GT Relay

About a year ago my mom was last minute asked to join on one of the teams for the Grand Teton Relay. Well, that's really were all the madness began. After the relay she had so much fun she decided she wanted to run it again, but this time with her whole family. So a couple month's later she signed up with the team name. Mom 'n Kids. From this point forward there were two groups of people. The first being the group that really wanted to run in the relay and trained hard for it. And the second group being not so excited to run 15 miles in a 24 hour period but were awesome sports and decided to run it for mom anyways. We wont mention any names. :)

Well it's a lot of hard work putting together a relay team with your family. Much harder then Mom and myself thought. We had food to get together, vans, shirts, water, legs split up.... We decided we wanted a logo for our team and to put some kind of symbol on the back of the shirts that would let people know where that specific child fit in the family. After much discussion we came up with a numbering system that started with the first born as 1, then the next 2, the next 3 and so forth... Not to complicated. But then what about their spouses and their kids! I'll used my family as a example. Me being the 4th born child was number 4; My husband was number 4.4; meaning number 4's second part; and Jacob was number 4.4.1; The one meaning he is our firstborn. If we had a second kid, the kids number would have been 4.4.2; Get it? :) See above picture for the final result. I also took some time to put together a really awesome logo for the front of the shirts which depicts Mom running with her 9 children running behind her.

So we had this great plan and we looked around for hours trying to find the cheapest place we could find that could make the shirts we wanted and I finally found one in Idaho Falls that would do everything for 9 bucks a shirt. A great deal! I don't know why but I just didn't have the greatest feeling about getting our shirts done here, but we were in a hurry and so I brushed it off and got the shirts made. Well let's just say I wasn't surprised when I got the shirts back and they were done wrong. On each of the shirts we also wanted to put the name of the child and the word "kid" just above the number so that people would relate the number to what order in the family the kid was.

So luckily all the names and number's were on the right shirt size and everything was fine with that. The problem was you couldn't read the name and kid of the shirt because they were done so tiny! And to top it off all the number's were different sizes, different fonts and some of them were off centered. (You can see this also in the picture above) My mom and I were pretty angry at first, but then it just became comical! It was hard not to laugh at how poorly they were done. After making sure we were going to get them all re-done for free, we all laughed it off and wore the shirts anyways. (Because we wouldn't have time to get them re-done before the race). 

Finally it was time to run! It took a lot of work to figure out which leg everyone would run. For those of you who don't understand how the race works here is a description from the GT Relay home page:

"The Grand Teton Relay is a 12 or 6 person running relay covering 180 miles of beautiful and challenging terrain beginning in Ashton, ID and traveling through Island Park, Grand Targhee, and finishing in Jackson Hole, WY. Running in the shadows of the Tetons with your best friends is the ultimate road trip! Teams split into two cars so one set of six runners can rest while the other set of six takes turns running their legs of the race. Teams switch off running and resting until each runner has run three times, and then they are all standing together in a exhausted daze at the finish line."

We split up the legs depending on how much the person had trained, how much natural ability they had and how well each person got along with others in their van. All in all it ended up that 4 people actually trained. 8 people kind of didn't really train. And 1 person had recently had a baby. So it ended up being in Van #1: Leg 1-Heather; Leg 2-Shelyn & Ondrea; Leg 3-Scotty; Leg 4-Skyler; Leg 5-Derek; and Leg 6-me. Van #2: Leg 7-Caleb; Leg 8-Justin; Leg 9-Mom; Leg 10-Crystal; Leg 11-Clarissa; and Leg 12-Scott.

 Our day began early Friday morning because we needed to be to the start line at 9 am.

We began running at 9 am in Ashton.

 Heather getting ready to start the race!

From there it was just a lot of running,

 What's that Scott? Are you saying, What does the fox say? or you want water?

cheering,

hanging out in/around vans,

 Katrina's shirt! We really wish we could have been here!

tears,

 eating,

 sleeping when possible,

and just having a blast with the family!

 Crystal nervous before her race

 Geo-caching

 Jacob couldn't wear his shirt at the end for pictures because he had an explosion in it...

