I. HATE. THIS.

Just when I think we are finally getting our lives back to normal, a new "challenge" gets thrown our way. I am beyond fed up. This past year has been THE. MOST. STRESSFUL. year of my entire life. It has been one thing after another, after another. I have been waiting for a year to have my life back... but maybe that will never happen.

I'M DONE. no... I'm BEYOND done.

Our basement is flooding again... worse than ever. Now it has DESTROYED Adelyn's new room that we worked so stinkin' hard on. My heart aches for my kids right now. Adelyn has been forced back upstairs into what was supposed to be Jaxen's room (that we also nearly killed ourselves trying to get done in time for my little man's arrival)... And Jaxen is stuck sharing a room with us forever.

So.... Adelyn has no bedroom. And now neither does Jax... and on top of it all, Jaxen had his 2 month shots today and instead of cuddling my hurting little man, I am stuck it this stupid basement sucking water through shop vacs, dumping 7 gallon pails of water down the laundry sink, and wringing out nasty towels. Poop.

I'm officially declaring it.... I HATE THIS HOUSE. It seems every time I find a new love for this house, something happens to make me dislike it all over again. Grrr....

Jaxen Kael - Our Journey So Far

From the moment I found out I was pregnant I dreamed of the first moment I would get to hold this precious little life in my arms, the smell of a newborns skin, and late night cuddles. I imagined snuggling this perfect, healthy little babe and falling so madly in love. I dreamed of seeing Shaun hold his new son or daughter, providing the comfort and security that only daddy's arms can provide. I pictured the moment when my little girl would become a big sister, and those first moments as they meet each other for the first time.

Every time I heard this song, all of these things came flooding back to my mind. I am beyond blessed to have been able to have every single one of these moments turn out just the way I envisioned them, and now I would like to share them with you. Enjoy!

(Sorry it is so tiny on blogger. You might be able to see it better here)

Jaxen's Birth Story

It's true... I'm attempting to write Jaxen's birth story down before I forget! Yay me! :o) As with all birth stories, read with caution and please forgive my sleep deprived brain for any grammar/spelling mistakes. LOL.


JAXEN'S BIRTH STORY

Well, for starters... my pregnancy with Jaxen was quite a bit different from my pregnancy with Adelyn. Both were good ... Jaxen's just had a lot more adventures (17 weeks of morning sickness and throwing up, a no-heartbeat scare, and 3 bouts of the flu running through our home ... yikes!). Despite all of that, it really was a good healthy pregnancy and it went by very quickly ... almost too quickly at times!

I was about 2cm dilated for the last month of the pregnancy, and he wasn't really dropping (which is somewhat normal for 2nd babies). Despite 3 membrane strips/sweeps we still ended up going a week overdue and were induced on Saturday, April 17th. I had only slept for a total of 2 hours the night before, because I was so anxious and nervous about what was in store for me in the morning. When we got to the hospital that morning I was about 3cm, so they started with a round of the cervical gel. I wasn't expecting it to do anything, because with Adelyn's labor I didn't feel anything from the gel. WELL ... I was wrong. I started having contractions right away. They were 2 minutes apart and lasting nearly a minute. After an hour of walking around the maternity floor, the nurse suggested that I get into the shower because my doctor wouldn't be there for another two hours ... I thought "2 more hours until my doctor even comes to check on me?!! Yikes!" Just then, my doctor walks into the room and says she wants to break my water. I was so excited because I knew that it wouldn't be long after that until this baby was born!! Yay! (Adelyn was born within 3 hours of my water being broken).

So, she broke the water and right away the contractions were INTENSE! I have bad back pain during labor, so I got into the shower to help relieve it. Once again, the shower was my friend during labor!!! I wish I could have my babies in the shower instead of the bed. It is so relaxing and so much easier to stay on top of the contractions when the warm water is on you. I'm not exactly sure how long I was in there when the nurse came and wanted to check me. I had to go back to the bed (which I HATE!!!). I was only 4cm. Boo. I was starting to get a bit discouraged.

I had to stay on the bed to be monitored for a bit, which totally sucked because the contractions were like a minute apart and where lasting nearly that long. I was starting to feel a little urge to push, so the nurse checked and I was only at 5cm. Sigh. However, given my history of going from 4-10cm in 15 minutes, the nurse decided it was time to get my doctor there and quickly. At the time, I thought she was nuts ... I thought for sure this labor was going to take forever because it felt like I wasn't making any dilation progress at all.

