Oaky Pokey

Where do I begin??? Oak is one of the most amazing kids that I know. I am sure that everyone says that about their kids, but I mean really he is amazing!

In less than a week our little guy will be 3, which I just can't believe! I can't believe how time flies and how much he has grown in the course of a year. I thought at 2 he was such a kid, but now he really is a kid. I often tell him that I want to freeze him right now (which he freaks out because he wants to grow big) because I just love this age.

He is at a point of complete understanding and able to carry on conversations. He asks "why" about everything, which is sometimes annoying, but overall I love it because how great is it that he is asking questions, I normally though just have to make up stuff because I have no idea about most of the things he asks about or if I say "I don't know" he will say "let's get the ipad and google it."

He has mastered the art of negotiating and procrastinating. It amazes me how well he can negotiate with me with logical arguments which usually I give in because I am more amazed that he has such a well thought out argument. The kid can procrastinate. Our going to bed ritual has turned into an hour of Oak getting in and out of his bed. It is really cute though. He just sneaks into wherever we are with the sweetest smile, like you can't be mad at me because I am being really cute. Honestly, I really love it if I can get past the fact of how late it actually becomes by the time he actually goes to sleep! I remember when he was little saying that I couldn't wait till he was old enough to run around saying that he wasn't going to bed and I couldn't wait until he would wake up in the morning and come and jump in our bed! It is so sweet, except not when it is earlier than 7:00, that drives me a little crazy!

What Oak has been into this year:
A game called dark, dark woods (played with little people and eww toys)
Dinosaurs
stories and shows (where he tells us what to do and we act it out with his people)
Robots (the movie, seriously I think we might have watched it 200 times. It is also a little freaky that he really likes the "chop shop" scenes which are a little scary he usually skips the "pages" to get to those scenes)
Disney Movies (mostly toy story, but also loves peter pan, a bug's life, monsters inc. and the incredibles)
Frog on a Log (a game that he and Brian play, where he jumps on Brians back while pretending to be a frog jumping on a log while brian tells a story)
The Ipad (he can work this thing better than I can)
Jake and the Neverland Pirates
Bugs & Insects (he loves bugs and even Lawson gave him a bug book, toy bugs and a game when she was born. He loved her instantly)

As of more recently he loves:
Superheroes (he loves Spiderman and Batman and he likes to pretend to be superboy)
Dark Spooky things (This concerns us a little bit and we feel as though we might have the next Tim Burton on our hands, but we guess it is better than him being afraid of things)
Knights

Cute/Crazy/Embarrassing things that Oak has said recently:
*Upon seeing a dead bug he asked "When is that bug going to be alive again like Jesus"
*He asked one of our nurses at the hospital why she had a black face.
*In front of a bunch of people at the hospital who didn't know I had a c-section he asks to see the hole that baby Lawson came out of
*He loves to tell jokes, his most recent ones:
Why couldn't the key stick in the hole? Because it was banana...(he proceeds to say "get it, it was a banana..get it?)
What did the frog jump on? A ball
What did the rabbit jump on? A carrot
He told me these last night while procrastinating going to bed and as I walk away I hear "Those were really funny jokes")

He really does say some of the craziest things! We love this kid and hope you enjoy these sweet pictures of our sweet kid!

La La

Lawson is 3 months old and I just can't believe how time flies! I remember with Oak just wanting him to get bigger and to start doing things, but with Lawson I feel like it is going by so fast! I guess I just enjoy her so much more than I did Oak (not that I didn't love Oak) but it is just easier with the second kid. I refer to Oak as my practice kid. I guess once I could see that he ended up okay (for the most part and as of now) that you really can't mess up and it makes me a little more laid back with her. I just seem to worry less with Lawson and seem to just enjoy each day instead of always looking forward to the next phase.

It is amazing to me how different and she and Oak are. It really is amazing how God just makes everyone so different from the very beginning. She really might be the sweetest baby EVER! You just look at her and she just beams out this most precious smile.

Around 2 months she started to become more than just a lump. That is when she started smiling, laughing, and cooing and gooing like crazy! One of my favorite things to do is just have conversations with her. I was really shocked at how much she chats because Oak was the quietest baby.

