its almost that time!

k so even tho it is mid-may in bakersfield, we have yet to have any real sign of summer yet. today is supposed to be a perfect sunny and 78 degrees! maybe the hot weather is waiting until we finish our pool! that's right we are putting in a pool :) its going to be a big (20ft by 40ft) rectangle so nothing cool and fancy. we are also going to have a spa attached and a fun little gas fire pit to hang out around too. i am soo very excited about this because my family LOVES to swim! and up til now we have always had to load up everyone and drive somewhere (either riverlakes or a friend/family member that has a pool). it will be sooo nice to just throw on our suit and grab a towel. the idea of being able to swim while kids are napping or just me and joe after the kids have gone to bed sounds sooo nice! but that does mean i need more than one swim suit! i havent ordered from this site yet but they look like that have a TON of super cute and modest swim suits!!

http://www.hapari.com/modest-tankinis/

going kinda out of order here

i know that these posts are totally out of order but its better than nothing. im sure whoever out in cyber world is reading this will enjoy the pictures even out of order :) i decided not to do a 3d ultrasound with this pregnancy because i didnt want to know the gender so i debated doing maternity pictures instead. then i decided i didnt want to have a bunch of pictures of myself with a belly LOL. so we did a super fun newborn photo shoot instead. i looked on the internet for different fun poses of sleepy naked babies and gave them to brooke as ideas id like to try. the shoot ended up taking like two hours because he just didnt want to fall asleep. but when he finally did knock out it was soo fun moving him around into cute poses! here they are!!

the cloth bum!

so as some of you know i switched taylor into cloth diapers when she was about 4 months old. many of you probably thought i was crazy or a weird tree hugger or something, and i am proud to say that i am still using cloth diapers. i think for one they are soo dang cute compared to a white diaper with mickey mouse on the front that feels like paper. i sure wouldnt want to wear paper underwear every day! but really, i do enjoy doing cloth diapers so much on both the kids (hoping taylor potty trains soon). it really isnt like it was back in the old days. i use the Gro-Via diapers for both kids. its a one size fits almost all that you can adjust to fit all sizes of kids. nathan wears it on the smallest setting and taylor on the largest. i have a sink in my laundry room so after i take off a dirty diaper i spray it off and then leave it til i do laundry that night. i have tried to get friends to try them out and make the switch as well because its sooo nice not having to buy diapers all the time! i couldnt imagine how much i would be spending on paper diapers right now with the two still in them! here's a few pictures to show off our fluff!
this was him at one month old. i try to do pictures every month for the first year since they change soo much soo fast
look how much he is growing! this is his two month photo shoot. how can you not think this diaper is soo dang cute!

time to do some catching up!!

yes i realize that the baby is no longer a tiny newborn in the NICU. but i DID finally update my family picture so that should count for something right!?!? i will try to do a few more posts today while landen is at school. for now enjoy a couple recent pics of my THREE kids
I cannot believe what a handsome boy he is becoming. he will be five years old in another couple weeks. he has really dont a great job being a big brother as well. he is sooo proud that he finally has a little brother. he asks to hold him all the time!
taylor and her crazy red hair! who would have thought that my family with all blondes would have this little girl! i have never been a fan of redheads but i couldnt imagine her any other way. she just turned two this past weekend (ill do a separate post) and she is such a fun little girl. she loves being a big sister to her baby and wants to help me do EVERYTHING!
and of course the newest guy who just turned three months old yesterday. he is not very little anymore tho as you can see. he is just the happiest guy ever and smiles all day long. he has been sleeping thru the night for a few weeks now and i just moved him into the crib in his own bedroom. i am hoping that when he gets older that the boys can share a bedroom and we will still have a guest room for when family/friends come to visit.

new family pic coming soon

yes i know we have now been a family of five for four whole weeks now. my profile picture on here is very old and outdated, but we have already taken new family pictures and are waiting for them to be edited and sent to us. i also am very much looking forward to nathans newborn pictures. i had my best friend take those sleepy pose newborn pics that you always see that are soooo adorable. i cant wait to get them back and post them for everyone to see :)
update on baby-he is doing good eating every 3 hours (half formula and half breastmilk). he has his one month appt on monday and i expect the dr to say he is lookin good. i have no idea how much weight he has gained but i know he is growing. he is starting to get a little chubby cheek action going on! he still fits into the newborn size clothes tho, so im guessing in the 8-9lb range. i will definitely update on here after his appt. i have taken pics with my cell phone and joe's as well so ill do some random around the house pictures on here as well.

Little man is here!

