Sweet Baby James!

Well we welcomed baby James into our family last saturday! We had started to get a bit impatient for him to come and had decided to schedule to be induced on saturday morning. So we took all day friday preparing the house and packing and getting the kids ready to go to grandma and grandpa Stoker's. I guess all the activity got things going. By the time we made it to the Grandparent's I was having steady contractions. So we got the kids settled and headed off to the hospital. We think one of the nurses thought we were just trying to sneak in early for our induction (which was to be the next morning) but, they soon found out I was well into labor. I was at a 4 at that time.

Comparing to the other kids,the whole hospital experience of this birth was wonderful. (not that the other ones were so terrible either) But I wanted to go unmedicated again and had wonderful nurses and doctors that helped me through it all, and of course Jared was the perfect birth partner! The nurse that was with me most of the night kept telling me how wonderful it was going. Saying that this was the best 'natural' birth experience that she had seen in months. The first couple hours Jared and I just walked around the hospital and Jared would let me hang on and hug him through contractions. Then the nurse suggested I tried the 'birthing ball' which is just a large exercise ball. I was so content there that I stayed on it the next couple of hours. It helped relief me so much that although the contractions were about every 3 minutes, I found myself dozing to sleep between, one time almost rolling off the ball! Eventually though as I got close it wasn't quite so blissful and the last couple hours were pretty hard, but again, the nurses, doctors and Jared helped me through it. Fanning me with a clipboard and shoveling ice chips into my mouth. I ended up giving birth on all fours on the hospital bed. I am sure that is all way more information then anyone wanted, but you can't help but share the birth story.




Now onto the more important stuff! James Lee Reece was born at 7:47 am on April 17th. I kept thinking he was a bit larger baby, (Joey and Jeanie were both in the low 6lbs) and weighed in at 7 lbs 7 oz. They then moved us into recovery room 207! The nurse that brought us to the room also pointed out that he will turn 7 in the year 2017. So, he is already set with his lucky number!!James is Jared's middle name, so he is named after his daddy! Lee was the middle name to my Grandpa Madsen that passed away a few weeks ago. Not sure why we didn't take any pictures of my parents holding James when they came to visit! Guess we were to busy taking pictures and noticing how Joey and Jeanie took in thier new little brother. Here is Jared giving James his first bath. I was taking pictures from the hospital bed so I couldn't really get any good angles of it! But Jared had a fun time bathing him.Joey and Jeanie love love thier little brother! When they came to the hospital to see him Joey just came marching into the room with confidence and took over like he knew what was happening. Jeanie looked a bit confused but was very entralled with the tiny baby. Joey has been adjusting pretty well, and Jeanie has for the most part. She does not act so much jealous of the baby, but is very concerned about our care of him. She was so upset with us for putting him in the crib in the dark. She kept screaming that it was scary.

Making Room for Baby!

So Jared and I have been doing a lot of moving around of things to make room for number three to fit into our little 900 sq feet and I think everything is ready to go! We first decided to just have the two kids share a twin size bed rather then having two toddler beds. It works out really well, as they are both tiny and each just get an end! I had a hard time finding a toy hammock at the store when we finally realized how easy it would be to make one, so I finally got around to making one and getting the stuffed animals out of the way!
We took off the closet doors and moved thier toys and such into there.

Also got a couple under bed storage bins, which work out really well!

This next picture is just the new LOVE of my life. Doing dishes is my most hated chore, especially right now since I have to do the dishes sideways because of my belly. Jared finally talked me into letting him buy me a portal dishwasher...thank you Jared! Love it Love it Love it!

Although we have 2 kids, we actually did not own a crib! We decided to get a nice sturdy one since we do plan on having more kids and might as well have one that can last through all of them! I also have to tell about our deal shopping. We looked everywhere we could think of for cribs. I thought it was strange that places like RC Willey actually didn't have much of a selection of cribs. We ended up at Babies R Us... and lucked out because at the time they were having a trade in event. So we traded in our old carseat (that had been hammered thru 2 kids) and got 25% off the crib! We later brought in our high chair and got the 25% off a new car seat! All together we were able to get 150$ off of those things by trading in items that together would have brought in maybe 15$ at a yard sale. So, we were pretty happy. Although we find out about it at the end of the event so we had to keep dragging the kids out shopping while we made our decisions. They did not care for that much at all!

If you know me and my family at all, you know that Monkeys are a must!

We have a pretty large bedroom so we are able to fit the crib next to our bed. We then set our old dresser into my closet to put baby stuff in.


