Days at Home

Since Lincoln has started school the girls and I have settled somewhat into a routine.  We do lots of stuff everyday and it seems like we are busy all day until I try to think at night about what I have done and then it doesn't seem like all that much.  I am sure I am not the only mother who feels this way.  It has been very nice to be able to stay home this year though.  I enjoy managing my household and hope that I can get even better in the coming months.  Here are a few things we do everyday; Mommy exercises and showers, we do Mommy preschool, Lexi takes 3 or 4 naps, Mercedes takes 1 nap, Mercedes plays with play dough, Mommy cleans, Mommy cleans again, Mommy makes meals, Mommy and Cedes do laundry, Mommy works on the budget, and so forth.  I have been enjoying some one on one time with my sweet Ceds.  Love her so much. 

 She dressed up like a cowgirl one day.  It was cute, but when I called her a cowgirl she said "no, mommy, I a cowboy!"

And I finally got one of these on camera.  Lexus has been smiling for awhile, but it took me awhile to actually get it documented.  And now I think I am all caught up on our summer happenings.  Except I haven't taken any pictures in the pool, but we have spent many an hour in Mimi and Papa's pool!

Kindergarten!

 Lincoln started Kindergarten this year on August 14th. It was really early this year, but he was excited so it was okay.  Here are the pictures of his first day.

 Mercedes had to be involved as well.

 Out front of the school.

 This is out front of his classroom and below is the picture with his teacher Mrs. Brandt.

 Showing me his name tag and his cubby.

And this was one of his first projects done in Kindergarten.  All in all he had a great day and was so happy that he got to play on the big playground.  He still loves it almost three weeks later.  I am so proud of this big boy and can't wait for him to continue with his love for learning.  As his teacher said though, it kinda stinks to have a teacher for a mom.  We have been doing our little homework after he gets home and I am teaching him to read.  When he brings home a paper that I don't think looks good we redo some of it.  Am I mean? It is in those times that I consider the thought of homeschooling.  Does that make me crazy? Anyway we are enjoying our school year.

Adventures of Baby

 Lexus swings in her swing a few times a day and sometimes she likes it more than others.  She has started to really focus on the toys and sometimes will smile at them and talk to them.  It is so funny.

 This little girl loves the bath.  If she is upset and I put her in the bath it instantly calms her down.

 The kids can not stay away from her and love to watch and crowd me when I am giving her a bath.

 I love baby crying faces.  It is so cute.  Well until they get really mad/sad.  Lexi doesn't really ever get to that unless she wakes up when I am in the shower or something and I can't hear her.

 Lincoln really wanted to help feed her.  You can tell he was watching TV at the time and wasn't paying too much attention.  I had to intervene shortly after this as the bottle wasn't really in Lexus' mouth.

 Two sweet kids.

 Making faces with Mommy.

Always wanting to be near her.

Who does she look like?

Here are pictures of all of my kids in the same towel.  Lexi is the 1st and 3rd if you couldn't tell. Mercedes is 2nd and Lincoln is 4th.  Each day I see looks of Mercedes and Lincoln in her.  The question is who does she look more like? What do you think?

Three kids and an Aflac truck

I assume I am not the only one to notice the phenomenon that the more kids you have the less pictures you take of them.  I remember taking hundreds of pictures of Lincoln that first year.  Well, I am trying to be better about it but I have nowhere near that amount of pictures for Lexus.  Alas, she will have the third child complex.  Anyway, one Sunday I decided to take some pictures of my three (still weird to say) beautiful kids.  My son did not give me one real smile.  Oh well.

 In early July, Todd had an event with the Shenandoah Hospital where he arranged for the AFLAC PGA truck to come.  We went over and hung out for a little while.  That was like the first super hot day so it was a little bit miserable, but it was fun to golf in the simulator.

For some reason I do not have any pictures of Lincoln, but he spent a ton of time in there golfing or whatever you want to call his efforts.

Baby and Baseball

During the month of June we had a few appointments at the Dr.  Lexi started gaining weight by June 11 and was doing well, but on her 2 week appointment she had lost 2 oz from her weight on the 11th.  This was concerning to the doctor of course and we had to do a little reshuffling of her eating habits.  Luckily this worked and after 3 days she had gained 4 oz and a week later had gained 8 more oz.  I was grateful that it wasn't anything lasting.  She is a pretty great baby and we are lucky to have her.  I am finally getting around to doing updates because I am finally starting to get out of the zombie mode.  I remember in June she was waking up about every 2 hours and it was a very tiring time.  On another note, Mercedes and Lincoln love their little Lexus.  They think she is so cute and always want to hold her.

 Big sister had to be in the pictures.

 Lincoln did T-ball again this year and loved it.  He played 4 games in June and had a great time.  Although he was pretty dissappointed that his jersey didn't have a number on the back of it like it did last year.

 The T-ball that they play here, the kids are pitched 3 balls and then if they cannot hit those they get to hit off of the Tee.  Lincoln hit some pitched and some off the tee.  He was a lot better this year and actually ran to home plate each time.

T-ball is a little distracting because there aren't very many hits, so most of the time the kids played in the dirt in the outfield or were playing with each other.  So funny.

Introducing...

