A Funny Story

I gave Tate a bath today and as you all know, he LOVES his baths! I started to run the water to fill up the tub and Tate was crawling in the hallway outside of the bathroom. I left the water running while I went into Tate's room to get his towel, washcloth, lotion, diaper and his clothes I was going to change him into. I was in his room for about 20 seconds max and when I went into the bathroom, Tate was in the tub with his clothes on just playing with his toys like nothing was strange about this situation. He had removed 1 sock and the other one was hanging off of his foot. I can imagine that when I left the bathroom and said, "do you want to take a bath?", he got REALLY excited (as usual) and speed crawled into the bathroom and removed 1 sock and started to remove the 2nd one before he realized he was too excited to remove anything else so he just thought, "forget it" and jumped right in! I didn't see this happen, but I know that he knows he is supposed to get naked before he gets into the bath because when we're stripping him down while in the bathroom before his bath and he's eying the warm sudsy water, he will pull off his socks to speed up the process and will take his own diaper off so he can get in quicker. So knowing this, I am just imagining what exactly happened and I would bet I am right! :) He is too funny!

Not much to report

I can't believe it's Friday! It seems like just yesterday, it was Monday! Sean will be off of work at 6:00 tonight and tomorrow, so we will be happy to see him a little bit in the next 2 days. He is almost done with his semester of school and has a couple more things to complete, so he informed me that he plans on doing a lot of school work this evening and tomorrow evening. Even though he'll be busy, it's still nice to have him in the house and have him to sit down for supper with us, so I won't complain. We are looking forward to the short break he will get before next semester begins!

I need to do some wrapping of gifts and pick up a couple of other small items left on our Christmas list and then ALL of our shopping will be done! Tate is gradually getting used to the Christmas tree and isn't constantly pulling and yanking at it anymore, so that's good. :) It's almost like he's decided that the tree isn't quite as fun as he thought it was at first, and we're fine with that!

Today, Tate and I don't have any plans to go anywhere or do anything. It will be a day of relaxing and lounging and hopefully napping! Not much exciting news to report here.

Christmas Questions!

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Much more fun to open wrapped gifts, but bags so much easier for me! :)

2. Real tree or artificial? I like real, but artificial is less messy so that's what we have

3. When do you put up the tree? It varies, as soon after Thanksgiving as possible, this year we put it up the weekend after Thanksgiving

4. When do you take the tree down? Way later than we should...a couple of years ago we didn't find time to take it down until the last weekend in January! Usually though it will come down within a week after Christmas.

6. Favorite gift received as a child? There were so many! I loved my Cabbage Patch doll and I got a sapphire ring from my dad when I was about 13 that I loved and still love!

7. Do you have a nativity scene? Yes, the Willow Tree Nativity Scene

8. Hardest person to buy for? My dad!

9. Easiest person to buy for? Sean and Tate

10. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? I can't think of a bad gift I have received...I am sure there has been a bad one, I just can't remember it

11. Mail or email Christmas cards? Mail

12. Favorite Christmas Movie? Elf

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? Usually 4-6 weeks before, this year I’m already done!

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? No

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? soup and all of the sweets!

16. Clear lights or colored on the tree? Clear

17. Favorite Christmas song? O Holy Night

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? usually we stay in town, but we are game to go wherever the family is!

19. Can you name all of Santa’s reindeers? Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen…and Rudolph too!

20. Angel on the tree top or a star? Angle

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? We open gifts Christmas Eve and then on Christmas morning we get our gift from Santa and our stockings from Santa

22. Most annoying thing about this time of year? traffic

23. Do you decorate your tree in any specific theme? ornaments from when Sean and I were kids and new ones since Sean and I have been together

Back to normal health!

Tate is officially better. It took a long time for him to get over whatever bug he had! It's nice to see him smiling and hear him laughing again. Although, I will say, it was nice when he was sleeping SO deeply and so well! He is back to his normal, light sleeping self. We are lucky if we can get a 2 hour nap out of him now which is pretty typical.

