Backyard photo session for little brother.

I captured a handful of photos of little brother in our backyard while he was napping. I’m pretty sure I’ll cherish these forever. I love this sweet little guy and his big sister too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

That last pic. Oh my, love.

Pictures from the hospital.

I have a feeling most of my posts are going to be pretty much all pictures for a while. It’s much quicker to skip the writing part – plus sleep deprivation doesn’t go well with attempting to write anything coherent! Below are some pictures we took while in the hospital after the birth of little brother. Big sister absolutely loved getting to hold her brother.

 

 

  

  

 

I love my little family of four. God is so good.

Baby brother’s birth.

I’m two weeks late on this, but Eugene & I are overflowing with joy to announce the birth of our son!

His birth story is quite a bit different from his sister’s. Although, similar to his sister, he decided to come after I attended a Bible study. Guess the Spirit really moves my kiddos! ;)  I went to a Bible study at 7pm on Monday night. I was having some contractions, enough to where I decided to start timing them. During the Bible study they were anywhere from 10 to 20 min apart and starting to get more intense and regular. The whole day I was feeling a little weird. I told Eugene that I thought I felt off, and I even predicted that I’d have the baby on Tuesday because I worked a LONG and HOT outdoor event on Sunday. When I had big sister, she also came two days after a huge military event I coordinated.

Like I said, during my Bible Study from 7-9pm, I was having semi-regular contractions…enough that I started to time them. I didn’t really think much of them because I had tons of contractions the last month or so of my pregnancy. It was just normal to have them off and on throughout the day. When I got home from Bible Study, I talked to Eugene a little about our days, then got ready for bed. We laid down around 10:30pm, read a chapter from Psalms together, prayed together, then turned off the light. Eugene usually falls asleep way faster than I do, so try to use that quiet time to have some personal prayer myself. I kid you not – I was praying to God, “I trust your timing, Lord, but if it’s your will, please let the baby come in the next day or two.” During that exact prayer, I felt a pop/small burst, and I knew my water had broken. I told Eugene and he jumped out of bed and began packing. {He isn’t one to pack bags ahead of time…luckily, I had already packed my bag and big sister’s bag.} I told Eugene I didn’t want to leave right away and I wanted time to make sure it was my water breaking. Last time, my water broke around 4pm, and I didn’t have the baby until almost 7am. I didn’t see the need to rush to the hospital just to hang out walking the halls again.

Eugene’s mom came over to sleep at our house so we didn’t have to wake up big sister. {Thank you, Lori!} I got my stuff together, washed my hair, {yes, I wasn’t about to have greasy hair for 2 days in the hospital!}, and we headed in to the hospital about 30 minutes after my water initially broke.

When we got there, we checked in, and headed to triage. I answered 2,000 questions, and then they checked my progress. The nurses kept saying how difficult it was to tell because the baby was so incredibly low. Eventually they told me I was already at 6 cm and having regular contractions. This was going to be much quicker than the first time!

I asked for a nurse who was comfortable with a birth without pain medicine, and God gave me an absolutely amazing nurse. Complete blessing! Nicole, my nurse, got me on antibiotics {I tested positive for Group B Strep}, and then she kindly suggested a few tips to get the labor moving even quicker – rocking my hips on my birthing ball, moving to all fours on the bed, and relaxing my lower muscles with each contraction. She was helpful but not forceful or overbearing. I cannot praise her enough – she made my whole labor experience so much better than my first!

My sister and Eugene were there to help me through the painful contractions. My sister played with my hair, got me water {I was ridiculously thirsty the whole time}, and massaged/put pressure on my back during the contractions. Eugene stood in front of me while I would lean all my weight on him and bear hug him with each contraction. He would talk me through them and let me know when the contraction was almost over by watching the monitor. That was really helpful for me to know when each one was almost over. I just remember saying how sleepy and tired I was. I seriously wanted to fall asleep while sitting on the birthing ball. I couldn’t keep my eyes open, and I could hardly hold myself up {which is why I wanted to lean on Eugene.} Without Nicole, Eugene, and my sister, I couldn't have made it through the labor and delivery without pain medication or without keeping my sanity! ;)

 

My water broke around 10:40pm, and little brother arrived a short 4 hours and 40 some minutes later. Waaay faster this time! It was intense. Very strong contractions, but thankfully I didn’t have back labor this time. That back labor and pitocin last time was AWFUL. I am so thankful that I didn’t experience either of those this time around.

This time around the doctor was already at the hospital, which is a good thing because I transition to being ready to push ridiculously fast. Once it was time to push, it only took 15 minutes or less to meet little brother. I think the labor was easier this time around, but delivery and after delivery was much more painful this time. Perhaps the epidural I got way too late last time actually kicked in ever so slightly to take the edge off of the after delivery part. This time, not so much…I’ll spare you details on that. ;)

As painful and unpleasant as this delivery was, I had a great labor and delivery. Little brother was surprisingly extremely active through the whole labor so I never had to worry if he was okay. I made it through it as I wanted to, without an epidural. I had an awesome nurse and support, enough time to get a full dose of antibiotics in, and it went much faster this time…without pitocin or back labor! Seriously, God was all over every aspect of baby brother’s birth. Thank you, Lord!

