My big boy.

A friend of mine recently posted about her son getting older and it made me realize just how big Spencer is getting. I held him in my arms as if he were a baby and I had a very hard time remembering him ever being that little. Granted at 10 pounds 4 ounces he was very little to begin with, but still. He is growing into such an amazing little person. He helps his sisters all the time, usually without even being asked. When Lucy cries, he's the first one to get her a binky or sit and play with her to try and cheer her up. When Tatum needs help, he's the first to her rescue. He even takes her shoes and socks off for her when we get in the door. I don't know what I'd do without him. I'm trying so desperately to hold on to what I remember when hewas wee, but it's getting harder and harder to remember a time when he wasn't such a responsible, helpful little man...

Spencer at Lucy's age:

My big boy holding Lucy:

I'm a slacker...

I feel like such a slacker. I can't believe it's been 4 months since I've updated! Wow. So sorry. My sincerest apologies to all 4 of you that follow my blogage...

So let's catch up. What's been going on? Let's start off with the oldest of my kin...

Spencer!

My big Bucket. Spencer turned 5. I have a 5 year old? I'm not old enough to have a 5 year old. He is turning into such a sweet responsible little man. He makes his own bed. He wipes his own bum. He takes care of both of his little sisters with a smile... Probably because he wants to be allowed to play Mario Bros on the Wii, but still. I'm cool with it. He's turned it to quite the social butterfly with neighbor kids dropping by nearly every day asking if he can play. Makes it nice for me when the girls are sleeping. ;) In more recent events he is on a course of antibiotics for scarlatina strep throat. Crazy stuff. Rash, sore throat, fever. If it's not one thing, it's another. That kid's always sick!

Tatum!

Awe, my little Lumpty Shake-a-bootie. She JUST started potty training a few days ago. She did NOT want to sit on the potty, but when she finally went, something clicked and she got really excited. The very first time she went she yelled out "Mommy, it twinkled!" I said, "you mean tinkled?" And ever since "potty" is a word of the past and now it's "I have to go tinkle." She's really starting to come out of her shell as my shy middle child. She still won't talk to you for the first 20 minutes but when she gets to know you, you won't be able to get her to stop. Especially with her little diva attitude she's got going on. On many occasions I'll ask her a question and she'll turn to me and say, "I'm not talking to you."

Lucy!

I can't believe my little Lulu Liv is 4 months old now. That went by super stinkin' fast. She wants to roll over so very badly, but turns out she's got some junk in the trunk and it makes a little harder. She is such a happy smiley little baby... until she's tired. Once she realizes she's tired and not asleep, she gets a little pissy. She has such a cute personality, and is the most talkative of all of my babies. It seems like everytime you talk to her she's so excited her whole body grins... I keep waiting for her hair to fall out, but it keeps growing in... blonde. Ugh. Another one. And here I thought I finally had one with my hair!

Antonio!

Tony is starting a rotation position at Intel come January. I'm super proud of him. He'll be doing 3 different jobs over the course of 2 years in order to get more experience rapidly with no commitment. Then at the end of 2 years he'll be able to another position in the company if he so chooses. It also means less travel. Woot. Except for his trip to Vegas in January. Pfft. If only I could drop off the kids and go. But no dice.

Carrie!

Not much going on here. Seems like my days are usually pretty full though. I started going to MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) on the 1st & 3rd Tuesday of every month and am really enjoying the social interaction! I also get to hang with my little bro every Tuesday eve when he stays at our house. The kids are loving their weekly hang out time with Uncle Andy too. Gives me a nice little break as well. I just got over bronchitis and nearly a week with no voice. Poor kids. I seriously couldn't do much but whisper and so the kids thought I was insinuating that they should be quiet and they would be so quiet that I couldn't hear what they were saying... Sadness. I did just get back from a much needed trip to Sisters with Lulu & my Mama. It's nice to be able to have some Mother/Daughter bondy bondy time and I'm really excited now that she's finally decided to retire so we can hang out more. Not exactly the why, but I like to flatter myself.

