Randomness

The boys had lots of fun halloween art from school this year.  They know they get to put all their stuff on the wall for everyone to enjoy...and then I get to recycle it.  :)

Molly fell asleep on the floor.  Under Sam's feet.  Between the stool and the bar.  I guess she was pretty tired!

I have no idea how Will (4 years old) managed to get this on...it's a 3 month snow suit!  

Molly figured out how to climb in and out of the crib...so she ended up on the floor a few times.  After she managed to completely trash her room.  I got pretty tired of putting her toys and clips away every day!  So glad she's in a princess bed now!

Our little family!

Thanksgiving

The only thing I took pictures of on Thanksgiving was people holding Jake.  And only two at that.  We had dinner with the Foutzes, and then we visited the Claytons since we had cousins here from out of town. But no pictures, so just imagine how much fun we had.  :)

Clearly, Melissa enjoyed this much more than Jake did.  :)

Elizabeth thought it was fun to hold him for about 5 seconds.  Which is actually pretty good for a 2 year old!

First Bath!

Jake had his first big boy bath at 3 weeks.  Because it took 3 loooong weeks for his cord stump to fall off.  I think Molly asked me 10 times a day what was in his belly button.  She also used to ask me 10 times a day, "Mommy, what are lion names?"  Meaning what are the names of the lion cubs in the Lion King book that I love.

He didn't cry, but he didn't love it much.  

Love this little boy!

Jake's Other Mom

Baby Jakie is so lucky to have two moms!  Molly loves to hold him and give him his binky.  I love the progression.

She was holding his binky in (notice how serious this is...she actually took her own binky out to concentrate on Jake!).

She was enjoying herself...don't think Jake was!

Success!  Binky in and no crying.  What a good mommy!

Finishing Halloween...

4 kids is busy, to say the least.  Besides all the usual kid stuff, I decided to completely redo the boys' old room for Molly.  With a one week old baby.  Sane?  Probably not.  Every surface was repainted...SO many times.  Between the previous owners and our boys, the walls were pretty trashed (mostly from the previous owners, honestly).  I think I filled hundreds of tiny holes.  Who staples stuff to the wall, seriously?!  We were so eager to move in initially that we just never got around to painting it for Sam.  Oops.  Anyway, today I worked on recaulking and painting base boards in the bathroom, and next I'll be redoing a dresser I just bought for Molly.  Masochist.  That's the word to describe me!  So...here's the rest of Halloween.  I'll post pictures of Molly's new room soon, it turned out cute!

 Sam's school parade!!  That was seriously a whole lot of effort to get there with a 2 week old baby and a 2 year old...just to see Sam for 3 seconds.  Don't get me wrong, it was worth it, look at that smile!

 We always have to trick or treat on the lane, and we got to see our fun Anderson cousins!  Will, Josh Anderson and Sam.  Cute boys!

 Aunt Chris (Josh's grandma) and Grandma Tigger were so cute with the kids!

And it's just not Halloween without our annual visit with LaRae Rasmussen!  We love LaRae, she's amazing!

The kids went trick or treating with our buddies the Nielsens.  We're so lucky to have such great friends right next door!  Mike said that Corbin called Molly his butterfly.  :)  I stayed home to pass out candy, so no pics of all the kids.  Mike and I enjoyed the 12 pounds of candy the kids got this year.  No wonder I stopped losing baby weight!

Happy Halloween!

Spiderman, Caterpillar, Fairy Princess & War Machine!

Sam totally kills me.  Jakie is 13 days old in this picture!  We had so much fun at my sister's office party, I love that she invites us every year.  This is at least the 4th year we've gone, and the pictures are definitely my favorite part!

Sweet Baby Jake!

Our sweet baby Jake is here!  It's been so fun having this new little angel baby in our family, we love him so much!  We started his birth day celebrations with a birthday celebration for Grandma Grace.  Jake's birthday is 2 days after Grace's, which is funny because Sam's is 2 days after Lon's.  The kids had so much fun playing with Osie and Jane!

Grace was on call for us the morning of the 15th.  When I called the hospital at 6:00 am to see if they had room for  me to be induced, they told me to call back in a couple of hours.  Then they called me back and told us to be there at 8:00.  I was so happy!  I panicked at the thought of not eating all day while I waited around for them to have room for me.

As soon as Jake was born they put him on a warm towel on my chest.  It looks a little gross, but it was actually really neat.

Our healthy baby boy!  6 lbs 10 oz, 19 inches, born at 1:14 pm.

So, not to be outdone by his siblings, Jake's delivery was far from the relaxing, fun, easy deliveries that I always hear about.  Here's how it all went down.

Mike and I got to the hospital at 8:15 am on Oct. 15th.  I chatted with my nurse, got changed, gave her information, and settled into my bed for my IV and epidural.  After a failed attempt in my left arm, and a failed attempt in my right arm, my nurse grabbed someone else to give me an IV in my left hand.  I got started on a bag of fluid and antibiotics, and at about 9:20 they started my pitocin.  I started having contractions right away, and after about an hour or so I told them I wanted my epidural.  With my history of fast deliveries I didn't want to risk not getting it.  :)  And since I was dilated to a 4 when we got there, I knew there wouldn't be much time!  (Interesting...the nurse told me that a 4 is considered active labor.  Since I was dilated to a 3 just a few days before, Jake was probably coming that weekend either way)

Mike and I were watching the U v Pitt game when the doctor came in to administer my epidural.

Lesson:  If your doctor is a U fan, turn off the tv.

As soon as the medicine started flowing, my right leg went numb.  My left leg never went numb, so I told my nurse.  She put me on my left side and said that should help.  When my left side still wasn't numb she told me that as long as I couldn't feel my contractions then I'd be fine.  I had a sinking feeling that she was wrong, but I really hoped she wasn't.

Lesson:  Sometimes you really, really want to be wrong.

After a while I started feeling a lot of pressure.  After a few more minutes it started to get really uncomfortable.  Then I started feeling A LOT of pressure and it was getting really painful.  Just from the hips down, mind you.  Mike called the nurse in to check me, and I was full on ready to deliver a baby!  She called my doctor in, and after a few minutes of pushing, Jake was born!  Sunny side up. Amazingly, I just tore a little off to the side, and it probably only took 5 stitches to put me back together.  (My other posterior babies did some pretty extensive damage).  Pushing him out was more painful than not having an epidural at all (I would know since I didn't have an epidural with Will).  When Will was born the doctor made me wait to push for a few minutes so he could numb me a little.  Well, since I had an epidural, why would he numb me?  Ring of fire?  Now I know what that means.

Lesson: You can push a baby out really fast when you're not numb!  And then the urge to kill the doctor that messed up your epidural but will still charge full price...that urge will begin to subside.  

We were both feeling much better at this point!

I fell in love pretty quick.  One look at that face and I melt!

Will was so excited to hold his brother.  Except that it's hard to concentrate on babies when cartoons are on tv!  Will was so funny, the first thing he said when he walked in and saw Jake was, "Hey, he has spiky hair!  Like me!"

Aunt Jane with her newest nephew.

Still hard to believe...we are a family of SIX!

Our beautiful babies!

Jake's delivery was kind of a whirlwind...intense & not quite what I expected, but we're so happy he's here!  He's an amazing baby...calm, sweet, beautiful, and so fun to hold!