Brooklyn Kate

Our precious Brooklyn Kate is here and we could not be more in love!!  Before I forget the details here is how she made her grand entrance into the world.

We were scheduled to be induced last Thursday, April 24th at 7:30 am.  We went to bed Wednesday night with our alarms set for 6:15 prepared to start the induction process.  Brooklyn, however, had other plans.  I woke up at around 1:30 am with a few contractions that got progressively more painful pretty quickly.  By about 2:30 am I was pretty sure I was in labor.  I held off a little longer just to make sure it wasn't a false alarm but things were starting to get pretty intense at that point.  At 3am, I decided it was time to call my Dr. and see if she thought it was time for us to go it.  Sure enough the on call dr. agreed I was in labor and it was time to head to the hospital.  I woke Collin up and told him it was time and that we needed to get ready.  Thankfully, since we were planning to be induced we had all our stuff ready to go and Collin's parents were staying at our house so we didn't have to worry about what to do with the big kids. Once we got ready we headed to the hospital.  I was in quite a bit of pain at this point and was doing my best to breath through each contraction.  

We got to the hospital at around 4 am and got all checked in.  Unfortunately, lots of other babies decided to come at the same time so all of the delivery rooms were full.  That meant we had to deliver in triage.  The room had 3 beds separated by half walls and curtains.  It was not optimal but honestly at that point I didn't really care.  I got changed and in bed and the nurse checked to see what our progress was.  We were absolutely shocked to hear her say I was already at 8 cm.  The first thing out of my mouth after hearing that was "can I still have my epidural??"  The nurse said yes but I'm not sure how close we were to not being able to get it.  There was an emergency c-section going on at that time so the anesthesiologist was tied up.  They had to call the back up, who I'm pretty sure was asleep in an on call room at the time.  He didn't come in until a little before 5 am and by then I was absolutely miserable.  Each contraction was excruciatingly painful!  Like a 9 on that 1-10 pain scale thing.  So I was so so so relieved when he walked in the door.  By 5:15 I was in epidural bliss!  Before the epidural I had given my phone to Collin because I could even manage to respond to texts from family about what was going on.  After the miracle drug, I was able to take my phone back and even get a pic of us.  While the dr. was doing my epidural, my OB, Dr. Oster stuck her head in to let us know she was at the hospital so that was a relief.

At around 6 am, Dr. Oster came in the room and said, "I think its a good time to have a baby!"  They got everything set up, broke my water and after 3 contractions and 9 pushes, our baby was here and the dr. announced "It's a GIRL!"  It was so much fun having that extra surprise on delivery day.  I'm not gonna lie the delivery was painful.  The most painful of the 3 but thankful it was the quickest of the 3 as well.  She was born face up just like her big brother so things would have gone even faster had she been face down.  Collin cut the cord for the 3rd time and they placed our sweet baby girl on my chest!  It's one of those moments that you can't even explain.  The relief of being done with delivery and the pure joy of meeting your baby for the first time that has been growing inside you for the last 9 months.  

Our beautiful baby girl has a full head of dark hair just like her sister but looks a lot like her brother did when he was born.  She's absolutely perfect!  She weighed in at 7 lbs 1 oz and was 19.5 inches long. 

Thankfully the entire time I was laboring and through delivery we were the only ones in the triage room.  However, right after B was born another girl in labor was brought in and delivered about 30 minutes later.  A bit awkward but we were just thankful to have our baby girl with us.  It did make it difficult to bring our kids and family in to meet her but after a while Collin went out and shared the news with our friends and family in the waiting room who were patiently waiting to hear if our newest member was a boy or a girl.  I think they were all pretty shocked to hear that we had a girl and not a boy.  My little buddy, Maddox, was pretty disappointed at first but has since warmed up and loves his baby sister.

our first photo as a family of 5

We stayed at the hospital for 2 days and were able to get a little bit of rest at night by letting B stay in the nursery at night.  Brooklyn passed all her tests with flying colors and we are so thankful for that.  We also had several visitors but I failed at taking any pics of them.

Our stay at the hospital was good but we were ready to head home Saturday morning to see the kids and get all settled in with our newest little addition.  They always look so tiny when you put them in their carseat for the first time.

Big brother and sister were excited to have us home.

Taking her first ride in the MommaRoo.

Miss Brooklyn is the sweetest little thing and we are so grateful that she is a part of our family!  She has been with us for just over a week now and I can honestly says she is a dream baby.  We are still working on getting adjusted to having a 5th member in our family but things are going really well.  The kids really love her and always want to hold and kiss her.

 We feel so unbelievably blessed that we have been given another precious, healthy baby!  God is so very good and we can't thank him enough for this amazing gift.  

Big Brother\Big Sister

With Baby #3's arrival looming, I thought it would be fun to do something special with Maddox and Addison.  I know their little worlds are about to get rocked so I decided a trip to Build a Bear to pick out a new stuffed animal would be a lot of fun!  Today after nap, we headed to the mall with Dede and I gave up my control issues and let the kids pick whatever animal and costume they wanted.  They had a blast!!  Maddox chose a rainbow bear and a hockey player uniform and Addison chose a pink sparkly kitty cat and a Sophia princess dress.  I think it was a special treat for them and they really had a great time!

38 Weeks

38 Weeks

I had my last official prenatal appointment this morning!!  Unfortunately, there was no change from last week but thats ok!  Baby is measuring right on schedule and had a heart rate of 137.   We are scheduled to be induced ONE week from today.  We will go in at 7:30 am and my dr. said she would break my water and see if that gets things going and if not we will proceed from there.  She did tell me she is leaving town tomorrow and will be gone until Sunday evening.  So unless baby comes tonight I guess I'm gonna hope we hold off until at least Sunday night when she gets back in town!