We are so in love with this little guy. What an absolute blessing he is.

Just one maternity photo.

Last time I was pregnant, I just wanted one to capture one picture as my maternity pic. This was it:

I love the simplicity of a silhouette, the focus on the round, growing belly, rather than me.

This time around wasn’t much different. Again, there was only one photo that I really wanted to get as a maternity picture this time around…and this is it:

We arrived a little early to Eugene’s brother’s wedding rehearsal, and there was a perfect overhang that overlooked a beautiful golf course. It was the perfect setting to try for my one maternity photo. Eugene snapped this pic. of the little one reaching for my belly, again as a slight silhouette. I love this picture. She’s going to be such a great big sister, and we are all so anxious to meet the little guy!

Baby boy’s nursery.

Back when I originally planned this room’s paint color, I didn’t know whether the little one was going to be a boy or a girl. I loved the idea of a navy blue with bright white accents, regardless of the gender of the baby. Well, that decision played to my advantage this time around as well. If you remember, this is what the bedroom looked like when we bought the house, and then what the little one’s nursery looked like after some work:

I loved how her room turned out. It fit her well – bright, colorful, and happy. Once we found out we were having baby boy, we decided to keep the nursery as a nursery and move the little one into her own new big girl room. We had two main reasons for this: the bathroom in the nursery is really convenient because we use cloth diapers, and because we wouldn’t have to repaint, rebuild the crib, or re-do much of anything for that room. I love the navy, orange color scheme for a boy, so I was excited to get to use it this time around. I added in some grey and green too.

Here is baby’s boy nursery in its current state…

My mom bought new rugs, so I scored her old one for this room. It’s so nice having a soft rug in there…especially since the old wood floors are super creaky without it! I removed the button crib skirt I made and opted for no crib skirt this time around. I bought the little trash can at Big Lots for like $6 because it was perfect colors. We’ll use that for wipes, and we’ll keep the bigger white trash cans for the used cloth diapers. I also swapped out the Katie Daisy prints that I based the little one’s whole nursery on, and I used clip boards and prints I found either online or made myself. 

I bought the kelly green pendant light from Ikea for – get this – just $14.99. I was nervous it’d be too green, tut I think it adds nice variety to the space.

I kept the same orange changing table that I originally found on the side of the rode & painted. I used new scrapbook paper and modge podge to update the shelves to from flowery to stripes.

I loved how the little one’s colorful mobile turned out, but this time around I used scrapbook paper to make pinwheels, glued them to some twine, and created a new mobile for our little guy. {Just Google how to make a pinwheel. It was super easy!}

 

 

I had some extra pinwheels, so I made a little garland with them. I still need a lamp and some new decor items on the shelf.

    

I still have some ideas of things I’d like to add to the room, but for now, I’m happy with the results so far. :)

We are getting quite excited to meet baby boy. I can’t wait to see what kind of personality he has, how he looks, and how he and his big sister will interact. We have some exciting times ahead of us, that’s for sure!

It’s a…

Today, Eugene and I went to the 20 week ultrasound. I prayed a few very specific things late last night while trying to fall asleep. God was so gracious and answered each exactly! It was a morning chock full of wondrous things. And the best thing? Without a doubt, watching my healthy baby baby wave and turn and roll.

Eugene’s evening baseball game was cancelled for bad weather, so that gave us an unexpected free evening. We decide to let our family in on the “secret” this evening, rather than our original plan of later this week. They were pretty anxious to know whether they can expect a boy or another girl. The reveal was nothing nearly as planned or big as the little one’s gender reveal, but I still wanted to make it exciting and fun. This baby is definitely worth celebrating. :)

P.S. Can we just take a moment to look at the last gender reveal and notice how much my house has changed? And I just love how excited everyone was. Oh what love!

This time around, we went to Eugene’s parents’ house, followed by dinner with my family at our house {potato soup & my new favorite cornbread recipe – I’ll share it here soon.} I figured it’d be fun to let the little one do the revealing. I saw an idea online of putting food dye inside homemade white play dough to reveal the baby’s gender. Seemed easy enough…other than the fact that the little one isn’t quite as aggressive as needed to work the color out quickly. But after a little help and encouragement, everyone finally saw a peak of a color…

Can you tell yet? It’s a..

It’s a…

Baby is a…

…

…

…

Yep – little one will have a baby BROTHER in August!

We did the same thing with my niece and the little one later in the evening when my family came over…

My sister wanted to watch the ultrasound DVD, but the girls really just wanted to make snowmen with their play dough. ;)

Eugene and I are thrilled to welcome a baby boy into our family. {Although, please pass on boy advice to me! Coming from a family with two girls, I’m a serious boy rookie!}

My prayer is that God will use us to raise a true Godly man. Such a responsibility and a privilege. We are blessed beyond measure. I’m still in shock – oh boy, oh boy!