Almost 4 weeks and counting....

Well, we have all almost made it through our 1st month w/Caroline at our house! Things have been going really well this past couple of weeks. Caroline is doing really well. She likes to sleep A LOT, unfortunately, it is just during the day. We are hoping she gets her schedule figured out pretty quickly. She has really been looking around a lot and definitely knows Dad's voice and Big Brother Thomas' (of course he is usually running through the house yelling so she doesn't have much choice w/that one).

Last weekend was pretty busy. Mimi came down on Friday to spend the day/night w/the kids. Saturday Thomas had a birthday party to go to at McDonald's for Stephen-one of his daycare friends. Then all of Dad's immediate family came to spend the night. The kids had a really fun weekend.

Thomas loved the birthday party! I took him and Andy stayed home w/Caroline. We didn't want to expose her to any unnecessary germs. She is still pretty fragile these days. He really enjoyed playing w/all the kids. While at the party I stared looking around for Thomas in the playroom where we were all located. I couldn't find him and then a mom from the table over came up and asked if Thomas belonged to any of us. He had decided it was time to eat and was trying to eat their food. Anyone who knows Thomas shouldn't be surprised by this story! The boy loves to eat! He thinks it is a great source of entertainment. So, I am not sure what he enjoyed more, the cake and ice cream or the socialization. Any ways, it was a lot of fun all around.

Uncle Bob and Aunt Andee got to meet Caroline for the 1st time. Andee really enjoyed getting to hold Caroline, Bob seemed happy to look at her from a distance. She is a pretty small baby so he may have been afraid that he would have hurt her!

This week was pretty uneventful. I had my 1st overnight alone w/the kids. Thankfully Thomas slept through the night! YEA! Caroline did really good as well.

This afternoon we took the kids to the South Lake Arts Festival. It was a lot of fun. Thomas did great in the stroller of course and Caroline had her first trip in the Baby Bjorn. She slept through the whole event. Thomas got to have some nachos, which I got to share w/him. Should have gotten two, he devoured the nachos and then started in on Andy's piece of pizza. While at the table while we were eating Andy was the errand boy. Every time we would need napkins or a drink he would run and get it. Thomas was paranoid Andy was leaving for good so he would just start screaming Dad as loud and as pitiful as he could. It definitely got a lot of people's attention. He was always so relieved to see Andy return....guess the traveling is getting to him.

Well, tune in for more updates soon. These are some pics of the past couple of days.....

Okay, sorry we haven't been updating this lately, things have been pretty crazy!

Caroline decided to make an early appearance on March 31st. I had been super sick w/the flu or whatever and it was causing Caroline to want to come out a bit sooner-can't imagine why!

On Sunday, March 30th I started having really bad contractions (or what I thought were contractions). Finally after a full day of those Andy and I headed off to the hospital. My doctor had asked me to send Thomas away for a few days so I could be on bed rest so that I could get my energy back. Thomas thankfully was in Tulsa. So, we get to the hospital and they figure out I was really dehydrated and hook me up to some IV's and tell me to come back in the morning and they will induce me. Of course, not before they send me home w/an Ambien. If any of you have never taken this I don't recommend it! I couldn't even get out of the car. Not because I was asleep, but I felt extremely intoxicated!

So, Monday comes and we head out to the hospital super early. Again, I was fortunate and had a really great delivery. I had my epidural before the pitocin. I got the pitocin after 9 and Caroline was here at 12:40! The only downer was that I had to use an oxygen mask since I couldn't breathe and her embilical cord was wrapped around her neck-same as Thomas!

She weighed in at 6 lbs 13 oz and 19 in. long! Oh ya, she has red hair! So she is pretty cute if we do say so ourselves.

Big brother Thomas wasn't sure what to think of me or her. He wanted nothing to do w/me in the hospital and really wasn't too interested in Caroline. We were released on Wed. and came home. He was excited to see us, but still pretty standoffish. Thursday rolls around and our old Tom was back! He woke up and was much more affectionate to me, he immediately came to investigate my arms. Once he realized the IV's and band-aids were gone he was good to go. He also realized Caroline was here to stay and has been great to her ever since-well mostly!

We had some friends, Jason & Erin who were great and brought us dinner Friday night. We were all visiting and Caroline was on my lap. It was about to be bedtime for Big Brother and he was trying to get on my lap and got Caroline in the process. He scratched her really deep on her forehead, fortunately it is starting to go away! She didn't even wake up-should of known then how jaundice she actually was.

Caroline pretty much slept the whole 1st week she was home. When we took her in for weight check and jaundice check we found out she had dropped to 6'2. Dr. Nale wasn't too alarmed, but when we got the jaundice test results back we discovered they were way too high so back to Medical City we go for some serious sun tanning! After 24 hours under the lights she was a brand new baby.

Since then things are starting to fall into place. She is starting to be awake more during the day. She is still waking up 2 times at night, but this 2nd child is so much easier! We had a routine to start w/and just had a much better grasp on things.

Unfortunately, Thomas has had his back molars coming in and has been running a fever on and off. He hasn't been too happy this past week, but is starting to come out of his shell. By the way, he is now obsessed w/SpongeBob. Andy can start singing the theme song and Thomas will just start yelling Bob, Bob! It really is funny to watch his dance whenever it comes on. He has figured out that our remote can turn on SpongeBob at anytime and can fast forward any commercials he doesn't want. He has known that for quite sometime, but now we get to watch it 24-7. I can now see why parents let their kids have TV's in their rooms so early-it is a sanity saver for them. Oh well, we have all actually really gotten into it.

Thomas also got a really neat wooded play set for our backyard this week. Andy calls it Ft. Thomas because it has a huge fort on it. Thanks to our good friends Travis & Macey who unfortunately, got transferred to Midland.

Sorry this is so long! I will try to keep it updated better. Hope all is well w/you guys and thanks for checking out our blog.