Uncles and Cousins

We've been so lucky to have 2 visits from Uncles this month! And since we don't get to see uncles very often, I think Ryan and Eric have a leg up on the favorite uncle contest right now.

Uncle Ryan came in town for business and we were able to spend 2 nights with him. Anna had fun with him and loved talking to Caroline on his phone. He had to do a lot of driving to visit us between his work meetings, but Ryan is so great, he didn't seem to mind. Dave and I lived in Ryan's basement for 3.5 years when we were first married and so it seemed like old times chatting in the living room with him.

Ryan, Anna, and Baby Emma

Last week Uncle Eric and Bowen, Ben, and Nate stopped by on their way to DisneyWorld (jealous!). Anna loved running around with her big boy cousins (Nate is her age, but still has her beat in size) She had fun with them and didn't want them to go. We didn't get a picture with Eric, but Anna had fun being silly with him too.

Anna, Ben, Nate, and Bowen

Nate and Anna

We're so glad that these Uncles decided to go out of their way and stop by and see us. It was fun for them to meet Baby Zack too.

We're still waiting for the other 7 uncles to come visit!

George LIVE!

Little Miss Anna still loves that curious little monkey, George. And she has been needing some extra love lately with all the baby hoopla around Zack. I wasn't sure how it was going to work out with baby Zack in tow (Dave was doing a 30 hour shift at the hospital). But I decided Anna needed this special day and so off we went.

Man oh man, was she excited! Spellbound, more like it. She loved seeing all of her favorite characters, George of course, The man in the yellow hat, the Doorman with Hundley, Professor Wiseman, Chef Pisghetti singing and dancing.
Most of the time she sat watching in awe, but when the Doorman and George did a little duet, she got up and danced too. Her favorite part was "when George put himself in a box." She thought that was pretty funny. (George shipped himself to Italy to enter Chef Pisghetti's meatballs in the Golden Meatball contest of course.)

We all had a good time. Zack thought it was a snoozefest though because he slept through it all until Intermission, woke up for 2 minutes, then went back to sleep. (Phew!)

Anna is not quite showing her excitement in this picture, but she did indeed love it and I'm glad we did it. She is also one lucky girl because you'll notice she's holding her very own Curious George balloon. They pulled those out at Intermission so that every kid could beg for one. Of course Anna asked and I said no. The people in front of us came back with the balloons so I asked out of curiosity how much they cost. $5.00! Whew! I told Anna for sure no and too bad. Then I chatted with the lady and her 2 daughters for a little bit. One of the daughters got up and came back with another balloon, and gave it to Anna! I was so shocked at their kindness! They were complete strangers, but they were so sweet and decided to make Anna's day because she has a cheap Mommy. What great examples they were to us! Anna was happy with her balloon and I vowed to return the favor to another stranger soon.

I love our little monkey girl!

3 weeks

Can't believe it's been 3 weeks with this sweet boy! It's hard to imagine my life without him now. It just seems like he's always been a part of our family and that I've known him forever. And it's just impossible not to love this little man.

So here's a little update on Zack's first 3 weeks:

• gained 2 pounds, he's now 8.1. He's 25th percentile on everything.

• his newborn clothes still drown him though

• umbilical cord fell off - finally! Looks like he's got an outie.

• got his first real bath and loved it! So glad because those sponge baths were torture for us both!

• puts up with a lot of hugs and kisses and craziness from his big sister
  
  

• And when she's not all over him, you may find her in a bouncy seat doing some reading in her American Girl catalog.
  

• he has the cutest little baby sideburns ever (this picture doesn't quite do them justice)

• he has back hair! I think this is the only age that it could possibly be labeled as cute.


• he finally has bum cheeks!


• he makes the sweetest newborn noises. mostly grunting and squeaking.
  

• has a little heart murmur. We have an echo scheduled next month to check it out.