She is super strong. I fear that we might have another early walker on our hands! She began rolling over from her front to her back at 2 and 1/2 months. She tries really hard to roll from back to front, but hasn't quite mastered that yet. She can hold her head up by herself in spite of me not giving her much tummy time. I always forget to do it!

When she was born she had her days and nights very confused, which I figured she would because she was always up and kicking in the middle of the night. She hated being swaddled (just like Oak) and would always kick out of her swaddle and just have the most restless sleep, so she spent the first few weeks of her life just sleeping with us in our bed. I had the hardest time trying to keep her awake during the day too. She just wanted to sleep all day! In a way it made it easier to adjust because I was able to just hold her and play with Oak, but it was really hard at night when she would just be awake, not fussy or crying just bright eyed and ready to play.

It just seemed to fix itself. I think with Oak I tried to fix everything or though about everything so much, when most of the time everything just works itself out. So around 3 weeks she began to stay up more during the day and slept in greater intervals during the night. Her typical routine was to eat at 11, 2 & 5. Which was way better than up every five minutes.

Somewhere around 12 weeks she learned to suck her thumb and began sleeping all night long. She now goes to sleep around 8, we dream feed her at 11 and she will sleep until 7:30/8:00 in the morning. It is great because Oak gets up around 7 which allows me to get him fed before she wakes up. Oak never did this until we had to eventually let her cry, so the first night she did I woke up around 3 freaking out! I frantically ran into her room only to find her sucking on her sweet little thumb.

As of now she loves attention from anybody, doing How big is Lawson...so big, hanging out under her playmat, and music.

Enjoy the sweet pictures...be warned her smile will make you melt!

The New Normal

I had no idea that bringing home a second baby would be so world rocking. I loved Lawson and the joy that she brought to our lives, but man it took a lot of time to adjust to having two kids.

I think that I was so miserable toward the end of my pregnancy and just thought once Lawson was here life would be so much easier, however, I wasn't expecting to come home at 50%. It just took me a while to really figure out how to manage two kids. Not to mention the second night that we were home Oak came down with a 104 fever and about a week after we were home Brian got strep throat. It was really hard for me to figure out how to care for him and her! I remember waking up each morning with such extreme anxiety, so fearful of how the day was going to go. I just wanted to make sure that Oak felt loved and cared for and wanted to spend sweet bonding time with Lawson too. I wasn't sure how to make everyone feel loved.

After those first few weeks though we began to get into a routine and I started to feel so much better and get my energy back. The anxiety eventually subsided and we were able to live what I called a new normal. Life where I was praying a ton and relying on Christ to really help me to be a good mother to both of my kids and realizing that I was doing the best with what I had and my new goal was just to make it through the day. Some days look prettier than others, but sometimes shockingly we do make it through each one.

Again, I felt covered in prayer and just knew that God was taking care of us. First, he gave us the sweetest baby in the world. Lawson hardly ever cried and was just so sweet and snuggly. She had a really hard time sleeping at night, but because she was so sweet it just didn't matter. He also made Oak adjust really well to having a little sister. I mean, he did get to watch a ton of tv (and still does) so he probably thought that getting a baby sister was the best thing that could have ever have happened to him. Being a big brother seemed very naturally to him. He didn't necessarily love her and pay much attention to her, but he didn't ever do anything to her or throw fits or anything like that.

I really don't think I could have made it through those first few weeks without all of our friends and family who loved us so well. We had people bring us meals, fill our pantry with groceries, do our laundry and love and care for Oak while we adjusted and I got to feeling better.

We just felt so loved in those first few weeks and are so thankful for the amazing friendships in our life!

Lawson's Birthday!

My birthing story with Oak is a little boring. He was breach so I had a scheduled c-section with him on June 3, 2008. We just went to the hospital that morning and it took about 5 minutes and we had a baby. I have heard many times that girls are a little more dramatic and Lawson wanted me to learn this from the moment she was born.

I had always been a little bummed that I had not been able to experience "real labor" and always felt a little out of the club when other moms were talking about it and also always felt a little bad that he came when the doctor chose for him to come instead of coming the natural way. I was planning on trying a vbac with this baby because I wanted to experience and go through labor the way God made it, but when I was 32 weeks along I ended up switching doctors because of our insurance and my new doctor didn't do vbacs. Lawson was due on March 2nd (and 1st, not sure which one was right) and I had a c-section scheduled for February 23rd.

