Our Every Day

Transitioning from a Family of 4 to a Family of 5 hasn't exactly been a cakewalk. Honestly, going from a Family of 3 to a Family of 4 kicked my butt for at least the first year. So I am fully expecting that to be the case again, and I am under no grand illusions that things will just go swimmingly for us. Right now we are still in newborn days of no sleep and seemingly constant feedings. Jovie will be three weeks this week - and she is a good baby, not very fussy at all - YET - and is very go-with-the-flow. Something I think I "deserve" after having two rough and tumble boys. In the midst of it all we sold our house. And bought another one. That has a flooded basement no thanks to the storms we had last week. That's another post for another day - but the outcome will be good, but the process of getting there? NIGHTMARE. My recovery has been great. I feel good. I am off all pain medication except for an occasional dose of over the counter Motrin. I am five poun...

On Thursday morning, Mike and I arrived at the hospital right at 6 am! When you have a scheduled c-section, you don't get that exciting moment of telling your friends and family members that the baby has arrived - because they already knew what day to expect her. So this time, we tried hard to keep it quiet.  I was a complete and total wreck and shook through the entire pre-op preparations to the point where the anesthesiologist had to give me a pep talk. I was so worried about how I almost passed out during Easton's birth - but they were very aware of went wrong during that delivery and worked hard to not let it happen again. I was so thankful. Everyone in the operating room was so so nice. Instead of having Mike go with the baby like I have had him do with Grayson and Easton, I asked him to stay with me and that made the world of difference. Every time I started to feel anxious, Mike would talk me down. It helped that everyone in the room was joking around, that they...

Baby Jovie is HERE! I never thought we would make it - I thought I would be pregnant forever and a day, but here we are. She is sleeping peacefully in her bassinet, despite the loud noises her oldest brother is making as he runs in and out of the room. I don't have any pictures uploaded to the computer of her but I will tell you this child had erratic heartbeats on Monday at my last monitoring session but was born Thursday with a perfectly in sync heartbeat! Pretty awesome :) The week leading up to her birth was just chaos. I'll do a post later about her actual birthday. One week before Jovie's birth, Easton knocked my big toenail loose on my right foot. I had stubbed it pretty terribly a couple times a few months ago but didn't really think much about it. But since it was hurting, I tried to get in to see my doctor but she didn't have any openings but she was working at Urgent Care at the hospital - so I headed there to see her. Guess what? Having a messed up...

On Tuesday, June 20th, Easton will turn THREE years old.  It is hard to believe our youngest will be the middle child soon. And he is going to be an awesome big brother. At any given time you can hear Easton singing. He loves to sing - so he sings all the time. His favorites include The Itsy Bitsy Spider, the ABCS but with the ending that talks about 26 letters from A to Z, the number song (1,2 Buckle My Shoe version - with Grandma singing it "silly" per his request), Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and The Wheels on the Bus. He is a huge fan of TRAINS! Chuggington and Thomas are his favorites - and he loves listening for trains at our house since we live a block and a half from a busy railroad. He often is carrying his toy of the moment - sometimes it's a train, sometimes it;s a magnetic letter, sometimes it's plastic Easter egg...you just never know. He LOVES to COLOR! But not on paper...oh no, rarely on paper. He would much rather color on the walls...

Well we are down to just a few weeks left of being a family of four. Mike took a few days of vacation this week, so we thought it would be really fun to take the kids to the children's museum the next town over. Grayson and I have been there with school, but Easton and Mike had never been to it. I had some tears last night because I felt like I have frittered this pregnancy away with anxiety and stress when I should have been spending additional time with my boys. We are in the final countdown now, and I just look back and see all the time I wasted. It makes me sad. So...We started the morning with a little Facebook drama no thanks to some of my family members *sigh* and Easton choking on his breakfast and throwing up everywhere. Not exactly the fun start to the day that we anticipated. So I was on edge, big time, but I made an effort, we got the kids ready and we headed to the museum. Our kids LOVED it. Grayson also likes the foam block "pool" and the lofted fire...

On Friday, Mike and I went to see the high risk specialist. We got there a little on the early side, and for that I was grateful because it turns out they were triple-booked! If we had arrived later, we might still be there waiting to be seen ;) After the most thorough and even somewhat painful ultrasound I have ever had, the doctor came in to see us. Turns out he mentored my OB, so I felt like I was in great hands. He reassured us that the baby can be born at our local hospital, that the heart condition will correct itself when she is born, and that she will be just fine. I told him that I felt like she was shuddering while she was moving, and he shared that he hears that a lot but he is not entirely sure that is so much baby as it is just a contraction. So that gave me peace of mind. I was so glad Mike could go to the appointment with me - we were relieved by what we heard. The whole experience leading up to it was scary. On the Monday before my appointment, Jovie was not respo...

So last month, I wrote a post about Mike being goal-oriented - and how I am not. Not even a little bit. Not even at all. Well, I am begrudgingly writing this post because he has met ANOTHER goal while I am still floundering over here, but it's a pretty cool goal so I just wanted to share. Mike fought in his first ever amateur boxing match. He even got an amateur boxing license. Did you know there was such a thing? Well I didn't, but now I do. When he first broached the subject with me, I rolled my eyes. I think I said, "You're kidding right? You are a DAD!!! What if you get hurt? You are the bread-winner - you CAN'T get hurt. What would we do?! What if you get knocked out?" He dropped it then because I do think most of those are pretty valid arguments. A few weeks later he mentioned it to me again, and I started to consider it. We don't really operate like a lot of other married couples in that way - I just don't tell him no and he doesn...