Snowmageddon, the Sequel

February in Ithaca was rough. It reminded me a lot of the first winter we spend in Pennsylvania, that they called, "snowmageddon." This was much worse. This is what our apartment complex looked like.

Some days, the high was 0 degrees. It never got warm enough for the snow to melt, so it just kept piling up. However, there were a few bright moments during the month. 

We had Logan's baby blessing. This was the best family picture we were able to manage that day. Neither of our families were able to be there, but we did have our Ithaca "framily" there. Jeremy gave Logan a really beautiful blessing. 

I decided to try to be festive this year and do a little Valentines party for Carter and his friends. I made chocolate heart shaped whoopie pies, 

We made flowers with gummy heart candies and chocolate cookies and then had the kids make valentines for each other. 

I think they had a fun time. On one of the rare sunny days during the month, we went snowshoeing with our friends, the Hogges. We snowshoed along the frozen river to Taughannock falls. 

It was really beautiful, the falls were completely frozen. Hopefully we'll be able to snowshoe to some of the other frozen falls next year, although I will definitely be ok if we don't get as much snow!

Becoming a Mom of Two

The transition from one to two kids has kind of rocked my world. In a lot of ways, the transition from one to two kids has been a lot harder than the transition from zero to one. I got a little bit of a reprieve from real life because my mom was here for 10 days after Logan was born, Jeremy had a break from school for a few weeks, and then Jeremy's mom came into town for 10 days after Jeremy started school again.

 I think Carter thought having a new baby was one big party because both of his grandmas came into town and spoiled him. Carter LOVED having Phyllis here. They played trains, went to the science center, and got happy meals. It was really nice having our moms here to give so much attention to Carter and to help with the transition. Carter has done pretty well with with not being jealous of Logan. There have just been a couple of times though that he has gotten a little bit territorial. During one of these times, Carter wanted Phyllis to play with him, but she told him that she had to change Logan's poopy diaper. After hearing this, Carter strained really hard, tooted, and said, "No, I have a poopy diaper." Occasionally, Carter said, "Don't talk to Logan." "Put him in his house" (we call Logan's bouncer his house).

(In this picture, I promised Carter a sucker if he would smile)

I think maybe Carter thought that when Phyllis left, the baby might go with her. I think he was a little bit confused and disturbed when that did not happen. Being home along with a newborn and a two year old has been pretty challenging. We are really blessed to live by some great friends who really helped out a lot during that first little bit when I was on my own, I don't know what I would have done without them! Right before Phyllis left, Logan's colic started. Carter never had Colic and so it was a new experience for me. A lot of nights, Logan cried from about 7pm to midnight. It was really exhausting chasing Carter around all day and then trying to bounce Logan all evening. I think one of the hardest things about newborns for me is how unpredictable they are. You never know when they are going to nap, or for how long. I love that I know when Carter will nap, how long he will sleep, and when he'll go down for the night. It's nice to know you can plan on a little bit of alone time :)

Another challenging thing for me has been keeping an eye on Carter while feeding Logan. Logan LOVES to eat, so we run into that challenge often. I have found that it is never a good thing if Carter is too quiet. During one of those quiet moments, I walked in to Carter's room to find this scene...

Carter and his buddy, Reid had smeared diaper paste all over themselves. That stuff is tenacious! It took two leave in baking soda treatments, dish soap, and washing his hair with coke before it finally, sort of, came out.

Carter still talks about this experience..."Carter sad, Reid sad, mama sad, everybody sad." At about 7 weeks, Logan started smiling. I think that makes everything a little bit easier.

 Logan's colic ended at about 3 months and he is getting to be more and more fun every day. He is really ticklish and has the funniest laugh.

Carter and Logan are getting to be better buddies too. Most of the time Carter tells me that his best friend is Reid. However, on some rare occasions, it is, "Logan!" Carter is especially sweet with him in the mornings. In this picture, he is saying, "Morning Logan, have any dreams, Logan?"

I do love those boys.

Christmas In Ithaca

My mom was able to fly into Ithaca the day after Logan was born. It was really great to have her here to help out with Logan and to spend Christmas with us. The first few days after Logan was born he was really sleepy, we could barely get him to open his eyes. They are so snuggly at this stage!

After the first couple of days, Logan started to get a little bit fussier, especially at night. It was really great to have my mom here to take him during the wee hours of the morning. They were able to spend some quality time together snuggling on the couch.

Here is a picture of Logan getting his first bath at home. He was pretty pleased with it!

Carter loved having his Nana here. They went to the science center, built a gingerbread house, and went swimming at the YMCA.

On Christmas Eve, we decided to be anventurous and go go Skaneateles for their annual Dickens Christmas festival. It was a little bit crazy because Logan wasn't even a week old yet, but I'm so glad we went. Skaneateles is the cutest little town. I definitely want to go back next year.

 We got hot chocolate, looked in the shops, visited the "winter fairy" (I think some of the B team cast members were out on Christmas Eve, Carter was afraid of her haha)

and went Christmas caroling with some of our favorite Dicken's characters. The Marley Ghost was the best, he also had a very nice voice. I creeped a picture of him.

That night we left cookies out for Santa,

had finger foods, and watched A Christmas Carol. Christmas day was pretty quiet, it was really nice though. It was interesting, having such a little baby, to think more about Mary this year. We opened gifts in the morning. Carter sort of understood what was going on this year. I think he would have been pleased as punch with just what he got in his stocking.