I think that God new my heart and knew that I wanted to experience labor so he decided to let her come a little early. I had gone to bed on Sunday night only to awake around 1:15 feeling like I had just wet my pants a little bit. I got out of bed and went to the potty a little bit more "pee" had come out. I didn't think much of it and just thought that the baby must have been pushing on my bladder a little bit making the pee come out. Brian woke up wondering what was going on so I told him that I think that I was just peeing my pants and that it was nothing to worry about, but he thought we should call the doctor.

I called the on call doctor and she said that if it keeps happening that it is most likely my water breaking and that I should probably go to the hospital. It did continue to happen and since we had a c-section scheduled we didn't have any of our bags packed, know where our camera or video camera were and were just running around the house CRAZY! We couldn't get a hold of anyone to stay with Oak so we could head to the hospital. We finally got a hold of our friend Cindy who came over and then we got a hold of Brian's parents who came a little later so Cindy could go home.

Okay, so what does one wear when their water is breaking?? Brian suggested a skirt, which at the time sounded like a great idea to me, so here I was with my skirt on waddling around with a towel between my legs so it wouldn't get everywhere (so gross)! We head to the hospital and while on the way I started to have some contractions! I didn't quite understand what the fuss was all about, they weren't that bad and I thought man, I could have done this baby thing naturally!

We get to the hospital around 2:00 and I didn't want the humility of waddling in with my towel between my legs so I just left it in the car and just left a long trail of amniotic fluid along the sidewalk at Rex (again, so gross)! We get inside and they send us to a waiting room where we wait for about 15 minutes for a nurse to come all the while sitting and leaking amniotic fluid on these chairs (again, so gross and now makes me think twice about sitting places in hospitals). At this point the waddling in with the towel seemed like a much better idea.

A nurse comes and takes us to the labor and delivery triage where she hooks me up to some machines, tests to make sure that it is amniotic fluid which by this time is coming out full force everywhere and just asks some questions. At this point those measley little contractions started to become way more painful! I have never felt anything like that in my life! My hat goes off to you my friends who did that naturally!

The nurse left to go and call my doctor only to come back and say that he wondered if I could wait until 7:30, but she told him that there was no way and that the baby was coming.

Around 3:30 Dr. Lane came into the hospital looking all disheveled and disoriented and didn't exactly instill confidence in me that I wanted him to cut me open. Brian offered to buy him a cup of coffee, but he insisted that he was okay.

Around 4:20 they took me into the operating room to get me my spinal and prep me for surgery. It always amazes me how quick the spinal begins to work. It just took a few seconds and then I was ready for them to start making the incision.

They brought Brian back around 4:45 and Lawson was born at 4:56 am on February 21. The doctors kept saying that here eye lashes were really long and that she had hair. I couldn't wait to see her. One thing I missed about the hospital in Gastonia is that once they brought Oak out he was there right beside me with the nurses doing all the things that they had to do and they also allowed us to have our camera, however at Rex they took her to a totally different room where I just got to see her as she passed by for a second. That made me a little sad, but Brian got to go in the room with her which made it better.

They then took Lawson and Oak into the recovery room and told them I would be there in 20 minutes as they stitched me back up.

The last thing I really remember is that my doctor said that there was a little more bleeding than he liked and they were trying to get it under control. They kept giving me shots of stuff and I wasn't quite sure what was going on and was in this weird state of asleep and awake. I remember thinking just take out my uterus, but I was unable to speak. It was the weirdest feeling ever.

In the meantime, no one had called Brian and told him what was going on so he had no idea where I was. After about an hour they did call him and another hour would pass before I would be out of surgery.

Around 7:00 I woke up just as they were finishing up and remembered feeling so bummed that I still hadn't gotten to see my sweet girl and being so confused about what was happening and had happened.

They wheeled me into the recovery room where Brian was waiting for me, but still no baby. My doctor came in and told me that I had placenta acreeta, which essentially the placenta attached itself to my uterus and they had to cut it off. The bleeding would not stop so he ended up putting a water balloon next time uterus to apply pressure, almost like a band-aid. He later told me that it is one of those things that you do and just cross your fingers and hope that it works. Again instilling much confidence in his doctoring abilities. He also said that I lost about 60 percent of my blood and that most doctors would give me a blood transfusion, but he wanted to hold out and see if everything would just fix itself.

