Black Friday Christmas Tree Shopping!

Annual Black Friday Christmas Tree shopping! 

A Christmas tree for party of 5, please!

B was really excited to pick one out...she kept trying to pick them up... "How 'bout dis one!?"

C and I just held the trees for Ron to look at. It was a hard job, but someone had to do it.

I think this was tree number 3,258...

A decided that she needed to start looking in the back of the piles to find the good ones...and started climbing the tower of trees. lol I really didn't want her climbing the trees, but it really was funny.

Finally, tree number 5.329 was the tree!  My husband always tells me "you know,we do have a fake tree in the attic... we already use that for our family-fun tree. Why do we have to get a real one every year? It's a waste of money and so messy!"

BECAUSE!

we live in Florida. I don't get cold weather...or snow...nothing really feels like Christmas down here, so the only thing that really does feel like Christmas is a REAL tree... the smell and the feel of it. 

And then, of course, after you get home you need to relax by the fire and roast some marshmallows, right?  A had that idea. I must say, it was a grand idea!

Someone on my IG commented that they always head out to get ice cream after getting their christmas tree. They sit in the back of their truck and eat it. She lives in CA. I must say, that might become our NEW Christmas tradition!

Do you have a Christmas tree getting tradition??

And Then There Were Three

I'm not sure how I have been able to do this, because between both A and B, everything gets lost. (and let's face it - the hubs too!) BUT I have been able to save both one of my favorite pajamas and the same pacifier and have been able to do the same picture with all 3 girls. I did a side by side with A and B when B was born. I couldn't believe how much they looked alike.

Fast forward to "today."  I still have the same paci and pajamas, so I decided to get another picture to do with all 3 girls.

C doesn't really like pacifiers (which is all good in my mind), but I got her to keep it in her mouth long enough to get a few pictures.


So here it is, all three girls in the same position, same pjs, and same paci.  I can see how A and C are even more similar than what I thought A and B were.  But really, they're all just so stinkin' cute!

As time goes on, I will probably only remember who is who by what is in the background.

Thankfully, every time one was born, we were either in a different house or had new furniture. haha!

This is Caroline. She's the only one I have a single picture for anymore.   

Weekly Ramblings - Caroline's First week!

Caroline's first week has been great! She is such a sweet, innocent little girl.  

She sleeps LONG periods of time. I'm talking like 4-7 hours at a time. During the day, during the night. Whenever she sleeps, it's a long haul.  Which is awesome! Most people say to wake the baby to feed them every 3-4 hours. Well, not me. The girl more than makes up for her long sleeps when she's awake. She cluster feeds for a few hours, and then goes right back to sleep. Her pediatrician is right on board with me, saying as long as she's gaining weight, then no need to wake a sleeping baby.

Well, sometimes I think about waking her because my boobs are in so much pain! lol

The girls LOVE her. They constantly want to hold her or help with her. Sometimes, too much.

My mom has been a HUGE help in keeping the girls entertained and doing things with them. That's what we really need help most with. The baby aspect? We got this. But I can't really keep on the move with A and B and they really need that.

My mom took them to a fun little "snow village" that was put on by a church. Autumn got to ice skate for the first time, and she LOVED it. Too bad there isn't an ice skating rink around for her to do figure skating or ice hockey. I bet she would love it! 

And since I can't sit very well during this whole healing process, but I know I can't get up and walk for long periods of time yet, I have resorted to cleaning and organizing my house.

This was the day I decided to purge/organize my pantry.  It's pretty sad at how much food we have. 

I really need to start looking in my pantry and making our meal lists based on what we already have. lol and NOT leaving my grocery list on the counter when I go shopping...so I'm second guessing if I have "this" and just go ahead and get it anyway. 

On another note... Caroline was due on Thanksgiving Day. And on that day, we already had our sweet little Caroline. I couldn't wish for anything else. I am so thankful for all my girls!

Our First Day Home

Our first night at home from the hospital went pretty well!

We got home around 6:00 from the hospital. We picked up Brooklynn from the sitter's on our way home. My mom was already home with Autumn. It is amazing how much help it is having Mom home, even though she doesn't feel like she's doing too much... it's a lot more than she knows!

It is amazing how much sleep you can get when you aren't constantly being woken up by nurses to get poked and prodded all the time.

Caroline slept from 9:00 (ish) until 3:00!  Holy sleep, Batman!

Of course I kept waking up to check on her, but mostly my sleep was pretty good too!

This morning I realized I needed some "necessities" from the store, so I sent Ron out to get them.

Can I just say, sending a man to get maxi pads at the store, alone, is probably one of the most comical sights to see at the store. The conversation lasted for probably 10 minutes, just to figure out what color pads they were, the stripe on the package, the length, the thickness, the brand...lol.

I keep laughing in my head.

