Someone likes farm animals

This morning we headed out to an Easter Egg Hunt put on by the Pediatrics Club at Jake's school.  Even though it was chilly, we enjoyed the egg hunt with Joshie and Joshie most definitely enjoyed seeing the farm animals.  Moments like these are what make parenthood so fun, exciting and worth it!  I love my babies and the memories I get to make with them!

On a side note, after our cold morning, I got to snuggle up to these cuties and get a little nap in with Audree before starting the afternoon session of General Conference.

Photo/Video Update

Headed Home

1st Bath

Joshie likes to tickle Audree

Joshua lately

 Josh likes graham crackers with nutella.  A lot!

 He also gave daddy a little scare the other day. After he wet through his pants, Jake put on another diaper, but didn't put any pants on him.  A little while later after he filled his pants, he took it off and brought it to daddy with his pebbles scattered on the living room floor.  Josh later picked up a pebble and threw it, laughing while he did it!  What a pill.  Now we know, this kid can take off his diaper.

Josh also enjoys monster trucks and still plays with his cars like this while laying on the floor. 

1 week

I can hardly believe that my little angel Audree is already a week old.  That flew by way too fast!  The past week has been really great.  As tiring as being a mother to a newborn is, I have absolutely enjoyed my time with Audree.  She is a great baby.  She feeds well and has overall been doing really good.  It's amazing how completely different this experience has been than with Joshua.  At a week old we were just bringing him home. 

As far Joshua goes, he is doing well with the transition so far.   He likes to tickle little sister and give her kisses.  He also has shared his cars with her and talks to her as if she is awake and can understand him.  It's too cute!

Yesterday, my mom left town and that was a very sad moment.  She has been so helpful the past 10 days and I don't know what I would have done without her.  Words cannot express how grateful I am for her and the excellent mother that she has been to me.  I'm lucky to have her as my mom and I hope that I can be as good as a mom to my children as she is to me.

Well, it's a short update, but an update nonetheless.  Here are some pictures:

Audree Jane's Birth Story w/photo update

Audree’s birth story comes with a whirlwind of emotions. I would say it was one of the most unbelievable, scary, neat, crazy, but also funny experiences in my life.  It was so intimate and had so many aspects that I wanted for her birth, but also completely unexpected and unplanned.

I was scheduled to be induced on March 7^th at 7:30am. For weeks leading up to that date, I really did not want to be induced.  I did not want a long stay at the hospital and I wanted to be able to labor at home.  This girl sure had a timing/mind of her own and I really should have been careful what I wished for.

Contractions started at 10:30pm on March 6^th. They were slightly uncomfortable, but they were manageable and I decided to head to bed to get some sleep.  I was dozing off and got about an hour and a half of rest before I couldn’t really get comfortable in bed.  So, at about midnight Jake and I decided it would be best to move downstairs to the recliner where I could get more comfortable and hopefully get more sleep.  He joined me by sleeping on the couch.

For the next couple of hours I sat laboring and trying to relax while listening to my relaxation music/script from Hypnobirthing.  I timed contractions, but they seemed to be very irregular and not lasting all that long.  They would be anywhere from 1 ½ - 4 ½ minutes apart and lasting 25-45 seconds.  I kept thinking in my mind that I’m not at the “5-1-1” (5 minutes apart, lasting 1 minute, for 1 hour) and that contractions needed to be longer, harder, and more uncomfortable than what I was experiencing in order to leave for the hospital.  These contractions didn’t seem to be worse than what I had with Josh and so I thought I had more time.  Plus, even though the contractions were painful, after the 30-45 seconds of contracting, I was relaxed again and again dozing off in between them. 

After about 3 hours in the recliner, I decided to move to the birthing ball and rest my head on a pillow on the table.  Jake was asleep on the couch (which he says he wishes he would have been awake helping me), but really I didn’t feel like the laboring was that bad and I was handling it just fine.  That was until about 3:30am. 

At this point I felt that the contractions were bad enough to merit waking Jake up.  I was also spotting a little bit.  As Jake was waking up, I decided to have a little snack and started toasting a piece of bread, because if I was going to be laboring for the next few hours at the hospital I sure didn’t want to be hungry.  Jake was packing things up to head out to the hospital and I felt the need to hit the bathroom.  At 3:41, as soon as I sat down my water broke and I felt her right there.  My body was beginning to push and I had no control over it, nor did I have control over my howling/scream.  Jake who was upstairs getting the monitor ready to give to my mom, heard the scream did a loud pound on my mom’s door and ran downstairs.  Jake came in with my shoes and was determined to head out the hospital.  He already had the car pulled around and packed up waiting for me, but I couldn’t even take a step out of the bathroom, let alone walk to the car.  When my mom came down, she checked me and saw that the baby’s head was crowning.  Jake at this point was still determined to get to the car, but in smart thinking my mom decided that she’d call 9-1-1. (This was at 3:44am) The responder told them to get me lying down on my left side.  I have no idea how he did it, but Jake picked up me and moved me to the dining room floor and got me on my left side.  At this point, still howling my body just took over.  It began pushing when it needed to push and I really had no control over what was happening. 

