Pictures

Laboring in the lobby of L&D with a towel wrapped around me since my water broke.

Just born!  Approximately 20-30 minutes after the previous picture was taken.

Getting weighed!

Mommy changing my diaper and shirt.

Getting a clean shirt.

Big sisters come to visit!

Everyone getting a first look at Andrew.

Caroline giving Mommy a hug.

Grammie and Andrew

Caroline loved looking at "Baby Brother"

Big Sister Katherine holding baby Andrew.

She quickly gave up the baby for Daddy's phone.

Snoozing away.

Finally on our way home!

Katherine LOVES holding the little guy.

First time the girls got to see him out of the hospital.

Sweet sister kisses.

Caroline really liked his hands and feet.

GiGi and Andrew

Andrew and Joe Joe

Joe Joe, Katherine, Mommy and Andrew

Daddy and Andrew share his first sunset!

Andrew's first sunset at home.

Daddy and his boy.

I think she likes her little brother...just a little bit.

Caroline LOVES her baby brother.

I'm one week old today!

Think I can get some milk outta this nose?

Life as a Party of 5?!

Well let's see how is life as a Party of 5?  Pretty great actually!  My recovery from birth has been amazingly swift and easy and Andrew is seriously a dream baby.  He is the most laid back, chill guy on the planet...well except for his dad.  :)  He eats like a champ (and A LOT) he only cries if he has a dirty diaper or is hungry and the occasional gas pain, but they are infrequent.  He sleeps in three to four hour stretches at night and when he's awake he's completely content to just watch everything going on around him quietly.  Granted, there is A LOT going on around him at all times since he has two crazy sisters!  So I'm sure that helps him to sit quietly...he's got to combat the noise and chaos that are his sisters!  Katherine and Caroline ADORE their little brother.  Katherine is constantly asking to hold him...which at times can get trying since she can't always hold him, but is mostly very sweet.  Caroline is constantly running up to me "Mommy can I give baby brother a kiss?" So sweet.  They are both super quick to help when I need an extra hand or if I left something in another room.  It is really sweet and a huge help to Mom! 

So what are the not so great parts?  Well, not much really.  I am pretty darn tired, but that is to be expected only one week postpartum and I'm still up two to three times a night for at least 40 minutes to an hour each time (did I mention that little man eats for at least 20 minutes each feeding?!  He likes to eat!) and then the girls are typically awake between 6am and 730am depending on the day.  That makes for some pretty short nights, but we are managing.  :)  Caroline has been acting out a little lately, which is totally unlike her sweet and usually cooperative behaviour.  I have a feeling it's due to the fact that she's no longer the baby, but we are working on that.  :)  I think it will help alot when we can get outside and run around some more!  She has so much energy, she just runs in circles around the house like a crazy lady.  There are very few moments of just quiet for Mom.  Between homeschool, trying to keep the house in some sort of order, feeding and changing Andrew (typically every hour during the day) and then doing normal daily stuff like bathing, fixing meals, prepping for lessons the next day, etc there are very few minutes of "down time."  This will get better as Andrew's feedings space out a little, but for now I am definitely enjoying the cuddle time with my little guy.  I know all too soon he will want very little to do with old Mom!  :) 

How's Andrew doing?  Fabulous!  We went back to the doctor today for a weight check to make sure that he's getting enough to eat since I'm nursing and that he wasn't jaundice.  Luckily he was perfect on all fronts this morning!  He's actually quite the overachiever.  Babies are typically supposed to be back to their birth weight by 2 weeks old, well he has surpassed his birth weight and gained over 8 oz since Monday.  The average is about 1/2 oz per day for the first few weeks and then tapering off a little as they get older.  His average was gaining 2oz per day in the past 4 days!  Craziness!  The doctor was quite please with his color and his weight and said that he's doing much better than most newborns, so he's one healthy little guy!  We haven't had any issues with reflux or jaundice or any of the other very typical newborn problems.  We are so blessed! 

