Freeze Frame Time

 Sometimes we laugh,

And sometimes we cry 

Some days it’s hard to figure out our way in this life

But it’s moments like this that make me wish

  That I could freeze frame time. *lyrics by Brandon Ryder (click here to listen)

It’s his potty and he’ll go where he wants to

We’re working on potty training at our house. Basically, if Zane has on a diaper, he’ll go in it. He’ll even tell you, “I like to tee tee in my dy-cer”. Let him run around in his birthday suit and he’ll go to the potty every time.

Today he yelled, “I need to tee tee! Baff room door locked!” Somehow he had locked the door. Matt told him just to go outside and opened the front door for him. He was kidding. Sort of.

So Zane just stood on the front step and did this…We were laughing hysterically and told him to go in the bushes! 

Folks, it was 29 degrees out there. But that’s one less diaper I had to change.

Hollin’s Nursery

I had Hollin’s room perfectly arranged before she was born. Perfectly arranged in my head, that is. In reality, I brought this baby girl home to an unfinished nursery! Very unlike me. I’m not sure why it wasn’t finished…I went in there everyday and ‘nested’, I guess. I would spend so much time in there folding clothes, hanging them in the closet, rearranging, but not actually fininshing the room. I had everything in the room, just not hung on the walls. We finally finished it before Matt’s parents left. They left on Saturday (29th) and we stayed up late on Friday night getting everything finished. I still need to get curtains, but for now it’s finished. The wall decal is from etsy and is really cute….but NOT easy! The letters were one of my craft projects. The view from the doorThe crib, rocker, night stand, & changing table are from Zane’s room. DeeDee got Hollin the lamp & recovered the lampshade. The mirror was in our house in Little Rock and hadn’t found a place in the house here, so we ‘bronzed’ and ‘antiqued’ it to match the room. I’m in love with the canvas that Dayle made! Matt found this rug on clearance at Target!Our beautiful Hollin Bell     

the one with the pumpkins & costumes…

 

On Friday, October 28th (the day I was scheduled to have Hollin) we took the kiddos to the pumpkin patch. Matt had to work, so his mom and dad took me and the kiddos to Schuster’s Playtime Farm. Next year I will buy a season pass! This place was AWESOME! There was so much to do that Zane could’ve played forever! There was a hayride to the pumpkin patch, barrel-train, bouncy pillow, pumpkin cannon, fort, general store, school house, petting farm, playground equipment, bakery, corn maze, and probably lots of other stuff that we didn’t even have time to see!

Since Zane was leaving the next day to go to Arkansas with DeeDee & E (and therefore trick-or-treating in Arkansas), we dressed him up in his Woody costume so that I could see him in it. I found it odd that he was the only kid dressed up there, but I loved how all the other kids just acted like it was normal. They would run passed him and say, “Hi, Woody! Where you going, Woody?” He looked so cute! I’ll let the pictures say the rest… For those of you that have never been to Madison, the background of this picture is what most of it (outside of the city) looks like. Corn fields everywhere! It really is a beautiful state (what I’ve seen of it) and we’ve had an especially beautiful fall.         

to remember…

Just a few silly things that I want to remember from Hollin’s birth….

*Matt and I were sitting on our bed, him trying to convince me to call the doctor, me trying to remember how close the contractions are supposed to be before you call… We got my phone to look up the clinic’s phone number on the internet. I typed in “Madison Women’s” (for Madison Women’s Clinic) and my phone autocorrected it to “Madison Wieners”. We were laughing so hard! And it hurt to laugh during a contraction.

*Matt was on call, of course. We heard a pager during the c-section and I asked Matt if it was his. He said, “Oh, well if it is! They’ll just have to wait.” Turns out it wasn’t his…luckily!

*Matt asked me during the surgery how I was feeling and I said, “I’m fine. I’m just in a strange mental state.” That cracked us up for some reason.

*My doctor told me to feel free to talk to her during the procedure, so at one point I asked her if I had a lot of scar tissue. She said she wasn’t that far yet, but she was sure there was probably just a normal amount. Matt said (sarcastically), “You’ve just got a really average uterus, Sarah.” Dr. S said, “Oh, I’m sure your uterus is extraordinary!” I don’t know why (maybe the strange mental state?) but I said, “That sounds like a great facebook status! ‘Doctor says that I have an extraordinary uterus!’” We all got a kick out of that!

*The first thing I said when they held her over the drape was, “She’s so SQUISHY!”

Siblings

Zane is still pretty oblivious to the baby in the house. He will pay attention to her if we specifically ask him to give her a kiss or tell her hi. He likes to rub her head, too. But, for the most part, he forgets about her.

This was last Wednesday night, our second night home from the hospital. We asked him to hold his sister and take a picture with her. You can tell he’s got an idea brewing….  Guess what’s coming…Oh, yeah. Another lick. Or ‘the ultimate stamp of approval’, as one of my facebook friends called it.We did get one ‘human’ kiss out of him…It took him a few days to even notice me feeding her. When he did notice, he said, “Her eating you tummy?” I told him yes, that’s how she gets her milk. “It’s white milk?” Yep, I don’t make chocolate. What must go through the mind of an almost-three-year old?

I took a picture of Zane every month on his ‘birthday’ for over two years. Always in this chair, with his monkey. I haven’t decided what Hollin is going to take her picture with yet, so for her first ‘monthly pic’ I just took one in her crib. She looks so tiny in it!

bringing baby home…

 

On Tuesday we got to bring our sweet little girl home! Initially my doctor said that they routinely keep patients three or four days, so we would probably stay until Wednesday or Thursday.

On Monday morning at 7am we were awoken by a jack hammer in our room. Ok, it wasn’t actually in our room, but it was so loud that it sounded like there was a lawn mower or something INSIDE our room! There was construction going on and it was so loud that we couldn’t even talk to each other. (Wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that we have to go back on Wednesday and have her hearing re-evaluated in her right ear?) When Dr. S came by, she said that since this wasn’t our first baby and we were both medical professionals, she would let us go home on Tuesday as long as everything was going well with me and the baby. Hallelujah!

Our stay at the hospital was actually GREAT! Everyone was SO nice. The nurses were great and so, so helpful with getting me and Hollin comfortable nursing. We had a big private room with a bathroom, and Matt even had his own bed. There was a “family kitchen” down the hall with free snacks and drinks available 24/7. I wouldn’t have minded staying longer if it weren’t for the horrible construction noises. Then again, it felt SO good to be home and to see Zane.

Matt said that it felt so different driving home with a new baby this time. He said he had never been so nervous behind the wheel of a car, as the day we brought Zane home. Everything has just seemed more calm and normal this time (including the baby!).

This is the dress that she came home in. Her DeeDee made it and it’s so precious. Funny: Matt and I put it on and buttoned it up the back….We later learned we had put it on backwards. We’re goofballs. Either way, she looked like a little angel. She also had on her Razorback socks. It’s weird to me that we had a baby in Wisconsin! She’ll always have Southern roots, though.