Christmas fun!!!

Tis the season for lots of Christmas fun! We’ve been trying to do lots of fun Christmas and holiday activities with Ava (and with Reed), and I’ve got several to share.

A couple of weeks ago, Zach had to be gone all day Saturday. While Reed was sleeping, Ava and I made a Christmas ornament. She had such a good time doing it!

Last week, we left Reed with my mom and took Ava to ride the Holiday Express at one of our parks. We’ve taken her the past 3 years and each year she enjoys it a little more! And this year’s photo is complete with dinner that didn’t fully get wiped off her face. Just keepin’ real, folks.

Last week, Ava’s class sang at the school’s morning Advent ceremony. They were so cute. I wasn’t sure what Ava would think but she looked around smiling and waving at everyone. Too cute. :)

My mom came to watch and Ava was excited to see her.

Daddy went to school late and came to watch too!

And since we were there, we went downstairs to visit Reed’s classroom. He’ll be starting on January 3 and he met his teachers. He even let one hold him and seemed just fine. He looked around at the bright lights and I think he’ll be very happy there.

Friday was Ava’s (and Zach’s) last day of school. Her class celebrated with a Happy Birthday, Jesus party and then they had a luncheon.

Over the weekend, we went to visit Zach’s family and to celebrate Christmas with them. Ava had a really great time and certainly enjoyed opening gifts. In fact, she opened all the gifts for every one! She wasn’t even concerned with what was in most – she just wanted to rip things open! It was cute.

Patiently waiting

Reed hanging out with Aunt Mallory

Opening one of Reed’s presents for him – I love how it looks like he is watching to see what he gets!

Look at that determination!

Reed also got his chance for some Christmas fun! For Ava’s first Christmas, I made an ornament out of her hand prints. I had to do the same for Reed! Soooo sweet!

We still have a few more fun Christmasy things planned over the next couple days. I’m LOVING having Zach and Ava home with us. It’s so nice to get to spend all this time together as a family!

And some just because photos of little man:

And last, a picture of me and my babies!!

Christmas Card/Birth Announcement

I’m joining in Faith’s Christmas Card Carousel to share our card with you this year!

I love getting Christmas cards in the mail this time of year! it’s so fun to open the mail box each day and see who we get cards from! I’m especially loving it this year since I’m still on maternity leave and I beat Zach to getting the mail! ;)

I was SO in love with how our card turned out! I chose to do a joint Christmas card/birth announcement and I seriously love it! We had photos taken with Jessica Meinardus and I sent her some ideas of my style and she designed the perfect card!

{front}

 

{back}

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!!! :)

Reed is 2 months old!

Reed, you are two months old! My how time is flying! I cannot believe that our time together is going so fast. The first few weeks I was going a little stir crazy from being home so much, but I’ve grown to love it and will be so sad to go back to work in just a few weeks. I’ll miss our time together but am so thankful for the time we are getting now.

You are a big boy! We went to the doctor today and you weigh 12 pounds 13 ounces. You are 23 inches long. And he said you are just perfect! We also had to get your shorts. :( Mommy doesn’t like her little guy to be hurting – I’ve never seen you that upset! You were a trooper though!

You are starting to get more animated. You smile and laugh at us and it’s so fun to see you react to us in that way. You’ve started looking around for me when you hear me talking but can’t see me. You’ve also had two amazing nights of sleep the past two nights and that’s all I want to say because I’m sure that talking about it will jinx it! You have started holding onto things with your hands. You have also started sucking your thumb! Both your daddy and I have caught you trying to get it in your mouth and you succeeded once while I was holding you!

 

You eat a 5 ounce bottle of milk and formula every 4 hours. That has been a little messed up recently though to you sleeping longer. I’m sure we’ll get it straightened out in the next few days. You are wearing 0-3 month clothes and are also wearing Size 1 diapers.

You still have the prettiest, biggest blue eyes and you are a heart stopper!

This month, you celebrated your first Thanksgiving and made your first trip to daddy’s hometown to visit your grandparents and aunt. You met Santa Claus this month, and unlike your sister, you did not cry! :)

Our family is so blessed to have you be a part of it Reed! You have grown and changed so much this month and I can’t wait to see what the next month brings for us! Love you little man!

