Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Twins 2 years apart?

--Zachary-- 

--Grayson-- 

--stick em up zachey-- 

--stick em up baby gray :) --

More Fun Grayson Pix

Time is flying by. He has been alive for three weeks...craziness! Chelsey and I have been busy shopping for her wedding, cooking, and going through every nook and cranny of my house and organizing it. It's been fabulous! Yay for Craigslist and Goodwill :)

Today we are going to DMU to see if she would be interested in attending for medical school. Josh gets home from Mexico today (YAY!) we have really missed him :)

Friday she is going to take McKenna to the swimming pool, and she is very excited!

--auntie chelsey and grayson-- 

--Zachey loves his brother--

--had to take a picture of the teenie legs and body before he grows into his noggin--

--sleepy boy--

--his neverending quest for food continues--

--more sleepiness--

On fathers day Denny took us all out to the crabshack. It was our first successful lunch out, and the food was delish!



--who wins the cheesy contest...kenna or mark?--

--sooooo sweet!--

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Slowly Getting Back to Normal

Two weeks later Mr. Grayson is doing great. We had his two week appointment on Tuesday and he weighed in at 9 lbs 3 oz. The doctor was very happy that he was over his birth weight. He was 21" with a 14.5" noggin. He is 90th percentile for height and weight and 83 percentile for head size. Most of my kiddos are on the bigger side until 2, so not surprised ;)

We've been keeping busy with playing inside (kids are going a little stir crazy.) Gramma Rue and Chelsey took the kids to the zoo yesterday and out for lunch. They've also spent time at the mall and library. Today we are talking about maybe feeding the ducks after nap just as another outlet for running the energy out of the kids :)

Chelsey has been busy finishing her MCAT studies and shadowing Tara at the hospital, even though getting up early has been a bit of an adjustment :) My mom goes home Saturday and I am nervous about handling all three on my own! Josh left for Mexico on Wednesday and will be gone through next week...yikes!

Yesterday I got a chance to mow the lawn and am feeling more and more like myself everyday! Grayson has been a pretty scheduled eater eating every three hours like clockwork. At night he goes right back to sleep so I really can't complain! I haven't been really tired yet, but that might change when I don't have helpers to watch kiddo one and two in the morning ;0)

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Home From the Hospital

The second day in the hospital was soooooo long. It seemed like we were never going to be discharged :) At least we got some more fun visitors! Stones came by and brought me some chocolate around lunch time. It was nice to interact with people besides the hospital staff! My kiddos and mom came in the morning and in the afternoon we got to see Eski, Charlene, Auntie Em and Tali. 




Day 3 dragged on and on as well. We experienced some crazy thunderstorms that knocked out the TV and Hulu was not allowed over the hospital network...man was I bored. We were supposed to stay 48 hours, but 7:30 am is an early discharge time, so I was hoping for noon. Unfortunately they didn't get to his circumcision until late in the day so we had to wait and make sure that was okay before we were allowed to leave. All was well and I was sooo excited to get home!

--love baby yawns--

 --grandma great and mike came to visit on Saturday!--


 --I forgot how much I love this swing--


--I love this little face--

--and the little toes-- 


 --Kenna loves being a big sister--

Yesterday Andersen's came over for an impromptu dinner party. They wanted to check out the playhouse that Josh has been working on and meet baby Grayson. They were in Chicago all last week so this was the first time they were home to meet him! I was quite excited that a pediatrician changed my baby's diaper and that everything looked okay :)

--impossible to get them all looking at the camera--

--Happy first week birthday Grayson, from my team at work!--

I can't believe he's a week old already. I am feeling great aside from a little soreness. The kid can eat and it is taking a toll on me!! He is sleeping pretty well, but sure he will get better over time. He really is a good baby and is assimilating into our family perfectly! 

Wednesday, June 08, 2011

Welcome Baby Grayson Oliver Skinner

Well - it must be a record. With all three of my kids, I was scheduled to be induced. And every single one of them came the day before :) I was actually quite relieved because I really didn't want to be induced, but was also completely miserable at how swollen and tired I was.

Grayson was due on June 7th, and the big joke is that he looked at my outlook calendar and saw that he was due, and so decided to come on his due date! He arrived at 7:30am weighing 8lbs 11oz and almost 21 inches long.

Here is his story!

At 4:30am on June 7th I woke up with what I thought was kind of a stomach ache. I went to the bathroom and then quickly realized I was having contractions. I jumped in the shower thinking I had at least a few hours, even Zachary took 4 from start to finish. By the time I got out of the shower, Josh had figured out something was going on (who brushes their teeth at 4:30am?) I asked him to get me my cell phone so that I could start timing them. I had timed two and he went downstairs to get me some water. As I was timing my third I felt a gush of water...my water broke! This had never happened to me before and I had no idea what to do...I yelled for josh and he made a sort of towel trail to the bathroom. I rinsed off and quickly got dressed...we had to get going!