It's hard to believe that one week and one day ago I was just starting to get closer contractions that would eventually lead to one super fast labor and delivery.  I am back into my regular clothes, although I'm still a little "squishy" from just having carried a baby for 9 months.  ;)  It feels SOOOO good to have on normal pants with a real waistband!  The elastic pants were starting to drive me crazy!  Now 5 more weeks and I'm allowed to start working out again...I may weep with joy!  :) 

So that's us as of now!  We are one big happy family, even if a little tired and cranky here and there.  ;)

Pictures coming soon...I'm promise!  :)

Andrew Vail Hughes

Andrew Vail Hughes FINALLY graced us with his presence on September 20, 2012 at 19:11 (or 7:11pm).  I saw finally because I felt like I had been in labor with the lil man forever...but in reality only 4 weeks.  ;)  I had what they call prodromal labor for exactly 4 weeks prior to Andrew's arrival!  Which is basically "false" labor that feels very much like real labor (i.e. the contractions are painful and pretty consistent) but they don't actually progress you into active labor.  But looking back those 4 weeks were probably why his actual birth was so fast and furious. The contractions do actually prepare your body for real labor, they just don't do anything to send you quickly into active labor, hence the 4 weeks of non-stop contractions!

So how did lil man arrive you ask?  That is an excellent question!  First of all Thursday, September 20 also happened to be his due date!  I woke up that morning and went about my day as normal with contractions every 5-10 minutes just like the past four weeks.  They were the same as always, so I just continued on KNOWING that this little guy was going to go past his due date.  I was a little sad because I was really tired from the weeks of contractions, but I figured, "well maybe he will be born on Grandad's 91st birthday."  So I figured I could hold off for one more day.  ;)  The girls and I had a great day in homeschool and we finished up early so that Ana could come over and play for a while!  We also had a surprise visitor in Pam H!  She came over to pray over us before she and her sweet hubby headed out to Colorado for some R&R.  Katherine and Caroline had a BLAST with Ana and I was unusually tired, so I kind of laid low and just relaxed while they played.  Ana left around 1:30 or so and I put the girls down for a nap.  Around 3 I noticed that my contractions were getting stronger, but still not unusual for the past four weeks, so I ignored them and showered and chilled in my room while the girls slept.  Around 4 I noticed they were now about 3 minutes apart.  Hhhmmm...might be labor?!  I wasn't sure.  I texted Chris and said that I thought I *might* be going into labor but I really wasn't sure and not to get too excited but in case he was stuck on a job site somewhere or a long way away I wanted to give him a heads up.  He pulled in the driveway around 4:30 and was able to come in, get a snack, take a shower and by 5 I said, I think we should head to the hospital.  The contractions were just starting to get painful (but still not bad enough to breathe through) and were now about 2-3 minutes apart.  We called my dad and he was there in about 10 minutes to pick up the girls.  We packed the girls up and sent them on their way with Gray Gray.  It was cute.  By 5:20 we were headed to the hospital.  En route my water broke...ALLLLLLLLLL over Chris's truck...oops!  Luckily my boy scout hubby had a towel in the back seat.  ;)  So he pulled up to the doors of the Birthing Suites and I hopped out, wrapped a towel around me and headed upstairs.  I get to the guard desk and there is a line...  I find out that there are NO beds in L&D.  There were two women waiting to be induced (they had scheduled inductions set for 5pm Thursday...but no beds) and the woman in front of me was having painful contractions and she was waiting too...not a good sign.  So, I stood there (remember my water broke all over the place) dripping water in my soaking wet clothes talking to the guard.  Chris comes up and looks at me totally confused...why are you still in the LOBBY?!  Yeah, well we stood there laboring (I was afraid to sit on anything because all of the chairs were cloth!) for approximately 45 minutes.  The guard was so sweet and he just kept looking at me like "uh...you're not going to have that baby here are you?"  Finally after his 10th call back to L&D begging for a bed one of the triage nurses comes out and says "Oh, let me go clean a bed for you."  Around 6:30 we FINALLY head back into L&D triage.  As I walked into the restroom to change into a gown I finally hit the REALLY painful contractions.  I could barely get undressed!  I get into the triage room and my OB was there waiting for me.  I am begging for pain meds at this point as I feel like I"m about to crawl out of my skin (5 minutes earlier I was still completely fine) and contractions were non stop.  They finally say they have an actual L&D bed ready, so they wheel me down the hall.  They were rushing around as fast as possible to get me an epidural before I delivered.  Chris was warning all of the nurses that Caroline was delivered without the doctor and extremely fast, so be warned! I get into the other room and 10 minutes later the anesthesiologist is there rapidly setting up his tray for the epi.  I sit up and lean on Chris to get ready for the epi meanwhile having horribly painful contractions.  They had just checked me before I sat up and I was at 8cm.  So I thought, "Thank you Jesus I have time for the epi."  As I am sitting there with a death grip around my hubby I feel lots of pressure, so as the anesthesiologist is prepping my back I keeping saying, "No, I'm sitting on his head."  The nurse of course shakes her head no and tells Chris I"m fine.  I say it again "I'm sitting on his head." The nurse again blows it off and at that instance I jumped off the bed (just as the anesthesiologist was putting in a test dose of the epi) and Andrew literally fell out.  Thank goodness Chris was standing RIGHT there because he was quick enough to lean down and catch him!  I had no idea what was going on, my body just completely took over.  As I looked up my poor OB came running in the room (he heard me since he was waiting right outside the door for me) and had eyes about the size of saucers.  He said "What happened?  Did the baby hit the floor?"  I just said "I don't know what happened!"  Hahahaha.  Luckily Chris still had Andrew, so they got me back on the bed and plopped the little guy up on my chest.  They didn't even have a warming tray in the room, so I was his warmer.  That turned out to be a good thing because I was able to nurse him immediately after birth for an HOUR!  The little guy likes to eat.  ;)  He'll fit right in...eating is one of my favorite things!  ;)  They finally took him and weighed him and got him all cleaned up around 8:15 or so.  He was 7 pounds even and 21 3/4" long with a 13 1/4" head!  All of the nurses could not get over how long his eyelashes were or how LONG he is!!  He's definitely a light little peanut, but he is very, very long.  Someone asked Chris how long he was and his response was "oh about 6'3""  hehe. 

