Our family just keeps growing!!

I am so excited!! My brother Neil and his girlfriend Brittany got engaged on Friday night. It was so fun talking to him throughout the week as he bought the ring and made the proposal plans. After he proposed, he had planned for all of their friends and family to surprise her at a restaurant for a little engagement party. I hated missing it!

They are hoping to get married sometime this summer. I can't wait! I love Brittany and am so excited that she will be joining our family.

I should be getting more pictures soon, but this is when they first walked in to their party and everyone started cheering...

Our Little Squeaker

Since day one, we have nicknamed Claire "Squeaker." She just always squeaks. She squeaks when she is awake and when she is sleeping. Her breathing even sounds squeaky sometimes.

Yesterday we took Claire to her 2 week doctor's appointment. She weighed 9 pounds and was 22 1/2 inches long. So, she has grown a pound and a half and an inch and a half since she was born.

The strange thing was, after he listened to her heart (for a really long time), he said, "Well, she has a little SQUEAK in her heart." He didn't seem too overly concerned about it right now, but if it is still there at her 2 month appointment, we will have to take her to a cardiologist for more tests.

So, pray with us that next time we go to the doctor, the only squeaks he will hear will be from her sweet little mouth!

Ready or not, here I come!!

So, here's how it all went down. If you don't care to hear about the whole delivery, feel free to skip this post! Shanta - this may include you.

We checked into the hospital at 5:00 AM on Friday, January 11th. Actually, the story begins at 4:45AM when David Pittman brought breakfast to our house. How awesome is that?! It really was a great start to the day. Who knew that the banana I ate would later interfere with my tubal surgery....

I have no idea what time everything happened. But this is the order:

* Check in, change into the fabulously stylish hospital gown. Get all comfy in bed and answer about 1000 questions.

* Make small talk with the nurse while she sticks me 3 times looking for a good spot for the IV. Finally is successful in my right hand.

* Pitocin is started to get the contractions going. Thank you.

* Dr. comes in to break my water. This was WAY painful. He literally had to move the baby out of the way to even get to the bag of water. After he was through, he kindly said "Your tonsils look great too." W.O.W.

* Nursing shift change at 7:00 AM and Caroline walks into the room. I was so excited. She was the best nurse ever - we had her with Cora and were so excited to see her again.

* Anesthesia comes to give me an epidural. I wasn't even feeling anything at this point, so I was getting very excited and hopeful that I would not feel one thing throughout this entire delivery. I was really nervous about the epidural this time b/c I got a spinal headache last time, and I didn't want that to happen again. It went in fine - not too painful. It worked great for about 45 minutes.

* During those 45 minutes, my parents brought the girls up to see me. We enjoyed visiting and hanging out for awhile before things got crazy.

* Played the electronic 20 Questions game with my fabulous nurse Caroline and James for awhile.

* 45 minutes is up.. start feeling the contractions. We let Caroline know ASAP and she begins to call for Anesthesia to come up my epidural.

* Long story short - he got there too late. I went from a 3 to a 10 in like an hour and a half. The epidural never could catch up to that - and I felt every single thing that happened.

* Fortunately, I only had to push about 5 times. That was the worst pain I think I have ever felt.
* I forgot all about that pain a few seconds later when I heard Claire's little cry.

* I was reminded of the pain again when the Dr. tells me I have to push the placenta out.

* Pain goes away quickly again. We get to hold our third baby girl and are overwhelmed one final time with the inexpressible joy that comes with seeing your baby for the first time.

* Family comes in to see Claire. Cora is not sure of anything... Kaitlyn can't wait to hold her. I'm still trying to just hold it together.

* About an hour later, they tell me it's time to head to the O.R. for my tubal. By this time my epidural has kicked in.

* As they are wheeling me down to the O.R. they find out that I had eaten a banana at 4:45 that morning. This means they are unable to put me under for the surgery, and will rely on the epidural that has just decided to kick in.

