Daddy, Mommy and Cayden go on a date

We went on a date night and Cayden went with us. Because he's still nursing he can't be away from Mommy. We all had on jeans!! Even the baby! This was his first night to wear jeans.....He looked SO cute!

Mommy and Cayden

These are the first pics that I've taken with Cayden since the hospital pics! Seems I'm always the one with the camera in my hand. SO! Enjoy! Aunt Dee Ann, I know you read this so these are especially for you!! love you!

Chase Tanner's 18th birthday trip to the beach

The Perfect Day

Today would be what I would call the "perfect day"!!

Cayden woke up this morning at 5:30am, nursed, and went back to sleep until 8am! He never does that. When i got out of bed this morning, I was actually rested! Something that i don't experience very often. : )

Also, since Cayden's been born our mornings have been crazy! His morning nap is nothing more than small catnaps in 30min intervals which has me constantly juggling him as I try to get things done in the house. He's been taking a long afternoon nap since he was about 2 months old but I could never get him to sleep long in the mornings, making it impossible to homeschool Joseph. Josephs' been such a trooper get "shoved" to the side while I take care of Cayden. Actually Joseph's incredible! He's never gotten frustrated with Cayden once when we've had to stop reading a book, or stop homeschooling because Cayden's up and crying. He loves Cayden so much and is so sweet with him! It blesses me so much!!

BUT! This morning Cayden took a two hour morning nap!!!!! I was able to spend good quality time with Joseph, teach Bank English, clean the house, and do three loads of laundry! I felt like I was on top of the world!! It was wonderful!!

Now both boys are down for their afternoon nap and I just finished making Colton's high school transcript. What a great day. But chances are that tomorrow won't be the same. ; )

Family pics

Letting go

Yesterday I did one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life......I put my 19 year old on a plane to begin a new chapter of his life, without us. It's always painful to let your children go but think there's extra pain involved in the lives of missionaries who have to let theirs go across the ocean. My one hope is in the scripture that Jesus promises to, "give you back a hundred fold in this life and in the life to come" to all those who give up fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, "children" for the sake of the Gospel.

My hope is that in letting Colton "go" he will be radically changed and set on fire for our Father and come back to Thailand or wherever God wills, and give his life for the Gospel of Jesus. When I set my sights on this, letting go seems easy.

Father, I give you my first born son. Take him as an offering.....do with him what you will, refine him and make him pure gold in YOUR hand.

I love you, Colton!

I really CAN do it!

The last months have been filled with nursing, diaper changing, bathing, rocking, and more nursing. However, I haven't been very convinced that I really could nurse a baby successfully. I attempted nursing Colton for a brief 6 weeks, and then Chase for a very rocky 6 months(supplimenting with formula). So my history wasn't that great. However, since I've been saved, I've had this strong desire to nurse a baby! The second day at hospital, my breats because engorged, and for any of you who know me personally know that I have very large breasts! Well engorgement made it look as if I had a watermelon on each side of my chest! That's NOT an exaggeration. But I thought to myself, that's okay this won't last, i can do this! Week two rolls by and I have these four areas on my breast that are red and swollen and have fever if you touch them. I had a friend look at them and she said, "Oh, Amber, that's a clogged duct and you should tend to it immediately!" The next four days were spent applying heat, pressing and pumping. Can I say, many many tears were shed during these long four days. On top of this regime, I had to nurse a growing baby! Four days later, the ducts were no longer clogged. Clinton and I slapped high five as the last duct burst open and milk spewed out into the bottle! A moment of joy. Another week passes and I begin to think, "I can really do this!" Then one morning I wake up with chills, fever, and aching bones! I'm like, "What?!? do i have the flu?" Clinton feels around on my breast for lumps and finds a whole cluster of them. He said, "Honey, I'm afraid you have a bunch of swollen ducts." As he touched them they were extremely sore!! I had felt them days earlier but didn't think anything about it because they weren't red and didn't have fever in them. But to my surprise, a clogged duct or infected duct doesn't have to be red or have fever. These ducts were infected and it had caused flu like symptoms! The next 24 hours were horrible. Finally, after 12 hours of major flu like symptoms, and a crying baby who wanted to nurse, I looked at Clinton in tears and said, "Honey, I don't think I was cut out for this. I can't do it." In the back of my mind I was thinking that I would send him out for formula. His reply, "Honey, you can do it. You're doing just fine. Don't give up now you'll be so disappointed" So the rest of the night I stuck it out and began taking a very strong anti-biotic. I woke the next morning feeling better but not 100%. I continued to nurse the baby through the excruciating pain and before long all the flu symptoms were gone! I had many many friends encouraging me through this or I might not have made it. They all gave me wonderful advice and a sense of fight. Many many women have and do experience this same type of thing, but if you never talk about it you'll never know. Just knowing that others have gone through similar situations helped me to press through. To my utter delight and surprise, I weighed Cayden on his one month birthday and he weighed 10lbs!!!! I WAS SOOOOOO EXCITED!!! This was like a sticker on my worksheet that said, "well done! good job!" Seeing him gain weight solely on breast milk was a huge kiss for me. I looked at Clinton and said, "I can do it!" His reply, "Of course you can!" "Press on so that you might win the prize!"

