My Cute Little Family

Remember this post about the bow I made for Laura that matched Cayden's and Chad's ties? Well, today both of the boys wore their ties and Laura wore her matching bow. So. Dang. Cute. I about died.


Cayden is such a ham. You can tell I take way too many pictures because when I say "smile" I get an uber cheesy smile. Silly boy. These pictures just make me happy. I sure love my little family! :)

While Mommy does the dishes...

...Daddy plays with the baby.

Someone thinks they are funny.

Easter Festivities

This past weekend was the best! We did fun things together as a family, ate lots of candy and chocolate and yummy food, took darling pictures of the kids, went to church for the first time with two kids, and I finally started to feel half human and like I can actually take care of two kids AND do fun things! Love, love, love.

This was the first Easter that Cayden finally understood a little about the Easter bunny as well as the true meaning behind Easter. (Well, all he really gets is that it is about Jesus, but hey, it's a start.) We had a lot of fun and took way too many pictures.

Action shot... hunting for eggs. The kid got a whopping five eggs and was just tickled!

Surveying the loot. He ate every piece of candy immediately and may or may not have been on a small sugar high that morning. :)

This is how Laura hunts for eggs. Cute girl.

My sweet kids after the Easter egg hunt.

Eating a chocolate Easter basket. If Cayden looks tired and sweaty and hot it's because he just spent an hour at the park running around.

Easter baskets. The Easter bunny even remembered Laura.

"What's this?!"

When Cayden opened the first egg candy popped out and scared him. So funny. He quickly understood that there was candy in every egg and had to open them all. Yes, chocolate may have been part of his breakfast.

Making an eyeball train? AKA lining his chocolate eggs up like a train. Nutty kid.

Cool little dude on the way to papa's house.

At Chad's parent's house we decided to do a little photo shoot of the kids since they were dressed so cute and the weather was gorgeous. Here are some of my favorites...

Cayden is such a sweet big brother.

Love this little face!

The reason we stopped taking pictures. Laura spit on Cayden and he promptly started crying. If you look closely you can actually see the spit. :) Oh, and I love Cayden's face.

Why so serious? Ok, creepy and funny. Cayden had a juice stain on his face from dinner which Uncle Eric thought looked like the Joker. Thank you Eric for teaching my child to say "Why so serious?" And yes, he says it in a very creepy/raspy voice too.

Dyeing eggs! Cayden thought it was so neat that the eggs changed colors when he put them in the cups. He had so much fun!

Waiting, waiting, waiting...

Showing me the eggs he colored.

Eating way too much chocolate in just a diaper and socks. What a life. :)

Fire Trucks and Police Cars

We have had quite the exciting week at our house. On Tuesday we went to a play group at our church only to have one of the kids pull the fire alarm 20 minutes in. It was a little humorous (especially since it wasn't my child... had that been the case I would have been mortified!) and since we didn't get the fire department notified quickly enough they showed up with their truck all decked out in their gear. Cayden was in heaven. He absolutely loved it! He was a little afraid of how much noise the truck made, but was overall tickled and talked about it all day.

Inching closer and closer to the fire truck.

Loved the truck, but not the noise.

The culprit :)

Fast forward to Thursday. Through a series of events I discovered that someone stole our outgoing letters from the mailbox. I called the post office to see if there was anything to do and they said to call the police department and report it. Luckily for us (or unluckily?) they sent a cop out to the house to get the details. Cayden was once again in heaven as there was a real police man in our house, but he was a little shocked and didn't quite know what to say. As the officer was leaving he flashed his lights and turned on his siren for Cayden. I thought the kid was going to die from excitement. Cayden spent the rest of the day making "wee-ooo wee-ooo" sounds and pretending he was a police car.

As exciting as seeing fire trucks and police cars is for Cayden, I hope to be done with them both for a good long time.

Fast and Furious

*** WARNING! ***

This post is about how Laura made her grand entrance into this world. There are details...

I went in for my 38 week appointment on Friday, March 2 and was still sitting at where I was the previous week... 2 cm, 75%, -2. Based on how my labor went with Cayden the Dr thought I would be back in his office the following week and then we would discuss a possible induction. I made my 39 week appointment and left very disappointed.

