I forget how much time these little creatures take!

So...for all you who follow my blog, this is Reagan's official birth announcement.


My Step mother in law, Cindy, is a photographer. I'll put a plug for her as she did these pics for free. Check out her site at www.cindyradfordphotography.com .

Reagan would not cooperate. Well, she wouldn't go to sleep. So, with her eyes opened wide, she posed for her pictures. She is so cute!!

I wish I could say life is just peachy keen now that she is here. She is a fantastic, normal little newborn. Lots of diapers, lots of spit up, and lots of eating/sleeping/pooping. I love to hold her and stare at her cute little face. We still have not decided who she looks like. Her 3 siblings are being terrible, little stinkers. We are all adjusting to having another body in the house. One that takes up a lot of mom's time. I wouldn't change it for the world, and neither would they. They all love her very much. I'm still trying to not feel bad that my house is a disaster. I suppose I could do my dishes right now, but I'd much rather blog about Reagan. Really, I should probably go to sleep before she wakes to eat again.
I won't share my birthing story. To me, it was pretty run of the mill. It hurt terribly, but I made it through sans epidural. Matthew is the most fantastic coach/partner ever. He helps me breath, pushes on all the pressure points i need him to, and tells me that I did a fantastic job even though I feel like I can never do it again and I was ready to give up! (Not that you can) I love you, Matthew! Thank you for being there for me.
My recovery, physically, has been speedy. My heart goes out to all those who have a longer recovery due to c-sections. I cannot even begin to understand all that goes into that.

Now, for a funny story. Men, beware, it is a breastfeeding story.
I'm pretty open about breastfeeding. I don't make it obvious or anything, but I don't mind breastfeeding with other people around. I use a drape whenever men are present. However, my children are told what is going on and I don't really hide it with them. I was feeding Reagan tonight while singing songs to Gavin and McKinley. I was switching sides when Gavin looked up and says, "Whoa mom! You have 2 nipples!?!" I have no idea why that came out tonight, but it was quite humorous. He's seen me nurse multiple times, but maybe he never saw me switch. Who knows what goes through the minds of children. He is such a funny, dramatic, all about me, little boy!

Well, I'd best sign off. Tomorrow is national laundry day at our house. And the dishes need to be done. And the upstairs needs to be completely put back together. Oh-we got the bunkbeds upstairs!! And the dresser. I'll take a picture and blog about it later.

Our new baby has arrived!!!!

We are so glad to have our new baby home! We named her Reagan Dawn. She was born on Friday afternoon. All went well with Erica and the baby during delivery and recovery. I'm sure she'll want to tell her birthing story since it is one of a woman's favorite topics, or at least comes up an awful lot. The kids came to the hospital and were sure excited. Jamison took the cute big brother award though. He was so funny. We would like to say thank you to Grammy Susie and our friend Christy for helping us with the kids so I could go with Erica and stay Saturday night.

We are all adjusting and there will be many stories shared in the future of our sweet new baby Reagan. Enjoy some pictures.

Last picture taken of baby still inside.

Shortly after delivery. Reagan ate a little and was awake and happy to see us.

The nurses put this bow on her head. They gave us another one too. We really liked the nurses we had. Thanks again Helena!

Here the kids are holding the baby. Gavin seems a little concerned in this picture. They were all really good with her.

Here we are all together.

Jamison was sooo excited. He had taken a little nap on the way to the hospital and his little rosy cheeks were funny.

His face cracked us up.

Gavin liked holding her. He seemed like he will be a good big brother. We'll see how he behaves at home.

And here is our dear McKinley, showing baby Reagan love, I guess. Actually I'm not exactly sure what she is doing in this picture. Just being our McKinley. As you can see, the tooth fairy has been making regular stops in our house the last little while.

I took this picture of our little baby just a minute ago. We love her very much.

Feel free to stop in and say hi to our newest family member.

The longest week of my life!!

Okay, not really. But it feels that way. I was hoping to have a baby by now. Alas, no baby. Still very pregnant and tired and irritable. However, I've been a bit more ambitious about cleaning up lately. I actually spent all of Saturday morning with my kids, upstairs, cleaning my room, their rooms, and vacuuming. McKinley voluntarily cleaned the bathrooms. Then she pitched a fit when I made her clean her own room. She did it eventually. I actually cleaned off my dresser and dusted/polished it. Looks fantastic now!! I gathered up all the maternity clothes borrowed from a friend and put them in the laundry to be washed. I'm determined not to get out of pj's until the baby is born. Okay, so I've just caved to wearing Matthew's t-shirts. Anything else is too irritating or uncomfortable to wear. I've washed all the baby girl newborn cloths, folded them, and stored them in the laundry basket. We don't have room yet for the dresser. My poor children suffer from "very irritable mom" syndrome. They can't catch a lucky break these days. I'll have to post a pregnancy pic soon. I haven't had Matthew take one yet. Maybe I should do that before the baby comes.

Speaking of new dresser, our garage has been a shop for the past month. Matthew is diligently spending his nights working on our two projects. 1) finishing an old dresser so it looks nice. McKinley and Gavin will share it while Jamison and the babe share the one Mcki and Gavin currently use. 2) a twin over full bunk bed. We were just going to buy one off craigslist, but Matthew determined he could make it in our garage. The dresser is finished. The bunk bed is getting close. It is standing on its own. Just needs all the saw dust cleaned off and then the varnish put on. I can't find any pics of the dresser. They must all be on Matthew's phone, and he's busy right now, in the garage. I'll post them later. Here are some of the bed.

Very, very early phase. Cutting all the side pieces to length and making the notches in the ends to fit into the side pieces. I can't remember what its called. This is almost the finished project. Still need to lay the slats across the bottom to hold the mattress. We also had to go get more lumber to do the safety rail on the top bunk. That's what Matthew is working on tonight. However, we were both very relieved to stand it up and have it be pretty sturdy!! Yahoo! A success for Matthew. Pretty impressive! Hopefully the measurements were right and it'll fit a full mattress on the bottom!!
Everything in our garage is covered in a fine layer of sawdust. I have no idea how we'll get that all cleaned out. Oh well.

Did I mention the dumb things I do while I'm pregnant. Although, I suppose this could happen any old time, to anyone. But still, it made me a little upset. I often turn on the front burner when I mean to turn on the back. Here is one of the consequences of that mistake.
I'm so sad! I loved having this lid to my glass pyrex dish. See all that blue goo on the stove!! Talk about noxious fumes.

Well, hopefully next time I make an entry, it will be celebrating the birth of our little girl. And no, she does not have a name yet. Not even close to agreeing on one. We are awful about picking names.
Hasta luego!

Big boy bed, here we come!

After only a few long nights of trying to put the baby monster to bed and long nights of him waking up every couple hours to find us, Jamison has made the transition from crib dweller. He still takes a little while to get to bed, but he hasn't thrown any big fits like McKinley used to. Thank goodness! Our baby is growing up! He'll only be the baby for a little bit longer. Erica thinks he is still too little to be a big brother. He has a whole three weeks to get big enough! He sure is a cute little kiddo!

He sleeps with The Georges (George 1 and George 2). One on each side (that is important!). See!


They have also made the transition to the big boy bed. They had a much easier time. In fact, the other night I was laying on the floor next to Jamison's bed trying to convince him to go to sleep and Jamison started tucking me in. He put three blankets over me and then set George 1 next to me. He grabbed George 2 and walked all the way around me to carefully place George 2 next to my head on the opposite side of George 1. What a funny kid.

Update

Yes, realize this is two posts in one day. But here is an update:

Big boy bed: 0
Crib: 1

We'll have to buy a new kid proof door knob and try again.

A couple things

So, like the title suggests, I have a couple things to mention here. The first, I'd like to mention, is the fact that I too am multilingual. You'ns thought that just Erica spoke more than one language. Hah, were you wrong. I happen to speak three languages in addition to English, 1) Baby babble, 2) Whinese, and 3) Gruntonese. I didn't have to spend any money on teach yourself CD's or classes or anything like that. I just picked them up from being around my kids. Neat huh!

The other thing that I wanted to mention was the fact that tonight we are upgrading Jamison from crib-dweller to sleeping in a big boy (toddler) bed. I had not even put a sheet on the mattress and he was jumping on it. It should be interesting to see how it goes. I remember locking McKinley in her room and letting her cry until she fell asleep or exhausted herself from throwing stuff at the door! We'll keep you posted. We would appreciate your prayers for the little guy to make the transition easily. Ha ha.

That's all.

My Sister in law requires an update.

I don't know what to write about, but I'll catch up a bit. Christmas was fantastic. Nice and quiet. The kids got lots of stuff, as they always do. Jamison was so enthralled with his new ball that he didn't really care about opening too many presents. He also loved climbing in the bigger boxes. I'll show you the pictures.
Jamison in his box, with his ball. He is so cute!!
Sophie and Morgan gave the kids a camel back for when we go hiking. They were very excited!
Jamison playing with his ball over on the far left.
The kids taking a break from opening presents to read daddy's new kid books, "Traction Man" and "Traction man meets turbo Dog". You should check them out. They are pretty funny!

We also went sledding the Monday after Christmas. It was the last snow we had, and it was slim. The kids had fun though. Only one bad wreck.
McKinley had a blast! She is old enough now that she isn't really interested in riding with Matthew or I. Good thing our second sled will fit 3 people.
Me and the boys. It was all I could do to get my snow pants on!! Jamison had sooo much fun!
Matthew thought this picture was kind of cool. It wasn't intentional at all, but its kinda funny. The very blurry blob in the back is McKinley.
There aren't any good pictures of Matthew. I missed everytime!! Sorry, B.
Sorry its been so long. My house doesn't get clean either. Nor does dinner get cooked. Sorry again, B.