2013 Goals - 4th Quarter Update

Y'all ready for this?  It's going to be pretty pathetic.  But I believe that whether goals are met or not, review is necessary and healthy for growth, so here I go.  

1. Read the 5 books listed:

a. Approaching Zion - nope
 b. Jesus the Christ - nope
c. 3 classic novels - I started The Scarlet Letter one night when I had bad morning sickness and couldn't sleep because of it.  The End.
2. Write a monthly poem.  Zilch. Nada. Zip. 
3. Potty train Emerson. Emerson was potty trained a few weeks ago and he is doing really well.  This is the one that I actually finished this year.  Go team.
4. Index 1000 names.  So far, I've only indexed 153 records, so 847 to go.  Target rate: 57/day.
5. Start violin lessons.  I have switched this one to organ lessons and plan on starting them after the new year.  I asked about starting a few months ago, but my teacher needed a few more months so we'll be starting shortly. And I'm so excited because she is amazing.
6. Memorize "The Living Christ."  This goal is one that I'll do a different year.  
7. Begin a new language: ASL.  This goal will be done later as well.
8. Bake bread weekly.  I made bread about monthly and will always love making (and, let's be honest, eating) bread.
9. Memorize 20 scriptures.  I got three scriptures memorized this year which is a far cry from 20.

All in all, not a good year for my goals.  I got caught up in my physically-challenging-for-me pregnancy, not having my own space to complete some of my goals, and then having a baby and being a mom of two.  I wish I could say that I feel bad I didn't complete my list, but I completed so many other good things.  Will and I accepted a great job.  We moved into a fantastic home and started making it our own.  I gave birth to a beautiful little girl and continued to mother Emerson.  These things were (and still are) big and take a lot of time.  They required me to stretch and grow and learn.  My goals this year weren't completed, but what I hoped to gain from them was gained, just in different ways than I expected.  I plan on making a few goals for next year, some of which will be from this year's list. I feel that I am a better person at the end of this year than I was at the beginning.  So I'll try again next year to complete some personal goals, but I'm not counting this year as a failure.  2013 was fabulous.  I can't wait for 2014.

Ensley Ray

Baby Sykes was due August 23.  Since Emerson was only one day overdue, I anticipated that baby #2 might be early by a couple days.  I didn't think she would be 5 days early, though.  But I'm thankful, because this pregnancy was harder.  Harder than the first.  And I wanted it to be over even though I was feeling pretty well for being 9 months pregnant and having gone through almost the whole summer.

Week 31

Week 37

At my appointment, I was dilated to a one and starting to efface, but this basically means nothing is happening down there so I was preparing myself to not deliver as early as I had previously guessed.  I had been having Braxton Hicks contractions for months, but when they started to become painful around midnight on the 18th, I wondered if delivery was near or if they were just false labor.  So I put up with them for a couple hours while Will and Emerson slept.

2:30am - Sunday, August 18th
My pain level was at a 2, but I decided to shower since I wasn't sleeping.  I figured if they were false labor, then a bath would calm them down so I could sleep.  If they weren't false labor, then the hot water would at least alleviate some of the pain.  After showering, I tried to sleep, but I was mostly restless and was only able to sleep for a few hours.

5:30am -
Still contracting, I got up and tidied the house while my hair air dried.  I did some laundry, cleaned the dishes, basically got everything ready for this baby who would obviously be making her appearance sometime in the near future.  Once my hair was finally close to dry, I straightened it and woke the boys to start getting ready for the day.  I was still planning on going to choir practice and church since with Emerson, I had consistent contractions for over a day before any real action happened.  I figured this one would be similar. Will took my last pregnant picture. Gotta love those super flattering stripes, eh?

10:30am -
My contractions were getting more painful but weren't regular at all.  The pain was almost to the point where I needed to stop doing anything during them, so I decided to skip choir practice and just lay low until church.  I called my mom hoping she would be able to tell me if my contractions seemed like the real deal or if this was just some really hurty false labor.  I was kind of getting annoyed that the contractions weren't coming in regular intervals.  I would have several in an hour, and then I would have to wait 25 minutes for one.  My mom guessed that my body was moving from the latent stage to active labor.

12:30pm -
My pain level was at a 5 and I couldn't walk, talk, or breath through the contractions.  Will and I decided church wouldn't be doable since tears were coming with each contraction.  He was sweet and called our leader letting her know we wouldn't be teaching the children because we were going to the hospital.  We dropped Emerson off at my mom's church building since they were still in their meetings, and raced to the hospital.  I was really hurting by this point.  Contractions were coming every five minutes.

1:00pm -
We arrived at the hospital and checked in. They gave us our room assignment and I got ready for the nurse to come check me.  Just being at the hospital helped me calm down a little bit.  All the distractions made the contractions a bit easier to endure.  They kept coming, though.  Once the nurse checked me, I was already dilated to a 5, but they wanted to monitor me for a while to see if I would progress before admitting me.

2:30pm -
After about 30 minutes, I asked for another check.  I had progressed so Dr. Bennett broke my water to get things rolling.  The anesthesiologist came to start the epidural.  This time around was NOT fun.  He hit an artery or a vein and had to redo it.  My back was so sore for a couple weeks.  Yuck.  But on the other hand, it was so worth getting the epidural for all the other pain.  We called my sister Mariah, and told her to come in a little while.  She was willing to take pictures for us and I'm so glad she was.  She got some really sweet photos.

4:45pm -
After a few checks, I was ready to start pushing.  My body did so well progressing on its own.  Dr. Bennett came in and started getting everything set up for delivery.  Towels.  Stirrups.  Warm baby blankets.  We waited for a contraction so I could push.

