My Three

This is so so frustrating. I typed up this entire post last night only to have the internet fail on me and therefore, I lost my entire entry. Aghh!! I am going to attempt to do this again...

Emily is going to be 2 months old on September 2nd. In honor of that milestone, I will chronicle my three at 2 months old.

Hunter
Born at 7 lbs 7 oz and 20 1/2 inches long
Hunter was 12 lbs 12 oz at 2 months old. Wow! He had grown over 5 lbs in the first 2 months. He was a great eater, a very textbook baby- eating every 3 hours or so and up about 2 times a night, he loved to be swaddled, to have a pacifer (pop pop in our house), loved bathtime, enjoyed the bouncy seat and was an easy baby to take around. He was holding his head very steady at that point and loved to put weight on his legs in our laps.
Here is Hunter at 2 months....


Blake
Born my biggest at 8 lbs 13 oz and 22 inches long
Blake was 13 lbs 3 ounces at 2 months. He was a chubby bubby. He too was a great eater, an even better sleeper- waking up once a night since birth, loved to be swaddled and loved his pop pop (still does), enjoyed the bouncy and watching all things Hunter. He was a great baby too. He was also developing strong muscles and loved to stand on our laps and could hold his head very steady.
Here is Blake at 2 months....

Emily
Born my smallest at 7 lbs 2 oz and 19 1/2 inches long
It remains to be seen how big she is at 2 months. We will know in a couple of days. I will venture to guess that she is not nearly as big as her brothers. Emily is a great baby- sleeps through the night as of 7 weeks, loves to take a bath, loves being swaddled and loves her pop pop. She is a fan of the bouncy seat, not a fan of the infant carrier and is not decided about the swing. She can hold her head pretty steady, does well at tummy time and when you work with her, she will put weight on her legs while in your lap. She is starting to smile and coo at you. She LOVES when I sing "Oh Holy Night" to her. I get quite a reaction from that.
Here is Emily at nearly 2 months....

Serendipity

We are spending this weekend at the lake- just the 5 of us. It's been like a mini-vacation. Mind you, meals still have to be cooked, laundry done and we are cleaning up after ourselves, but just being away from home is a treat.

We got here yesterday and Blake and I ventured back into town to shop at HEB. We got back, swam in the lake, the boys kayaked, we had chicken tacos for dinner, icecream for dessert and played. Today, we drove over to Horseshoe Bay and swam in the pool and played at the little beach. Chris and I took turns sitting with Emily in the shade. She was a great sport.

This afternoon, Hunter and I went into town to stick our heads in a couple of shops. He was especially fascinated with an antique store that had junk piled out in the front yard. He was in search of a treasure and found some blue Mardi Gras beads on a rusty iron table. We went hand-in-hand down Main Street (it felt like such a "memory" moment)and looked in several other shops. He was not nearly as interested in the clothing stores as I was. He still had his sights set on the beads as his treasure for the day, so after a stop at the icecream shoppe we drove back to the antique store to "buy" the beads. The lady was precious and allowed Hunter to take his treasure free of charge. :)

We have had fun sitting on the dock, the boys have jumped off of the back of the boat and swam, taken kayak rides, saw a little snake (yuck), and had a wave runner ride. All are tucked in their beds- well, except for Emily.

Chris and I watched Marley and Me last night and boo hooed at the end... again. That movie does it to me everytime. I have been much nicer to my dogs today.

I played around with my camera while the boys were on the kayak and took many pics of my most captive audience. Enjoy!

Talking to God

I have always said prayers with the boys at night. It's our ritual. Hunter has always been a little resistant to the idea of saying his own prayer. He usually insists, "You say it mom."

The other night, Chris was out of town. I was putting the boys down and was about to say the prayer. On this particular night, Hunter decided that HE wanted to do it. However, I had to leave the room and shut the door. So I did.

The next morning, he came in so proudly and announced that he had prayed to God and asked Him to help him be nicer to his brother. Hunter was really pleased with himself and I told him how much I knew that God loved hearing from him.

Fast forward to the next night, Hunter again announced that he wanted to pray but that I needed to leave the room. Well, over the monitor I could hear him as he "talked" to God. I have always tried to encourage him to say his own prayers and told him it's as easy as just talking to God. Well, that was exactly what he did.

