Only 3 months late...

So I am apparently a terrible 2nd kid memory keeper... as evidenced by the fact that Mackenzie will be 3 months old in 2 days and I haven't posted a thing since 3 days BEFORE she was born. I don't even know where to start....

How about the beginning.

Mackenzie was born only 1 day after her due date, a nice surprise since her big brother had to be induced a week late.

We went to bed the night of our due date (Nov 15^th) knowing that once again, our baby was going to be “late” according to our calculations. But fortunately she didn’t wait too long! My water broke at 2:30 am on the morning of November 16^th (meaning we only got about 2 hours of sleep since we went to bed late that night). I woke up to a gush of fluid, tapped on Kent and said with a big smile, “My water just broke!” Kent groggily said “what??” “I’m leaking!!” I said again. Kent started laughing as I jumped up excited about this new experience.

We called my mom and our doula (Brenda) so they could get ready for the day as well. I got dressed, finished packing our bags and then decided I wanted to come home to a clean house. I put on my big earrings (not sure why but I always think earrings dress up whatever you are wearing, and for some reason I wanted to look good as we went in for labor…) and started cleaning the house. My mom arrived to stay with Carter and the first thing she said was “Why are you wearing earrings??” HAHA. Kent said he was wondering the same thing but I was acting really weird so he hadn’t said anything. Guess I was just excited and anxious about what was to come!

We arrived at the hospital about 3:45am, got checked in and were finally moved to the birthing suite about 5:45am. However, nothing was going on so I tried to sleep (with multiple interruptions) until breakfast around 8:30. Leanna (my midwife) wasn’t going to be in until lunchtime, so the nurses were just wanting me to wait to do any labor-inducing activities until she arrived.  We, on the other hand, had no desire to just hang out all day.

So, I walked the halls, climbed up and down the stairs, sat on the birthing ball… with not much happening. At 10, they had me try the breast pump, which did start some contractions, but they were still pretty far apart. At 11, I did the pump again and that really got things going. The contractions were now painful and I had to stop and wait through them. Everything started progressing very rapidly… but the only people in the room were me, Kent and Brenda. All the nurses still thought nothing was going on. About 12:30, Leanna came in to check on me and was shocked to see how far along I was. By then I had been laboring in bed for a while and the pain was really strong. She left and Brenda had me go to the bathroom about 12:45, at which point I realized I needed to push. Brenda had to pull the emergency cord to get the nurses attention.

Everyone rushed in, got me back into bed, checked me, and Leanna said “Its time to have a baby!” I was shocked. I thought I had hours still to go!! Mackenzie was coming so fast that Leanna said I needed to NOT push during the contractions, but to push between them. So 2 contractions and 4 or 5 pushes later, Mackenzie arrived!! The whole thing happened so fast!

And of course, the first thing I said after they put her on my chest (besides the tears of joy and kisses) was “has anyone checked to make sure it’s a girl??” (This is the same thing I did with Carter, too! I just wanted to make sure I didn’t need to adjust my expectations!) Yes, she is a beautiful baby girl!! We were so excited to meet our daughter!

2 Days to my due date...

So we are starting to go a bit stir-crazy waiting for Miss Mackenzie to arrive. Yes, I know we haven't even reached my due date (in 2 days), but last week we just had too much false hope! Wednesday I started having contractions, and though they didn't increase in pain, they were consistent through the night and into Thursday morning. They even woke me up in the middle of the night. Sadly, they stopped about 11am and I've only had random contractions since. But it was enough that we just kept waiting for the real contractions to start for the next few days.No such luck. Oh well, that's how it goes! We are just ready to meet our daughter!!

Hoping she at least comes this week and doesn't make me have to induce a week late like Carter!

Funny Things Carter Says

Carter is talking like crazy these days, and with more words comes lots of funny stories! Here are a few from the last few days.

He likes to say prayers now (SO SWEET). Here's his typical prayer from the last few nights.
"Dear God. Thankum for Mommy. Thankum for Daddy. Thankum for Carter. (Looking around the room) Thankum for... lamp. Thankum for... door. Thankum for... light. Thankum for... milk. Jesus name, AMEN."


While we are sitting in the living room, he turned around and just said, "Marry Mommy!"
Me: You want to marry Mommy?
Carter: Yes! Marry Mommy!

While sitting outside at night looking up at the stars/moon, Kent asked Carter where the sun was. Carter just looked at Daddy and said matter-of-factly "Nap".

My son is SOOOO PRECIOUS! Love him!

Awesome Baby Shower!

I had such an awesome baby shower on Sunday! My girlfriends from church went above and beyond to make it an awesome shower with all kinds of fun, creative items and activities. It was like a whole shower planned from Pinterest ideas, so fun (and so ME)!!! 

Here are my awesome hostesses, Stephanie, Lindsey, Amanda and Cami.  And thanks to the other girls who helped but weren't able to make it!

