Spencer is 2...WHAT???????

On August 11, just 9 days after becoming a big sister, my little girl turned two.   TWO!!!!  My little girl seems to get bigger every day now.  This month she became a big sister (and a great one at that), turned 2, will be moving into her third bedroom, and switching from a crib to a big girl bed just in time to start 2 day a week preschool at the beginning of next month.  I am not sure I am ready for all this growing up for my baby girl.

Since I only had my birth experience with Spencer to remember, I wasn't sure how I would feel just 9 days after having a c-section for Spencer's birthday.  Therefore, we did not plan a large birthday party for her.  But I did want her to do some special things on her birthday-as long as I felt okay getting out and about.  Fortunately for me and for Spencer, the birth of her brother did not do me in like it did with her so we were ready for a fun day on Spencer 's big day.  We are planning on a trip to Riverbanks Zoo sometime in September for a belated birthday trip since we have an animal loving girl!

This is Spencer's last picture as a one year old:

Oddly enough-starting with our newborn photo shoot-Spencer has regained her posing ability for the camera.  Maybe that is part of her growing up phase too??


 Just like last year, Jason and I filled the floor of her room in the morning with balloons.  This year they were all pink.  Again-she LOVED it!!!  Later her PawPaw put them all in her crib and she didn't want to get out! She opened some presents and read a book.

Daddy made Spencer a yummy breakfast ...

...and then after lunch we headed to the mall for some fun.  I wanted to get Spencer a cookie at one of those mall cookie stores-but the mall we went to did not have one.  However, she did see the merry-go-round in the food court and wanted to ride-as in she started crying because we couldn't get her on it right away.  My parents were in town and dad said he would ride with her  She was soooo excited in line. 

Then came time for her to get on the ride.  Dad put her on a cute outside horse and you would have thought we had given her a shot!   She screamed.  So I suggested the carriage where you sit on a bench and ride the merry-go-round.   Once dad put her in that she was much happier and rode the entire ride laughing and smiling! 

Then came the big event-we took Spencer to let her make her first Build-A-Bear.   We let her pick an animal, she helped stuff it and picked out an outfit for her dog to wear.  She really liked the dog's shoes.  Then she played a while on the indoor playground there. 

Next post I will show you her cake.  Happy Birthday to my big girl!  We love you Spencer!

Our Newborn Shoot

One of the many frustrating things about moving to a new place, among finding doctors, your way around, and new friends-is finding people to do services for you that you used to have a list of names who could help in your old town.  I don't know how military people do this moving thing all the time-especially with children.

In Houston, we knew several photographers but here I didn't know many but have since found 2 I really like.  We loved our maternity session with Heather and got her booked to do our newborn session in our house.  I was hoping at the beginning of the pregnancy that we might be in our new house by then...but that was not the case.  Since my kids' birthdays are a mere 9 days apart and I had already attempted two disastrous trips to Portrait Innovations with Spencer, I also wanted a shot-just one- of Spencer by herself for her two year pics.  I wasn't really hoping for more than one because Spencer has recently taken to not wanting to be in front of the camera lens until the night before her second birthday.  More on that later.

Heather agreed to attempt one with Spencer and we also copied some poses from her newborn session with Grayson:

 Spencer above and Grayson below:

Even though it is easy to tell who is who-at least I think so-I love how much my babies look alike in the pics.  I can't wait to get some of these framed nearby in our new house.

And some that are uniquely Grayson:

 Grayson in his "gray"hat!

And Spencer's Two year pics:

I love these faces because this is what I see every day with my big girl!

And finally our family:

More of Grayson

When Spencer was born, I did not opt to have hospital pictures taken of her because I knew I was having a newborn session done at home.  This time around, I also found a newborn photographer to take pictures at our home with our entire family.  But I went ahead and let the company that does the hospital pictures take them of Grayson.   I am not buying them but since we didn't take 3D ultrasound pictures of Grayson, I thought I would share some on here that are my favorite.  They do have the watermark but at least I can still see my son.  In the first one you can see his suck blister on his hand.  And thanks to Lindsey Cook for making the "G" shirt. 

 

 I love these kissy lips in the picture above.

Then 3 became 4...

And all is well!  On August 2nd, we welcomed our little man into the world.  This birth story is vastly different from my first experience and overall more enjoyable with less pain.  Not that I don't cherish every moment from my daughter's birth but had hers been this easy, I would not have had the anxiety before have this major surgery again! 

My parents got to our house on Tuesday night before his birth on Thursday.  On Wednesday Spencer had speech and I got my hair and nails done so I could at least feel pretty even if I didn't look every bit the part of it.  Jason's parents got here Wednesday night.  And my brother and his girlfriend also came down for the big event late Wednesday night. 

