Too busy having fun!

Hi again! It's been a while. I jusify not keeping a journal by saying, "At least I write highlights on my blog!" and lately I've even been slacking at that! It's pretty time consuming keeping a two-year-old and a two-month-old clean, fed, and happy. We've been filling every spare minute lately it seems like. Thispast weekend we went on a family getaway to Madison, WI and stayed at a Holiday Inn with indoor waterpark. Gabe LOVED it and got mad if we tried to go down the big slide with him. Then on Saturday we went to the zoo and the beach that's right next to it and spent more time at the waterpark at night. We came back Sunday afternoon. Our adventure for this upcoming weekend is the Packer family night. We are going to Green Bay to watch the team play eachother and there's some family games I guess too. Josh is pretty excited.

Caleb is getting ginormous. He's not even 2 months old officially and I had to put a 6 month sleeper on the past two nights. I had to re-go through all the stored clothes and get out bigger sizes again! He weighs over 15 pounds! Gabe is still beating on him while he can. His "kisses" are pretty smothering sometimes. Gabe is being a terrible two lately. Everything is, "Mine!" or "I do it!" (Is this the building their independence stage?) He does have his cute moments though. My sister-in-law and neice were in town from Montana yesterday and we all went to the waterpark by my house and Gabe was having so much fun going down the slides and jumping in for me to catch him. He kept telling me to move further back and finally I just let him go under. To my surprise he bobbled back up and paddled to the side! I guess it's good training.

Well I'll post some pics now. Hopefully we will see all you Idaho folks soon. We are planning a trip sometime late August I think. Take care!

Can you tell who's who?

Fourth of July

Hi everyone!
This fourth of July weekend was the first one Josh has had off in about four years (APX Alarm always sells on holidays) so he was so excited to do some fun summer activities. We packed in so much stuff that I was exhausted by Sunday. Here's the summary:

Thursday night: as soon as Josh got home at 4:30 we got everything packed up and went camping on my grandma's farm. Josh and Gabe slept outside in a tent while Caleb and I slept inside. :) It was a bit chilly for a newborn and I did not want to nurse 3 times that night in a tent with a flashlight. But Gabe loved it and didn't wake up once during the night. Then he cried when Josh took the tent down.

Friday afternoon: we got home and repacked for the beach. We went to a Lake Michigan beach which feels like the ocean because it's so huge. (However, it was pretty chilly to swim in.)

Friday night: Fireworks show in our local town on the lakeside.

Saturday: Some home improvements leftover from the flood and swimming at the waterpark that's 3 blocks from my house that night.

Sunday: Church/sleep.

It was such a fun weekend. This morning Josh was like, "I wish it wasn't Monday again!" I just want to emphasize how nice it is that Josh isn't selling this summer. Not that it wasn't fun at times. But he is home so much more now and the holidays off (4th of july and memorial day) are awesome.

Caleb is good. He's weighing a little over 11 pounds these days! Clothes that were too big a week ago are now to small. I can't believe how fast it goes.

Hope you're all doing well. We're kind of planning a drive to Idaho - with 2 kids, shoot me now- at the end of August. See you soon!

Flooding

I forgot! Yes, we did get flooded here. But it could've been worse. We were in the basement because of tordano warnings and then the rain just kept coming and suddenly it was getting the basement floor wet! So I was holding Caleb and Gabe on the steps while Josh and my mom were plugging the drains with old spray paint cans and vacuuming out the water! It was not fun. It was pretty scary actually. When it was all over we had to rip out most of the basement carpeting and throw out a lot of water damaged stuff but our side of town got it the least. Other homes had to be bulldozed so we consider ourselves lucky!

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Still adusting...

