Happy Second Birthday Baby Boy!

On June 21st, Pres turned two years old! I can hardly believe it! I'm a little late in posting but it has been a crazy two weeks adjusting to having two little ones in the house! We will be celebrating his birthday with a party on July 11th.

Pres is such a big boy in some ways that when I look at him, it makes me a little sad. I am slowly losing my baby boy in a lot of ways, but luckily he still likes to snuggle with his mommy! He's so independent and wants to do EVERYTHING on his own! He is talking in full sentences and knows all of his colors, numbers 1-15, and the alphabet (although he is awful stingy in saying that one!) He is also picking up Spanish very quickly and it never fails to make me laugh as he will grab Pete's hand and go "vamanos daddy, vamanos" (let's go daddy, let's go) when he wants Pete to take him outside. He has learned to put on and take off his Crocs or "crockies" as he calls them (thanks Dad, he learned that from you!) and will always proudly announce when he has done either one.

Pres and Pete are such good buddies now. They play and laugh and have a great time together. I'm not sure all they do outside, but they both come back in dirty, sweaty, and smelly from their fun.

He is being such a good big brother that Pete and I are amazed. We knew he was a secret softy underneath all of that boyness, but it took Ashlyn to bring it out. He will come up to her and give her head a gentle kiss all throughout the day. He also gets upset with me when I give her a bath because he thinks that she is hurt because she screams so loud. The whole time I am bathing her, Pres is tugging on my shirt telling me "NO MOMMY".

There is so much more, but those are the highlights of the things I do not want to forget. I'll end this with a little personal note to my big boy.

"Pres- Mommy and Daddy love you so much. You have come into our world and made it so much better. Life is more colorful and interesting being able to see it through your big blue eyes. I hope you always are as willful and strong as you are now. You, my bubba, will change the world!"

Some pictures...

...and not much else. We are on our own and pretty tired around here! I have lots more pictures to post of Ashlyn with all of her visitors. A big thank you to everyone that sent their wishes or came to see us. It was pretty overwhelming for us and we just couldn't believe the outpouring of love. You guys all rock!!!!

Happy Birthday Ashlyn Elizabeth!

She has arrived!!!!! It took us a little longer than we thought, but she is finally here! Here stats are 7-6 and 20 inches long! She put her brother to shame in that department! I forgot the camera cord (which will make sense at the end of this blog) in all of the craziness so I just have the picture from my phone. I promise better ones to come.

So...yesterday I came up to the hospital and went into their evaluation area. I was evaluated and despite contractions (and painful ones at that) I was not dilated any further than I had been on Monday. After talking to the doctor on call (not MY doctor) they decided to send me home. I was irritated and a little embarrassed. I had been sure that this was it and labor had begun (for the record, I was right). Anyways so we came home and I had a second night of constant contractions. When morning came around I was in so much pain with the constant contractions that I was pretty grumpy. Because of what had happened the day before, I hesitated and didn't want come in again and be sent home. I second guessed myself and spent all morning in terrible pain under the impression that I was just a big baby. By 10:30am my attitude was screw the nurses and that I was going to the hospital and not coming home no matter what they said. (Foe those of you that don't know, the hospital is an hour away so these drives are not easy to make under normal circumstances!) I called Pete to come home and had him call my doctor and speak with his nurse. She recommended that I go straight to the hospital. It's about and hour drive and by the time Pete was home and I was able to get dressed, I was literally crawling on the floor because the contractions were so constant. The drive to the hospital was awful and with about 15 minutes to go, I realized that it was time to push. This baby was ready to come and I rolled over (I was in the very back with my sister) ready to go. Lynne and Pete both panicked and begged me to hold on. We finally arrived at the ER and Lynne ran in to get someone. The next part is straight out of a terrible movie comedy with me barely being able to sit in the wheel chair having to explain to the VERY slow receptionist that I was in labor and about to deliver the baby right there in the lobby. After some yelling on my part the ding dong lady finally realized that I needed to get upstairs right then and there. She wheeled me upstairs and instead of labor and delivery took me to the evaluation area. I was really screaming at this point as I knew my water had broken and could feel the baby's head between my legs. As luck would have it, my OB was having lunch there with some of the nurses and heard me screaming. He came over a little shocked at how forceful I was being and told the nurses that he would do my evaluation. He again was shocked to discover that I was fully dilated and the baby was coming. In between telling Pete that I was just too tired to push and actually pushing, I had my beautiful baby girl out in about two minutes! I never even made it into Labor and Delivery!

Ashlyn was born in the teeny tiny evaluation room. After she was out, the nurses from the day before all came in to see me and were shocked at how fast the whole process was. The receptionist from L&D that was so irritated that she had to do my paperwork twice actually came in and apologized for saying anything. The long and short of it was that they should have kept me yesterday and monitored me for longer. If they had, then they would have noticed that I was indeed in full blown labor not in pre-labor. My OB was quite irritated with the process but was glad that it all worked out. He even joked that now he gets to sleep in tomorrow morning because I was his first patient of the day!