But that's what husbands are for the day after you get home from the hospital after you have just pushed life out of you, right?  snicker, snicker

As for Caroline?  She slept all. day. long. She really likes sleeping on her side. I can't say I blame her, it's my favorite way to sleep too.

She barely ate yesterday. She would go 4-6 hours without eating. I even tried waking her up and nothing was waking that girl up. She was, apparently, pretty exhausted.  I mean, being a 2 day old baby is hard work!

And can I just say? My boobs are killing me!  From her lack of eating, they are the size of cantaloupes. No lie. And as hard as cantaloupes. Luckily, baby girl woke up this morning starving and ate for probably a good hour. Relief at last!

Caroline Summer's Birth Story

Caroline Summer has made her appearance!!

Monday was a really cold day. I was really hoping that the cold would shock my body into labor - ha! 

Tuesday came and it was still cold. I had some plans with some girlfriends to get pedicures and dinner. I was hoping that the cold plus the pedicure would do the trick - ha!

 I was 39 weeks along. 

Wednesday came, and to work I went! I really thought I was going to make it to Friday, which was my last official day of work. I was ok with that though, I still had things I needed to do.

After work, I got the girls from Mimi's and school. We came home.  I was getting ready to do laundry and the dishes, because, let's face it. My house is always in need of cleaning.

I had to make a pit stop to the bathroom before actually getting the laundry completely started .... but then after the bathroom, I kept having to go to the bathroom...  Well after 3-4 changes of clothes, I finally realized what had happened.

My water broke.  But I had never had my water break before, so I didn't know what it was. And it wasn't a continuous gush, but enough for me to know that it wasn't me not getting to the bathroom in time...continuously.

I called my doctor, and he said head to the hospital.

Great.

My bag still was not packed.  NO ONE was answering their phone to watch the girls. And Ron was at work.

Perfect.

Ron actually answered his phone, which is a miracle in itself, but he was on a call - ha! Luckily, the call got cancelled, so he was headed back to the station.

My mom finally answered her phone and she met us at the hospital to get the girls.

So, they admitted me and discovered that my water had, in fact, broke.

BUT.

I did not have any contractions nor was I dilated. This was going on 4 hours later.



But my water was still gushing. I've never had my water break on its own before. It's really disgusting. Like the worst feeling ever.

So, because lack of water in the sac can lead to an infection, I wanted to get the party started, so around 10:30 or so, my doctor started me on Pitocin.  Within an hour I was already feeling some nice sized contractions...so much so that I was already telling them to keep the epidural "guy" handy.

Around 11:30 they gave me setatol, the pain meds through the IV. That made me fell totally weird.  I couldn't stay awake on it and it helped ease the pain a little bit, so I was feeling the contractions on a totally different level, half awake.

Around 1:00 or so (I don't really remember time around this point), they gave me the epidural.  It was such a nice relief!

I finally got some real sleep. I was so exhausted, I didn't know how I would have been able to handle actual pushing if I didn't get some sleep before she came, so for this, I am so thankful for the epidural.

Around 3:45 or so, I started to feel some serious pain and pressure, and the nurse checked me and said that it was because the head was right there and I was about 9cm dilated.  Time to call for the doctor!

4:00 he comes in and gets me all prepared.

4:10 he tells me to start pushing.

3 pushes later, out comes our beautiful, sweet Caroline Summer.

Caroline Summer

November 20, 2014

4:13 a.m.

7 pounds, 14 ounces

20 1/4 inches long

We had some visitors during our stay at the hospital.  It was really nice that I had some family around this time to come see us.

My girl Matteson came, bearing the BEST pizza - our "post beach" pizza. BEST hospital present ever!

She also came bearing our car-seat. She offered to redo the covers because this is the original carseat from when Autumn was born, 6 years ago! eek!  Doesn't she have some serious skills??  I'm in awe of her talent.

My cousin Lisha came to visit with her boys. I'm so glad she lives around here right now! I love that we get to see them.

Her boys were so excited to be able to hold Caroline.

AND she came with a birthday cake for Caroline! I love it! Happy Birth-day, sweet girl!

My brother and his wife came with their baby Jack, but Caroline wasn't in the room at the time. But Demi made a beautiful lei that I got to wear and feel like royalty for a little bit.

AND Jason and Noelle were in town from Hawaii! Perfect timing! So glad they got to come and visit.

We were finally ready to go home, got all the discharge papers and everything...all packed up....

Then BAM!  Ooops, they didn't do her hearing test! 

Ugh. Hopes were then just squashed!  

We got discharged at 4:00 and we didn't get to leave until AFTER 5:00. Talk about annoyed.

We finally got home around 6:00. And the girls were instantly enamored with Caroline.