This is our new dresser that matches the crib perfect! I love this new dresser, our old ones drawers were a bit to small for everything I wanted to put into it. This one is really nice! Of course we got a deal on it to! Got to love the scratch and dent area of RC Willey! This had a few blemishes and was missing a drawer pull, but the deal we got was SO worth it!

This picture was just to funny. I was mean and attacked the kids to clip thier nails since I have not done it for awhile. I was apparently a bit to vicious when doing Joey's as he was fighting me so much with it. I felt so bad afterward he went crying to dad and told him how I hurt him, revealing a couple fingers and toes that were indeed cut too far and cut the skin. Joey shoved his legs and arms into one of our pillows to protect himself from me. I had this picture as my screen saver on my phone for awhile... everytime Joey saw it he would tell me how I hurt him and that was rude. Breaks my heart everytime!

We are getting closer and closer to the baby! Weird to think that within a month maybe even just a couple weeks he will be here!! We are ready for him though! All of his clothes are in his drawers and everything set up for him. It has taken a lot of restraint to not pack my bags yet. Don't want to be to crazy about it. I have no idea with this one when he will come. I went into labor on my due date with Joey and they had be come in to be induced a week early with Jeanie because they thought she might be growth restricted. So I don't really know if I am one that might go early or not. I am getting ready to stop being pregnant now though. I have still been lucky as far as sickness goes I am just fine, but this baby I am carrying different than the other two. Which is good and bad. The other two where up in my ribs and made it hard to breath. This one is far lower and I feel like I have to carry my belly with my arms. Also everything you do with a 3 year old and 20 month old is on the floor, bending over ect. I am excited to get my movement back!

I think the kids do kind of understand the baby thing, somewhat. Joey keeps coming to my belly and scooping at it and then walking away with the imaginary baby, taking it to the crib or couch (and yelling at you for sitting on it!) They both are always talking about the babies in thier tummies though to. I am so excited for them to meet thier little brother. They love babies, and I think that is going to be my biggest worry with the kids trying to take care of the baby. A couple times we have had cousin William who is 10 months old over- the kids are both crazy about seeing to his every need, giving him his paci, bottle, blanket and constantly bringing in a new toy for him. Any time he crys the kids make sure I know about it. So I can only imagine how they will be react to a tiny newborn.

Old Fashioned Portraits

A couple months ago we were at the mall and got sucked in by a photography place that was offering a little deal. Since we have never gotten professional photos before we thought we probably ought to and knew we wouldn't come back later. I do wish now that we had taken the coupon and come back since I did not do Jeanie's hair that day, so it is pretty messing looking in most of the pictures. I think the pictures turned out cute, but not as well as I think they could have. The photographer did not seem to know how to work with little kids, especially trying to get Jeanie to smile- she is just staring at him nervously in most of her pictures. Oh well, we did not pay a whole lot for them so I guess it is okay! Joey's vest he wore was also a really small size, but it was all we could find on thier rack that worked for him. I do love the hat on him though! He so fits into the 'newsie' look!

Long Rambler!

Well it took me awhile after posting those videos to try to finish what I wanted to. I apologize about all the videos, I doubt many people will really want to watch all of them, but we didn't get to many good pictures of the events but the videos were so good!

For Joey's big 3rd birthday, we got out of the house rather early and went down the street to the nearby bowling alley. (maybe we should have drove around the block so Joey didn't know where we are, he gets excited now everytime we pass it!)

We got there at a really good time, just a few people at the other end of the alley so in the video it is not to noisey. Joey just LOVED it! They gave him a 6 lb ball that you can see he could carry himself. (although it was still scary to see a little boy carrying a bowling ball!) When he first saw how the ball return worked he was amazed, I actually wonder if that was his favorite part of it all, in a couple of the videos before even seeing if he knocked down any pins you see him run back over to the return.

Jeanie enjoyed it as well but got bored halfway thru and we had to keep chasing her. After bowling we stepped over to the little arcade and played some skee ball and other things. Joey had fun choosing out things with his tickets. Then the lucky little boy got to go to McDonalds for lunch! By the time we got home around 2 the kids were completly tuckered out! So they took a very nice nap while Jared and I finished cleaning the house to get ready for the Grandparents.

Grandma and Grandpa Reece and uncle Nathan came to celebrate with cake, ice cream and presents! They gave Joey an awesome basketball hoop! Joey has been loving it... except he always insists that I put it at a higher setting but gets fruastrated that he can't slam dunk it.