 The sign in table included a diaper baby carriage, homemade frames and my scrapbook.

 This is a sock bouquet made by Cami. So clever!

 One of the frames Amanda made for Mackenzie's room.

 The other frame Amanda made, its a clipboard!

 Here is the antique baby carriage diaper cake. The diapers are covered in a taggie blanket Amanda made AND she gave me the antique carriage! I can totally see Mackenzie putting her baby dolls in it as she gets older. I love it!

 Lindsey and Amanda made cake pops for the dessert, SOOOO good! They were strawberry and chocolate. 

There was a "decorate a onesie" table with lots of fabrics and shapes for people to cut out and glue on using fabric glue. Then Amanda is going to sew them all on so they stay. SO fun!

 The sizes vary up through 12 months, so Mackenzie will always have a few adorable homemade onesies to wear! And Tia crocheted the trim on the socks.  Cute!

 The guests included mine and Kent's family and friends from church.

 Opening all those little girl gifts was so fun!!

 The quilt made by Kent's grandma Shirley Naylor. Thanks for sending it for the shower. We miss you guys!

 Kent's sister Kristin made a bow holder for Mackenzie's room, its so cute! And looks really cute hanging in her room.

 I am so blessed to be surrounded by friends and family who love us so much. Thank you THANK YOU to everyone who came and showered us and baby Mackenzie with lots of love! I can't wait to dress Mackenzie up in all her new clothes!!

Maternity/Carter 2-year Pics

We took maternity/Carter's 2-Year pics last week, and they turned out really cute! Here are a few of my favs. You can see all of the pics here! 

Comparing Pregnancies/4D Pics

Low Placenta

When we did our first big ultrasound to find out the gender (at 18 weeks), my placenta was positioned lower than normal (more below the baby instead of above). The technician said we needed to get a second ultrasound later in the pregnancy to make sure it moved up and there wasn’t a risk of placenta previa (the placenta coming out before the baby is really dangerous and requires a c-section to avoid complications).

So at 30 weeks we went for a 2D/4D ultrasound. It was both informative and super cool! One, we learned that my placenta had completely repositioned and was like 7 centimeters ABOVE the baby, so good news there! Two, we got another glimpse reassuring us that she is in fact, a girl. AND, three, we got to see Mackenzie’s face…kind of. She refused to move her hand and foot from over her eyes pretty much the entire time, but we still got to see her nose, mouth, cheeks, chin and an occasional eye. She was so tangled up, with her right hand over her right eye and her left foot up over her left eye. It’s amazing how flexible babies are! It was really fun getting to see our baby, we are so excited to meet her soon!!

Comparing Pregnancies

People always say that every pregnancy is different, and I can now say I agree with that! I have had a lot more discomfort this time, especially in my stomach and back. For a while, if I didn’t drink enough water or was on my feet working around the house or something for too long, my stomach would start to really hurt. I even made a Sunday night trip to the hospital around 25 weeks for some serious stomach pain. Turns out it was exhaustion and dehydration (after we spent the weekend walking around IKEA).

Mackenzie is REALLY low. I’m sure she is lower than Carter ever was, which seems crazy because he was really low, too. And because of this, I’ve had a lot more back pain the last couple months. I finally had to borrow a brace to help support the weight from pulling on my back. And, of course, every time I look in the direction of a bathroom I have to pee!

Speaking of weight, I am doing a lot better in my weight gain this time. Not that I gained a ton with Carter (maybe about 40 pounds?). But at my last appointment, Leanna looked at my chart and with Carter at 32 weeks, I’d gained 32 pounds. With Mackenzie at 32 weeks, I’ve only gained 22! Sweet, I hope it comes off as easily as it did last time, too. Nursing seriously seemed to suck the extra weight off. Baby girl, you better be good at eating!

Lastly, Mackenzie is a really active baby. Carter just smoothly swam around, so I’d feel gentle turns but rarely were limbs poking out at me. He got the hiccups 2-3 times EVERY day – they were my daily reminder that he was doing well in there. Mackenzie does a lot more sudden movements and turns and flips all over the place for long periods at a time. It’s fun that she is so active. But I’ve only felt her with the hiccups ONCE, and it was 2 days ago (33 weeks)! Fortunately, because she is so active, I get plenty of reassurance each day that she is doing fine!

Tomorrow is my baby shower, hosted by my girlfriends at Northwest, and I am SOOOO excited! Can’t wait for the fun!

Carter at 22 Months

I can’t believe my little boy is almost 2 years old. I really feel like this last year (since his 1^st birthday) has flown by so fast. I kept thinking I need to write a Carter update, I need to post to my blog, I need to take pictures… and here it is almost a year later and I feel like I’ve barely done any of those things! I guess that is live with a toddler… always crazy!