It has been freezing cold and I am ALREADY sick of it! I am not at all a fan of winter! It especially is no fun getting Tate bundled up and stuffing him into his car seat so that he can't move at all! I feel bad for him when he's in his car seat with his winter coat on! We haven't been out and about much at all (except for his doctor appointment) since we got back from Thanksgiving last week. I almost don't mind though because I really don't like getting out in the cold.

Tate has really been enjoying the Christmas tree and loves to go up and pull on it and then look at us and say, "no no". He likes to look at us and say that anytime he's doing something that he knows we don't want him to do! He'll pick stuff up off of the floor and act like he's going to put it in his mouth, it will almost touch his tongue and he'll lift the item (a leaf, a rock, dirt...whatever it might be) up towards us and say, "no no" with a little smirk because he knows that he's just messing with us. He's pretty clever! :) He is STILL not walking yet! He stands and holds things and plays with them in his hands all the time and he'll take about 4 steps, but won't take any more than that. I'm not worried about it at all, I just think that he can get around so much faster by crawling that he prefers that method. He'll take off soon enough! He still is a dancing fool and dances to any music he hears and sometimes even dances when there is no music playing at all! He loves to cover his head with a blanket or just cover his face with his hands and say, "ways Tae?" (where's Tate) and then uncover himself and with a wide eyed, excited smile say, "thayeeis!" (there he is)...he does it over and over and over! We are enjoying him more and more every day! He is constantly learning new things and it is so amazing to me to watch him learn!

"Oh, Christmas Tree..."

We got our Christmas tree all set up and decorated last night! And by 'we', I mean, 'me'! Sean did help me set up the tree and put the lights on it, but then he went to bed and I decorated it. As you can see in the picture, we strategically placed the tree in a corner so that it wouldn't be quite as accessible to Tate as if it were out in the wide open. Honestly, I am not sure that it will make much of a difference, but we tried! Tate really likes the tree and has 2 favorite decorations on it that he pulls off...the train and the purple ball, which I think he believes is a real ball. Even though we may have to corral Tate a bit to keep him from destroying the tree, I am so happy that we have a tree up! It really puts me in the Christmas spirit!

Still sleepy, but feeling much better

Tate has been a sleeping machine these last few days! Aside from that and being a little whinier than usual, he seems to be feeling much better! He even got out of my lap today for a few minutes to play with his fridge barn and cracked a couple of smiles too! This is a big deal for the poor little guy! He's barely smiled all week! Of course I had my camera ready to capture the moment! :) I think the slight dehydration he was experiencing has gotten to him a bit because his lips are cracking and bleeding a little bit. We ventured out for about a half hour to Younkers to pick up a Christmas gift and we stopped at the Clarins counter and I put some Moisture Replenishing Lip Balm on his lips. It was so funny to see his lips all shiny. He couldn't stop licking them after I put it on...it was pretty cute. The short trip wore him out though and he fell asleep in the 5 minute car ride home. I layed him down for another nap when we got home and he's sound asleep now.

Sleepy household!

Well, I thought Tate was on the mend, but I was wrong! Yesterday he awoke with a very high fever again so I ended up taking him to the doctor. The doctor said that it was a virus and aside from the fact that he had lost a little weight and was 'borderline dehydrated', we should just keep medicating it with Motrin and Tylenol and as many fluids as we can get down him. He ended up drinking quite a bit yesterday and then he slept 12 hours last night and woke up with no fever! WOOHOO! He still didn't have a great appetite, but he was drinking a lot so that was good. He took a 3 1/2 hour nap and then 2 hours after he woke up from that nap, he took another almost 2 hour nap! Then 2 hours after that nap, he was reaching for him bed when we layed him down! He's never been a big sleeper so I know that he is just sleeping this bug off. I believe he really is no the mend now! In then mean time, I haven't been feeling too well myself. Ugh. I went to bed last night at 8:30 and slept until 9:00 this morning and was still tired and achy all day. I probably got Tate's bug from all of the kisses I was giving him to make him feel better! :) If I take Ibuprofin though, I feel much better. All Tate and I did all day was lay around and rest, sleep and for a bit I was able to get up and do the dishes while we listened to Christmas music! I LOVE Christmas music and I found out today that Tate does too! :)

