Christmas Stay-cation

This year was the first year we spent the entire Christmas vacation by ourselves!  It was a bit odd, especially since the weather was also totally different from what we are used to for this time of year.  The week of Christmas it was hot, sunny, and muggy outside- temps in the mid to upper 70s.  It felt so weird to be celebrating Christmas while wearing shorts and running the air conditioning!  Jon and I are both big on family, and love spending time with our siblings and parents, so it was tough to be on our own this year.  We made the most of it, though, and had a good time together starting traditions and spoiling Colton and Katie pretty good!  We enjoyed having the time together but we are both very excited to visit family next year!

Christmas 2015

If anyone has any tips for getting all three kids to be happy and look at the camera at the same time I'd love to hear them!

WIDE EYES!  

Highlights of the Christmas Break:

1.  Nobody got sick this year!!  We have had a bad run of getting pretty ill over the Christmas break the last few years: ear infections, stomach bugs, bad colds, and just last year we all got Influenza that wound Katie up in the ER.  It was horrible!  I'm so grateful we finally got to celebrate a holiday with everyone healthy! (We did have a couple minor colds in the week leading up to Christmas but it paled in comparison to other years and by Christmas it was all gone!)
2.  Almost two weeks with Jon home!  One of the great perks of Jon working for John Deere is that he gets the holidays off plus the entire week in between.  It's super nice and was lots of fun to get to have daddy around for a couple weeks!
3.  Lots of presents!  Since we didn't spend any money travelling this year we re-allocated some of it to making a great Christmas for the kids.  They loved it and it was fun to see them so excited!
4.  Raleigh Museum of Natural Science!  We drove up to Raleigh over the break and enjoyed walking around the city a bit and visiting the museum.  Fun family day trip!
5.  New Years Eve Sleepover!  We decided to let the kids stay up with us this New Years Eve and "sleepover" with their sleeping bags in the living room.  We made snow cones with my awesome new ice crusher Jon got me for Christmas, ordered a bunch of wings and breadsticks, made churro chex mix, watched The Lego Movie.  The kids made it until about 10:30 before heading to bed.  It was a fun family night together bringing in the new year!
6.  Potty Training Katie!  Ok, so potty training is not so fun, BUT- since Jon was home and Katie was showing lots of sign she was ready, we decided to take the plunge and just get it done.  It took about a day and a half to click but- as far as potty training goes- it was relatively easy!  She took to it really fast and has done a great job at telling us when she needs to go potty and staying dry.  She has even been potty training herself to stay dry during naps and nights when we've been putting pull-ups on her!  So glad to have this hurdle down!  Now if I could just get her to learn to get up on the potty herself and wash her own hands without needing help...
7.  Running- finally!  With Jon home, I was able to have a little more time and energy to push myself a little more to getting back in shape.  I've been working on it the last month or so but over the break I was finally able to hit the 3 mile mark!  I was able to run 3+ miles a couple different times over the break and today I actually ran 4!  I definitely still have a long way to go and many many pounds until I'm back to where I was pre-baby, but it feels great to finally be able to move and push my body again!
All in all, it was a different- but nice- Christmas "Stay"cation. :)

Zach's Blessing Day

Zachary Paul Day was blessed by his dad on December 6, 2015 in the Fuquay Varina, NC ward.  It was the first time we haven't had any family around for a blessing so it was simple and sweet.  We didn't have to worry about a big dinner or anything after church so it was relatively stress free; a different feeling, but kinda nice.  Zach was an angel for the blessing and didn't cry or spit up or anything!  We love our little Zach and feel so blessed to have him in our home!

Halloween

I love Fall!  I love the weather, the changing leaves, parties, and dressing my kids up for Trick or Treating!  We knew that we were gonna have a baby in the middle of the season this year so we did our best to make the most of it before and after!

Before Zach came, the kids and I went to a Trick or Treat story time at the library, had friends over for a sugar cookie decorating party, painted leaves, and the whole family went out to a local pumpkin patch for festivities and to pick out pumpkins to paint!  

We were super lucky to have both Jon's mom and my mom here after Zach was born to help out and the added bonus was that my mom stayed home and watched Zach and handed out candy while Jon and I got to walk around the neighborhood trick-or-treating with the kids!  It was a fun family experience.  The kids loved it and I have never been trick-or-treating in such a fun and friendly neighborhood.  Almost every house was decorated, some to the extreme with screens playing dancing skeletons or Halloween movies in the windows.  We didn't have to knock on any doors because everyone sat out in their driveways to hand out candy!  One house was even handing out freshly grilled hot dogs to all the adults!  It was pretty awesome :)  I bought Halloween costumes on clearance last year so the kids had a couple options to pick from but Colton, no surprise wanted to be a dinosaur/dragon this year again and Katie opted for the cowgirl (out of princess, superhero, and cowgirl).   

 It was a fun year and I'm so glad I still got to participate in a lot of the festivities!

Zachary Paul: Birth Story

We are now a family of five!!  I've said it a bunch, but I seriously can't believe I have three kids.  I always thought that when I was married with three kids I would feel a lot more old and mature than I do!   With moving, selling our house, job changes, vacation, family reunions, and everything else this past year, pregnancy number three flew by so fast we hardly had time to get ready for a new baby!  But, ready or not, we are so happy that Zachary is here and healthy!

