Time Goes By So Fast!!!

So it has been way too long since my last post but really time has gone by so fast. Gracie is over four months old now and she is really starting to come into her own little princess personality. We have been so busy with coaching a Select soccer team between practices, scrimmages and weekend tournaments but between the busy weekends we did get a few family camping trips in.

June really was the month of still trying to stay alive with a very colic baby that needed so much attention. Steve also worked 6 days of OT on top of his 10 normal days of work so he was gone for half of the month. Great Grandma came to town at the end of June to stay for two weeks. Gracie and Stephen are so lucky to not only have one but two Great Grandma's. Great Grandma Sugar Plum was even able to calm Gracie down once when she was having a major fit. We played lots of games and had great visits with Grandma.

July was a month filled of fun and craziness. This year Steve worked on the 4th but Uncle Dan and Aunt Shirley came in town to join the family. We had such a great time visiting with them. We had a wonderful 4th of July at Uncle Gary and Aunt Donna's like always. Gracie loves the water and Stephen looks like a fish out of water in the pool but he tries really hard to swim. He is actually fearless and will go underwater, jump in from the side of the pool and kick as fast as he can but for some reason he looks like he is running underwater :0) The next day July 5th Steve and I took the kids camping to Donner lake. We actually stayed for a full week. Stephen learned to ride a bike with training wheels, Gracie and Stephen both got really dirty, Stephen caught a few small catfish while fishing in the lake! I must say the trip was exhausting but a lot of fun. Half way through the week my family joined us. Mom & Dad, Tera, Rob and Kids, Craig, Andrea and kids all camped for the rest of the weekend. The kids all had so much fun, we are all so lucky that our kids play so well together even with the age gaps. Kyndra and Kaylin each had a friend and poor Macy broke her wrist on the last night we were there. The very next weekend our friends James and Chandel came into town for a fun little visit. Stephen loves to wrestle with his uncle James and Auntie Chandel was able to relax Gracie with bouncing her on the exercise ball. The last weekend in July Stephen had a fun 4 days with his daddy while Gracie and I were off to our Ladies camping trip (this is the only one she will get to go on until she is 16). Stephen and Steve had so much fun, they went to the movies, took the Jeep 4wheeling and he even spent one fun full day with Jon and Jenn while daddy was at soccer. Gracie and I went camping with 10 other ladies and how fun it was. We even took her to the beach for the first time and we went to the Garlic Festival for the first and last time too (Gracie, Tera and I paid for eating too much Garlic). Well, Gracie was rolling over for one day then decided not to do it any more. She laughs, coos, grabs and plays with toys, loves to be held and daddy has the touch to put her to sleep with some bouncing on the knee. She has the most beautiful blue eyes that glow when you see them, I hope they stay that color. Stephen and her continue to love each other so much, she giggles so much when he comes into her sight. We know that this may not last forever but we will enjoy it while it lasts.

Wish us luck to get through Gracie's screaming fits that she still has, they even last up to two hours at a time now. My mom and dad help out a lot with Stephen while Steve is at work so I don't go too crazy. We are just still blessed with two healthy children that are full of so much love. We hope you all are doing well and we love you all so much. We hope your summer was as fun as ours.

