Mason Allen Smith- He Has Arrived!

Mason Allen Smith decided to come on his due date, 5-19-2012, at 1:50am.  7lbs 7oz and 21in long. 

His due date was a busy, fun-filled day starting out with a step class at the gym, a lunch date with daddy at work, a trip to Ikea  for a toy organizer (I'm convinced it was pushing one of those blasted carts around that put me into labor :) and then I dropped off the kiddos at my mother-in-laws house and met Justin at the movies to see The Avengers. I obviously did not know that I was about to have a baby a few short hours later! I had been having contractions for the past few days but they weren't anything consistent and were pretty normal end of pregnancy contractions. A little while into the movie, however, I could tell that they were becoming consistent and by the end of the movie they started  hurting. I could tell that we were going to have a baby that night! 

So at around 8pm we picked up the kids from Justin's parents and headed home to get packed and put the kids to bed (just incase labor was going to take awhile). By 9:30 the contractions were consistently 2-3 min apart and pretty painful so I figured it was time to head in to the hospital. We dropped the kids off at Justin's parents house (they only live 5 min from the hospital) and headed on in just after 10pm.

 When they checked me I was only dilated to a 3...what?! I would have at least guessed a 5! But because my contractions were close together and it's my 3rd baby they decided to keep me. It's a good thing because by the time they got me into a room and the epidural in, I was dilated to a 7 and 100% effaced. Oh that blessed epidural...

  About an hour later and pushing through one contraction, we had our precious little boy to hold in our arms. I  love the whole birthing process. It is so beautiful. They are such little miracles. 

 He came pretty fast through the birth canal so he has some bruising and swelling around his cute little nose. But it's ok, he's still a cutie!

 I'm not a huge fan of delivering in the middle of the night, it seems you can never quite recover from sleep deprivation,  but at least I got a few good hours of sleep before the family came to see our new little bundle of joy! The Smith's have more pictures of all of us together that I need to get from them....

Ethan is such a cute big brother and is so soft with Mason. Ellie, on the other hand, has enough excitement for all of us concerning her new little brother but we still need to work on the being soft part :)

He is such a good baby. He is a great eater, sleeper, hardly cries and has the cutest little whimper in the world. 

We were all shocked with how much hair he has! 

I know that's really not a lot of hair for most babies but for our babies, it's a lot! Unfortunately he already has lost a lot up top and is sportin' the old man look :)

I'm so glad that he decided to come when he did. The few days preceding his birth, I was definitely feeling all the aches and pains of pregnancy and was physically finally ready to have him. How cool is that that he was born on his due date!?! I think I read somewhere that only 5% of babies are born on their due date!

Because of his high bilirubin, they made us stay until Sunday afternoon but we are now all home and are enjoying how much a newborn slows life down. Justin is home and is amazing with helping out while I catch up on sleep and recover. He is such a great daddy and I am SO grateful for him!

The doctors are watching his bilirubin levels and for now he just gets to bask in the sunlight a few times a day. As the swelling goes down, he is starting to develop his own little look and definitely has a look of his own! Here are some pictures Justin took as of this morning:

 I am not a fan of the huge flying saucer binky's but for now it's the only one he will take!

Life is so good and we have been so blessed!!

38 + Weeks

To make a long story short, my maternity pictures fell through but here are a few pictures Justin snapped of me and my belly....

        

The end is in sight and we are so excited!!

A Really Fun Day

Today was such a fun day! We went swimming in our new kiddie pool in our backyard and the kids had a blast!

 The Phoenix Valley summers are nothing to get excited about but one good thing is that you can go swimming just about everyday and the water is just like bath water! The big pools are still a little chilly right now but we've been a few times and it's actually not too bad! 

Pool time started off pretty relaxed and the kids contently played with the toys...

 But 5 minutes into it, the wild rumpus began!!!!

 Ok, so it was mostly Ethan who was wild and crazy but they both had a LOT of fun together!

I love Ellie in this pic!

 I really think they could have stayed out there for 2 hours but after an hour I remembered that I had forgotten to put sunscreen on them and it was past nap time anyway.

When we woke up we headed out to Phoenix to the Children's Museum for their free First Friday of the Month Night. It's quite a drive from our house and it was insanely busy but it's well worth it if we all get in free!

The car wash was a popular spot for E & E. 

 Ellie thought it was hilarious to ride with Ethan and laughed the whole time!

 They made me a Mother's Day card in the arts and crafts room, 

 and Ethan cooked us up some yummy pizza in the Pizzeria. 

 They LOVED these little ball mazes that they had there. They both stayed there for forever dropping the ball and watching it work it's way through the maze. 

 There were so many other activities that they did there but I was lucky to get the pictures that I did. Like I said, it was CRAZY busy and I was trying to keep track of both kiddos the whole time. I lost Ethan for about 10 minutes but the workers there are pretty awesome at finding lost kids and helping them find their parents. Sweet, teary eyed Ethan finally found me with help from one of the workers and we had another big talk about staying close to mommy :) I think next time we go, I will need someone to come and help me out with 3 kids to look after! 

After the museum, we got a special treat and stopped by Chick Fil A for a late dinner. I even let the kids share an ice cream after our meals. I think they thought that they were in heaven!

Judging by these pictures, I'd say the kids had a lot of fun today too....

 She cracks me up with her blanky. She sleeps like this all the time! Doesn't she just look so Mary-ish?!

I love spending days like this with the kids! I'm so grateful that I'm able to stay home with them and do fun things like this with them. And with that, I think it's time this one tired mama heads to bed!

15 Days?? Really??

So as I was looking at blogs tonight I saw that my little Baby Ticker thing on the side bar says that I only have 15 days left til my due date...wait, what?? Crazy! I'm not sure where the time has gone but it sure has gone by super fast.

I went in today for my weekly check up and I've gained 16 pounds total, I'm dilated to a 2 and 75% effaced with baby boys head sittin' nice and low at a 0 station (right at the cervix). Even with my weekly check ups I'm still in a little bit of denial that I'll most likely have another little baby to hold in the next few weeks. I'm still comfortable and still sleeping good so I'm cool with this baby baking in there for another few weeks. Don't get me wrong, we are so excited to have this baby but for some reason I'm content with where I am.

For those of you who have had a baby, remember that "nesting" phase you go through where you work like a mad woman getting things cleaned and prepared for your new little ones arrival? Yeah. I haven't done a single thing.  The car seat is still sitting at the top of our garage storage and all of Ethan's spit up stained clothes are still sitting in their designated bins. Has the lack of motivation happened to any of you other moms out there or am I just lazy?

Honestly, I think that by the end of the night I'm just too tired to muster up the ability to do it. Justin has been out of town and by the time I rally the kids upstairs, intervene with the ongoing sibling rivalry, motivate them to pick up all their toys, get them ready for bed, read books, and say prayers, I am exhausted and just want to vege out on the couch! Is that so bad?

Speaking of Justin out of town, I really hope that I don't have this baby too early. He comes back tomorrow from Costa Rica, then next week he is with the Peruvians and then he is gone Sunday, Monday and Tuesday of the next week (the same week I'm due!!) to Mexico. I know, crazy right? So I'm probably the only prego woman out there hoping I don't go early.  If I do, at least this isn't my first rodeo and I'm prepared to give birth by myself if needs be (hopefully not though!) I know Justin would really love to be there and would feel really bad if he missed it so I'll so my best at remaining pregnant as long as he's gone. :)

As for a belly picture, one of my friends is trying to build her photography business and wanted to use me and my big belly for some maternity pictures! So this Saturday I'll take some maternity pictures and will post them on here (only if I don't look too ginormous:) This will be my first time doing this so it should be fun! Stay tuned for some photos!

I just went back and read what I wrote and I hope it doesn't sound like I'm complaining, ungrateful, or not excited for this sweet little baby's arrival. Really, I am feeling wonderful and count my blessings everyday that I can still go to the gym, play and go swimming with my kids even while being big and pregnant. We really are so, so, SO excited to meet this little boy and add another bundle of complete joy to our family. I was talking to a sweet friend the other day who was going through her first miscarriage and she was asking me how I have gone through 4 of those. I told her that I would do it all over again just to have one more sweet little miracle join our family and it's true, I would. In a heartbeat.

All that heartache is worth the joy of being able to be parents to even one of Heavenly Father's precious  children, and we have almost 3! How lucky and blessed are we?!

Anyway, I know a post is never fun to read without pictures so sorry! I'll try to post some this weekend!