The Faulk Family

 Here is your typical example of second child syndrome—it has taken me over 3 months to write up Miles’ birth story.   I feel terrible about this (hello mom guilt!), but I guess better late than never! As with Riley’s birth, I was anxious for Miles to be born on time or early because every day he was late would mean one less day before I would have to return to work.   My return to work date was set, regardless of when the baby was born.   Little did I know this baby would be born right on his due date—July 30, 2015!   I first started having regular contractions on Saturday, July 25.   Yup, that’s right…5 days earlier.   They were coming about every 8-10 minutes starting in the early afternoon and continuing until evening.   I was SO EXCITED!    This was it!   And he was coming a few days EARLY!   My excitement quickly died out, however, when evening came and the contractions completely stopped.   Out of...

Yea, yea.  It's been a while.  Story of my life.  As usual I want to get back into blogging.  Although I stink at consistency...I really like it.  Quick Update: Riley is almost 2 years old (oh.my.word.) and baby #2 is due in 16 days!  We bought a house a year and a half ago in Sandy, Utah.  I am still the drama teacher at Kearns High and Daniel works as a data analyst for Williams Gas. I will do a more full "life update" post later. Moving on!   This is a post I have been crafting in my head for a while and I am excited to finally get it out there!  As the arrival of baby #2 has gotten closer and closer I have been thinking a lot about what items I am going to need that I didn't have the first time around.  I am really lucky that the boys will be almost exactly 2 years apart, so they are being born during the same season.  This of course means that I can reuse all of the baby clothes from Riley with baby #2.  This elimin...

Easter. A time of pastels, bunnies, and new Sunday clothes. I was determined to make Riley's first Easter great. Looking back, I just shouldn't have cared so dang much. Maybe if I hadn't everything would have gone swell... So the morning started off fine. I was excited to put Riley in his cute Easter outfit and for the whole family to look great at church (because clearly this matters...not). First thing in the morning we get a call from Daniel's dad saying that Daniel's mom is really sick so we won't be able to go over there for dinner. I felt terrible for her (and she was SO sad to miss Riley's first Easter), but this definitely threw a wrench in our plans. We had no food. Seriously. I ran to the grocery store the day before just to get the dessert we thought we were bringing to Daniel's parents house. Still, I decided I would deal with that later. While Daniel was showering, I nursed Riley in his rocking chair. He was just looking up at me wi...

Remember how I used to blog?  Yea...me too.  I'd like to get things back up and running because it makes me sad to think of all the fun things that are happening as Riley grows up that I might forget!  We're also well under way with our kitchen renovation, so there will definitely be a post about that coming soon--don't get TOO excited! Anyway, my last post was about Riley's birth.  I'm not sure how to describe the month after that...'rough' might be a good word to start out with.  This is my blog so I'm going to be real here and say that I struggled.  I think I thought that everything would go smoothly--sure, I'd lose some sleep here and there, but overall I would just be swimming in feelings of love for my newborn and none of the hard stuff would matter.  While I definitely loved my newborn (I mean look at him...who couldn't love that?), I encountered many things I wasn't prepared for... 1. Endless Crying.  I'm not just referring t...

 A warning in advance--this is really long and detailed, so if you don't want to read a detailed birth story (with pictures), then stop now!  This was an important record for me to make and I didn't want to spare any details. :) Technically the story of my labor begins on Riley’s due date: July 24, 2013.   Because I have to go back to school as a teacher very soon (my first meeting is August 14), I was desperate to see if I could use some “natural” methods to get the labor going.   So, on Wednesday, July 24 around ten in the morning I took about 1.5 ounces of castor oil, which is known to get labor kick started occasionally by basically freaking out your bowels so you have the runs—lovely.   I waited for a few hours but nothing happened at all.   Bummer.   My mother and sister came to Salt Lake and we celebrated Pioneer Day by going to temple square and having lunch at the Lion House.   After lunch I started to have some horrible pains in m...