We are home.

Thank you to all you well wishers.

I finally got to check the blog again, only to find that Ben had blogged about the birth already. I laughed my head off. That story will do for now. I'm not sure I want to add much to it nor could I tell the story any better than he already did. I did want to add that I think it is every girls dream to actually deliver early. I feel extremely lucky I got to cut 9 days off the torturous waiting game.

I do need to make a clarification.

Her name is Eva Sophia. "Eva" meaning Eve in German.
The pronunciation is also German and is "A-va" Think long A (not long E).
The name Sophia also comes from the same German line and fits nicely together with Eva.

More on the story of the names later.

We struggled with the idea of actually spelling her name Ava, (like it is pronounced) but in the end the German spelling and pronunciation stands.

Welcome Baby Eva!

Well, it took about 8 and 1/2 years, but Sharalee finally uttered those fateful words I thought I wouldn't hear until we were both old and senile -- "Honey, I think I just wet the bed!"

Indeed she had wet the bed, but not because of lack of bladder control. Her water had broke. Groggy from sleep, I looked at her in disbelief, glanced down at the bed to make sure none of "it" had crossed the imaginary line that exists between the "his" and "hers" sides of the marriage bed, and promptly went back to sleep. Two hours later, Sharalee woke me again to inform me that it was time to go to the hospital.

We roused my mother at 1:30 a.m. to come stay at the house with the kids, and then Shara and I traveled a few miles across town to American Fork Hospital. Her labor progressed quickly and by 4:00 a.m., she was pushing with all her might -- but to no avail. The problem was that following the epidural her contractions slowed, and thus our little baby, facing upward (posterior) in the birth canal, had gotten stuck. (Think Winnie the Pooh wedged in Rabbit's front door -- you know, when Rabbit tries to decorate Pooh's posterior in order to enhance the ambiance of his front room.)

Finally, after two hours and very little movement, the doctor finally employed the forceps. To my un-medical mind, it seemed like trying to extract a delicate model ship from a glass bottle using a pair of salad tongs. Nevertheless, miracle of miracles, our little baby girl (and her mother) were delivered of their mutual travails by said tongs at 5:52 a.m.

Now for the box score (which, for me, always seems like I'm describing a fly fishing trip rather than a birth) -- 18 inches, 6 pounds, 15 ounces, Apgar score of 9, fair skin, slight fuzz around the head, and a shiner on her brow which we've now obscured with hair bow.

Her name, tentatively, is Eva -- in honor of Eva Maria Hamacker, a German ancestor on her maternal grandmother's side (Sharalee's Dad's line) who migrated from Germany to Hershey, Pennsylvania, in the late eighteenth century. Sharalee and I visited Eva's hometown in Hachenburg just outside of Frankfurt this past summer. As we visited the church where Eva and her husband Adam were married and where their first daughter was christened before their departure, we felt a special kinship for Adam and Eva and thought it significant that this proverbial "Adam and Eve" left the home they loved to start a new life by the sweat of their brow in a new world. Not unlike our little baby girl just did.

Sharalee and Baby Eva are resting comfortably in American Fork Hospital and will return home -- and to the blogosphere -- shortly.

high school tag

High School

Like my friend and neighbor Brad, I really liked high school (apparently there are some who didn't). I'd totally do it again, if I didn't have to do the homework part again. Also, I was in school the first two years with my older brother Dan and the last two years of high school with my younger brother Shane. Yes, it was a 4 year high school. The best part about going to school with a sibling is one, you always have a ride somewhere, and two, their friends become your friends as well. Your circle of friends is larger.

high school tag

1. Did you date someone in high school? Yes I did. Jake Lightfoot. Or as my family called him, Jake the Snake. I wish I had a picture of him because I'm pretty sure everyone thought he was hot as well. He didn't go to my school though so there was always room for other boys. Jake and I were off and on so there are a few other boys on my list as well, but in reality, not worth mentioning.
2. What kind of car did you drive? At first we drove a champagne colored Station Wagon. We all know that most kids drive ugly cars to school so the station wagon didn't stick out that much. Later we drove a maroon colored Celebrity, and then eventually we upgraded to a White Honda Accord.
3. Did you pass your driver's license test the first time? Yes I did, and I got a 100%.

4. Were you a party animal? No, in terms of party's that had trouble at them. We (friends and I) did spend a lot of time planning and attending really fun get-togethers and dates.

5. Were you considered a flirt? Perhaps, I'd like to think no, but I'm sure my friends would say yes I was at times.

6.Were you in band, orchestra, or choir? No, I was in none of those things.

