New pics of Whit...

This is the first time my dad held Whit! Thanks dad for letting me stay at your house while Whit was in the hospital...

This is the first time Shantel held Whit... Thanks Shani for staying with me and driving me around while Whit was in the hospital!

The first time my mom held Whit... Thanks mom for staying with me and taking care of me while Whit was in the hospital!

The first time Clete got to hold Whit... Thank you for keeping our other two kids and being such a great dad while Whit was in the hospital!

This is Whit's last day in the Nicu at Primary's ( notice no tubes)

Me and Whit on one of his last days in the Nicu!

Whit's last day in the Nicu... He is wearing a preemie outfit and he only has a feeding tube in!

I took this pic because he has huge feet compared to how small he is!

Last pic with the feeing tube in...

He had the billirubin lights for about 24 hours because he was jaundice... also notice the presents above his head... it was Easter!

One of the first time I got to hold baby Whit!

This was the day he was born... He had a pic line, cpap machine, IV's, and all types of monitors on!

The last pic... one week before I went into labor with the little man!

I wanted to add a few pics of baby Whit while he was in the Nicu... He was born on April 20th and was transferred to Primary Children's hospital on April 22nd. I started with the pictures starting backwards so I started with the ultrasound pic and continued on with every tube that he has had and every tube that was taken out! He is doing so great now... He is 5 weeks old and weighs 5lbs 8oz. He has gained almost a full pound since he was born. He was born at 4lbs 9 oz. but lost down to 4lbs 4oz. so he is doing great! He eats really well and sleeps most of the day! I got his pics done last week and they are so cute! I will add them to my blog when i get them! He is so sweet and such a wonderful addition to our family! I am so happy that he is here and that he is as healthy as he is! I am so thankful to our family and friends and to our heavenly father for all of the hope and prayers sent to our little man! We love you Whit... and we can't imagine our lives without you!

My pride and Shayda Joy...

The first picture of all 3 of my kids haha

another pic of all my kiddoes in their pj's

My dad took us to the aquarium while Whit was at Primary's still

Shayda loved the seahorses the most!

Justice liked all the creepy fish...

Left Foot

Right Foot

Left hand

Right hand

Shayda with Ms. Guillette at preschool graduation...

Preschool graduation program

Shayda's tumbling program

Working on her routine...

The whole school program

Shayda is on the floor on the second row and second person in...

I know that all these pictures are a little random but I have so much that i need to catch up on. The first pictures that you see are of all of my kids together. They are not the best pictures but I just got their pictures done professionally so I will post those when I get them. The next pics are of Shayda and Justice at the aquarium. My dad took us there while we were staying with him. It was while Whit was in Primary's still. I was really missing them, so my dad invited them to stay with us and took us out to have fun! I was so happy to be with them... it was just to hard being away from them for that long. Thanks dad! The next pics are just to funny not to include... Shayda has decided that everytime I paint her nails and toes that she should take pics with my phone. I painted them right before I went back up to salt lake and I was looking through my pics and found these pics. It made my whole night... what a funny girl she is! I loved that she took pics of both feet and hands haha! She also had her preschool graduation last week... I am so proud of her! She loved preschool and did so well... I can't believe how much she learned! She also had a tumbling program that same week and did a few tricks that I didn't even know that she could do. This week we went to the whole school program. She did a little dance and did such a cute job! I am so proud of my little girl and what she has accomplished this year! She amazes me everyday with her talents! I love you Shayda Joy!

Counting my blessings...