We decided to continue the Christmas tradition of the moose hat, and dressed up Logan. He didn't hate it nearly as much as Carter did.

That night my mom made us a yummy prime rib dinner and we were able to Skype with the rest of our families. The whole day I just kept thinking how blessed we are, especially for the birth of our Saviour. Merry Christmas!

Logan's Birth Story

I think it took me about this long last time to post Carter's birth story, but I am finally getting around to it four months later :) Here goes!

I think in my mind, my due date was 38 weeks, the same time that I had Carter. When that date came and went, I started to get a little bit antsy. There were a few times I felt contractions, but when I didn't go into labor, I went back and forth between being really relieved because I didn't feel quite ready and feeling panicky, like my pregnancy was never going to end..The day before Logan was born was pretty relaxing. Carter and I went over to our friends, the Beards, house for a playdate, I cleaned the house again (for some reason I get really compulsive about this when I get to the end of my pregnancies, I feel like I have to have a perfectly clean house for the baby to come home to) and I made Jeremy watch Anne of Green Gables with me while I ate Christmas goodies. The next morning, I woke up and my water had broken. It was really similar to when Carter was born, I didn'r really feel any contractions. We didn't waste too much time getting out the door though, because I know second babies can come fast. It seemed like second babies were always the ones born in the parking lot of the hospital. We dropped Carter off at the Beards' apartment, and we drove to the hospital.

The whole time we were at the hospital, I was amazed how laid back they were with everything. The midwife didn't even check me when I got there, they didn't have me on the monitor hardly at all, and they let me eat whatever I wanted. Right after we got there, they sent up a huge pancake breakfast for me. Jeremy was delighted because he got to eat most of it.  After talking with the midwife, we decided to walk in the hallway and see if labor would start on it's own. We walked up and down the hallway up until about 1:45 pm. Jeremy had a conference skype call at 2 pm for the Spark Clean energy competition. He and his team had been working really hard and had made it to the final round of the competition and they were being interviewed by judges. By this point, I was five centimeters, and the contractions had picked up quite a bit. The call was only supposed to be 20 minutes long though and I thought I could just wait until it was over the get the epidural. As soon as the conference call started, things started to get really intense. I tried not to make any noise because Jeremy was in the same room. The call ended up lasting about 45 minutes because the judges had a lot of questions. About 10 minutes before the call ended, I couldn't take it any more, I told my nurse to call the anesthesiologist and I figured Jeremy could just let his team finish the call. The anesthesiologist ended up walking in the door right after Jeremy finished (They took second place nationally, so I guess I'm glad I let him do it :)

The anesthesiologist was really fast and did a great job. My blood pressure dropped quite a bit with the epidural, so they had to give me a bunch of ephedrine and I felt really shaky the rest of the time. My midwife came back to check me afterwards and I was 8 centimeters. A couple of hours later, around 6pm, I was fully dilated and ready to push!

I thought pushing the second time would be so easy, maybe I would have to push like twice or something...that was not the case. It was still really hard, and I wasn't moving the baby very well. Logan's heart rate started to have a few small decelerations when I pushed and the midwife suggested the possibility of using a vacuum. I told her I definitely did not want to do this unless it was a last resort, and she suggested turning off the epidural. I wasn't thrilled with this option either, but I really didn't want to use a vacuum. After we turned off the epidural, I was able to push a little bit better. I asked for a mirror so that I could see how I was pushing. After about another 15 minutes of pushing, Logan was crowning. The mirror was still there at this point, and it was really surreal (and if i'm being honest, kind of horrifying) watching Logan be born. Logan finally made his grand entrance at 6:32 pm!

Right after he was born, one of the nurses said, "Look at his back!" I asked, "is it hairy?" because I wasn't thinking super clearly at the moment and I thought for sure that would be the only reason they would be commenting on his back at this point. Turns out they were just commenting on all the fat rolls! He was a chunky little man, weighing in a 9 lbs even, and 20 inches long.

The next morning, Jeremy went to pick up Carter and brought him to the hospital to meet his little brother. We brought little Thomas the train to the hospital, and told Carter that it was a gift from Logan.

Carter was really interested in the train and all of the buttons on the hospital bed, but not very interested in Logan at this point. Our friends, the Millers, took Carter for the rest of the afternoon while we waited to be discharged. I thought the nurses I had in labor and delivery were pretty good, but our postpartum nurse was kind of terrible. I told her early in the morning that I wanted to go home at 24 hours because I really didn't want to be too late picking Carter up.  It was really strange, she knew I was a nurse, and she kept asking me what she had left to do (the hepatitis B shot, newborn screen, hearing screen, etc.) but she didn't actually do any of it. As it got later and later, I got more and more annoyed. I wanted to tell her, "just give me the supplies, and I will do it!" I should have. She ended up not doing anything all day and leaving everything for the evening nurse to do. I still haven't gotten over it, can you tell?

Around 9 pm we were finally on our way home. I was so annoyed, I started bawling as soon as we got into the car. After we picked up Carter and were on our way home, we were talking about bringing the "boys" into the apartment. We looked in the back seat and saw the two carseats and it hit both of us at the same time that we were a family of four. It seemed so strange at the time, but I almost can't really even remember now when Logan wasn't part of our family. We love you Logan!