7. Were you a nerd? No. But I wasn't popular either, I feel like I was friends with people from both categories though. I don't feel like our school had such huge divisions in the classes/groups of people.

8. Were you on any varsity teams? yes, Cross Country, Track, and Soccer. Ugly jerseys right?

9. Did you ever get suspended or expelled? No.

10. Can you still sing your fight song? "Let's give a cheer for the team from Galena High". I think I could sing most of it.

11. Who were your favorite teachers? Mrs. Greenhaulgh for Chemisty, Mrs. Andrews for Geometry, Mr. Muzz for BioChemisty, and Mr. Rotsma for Physics.

12. Where did you sit at lunch? Everyday was different. The first two years I think our campus was closed so we didn't drive anywhere. After that you could go places, but most just stuck around given our location from fast food joints. I brought a lunch almost every day.

13. School mascot: Grizzly Bear

14. School colors: Black and Gold
This is my dad and I posing. I think this is fall Homecoming. I'm really sunburnt. I think I had a soccer game earlier in the day or something.






















15. Did you go to homecoming and who with? This question isn't specific enough. Which year, which homecoming? We had fall and winter homecomings at our school. And I was old enough to date starting my sophomore year so that covers a lot of dances. I never missed a dance. I went to all of them and I can't say which is which anymore. This is my younger brother and I all dressed up and ready to leave for Hawaiian Day at school during Homecoming Week.

16. If you could go back and do it again, would you? Sure, if I was asked to. High School was fun, and learning was fine. It was my relationship with my parents that was hard. I was too mean to them I guess. They have told me that I was the hardest to raise although I can't account for it. Shane was a much bigger jerk to them than I (he would talk back), and hey Jeromy had to break through all the oldest sibling issues. I wasn't emotional or dramatic, I don't know what they are complaining about. I was never in trouble, rarely disobedient. I just don't know why I was the hardest according to them.
17. What do you remember most about graduation? I remember that there seemed to be like 10 Saludivictorians and 5 Valedictorians (I wasn't one of them) and they gave one large combined speech that was very unusual. We also went on the Tahoe Tessie glass bottomed boat that night -ate and had dinner as a class. Fun and safe.

18. Where did you go on Senior Skip Day? I know there was lots of talk about this day. I have no idea if it ever happened though. I might have gone skiing. Any time I missed school it was usually for a family ski trip or something. Skipping school at our school was mostly unheard of. If you were the type to skip school regularly, you were the type that just dropped out of school after your sophomore year, which many did. I'm not sure why skipping school here in Utah is such a regular thing, everyone seems to do it and everyone seems to get away with it here.

19. Were you in any clubs? Sure, surprisingly the Math Club president one year. (Surprising because I'm terrible with numbers) I was also a member of the Key Club (we went to Long Beach, CA for a club trip) and one other club but I can't remember which one that is at the moment.

20. Have you gained weight since then? I look different, yes.

21. Who was your prom date? Amazingly, I'm having trouble remembering those names at the moment. But I can say that I never went to a prom with someone I REALLY liked. I wish I could say that I did. They were always good friends, not boyfriends, but I suppose that is the way it should be. We always had fun and there was NEVER a goodnight kiss at the end of the night to worry about. This is me and Ben Harbor. I went with him to his Junior Prom when I was a senior.

22. Are you planning on going to your 10 year reunion? It has already passed and I didn't go to it because it was held at a bar.

23. Did you have a job while in high school? Yes, Talbots Clothing Store and Gap.

24. Worst class? Spanish. I stink at learning Spanish. That doesn't mean that I didn't get a good grade and that I didn't suffer clear through Spanish 7-8. But to give you an idea about the class, first I can't speak any Spanish at all, second, I think I watched more "Who's line is it anyway?" in my Spanish 7-8 class than I did trying to speak sentences in Spanish. Languages are not a gift of mine. Especially because I also had 4 semesters of Spanish in College and I can still say that I don't know Spanish.

25. Favorite class? I always enjoyed my various English classes. I also liked AP History and AP Government because we always seemed to talk about the coolest stuff in those classes. They were actually INTERESTING classes.