Lucy Olivia

There are advantages & disadvantages to having an induced labor.

Advantage: You know exactly when you're gonna have a baby.

Disadvantage: You know exactly when you're gonna have a baby.

I don't know about you, but I am a very anxious person. The night before we dropped off Tatum & Spencer with my parents before heading home to prep, pack and head to bed. It was going to be a very early morning. We took one last pre-baby picture...

We checked into the hospital at 7am on July 11th and started to get prepped. I was so nervous. It was all starting to come back to me. The pain, the blood, the pushing... My heart rate skyrocketed. At about 9am the nurses finally got the doctor's orders and the pitocin was running through my veins. At about noon my doc decided to break my water and I decided a pre-emptive epidural was needed. We waited til about 2 for Mr. Anesthesiologist and by then the contractions were hard, strong and pretty much not fun.

After getting good and "comfortable," my doc showed up to break my water. I thought the entire event was hilarious. My legs kept falling over and I had absolutely no control. Sorry doc, it was entertaining.

Soon after I became nice & nauseas and had a lovely headache. BUT, it was definitely worth the lack of massive pain in the rest of my body. At one point, Lucy's heartrate dropped and a ton of nurses stormed the room to check me and give me oxygen. Turns out she was just dropping lower and must have pushed against the umbilical cord for a moment. It was 5:45 and I was at a 5.

Within 20 minutes my body started to shake uncontrollably, which was a sign of transition with Spencer & Tatum. Then came the uncontrollable crying. Again, did the same thing with Tatum. So Tony turns to the nurse and says, "well we've hit both stages, pretty sure she's ready."

Sure enough, the nurse checked and I was ready to rock. Unfortunately my doc was at dinner. AGAIN. You'd think she'd learn. She was at dinner when I got to 10 with Tatum too and she made me wait. Not fun at all. So I waited... when she finally got there I told her she was fired. She laughed and told me to start pushing. I laughed back and said "I'll start pushing when you sit down!"

She sat down, I said, "I don't know if I remember how to do this," took a deep breath, pushed and all of a sudden at 6:36 pm, there was a full head of dark hair, completely out. Doc told me to slow down and then all of a sudden she was out. Took less than 60 seconds. It was so surreal. I started laughing again...

And here she was, this sweet little girl with a massive amount of hair. The whole thing was just hilarious to me. I could not believe she came out so fast, nor that she had so much hair, NOR that she smelt so bad! The first words out of my mouth were, "she's so stinky!" Apparently, when they are early they still have some stanky vernix (white goo) all over them. I never noticed it with Tate, but Lucy was definitely smelly!

So they cleaned her up, weighed & measured her, and she came in at a teensy 9 pounds, 7 ounces and 21 inches in length. She didn't look like Spencer & she didn't look like Tatum. Perhaps a combination. Not sure. Although it makes me feel good that I finally have one with dark hair like me. But who really knows how long that will last. Tony's blondness seems to be a pretty strong gene...

After spending the night in the hospital and getting very little sleep I was ready to head home. Don't get me wrong, Lucy & Tony slept great, I just could not sleep through the crying baby next door!

When we got home, the kids met us there and got to meet their little sister for the first time. Tate wasn't really sure and it's taken her a couple of days to get used to the idea of her. When I nursed her the first time in front of Tate, Tate got really upset and kept telling me to put my shirt down. She's gotten a lot better though and this evening Spencer & Tatum sat and stared at Lucy for a good 30 minutes just admiring her and pointing out all of her little features.

Spencer was sort of excited to meet Lucy, but as soon as he had, he was kind of like, "been here done this" and headed outside to play with his cousins. He has since been very concerned though, as has Tatum, whenever she cries... to make sure she's okay and has what she needs. I think they are both going to be very good siblings to their new baby sister.

Lucy Olivia Jones

Oh crap, another biggun...

Here I am at about 8 weeks before my due date with my 10+ pounder, Spencer (please excuse the gross nekked beller pic, at this point I was void of stretch marks):

And then at the same period of time with my 9 pound 4 ounce Tate:

And here I am at 8 weeks til my due date with this one:

Awe crap, I'm totally gonna have another 10 pounder...