Fast forward to the following Wednesday, March 7. The day started out normal except that I noticed chunky, pink tinted stuff randomly leaking out of me. After calling the Dr he said it was my mucus plug and that the baby could come anywhere from a few hours to a few days and to not get too excited. I laid down to take a nap during Cayden's nap and woke up around 3pm and had my first contraction! I was so excited, but was not looking forward to several days worth of contractions (with Cayden, I spent 4 days contacting before going to the hospital). My contractions were sporadic at best the rest of the night until I went to bed at 10pm. I woke up an hour later at 11pm with the most intense contraction ever. From then on my contractions were very intense and well over a minute, but were not consistently 3-5 minutes apart. I spent the next 3 hours in and out of sleep between contractions before finally getting in the shower at 2am hoping that it would help ease some of my lower back pain. I got out about 40 minutes later and while going to the bathroom Chad and I heard a pop followed by a huge gush of liquid. Lucky me, my water broke while I was sitting on the toilet. :)

It took us 30 minutes to leave the house after my water broke. I spent that time curled up against the wall, periodically gushing more liquid and doing my best to not scream at Chad to hurry up. Chad spent that time running around like a mad man, putting together my hospital bag and an overnight bag for Cayden; being a typical guy, he didn't know where half the stuff was and was asking me way too many questions. (For any future children we have, I am going to put together a hospital bag WEEKS in advance.) We left the house at 3:15am, dropped Cayden off at my friend Kenzi's house, and then proceeded to drive well over the speed limit (through a construction zone too!) until we got to the hospital at 3:40am. I think me may have even run a couple of red lights.

By this point it felt like I was having contraction upon contraction with no breaks between. I was soaking wet from the liquid that continued to periodically gush out of me. It literally was the worst pain I have ever felt. I thought my contractions with Cayden were bad, but these were 10x worse. We pulled up to the hospital and didn't even park the car. Chad jumped out and ran inside to grab a wheelchair. We didn't even bother with checking in. The nurses immediately wheeled me in to a labor and delivery room and checked to see how far dilated I was... 8 cm. Holy crap. No wonder I felt like my hips and lower body were going to explode. I begged them to give me an epidural if there was time.

The next 30 minutes were a whirlwind, yet seemed like an eternity. They had to get an IV in me before they could give me the epidural, but were having problems. I didn't say anything, but in my head I was thinking that if they couldn't get an IV in me then they were all going to die because I was not going to have this baby without an epidural. After several tries they finally got the IV in and called for the anesthesiologist. The guy took his sweet time (though it probably only felt that way) and I distinctly remember getting mad at a nurse who kept telling me over and over to take deeper breaths... all I wanted her to do was shut up. Chad told me after the fact that we had a funny conversation during one of my contractions:

Me: This hurts so bad.
Chad: I know it hurts.
Me: NO. YOU. DON'T. YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THIS FEELS LIKE!
Chad: You're right dear.

Apparently all the nurses snickered a little. I guess I was a little more ornery this time around than I was with Cayden. :)

Once the epidural kicked in I was in heaven for all of about 5 minutes before the Dr came running in (he literally looked like he had ran all the way to the hospital) and told me it was time to start pushing. Three pushes and less than 10 minutes later Laura came popping out. From the time we got to the hospital to the time Laura was born was 29 minutes! The nurses and Dr all laughed and said that the next time I start having contractions I better be camped out at the hospital even if they try to send me home or else I could very easily have a baby en route to the hospital. After things settled down a little bit Chad finally went and moved our car from the front of the hospital and my epidural kicked in full force leaving me completely numb and feeling like a beached whale for several hours.

Fast and furious.

Let's hope that Laura's arrival isn't a preview of what is to come. :)

***

And now, what you really wanted... pictures! (Sorry there are SO many. I even narrowed it down too.)

9 lbs, 2 oz... bigger than Cayden was!

Sweet little face.

Cayden loves his little sister SO much. He is always hugging her and giving her kisses. And he is so sweet with her! (Plus, he has only asked to send her back to the hospital a few times.) Love these two!

Absolutely precious.

Cayden opening the present that baby Laura brought him.

"LOVE this train mom!"

Playing in the cabinets at the hospital.