Well here I am writing again but much later then planned. Gracie is now almost 11 weeks old and I think the last time I wrote on this blog she was 5 weeks old. Well I think maybe only one day after writing that blog she became a very different baby. She is now what we call a very Colic baby! From weeks 5 to 7 she cried 90% of the days and about 50% of the nights, the longest weeks of my life. She now cries about 75% of the days that are bad which is about 4 or 5 a week and we have about 1 bad night a week with staying up all night. For example the other night Steve was working at the station and Gracie decided to only sleep for about 1 hour and then woke up at 11:30 crying. I then had two children up since my little angel is so loud and our house is so small. Stephen was in tears by 4:30am saying he was so tired and I asked to please go to bed and try really hard to sleep, he wouldn't and about 5:15am we finally got Gracie down to sleep. I will say that I have learned a lot over the past few weeks. Stephen is really an amazing little boy, he loves his sister even though she cries a lot (he tells everyone that). Stephen can't seem to stop worrying about her when she cries and he gets so excited every time she smiles at him (yes Gracie does know how to smile). Gracie actually smiles and does her cute baby talk often, it just doesn't always last too long. She was 22.5 inches and 11.0 lbs at her last doctor's appointment. Oddly I looked up Stephen's information at his 2 month check up and he was 22.5 inches and 11.2 oz. You will see I have attached a picture of how much they look a like at the same age. I am happy to say though that even if she cries often she is a perfectly healthy baby!!!! She is very strong and even almost rolled over last night at Nana and Papa's house. I do believe that she will be rolling over much earlier then I would like.
Steve is working often since the OT is available, soon we fear it will be gone with Sac Metro closing some stations in the next few weeks and they may be taking a pay cut at work too. He has been an amazing husband with doing so much around the house since Gracie takes up most of my time these days!
We have had a lot of fun events over the past few weeks. First Kyndra turned 13 (wow I can't believe it) she had a fun Hawaiian birthday party. Next was Kyle's 8th birthday party, they had a cool monster truck bounce house. The next weekend was Stephen's 3rd birthday bash, we too had a cool spiderman bounce house and a fun pinata. Stephen had the best day with so many friends and family (they were all troopers with it being over 100 degree's out). Then off to Fresno the next weekend, since Auntie Chandel Graduated from College. We are so happy for her! On the way home from Fresno a stop into Stockton to a 1st birthday party for Grace (a friend from Steve's works daughter), they too had a bounce house. Then believe it or not the very next weekend Kaylin turned 11 and we had a very fun birthday with her, some fun carnival games with even a snow cone machine!!!! One more birthday this weekend and then maybe things will slow down, Skyler turns 3 (another friend from Steve's work). She may actually be Stephen's future wife, so we have secretly planned for them!!!
As for me I have finally started a little running, wow am I out of shape. I plan on starting to play indoor soccer this next Tuesday, wish me luck! I have also been into high gear co-coaching Kaylin's select soccer team with my dad and Steve. Practices two times a week, board meetings for the club, working at the office when I can help, and trying to still do house work seems to make the weeks go by so fast! I will confess that I am turning 31 this Wednesday and my body feels like it's in it's 30's after having two babies and not exercising much over the past year. I plan to keep working to change that! Well it is 3 am and I thought I would quickly write this after doing house chores and the kids are sleeping. I hope you all are doing well and if you have not talked to us or seen us lately don't think for one second that we don't miss you! Love you all! Oh one more thing I'm not sure if you have ever seen anything like this but Stephen is badly allergic to Mosquito's, I will attach a picture of his swollen face after one bite and lots of benadryl.

Already 4 weeks old!

Wow how quickly they change and time goes by. Gracie is already over 4 weeks old and she has gained over 1 lb. She weighed 7 lbs 8 oz when she was born and at her 3 weeks appointment she weighed 8 lbs 9 oz. We actually had a two week appointment that we were supposed to go to but for some reason we totally forgot about it even though we scheduled our family pictures around her appointment time. We drove into Roseville and went to our pictures remembering about the appointment then when leaving the mall ended up spacing on the appointment completely (I blame lack of sleep). The doctors then rescheduled it for the next week. We are working on a schedule but some nights go better then others. She seems to not want to go down for the night until around 12 or 1 am and then wakes up about every 2 or 3 hours then officially wakes up for the morning around 8am. I get around 4 hours sleep a night since I am breastfeeding and that takes time. For you moms that will understand, this is my favorite you finally finish feeding your baby it's 2am and you change his/her diaper, rock them to sleep then lay them down and they then toot really loud. Next you realize that you have to get up and change them again because it wasn't just a toot (now that really stinks right). Gracie likes to be talked to when she is awake and loves to be rocked. Things are going great with Stephen and her, he loves to sing to her when she cries and he gets really close to her face and then he laughs when she tries to eat him, he is the best big brother. He seems to think that I can't hear Gracie when she cries so every time she makes the slightest whimper Stephen yells "She is crying mommy she's hungry!". I had to make a trip to the ER when she was almost 3 weeks old, I was having really bad back pain for about a week and I though maybe it was from the epidural I had during delivery. Mom, Gracie and I were there until 1 am to find out that I have a Kidney infection, painful but nothing some antibiotics will not cure. Gracie was able to go to her first Easter egg hunt with her big brother Stephen and cousins when she was only 2 weeks old. Stephen had a blast and thank goodness for a my family, Uncle Craig ran to the car to help the new mom unload since we were really late and the Easter egg hunt was about to start also Papa took Stephen to look for the eggs since daddy was at work and mommy wanted to take pictures (boy I love having family close by to always help). We had a great Easter, Grandma and Grandpa Thorns stopped by for a few hours in the morning while Stephen and Gracie opened their gifts from the Easter Bunny. Then off to Nana and Papa DuBose's to have a traditional Easter Egg hunt with all of his cousins and a wonderful dinner prepared by Nana. We hope you all had a wonderful Easter too! The meals are over and I am back to cooking now. Thank you to all the friends and family for bringing us wonderful dinners for the first few weeks, they helped us out a lot. Steve and I also had our first date night, Auntie Tera (or as Stephen calls her Tera-nut) took the kids home with her family on Sunday night while Steve and I went to dinner and a movie! Stephen of course didn't want to come home with us when we went to pick him up because that would mean he was leaving his cousins. A few other quick thing from the past few weeks. We have had lots of visitors come and go which is always fun. We took Gracie to see daddy at work for the first time and I went back to work with the kids this week. Gracie and Stephen are wonderful kids and we are so thankful that they both are healthy and happy. We hope you all are as healthy and happy as we are too.

