Maybe It's The Cold

I have been feeling like I have hit a plateau...I can't figure out why. I feel that there is a change coming. However, I can't say when or what. Maybe it is the cold.

The Art of Homemaking

My parents passed through Utah on their way home from my sister Jessalyn's this last weekend, and as is tradition me and Mom shopped the local Deseret Industries. It is a habit of mine to always, always, always check the book section for yet another copy of Fascinating Womanhood. I will find a copy every few months and on rare occasion, as was this, I find a hardback version. As I was standing in front of the books showing my mother, she picked up a book that she recognized from years earlier named The Art of Homemaking. I recognized the title and thought it would be a fun read.
After my parents left I picked the book up and poured over the pages. I was hooked. I just love the old fashioned and CORRECT way of thinking. I love the way they just state the simple truth with no concern over "political correctness" and NO apologies. I feel a little silly that it has taken printed pages to teach me things that I should already know, and in a way I do know. However, this book has changed my attitude towards house work and given me a new motivation for my job as wife and homemaker.
I am indebted to my grandmother for introducing me to Fascinating Womanhood, a book that changed my world forever. Now I have found a new "printed treasure" that is changing my world all over again. I am so grateful for a Heavenly Father that knows what the next step is for me and gives me such beautiful and simple maps to follow. I will now have another book to look for at Deseret Industries, so if you want one let me know!

Halloween 2011

Halloween 2011

What a beautiful success!!!

It is rare when you have six children for everything to just go well at all! So I was not surprised when my car battery died the week before Halloween. I had not finished any of the kids costumes, and had planned on spending the entire week tying up loose ends. My wonderful husband was finally able to fix my suburban the Saturday before Halloween. But by then I had been canning grape juice the entire day and was just beat. So when Halloween Monday rolled around I was reinvigorated. My amazingly awesome friend watched Freja so that I could run to Walmart with the other 3. Trenton and Semaj' were spending the Halloween with their dad in Henderson, NV, so I had 2 less costumes to be concerned with.

I bought Anton a pair of slacks for $3 at DI (2nd hand store). We already had a suit jacket that didn't fit anybody and an incredible hulk costume in our dress up box.

I had my heart set on Brynja being a clown since I had taken Semaj' to the circus earlier this year. The only things I purchased for Brynjas costume were the fuzzies on her pants and shirt sleeves $1, the pipe cleaners in her hair $1 and the suspender material for $4.49.

And they were perfection....

I honestly didn't know what I wanted Braun to be until the day of. I was looking for something classic, easy and WARM! I found this sweat suit at Walmart for $9 and WALA...

I found this sweet little costume at a yard sell and it fit her perfectly. Yeah for yard sells and keeping an eye out months before Halloween $3 Little Lamb!





My favorite picture of the year!
She is so funny and popped this pose all by herself.

I was so so so proud of her costume and she was a die hard trick or treater. We were our hours after Anton and the others had tired and gone home. I thanked her several times for making Mommies Halloween so wonderful. She makes me happy!


Cheap and Easy! My kind of Halloween!!!

Big B. Little b. What begins with B? Brynja's Birthday and Blogging begin with B's!

So many words come to mind when I think of my little Brynja, whom we lovingly refer to as Brynja the Ninja. I honestly don't know where to start there are so many words and yet no words could properly convey the joy that this child has given to me since the moment of her arrival. Brynja is the most joyous, happy, and delightful child I could ever have imagined and here she is in my home. The Lord has blessed me with the amazing gift of Brynja Sage Kohntopp! She has this laugh...it's loud and pure. When she laughs she really laughs and it's infectious, Aaron and I will be in another room and she will start laughing and we can't help but joining in. I don't mean to make you believe though that she is a perfect little angel she is quite the opposite. She gets in to more things than any of my other children ever did. Sometime she will see something and she will go "oooh" in this high pitch, it's a present for me, type voice. The problem with Brynja is when she is doing something naughty she is so happy, smiling and giggling while she pours and entire gallon of milk on the kitchen floor. She thinks that is great fun. I could go on forever, Brynja is one of my six favorite subjects! Though I have to admit she makes me laugh harder and smile a little more than the rest. She is in the kitchen right now...maybe playing in the knife drawer...gotta go. Happy fourth to my fourth. I love you Brynja!

