working hard

 

helpers

I have good helpers around here.

first day

I thought I would commemorate my first day alone with three kiddos with a picture. Things are going just fine and there has not been an increase of tears around here...by the kids or me!  Plus, Little Bug just got registered for kindergarten this morning! Time flies and sometimes I wish I could just press the pause button. 

sleeping away

it is not all fun and games

Is it just me who thinks a good crying picture is actually pretty cute?

bitsy

meeting the sibs

Bitsy meeting her siblings

It is pretty fun we now have a household full of little people.

introducing

Bitsy joined our family February 7th at 3:57 pm. She was 8 pounds and 20 inches long and came fast and fierce. Labor started with me heading out the door with my mom to run some errands. I was convinced that labor would take a while and the movement would help things progress.  My increasingly frequent contractions in the store quickly escalated my mom into a state of panic, convinced that I was not going to make it to the hospital in time. I wasn't feeling the same urgency, but by the time we got to the hospital, I was yelling at Andrew to just pick a parking spot already! I must have looked pretty bad because on the walk up to the maternity ward I was offered a wheel chair 3 times by 3 different people. The hospital was busy and when we arrived at the nurses desk they they made some joke about there being no room at the inn. (I did not find this funny at the time.) At that moment I had a contraction and the head nurse found me a room right away. We made it to the hospital!

At admission I was dilated to a 9, but Bitsy was transverse. If she hadn't been, I probably would have delivered within an hour of arrival.  Instead they wanted to wait to see if she would go head down. The nurse also discovered Bitsy had meconium aspiration syndrome and had the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck. Fortunately, nothing serious came from these two issues.  After two hours Bitsy finally accommodated us by going head down and she was delivered 20 minutes later. We are so glad she is here!

When the kids came by for a visit, we ordered ice cream, chips and chocolate milk from the hospital cafeteria and had ourselves a party! Tank was totally on board with this idea.

The most memorable thing from this pregnancy will be that Bitsy's gender was a surprise. We were really shocked to find out it was a girl that I had carried all those months! 

the angel and princess

Little Bug and Tank came out of Bug's room all dressed up today. Bug announced she was an angel and Tank announced he was a princess. There are these pictures of my brothers when they were about Tank's age all dressed up in girlie attire. I think they are hilarious. I am not too sure how my brothers feel about them. I believe they were dressed up by my two older sisters in protest. Tank was quite pleased to have Bug help dress him.  

This past Christmas Santa brought everyone in our family scooters. Since then, Bug and Tank spend a good part of their day riding them around the house playing rocket ship blast off, racing and chasing each other. I thought it was fitting to capture a picture of them with their beloved scooters. 

main bath

We recently gave our main bath a much needed face lift. Our house was built in the early 80's and I think the before bathroom picture captures that look pretty well. It was the original bathroom flooring and counter top, which I think had held up really well, it was just dated. Soon after moving in, I painted the bathroom gray, the back splash cream and added a white frame around the mirror to make it look more custom. We had wanted to do a new floor and counter top, but other things around the house took priority. So for my birthday, yes that was back in October, we decided we would actually tackle the rest of the bathroom. 

When we began tiling the floor all those memories and emotions of tiling the main parts of the house came back pretty quick. Apparently, we still have not quite recovered from that project. Here is stage one, the backer board, which is actually stage three because Andrew first had to rip up the old flooring and then sub-flooring. I just failed at taking pictures of that part.

And because I have done such a bad job of taking photos of our projects, here is the floor all done, along with the new counter top and re-stained vanity! Of course it did not happen that quick. We are still learning that you have to multiply your house project by four or five times how long you think it will take to get an accurate time length of how long your project will actually take. We ended up laying a three inch tile boarder and putting the tile on point, which we love.    

As good as it feels to have this main bath done, I am not looking forward to updating the master bath and having to tile again.