Gracie has arrived

I have never been a great writer but I thought I would try to send out some updates on Stephen and our new arrival Grace Louise Thorns. Last week I was given some news that I had a new problem with this pregnancy called Cholestasis (liver doesn't filter out bile salts), this can be very bad for Gracie and it made me itch all over my body. They then needed to run some tests to confirm, if they came back positive then I would be induced yet again. So Saturday I received a call from my Doctor asking us to come for an induction. I was happy that we would be able to have her on the weekend but really nervous about going through a long labor again. We arrived at the hospital around 3:30ish and then was checked into our room. We did not start the process until after 5pm. We had lots of friends and family in the room with us supporting Steve and I. They had to put in a pill to try to soften my cervix but it can only be done every four hours. Everyone went home after we got the news that at 10pm I had no change. Steve and my sister Tera stayed to help me get through the night. They put in the 3rd pill at 2am and I was instantly starting to contract finally!!! We then started walking around every couple of hours until 6am came and they then told me my cervix was ready but since I still had not dilated at all and they would have to start me on pitocin. I wasn't happy about that news since my contractions were 2 minutes apart I was convinced that I would dilate 1cm. Once they started me on pitocin sadly the contractions were really strong and less then one minute apart, they were worried that my body would not be able to handle this for a long time. I was doing really well with the support of my mom, Steve and sister. Mom rubbed my back for a long time since this labor was mostly in my back (the nurse thinks that Gracie is face up which causes back labor). I finally gave in once I was dilated to 4 on my own and asked for the epidural. Steve and I were in the room alone when they gave me the epidural at around 10:30 am and after that I felt great!!!! All my friends and family came back in with looking at a smile on my face. I then was checked at noon and guess what I was fully dilated, wow that was fast! Steve and I had decided that we were going to share this birth with some family and close friends, if they wanted to stay. In the room with us was, my sister Tera, my mom Landa, my mother-in-law Chris, my nieces Kyndra and Kaylin, and my ladies Chandel, Jenn and Liz. Andrea my sister-in-law was also invited but since she has some trouble with blood she opted to stay out. The nurse and midwife was so wonderful to us all, they let Tera handle the baby monitor my mom held one leg and Steve got the job of holding the leg that I had no feeling in (poor guy). We started pushing after one pm and it only took about 20 minutes. Grace Louise Thorns came out at 1:53pm looking nice and white since she was 10 days early. My mom cut the cord since Steve did Stephen's and really said he would love for someone else to do it this time. I was able to do skin-to-skin for a long time which was so special for me. She was then weighed and measured, 7 lbs 8 oz. 20 inches long and head was only 13.35 inches. I only had to have 3 or 4 stitches but the nurse was right she came out face up. After the short delivery and they cleaned me up the rest of the family in the waiting room came in. Stephen was the first to be introduced to his new little sister, he was so excited to see her. They then set him into bed with me and I was able to hold both my little boy and my little girl together. That moment was perfect, Stephen started singing to her right away and told her he loved her soooooo much! We were then moved to another room for the night and that was much nicer then the last experience. Steve and I stayed there together while Stephen went home with Grandma and Grandpa Thorns. We had a long night not because of Gracie but because we were check so many times by nurses and doctor's (I know they are just doing what they have to do). We were excited to know that we were going home in the morning!!!

So now that we have arrived at home we are pleased to say that she is perfect!!! Well at least I think so, she sleeps great and for the most part eats regularly every 2 or 3 hours apart. She never spits up so far and hardly ever fusses (totally opposite of Stephen as a baby). We are having such a fun time watching Stephen hold and sing to her all the time. Please if you are in the area come by and meet her, you will love her as much as we do.