Grandpa and Grandma Neilson's Visit

Grandpa and Grandma Neilson came to visit us and to see the new addition to the family. They drove out from Albuquerque on May 22. Grandpa had to fly back to Albuquerque on Monday so he could go back to work but we were lucky to have Grandma Neilson stay with us for the week to help me out with the three kiddos. She was a huge help, holding the baby when I needed to get things done, keeping Kadee and Cole occupied while I tended to the baby and it seemed like she was constantly doing housework...dishes, vacuuming, etc...

While Grandma Neilson was here we tried to get everyone out of the house as often as we could to avoid going stir crazy! We went on lots of walks around the neighborhood and Kadee and Grandma went on a couple excursions on their own to find pine cones which they brought home and decorated.

We went to Town Square for lunch and some playtime in the park there.

We also went to our favorite park across from the District. The kids (and Daddy) had a blast playing in the splash park.

Grandpa Neilson flew back in on Friday and they drove back to Albuquerque on Saturday morning. We were really sad to see them go. We had a wonderful visit! I think we all wish we lived a little closer to one another so we could spend a little more time together. Thanks Grandpa and Grandma...we miss you.

A Wonderful Woman Celebrates 70 Years!

May 25th was my wonderful mother's 70th birthday. We celebrated at my house with a yummy BBQ and delicious birthday treats (Carrot Cake and White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory). It is hard to believe my mother is 70, although she has her aches and pains here and there she still keeps up with all of us the best she can. She is a wonderful mother for so many reasons and I am so blessed to be her daughter. I will never be able to repay her for all that she has done and continues to do for me and our entire family. She truly is a rock! She is one of those who deserves so much yet takes so little! Everything she does is for her family and she never blinks an eye to offer her help in any way she can. Happy Birthday Mom! I am holding you to your promise of another 30 years!

The Local Swimming Hole

We have pretty much been home bound after having Chance so we have really taken advantage of the pool this summer! The kids have been swimming almost everyday since the baby came home. Daddy took them out the first couple of days we were home so he could pay attention to just them since so much attention was being paid to the new baby. They are officially fish now. Charlie taught Kadence how to swim without floaties. She is doing awesome and now swims the length of the pool all by herself.

It is a big relief to see her swim all on her own. She is even brave enough to jump off of the hot tub into the pool without floaties! Speaking of brave, Cole cannot get enough of the water either. Of course he still has to wear his floaties but he has no hesitation jumping in off of the hot tub all by himself and doesn't want anyone to catch him.

While Charlie was out of town for work my dad stepped up and came down ever day to take the kids swimming! He had a blast and enjoyed the exercise of keeping up with the kids, although I think he was pretty tired when it was time to get out!

I can't wait till I am all better to dive in and enjoy the fun.

Step Up the Supervision Mom!

Well I will be the first to admit that life has become increasingly busy in the Neilson household which has allowed Kadence and Cole to be a little more independant in what activities they choose to entertain themselves with. However, it has become quite apparent to me that Cole still requires a lot of supervision. Over the last few days I have learned that if Cole is too quiet it typically means that I am in trouble! On one occasion in particular I was feeding the baby downstairs and had left Cole in his room playing with his trains. Well when I was done with baby I went up to check on Cole and discovered this:

He decided to fix his hair all by himself! He used the entire container of gel on his hair! Can anyone say bath time?

The next funny unsupervised moment came again while I was feeding the baby in the living room and Cole was coloring at the kitchen table. Once again, Cole got awfully quiet. Learning my lesson I quickly asked him what he was doing. He lifted up his hand over the dividing wall and simply stated, "Look, pretty!" I rushed up to see what was so pretty to find this:

Needless to say my mischievous son has only stepped it up a notch with the new addition so too must mom step it up and NEVER TAKE MY EYES OFF OF HIM!

