Blessing From a Father

This past Sunday Shane blessed our sweet little Kellen. Such wonderful words were spoken. Sitting there listening I was reminded once again how special it is to be married to a husband who is worthy to exercise the Priesthood Power. There's no doubt in my mind those words were delivered straight from our Heavenly Father to bless my little one.

How lucky are we to have such wonderful family?! Both sides of our family were able to come down and share this day with us. This is my mom and dad, sister with her husband and three kids and my Aunt Colleen and Pete. We love you guys!

One Potato,Two Potato, Three Potato, Four!

Yes, yes it's true our little family has now grown from three to four!!! We had our 2nd little boy on December 10th at 10:45 am. He was due December 26th. Kellen Clint Polatis

Kellen is named after my mom. Months ago as we were going through lists of names I randomly took my mom's 1st initial -K- and added it to her middle name Ellen... and there you go Kellen! It turned out that it was a real name! His middle name is Clint. We decided to give him this name in honor of Shane's oldest brother who past away.

For those of you who are interested in his birthday story.....

Kellen wanted to come see us in November, but lucky for us we held his birthday off for about a month. Around midnight (morning) of the 10th I started to have minor contractions. Within the next couple of hours they got stronger. Soon tears started coming with every contraction so Shane decided that we needed to call our "night duty" to come watch Colson. Shane's friend Scott came over and boy was he excited. Both him and Shane were so excited as I sat there in pain on the couch. They kept saying isn't this exciting Heidi?! I just scowled at them informing them it was a little more exciting for them at the moment because they weren't in any pain.

On the way to the hospital my contractions got a little lighter, so I was frustrated that it might be a false alarm. I kept telling Shane that I refused to go into the hospital until I had another really bad contraction. Well, once on the freeway and then again as we pulled into the parking lot of the hospital I was reminded that YES I WAS in labor and YES it was very painful.

After we checked in and got settled they moved me from observation into the Labor and Delivery room. It was a pretty swiftly moving labor. My contractions got pretty bad, I got my epidural as soon as they anesthesiologist got to the hospital, they broke my water and within the next hour or so we were ready to have a baby. I went from a 5 to a 10 within 45 minutes so that was nice not having to wait around for that.

After the doctor came in it was about 3 to 4 pushes and sweet little Kellen was here. This delivery was soooooo much easier than my first and my first wasn't too bad at all. We feel very lucky and blessed that everything went as well as it did. My nurses were wonderful and Shane was fantastic!

We're all at home now and aside from random moments when my irrational monster rears it's ugly head and makes me weepy and a little nuts (Got to love the post-prego hormones right?!)things are going great!

All snuggled in his car seat!

6 lbs 7 ounces
19 inches

Nap time with dad

5 Days old already back up to his birth weight!

And of course happy big brother! Colson loves Kellen. He's still only held him once, but loves to rub his head and point to all of his baby sized features and name them.

The funniest thing is that he laughs hysterically when Kellen toots or poops. He thinks it's the funniest thing ever! I tell you he's all boy!

Last but not least Colson trying to make snow angels in our living room. He saw someone on TV making one and he decided that he wanted to try too!

A Little Trip Down Memory Lane

This past November my mom came out and spent 2 wonderful weeks with us since I was put on bed rest. One of those Sunday afternoons we found ourselves chatting and reminiscing about past times in Indian Springs Nevada. It's about 45 minutes outside of Vegas and where my mom grew up during her adolescent years. We decided it would be fun to load up in the car and make a quick trip since the last time we'd both been there was when I was in 5th grade for my Grandfather's funeral.


This might be weird, but this is one of my favorite memories of visiting Indian Springs when I was younger. The Oasis Bar! It's still there in all its glory! Shane was very entertained by this little show and tell trip! And last but not least the tiniest little LDS church I've ever seen. This was actually the first time I ever remember seeing this church building. This is where my parents were married. My mom was a recent convert to the LDS faith and so my mom and dad had to wait a year to get sealed in the temple soooooo they got married here first and sealed a year later in the Salt Lake temple!
The sad thing about the trip is, my grandparent's house that I remember so fondly is no longer there. One pecan tree is left but other than that nothing.... I guess that's what happens often when we try to go back and grasp at something that once was but is no more. I will always cherish my memories of green shag carpet and glass grape sculptures in the entryway. My grandpa bouncing me on his knee and grandma's big hugs and swats on my backside with her love paddle. No matter what happens, I will always have those memories. And when I'm in need of a big Grandma hug and good paddle, I can just take a trip to Arizona! Lucky me.

Bills, Bills, Bills

This morning as I sat in our office at the computer paying online bills.....

Colson: Mom, what you doin'?

Me: Paying bills.

Colson: Oh, I watch!

Me: Colson paying bills is not something you watch. It's not like a movie. It's something you do.

Colson: Let me do it?

Me: Oh I so wish you could little dude! I wish you could!