My doctor got there a few minutes later. I was at 7cm. Again, I was discouraged because it felt like I needed to push. At this point I had lost complete control over the contractions. They were so INTENSE!!!! Way more painful and strong than with Adelyn's labor! Yikes. I started yelling at the top of my lungs "I need to push, I need to push!!" and they kept telling me I was only at 7cm. BIG FAT BOO! Next thing I know, my doctor says "Ok, give it a try." Pushing with Adelyn had been a wonderful thing. I felt lots of relief to push with Adelyn ... this time, not so much. It burned so badly. I felt every single thing and it hurt! However, a couple pushes later and my beautiful baby boy, Jaxen Kael, was born! He was so perfect!!!

They put him on my tummy right away (which they never did with Adelyn), and it was so precious to be the first person to hold my little guy!!! They took him to check him out, etc. while I got stitched up.... 2nd degree tear this time around.... still bad, but a lot better than my 3rd-4th degree tear with Adelyn. I didn't have to go to the O.R. to be stitched up, and it was so nice to be able to stay in the room with my hubby and my new little man! I even got to feed him and shower this time!! LOL. Jaxen was born at 12:27pm after 3 hours of labor.

We had a great first night at the hospital. Jaxen slept wonderfully and we were all able to get some rest. We were able to go home at noon the next day ... less than 24 hours after his birth. Overall, it was a really great experience. I was able to experience everything that I felt I had missed out on from Adelyn's birth. God really answered prayers about that.

We are home, healthy, and doing well! Jaxen is such a good baby and we are beyond blessed to have him in our lives!!!!!!

Baby's Room!!!!

Now that Adelyn is in her new bedroom, we were so excited to get working on the baby's room. To be honest I was stressing about this BIG TIME! When we were pregnant with Adelyn we had the room set up and ready to go by the 4th month of pregnancy (at least)... so being 8 months pregnant and not having anything in this room accomplished REALLY freaked me out. I am so happy to say that this room turned out exactly the way I wanted it too. I could not be happier to be bringing my baby home to this wonderful space!

Here was the room the day we moved in. The previous owner used this as a dinning room (hence the old school chandelier).

I actually kinda liked it, and would have loved to refinish or paint it, but that would have only worked if our baby is a girl (which we have no idea about!)... so we played it safe and decided to change out the light.
AND for the record, like I just said... we don't know if this baby is a boy or girl. Everyone thinks that because the walls are a blue-ish/turquoise color, it means we are having a boy. We may or may not be.... you know as much as we do. :o)

If this baby is a girl, we will be adding some soft pink accents around the room. It will look so fantastic with the turquoise walls!!!

Change table.

Comfy chair. We actually had a different chair that we were going to use, but the slip cover got wrecked in the laundry (boo!)... so this chair was plan B. It's not totally my ideal nursery chair (as far as looks go), but it is really comfy and any breastfeeding mom knows that is really your #1 concern for a chair!

These are the curtains I made for the room. I really wasn't sure at first, but once we hung them up I was so happy with the way they turned out. They match the crib bedding (which I also made).

Here is the crib bedding. I finished this project way back in November and was so happy to finally see it set up in the crib!! I love it.

We will be putting to black and white photos of the baby in the frames above the crib, and the baby's name will go into the frame on the white shelf.

Lamp, monitor and clock.

New light up close.

We will also be putting a picture of the baby in this frame.

The baby's name will go into this frame. 1 letter per section. This is my favorite part of the entire room!

Box shelves. The baby's first initial will go into the middle box.

New door knobs. We are slowly replacing all the door knobs in the house (as each room gets painted). They were old, gold ones... but these one's make the house look so much more modern.

So that is the baby's room! Let me know what you think... I would love to hear comments on this one!!!

36 weeks

We are now 36 weeks! Can you believe how fast this pregnancy has gone by!!! They consider 37 weeks "full term," so we could have a baby as early as next week. Eeek!!! This baby has definitely grown in the last 4 weeks, and I am certainly feeling it. I'm officially a waddling pregnant lady. Yikes. :o) We have a doc. appointment next week and I'm hoping that I will be at 2cm... I've been feeling a lot more pressure there lately and some braxton hicks... so hopefully they are being productive... like i said last time, I love having progress without actually being in labor!!!!


