Random...

Random Pictures...

We attended a wedding open house for my cousin Brittany and her new husband Derek a couple weeks ago. This was a cute picture of Brynlee and her cousin Asher. They are like twins, being born only a day apart and are the best of friends.

Paxton is being trained/brainwashed early :-)...for those who are as sports-illiterate as I once was the binky has the logo for the Phoenix Suns (basketball) on it. My dad found this online and had to get it for us.
Sean grilling in his Phoenix Suns gear (also a present from my dad). I love summers because grilling oustide is so nice when I don't feel like cooking.

Sean and Brynlee mowing the lawn together.

Just cute :-)

My two princesses. They have been so sweet during this whole transition from 2 kids to 3 kids! I dont' know what I would do if they weren't such good kids.

My Cute Baby

Here is an updated pic of my baby! Paxton is now 3 weeks and 2 days old and is so sweet! None of us can get enough of him. He is such a good baby and we can't imagine our lives without him.
Our family is doing great with the adjustment to having three kids. It is definitely different and there are moments of absolute chaos, but I feel very blessed to have two such sweet little girls who rarely cause problems, and a wonderful husband. I am finding that I am more tired at night than I used to be and I fall asleep rather than blog :-) Hopefully Paxton will learn how to sleep through the night sooner than later and then I will return to the blogging world more frequently.

Competing With Daddy-Daughter Date

Today Sean took Taylee to go golfing. She is becoming a golf-a-holic just like him and LOVES to go out. She is doing so well too! I am jealous that she is only 4 and can outdrive me sometimes! She has her own set of pink clubs and pink golf balls and always looks so stink'n cute out on the golf course. We went as a family yesterday (minus the 3-wk old who stayed home with his grandma:-) and we had so many people commenting on what a good golfer Taylee was. She loved the attention and now wants to go out even more.

Bryns was so sad when Taylee and Sean left without her so I knew that I had to come up with something fun for us to do...heck, I don't want to be the boring parent. So, we packed up Paxton and we went to the zoo. It is the first time we have made it there in about 3 weeks (hmmm, I wonder what changed...haha) and we have not seen the sloth bear exhibit that opened. Bryns was so excited to see the animals again and was literally running from exhibit to exhibit. She loves the monkeys and the tigers.

This is Bryns looking at her favorite monkey. It is white and has been nicknamed "The Crazy Monkey" by Taylee because it is always doing something weird, like pounding on the glass suddenly to scare certain unsuspecting grandmothers :-)

Just being cute :-) Taylee and Brynlee always measure themselves against these cutouts on the fence to see how big they are getting.

The after picture with all of her bribery-loot. I let her pick out a toy at the gift shop. What a shocker, eh, that she picked a tiger? Yes, that was total sarcasm since she LOVES tigers. And we also picked up milkshakes on the way home. She is one happy kid. I guess being stuck with mommy isn't too bad :-)

Daddy-Daughter Date

Here are some pics of Taylee out golfing with Sean. She is seriously so cute and LOVES golf so much!

Striking a pose with the golf caddy. Sean was able to hook her little pink bag of clubs on with his so they could walk the course today. Taylee definitely likes driving a golf cart better, but we explained to her that if she wants to keep going out with daddy she needs to be able to walk it sometimes :-)

Look at that perfect form!! Ok, I really don't know if it is perfect form, but she looks so cute and she can hit the golf ball pretty far, especially for a four-year old.

Baby Story

I feel very blessed and lucky to have my sweet little boy. I don't want to forget how lucky we were, so here is the story of why he came earlier than we expected. Heck, I wasn't even due with him until this Saturday, June 6th, yet he will be 2 1/2 weeks old on that date.

I have had problems over the past couple weeks of my pregnancy with low amniotic fluid. And if I understand it correctly, the low amniotic fluid itself is not a problem, but it can cause the baby to become so squished that if he were to roll onto his umbilical cord all or most of the nutrients would be cut off causing brain damage or even death pretty quickly.

I knew for a while that I had some extra tests scheduled for Wednesday, May 20th (an NST, ultrasound, and then seeing the doc). Sean was going to watch the girls while I went, but then as the day approached both Sean and I felt that it was important for him to be there. He is great about asking the extra questions, where I tend to become completely brain-dead (I just call it prego-brain) and just go with whatever the doctors and nurses say. Luckily, I have the sweetest sisters and mother who were willing to jump in and help watch Taylee and Bryns so that Sean could go to the tests with me.

The NST went great. Paxton was moving, his heartrate was all over the chart (which is what the doctors wanted), and my contractions were tiny. Feeling pretty good about things, we then headed to the ultrasound appointment. This is where I started to get worried. The tech checked everything and when I asked her how the fluid was she simply answered, "Its low," and asked when I saw my doctor next. Since my appointment with my doctor was right next door and in about five minutes, she left immediately to take the results to him. With a red flag going off in my head, Sean and I headed to the doctor's office where we were told that my fluid had dropped even more and that we needed to move the c-section up. We were given the choice between that afternoon (luckily I had not eaten anything since 7am since you have to fast for 8 hours before a c-section) or after the weekend. The problem that we faced if we chose that afternoon was a 37-weeker who could have eating problems. The problem that we faced if we were to wait for a 38-weeker was having a stillbirth...um, yeah, can you guess what we picked? The one that any sane parent would pick, right?

With that choice made, we hopped back into our car to head back to Idaho Falls so I could pack some things for the hospital stay. We picked up the girls in Blackfoot so we could spend some time preparing them for the change in plans, and give my mom and sisters a break :-)

Paxton was born at 5:36pm after a horrible c-section in which I was sick the whole time:-). The nurses debated about putting him into NICU because he had such a raspy cry, but he pulled out of it and was able to stay in the normal nursery.

While I was in recovery, my doctor stopped in the nursery to check on Paxton and told Sean that we had made the right choice by doing the c-section sooner than later. Apparently there had been much less fluid than even the ultrasound had picked up. He compared it to a can of coke, where a normal pregnancy will have a 2-liter.

I am very grateful that we have been watched over, that everything worked out the way it needed to in order for us to get our son here healthy. Thanks again to my mom and sisters who dropped their own plans to help us out. You were the guardian angels that we needed so that we could make the right decision. You are all amazing examples to me and I hope that I can repay the favor someday!

Paxton hanging out on my bed at the hospital. I let the nursery take him for most of the first night since I couldn't stand up yet, but that 2nd night he was able to stay with me:-) He is such a sweet baby!

Taylee and Brynlee opening their presents from Paxton at the hospital.

Brynlee holding her baby brother

Taylee giving Paxton a kiss