Wow! I don't even know where to start...I almost died. I'm so happy to be alive!!! It feels like a scene from a movie where you come in from water to dry ground and you kiss everything in sight. I just kiss my husband and kids, so happy to still be with them. Shortly after having Freja I contracted Group A Strep. Apparently my uterus did not close in a timely fashion, allowing bacteria to climb on board. I kept thinking that the pain was just after birth pains because I usually do get those pretty bad. It wasn't until I could hardly put my own pants on that I decided to go to the hospital. I always wait too long! So I went in to the ER where they diagnosed me with septic shock. They were giving me morphine (nasty stuff) for the pain. The morphine would give me about ten minutes of relief and then the pain was back. Anyway they transferred me up to the ICU where I stayed the night. The next morning I was given a paper that I was asked to sign saying that in case of anything getting worse that I consented to them taking my uterus. I wasn't sure I was done with it yet...but it wasn't really a choice anymore. So I called Aaron and sobbed to him. He of course came right away. Within a couple of hours I was in surgery having an emergency hysterectomy. I had a 50% chance of coming out of the surgery alive. My uterus was already a dead organ when they pulled it out. Luckily they were able to save my ovaries (yay). I was kept in a sleep induced state for about 30 hours. My sisters came to see me and I am disappointed to say that I later found out that Chauntel was the only one that cried when they saw me like this. I did not see any bright lights or Angels or anything! But after a few more scares...Dr's thinking my liver might be infected, water around my heart and just general swelling, I was recovered enough to go home. I had a lot of firsts while in the hospital. It was my first time in my adult life in an ER, taking morphine, in an ICU, first surgery, first chest x-ray, first time having an IV in my neck (I had 5 IVs total), staples in my skin, first time having a bowel movement before I could get to the toilet (it's funny now)! Well, my mom stayed for a week after surgery and took care of us. When I released her from duty I thought she would absolutely float out of here she was so happy to leave. My house is small and pretty disorganized. It must have been really hard for her to stay as long as she did. Thank you to all those who came to lend support by visiting or helping. First of all my husband who was my rock, the only person that can truly comfort me, Second of all my Mommy, my amazing sister Chauntel (who in the back scenes of all that was happening to me was taking care of my precious newborn Freja), to my sisters Jessalyn and Darci who flew out of their homes and directly to Utah to do whatever they could, to Lara Kohntopp my sister in law who traveled at a moments notice all the way from Logandale and stayed for almost a week to help watch Anton and Brynja,to Carolyn Grey, to Larry and Jeanie Kohntopp, To All the Chattertons especially to Brandon for making me laugh so hard that I could have busted my gut LITERALLY!, And thank you to all the people who called and lent my husband support during this time, and who brought in food to feed my worn out family. Thank you for all the prayers, I truly saw the divine fruits of those special requests. Thank you!