Mother's Day 2009

Mother's Day was pretty low key this year since I had just gotten out of the hospital the day before. What a great gift I received this year, a beautiful baby boy to share my love with! Kadee surprised me in the morning with a wonderful gift, a homemade flower pen. I love that she is in school now and gets to do such creative projects. She wanted to tell me about my gift all week and I had to keep asking her to keep it a secret until Sunday! It was a great surprise! We spent the rest of the day with my parents and sister and her family. We had a wonderful dinner and everyone had a good time swimming.

Congratulations Sentiments and Thank You's!

We received some very thoughtful "congratulations" gifts after Chance was born. Thank you to all for your best wishes and never-ending thoughtfulness!
A close-up of the yummy fruit basket sent from work. The chocolate covered strawberries and pineapples were DELICIOUS!
The kids enjoying the yummy fruit basket!

An Amazing Coincidence???

When I first found out I was pregnant with Chance I blogged about another blog that I had read that completely turned my perspective around. It was a blog written by a mother of four who had recently lost her youngest daughter to a backyard drowning. Her blog made me realize just how lucky I was to be blessed with another child. Well not long after I had given birth to Chance I was perusing through blogs and began to read this woman's blog again. Low and behold I discovered that she too had just given birth to a son. As I read on my jaw began to drop, she gave birth to her son the same night I gave birth to Chance only a couple hours later, even more coincidentally, we both gave birth to our sons at the same hospital! The woman who was responsible for making me stop stressing out about how are we going to do this and how are we going to pay for this and instead just enjoying my pregnancy was literally right down the hall from me while we both experienced welcoming our small miracles into the world. How coincidentally special!

Welcome to the World Baby Chance!

Thursday morning was just like any other morning, rushing around to get the kids ready to go to the babysitters, getting myself ready, getting everybody fed, etc... We were getting ready to head out the door at about 8:00 am when it hit me...this was a real contraction, the kind that start in your back and works it way to the stomach! Ouch I thought...here we go again, it was going to be back labor, I just knew it, the same that I had with Kadence. I had been having several contractions over the last few weeks, nothing consistent and nothing extremely painful, just the typical braxton hicks where it feels like your stomach is tightening into a ball. I had begun to feel like the little boy who cried wolf so I didn't want to say anything quite yet to Charlie. We were both pretty eager for this baby to come sooner than later! I went about my morning routine, getting the kids backpacks packed, and getting everyone ready to walk out the door when another one hit me! And this one was just as painful. Something just told me, this was it. I kind of took it easy for a few minutes when once again, another one hit. Okay, this might be the real deal. I told Charlie to call our boss and let him know that we were going to hang out at the house for a little bit because it appeared that I was having contractions. No sense going all the way into work to just have to turn back around and head to the hospital. The contractions kept on coming. I decided it was time to start writing down the times so I could figure out how close I was getting. I didn't want to head to the hospital too early!

By this time Kadee was getting pretty excited. "Mom are we finally going to have the baby today?" I told her there was a pretty strong possibility! As the contractions continued I went into panic mode. I pulled out the vacuum and started vacuuming the floors. Charlie looked at me with a look that simply implied that I was crazy but after so many years together he knew better than to go any further and took the vacuum from me and finished vacuuming the house. The kids wanted to pitch in as well and windexed all of the windows and the kitchen table. Yeah, I was in labor and cleaning my house! The contractions were getting more and more painful so I figured I better pack a bag! Kadee was a huge help and stuck by my side the entire morning helping me with everything and anything.

After my bag was packed I decided we needed to take some pictures. This could be it and I wanted some pics to remember what it was like to be as big as I was!

At about 1:00 pm I told Charlie that it was time to go as I hunched over the kitchen island in pain! We all loaded into the Excursion and off we went. We were going to head up to my parents house to drop off the kids and then head down to the hospital. I could hear the panic in Charlie's voice as he insisted that he drop me off at the hospital, then he would run the kids up real quick and then be right back. "No we would be fine," I insisted until I had two contractions in the five minutes that it took to get from my house to St. Rose Parkway. I quickly agreed with him and we decided that we would just head straight to the hospital and my parents would meet us there.