Catching up and Thanksgiving 2011

I’ve been absent a while so I need to play catch up. Zach and Ava have been home with us the past 5 days and it has been SO nice spending time together. I’m sad they have to go back to school tomorrow! :(

Two weekends ago the kids and I went to NWA to see Stephen and Leslie! They wore their sibling shirts! (I’m learning how hard it is to photograph TWO kids!)We had a fun day hanging out with them!! Reed enjoyed sitting with Aunt Leslie for quite a while!

Thanksgiving we got up and headed to visit Zach’s family for the day. We were dressed and out of the house by 8:00! I was proud. We haven’t exactly been great at getting around since having two kids! :) Here are our little turkeys!

Reed was done by this point!

While we were there for our visit, Ava got her first hair cut! Zach’s sister, Mallory, does hair and I asked her to cut Ava’s. We went to her salon and she cleaned Ava’s hair right up! Ava did great – she wasn’t so sure but she sat very still and didn’t cry!

Before they started

After – Ava is so lady like! ha!

We have so much to be thankful for this year. We are so blessed with two healthy babies, a home, clothes, jobs, food, loving families, and each other. Friday was our 5 year anniversary and we have experienced so much in those 5 years. I’m so grateful to have Zach as my partner in life. We went out Friday evening to celebrate and it was the first time we’ve been out since having Reed. It was nice to focus on us for a change.

Friday was also the big AR/LSU game. We all know how it ended, but look at this cute little piggy!

There ya go. That’s what we’ve been up to. Every time I turn around, another week has passed. This boy is going to be two months old in a little over a week and that just blows my mind. He is changing each day and I’m so thankful he’s joined our family. :) Until next time!

Wordless Wednesday – happy babies!

Reed’s Birth Day

Before I get too far away from the details, I wanted to post about the day Reed was born. The night before Reed was born, Zach had a ball game and Ava was spending the night with my mom so I was home alone. I was very emotional and also feeling some contractions. I got some last minute things done around the house and then laid down to rest. Zach got home a little after 10:00 and we finally got settled down to bed around 11:00. I woke up on his birth day at 2:30 and couldn’t go back to sleep.

When it was finally time, we got up and got ready to head to the hospital. Here was one last shot of me:

I told Zach on the way that I was worried I’d be laying in bed in pain all day! The day before at my appointment, I’d only been dilated to a 2. I was very thinned out, but not much dilation. I was also very excited about seeing our little boy for the first time! We got to the hospital and checked in. One nurse tried to do my IV and she missed my vein. They had to wiggle it around in my hand and oh that hurt! I got very faint when she did that. The nurse asked about my labor with Ava and I told her about. She said she thought I’d have a fairly easy time. My doctor had ordered pitocin to start around 6am and since Ava was a fairly quick delivery, she said she wasn’t going to start it early. It started at 6:00 and they came back and 6:30 and 7:00 to up it. At that point, I was feeling contractions and they weren’t too painful, just slightly uncomfortable. My doctor came in around 7:20 to break my water. When he started, he said I was dilated to about a 3. He had a little bit of a time getting the water broken because Reed’s head was so low. He finally got it and looked at me and said, “You just went to a 5.” WOW! He told the nurses I was his over achiever. (Side note: my doctor is moving and I’m simply distraught over it. He’s so great and is a wonderful doctor and I don’t know how I’m ever going to find one who lives up to him. I dread my post partum check up next week because it will be my last appointment with him – maybe. I got a reminder letter yesterday in the mail and it said my follow up appointment was with his partner. Hoping it’s wrong and I’ll at least get a chance to say goodbye.) He told the nurses I could have my epidural any time. The contractions started getting harder and faster and I said I’d like it at any point. The anesthesiologist was in a c-section so I had to wait until he was done. It was probably close to 8:20 or so when he came to do it. They checked me and I had dilated to a 7. I was hurting pretty badly at this point. The contractions were every 1-2 minutes apart and I was feeling them in my back as well. I finally got the epidural and they told me within about 4 contractions I should feel better. Well, nothing ever happened. We waited and I never got ANY relief. They called him back and he got back around 9:15. They checked me again and was still at a 7. He said he had trouble getting it in and was glad he hadn’t gone any further b/c he would have gotten it into my spine. Thank goodness for small favors! He gave it another go around and this time I felt relief almost immediately. The nurse came in about 20 minutes later and said she wanted me to roll to my side to see if that could move me along. I did and about 15 minutes later I told them I needed to push. She came to check me and said I was complete and they got the ball moving. My doctor came in and after a few pushes recalled I’d used the suction for help with Ava (one of the many reasons I love himi – he remembers my history even with the hundreds of patients he has!) and asked if I wanted to do it again. I said if it’d get him out faster then yes! At 10:31 Reed was born!