Carter continues to amaze us every day. He is seriously SO smart. He picks up multiple new words every day and he loves to talk! He will sometimes ask for something or call something by name and Kent and I will just look at each other like, HOW does he know that?!? It feels like there are so many concepts that he just understands so well, it’s hard to believe he is only 1. He can basically count to 10 now on his own with only a bit of prompting. He knows lots of colors and will often describe things by what color they are. He loves animals and knows what many are, both by name and what sound they make. But his favorite is definitely HORSES. He is obsessed with horses, which immediately leads to him saying “Nanny, Papa, Cota (Chacota), Maa (Mia), Am (Shazaam), and he even knows who’s horse is whose. Nanny’s is Mia, Papa’s is Chacota, and Carter’s is Shazaam! He will talk about these horses for HOURS… every day.

He likes to ride his "daddy horse" into his room on many nights. Carter’s nighttime routine is a family thing, so we all three read books, sing songs and pray together in his room before we turn out the lights and he gives us each a hug and a kiss. He knows some of his books so well he will either point and describe what he sees or even say the phrases with me. He loves to sing and will tell us which songs to sing. His favorites are “ Doudern” (Jesus Loves the Little Children), “Twinkle” (Twinkle Twinkle Little Star), “Baa” (I Just Wanna be a Sheep), “Barney” (The I Love You song), “Hop” (The Baby Bop Hop from Barney), and a few others – the list is growing every day! He will sing along with us to many of these which is so adorable.

When we pray we always ask him who we pray to, and he says “God-a”. He knows we hold hands and are quiet and say “Amen” at the end.  And I can’t forget all his stuffed animals he sleeps with. We do roll call every night to make sure everyone is there: Barney, Elmo, Ba (Zebra), Guy (Dr. Suess character), Gorilla, and Tiger. We have to go find one if he is missing (or turn the light off before roll call if we notice it in advance).  

He is such a sweet boy. He loves to give us hugs and kisses, and will always insist we do both if one of us is leaving for work or the store or something. He will run up and ask for a “Hug”  then “Kiss” then say “Bye” over and over until we say it back. And of course, he wants multiples every night when we put him in bed, followed by many “Byes” back and forth as we walk out and shut the door. There are many mornings when he will lay on the couch or in bed with one or both of us and cuddle while watching Barney (he is OBSESSED with Barney). But I am more than happy to watch a couple episodes if it means I get to have my boy snuggled in my arms the whole time. He will usually give me a couple random hugs and kisses, too, which is just so sweet.

Carter is also really athletic. He has always impressed people with his throwing arm, from a very early age. He can really chunk a ball a good distance and loves to make “goals”. He will say “goal” if he (or we) make the shot and “miss” if we miss it. He also loves to kick and will even “dribble” a soccer ball, running and kicking it multiple times as he goes. I know his daddy is a soccer guy, but I’m really not sure how he knows how to do that! Yesterday I had three colored baskets and would tell him which color and he would dribble the soccer ball over and kick it in the right one every time.

He has really good upper body strength, which we witnessed first-hand as we watched him easily pull himself out of his crib earlier this week. SO, he is now sleeping in his toddler bed! That transition is going a LOT better than I expected. The first night he got up quite a few times, but once we established that he would get in trouble (and put a knob cover on his door handle so he couldn’t open his door), he has gone to bed with very little to no problem. Kind of amazing really… I was expecting a week of no sleep! He only tried to get up once the second night and none at all the third. I hoping for another full night’s sleep tonight. Nap time is not so easy, as he screams for quite a while until he finally passes out, and he seems to not sleep as long, but hopefully he will get more used to it soon. All in all, he is doing great with the transition.

He became really interested in the potty in the last month or 2. He gets the concept of sitting on the toilet and putting toilet paper in it, though he won’t sit there long enough to actually go. I had to move the toilet paper roll so he couldn’t reach it because he just wanted to keep tearing it off and throwing it in the toilet, and once that game was gone he really slowed down his interest in the potty. Maybe I should have let him waste the roll? Now he just wants to sit on it once a day for like a second, then he will get off and flush. Flushing is the new game. I guess paper and flushing are two of the concepts of the potty, so he’s learning, though there’s kind of a big one missing – at some point you have to actually GO in the potty. But for now, he will tell me when he “potties” in his diaper, so he is definitely putting it all together. Soon enough he will get there.

He is also very aware of the baby in mommy’s belly. He will point and say ”baby”, and when we ask what kind of baby he will say “siter” (sister). He will even occasionally attempt to say her name, which sounds more like KiKi, so cute. Though he sometimes points to his or daddy’s belly and says “baby”, I think he really gets the concept that a baby is in my belly. He will point at babies or kids we see in passing and call them “baby”, too. It’s fun to see him putting the pieces together.  

There is so much more I could tell about Carter, but this post is already quite an essay, so I’ll end here for now. We are LOVING every day with our boy, he is SO much fun to be around. He brings so much joy to our lives, I can’t imagine life without him!