Grandma & Papa's visit

My parents came to visit and see their newest grand baby. They arrived on Wed. spent a day and quickly left to visit other family. It wasn't planned that way but our kitchen was still without cabinets and counter tops and it made it very difficult to feed and maneuver in our makeshift kitchen in the basement. Six days later they returned to finish off their visit, they pulled up just as the granite installers pulled out. So they were the first to help break-in our new somewhat finished kitchen. We had lots of fun with Grandma and Papa. We went apple picking, they got to watch Raquel at swim team and sing in the Primary program and attend her preschool performance of Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

Papa and his first grandson.

Grandma Clinger admiring her newest grandbaby.

SWIM TEAM

The whole family went to watch Raquel swim. She is doing so well and she was excited to get to show off her swimming skills to Grandma and Papa.

Baby Marcus getting ready to head to the pool.

Watching Raquel at swim team

Raquel showing off her swimming

Natalya having fun at the pool during Raquel's team practice.

APPLE PICKING

We spent the day with grandma in Roanoke picking apples. Unfortunately the place we went to last year didn't have the best apples. Because of the heat this year the apples ripened too early and we only had one kind of apple to choose from and there weren't very many on the trees. We picked what we could and were a little disappointed in the thought that we wouldn't get to make any applesauce this year. But on our way home we stopped at another fruit orchard and found lots of different apples. We loaded up on apples and started to head home but not before stopping by the store to pick-up a Foley food mill (my birthday present from my parents and it sure made making applesauce this year a whole lot easier) and getting a bite to eat at a little restaurant. We had a fun day with Grandma and a great dessert of apple crisp the next day.

Natalya enjoying an apple.

I don't know what he is thinking about, maybe all the yummy homemade applesauce he knows he will get to eat this year. What ever it is, it sure made him smile.

PRESCHOOL PLAY

Raquel's preschool class put on a little play for their parents. It just happened to be the day my parents were to leave and so they were able to come and see it before they headed back to the airport. The play was Goldilocks and the three bears, and Raquel was a mama bear. As you can see Natalya didn't want to be left out and so joined in and was the newest mama bear. It was cute seeing the girls have so much fun acting out the story.

Our little Mama Bears

First Hair Cut!

The before

The After

Natalya got her first haircut. The poor kid could hardly see out from under her hair it was getting so long. I was a little scared to do it myself at home so I took her to a salon. We stopped by the grocery store first to pick up a treat to give her a little incentive to agree to sitting in the chair and get her hair cut. She was a little too scared and wiggly so I had to hold her on my lap. Now she has a little bob with bangs that makes her look oh so cute!

He has a name!

We finally agreed on a name for our little baby boy today.

Marcus William Kennedy

Unfortunately the hospital already turned in the paper work and so we will have to pay a fee to have his name changed from Baby Boy Kennedy.

My Name is Nobody

Here is how our week was suppose to go. First, I drop Mike off at the airport in Roanoke on Friday morning so that he can take a trip out to visit his Grandpa Robison who was diagnosed with cancer. He visits and has fun seeing family and then 6 days later I pick him up at the airport, he is home for 2 days and then off to National Guard drill for another 2 days. Then I can go into labor and have our little baby boy.

Unfortunately things don't always go as planned especially when a baby is involved. We thought we were pretty safe sending Mike off to Idaho 2 weeks prior to my due date since at my last doctors visit I hadn't progressed any and I hadn't had any contractions. So off Mike went to Idaho Friday Sept 3rd. He arrived safely and had a nice visit with his parents and grandparents. That night I went to bed late and was woken up at 1am by contractions. They were painful enough to keep me up until 4am and then they went away. I laid awake the rest of the night worried that I wasn't ready to have the baby because Mike was gone, the house needed to be cleaned and bags needed to be packed for the hospital. I was relieved when the contractions stop and first thing Sat. morning got up and packed my hospital bag, cleaned the house and called Mike to let him know that I was having contractions.

Mike wanted to change his flight to come home earlier because he thought the baby would soon be here. I thought we had more time and told him I'd look into it but we didn't need to worry too much because the contractions were less frequent and not too painful. He had a fun day on the lake with his family and I busied myself with preparing just in case. My neighbor Ann that I was going to have watch our kids when I had the baby was gone for the day and wouldn't be back until Sunday evening and so I headed next door to my other neighbor Kathy to let her know that it was highly unlikely that I would have the baby today/tonight but just in case I wanted to let her know that I had been having contractions and set up a plan for the girls in case I did need to go to the hospital. I took it easy the rest of the day hoping that I wouldn't further along the delivery of our baby and changed Mike's flight arrangements to the earliest flight which wasn't until 7am Sunday morning.