* With a little more medicine, I am completely numb from the shoulders down and they proceed to cut my belly button open and formally complete our family of five. During the surgery they discover that I had a hernia under my belly button and and a small cyst (later turned out to be a benign tumor on one of my tubes) that he had to remove.

* I hang out with Caroline for a couple of hours in the recovery room before I'm finally wheeled to a regular room and am able to spend some time with Claire.

So, there you have it. It was a very long day, but a most wonderful one.

I just think this is a really cool picture with our doctor, and the light coming into the room and everything.

Caroline and Claire

One week down!

Well, we have managed to survive one week and one day as a family of five. With the help of both of our mom's however. Today is our first day with just us. James took Kaitlyn and Cora to church this morning, so Claire and I are just hanging out. I thought I would post some pictures of our first week at home. It has been so sweet watching Kaitlyn and Cora love on their new baby sister.

As soon as I gave Claire to Kaitlyn she, very loudly, "unloaded" if you know what I mean.

Claire Elizabeth

Well, we made it home today! I'm sorry it's taken us awhile to update on her arrival! I'm too tired to post the entire story, but after a very NON EFFECTIVE epidural, Claire made it safely weighing in at 7 pounds 8 ounces and a whopping 21 inches long. She was the lightest of the 3 girls, but tied with Kaitlyn for the longest. She is just as sweet as can be and we are so blessed and honored that God chose us to be her parents. Kaitlyn is being a great Big Sister just as she was/is with Cora. Cora, however, is having a little bit of a hard time adjusting. She wants nothing to do with me right now. It doesn't help that I can't pick her up or hold her - because of the surgery to have my tubes tied. Hopefully over the next couple of weeks she will adjust! It just kills me to not be able to pick her up and squeeze her!

Enough about that! Here are a few pictures of sweet Claire. Thanks for your prayers! I'll write more about the "birth story" later.

Just one more night...

Well, we have to be at the hospital in 6 hours. I might as well just stay up and blog, right?

Tonight I had a really fun "Girls Night Out" shower at the Olive Garden. It was so fun! I am so blessed with such wonderful girlfriends. For some reason I have been really nervous about this delivery. I don't know if it's because I'm having another little surgery (tubes will be getting tied tomorrow as well) or what. I've just been a little on edge this time around. You would think by baby #3 I would just be shooting the breeze!! Anyway, after spending just a couple of hours with friends (and my mom!), I just feel a sense of peace. I'm not sure how I will feel when we get to the hospital in the morning, but for now - I feel peaceful.

I can't believe I am actually posting this picture, but here I am. Please excuse the slicked back ponytail and the no makeup.

We'll keep you posted as the events of the day unfold tomorrow. My goal is to have a baby by lunch time. We'll see if I'm right or not.

I'll leave you with a picture of my other two beautiul girls:

James took this picture last night and titled it, "LL Cora J"

Poor, poor, pitiful me....

Seriously. It's 12:30 AM and I've been trying to go to sleep since 9:15. My legs will not be still and my ribs feel like they are about to poke out of my body. So, now I have retreated to the couch and am watching Intervention on A&E. Does anyone watch this? It's so fascinating to me for some reason. It's really a sad show, but right now I just wish this girl that is addicted to pain medication would be kind enough to give me some of her stash.

Friday.... come soon!

By the way - 34 comments?? I totally did not see that coming. Uh.. I'm working on a surprise to email out. Unfortunately, I don't think I have all of your email addresses - but I'll do the best I can!

You must be really bored if you read this entire thing.

Wow. Way too long in between posts. I have no idea where to even start. Since I last posted, we have celebrated Cora's first birthday, traveled some, had Christmas, taken down everything Christmas, celebrated New Years, had doctors appointments, re organized my whole entire house, and I'm sure lots of other fun things.