Finally, I think I should add a little disclaimer about some of my formal dresses. Mostly for any of the Young Women in my ward who might look at the pictures and wonder why I'm wearing sleeveless. First off, in reality I have no REAL good reason. But at an attempt of an excuse, finding dresses with sleeves was unheard of. No place carried dresses with sleeves. It's not like I could go to Alyssa's Bridal and pick up something more modest. The two dresses shown were made by my mother, I also had a little black jacket to go with the dresses because my dad ordered my mom to provide one for me. As a whole, sleeveless is not appropriate (do as I say, not as I do). Also, in comparison to what some other members of my school were wearing I look almost over-dressed. Lame excuse I know, but don't go telling your parents that Sis. Welch wore immodest sleeveless dresses. If you wear sleeveless in Utah you are a bit skanky or perhaps edgy. If you wore anything wider than a spaghetti strap, or even if the dress just had a strap -at my school, you were conservative. In the end, no REAL good reason. I'm sure I will struggle to convince my girls that sleeves are the way to go when they reach High School and that will be my punishment for wearing dresses without sleeves;)
Final plug- wear modest dresses.

Hair Do's and Don'ts

I'm not an accomplished hair stylist, nor will I ever be. My girls will always suffer because of it I fear. Most already know that Rosie's hair is very featherish and is difficult to style, it also doesn't help that Rosie will undo anything that has been done within moments, if she can.


























Shown are some attempts on a style for Rosie's hair. In August, she had a body perm to help with her "no style" look.

In December, she had a shampoo-in color for her fading golden locks. She now has terrible roots.


































This month I decided it was time for Rosie to have a real cut and style in hopes of solving all my problems with her hair. Unfortunately, as I have discovered, her hair still looks awful 90% of the time. There is no such thing as a wash and wear look for Rosie. The fault is all mine of course. The most I will do her hair is twice a day. You can't just spray in water or some chemical to spruce up her hair. All ponies and hair clips are ripped out within minutes and usually hidden by her in some special place. I haven't mentioned that Rosie has very little hair in the front of her head because she has ripped out so much of her hair. I spend way too much time trying to make that area look as though she might have bangs or something. I have gotten better with round brushing her hair and touch ups with curling irons but I barely do that for myself, how could I possibly continue this routine??

You can see by some of the torturous acts that I've already submitted my 3 year old to that I'm desperate. I'm starting to think that my Grandma Ruth had it all figured out. Wigs are really the best way to go when you have thin hair.

Help!! I'm looking for any solutions. I know her hair will thicken up eventually, but how do I last until then?

The Nesting Begins at 3 1/2 weeks to go.

Being that we live in a tiny place, I knew something drastic was going to have to happen in order to fit baby #3 in here. So while my parents were in town this last weekend, my dad (the doctor declared him cancer free while he was here) built me lots of shelves for the two kids' rooms. But not just any shelves. Custom shelves made with an engineer's eye. No detail was too small, even down to the caulking. He made them perfectly. This picture is serious evidence of the switching of closets. Thanks Dad.

Before















After-Now both girls will share a closet.
























Another note about "nesting". Sadly, I've really just begun, but I'm happy to say that it is so therapeutic (lots of junk to take to the DI, from lots of drawers and closets being cleaned out) and it is getting me absolutely so excited for baby #3 to come. Yeah for babies.

PC or Mac Marriage?



A few months ago a friend and I were chatting and she said, "that's easy for you to say, you have a Mac marriage."

I have never heard this term before so I had her explain it.

Both types of Marriages (PC) and (Mac) get the job done. The tools are all there, the programs can work for both PC and Mac. The difference is the PC marriage has a few more hiccups in it. Sometimes it takes downloading more RAM or a visit to the shop every once in a while to keep things running smoothly, with no viruses.

Whereas the Mac Marriage works more seamlessly, almost effortlessly, with fewer crashes, and less viruses. Both types of marriages work. In both types the children are cared for and there are happy end results all the way around.

The PC marriages are the tit for tat marriages. One spouse can't sleep in without paying for it later. Or one spouse feels a sense of entitlement when it comes to personal time or me time.

The Mac marriages are the "lets get the job done" and I don't care if you only can put in 40% at the moment, I'll make up for it and then some. One spouse is not counting the hours spent doing their job, or wondering if the other will ever make it up to them.

Anyhow, I could go on for a good hour defining the two differences. You get the idea.

I wasn't sure that I could call my marriage a Mac marriage, just because my friend said I had one. Everyone is more critical of their own marriage, (We know where we each fail, right?) So I went home and Ben and I chatted about it also. After some analyzing we both agreed that my friend was right. We do have a Mac marriage.

I love you Ben. Being married to you is bliss. Is there any chance we could get a Mac computer soon?

