It Truly is the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

I love this time of the year. I love October through the end of the year. I love Fall weather and all of the different Fall colors and I love Thanksgiving and especially Christmas. Not to mention that by October I am so glad to be done with summer clothes and love to be in my sweats all the time!

This Christmas season is extremely exciting to me. This is the first year that I think Logan will really "get" Christmas and opening gifts and really be interested in what he is opening. I have spent a lot of time researching some gifts for him and can't wait to see his face Christmas morning. I am also very excited to have Luke this Christmas. Last Christmas we had just found out I was pregnant with him and now this year, he is here with us. We truly are so blessed.

I love to be with family and friends and the holidays make it that much more exciting. We have planned a couple of "get-togethers" with some friends this season and I get to play "Suzy Homemaker." While it is stressful sometimes, I love to be the hostess and have people over to our house.

So, I hope that you all take the time to think about this time of the year and truly enjoy it. I pray that we also take the time to remember the true meaning of CHRISTmas.

Merry Christmas (I know it is still a bit early, but I am in the Christmas mood today!) and have a blessed day.

Hello Out There!

Yes, this is me. I know it has been nearly 2 months since I have last blogged and I do apologize to my faithful few who check my blog daily!! A lot has been going on, but I just haven't found the time to blog until now.

So, since I have last blogged we have gone on a couple of short trips. We have been to visit my brother and his family twice and we have gone to a town a few hours away for the weekend. All of our short trips were very nice. On our last trip we stayed in a hotel and Logan was able to go swimming which he loved. He was a little fish swimming all around. I told Dustin that we need to look into getting him some swim lessons next year.

We survived Halloween although I was a bit disappointed. This was the first year that I thought Logan would enjoy going out. Well, let me just say that there were only 3 houses on our street participating and we were one of them. Dustin and I took him down the street to one of the houses and he got some candy and then last house had a "bowl" out that asked people to just take one piece, sort of like and honor's system type deal. I guess I don't have to say that all of the candy was gone when we got there. I would have liked for Logan to go to some more houses, but our neighborhood just didn't get into it this year. But we still had fun because we had some family and friends over. All in all, it was a good night.

Thanksgiving was very nice also. It is always busy around the holidays with going to my side of the family and also Dustin's side of the family. It makes for a long day, but it was nice to spend time with family. This was the first year in a couple of years that I didn't participate in Black Friday. I must say I was a bit disappointed. Call me crazy but there is something about getting up at the crack of dawn (or before dawn), getting a coffee and waiting in line for a store to open up. Maybe next year!

I will say that I have a lot of my Christmas shopping done. I love shopping online!!! I have had a good time looking up different gifts for the boys. I have really gotten into it this year. We also put our Christmas tree up the weekend before Thanksgiving. I know! That is quite early for us. Usually we are the last people to put the tree up, but this year, we are the first!!

The boys are getting big and making me laugh everyday. We finally put the crib up in Logan's room which is now Logan and Luke's room this past weekend. I had just gotten Luke used to the bassinet in the past month or so, now I have to adjust him to the crib. I don't know if you all remember but Dustin painted our room two weeks before Luke was born and before he started painting I asked him if he thought we should switch rooms with the boys. Our room is a bit bigger and offers more options to place their beds. His answer then was no! Well, now I am trying to talk him into switching rooms. Dustin HATES to paint and isn't too crazy about the idea. I have compromised and said that we will leave our room the same color which happens to be blue and we will just change the trim color, but we will need to repaint the boys room the same color he just painted our room. He isn't going for it just yet, but I will keep trying!!!

So, not much else is going on with us. The boys are keeping me busy. As I am typing this, Luke is fussing for me to pick him up for some mommy time so I am going to end. I have posted some pictures below to show off my guys!!

Also, congratulations to our close friends (Logan's future in-laws) on the news of a new baby coming next summer!! We can't wait to meet the new addition to your family!

Pictures, Finally!

I love to take pictures of family, especially my boys. I am very good at carrying my digital camera with me wherever I go so I can capture those "special" moments. My problem lies in not developing the pictures. I developed about 700 pictures that I have saved on my computer from my camera. YES, that is right...700 picutres, well 692 to be exact. Plus I have another 120 that I just cleared off of my camera today that also need to be developed. Can you believe this?! Isn't that crazy!!! I guess I have no excuse not to scrapbook now. We all know that I have enough pictures!!


Here are some cute pictures that I found on my camera. Enjoy!










It doesn't get any sweeter than this!

















Yes, I am that mother who dresses her boys alike!
















My sweet boys who aren't in such a sweet mood!

















Our baby Luke is 8 weeks old today! My how
time flies!! : )





Have a great night!

Life with Two Children

It still amazes me that I am a mother of two. I remember the times when I thought I would never have my own child. Then in a matter of a little over 2 years, I have two sons! God has truly blessed us with our beautiful sons. I am thankful every day for both of them.

Luke will be 6 weeks old tomorrow. I can't believe it! It seriously feels like we just brought him home from the hospital yesterday. We are all still trying to adjust. We have no schedule yet. Basically, Luke rules the roost!

Luke looks just like his big brother, Logan, and in some ways if very much like Logan. Logan wanted to be held all the time the first few months and Luke is carrying on the tradition, especially at night. Logan was a gassy baby and Luke is turning out to be even more gassy then Logan. I think Luke may even have a bit of "reflux." The pediatrician gave me some "Zantac"-like medication for Luke but it didn't help and was making matters worse so we decided to stop the medicine. I don't think that his reflux is as bad as other babies. However, he does like to spit up, usually once a day or once every other day, like a faucet! It just come out like running water. I feel so bad for him, but it doesn't seem to bother him. In fact, he doesn't cry or anything. It is actually a bit of a surprise when it happens. So, I think that I have figured out the trick to help this spitting up not to happen. We will see in the next couple of days though!

