life

Life in our house is busy, as always.
Here's a couple pics of things we love to do!

Max sat like this and laughed for ten minutes straight. Daddies come up with the silliest games! 

You know your mom is awesome if she sends you a new shirt for Valentine's Day. LOVE it!!! 

They love to snuggle in the morning. 

Tay Tay Ho Ho loving on Max

Sometimes McKay likes to make treasure maps out of fruit snacks. I love his imagination! 

Super into Legos these days. Sean is so good to build these things and then watch as McKay takes them apart to build his own creations.

Can I just cuddle them all day? 

Christmas & Disneyland

This Christmas was Sean and my 10 year anniversary, so we decided to celebrate as a family by going to Disneyland. I was a little nervous as to how the boys would do, but it really went well. We even went on one of the busiest days (the day after Christmas), and we still had a great time. Here's some pictures from our California Christmas! 

Neither Max or McKay seemed too impressed by this Santa...

The kids decorated Christmas trees, instead of gingerbread houses. They really loved it! 

The cousins on Sean's side (and we were even missing two!).

Sean took McKay and Milla on the Teacups

Meeting Mickey was a highlight! 

Soooo tired after our day at Disney. Doesn't he just look so cuddly?!?

Spending the afternoon with Loretta's kids Sakai and Sea on Balboa Island. 

The long drive home

Little Max's first day in his helmet! 

We take our fort building very seriously in this house.

4 Months Later...

Wow! Has it really been that long since I last updated this blog?! Holy Cow (or as McKay says it, Horsey Cow)! I don't have the time or energy to do a recap of four months. Let's just say it's been a busy, fun, crazy, four months. 

Duane Elwyn

I feel like it was yesterday that I wrote the post about my grandma's passing. Although there is great joy that they are reunited, I'm sad to have to write a similar post so quickly after. 

My grandpa passed away two weeks ago, on August 12, just 4 1/2 months after my grandma. We were on vacation in California, but we had visited him only three days before. I am so thankful for that hour I spent with him. I introduced him to Max and then just sat by him, holding his hand. He looked very sick, and I knew he didn't have much time left. My grandpa tried to hold Max's squirmy hand, and Max gave my grandpa some of the biggest smiles I'd seen out of him. 

I had a special bond with my grandpa and even though I know he is so much happier now, living with my grandma and free of all his ailments, I'll miss him very much. 

Grandma & Grandpa

I was always his favorite (I think all the grandkids thought we were the favorite!).

My dad and Grandpa

My Grandpa baptized me when I was 8 years old. I remember being nervous  that my feet would float up so he stepped on them.

Our family at the funeral. It was really nice to see them again, but I'd rather not have these unplanned family reunions anytime soon.

Max's first month

Our first month with Max was kind of a blur to me. It was almost a solid month of visits from family, which I'm so thankful for. McKay had a hard time dealing with the baby taking our attention from him, so having family to entertain him and give him extra love really helped his adjustment. I'm really glad I took so many pictures or else I might have forgotten some of the fun stuff we all got to do.

My parents were here for the first couple of weeks. McKay instantly had a special bond with my dad and I hope Max will too! 

McKay was so glad Bubbe was here to make sure he got to have fun every day. He got some one-on-one time with her by going to see a movie and going to the library for story time. I loved that the house was clean, trash was taken out, and the laundry was all magically done. We really missed my mom when she left!  

Even though McKay kind of had a hard time, he always LOVED Baby Max. His favorite thing to do is to hold the baby. In fact, now at 6 weeks, Max gave his very first smile to McKay. I hope they'll be great friends! 

Our next visitors were Sean's dad and Betsy. They were also so helpful with entertaining McKay. They took him to the zoo and to the flight museum to see all these awesome, old planes. Talk about little boy heaven! 

Aunt Pam came up for a day while she was with her kids in Utah. She is too good to us and spoiled us with an awesome dinner out (she made sure I got to pick where!!) and wore out McKay by taking him swimming. She also held Max whenever possible! 

Sean's mom was here for a week and it was so wonderful with her here! Max went through a really gassy phase and it was super stressful at first and I'm so thankful she was here to help us deal with that! She also cooked us some of the best meals and made sure I was able to get some much needed rest.                                         

While Kim, Taylor, and Logan were here Sean made the brave decision to cut off all his hair. He's had long hair for over a year so it was a huge change. I was the one to cut and shave it and even though I'm smiling in the picture, it was pretty scary!! 

It turned out GREAT and he looks so good! 

We went to Rigby Lake with Kim, Taylor, and Logan and I'm so glad we did. We almost didn't because it was pretty windy and not super warm that day, but it turned into the perfect lake day. 

Now my company is all gone (but Becca's coming in 3 weeks!!!) and I'm trying to figure out life with two kids. I have moments when it's great and I feel like I've totally got this - and then moments when things are super overwhelming and I feel like a terrible mother. Hopefully the latter will fade as time goes on and we'll grow into a good routine. It is hard to remember life without Max, and I'm so glad to be a family of four! 

Birth Story

I was induced at 5am on May 29th (5 days before my due date). We got the process started and things were going just fine. I had my mom and Sean at the hospital with me, while my dad was home with McKay. We spent the first few hours chatting, watching Arrested Development, and eating strawberry flavored ice chips. Then around 10:30am my contractions were starting to get pretty painful so I asked for an epidural. At that same time my doctor came in to break my water, and once he did things started to progress pretty quickly!

My contractions came on SUPER intense (to the point that I didn't know how any woman could possibly give birth without drugs!). Luckily (or so I thought) the dr came in to do my epidural. I'm not sure exactly what the problem was (he blamed it on my curved spine) but it took this guy 45 minutes and TWELVE pokes to get the job done. Imagine trying to be still that long and curved over your huge belly while having horrible contractions. Needless to say, I was hating that guy the whole time.

Right after my epidural was in the nurses starting becoming concerned because the baby's heart rate would drop each time I had a contraction. They quickly gave me a shot to stop my contractions and paged my doctor. Once he was there he told me that even though I was only dilated to a 6/7 I needed to start pushing and that we had a short window before they would need to do an emergency c-section. I pushed for around 20 minutes and then the doctor used his little suction vacuum thing to pull the baby out.

Max was very gray when he came out and I only got to hold him for a minute or two before the team of doctors from the NICU rushed in. They worked on him for a little while and then took him to the NICU. His cord was really twisted which was the problem. Sean went with him to the NICU while my mom stayed with me. I had to stay in the recovery room for 2 hours, which was really hard to not see him until then! Thankfully Sean would text me pictures and videos to keep me updated. 

We got really lucky and Max only had to be in the NICU for two days and was off oxygen after the first day. It was also really hard on McKay since he wasn't able to go see his new baby. He would get really upset whenever he came to the hospital! 

Max is now a month old and is doing great. Putting on weight like a champ and trying to survive all his big brother's hugs and kisses!