Hunter's precious prayer went something like this:
God, Thank you for this day and for watching over us and protecting us. (Something I say every night) Please watch over my dad while he's out of town at a golf tournament. (About this time, Blake stands up in his crib and starts to cry) Please help my brother Blake stop crying. Oh and God, I really, really, really like talking to you, and I'd really like it if you would talk to me too. Oh, and I would really, REALLY, like it if you were down here on the ground with me. (A little more that I could not make out over the monitor.) And God Bless ya God!

Seriously, the sweetest and most precious prayer I have ever heard. I'm so proud of him.

Sleeping like a baby

Emily officially hit the 7 week mark last Friday. It's hard to believe we are nearing 2 months old. Where did that time go?
She doesn't look too pleased to have time flying either!

Blake and Emily before leaving for the trip. I love that he wanted to hold her. I love his smile and dimples and her expression is priceless- like "Get me outta here!"

I can hardly stand that she is growing and changing. Last week, she started sleeping through the night and has done so the past 5 nights. Of course, now that it's in writing, she will revert back! I would never expect a baby to sleep through the night so young anyway, but had heard that girls usually do much sooner than boys. I'll take it!

We have had a great month of August. Emily has been traveling since she was 3 weeks old. We have been to Waco to visit family, the lake to be with family and South Padre with family. She's great in the car on road trips and has started to take a bottle as of 6 weeks old to fill in the gaps when I just can't feed her. She prefers the Gerber Nuk bottles but loves the Soothie pacifiers. Hmm.

Emily loves to be swaddled just like her brothers did. She will take a great daytime nap all swaddled up. Other naps just tend to happen in the carseat, the bouncy, or wherever we may be. I love to hold her and just be close.

As of 7 weeks, we started seeing real genuine smiles. They are few and far between, but you can tell she is really taking you in when you are talking to you and every so often you get a really precious grin. And drumroll please.... she has dimples too! When I was pregnant with Hunter, my OB commented how much she hoped he would get Chris' dimples. You have to admit, dimples just have a sweet charm about them. Well, Hunter did not get them, but Blake has great dimples. Emily has more than I can count- they are in the corners of her mouth and on her cheeks. I've tried so hard to get a picture of the smile, but she just stares at my camera like "What is that huge black thing pointed at my face that shines a bright light at me?"

Here are some recent pictures from our South Padre trip...
Hunter and his FAVORITE food... Shrimp!

Me and my 3 kiddos ready to hit the beach. My one and only picture of myself. :-)

Blake ready for a day in the water.

Hunter and his new shark tooth necklace. Boy is he proud of it!

On our last day, Emily spent time under our tent laying in the shade. Would you believe that she still got a little red? I felt terrible about it. Only her face was exposed since we used the green towel to cover her, but she was completely shaded. We think she must have gotten a touch of windburn. Ughh. I still feel guilty. Anyway, she did look cute in her suit.

Hunter and his boogie board. He insists on wearing goggles at all times in the water.

We all headed over to do putt-putt and go-cart driving. Hunter had a blast racing around the path with his cousins.


I've been working on Emily's room. Pictures to come. I am not happy with the paint color, so back to square one on that. Boo. I have all of my fabric at Angie's getting made. I chose to copy a bed I saw and I hope I love it as much as the picture. It's very simple and classic. The pops will come on the daybed in the fabrics I chose for the pillows.

Blake has moved in with Hunter- that is going fine as of now. They go to sleep without much of a fuss but Blake has been waking up once a night and often ends up in our bed. However, for such a big transition they have both done well.

What's up Wednesday...

It's hard to believe Emily Blair will be 4 weeks on Friday. The time has gone by so quickly, not that I didn't already know that it would. She had an awesome night last night and slept from 10 pm to 6:00 this morning. Yippee! She has been getting up around 3:30-4 each night to eat and then goes right back to sleep without any trouble. After her 6:00 feeding this morning she dozed right back off and I had to wake her around 8:00.

Hunter has some kind of viral sore throat so we had a visit to the pediatrician this morning- all of us! I had planned to possibly leave Blake with my sister so I could take Hunter and of course, Emily. The doctor's office called and asked if I could come an hour earlier instead and gave me a 15 minute warning, so we all loaded up and I am happy to say, survived our visit there.

My sweet grandfather passed away on Tuesday morning after a long battle with Parkinsons. He's in a much better place now and for that I am so thankful. We are going to miss Dee Dee though! He was a special person and the only grandfather I had living during my lifetime.

