A little Joey fix

I just had to put up a few more of my little adorable, sleep depriving man. He's beyond cute, but man I wish I could sleep more :) Mikey and Luke constantly argue about whose turn it is to hold him.

He's 2 1/2 weeks now. At night he usually will go anywhere from 2 1/2 to 4 hours without eating. A 4 hour stretch feels pretty good (yes, that's sad that I get excited about 4 hours.) He eats like a champ and the scale shows it! At his two week appointment he was 9 lbs 7 oz so he put on more than a pound in a two weeks. The doctor was so proud! (Mikey weighed the same at two weeks, but he started out 11 oz more than Joey--Joey knows he's got to grow fast or get pounded on!) I'm so tired, but he's so worth it. I sure love him!

Not to be forgotten

When there is a newborn around the house, it is easy to focus entirely on that child. Of course, Mikey and Luke are not exactly the kind to sit back and allow that to happen so fear not for their little feelings. It's nice that Mikey has Luke to play with this time around. When I had Luke, Mikey was all alone. Now they are thick as thieves together and it's so fun to watch.

Honestly, we now can't remember what the boys were doing here, but it was something sneaky filled with lots of laughing.

The boys have been dying to swim lately. Mikey has been asking to fill up his little (dirty, broken) pool for the past few months (through snow and rain) so the day finally arrived. While Lance was filling up the pool Mikey came in with some very specific instructions: "Mom, I need some lunch on a plate outside. I need a sandwich cut like dolphins. Um....aaaand, I think some strawberries cut up." So after taking a little swimming break he and Luke sat down for some lunch. (Sorry, these are out of order.)

Mikey got some snorkeling gear for his birthday so of course he was anxious to try it out...yes, in 4 inches of water...flippers and all

Luke needed to test out his goggles

Okay so neither one actually put their faces in the water...one day soon we'll make it to the real pool...and maybe buy a little better kiddie pool

One Week Old!

I am still as in love with this little guy as ever--in love and VERY tired! We have made it through the first week. It was full of ups and downs. Ups because, well, we have this precious little newborn and we are all crazy about him! The downs are of course because I'm recovering from birth, remembering how hard nursing is at first (but so, so worth it!!), feeling lucky when I get two hours of sleep in a row, and having Lance go back to work and leaving me with THREE KIDS!! AHHH! :)

We left the hospital on Saturday morning and it was so nice to get home. Here is baby Joey all ready to make the trip. You will notice how he is asleep on his little arm there. This is how he sleeps all the time!! It's so cute. He's so tiny!

All strapped in and ready to go

After leaving the hospital in tears every time he came to visit (well, at least leaving in whines), Mikey was SOOO excited to finally have Joey come home. He just wants to hold him all day.

Zonked after a belly full of milk and on that little arm again

First bath at home!

He didn't seem to particularly love it, but we got through

All clean and fuzzy headed

Here he is today, one week old. How cute is this picture!

I know, he looks so concerned!

On a side note: Look at this kid on this day three days before Joey was born.

Here he is the day after. Do you see it?! He's totally like 10 times bigger than he was!!!Okay, you all may not see it, but if you were holding eight and half pounds of baby Joey you would see it! Luke suddenly seems so huge! It makes me a little sad because he's my baby :( I remembered this phenomenon clearly with Mikey when Luke was born, but I still can't get used to it.

Oh yeah...

His name is Joseph James. We call him Joey :) (I kept forgetting to post this every time I was on my computer! For all those who did not manage to find out some other way, sorry to make you wait.)

In love for the 4th time...

Yes, I now have 4 loves of my life. Of course, as per the usual for us, the 4th love of mine does not yet have a name, but that will surely come soon.

Our new perfect little boy has arrived!! He showed his cute little face at 2:21 am weighing 8 lbs 3oz and measuring 21 inches in length. I guess I could call him my runt as Luke was 8 lbs 11 oz and Mikey was 8 lbs 14 oz :) But he is surely anything but a runt compared to most babies.

Yes, there are millions of pictures here--what do you expect? I'm a new proud mama and I think every picture is worth seeing :) But the question is pictures first or story first....?

Well, first look at these few of his literal first few moments of life. This was straight from the womb to my chest.

Always the best moment of my life. *Sigh* Oh how I love him.

Now if you don't care so much about the labor and delivery story, I'm not offended (nor will I have any way of knowing) so go ahead and scroll below to our fabulous pictures. But I always love to hear the stories, plus this is partly done for posterity/journal sake so I will tell the story.