I finally got to see my sweet girl and felt such deep joy and gratitude to be able to hold her in my arms. I had been worried throughout my whole pregnancy about something happening to me or her because of an earlier diagnosis of preevia and just felt such a rush of thanksgiving to be able to hold and love her.

We ended up being in the hospital for a week to help me to recover, which I went a little stir crazy, but it was great to have a week to have people waiting on me and taking care of me before having to come home and be in mom mode running on a half tank!

It is really amazing to me to think through my whole pregnancy and how God had his amazing hand in it the whole time! Switching doctors at 32 weeks made me so nervous, but I really think that God led me to Dr. Lane because he knew that he was the doctor that would know how to deliver lawson and cause me the least amount of pain and worry. Who knows what would have happened if I would have stayed at my other practice and tried a vbac, or if another doctor would have not been able to save my uterus. I am just so thankful that I can look back and see Gods provision throughout my entire pregnancy!

Always be prepared

January and February were spent with me (and Lawson) growing bigger and more uncomfortable each day. I definitely did not wear this pregnancy well! Seriously, my clothes were not fitting and I really believe that if I would have gotten any bigger Brian and Oak would have been rolling me around.

We spent these months preparing for the arrival of our sweet girl. Fortunately our house already had a beautifully painted little girls room so we didn't have to do much to her room. We passed down Oak's crib and glider and used my old dresser from high school for her changing table. We found a bumber and sheet set that matched perfectly. We washed all her sweet little clothes and put them in her drawers! I just couldn't believe that she was going to be that tiny. I had just gotten used to Oak being so big and had forgotten how little they are when they are new. We got diapers, wipes and everything that we needed to have Lawson's room ready for her when she came.

One of my biggest concerns in having a second child was how Oak was going to react and I didn't understand how to split my love. Someone told me though that your love is not divided it doubles. It was a really great way for me to think of loving my kids. I am really thankful for the people who had more than one kid who would always give me wise words to help me to prepare.

We spent a lot of this time really trying to prepare Oak for what it would be like when the baby was here and spent a lot of special time doing things that he loved to do. We took him to the Barnum and Bailey Circus. The circus was really close to my due date, so my goal through the whole pregnancy was to just make it through the circus and she could come whenever!
The last Saturday that we had with just Oak we took him to his favorite park and to Skinny Dip to get some frozen yogurt and just had such a wonderful day with him.

I think God does such a great job preparing people for a new baby. Towards the end of my pregnancy I was already so tired and couldn't play with Oak as much as I normally did, I couldn't pick him up, and just didn't have the energy to really play the games that he loved. I think that just helped him to adjust to having a mommy that wasn't always going to be able to play with him and who would have to take care of another person. God also makes it so easy to adjust to the sleep deprivation from having a baby. Throughout my whole pregnancy I had such a hard time sleeping and would just be awake in the middle of the night for hours (btw...some very interesting tv shows come on in the wee hours of the morning) which made it so much easier to be awake with the baby and not feel the effects of the sleep deprivation.

He loved talking about Lawson and things that he would teach her about, like his ewww toys and police officers and he helped me a ton getting her swing, bouncy seat and other old toys of his put together and ready for her. I am not confident that he truly understood what was happening, but he did recognize that there was a baby, but I am not sure that he could fathom that the baby would soon be out of my belly and living here with us.

We all felt ready and were just waiting for our little girl to make her debut!

Baby Jesus and Santa Claus

Okay, so I officially stink at blogging! Between October and now our lives have changed so much that I hate that I haven't been blogging, so this is going to be another long one. So just grab your cup of coffee (as I write I am drinking mine, not sure when I became an afternoon coffee drinker, but I do LOVE it!) and join me!

The Holidays:
I loved Oak's age at Christmas this year. This was the first year that he seemed really into it and understood, not only the meaning of Christmas, but also Santa Clause.

This Christmas was unique too, in that we would be waking up at our own house instead of at one of our parents houses. I was so excited about creating our own traditions we could carry on throughout our life. One of my favorite things we did was the New Hope Railway Christmas train. It is a thirty minute steam train ride and Santa Clause comes and visits! It was super cold and rainy, but it will be something really fun to do each year!