So everyone always likes to hear the story leading up to the birth of a baby so here goes our story:

I had a regular OB appt on thursday the 9th at 940am. Dr checked me out and said I was 3cm. He noticed while we were there that I was having pretty regular contractions. They werent hurting me at all, just my belly getting really tight and hard and then relaxing. He told me to come back later that afternoon to get checked again, he sounded pretty sure that baby was going to be arriving very soon. **keep in mind that my entire family all jumped on an airplane and left for texas this very same morning, so if baby did come anytime between then and sunday we would be flyin solo. So i went back home and did the dishes and waited to pick Landen up from preschool. Swung by McDonalds and got the kids some lunch then put Tay down for a nap. Dropped both kids off at my friend Kendra's house for a while and headed back to the dr's office. Checked me again and this time I was 5cm, this was about 3pm. He decided to call the hospital and see if they could get me checked in, they had a bed open, so I was sent over.

Got me all hooked up with monitors and IV fluids (had to get a couple antibiotics for a heart issue I have, but nothing serious). I continued to have contractions all afternoon. My girlfriend kept the other kids overnight and we figured we were in for a long night. One of my really good friends, Carianne, was invited to watch the delivery so i was really really hoping that she would get to the hospital in time! My contractions continued to be nearly painless but they were still progressing my body right along. At 6cm , which was around 7pm, i went ahead and got an epidural even though i wasnt dyin yet, i was just worried that id wait to long and then have to go natural and be in a ton of pain. Carianne got there about 830 and my dr came in to check me about 1015pm. He said i was fully dialated and ready to start pushin. He broke my water and after a couple pushes little Nathan was here!

I stayed in Labor and Delivery for about four hours and was then transferred down to recovery. everyone appeared to be doin good. baby was making a whole bunch of little wimpering cooing noises that we all thought were just soo cute! the nurse in recovery said she was concerned with the noises that he might be having trouble breathing tho. she ran a couple tests and checked all his vitals but everything came back normal. she was still sure that there was a problem so they took him down to the NICU to have him "evaluated". four hours later i call down there to see whats going on and i get a slew of info: baby is having trouble keeping himself warm so he's under a heater, baby is breathing shallow and quick, they have him on IV fluids and started on antibiotics (just in case he has any sort of infection) and they have sent off some blood cultures to check for infections. oh and did i mention they were keeping him for AT LEAST THREE DAYS!?!?!?

ya so we are in the hospital with no family in town, other kids are excited to come meet their brother but now they wont get to for at least three days cause kids arent allowed in the NICU. so i cant nurse him until we get dr orders that its ok for him to eat (apparently he will get everything he needs thru his IV). and we cant hold him cause he has to stay warm underneath the heater! ya so u can probably imagine how happy i was right about now!

so we hung out at the hospital for the three days (i got to stay for two of the three) and joe took the kids home and got sleep while he still could. i stayed the last night across the parking lot at the ronald mcdonald house which was great! sunday afternoon we got the call that he had finally been discharged after getting back all good test results!!

so we are all finally home and together and the big brother and sister love their new sibling. landen is soooo proud that he has a little brother because that is just what he wanted! we have had several follow-up appts with our dr and they are just keepin an eye on his weight. most babies love 5-10% of their body weight within the first few days and then start putting it back on, and he lost a bit more than that (started at 7lb1oz and is now down to 6lb6oz) and hasnt gained anything back yet. so they are having me supplement him with extra concentrated formula at every other feeding and hopefully that will help him get some meat on his skinny little body. our next appt is monday for a weight check and if all looks good then we go back wednesday for his very unpleasant boy snip snip experience.

thats all for now and i will try to get some more pictures and updates on here as time goes by. no guarentee's about how often we will have updates now that i am a mom of three kids! holy cow!

im still alive!!

k so my good friend made me aware that i am way beyond officially slacking on my blog. its been oh like five MONTHS since i made a post so here i am. today is not the day for catch up because that is gunna take a very long time and it's already been a long day. but just thought id give a quick shout out to anyone who reads this whats goin on in my life. landen just started his second year of preschool with his old nursery teacher Heather Ball. he doesnt seem quite as eager to work on homework or get dropped off as last year but once he's there and im gone he loves it. taylor is getting huge and has really become a little girl with a big personality instead of a little baby. she definitely knows what she wants and makes sure u know what she's askin for. for the most part the kids play great together but landen is, well landen, and he likes to push her buttons. let's just say she is going to be a very tough little girl when he's done with her LOL
i am hitting 31 weeks pregnant with #3. i didnt check back on my previous blog posts but im pretty sure i already made the announcement that our family was growing. my doctor has my due date set for december 25 but that is sooo not gunna happen!! not gunna be pushin out a baby on christmas day no thank you! the other two both came exactly two weeks early and that has worked great for me up til now so no point messin up that routine :) one bummer bein prego right now is that my brother buddy who lives in texas is tying the knot in december. which means that we dont get to go cause ill be right around popping time. but me and the kids decided to take a week long trip this past month to texas to go visit instead. it was so much fun!
maybe i need to make myself a list of posts that i need to do updates for. ill have to write em down on paper and look back over the last half a year and see what might be worth sharing.
so until then :)
oh and we're going to disneyland this next weekend so there's hopefully some fun pictures of info to look forward to