4:56pm -
The contraction came.  I pushed and as the baby came out, Dr. Bennett held her up so Will could call the gender. We had so much fun not finding out the gender of this little one, and Will especially loved saying, "It's a girl!" Then he got to cut the cord which was neat since he didn't get to with Emerson.  I held her for a quick minute, but because she wasn't crying very much, they took her to check her vitals.

She was having trouble getting her oxygen so she was given some for a couple minutes.  Finally she was able to breath, but had trouble keeping up her temperature, so they decided to just let me hold her and see what happened.  As soon as they gave her to me, all her vitals settled into regularity and she started doing exactly what she was supposed to.

I nursed her for a long time.  She was perfect.  She looked just like Emerson did when he was born.  But after just a few minutes, she changed enough to start looking like herself.

Emerson came with my parents and siblings a short while later.  They got to watch Ensley have her first bath. Emerson helped me pick out a bow for her hair.  Then we moved to our recovery room.

Ensley has been a fantastic baby.  She nursed so easily from the very beginning.  She also slept through the night from the beginning.  At around 10 weeks, she dropped her 3am feeding and has been sleeping from 9:30pm-7:30am since then.  Her disposition is so sweet and tender.  I can't imagine an easier baby.  She lights up the room and keeps us all smiling.  We love our little Ensley Ray.

Catch Up

I need to do some serious catching up on this blog of ours.  And I do plan on catching up.  Some posts may be just photos thrown on just so they're posted, but I'll do my best to make sure everything in the past few months gets put on here one way or another. I would hate to have these special times with my little ones not documented.

To start, I'm going to get working on Ensley's birth story to prevent forgetting the sweet details of that experience.  That should be up in a few days at most.  Then I'll post pictures from our latest family photo shoot, some shots of the babes' new rooms, and finally an update of my 2013 goals (you thought I had forgotten? ok, I kinda did).

Over & out.

Welcome to the World

Ensley Ray Sykes

8/18/13

8 lb 6 oz

20 in

Bright White

Even before we moved in, I knew that the cabinets would NOT be staying a dark cherry color.  It was just too, too dark for my taste.  I have always loved white cabinets, and I planned on changing our cabinets as soon as possible. Also, for whatever reason, there was a trend when the house was built that said it was cool to lower the ceiling in the kitchen to the level of the cabinets, and a lot of houses in our area have this feature.  It is horrible.  Who wants lowered ceilings???  Isn't it luxurious to have as high as possible, yea even vaulted ceilings?  I always thought so.  Anyway, the long-term plan is to knock out a wall and raise the ceiling and make an island and do all sorts of fun things to make the kitchen just boss.  Until then, the dark cabinets have to go to at least help a little bit with the feeling of crampiness in there.

(I know it looks really bright in this picture, but that's because they have all the lights on and the blinds completely open.  This was a trick of the photographer when selling the home.  Who normally lives with all their lights on?  Not this gal.  It was significantly darker even in daylight than it looks in this picture.)

We started as soon as we got reasonably unpacked and settled in.  The first step included taking off all the hardware and doors and filling any holes with some wood filler.  

After waiting for the wood filler to dry, we sanded all the fronts and backs of the cabinet doors and the fronts of the frames first with a low grit sandpaper, then again with a high grit sandpaper to make them as smooth as possible.  This took forever.  Like 10 hours.  But from what I've learned, prep work is the key to anything looking and I didn't want to cut corners.  

After sanding, we used a deglosser on everything, which for sure removed any leftover grime or sheen that the sanding may not have gotten.  After deglossing, I used a tack cloth to remove any dust that may not have been wiped off with a wet wipe down.  These babies were ready, I tell you.  Ya done been prepped!

The most logical place for us to prime and paint the doors was our basement.  There is a ton of floor space down there, and since it was indoors, we wouldn't have to worry about wind, dust, bugs, or rain.  We laid down some plastic and some boards to raise up the doors a bit.  Then came the primer.  For each door, I cut in the corners with a brush, then rolled the rest of it to smooth it all out.  I used a sponge roller to keep the texture as smooth as possible.  We used Zinsser's Bulls Eye 1-2-3 primer and gave each side two coats.

Emerson helped me get some of the coats on.  He would roll the middle area while I cut in the door, then I would finish with a final roll.  He was such a great little helper and loved to be involved.

I put two coats of paint on the backs of the doors, but did three coats on the fronts for the added coverage.  This means I scooted my tush around these doors nine times.  We used Behr Ultra paint in their standard white with no tint added.  After each coat of primer or paint, I inspected the doors just to be sure there were no drips or stuck hairs or anything unsightly.  If there was, I gave it a quick and very light sand, then used a tack cloth to remove the dust.

All of these steps were completed on the frames, but I don't have any photos of that process.  I scooted my tush atop the counters plenty of times.  For the frames, we had to tape off the walls and black trim before starting anything, then caulk the seams, but other than that, we followed the same process as the the doors. 

The final results look really great.  I love how they turned out.  We didn't use a coat of polyurethane since we got a high quality paint, but maybe sometime down the road we'll put one on for added protection and some gloss.  The kitchen is definitely a lot brighter.  It is refreshing to see white on the top instead of the dark cherry.  We kept the bottoms black for the two-toned look.  We are tossing around the idea of making them white as well, but for now the contrast is fun.  

Love or hate?  I love them, but have to say that now the counters are in dire need of a redo.  The bright white cabinets make that tan counter look just slightly dingy and outdated.  We can't wait to carry out our kitchen renovation plans and change the counters to a gray something.  In the meantime, we're loving the fresh white cabinets.