Matching Siblings

My kids got some super cute church clothes from Grandma Higgins for Christmas. I love that my girls match, but the best part is that the color of Cayden's shirt and tie match the girl's dresses. The kids all wore their outfits to church today and so we had to take pictures this morning.

WARNING: Overload of cuteness coming your way!

My three little toads. Good thing they are cute.

These two pictures don't have the best lighting, but I love their smiles in the first and the fact that Cayden is loving on his sisters in the second. 

Me with my cute kids!

P.S. Today is our seventh anniversary. Seven years! It's been a short seven years, and yet I feel like we've always been married. I love being married to my best friend and the perfect husband for me. He is the best husband and father I know. Chad, you are my everything and my love for you grows more every day! XOXOXO

 Love this handsome man!

Christmas Pajamas

Keeping the Christmas Eve tradition of new pajamas.

I just about die at the cuteness of this picture. And matching pajamas for the girls? Yes, please!

Family photo. Mom and Dad got matching pajamas too. I love that it looks like Cayden is throwing down gang signs. Ha ha! Goofy kid.

 The WHOLE family. I love that Laura and Carly are holding hands. :)

Brian. And Dad. Ha!

Christmas Ready

We are ready for Christmas! The kids have done all the necessary prep work... making cookies, decorating a gingerbread house, visiting Santa... and now they can't wait for the big day! Cayden asks every day how many days are left and anxiously inspects the presents under the tree. Laura just wants to open the presents. She's a pro. And Grace, well, she has no idea what is going on. We are excited to have Chad off of work for a week and a half (Christmas Eve through New Year's Day) and to be able to spend lots of time as a family. I'm hoping for a happy, no sick kids, fun filled day. A little fresh snow to cover up all the brown yucky snow would be nice too. :)

Decorating cookies. We use the highly skilled techniques of dumping and spreading with your finger.

Love the pile of sprinkles. This was mild compared to the other cookies. Guess that's what happens when daddy oversees the decorating rather than mommy.

Cute kids with their completed sugar cookies blobs. I used super cute cookie cutters with all these intricate designs which quickly disappeared once cooked. You couldn't tell Santa from the gingerbread man. Thankfully, the kids didn't care and we weren't planning on passing them out to neighbors. :)

Sampling the goods.

Caught in the act!

So happy about that sugar cookie!

So proud of their gingerbread house! It was really hard for me to let the kids decorate the gingerbread house how they wanted. Maybe next year I'll have to do two - one for me and one for the kids.

Visiting the big man and explaining in great detail what he wants.

Cute girl willingly jumped onto Santa's lap this time. Totally caught us off guard since when we took her to the mall Santa she took one look and ran off crying. Nutcase.

Grace could have cared less and slept through the whole visit.

My Girls

I think at some point down the road (when Grace isn't so little and Laura isn't sick) it will be fun to have two girls only 20 months apart. I'm excited for them to wear matching clothes and to be best friends... hopefully. (Don't get me wrong, I know they'll fight and have a love-hate relationship, but I hope that ultimately they'll think of each other as best friends.) Here are some pictures of my girls lately. Love, love, love them!

Squishy face!

Love this sweet sleeping baby!

Laura showing off her cute pigtails. She loved standing on the bathroom counter and now requests to look at her hair in the bathroom mirror while standing on the counter each morning. Guess I shouldn't have done that in the first place. Oops.

Grace, the mighty escape artist. How a baby can get out of a swaddle that tight I'll never know. I love that she's showing some leg in the last picture. ;)

 

My sleeping princesses. Cause sometimes they refuse to nap in their beds and couch naps are better than no nap, right?

Handcuffed

He handcuffed himself. Don't ask me why. I'll admit, I momentarily thought about leaving him like this because he was significantly less trouble. :)

The 'Kid Version' of Having A Baby

While Chad and I were occupied at the hospital for two whole days, Chad's family (ok, his mom for the most part) stole Cayden and Laura and watched them for us. Chad did make the occasional trip over to Grandma's house to help out here and there, but for the most part we didn't have to worry about the bigger kids. It was a huge blessing and I was so glad that I didn't have to worry about them when other things were occupying my thoughts.

The kids seemed to have a blast and got to do lots of fun things at Grandma's house. Several times a day Chad's mom would text us with pictures to keep us updated on the kids. So here is what Cayden and Laura did (in picture) while Chad and I were at the hospital.

Building forts out of Lincoln Logs. Cayden has never played with them before and he really enjoyed it. Btw, Cayden's face in this picture... I die laughing!

