Back to February 5th

Karen and her friend Gabby made shirts for First Friday.

Karen is 15 now! She had a birthday last Saturday and I forgot to post before hand. We didn't do much for her birthday, she wanted a new camera and she got one. She can post some of her pictures now. She went to First Friday with a couple of friends, down town Phoenix where they do an art show. Karen says she is moving to Canada when she graduates and wanted Canadian bacon for her birthday. American Canadian bacon is not the same as theirs, but I got her some any way and we made a pizza with Canadian bacon. I also made her a Canadian dessert and we drank some Canada Dry ginger ale.

Fifteen years ago I woke to mild contractions and sent Jack to work telling him I would call the Dr. and let him know when to come back home. I had a bowl of cheerios and called the Dr. He said to go to the hospital as I was in labor.I called Jack back at work and told him to come back and then I finished getting Kyle ready for school. I called the neighbors who were going to watch Kyle and Rachel. While we were waiting Kyle's pet rats got loose and one crawled under the couch. I was trying to find it so it wasn't running around while we were at the hospital. I was trying to move the couch when my neighbor arrived to get the kids and he told me to just leave the rat. I told him I couldn't, who knew what he would eat through. We finally caught the rat and Jack was home to take me to the hospital. We arrived at the hospital and there was some confusion as to whether my Dr had set a reservation for me at the Family Birthing Center. At that point I was in hard contractions and didn't care as long as I had a bed. They got me a room and I told the nurse I wanted to have this baby and be done to sit and eat lunch. She looked at me quite skeptical, it was 9:30am. We didn't know if we were having a boy or a girl so it was going to be a surprise. We didn't care either way I had hand me downs from both. I had felt like I was having a girl and the doctor kept telling me a girl by the heart rate and he had been right with the other two. At 11:30 am Karen arrived! She didn't cry and I was worried, but she was fine. She had the cord around her neck, but it didn't do any harm. The room I was in didn't let me hold her right away. They wiped her and did her blood work right away. I sat for quite a while waiting to hold her. I even had time to call the neighbor Joyce and let her know "she had arrived!" Joyce said who? I said" the baby it's a girl" and she said "Already?". I was starting to get pretty aggravated by that point when finally the nurse brought her over and said "I guess you were right, your lunch is on it's way". We were moved into another room where we could get more comfortable and get to know Karen. She had a little bit of dark hair and chubby cheeks. I was anxious to leave the hospital the next day and we had to wait for the pediatrician to come see Karen, but there had been some confusion, with Dr. Karen Brown being paged and had to call back to the office and send back another Dr. Finally we were able to leave later that afternoon and stopped by the school to pickup Kyle and went home. We took Karen across the street to see the Kortum's and Joyce got mad at me because I was carrying the car seat with Karen in it. Robert and Joyce were thrilled to see Karen they called her 'doll baby'. Rachel wasn't as thrilled. The first time she held her she said "I hate that tupid baby". Karen has been our funny child with the jokes. Her and Jack had a game they played by copying hand gestures. I miss Karen being small enough to lay on my legs and cuddle and reading I Spy books together. She has grown to be a beautiful teenager!