 Praying before his race ;)

 Night running

 Day 2

 Shelyn driving :)

 Our bathroom for 2 days

 Everyone did so great! And even though we weren't really planning on being competitive, we all have that dang Durtschi blood running through our veins and we just can't help ourselves. :) So of course we had to try to beat everyone! And for not training, I'd say we did pretty dang good! We ended up crossing the finish line at Teton Village in Jackson, WY at 1:16 pm Saturday afternoon. Putting us in 11th place overall with a total time of 28 hours 16 minutes!

These next pictures are out of order a little bit.. But that's ok :)

Sleeping after the race

 Running in at the end of the race

 Mom handing out medals

 Scott rounding the corner before we all joined him

 Everyone finishing the race strong!

 Scott, Jacob and I running in

 Our photographer :)

 Mom handing out more medals

 The team

 Team plus the driver, aka Dad :)

 Support team and Caleb!

Skyler really wanted to come in 10th place... So... I guess that means we'll just have to do it again! :) It really was so much fun doing the race with everyone! Such a great family experience! I am excited for next year! :) Mom 'N Kids will be returning! And they will be stronger then ever! Of course we can say that now that it has been a month since the run. I don't know if anyone was wanting to run anything ever again the night we finished. Let's just say after the race there were a lot of sore muscles, limping, blisters and pain.... Good thing all it took was a good night's rest in order to feel about 80% better!

2 Months

2 Months!!!

 Jacob is 2 Months old! At his 2 month appointment he weighed 12 lbs 7 ounces (75th percentile). His height actually went down... to 23 inches (50th percentile). (Last month it was 23 3/4") Ya.... Not the most accurate method used....  2 month appointment meant Jacob's first round of vaccinations. :( It was so sad! I was glad Scott went with me so I wouldn't have to be involved. He was laying there on that table fairly calm then when they poked his little legs his face immediately scrunched up in shock and turned beat red! Then the crying started. Not the, I'm crying so that you'll give me attention, but the real deal. Tears, sobs and all. :( That was the first time he's ever had tears when he cried. The next couple days he was a little more fussy then usual but we tried to keep the infant Tylenol in him.

Jacob has grown and developed a ton this past month! I can't believe how fast he changes. He now is very aware of your presence and looks at you and smiles at you all the time! He has discovered that he has a say in things and he lets you know it! One of those things he has a say in is nursing. Although I don't think he HATES nursing, he has decided that he would rather take a bottle to nursing. I think he likes the consistent flow of the milk. So we have stopped using the bottle. It took him a few days before he'd nurse without throwing a huge fit, but now that he realizes this is how it is he has decided nursing isn't the worst thing. I'll try reintroducing the bottle every month or so to see if he'll be ok with both. But until he is, or if he ever decides to be, we are sticking to exclusive nursing. Jacob also likes being able to see his surroundings. If he is awake he wants to be sitting up so he can see everything! I love that he can express his emotions more. He has discovered his voice and his tongue and it's so fun to just sit and talk to him and have him talk back to me. The best is when he's been entertaining himself for awhile and when you walk into his view and he sees you a huge smile breaks out on his face! I often just like watching him as he entertains himself. He talks to himself and smiles and plays with his tongue and it's just so fun!

Some of Jacobs dislikes this month are:

Tummy Time (still)
Laying down if he is awake

Wet or Poopy diapers

Naps

Some of the things Jacob likes are:

Getting his diaper changed
Bath time (don't know if he really LIKES baths but he doesn't scream at the top of his lungs anymore when we bathe him)
Bottles
His Aunt Clarissa :) (Looks like my blog got hacked :)

 At the beginning of the month Jacob was sleeping around 3-4 hours at night. During the month we discovered that Jacob could put himself to sleep! A very very exciting discovery for me! I now feed him and put him to bed at 9. He falls asleep sometime between 9 and 10. then sleeps for 5 hours then another 3 to 4 after that. Getting up sometime between 7 and 8 am. I think it's a pretty good schedule. Can't complain to much with it. He did have a few nights where he slept between 6-8 hours at a time. But those nights are usually the days that we kept him really busy.

