Our Boys, Halloween, & Family Pictures

It's been a fun adjustment to having two children instead of just one, but these two are so cute together and there's so much love between them!

Putting each other to sleep.

"What's going on here?"

Halloween was also a fun adventure with these two. We enjoyed dressing up the family (however simply) and going to various activities.

Halloween Costume #1 - Sheriff

Costume #2 - Fox

Family costume - Mrs. and the boys are foxes and the Mr. is "What does the fox say?"

We also took some family pictures before the craziness of the holidays and moving hits. The first group was taken about a week before Goose was born by my father. The second, a couple weeks after Goose was born by Elizabeth Eck. A huge thank you to both of them for the time they gave us!

Introducing "Goose"

And so Baby #2 enters our family! What a handsome little man! He even has a matching stuffed giraffe to remember Aunt Jenn by while she's away serving a mission.

For those of you who are familiar with Baby #1's birth story, this birth was quite similar actually. 3 days before his official "due date," my water again began leaking in the wee hours of the morning. Since I was awake at 3:30 am due to the continuing need to use the restroom, but aware because of my experience with Baby #1's delivery that a water leak with no contractions was not an immediate problem, I started some laundry and tried to busy myself. I wanted to wait until a more reasonable time in the morning to wake the Mr. and call the sitter for Mickey so that everyone could begin this new transition with as much sleep as possible. We still started the morning earlier than normal, and let Mickey get up the first time he awoke instead of sending him back to bed. After breakfast, we called our sitter (4 times actually) and couldn't reach her (when she called back later she said she was swimming... right... jk Jess!). Around 8 am, Jess arrived and we drove to the hospital without stopping at the doctor's this time. Again, a much more calm ride than we anticipated. 

The hospital then had to do a ton of paperwork and test me to see if my water broke. Then we waited. The results of the test came back uncertain (one was negative, the other positive) so the doctor had to check any way to determine that I did indeed have a high leak (after which he broke the rest of the bag of waters) - still no contractions. I guess my body doesn't know how to go into labor and I had to be induced again. This time it took all the way until about Noon to get me started on Pitocin since the hospital pharmacy took a while to get it up to us, and when they did Baby #2 kept teasing the nurse by doing something concerning every time she left the room (and then went right back to normal when she returned). Nevertheless, once the Pitocin and epidural got going - and they woke me up from passing out...and put me on oxygen...and waited another 10-15 minutes for my blood pressure to increase from a concerning 50/30 (normal response for me with needles actually) - the labor was only 4 hours long, including the 15 minutes of pushing. Though Baby #2 required forceps to turn him (hooray for the epidural!), he was born a healthy 8 lbs. 10 oz. and 21 inches long!

This little one was given his nickname by his older brother when Mickey first came in and we asked him who the baby was he responded, "baby brother," "what's his name?" "it's Goose!" So there you have it, here's Goose:

Birthday Boy!

"One year older and wiser too!" ... Especially our not-so-little Mickey. We threw a party for him nursery style since he missed his wonderful nursery in NY a ton (thank you Sister Taylor for making it awesome - he asked for it every Sunday for a while until he realized the nursery we took him to wasn't yours). That means play dough, songs, story time, toys, bubbles, and flashlights of course! Mickey loved it! (For those of you new to this blog - Mickey is the nickname we gave our oldest boy for the purposes of this blog. Named after Mickey Mouse for his general friendliness with all and happy demeanor).

Here is some of the decor. Balloons were a must and ended up on the floor as a great toy.

We wrapped an item symbolizing each activity and placed them in a larger bag. Then Mickey had the opportunity to open a lot of "presents" at a no-present party.

We're not fans of cake in this household (that's why our wedding "cake" was a little less traditional) so we opted to have ice cream for Mickey's cake. It worked out quite nicely to have the ice cream already scooped into muffin cups (portion control and quicker for the littles to get to). We topped each cup with a picture of one of Mickey's favorite things.

The ice cream cake & topper.

What a fun party that was! We enjoyed having all our friends over to celebrate with us.

The Return

 Since returning, we have had many adventures as we've readjusted to the student life. First and foremost, we've re-established that Cosmo is awesome (to the point that Mickey occasionally cries when he's tired and I tell him he can't watch a YouTube clip of Cosmo...)

 Babysitting dates with Auntie Jess

 

 

 Visiting Discovery Park with friends. I was very pleasantly surprised to find that Mickey loved the musical instruments in the park and quickly picked up the tune to "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" when I started playing the notes. (Smart boy)

 Watching football with daddy.

 More importantly, going to his first football game with Grandpa and Auntie Jess. He was quite scared of all the loud noise at first, but by the second half he was excitedly into the game. Almost daily, Mickey will recount his experience "at football game with Grandpa" and recite his favorite phrases: "BYU Cougars!" "Another Cougar first down" "inerception." Or he'll ask me to do the rah-rah (rah-rah rah-rah-rah rah-rah rah-rah-rah, gooooo Cougars!).

 Of course, one can't end the day of a football game without a manly dinner. :)

Visiting the local museum. Mickey's favorites are the hippopotamus (yes, he can say that by the way), and the bears. He asks to go with Grandma frequently. This picture, however, is for Aunt Jenn (who is on her mission).

 Visiting Cabela's with Grandpa is also a must. This little one found a love for tents and kept climbing onto the cot and pretending to be asleep.

 ...and shooting at Cabela's, of course! It was SO hard to leave!

 

 We also found an absolute favorite splash pad in Springville. Perfect for our little one - he could have stayed there all day, and he normally isn't all that interested in splash pads. (By the way, Utah is THE best for a variety of splash pads in a close proximity).

That's all the updates for now! The weather is cooling down and the leaves are starting to change color. Hopefully our next update will include another addition to the family! (Wish us luck!)

Later NY

I think that sums up our adventures in New York! It was a fun summer adventure and we will miss the friends we made for sure!... To include the following, of course: Terri, Howard, Chris, Carol, Fae, Jennifer, "thumbs-up" John, the Marosticas, the Adams, the Linquists, and of course our special cafeteria friend:

Laurie

We had a safe trip back and luckily things worked out so we could see our 1-week-old niece, Mickey and I got to fly home, and the Mr. got to spend quality time with his mom driving back. Thanks again to everyone who helped us out on the trip as well as those who housed us in our homeless period! We have a new apartment now, are getting into a good routine, and looking for jobs post-December. Wish us luck!

Oh, and for those who haven't heard yet, we're due to have another baby this month and we found out that it is.......