Charlie dropped me off at the front door and I waddled into the entrance. As I was walking in, a new mother was being wheeled out with her new baby in tote and I thought to myself, wow, that's going to be me in a couple of days! I got to the reception desk and and the nurse looked at me and asked if she could help me with something, "Yeah, I think I am having a baby!" She handed me a form to fill out and I continued having a contraction right there at the desk. As I stood at the desk I overheard a couple of nurses talking about another expecting mother that was already in triage..."She's here again, this is the third time in four days!" I started thinking to myself, oh my gosh, am I sure I am in labor? I don't want to be one of those that has a few pains and is just sent home.

The triage nurse informed me that she was going to monitor me for an hour and then let me know if I would be staying or not. Again, I started thinking, okay am I really in labor? As soon as they laid me down and hooked me up to the monitor my contractions stopped! I didn't have another one for twenty minutes. I heard the triage nurse tell the other patient in triage, "Okay, you have only had two contractions in half an hour so we are going to send you home!". I thought to myself, great I am the next to go home. I am going to be a false labor reject! Then slowly but surely the contractions started again and right before my hour was up my water broke.

The nurse informed me there was light myconeum and I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes. Here we go again, I thought. Kadence had aspirated myconeum and it landed her in the NICU for five days after her birth. All the memories of her birth raced through my head, them placing her on my chest for two seconds and then whisking her off to the respirator. Charlie didn't even get to hold her. I really didn't want to go through that again but I told myself that I needed to relax and that he would be okay, we were surrounded by capable physicians and nurses that would get us through this.

They wheeled me into a labor and delivery room and got me hooked up to all the machines. This is where we met my nurse Taryn who was awesome through the whole time. She informed me of a pretty cool fact, that Chance would be born on 05-07-09. This is a very rare occasion where the date is comprised of three consecutive odd numbers. A special day for a special baby!

Soon the anesthesiologist came in to give me my epidural. I was alone in the room at the time which kind of scared me. Charlie had left to take the kids out to the waiting room and didn't make it back in time. He was there to comfort me with Kadence and Cole and I think the doc and the nurse could see a little fear in my eyes because they quickly started making small talk about none other than American Idol. Myself and the nurse were both bummed that Allison had just been kicked off the show. Next thing I know I could feel the stinging yet cool liquid run through my back and then a contraction hit so I focused instead on getting through the pain of the contraction rather than getting the epidural. Not long after I was on cloud nine and could feel no pain. About 20 minutes after getting the epidural I had to ask for a bed pan because I started feeling extremely nauseated. She looked at me like, yeah, you don't look to good and picked up the phone and had the anesthesiologist paged. Before I knew it I had an oxygen mask on. According to her I was becoming very pale and my blood pressure bottomed out. She quickly called again for the anesthesiologist, stat I heard her say. No need to panic, yeah right, I watch ER and STAT typically means get your butt in here something ain't right. He immediately came back into the room and put a large shot of something in my IV. Within ten minutes I was fine and felt completely normal again. Nothing like a little scare to get the adrenaline going!

After getting my epidural at about 3:00 pm, things went into slow motion. I was dilated to a four, a couple hours later I was a five. Although I couldn't feel them the contractions were not progressing. Finally, it was time for shift change for the nurses. My nurse Taryn came in with my new nurse Janine to check me. I was complete. They were getting ready to call my OBGYN, Dr. Sauter and suggested that I do a "test push" to make sure I was ready. 1-2-3-PUSH, I did and all of a sudden they started yelling stop, stop, stop. Apparently my test push went rather well and they hurried to call my doc.

Before I knew it Dr. Sauter was there and the delivery nurse and respiratory specialist were preparing the baby area for Chance's arrival. I was extremely thankful that Dr. Sauter would be delivering my third child as he also delivered Kadence and Cole.