Emily is still sleeping most of the day away. I took her for a weight check last week at 3 weeks and she was 7 lbs 13 oz, so I am sure she has finally tipped the scales at 8 lbs this week. I can tell she is starting to fill out more and more, yet find it so hard to believe that Blake was BORN at 8 lbs 13 oz, over a pound and a half bigger than Emily at birth. She still is not as big as he was yet and she's almost a month old. That's incredible!

Blake and Hunter continue to be the best big brothers. There is nothing but sweetness towards Miss Em and lots of hugs and kisses from her big bros.

On our first trip to Waco, Emily was 3 weeks old. She did great in the car and slept the entire way. This is Em in her sunbubble outside at Din and Dinny's house (great-grandparents) while the boys were swimming.

This is Emily in her newest dress from her future Aunt Kate. Thanks Kate! Yellow is a good color on her.

Looking at the lights and colors on her playmat. I realized that I had the boys down on this playmat long before she got a chance. I can't forget to do the things I did with them just because life is more hectic these days. She seemed to enjoy watching the lights, listening to the music and seeing all of the colors.

Emily all dressed up in one of her tutus. It's fun to play dress up and take pictures. I am trying to figure out this camera that I got last fall and play around with the settings. She is of course a very fun and captive subject. One day soon she'll be running just like the boys do when the camera comes out!

Another attempt at playing with the camera. This Feltman bubble is one that my mom saved that me and my sister wore. So sweet!

A week ago I had a small surgery done and so Chris, Emily and I headed to the surgical center that morning. I had her all dolled up in her bow. Since I am still using the baby blue toile carseat cover I used with the boys, we sometimes get the observation that we have another boy- doesn't matter if there is a pink blanket draped over her, it still happens. So, we had to stock up on some more bows to make it OBVIOUS! It makes me laugh that my boys got mistaken as girls even in their blue outfits- I mean blue seeksucker with sailboats? Seriously? Now, I have a girl that has pink on every outfit and she gets mistaken for a boy. Ha!

The kids in Waco... Hunter loves having Em close by and Blake is always eager to be a part.

Look who has rediscovered the swing! He sits in it, makes it go side to side and says, "Wee, wee, wee!" Glad he likes it now since he was never a huge fan as a baby.

Emily is offically without her umbilical cord at 2 weeks and 1 day old. She has had a couple of tub baths since and she loves them. Like mother, like daughter. Actually, all three of mine have loved the bath since day one and even love the sound of it. I guess the many baths I took during my pregnancies fostered their love for the tub.

Well, the rest of our week will be spent with family and honoring my grandfather at his memorial service. We are going to spend the weekend at the lake and I am excited- not about getting in a suit, but about being at the lake. It's been a long time!

The first two weeks...

....have been great with Emily Blair at home with us. We are so blessed and thankful for our healthy and happy little one. She is really easy-going (so far) and fits right into the daily swing around here. It's loud and crazy most of the time and she doesn't even flinch. So far, she is eating every 2-3 hours during the day, sleeps a lot and is having periods of wakefulness more and more every day.

At night, she wakes up to eat every 3-4 hours usually by squirming in her bassinet. She rarely cries and makes the sweetest little sounds when she needs something. At this point, Emily spends a lot of time in Mommy's arms, being held by her big brother, Hunter, in the bouncy seat and swaddled up in the bassinet. Life is good!

I have had way too much fun with each outfit change and take as many pictures as I can in each thing. It's been such fun seeing her in pink and ruffles!

Emily had her 2 week visit early at 10 days old. She had regained her birth weight and was 7 lbs 4 oz, so that is great progress from the 6 lb 10 oz that she came home from the hospital at. She is 25% in weight, 50% in height at 20 inches now and 50% in head measurement. Emily is doing great with head control and even pulled up from laying flat on her Mimi's lap. We were stunned that she could pull up so much!

Emily in her going home outfit at one week old

Emily looks like a baby doll in this picture

I laid her in Blake's crib last Friday (July 9) while we were playing in his room. I ran into the kitchen to check the time and it was exactly 11:39 am (her exact time of arrival one week before) and snapped this one week old picture right then.

Pretty girl in her sun bubble.

Accessorizing at a young age- this is VERY intimidating to me!

