Visiting Great Grandma!

I'm not even going to pretend like I'll ever catch up from not blogging for an entire year. We'll just start over and I won't lie and say I'll try to do better, because I probably won't! I had to write a post, though, about visiting my grandma in Liberty, KY last week. It was so neat to be able to take my kids and spend time with my grandma doing things I used to do when I was their age!

 If you know my grandparents, then you know that McDonald's breakfast is tradition. We only went once, but Jared points out every McDonald's now and says, "Happy Donald!" The kids nicknamed my step-grandpa, Poppy Stanley! I think that really made his week! My grandparents put some sand out in the little red wagon and Jared played in his little "sand wagon" every day. He played for over 2 hours the first day! I think I need to add sand to our little sand table.. I just didn't know if I wanted to deal with that yet, but he really enjoyed it! We went shopping around at the little local thrift stores and the Minnonite markets. We ate so much delicious fresh fruit that I was constantly changing diapers, but it was worth it! Which reminds me that I definitely loved getting to eat my Grandma's yummy home cooking! When Kayla was visiting a couple months back, she made the comment that everything just tastes better when Granny makes it, and she was so right!

 We also made a tree swing, rode the lawn mower, rode the golf cart around the gold course, and rode in Poppy Stanley's 1969 Bug! Evie has really taken to walking everywhere and would bring Elmo books over to Granny to read. It was so precious! The day we left, Granny remembered that she wanted to let me go through her scrap fabric, so we spent as much time as the kids would allow.  We spent a lot of time (especially during sand wagon playtime) just chatting. I had such a great time and I hope we made some lasting memories with the kids. It was definitely a trip worth taking, even if it was nearly 3 hours in the car with 2 children by myself! Family is the most important thing in life and I'm grateful for the time I have with all of my amazing family!  

 

Two under two!

Finally, an update! Life is finally starting to feel a bit more normal with two kiddos under the age of two. We've started going to play group and storytime again and even venture out to the grocery store now and then! I got a double stroller this week and that has helped make life SO much easier! Jared loves riding in the stroller, so he doesn't mind that I tote them around that way.

Jared has done really well having a new baby around. The only time he was ever jealous was when we forgot Evie's pacifier while we were out to eat and we let her use his. He didn't notice it until we were leaving, but you would've thought he was dying the way he reacted! We gave it back to him so that he wouldn't think Evie was taking his stuff away from him. We're slowly breaking him of it again, though. He was so good about not needing it before the move, but as soon as we moved, he wanted it all the time again (plus he was sick, so I guess it wasn't all because of the move). Now he's back to needing it for sleep and still a bit during the day, but mostly only when he's getting sleepy.

Evie is growing so fast! She's eating really well, which has been such a relief to me. I just remember how awful I felt about nursing with Jared. I felt like he just wasn't getting enough, so I started supplementing with formula around 4 months old. I really don't think I'm going to have any issues with Evelyn. Jared wasn't even on the growth charts for the first few months of his life, but Evie is already in the 50% range for both height and weight! At her 1 month visit a couple weeks ago, she weighed 10 lbs 2 oz. I'm sure she's something around 11 lbs by now, the way she's been growing. She's been smiling since she was about 3 weeks old, but I've just recently started trying to catch it on camera. She even smiles at Jared sometimes.

Jared and Evie together are doing great. Jared pats her on the head (don't worry, he's gentle!) and says her name whenever she cries. He even tries to rock her sometimes whenever she's in her car seat. He is such a terrific big brother and I'm so proud of him! I love watching them together. It makes all the hard times so worth it! I know things are getting settled down, since I've actually been able to start trying to organize and clean the house! It's a big house, though, and it doesn't help that Jared just goes behind me and destroys it all again! I will try to take pictures soon, even though it won't really be ready. I'm just facing the fact that I don't think I'll ever be able to have it "picture ready." Oh well!

Evelyn Emma's Arrival!

It has been way too long since I last wrote on here, but better late than never! Since my last post, we moved to Burlington, KY and delivered our baby girl, Evelyn Emma.

I promise I will take some pictures of the house sometime to put up, but it's really not ready yet! We closed on the house April 15 and our stuff arrived April 21. We had about 5 weeks to make friends and see some of the sights before Evie arrived.

Evie was born Sunday, May 22 at 10:46 am. She weighed 7 lbs 8 oz and was 20 inches long. She had and still has a head full of spikey, dark hair with what looks like lighter highlights. Her delivery story isn't as funny as Jared's, but is still amusing in its own way. I woke up at 5 in the morning from a dream where I was in labor and realized a couple minutes later that I was having contractions. I decided to shower and pack while I timed them for an hour and let Isaac sleep. One hour later, I woke Isaac and showed him the list where I had been recording the times for my contractions and he immediately sprang out of bed and started racing around like a mad man! My contractions had been 3 to 7 minutes apart for that hour. I told him to calm down, because they still didn't really hurt yet. That was exactly why I didn't wake him up at the beginning, though!

