Caden has arrived!

Caden Reed was born on April 2nd at 7:57am. He weighed 7lbs. 8oz. and was 18 inches long, which is funny because I was repeatedly told that he was going to be a 10lb. baby, which I believed because he FELT huge in my belly! I was really happy to quickly learn that my recovery after this c-section would be easier than my last! I felt GREAT after the c-section and was up and moving around 12 hours later, which was wonderful!!! My biggest problem in the hospital was that I started having really bad back pain 2 days after Caden was born. We're still not sure if we should attribute it to the spinal or to my UTI that I had at the time. It has gotten better, though.Emma is still infatuated with Caden and says "baby" every time he makes a sound! She loves to watch him and she tries to help by giving him his paci and blanket, but she generally ends up throwing them at him instead! Chad and I are doing everything we can to make sure that Emma feels as much of a part of our family as she has for the past 2 years, which is hard since she spent 4 days with my parents while we were in the hospital. She came and visited us each day, but she got to the point that she wanted to be with my parents instead of us. She had a lot of fun with her mama and papa, though, and was spoiled the whole time!

Caden is definitely NOT the newborn baby that Emma was! Emma has been relaxed and mellow since she was born. Caden, on the other hand, is mellow most always except for night time! We quickly discovered that he will sleep great as long as we are downstairs in the house. The problem? Our bedroom (where his bassinet is) is upstairs. The result? Mommy and daddy have taken turns each night sleeping on the sofa downstairs so that Caden will sleep. Each of us sleeps downstairs for a few hours each night and then we swap so we each get a little bit of decent sleep. Unfortunately, since I am still recovering I don't sleep very well even when i'm in the bed and Caden's asleep. Sleeping for all of us seems to get a little better each night, so i'm hoping we'll all get the hang of this soon!

More to come as we get more sleep......

Busy 2009!

What a busy year 2009 has been already! Early in the year Chad and I were going to Kidsville Boutique in Powdersville to try to consign some of Emma's old clothes. As soon as we pulled up I noticed a sign on the door that the boutique was for sale due to health problems of the current owner. Anyone who knows me knows that that would be very intriguing to me! I called my mom and told her and got a somewhat "yeah, ok" response, which I expected. To make a very, very long story short, I contacted the owner that day and have been working on purchasing the business with my mom ever since. It has been a very long process, and it actually seems like it's been about 6 months since it all started, but it looks like we're going to be closing on the business next Friday! I am super excited about the whole thing and am ready for tons of work to get the business to where mom and I want it to be!

The boutique is half children's consignment and half handmade children's clothing that is absolutely beautiful! The handmade clothes are "Kidsville" brand and made only for our boutique! It's definitely not a good time economy-wise for something like this, but it jumped out at me and I figured there's no time like the present! It is going to take a lot of work, but failure is not an option with an almost two year old and baby #2 a month from arriving!

I don't have any pictures to post right now, but hope to have some soon. We are closing the store for a week after the purchase closing and doing lots of remodeling. We will have our "Grand Re-Opening" in mid March and I would love to have as many people there as possible! If you would like an invitation please provide me with your mailing address and email address!

Wish us luck!

Marissa

Guard Family Day

The first weekend of December Chad had drill and that Sunday was family day. They have it every December and basically they have displays out, give a few awards out, have Santa give out presents, and everyone eats lunch. It's fairly boring but we haven't been in a couple of years so we decided to go this year.

Chad had to go down Friday morning and Emma and I followed and went down Saturday morning. We stayed with Carol Ann (my best friend from growing up) and her husband Rick, in Lexington. It's really nice b/c they only live like 20 minutes away from base. I am a bad friend and took no pictures of us with Carol Ann, but I did take pictures of Emma at their house. :-)


I also took pictures of Em enjoying milk and a lollipop on base while we were waiting to eat.