I am counting my blessings everyday... i can't even explain how thankful i am for all the blessings i have been given. I have had a bit of bad luck lately but i feel like i am unable to dwell on it because of all of the blessings we have. Cletes truck broke down right after he and my kids got home from visiting me. It cost $1000.00 to fix... then our well went out and it turns out it was only a switch which saved us tons of money. Also thanks to Greg Wade who came out late at night to check it out! Last but not least... Shayda ended up in the E.R. last night with a bad kidney infection. It must have been bad for Clete to take her to the hospital. I feel so bad that I wasn't with her, but her daddy is the best we could ask for. He handled it like a champ... and she feels much better now. I know that with all the bad luck i could be focusing on that instead of all the good things, but being in the nicu everyday with Whit has taught me that things could be so much worse. I don't know how some people handle all the horrible things that happen to their sweet babies. I am so lucky to have such a healthy baby boy and such wonderful people in my life to help me through everything. I don't know what would happen without them.

Whit is doing so great... His little heart is healing itself... so the episodes have decreased significantly. He is also missing some leads in his left ear which may affect is hearing, but they still have time to form. His right ear is perfect. He is eating so much better and even has his feeding tube out for now. If he can keep it up then he can come home next week yay! I am so thankful for everything i have. I am going to try to remember how lucky i am. I love my family so much and I am so thankful for everything!

Whit Clete Carter

Warning... This is a long story!

We have had so many concerned calls and text messages wondering about our sweet baby boy so
I wanted to tell the whole story.

Whit Clete Carter was born on April 20th 2011 at 4:40 am. I started having contractions again on Tuesday morning. I just felt like i needed to go to the hospital so i called Clete and he left work to take me to Nephi. I was contracting normally but i was only 34 1/2 weeks pregnant so they gave me meds to stop them. My water broke shortly after that which caused me to be sent to timpanogos hospital in an ambulance ... lights and sirens... scary! I was progressing very slowly and the nurse was concerned that he was breech. They could not decide if he was or not until they felt the umbilical cord trying to come first. They decided to do a c-section. i thought it would be good but it was the scariest thing i have ever experienced. I felt really sick and clostrophobic and scared for my baby. He was born within 5 minutes and we found out it was a boy. He was 4lbs 9oz. 18in. Long and skinny. He did well. He had a cpap for one day and then went to room air which I was so excited about. He was breech by the way with one arm and leg trying to come first. He was doing so well but they were concerned about his heart. It was stopping and starting r3eally quickly for no reason. They decided to send him to primary childrens. He was put on a monitor and the cardiologist felt that it was something he had because he was premature.

He is still at primarys but he is doing so great. He is still off oxygen, and has been taken off of everything but the feeding tube. He needs that still because he is still so small and falls asleep while eating... but he does breast feed well. His heart is doing the episodes much less and hopefully will stop soon. We can't wait to bring our sweet little man home.

i miss my kids so much. They have such a great dad that is taking care of them but i miss them like crazy and they miss me. They are coming up to see us tomorrow and I am so happy! I have had such an out pouring of love and support from our family and friends. I can't say thank you enough. My mom, Clete and mother in laws spent all day and night with me in labor. My mom spent a few nights with me and so did Shantel. My step dad spent the night with Whit when i couldnt be there and my little sis was there when i needed someone the most. My dad is letting me stay with him so I am close to Whit. My siblings and sis in laws have been so worried and helpful. My wonderful hubbie has been the best husband and dad I could ask for. I could not do it without him. My mom listens to me cry more than once and i am greatful for her advice. I am so thankful for the many prayers said on mine and Whit's behalf... this is what has kept us here. I am thankful to you all and for my heavenly father for everything. Thank u thank u thank u!!! I will add pictures soon. You can check out my facebook for pics. I will try and keep you all updated. Keep praying for us to come home soon!!!

Almost there...

Look at this pic and compare it to Justices pic on the left side of the screen... I swear they look alike!

How cute is this?