We left Jared with some friends from church and were on our way to the hospital by about 6:30. There were virtually no other cars on the road at that time, yet we still got stopped at like 12 of the 15 stoplights on the way to the hospital! I was fine, until I would get a contraction, and then I would ask Isaac to just run them.. we had a good excuse if we got pulled over! haha! He didn't, though. Once we got to the hospital, they took FOREVER to get me admitted, even though I had pre-registered as soon as we had moved into the area. They finally got around to checking me at about 7:30 and I was 4 cm dilated. No big deal, except that I kept telling them that I had my son in about 5 hours, so I go quick. Apparently they didn't believe me. I finally got a room around 8, at which point I was crying with my contractions because they were really starting to hurt. I asked for an epidural and they said I had to get this big bag of IV fluid in me first.. so I finally got my epidural close to 9!

I was able to relax for about an hour before I really started feeling the urge to push. I called in the nurse, she checked me and said that I was definitely ready, she then has me try to push with my next contraction to see how things go. She then calls the doctor to come and stops coaching me to push, so Isaac had to help me during each contraction. I was so confused, though, because the nurse wasn't paying me any attention, so I don't think I was really doing all that I could or should have been. When the doctor finally gets there was when I really started pushing, which was sometime around 10:20. After a couple of pushes, though, I actually started feeling it! My epidural was wearing off!! The doctor told me to stop pushing and they would top me off with more drugs, but I couldn't! It hurt more to not push at that point! So, I pushed through it. I don't think it was quite the same as natural, but I bet I got pretty close this time! I remember picturing the scene of Padme giving birth in Star Wars Episode 3 every time I had to push. I have definitely been married to Isaac for a long time if images of Star Wars pop into my head at a time like that! haha!

For all the pain I went through in this labor, though, I was rewarded immediately by getting to actually hold my baby!! I couldn't stop crying! I was so happy! Even though I could feel every stitch as the doctor had to sew me up.. I got to hold my beautiful, baby girl!!

Our parents all came to meet her a few hours later and brought Jared along, too. He completely melted my heart, because as soon as he walked into the room, he said Mommy and ran to my bed! He didn't hardly notice the baby at all. We got a picture of him "holding" her, but he tried to push her away as soon as we got one picture taken.

Well, that's my labor and delivery story. It was at the St. Elizabeth hospital in Florence, KY, which is an older hospital, so not at all like my experience at the new Clarian hospital with Jared. It was an interesting experience, but I was not surprised to hear from someone that the labor and delivery will be shut down later this year. I guess our next one (a LONG time from now!) will get to be at the nicer hospital! Yay! :-)

My babies are growing up!

Can you believe how big Jared and his little sister are getting?! We kept trying to get him to rub or kiss my belly for a picture, but of course, he was more interested in the camera and in saying cheese! haha!

Jared absolutely LOVES to draw and color! I really wish now that I hadn't already packed up all the crayons.. Maybe we'll try to get him one of those no mess things so we can keep the house show ready.

We traded babysitting with Kelly and Kyle for the Cincinnati housing tour. Jared and Leon really enjoyed themselves together. This was our first attempt at winding them down for a nap by setting up a movie. They were up playing again after just a few minutes! They were so cute playing together, though!

I don't know what it is with this kid, but he likes to feed other kids. I guess this is one way to get Leon to eat more, Kelly! haha!

Long Overdue Update!

So much has happened since my last post. It was pretty much Jared's first Christmas (since he was only 4 months old at his actual 1st Christmas), we visited all of my extended family, we found out that we're having a... GIRL!! The biggest news, though, is that we just found out a couple weeks ago that the company Isaac works for is relocating to Cincinnati, OH. Our dilemma now is to either try to sell our house and move BEFORE the baby gets here, or else stay here, have the baby, and THEN move. I think I like the idea of moving before, so that I'm not trying to move and unpack with a newborn! The timing of it was a little unexpected and so we've been slowly recovering from the shock of it all. We've made so many great friends in the wonderful Lafayette community and are sad to leave them, but we're very excited to move closer to family and have the opportunity to go house hunting again!

Enjoy a few catch up photos!

Jared's new dance moves!

Jared loves to play with my iPod Touch and figured out how to play some music today. He must have typed in "L" in the search screen, because it was just playing Linkin Park songs. As soon as the music started, we looked over to see Jared shaking his shoulders and bobbing his head! It was the funniest thing! I didn't quite catch that on video, but I did get a couple of cute clips with him dancing a little bit. Enjoy!

Jared & His New Girlfriend

My friend, Kate, and I traded kids so we could each go see the new Harry Potter with our hubbies. Monday, Jared went over to Kate's house and played with her daughter, Ashlyn. Kate was telling me later that they would peek over the couch at each other and say, "Hi!" back and forth. Also, they would chase each other around the furniture. When we were leaving, Ashlyn begrudgingly gave Jared a kiss and he had the goofiest grin on his face for a whole minute afterwards! It was adorable! I was definitely looking forward to seeing them play together the next day when Ashlyn came over. These pictures are all I really got, but they were really cute together! He followed her around like a little puppy!