The only things I remember thinking at this point were “I can’t believe this is happening” and “I should have woken Jake up sooner”.  So, over the next short minutes my mom and Jake were taking directions from the responder.  In about 2-3 pushes (again pushes that I couldn’t force or control) her head was out.  Because Jake was so worried about how blue she was, he kept telling me that I needed to push to get the rest out, but really my body didn’t want to so I couldn’t.  At the next push from my body, the shoulders and the rest of her body followed.  It was such a relief.  She was born at 3:51am.  You got that right, 10 minutes from the time my water broke and 7 minutes from the time my mom called 9-1-1 she was there.  The EMT’s hadn’t even arrived yet.

She wasn’t crying at that point, but I heard little coughs and so I wasn’t too worried about her. Jake was trying to clean out her mouth. About a minute after delivery the paramedics showed up, clamped and cut the cord and began assessing the baby and me.  Jake kept asking for suctioning because she had stuff in her mouth and nose.  The paramedics kept asking me questions, such as “are you feeling okay?”, “are you dizzy?” to which I responded that I felt great.  My vitals and everything were looking fine and really I felt fantastic.   All I felt was a huge wave of relief and almost a relaxation feeling (probably the shock kicking in).  No pain, nothing.  It was nuts!

Over the next little while, they cleaned baby off and got her wrapped up to stay warm.   As I later found out from my mom, the paramedics wanted to take her and do some work on her, but Jake insisted that I get to hold her and handed her to me. 

Never in my life, did I think that I would be lying on my dining room floor holding my newborn baby girl.  Holding her was as if the world had stopped, that everything that had just happened and was currently happening was on pause.  Those few minutes, felt like forever and it was incredible.  Thinking back on it now, I really have no words to describe how I felt.   I had just had one of the most intimate experiences of my life.  My husband delivered my child and my mom who I have such an incredible relationship with was there to see it, to witness it and help guide me through it.  I will never forget that moment. 

I only remember 4 paramedics being there, but my mom later let me know that there were in reality 6.  She took pictures, because how could you not document such a crazy and incredible moment. The next few minutes or so consisted of getting baby and me in the ambulance to head to the hospital.  Being my first ride in an ambulance, these are the small details I remember.  The paramedic gave me an IV and asked me questions about my health history, name, date of birth, etc. etc.  He called about 3 different people relaying the incident. All this happened while I held my baby and Jake was in the front seat. Once we got to the hospital, there were about 5 nurses to greet us at the door (I’m sure just to witness this crazy story) and they wheeled me through the hospital up to Labor/Delivery.  Jake was running around signing papers as we were walking in, but luckily made it with me to my room.  I had no idea where we were in the hospital or how to get back to the exit which made things kind of funny/interesting when Jake needed to leave.  

I still needed to deliver the placenta and so my doctor was called in.  Through the craziness of what felt like 10 people in my room at all times, she delivered that and stitched up my tear.  Through that time, my baby girl was being assessed right next to me.  The pediatrician said that she looked fantastic.  7lbs and 3.7oz and 20 ½ inches long she was perfectly healthy. Because she had a lower temperature than what they would have liked to see, I was also able to breastfeed her right then and there which was neat. 

So after about 2 hours since delivery, the room was finally quiet.  Everyone was assessed and squared away and Jake and I were finally able to have a moment with our newborn daughter.  At this point, we could finally talk about naming her.  Jake instantly said, “I really wanted to name her Makenzee” but then there was a pause.  Just before then as I was holding her I knew that that wasn’t her name and was really drawn to the name Audree, as was Jake.  It’s pretty neat how a name just fits.  The same kind of thing happened with Joshua. 

So, after all that, I again would have to say that it was one of the most unbelievable, scary, neat, crazy, but also funny experiences in my life.  Unbelievable because who really has met someone that gave birth on their kitchen floor?  Scary because Jake and I really didn’t know what to do, but with my mom and our natural instincts we just did what we had to do to make it work, almost like a survival mode. Neat because it was the birth of my daughter with the two people I’m closest to helping me through. Crazy because of how quickly everything happened.  And funny, because in each time that I’m telling people the story I can’t help but laugh because of how ridiculous it all sounds.