This evening when Sean got home from work we watched football and set up our Christmas tree. We still haven't put any lights or decorations on it yet, but the Christmas tree alone was amazing to Tate. He stared at it saying, "whas zat?!" (what's that?) and pointed at it. It was pretty cute! I am sure he'll be even more amazed with it when we get lights and decorations on it! We also got a little tree from Mom this weekend (thanks Mom!!!) that we are going to put on our kitchen table. It's about 4 feet tall and pretty skinny so it fits well on the table. I think we will decorate it too. Hopefully by Monday night our house will be decked out for the holidays! I am so excited! Last year, we were still so dazed and sleep deprived from having a new baby that we just plugged in a ceramic tree on our end table and that was the extent of our decorating. It will be fun to have the house decorated this year!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Though it wasn't the Thanksgiving we imagined it would be, it was still a great time with family! We wish Tate had been well so that he could have joined in the fun a bit more and we felt terrible that he was so miserable...also, we were feeling like everyone was probably getting pretty irritated with the constant crying even though no one indicated it at all! Thank you to Mom and Dad for hosting the gathering and making it wonderful as usual! Thank you to everyone for the FABULOUS meal! We missed being able to see and celebrate Thanksgiving with the Peakin side this year, so HAPPY THANKSGIVING to you all as well! We love you all and are SO thankful to have such and amazing family!

Chris preparing the turkey to be 'dropped'. We deep fried the turkey this year and it was SO DELICIOUS!!!
Sean and Brigg just hangin' out before dinner.

Brigg and Lani enjoying the first snow of the year! It wasn't much, but enough to play in! Seeing as Sean is pretty much a kid himself, he couldn't resist going out and playing in the snow either...he managed to get a pretty exciting snow ball fight started with Brigg and Lani!

Little Ayla Lyn

I missed Ayla sooo much! She has changed so much since she was born and it's only been 2 weeks! She sleeps ALL OF THE TIME. I am not even kidding, she doesn't wake up ever! She is sleeping great at night already, going from midnight until 6:00 a.m. I seriously don't think Tate did that until he was about 6 or 8 weeks old. I love her so much. This first picture cracks me up!

Some were a success.....and some were not!

The photo shoots that is...

Oh, look at the beautiful, happy family...

and this one too!

and then there is this one. Happy? Not so much!

And our attempt at a fun, candid photo of Nana and Papa with all 5 of their grandkids...let's just say it didn't go well!

We decided that now that Ayla is here, we would get a picture of all of the kids. With Tate not feeling well these last few days, 3 other rambunctious children and an infant, we didn't have high hopes! Well, we were wrong...we got several adorable pictures of all of the kids. Ayla slept through the entire photo session and Tate enjoyed sitting on the couch with his cousins and all of the kids cooperated! I love the first picture because it shows just how much Tate loves Bode and you can't tell how much of a 'Tater Hater' Bode is in it...he actually appears to enjoy the love that Tate is giving him! :)

After the feast...

This is what everyone looked like after our HUGE feast...typical!

On the Mend

Tate seems to be on the mend. He hasn't had a fever much today at all. He awoke this morning with a little one, but we gave him Motrin and it went away and never came back. He still was not feeling well though...definitely not being himself. He took 2 half hour naps today which definitely wasn't enough for him, so he was quite crabby and just still not feeling right we could tell! We left Muscatine around 8:15 tonight and as I was sitting on the couch holding Tate while waiting for Sean to load and heat up the van, Tate fell asleep in my arms. Poor baby...he is just plain exhausted! I know he'll sleep better in his own room. Hopefully he'll be a lot better tomorrow too!

Here are a couple of pictures of him from today...

I don't know what it is with kids and party beads, but almost every kid I know seems to love them...including mine!

Poor Baby...

