4 New Posts!

I haven't had much time to blog lately but I did make 4 new posts today, so take a look!

Loving Our Little Boy!

Zac is now 9 days old... Wow, it's finally sinking in that we have 3 kids and we are officially outnumbered! Hayden and Brynley love Zac, they both ask to hold him a ton, sometimes at the most inopportune times but I'm just glad they actually love him. Andy went back to work today after being off for a week and a half... Luckily, there's not much going on today and a friend came and took Hayden and Bryn for a few hours so I am feeling alright!

We've had an interesting time since arriving home from the hospital, we actually had to stay an extra night to monitor Zac's breathing so we didn't get home until Friday afternoon. It all began that night with Brynley, she was hysterical when we were trying to put her down for the night. I kept reading her stories, singing to her, etc... and every time I would leave her room she would break into hysterics again. We decided to let her cry for a bit when suddenly, we heard her door open and Brynley came running down the hall. Yep, that's right, Brynley picked a great time to start climbing out of her crib! So this went on for over an hour and finally Andy went in her room and layed down on her floor, when she layed down next to him, she was out in a few minutes. This routine went on for the next few days at nap and bedtime and she was deciding to wake up whenever she wanted to and she would come into our bedroom. It all came to head when she came into our room on Monday morning at 5am! My kids usually sleep until 8am so this was not good. Luckily, my good friend Jill saved us when she brought her son's old crib tent to our house later that night. Brynley is now trapped in her crib once again... whoever invented this lovely crib tent, is a saint!

Now on to Zac, he is such a sweet baby, he's not sleeping well yet but I have hope that he will eventually! It seems I have finally gotten him adjusted to his Miracle Blanket and he slept better last night than any other night so I'm crossing my fingers that it continues... We've been to the doctor a few times this week and he is gaining weight well and seems to be thriving. There is still one concern, as many of you may know, Brynley has a deep "dimple" at the base of her back and when she was born they were worried about it being a form of Spina Bifida which it ended up being fine. Well, Zac has one as well which they did an ultrasound on in the hospital but the radiologist was not a pediatric radiologist so he wouldn't say for sure if it looked clear or not. So, we will be getting another ultrasound on Zac next week sometime and we are praying that the dimple is closed and that his will be nothing, like Bryn's.

I just wanted to post some cute random pictures from the last week, as I think Zac has really gotten a lot cuter since the first post I made about him!

Hayden wanted to pick out Zac's clothes, he made a great choice!

Brynley is such a giant!

Our last outing as a family of 4!

I guess when your baby come a little early, unexpectedly, you tend to get behind on this kind of thing... A week before Zac made his appearance we had one last big family day as just the 4 of us. Andy and I took the kids to a place called Makutu's Island, it is basically a huge indoor playground that looks like a giant tree. There are probably 8-10 huge different twisty slides, rope ladders, bridges, tunnels, zip lines, etc. We had been there one time before and Hayden was always asking to go back so it seemed like the perfect outing! Both of the kids had a blast, Hayden was so sweaty and worn out by the time we were done, I don't think he knew what to do with himself! We then had lunch at Jason's Deli, yum!

Hayden and Brynley coming down two different slides

Hayden was actually kind of stuck up in this crevice so I had to take a picture before getting him down!

Brynley really wanted to go down this huge twisty slide, I took her down it when I was barely pregnant but there was no way I could do it this time! So, Andy had to climb through tunnels wither her to the top and take her down, it was pretty amusing!

As we were waiting for Hayden I really wanted to get a picture of Brynley and Andy but she didn't want anything to do with it. This was the best out of about 10 we tried to take, she is a stubborn little thing!

Easter Party at the Park

This is a little old, I will probably be posting some other old posts over the next few days... The week before Easter we found a fun neighborhood picnic in the neighboring town. The kids had a blast on all of the bouncies, even Brynley wasn't too scared to go down one of the blow up slides. Here are just a few pictures of the kids.

Funny Girl!

I just had to post this becuase I got such a kick out of it. I was sitting at the computer when Brynley walked in and said, "Look I have pretty lips like Mommy!" This is what I saw when I turned around:

Let me just clarify that is not my lipstick, she used a marker!

Our baby boy is here!!!

Zachary Stone Ashton made his appearance at about noon today, April 15th - our tax baby! He weighed 8 lbs. 9 oz. and was 20.5 inches long. Initially they told us he weighed 7 lbs., we were all shocked, I don't make babies that small! It took a few hours for a nurse to realize that the scale was not working correctly and they re weighed him, so we went from thinking he was our smallest baby to being our biggest baby! I'm just glad he arrived 2 weeks early... Labor and delivery were relatively good, this was the first time I actually went into labor and dilated on my own so I was pretty proud of myself! I only had to push through two contractions which was my fastest yet!

He had a little bit of a rough start, as the cord was around his neck two times, he spent a few hours looking completely blue. The above picture shows his color coming back a little bit. So far Zac has been a dream, he is nursing well and sleeping a ton, when he's awake he just looks around. We were pretty surprised when he came out with almost black, wavy hair! Each of our kids now has had totally different hair which is kind of interesting. The first thing Hayden said when he saw him was, "Wow, cool hair, it's black like daddy's!" Hayden and Brynley both seem to love Zac, we were worried about Bryn but she seems excited and they looks forward to taking him home to play!
Brynley meeting Zac for the first time

Brynley kissing her little brother

Hayden being a goofball while meeting Zac

A baby is coming...sometime today!!! (It is now 1am)

I am helping Molly to get this updated for anyone who may check in...she went to the hospital about 11:30 or so and called me at around 12:45 to tell me they were admitting her - she came in with very regular contractions 1-2 minute apart and is 3cm dilated. They told her she would be going fast and wanted to give her the epidural to slow her down. Well, Molly is not known for super fast labor progression, or labor progression at all for that matter, so she is not holding her breath for it to go super fast!! But, we shall see! At her last check up last week, Molly was trying to convince her doctor she would have the baby this week. He laughed and said no way was that going to happen! But, she had Hayden at 37 weeks and Bryn at 38 weeks plus a day or two. She is 38 weeks today (well, Monday.)

Watch for updates from her later on during the day of the 15th as it is 1:00am right now!

See ya!

Meredith