Thanksgiving 2009

So, 3 months after Truly was born, I'm finally gonna get back to this blogging thing. Unfortunately, my OCD requires me to keep things in order, so we'll have to start way back at Thanksgiving to get back to the present. True to the second child, I don't have very many pictures of Truly....or Kegan for that matter. I haven't had professional pictures made since last Christmas....I'll get on it, eventually.

Thanksgiving 2009 was one of the best in a long time. We usually get some of my mom's family here, but this was our biggest Thanksgiving ever in Texas. My sister and her kids were here as well as my parents. Aaron lives with us, so that was awesome to have us all together in one house for an entire week....really, I'm not joking. It was so great to have everyone together.

The day before Thanksgiving, we all loaded up and went to see the "Grinch" ice exibit at the Gaylord Texan. It was really neat, but also really cold. We all really underestimated how cold 9 degrees was. Even with the huge parkas it was borderline miserable for Louisianian's and Texan's to bear. Kegan refused to lift her head from where she had it snuggled in her Dad's chest the entire time.

Kegan super stoked even before we entered the freezing exhibit....in her defense, she was sick with a cold and it was getting close to bedtime.


This was the position Kegan immediately assumed as soon as we entered the exhibit

Truly is actually in this picture....she is the bulge under my coat. she slept soundly in her sling the whole time. I sort of felt guilty having her there not realizing it would be THAT cold!

Kegan eyeing her escape outta there!

Good thing I paid extra for Kegan to meet the Grinch afterwards. She Really enjoyed it....see!

Far away from that scary Grinch, everyone relaxed and enjoyed the train. Evan is so excited, can't you tell?

Our Thanksgiving feast was at the France household in Grapevine. My Aunt Nikki and kids were there, along with my Aunt Julie and Uncle Bert and my Grammy and Grampy, all visiting from Louisiana. So we then added all the France kids and then everyone from my house. And if that didn't make for a huge enough Thanksgiving, my cousin Matt's in-laws, the Hughes', joined in for our family fun! It was a wonderful, beautiful, fun day. Nanny and Uncle Tommy had everything set up so nicely. Thanks to the France's, as always, for hosting another great Thanksgiving feast.

Nanny and Uncle Tommy, our wonderful Thanksgiving hosts!

Nana spending quality time with her 2 sweet granddaughters. Ava isn't quite used to having to share her Nana.

Me and Truly hanging with cousing Jeff

the three of us together like the good 'ole days, good for them, but I seem to remember repeated torture and embarassment from these guys. And they look so innocent now.

Sweet brother-in-lawly love. Awwwwww, how cute!

all the boys keeping Truly company

A mom, an aunt, a sister, and a cousin, oh, and me

everyone's watching Grammy clean up, making sure she gets it all

The Autin's. Together at last.

Kegan rocking and relaxing after a big meal

This, however, is how to not relax after a meal??? Evan is trying some of his ju-jitsu moves on Hannah.....I'm no expert, but I think Hannah's kicking his butt!



Trouble on wheels! make that Double-Trouble on wheels! Hannah did a wonderful job entertaining the girls. They had the best time playing with her....when she wasn't kicking Evan's butt.

Meredith is trying her hand at the "Five S's" from the Happiest Baby on the Block. She did a most excellent job. shushed Truly right to sleep.

And lastly, my two favorite women, Grammy and Mom! I love you guys!

Some Truly Sweet Pictures of Truly

The black and whites are from the hospital and the others are 2 week pictures that I took myself at home. Not professional, but respectable and totally sweet. Sorry taken so long to get them up. Have been super busy...especially with the holiday. We are housing 11 people for Thanksgiving and it is GREAT!!! It is the 1st time in over 10 years that my mom has all her kids together for Thanksgiving. We have a house full of kids running around and playing and it is a blast. We even made it to the France's for Thanksgiving dinner and got to spend the day with even more family. Not too shabby for a bunch of Louisianian's celebrating the holiday in Texas.

I wish you could see more of the gown Truly has on in these. It was specially made for our children by Madison's sister Alex. Kegan came home in it and so did Truly. It is a beautiful gown and we plan to wear it as often as we can. Kegan never got much wear out of our pretties from Alex becuase she spit up so badly. Truly does much better, so we are breaking them out and having fun!!

This dress is one handed down from Alex that was made for her girls. Truly looked like a little sleeping angel.

The two previous pictures I posted just because I when I saw the picture of Truly, it immediately reminded me of this one of Kegan. So here they both are for comparison. Note that it took Kegan 3 months to chub up enough to compete with Truly at 2 days old.

This is Truly all packed up on our first outing.....to the doctor. Four days old and hate the carseat already....still does today.

Kegan showing Truly the art of rocking while watching TV. Notice that Kegan has reclaimed her slumber-bear, so thankfully Truly got a sleep-sheep for a gift.

