Four kids!

I can't believe they're mine.

Some Jack for ya

Jack was praying his standard prayer the other night which goes a bit like this:

"Please keep daddy safe at work, please help Ava do good at school, please help me and Jemma not get in any trouble" and then he added this last bit: "and please help mommy's tummy shrink back."

Smart kid, calling in reinforcements.

spoke too soon

So little Henry had the grumps all evening after I typed that last bit. I'm hoping it was just a stomach thing but I'm afraid he's going to have the evening fussiness all my monkeys have had. But I still gotta say he's our easiest transition so far....although check back with me in 6 months when he's loud and mobile!

One week old!

At the one week mark Henry was looking good. A sweet baby who spent his first week just eating and sleeping and very rarely opening one eye to see what was going on. But within the last couple days he has started to fall into a really nice schedule. I hate to even type this without knocking on wood but he should get some credit here, he's been sleeping good chunks at night of 4 hours, 2-3 hours, 2-3 hours and during the day he has two or three alert times of up to two hours. And when he's awake, he is sweet! He just looks around and is very mellow. Yesterday Ed and the kids were busy so I watched an entire movie while he was wide awake cuddling me!

I definitely couldn't ask for a better number 4!

Girly girl

Jemma came across these old boots of Ava's and clomped around in them all day:

My friend Anna made this skirt for Jem (when her own baby was just a couple days old!) and she loves it! She put it on and started twirling right away.

Joy!

Soccer!

Jack has been waiting years to play soccer and it's finally his turn. He ran up and down the field with a huge smile and when he wasn't sure what to do he stuck his hands in his pockets and just grinned. I somehow missed getting any action shots so maybe next week for those!

Henry snuggled right here while his big brother played.

Jack with two of his preschool buddies....donuts and capri-suns for the hard playing boys.

Teeny tiny

Could he be any sweeter?

Ed's two favorite Jacks

Coming Home!

The welcoming committee:

Why I love the hospital:


Why I love coming home:

More from the hospital

mmmm.....so sweet

I knew he'd be a small baby because I was still pretty comfortable up until the day he was born and I've had enough big babies to know how miserable you should feel. But I was not expecting a 6-pounder! Poor little guy had nothing that even remotely fit him until Lauren brought by this outfit that I've had to wash multiple times already because he wears it so much!

First-Time Big Sister

Surprise! Here's the baby we've been talking about:

Poor girl had a bit of a surprise waiting for her but she recovered nicely and has actually adjusted even better than I was hoping for. She doesn't pay a whole lot of attention to him unless he's crying and then she gets really worried and says, "shhh...shhh" She calls him baby He-ry and she mostly just waves to him when she's passing by.

Big Brother.

Jack met his brother later that night and he was soooo happy. I love his face here:

Jack cannot get enough of him. He calls him Little Henry and he begs to hold him all day. He can sit and cuddle him for as long as I'll let him and he's already super protective....he tells people to wash their hands, hold his head just right, and be gentle with him!

Big Sister

Ava was the first to meet the baby...she came in right after school and hung out for awhile. She has responded exactly as we expected--sweet, helpful, and waiting for him to get big enough to feed him a bottle!

Henry.

Ta Da!!!

John Henry Driskill

6 pounds, 19 inches

But first, how he got here.

We headed in bright and early Thursday morning, got all settled and after 5 iv starts (one of the worst parts of the day!), we got started with a very slow pitocin drip (and I mean slow...my doctor had an emergency surgery and didn't want me going till he was here) at 10:30. Slow pitocin means lots of hanging out, with these people:
who were supposed to be entertaining me but were apparently just enjoying their day off.
After a couple hours, my doctor came to start the party and broke my water. We were all pretty sure it was going to be fast (thanks to the last two!) so the nurse and doctor hung close to keep an eye on me. Later they both swore it would have only been 20 minutes or so but the little guy had other plans and decided to hold tight in a posterior position. After a good 40 minutes of torture trying to turn him and lots of heart rate drops (him) and mild panic (me), my body said enough and popped him out sunnyside up.

Tiny, loud, and perfect.

Telling me all about it.

I love this one.

Right after his bath (not a fan!) with some fluffy blond hair and Ed's hand.