So Wednesday morning I was just over 39 weeks. That night before I hardly slept because of all of the contractions and cramping I was having. This has happened before (as I start getting painful contractions at like 6 months). But then at about 6 am Wednesday morning I noticed that they were consistent--very hard and every 5 minutes. I waited a good hour timing each one. So a little after 7 we all started getting ready. Long story short, once at the hospital they stopped. I was only dilated to 2 cm and really not feeling in labor anymore. *Sigh* If you've experienced this, you know how much it sucks to go to the hospital thinking you're having a baby only to go home still with child. So my doctor actually scheduled me to be induced on Friday and did a rather painful membrane sweep to hopefully move things along before Friday.

I went home with ruthless cramps and continuing, but inconsistent contractions. However, in all my three pregnancies, I had never felt contractions that hard. That continued throughout the day and by the end of the day each contraction was accompanied by lots of screaming and sometimes even tears. At 7:45 while enduring (and yelling through) a particularly bad contraction, I thought I felt a little something weird, a pop maybe, inside. And as the contraction ended I felt a little trickle come out. But that was kind of it. I started wondering if my water had broken, but I really couldn't tell for sure. There was no gush. So for the next hour I kept going back and forth trying to decide if it had broken. I talked to the doctor and he said it's usually a gush. But of course now and then it CAN be a slow trickle. He said it never hurts to go to the hospital, but I was thinking otherwise since I had just been there that morning! I was determined not to go back unless I was sure!

Well, Lance was just gathering the kids from my parents' house so I called him and said maybe he should leave them just in case. He came home and we were trying to decide what to do. Within the next 10 minutes of him getting home the "gushing" started. As uncomfortable as that feels, I was so relieved to know for sure! So off we went.

By 9:45 we were getting settled at the hospital. I was now dilated to almost a 4 so that was encouraging. Unfortunately the contractions were getting more and more unbearable. The epidural was supposed to be right around the corner, but it ended up taking until after 11. That was the worst hour and half I've ever had of labor. I welcomed the pain of getting the epidural by then.

So by 11:30 I was blissfully numb. Unfortunately I hadn't progressed at all during all those contractions, so we settled in for a long night. I wasn't surprised as with both Mikey and Luke I took a good 7 to 8 hours to get from a 4 to a 10. So I tried to snooze a little. I was a little nauseous, but I never threw up! I threw up like 8 times with Luke, before AND after he was born.

The nurse said she'd give me an hour or two and then she'd probably start the pitocin. So I woke up at 2 am feeling intense pressure and wondering if I should remind the nurse to check me. Right then she walked in expecting to give my labor a pitocin boost. She checked me and said, "whoa, he's right there! Just don't push." She called the doctor and he was there in 15 minutes. I told them I had pushed for less than 10 minutes with my first and pushed through about three contractions with Luke. So he said, "let's see if this one will be faster!" They were getting me all situated to push and I said, "I think I'm having a contraction." The doctor said, okay let's try pushing." I pushed for about as long as it took them to say, "Push, push, push!" Then the doctor said, "well this time it was only one!" The little guy was out! And so beautiful and perfect :)

Here he is getting all those first moment things like cleaning and measuring.

A little swollen, but so perfect! I just love him.

Dad getting to know the little guy...

...and loving it :)

Oh wait, perhaps this is how he really feels. (Actually, he was looking all cute and having a moment that I was about to capture and just as I clicked, our new little man experienced his first sneeze...all over dad. :) tee hee

Did I mention I love him? (And back off a little, this is 2:30 in the morning after a very long day! I know I've looked better)

Awww, just all wrapped up and cute.

After not really seeing his sleepy little eyes all day, this evening all of a sudden he just woke up! He just took it all in for awhile and it was so cute to see him awake finally.

But it was still a little work to keep those eyes open.