It is a busy weekend so at this point it would be fine with me if the baby waited.  Tomorrow night we are celebrating one of my besties birthdays, Saturday we have maternity pictures scheduled and then of course Sunday is Easter which is somewhat a busy day for my preacher husband ;D.  A lot to look forward to coming up!

Can't wait to meet this little one! Any guesses on boy or girl?

Spring

I love spring time!  The kids have been having so much fun being able to finally play outside again!  The only thing about spring in Colorado is that sometimes it looks a bit more like winter than spring.  Last night we got several inches of snow but thankfully the sun usually comes out not long after and clears it all away pretty quickly.

Besides playing outside, one of our favorite things about spring is baseball!  We took the kids to our first game of the season opening weekend and had a blast.  We did have some interesting weather, (snow, rain, and sun) but we had a great time regardless.  Attending lots of games is always something we look forward to every season!  Here's to hoping the Rockies do some winning this season!

Full Term

Yesterday we officially passed the full term point in this pregnancy!  I have so blessed to have 3 smooth and healthy pregnancies and I am so thankful for that.  This morning I had my weekly check up and much to my surprise my Dr. said I was already dilated to 2 cm!  This is the first time I have made any progress on my own outside of the hospital so that pretty exciting!  With both the other kids when I went in to be induced I still hadn't made progress at all!  So, at this point it could be any day or I could stay at a 2 until we go in to be induced 2 weeks from today.  Either way we can't wait to meet Baby #3!!  Here is the belly shot at 37 weeks!!  :D

Mommy/Daughter Date

Last week the boys were gone together so I decided to take Addison on a fun little date.  She loves having her nails painted so I thought a trip to the nail salon would be right up her alley.  She loved sitting in the big pedicure chair while she got her toes painted.  She got some cute little flowers and thought she was big stuff!   I know this will be the first of many trips to get our nails done together :D.

Soccer Videos

Here's a couple of videos from Maddox's first soccer game that I couldn't get to post the other day.

Spring Break

Last week was spring break for the kids.  It wasn't a huge deal since Maddox only goes 3 half days and Addison only goes one half day but it was spring break none the less.  We actually had decent weather which was nice and got to do a lot fun things with friends.

Monday, per Maddox's request, we just stayed home all day.  It made the day drag on for me and made it feel like bed time was never going to get here but the kids had fun playing at home and staying in jammies all day.  We don't do that very often and I think they get tired of being on the run all the time so it was good for them.

On Tuesday, we went to a fun little indoor amusement park that I just found out about with our friends Max and Molly.  The kids absolutely LOVED it!  I can't believe I didn't know about it before now.

Wednesday, the weather was beautiful so we got to play outside.  It has been so nice being back in a house and having a driveway and back yard to play in.  The kids love riding their bikes and doing sidewalk chalk.

On Thuesday, we started the morning with donuts with Max and Molly and then headed over to the indoor pool to swim with them and the Rogers.  The kids had a great time and didn't want to leave.  I of course didn't get any pictures of this.  

Friday, we met the Rogers and Gampps again at the Denver Zoo.  Our kids love the zoo so they were super excited!  It was a bit crowded and really windy but they had a great time regardless!  

     

Collin went out of town Friday afternoon to Saturday night for a conference in Atlanta. So Saturday we just went to Maddox's soccer game, hung out with Max and Molly, and then went to the Roger's house to celebrate Kaylee's 15th b-day!  

 It was a packed but fun week!  Maddox went back to school today and I'll have to say I'm glad to get back into a routine!   I'm thankful for sweet friends that we can hang out with!   It makes like so much more fun!!

35 Weeks

Its hard to believe our induction date is 27 days away!!  The last few months have flown by!!  It's hard to believe it will be less than a month until baby is here!  I am not getting my hopes up that baby will come early on his/her own since neither of the other kids did that.  I
feel like 27 days is manageable though! We can't wait to meet our 3rd little and especially find out if we will be adding another boy or girl!  I am definitely feel uncomfortable at this point and not sleeping very well but I'm trying to enjoy these last few weeks of pregnancy since I am planning on this time being the last :D.  The kids are super excited about meeting their new brother or sister too!  Addison will come over and look at my belly and say "The baby hasn't come out yet" :D.  So cute!  Here is the comparison picture of my 3 pregnancies all at around but not exactly 35 week.  They all look pretty similar to me!  So I really have no idea what little blessing we will be getting.  I am just thankful we have finally decided on both a boy and girl name!

Soccer

We have officially entered the world of kids sports.  I signed Maddox up for a little 4 week soccer league and he has LOVED every minute of it!  It is a really low key league with just one practice a week and one game a week on Saturday mornings.  He plays on a team with his best buddy, Molly.  Before the first practice, Collin had a chat with him and game him 3 rules, no holding hands with Molly, no kissing, and no talking while the coach is talking.  Before we left that evening for practice he told me "Dad said no kissing or holding hands but maybe if we win our game we can."  So funny!  He is having a blast and is doing great!  He is typically a more shy and reserved kid but on the soccer field he really comes out of his shell!  It is so much fun to watch!  Can't wait to watch him grow up playing sports or doing whatever he decides to participate in!

The only hand holding that has happened.  It was before the first practice started ;D

Cheering on Maddox and Molly at their first game!