On Our Own

We had so much fun with my sisters, their kids, my parents and my brother all here. My sisters left last Sunday and my parents and John left yesterday. We were all so sad to see them go, but felt so blessed to have them here. They all drove to get here (my parents drove from Utah), and we know it was a huge sacrifice for all of them. It was so great to have them here and Aiden has been weepy since yesterday morning. Lewis was great though, he took the kids for the majority of the day yesterday and went to the library then to see Wall-E. After the movie they went to the mall where they had lunch and bought me a pair of shoes!! What's better than that? Today was my first day alone with 3 kids and it was crazy. I think it just hit the kids that there is a new baby because they were both having more breakdowns than normal. Lewis had to work today, but luckily we are used to him being gone. I'm not sure I could have handled having this baby earlier this year with him being gone so much. He started his medical school rotations last week and--wow--it is SOOOOOOOOOOOO much easier than the OMS intern year (even though he is on medicine and I have heard it is one of the busiest rotations). I guess when you have been used to insane 100 plus hour weeks, not much feels busy any more. Anyway, we are adjusting to this new level of craziness and I am having some SERIOUS cabin fever. However, due to the lovely issues of childbirth that I encountered with Brooks' labor, I am pretty much stuck sitting around. I have to take it easy for a while, and that is going to drive me nuts. I am so grateful though for parents and siblings who were here for me and helped me with this transition. We can't wait for Grandma Dee and Tiana to come next!
Oh, and in case you were worried about us missing church, Aiden set up chairs and played primary music for us and gave a lesson on reverence. She also went through the songs, pausing after each phrase, and explained them to us. Don't worry.

More Baby

So far baby Cate has been a dream baby. She really hasn't cried a lot and she sleeps non-stop. I know this is normal for newborns, but I haven't had a baby like this before. I had to wake her up at 6 am today to feed her after 6 hours!!!! I don't think I have ever had to wake up a sleeping child before (except when we got up to watch the sun rise in Cadillac Mountain). Seriously, it's nice. I hope she keeps it up..............

Cate Madison

We welcomed a new baby girl into our family yesterday. She was born at 11:28 AM on 6/21--and weighed 6 lbs 8 oz and measured 19 inches. She had ten fingers/toes and was otherwise perfect as well. We named her . . . Cate Madison. Cate's first night was a quiet one as far as I was concerned, but JJ's report is to the contrary. Cate was up and down most of the night, but thankfully does not have Brooks' lungs which could be heard all the way down the hall in the hospital in CT! We are now safe and sound at home a little over 24 hours after she was born. JJ is amazing! Her induction started at 6:45 in the morning and after starting to push for the first time at 11:15, the nurse ran and got the doctor who had to have JJ push 3 more times with a single contraction for the birth. And yes, her anesthesiologist did get her epidural right this time and it worked (as opposed to Brooks' fiasco)!

We've got company

and it pretty much rules. I love my family. And tomorrow night we're going in to have a baby, wish me luck!

No baby yet!!!

No, I didn't have the baby yet. I have just become a lazy blogger. That, and I'm nesting like crazy which wears me out. At least I'm not insisting on painting the entire house like I did a week before Brooks was born. I am, however, getting really antsy to have the house all done and fixed from the tree incident before this baby is born. All that is left to do is paint the deck and put up the gutters. We have to plant some grass seed too. This isn't ideal because it has suddenly turned flaming hot and incredibly humid, but I might be just a little extra hot with the little furnace I am carrying around on my belly. Yesterday I borrowed my friend's steam cleaner vacuum and cleaned the rugs and couches, there is something so great about having clean rugs and couches!

Here is Brooks' new room color. Now he has no excuses for not sleeping in his own room!


We joined summer reading at the library and they put on a show every week. There is a different educational "performer" that comes every week. Last week it was a paleontologist from Vermont who gives a dinosaur lesson and brings these huge blow up dinos. He was really funny and I even got over my hate of paleontologists for the even. (I had a bad experience with a class called "Life of the Past" at the BYU)


Lewis has been watching lots of basketball. Go Celtics. I guess. Except all these Boston teams doing well just isn't helping my bid for a future move to Park City. He believes the professional sports teams should play a role in where we decide to live. Also, he stands RIGHT in front of the TV ever since we went up to Utah to visit in March. He CLAIMS that he can't see the ball from the couch, he just got spoiled because everyone we visited in Utah had ENORMOUS TV's. But it's hard to see the TV through him.


I took the kids to a minor league baseball game last Friday night with a bunch of friends from the ward. There were fireworks after so we stayed, and I ROASTED, until the very end. Brooks made a friend with some random little kid he named Max. This is a big deal for my shy little B.




We had berry lemonade smoothies on Sunday. Yummy.


See, I'm big! From B's perspective.


In the garden, we are finally getting a pepper, one of Lew's jalapenos. Also, I planted some pumpkin seeds a couple of weeks ago, and they have totally taken off. The sunflower seeds we planted were eaten up by the birds though. Every time we would see a sprout it would be gone within 24 hours, totally dug up.



We had this fun CAT in our yard and driveway for about 3 weeks. It provided lots of entertainment for us. Especially for a big one of us who was extremely disappointed that he couldn't figure out how to start it.




Aiden started swimming lessons. They are through the city and only $15 for 2 weeks (10 days) of lessons. Yeah, and they are about what you would expect for that price. Seriously, a huge waste of time. But I am TRYING not to be the critical parent slash swim instructor (hey, I'm a professional, don't hate me), it's hard seeing that I know that they could actually be teaching kids to swim instead of wasting all of our time. Aiden did have a big break through yesterday when I convinced her that kicking with her legs straight and toes pointed would be much more effective. Also, maybe you can let me in on why anyone would ever sign up for a baby swim class. They were taking up the entire pool yesterday (well, that combined with the aqua aerobics class) and I just don't get what they think they are taking away from the class. Don't get me wrong, I have taught a lot of these classes and I know what you do in them. I just think that you can do it all on your own and not take up the whole pool and act crazy offended if your poor baby gets splashed.


This is what Brooks does during the lesson. BEGS to get in the pool. (that's him standing in the shade of my belly)


My little fishies!

Sliiiiip slip 'n slide!

I bought a slip 'n slide last week and the kids have been loving it. We got it out on Saturday afternoon and Lewis couldn't resist, even in his CLOTHES!!!! Also, we do not have a name for the baby yet, but we still like Cate. At the ultrasound last week they said she was about 5 lbs. 11 oz. Not too bad for 35 almost 36 weeks, she is big enough!

Memorial Day

I had Memorial Day off from the hospital, so we thought we would make a day of it and go to Atlanta. We first went to Trader Joe's--an old Connecticut standby. We ate strawberry mochi and bought some great snacks for our next stop . . . Turner Field to see the Braves stomp the Arizona D-backs. We went with our friends here in the big AL--the Foster family. All kids loved the baseball game--even from the nosebleed section. Actually, I think they liked it best up there. We had front seats in the section, but migrated to the top, both to satisfy the kids' desire to get to the highest point and to get the 8 month pregnant JJ into the shade before she overheated. Brooks really loved the tomahawk action when the drums beat at the game. They both loved singing "Take Me out to the Ballgame," and eating peanuts (sorry, we passed on the 6 dollar cracker jacks). They did get ballpark hotdogs though, to cap off the all-American day. We even had a moment of silence for the troops in the 6th inning. It was a great Memorial day! Oh, Aiden was especially partial to the silver hydrants in Atlanta, she pointed out how cool they are compared to the yellow and green one in the corner of our lawn.