Easter Joy...

Well, it's been a long time since I last blogged. I've been kind of busy just living life with my sweet little family of 5. It's been a fun, busy month, and I have lots of pics to share, and not a lot of time to write about them. It was so great to have my sister and niece out from San Antonio for Easter weekend. I wish they would move here! The Easter service at our church was great, and I really enjoyed the "readers theater" that our pastor shared. We had a wonderful day celebrating our risen savior!
I want to take a minute to give a quick update on the kids:
Addison is growing and changing way too fast....I want to hold on to each moment and savor it. She is three months old and will be four months May 6th! She is such a joy!! I mean that, I'm not just saying that because she's my baby, she is truly a delight. She's so sweet, smiley, and there is nothing that compares to her sweet little baby giggles! She is so easy going...just fits right into whatever schedule we have going on for the day and is a great sleeper too. Alec and Ava are such a good brother and sister.
Ava is very affectionate with Addison, and wants to hold, hug or kiss her every second...we're working on boundries :) Ava is going to be 4 June 1st and is loving preschool. She enjoys playing princess, and playing mommy with her dollies. If she's playing with Alec they play Star Wars (she's princess Leah of course), or Ninja...it's a lot of fun to watch them.
Alec has been playing baseball for the Sand Gnatts (that name still cracks me up...THE MIGHTY GNATTS!) This is his first year for coach pitch, and he really is having fun with it. I can't believe he's about to graduate from Kindergarten...where has this year gone! He is a really good reader, and is enjoying math alot. He's still taking Karate too and is a camo belt. Well, for someone who doesn't have much time, I sure got long winded! Here are the pics:

At Ava's preschool Easter party

Preschool egg hunt

Ava wanted to play dress up with Addie one morning :)

Love those big open mouth smiles

Alec got to play against his best friend Carson a couple weeks ago.

Our little Sand Gnatt :)

Praying before a game

Alec at our church Easter Celebration. I loved how they did a walk through the life of Christ, before the egg hunt and all the other activities.

Jesus feeding the 5,000

They love their cousin Sydney!

Addie loves the "sprout pouch"

Awww

Dyeing easter eggs

Easter morning

Fabulous February (and a little bit of March)!

Wow...it's been a long time since my last post! Having 3 kids has been keeping me pretty busy! Ok...so, why did I title this post Fabulous February? February is always fabulous for me because it's my birthday month, and it's Valentines Day and this year we had our newest and last addition to the family to share it all with. Addison started sleeping 6-8 hour stretches during February which was really nice! This morning she slept till 7 Am..which was just perfect for our daily schedule. Also, we just had a great visit with Eriiks parents..I loved having the extra help and we all really enjoyed their company! It was sad to see them go!


So, here are tons of pics to catch you up on what we've been up to, and what little Addison looks like lately! She is now 8 weeks old...hard to believe, time is flying!

6 weeks old

This pic was taken of her about a month ago...when she was 4 weeks old.

Addy was crying when I was in the kitchen and Ava thought she needed just a few stuffed animals! :)



Nanny and Poppy with little Addy for the first time!




Check out that double chin :)





Ava had her Western Day program and we were so thrilled that Nanny and Poppy were here to see her sing in it! She did a great job and sang every word...if I get a chance I'll try to post the video.

Sweet little half grin

Hangin out on her play mat.

What's up Daddy?

At Ava's Valentine Party

All three kids in our front yard

Sooo sleepy

This pic is one of the most recent, it shows how chubby she's getting.

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My six year old boy!

Well, it just hit me that I did not blog about my sweet boys 6th birthday! He turned 6 on January 3rd which was just a few days before Addison arrived. We went ahead and celebrated on his actual birthday, but kept it really small just in case I went into labor early. I was soo glad that we kept it small because I was having lots of contractions and it would have made me so nervous if there were lots of kids and parents! So, we just invited his best bud Carson and we hung out at Chuck E Cheese playing games, dancing with Chuck E, eating pizza and cake and opening presents. It was great and Alec had a blast with Carson, Ava, MeMa, Eriik and I.
That morning I ate lunch with him at school, and brought cupcakes up to share with his classmates. Mom arrived from MO that afternoon, so it was a busy eventful day!