This is what you look like after convincing Daddy to run around in the rain with you and then indulge in peanutbutter and jelly sandwiches for lunch.

Aahhhh! The peace of a good swaddle. I love these things. They sure make life a lot easier!

Truly Madilyn Flowers has Arrived!!!!

Wednesday morning, November 4th, I had a doctor appointment and everything was ok, but my blood pressure was still borderline and I was starting to spill protein in my urine which meant the Pregnancy Induced Hypertension (PIH), was getting a little worse, but still not horrible. The kicker was that my cervix was still completely closed and the baby was still high, which meant all the contractions that I had been having were doing nothing and meant, they probably never would......I hate it when the doctors are right. I was really hoping for a vaginal delivery this time, but conceded to another c-section. Funny thing was that my contractions really picked up once we got to the hospital, but I wasn't fooled, they had been doing that for weeks. We went back to the OR about 1:04pm and we had our little suprise at 1:30. They tried to fool us by saying we had some extra parts, but when I asked "really, it's a boy", they said nope, another girl.....we were so happy. I think we were both secretly hoping for another sweet girl since our first one is turning out sooooo good. She is a chunk compared to Kegan. She weighed 7lbs 15oz, and is 19in long. She has a head full of dark hair too, just like her sister did. Weird how we make dark headed babies. Kegan for sure didn't stay that way since she is now quite the cotton top.

Since Aaron works at the hospital where we had Truly, he stopped by a lot before and after the surgery. He even picked up Kegan and brought her home and fed her and put her to bed by himself. He is such a great brother. Mom and Dad were racing on their way from Louisiana and got to the hospital about 8pm....I think. I had a Demerol epidural infusion going that was making me very loopy. I was so happy to have that thing gone by morning. Kegan was so excited to meet her new baby sister that afternoon. She was soooo cute. She held Truly all by herself and would pat her and say "shhh-shhh". When Madison would try to help, she would say "stop, no Daddy". Miss Independent.

By Friday morning, I was done with hangning out at the hospital and begged for them to let me go, so I had my staples pulled and we were out the door with our new little one by 10am. It was nice.

Ready to go!

Going in for number 2 baby! It was funnier then, guess you had to be there?

Dr. Holmes caught a fish, wait a minute. No, that's just our baby girl!!!!

Cheesy Baby!

Ahhhh! Success!

Proud parents of two sweet girls! Our sweet little family!

"Hi Truly"

Truly came back from the nursery with a mowhawk. I don't know about some of those nurses.

Beautiful sunny day to come back home.

Chillin with mommy in my new pad.

Halloween Bee

Our Halloween started the day before with Kegan getting to wear her costume to school for the day. That evening they had Fall Festival at school, which we went to for a little while. It didn't start until 6:30, which is the start of Kegan's bedtime routine, so she didn't last very long. One good things from it was an older girl in her class showed up at the same time wearing a bee costume and had on the wings and antennae, which Kegan refused to wear that morning. But, after seeing the older kid doing it, it was the coolest thing ever and we have now added the antennae to her play toys....she loves to wear them. Kegan won a whole 2 liter of Sunkist at one of the games and double dipped on all the candy. Even indulged in a little popcorn, which her mom was happy to finish off.

Pretty Bee without her wings.

Check out this tutu! Isn't it pretty!

Halloween night our friends Brooks and Mandy joined us with their little girl Laura Beth. Even though Laura Beth is only 4 months old, she fit into Kegan's costume from last year, so they loaded the two trick-or-treaters in the double stroller and off they went to get some loot. I did not go and stayed home on the porch in case we got some kids at our house....which we didn't bummer. Madison said Kegan was pretty funny and would say "trick-or-treat" all the way up to the houses, but then would just quietly wait for her candy. One house she put her basket down and went in double-fisted to grab her own candy, and at another one shut the door on the lady as soon as she gave out the candy.....a little rude, but guess it worked. We'll have to work on that for next year.

Wearing her whole outfit for the big night!

(as you can see, the ribbon on the bodice of the suit didn't make it past the day at school, oh well guess this is only a one time wear thing)

Our two little monsters posing with Brooks.

Ummmmm! now to enjoy the loot!

The next morning Kegan started walking around the house saying "cheese", which usually means she wants some snack cheese. Took us a while, but she was wanting us to take pictures of her, I guess because we had taken so many over the last couple of days. It was so cute, she kept moving around the house and posing in different places and saying "cheese". Here is some of her recent work from her portfolio.

Mom! your butt is ruining my shot!

How about here Dad!

Oooh, and here?! I like it!

Lazy and Bored!