So, we are still hanging in there. Trying to get better adjusted and trying to get a bit more sleep! But having my two boys is worth it. I have even discussed the possibility of a 3rd (and final!) child in a few more years! We will see. I have to wait until Dustin doesn't remember how tired we are right now before we even start to discuss this possibility!

Speaking of third child, I have posted before about my brother and sister-in-law who are expecting their third child. They have two boys too and now we have two boys. My parents have 4 grandsons and no granddaughters. We all love having the boys and wouldn't change it for the world, we would just like to see a little pink in the family in the future. Well, Amy had her ultrasound last week and was able to find out what the baby is. I am happy to say that we will have a 5th BOY in the family! Yep, that is right. Amy is having her 3rd boy! Can you believe that? We laughed and laughed. What are the odds of us having all boys and no girls in this family?! We are very excited and are anxiously awaiting the arrival of baby Blake at the beginning of next year. We are well on our way to having our own little boy sports team! Congratulations Scott and Amy! We are very happy and excited for you!

That seems to be about it for now. I do have some pictures to post. We were crazy enough to spend Labor Day weekend with Scott and Amy at their house. So, I have pictures of all 4 boys. I will try to post them this week, but don't hold me to that!

Have a great rest of the weekend.

Baby Luke

Baby Luke made his enterance into the world on August 6th at 10:31 p.m. I went into the hospital that morning around 10 am and they started the induction process around 11:30 am. I had hoped to have Luke around early evening but he obviously didn't agree with his mother!

My labor went fairly well. I had persistent contractions throughout the day every 2 to 4 minutes. I must admit, I was very nervous about being induced. There were times in the hospital I questioned our decision to go through with the induction. I just wanted the baby to be O. K. Again, with this labor as my labor with Logan, I didn't experience too much pain until the last hour and a half.

I started to feel many of my contractions in my back. This is a sign that the baby is posterior. This means that normally babies are born face down, but when they are posterior they are born face up. Sometimes it is too difficult for women to deliver babies that are posterior and then a c-section is performed. Well, wouldn't you know it, my Luke decided to come out in a posterior way. I pushed and pushed for 31 minutes before he made his enterance. I have never felt such pain in my life. When I was pushing Logan out, I was able to relax for a minute or so between contractions. Not so with Luke, I was so very uncomfortable through the whole pushing part of labor. My doctor told me afterward that if Luke had been in the correct position, I would have delivered him with just 3 pushes. Thanks Doc!

As soon as Luke was put on my stomach, I couldn't believe how much he looked like his big brother Logan. Dustin, my cousin Sarah along with my sister-in-law Amy were in the delivery room with me and we all commented how much Luke looked like Logan.

The big question was how much Luke weighed. One of the reasons I was induced was because we thought Luke was going to be a bigger baby. Logan was 8 lbs. 13 oz. and my doctor thought Luke was going to be in the 8 lb range. I asked them how much Luke weighed and they said 7 lbs. 4 oz. WHAT!?! I couldn't believe it. I seriously thought they made a mistake. He was so tiny. We all laughed at how small he was.

So, we spent the next few days in the hospital. I cried when Logan came the next day to see his new brother. Logan looked so big. He did very well with his new brother. He paid little attention to Luke, but a lot of attention to all the new toys his brother got him along with everyone else in the family!!

We were released from the hospital on Wednesday and had our first pediatrician appointment on that Friday. Once we got Luke to the doctor's office, Dustin and I noticed that his eyes looked a little yellow. The doctor did his exam and didn't think the jaundice was that bad but had a blood test run on Luke. An hour and a half after returning home, the doctor called us and told us he was admitting Luke back into the hospital for "photo therapy" because his jaundice level was too high. So, back to the hospital we went. Luke had to be put in an incubator with no clothes on, a surgical mask as a diaper and goggles over his eyes. There were lights all around him. The doctor in charge of Luke while he was there wouldn't let us hold Luke at all. We could touch him but couldn't take him out of the incubator. He wanted solid and consistent light on Luke. This was hard for me. I cried for seriously the first few hours we were there. I just wanted Luke to be O. K. and wanted him to know we loved him.

Luke did better than his Mommy. He basically slept the whole time except when we had to feed him in the incubator by syringe. We weren't even in a room at the hospital, we were in a nursery. It wasn't very comfortable for Dustin and I but all that mattered was Luke! Around 3 am the next morning, we got to hold our precious new son for roughly 2 minutes while they weighed him. Again, Mommy sobbed and sobbed while holding her baby. Then around 8 or so, they did another blood test and his level was normal... after 16 hours, we were going home, praise the Lord! So about noon we went home again!

As you can see it has been an eventful few weeks. Dustin and I are adjusting to no sleep at night. Logan is also adjusting to no sleep due to his baby brother waking him by crying. Hopefully, within the next few weeks we will get on a schedule with our 2 sons. I am so thankful for both of my boys. I can't believe I am now a mother of 2!

In closing, I want to thank all of our family and friends who have come over to help or come over with meals. You don't know how much all of you mean to us. We are so appreciative for all you have done. We couldn't have made it without you all! Thanks!