Happy Birthday, Nash!

I can't believe my little boy is 2 years old! I love so many things about him! To me, he is the most amazing and adorable little boy I have ever known.

He loves playing outside, especially on playgrounds, he loves climbing and figuring out how to do things that other kids or people can do. He loves toy cars and trucks and he always wants to "drive" when we get in the car. He loves sucking on his two middle fingers of his left hand and cuddling his blanket and toy monkey for comfort. He loves to run around and he likes being chased by the tickle monster. Speaking of monsters, he loves cookie monster and Sesame Street. He loves to listen to books and can stay entertained by it for quite awhile. He loves baths and playing in water. He loves to help me with anything and everything I'm doing, especially cooking or washing dishes. He likes to build things with blocks and duplos, especially shuttles and tunnels. He really loves tunnels and gets excited about going under any archway or overpass, because it is a tunnel to him. He loves playing with friends and going to Nursery. He likes kicking soccer balls and going on walks. He loves giving Ava hugs and kisses. He likes to eat pickles, olives, yogurt, cheese, butter (with or without bread), pizza, raisins, noodles, watermelon and more, depending on the day. He loves to dip his food in any kind of sauce. He likes to pretend to mow the lawn and dig in the dirt and help me water the plants. He likes to put the flag up when we put mail in the mailbox. He likes to play the drums and the piano. He loves to dance and has got lots of moves. He is an incredible talker and has amazing vocablulary and annunciation for his age.

Nash, I love you--these past two years have been two of the most fulfilling of my life. I am incredibly blessed to be your mom!

You are such a good, fun, happy boy! Happy 2nd Birthday, Nash!

Has it really been a month already?

I can't believe my little girl is already a month old! But we're still alive and things are going well in for us with all the adjustments. Nash loves Ava and finally calls her by her name instead of calling her "baby." Ava's doing great and growing so quickly! She weighed 10 lbs 5 oz at 3 weeks old, so she's probably well over 11 pounds by now. She's wearing some 3-6 month size clothes already! And I think we're finally starting to sort out her days and nights. Last night she slept for a 5 hour stretch, which is pretty monumental.

My parents came to visit after Ava was born and of course Steve's parents are here (because we're living with them!). Here's a photo of from the visit:

Here are pictures of Ava all dressed up (girls are so fun!):

Aunt Amber made the first one, Aunt Kelly W. gave her the second, and Aunt Janet gave her the third.

She has so many cute clothes and dresses the she's been given, as well as other items which we are so grateful for. So thanks to all those who have given such wonderful gifts!

Ava's blessing day was on Mother's Day which was pretty special (I think she has a thing for holidays...). She wore the same blessing dress that both my sisters and I wore as well as all the girl nieces in the family. It was first given to my mom from my Grandma Troutman for my sister Nancy. Here are some pictures of the blessing day:

For Memorial Day weekend, we went to a family friend's house in southern Minnesota. They run a 900-acre farm. It was beautiful down there and we had a lot of fun. Nash and I got to go on our first tractor ride. Nash absolutely loved all the tractors and barns and fresh air. He just loves being outside in general. We went to Lake George last Saturday and he had a blast playing with the sand and water. Ava is so portable now, and has just been an angel as we've gone on all sorts of excursions. I must say that pacifiers are a lifesaver for car rides--I am so glad she loves her pacifier!

Nash having fun at the farm and the lake.

Ava Lyn

On April 21, 2009 at 2:18pm, Ava Lyn joined our family. It is so exciting that she is finally here and I have a beautiful baby girl to hold in my arms. She weighed 8 lbs 11 oz and was 21 3/4 inches long. She has a little bit of brown hair, an adorable round face and long fingers and toes. She's just perfect and seems to be even more beautiful each day.

She was born on my birthday, too, which was really exciting. Since I actually went in to be induced, I had somewhat mixed feelings about choosing her birthday to be the same as mine. However, my birthday was her due date, so it made more sense to choose that day rather than another arbitrary one. And I think it will be fun over the years to celebrate the day together.

Steve was with me for the labor and delivery and was the most amazing coach ever. He is such a wonderful husband and my best friend. I feel so blessed to share my life with him.

Nash has taken this all very well so far. He was really excited to see his new sister the first time he came to the hospital and although he has been pretty hyper for the past couple days, he seems to be taking in these big changes pretty well. He likes to hold her and be by her, but, of course, he also has little understanding of how to be extra careful and gentle around her yet. But he'll be a great big brother.

We gave Nash a present for Ava's coming home day--a new trike! He loves it. It was awesome to see his face when he first saw it.

If anyone is interested in hearing more about Ava's birth, read on for more details:

We were scheduled to go into the hospital at 7:30am on April 21 to have my water broken to get things rolling (I was already dilated to a 4 and 70% effaced, but no consistent labor contractions were happening). We arrived on time, but didn't see the doctor until 9:30. Luckily, breaking my water was enough to get the labor going and I didn't have to take pitocin.

By 12:00 I was dilated to a 5 and working through some tough contractions. Then it really picked up. By 1:00 I was starting to feel like I was close because it was getting especially hard and I had little to no space between contractions. However, I was only at a 6-7, so I assumed I had much more time to go and opted for an epidural. The anesthesiologist was busy, so the epidural wasn't actually put in until 1:40. Right when he finished putting it in, I knew I needed to push. The anesthesiologist asked, "when did someone last check her?" and although they had checked me about 45 minutes prior to that, they soon discovered that I was already dilated to a 9 and five minutes later was at a 10.

Unfortunately, the doctor was busy delivering another baby so I had to breath through 20 minutes of contractions with an enormous urge to push--all the while trying not to push. I think this was possibly the hardest part of the labor--the epidural hadn't had time to kick in and I had to refrain from pushing when my body certainly felt otherwise. When the doctor came at 2:15, we did one "trial push" and the baby crowned. On the next contraction, I pushed three times and out came baby Ava! So total labor time was less than five hours!

She's healthy and beautiful--a welcome addition to our family.

My boys

This is my new favorite picture of Steve and Nash:

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter! We had a good time today with decorating eggs and having an Easter Egg Hunt for Nash. We filled all the eggs with cereal (the sugar kind), which was Steve's mom's great idea. It's less expensive and perhaps a little more nutritious than other Easter candy--so I'll probably be doing this for my kids for years!

I'm so grateful for this holiday, so that I can be reminded again of the atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I know that He lives and am blessed to feel His love daily in my life.

Star Performer

Here's Nash entertaining us, as always. Notice how he says, "cheese." Every time we get the camera out whether to take a video or picture he says it--so adorable.



And don't ask us where he learned to do the splits. Certainly he didn't learn it from either Steve or me.

Haircut

I don't know about anyone else, but I start feeling less-than-pretty toward the end of my pregnancies. To give myself a little boost, I got a haircut recently! It is short and easy and I feel really cute in it. So here are some pictures of my new look!