Some Favorites

Oh the last 2 days have been wonderful!! We welcomed our baby girl to our family at 12:02 Tuesday morning. I was nervous. Surgery is no fun! It went fine and I survived!! All the pain and the nerves are so worth it in the end! Saylor has been such a great baby. She eats, poops, then goes back to sleep. She hates to have her diaper and clothes changed but once that is done she calms down and is so peaceful.
One of our first family pictures! Pure happiness.

One of Miss Saylor's first pictures, she is warming up so they can give her a bath. She didn't like it so much! Once she was bathed and wrapped up I got to hold her. It still amazes me that the moment you see your baby you are in love. It was the same feeling I had with Dylan, just instant love. There is a bond there that only a mommy can feel.

This however, makes me the happiest! I was so worried about Dylan and how he would feel. He loves his sister and it makes me smile to look at any picture with the two of them because he is smiling in all of them. I will show more of those later!
This was the first time he saw his sister. We were in the recovery room and Seth went and got him. He got to see his sister before anyone else!! He was so happy and excited when he came in the room. I cried the moment he walked in. It was such an emotional moment for me. He wasn't very interested in me, but I can understand why. I was in a weird bed, had an IV and looked awful! He really wasn't too comfortable seeing me until the next day when I had on pajamas instead of a hospital gown and I wasn't hooked up to anything.

We have been adjusting to our new family and things are going smooth. I was so excited to come home and start our new life together!!

Saylor Rene

Saylor Rene is here and perfect. She was born at 12:02 PM today. She weighs 8 pounds and is 20.5 inches long. She has her mom's long fingers and toes. Mom and baby are doing great. Dylan is a proud big brother.

Upstairs

Our upstairs is basically done. There are a few things we (I mean Seth) needs to do, but it is livable and I am SUPER happy with it! This was our last weekend as a family of 3 and I had grand plans for today but the snow had other plans for us! I thought I would be bummed, but I think we had a perfect day. We lounged around (it is 6:15 Sunday night and I am still in my PJs, as are the boys!), painted, watched 2 movies, played with play-doh, lincoln logs...the list goes on and on...and Seth and I were able to finish up some projects!! And my mom made a good point, in a month or so we can do what I had planned with Dylan while grandma and grandpa Shaver spend some time with their granddaughter!! I think Dylan will enjoy that time with mommy and daddy more in a month than right now!

So, on to finishing up projects! We needed to hang some things up in our new room upstairs! Seth told a friend of his that the upstairs was his "man room" and when his friend came over a few weeks ago and saw what we had going on upstairs he felt it was FAR from a man room...which is what I want!!! Seth does have a small corner/wall he can claim as his man room!! The 2 pictures are framed Sports Illustrated covers from KUs National Championships in 88 and 08. I told Seth I think KSU will win it all this year then I can get one too!! Honestly though..I need something K-State up there, I just don't know what! I should have taken something from my sister's house last night...their game room has tons of cool K-State things and I doubt they would notice if I did take something!! On the wall when you come up the stairs we have a table with lots of pictures and 4 hanging on the wall. I will either change them to 2 of Dylan and 2 of Saylor or add some more frames to the right of these! And then their is Dylan's corner. He has his table and chairs to do arts and crafts on and a place to display his masterpieces! I have seen this done and luckily I had ribbon and clothespins so it cost me NOTHING!!!!! I LOVE the way it turned out and so does Dylan. I know he will love adding and changing out his pictures. I also have this same thing on the wall walking up the stairs that I hang pictures on. An easy and cheap way to display snapshots!

In the corner we also have more pictures and a wall decal that says "Kids and Toys Gather Here". Then more toys (but stored so nicely) and his giant bear! I will also be adding more pictures here...can you tell I love displaying pictures of Dylan and soon Saylor too!! Forget fancy art, just give me some snapshots of Dylan and Saylor!

It is a fun room for our family to hang out in!! It can get messy and we don't have to worry about it being the first thing people seeing when they come over! I see us spending a lot of time up here as a family of 4!!

Dylan Jacob...