Zachary Paul Day was born on October 20,2015 in the WakeMed Cary Hospital.  He was 7lbs 5oz and 19.5 inches long.  We really struggled with naming this one.  Boy names are hard for us!  Zachary was a name we both liked at the beginning, then put on the backburner while we tossed around a bunch of others for 9 months, but in the end couldn't find any we liked better so we went with it!  The middle name- Paul- is named for Jon's dad.

Zach was born six days ahead of my due date, but this was also my first baby who was induced.  We deciced to do induction because with our recent move to NC, we didn't have any family or close friends who could watch Colton and Katie in the area and we wanted to be able to fly in our mom's to be here to help.  It also played in that late October was one of Jon's busiest times in his new job and he wanted to be able to be there with me as much as possible.

Being induced was a bit weird.  It was strange knowing the day Zach would be born and waking up that morning and driving to the hospital- feeling perfectly fine- knowing that in a few hours I'd have a baby.  When I was in labor with the last two, there wasn't a lot of time for thinking since I was in pain and there was nothing I could do to stop that baby from coming!

The morning Zach was born- just before we left to the hospital.

We got to the hospital at 7am, Tuesday morning, checked in and then got all hooked up and they started the pitocin.  I was a bit surprised when they told me that I had to wait until I was feeling a good amount of pain before I could request the epidural.  Again, it was a weird feeling to just sit around waiting until I was in pain.  They could only up the dosage of pitocin every 15 min so it took awhile until I was feeling it, but finally- by about 11am- I was feeling it enough to request the epidural.  I made sure to tell them, and really stress, that I wanted it to be as effective as possible since I felt like my last two births were still super painful (even with an epidural).  I didn't even know if it could get much better for me or if epidural's just didn't work very well on me, but I wanted them to try!

Around 2pm the midwife and nurse came in and said that I wasn't contracting hard enough, but they couldn't give me any more pitocin unless they put some probe thing in to measure the exact strength of the contractions.  We asked what this could mean and they said worse case scenario it meant C-section but most like just meant that things were going to take longer that we had expected and it could be several more hours before baby arrived.  Obviously, this worried us a little bit but we said prayers and just hoped all would go well!

(Sidenote: I had a midwife deliver me this time instead of a doctor.  It wasn't really a matter of preference.  My practice had both doctors and midwifes and the day I was being induced there was a doctor and a midwife on call and I had never seen either in the office.  I had met the midwife once because she had come to introduce herself to me on my first visit because she had heard I moved from the Quad Cities and she was from there.  She was super nice (and the doctor I had seen in the office a bunch highly recommended her) so I decided I'd go with the midwife!)

Once they got an accurate reading of the contractions from the probe, they upped my pitocin and brought in this dumbell shaped yoga ball thing to put between my knees to help with things.  A couple hours later, the nurse came and checked me and said I was getting closer.   She said she would have the midwife come in to take a look and assess after she finished with a delivery next door.  Shortly thereafter, around 4:30pm, I started feeling like I was going to have the baby.  I thought this was probably crazy since, as far as I knew, the contractions still weren't quite strong enough, and it hadn't gotten very painful yet.  Still, every time I contracted I felt almost like I had to hold the baby in so he wouldn't pop out.

The nurse came back in and said that the midwife was still busy but that she'd be in soon so we should start some preliminary pushing and then we could finish up when the midwife got there.  We got all ready to start pushing and the nurse says, "Ok, push on three.  Ready?  One, two, ok stop.  Just kidding, don't push.  I can see his head already.  We gotta get the midwife in here!"  So I guess my feeling that the baby might pop out wasn't all that crazy!  We had to wait a few more minutes for her to get there but, once she did, I only pushed twice and the baby came out!  Zachary Paul arrived at 5:16pm, and BIG NEWS, it didn't hurt NEARLY as bad as the last two!  YAY!!  Best epidural I've had for sure!

I was a little worried at first because Zach wasn't making any sounds right away because the cord was wrapped around his neck pretty good.  They worked quickly to remove it, and once he was free he started screaming!  (It's weird that when you first have a baby, you really want them to cry and then every day after you jut want them to stop crying...)  They put Zach on my chest and I only held him for about a minute or two and then all of a sudden I got really dizzy and lightheaded.  I had to ask Jon to hurry and take the baby so I wouldn't drop him, and then everything got blurry and foggy.  I just closed my eyes and tried not to pass out.  I think I lay there for about half an hour totally out of it.  I found out after, that after I had passed the placenta, I hemmhoraged about a liter of blood.  Because of all the blood loss I felt week and dizzy for about the next 24 hours and had to keep the IV in for an extra day, as well as a catheter (which was totally rotten) because I almost passed out again when I tried to go to the bathroom, even with help.

We love our baby Zach and we are so happy to have him here!  Baby cuddles are so sweet and even Katie and Colton are constantly asking to hold and hug and kiss him. Since he's been here, we've just been working on adjusting to a new baby!  Zach got thrush soon after birth- my guess is from the antibiotics I got during labor for Strep B- and that has made nursing crazy painful!!   Like, fire of a thousand suns painful!  Haha, we did finally get some medication for us both though and it seems to be getting a little better.

Overall, despite the hemhorrage and the thrush (technically not part of the birth but I'm including in because it's all just pain associated with a newborn), this was definitely my easiest- and quickest- birth!  Here's hoping they just get easier from here on out!  If I decide to have any more that is...

We enjoyed having both of our mom's visit and help out with the new baby!  We only wish they could have stayed longer and that more of the family could have come!

First Bath!