Even though it didn’t turn out how I exactly would have wanted it to, I’m really glad that I stuck with a natural delivery.  The pain wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be and the recovery has been well worth it.   The fact that I could walk around just hours after delivery felt great.  This whole experience has been so much different than with Joshua and it’s been wonderful.  With Josh I had an epidural and was groggy and out of it.  I wasn’t able to see him for a few hours after delivery.  Because he was in the NICU I was overwhelmed, stressed and overly emotional.  I had a hard time establishing breastfeeding because of his circumstance and as it was my first child I think I was definitely over thinking it.  Audree has been a complete 180.  Even though taking care of newborn is tiring, I’ve been enjoying every minute of it.  I have been able to nurse well so far and I don’t feel all that overwhelmed.  I think things will get tricky once my mom is gone and I have Josh to take care of too, but all in all it has been going great.  What an angel she is!

Josh enjoyed his first visit with sister.  Wanted to push her around...

my sweet baby josh

 This child is my angel! I could not imagine my life without him.  On a daily basis, he brings me more happiness than I could ever imagine and I'm grateful and proud to call him my son.  Just over the last couple of weeks, he has grown so much.  He has started to catch on and learn so many new things and it makes me so happy to watch him grow each and every day. 

Things that he does that are my favorite:

-"Eit?" (Do you hear it? Do you see it?)  He asks this in perfect question form every time that he hears a car, sirens, or airplane outside.

- On some alphabet flash cards that we have, when we get to ice cream he instantly goes "MMMMMM!"

- If he wants help with something or really wants something that he can't reach or can't have, he signs please over and over again. He does this by rubbing his chest with both hands over and over.  It's so hard to turn him down when it's something that he really wants, but I don't want him to have.  If you can imagine him doing it, it is the cutest thing I've ever seen.

- He is so social and LOVES his friends.  Anytime a small child comes around that he can play with, he has an instant change of mood.  He is excited, screaming, and following them around everywhere.  I cannot stress enough how much he loves them.  He is so sad to see his friends leave or if he has to leave his friends.  He looks forward to nursery every week.

- He has an OBSESSION with cars.  It doesn't help that with baby girl on the way, he gets extra spoiled by his grandma with a new car just about every day, Cars Movie, and books about cars.  He loves to watch them outside and if he could he would watch them all day.  He will watch them from our back door window and repeatedly say "WOW!"  He most definitely loves them and I don't see that obsession going away anytime soon.

- He loves toothbrushes and toothpaste.  He will go and get 3-4 toothbrushes out of the drawers and chew on them and carry them all over the house.  To his much disliking, I have changed this and only allowed him to have his toothbrushes.  I'm sick of finding my toothbrush in random parts of the house and drooled/chewed on by my son.  I guess there are worse things to chew on. :)

- He has really gotten a hang of climbing.  He climbs up on the chairs all the time and wants to roll his cars across the table with us.  This habit doesn't come in handy when Jake and I want to sit down to have a quiet dinner.  He also climbs all over the couch and recliner.  He is always so proud that he gets up.

- Over the past few weeks I've had to put this child in timeout.  As good of a child as he is, he definitely has his moments where he needs to cool down on the stairs.  As of now, he really isn't doing anything wrong, it's that he's throwing fits about things and screaming unnecessarily.  So I take him to the stairs and sit him down.  He calms down pretty instantly and babbles back to me as if he's trying to explain why he did that something.  It's too cute to watch him try and talk to me about it.

- As you can see from the top picture above, this child smiles on cue now.  He gives this super sweet, cheesy grin that brings out the dimples in his cheeks.  It is awesome!

- This kid is smart and is learning and catching on to things so quickly.  Through T.V. and the alphabet flash cards that we have for him he knows that sounds for the letters M, A, and R.  Also, if you show him the letter F he signs flower.  So he put that connection there too.  He also has learned to match these sound blocks that we got for him for Christmas.  He used to only sort of be able to put one block on to match it.  But I caught him the other day matching the animal one and signing "dog" after he matched the dog blocks together.

- Another few funny signs that he does so well are when he's done eating he signs all done by putting his hands up to his face.  He also signs "shoe" for train because the train makes the noise "choo-choo".  I can't break him of this habit, which is okay because I think it's pretty cute.

- His new animal noises are elephant (blowing noise as he tilts head back) and owl (really soft, but high-pitched hooo-hooo)

As long as an update as that was, it was much needed.  I know that this boy is going to be a little short on the attention over the next couple weeks as little sister makes her debut and he becomes big brother.  I don't want to forget all of the little things that Joshua is doing right now.  He truly is my angel.  He is my life and a great reason for me to wake up every day. I can't thank my Heavenly Father enough for blessing me with his sweet spirit.