Time

I find I am short on time most days.  Or that it just always seems to get away from me!  No matter what I do.  I think, hey, if I get ALL of this laundry done, folded and actually put away, I'll have time to sit down and blog.  Or, hey, if I get all of my work caught up, I'll have time to blog.  Or maybe, after I make dinner and get things cleaned up, I'll have time to blog.   Sadly, most of the time, those things are never accomplished, and when I do have time, I end up coloring with the girls, or cooing at the baby, or taking them for an ice cream.  I kind of think that's time well spent. 
But every now and then, it's nice to have a little catch-up on here.  It used to be so much more of a regular thing for me, but...life goes on outside of the blog world.  I document it, I capture those memories with my camera, or my phone, and always, always try to "savor" those moments in my mind.  I know writing them down, with a picture to go along with it is always helpful to remind us a few years down the road when things get foggy.  And I really do enjoy having those.  So hopefully once this baby is a little more self reliant, this will become a semi-regular thing for me again.  Until then, when I'm all caught up on laundry, dinner, work, etc...it's going to be a here and there little extra activity for me. 

Anyway...enough of the blah blah blah....let's have some pics of this cute new baby shall we?

We had some newborn pics taken, a little later than planned, she was about 2 weeks old, instead of the usual few days old, where they sleep and let you pose them any which way you want.  She was awake the ENTIRE time, despite our best efforts.  So all of her shots are with her eyes wide open...so funny.  Oh well, she's still super cute.

This was her at maybe about 3 weeks old.

 This was just the other day, having some tummy time with sister!

 Helping me give her big sisters a bath.  She supervised.

 Happy child :)

 Our family pics.  She was exactly 2 months old here.

I guess I need to get all of my other pics off of my phone.  Seems like I use that the most these days because of how handy it is.  So I guess you get to look forward to lots more baby pics once that happens!

She's HERE!!

May 1st was a completely wonderful, amazing day.  The day I lost my gigantic belly, and we welcomed  a brand new little baby girl!
Here's the short version of what took place.
At my 37 week apt, the doctor told me that the baby was head down, and ready to come soon!  All was looking great.  She was estimating her at about 7 1/2 lbs.  Right about what the other 2 girls were.  That sounded perfect to me!  Then when I went back to my 38 week apt, the doc thought she had turned breech.  So she took me back for a quick ultrasound just to be sure.  Sure enough, the little stinker had turned on me!  And when I thought back about it, at my baby shower a few days before, she was moving like CRAZY, and at one point, I swear I felt her either twist funny or turn, and I mentioned it to my sister in law, who works at the hospital.  She said she really hoped she hadn't just turned!  So then of course I looked up all sorts of things on how to get a baby to turn from breech back to head down, basically by doing all these crazy yoga positions, and other weird things.  Tried most of them.  Couldn't tell that it was doing anything.  My doc had gone over a few things at that last apt, explaining what would happen if she didn't turn before 39 weeks, when I was planning on being induced anyway.  If she hadn't turned, they would do an external version, where she tries to manipulate the baby from the outside, basically pulling and pushing on my tummy to try to get her to turn before inducing.
So, early Wednesday morning we called labor and delivery and asked what time they wanted me to come.  We were told 6am.  So up we went.  Got all checked in, and got the necessary drugs to ready my uterus for all the contortions it was about to undergo.  The doc showed up about 7 and got started trying to get her to turn.  She told me she usually gives it 3 really good tries, and if baby isn't moving, then they'd do a c-section.  So she tried twice and was super close, got on the other side, and tried again....but no luck.  Baby girl was stuck good.  They were all amazed at how well I tolerated it, because apparently they get girls screaming and crying in pain from the version.  It really wasn't as bad as I had expected it to be.  Jason at one point had to look away, because of how hard she was pushing on my tummy.  It sounded like she was getting a good workout!  I guess it looked pretty gruesome.   So off to the OR I went, got the spinal, it all happened so fast.  I looked at the big clock right before I laid down, and got all numb, and it said 8:10.   A few minutes later I looked at Jason and asked if they had started and apparently they had.  The look on his face said it all.  :)  At 8:23 am, out came a very healthy and much larger baby than anyone expected!  8lbs, 4 oz, and 19.5 inches long!!  My doc was really surprised.  So was I for that matter.  Glad I ended up not having to push her out!

They got her all cleaned up and wheeled us into the recovery room, to make sure everything looked good.  We were there for about 20 mins or so chatting with my mom and the awesome nurse.
Then headed up to our room!!  So glad to finally have this one here!  This pregnancy was definitely different than the other two.  Just harder on my body in general.  Things are much different in your 30's than in your 20's, that's for sure!
Now for some pictures!!

And of course I still can't get them to load in the right order.  Oh well.

Here's Jason (or rather, his hand...) just after putting her first diaper on.

This is me heading into the hospital bright and early just before 6 am, in the SNOW!  39 weeks exactly.

 She made it!  She's probably about 8 or 9 minutes old here.

The girls getting to meet their sister for the first time!

 Makayla was just a little excited!