I know that these pics are tiny but I couldn't fix it so you will just have to squint! I got an ultrasound on Monday and it was so much fun. I have gestational diabetes again so they just wanted to make sure the baby is not getting to big. He or she is almost 5 pounds... which I think sounds big but they say it is right on track. I loved seeing my little angel again... it reminds me of what a miracle babies really are. I think that I will be having this baby around the middle of May so I am almost there. Thank goodness because I swear I am to old for this. I can't believe how much harder this one has been compared to the other two (Maybe I just can't remember the other two haha) I also want this to be a warning to all young girls who think it is so great to get your belly button pierced. STOP... Don't do it... you will pay for it. I am not kidding... I got my belly button pierced when I was 18... I think I only enjoyed it for about two years and then I started to get to self concious for it. I took it out when I was probably about 21 and have not worn one ever since. Well... my skin does not heal well so I can still get a ring in it to this day. The horror of it all is that with my first baby I started a horrible stretch mark and then it has just gotten worse... even if I got stinkin skinny I would still not ever wear a bikini again haha. Well now my skin is stretching so badly that the skin that I pierced is tearing... like bleeding. I swear I am no bigger with this one but my skin does not like the stretching. I know that my babies are worth every but of this but wow they are harsh on a womans body.

I am also working on my loan for the addition to my house. The appraisal came in high enough and with this economy that is amazing. I am so excited... we will start on it in another month. Bad timing since the baby is coming but I am so excited that I don't mind at all. We have lived in a two bedroom home with no storage for long enough. Wish me luck that my marriage will make it through the construction haha.

I will keep you posted on my pregnancy. I can't wait until we know if this baby is a boy or girl. I have no idea and everyone else in my life thinks its a boy. What do you think?

St. patty's day fun...

Justice and his green eggs...

Shayda and her green eggs...

Shayda's rainbow and gold pot hair...

four leaf clover cake

rainbow cake

Ok so I am dieing on bed rest. I have gotten pretty bored so I have been coming up with fun things to do. Ok so some of them cause me to get up but I am going into work for a little while tomorrow and I needed to get my energy back up. We started off the day with green eggs... they looked gross but my kids ate them all! I wanted to do something with Shayda's hair but I couldn't find any shamrock ideas that would work with her hair so I came up with my own. I am quite proud of myself with this idea haha. I also make green tuna fish sandwiches... Clete thought they looked bad but tasted good. I decided not to torcher them with any more food that looked gross so we had normal food for dinner. I also attempted to make a rainbow cake. Shayda wanted a strawberry cake so I tried to color pink cake mix with green and blue food coloring. It didn't work out so well. I know that I claim to be a cake decorator but I failed on this attempt. I also made a cool whip frosting which tasted so good with the cake that it didn't matter that it was ugly. All in all we had a great day! I love spending time with my kids... they have been so good to me while on bed rest. I just couldn't ask for better kids! Love you both!

pre-term labor...

I thought I should probably post a little about what has been going on lately with my pregnancy. On Friday, february 25th I started feeling some pain in my right side and my stomach hurt to even touch. I talked myself out of going to the hospital because I knew Nephi's clinic was open on saturday and I thought that I was probably having some kidney problems. The next day I called and made an appointment and headed to Nephi. I ran in to my friend Erin and got to have a good visit with her... she kept telling me that she thought I was in labor but I wasn't convinced. When I saw the dr. he said that I had a uti but that I needed to be checked on the monitors to see about contractions. When they hooked me up, I immediatley remembered being in labor with Justice and started feeling even more pain. They tried to give me some antibiotic and fluids because they thought the uti was what was causing them but it did not help. I then got some more meds and some more tests which did not help the cause. My dr. had found out that one of my tests said that my body thought it would have a baby in 7 to 14 days. Not good when you are not due until the end of May. He decided to send me by ambulance to utah valley and then gave me some magnesium sulfate that stopped my labor. They sent me home after two days, and put me on bedrest. I have been doing really well but started to feel contractions again yesterday and some more today. I don't know if it is because I went to partial bed rest or what. It has been scary but I have had so much help. I can't thank my family, and my friends and the relief society enough. They have all been so wonderful to help me and so willing to do anything for me. I seriously have not had to do a thing for a couple of weeks now. I am going to keep trying to keep this baby in as long as possible. We want a healthy happy baby!!! Thanks to everyone who has helped and also all those who have worried and prayed for us. Thank you, Thank you