, which was great. Being in California, we don't get to see everyone very much, so it was nice to be around family. Although...for future reference, I don't think I will be traveling that far again when I am that far pregnant! It wore me out! Anyways, we had a wonderful time. We went sledding (pics of that to come later), played in the snow, went bowling, went and saw 2 movies (Which is huge. I've been to like two movies since

Mylin's been born!), played lots of games, and ate lots of food. Here are a few pics of our time in AZ. I didn't get as many pictures as I would have liked, but I was too tired to whip my camera out a lot!

This was like the only picture I got of Mylin on Christmas morning. I didn't even get one picture of her opening anything. I think she was really overwhelmed by everything. There were 16 people staying at my parents house, so it was a crazy Christmas morning! She opened her presents in her stocking (she loved the sunglasses!) and then pretty much just cried! We were like begging her to open presents and she wouldn't. She finally just wandered off and ended up opening her presents later!

After church--trying to get a family picture.

Banging on Spencer's drums---with a little help from Cinderella! She loved his drums!

Our annual gingerbread (graham cracker) house contest. My sister won. Again. Like 5 years in a row. But that's only because I didn't get to finish mine this year! Mylin walked by and grabbed Koy's house and smashed it...and then ate it! So his house was ruined. So he got to finish my house. Maybe next year someone else will win!

And now some random pics from the trip...

My mom bought some little princess dress-up outfits for the girls to play with and they were in Heaven. They slept in them and Mylin wanted one on at all times!

Having fun with the cousins!

Mylin's face cracks me up. --I told you..she wanted a princess dress on all the time!

Cute kids!

Welcome Home!

The Monday before Christmas, my little brother came home from his mission in Mexico. We were all so excited to see him and it was perfect timing, right before Christmas. All of my family went to the airport to see him off the plane. All except for Tim, who had to work. Also, some of his friends came too. (His friend TJ's girlfriend took the pictures for me so I could see Spencer and not have to worry about taking pictures at the same time!)

So here are just a few of the waiting pictures. It seemed we had to wait forever. Probably because my mom wanted to be like 4 hours early! (slight exaggeration. only two hours early!)

So there was this glass revolving door where Spencer had to walk out. We see him walking down the hallway with like 5 other missionaries (who were making connecting flights) and Spencer stopped right in front of the doors and gives all of the missionaries hugs and stuff. Probably just to torture my mom. Which it did. I think she was about ready to break down the doors!

Waiting while he hugged the missionaries!

Oops. This is out of order. My mom got the first hug. But I got the second one! I earned it though. I emailed him every week of his mission except for two times (both times were when we moved (Ventura and Huntington Beach) and had no Internet) so he said I got the second hug! Here he was meeting Mylin for the first time.

Slightly overwhelmed.

A family picture. Except for Kalli and Gav because Gav ran off right when we were taking this picture, so she was chasing him.

After the airport, we went to lunch. I didn't really take any pictures because Mylin is hard in restaurants and also because I was starving! However, I did get this one picture of Mylin and Gavin at the restaurant. They were having a blast being pushed on the rolling high chair by Nathan.

Anyways, welcome home Spenc!