2 Weeks Old!

Here's some pictures of the past two weeks with our little guy! He's been such a joy to have in our family. Sure, he's had his fussy times, but overall he's been a breeze! He mainly just eats and sleeps. It's great! It's given me a chance to adjust to having another body to take care of. These past two weeks have really flown by though. Before you know it, Collin will be walking! I just need to remind myself to cherish these days because they go by so fast. I just love him and his chubby little body! He's so fun to cuddle with :) What a blessing.

Our babies always seem to like to do this with Dad.

Collin found his thumb!

Hangin' out with Sis.

His first church outfit he got to wear last Sunday (check out those cheeks!)

Parker with his crooked smile!

Easter...Better Late Than Never!

This year Easter was a little bit crazy...The Easter Bunny was feeling a little frazzled from just getting home from the hospital the night before. The Easter Bunny did make it though and the kids seemed very happy with what they got.

The weekend began with an Easter egg hunt on Saturday, which I missed out on. Our neighborhood does one every year at the park. Jeremy left the hospital early that morning to be home to take Samantha and Parker to that. Of course, no pictures were taken. Mainly because I had the camera with me at the hospital. Later on that day Jeremy brought the kids to meet their new baby brother. It was really touching to see how excited both of them were to see and hold Collin. I finally got home around 10:00 p.m. and that's when panic mode hit for me. I'm one that likes to be organized and prepared, but getting home that late and not having anything prepared for the next morning (Easter baskets...) I started to stress a little. I guess the hormones from having a baby were kicking in! Well, it got done, like I said, and then I slept as much as possible. Easter morning was fun, with a small egg hunt in our living room and looking through the kids' baskets. I then helped get them ready for church and Jeremy took them. I insisted they go to church because, dang it, they had to wear their Easter outfits!!!! It was a must! I didn't buy them for nothing! SO, they went and I stayed home and slept some more. Later on that evening we went to Jeremy's parents' house. We ate dinner and Grandma and Grandpa Klein planned a little Easter egg hunt in their basement for the kids. They had so much fun!

Overall, it was a great Easter. We got the best gift of a new baby brother! It was a tiring holiday, but wonderful.

Cousins, Taylee, Samantha, and Rohne

Cute Aunt Jess with Collin

Jessica helping Parker with his eggs from the big hunt

Samantha ate all of the candy out of her eggs as she was opening them. I had no idea until they were all gone! Silly girl!

Collin's Newborn Pictures

My friend, Jessica, took some great pictures of Collin the other day! Here's one of my favorites...To view the rest go to :

http://www.feelyphotography.com/blog/

She's awesome! Thanks Jess!

Introducing Collin Noah cont...

Introducing Collin Noah

I did it! Yesterday (Friday, April 10th...I wrote this out a couple days ago!)) was the big day to finally welcome the newest addition to our family. We had Collin Noah at 8:07 p.m. last night, April 10, 2009. He weighed 9 lbs. 15 oz. and is 20 inches long. BIG BABY! I don't know how I carried that around?! It was pretty uncomfortable at the end, that's for sure. Well, it all started around 7 a.m. I started having contractions, but I wasn't timing them because they were kinda sporadic and I've had so many lately, I didn't really think anything of it. I had a doctors appointment that morning at 9:45, so I got myself and the kids ready. I planned on bringing Parker,and Sam was going to her friend, Megan's, house to play. I made it to the doc's and was still having contractions. The doctor checked me and I was dilated to a 4-5. She was pretty shocked and had me get hooked up to monitor my contractions. After about 20 minutes of that she told me I needed to get to the hospital! She said, very excitedly, "you're having a baby!" Yikes! I still had almost 2 weeks until my due date and wasn't really prepared. Although, I was hoping for this. I was getting induced Wednesday anyways, so it worked out great. I just wasn't mentally ready, I guess. It got kinda complicated after that because I had Parker, Jeremy was at home working, and Sam was at her friend's house. I was instructed not to drive, so I wasn't sure what to do. I called Jer and he ended up picking up Samantha, while Parker and I sat in the van in the parking lot of my doctor and waited. He met up with us and we left his truck in the parking lot. We then loaded the kids up and headed to Aunt Emily's house. She lives pretty close to my doctor's office, so that worked best. Thanks Em! After dropping them off, Jeremy and I finally were on our way to the hospital. Grandma Klein later made it to Jake and Emily's to pick up the kids and take them back to our place. What an ordeal! We finally got to the hospital around noon. After getting settled they wanted to start an IV. I really wanted an epidural, so this was a must. Well, dumb me hadn't drank hardly anything that morning, so my veins were really hard to get to. It took them 7 tries to finally get it in! It hurt so bad. They didn't just poke and come out each time either. They poked and then dug around to find the vein. Not pleasant! Finally they got it and right after that I got my epidural. That was NOTHING compared to the IV. You'd think the IV was the easy part. Not so. After getting relaxed I started getting nauseous. I've never thrown up during labor, so I was surprised. I never thought, being pain free, that I'd get sick. I ended up vomiting 4 times total, one being while I was pushing. Crazy. The craziest thing though, was the fact that after I got my epidural, my contractions pretty much stopped. I was so frustrated. They started me on pitocin, which helped, but it still took way longer than we all anticipated. Breaking my water helped, but it still took me hours to get fully dilated. So, after a long 7 .5 hours, it was finally time to push! I started pushing at 7:30 and by 8:07 he was born. Not too bad! Things went really well and I only had to get a couple stitches. With a boy that size, I expected a lot worse. He's healthy and looks great! He's got brown hair, which I was hoping for! He's so chubby! He really doesn't feel like a newborn.The nurses couldn't even put him in the newborn diapers they had ready for him. He's already in 1's. Jeremy was exactly the same weight at birth, which is kinda neat. I guess having a really big baby was bound to happen for us. I've been trying to nurse, which is going well but it's not enough. I've had to supplement with formula as well. Just too big of a kid! Overall, things are going well and I'm very happy! Now I get to go home tonight and be around for Easter. I'm so excited to see our 3 kids together. It will be fun and exciting to watch how they interact. And Jeremy gets to have 6 weeks off to be around and help me get adjusted to 3 kids at home. I sure am lucky! Update: Thing are still going well. Collin has been a fantastic baby! He sleeps well and definatley eats well. The kids love to hold him and feed him and hug him. They are a big help! I took him into the doctors today and he's doing great. Nothing to worry about. We did have a wonderful Easter with family. Collin slept through the whole thing :) Thanks to everyone for your emails and nice messages! What great support! More pictures to come...so much to do, so little time!