Much better when finally left alone!

Tuckered out.

Look who's here!

HENRY

Before the craziness begins...

I just want to make a couple quick notes about my three sweet monkeys before the fourth joins us and the next round of craziness begins.

Ava, the first to make me a mom, is the best big sister you could ask for. She is kind and thoughtful (so much so that we have no idea where she gets it!). She takes her job seriously and is better than any help I could hire.

Jack is my funny (funny!), tender-hearted, loving little bugger. He's been so good to his sisters that I am excited to give him a brother. I mentioned the other day that I hope the baby looks like him and he said, "well then, he would be really, really handsome." Couldn't say it better myself.

And Jemma Jane is our not-for-long baby with a seriously funny sense of humor and an iron will but still so eager to please. I think I am most excited for her, although she has no idea what's coming!

I'm a lucky girl.

School update

We are now several weeks into school and the kids are both loving it! (When the first weekend rolled around Jack said, "Oh man...is it summer vacation already?!") Ava is cruising through second grade and has turned into a master speller and math whiz (who knew??) and Jack keeps surprising himself with how much he is learning. I knew he'd love the social part of school (and man he loves it) but he's also super excited about all the stuff he is learning and doing--he has the hugest smile every night when he shows us his folder.

I love hearing their stories and all the stuff they are learning that I'm pretty sure I knew at one time but can no longer remember (like the state capitals and what an inchworm eats!!)

Cougar.Football.Saturday.

Football is in full swing at this house.

Ed likes college, I like pro so between us we watch an awful lot from Thursday to Monday night. We've had season tickets now for 7 years and our first game (and my last for the season) was Saturday. The game itself was terrible but the weather was beautiful and Ed finally gave in a bought me a bag of carmelcorn and in the end we actually won so it was a good day after all!

daddy's girl

I've been waiting a long time for Jemma to be a daddy's girl. She was by far the most attached to me and for the longest time and finally she is happiest with Ed. Now instead of tripping over her all the time, I look over and see her snuggled up with her daddy, no matter what he's doing.

Just in time, huh?

A daddy's job is never done.

Ed was in charge of Jemma this weekend and in the course of a day or two he completely cured her of her amazing fear of just going to the bathroom. He went back to work and left me thinking of all the things I would be able to get done this week since I wasn't going to spend large chunks of it sitting on the side of the tub. However, in about an hour things went right back to where they were last week! Grrr. He came home that night and probably should have said, "what did you do to her?!" but instead he just popped her back on and fixed her right up. Then he took us out for ice cream and then made us a fire:

My own personal hero.

(and for the record she seems done...10 days without an accident and two without crying about it. woo hoo)

Happy September!

(almost) The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!!

Ahhhh, we love fall here and it has apparently come very early, which is just fine with me!

I have an outdoor wedding Saturday so a little bit of 80s with no rain would be nice but after that I am happy to head back to the 60s and 70s! We've had a fire every night (with the windows open!) and the kids are so darn cute and cozy.

And this is the month we will be joined by our newest addition!

Which is frankly freaking me out a little.

Usually at this point I start a serious countdown but this time I'm not ready! I have so many things to do with my last little bit of freedom. I'm working all weekend and then next week I have hair, pedicure, and massage appointments, I have two movies I want to see in the theater, and I want to go out for dinner at least one more time! Not to mention the baby's room isn't done, the slipcovers on all the furniture need cleaned, someone needs to buy fall clothes for all these kids and clean out their drawers and closets, and the list goes on. And someone needs to name this baby! The truth is that I'm not all that miserable yet (which I'm afraid to even write). This is either a much smaller baby or I am have done this too many times to even notice anymore.

Here I am last week at 35 weeks:

Ava, who takes these pictures and tries to keep my belly in the square on the camera, was nice enough to say, "Whoa! Your belly doesn't fit in the little square anymore!"

I'm now almost 36 weeks (which means that at this point in Jack's pregnancy I was already at the hospital getting ready to have him) and the baby is supposed to be about 5-6 pounds and 18 inches (Jack, however, was 7'10" at this point so we'll see!). From now on he's not really doing much of anything but getting nice and fat...just the way I like 'em!