I will spare the gruesome details but two pushes and we were done. It literally took about two minutes if even that. His official birth time was 7:56 pm. The first thing I looked for was the hair. I was the most curious about this because we had one heck of a surprise with Cole's blonde hair! Chance had a full head of thick black hair! It was beautiful, he was beautiful. They whisked him over to the baby area where the respiratory nurse worked on him for a couple of minutes. Everything was okay! He had not aspirated any of the myconeum and his little lungs were working just fine! He weighed in at 8 lbs. 8 oz. and measured 20.5 inches long. I was so thankful that he was healthy and was able to stay in the room with us. Everyone got to hold him and welcome him into the world. It was a great delivery and we were blessed with a beautiful baby boy! Finally, our family was complete.Eight Pounds, Eight Ounces, 20.5 Inches Long!Proud Daddy holding his little man!Auntie Julie and Cousin Dani.Getting ready to leave the hospital. Yeah!On our way home!Look at the head of hair! It is gorgeous.All three kiddos. As Kadee explained, they are, "Small, Medium and Large!"Big brother with his new buddy.Bis sis Kadee-Bug, aka "Little Mama." She loves her baby brother.

Sesame Street Live!

Our friends had recently asked us if we would be interested in taking the kids to Sesame Street Live. Their daughter had just turned one and they wanted to take her to see how she would do! Cole loves Cookie Monster and Elmo so we thought he would have a blast!

We got great seats right down on the floor which was pretty cool because the characters would walk right by our seats so the kids got to say hi to all of them! The show was really cute and just the sound of the cheers when Elmo came out was enough to make it worth it! Our friends daughter did great and was dancing and laughing until about 3/4 of the way thru the show when she decided she had had enough fun and took a nap!

After the show we headed over to Town Square for lunch at the Yardhouse. The boys tapped their yards of beer together and thanked Elmo for the great excuse to get together! After lunch we went to the park where the kids played a while and then we did a little shopping for the kiddos. Our friends then introduced us to "Yogurtland", a new favorite of mine! You grab a cup, and there are about a dozen different flavors to choose from including toasted coconut, banana's foster and vanilla wafers cookies and cream - YUM! You can take as much as you want and sample every flavor if you feel the need! Then the best part, you get to head to the topping bar where there is everything and anything to add to your treat! Kadence decided to have Mango, Cookies and Cream, Strawberry Tart, Vanilla Wafer yogurt topped with gummy bears, sprinkles, cookie dough and chocolate chips. All I could do was wonder how bad of a tummy ache she would have later!

It was a great day!

Diaper Party

The girls at work decided to throw me a Diaper Party. I work with some pretty thoughtful girls and although I told them over and over again that I didn't need anything, they insisted on doing something for me. We figured a diaper party would be the best thing to do since I had most of the necessities from Kadence and Cole. So the girls whipped up one heck of a shindig for me on Saturday.

Clarice crafted the invitations that fit the theme to a tee! They were absolutely adorable!

Diaper Cake made by Clarice

Diaper Cake made by Renee

The festivities started at 3:00pm at Renee's house. There was a wonderful spread of food including really yummy cupcakes made by Clarice and Yelena. They did such a good job on them that I thought they were purchased from the Cupcakery, a cupcake shop here in Vegas. They decorated them with little cowboy boots, lassos and sheriff stars and even toasted coconut to look like hay! They were adorable and so yummy!
After some chatting with everyone Dallas and Clarice directed everyone through a few games. We played the clothespin game, where you were not allowed to cross your legs, say "baby" or "Chance" or else you would lose your clothespin. We also played a baby word scramble and the toilet paper game, where everyone has to guess how big my belly is using toilet paper. For the record, I was 12 2/3 squares big! We also played my all time favorite game, the dirty diaper game. This is always a crowd pleaser. The girls melted various candy bars (Carmello's, York Peppermint Patty, Hershey's with Almonds to name a few) in the diapers and you have to guess what type of candy bar is in each diaper!

Dallas giving the answers to the baby scramble.

The girls trying to figure out what is in these diapers!

Some really yucky looking diapers, don't worry it is just candy bars!

After the games I opened presents. I received a ton of cute stuff in addition to some much needed diapers and wipes. These are sure to come in handy! I had a wonderful day and realized how lucky I was to have such caring people in my life!