Come Get Your Fruit Punch!!!

That was the phrase I heard over and over again the other day in our front yard. Samantha has had this obsession with selling lemonade since last summer. I've always been the mean mom who tells her, "no." I've never been in the mood to set up a lemonade stand with a 4 year old and sit there for who knows how long and sell. If she was older and could do it on her own with a friend or something then that would be great! I'd be all for it. Well, the other day happened to be absolutely beautiful outside. So beautiful, it put me in a great mood and I actually gave in to her asking me for the 1000th time!!!! I warned her that we may not sell any. I told her not to be too sad if we don't and it was just for fun. In fact, we wouldn't even SELL, we would just give it away. And, we didn't have lemonade, only fruit punch. We didn't even have a real table to set it up on. She accepted all of that and headed outside to get ready. We have this box from a booster seat we bought her that she decided would be great to sit at with our punch and cups. So, she drug it outside and I brought out the pitcher of fruit punch and some cups and we sat...We just sat on the grass and talked and waited. FINALLY two girls walked by and we were able to give them some. We got one other customer as well. We were out there for a good hour and got 3 customers! I was really happy for Samantha. She finally got to "sell" lemonade (or punch)! And, the best part of it all was watching Sam yell into her pretend microphone "Come get your fruit punch!" "It's on sale today...it's free." "Come get your fruit punch!"

She had a blast!

Pranksters!

We had some pranksters at our house last night! We've never been pranked, but I guess there's a first for everything. Jeremy noticed, as he was coming to bed, that his truck was covered in post-it notes! We had a good laugh :) It was pretty creative and must have taken a very long time. They were gutsy! Our front yard is very well lit and if I were them I'd be afraid of getting caught. Luckily, it was a nice night and no rain in the forecast. I suppose when you have a husband who works with the youth and also just finished substituting seminary this past week, you're bound to get someone who's daring enough to pull a prank on their teacher! In the end, we did find out who did it, but I won't name names...they are girls though (of course!)

Lots of sticky notes!

And more...

Notice the happy face on the hood? Nice touch!

Hmmm....

Well, not much has been going on. Not much at all. But, I thought I'd catch everyone up on what HAS been going on... First, I went to the doctors today and things are moving along nicely. I'm at a "3" now and having lots of contractions. Hopefully I will be having a baby soon! If not by the 15th, I'm going to go ahead and get induced. I originally was against it, but the way I've been feeling, I'm all for it. The main reason my doctor even suggested it was to avoid another kidney stone episode. I'm not even thinking about those. I'm just thinking, "get this baby out of me!"

Second, Jeremy has finally joined the huge masses who have been affected by this lousy economy and got a pay cut. Not what we had in mind. He actually found out just a few days before he was supposed to be getting a pay raise. And, to make it worse, his manager said it was going to be a significant raise. Sure, rub it in!!! But, we have yet another ray of hope and he may be able to get a pay raise in July, which would either bring us back to where we were or, hopefully, more. We'll see. This sure puts a damper on our FUN that we were hoping to have this summer.

Third, I had an amazing baby shower last week put on by my dear friends, Rachelle and Julie. It was great! I had a really good turn out and lots of really neat gifts. There are some very crafty women that I know and they all gave me a little piece of their creativity and talent. For example: blankets, digi scrapbook pages of my pregnancy, a diaper bag, a wooden growth chart...it goes on and on. Super fun stuff! And lots of necessity items, like diapers and formula. Thanks everyone! I have pictures coming, so when I get them I'll post a few.

Finally, we're done with swimming and now I've been thinking of what to do next. Sam loves to do so many things. Actually, we'll probably take a break for awhile while I get used to lugging 3 kids around. We'll probably just do whatever's cheapest!

And, it snowed...again. Isn't it spring???? And, isn't this Seattle???

Here's some pictures for the viewing pleasure. I know posts aren't as fun without them! Parker's been such a goof lately!

He loves this bus and dad's hat. Silly combo.

I know, he's almost 2 with binkies! We're working on it...

Glued to the TV!