Since my surgery wasn't scheduled until 12:30 after lunch, I didn't have to wake up at the crack of dawn.  But I also couldn't eat breakfast.  So I had a nice relaxing bath spent time in the tub trying to relax with what felt like a 10 lb baby who was ready to make his appearance, re-straightened my hair, packed some last minute items, and took out my contacts/put on my glasses.   Spencer was very interested in my glasses because I don't think she remembers ever seeing them on me before.  We got all the stuff in the car and took one last picture as a family of three:

Then off to the hospital we went.  We arrived early only to wait for while downstairs and up while they found a room the last available intake spot for my tush to occupy for pre-op.  Literally, I was in the last bed in triage due to everyone deciding that my baby had the best birthday and wanted to share it with him the full moon and there were even some people waiting in the hall as I walked to surgery.  Crazy!!!!  I fully expected it to be a 2 or more hour wait before I was taken back on account of how late I was offically checked in and that it was backed up with who needed emergency surgery.  However, I was only taken back 15 minutes later than my scheduled time and had my baby out at 1:06pm.  Here are the last shots of me pregnant and right before they took me into surgery:

I informed my doctor that I did not need to know all the gory details like my last doctor told...just give us a warning of when he is about to make his appearance.   And I must have been asked 100 times if I was allergic to anything.  This time I had a spinal instead of an epidural and I liked it much better.  There seemed to be much more pushing on my abdomen than I remembered with Spencer.  At one point I thought they were going to break my sternum.  But finally we got the two minute warning that he was about to make his appearance...and then...HIS CRY.  And boy did he.  He was loud and screaming and they held him up for us to see:

My big boy-Grayson William Hardy was born at 1:06pm weighing in at 9 pounds 3 ounces and 21 inches long.  His feet were big like his sister's but his are long and narrow where as hers are long and wide.  My only disappointing experience at this hospital was that I did not get to breastfeed within the first 30 min, hour or first 2 hours.  Don't worry I am letting the hospital know of this disappointing fact but when I finally got my son back in my arms over 2 hour after seeing this picture above, he was a good nurser and his blood sugar returned to normal.

Once we got out of the labor and delivery side of the floor and into the mother/baby rooms, everything was great.  Big sister in her big sister shirt (underneath this black one) got to ring the new baby bell at the hospital:

And much to my surprise and delight, I was put in a large room!   From our hospital tour I just knew I would get a small room out of the small, medium, and large rooms but I got the biggest one!  We didn't really do a whole lot to prepare Spencer for a new baby other than talking to her about it and pulling out her old baby things so she would see them before he came.  When Spencer got to the room I was in, she immediately came to the bed I was in and wanted to sit with me.  Then she noticed her brother in his "bassinet" and wanted to tell everyone-especially her dada-to look! look!  LOOK!  Then she looked at me with a smile and said, "Hold?" with her arms outstretched for her brother.  What a sweet big sister! 

When Grayson was born, we both noticed that he had two red marks on each hand and some smaller ones on his arms.  At first I thought they might be hemangiomas.  When I was pregnant with Spencer, I grew one large one on my hand that had to be removed with surgery.  I was glad that this pregnancy did not result with another growth but hoped it didn't mean my child would have them.  But the doctors and nurses assured us that these were suck blisters-basically my son had sucked on his hand so hard in the womb, he gave himself blisters-or what we used to call hickies!!!! Here is our boy with his mommy and dada:

In all the confusion and frustration and general fatigue, we did not get a picture like this with Spencer.  Although in this picture, he really looks like his sister!

Here is one of our first family pics:

And you can tell who Spencer is concerned about!  How we really know Spencer likes her little brother-do you see that pink bear's head poking out under Grayson's blankets?  Well this is Spencer's favorite lovie!  We have two other lovies that we have two of each.  But our pink bear is one of a kind in our house.  I have to stash him in the laundry so she doesn't see me wash him.  But when we got home from the hospital, Spencer would wake up, bring pink bear downstairs and put him with her brother in his swing or wrap it up with him in his blanket.  Now that is a caring big sis!

Here is dada with his babies:

But back to my birth story-My spinal wore off a little later that night and the nurse came to unhook my IV.  I did have this terrible itching that they gave me Benadryl for but that did work.  Then the nurses had a shift change so I told the next nurse that it didn't really work and she gave me this shot of the most glorious anti-itch cream ever!  Then came the best part.  She said I could get up and walk-freedom!!!!  And walk I did.  I went all the way down the long hall of the hospital 3 times that night-all by myself.  If you saw me after I had Spencer you would know what a miracle this was for me.  I could get up and down off the bed by myself and use the bathroom without support.  And the next day I was able to take a shower, wear my own clothes and walk even more!  My feet hardly swelled and I could wear real regular shoes!   Last time around, I wouldn't have wished a c-section on my worst enemy.  This time around-I could do it again-well not really but it wasn't that bad!  They even took out my IV the next morning. 

I will post more pics later.  But for now here is Grayson sleeping-don't let the pic fool you, he is a great baby but this picture is a little harder to achieve now!