Family of Four (4)

I have been out of the blogosphere for a bit, but have wanted to get my thoughts down for a while!! I decided to just put it on hold in order to be present with my babies during these first few weeks and most nap times I use for a nap myself! Right now both kiddos are sleeping and I decided to go ahead and blog instead of nap for once :) I have so much I want to blog about…Christmas, Dayton's birth, the first few weeks home, the snow day, our 5 year anniversary, etc., but instead this time I will just blog about how much I am enjoying my family of 4! I will hit the high points and save the pictures for later!

I will start with the beginning…

We got home from the hospital on December 22nd around 3pm and Sawyer was still with Mimi & Poppy. They brought her to our house around 5pm and I was prepared to give her lots of love and attention because she had started missing me and home pretty badly. She had stayed the night with my mom & grandma on Tuesday before Dayton was born so that I could go to a Mavericks game with Casey & some youth kids and it turned out that she was away from me for 5 days in a row because of the timing of Dayton's birthday. So, all that to say, she was missing her momma!  When she arrived at our house I had just finished nursing Dayton and given him to Casey so that I could meet her at the door! She was pretty clingy at first, but then spotted the balloon that Casey's parents had brought to the hospital for Dayton and that kept her interest for a long while. :) That night was our first night at home with 2 children and it wasn't bad at all! Sawyer was pretty good and went to bed around 8pm and Dayton was the easiest baby EVER for his 1st week at home. My goodness, he never hardly whimpered! I had to and still sometimes have to wake him up to eat. I think God blessed us with that because He knew I would be super overwhelmed my first week with 2 babies, and a crying baby would have added to that for sure.

We went to the Christmas Eve service at c|Life on the 24th at 6pm and everything was good until after the service and I started feeling awful. For some reason that's when my hormones decided to attack me and I cried on the way home from church. Casey probably thought I had lost my mind. I was just feeling tired and exhausted and (maybe TMI) my milk had come in and it HURT. I was also thinking about all that I needed to do that night - lay out presents from Santa, take pictures of the kids in their Christmas pjs, get ready for the BIG day of travel the next day (we went to 3 different houses--not including our own--for Christmas with a 5 day old baby!!). I was just stressed. And hormonal. Ha! I calmed down though and that evening was enjoyable after I got a little bit done.

Christmas morning was SO much fun for me! I can really see how Christmas as a parent is so much better than Christmas as a kid. We got up, got a little bit ready, got Dayton, went into Sawyer's room, and woke her up! Then we all went into the living room to see what Santa had brought Sawyer & Dayton! I loved this. So fun. We then opened our stockings and opened presents to and from each other. Sawyer really got into it and I already look forward to next year with her being even more aware and Dayton starting to understand, too. Next year I plan to do a little Advent calendar with Sawyer and be really purposeful with explaining Jesus' birth to her, etc. We will probably spend a little longer at home in the coming Christmases before traveling around, too.

After we got ready and left we went to Casey's parents' house and opened presents & stockings with them and the cousins (Sawyer & Dayton have 3 cousins: Caleb (6), and twins Sadie & Luke (almost 2) which is fun!). Afterwards we went to Casey's grandmother's house for lunch Beverly's entire side!

After that we traveled to Mabank to my mom's side where we have Christmas with Momma Sheila & Pappa Donnie. I have done this on Christmas afternoon since I was a little girl and it was always what I looked forward to most. At around 4pm I started to feel really sick and wanted to leave. I got aches and a sore throat and headache and it hit me SUPER fast & REALLY hard. I mean, I felt awful! Plus, the snow was coming so we packed up and headed out earlier than planned. We drove home to a white house and backyard! I still felt pretty awful and stayed sick for about a week. Not fun with a newborn and toddler to take care of. :(

The next day was Dayton's first doctor's appointment! Usually that is done at the 4 day mark, but since he was 4 days old on Christmas Eve, we had to wait until the 26th (6 days old). We got there and had to wait a while because a lot of the staff was late due to the ice & snow! Dayton has the same doctor as Sawyer - Dr. Pfleiger, and we LOVE him. He is so good with kids and so good with explaining things to me. Unfortunately, at this appointment we found out that Dayton was already sick and had a DOUBLE ear infection. It was all I could do to hold myself together in that appointment. I could not believe it. I still can't. How did my baby get sick already?! Well, it was likely me or Sawyer. Sawyer had been coughing with a runny nose for about a week and I had started feeling sick the day before. Also, lots of people held Dayton on Christmas that were coughing and sneezing and all of that. I felt like an awful mom. Ugh. I had all of these hopes for the day of us playing in the snow with Sawyer and having a great family day and then they told me Dayton was sick and BAM - here came the hormones again. Casey dropped me off at home with both children to go get Dayton's medicine and he came home to me crying in the same spot he had left me. I was a wreck. I cried on and off that whole day. I even called my mom crying. I was so upset and couldn't get myself together. Casey was great - he took care of Sawyer COMPLETELY and let me tend to Dayton. I just felt like I needed to hold him constantly and felt awful that he could be in pain. We did buy Sawyer some boots that day so that she could play in the snow and she absolutely loved it. We were kind of shocked how much she liked it. She loves outside, so we shouldn't have been that surprised I guess.