Well, our poor baby is not feeling too well! He is SO pathetic! He can't sleep more than about an hour at a time today and when he's up, he's whining and crying and only wants to be in our arms. :( We have been alternating Motrin and Tylenol every couple of hours to keep his fever under control, but he still has a little fever that just won't go away. We may end up heading to see a doctor if things don't start improving. I am sure it's just a virus, but would rather be safe than sorry. Last night was rough! He was up at 12:30 for about 5 minutes and then from 1:30 until 3:30 just whining and crying. I got up with him and gave him medicine and rocked him, but there was just nothing I could do, he was just so tired and miserable. He woke up again around 6:00 and then went back down at about 7:00 for another hour. He NEVER gets up in the night, so I know he was feeling pretty lousy! On a positive note, he has eaten much better today and also drank about 6 ounces of fluid already which is about three times more than he drank the entire day yesterday! Although, he is acting more sick today. It breaks my heart to see him so uncomfortable! Poor baby!

A Little Freaked Out!

The other day I noticed that Tate had cut his 9th tooth! He has been a drooling mess and awfully fussy so I know he is cutting several. Just before we left for Muscatine today, I noticed that Tate felt a bit warm so I gave him some Motrin and he fell asleep shortly thereafter in the car on the way to Muscatine. He didn't sleep well. His head kept bobbing up and down and occassionally he would open his eyes...I blamed this on the carseat being so upright and it just appeared that he couldn't get comfy. Once we got to Mom and Dad's, he was a bit more chipper and began to play and crawl around, but about an hour and a half after arriving, he started getting fussy again. He hadn't eaten a very good lunch and for some reason acted as though he didn't like the food he was eating which was odd because it was food that I know he likes. Anyway, I decided around 4:30 that he was fussing because he was probably hungry so I fed him some raviolis which he gobbled down quickly. Then, we all decided to go out for Mexican and so we planned to feed Tate some more food there...rice and beans are some of his favorite foods! :) We got to the restaurant and tried to feed him some rice and beans which he immediately spit out and acted repulsed by...this was odd. We tried to get him to drink some milk...no luck. In addition to not eating well all day, he had up to this point only drank about 3 ounces of fluid all day. I decided he must not be feeling well - poor baby! We headed to Cassie and Paul's after dinner and I was relaxing on the couch holding Ayla and Sean said, "hey Jennie, look at Tate, he looks like he's convulsing!" Sean was right, he DID look like he was convulsing...he wasn't, his whole body was just shivering from his core and his lips were looking a little blue...I immediately freaked out! He couldn't stop shivering, but when I felt him, he was pretty hot and obviously had a fever. In the next 15 minutes he just started feeling hotter and hotter. We gave him some Tylenol and he fell asleep in my arms (a very rare occurance!) for about 1/2 an hour. I tend to worry a lot and so I am glad that my Dad, a medical professional, was there to assure me that Tate was fine, he is just obviously sick and had the chills from his fever. The blue lips are actually pretty common for him when he gets cold, so that wasn't what scared me the most. I was still (and still am a bit) freaked out, but when we got back to Mom and Dad's, Tate ate some yogurt and drank a little water and his fever went down, he got color back in his lips and he ended up playing and being his happy self. I think we just need to keep medicine in him. We will definitely be keeping an extra close eye on him until we know he is completely better! I hope that he starts to feel better and is happy for Thanksgiving!

Thankful

Sorry...another post with no pictures! I have been terrible at taking pictures this last week or so...I am not sure why, but I know I will get plenty in the next few days as we will be heading to Muscatine tomorrow to celebrate Thanksgiving. We are anxious to have a few days to relax and be with family. It will be a fairly quick trip because Sean has to work at 7:00 a.m. on Friday so we will head home on Thursday night when Tate is ready for bed so that he will sleep in the car on the way home. I barely remember Thanksgiving last year because I was so sleep deprived! Tate was still not sleeping well (he was only about 6 weeks old!) and so neither were we! I remember Tate had his first experience 'swimming' at Thanksgiving last year. Well, not really, but we stayed in a hotel and had a suite with a big jacuzzi tub in it and we filled it up and got pictures of him 'swimming' in it. We had no idea that fish he would actually become! He LOVES the water! I can't believe that was a year ago! Time really does fly.

I look forward to seeing Ayla again! I can't wait to snuggle her. I am sure she has changed a ton in this last week and a half!