So I know it's been a little while. It turns out life with a newborn and a two-year-old is pretty busy! It could be worse though. So far Caleb's been a really good baby - much easier than Gabe. But that's not saying much! Any kid without an oxygen tank, reflux, and a heart monitor would be easier. Plus Gabe's overall temperment was pretty demanding. Caleb's pretty relaxed. He eats only every 3-4 hours (Gabe was 1.5, plus pumping/bottles/burping forever) and he hardly ever cries. He had his 2 week doctor's check up yesterday and the doctor told me he's gaining weight at an above average rate. ("Is this bad?" I asked.) He said it's fine and that my milk must have a high fat content. I said, "Good, better on him than me!" So he now weighs 8 lbs 12 oz after being at his low of 7 lbs 5 oz about 3 days after he was born. He is starting to be awake more and so far his eyes look dark blue. I'm curious to see if they stay blue like Gabe's or not.

Gabe is also doing well. He just cracks me up sometimes. (Then other times I want to beat him of course!) But we go for walks every day and he has this big wheel type bike that he always rides and he's like a little daredevil on it. There's this one road where he zooms ahead like he's going to hit the median then at the last minute he'll turn his wheels and hook it into the space next to the curb that wraps around the median and zoom all the way around and across the road up the ramp onto the sidewalk. (Luckily this is on a quiet cul-de-sac by my house.) He also makes me laugh so hard when the Jonas brothers are on the Disney channel because he has a toy guitar that he jams along with and dances and jumps like they do. He's pretty rockin!
We'll see if he ends up playing football like his dad or being in musicals like his mom. (I'm sure Josh would love that!)

Well, those are our updates. Also, we close on our house Monday and are looking forward to having money! Yay! We're probably just going to be boring and pay off Gabe's dumb RSV shot bill from when he was six months old and got a $4500 shot! (Isn't that like, the average cost of having a normal child - total?!) And then pay off our car and start saving for our next "first home". Not very exciting stuff but it'll be nice to be debt free right? Josh is still plugging away at his online classes. Right now he has a geology and a Media Technology. He actually really likes the geology one. It has a lot of stuff about Yellowstone and Arches national park I guess. I am doing well too - just a little tired. Hope you all are doing well!

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He's finally here!

Yay! I have to say I was pretty bummed after reading some of the comments by fellow preggers or moms out there about being dialated to a 3 for a month, etc. but luckily my uncomfortable last month was very short-lived. I know I shouldn't say, "He's FINALLY here" because he was still technically almost 4 weeks before my due date but when you expect your water to break every time you get up to pee (which is a lot)for the past four months it really seems to go slow! And here's the really ironic part - the doctor had to break my water!!! Wow. You just never know. Well here's Caleb's birth story...

Due to lots of rain this past week Josh had a couple days off, including Friday. This was nice because I had a doctor's appointment at 1:30. Thursday night my sister and friend from church had thrown me a surprise baby shower - where I told everyone I wanted my baby to be born tommorow because I had a feeling he was already eight pounds and everyone told me, "No way" - so Friday morning was spent writing Thank you's, Josh doing his homework, and getting presents organized. We went to Target and Wal-Mart around 11:30 to make some exchanges and get a couple more baby necessities, like a bouncy chair and more diapers, and then we went to my docotr's appointment.

My doctor was again thrilled to see me and told me I could do anything my heart desired, no more restrictions! She also said I was at 4 cm and "so ready" and I told her I'd see her tommorow to have the baby. It seemed like the perfect weekend because both her and my chosen pediatrician were on call and with seven OBGYN's and seven peds that just seemed so lucky it was meant to be!

So we all went to Family Video to rent a movie then to the bank to deposit a check and while we were sitting there at the drive through the pain I had been trying to ignore got more intense. I had been having some cramps the night before but it wasn't regular and then stopped so I wasn't sure this pain meant anything. I told Josh I was so hungry and needed Culver's so we hurried there and I scarfed down all my food in about 10 minutes, nervous I would have to go to the hospital soon and they wouldn't let me eat! So we got home, I laid down, and after about 5 minutes I decided I should go to the hospital just to get checked, after all, it didn't happen this way for me last time! So my mom came home from work an hour early and stayed with Gabe while we went.

