lindsay is here!

my aj's birthday

i did not forget about posting on here about aj's birthday like i did for ry. we were in florida for his birthday - at disney - and things have been so crazy around here since we got back!!
all my pictures of him as a baby are on my dead computer, so i only have a couple that my sis just emailed me!

anyawys...my aj. really seems like just yesterday that i found out i was pregnant with him. excited doesn't come close to describing my emotions! it was a rough pregnancy, and i was sick almost the whole time. my due date was may 4th. april 20th i went into the doctors for a scheduled appointment at 10:00. my mom was with me, and i was seeing my BELOVED doctor burleson. after weighing me, she said that i had lost 2 pounds since the previous week. she said that she was going to give me an ultrasound and make sure that there enough amniotic fluid. i remember watching the ultrasound machine...it was so cute. he kept sticking his tongue out! my doctor was laughing and kept saying "look at that tongue!!" then she said to me, why don't you call your husband, we're gonna have a baby today!
i was so surprised,and very excited. i called adam, and he came right to the hospital. i also called my sister erika - i think i called, or maybe my mom did...can't exactly remember. she was living in ny at the time, but she packed up her 3 kids and started making the 5 hour trip to come! the doctor hooked me up to pitocin and the contractions came. then she broke my water. things were going pretty good and at about 4:00 i decided to get an epidural. it didn't work. so they tried it again about an hour later. much better.
at around 5:30 i had started pushing, and things were starting to get a little scary. aj's heartbeat was dropping and erika and my mom said that they were getting nervous. i honestly felt so 100% confident in my doctor, i don't even remember feeling nervous. i was tired, and i had to keep switching positions in hopes that it would help the heart rate. after about an hour, hour and a half my doctor said "we're gonna have to do a c-section" i started crying. i hadn't planned ahead how i would feel if this happened, and i was not ready. they started pushing me down the hall, and i remember that my mom, sister and adam all had to stay back while i was run down the hall. i was starting to freak out a little. i kept saying...where is adam, where is adam. my doctor said "you can't think about that right now, you need to focus on pushing".
it was about this time that my dad had called the church, where there were a bunch of people there for awana. he said to pray and everyone stopped and prayed.
i was in the OR, and i was getting prepped for the c-section. all i remember was bright lights, and what felt like a million people standing over me. my doctor was amazing, and she said...ok, try one more push. that was it...aj was here!! i don't remember a ton after that, don't really remember going back into my room, or seeing adam or my mom or sister. i didn't even see aj at all for probably 3 hours later. my sweet parents stayed with me for a while, and then went home to let me and adam be alone with our baby. my mom had been there all day, and hadn't even gotten to see aj!
when i finally saw him for the first time, i was exhausted and so incredibly happy.
the first night we brought him home, i did not sleep for one second. i held him the entire night! i remember him crying, and i was like...what do i do?? how do you get a baby to stop crying? i just loved holding him, and everyone that is close to me knows that i held him almost all the time for as long as i could...i held him to get him to sleep every nap and every night! then he would sleep in bed with me and adam in the middle of the night almost every night. i really didn't care what everyone else said about rules or whatever. i was just in love, and me and adam loved every second of it. aj is now EIGHT years old, and i can hardly believe it! he is amazing. he accepted Jesus as his Savior when he was 4. he is so incredibly sensitive to God, and to others. he cares so much about everyone else's feelings. he is an amazing athlete - good at EVERY sport. he loves video games, he loves shopping with his mom (always has :)) he has always been a big kid, but he is still my baby. he loves to snuggle buggle with me, and i love that. everyone loves aj and i feel so blessed that God has given me such an amazing little boy...actually he is almost as tall as me, so i guess he's not so little anymore. but - he will always be my baby!

disney

here are a few pics from disney! we had a blast, and the kids were loving every second of it!! aj wore a pin that said happy birthday aj, so everyone was saying HAPPY BIRTHDAY AJ!! he loved that!! it was perfect weather and we had a perfectly wonderful magical day! thank you bryce!! :)