All the brothers

Well, it just wouldn't be right if I didn't make a post with a picture of all the brothers with Cayden. Here's Joseph, who is a VERY good big brother, smiling so proud as this is the first time he's gotten to hold the baby! Can you tell he's one proud big brother?!?This picture is worth a thousand words............ two generations here! 19, 17, and one day old!! God's ways are far beyond our imagination!! If you would have told me 5 years ago that I would be having another baby, I would have laughed at you and told you you were crazy! But when got plants a seed in your heart He makes sure that there's enough water, and sun light that it will bring forth fruit. Our Cayden is the fruit of a seed planted by God. Chase Tanner with Cayden The biggest brother and the littlest brother.....Colton said to us, "This could be my baby!" Our precious Bank with Cayden. Bank is the only brother that can't come into a room and not kiss the baby or come stroke his little head. He really loves him! This blesses my heart so much!!

Baby is born

Our beautiful baby boy was born on March 17th(at 37 weeks). He was born via emergency c-section. I woke up that morning and couldn't feel him moving. His normal routine was to wake up at about 5am and move around until about noon. However, this day he wasn't moving at all. I ate breakfast thinking that would help him get going, then I took a long bath. Still no movement. I told the Lord that if he didn't move by 11am that I would go in and see the doctor. When I arrived at the hospital, they put me on a fetal monitor and his heart rate was dangerously slow. It was only beating at about 98beats per min. The normal heart rate should be about 140 to 160. The nurse was concerned and called to the doctor. She then sent me for an ultrasound. Indeed the baby wasn't moving and the ultrasound confirmed a low heart rate. The doctor strongly recommended that we do a c-section that day. After Clinton and I prayed and talked things over we agreed.

This was an experience to remember! I already suffer from claustrophobia, and when they strapped my arms down, and I couldn't feel anything from my breast down, this made things pretty interesting. To make things worse they put a cloth right in front of my face. The cloth was so close that it was touching my nose. It was like a wall in front of me so that I couldn't see anything going on. Before Clinton entered the room, I was on the verge of panicking and tried to look up at the wall and pray. I wasn't sure I was going to be able to do this.. I kept thinking, "OH! why didn't I have them knock me out. I'm going to loose it right here on this table." Thankfully, Clinton walked in the room just in time. For the entire surgery, I looked up at him and made him my center point of focus.

To our delight, at 3:40pm our little baby Cayden was born! When he came out he was having difficulty breathing. The doctor had to suction his lungs for quit some time and she was rubbing on him vigorously. It took him a few mins before he cried. I was so worried yet so helpless. They let me look at him for only a min and then had to begin working on him in order to get him breathing. I kept asking clinton, "Is he okay?" Clinton was trying to hold it together for the both of us but when you're with someone for 23 years you know body language, and I knew Clinton's body language was a sign that all was not well.

However, after 24 hours in NICU the baby was brought up to our room and he was doing much better. I shocked the nurses because after just 6 hours I was in my wheel chair and down on the 3rd floor visiting him. They said that they've never seen anyone recover from a c-section so quickly! But this mamma was determined to see her little chick!!

The moment I saw him all the doubt about having another baby left me!! I had a very difficult pregnancy with many complications, ending in an emergency c-section, however, all of the thoughts of that left me when I saw our little prince!

God is so good and He has fulfilled His promise to us! May we honor him in the raising of this son.

Cayden Truth

Here's is Cayden at 2 hours old. He's in the incubator. One day oldThree days old.

Six hours old. This is the first time that I was able to hold him. After he was born they had to talk him to the NICU. He was having difficulty breathing.

Nursery

As you read in my blog back in Jan. We started the joyous task of getting the baby's room ready. Clinton assured me that he could do the painting of the room. Now my husband has been known to the the jack of all trades, but I had NO idea that he could draw and paint. I've been with this man for 22 years and when i walked into the room after he had sketched out a rough draft on the wall, I was amazed! He drew all the animals free hand. I showed him a picture of the bedding and he copied the animals exactly!