The hospital was so busy that I ended up not moving to a Mother and Baby room (because there were no rooms!) and stayed in L&D instead.  I wasn't complaining, it's nice and quiet over there.  :)  Andrew was an absolute gem the entire time in the hospital and barely made a peep the whole time.  He would cry when his diaper was dirty and that's about it.  He also very conveniently pooped every time the nurses were checking his vital signs.  So until he was about 30 hours old I never had to change a poopy diaper!  Good boy!  :) 

We came home on Saturday and he's been the most content little guy.  His big sisters are head over heels in love with him.  Katherine wants to hold him non-stop and Caroline just wants to give him toys.  We are working on learning to use our "inside voices" at home since both girls are incredibly LOUD during the day.  Luckily it hasn't fazed his sleeping yet.  ;)  His first night home he slept like a champ, last night he had a bit of a rough night.  The poor guy would poop every time he fell asleep, so I had to wake him up and change his diaper (which he HATES) and then it took a while to get him back to sleep.  Poor little guy.  He would look at me like "WHAT are you doing to me woman?!"  He's so sweet though. :) 

So far the consensus is his eyes look just like Katherine's when she was born and his super cute kissable lips look just like Caroline's.  He also has VERY blonde eyelashes and eyebrows like Caroline, so I have a feeling we have yet another blondie in the family.  I'm going to be grossly outnumbered in this house!  Sigh.  :)

Pictures coming soon!!

