A weekend at the lake

We had a great memorial day weekend at my parent's lake house. Drew went on boat rides, swam in the lake and was so tired he slept 13 hours Sunday night. This is the child who hasn't slept more than 10 hours at night for over a year, I love the lake!

Drew fished with Brendan for the first time.



My mom found a pole that would float if it was tossed into the lake. Drew has a blast fishing with his daddy, he didn't even have a hook on the end of his pole but he couldn't have cared less, he loved every second.



This little guy even fell asleep Saturday morning on a walk after sleeping well the night before.



The lake just wore him out! After his little snooze on our walk he was ready to go swimming before his nap that afternoon.






Ruby even got in on the swim dock action.


I was pleasantly surprised on a few occasions at the lake. First, Drew did not mind wearing his life jacket at all. He had to wear it whenever he was in the water but also when he was on the boat or on the dock and he never once said a peep about putting it on. Second, he was not shy about going swimming in the lake. He ran right in with Brendan and had no fear. We did have him wear his swim shoes to help navigate the sand and rocks on the bottom, but he was not scared at all. I thought he'd at least be timid or shy about getting in the water, nope he loved it.







Kate had fun too, she was able to hang out and on the deck with me and just enjoy the fresh air. No boat rides for Kate this year although we have a life jacket that is an infant one, it wouldn't fit on her and in Iowa it's a law all children under the age of 12 wear a life jacket. Nor am I comfortable taking her on the boat without one, next year!






We had a wonderful relaxing weekend with my parents and the kids. I hope everyone had a fabulous memorial day weekend.


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Introducing Drew to Kate

One of my biggest fears when I was pregnant with Kate was how would Drew react to having a sibling. He's two and if you've had or have a two year old well they're two, enough said. I was worried he would hate Brendan and me or he would dislike his sister, readily be defiant which is totally out of characteristic for him.

As Kate's arrival was approaching Brendan and I agreed that we wanted Drew to come to the hospital and meet his brother or sister. We also had a small gift from the baby for Drew. We settled on a sleeve of matchbox cars, crayons, a coloring book, a big brother book some snacks and a Tow-Mater sippy cup. We also had a gift for the baby from Drew, a small giraffe lovely.




After Kate arrived Brendan brought Drew up the second day we were at the hospital. It was just us in our room when he arrived and he was so excited to meet his baby sister. He kept saying "SISTER" and "KATE".








He even wore his Big Brother shirt to the hospital.




While he was there we asked him if w wanted to hold Kate, he had absolutely no interest so we didn't press the issue. He was more interested in playing with the phone in the room.
Once we arrived home he really wasn't interested in Kate. He was more excited that both Brendan and I were back home. Brendan had been coming home in the evenings and staying at home, I obviously had stayed two nights in the hospital. About 2 days after we were home he asked to hold Kate. My heart melted on the spot! He was the proudest big brother.








Since then he's showed more interest in her. We've tried to involve her in helping with Kate, but mostly he likes to rock her, way too fast. We're working on the word gentle these days.
Drew does seem to like Kate, but there has been times where jealousy has come into play. He will just want mama or daddy and we've each tried to take him to do big boy activities every couple of days since bringing Kate home. He likes going on special outings with just one of us especially when the outing ends at the ice cream shop.
I have found with two kids my sling is my best friend. I can pop Kate in my sling and basically do any activity with Drew that I would have pre Kate. I'm sure there will be more challenges down the road but so far our transition to a family of four has been pretty seamless and although we are still adjusting we are making it work and we are all surviving.


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Kate's birth announcement

A few days after Kate was home we made the trip over to see Amy Doerring our beloved photographer and friend. She worked her magic with miss Kate and we were even able to get outside for a bit to take some outdoor pictures.

Along with the announcement we also opted for a thank you card to include in the announcement. Most people we are sending announcements will also be receiving a thank you. Each announcement is a 5x7 in size and the thank you is a square, so it fits perfectly in the envelope with the announcement.


Miss Katherine Ellen


Above the pictures it says; We are happy to announce the birth of our daughter and sister.


Kate's thank you card






Happy Monday!

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I'm still here

I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. Having a newborn, a toddler and migraines that seem to be kickin my ass blogging is taking a back seat. I promise I will have Kate's birth story up early next week and her birth announcement up very soon. Until then;







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Kate's birth story

Kate made her entrance into the world on Wednesday April 18th, 2012 at 9:11am.