Freja Leone Kohntopp

So Saturday early in the morning I woke up to a small puddle of water under me, I was so excited. I just assumed that the rest of it would come out when I started moving around, but nothing. So I went from excited to bummed. I took a long shower to sulk and then took a long nap to continue sulking. When I woke up I was having some really hard contractions so I got excited, and got on my computer to time them. I was having contractions 20-30 minutes apart so at this point I am thinking this could last all week. So I was sulky and really frustrated. I put my computer away. I had lost all hope of having my baby on Saturday. About five minutes later my water REALLY broke. Talk about an emotional roller coaster. I told Aaron right off the bat "this is going to go really fast". That was at about 1:30pm. I called my midwife who was teaching a class for the day. She told me her back up midwife would be here in about 15 minutes. I called Chauntel, my little sister, and she was here withing a half an hour, wait that was after about 15 minutes of me cursing her for not answering her phone. She was only expecting to watch my kids for me. Imagine her surprise when at about 2:50ish I had Aaron call her up to help support me. To make a short story even shorter...I delivered Freja at 3:19pm Saturday afternoon, less than 2 hrs after my water broke. The midwifes birth assistant did not make it in time for the birth, she showed up minutes after Freja was born. Everyone was gone by six and our home was plus one and all to ourselves again. I know there are those of you who think that I am crazy but I go through the pain for several reason #1: You should see how excited Aaron gets. I love how I can tell how it makes him feel to catch his own babies and be such a part of the experience. #2: I hate Dr. appointments, I hate vaginal exams, I especially despise annoying nurses, IV's and basically everything about hospital births...except those lovely epidurals, sort of. Lastly #3: I absolutly love having my children be here and feeling like a family right off.

Now a special shout out to my brave little sister, who has not yet had a baby naturally. She honestly had no idea how to be a doula, however, she did a pretty darn good job. I don't think it would have been near as comforting to have anyone but Chauntel here. But Chauntel "lift my chin to my chest on the next contration", what tv show was that on!?!? Just kidding you did great, Thank YOU!

Last Month!

I find myself logging on just to check my own pregnancy ticker. Something like taking pregnancy test over and over when you are trying to get pregnant. I check the ticker over and over to see when she is coming out. I am nesting but it is so difficult with Aaron's arm and my belly to get anything done. So yesterday I was really stressed about getting the yard cleaned up. I don't know why...my house needs attention, but I couldn't relax about the yard. So Aaron and I went out with Trenton in tow and cleaned the yard. It didn't take long but it felt sooooo good to get something accomplished. They say it's the little things in life, right? I also got the baby station set up yesterday. We are going to have the baby in our room in a mini play pen for the first couple months. So last night in the middle of the night Brynja came in and peered into the play pen and said "Did the baby come yet?" I was barely awake and said "what?" she patted her belly and said "Did the baby come out of your belly yet?" She is so excited, I bought her and the baby matching (not exact) gold shoes. It is going to be so much fun!

How much longer?

So this is the point I am at...How much longer? Honestly, I can not wait to change my little stick family at the bottom. I'll be some sexy stick figure and there will be another little person in our family.
For those of you who don't know Aaron had surgery on his shoulder on January 31st. It's been really fun being such a lame couple. I am big and pregnant and he is basically a one armed man. I have enjoyed having him home, someone to talk to and watch movies with. I will miss him when he goes back to work in a month or so.
I plan on going home to Logandale for the fair this April. Trenton is going to be in Henderson for the baseball season. So I might stay at my moms for several weeks. Then come home for a while and then go back to Logandale for a couple of weeks. I think after such a long winter me and the kids need a trip home to Logandale.

Almost there...

We are almost there only 10 more weeks. But of course I try to widdle it down in my mind. I usually go a little early so in my mind I tell myself I only have 7 weeks left.
Brynja is so excited for a baby sister. She will sit next to me with her had on my belly forever waiting to feel the baby kick. If our new little girl is as happy as Brynja it will be so wonderful. Brynja is the happiest person I have ever met. Yesterday I went to get her and Anton out of the tub. I had two towels one was the Lion towel (both of their favorite) and the other was a plain white towel. As soon as I walked in the bathroom Anton called dibs on the Lion towel. Brynja sat with a funny little look on her face and thought for a moment and then says "I get the snow towel"! When Anton was being mean to her the other day she told him "Anton I know you are awesome but you are being mean to me". He can't resist her happy was he just giggled and said "OK Brynja".
Semaj' is so wonderful. She is such a good little girl. She and her friend are so into crafting and are constantly giggling together. They bought walkie talkies and talk to each other on them all the time.
Trenton is a very responsible child. I can depend on him for almost anything. He has more friends than I can count. I love them all so much, they make my world go 'round. They are my best little friends.