Dear Baby Brother

Dear Baby Brother,

Hi!  This is your mom speaking.  We are officially ready for you to arrive!  We cannot wait to meet you...but mostly me.  :)  I just wanted to write you a little letter and say that it's perfectly fine with me if you come out...NOW!  We aren't evicting yet, but it's getting close.  I know, I know, your due date is not until next Thursday (one week from today) but really, it's ok to be a tad early.  In fact you will soon find out to me on time is LATE and arriving anywhere early is perfectly wonderful.  :)  It's the anal retentive part of your mother, but you will discover that soon enough.  ;) 

This week I swore you were coming on a few different occasions just for you to totally "fake me out" and not come at all.  So now I'm getting anxious.  I know,  you will have me wrapped around your little finger in no time and you are already showing your stubborn side.  Welcome to a family FULL of stubborn ones.  ;)  You will be in great company. 

As of now the house is clean, your sisters' home school work is basically completed for the week, the hospital bags are packed and all of our laundry (including yours) is freshly cleaned and neatly put away.  So it's totally OK for you to arrive at any moment.  ;)  The only thing left to do is put the car seat in the car and actually put the bags in the car.  Daddy is 100% capable of handling those two tasks, so we are ready. 

Just in case I forget to tell you when you are older we definitely feel your presence!  I have been having constant (pretty painful) contractions for the past three weeks!  I know you are getting me ready for all of those middle of the night feedings you are eagerly anticipating, but really, we can wait and discover those long nights together instead of just me up contracting.  OK?  I'd really appreciate either a break or for you to come out and play!  There are a lot of people waiting to meet you...and find out your name!!  (Include me on the wanting to know your name list!)  :) 

Well I'm off to eat some of your cousin's (Allen) famous bar-b-que...maybe the spicy food will entice you to join us in the world?!  :) 

We love you and cannot wait to meet you, so come play soon!

Love,
Mom (and Dad, Katherine and Caroline)

Funny sayings of Caroline

I am loving the age that Caroline is right now.  Just a little over 3.  I loved this age with Katherine as well.  They are pretty independent, yet still cuddly and the things that come out of their mouth!  Oh my goodness...hilarious!  This morning Caroline has had quite a few funny conversations with me, and before I forget thought I would blog them for eternity.  ;) 

First thing this morning as I am finishing my breakfast Caroline walks in with a Barbie doll and asks me to put on an outfit for her.  I take the doll as I munch on my Cheerios and start to dress her.  As I am dressing her, I realize that the doll's hands have teeth marks all over them.  I look at Caroline and say "Caroline, who has been chewing on Barbie's hands?"  She immediately gets an angry (or hangry as she would say) look on her face with a scrunched up nose and slanted eye brows, puts her hands on her little hips, blows out a huff of a breath and angrily says "Baby Brother did that on PURPOSE!"  Then she looks directly at my belly and says "Shame on you baby brother!"  I look at her and just crack up laughing and then said "Uh...Caroline, baby brother is still in  Mommy's tummy."  By now I had finished dressing the doll, so she just grabbed the doll and took off for the playroom.  I shook my head as she left thinking "Poor baby brother!  He's already getting blamed for things and he's not even BORN yet!"  Ha!  I relayed this story to Uncle Cory and he said that he would definitely be teaching little man here about the ways of older siblings and blaming the little guy on the totem pole.  ;)

Later on in the morning the girls and I ventured out to run a few errands that I needed to do and while we were out I had a craving for pizza.  So we stopped by Pizza Hut on the way home and had a quick lunch!  We finished our lunch and as we were heading out Caroline got distracted by the vending machines with the little 50 cent toys in them.  She asked if she could have one and I said "No honey, not today, I just took all of the change out of my pocketbook."  She looked up at me and said "Oh, don't worry Mom, I have plenty of money in my diaper (Nighttime Pull Ups) drawer.  You don't have to worry about that at all."  I'm not sure why, but this absolutely cracked me up!

