Precious

Winter was "helping" me set up, and wanted a picture of "ME!"

First Bath

Welcome Talon!

After trying every single trick in the book to self induce labor, I got too impatient and went a head and scheduled an induction 4 days before my due date. I also induced Lex and Winter ( I guess I'm pretty impatient, huh!) so we had the whole process down. The doctor called in the order the week before, and Labor and Delivery would call me between 5 and 5:30 am on the morning of the 18th.  My mom spent the night in case they wanted us to come in right away. I woke up at 4:30 to shower and await the call. By 5 :30 I was getting anxious, but had to wait until 8 to call them. My poor kids expected to wake up and us be gone and be able to head to the hospital to meet their new baby brother.

At 8 o'clock I called them to see what was up. They said I was next to be called but there weren't any rooms, so to call back at noon if they hadn't called sooner. I really think the wait was worse than being a kid on Christmas Eve!! But they called at about 9:45 and Jon and I kissed the kids and ran out the door.

After getting checked in and changed, our cute little nurse came in to get me all set up. She checked my arm for a good vein for the iv, said I had good veins, but when she stuck me she hit a valve and spent a good amount of time and lots of pain trying to get around it, but to no avail! I have to say now that it's all over, that pain of her continuously poking the valve, and then the subsequent pain of having my blood pressure taken regularly on that arm, was worse than the contractions! I also have a massive bruise that wraps around my whole wrist even still today, a week later. Anyway, after not being able to use that vein after all, she had to use another one higher up on my hand, weird spot! And after getting the needle in, and taking a few little tubey thingys, the connection thing fell off and a geyser of my blood went spewing all over everything. Yikes! Sorry all you squeemish people! Jon just buried himself in his iPhone while this was happening.

Then we finally started the petocin at noon. I immediately started having contractions, but we upped it every half hour to get them more regular. We assumed this would all go really fast.  The nurse and doctor both agreed that rupturing my water would kick it into high gear and we'd have a baby in no time! Awesome! Well the doctor had a complication in a C-section and then a delivery that took a really long time, and since those were more of a priority, we waited. Which I am okay with, Jon and I watched "Lost" on Netflix, it was fun. Contractions started getting harder and more regular, so we went ahead and did the epidural. My anesthesiologist was amazing and so fast!

Then we just waited for the doctor. For hours! But for some weird reason I was not progressing! The week before at my appt. My Dr. had said I was at a 3+, and the nurse was telling me that I was at just about a 3 and I stayed that way, even through the contractions. The nurse was sure breaking my water would help that, but we still had to wait for the Dr. My nurse really wanted me to have the baby before 6 which is when the shift change was, and so she kept on top of knowing where the Dr was.

He finally made it out of the other delivery and came in the room at about 5pm. Our nurse was in another delivery, so we had a stand in nurse check me and I was still only a 3. My doctor had a student following him and asked if I was okay with the student rupturing my water. Of course I was okay, I think it's awesome! At about 5:15 the nurse rechecked me and I was already at a 6, but said she'd wait a full hour to recheck me, even though I knew it wouldn't be that long. At about 5:30 Contractions were every minute and I was feeling pressure. Our nurse returned, mostly to say good-bye since shift change was at 6. But she decided to check me because I was feeling so much pressure. So at 5:45 she said yep there is no more cervix and there is a baby right there! So she went to get the Dr who would also change at 6 (I go to a group of amazing Doctors!) and Jon called mom and the kids to come over.

They all decided to stay on just to have this baby. My Dr asked if it would be okay if the student, who was just too sweet by the way, could deliver the baby if he was there with his hands practically on top of the students. He said I was a perfect subject for a student, with this being #5 and me not ever having ripped and having smooth labors in the past. Of course! How cool is that for this guy! Our baby would be his first delivery! It was funny too because the Dr's wife called him just before the delivery, because he was supposed to be off in minutes.

They got dressed and came over and said okay at the next contraction push. So I started pushing,
"Okay not that hard! The head is out, okay just a little for the rest of baby"
So in one push, at 6:01, our little son was out for us to love and hold!

Dr Drewes commented that after the last delivery, which was one of  the hardest he had ever had, that this was the EASIEST he'd ever had! Woo hoo! If only he had been there earlier, we could have had the baby much sooner, but as the Dr.s cleaned up, we were just happy to hold our son, the student was happy to have delivered his first baby, the nurse and doctor were happy because they really didn't have to stay too long after their shift change, and the Dr's wife was happy he'd be home in time for dinner!

Mom, and Kurt and the kids got there just after the doctors were done cleaning up.  And Winter was immediately up on the bed with me and the baby. It's as if she knew him and was waiting for him. She knew to be gentle and soft and she couldn't stop giving him kisses. It was very sweet. And everyone else loved to hold him too. But they didn't get very much time before the nurse had to take him to get a bath.

Kids watching Talon get a bath....and eating an Oreo?