We have so many things to be thankful for this year. It's been an amazing year filled with countless blessings. I still look at Tate in awe that he is our son! We are so blessed and SO thankful for him! He has brought us unimaginable joy and we thank God for him every day! We have been blessed with several new members to our family as well with the birth of Ayla and also through our new relationships that have come from our open adoption. We are thankful that Sean has made it through 2 more semesters of school with much success and that despite the tiring work and long hours, he still has a passion for his studies and looks forward to his future career! I am thankful that I have had the amazing opportunity to stay at home with Tate and witness nearly every moment of his life so far! To list all of the things I am thankful for would be impossible, but every blessing is from God and most of all, I am thankful for Him...to know Him, to lean on Him and to have Him in my life!

Dreary

It's dreary out today and I had high hopes to get a lot done. I seem to get more done when it's sunny outside. I didn't take a shower until 2:30 this afternoon and I napped when Tate napped even though I got a full night of sleep. I have a lengthy grocery list and about 7 stacks of laundry in the basement that need washed. And here I am...sitting on the computer. I don't want to run errands, but I need to if I want my child to have food to eat and clean diapers to be changed into! Ha. Okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration, we have enough food and diapers to last him another day or so. I ate cheese for lunch and drank grape juice because there was nothing else that would be quick and easy to eat unless I wanted Tate's 'Baby Raviolis' which I did not! I have a bit of a tummy ache (which could be from the block of cheese I consumed for lunch!) and for some reason, I am STILL tired! It HAS to be the weather! Okay, I had better stop typing and start getting my errands taken care of.

Relaxing

I have decided that we will not be getting out of our cozy pj's today. We are going to stay in and just relax and play all day! Sean will be home at 6:30 and he can join in on the relaxation. Tate's napping right now and I am going to go nap too! :)

Stuff

I am feeling pretty good today aside from several items that I really need to get done that have been put on the back burner and probably will remain there until after Thanksgiving. I actually got a great night of sleep last night. I am a night owl and tend to stay up until at least midnight. I was in bed by 12:30 last night and went right to sleep. Tate slept in until 8:30! Woohoo! He must have known that I could use some good sleep! I remember the days when I couldn't survive on a second less than 8 hours a night and 10 hours a night was the norm! Those days are long gone!

Today I have a few errands to run as well as a couple of things I plan to get done around the house. Sean's Friday schedules have now changed so instead of working 8-7, he now will be working 7-6 on Fridays. You may be thinking, "wow, big deal...an hour difference", but trust me, this hour makes a HUGE difference. It means that we can eat together as a family, that instead of Sean seeing Tate for only an hour before bedtime, he gets 2 hours to be with him. We are going to love this change!

Tonight we are heading over to Chris and Brenda's for a soup dinner. I will be doing their hair and then we just plan to relax and hang out for the evening. It'll be nice to get out of the house and be with other people for an evening. It seems like we don't get to do that too often anymore.
Tomorrow the Hawks play their last game of the season (aside from their bowl game), and Tate and I plan to watch from the comfort and warmth of our home and cheer them onto victory. It's been a rough season for them, but hopefully they will end the season with a win. :)

With football ending and Thanksgiving approaching, Christmas is just around the corner! I am feeling in the spirit and love seeing all of the Christmas decor at the malls and stores! It seems like just yesterday it was 90 degrees outside! My how time flies!

10 Things I Desperately Need...

1. To do about 8 loads of laundry

2. To get a full nights sleep at least once a week

3. To throw away our rotting pumpkins sitting on the front porch

4. To dust my house

5. To somehow make my left eye stop twitching!

6. Some quality time with my husband

7. Some quality time with my son and husband at the same time

8. To get my oil changed in my car

9. To clean out my car

10. To organize this desk I am sitting in front of

Not a baby anymore!

I have been meaning to post the big news that Tate is not a baby anymore! He is no longer using bottles OR pacifiers! He has been off of the bottle for a little while now and we had been weaning him from the pacifier for several weeks. He was only getting the pacifier at bedtime for these last 3 or 4 weeks and a few days ago, we got rid of it completely. He doesn't seem to even notice! It does make me kind of sad though. Yesterday, I stored away all of his bottles, pacifiers and the bottle drying rack and I all of a sudden was overwhelmed with emotion. I started bawling like a blubbering idiot, telling Sean how sad I was to be storing away the 'baby stage'. Am I crazy? Seriously, I get so sad thinking that Tate is no longer my little baby (even though he still acts like it sometimes!) and is turning into a toddler! Not to say that I don't LOVE this new stage that he's getting into...I do! He is so much fun and is so funny. I just hope that I cherished those 'baby months' to the fullest, they FLEW by! Looking forward to seeing what's to come!

Crazy Crawl

Here is a video of the new way Tate has been crawling. He doesn't only crawl this way, he crawls the 'normal' way as well, but sometimes his knees and the tops of his feet get all red and sore and I think that's when he starts crawling the other way. It's pretty funny! The first part of the video is kind of dark and as you can see in the second part of the video Tate is kind of whiny...that's because I am walking away from him and as I mentioned in the previous post, he is not too happy when I am walking away from him! In addition to his new, crazy crawl...Tate has decided that he doesn't like to wear a sock on his right foot. He doesn't mind wearing one on his left foot usually, but he immediately takes his sock off of his right foot when we put it on, so he's always got a rug burn on the top of his right foot! In the second part of the video, you will see he's not wearing a sock on his right foot. He is too funny!


My Montage 11/13/07

Timid

Lately Tate has developed some SEVERE attachment issues. It seems like he just woke up one day and decided that he did not want me to be farther than 10 feet from him if we are in the company of others. If I get too far away, he throws a huge fit. He also decided that day that aside from Sean and I, no one else could hold him or he would flip out. I seriously don't know how this happened because at home, he is fine. He plays well by himself, he doesn't need Sean or I by his side at all times and he hardly ever cries. These things only occur when others are around. It's so strange. Anyway, when we were at my parents house, he practically had a death grip on me at all times because he didn't want to have anyone else get too near him. He was fine when I was at the hospital with Cassie and Mom had to get him up from his nap and feed him and play with him. He was fine because I was not there, but as soon as I walked in the door and he saw me, he would speed crawl over to me and start to cry and whine. I don't know what to do about this situation. It's quite frustrating.

Anyway, my dad was wrestling on the floor with Brigg and Lani and Tate was quite interested in what was going on. He is a timid little thing, so all of that craziness was a bit much for him, but still intriguing. Here are some progressive photos as to what happened...

Notice Tate still has one hand on my knee, but appears to want to be a part of the action.

Now he's gotten the courage to step away from me and get a closer look.

He's decided he wants in on the action, but still is a little scared to dive right in. He sits at my dad's feet and gets a feel for the situation.

He's ready, he decides to jump right in, but only for a few seconds. About 5 seconds after this photo, Tate crawls away satisfied with his 5 seconds of involvement in the action!

Mystery solved!

I found my camera. Because I am such a slacker, I still had yet to unpack all of our stuff from the weekend. When I unpacked my bag, I found my camera. So I decided to take all of the pictures and video off of it and put it on my computer. In the process of doing that, I found so many more great pictures from this weekend that I had to post more! So here they are...

A Mother's love...

A Brother's Love...

Nana meeting her 5th grandchild!!!

Brigg and Lani are SO PROUD!

Cassie has 3 kids! I can't believe it!

After Ayla was born, I helped the kids make onesies for her. Here are their creations...

Tate was worn out after the busy weekend. It is a RARE occasion that that he will fall asleep in someone's arms!

Slacker

I have been such a slacker when it comes to blogging! I have been so busy and just preoccupied with daily stress. My eyelid has been twitching (which I am told is due to stress) for 2 days. It is beginning to drive me INSANE! I seriously don't know what to do about it! I have a hilarious video of Tate that I need to post so I plan to do that sometime soon. I ran to Target today and only spent $28! This is a huge deal for me! It's hard for me to get out of Target without at least $50 of items in my cart! So I am proud of myself.

Getting in order...

What a great weekend we had! It was so amazing to see Ayla being born and I will never be able to thank Cassie and Paul properly for allowing me to be a part of such a special moment in their lives! I wish that I had Ayla all to myself so I could hold her and stare at her for hours! :) They are all still doing great and I just heard that Ayla had a great night eating and slept well between feedings, so that is good. We headed home on Saturday around 8:30 pm. Tate fell asleep in the car and Sean and I just chatted the whole way home. Sean got up with Tate on Sunday morning and let me sleep in. Tate and Daddy got to spend some much needed time together. Sean headed to work and Tate and I just lounged all day. It was pretty relaxing!

