Grandma Anne Arrives and Reid's 2nd Birthday!

Anne flew in on December 5th, Reid's Birthday!  I don't think we've ever had family in town on one of my children's actual birthday so it was fun that she was here.  We had a Thomas The Train or "Choo-Choo" Themed Birthday Party for Reid.  We went out to Chic-Fil-A for dinner and then came home and ate cupcakes and opened presents.  Reid did get into opening presents a little more than last year, but still needed some help.  Among his favorite presents were big construction trucks from Grandma Anne and Papa Steve, new Toms shoes (the kid is a shoe snob!) and a Tractor Book.  Reid was also fascinated by the candles and could have lit them and blown them out all night long if we had let him!  

It's impossible to get a smile out of Reid when he is enjoying himself, he is all business with these trucks!

Sassy Hayden

We recently had his 2 year check up as well.  He is growing like a weed and based on his parent's  height and his 2 year stats his pediatrician predicts he will be between 6 ft 2 inches and 6 ft 4 inches! 

Here are his stats:

Height 38 inches (99%)

Weight 31 lbs (78%)

Dr. DiRenzo-Coffey did discover that his chest is starting to come outward and so she ordered an x-ray of his spine.  Sure enough the X-ray showed that he has minor scoliosis :(  We will meet again at his 2 1/2 year mark to relook at it and reevaluate.  You just never want anything to be wrong with your kids, so this worries me.  But from what Paul and I have read online a simple brace should be able to resolve the problem.

At 2 years old Reid is really into:

Trains

Construction and Farm Trucks

Cars

He can always be found with one of the above in his hand, ALWAYS

Pulling socks of the feet of anyone wearing them (even Baby Beckett!)

Digging through my pantry and begging for food (especially candy)

Saying sorry when he gets hurt and saying "I love you" as you comfort him

Hiding and waiting for people to come find him (he used to hide in the same spot each time, but he is getting good at finding new spots)

Playing with water in the sink

Helping make green smoothies

Going to the gym to play with "choo-choos"

Playing with big sister Hayden, their favorite game is "ashes" (Ring around the Rosies)

Flushing Toilets but NOT sitting on them

Electric Toothbrushes

Giving out hugs

Favorite Words: Butterly, Turtle, Owl, "oh no," choo-choo, candy, bite (when he wants to eat), pizza

Drinking milk microwaved to exactly 38 seconds

Reid Hates:

Getting his hair cut

Clipping his toe nails

Going to bed

When I do home workouts

wearing socks and shoes inside

Here are Reid's 2 year pics:

We sure love our Reider man and can't believe how awesome he has been with Beckett joining our family.  He has acted like normal and plays with his trucks while I am busy with the baby!  He also loves to give Beckett kisses on the head and say, "it's ok" when he cries.

The Early Days With Beckett & Thanksgiving.

I was very fortunate to have lots of help after Beckett's arrival.  I don't know how moms do it without help!  Like I said, my mom arrived just hours before the delivery which ended up being perfect timing.  She stayed through Thanksgiving and until the following Wednesday.  She was a great help and cooked us dinners, cleaned up the kitchen numerous times, entertained my kids, got Hayden off to school each day.  She was a life saver!  She is also good at letting me be emotional and realizing that it will pass and to let me just cry.  Here is Hayden meeting Beckett for the first time before heading off for school.

Reid surprisingly also liked holding "baby" and did not like it when my mom tried to hold him for the first bit.  He was quite obsessed for the first few days after Beckett's arrival. Reid has been so good at adapting to having a baby around.  He just plays while I take care of him.  Reid is pretty picky about who he shares kisses with, but he freely gives them to Beckett on the head.

 The Housers were kind enough to have us over for Thanksgiving.  Thank goodness for family!  Otherwise we would have had a VERY simple Thanksgiving this year.  My mom made several pies for Thanksgiving as well as her yummy rolls!

This was the outfit that I had bought to bring Beckett home in, but it seemed weird to get him dressed in overalls at 1:30 am!  So we put him in it for Thanksgiving.  I couldn't get a picture with his eyes open!

Sebrina and Beckett on Thanksgiving 

Mia and Beckett

Poor Reid had tummy ache problems again from backed up bowels, so he was pretty low key on Thanksgiving

This is what Beckett did most of Thanksgiving day!

Overall it was a good day, I unfortunately never have much of an appetite right after I give birth, but it was still nice to get out and feel normal for a few hours!

Beckett was a champion sleeper from the very beginning.  I often had to wake him up to feed him because he was sleeping longer than 5 hours!!!  I only remember waking up every 3 hours about 2 nights since he was born.  He usually averaged about 6 hours at a time during the night.  He is a happy little guy and even started smiling way earlier than I remember my other two smiling.  He just can't help but smile when someone smiles at him.

The day after Thanksgiving I went back for me wellness check-up, everything looked good and we took a picture in front of Beckett's footprints 

Anne and Steve were so fun and sent us cupcakes and balloons to celebrate his safe arrival!  The kids were in heaven!

My mom loves to sing to new babies.  I think they like her tenor voice!

We decided to celebrate Reid's birthday a few days early with my mom.  Reid LOVED blowing out his candle and almost put his face in it he was so excited!  My mom got him a Black and Decker work bench and he has had so much fun with this gift, especially once we put the batteries in and made it the noisiest toy ever!