The next few days I got a little better and started feeling a little more normal. I may have cried once or twice - I can't really remember. :) Lucky for me, Casey was off from work December 21st-January 2nd and he was SUPER MAN - for real. He worked so hard to take care of Sawyer and make me feel comfortable and also help with Dayton during the night. I could not have done it without him! Super husband/Super dad of the year! :)

December 29th was our 5 year anniversary and we always make it extra special by taking a small trip, but obviously that wasn't going to happen this year. Casey's parents came over and watched Sawyer while we went to Cheesecake Factory (and Dayton tagged along, too, but never even woke up really, haha)! We had a lot of fun and always love going there and getting dinner and our favorite cheesecake and I love their cafe mocha!! YUM!

Throughout these last 3 weeks people from church have been bringing us amazing dinners as well! I have not had to cook at all and we have had plenty of leftovers, too! Thanks to Ginni for putting together our care calendar in order to make this happen! We have loved all the food!!!

New Years Eve was chill and we spent the first half of the evening with the Rickersons (who brought us salad, lasagna, and chocolate cake!) and then we went to bed early ;) Dayton didn't make it awake for his first new years and that is fine with me! :)

Casey went back to work on January 3rd and I was so nervous about it! I didn't know how I would get through the day without him, but it wasn't so bad! I didn't leave the house, but both kids were fed, dressed, loved on, and played with and we all survived! Since then I already feel like I am getting better at this 2 kid thing and even ventured out by myself--in the pouring rain--to Chick-fil-A for a play date! I was ready to have Sawyer get out and play and she had fun playing on the playground (for the 1st time without me!) with Lola! She says her name and it comes out like "Elmo" or "Ella," haha.

That has been the last 3 weeks in a nutshell! I cannot believe that tomorrow Dayton will be 3 weeks old. Time has seriously flown by. Oh, and by the way, both of my children were born on a Thursday! Fun!

A lot more has been on my mind with this baby…we have plans to adopt our 3rd and make that our final addition, so we are pretty sure that this is our last biological baby (I say pretty sure because I hate to say for sure when I know God is in control of our lives - not us;) and that makes it seem a LOT different for me. I was in love with and infatuated with Sawyer, but because she was my first baby I also worried about her a lot more. I didn't just enjoy it the way I am now. I held her and "oohed" and "aahed" over her, but I didn't just sit and hold her for hours on end with only her on my mind.

I do that with Dayton. I am extremely aware of how fast he is growing and how fleeting this newborn stage is. I was so sleep-deprived with Sawyer…she needed to eat like every 1.5-2 hours around the clock and didn't sleep for 7 hours straight until she was 4 months old. Like I said earlier, I wake Dayton up to feed him and I am still not getting a lot of sleep, but I am somehow feeling better than I did when Sawyer was a newborn. Sawyer was tiny forever and took her a couple of months to get as big as Dayton is now…she wore many of her newborn clothes until she was 3 or 4 months old! Dayton is already growing out of his!! I am just so much more conscientious that this is most likely my last little baby. My last chance to enjoy this tiny stage. I am cherishing it. I love it. I wouldn't trade it for sleep or my pre-pregnant body. No way.

Casey and I both talk about how Dayton already seems SO sweet. He & Sawyer are total opposite babies. She was sort of feisty and sassy from the get-go and even though we thought she was an easy baby, she definitely cried a lot more and let us know when something was not the way she wanted! She was never much of a cuddler and now prefers to be up and doing and entertaining us! She cracks us up!! Dayton definitely prefers to be held and picking him up soothes him right away and completely. He just seems like he is going to be laid back and chill and sweet. I wonder if he will be? I thought Sawyer would be a chatterbox almost immediately and she is (when we are at home at least). I wonder if you can tell a baby's personality just a little bit this early? We will see if I am right. :)

I love them both so much and in total different ways and also in the same way. It's complex and new and I like it. I really really like having a boy and a girl. I didn't ever think I would like having a boy, but boy was I wrong! ;) It's strange because newborns are all the same right? I mean you have to look inside their diaper to see their gender and what you're working with anyway, right? Wrong. I can tell he is a boy and there is a different connection with him because of it. Casey & I put it this way… Sawyer will always be Casey's little girl…and when she grows up it will be more like she is my friend and someone I talk to daily. Dayton will always be my little boy…and when she grows up it will be more like he is Casey's buddy and someone he enjoys doing "man stuff" with. It's like the opposite gender pulls on your heart strings in a different way, but the same gender grows up to be one of your closest friends. Does that make sense? Does anyone else feel that way or agree? They are unique and special in different ways. I love it! I am an only child so this whole 2 kids thing was kind of scary to me. Will I love him as much? Will one feel favored? I don't really worry about these things now because I already know that I love them equally, but just totally differently. We will both work on making them feel special and unique in their relationships with both of us. One-on-one time with both and family time with all. I can't wait! (But I also want time to stand still for a little bit first;)

Anyway, all that to say, I am loving being a momma of 2 precious babies. They are both huge blessings from God that I pray I will never take for granted. My husband is also awesome. Having a second baby made me see him in a new light as well. He is good to me. :) Love you, babe.