Today, Tate slept until 8:00 am...this is LATE for him! I was pretty happy about it. :) We got up and ate breakfast and are now waiting for Daddy to get home from class here in a couple of hours. At 1:00, we are all going and getting our flu shots. Then it's back home to get our house in order. Rushing out the door on Thursday, I had no time to do anything to my house, so I have some dishes in the sink and a lot of picking up to do. Again, Daddy and Tate will get some quality time together while I clean up the house. We probably will have another relaxing day which I am not going to complain about! :)

Lots of Pictures

Well, it has been a great day! Ayla is doing great and so is Cassie! It was such an amazing experience to be able to watch Ayla come into this world. It is something I will never forget...so special! I can't get enough of her, she is so sweet! Sorry these pictures are being posted so late, but Sean just arrived here in Muscatine with my cameral cord. Here are several pictures of Ayla and the whole family!

Here is Ayla about 5 minutes after she was born

Ayla in Mommy's arms for the first time

She is so blessed to have such wonderful parents...

...and siblings!

Ayla and Mommy

SHE'S HERE!!!!!!!!!!

Ayla Lyn was born at 12:57 pm today. She weighs 8lbs 12 oz and is 20 inches long! She has TONS of curly black hair! She is BEAUTIFUL and doesn't really look a lot like Brigg or Lani. She resembles them a bit, but definitely looks a bit different. Mom and baby are doing FABULOUS! She is nursing great and barely makes a peep. Brigg said, "this is a dream! I love her so much!" It was SO sweet! Both Brigg and Lani are so in love and want to hold Ayla all of the time. I am not sure when I will be able to post pictures, but I will asap!

An added note...

I just got off of the phone with Cassie and she told me that Brigg held Ayla for a SUPER long time and just looked at her and said, "Thank you Jesus. I don't know what else to say, she is such a miracle!" How sweet is that?! What six year old says something like that?!!!

Another Update

Just got a phone call from Cassie. I will be heading up to the hospital here in about 15 minutes...she said that she thinks this is going to be quick. She just got her epidural and she feels MUCH better now she said. She's 80% efaced and is going to try and rest a bit before she has to deliver. Looks like I could be an aunt again by lunchtime! :) I'll let you know as soon as it happens and I am able to get to a computer!

Cassie Update

Things are moving along. Cassie and Paul went in to the hospital around 7:00 and they started Cassie on Pitosin (spelling?) to get everything moving along. She was still dilated to 2 cm when she got to the hospital. Dad stopped in to check on her and informed us that things are moving along and she is contracting regularly now, but has decided to wait a little while before she has her epidural put in. He said that signs show that this is going to be a quick delivery, so I am going to be heading over to the hospital here shortly. It's 10:00 am and Dad has to leave to do some cases in Aledo around 11:00 and he said he wouldn't be surprised if she delivered before he left!!! Who knows though. She's doing well and it appears this should be a good and quick delivery like her other 2 were! I'll keep you posted!

Soon!

I am going to be an aunt again soon! Cassie felt like she was in labor this morning and headed to the hospital to find out she was dilated 2 cm and 50% efaced. They were going to keep her, but there were 3 other girls in labor at the hospital already and since she was comfortable and not in active labor, they sent her home. If she hadn't gone in before 7:00 am tomorrow morning, they are going to induce her. She isn't feeling well and is ready to get this over with! Tate and I are in Muscatine and anxiously awaiting the moment we get to meet Ayla! I'll keep you all updated!

Baby Steps

Tate has made vast improvements in walking these last 2 or 3 days. He can now take two steps as he lunges toward whatever it is he's heading towards....usually Mommy, Daddy or the couch! :) It's pretty cute and very exciting! He has also improved his dancing skills. We watch Dancing with the Stars and Tate LOVES it. He likes the lights and music and always stares at the television and dances while it's on.