I did get to hold him immediately. When the nurses took him to clean him up and check him, they noticed him grunting. They tried to do a few things to see if he’d stop, but he didn’t. They brought him to me and let me hold him again for just a minute and then they let Zach hold him too. Then they took him away.

A couple hours (?) later, a NICU nurse finally came in and talked to us. He’d had his cord wrapped somewhat around him and at that point they still didn’t really know what was wrong. I was very upset and just surreal, really. He’d been healthy so it was such a shock. The neonatalogist came to talk to us shortly after to explain about his collapsed lung. At that point, we felt better knowing what was going on, but still unsure of what the future held.

I then got moved to my post partum room. When I stood up the first time, I got incredibly light headed and nauseous feeling. I felt fine in bed but every time I stood up, I felt very weak. That afternoon, Ava came to visit me. It was hard explaining to her that her little brother was “out of my belly” as she put it, but that he was sick.

After she came, I was able to go see Reed for the first time since they’d taken him. A sweet lady who worked in the NICU came and got me with a wheelchair since I was feeling so dizzy. We couldn’t take pictures of him at that point because we couldn’t stimulate him.

The whole day was so emotional. You go into something expecting it to go one way and when it doesn’t, it catches you off guard. I was disappointed at the time for the things that we “missed” out on. Ava didn’t get to meet her brother for 10 days, we didn’t get family pictures at the hospital or many pictures of that day actually, and so on, but I’m so grateful for a healthy baby. I think the whole process was something I had to process emotionally and sadness and anger were part of that. But, I tried to keep my eyes on the positives – that we were able to stay here at our wonderful NICU and that my baby would be ok. We saw several babies in the NICU that were so much worse off and it was so sad to see. Again, I’d like to thank every one who prayed for us that day and the days that followed. I truly believe that’s why he healed so quickly.

Reed is one month old!

Reed is one month old today! (and boy does that hurt my heart!) I cannot believe one month ago we were in the hospital having just met him only to find out his little lung was broken. This has probably been one of the hardest months of our entire lives, but we’re so grateful it has a happy ending.

Reed, it hurts mommy’s heart that your little life is already passing so quickly. We had such a rough start and so many things surrounding your birth were devastating to me. But, the MOST important thing is that you are healthy and here with us and I’m SO grateful for that and for YOU!

You are an easy going little guy. You like to eat and are a good eater. We have had our fair share of struggles trying to get this nursing worked out. Some days have been great and others not so great. We’re still trying to figure out just what works for us and I have no doubt we’ll get there soon. When you do have a bottle and we stop to burp you, you get REALLY mad and start screeching. It’s quite comical and I love to see your lip poke out and you get really angry. You are a happy boy when it comes back again!

You have gotten to where you take really good naps during the day and you sleep very well at night also! Depending on what time you go to bed, you either wake up once or twice to eat and then you are typically up around the time Daddy and Ava are getting ready to go to school.

Your sister adores you! My favorite thing is that she likes to come up to you and say “Hi Reed! There’s Ava!” I guess she has heard us say that to you so that’s what she says. She also talks to you in a high pitched voice. She loves to let us know when you are crying and she loves your “teeny, tiny toes and fingers”. You are a lucky guy to have such a great big sister and I cannot wait to see how you two grow to love each other.

Your Daddy adores you too! He is so excited to have a son to share things with! You are so blessed to have such a hands on daddy who does SO many things for you already. I love watching the two of you together and know that you will grow up a lucky little boy because of him.

Reed, you wear 0-3 month clothes and Size 1 diapers. We have no idea how much you weigh but you are growing. You have biggest, prettiest blue eyes. I hope they stay that way forever!

Your birth day was one of the hardest/saddest days of my life little guy. I’m still sad we didn’t get to do all the normal baby just born things and have pictures and let people meet you. But I’m so grateful you are here and healthy. Our family life has definitely not been the same since you arrived and it won’t be again but that’s ok – we are so happy to have you as a part of us and cannot wait to see what kind of little boy you are!

Happy one month birthday, little man! We love you so much!

mommy