According to babycenter.ca, here is what is going on with our munchkin this week:Baby is still gaining weight -- about an ounce/ 28 grams a day. He/she weighs nearly 6 pounds and is about 19 inches long from head to toe. You may begin to feel an increased pressure in your lower abdomen and notice that your baby is gradually dropping. However, walking may become increasingly uncomfortable -- some women say it feels as if the baby is going to fall out.

The good news is that by the end of this week, your pregnancy will be full-term and you could give birth any day now. (Babies between 37 and 42 weeks are considered full-term -- a baby born before 37 weeks is premature and after 42 is post-term.)

Big Girl Room!!!

Yay! Adelyn is finally in her new room. This has been a project that we started last summer, so it's been a long time coming! It feels so good to have finished it up, and now we are free to move on to other rooms in the house. She has been sleeping in there for a week and a half and has done extremely well. She has never slept so good! Yay! She loves the room and the colors, and she is always excited to show people who come over "Ananyn's room" (that's how she says her name... it's so cute!)

So, here it is.... FINALLY!

This is the basement when we first moved in. We split this big long room into 2 sections... the back half became Adelyn's new room and the front half became a nicer family room (pictures of that are coming soon!)

This is the back half of the room, that became Adelyn's room.
Framing. We are so lucky to have my handy father help us out with stuff like this. So much better than having to hire someone to do it!
Drywall. This was our first time doing drywall, and I must admit that it is more work than it appears to be. It was pretty fun never the less.
This is the wall heater that was in the basement. We got a new furnace put in the house and had them run extra heat to the basement, so we didn't need this anymore.... not to mention that is was full of asbestos... blah! This is after the heater was ripped out (by my wonderful father).
This was an awkward space in our laundry room that became Adelyn's closet. It had no purpose and we aren't too sure why they developed the basement this way... but it worked great for Adelyn's closet.
This is the awkward laundry room corner from the other side. We took out the middle stud and re-enforced the rest of the studs.
So, here is the room design. It was so much fun to come up with a girly room!! The room turned out pretty similar to the design, and I couldn't be happier with the results. The only thing missing is her toy chest... but Shaun will be refinishing it this summer, so stay tuned for that! Here is the room all painted up and ready for carpet.
:o) Adelyn wondering what the heck we are doing to the basement. LOL. Adelyn "helping" The new carpet and baseboards... we saved so much money by doing it ourselves! Apparently my dad once worked at a place that installed carpets.... I had no idea. :o) The closet almost done. Finally!! Here is the finished product. Adelyn's bed is so tiny in this huge bedroom. :o) Here is her bed with the Ikea wall flower lights above it. I painted petals on the wall to make the cords look a little cuter. She LOVES these lights!!!
This is the other side of the room. Adelyn's name framed on the wall.
The closet finished! We were going to add a curtain or door of some sort, but we are still undecided.
Adelyn LOVES to paint and draw, so we framed some of her artwork. I just love having them displayed... she is quite the little artist!
More Adelyn artwork!

Shelves with the artwork on them and dresser with change pad. We decided to put a change pad in her room even though she will be potty trained soon. That way we can still change the new baby downstairs without having to go very far for supplies, etc. There is a diaper genie on the other side of the dresser that we got for free off of facebook (can't beat getting something for free!) We also have a monitor in her room so that we can hear every little wiggle she makes, etc.

So that is Adelyn's new room. Sorry for the ridiculously long blog post. I'm so happy with the way it turned out, and I'm even more happy that she LOVES it!

34.5 weeks

I had an appointment today to check on the baby. It was the first time Shaun has been able to come in a long time, so it was kinda fun to have him there..... although we waited for 30 min. in the waiting room and an extra 10 in the actual doctors room (which is not exactly fun when you brought your 2 year old with you). Everytime I go by myself, I am in and out in 15 min.

It was a good appointment. They did the group B test thing (which I wasn't expecting, because it seems a bit early for that). She also checked that the baby was indeed head down (thank the Lord, because I thought I had felt it flipping around last week)...... while she was there she checked the cervix for the first time this pregnancy and low and behold, I was already at 1cm!!!! I love having progress without having to do anything for it. :o)

The heartbeat was 140 and sounded good. It is always in the 140's somewhere (which makes me think it's a boy because Adelyn's was always in the 150's). My favorite part of the whole appointment was when she said "it's definitely not a tiny baby!" :o)