Poor Fourth Child

Madelyn, my sweet baby. The caboose to our train. Seriously, one of the sweetest little girls ever. I'm sorry you don't have any stories about you on here! I'm going to try to change that. For now here is the evolution of your name.
Madelyn
Mackie Mookie (Thanks to the Gummy Bears song Nookie Nookie Nookie, Sweeter than a Cookie)
Mackie Moo
Maddie Moo
Moo Moo
Moo Moo Pumpkin Poo Poo
Pumpkin Poo

Also, you were the first one of my kiddos that nicknamed your siblings. Like, you only ever called Hannah by her name. The other two got special names.
Odie (started as Dudie)
Unk Sue

Poor Alex, Odie got adopted by all of us. I'm not sure if he will ever just be Alex again or if he forevermore shall be known as Odie.

Where Does Time GO?

I stumbled upon my blog last night and it made me so very sad. I mean, it made me happy to go back and read cute little stories about Zander and Tater. However, I got so sad that I didn't document the lives of my last two babes. Most of the stories I read of the older two I didn't even remember them happening. Which means what? That now I don't have anything to remind me of their cute babyisms. I do have Facebook and Instagram, so those hold some memories. Anyway, most boring post in the world just to say that now that things have calmed down and my babies are older (sniff, sniff), I am hoping to start blogging again. Also, I really need to take the time to update the background and pictures! ;p

A Tale of Woe

A year of pictures gone. GONE. It all started a few months after Madelyn was born. Our laptop crashed and along with it went ALL of her hospital pictures AND first Christmas pictures. I was crushed. Thankfully, we did have pictures that the grandparents took as well as a few pictures I took on my phone.
Fast forward a few months to this summer, and our external hard drive crashes. What is going on?! Again, thankfully we had the pictures backed up onto our desktop. Still, I mentioned to my husband I was nervous about synching my phone because I did not want to lose the few pictures we had of Madelyn's life.
Fast forward again to last week. My husband accidentally erased our desktop. Before we backed it up. I have pretty much relied on my phone to take videos and pictures of the kids lately. It is just so much easier. So, unfortunately that meant that I lost all the pictures from October 2012 to September 2013. All of the cute videos of the 2 year old talking and singing. All the cute baby firsts. All of the kids pictures. Gone.
He was able to piece the external hard drive back together and recover the files from it. Unfortunately, he was not able to recover anything from our desktop. I am so sad and upset. Needless to say, I am going to try to be better at printing pictures off so that this doesn't happen again. Oh, and he also went out and bought a wireless storage unit thing that backs up the files automatically. (Not sure of the technical name)!

Baby-Led Weaning

When we introduced solids to E at 6 months we went with a totally different approach. With the older two we did the usual, start with baby cereal then introduce one pureed fruit or veggie every 3-4 days. Truth is, I hated it! It was so time consuming, not to mention we were not helping them learn to eat, just shoveling food into their mouths.

This time around I heard about Baby-Led Weaning. Again through my extensive research, uh reading of blogs, I realized this sounded like the way to go. I quickly ordered the book and got to it. Now purees for us!
We started her out at 6 months with hard foods that she couldn't really bite, but just gnaw on. She loved it! I was a little freaked out about her choking, but the book explains how that really is not a problem because a babies gag reflex is so far up on their tongues that it prevents them from getting large pieces of food in the back of their mouth.
After a while we started giving her steamed and softer foods to eat. It has been really amazing watching her learn to bite and chew at a much earlier age. By 9 months old she was eating just about everything we ate (minus common allergy triggers). An advantage to her eating the same food as us is that it is a good incentive to eat healthy! I am cooking healthier foods and healthier sides because I do not want my baby eating junk!

I often forget how advanced it is to just give my baby regular food and watch her eat it like she is two! It is also amazing to give a 10 month old a piece of steak and watch them chomp it up!