Addison's Birth

Well, it's been a little over a week with our newest little girl. She is such a sweetie and we are really enjoying her. I thought that I would write a little bit about her arrival. Well... it's actualy pretty long, so if this is too much reading for you just skip to the funny quotes that Alec and Ava have said and the pictures below :)

Addison was due January 11th, but a repeat C-section was scheduled for January 6th (I had to have a C-section with Alec because he was breech). Anyway, the week she was scheduled to come I had been having lots of contractions and some were pretty painful, so I knew she was getting ready. The night before we put the kids to bed at Meredith's house since we were going to have to be at the hospital at 6:00 AM. So, she was so sweet to get them all ready and sent off to school the next morning. It was so hard leaving her house that night since Alec was a little weepy...he kept saying...."I just want to come home with you"..but Meredith was great and got him to stop crying by letting him play the Leap Frog game for 10 min before lights out. Ava was totally fine and excited to be there. Anyway...after some last minute packing we finally got to bed around 10:30.

I woke up at 2:15 with some really strong contractions and started timing them. They were about 5 min apart, so I called the on call Dr. and he said that I need to come in especially since I have a C-section scheduled. So, I got out of bed and took a shower and my water broke...she was ready to be here for sure! This was a first experience for me. I had two kids, and had never been in labor...I was always a little curious about labor, so Addison obliged and let me have at least some of the experience! On our way to the hospital I was contracting the whole way...and they were really getting intense. We got to the hospital around 4 AM , and they got me all checked in and hooked up to everything. Eriik was having way too much fun watching the monitor for contractions and making fun of the faces I was making...it's probably a good thing that I have C-sections because he was driving me crazy...and to be fair, I'm not very nice when I'm in pain! So, Dr. Benefield got called to come in early, but since I wasn't too far dialated she decided to run to her "boot camp" class first! So, my contractions were getting pretty bad, but we held on till she got to the hospital and ended up not going into the operating room till around 7:00 AM...just a half hour before it was scheduled! Everything about the surgery went great and there were not any complications at all. I had been predicting that Addison would "Definatly be bigger than Ava!", and I turned out to be wrong. She was just 6 lbs 6 oz...exactly Ava's birth weight! When they popped her little head over the tarp to show her to me, I was shocked at her teeny tiny head! She had her little face all scrunched up and was so cute. Despite her small size her cry was really loud...much louder than I remember Alec and Ava's being. We ended up having to stay in the recovery room (which was about the size of a closet and only had a bed and one chair) for about 8 hours because all their rooms were full...lots of babies that day! But we ended up getting a large room with two beds which was great for Eriik, so it was worth the wait. We ended up having a great stay in the hospital...in fact I was tempted to take the offer of staying a third night, but Alec and Ava needed us to come home.

Addison has been soo sweet and calm for her first week of life. She is practicaly putting herself on the "Baby Wise" routine without me really having to try! When she is awake after every feeding she is so alert and just looks around all contented and then falls asleep after about an hour and a half (including feeding time)...sleeps for about an hour and a half and then is up to eat again...perfect! At night she goes about 4 hours between feedings...love it! Ok....I realize this is just he first week and things can change, but I'm enjoying this while it lasts!!

Alec and Ava are doing great with her and have said some really cute things in the past week:

When Ava first saw me nursing her in the hospital she said "Mommy, why is Addison eating you???"

A little later that night she was looking at my tummy and said "Are you going to have another baby?!?"

We were telling Alec that she was curled up in a ball when she was in my tummy, and he said "so, she's kind of like a Bakugan!!!"

Ava is always saying "mommy, can I pet her please?"

Today after church Alec said "I think Addison is my favorite sister, but if she poops on me, I'm switching to Ava!"

The day after we got home from the hospital with Addison we got some snow...which is a really big deal here in East TX! We maybe get one or two snows a year if any at all. The kids said that the snowman they built was Addison.