Saying goodbye is never easy.  Reid is slow to warm up to women and he had really finally warmed up the last few days she was here.

Thank you so much for flying to Omaha and helping us for over a week mom, don't know what we would have done without you!!!

Welcome To The World Beckett!

Beckett William Pratt joined our family on November 24, 2015 just two days before Thanksgiving! His labor and delivery were very different from my other two experiences.  I started having false labor contractions on Saturday the 21st.  This is not unusual for me, with both Reid and Hayden I had false labor and then a few days later went into actual labor.  So on Saturday I was pretty excited thinking this was my false labor, and then in a few days I'd have real labor start.  My mom was flying in Tuesday, so I thought the timing was working out pretty well.  Well each day after, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday I had labor off and on all day and night, but it never went anywhere.  I was so confused and didn't know what to make of it all since I had never experienced this.  On Tuesday morning I woke up and went on a long walk with Reid. I was having contractions, but again it was going all over the place.  By noon, I didn't feel good enough to drive to the airport to pick up my mom with the contractions and vomiting, so Paul went.  It was around noon that my contractions were starting to get more consistently spaced out, about every 2-5 minutes but they were not lasting very long each time.  I got really emotional at this point because I had been in "false" labor for so long and didn't know what was going on.

Paul called The Midwives Place around 3pm and explained what was happening and they said that I could come in and they would examine me. Amie Houser had locked her keys in her car and couldn't pick up the kids from school so Paul ran to pick them up and then raced home to take me to the Midwives Place.  I was not too convinced that we should go, I thought they'd say, "nope, you're not in labor, go back home."  We started driving there (about a 25 min. drive) and we realized we left our camera.  We had brought our bags "just in case." So I said to Paul, "you might as well go back and get it, I'm not even really in labor..." and then right as we turned around I had a hard contraction that lasted over a minute!  So the whole way there I had really steady contractions lasting over a minute long every few minutes.  Of course we hit every light and I swear there is nothing more painful than contracting in a car!  We got there and they checked to see if I had dilated and I was at a 6!  They later explained that I had all those contractions because he was facing the wrong way and the back of his head was hitting a nerve that was causing contractions.

Soon after arriving around 4:30 pm I got in the tub which helped SO MUCH!  My midwife Latrice and nurse were both AMAZING.  They would put pressure on my hips with each contraction which helped take some of the edge off of the pain.  They guided me by telling me what positions to get in.  They were helpful and supportive 100% of the labor, they were just amazing, I cannot emphasize that enough.  Paul was also amazing like he was for my last labor.  He stayed right by my side and did whatever needed to be done.  I definitely couldn't do natural birth without a supportive "coach" (Bradley Method).  I labored for about 3 hours, mostly in the tub, or sitting backwards on the toilet.  They were trying to get my hips open to give Beckett room to turn around.  Around 7:30 pm I started feeling the urge to push, but my cervical lip was still in the way, so they had me get out of the tub and I went to the bed and labored the rest of the time on my side. The only problem with this position was that my top hip kept cramping up on me!

It's funny because once I hit transition in my labor with Reid I was in a lot of pain and that seemed to be the worst part.  I only pushed for 15 minutes and then he was born.  With Beckett I didn't even entirely realize I was in transition and then when I was getting the urge to push I thought, "I'm in the home stretch, 15 more minutes and I'll be done!" Well about an hour later Beckett was born!  I seriously did not think a woman giving natural birth would have to push that long. The pain and urge to push are so intense, I just thought I pushed harder than I did with the epidural.  Well that is not the case, I pushed just as hard as I did with Reid and it was horrible for every single second.  Seriously the most painful, challenging thing I have ever done.  At the end it took 1 contraction to push his head, and 1 contraction for each shoulder!  He was born at 8:41 pm and weighed 9 lbs 12 oz and was 21 1/2 inches long.  After he was born one of the midwives said, "how big was your other son?" We responded, "9 lbs 5 oz" and she said, "I think you have a new heavy weight champ!"

Post delivery was amazing!  They let me hold him skin to skin for a long time.  He did cry a lot though!  Way more than our other babies.  I seriously got a little bit worried that he was going to be a hard baby he cried so much.  But once I nursed him he quieted down and slept.  The midwives brought us homemade bread, I drank my yummy orange juice that we had brought.  Paul went and picked up breakfast from IHOP because it was the only open place.  We took an herbal bath together, got all cleaned up, and after all the medical tests they sent us home around 1:30 am.  Crazy!  But it was actually really nice to sleep in our own bed and not be bugged by nurses all night long.  We also got his footprints and put them up on the wall with all the other babies born there.

It's pretty crazy how perfect the timing worked.  My mom got to our house around 1pm, we left the house around 4, Beckett was born at 8:41 pm and we were home by 2 am!  I was nice having my mom there so we didn't have to worry about the kids.  She was shocked when we walked in the door at 2 am!  She got to meet Beckett and introduce herself.

Paul and I are so grateful that despite the crazy start to labor everything went smoothly and we were able to have such a good experience at The Midwives Place.  They were amazing and I wish I had delivered all my babies in their very capable hands!

I wish I had better photography skills!  But here was my attempt at a few newborn pictures:

This is the one we used for his birth announcement: