Bouquet, baby blessing, and belly button!

So I totally forgot to post about Valentine's Day. Elijah went out of his way and bought me a very pricey bouquet. If any of you know, I HATE getting flowers because they die fast... therefore, he got me edible flowers. They were AMAZING!!! I usually don't eat pineapple, but the ones on there (they're the ones shaped like flowers) were so sweet and juicy, it was like eating candy. And I can't say enough about the strawberries and apples dipped in chocolate.

Then March 6th, Andrew had his baby blessing! We had lots of friends and family come over and I could actually hear the blessing this time (last time with Jacen, I was having a nasty gallbladder attack during the blessing and I was in so much pain I couldn't concentrate or hear what was being said). Thanks to all of those who helped make it a special day for us :)

And for tradition's sake, Sadie and I had to have pics taken together. We had one taken at Jacen's blessing as well with her newborn (only 18 days apart)- and I can't find it, one of these days I'll post it on here. Now we have kids with birthdays 25 days apart. And our pregnancies are identical, with all the same problems occurring at the same times, which makes us twins... from different mothers. I love that girl!

Little did we know that Andrew would be having surgery so soon after his blessing. Two days later we headed in to Primary Children's Outpatient extension at Riverton to have the surgery done. We had met with the surgeon the previous day and he decided to go ahead and do it before it got any bigger. I was slightly nervous, but the staff was really good at telling me exactly what was going to happen next, but I knew he would be fine. Here is his belly button before:

 

Here's him in pre-op, dressed in the little gown, or "pajamas" as they call it. The socks were anti-slip socks, I thought they were hilarious!

And here's Andrew in post-op. The surgery had gone great, but in post-op his vital signs started to look bad (low sats, high blood pressure). But all he needed was a few extra hours of recovery and we were able to take him home without any extra problems.

The day after surgery he had some pain management issues, which was really sad. The next day he started to smile a lot more and became happier. We were able to take off his bandages two days ago, and here's his new belly button:

 It looks kinda funny, but he has a follow-up appointment with the surgeon next week and I'll ask him to see if it'll be this way... well, forever. I'll definitely keep you all posted! We're glad he has a new belly button!

And now the poor kid has conjunctivitis in his right eye, so we had to put him on antibiotic drops for it. Andrew can't seem to catch a break these days :(

Andrew's 2 months old!

 Holy moly, how time flies! Before I opened my eyes from blinking, Andrew turned into a 2 month old! He learned to smile at us, although he doesn't do it often. He seems to mostly do it when he's tooting- he learned it from his dad, haha! He's a whopping 12 lbs 14 oz (that's a jump from 37th percentile to 79th), and he measures 23 inches long (55th percentile).
We wish we could say he was perfectly healthy, but he isn't. The poor kid projectile vomitted and so at his pediatrician's appointment this week, I brought it up to the doctor's attention and he got put on Zantac. Good night, I wish I had taken him to the doctor earlier! He feels so much better. He can finally sleep on a flat surface instead of in the swing or on the bouncer. The other thing is that the little one also has a herniated belly button, which will need surgery. At first the doctors kept saying it wasn't big enough and that he would outgrow it eventually, but when the doctor saw it this week he said that was too big and that it would continue to grow if we didn't have it repaired. Stay tuned for before and after pictures once surgery is done and over with.

In other news, Jacen ADORES his baby brother. The other day I was feeding Andrew and Jacen was sitting next to me, and he started to pat Andrew's head and said, "He's a nice broder". He always wants to help, although he hasn't asked to hold his "broder" lately. But Jacen had a setback when his brother arrived: his perfect potty trainingness went caput. He totally regressed and the kid is back to peeing and pooping his diapers. Yeah, I know it's normal, but it's still mind boggling to me that they can go from fully going potty by themselves to needing a diaper. It's truly a "WTF (pardon my french) situation". He did announce to me, however, that he wanted to go to medical school and be a doctor. I asked if he wanted to work in the hospital like mommy, and he said "I want to work in the hostible." I gave him lots of praise for that! He uses a turkey baster as a stethoscope to check mommy's belly. The kid is a genius.

The rest of the fam-dam is great. Daddy loves his job and just recently started to write for his work as well, which added a nice promotion and a raise to his salary. Mommy really loves that daddy is so happy with his job! Mommy is still trying to get adjusted to two kids but she thinks the dust has settled, although she has her days when she just wants to throw in the towel and quit. Mommy just got mastitis which developed into an abscess so she's trying to deal with that at the moment. All sorts of fun, right?

I love our family!

PS: Happy anniversary, honey! 6 years! Got married and got busy!

1 month old already!

Time flies. Holy cow! Andrew's already 1 month old today and the little stinker has changed quite a bit: he chunked up, despite his horrible spitting habits. Jacen was never spitty, and now to deal with a baby that spits up about half of his meal onto my clothes has been something to get adjusted to. He's very vocal, and we've nicknamed him "Lil' Goat". He makes these grunting noises that sound just like a goat, it's hilarious.

He eats really well, and at night we're down to every 4 hrs, which is quite lovely.

At first we were still having issues keeping Jacen in his bed the whole night, and Jacen was being more difficult than the baby: Jacen regressed with potty visits and he was (still sometimes is) having tons of accidents. When asked if he wanted to go back to diapers, he'd say "No, diapers are for babies!". So honestly, between the two boys, Jacen's the more difficult one for now.

BUT I do have to give him a lot of credit because he does love his baby brother. He loves to stick his binkie in his mouth if he's crying (which happens to be more like a "shove it in until you take it" type of help). He also goes and wipes his face if Andrew's puked on himself. It's very helpful.

I'm still getting used to the whole "having two kids" ordeal, and I feel like I'm constantly walking on egg shells, but I'm sure at one point it'll get better. I'll be returning to work next week and I'm thrilled- it's been 3 months since I worked last and I miss it.

I better go... time to feed- yet again.

Andrew's here!

Finally!!!! Andrew Julius Caswell was born on 12/31 at 9:00AM weighing 7lbs 12oz and measured 20.5in.

Basically, the way it went was that after I got my membranes stripped and walked and played basketball, then ate some spicy food for dinner, my water broke (slow leak) at 9:35pm on 12/30, and we headed to the hospital that evening. I "labored" all night- I played Sudoku all night while Elijah snored up a storm on the couch and my mom slept sitting up. Around 8am, Dr. Irion decided I had a high leak which was keeping me from progressing faster, so he came in and artificially broke my water again to get things going. My pitocin was turned up along with the AROM and because I was delivering naturally, the contractions got extremely intense and painful once I hit the transition stage. But with encouragement from the nurses and Dr. Irion, I delivered Andrew. My OB, Dr. Kaelberer, didn't make it in time because I transitioned way too fast for him to get there. However, he did come at the end to put me back together :) Delivering naturally was far beyond any kind of pain I've ever had, and even though I felt like I had been hit by lightning right after it was over, it definitely was worth it- I felt a lot better faster and I feel like my body is healing quicker compared to when I had Jacen with the epidural.

Andrew LOVED his bath. The kid hardly made a peep.

That would be me, of course. I'm surprised my hair was decent. By the time I went to sleep on New Year's Eve (I didn't even make it to 10:30pm), I had been awake for 38hrs. Hopefully next New Year's Eve I will be more alert.

Jacen met his brother around 11am the morning of the delivery. He first thought he was cute and wanted to look at him a lot, then eventually in the evening, he decided he wanted to hold his baby brother. He was so excited and kept giving him kisses, and waving his hand right in front of his face saying, "Hi baby Andrew!". It really was adorable!

First family picture :)

We noticed Andrew looks like the male version of me when I was born, but somehow when we took him home he looked just like Jacen as a newborn.

We sure love our little family and we're so grateful to be healthy and safe :) I hope everyone had a great New Year's!

Christmas 2010

 We had a lot of fun on Christmas. Jacen learned that Santa Claus is the one that brings presents, and that he eats cookies and Rudolph eats carrots when they stop by our house. He asked Santa Claus for a soccer ball when Santa made a pit stop at the Ward Christmas party, and Santa must've thought Jacen was a good boy last year because he got what he wanted!

I think Santa must've thought he was the nicest boy in town because he also brought Jacen a toy story table and chairs set. He loves coloring and eating his meals on it.

Needless to say, the child was very spoiled for Christmas. After all, it was his last Christmas as the only child and we wanted to make it extra special for him. He loved all his gifts!