Florida trip

we had a great vacation last week and it would take all day and half the night to write about the whole thing. some highlights were...DISNEYYYYYYY on aj's birthday, spending the night at bryce's, (we got treated like royalty!!) seeing adam's family, going to sunsplash with karen and robin, going to the beach with adam's family, going to the kids museum with adam's mom and sister, going mini-golfing with adam's dad and sister (i came in LAST - golf is not my thing, right robin??) going shopping, and watching "i didn't know i was pregnant" :) thought i would share some pictures.

newark new jersey

we have been very excited about our vacation to see adam's family for quite a while. my parents dropped us off at the manchester airport at around 3 on tuesday. we were scheduled to arrive in ft. myers at 11:20. we knew it would be kind of a long trip, but in real life, had no idea how long it would really be.
it started off with the lady at the desk checking in our bag, and forgetting to give us our boarding passes. she had handed me something, and then handed adam something, so we both assumed that the other had it. not a good start. the screens said that everything was on time, so we just went to our gate to wait. it was supposed to leave at 4:15. at 4:17, we had not even started boarding, but the screens still said - on time!! weird. we knew that things would be tight, because we had a connecting flight in newark. we were supposed to have about a 2 hour layover, so we thought we could possibly still make it.
the boys did good at the airport, and played a little football with daddy. we were in pretty good moods about the whole thing. we arrived in newark, which was PACKED and it was raining. we got off and rushed to the screens to see that our connecting flight had already left for ft. myers. at this point, there was not a whole lot of other options for us. we found a flight going into tampa (3 hours from adam's parents) that was scheduled to leave at 9:05. we talked to the lady at the desk and she said she would call over to th at gate to see if they would hold the flight for us. while on the phone, and with adam asking twice to be positive, she again confirmed that they would indeed hold the flight. we were at gate A and needed to be at gate C which involved taking a bus over to the other gate. another problem with continental airlines, is that they charge you 15 bucks for every bag you check. so we only checked one, and were carrying on the rest.
we had the boys hold their blankets, pillows and each others hands, and adam went in front, i went in back, and we RAN alllll the way to our next gate. i mean RAN. fast. i was pulling one suitcase on wheels, and carrying 2 other bags. adam was doing the same. we finally got to our gate at 9:08. the guy behind the desk said (with no sympathy or care in the world) "this plane just left" WHAT?!?!?!?!?! we were beside ourselves!!! i could not believe it! there were no other flights going out at all until the next morning, and we could not believe it!! i started praying for every single person i saw around me, because i was like...why in the world would God want us to get stuck here? i will pray for everyone i see, maybe this girl next to me just needed some prayer! :)
adam went to find out when the next flight was leaving (6:29am) and we went to that gate. got the boys on the floor, and put their little pillows down, and i layed down in between them and sang to them, and told them a couple of stories. they were out pretty fast. me and adam didn't sleep much, the floor was pretty hard, and it was really cold. and we weren't sure that all of our stuff would be safe if we fell asleep!! but, the morning came, and i used the food vouchers we got to buy one of everything on the dunkin donuts menu! the flight that morning was fine, and we got into ft. myers safely. it's funny how these things happen, but it all worked out. one amazing thing, was when we first got to newark, i had put everything down to wait for adam. when he came back, we grabbed everything and started running...a girl came up to me and said "excuse me, is this your bag?" it was our laptop bag!!! it had all our passports in it, adams wallet, our laptop, our tickets - EVERYTHING we needed! does God take care of us or what??
so i will be blogging a little at a time, so as not to bore everyone. here are a few pictures of our airport experience!!

new bunny

we bought the boys a bunny and surprised them this morning! they named him floppy - he is the cutest little thing!! a good friend from church made this amaaazing cage for him - and it is perfect!! (adam says that he thinks the bunny was more for me than the boys :) )

riley has a new christmas wish...