To Baby Hayes

Tuesday, October 28, 2014











To our dear baby Hayes,

You have been in our family for almost two weeks now, and I wanted to write down a few things about you before I forget, because I know all too well that this time will fly by and my exhausted brain will not remember much.

You are basically a very mellow guy who loves to snuggle, eat, sleep, and poop. You seriously poop so much that it kind of amazes me. We hold you all the time, which I fear may become a problem with sleep training in our near future, but your sweet baby snuggles mingled with the smell of baby shampoo and Dreft have me wrapped around your tiny fingers! You constantly grunt and sigh which is just the cutest thing ever, and have a very distinct cry--like a choppy little laugh, that we only really hear when you get your diaper changed. You currently hate your baths, but are totally willing to let you big brother love on you a little too aggressively. Thank you for that…he loves you a lot, and is so very sweet, but in a definite two-year-old kind of way. You nurse like a champ, and were already 2 ounces past your birth weight at your 1 week appointment, which I was personally proud of, since it proves that our 2 am feedings are not for nothing! (8 pounds 2 ounces, to be exact.)

Your faces are hilarious. You have a hefty number of them, and you aren't even smiling yet! I don't know what to do with all of your hair, and I get sad when I notice it getting lighter each day. A few firsts for this week: I trimmed your fingernails (all parents know how terrifying this is), you lost the rest of your cord, you went shopping for the first time, went out to eat for the first time, and joined us at the grocery store for the first time. You also accompanied your brother to LCU for trick or treating and to the corn maize (both of which you slept through entirely). 

Most of our days the last two weeks have been spent sitting on the couch, looking at you, playing with you and your brother, laughing at you and your brother, eating way too much food, and watching movies. It's kind of like Christmas vacation, but better because we got you instead of a bunch of stuff. 

You are the perfect addition to our family. I am sad that you are growing but I know that God has big plans for you and he needs you to grow up for them, so I guess I'm okay with it. ;) We are so thankful to be your parents. And now you are waking up to eat, so I must go!


Meet Baby Hayes!

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

 Our sweet little Hayes was born this past Wednesday. I don't even know where to start.

He is so perfect and it is true what they say: your heart grows to make room for a new child! It's like he has always been a part of our family.





I'm going to give the shortest possible story on how everything went down. (It'll probably still be long though ;).  If you don't like birth stories, skip on down, but I love them, so I'm sharing mine.

So…I had Parker at exactly 39 weeks. I was a lucky duck, I know. Tuesday night I was coming up on my 39 week switch day and had basically given up hope of having him early like his brother. BUT lo and behold, I began having contractions at around 2:30am while bouncing on an exercise ball and watching Everybody Loves Raymond (couldn't sleep). I didn't think they were real at first, but after an hour or so, I woke up Bryan (to which he tried to "Shhh" me, and to which I responded with a few curse words before making him aware that I was having legit contractions). We started timing them, and they were only 2.5 minutes about and lasting about 50 seconds each. Believe it or not, I was still totally in denial. Like, I didn't want to go to the hospital. I called my nurse, and she said that if they continued to go ahead and go in. After I called her, I accidentally called my mom but didn't realize it and she of course freaked out and called me back. I remember thinking, "How on earth does she know that I'm in labor?" I thought she had super powers. 

Anyway, 4am rolled around rather quickly, and after pacing the house and cleaning up, we called Judy to warn her that she might need to head over. 15 minutes later the contractions were hurting bad, so we called Judy again and said,  "You need to leave NOW." We texted our doula, tried to get packed (packing while having contractions is super FUN!), and by that time Judy was there. 

The hardest part of the whole night (besides the obvious part of having the baby), was saying bye to Parker. I had been feeling really sad about not having him be my only baby anymore, and when I went into his room to kiss him goodbye, I just lost it. It was so hard to walk out of the room. And this was all happening in between contractions, mind you! So fun. ;) When I finally walked out, Judy was standing there and I just cried while she hugged me. She just kept saying, "I know." And then she said that I was giving him his best friend, which was basically the only thing that got me out the door. Gah, it's making me cry just thinking about it! Moving on before I have a breakdown here at the computer…

So, I cried out on the driveway, had a contraction, and then we raced to hospital. Bryan was a speed maniac. Also, contractions in the car suck just as much as people say they do. 

We got to the hospital, this was at about 5am,  parked, freaked out a security guard in the lobby and then went up to the L&D floor. All the nurses were just hanging around, and when they saw me it was pretty obvious that I needed to get to a room, so they put me in the very first room (Room 1) that is literally right when you walk into the L&D doors. No privacy! Yay! I didn't care at the time though. 