Preston came up to see his sister and was so sweet with her. He kept saying, my sisti" and telling us all to "ssshh the baby is sweeping". I can't wait to upload the pictures.

I would like to say a BIG thank you first to my sister. She sat in the back of the car with me while I was having the single most uncomfortable car ride of my life and simply sat with me so that I did not feel alone. The second BIG thank you I have is for my mom. My mom has Preston and he is happy as can be having his cousin Dyer and his "Mawm Mawm" with him. That was my biggest worry about giving birth and knowing that Pres is in such good hands really is a huge help. I know that I will come home to a happy Peanut, a clean house, and lots of love. That is priceless.

Here is a picture of Ashlyn and I taken from my phone. I'm pretty tired looking after two nights of no sleep!




My baby girl peacefully sleeping!



Daddy and Ashlyn!

Labor has begun...

Here we go! I am so glad that it is happening on its own and that I will not have to be induced. I'm still at home now just riding out the storm so to speak! I've been having contractions for a few days and today they really started to go. Right now, I'm about every 10 minutes and have been for the past hour or so. I'm waiting until they are about 6 or 7 minutes for a constant hour until I go to the hospital as per the instructions of my OB's nurse. She told me to take some extra strength Tylenol and try to rest at home until I come in...yeah right...the Tylenol did not help at all so I'm up walking around just killing time and having fun with the contraction counter!

The last "pre-baby" baby update!

I went in to the doctor today and was happy to know that I am finally starting to show some progress! I am at 3 cm. They scheduled the induction for 5 am Friday morning at the Southeast Alabama Medical Center. I will be at 42 weeks then and my doctor thinks that its the safest thing for me and baby to go ahead and induce. Apparentely, I'm not so good at "doing my part" and starting this labor process on my own. My OB today did some stretching to hopefully speed up the natural process and I am going back on Thursday for more of the same with the OB and then on to handle to induction paperwork. They are really hoping that I just naturally go into active labor before Friday.

I am SO over being pregnant at this point and am seeing that the medical necessity of the early delivery last time had some positives to it! I have no room in my belly at all and bending down is basically impossible at this point. Ashlyn has had a huge growth spurt in the last week and my doc informed me that she was going to be a big girl. Yikes...Pres had a huge head but was only 6 pounds 8 ounces...let us just hope that she does not end up with the Dean head like her daddy and brother have...if so...I will deserve a medal for delivering her naturally!!!!!

Preston is starting to notice that something is going on. He is constantly asking me if I am okay and is being very sweet with me. I am moving around slowly these days and he seems to not care at all that I am sitting down when we play outside. He happily rides his bike in circles around me and giggles when I get him with my feet. I couldn't ask for a sweeter boy and between he and Pete, I am being quite spoiled right now. Preston has even taken to rubbing my toes when Pete rubs my feet! My boys rock and poor Ashlyn will be spoiled rotten between the two of them!

The next update will be from the hospital! Whoo-hoo!!!!!!!

A great weekend...

The sun was FINALLY shining and the temperature was nice and hot (and crazy humid, but we'll focus on the good!). We had a great weekend as a family of three. We are trying to take advantage of these last days before the lack of sleep and new routine make us all a little crazy for a while. With my new camera in tow, we spent time washing cars, cleaning out the garage, and lots of other last minute projects. We also had a wonderful home cooked Thai meal courtesy of the best neighbor anyone could ask for...seriously...we are so blessed to have this wonderful group of people here in Alabama and the fact that one happens to live next door with three young boys for Pres to play with is just icing on the cake!

Here are some pictures from my fun new camera!

First things first, living a little out in the middle of nowhere brings about lots of funny animals. We came home on Friday to this turtle making his way into our garage! I called next door so that her boys could see and I'm pretty sure that turtle put the word out to STAY AWAY from our part of the neighborhood. We have four over zealous little boys (five if you count Pete) that are all trying to out man each other for how gutsy they can be with any creature!






While Pete and I were washing cars, Pres went back and forth between "helping" with the cars and playing in the water table.






The next day, we had been working on finishing up the yard project I made Chrissy do! It was such a hot day that after the work was done, we had fun with sidewalk paint, shaving cream, and the hose! I love that Pete is always up for whatever crazy, fun idea I have for Pres! My best childhood memories are of my parents letting us be silly and I hope the my kiddos can have the same smiles and continue on with the next generation the tradition that no task is too important and no hair day is good enough to be too concerned with having messy fun!







Last but not least, play time inside. Pres walking around in my winter boots is the funniest thing! He is such a skinny minny and the boots seem to really make it stand out!



A big thank you to my boys for making it such a nice time. I enjoyed every minute (even having dried shaving cream paint in my hair!)