3 years and 8 months ago I was waiting very patiently to meet my first born. You on the other hand wanted nothing to do with coming out and meeting me!! You were very content in my tummy doing your own thing, and funny thing, you are still very content just doing your own thing! But on June 30, 2006 at 12:50 PM I got to meet you. I was so in love the moment I saw you. It is a moment I will NEVER forget. The moment they brought you to me I couldn't get over how perfect you were. Our eyes locked and you instantly became my very favorite person in the world, and you still are (just don't tell daddy that!!). Over the past 3 1/2 years I have fallen more and more in love with you. We have had so many wonderful memories. We have special mommy-Dylan things that we do. We give each other lots and lots of hugs and kisses. We hold hands while we shop. We sing country songs together. We cook and color together. We cuddle while watching TV. We read books together and we make up funny songs about cheeseburgers. In this moment you are still my only baby but tomorrow we will get to meet Saylor and I will instantly have 2 babies. I know I will fall in love with your sister just like I fell in love with you. I know you will both be my favorites. And I know you will love her just as much as I do. She is going to be the luckiest little girl in the world...all because she will have you as a big brother. And I will be the luckiest mommy in the world because I will have you and Saylor to love. I couldn't ask for anything more.

I love you Dylan Jacob and I always will. I can't wait to see you become a big brother tomorrow and help me sing the sunshine song to our baby girl!

Brag Book

I decided I wanted Dylan to have his very own brag book. Something he could put pictures of his baby sister in. Something he could show people and take to school to show his teachers. I wasn't sure if I would be able to buy one that was a Big Brother brag book, so I made one myself! I just bought a plain blue photo album and Dylan and I added the stickers. Monster trucks are one of his favorite things right now, so I thought to personalize it a bit we would use monster truck stickers too! Once we had it made he asked where the pictures were!! Since we don't have any pictures of Saylor yet I asked him if he wanted a picture of him and mommy in there...with mommy's belly! He thought it was a fabulous idea!! So today we got out the camera and took some pictures! Nothing better than taking pictures of yourself when you are 38 weeks pregnant!!

This is what we came up with. Not bad I guess!!

The other night as I was giving Dylan a bath this is a little conversation we had...

Dylan: "mommy, how pretty will Saylor be?"

Me: "She will be the prettiest girl you've ever seen."

Dylan: "But mommy you are pretty"

Me: "well thank you Dylan."

Dylan: "you were pretty at your wedding and daddy was handsome at your wedding"

Me: "yes we were!"

And then the next night he informed me he didn't want any more babies, he just wants a big boy he can play with!

He is so sweet. Don't know where he comes up with some of the things he says!! But they melt my heart!!

And a picture just for fun...he wanted to try out some new smiles he said!

Snow Fun

Last Saturday we were able to get out and enjoy the small amount of snow we got Friday! It seems like we have had so much snow this winter but haven't been able to enjoy it much. Saturday was a nice day and the perfect day to play outside!

Dylan enjoyed making a snow angel. We have never done this, so I wonder where he has seen it! I thought it was pretty funny when he got down and just started making an angel!Next he had to get daddy with some snowballs. When we first came out our 82 year old neighbor who just got out of the hospital was shoveling her driveway. Seth went right over and shoveled it for her. She did stay out to watch Dylan play! We may have old neighbors, but they are so wonderful!

Dylan thought he was pretty funny when he was throwing snow balls at Seth! He had been throwing them at the car, so it was a little more fun to throw them at someone!

It was fun to spend some time outside, now we are just ready for spring so we can spend some more time outside!

Painting

Saturday night Dylan wanted to paint, so that is just what we did!! I got out his finger paints and watercolors. This time I decided to put each color of finger paint in a cupcake liner. The
clean-up was so quick and easy and it kept all of his colors separate! I also gave him some of my old make-up sponges to use for painting. He uses them when he uses his glitter pens. On my list for WalMart today is sponges so he can use those...we can even cu them in shapes!

Dylan loves painting and being creative. We don't do it often enough. I feel like a bad mommy for not getting his paints out more and seeing how much he likes it, I should really do it more often!

Not only did he use sponges, he also used plastic forks. He did something like this in school so I thought I would try it at home...didn't work so well but he still liked it!! Don't worry, I promise he also used his fingers to finger paint! I just wanted to give him some more options!

WE now have about 10 pictures on our kitchen table and chairs drying. Each time he would finish one he would tell me who it was for! This one is my favorite, only because of his explanation of it..."This one is ketchup and mustard talking. They are grown-ups, that's why they are so big." So creative!!! I just love this little man so much. He has been my one and only baby for 3 1/2 years and it really scares me to think that he won't be my one and only baby in 2 1/2 weeks. I KNOW I will continue to love Dylan more and more each day and that I will love Saylor just as much, but it is hard to understand how that will happen. Before I had Dylan I never knew how much I would love him. How much I would love being a mommy to a boy. How much I would love painting, shopping, reading, playing, cuddling...with him. Now it amazes me that I will have more love to pour out to a daughter. I can't wait to meet my daughter and be amazed at the love we all have for her!