Jon said that there was a new nurse in the nursery too, and our baby was her first baby to clean. He said she did an amazing job. While  Jon was in the nursery, I was moved to the mother/baby floor and in to my room for the night.

Then came the task of naming our new little boy.  We have had Talon as the name for a long time. It was the runner up for Lex. But we had both heard it recently and were worried it was going to be too common. So over the past few weeks my mom and sister would tell us names they had heard that were uncommon, and we found a few others we liked, but in the end, nothing seemed right. He was Talon, even if it is a little less uncommon. We had also planned on using the Lindsey family male child middle name, but in the end decided to use my maiden name.

The kids stayed with us for a while and everyone passed Talon around, loving on their new brother, and he just slept, rarely making a sound. Mom took everyone home around 10, and Jon and I settled in with our 5th bundle of joy.  After so many times, Jon has those uncomfortable chair/pull out beds figured out. And he said he slept really well this time. Talon and I also slept well.

The next day, we had expressed that we wanted to leave as soon as possible, but knew they wanted us to stay the full 24 hours, so after a quick visit in the morning. Mom took Evey to dance and the other 3 to Seven Peaks! I missed taking pictures of Talon by himself in the hospital, because I ended up getting some weird side effects from the percocet they gave me. I have never had a tolerance for prescription pain meds. And I know that (now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure I turned the big pain med down and stuck with the ibuprofen with Winter, and maybe even both Paris and Lex too) but I went ahead and took a few of the doses of the percocet. So , anyway, I had to sleep off that junk for most of the day. But really my pain level was not high, so the ibuprofen would have done just fine.

We finally got home around 9:30 on Tuesday. The kids had made a cutie welcome home sign for Talon, they like Jon and I were so glad to finally have our beautiful new family member with us to love and watch grow!

Evey wasn't sure how to spell his name yet...oops :)

Family of 6

A family picture has been on my list for.....ever!! I decided, it was today or never for a picture before our new family member arrives. It was surprisingly harmless and they came out great!! I seriously only took 8 shots and got what I wanted! A- Mazing!! Thank you wonderful family!

Missing

Lex has had a few teeth that are loose. He hasn't wiggled them too much until recently. He has let me give them a few hard tugs and they have gradually gotten looser. So the other day he wanted me to yank again. He's so cute because he willingly lets me grab it and pull and he doesn't make a sound. So I pulled it twice and he still wanted me to give it another pull, so I did. It came out in my hand, but I didn't let him know ( like with Paris) and he walked away and started talking and laughing with Paris, as Jon and I exchanged glances so that he knew I had it. Then I said to Lex,
"Hey, come here let me pull it one more time"
he was a little hesitant,
"that last one hurt a little bit, but okay"
so he came back over, and I said,
"know why it hurt? 'cause I got it!"
 He was shocked and then really excited. He has been waiting a long time for the tooth fairly to pay HIM a visit. And he wasn't disappointed when he woke up the next morning.  Now he is waiting for the other bottom tooth to get a little bit more wiggly!!

 

Picture-a-thon

We woke up on Sunday morning to a whole lot-a white!
It was a lot ice so all the flowers and trees were sagging.
I shook off as many flowers as possible trying to save them,
and Jon shook off some of the trees that had already blossomed.

We all know I'm crazy, but I'll prove it to you....
Put your face really close to the screen,
I mean really close...come on smoosh
your nose on the middle of the picture.
Okay now close your left eye...winter.
Now switch, close your right open your left...spring!
Camera one....camera two.
Winter...Spring...Winter...Spring!
Yeah apparently I have too much time on my hands!!                        

Who forgot to cover the grill!!!!!!!
Oh yeah, it was me when I was BBQing in the 80 degree weather the evening before!

I remember hearing the wind the night before,
but I had no idea what was happening outside.
A whole lot-a blowing snow and ice that's what.
See how the fence is completely white, that generally doesn't happen.
But freshly fallen snow sure is pretty!

Lambert was perfectly content to just observe the snow from the window,
I think the birds were content with that too.

Pretty doves! One of a few families that frequent our yard.

He's so cute!! Love that kid!

How many licks does it take to get to the center of a JUMBO jawbreaker?
I don't know ask Evey, It took her a few hours to get to this point.

She's pretty cute too!!

So independent!

This is one Winter that sticks around all year and no one complains!!

The snow eventually melted...but we have since had more.

These are our new visitors! Yikes, who's in charge of the yard!
I'm kidding! He'll get to it soon...(er)....or  later

Did I mention I love these kids!

We have started spring soccer season,
schedules are working much better than last season.
We have however had one game called early
because of freezing rain and lightning. And this morning, picture day,
all 3 of their games were canceled.
So far we have had to get ice cream after both of Lex's
games, because he scored goals.
Evey is determined to get a goal this year,
and was sooo close at the game was called early,
she just needed a few more minutes!
Paris is much more excited to play this year
 because she is finally on her friends team
and her friends dad is their coach,
so she is having a lot of fun so far.
Her favorite positions are defense and goalie