And his first visitors! Bampa with his 11th grandchild born on his 38th wedding anniversary. I know, no one will ever be able to top MY gift to them :)

Mikey...Just...Loves...Him! He couldn't hold him enough and I had to practically strip the child so that he could see every inch of him and check out his hands and his feet and all that. He was so disappointed tonight because he wanted to take him home so badly!
Luke was excited to hold him for one minute and then just ran around and played. We didn't really think he even noticed him much. But then the nurse arrived to take his new brother off to get some blood work done...Luke just BAWLED! He started screaming, "Baby! Baby!" and cried and cried. It was so cute! Well sad about the crying, but cute that he cared.
Oh, and Luke is also a little crazy. Just kidding! But this was so funny. Lance was trying to get the picture above with Luke just looking at the baby. So he kept telling him to look at the baby not the camera. Luke finally looked down, but could not resist the lure of the camera. Trying to do what he was told he kept him head down and only used his eyes to look up--and thus the creepy picture. :)

Just a proud big brother

Brothers so enamored with their new punching bag.

And mama with all her little boys. How'd I get so lucky? :)

This one was cuter of the boys and less cute of me. So just ignore me and look at their cute little faces.

And now let's play: Who Does He Look Like?
First can you guess which one is Mikey, which is Luke and which ones are our new man?

1.

2.
3.
4.

If you guessed 1: baby, 2: Mikey, 3: Luke, and 4:baby, you are right!

Right out of the gate he did look like Luke, but I think that was more a product of having just been through birth. After all the swelling and cleaning up, he actually resembles Mikey a lot. But babies change! So we'll see!


And I thought I'd throw in a little video for good measure. Newborn cries are so cute!



More to come for sure!

My baby is 2!!!

Yep, Luke turned two on Saturday and I can't believe it. He is just the happiest and smiliest kid ever. He continues to talk non-stop, but the great thing is that we are understanding him more and more! He loves his big brother, of course, and I never get enough of watching them play together and laugh together. He is also still so cuddly when the time is right which I love. He definitely seems to sense that something is coming so he is a little clinging to me right now and I love it (just so long as I can sit down to hold him :) And of course, Lance being the super fun (kid-like) dad that he is, Luke can also never get enough of him. He says and does the funniest things all day long. So he's just a joy to have in the house and we all love him to death! Happy Birthday, Luke!

As mentioned many times before, the kid loves all things sports, balls and all that and has quite a knack for them all. But I didn't just want to make a ball cake because, well, I get the feeling I will always have reason to make sports cakes for the kid. Of course all little kids love all animals and Luke is no different. But we have noticed that he seems to particularly loves horses and being a cowboy. Anytime he gets on anything to ride (i.e. dad's back, a big wheel, etc.) he immediately starts in with "Yee-ha!" Because of that I wanted to get him a rocking horse for his birthday and thought the cake should match. And so...a horse cake it is!

I was actually not that confident in the way that it would turn out so I was glad when it turned out super cute!

First thing in the morning when we started saying, "Happy Birthday, Luke!" his response was, "Happy Birthday, Mama!" It was pretty funny. But he figured it out pretty quickly that it was HIS day. Here is Luke's first singing of Happy Birthday and he loved it all day long.


We celebrated all day in our house and gave him presents throughout the day so that he would enjoy them (he can only focus on one toy at a time). Then we got together with my whole family on Memorial Day to celebrate his birthday and his cousin Caroline's birthday with everyone.

This was his first present which he loves and sits in all day long. (His cousin has the same car and he almost never leaves it when we're at their house so I was pretty confident in how much he would love it.)


His first pictures in his new car.
Later when Mimi and Bampa came by, they brought Emmie and he loved to share his wheels with her (whether she loved it or not isn't quite as certain.)

And one more video. Mimi and Bampa gave him an awesome tee-ball set and he didn't hesitate to show us all how it's done.

And here was our Memorial Day/Luke and Caroline Birthday Party celebration. Starting at the bottom left going clockwise we have Anna, Abigail, Luke, Ben, and Mikey.

Mimi brought a pinata which was huge hit (no pun intended). It took a few rounds of hitting before we started seeing much progress since only one grandchild is over 4, but we got there eventually!

Diving into the spoils! (We actually had to instruct and help the kids realize that they are supposed to just grab all the candy! They all just kept looking at it and picking at it. Crazy kids.)

The birthday kids! Luke, 2 and Caroline, 3

Luke sitting on his horse with his cheesiest cheese and his cake!

Luke's first "Yee-Ha!" on his new horse.

Luke and daddy--yes, Luke has started the whole super-cheese phase that all kids seem to pass through.
The only thing Luke really wanted from the pinata pile was these two suckers. He held onto them forever--through grass and dirt and anything else he could find to "dip" them in.


Happy Birthday, Luke!!!!

(The next check-in should be with the new member of the fam...! Hopefully soon! ;)