Happy Birthday Baby Girl...

2 years ago today my little (9 pound 4 ounce) lady came into this world. From the moment she was born, she was the sweetest, quietest, easiest, most adorable baby. But all that has changed! She's 2 now and as big a talker as her brother was at this age. She is turning into quite the little diva and she knows it! The other day she was yelling at Spencer because he had a toy she wanted, stopped and said, "I being mean." She can still be the sweetest little girl despite her diva-ish ways. She loves to give people "squishes" (hugs, but if you say "hug" she won't give it to you. It has to be a "squish." She loves Sesame Street, her baby dolls & anything pink. Who knew I would end up with such a little girly girl?

1 day old

1 year old

2 years old

And the verdict is...

Last night I could barely sleep because all I could think of was how this baby's gender was going to completely change the dynamic of our family. We would no longer be even, it'd either be chick flicks or action movies...

I woke up this morning and started drinking my ridiculous amounts of water and as soon as we dropped Spencer off at school I had to pee. So I did. They say don't "void" but whatever, if I drank a quarter as much water as they want you to drink, my bladder will still be full 2 times over. We dropped Tatey off with my friend Rachel, I peed, then headed to the clinic. I checked in, I peed, then my name was called.

Our tech was Tony, a very nice fellow indeed. He started to look around and the first thing the baby did was shake it's bum around. Hilariousness. Moments later he found where there would or would not be parts and in a matter of moments we knew!

Our tech continued looking and the entire time our little baby squirmed and kept opening it's mouth and yawning. It was the coolest thing to watch. Tate & Spencer moved during their ultrasounds, but the movement was not as detailed - more like random kicks, but we got to sit and watch this baby stretch it's neck and squirm and try and eat the placenta. It was so amazing.

We also found out that we could get a copy of the video, something we weren't aware of with the first two. BUT they did manage to track down Tatum's video from over 2 years ago and they're gonna attempt to get that one to us too. We'll have them next week! I'm so excited to sit and watch them over and over...

Oh, by the way, it's a girl. ;)

Rental Rant

So if you haven't heard yet, we are buying a new house and we supposedly are moving the end of March. We have until then to find a renter for our existing home. We decided to go the rental route since we had our house on the market a certain amount of time and had no viable action. Not to mention, the market is absolutely terrible and we'd have to pay an insane amount of money to sell.

So here I am. House is clean, children are clothed, I am bathed... And... Nothing. Some potential renters called yesterday saying they really wanted to see the house. So they said they could come today at noon. What time is it? 12:30. Where are they? Who even knows.

I am frustrated beyond my wits end.

Granted they could have a ridiculously awesome explanation for not showing up, but couldn't they at least call? I'd like to give them the benefit of the doubt, but come on. I don't know how many people have called about our house saying they would call back later that day and never do.

Is it the type of person who rents? I don't think so, I have a very good friend who rents and she always calls and shows up when she says she's going to. These other people sure are giving "renters" a bad name. Is it a lack of respect? A lack of pride? I don't know. What makes their time so much more important than mine? Why don't they have enough respect for other people to show up?

I guess I never fully realized what we were getting ourselves into when we decided to rent this house out instead of selling it. But it seems like there are so many people out there that are just plain rude. What ever happened to "do unto others as you would want done unto you?"

When will this get better? When will we find a respectable person or party to live in our house? Will we? We better, or in 5 weeks we'll be stuck here, which wouldn't be a surprise because I've been saying that the last 4 years. We are going to be stuck in this house until the end of time.

We are cursed.

My baby isn't a baby...

What happened? All of a sudden I woke up the other day and my baby girl was no longer a baby. She's in a big girl bed, she plays by herself, she TALKS all the time, she uses please & thank you. When did this happen? Good thing I have another one on the way to fill my baby hole. Tatum is turning into such a sweet, loving, demanding, adorable little girl and I couldn't prouder.