Lexus Violet Dow

born June 6, 2013

@ 8:46 pm

Weighing 7lbs 15 oz

20.5 inches long

Her birth story was kind of surprising to me.  (Feel free to skip to the pictures if you don't want to hear details.) All along since I had Mercedes I knew that for the next child I did not want to know the gender of the baby and that I really wanted to go into labor on my own.  Possibly no epidural, but I wasn't opposed. Let me just preface that with the fact that I did not have a bad experience with Mercedes.  My labor with her was induced and I had and epidural and it was a lovely experience.  I just wanted to see if I could do things a little differently.  Anyway back to Lexie's story.  I had Gestational Diabetes with her and was diagnosed in my first trimester.  My doctor let me know that as long as I kept my blood sugar levels under control with diet and exercise he would not induce me early.  If I had to go on meds he wouldn't let me go past 39 weeks.  At 35 weeks I had some higher levels and after some persuasion from me he said I had 1 week to show him that I could keep the levels under control.  Well, I was pretty motivated because I wanted to go into labor on my own, so I did.  At 38 weeks I was not dilated or effaced at all.  Since my GD was pretty under control, my doctor would let me go on my own as long as it wasn't too much past 40 weeks.  So we set an induction date for June 10th. This was disappointing to me, but I tried to tell myself that it would happen when it did whether I went into labor on my own or had to be induced.  On Wednesday, June 5th, I had two really long/strong Braxton Hicks and thought that maybe something might be happening.  Lo and behold nothing really after that.  However, at about 4:00 am I started having some mild contractions and started to time them.  As soon as I started having them however, I knew I was going to have the baby that day.  As I laid there for the next 20 minutes all I could think about were the things I wanted to get done before the baby got here and knew I would not be able to go back to sleep at that point.  So I got out of bed and started them.  I got some laundry from my room and tried to keep everything quiet for everyone else.  The last thing I needed was two kids up at 4:30 am.  I did wake up Todd though, when he heard me say that this was the day he decided he wouldn't be able to sleep either.  He wanted to get some things accomplished first as well.  Well during all of my cleaning and laundry, etc. I had contractions about 10-15 mins apart until about 10 am, then they slowed down to about every 30 mins.  By this time the house was clean and I was tired so I took a 45 min nap.  The contractions didn't pick up again and I wasn't ready to do any walking or anything to help them along, so we just hung out for a few hours.  I took another nap around 1:00.  Then about 3:00 they got more frequent and I decided it was time to get things going.  So at 3:45 I walked to my Mom's house.  It is about 1 mile away.  I didn't walk the whole way though, because my contractions were now coming every 3-5 mins apart with increased strength.  I decided to time my contractions until 5:00 pm to see if they lessened when I sat down.  They did not and I decided it was time to get to the hospital.  It is about 20 minutes from our house to the hospital.  We got there around 5:45 after getting my suitcase and to get Todd a few things.  We got checked in and up to the delivery room about 6:00.  This is a small hospital with only two birthing rooms.  Lexus was the only baby in the hospital the whole time we were there.  At this time my contractions were still manageable and I wasn't sure about the epidural.  At this point, 6:00ish, the nurse checked me and I was at a 6-7 (I was fully expecting a 2 or something so I was surprised.)  The nurse called my doctor to let him know what was going on and found out he was in Omaha (about 45 minutes away) but should have time to get to the hospital.  At about 7:15 I got a new nurse, the other one was deathly slow so that was nice.  About this time I decided that an epidural was going to happen.  I was in some good pain and it seemed like my contractions were on top of one another with no breaks.  Then the nurse told us that she had some bad news and the doctor was still in Omaha getting his kids from the babysitter.  We were a little distraught at this because I was now between 8 and 9 cm dilated and we knew he wasn't going to make it.  The nurse called the on-call doctor and realized her mistake.  My doctor was in town when she called him, he was just taking his kids to a new babysitter because his wife was having her once a month Bunco night out.  I was very relieved.  I really like my doctor and did not want to have to deal with someone I did not know.  My doctor got there about 8:00 right as there were putting in my epidural and I know that I looked like I was in pain.  After a few minutes I felt sweet relief.  Not too long after that the doctor broke my water to help the baby descend all the way into the birth canal.  Then I really started to feel a lot of pressure.  I could still feel each contraction and kept telling everyone that the baby was coming.  They got my legs up in the stirrups and the doctor decided I could try pushing.  On the next contraction I did and she slid right out.  The doctor was pretty surprised and asked me if I had even pushed at all.  I told Todd after that Heavenly Father knew that if he wanted me to have any more kids after Lincoln he had to make the births relatively easy.

 During one of my periods between contractions.

 Skin to skin right after birth.  I forget how much birth stinks, but she was beautiful and I loved it.

 She looks SO much like Mercedes I just laughed about it.

 Lexus would not cry for a little while after she was born so they had to do a little work to get her to clear her lungs out.

 My doctor.

 She even weighed the exact same as Mercedes.

 When I told Lincoln on the phone that it was not a boy it was a girl, he said "Aaawwww, man". But I will tell you he was not disappointed for long.  This kid LOVES his baby sister.  He always wants to hug and kiss her.

 This was the only time Mercedes would hold Lexus in the hospital.

 Kind of difficult to get our first picture as a family of 5.  Most of the pics had at least one person (Linc or Cedes) doing something funny.

 Going home outfit

We are in love with this little girl!