* Colson did not end up watching me pay bills he ended up drawingon the office white boards, which I was totally fine with since it entertained him the entire time!

Unexpected Hospital Stay

FYI- this is a long post. To say the least November has been what I'd like to call an eventful but yet uneventful month.
Saturday the 12th of November I had so much I had planned to do. Being admitted to the hospital was not on my list! I had woke up that morning and to our surprise started bleeding pretty bad, which is really really scary. Every reason flashed through my mind as I hysterically cried and cried. Shane being the level headed one packed Colson up to stay with my aunt and took me to the hospital. If things couldn't get more crazy on the way to the hospital I started to have pretty bad contractions.

When we first got to the hospital they just had me there for "observation". They got my bleeding to stop, but since my contractions started to get worse and 3-5 minutes apart they had to admit me. First they started giving me shots in my arms every 20 minutes. Supposedly the shots were for slowing down the contractions but they didn't work, so they started giving me a stronger medication by mouth which once again didn't slow my contractions. By this point they checked me for the second time and I had dilated from basically nothing to 2 centimeters so they decided it was time to start doses of steroids to help the baby's lungs in case they couldn't stop labor. As for their next attempt to stop labor they were going to start me on Magnesium. At this point I really had no idea what was about to happen to me for the next 30 hours. I should have known that it wasn't going to be good, when three nurses came in and started hooking up IVs and monitors and one nurse had me start filling out paperwork and signing release forms as fast as I could before they started giving me the magnesium.

Within 3 minutes of starting the magnesium I started feeling like I was on fire. I was sweating and they kept putting cold wash rags on my head. Next, I started feeling really sick and what do you know the wonderful Quizno's sandwich Shane had brought me was no longer in my stomach. After that I slowly began to loose control of my arms and legs. I could barely move. It was the worst thing I've ever experienced. No lie, I would have rather gone into full on labor without an epidural it was that bad. I would not wish magnesium on my worst enemy. I was only supposed to be on the magnesium for the next 24 hours, but it ended up being longer than that. Through this whole ordeal the blood lab would come in and poke me and take my blood. My arms were so bruised. I'd like to think of myself as a pretty tough girl, but it got to a point where I just wanted to cry when they would come into my room.

Well, I made it the 24 hours without delivering so they could give me the last dose of steroids for the baby. (Did I mention those shots were "peanut butter shots" and were given in my rump) Once again not fun!!!! They finally started to lower my magnesium levels which was wonderful!!!!! After they completely took me off the mag. they started giving me the meds I had been taking the day earlier.

In the end my doctor released me that Tuesday afternoon. But with the condition that I was still on medication and I had someone at home to help me with Colson for two weeks until I reached 36 weeks. (Once I reached 36 weeks they wouldn't stop my labor) Mom to the rescue. My mom has been here with us for the past two weeks which has been absolutely wonderful. She's washed dishes, done laundry, cleaned, bathed Colson, helped cook, changed diapers, picked Colson up and down for me you name it. It's been a huge help to not only me but to Shane as well so he could keep as focused as he could on school.

I am now 36 weeks and we could not be more excited that the next time I go into labor we get to see our sweet baby boy!!!!

Sukkot Vacation Part 3 Denver

Our last part ofour vacation was spent in Denver. It was fun to get to spend time with our family in Denver. Colson took full advntage of wrestling and using his uncle Casey and Brian as his personal playgorund equipment.

Uncle Casey is a big golfer just like Shane so we thought it would be fun for the four of us to take Colson Putt-Putt Golf for the first time.

I now have a strong beliefe that you grow out of the fun factor of getting yourself dizzy and noutious. Colson had us all seeing stars as he had uncle Brian spin him round and round the living room. Thinking it was the next best thing than an amusement park.

Sukkot Vacation Part 2

The thing I love about Shane's family living in the country, are all the fun outside things you can do. Colson hardly ever watched any TV. He was outside playing a lot. (Which was so nice since we'd been cooped up inside in Vegas because of the heat) One afternoon I was with a couple of my sisters-in-law and Shane texted me these oh so fun pictures of Colson and some of his cousins making a huge dirt volcano back by the barn.

I've never seen Colson so muddy. I'm glad dad cleaned him up before I got home :)

Colson looks like he's directing everyone but all he was really doing was wandering around playing while the others labored diligently trying to make the lava aka water flow just right.


Playing in the dirt is never complete until you throw a little.

The older cousins were very patient with Colson. Colson just loves being around all of them!

We just had to go and climb around the potato cellars since we were there during harvest. I love the smell of freshly dug potatoes and dirt. If you haven't had the chance to smell it, you should try it!

This was Colson's first time riding a horse. I think he liked it!

This video is really poor, but it's kind of fun. As a side note, we've been trying to teach Colson to say "Yee Haw" instead he says "AHHHHHHHH, UHHHHHHHH". It's stinkin cute.