So pretty much we just love that kid a lot and a lot. He's a keeper for sure! :)

Here are some other picture from the past month....

 Jacob's first 5k!

 So precious! :)

 How Jacob and I sometimes spend our days...

Life outside the womb

(So I wrote this post a few weeks after giving birth to Jacob and decided not to post it because it was so personal and kind of negative. After recently re-reading it I have decided I want to post it because it records how I really felt right after giving birth to my precious baby boy and although it's not often talked about, I feel like many new mother's, not all, but many, feel like this and feel like terrible mother's and I want to reassure them that it is ok and it will get better. Also because I can gladly and gratefully say I do not feel this way anymore in the slightest. So read at your own risk :) Some of the information is repeated from other posts I have posted.. But that's ok. I'm also not adding pictures to this one)

What a change these past few weeks have been. It is quite the adjustment to go from having all the time in the world to do whatever you want to having ALL of your time occupied by a little human being. The first few weeks were very hard for me. I suffered a lot from baby blues. I had a hard time enjoying or even liking our new baby boy which of course made me feel like the worst mother in the world and made me even more emotional. Scott was my absolute life saver at this time. He just adjusted to being a Daddy so easily and he loved every moment of it. It was hard not to feel a little bit jealous of him because I wanted to feel like I loved being a mom. But it was his love of doing everything he could with Jacob and being involved in anyway he could that helped me so much. But to tell you a little bit of the going on's of the last few weeks I will start back in the hospital.

It is typical for a c-section to stay in the hospital for 3 days but my Doctor told me if everything was looking good and I was feeling up to it they would let me leave at 2 days. The day of the c-section I felt great! I'm sure the drugs were still in me... But I felt good and was up and walking around by that evening. The following morning is when it all hit and I woke up feeling awful! I was so sore and the emotions had hit. Scott was such a trooper in the hospital and took such good care of me. At times I felt like I was in a nursing home and he was my CNA. Not a pretty picture. But he did everything so willingly and I was so grateful. Both nights we had the nurses take Jacob to the nursery so we could get some sleep. Sara was our night nurse and we both loved her! She was the only nurse that made us feel like she was there for us. We asked her all sorts of questions and she willingly sat and answered all of them. We are both very grateful for her. The little pull out bed that Scott had to sleep on was very uncomfortable so I let Scott sleep in the bed with me. He was worried he would hurt me but I reassured him that I would be fine. Jacob was a great sleeper for the first week. But I guess most newborns are. He would sleep for 4-6 hours at a time. I think Heavenly Father knew I needed that. By the end of the second day Scott was more then ready to leave the hospital. I think I was anxious to go home and have to do everything on my own so I wasn't sure if I wanted to leave. But we ended up leaving. We had wanted to leave around 7 Monday night but we didn't end up leaving till 11pm. We just wanted to make the most of our money that we could. :)

My mom stayed with us for a few days after we got home from the hospital. I was so grateful for this because I didn't know what I was doing and it was nice to have someone there to answer all my questions. It seemed that evenings were the worst. That's when all the emotions would hit and I'd just have to go off on my own and cry. I don't know what exactly I was crying about. The pain of surgery, the pain of breastfeeding, feeling overwhelmed. Probably all of the above. People warned me that breastfeeding was painful but I never imagined how painful that would be. It was definitely hard to enjoy breastfeeding and I would dread Jacob waking up because I knew he'd be hungry and I'd have to feed him. There were times when he would latch on and I'd just start crying because of the pain. I also think it was just because I was emotional to begin with.

When Jacob was one week old we drove to Rexburg to watch my mom run her first marathon. Have I mentioned that my mom is my hero? When she turned 50 she made a goal to run a marathon. Not many 50 year old's would have the desire to run their first marathon at 50. But my mom did because she is awesome like that. She trained diligently for over a year and signed up for the Teton Dam Marathon. She ran it in 4 hours 36 minutes beating her desired goal time of 4 hours 45 minutes. I am so proud of her! After she crossed the finish line she was hugging everyone and we were all crying. She is and will always be my roll model.

