Slip Slidin' Fun in Utah

After the 4th of July, the kids and I headed over to Utah for a little family reunion.

Slip Sliding Fun

Kaycee and Lucy

Sleep overs and rides in Harvey the RV

Emree, Rylee, Olivia, Berkley and Uncle Ben

Josie, Lucy, Emma and Kaycee

Feeding the ducks

See the mama duck with 7 ducklings?
The most I've seen.

The Wendy Mack 5k and Croc Walk
Remember this post?
A 5k that friends of Wendy put on to raise money for the Mack family.
600 hundred participants came!

Marcie, Me and Micki the morning of the race.

The croc walk with our orange balloons
Crocs donated 100 orange crocs - the shoes Wendy wore as an L&D nurse.


Releasing our balloons after touching tributes by her friends and sister.
Glad I was wearing my sunglasses - not a dry eye.

The Invalids
Some us party a little harder than others!
Within 2 months we had two broken elbows and two broken arms.

Sister Reecy - broken elbow - roller skating

Nephew Jace - broken elbow - night games
Mom - broken arm - rolling on an ATV - biggest partier of them all! Just kidding, Mom.
Niece Sicily - broken arm (2nd time) - monkey bars in the back yard.

June 27, 2001 - Enter Rylee

First moments

When people find out that Rylee was born three and a half weeks early, I tell them that she was prayed out.

Four Hunt brothers were married in the summer of 2000 while the youngest brother, Aaron, was on his mission. Two of the new sisters-in-law had met Aaron before he left, yet, 2 of us had not. The summer of 2001 Aaron was coming home and there was a family reunion planned for the 4th of July weekend. Rylee wasn't due until July 21st and unless she was going to come before the 4th, we weren't going to make it.

It was 2:30 the morning of the 27th when I woke up to something unusual. A contraction. I tried to go back to sleep, but continued having more contractions. At 6, we decided to start walking around the block. At 7am, we decided to go the hospital. The contractions were still coming, not too painful, but I had no idea what to expect. At the hospital, the nurse checked me and I was barely a one. She left us with "well, maybe we'll see you later on today. . ." and we were on our way.

Dang it.

It wasn't long before we got home that a lot of the pain went into my back. OUCH. Ryan drew me a hot bath, but I couldn't find any relief. My parents came over to see me crying on the couch in pain. Ryan and my dad gave me a blessing. Around 3pm we headed over to my parents house. While, again, crying on their couch, my sweet sister-in-law Mindy rubbed my feet.

The pain was awful. Mindy encouraged us to go back to the hospital. This time at the hospital, I couldn't even get out of the car. I was wheeled in bawling.

At 4pm, I was dilated to a 4, and happy to meet and anesthesiologist. Wow. In just moments I couldn't feel a thing! Not knowing how long things would take, my mom and Mindy were going to bring Ryan some food and grab our camera. (Who forgets their camera?)

Thankfully, things went well and after only 20 minutes of pushing (not too shabby for my first and not being able to feel a thing), at 7:47pm, Miss Rylee made her appearance.

I remember watching her coming out and thinking " holy cow, she's looks big." Then to hear she was a whopping 5lb 12oz. When they passed her to me all wrapped up, she was just a tiny peanut with an adorable pink bow. She was beautiful. I was a mom! We were parents. She had such a dainty, pretty little face and her tongue was too cute as she constantly stuck it out. She was so alert and her eyes full of wonder. It was a while before she fell asleep again.

We had no clue that things would have progressed that quickly. My mom came about 10 minutes after Rylee was born with our camera. I heard her knock on the door and asked if she wanted to meet her. A great surprise to my mom.

The Hunts are faith-filled people and we flew to Denver when Rylee was just 5 days old! (Note: if this had not been my first baby when I had no clue what I was doing, I'm not sure we would have done that!). It was a great reunion and so fun having ALL the Hunts together.

Ryan walking off the plane with Rylee
to meet her adoring grandparents and aunts and uncles

Rylee was such an easy baby and is still pretty easy going. She's as beautiful as ever and I often tell people that there is no way we could have 6 kids without her! She is a tremendous help.

October 2010

Happy 10th Birthday, Rylee.

We sure love you.

Remembering Grandma

This is Grandma.