On another note, I have come to the conclusion that my child does not require much sleep. I can count on one hand the times he's slept for longer than 10 1/2 hours at night and he usually only sleeps for 9 1/2...sometimes even less than that. He took an hour nap this morning and would not sleep a wink this afternoon. He was just fine though, not whiny or tired acting at all. I put him to bed at 8:45 (15 minutes later than usual) and he jabbered in his crib until 9:00 when he went to sleep. He will be up by 6:00 or 6:30 tomorrow morning. I truly don't think he requires a lot of sleep because he never seems tired after his morning nap. Sometimes he rubs his eyes, but he doesn't get crabby or anything. This could be a struggle because I like my sleep! :) He used to do just fine with 2 naps so I am not sure what triggered this change. Anyway, I am just going to go day by day and hopefully soon he'll be able to go until after lunch before he takes his nap and then just be on a one nap schedule. I'll give him 2 naps if he needs them, but I have a feeling that won't be very frequently. We'll see!

Tired

I am not adjusting to the time change. It's 8:00 pm and I am tired! I even got an extra hour of sleep last night because Sean got up with Tate and Brigg this morning and let me sleep in. I have a headache and want to go to bed, but Tate is happy as can be just jabbering and playing away!

This week should be good though. I am happy that Sean's work week is over officially tonight at 9:00 pm. I miss him on the weekends. I know that this is all temporary and is best for him with his increasingly busy class schedule, but it's hard. He is so great about making time for me and Tate and this sacrificing sleep to get homework and studying done. I feel bad that he is doing that, but he insists...he wants to be with us as much as possible. I have the greatest husband!

Tomorrow Sean will be done with class in time to come home for lunch and then spend a couple of hours with us before he has to go meet his new patient in the afternoon. Then on Tuesday he will be done with class in time for lunch again. I am looking forward to some 'family time' on Tuesday. Then on Wednesday my friend Kay is coming to visit! I am SO EXCITED! It has been way to long since we've spent time with each other and I look forward to just being able to chat and hang out for a couple of days. She will be here until Friday. Then on Friday when Sean gets off of work at 7:00 pm, we will be heading to Muscatine for the night because Sean and I are going to the Iowa vs. Minnesota game on Saturday morning with a couple that we are friends with. Mom or Cassie (if she hasn't had Ayla yet!) will be watching Tate while we are gone. After the game we will go back to Muscatine to pick up Tate and probably hang out for a couple of hours and then head back home so Sean can be at work on Sunday morning. A busy week awaits us as usual!

"Fun Night"

That is what we named the night. It was focused on Brigg having as much fun as possible. It's been a success. When Brigg arrived today, he immediately began playing Tiger Woods Golf on Sean's Playstation2. We ripped him from the control when it was time to swim. Unfortunately, Tate and I stayed home so that Tate could nap. Brigg had a blast swimming with Brenda and Bode though. Then, Brenda dropped him off here and again, he went right back into the video games. He and I played each other and I got seriously whooped up on...by a 6 year old! Then, we decided to play the football video game. Sean got home from work around 6:15 and we decided to go eat pasghetti and meatballs (as Brigg would put it) because that's what Brigg wanted. We decided to go to Fazoli's for that...quick and not busy on a Saturday night. :-) It was yummy. Then we headed to DQ for milkshakes. MMMMMM!!! Brigg was anxious to get home so that he could "play TONS of video games and stay up REALLY late"! So that's currently what we're doing. Cassie wanted Brigg in bed by 10:00 if possible...um, well, it's 10:10 and he and Sean are in the middle of an intense game of NCAA Football on Playstation, so that bedtime has already been surpassed. Sorry Cassie! Hey, look at it this way...we get an extra hour of sleep tonight because it's Daylight Savings tonight. Ya, that's my excuse and I am sticking to it! :-) The original plan was a movie and popcorn, but I am thinking it may be a bit late to be starting a movie now! Well, it's been so much fun having Brigg tonight and I really think we have enjoyed it as much (if not more) than he has! We still have a bit of day tomorrow with him that we can have some more fun!

The boys hangin' out on the couch...
Buddies...

The intense competition I was referring to...