I walked into the room and immediately noticed the empty bassinet in the corner that would hold our baby in just a few hours. That has been one of my most vivid memories with both of my babies labors. Very surreal! I changed, they started a IV line because I was GBS+ and needed a dose of antibiotics, but I was told that once that was done they would unhook me and I could walk the halls. Well, they checked me, I was 6-7cm, and were like, "Nevermind! You will probably have him before the bag of antibiotics is done." We were both still in denial during all of this--it was happening SO fast!

I stood next to the bed for the rest of it. (Like the transition part…fun. A whole lot of fun.) Bryan had hot rice packs, which are truly little miracle packs for your back. 

So, it was about 5:45 and my water started breaking and I needed to push. I needed to push, but didn't want to…because I knew that it would hurt and was still in shock that everything was happening. Our doula walked in at about this time and so did the herd of nurses and the on-call doctor. Dr. Wilson.  I forgot to mention that right after we got to the hospital, a nurse walked in and said, "I've got a teensy bit of bad news, Dr. Suit can't make it back in until 7am…" I tell you, I am not destined to have my OB's at my babies births! I was super bummed because I genuinely love Dr. Suit. 

So anyways, Dr. Wilson was super laid back and just kind of let me do my thing. They wanted me to labor the baby down so I just sat there with the audience of medical staff and the bright lights right where no one wants them to be and moaned through it. I did this for about 10 minutes and then started to push. Now, I remember contractions being SO much worse with Parker's labor than they were this time around, but pushing was SO much worse this time around. And I only pushed for maybe 5-10 minutes (with Parker it was 45), so I'm not sure why that was. I remember my doula saying, "You are almost done, and he has a head full of dark hair!", to which I replied,  "No, I only have blonde babies!" That got a room full of laughs.  I also freaked during the last contraction when they told me I was almost done again, and I said, "Bryan do NOT tell me I'm almost done if I'm really not!", and after that my doula just grabbed my hand and put it on the baby's head. Now, I have always been super weirded out by this, but it gave me the motivation I needed to get him out in the next push. And then he was here!! This was at 6:06am. We had only been at the hospital for an hour. 

They laid him on me chest. My first words to him were, "You're here!"Another memory that is very vivid in both of our kids births is locking eyes with Bryan for the first time after they were born. Such a sweet and proud moment. We just stared at him, Bryan cut the cord, and then they covered him up on my chest. And then they tried to kill me. I'm kidding. But I was bleeding a lot apparently, to the point that they were worried, so they were pushing on my stomach a lot harder than normal and I really thought I was going to die. I did scream for sure during this part, all while holding our brand new baby.   It was definitely equal to the agony of pushing…maybe worse.






I got to hang out with him for about an hour before they did his measurements. He was 8 pounds even and 20.25 inches long. I think his head and chest were both about 13.5 inches around. I remember just being super amazed at what he looked like and how completely perfect and wrinkly he was. I told him that he looked like a tiny little bulldog which also got laugh from the nurses.  He also had so much hair, but just on the back of his head, like a little old man. Bryan and I still talk about it all the time, because Parker was blonde and pretty bald. 






We nursed for about an hour, talked to our doula and Dr. Suit, and then Bryan gave him his bath with another very sweet nurse. He hated it of course :). 





The big drama of our stay at the hospital was settling on his name. Now, we had already picked Hayes Benjamin and had announced it to pretty much everyone who had asked. BUT once he was born and they asked what his name was…we both hesitated! We didn't know if he looked quite like a Hayes Benjamin and started debating if we should name him Benjamin Hayes instead. 

Long story short, after thoroughly confusing our entire families and all of our hospital workers, we legally named him Benjamin Hayes Roberts but have still been calling him Hayes. I can't think of him as anything else but Hayes even though that is technically his middle name now (We tried calling him Ben but is wasn't sitting well for some reason). Who knows, we may pay the $15 to legally switch the name again but for right now we are happy with it. ;)





Mr. Hayes is so perfect to us. That wrinkle in between his eyes kills me. 



All cleaned up and ready to go to our postpartum room!





I got some comments after I had Parker that I was crazy to care so much about what I looked like at the hospital because I only posted made up pictures.  Here is more than enough proof that labor makes me one hot mess.




We moved to our room a few hours after he was born and started welcoming a flurry of visitors including Grammie, Abby, Big Brother Parker, Bee, Nonnie, and my best friends Kecia and Alli (along with Kelsey and Bowen). 





Parker did really well meeting his baby brother. I missed him so much that I almost started crying when he walked in the room, but he didn't pay much attention to me and either played with his new big brother gifts (which he has been seriously attached to since) or looked at the baby.




He really warmed up to him after a bit and started giving hugs and kisses and wanted to hold him. (For about 2 seconds.)





These three boys….I am obsessed. 









Hayes is quite the sweet and so far mellow baby. He has little chicken legs which I adore, big pouty lips, and really furry shoulders. He is perfect.