I now have my ABCs... my 3 beautiful girls:

Autumn Rose

Brooklynn Wynter

Caroline Summer

Starting with the End

With my parents back, that means that we can start working on my inside house projects while  we are working on the pool project. The pool project is going to take forever to get started because we're not just doing a pool - we're also adding in a "pool house" which is a shed/workshop for Ron as well as an "overhang" - kind of like another mini covered patio by the pool on the outside of the shed. And of course, we'll be putting in a fence.  This is all taking way to long for me. I just want to get started... forget the site plan and permit and survey and such. Can we just start digging, please??

Anyway, I also have a whole list of other things that I want done to the inside of the house. 

Well, my dad is ready to start on those whenever we are ready! BUT, we realized that everything we want to get done has to go with the flooring we're going to be putting in. But we're not putting the flooring in until last because we're remodeling the whole kitchen layout and my master bath layout.  

But we still need to know the floor we want so we can get our cabinets and countertops to "match."

So we went to Lowes today to find some flooring. 

There is a constant joke - if your marriage can survive the building of a house (or the remodel of a house), then you're probably going to make it all the way. lol. I get that. We haven't even barely begun.... this is going to be fun! haha! I mean seriously, Ron is shade blind... should he even get a say in colors?? lol! 

Let's talk flooring, for a minute, shall we??

We want wood - or the wood look.  My friend put the tile that looks like wood in her house and I really like it, so that's the way I was going to go. 

This is, essentially, the look I'm going for:

see pin {HERE}

Ron really likes the dark wood and furniture. I do too, but I don't want everything to be dark, I like the contrasting colors. and the cream color furniture and cabinets can go either way - shabby shic, antique, or beachy chic.  

So now the problem is... what kind of floors to get. Wood or tile??

When I say wood, I don't mean like REAL wood because the kids and furniture will definitely scratch it up. And I don't want laminate.  I mean like Bamboo or Pergo wood...the strong stuff!

Or the tile that looks like wood?? Our house has REALLY tall vaulted ceilings in every room (totally unnecessary and a pain in the but, if you ask me). so the tile makes everything echo. Plus, if you chip or crack the tile, it's really noticeable.

The engineered wood, like bamboo or pergo is really strong wood... but I wonder about wet spills... and scratches??

Anyone have any insights??

So, while the inside is moving along, let's talk about where we are with the outside.

Well, we've signed the contract with the pool company. 

He's come out and spray painted our lawn and put in stakes, which of course, we've already moved and now have to have him back out to redo where the pool and patio are going. 

This is going nowhere fast.  I'm already annoyed at it because I want it done....like yesterday. I'm impatient and I loathe paperwork... I know - not good for being a teacher, either. I get the irony.

But do you see all those pine needles?? I'm so excited because those pine trees have to get cut down for our pool!!! Oh darn. I hate pine trees.  Thankfully, we are working around my cluster of oak trees and palm trees. Those I must keep!

Ready for Baby C!

So, last Wednesday, I had a doctor's appointment. Just a regular ole check-up on the baby...

She already a wild one...ha!  Movin' all over the place, making it hard to get a good heartbeat.

She's head down and way down too.  Doctor says that I could be starting my real contractions any day now...I have contractions all the time, but just the braxton hicks ones...

So, since he said that she could come any day now, I kind of am in the mood to make sure she has the necessities ready for her arrival.

It's so funny.... 

When you have your first baby, everyone who is on their "multiple" kid tells you what you need to have - and that list is vastly different from what you think you need as a first time parent.

But you don't believe them.

Then, eventually, you figure out that they were right. All along.

Crazy.

So, here's what we have for Baby C - and I think we're ready!

We have:

1. pack n' play - she has a place to sleep now!  No place for a crib since my parents may still need the spare room, which is fine because both A and B slept in our room until they were 6-9 months old.

2.  bathtub - got it out of the attic!

3. boppy - that is actually one wise investment (we still had ours from A)

4. a pack of NB and size 1 diapers - don't know which size she'll need and for how long. Autumn stayed in NB for 3-4 months, while B was out of them much quicker

5.  clothes - yep... all kinds of good handme downs! lol

6.  nursing paraphernalia - just had to go re-buy all of my nursing tanks, bras, and pads. I still have my nursing cover that my sister made for me when I had A.

7. moby wraps - didn't need to buy these... still had 2 from when I had A; just needed to wash them

8. diaper bag - not really a diaper bag... just a bigger purse. I tend to just throw wipes and diapers and a change of clothes in a ziploc bag and then throw it in my purse. I don't want to carry around two bags....shoot. I don't even want to carry a purse most of the time as it is, so this works well for me.

9. Car seat - got them out of the attic and washed the covers - check!

So, I think we're ready... After a few kids, you kind of know what you are really going to need and don't make much to do about it.  I don't view it as "so sad for the baby for getting the shaft" as much as I do as being "realistic" with our money and needs.  Right?