We got up to labor and delivery and I told them, "I think I might be in labor" and they hurried to get me a bed. A nurse hooked me up to a monitor and after about 30 minutes it was clear there were regular contractions about five minutes apart. She called my doctor who told her, "Don't admit her just yet, this is just what she wants and she may not really be in labor." (haha, she knows me well, huh?) But then when she finally came to see me at about 5:15 I was at 6cm and she said, "You're gonna have this baby, I'm gonna break your water." I was like, "Really?!" I kind of expected her to send me home!

So she broke my water and immediately the contractions got more painful which I figured would happen to I told her to send for the drug lady pronto- I wasn't missing my chance this time!!! The epidural was put in about then and I was surprised how long it took. I sat on that bed very still for about 30 minutes while she putzed around and made a couple attempts - which made me a bit nervous. Finally, she said she was done and I right away could tell that only my left side was numb. She told me to lay on my right side and it would seep over. I tried that and was in even more pain, feeling every contraction with the right half of my body still. It was pretty strange. I will say though, Gabe's contractions were a lot worse. So even half an epidural is a miracle! Then soon it was time to push. I probably pushed for about 30 minutes - but it definitely seemed like more. Everyone kept saying, "He's right there!" I think they could see his hair like, the whole time. But he just didn't want to come! Finally, at 8:02 Caleb Joshua was born and right away the nurses said, "He's a big boy!" He officially weighed 7 lbs 15 ounces and was 21.5 inches long - thank goodness he was 3.5 weeks early! When they did his tests they said he was actually 37 weeks though. His face was a little bruised and he has a slight cone head but otherwise he's a typical squishy faced newborn! It looked like we adopted our kids because Gabe is so blond and then we have this indian baby! I looked like an indian baby when I was born though too.

So, we stayed in the hospital until this morning at around 11:00 when we were all released. It was so cool taking a baby home with me this time! It was also nice to have Caleb in our room so much. I kept saying to Josh, "Aren't they going to come take him for stuff?" and Josh is like, "Well he IS ours!" They did take him a couple times but overally it was so nice that he could stay by us. Josh had his own hospital bed the whole time (he liked that much better than Rexburg's pull-out chair) and the nurses babied him. He had his own big water mug and I was saying to the nurse, "This isn't fair, he's like a patient but with none of the pain!" and she's like, "Should I check his bottom too?" It was pretty funny. Maybe she thought he was cute...

Well, this is long. Thanks for reading! I better post some pictures now!

Pictures:

Okay, I just have to quick say:

The first picture was at this horse show we took Gabe to. He put his toy horses head down into the dirt and thought it was so funny.

The second picture is what I found when I went into Gabe's room a couple nights ago when it had been like, 20 minutes since Josh had gone in to put Gabe to bed. I thought it was so funny that poor Gabe was like, cuddled against the wall while Josh was all sprawled out in his bed! He's gonna be mad at me for posting it but it's just too hilarious.

The third one is fat me at 35.5 weeks. At least I can take comfort in the fact that it's obvious Caleb is growing bigger every day. (At least I hope he is and it's not just me!)

Still pregnant!

Hi everyone!
It's been a little while and we've had a couple calls wondering if Caleb's here but no, he is still not! I can't believe it! It's like, 75-80 degrees today, my feet are huge, my rings don't fit anymore, my back hurts, and I feel like I'm waddling at 2 mph or less everywhere I go. This is what full-term feels like?! This stinks! I'd say I never want to do it again but I know Caleb will have to go through a lot less than Gabe did - maybe he won't have to go through anything! I'll be 36 weeks in 2 days and there's babies that come home from the hospital right away that are born at that age right? So hopefully I will get to experience bringing my baby home from the hospital with me this time around. Last time it just kind of felt like I had gone in for an emergency procedure or something and left three days later in a wheelchair with an sore body and empty arms. This should be a lot better and totally worth the bloated hands, etc. right? But if this kid gets past 40 weeks there may be some more complaining. How long can you be dialated to a 3? Anyone? It's been 10 days! Well, let me know what you other pregos or recent new moms are going through. I miss you all!