Realistic Goals


We are 3 days into the new year and I keep running across other people's goals via the computer or just in conversation. And for some reason I am having difficulty pin pointing my own goals for the new year. As usual, I try to set goals in the Spiritual, Physical, Mental, etc.. I have even visited some "Take the Pressure Off: Goal Setting" websites and yet I still feel unmotivated and not up for the task of setting this year's goals. I don't know about you but come April I've usually forgotten what my goals were anyway, and seem to even do worse at accomplishing the dumb list and I think I might have done better had I not even messed with the goal in the first place. With that in mind here are a few of my realistic goals:





Watch more T.V.
Sew less/craft less
Yell at my kids more
Try to keep the spare tire around my waist and fatty deposits on my legs and arms
Cook more boxed dinners/go to Del Taco more often
Don't enrich my children's lives by driving them to their after school events
Read 1st Nephi 12 times (once a month)
Spend more time on the internet
Don't worry about debt
Make everyday be about me
Try and increase my "carbon footprint" by using paper products for EVERY meal.
Make 72 hour kits into 2 hour kits/allow food storage to go out of date
Check my e-mail more
Bring a $5 buck pizza to the Ward party instead of the brownie dessert I was asked to bring
Hot glue on merit badges/use safety pins to make adjustments to kid's costumes
Never take pictures of my children so that I don't have to scrapbook
Always drive with the gas light on
Quit ironing altogether (wrinkled is the new style)
Buy more underwear rather than do the laundry
Never apologize for anything; in particular not showing up when I promised, a messy car during a carpool, no meal on the table for the 5th night in a row
Teach the Sunday lesson by reading out of the manual
Forget about the growing ring in the tub and toilet especially when company is coming
Try and be as flaky as possible
Throw away clothes that need mending, ie buttons replaced
Always overstay my welcome, especially when Visiting Teaching or "taking a casserole in"
Rather than completing family history buy and read more Harlequin Romances set in "the West"
Always be 10 minutes late to everything

Toothie Grins

Thanks to my brother Dan, our blog had a mini-makeover. I choose this picture for the header, it shows our real smiles and it feels more genuine than almost all our posed pictures, it isn't a perfect picture but that is why it is one of my favorites. I have yet to master the other page elements- one step at a time. . .

Wouldn't this be great??





















As a whole I really enjoy being pregnant. But there are moments that are just too much work. For instance, cleaning the tub is a joke and I feel like a joke when I do it. How bad do you think the ring in the tub would get if I just waited 10 more weeks before cleaning it again??

Why can't I just have my spouse take a turn just every once in a while. . . I'm not insinuating that he doesn't help around the house because he does a great job trying to make things easier for me, I just really think it would be nice to hand over the pregnancy bump every once in a while.

Grief Stricken

It was that time of year when the car needed to have the Safety and Inspection done. We had high hopes for our Honda Accord. We knew she had some problems and so we showed her around town to four different shops hoping that someone would take her under their wing and fix her up right.

She just couldn't pass inspection, unless she had some serious work done. More money would have had to go into her than she was worth to make her safe for the roads again. You should have seen the look on my face after hearing that we should just take her to the "Pick and Pull". How could we do that to our little car that we have loved so much?

After serious thoughts of just keeping her around to rot in our front yard, we finally decided to pull the cord, or cut ties if you will. We sold her to the highest bidder for $100.







This is Ben and I in the final scene with her. In the end we left her with 226,000 miles, no power steering, no air conditioning, a bum battery, she needed new rear breaks and tires, a new steering pump, a new timing belt, new alignment for the engine block, as well as a handful of other smaller items that needed repair in the immediate future. One blessing of this car is that when one thing went wrong the rest of her decided to go shortly thereafter. No terminal illnesses for us. Quick and fast should be every cars ending. She was amazing.



We left her for the larger, younger version and managed to stay in the same family. Even after bringing the new "Honda" home I was still battling with my pride. I DID NOT want to be a van owner/driver. Men look awful driving mini vans, it is acceptable like on road trips and on the way to church, but as a whole I was thinking this look would be devastating to Ben's manhood.









A few weeks have passed and I'm now of the opinion that I can't see how I got along so long without this van. The doors are automatic, the kids can get in it by themselves. Errands have never been so delightful. In a few weeks we are making the journey West and I'm actually looking forward to the awful salt flats and boring scenery in the newest member of the family.

We love her and are still working on a name for her. As for my pride, it has not taken the hit that I thought it would, rather it has gone the other way, I'm a proud owner of a mini-van.

As for Ben driving the van. . . his manhood is still in question.