This little flower garden will be the spot where the bed will go. Painting the giraffe Finished the wall with the zebra and the monkey, but you can see that the leaves on the tree aren't finished yet. Cheese

Nursery

This is part of the tree that extends to two walls. This is the left side of the tree if you're looking at the door. Right side of the three. You can't really see Babar(elephants name) because of the shelf, but it's a three food tall blue elephant. This is the tree trunk in the corner of the room just behind the bedroom door. Cute little coconut tree with giraffe. The picture in the back ground is one that our friends children painted for the baby. Joseph standing in front of his favorite elephant.

Baby bump pics (32 weeks)

Here is am at 32 weeks. My belly appears to have reached the maximum limits....but I'm assured by friends that there's more room...........OH MY! ; )

Preparations for a new baby in the house

First, I can't even believe that I'm pregnant. Yes, I'm 31 weeks, however, the idea just hasn't quiet sunk in. We are so excited and nervous and a whole bunch of other emotions that's it's hard to pinpoint one feeling accurately.

The other day, it hit me, "Oh my! I'm 30 weeks pregnant and we haven't done a thing to get ready for this baby! I don't have any nursing bras, nursing night gowns for the hospital, bedding for the baby bed or a baby bed!!" I began to obsess to my precious patient loving husband and his response was immediate action. For any of you who know him, this isn't surprising. He began to scour the city looking for the "right" baby bed, going to the paint stores, and cleaning out the baby's room.

Finding a baby bed in our city is quit the feat, if you're like me and really want a nice tall, American standard baby bed. There are many beds in the city but all of them are about 2ft in height and the width and length wouldn't be conducive to bedding from America.

I know that most of these things are very minor, but for me they're major. The first two times that I was pregnant the baby wasn't planned and I didn't have many options. We were poor and we were very very young. Most of the things for the boys were hand me downs. Now don't get me wrong, I was very grateful, but this time it's different. We planned this baby, we're older and are more capable of making purchases and choosing things that we like. SO! the race began three days ago.........

On Friday, I ordered my bedding that my dear friend is sending over for me. I've chosen Jungle Safari! And yesterday, we found a shop in the city that customs makes beds for you. The beds that they have available are from Japan but their factory is here in Thailand so you can order the bed to the length/height/width and color that you prefer!! WE WERE ECSTATIC WITH THIS DISCOVERY! Well, i shouldn't say "we" I was ecstatic and Clinton was relieved........ ; )

Poor guy had to listen to me for the last four days. One of the things that was the trouble was that I knew there were American size baby beds just across the boarder in Malaysia, but Clinton didn't want to go to Malaysia. The expense just to get there would have been about $200(we have to get a re-entry visa, pay for Malaysian car insurance, gas etc..) So i pouted for four days. So our discovery took so much pressure off of him and made me very very happy! They told us the bed would be ready by Feb 21st. Prayerfully the bedding and the bed will arrive at about the same time.

In the midst of all of my obsessing, a friend of mine from America wrote to me and said she wanted me to register and she was going to send out invitations to all my friends in America! I WAS BLOWN AWAY!! I wasn't sure if I was going to have a baby shower or not. I do have friends here in Thailand, but things are always so busy and it hasn't been mentioned so I just dealt with the fact that I might not have one, but my God is so good! When i was pregnant with Colton and Chase they didn't have baby registries. So this was a whole new experience for me. I spent hours online at BabysRUs picking and choosing things for our baby. I had so much fun. Now my friend will have everyone ship the items to her and she'll send them to me!! God is sooo good!!

I mentioned to Clinton that I would love to have a big tree with jungle animals painted on the wall.... and he's already drawn an example on a sheet of paper and has the tree sketched on the wall! He's soooo wonderful! Did I mention that he's SOOOOO WONDERFUL!!! We picked out paint yesterday and he'll start the project next weekend. ; )

As the we progress I'll post pictures! It's gonna be so much fun!! WE'RE GONNA HAVE A BABY IN THE HOUSE!!!!!!

Christmas Eve

Decorating the Tree

All of the ornaments on our tree this year were handmade. Clinton's mother came over for a visit and while she was here, we made Christmas ornaments. It was lots of fun and couldn't look at our tree without thinking of her! This is what Chase was doing while everyone was decorating the tree..... are you surprised?Bank Joseph trying to fix the ornament he made Colton and Clinton putting the ornaments on.....