Scott took a couple days off of work after my mom left to help out. Again it was so nice to have him around. I seriously would not have made it through the first few weeks of Jacob's life without him. I don't know how single mom's do it. I have a new respect for them. I had the hardest time when everyone went back to work and I was left alone for the day. I felt lazy because I couldn't do much because I was recovering and I got frustrated easily when I didn't know what to do for Jacob. I'm so grateful for everyone that came and visited me at this time because just having someone there made everything mentally easier for me.

When Jacob was 2 in a half weeks old Scott left for a week to run the Ragnar Relay Race and then to go on a three day canyoneering trip with a few of his friends down in Southern Utah. I was hoping I would be up to going down to Utah to watch his Ragnar race but emotionally and mentally I just wasn't up for it. I was pretty disappointed. I instead decided to head home to Driggs for the week so that my family could help me with Jacob. There was no way I was trusting myself to stay in Idaho Falls by myself for a week. Being home was really nice because I had my mom and my little sisters to help me with Jacob. My little sister's love babies so I pretty much just had to feed Jacob and they did the rest.

I do feel like my baby blues is getting better. I don't feel as emotional or mentally unstable. I often feel like I take care of Jacob out of obligation rather then out of love and that is really hard for me. My biggest fear is that I will always feel that way.

1 Month

 1 Month Old!!!!

My little minion :)

Wow... I can't believe my little Jacob is 1 month already! At Jacob's 1 month appointment he was 10 lbs 14 oz and 23 3/4" long! Staying in that 90th percentile he is! He is such a good baby. He hardly ever cries, and when he does it's because there is a good reason for it! This has been huge for me because the first few weeks of Jacob's life were very hard for me. I suffered from some baby blues and it was hard to even enjoy him. When he cried it would make me really frustrated, especially if I didn't know why he was crying. Scott was a huge huge help during this time... I don't know what I would have done without him. Thank you Scott! 

I also want to thank my mom. She stayed with us for a few days after I got home from the hospital and was a huge help as well! I was able to ask her all types of questions and it was nice just having another set of hands there while I was recovering from my surgery. I feel like I have been recovering very well! I'm feeling pretty good these days and can get around just fine. I'm getting really excited to get out and do things that I love again! Like rock climbing and running! (maybe I don't LOVE running... But I'm still excited to get out and do it!)

Just a little bit about Jacob... He is soooo adorable! I just can't get over how cute I think he is... He pretty much looks like a mini Scott... He has also starting to get a receding hairline like Scott's as well :) Love you Scott! Some of things Jacob dislikes right now are:

Baths
Being naked
Diaper changes
Tummy Time

Some of the things Jacob likes right now are:

Eating
Sleeping
Pooping

 ....Ok this isn't everything! :) He likes being cuddled and held, as well as being where the action is. He likes having something in his mouth to suck on. Whether it's a pacifier, fingers or nursing. He wants to suck! I'm surprised by how curious and aware of his surroundings he is already. I think he instantly knew he was in a different place when we got home from the hospital because he spent a good amount of time just looking around at the new surroundings. He is also pretty strong and holds up his head really well! At 3 weeks he rolled over from his back to his tummy for the first time! This video I took was the 5th time he had rolled over in a row.

 Now almost every time I put him on his tummy he rolls over. Doesn't really make for very productive tummy time... I still don't think he fully knows what he is doing... Or exactly how he accomplishes rolling over. But he's pretty good at accidentally rolling over non-the-less. For the first week Jacob was sleeping 4-6 hours at a time. It was awesome! He then switched to a 2-4 hour sleeping schedule which wasn't as awesome but normal i hear. :) At first he had his nights and days all confused which was hard on me. Thankfully he has now figuring it out and I am getting a lot more sleep!

Hunter 6 weeks (Melanie's little boy) and Jacob 1 week. Best Buds!

 It is so fun having a baby with your best friend! I love that they are so close to each other and will grow up with each other!