The funniest part of the day was when they were giving away door prizes before lunch. Every time they brought out a new item they told everyone what was being given away. They started this one item by saying "for all you Nascar fans" and they were giving away a Dale Junior model car with the National Guard logo all over it (I assume that's one of his sponsors?). Chad says something to the effect of (in redneck accent) "Yeah baby, now that's the big prize". Well wouldn't you know it, but whose ticket number do they call but ours, LOL. I wanted to open the box and give the car to Emma to play with b/c she like's things with wheels, but Chad wanted to see about selling it online. He looked online and that thing is going for like $75! WHAT! Needless to say, we're selling it!

What a Thanksgiving!

Well, our Thanksgiving week was definitely memorable, but not necessarily in a good way! It started on Tuesday afternoon when Chad and I went to the mall so that I could meet a friend for lunch and he could do a little shopping. I thought it was a little strange when he came back to meet me while we were still eating. After lunch was done he told me that he wasn't feeling very well, so I told him there was one thing I needed to do and then we would go home. We went home and he went upstairs to lay down and I laid down on the sofa to watch tv. I fell asleep and when I woke up I suddenly felt nasty too!

Feeling nasty quickly lead to a night of laying in the bed feeling so miserable that I was in tears. I never slept, I just laid there trying to get comfortable (no luck), and Chad didn't do a lot of sleeping either. Well, that quickly led to me hovering over the toilet at 5am (sorry, TMI). Chad got up that morning feeling better and got Emma ready and took her to daycare. I, on the other hand, only felt worse. After getting sick again around lunchtime I decided it was time to go to the doctor, so we went to Dr's Care. Bad choice. It didn't take all that long, but basically after sticking me 3 times (and getting no blood b/c I was so dehydrated) they told me that they didn't know exactly what was wrong with me, but that they couldn't do anything for me since i'm pregnant. AHHHHHH! Could they not have told me that when I walked in and saved me time and money?!

I spent the whole rest of the week (you know, my week off work) feeling nauseous and eating toast and drinking ginger ale. Emma spent several days with both sets of grandparents b/c Chad was working and I couldn't take care of myself, let alone her too!

So, needless to say, it was not a good week off of work or Thanksgiving week. Of course, I felt perfectly fine Monday morning, just in time to go back to work! The fun part came after I left work at lunch time on Monday and we headed to the Dr. for my big ultrasound! I had been telling Chad for a couple of days that I thought either we were having a boy, or the baby was going to be a soccer player. Also, my dad and sister had predicted this baby to be a boy. And we were all right! There was no denying that this baby is a boy during the ultrasound! He made it very clear several times. Of course, that made Chad a very proud daddy! So, although i'm completely freaked out at the thought of having a boy (I grew up with 3 sisters, I don't know what to do with boys!) Chad is super excited to be having his boy on the way and I am happy that he is so happy! Now to start the boy shopping.... it hasn't been easy so far, but that's a whole other blog discussion!

Once we pick out names, bedding, etc. I will post them for everyone to see. Right now we have narrowed the name list down to about 11 names. Chad really wants the baby to have the middle name Lee because that was his grandfather's name. I think i'll give him that one, even though it's not my favorite. After all, that will give me more leverage in the first name department :-D