My "baby" is ONE!! Her actual birthday was on December 21st, but we celebrated it the weekend before. My cousin graduated from ACU and some of our family was in town, so we just decided to have a small family/a few friends party. She had just woken up from a nap when the party was getting started, so she was a little shy. She did NOT like wearing the party hats. She cried huge tears whenever we would put one on her. She loved her little toys that she got. She wasn't too sure about the cake. She didn't want to touch it with her hands, she would just lean over and take bites out of it. It was pretty cute. Here are some of the things my sweet Cora is doing at one year:

* Her vocabulary consists of mommy, daddy, sissy, Pappy (my dad), baby, diaper (biper), pat-pat (she does this to my fat tummy and to her baby dolls), night-night (ni-ni), no-no, bye-bye, yay (she yells this when Kaitlyn is driving her around in her Jeep), more (mo), and please (pees). She talks all the time - just in her own little language. But she is rarely quiet!

* She LOVES baby dolls. Kaitlyn never really had an interest in the, but Cora has quite a few! She loves to hold them and rock them and give them kisses.

* She loves Kaitlyn and anything Kaitlyn does. It is the sweetest thing to see them together.

* She is a very picky eater. She loves her bottle. She won't eat anything chunky. Or green. She doesn't like milk. We have been making her bottles half water and formula and half milk and she hasn't noticed a difference. But, she won't drink milk out of a sippy cup. She will drink juice or water out of a cup though. Any suggestions on how to break her from her bottle are greatly appreciated.

* She loves to kiss everyone and everything.

* She is beginning to show a little bit of a temper when things are taken away from her, or if she is being redirected from somewhere she shouldn't be. She either screams really loud, or she gives you the saddest face ever, covers her mouth with her hands, lays down on the floor and cries.

* She loves bath time. And splashing. Lots of splashing.

There are many more things, but this post is going to be very long as it is. So, here are a few pictures of our precious Cora James:

Christmastime!!! We traveled to the Metroplex the weekend before Christmas to celebrate with James' side of the family, and some of my extended family in Ft. Worth. We had a wonderful time and drove home with a van full of goodies. We are so blessed with such an awesome family. I am notoriously bad at taking pictures at Christmas for some reason. But, here are a couple from that weekend:

We were back in our own house again this year for Christmas Eve/Christmas Day. Last year I had just had Cora and this year we were just a couple of weeks away from having Claire. Crazy. My parents and brother drove in and spent the holiday here, which was so nice. I think we are beginning to like waking up on Christmas in our own house. It will probably become our tradition. Kaitlyn got a new bike from Santa, and Cora got a little "sit and learn" chair that, believe it or not, she is completely obsessed with. This year Kaitlyn decided to leave Santa a cookie and she threw a piece of cheese out on the front porch for the reindeer. How thoughtful. I'm sure they loved that.

New Years!!! James and I actually got to go out on a date on New Years Eve. Thanks again Mom and Dad! We went out to a nice dinner and then to see Juno. I thought it was a great movie. Then we just drove around for awhile and stopped by our good friends David and Amanda's house. We thought for a second about ringing in the New Year with them and Ann and Derran, but being the completely miserable 9 month pregnant wife that I am - we were home by 9:30. I was the only one up at mid-night - and not by choice. I am just SO ready for this baby to be here.

So, that leads us to the arrival of Ms. Claire Elizabeth. She is now due to make her appearance NEXT FRIDAY!! January 11th. There is an end in sight. My doctor seems to think it could even be before then, so we will wait and see! I am so anxious to meet our third baby girl. I can't wait to see what she looks like. Mom and I finished getting the nursery re-organized with another crib, more closet storage, and a little re-arranging of furniture. I am a little overwhelmed and nervous to say the least. If you think about it, send up a prayer for us as we begin life with a 41/2 year old, a newly one year old and a baby!

Annnd..... if you are one of the 2 people still reading this, leave me a quick comment and I'll email you a surprise!

Happy New Year!