It's crazy how fast the days are going by. And I am resisting getting back to "normal" life. I like being in our little newborn bubble and not worrying about my other responsibilities. Although, the time has come for life and routine to kick in.

Tonight was the first night I was on my own for bedtime. (poor Dave has been at the hospital 17 hours and counting...) Sure it got a little chaotic at some points. Anna running away from me naked. Zack crying because he's hungry. Anna begging, I mean, whining, for another story. Then a piece of bread. And water. And so on. But I managed fine. And after prayers were said and kisses were given, both of those babies of mine were asleep. I laid there looking at them thinking of how lucky I am that they are mine. So lucky. I could have stared at them all night. Love those 2 so much!

My favorite 3

And then we will dance

Last night when Dave was putting Anna to bed, they had a conversation that went like this:

"Daddy, I want to be a princess"

"You are a princess"

"No, when I grow up, I want to be a princess"

"Okay"

"And baby brother will grow up to be a handsome prince...And then we will dance together."

Sorry Zack, your big sister already has your life planned out for you.

Zack Alexander Kelly

March 2, 2010

3:57 pm

6.87 lbs

20 inches

One week ago, our little Zack decided to come a little early. 2 weeks early. I got up to take one of the many night trips to the bathroom around 4:30am and on the way back to bed, my water broke. It wasn't a huge gush and I wasn't having contractions, so Dave tried to convince me to go back to bed and "wait and see." But you see you can't really do that when you're water breaks. So I called my doctor and she told us to go to the hospital. There was no rush since I wasn't having contractions, so it was kind of nice to take a shower and have breakfast. We dropped Anna off at our good friends house and off we went to have a baby! That drive to the hospital knowing that you're going there to HAVE a baby is always a mixture of excitement and anxiety and surrealism all in one.

I wasn't very good at taking pictures of my belly progress this time. So I had Dave take one before we left for the hospital.

All I-Ved up and ready to go.

We got to the hospital around 8:30am. Since I wasn't having strong contractions, they gave me some pitocin to get things moving along around noon. That kicked in pretty quick and I was ready for the epidural around 1:45. An hour and a half or so later it was time to push. I looked at the nurse in shock. It seemed to soon. Anna took 22 hours to get here. How could I already be ready? Sure enough, Zack was ready! Pushed for 20 minutes or so and our beautiful baby Zack was born!

He looks just like his Daddy.

Anna was so excited to meet her little brother. I'll never forget the sweet look on her face when she met him. You can tell that I absolutely loved this moment because I couldn't quite narrow down the pictures to post.


And of course, our other baby in the family, "Baby Emma" who goes everywhere with us, had to meet baby Zack too. I think she's actually bigger than he is!


Like I said, these moments were precious to me. But fast forward an hour or so when Anna realized she had to go home with Daddy and Grandma and leave baby brother at the hospital...not. so. precious. It was quite the scene. She had been up since 5:30 that morning and was beyond tired, and this was one of her best tantrums yet. She kicked and screamed all the way out of the hospital, yelled at Dave for being a "naughty boy!" and I'm sure woke up much of the hospital with her high pitched scream. I'm glad I missed it. Hopefully she will always be this loyal to her little baby brother and never want to leave him behind again. She really has been so sweet with him. She adores him.



And I must say that I am so very grateful for my mom. I called her at 3:00am or so her time to tell her we were going to the hospital. So she jumped on a plane ASAP (she can fly standby) and got here that very night. We are so lucky to have her here to help! Especially since Dave and I were both sick and Anna had a double ear infection. And I will forever be grateful to my dear friend Laura who had Anna plus her 3 kids all day then hauled them all out to the airport to pick up my mom...in the snow! (Snow is not common here and usually people don't even go out if it's snowing) I feel so blessed to have a great support in my family and true friends.


We went from 3 to 4 and I like the way 4 feels already. I am expecting chaos, but I know there will be some magical moments mixed in too. I love our little family of four. Welcome to our family Zack!