She has a ton of other funny sayings lately, but sadly I can't remember all of them.  She tries really hard to use big vocabulary to be "big" like her sister, but sometimes she gets her words confused and it is usually hysterical.  The other day she was mad at Katherine for doing something and instead of saying "that's rude/mean/not nice/etc."  She said "Katherine, that's important!"  I cracked up...and sadly so did Katherine which did NOT make Miss Caroline happy. 

She is also SUPER sensitive to smells lately!  Almost every other word out of her mouth is "Mommy/Daddy/Katherine what's the SMELL?!"  It could be anything from something cooking in the kitchen to the grass after it's been fresh cut.  She definitely gets that trait from her Daddy because I hardly ever notice the smell of anything!

Well that's all I've got for now!  Until next time!

The "obsessions" of Katherine

Sometimes I am amazed at how opposite Katherine and I are.  Everyone raves about how she looks more and more like me as she grows...I still beg to differ that she looks totally like Daddy and Caroline, but I swear other than her stubbornness (yes, I admitted that!) I really don't think she is much like me at all!  For instance, she has two word obsessions right now.  The first is the saying "Yeah Baby!"  Think Austin Powers.  I have NO idea where she got this from since no one I know of uses this saying...EVER.  But she says it for just about everything these days.  It cracks me up...but slightly scares me...where did it come from?!  I can't blame it on school, because we homeschool.  I can't blame it on TV, because we don't have cable!  So clearly she has picked it up somewhere, but I'm really clueless as to where!  Oh well.

The second word/theme obsession of hers right now is "fashion."  Anything and everything to do with fashion.  This is what REALLY boggles my brain.  How did a daughter of mine become SO obsessed with FASHION?!  I know nothing about this stuff!  For instance, when she plays Barbies with Caroline, she names the girl she's playing with "Fashion" and then proceeds to dress her up in some very creative outfits which she then calls "fashion outfits."  She constantly calls herself "the fashion girl" and wants me to wear my high heels so that I can be "in fashion."  I don't think I have worn high heels of any type since the West Point Christmas party when I was pregnant with Caroline!  Then when we went to our first day of homeschool orientation, she met two different tutors because we weren't sure which class she would be in yet.  When we got home her first question was "Mommy, is my tutor the lady with the sparkly white shirt on or the one with the plain white shirt on?  I sure hope it's the one with the sparkly white shirt, she has great taste in clothes."  Uh....HUH?!  I didn't even NOTICE what the tutors were wearing.  Maybe a "is my teacher the one with blonde hair or brown??" or "is my tutor the one with glasses or no glasses?!"  Nope, not Katherine.  She totally describes people based on their wardrobe!  Then today as I was getting Caroline changed into her bathing "soup" as Caroline says, Katherine was "modeling" her bathing suit in my bedroom wearing my high heels and sauntering down the length of the room as if she was on a catwalk!  I about fell off the couch...WHERE DID THAT COME FROM?!  Again...homeschooled and no cable....uhh?????  I don't get it!  I am a jeans and t-shirt kinda gal.  I have horrible feet so I am always in tennis shoes or my feet revolt and hurt so badly I can hardly walk!  I do wash my hair and dry it every day, but there are days where a pony tail and no make up at all are just what the doctor ordered.  Katherine on the other hand...wants to wear a dress EVERY SINGLE day and wants to wear fancy shoes every single day.  Tennis shoes are ONLY for when we go to the playground and even then it's a fight to get them on her feet!  Caroline is the same in this sense.  She wears a dress every day, demands that she have her hair done perfectly before we go anywhere and will only wear sandals.  I can't get Katherine to let me fix her hair, but that is the only area of "fashion" that she seems to be uninterested.  Bizarre! 

I'm glad that my girls aren't totally like me, but it is quite hilarious that when they aren't like me, they are the TOTAL opposite of me!  I think God is laughing his head off at me and my constant state of "huh?" when it comes to these two sweet girls! 

Until next time!  :)