The girls and I went to bed, not expecting anything but a nice restful night. At 11:45pm I was woken up by a strong contraction. I got up out of bed to walk it off and then my water broke. I quickly called Mike, no answer. Then I called my neighbor Kathy, I had just received a texted message from her asking how I was doing and so I knew she was probably still awake. Our plan for the girls was put into motion, the girls stayed at Kathy's house with her son and daughter which both my girls adore so it made it easy to leave them there and Kathy drove me to the hospital.

We arrived at the hospital a little before 1 am, got checked in and then we waited. The doctor on call was not the doctor that I had see through out my pregnancy but she is the other one in the practice that I like and so I just went ahead and had her start the process of delivering our baby. It took a while for all the blood work to come back and for the anesthesiologist to give me an epidural but after the drugs started working it was a piece of cake. I was dilated to a 4 when I came in and over the next 4 hours progressed quickly, the only worry was that the baby's heart rate kept dipping quite low and needed to be monitored with an internal probe. Luckily his heart rate stayed steady enough to not have to take him out by c-section. Once I was fully dilated it only took 3 more contractions to push through and our little boy was out. Born at 6:25am on Sunday September 5th and he weighed 6 lbs. 5.8 oz (the biggest of the 3 kids) and was 20 1/4 inches long. He has long legs and big feet and the most laid back personality. He sleeps great during the day and can sleep well at night if he is sleeping on my tummy.

My neighbor Kathy was able to be there at the hospital with me and she took all the pictures of our new little boy. Mike's plane arrived at 5:30pm Sunday night and soon made it back home, picking up the girls and then coming to the hospital to meet our new little boy. So Mike was able to see our little boy the same day he was born only 12 hours later. The girls were so excited to come and meet their new little brother. Natalya came in asking were the baby was and wanting to hold him, getting upset when Raquel got to hold him. I was so happy to see that the girls loved their little brother, especially Natalya who was such a mamma's girl. Natalya had been a great big sister. She wants to help change his diaper and is always there watching ready to hand me the diaper. The other day she even gave her little brother her most prized blanket because he was crying. She really has grown up these past few days and taken on the roll of a loving big sister. Its great that both the girls want to help out with the baby so much.

The baby and I were able to come home from the hospital early Monday afternoon. We still don't have a name for the poor kid and so thats why the name of the post is my name is nobody. We have a couple of names we like but its just agreeing on which name to use. The hospital didn't want us to leave with out naming him and kept calling when we got home trying to get us to come up with a name. He may just have to be called baby brother for awhile before we decide. We sure to love our little guy and are happy he arrived safe and healthy even if it was 2 weeks early.

Waiting for the doctor and my epidural.

Must have been between contractions because I'm smiling.

Little Baby Brother

Born September 5, 2010

at 6:25 am

He was such a content little guy.

Didn't even cry. He was very content laying on my stomach.

Mommy & Baby brother

Baby brother was the biggest of our 3 kids.

Proud Big Sisters!

Raquel & Little Brother

Mike seeing his little boy for the first time.

Natalya was so happy to hold her little brother. She got a little scared when he started to move. She must have thought he was a little doll.

Home from the hospital

2 Days old

Trying to capture a smile.

4 days old.

First Day of Preschool

All ready for school!

Raquel started her second year of preschool today. She had lots of fun playing with her new friends and seems to like her teachers Mrs. Leslie and Ms. Hamborsky. She was so excited to wear the new school outfit she picked out herself.

Since Raquel is attending 3 day a week preschool we wanted to get her in another activity to fill up sometime on her off days. Since she loves to swim we thought swimming would be a good option and so yesterday she tried out for the H2okie Aquatics program. Its a local swim club/team. She passed her swim evaluation and so is one of the newest members of H2okie Aquatic Stroke School and will be starting practice next week. We have been talking about having her try out for a couple of weeks and she was quite nervous at first and didn't want to try. But she was very brave jumping right into the deep (over 12ft) competition pool at the new aquatics center and swam great! We are so proud of her and know that she is going to love getting to swim twice a week.