Brendan and I arrived at the hospital bright and early that Wednesday morning at 5:15am. My doctor gives everyone with a scheduled c-section 2 hours of antibiotics. My section was scheduled for 8:15am, yeah doesn't add up right. Well, I am Rh+ which means extra blood work and it takes longer in the lab, so we had to arrive 3 hours prior to Kate being born. If you haven't been reading my blog all that long, I had a c-section with Drew after 40 hours of labor and developed a heart condition in which both my OB and cardiologist agreed that I should not labor, my heart does not do well while in labor.


So we get to the hospital, get antibiotics, and wait, and wait, wait some more. Then we are delayed. Everyone is in their OR garb, Brendan in his Pilsbury Doughboy suit, me in my sexy cap and lovely hospital gown. Our nurses ready, doctor....not ready. So we wait...
Around 8:50AM she was ready! My nurse covered my rumpus and we walked, yep they had my huge pregnant and hooked up to an IV rear end walk to the OR. I said goodbye to my momma and Brendan and I were off. They sat Brendan at the nurses station, took me in to the freezing cold OR, why are those OR's always freezing?



As I sat on the table it seemed like everyone scattered and then I lost it. I had held it together pretty well all morning, but I was sitting on the OR table, legs dangling over the side, no one around or it seemed, and I started shaking uncontrolably and huge alligator tears started falling down my cheeks, this was it, no turning back and I felt so alone. At that very moment one of the nurses came up, grabbed my hand, wiped the tears on my cheek and gave me comforting words. Another nurse came with a warm blanket and pillow, the pillow for me to hug, and the blanket to go over my arms and chest. I hugged the pillow while getting my spinal and the second nurse who was equally as kind and comforting hugged me while my head was in her chest as my spinal was being administered.
The spinal being given was so seamless. I had no idea it was not a catheter that was left in, it's just a one time shot, who knew, not me. I assumed it was just like the epidural, not so. I felt a pinch for the shot of numbing medicine and then nothing. After he put the medication in that numbed me, it was almost instant, it worked from my chest down and it was such a strange feeling, I could literally not feel a darn thing nor wiggle my toes or move my legs.


Brendan was then brought in and sat on my left side, he grabbed my left hand and my doctor asked me if I could feel her. I told her I could feel her touching my chest and she said "well no, I pinching you really hard by your hip". Well then, no I can't feel that. They started and about 3 minutes later I felt 10 seconds of pressure and then my doctor said "it's a girl"! Brendan and I both looked a each other and immediately started crying, we had a daughter. I later asked what the pressure was and she told me her assistant pushed on the top of my uterus and she basically acts as a shoe horn to guide Kate's shoulders out. Brendan was then able to go over to where Kate was, cut her cord, take video of her, they then brought the scale over in my eye line to weigh and measure her. She weighed 6 pounds 10 ounces and was 18 inches long. Her APGAR scores were 8 and 9 and she transitioned very well from inside to out. The nurses then gave Kate to Brendan and he sat with her right by me as my doc finished sewing me back up.
From start to finish the whole section took around 40 minutes.


From first cut to 9:11AM the time Kate arrived was 3 minutes. The rest of the time was spent stitching me up. My doc uses all internal stitches and my incision is about 3-4 inches long. My doctor was able to use the same incision I had for Drew, and thus far it's healed very nicely. I came home with steri stripes across my incision they have begun to fall off.


After we were done in the OR we were wheeled to our suite where we stayed 2 nights and opted to go home a night early to start our lives as a family of four.
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39 weeks

This is the last pregnancy update! Having a scheduled c-section is quite nice, we know when we're going in, we have Drew taken care of, we have our bags packed, Peanut's bag packed. Now we just wait 4 days.

It's a bit funny how we chose Peanuts arrival date because you can chose any date after 39w. Since April 17th is technically tax day this year and Brendan is in the financial planning business and the 16th and17th are
super busy days since people can still contribute to certain investments and get tax deductions for 2011. It just so happened my OB was scheduled to be in the OR all day on the 18th, so that's how Peanut's birthday was chosen.

I've now hit the point in pregnancy where I'm just ready, ready to know if I have another son or daughter. Ready to have my baby on the outside and for my body to start to recover.

Here's to a very uneventful and healthy pregnancy! Time has flown by!

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Kate's first photo shoot

My dear friend Amy came to the hospital Thursday morning to snap some pictures of Kate. We did the exact same thing with Drew and I have cherished those pictures from the very beginning.