We quickly grabbed my bag and pillow, woke up my mom and sister and headed to the hospital around 5am. We got to the hospital and the nurse that checked us in took what felt like a lifetime. She was shuffling other patients paperwork, saying "I'll be with you in a second." When she looked at my information, she said "What are you here for?" I kind of just stood there like....DUH! But then I realized she was confused because she had been processing my induction paperwork for the following day and she was confused. She got me checked in and I was watching the clock. My contractions were about 2-3 minutes apart at this point and pretty strong. I told the nurse in my delivery room that I was worried I wasn't going to have time for an epidural, and I REALLY wanted one. She tried to hurry and get my blood to the testing center. I found out later that she begged the anesthesiologist to stay a little passed their shift so that I didn't have to wait for the next one.

I labored for about another 45 minutes to an hour before they came up to give me the epidural. It didn't even fully take before I felt a ton of pressure. They asked if I was ready to push. I was hoping to have a little more pain relief, but was also anxious to be done. I only had to push a few times and out he came! The Dr. that delivered him said, whoa, big boy! He guessed 9lbs 8oz!! I knew he was big, but my goodness! Turns out that after he was weighed, he was obviously way off!

The had a pediatrician present because he had merconium in utero. They also wanted to make sure the drugs did not have an affect on his breathing because of the timing and quick labor. It was exactly 3 hours from first contraction to birth...a little faster than I prefer, but we did it!

Josh went with him down to the nursery to get him checked out. I ended up sort of sitting alone in the birthing room waiting for the epidural to wear off. I asked the nurse to get me my cell phone because I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing :)

Now that Grayson is over a day old I can see lots of his personality already. He is HUNGRY! I have kindly dubbed him the parana, because he nurses to intensely! Way more than my other kids. The first time he tried he latched right on and has really wanted to do little else since :) The nurses joke that he is a future linebacker because he has such a broad chest, almost 2 inches bigger than average babies! He looks so much like Zachary but with more hair..and brown hair at that! I can't wait to get to know him better!

--right after he is born....isn't he beautiful!?-- 


--Grandma Rue brought the kiddos--

When Grandma Rue brought the kids, Kenna was immediately hooked. She has been so gently really wanting to hold him and saying quietly "Hi, little guy" so cute! Zachey just calls him "baby matthew" like the baby at Eski's. And he says "I wanna hold dat!" He is sort of more interested in watching the Disney channel and eating goldfish crackers, but he looks SOOO big compared to his little brother. He looks so grown up in his "Big Brother" tshirt! 



--look at my cute kiddos!-- 




--so fun that Auntie Chelsey gets to visit and be a part of this-- 

--her big sister hairdo thanks auntie chelsey!-- 

--Gona and Baca came after work to meet baby-- 


--our first picture of just the three of us!--

Day two has been kind of exhausting so far. He got up twice last night to eat, ravenously. I am feeling pretty good. Aside from stitches I am not in much pain. I have spent the day resting and watching really bad daytime TV. Stones came to visit over the lunch hour and brought me some chocolates of which I have eaten too much already...delish! Andersen's sent the most amazing chocolate covered strawberries I have ever seen...will have to put a picture on here! We are expecting more visitors later this evening. I feel so lucky to have three wonderful healthy children and such a supportive family. This is really what life is about!

Monday, June 06, 2011

Recital

There were a few things I have been waiting for for what seems like forever! The first was the arrival of my sister, she is staying the summer with us as she attends Drake for an MCAT course; the arrival of my mom to help take care of baby #3; and Kenna's dance recital. She has been working so hard all year to work up to this event, and she did so well!

The theme was Disneyland, and they rented out Steven's auditorium in Ames. The studio had 4 seperate shows each 3 hours...it was amazing the sheer number of dancers, props, and acts. I was so impressed at the job they all did, was soooo cute!


--the six year olds did "Its a Small World" the costumes were too cute not to photograph-- 

--the 4 year olds did "Casey Jr Comin Down the Track" with Snow White costumes-- 

--Kenna did "Very Merry Unbirthday" from Alice in Wonderland-- 

--she did so well following the choreography-- 

--her second number was Pineapple Princess from the Tiki Room--

I was so proud of her. I was never a dancer, but I can tell she really loves it and is starting to learn some real dance technique. I can't believe how much she has improved over last year!!

Here are some very forbidden videos of her performance...we weren't supposed to film so we could buy the professional DVDs...c'mon now!



Summer Silliness

--I recently pulled this out of the basement..the kids think its HILARIOUS to get in and pretend to be a baby!-- 


I am so proud of McKenna. She is really getting reading, but the english language is so darn hard! In this she drew a picture of a pig spelt "PIG" a lion spelt "LIAN" and a bunny, spelt "BNI" makes sense right! Nice job my little stinker!


--we got out the pool, it has been in the high 80s and the kids LOVED it!--