Also this past week Jared and I celebrated our 4th Anniversary! On Monday we decided to have some family fun and went down to trax station and rode the train up to Salt Lake. The kids, Especially Joey loved it! Joey loves trains and was just super excited that he got to ride on one. He loved pointing out all the things he could see from his window. (like piles of busted cars)

Afterwards we went home and chilled and had Cafe Rio for dinner! We do hope to go on a date to celebrate, but probably after Valentines when we can find a babysitter! The next day Jared took us to the nicklecade and we had a blast again!

It was so much fun taking so much time just enjoying our time as a family this week and realizing there are a few things that are rather inexpensive we can do for fun while it is still cold!

I was going to say I can not believe that my little boy is 3 years old... but I think I can believe it. Seems like he has always been a part of my life. Joey is my special buddy! As most of you have met and witnessed my son, he is definitly a ball of energy and full of life. Sometimes I worry that many people mistake his enthusiasm as being naughty (which of course he is sometimes). I sometimes joke that it would be nice to have a boy that was a bit more mellow as sometimes I feel like I have given birth to the engergizer bunny! But really, I wouldn't trade my Joey anything. I love his enthusiasm for life and how he is always discovering figuring out his world around him. He loves learning. He is finally showing an interest in learning his 123's, ABC's and colors and loves asking about things. He is talking so much now! Although he as a lot to go to catch up to his peers in talking. When I was pregnant with him someone told me the main difference between boys and girls is that boys are born with sound effects! I had no idea what they meant by that... but holy cow Joey has some awesome sound effects! I was a little nervous when I was first pregnant with him about having a boy, cause even though I had a little brother and lots of older ones, I still didn't understand boys. I am sure glad that I had my little boy first as I now apprieciate everything that is boy!

Joey has become such a good big brother to Jeanie lately too! At home it is generally a lot of fighting and battling but when we are out on errands he is very concerned about her. The other day she kept wandering away from us and not coming back so Jared and I started to walk away telling her that we were leaving.... Joey wiggled out of Jared's arms and ran, "Jeanie Jeanie!!" and went and grabbed her around the neck and waist and started to drag her back to us. He was pretty scared that we would indeed leave her. Also the other day while I was locking our front door Jeanie was getting to close to the street..., Joey ran over and grabbed her again around the neck and waist and said, "stop Jeanie!! " then pointing to the road he explained, "you get hurt, cars!"

Jared and I used to joke that this new baby boy will be our mellow boy. I am starting to doubt that that will be the case. I do not remember either of the other kids moving around like this. This little boy is constantly moving! Seriously... when I was pregnant with Joey I would have to do kick counts constantly to make sure he was moving... with this one I never have a second that I think, "gee I have not felt something for a while..." With the other two Jared would have to hold his and to my tummy for a long time to feel the slightest kick. Now we can just be sitting side by side and Jared can feel hard kicks on his arm or side all the time. I haven't been able to get the kids to feel a kick yet. Wonder if they did if they would understand the concept any more. I show them the belly all the time and am always talking about how there is a baby in there. When they see me touching my belly they will say 'baby' but who knows how much they understand! I will be 30 weeks on sunday... so we are getting pretty down to it! Crazy to think in probably more or less then 2 months he will be here! I am starting to want to "nest" I think... going through the baby stuff gathering up all the burp rags ect. We do need to go buy a crib and although our car seat is still with in its expiration dates... it is pretty thrashed after going through two already and missing the umbrella hood so we will probably need to get a new one. It is nice that is pretty much all we need to get besides some baby socks and onsies maybe.

A lot of my friends have just had thier babies or are due any day now. I keep thinking I am just about there to and have to remind myself that I am not due for 10 more weeks. I have had had a couple friends that had/scheduled for a C-section. Starts making me worried that since my last two deliveries were so perfect that my luck will run out and I will have complications of some sort. Although I have no issues as of right now and I really don't anticipate any. But they are starting to work thier way into my already bizzare pregnancy dreams. Anyway this post ended up being a big huge rambling! Sorry about that!

Happy 3rd Birthday Joey!!

Very late Christmas Post!

Wow. I tried a couple times to post Christmas but it just never happened. Christmas was amazing at our house! We got some awesome gifts! In the picture below is Joey asleep on the kitchen floor at my parents. He just totally zonked out halfway through the day from all the excitment! Jeanie loves her baby!

Dad got Golf Clubs and Mom got a Serger!

Christmas Eve Joey really loved watching the Christmas train go around Grandma Reece's tree!

A few days later Joey tried on the Stockings!

A week or so before Christmas we went out and enjoyed the Snow!
Well, Jeanie not so much.