Cute piggies in my dolly's hair.

Grandma got a bright and early wake-up call with the kiddos. They usually wake up at 7am, but since they weren't in their normal environment they woke up even earlier. Lucky Grandma! ;)

Nap time on the couch. Cayden liked sleeping on the couch, but mean mommy makes him sleep in his bed.

Grace Leonia Higgins

So my little one is a month old today, I guess it's time I finally posted a blog about her. Throughout my entire pregnancy I had excessive amounts of amniotic fluid; this can be a warning of future potential problems (certain organs not working correctly, gestational diabetes) so things were checked and rechecked multiple times. I had to retake that stupid blood glucose test several times just to make sure I hadn't developed gestational diabetes since the last time they checked. Thankfully, all potential problems were ruled out (to the best of their knowledge) and it was decided that I just had a lot of fluid. The problem we then faced was that during delivery there was the potential for the cord to come down first before the baby's head which could then shut off all oxygen and blood supply during delivery. To prevent this I was told to not purposely do anything to start labor and had a scheduled induction.

The weekend before I was to be induced I started to lose my mucus plug which had me very nervous. When that happened with Laura I had her within 12 hours. Thankfully (again) I was slowly losing my plug and lasted until the day of my scheduled induction. Tuesday, November 13 was cold, windy, and rainy and I was not very excited about being induced. We got to the hospital bright and early and I was hooked up and ready to go by about 9am. They had me going on pitocin for hours and all I really felt was once in a while mild contractions (though the monitor would tell you otherwise). Just before they broke my water I opted to get an epidural even though the contractions were still very bearable because with Laura, once my water broke things went really fast. This time, however, they broke my water and we still waited 3 hours for baby to come. With my other two deliveries I was in so much pain by the time they were giving me the epidural that I don't remember a thing about it. With Grace, because my contractions were still a joke I had nothing to take my mind off of what was going on and felt everything. Whatever is used to numb your back stings and burns like crazy and I could still feel intense pressure as they put the big needle in my back. I also had several painful zings shoot up my back during the process... lovely nerves.

For the next few hours I slept off and on until about 2pm when it was 'go' time. After a few pushes little Grace came out in less than 5 minutes, blowing my 9 minute record with Cayden and Laura out of the water! I had a few minor tears, but didn't require an episiotomy this time (yay!). Once Grace came out then came the waterfall. (Because of all the extra fluid I had, they expected a waterfall when my water broke and were surprised that not much came out. They figured the baby was blocking most of it and like suspected, the gush came after the baby.) My Dr joked that she was glad she had decided to wear her boots. Ha! She also informed me that she learned the stitch she was using to fix my few minor tears in Girl Scouts. Ha ha! :)

The first hour after Grace was born was a little scary. She had the cord wrapped around her neck once and wasn't breathing very well. Her oxygen levels were also pretty low and so the nurses and Dr spent the next hour trying to convince my little girl that she wanted to breathe on her own and getting her oxygen levels up. I was a little sad that I didn't get to hold her right away, but glad that they were doing what was necessary to make her healthy.

There you have it. Grace's birth story. It's not quite as exciting as either Cayden's or Laura's, but all that matters is that Grace is here. She's healthy and happy and we love her like crazy.

Grace Leonia Higgins

November 13, 2013

2:26 pm

9 lbs 4 oz

21 1/2"

Just born and trying to breathe. Poor little girl.

Love those chubby cheeks!

Daddy and baby. Love these two!

Exhausted parents with Grace.

The obligatory family photo. This is the best of the ones we took and even this one is awful! Neither of the big kids could hold still and both Chad and I look drugged. It was one l o n g day.

Grace loved her first bath! The nurse kept commenting on how odd it was that she didn't scream or fuss. To this day, Grace still loves her baths. :)

Going home!

And for the record, Grace's middle name is pronounced Lee-oh-nah NOT Lee-oh-knee-uh. It's like Princess Fiona from the movie Shrek, but with an L. :)

Too Big for Naps?

Laura thinks she is a big girl. Sometimes that translates into her refusing to take a nap. (This has been happening a lot lately. Not a fan.) When that happens, we frequently have moments like this...

and this...

 and this...

 (Btw, love the spread eagle! She's going to hate this picture at some point!)

and this...

This is from dinner tonight. At least she finished eating before she passed out. :)

P. S. I tried to convince Laura that when she is an adult she'll be begging for someone to make her take a daily nap. It has yet to change her opinion about naps.

Cocoa Snowmen

I made this Christmas craft this past week. Super cute. Super easy. And yummy too. :)