(Everyone doing what they do best. Holding babies, airplane playing, and sitting on the phone ;) Kidding, Nonnie!



'
Parker was mesmerized the first time Hayes got his diaper changed. He kept saying "Baby crynin!" 




Our very first family of four pictures. :) I can't complain, it could have been worse! Notice all of Hayes' dark hair! (And yes, I had actually showered by this time!) 




Snuggling with my sweet boy on his birthday after our visitors left. And celebrating with a Sonic coke. :)




We spent a sweet night in the hospital. I don't know why, but I love the nights in the hospital. You have the chance to get to know your sweet new baby and get to snuggle them all you want and everything just feels right for a bit.

We had an awesome nurse named Heather in our room. I just feel like I should mention her because I liked her so much. I was very fortunate to not need any stitches so recovery has been SO much better than it was with Parker--everything was really laid back and we were only at the hospital for a little over 24 hours. I really feel like a pretty much normal person (Minus being 5 days into nursing--if you've nursed a baby you know what that feels like.)


Me and Hayes right before we were discharged. The exhaustion had officially caught up to me! 

My mom took a ton of pictures as we left, but I don't have them on my computer yet. Parker was very amazed that we were actually keeping this baby, haha. I was very amazed that we had two kids in our car with us. It was an uneventful ride home, and a relaxing evening! 

So much has happened since then (good but tiring things), so I will save that for later. 

We are just feeling so blessed. And now that sweet baby is waking up from his nap, so I must go! 


My main man (the mini version) and some randoms.

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Hi!

I'm supposed to be balancing our bank account, but that tends to make me want to crawl into a corner and cry, so instead I will post pictures of Parker.



He looks so much like Bryan in this picture, it freaks me out!








Kissing Dusty. It's a shame he doesn't have any personality. ;) You can also see a little of the barn doors we put in his big boy room that I PROMISE I will post pictures of one of these days!! We love them.

And here are a few from the night Abby and Luke got engaged.




It rained all day and Parker did not care in the slightest.




Here are some sneaky photos of the actual proposal. Being sneaky without a flash at night is hard!! But I'm glad they have some photos to remember the moment by. I love Abby's girly hand gestures and faces. 





We have a bit of an obsession with her new fiancĂ©. So happy that he will be joining the in-law club. And this girl is on top of things….she already has her dress (!), venue, photographer, florist, and caterer booked! A planner after my own heart. 




Parker did not really have any interest in the big event of the evening, but you better believe he was excited to stay up past bedtime and make s'mores on the patio. His version of a s'more is just a marshmallow on a stick, in case you wanted to know.





With some rainwater on it… YUM.




What did I do for entertainment before I had him to watch? I really have no clue. Oh wait, I think I blogged more, haha!


I just put a roast in the crockpot--new recipe. I found it on Facebook--one of those ones that people share on their walls? I have actually found some GREAT recipes that way!

-Chuck Roast (I think mine's about 2 pounds)
-Packet of Hidden Valley seasoning
-Packet of au jus mix
-Stick of butter
-4-5 pepperconi peppers

I'm a little concerned that you aren't supposed to put water in it--but we will see how it turns out! It's supposed to cook on low 7-8 hours.

I love roast and always have WAY too much of it due to the fact that I cannot resist BOGO sales at the grocery store.

What else…I've been on the mission to find new flats. My shoe wardrobe is seriously lacking and the whole 9 months pregnant thing has reminded me that heels are not my friend at the moment. I really like these two pairs from ASOS but can't pull the trigger on either one.






And I just ordered these leopard flats from Amazon. They are Dr. Scholls. I know, I'm such a brand snob. ;) I justified this purchase because I needed to spend $4 more to get free shipping on something we actually do need… a car seat cover. ;) (Bryan hates my system for justifying purchases.) 

It will be interesting to have a winter newborn---I'm a little nervous actually! I did a ton of research though and it seems this cover will be the best at keeping baby toasty warm….if he ever decides to come out, that is! 



I've been ordering baby things online like a crazy person, but it is SO much easier than wrangling my toddler out in public every day. (Although I still put him through that test of torture several times a week. Today it will be at the grocery store.)

Also….does anyone have a Clarisonic facial cleanser? I've been contemplating what I want for Christmas and am thinking of asking for this. I actually read a lot about them and it seems that the Olay cleanser works just as well based on reviews? I did some research on a few blogs and was honestly just overwhelmed at the amount (and price!) of facial products that a lot of women use. I will not name names, but one girl in particular spends an average of $200 a month just to wash her face! (You better believe I did that math.) She does have beautiful skin though, and I am definitely a little jealous. I think I have missed this part of being a grown-up? Either way, some advice would be  awesome!

Alright….off to Tuesday lunch with the girls. I guess the good ole' bank account will have to wait. Have a wonderful day!