So I wrote earlier about Oaks fascination (fascination is a slight understand statement) with Little People. We sort of took a hiatus for a while but then he came up with new ways to play with them. He would create stories and they would be the actors. He was like the puppet master and we were his puppets. He would tell us what to say and then we would say it. He found this game quite entertaining, yet I could only play people in little doses.

Around this time he also fell in love with the Christmas story and Jesus birth, so we were often using our little people barn and renaming our little people to act out the scene. He would say "Baby Jesus isn't here yet" and tell Mary and Joseph that there weren't any rooms. I was so excited to be in Target one day and find the little people nativity scene. I got it for him to get on Christmas, but if anyone knows me they know that if I am excited about a present that they get it way before they are supposed too. So of course he got it that day.

I am so glad because then the rest of the season we really got to sound time focusing on the Christmas story and the birth if Jesus. One night he lined up each of his people leading up to the manger and ran around singing "We are going to see the King, We are going to see the King." Of course he didn't totally get it and was still into making stories out of the "manger people". He renamed the wisemen, uncle Kevin, uncle ant and wiseman girl (one looked like a girl). He named the sheep Joshua and the cow Abigail after a book that we had read about the Christmas story. When asked at church who was with baby Jesus in the manger, he said Abigail and Joshua. The teachers were a little confused. He often wanted to do stories that made baby Jesus cry. I wasn't always sure how I felt about that one, but I think that Jesus would have been impressed with his creativity.

Taking Oak to sit on Santas lap was another great memory from Christmas. He told santa that he wanted a police officer, snowman and eww toys. Eww toys are basically anything that makes me go ewwwwwww like bugs, lizards and snakes and being a typical toddler, he wants the opposite of anything that I say and do.

We wanted to get everything on Oaks list and make this his best Christmas yet (I know this was just his third Christmas, but still we wanted it to be amazing).

Wow! I had no idea that being Santa clause was so much more fun than actually believing in Santa. Brian and I had an amazing time picking out presents for oak that we thought would bring a smile to his face. We might have gone a little overboard, but we were feeling quite sentimental with it being our last Christmas with just him (not that we weren't excited about the baby). We wrapped each little present so he would have a ton of things to unwrap on Christmas morning. Seriously, I think that he had like 40 presents to unwrap, most were little dollar store stocking stutters, but it was still so fun. And we had gotten him the things that he had asked Santa for only to be outdone...read on to understand....

Christmas Eve
We always spend Christmas eve at my parents house, which usually comes complete with much drama and excitement. This year was an exception, it was a little more dramatic than usual. long story very short, the police ended up coming to our house, which was awesome because that is what oak said he wanted for Christmas! Man, it put our little toy police officer to shame. He was awesome. He went up to the kids room and talked with them and gave them each sticker badges.

When we got home we watched the Polar Express and then Oak went to bed anxiously awaiting Santa's arrival.

Brian and I stayed up wrapping presents and watching all the Friends Thanksgiving and Christmas episodes!

Christmas Day

This Christmas was very unique too in the fact that we would be waking up in our own house and able to do our own thing and start our own traditions. I think that i wa most excited Bout this.

The look on oaks face as he came down the stairs was one of the most precious things I have ever seen. A mixture of awe, confusion and excitement. The first thing he noticed was that the cookies and milk were eaten and then he preceded to tell us that he heard Santa and the reindeer on the roof. So stinking cute! We then opened each present and played with each one, so this whole process took most of the morning along with a breakfast break. We spent the morning playing with all the presents and watching holiday movies. Brians hope that oak would get so tired that he would fall asleep in the midst of all his toys, didn't happen because our child doesn't ever shut down.

Our one request for our parents this year was to not get Oak any Little People because we were really burnt out on doing shows, however, we quickly realized that it doesn't matter what type of toys that he received, he just wanted us to entertain him. He created games like dark dark woods with his eww toys in which we were supposed to create stories about the dark dark woods and all the bugs and critters that live in them.

We then had brians family over for our first hosting of a Christmas dinner! I am not much of a chef, but I think that it went over well with just a few rookie mistakes.

The day after Christmas it snowed a ton, so Oak also got his wish for a snowman, which again shamed our little toy snowman in his stocking.

This Christmas is one of my favorite memories with my sweet family and I am so thankful to be back in this area and able to spend such sweet time with everyone.