One week after my last post, she passed away in the arms of my Grandpa.

She was a delightful lady. No one smelled or was as tender as Grandma. Even brushing the 'snarls' out of our hair, she was gentle. She made the best bread and rolls and eating her bottled peaches was a treat. She was soft spoken and kind, and a great example to me serving her family.

Her home always smelled good (the bread, ). Her basement was filled with toys and her laser discs and video library were hard to beat. Everyone loved to be at Grandma's.

Even as I've become an adult and it had been years since I'd been to her house, it all felt very familiar. The only thing missing was her. Grandpa sat at the table and welcomed us when we arrived late Wednesday evening. He shared with us Grandma's last moments. So tender.

Aunts, uncles and cousins came from near and far and it was such a sweet reunion. One like we know Grandma was having with her relatives. All but 2 of the 28 grandchildren were there (minus some spouses and children). It was wonderful to reminisce and learn how she and Grandpa met - I didn't know! I learned so many things spending that time together. Like how I have Grandma's feet - from high arches to weird, weird toe nails. (Sorry Grandma.) Or, how my Grandpa has a sweet tooth even stronger than mine! Glad to know it's genetic :) (He convinced us to eat strawberry pie at midnight, people!). I'm grateful that Henry was able to meet him - his name sake.

I have so many memories that I hold dear. She was so wonderful.

Grandma, we love you.

Grandpa and Grandma
June 30, 1949

A Sunday Afternoon

May 28, 2004 - Enter Kaycee

(can you tell the theme for birthday posts this year?)

Thursday, May 27th started with a doctor's appointment. I sighed when the doctor came in and she asked if I was getting tired of being pregnant. I laughed. Then she said something that shocked me.

"Do you want me to strip your membranes?"

I had to think about that for a second, this baby wasn't due until the June 10th. Was that legal? Not lawfully, but in pregnancy...?

Then I could hear myself blurting out, OK! (Nothing like a few moments, when getting stripped, to question whether you're really ready for labor...)

I sat up and she told me to give her a call later when the contractions started.

We went through the day, but nothing was happening. I called Dr. Lindsey around 8:30pm and told her that nothing was happening and then she surprised me again: Well, do you want to come to the hospital and I can break your water?

Yeah, ok.

Rylee and Clay were set up with Gma and Gpa Hunt and Ryan and I made our way to the hospital, stopping for something to eat first

This time around Ryan was 'self-employed' and our insurance wasn't the best. I has toying with the idea of saving money and not getting an epidural...but we'd see how it went.

I was admitted to the hospital and the doctor came and broke my water around 10 pm. Why I chose to labor thru the night I have no idea. It wasn't long before I threw every idea of saving money out the window and got the epidural. I wanted rest. However, this time the epidural didn't feel as good as I had remembered. I could still feel quite a bit especially on my right side. Well, dang, not much rest.

The doctor joined us around 7am and we started thinking of names. Boy names and girls names. Since we'd already had one of a each- a boy and a girl, we thought it would be fun to wait to find out the gender. It wasn't until that hour I think I started to go into transition. The doctor checked me and although I was close to being fully dilated there was still a small lip in the way (sorry tmi, but this is for Kaycee). The doctor said I could try pushing as I felt pressure. The effectiveness of the epidural was starting to wear off and I was exhausted. Twenty minutes had passed and I'd never pushed that long. As Kaycee started to crown (again, for Kaycee) the doctor cheered me on and told me to reach down and feel her head. My words exactly: NO, GET IT OUT!

Sure enough, 10 minutes later at 7:58am we were holding our second baby girl - 6lbs 13oz. She was a cutie. We had two girl names and even though I like to see their little faces before officially naming them, I still didn't know. It was between Ellie or Kaycee.

It wasn't until Ryan was on the phone and mentioned if we named her Kaycee we could call her 'Cee Cee' that I knew what her name was going to be. My sister Reecy had gone by 'Cee Cee' for a time and it felt good to get two family names in one little person.

Our cute Miss Kaycee has always been so easy going and as smiley as they come. With her care-free spirit she knows how to have a fun time. Her contagious laugh keeps things light, yet her thoughtfulness is dear.

Happy 7th Birthday Kace!!