Sweet Daddy got us the stork again- this time it was pink. Many neighbors who saw this were very excited for her arrival!

The boys love holding Emily and Hunter asks to have her every chance he gets.

Blake reaches his hands out eagerly for baby sister (he calls her Bobby- which is ironic because that is the boy name we would have named the baby had it been a boy).

So cute all curled up


Overall, the first two weeks have flown by. We have ventured out a couple of times and Emily has done great each time. The boys are doing well with a new little one in the house. They love her and the only issue we have is between the two of them- lots of squabbles over toys, who had what, etc. I think we can manage though!

It's a....

GIRL! We are so excited to announce the arrival of Emily Blair Jones.
Emily arrived Friday, July 2nd at 11:39 am.
She weighed 7 lbs 2 oz and was 19 1/2 inches long.
Emily has blonde hair, long fingers and toes, skinny little legs and arms and is perfect from head to toe.

After my last OB visit on June 30 (Wednesday) it was decided that I would have to come in on Thursday night to get the induction process started. For those of you who know me, my labors have been completely backwards by typical standards. Hunter, our first, came quick- within 2 hours of arriving at the hospital he was here. Blake was induced for that very reason so that I would be in a hospital setting for his arrival. He arrived within 4 hours of being induced. Now this third baby had a mind of it's own and since I was not progressing as I had with the first two, we needed to check in on Thursday night.

We were so excited! On Thursday, I took my last pregnant picture. Ever. :-(
Here are my last belly shots...



Chris' mom came in town with my sister-in-law, Summer, and her three boys. We visited and the boys played over at our house that afternoon, we took them to the toy store for a little treat and ate at Order Up. It was so humid that night, so the picture is a little blurry. It's our last shot as a family of 4.


After dinner, we brought the boys home with my sister, Kristin. Chris packed his bag, I finished up with my things and we got the boys situated. Around 7:40 we pulled out of the driveway, only to return 3 days later as a family of 5!

Around 8, we pulled up to the hospital and checked in downstairs. They sent us up to Labor and Delivery and assigned us to room 8. We had about 30 minutes to settle in and organize our things before my nurse, Yari, came in to get things started. Here is our room.



Yari got the IV in and monitors hooked up. Around 9:30 Dr. Vanover came in and got me started on the cytotek, which is like cervadil. She said that they would watch the monitors and if I needed more they would come in in about 3-4 hours to up the dosage. Chris and I tried to entertain ourselves by watching TV. Of course being hooked up to the saline drip made it for some frequent bathroom trips. That was a nightmare seeing as I was hooked to the IV pole on one side and hooked to the monitors on the other side. It was a long night of watching the monitors, getting up and having to unhook things and hook things back up, listening to Chris snore, and just being anxious for things that were about to happen. Apparently I had already been having contractions already when they first hooked me up to the monitors and I hadn't even noticed.

Around 5:15, they started pitocin and at 6:15 they broke my bag of water. About 7:30 my parents arrived and shortly after, Chris' parents arrived. Kristin came with the boys and my brother, Blake, got there to join in the fun too. Here is mama and her boys.

Blakey was especially loving on his mama that morning. I'm not sure he knew what to think.


My labor was very non-eventful. I was definitely feeling the contractions when the boys arrived, but was able to mask the pain. They came in around 8:45 for the epidural, so that made it easier for sure. After the epidural, I was at 5.

Around 11:15, I started to feel some pain in my lower abdomen and so my nurse, Ashley, checked and found that I was 8-9. Not much longer now~ The pain intensified with each contraction and before we knew it, it was time. Dr. V rolled in at the perfect moment and we got things rolling. Only about 5 pushes and Emily was here. Dr. Vanover said, "You have a little girl!" and we both just burst into tears. It was such an incredible moment to see Emily and to have her placed into my arms. Chris and I were both in disbelief. We have a little girl!

Apologies for these blurry pictures. Chris had a lot on his mind trying to get still pictures, video of her first moments and take her in. Here we go!

The ugly cry. We were just blown away that we had a girl!

Here she is!

Thank you God for this blessing!


I don't know why this didn't rotate, but this is how Chris announced to the family and friends in the waiting room what we had. Pink balloons or blue balloons given to the boys to tell them they had a brother or sister. As you can see, they have a sister!

Miss Emily Blair

Our family of 5

Daddy, Mommy and our little angel girl

Showing her off

More to come..... gotta run!