Drew 2010:






Amy is such a blessing to us and it worked out even better this time around having had a scheduled date that Kate AKA Peanut would arrive. Here are just a few of the bunch Amy captured of our little girl.











I love how "fresh" she is, not even 24 hours old.

Brendan and I both think Drew and Kate look very similar. What do you think? Do they look alike in their newborn pics?

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We'd like to welcome

Drew's little sister to our family! Katherine Ellen arrived today at 9:11am weighing 6lbs. 6oz. And measuring 18 inches long. Kate is simply perfect, Brendan and I are truly in awe of the miracle God has given us once again.



We are over the moon in love with our daughter.

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Peanut's nursery

As I've mentioned here before this time around I went with a much different feel than Drew's nursery. I fell in love with a color scheme rather than a theme. From there everything just kind of came together.



We first started out by painting the walls a light gray called Poetic, it's a color from our local hardware store.

I then started looking for bedding. I couldn't find very much that I was crazy about, or in the price range I wanted, so my mom volunteered to make a bumper. We went to a local fabric store and found the damask fabric you can see as the bumper and then added the sunshine yellow ribbon.



I then tried to find a crib skirt that would go well and I found one at Pottery Barn Kids. I go to order it and it's back ordered until May. Boo, hiss!!! So once again my mom, Martha Stewart Junior made the crib skirt and added the yellow ribbon.



We then moved on to the rocker and wall hangings. First, the rocker, It just so happened that my older sister was looking to get rid of her yellow and white rocker and go for a more neutral colored rocker. We were in luck, we simply traded rockers, our cream colored rocker for her yellow and white rocker.



I found all of the wall hangings and pillow on Etsy. The pillow can be found at Modernality2. This pillow is just as adorable as it looks in pictures, it came very quickly and it washed up well, I ironed it and we were good to go.

Next was what in the world do we hang on the walls? I started searching the web and again came to Etsy. I found these 4 prints for above the crib from Zeppi Prints. Again, the seller was a pleasure to work with and even brightened the chevron stripes a bit for me. I then found the frames at Target.



The prints are 5x7 and the frames are 8x10 with no matte.
It was now on to the other 3 wall spaces. I found this 8x10 print again on Etsy from Fancy Prints.




The seller was so kind to work with and even included this next print.



On the other space, which happens to be behind the door I took scrapbook paper and put it in 8x8 frames.



The gray paper actually has small white dots on it, but it didn't show up in the pic.

Lastly, was the curtain conundrum. Again, I couldn't find anything I really loved so my momma stepped up again and took plain white curtains from Target and used the left over fabric from the bumper and made this fab curtains.






Thankfully it's now all put together and just awaits Peanut's arrival!


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37 & 38 weeks

My lovely self portrait. You can see a bit of nursery too.

On Saturday I'll hit 39 weeks.................holy crap we're going to have a baby soon........... Ok, I needed a moment. These past few weeks have been pretty low key in regards to pregnancy, however life has been super busy, and our toddler is more energetic than ever!

Pregnancy wise everything seems to be right on track, although the one huge difference I am noticing is the pressure I feel on my pelvic bone. Holy guacamole people, this is no joke! I didn't have any pressure with Drew, he was sunny side up and apparently that can make all the difference in the world because Peanut is not and oh me oh my, my pelvic bone feels like it could snap in two at any second. Needless to say, at 38 weeks pregnant how comfy can you really be?

The one thing that is eating me up inside is the huge amount of mom guilt I have for having a second child. Now don't get me wrong we love this child and couldn't be happier but I have this guilt that I'm taking something away from Drew. I fear he'll resent me, feel rejected or unwanted because we bring a new baby home. To know when I leave the morning of my c-section and I'm literally going to turn his world up side down, breaks my heart. Any moms of 2 or more want to give any wise words of advice, did you have guilt?

I know everything I'm feeling is probably normal, and I'm probably a wee bit overly emotional at this point, but I can't help it at this point.

My other nagging feeling is fear, I am absolutely terrified to have another c-section. Drew's delivery was not pleasant and feeling the doctors cut me open was awful. My fear keeps rising and as this delivery comes closer and closer those memories of his delivery become more and more vivid. You'd think 2 years would allow me to forget what happened and the painful delivery I had, but it hasn't. I've just been praying daily that God puts a calm over my body that day and takes away the fear and anxiety.

So there you have it folks, I'll have one more weekly update and then it's go time!



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