(Pics from early stages of BLW)

Conversations With Alexander

A: Mommy, when I grow big like you I'm still going to call you Mom.
Me: That's good. Are you still going to give me hugs and kisses?
A: Um, okay. When I'm big I'm going to wear Daddy's clothes 'cause I will be that big.
Me: You will?
A: Yeah, but when you turn 1,000 you are going to die.
Me: (sad face)
A: But that is okay because we will be able to take care of ourselves.


I love my boy!

Cloth Diapers!

For a variety of reasons we decided to go with cloth diapers this time around. I actually started looking into cloth diapers when I was pregnant with the boy, but I was so overwhelmed by all of the different types that I gave up. There were pocket diapers, prefolds, AIOs, hybrids, and flats. Then there are one size, perfect fit, inserts, doublers, velcro and snaps.....the list goes on and on. Not to mention all of the cute patterns.

This time around I started doing my research early. Of course by research I mean I read blogs, lots and lots of blogs. Without the blogs I would not have known what to pick. So, I am going to try to have a weekly cloth diaper post in hopes to help another overwhelmed Mama out.

Eliza May

Well, like all my kids, Eliza just could not wait to come meet us. Only she was a bit more stubborn than the other two. She made her appearance just one day before her scheduled date. Of course it would turn out that way, now that c-sections are not allowed to be scheduled until 39 weeks. Since my doctor was out of town my section was scheduled on Thursday the 16th of September. She came Wednesday the 15th. That is the longest I have ever been pregnant: 39 weeks and 3 days. I was not happy. I always go early, so the last month of my pregnancy I was waiting because it could be any day now.

I woke up Wednesday morning at 4:30 with contractions and they hurt! I tried switching positions, walking around and taking a shower but nothing eased them. I started timing them and they ranged from 3-5 minutes apart. Which is not a big deal, but when you are a repeat c-section you don't want to labor. I waited until my husbands alarm clock went off around 7 and practically pounced on him. By this time I had my bag packed, written out directions for my mom and was ready to go. Of course he thought I was fine. He didn't want to fight with traffic to get to the hospital so he took his time getting ready. Seriously, he took the time to shave and trim his hair, clip his nails and shower. By this time it is after 8. I finally wake up the kids and get everyone out the door and he decided to stop and get donuts for the kids on the way to his sisters house!

We finally got to the hospital around 9. I had called my doctor at 7, so when we arrived they were waiting on us. Unfortunately by that time they had gotten two more walk-ins ahead of me. That meant that they had to do two c-sections before getting to me and then it was only if they could fit me in before the scheduled ones. The nurse thought I would get in around 11:30 so around 11 Tony decided he better get something to eat before the fun started. One thing he didn't do when he left was take his phone. So guess what? The nurse came in a little after 11 and said that we needed to go now or I would not get in until later that night and where was my husband? We ended up paging him and just heading to the OR.

I was so stressed out that he would not make it in time. I had the worst experience with the spinal. With the other two my nurse was right in my face, holding me and reassuring me that everything was OK. With this one the nurse basically had her back turned to me with one hand on my knee. I was already freaked out because of Tony being MIA and then I kept thinking about what was going on so I ended up jumping and getting "yelled" at. Ooops, not good. Finally, got the spinal in and was all numbed up and still no Tony. Just as the doctor was about to make the first cut, my nurse asked if anyone had seen my husband and if somebody could go looking for him. Just as she said that he walked in. I had such a mixture of relief and wanting to kill him!
One thing I loved about this hospital was that after Eliza was born, they did a quick rub down, wrapped her up and then gave her to Tony so he held her the rest of the time. Then when I went to recovery she got to go with me. I was so excited to have my baby with me and be able to breastfeed right away. After about an hour they sent her to the nursery to get cleaned up and weighed and measured. She ended up weighing 7 pounds 8 ounces and being 21 inches long.Since our parents only live two hours away they were able to make it to the hospital before I went into surgery. They were able to follow Eliza up to the nursery and then stand at the glass and watch her for the next two hours as she was being taken care of. They loved it. My Mom brought Hannah and Alex up a little later and they were smitten
We were all smitten. Welcome to the family Eliza May!