What have I been up to the last two weeks.... Madison officially started work with Harrison, Walker, Harper on the 12th and so far it has been great! Definitely turning out to be a change for the better. The Wed before Madison started there, we started Kegan back at daycare full-time, and boy was she happy to get back to all her school friends. She is the "princess" there and she knows it. They spoil her worse than grandparents I think. Madison really took it hard sending her back, but he is really thankful to have a job too.

To add to all of our recent drama, Friday the 9th, I ended up leaving work that morning for contractions that were coming every 6 minutes. I tried to sit down and behave myself, but they just kept coming. Since I was only 35wks pregnant, I got 3 doses of terbutaline, and while it stopped the contractions, it made me feel like I was running a marathon on speed for the next 4 hours! I was all jittery and anxious. It was amazing to not have contractions though. I felt great that evening. Forgot what it felt like to not have my uterus tense all the time. It was temporary though, so I spent the next two days on bedrest. Woke up Sunday morning with cramping contractions every 3 minutes so back to the hopsital we went for more terbutaline, this time it didn't stop the contractions completely, but did make them less intense. The next day I saw my doctor and he said he wouldn't stop the contractions anymore, which should have made me a little suspicious....it turns out he wasn't really worried about them since they were doing nothing to dilate my cervix or bring the baby down, so chances of the contractions turning into real labor was very unlikely.

That night we went to the U2 concert which we had been looking forward to since April. I was so glad to be able to go. It was awesome! A little uncomfortable with all the walking and contracting, but Madison was sweet and rubbed my back when I needed it. I somehow had it in my head, that if I was going to do all this contracting, I was going to do whatever I wanted. Not the best idea. Just made me really uncomfortable. So much that by Thursday night I though I was in real labor. I even called mom. Nope, by morning contractions lightenend up and became irregular. I was so frustrated! Went to see doctor again this Monday and still no dilation, just lots of contracting. Blood pressure starting to climb and getting more swollen. My hopes of a VBAC are dwindling.

I hate not being at work and not having a baby in my arms, but I know the longer I keep this baby cooking, the better. Oh, and speaking of cooking, I almost tried to cook the baby out. I learned that cooking is dangerous in your 9th month and should be avoided. While cooking french toast for Kegan and I, I burned my belly. I wondered if CPS would get me for fetal abuse.

Mom and Dad came over this weekend for some moral support, knowing that I am getting pretty depressed with all the ups and downs of worrying that the baby is coming too soon, then, the nevermind, it's not. You just get to sit and be off work and when you try to do anything productive get very uncomfortable with all the useless contractions. Uugh! Mom and Dad are sweet to me. Thanks for driving all that way to help me put my mind at ease!

Now for the good stuff! Here is Kegan the wonderful growing big girl!

This was Kegan running in our backyard on her trails her Daddy cut for her during all their quality time while he was off of work. After her first official day back at daycare you can see she still had energy to burn. I was working late so these two videos are ones they sent me so I didn't miss them so much.

This video was from the Saturday morning I was on bedrest. Kegan and her Daddy went out for a run in our 50 degree weather and had a great time. Kegan is turning out to be quite the runner. Guess she sees her Dad doing it all the time, so it just seems like the right thing to do. It makes us proud. Hopefully she will continue to like it since we do too. Thank you to cousin Kelly for the jogging suits. As you can see they work great!

The Offer is Finally In!

Madison officially got his job offer in today and we are thrilled to accept it. I am so proud of him! He never let this whole ordeal get him down and immediatedly got to work job hunting. He even managed to complete a huge list of "honey-do's". How he has managed to get all this done with Kegan at his feet is beyond me. He is an amazing man. I can't even do clothes with Kegan at home. Madison will start work Monday with the new company and is saddest to have to take Kegan back to daycare. Funny, when this all started, we were saddest to take her out of daycare, and after almost 4 short weeks are now sad to send her back. Not like the two of them weren't two peas in a pod before, but now they are really suckers for each other. I manage to get some lovin' every once in a while from Kegan, but most kisses and hugs are Daddy's only. He even took the initiative to start on some of Kegan's potty training by buying her pull-ups and a little potty. They picked it out together....so cute. Maybe this was God's way of reminding us to cherish the time we have with Kegan. It is impressive to realize how much time we spend away from her at work. She is such a wonderful little girl. Love you Madison!

Madison's Hard Work Paying Off

A bit of good news came through yesterday. Looks like one of the companies Madison interviewed with is sending him an offer. Seems like a really great company to work with and we are so excited to have found something this great so soon. Thanks for all who have helped out with the prayers and encouragement. This company is offering to pay our COBRA premiums so we may get to keep our current insurance until after the baby arrives....whew! We haven't gotten the entire job offer in the mail yet, but we are very optimistic that it will at least be comparable to what he had with MEDCO. We will keep you guys updated. Looking forward to getting back to semi-normal, at least for a little while before the baby arrives. Then back on the roller coaster.