 She sure is a chunker!!!  Look at the double chin action!!  And those cheeks!  Killer.

The famous daddy/daughter pose.  We have one of each girl like this in black and white with their daddy.  I love them.

This one's a camera phone pic from my mom.  

 This was in the recovery room just after the c-section.  I was having fun trying to move my toes, and having zero success.  We were all laughing.  Weird how much different the spinal block is from the epidural.  I can still move things with an epidural, but the spinal block...nothing.  Could not move a thing, clear up to my rib cage for quite a while actually.  It was really crazy.  

We are so glad that Camrie Lynn is finally here.  She fits right in, and her sisters completely adore her.  Too bad that when we came home from the hospital, both girls had developed little colds.  It's been hard trying to keep them from just kissing and loving all over the baby, but they're getting better quickly. 
We are now a family of 5!! 

She's 3!

Our little Brooklyn is not so little any more!!  Not too long after Makayla's big day, it was Brookie's turn.  She was so excited to say she's "free" (three).  And she knows exactly when her birthday is if you ask her....April "forf".  :)


This was a few days before her big day.

Her new shirt from Grandma Diane.  And her headband from the Easter bunny.  

 The cake.

 Her birfday!!  Hangin' out at Grandma's before the celebration.

 Presents!

 Her girly girl spoils!!   She was in heaven!

She's 5!!

Moving right along into January, we celebrated Makayla's 5th birthday!
It's so hard for me to believe how big she's getting.  Sometimes I just look at her and it feels like yesterday we came home from the hospital with this tiny little baby, and now she's helping her sister brush her teeth!  We get to register her for Kindergarten next week, which is even more crazy to me that I'll have a Kindergartner!  Ahhh!!!

We went to the Fun Park a few days before and the girls had a good time.  

 Then there's this.  I just had to put this in, because it just makes me laugh every time I look at it.  Classic.

 Redeemed by this one.  Too cute.

 Here are her butterfly cupcakes she requested to go with her butterfly cake.  They turned out pretty cute I think!

 Can you spot the uncle? 

 The butterfly cake that in my head, was going to turn out so much more amazing.  Not bad for my first attempt at a shaped cake from scratch.  But still, I had higher hopes.  There was a slight mishap along the way that kind of threw everything else out of whack in the process.  There's always next year!  Let's just hope it's not much more complicated than a butterfly... :)

 For her party, she wanted to invite friends this year, and she's got alot of them!  I certainly didn't want them all tearing the house apart, so we decided that for her "gift" this year, we'd rent out a gymnastics place in town for abt 2 hours.  Best decision EVER.  She had about 10 friends show up, and the kids AND adults all had fun bouncing, swinging, running, playing, tumbling, etc...it was a BLAST. 

 Grandma and Grandpa in the PIT of no return....with Brookie.  Seriously, getting out of that thing is CRAZY hard.  Which is why the pregnant lady (myself) did not even attempt it.  I took the word of my friend, who I had to help pull out, that it was quite tricky.

 Jason and my brothers all had a good time playing Gladiator on the beam.  So hilarious.  Too bad I didn't get a shot of my brother's ripped pants from this round!  And they were going out to eat afterward...poor Gordon.

 The birthday girl!  She was in heaven.

 The line for the swing.  A popular activity.

 Cake time!

All her friends.

 This pic should have been at the top of this post, but oh well.  This was how I decorated her door the night before her birthday.  Wish I had gotten a picture of her face when she opened her door!

I still can't believe she's 5! 

Christmas in February?? Why not?

Ok...I'm hanging my head in shame.  It's been SO long since I posted, and way longer than I thought it would take me to get a post up!  Work has been insane busy, trying to get ahead of things before baby time.  

So let's start off back in December shall we?  Here goes.

I was put in charge of our annual Geddes Minute to Win it Games this year!  We had "pin the pom pom on your nose with Vaseline."  That's what's going on here below.  Hard to see the strings, or the pom poms for that matter.  I have no idea what Bryon is doing to Jason's string.  My guess is he's hindering him in some way. :)

 Next we had all the gentlemen of the family play the "get the cookie from your forehead to your face" game.  Insanely hilarious to watch.  That's Greg giving me his winning smile, complete with cookie.

Jason still working on his pom pom...:)

 We also had the "stack 3 golf balls and make it stand for 30 seconds" game.  Much harder than you'd think!  Bryon was first to win!

 Then Greg!

 The concentration...it was intense!  He was going for 4.  I think he got it to stay for about 3 seconds.

 Moving on to the BIG DAY!  The girls showing off some of their loot!

 Her new desk! 

 The mass chaos that always is when we do Christmas at my parents.  But it's the best kind of chaos.  Always so much fun.  And in case you are wondering why Bryon looks so excited to be opening a box of Pampers...it was full of ties for his mission!  He was getting a kick out of all the old funky ones Greg had found for him.

 The boys sporting their teams!  Can you spot the "odd man out"?  haha..  Jason has to represent the mid-west of course! 

And that was about it!  I didn't get a single shot of me or Jason on Christmas day.  We were having way too much fun watching the girls!