A Birth Story

Ok, so as promised, here are the happenings of Evan's arrival :)

First of all, he was born 5 days overdue, so every day became a waiting game. His due date was on March 2nd, but true labor pains didn't come until Sunday, March 6th. I had been having Braxton Hicks contractions for about 2 weeks, and then the morning of March 6th, at like 3 am, I woke up with pretty bad cramps, and they started becoming really regular really fast, so we were thinking that we'd have to head to the hospital in the next few hours or so. Well they stayed regular for a few hours and then it started to die down a little. After that every time I'd have a contraction it would hurt, but was definitely still bearable, and they started spacing out farther and farther. Soooo, Evan was just giving us a little preview I guess ;)

At about 12:30 pm I was able to call a friend from our ward who just so happens to be a nurse that works at the hospital I was delivering at: SWEET!! If we didn't have her to help us with everything, our whole experience would've been MUCH different, and not in a good way! Anyways, she left church early to come over and check me. It's a good thing I don't really care about that stuff, haha. Well, after 9 hours I was still only at a 4, and I was planning on having an epidural, and that's when the hospital gives you one, so she called the hospital and asked how crowded it was, and the answer was: EXTREMELY full, there were no open beds at the moment... great. So my friend said that I should pretty much put myself on bedrest the rest of the day to slow things down (darn, haha) so that's what I did, and it worked! So around 7 pm, things started picking up again, but it was still bearable, especially after I sat in the tub for an hour. At 9 pm my friend called me again and asked if I wanted her to come check me again, and I said YES please :) Well, as soon as she checks me, she said, "Girl, you gotta go, you're at an 8!!" I totally was not expecting that one at all!! So off we went, and in the meantime, my friend called and made sure that I got a private room (the hospitals around here get really crowded in L&D, so the chance of getting a private room without her was slim to none!), and the best nurse, and told everyone working there that we were her friends, so to take care of us... yeah, we owe her BIG time. Anyways, so we get into the room, wait about 30 mins for the epidural, which unfortunately only works on HALF of my body... yeah not fun. I seriously think I'm not gonna bother with the epidural with the next child. I might as well not even have had one, and I got through it, and paid lots of $$ for it! But the epidural also slowed things waaay down, so I got the epidural around 10 pm, and didn't have Evan until 2:27 am the next morning! So all in all, in was almost a 24 hour labor. Yikes. I was in labor with Jake for 17 hours, I definitely didn't think this one would be longer than that! Oh well, Evan is worth it :) So yeah, at about 2:15 am I was starting to get tired of all the contractions and my body was shaking really bad, so they checked me, and sure enough I was at a 10. I only pushed for a few minutes and he was here! And I didn't tear, which seriously was the best thing ever. A few days later I was feeling GREAT. All in all, everything went really well, and little Evan is perfect!!! Welcome to the world, little one :)

Sweet Evan Mac

I am FINALLY posting that Evan Mac is here!!! He is actually 6 weeks old today, but hey, it's been crazy around here so it's taken me a while ;) I'm planning on doing MUCH better with blogging after I play some catch-up. Anyways, so Evan joined our family on March 7th, at 2:27 am, weighing 8 lb. 11 oz., 20 inches long, and P.E.R.F.E.C.T. He is SUCH a sweet little guy, and such a good baby. He hardly ever cries, pretty much when he's hungry or tired, and every now and then when he just wants to be put down to kick his legs :) But he usually loves to be held when he's tired, which I'm trying to get used to because Jake was the opposite, believe it or not. He loves to suck on his binkie, but he isn't very good at keeping it in his mouth yet, and sometimes it's a problem... I have a love/hate relationship with binkies. But he's been a really good sleeper so far, he only wakes up a couple times to eat, and then usually falls right back asleep. If I could describe Evan in one word it would be: content. He is just a really chill kid! We need one of those around here ;) He loves to just lay on a blanket or on the bed and look around, but his favorite thing is to look at faces. He's been smiling since he was 3 weeks, and they keep getting better and better. He's just a doll!!! We love him soooo much, he's the absolute perfect addition to our family. Jake has been doing really well with Evan, too. The first couple weeks he was thrown WAY out of whack, naturally, and he had a hard time dealing with everything, but he never took out his frustrations on Evan. Not even once. It was mostly toward me, he was trying to do everything he could do get my attention, which meant he was n.a.u.g.h.t.y. Plus we had family in and out for the first 3 weeks of Evan's life, and poor Jake just couldn't handle everything. But he is MUCH better now and pretty much back to normal... but what is normal, really, with a 2 year old??? But seriously he has been such a great big brother. Let's hope it stays that way! So here are a TON of pictures, I'll do a separate post of Evan's Birth Story later, for right now just enjoy the pictures!

in labor... it ended up being 24 hours... loooong.

My sisters, Sarah and Hannah, and my mom were in the room until I had to push, so my sisters got to see that it's not quite what you see on TV ;) I loved having them there!

He's here!!! He was so content when he was born, he didn't cry pretty much the whole time we were in the hospital, even when he came out! Steve and I thought something was wrong with him but the nurses kept saying that he was great, he was just looking around!

Holy swelling!!

VERY proud parents :)

My 3 boys!!

About to go home, thank goodness. I HATE being in the hospital!

When Evan had his first bath at home, he fell asleep! So precious.

And this picture pretty much sums up what kind of mood Jake was in those first couple weeks. Yeeeah.

My favorite outfit, I love the little jeans!!

We love you, little man!!!! Thanks for being a sweet, lovable, handsome little guy, you are such a blessing!!

Just the 3 of Us One Last Time

A few days before the baby came Steve ended up having the morning off of work because he had worked really late the night before. I had a doctor's appointment (my last one!!) early that morning, and instead of just me going, Steve and J came with me and at the last minute we decided we should go and do something fun instead of going back home. And even though what we did wasn't really extravagant, it was one of the best days we had had in a long time! It was just fun to do something spontaneous together as a family, and we knew that this would most likely be the last time it would only be the 3 of us, so it was extra special :) We ended up going to the mall and did some window shopping and walked around outside (part of it is an outside mall), and the weather was PERFECT, so it just put us in a good mood. Steve ended up finding some really good deals on nice work clothes at Macy's, so he was happy :) And I got some smelly good stuff at Bath and Body Works, which would make anyone happy, hehe. Then we went to Red Robin for lunch... YUMMM!! Jake is still obsessed with balloons, and his first one ended up popping and scaring all of us and the table next to us. He had such a sad cry, and people around us were cracking up at how sad he sounded. Of course they gave him a new one, and he kept saying, "Green one popped, scared!!" "Blue one's ok." Anyways, it was just a good time, I wish I would've gotten more pictures, but it's better than nothing!

Jake looks so old to me in this picture... *sigh*

Ice Cream Date with Mimi and Pa

Jake and I spent a day at my parents' house last week, and that night after dinner we were all craving ice-cream SOOO bad... especially me, hehe. I think that's the thing I've craved the most lately with this pregnancy. Dangerous. Anyways, so we headed out to Baskin Robbins, and Jake was being so cute and funny with his ice cream that I just had to steal some pics of him. He couldn't figure out how to lick the ice cream off his cone, so it just kept melting down the sides and out the bottom. He was a mess!! Whoever invented bibs is definitely a hero in my book, that's for sure ;)

He kept wanting to share his cone, but luckily we can still get away with "pretending" to take a lick. I think that thing was half ice cream, half toddler drool.

Funny boy :)

Thanks Mimi and Pa for the fun memories!!! Thanks for turning something so simple into so much fun!! We love you!!

Look Who's Growing Up....

Yes, Jake is finally in his big boy bed, I can't believe it!!!! He is loving it, too, which I'm so relieved about, because he has loved being in his crib for so long, I was kind of dreading "taking it away" from him. But he has warmed up to it REALLY well. The first night when we put him to bed he only tried getting out of it once, but then we put him right back in and told him it was time to sleep, and he did. Then he didn't get out AT ALL during the night, and he even slept until his normal time.... crazy, I know. Then came nap time, which was the thing I was most nervous about, but even then, he only attempted to get out once, and I put him right back in and he stayed. I kept thinking that this was too good to be true, that he would eventually figure out that he could get out and he would take total advantage of it, and that SORT OF happened a few days later, but we would just put him back in his bed and tell him it was time to sleep, and for the past month that he's been in his bed he's been GREAT. We tell him to stay in his bed until we come and get him, because I don't want him to think he can just wander around the house and do as he pleases if he were to wake up multiple times a night, or in the middle of his nap. He wakes up sometimes and mumbles to himself but then goes right back to sleep. It totally works with him, which I wasn't quite sure if it would at first. We'll just cross our fingers that he keeps this up!!! :)

Helping me put his bed together.

He loves his comforter with the "fishees" and the "birdees."
He looks SO SMALL in his bed!! We decided to get a twin instead of a toddler bed because he's going to quickly grow out of his toddler bed anyway, and a big part of our decision was that my sister was getting a new twin mattress for her bed anyway, so they gave us her old one! Can't beat that ;)

We read him a book and sing a couple songs when we put him to bed. It's one of the most precious, sweetest parts of my day because he actually sits still next to me and let's me give him face tickles when we're singing!

He has to have all of his favorite stuffed animals with him to keep away the monsters :)

Sweet dreams, sweet boy..... thanks for being SO GOOD!!!

New Family Member

Nope, sorry, this is not to inform you of the baby yet (I wish it was!), but we actually got a new car!!! It wasn't by choice though, unfortunately Steve got in a car accident with the good ol' Mitsubishi Galant that he's had since he was in high school and it was totalled :( Luckily Steve wasn't hurt too bad, he got a bloody nose and lip when the airbag went off and the elbows of his jacket were burnt off from the airbags as well. I guess those airbags are pretty intense!
So it happened early in the morning when Steve was driving to work, at about 6 am, and it was raining pretty hard and still pitch black outside. He was going over a hill where there had just been a new median curb put in, and with the way the road curves, and with there being just one little tiny reflector beam on the curb part, AND with the rain coming down really hard, he unfortunately ran right into the median curb! :/ This curb is pretty tall though, and when the car ran on top of it, it just ripped out the whole underside of the car, made the airbags go off, which made the passenger console flip up really hard and crack the windshield.... yeah, not good. Especially because it was only worth it to us to have only liability on the car, it would've been WAY more expensive to fix it than it was worth. But fortunately we have been taught to save for a rainy day, and this was definitely a rainy day, literally! And we knew that the Mit wouldn't last us forever, so we were prepared to fork up money for this new little beauty:

A '97 Acura TL

We were able to find a really good deal on it through one of Steve's friends, and we are really happy with it!! Steve is loving it, and we're planning on having it for a while, so it's a good thing he likes it ;) Let's just hope there are no other medians that get in our way!!

I Can't Believe I Have a 2 Year Old!

So even though Jake had his actual b-day while we were in Idaho for Christmas, we had to celebrate with my family and our friends too, of course! So the night that my parents picked us up from the airport when we got home from ID we had a little celebration. And Jake had told Mimi that he wanted an Elmo balloon, and there was one waiting for him when we got inside. That could've been the only thing he got for his b-day and he would've been happy! Hmm, yeah, why do we spend so much money on presents for toddlers when all they want is the box or something that's only $5?? Silly parents.

Jake and Aunt "Sawah" :)

He is the CUTEST thing when we say prayers. He folds his little hands as tight as they'll go and squeezes his eyes shut, but then he peeks during the prayer to make sure that everyone else has their eyes shut, too. Cutest.Thing.Ever.

Choo- Choo cake!!!

The Friend Party!! Luckily we live in SoCal and even in January we can be outside in short-sleeve shirts and have a bunch of toddlers run around wild at the park ;) Gotta love it! And you gotta love Costco cakes, too!!!

Even though I told people no presents (he has waaaay too many toys) he ended up getting a few anyway :) A tickle-me-Elmo and....

.....waiting patiently.....

Thomas bath toys!! He's totally obsessed with both right now, so he was pretty much in heaven.

Happy Birthday, little buddy, we sure do love you SOOOOO much!!!! Thanks for making our hearts smile :)

He got a pair of light-up shoes from Mimi. He has to wear them ALL the time. Thanks Mom ;)

And let's see.... some things about Jake right now are:

• He's about 28 pounds according to our scale at home. I don't know exactly how tall he is, but comparing him to other kids his age, he's on the tall side. He has his 2 year check up in a few weeks so then we'll know for sure!
• He loves anything that has wheels or goes. Planes, cars, trucks, trains, bikes, motorcycles. You name it. Every morning he has to see the bus, and when he hears the sound of the brakes he runs to the door to watch it. He also loves the garbage truck. He's fascinated that it takes away all the trash, haha.
• He is saying new words every day, I can't keep track of how many words he can say! It's just crazy that he's saying all these new things, and he's saying some short sentences like, "Help me, please," and "Watch this" and "I got it." My favorite thing that he says right now is, "Wow-eeee!!!" when he's excited about something. And it's funny how he says Thank you: "Take ooo" and paper towel: "Pee pee towoh" and heffalumps from Winnie the Pooh: "Heppups" haha.
• He's about to be sleeping in his big boy bed in the next few days.... scary!!!
• He pretty much has the cutest little laugh ever!! Especially when you tickle him.
• His favorite characters/movies are: Cars, Elmo, Mickey, Winnie the Pooh, and Thomas.
• He's a REALLY fast runner. I can't wait until he's 3 so I can sign him up for soccer, I think he'll love it and be really good.
• He repeats words over and over again until you repeat back what he's saying. It's hard when you don't know what he's saying because he just doesn't stop!
• He knows his colors, can count to ten, and sings along to the ABC's but still has trouble with the "LMNOP" part, haha.
• His favorite songs are Popcorn Popping, Twinkle Twinkle, ABC's, I Love to See the Temple, I am a Child of God, The Wise Man/Foolish Man, Itsy Bitsy Spider, and Do as I'm Doing.
• He's pretty much the coolest little 2 year old EVER and we LOVE HIM to pieces!!!