Be more like Giz

So I just got home from taking Gizmo to his final resting place and I get online to let out some thoughts that ran through my mind while I was driving to and from my parents' home. Then I see that Marissa beat me to it. It's amazing how your spouse can have some of the same thoughts as you, which is weird b/c Marissa and I usually think 180 degrees from each other. I started thinking about the time we had with the little guy (he never got above 8lbs) and remembered the first few nights that he kept us up b/c he was scared. Then there was the adventure of housebreaking. Then I began thinking about the things about him that reminded me of why I wouldn't let Marissa give him away. Part of it was the fact that she was so headstrong about getting a puppy, and a Pomeranian at that, that I was going to be headstrong about her keeping him. She wanted him to be with a family that loved him and played with him more than we did.....since Emma's come along and the new floor went in the kitchen, his free reign of the house was curtailed. Marissa didn't know that during the day sometimes I'd let him roam around a little bit. I wanted to keep him b/c it made me feel better when I was away with the military or at the fire station, that his barking would alert Marissa to something or someone just outside the house. Yeah, it was often a false alarm or the neighbors kids, but if she were here alone and someone came to the door, he knew to bark. Many times I'd hear her yell at him over the phone and we both worried that he would wake up Emma at times, but it was still comforting to hear it.
The last reason I couldn't let go of him was the fact that no matter how many times he got whipped for getting into something or having an accident on the floor, no matter how many times he got thrown into his carrier and yelled at, when that door opened again, he came out with his tail wagging and whole body shaking b/c he was so glad to see us. Every morning when I would go into the kitchen for the first time, his carrier would be bouncing and rocking b/c he was so excited to see me again. In his eyes we could do no wrong. He never held a grudge. He was never in a bad mood. People will say their dogs are happy to see them too but Gizmo did more than raise his head and wag the tail for a second before going back to sleep. His entire body would shake with excitement and anticipation that you were going to come play. Marissa will tell you that even after not seeing her for a weekend while at drill, one of the first things I had to do when I got home was to let him outside. I could just imagine his thoughts when we walk through the door. Why can't people be more like him? Why can't people just be happy to see other people instead of dreading how rude someone is or how snobby that person is? Gizmo loved us no matter what and I know he heard me call for him (I didn't know he had gotten out of the back yard) so he was running as hard as he could to come to me like he always did and that's why the woman couldn't stop in time. We could've always been better to him and played with him that extra few minutes. His leaving us was for a reason and I know that I'm going to try to be more like him and not worry about what someone said about me or that Marissa didn't put the dishes in the dishwasher. I'm just happy that she's there to leave the dishes in the sink.

We miss you already little buddy. Rest in peace.

Mourning Gizmo

Gizmo was hit and killed by a car tonight. I sit here with tears streaming down my face wondering if it was in some way my fault. He's always been a lot to handle, but even moreso since Emma was born. I've spent so much time wishing he was gone because it would make my life easier, but I never wanted him gone like this. I wanted him to be with a family that would love him and have older kids that he could actually play with. I wanted him to be happy and I know that he hasn't been happy here for a long time. He spent his days in the back hallway and his nights in his carrier. Our lives got busy and we got slack in the amount of time and affection we gave to him. Over and over again I sit here and ask myself why I didn't appreciate him more. Why did it matter that he got hair all over the floors? Why did it matter that he liked to lick all over us to show us how much he loved us? Did he die miserable and wondering what happened to the fun and loving family he used to have? I feel like it must be my fault for acting towards him the way I have for the past year and a half. Maybe this is my punishment. Except that Chad is being punished too, although he never did anything to be punished for. He would never admit it but he loved Gizmo so much. I always told him he was putting up a front when he said you should never get too attached to dogs because they will just get run over (which several of his did when he was young). I never knew how true his words would be. I know how much he loved Gizmo though.

I say this all happened since Emma was born, but it really had nothing to do with her. We just got busier at that time. Now Emma won't even have any memories of her first pet. She's not been a fan of being in the same room with Gizmo because he liked to lick her face, which she did not like. She has recently started giving him treats through the gate though, and she thought that was fun. I wonder if she'll even notice that he's not around anymore.

It's strange how the things that annoyed me before are some of the things i'm going to miss most now that he's gone.....

Catching up

It's been a loooong time since the blog was updated so I decided to bring everyone up to speed. However, there have been some changes made to the signon page and it would not recognize the username. Soooo I started all over. I spent 6 weeks in Arizona training with the older model Apache so that I could fly with the rest of my battalion. There have been some snags here and there but I'm rolling along on progression to the point of being able to fly with anyone....not just instructors. However, we're supposed to get our new aircraft in March '09 so I'll finish progression on this aircraft in time to start all over again.
We're still in the process of remodeling the house or at least getting it into shape to sell. It's amazing how far behind you can get by leaving for 2 years. The downstairs bathroom floor is currently pulled up and awaiting tile. It would've been almost done today except I caught what Emma has had for a few weeks now and spent all day yesterday in bed and part of this morning with a heating pad on my ear to ease the pain. Marissa and Emma are going to bed early now b/c both are so tired when they get home. Apparently daycare really takes it out of the little one. Not sure what Marissa's excuse is.....