Wye Mountain

The girls at Wye Mountain
It's such a beautiful place

The best I could get of Addison by herself.

Brooklyn wanted to take a picture with the tree.

The girls and I went to Wye Mtn one day while Luke was at work. We had a lot of fun and even got some daffodils to plant at our house. It was hard to take pictures with it just being me but at least I got a couple. This is going to be a yearly tradition.

Our Family of Four

My two girls are just perfect! God has blessed us so much by letting these two be in our lives! It is defintely been an adjustment going from a family of 3 to a family of 4. Though it was very easy adjusting to having a newborn in our house, my time is now divided been my 2 1/2 year old and my 4 week old.

Brooklyn is a very easy child! She has her routine and doesn't require constant attention. Her terrible two's have finally hit and she tells us "no" all the time and doesn't obey as well as she use to. But even with that, she is the sweetest, most loving little girl ever! And she loves Addison so much!! When she first wakes up in the morning she always says "where's Addy?" And if Addison cries then she says "it's okay Addison, don't cry." It blesses my heart!

Addison is such a great little baby. She is totally a momma's girl already! She doesn't sleep through the night so I don't sleep much, but she is so great to cuddle with! And she's grown so much already. She can't wear any newborn clothes anymore and makes the funniest faces. I love her so much!

Luke and I are so happy with our little family! God has blessed us more than words can say!

Addison Michelle

Boy, have our lives changed in the last 4 weeks. Yes, it's already been 4 weeks since Miss. Addison was born. I can't believe how time has flown!

It all started Wednesday, February 22 at around 5:00pm. I began having contractions every 8 minutes apart. We had already had several "false alarms" where I had contractions for a couple hours and then they just stopped. So we decided to wait for a while before heading up to the hospital. I had already cleaned the house and done all the laundry earlier that day, but I decided to make sure I had everything ready in our bags. Around 7:30 we decided to take Brooklyn to my grandparents and head on up to the hospital. We called both our moms to let them know we were going but not to come up yet. It's a good thing they waited...

We got to the hospital and they got me all set up on monitors in the triage in labory & delivery. By this time, my contractions were roughly every 2-3 minutes. Sounds like I was trucking along, right? No. Though I had dilated to a 2, I wasn't dilating any more. I wasn't 39 weeks just yet, so the OBGYN on call wouldn't admit me because if he had to break my water he would technically be "inducing" me. They didn't want to send me home because I would just be right back up there. So we waited... We walked the hospital a couple of times. I did some squats. They just needed any progress to admit me.

Finally, right after midnight they could admit me. (I was 39 weeks exactly according to them) They started my IV and I just about passed out. You'd think after having one child, I wouldn't get weak just by getting an IV...but no. I didn't have to wait long too long to get my epidural. I started out doing really good while she was giving it to me. I felt everything, but I was calm and it really didn't hurt all that bad...but as soon as she had got it done, and before she put the medicine in, my blood pressure dropped to 60/30 and I just about passed out again. They gave me some oxygen and I quickly got to feeling better.

Shortly after, my mom got there and I don't remember very much after that. They gave me a concoction of drugs for nausea, itching, patocin, and just the normal fluids. I literally slept for hours. I would wake up when visitors came or when the nurses tried to talk to me but I was just too exhausted to remember much. Around 2:20 I knew something had changed and I just barely mentioned it to my mom before falling back asleep. She went to get the nurse to check me and it was go time!

Addison was pushing herself out without my help. They usually have you push before the doctor gets there so all they have to do is catch the baby...but the nurse said not to push at all because she was already coming out on her own. My doctor got there quickly and with only 6 pushes, for a total of 4 minutes, Addison was here! 8 lbs. 2 oz 19 1/2 inches

Here are just a couple pictures from her birth:

Luke and Matthew have been best friends for a very long time. Matthew and Bethany had Jett 3 weeks before Addison was born. We were excited to get a picture of them together as baby's. They're going to grow up being good friends.

This was when we were going home.

She looks so much like Brooklyn right here that I'm sure one day I won't know which daughter this is.