The Andrews Family: 2011

Saturday, December 10, 2011

4 days old

Proud Daddy of 3!

Get ready for lots of pictures of a zonked out baby.

Wide awake. We think he looks a little like Smeegal:)

Levi playing with his brother.

Levi and Oakley.

Sucking on his fingers. He rarely gets the chance to since we keep them covered up most of the time. He keeps scratching his face.

Another little old man shot.

Levi hamming it up with the sunglasses.

He has a very concerned face.

zonked.

How old does Katie look? Wasn't she just the baby?

Taylor is the master burper.

Loving our kiddos.

Leaving the hospital.

Ready to go home...whoops, we forgot socks!

He loves to sleep with his hands covering his face.

Hours old.

With our amazing nurse Tarah! We loved her.

Here's the story, complete with all the details:) Sunday night I had contraction every 10 minutes for 4 hours. I was so tired the next morning and bummed to wake up and still not have Grayson here. The whole next day I didn't feel very great, was crampy and had a really sore back. I took a nap in the morning while the kids watched Charlotte's Web and trashed the house. I also took an afternoon nap too. I went to bed that night still hopeful that a baby could come, but not expecting too much. At 3:30 I woke up and started having contractions every 10 minutes again. I was determined to not let this opportunity pass and got up and starting walking figure 8's downstairs from the kitchen to the playroom. I was talking myself and praying through bible verses I had picked out that dealt with fear. We had really been praying against a spirit of fear for this delivery. Within an hour my contractions were every 3-4 minutes, though still pretty short. Only 30 seconds to a minute. I woke up Taylor and called my parents. My parents thought it was the snow-tree for school and missed the first call:) We ended up getting to the hospital at 6 and I was just praying they wouldn't send me home. I had told Taylor the night before that I didn't feel like I could take another day like the one before. Thankfully, they didn't send me home and I was checked into a room. I decided to wait a bit to get an epidural because walking seems to progress my labor really quickly and makes me feel better. I walked for about an hour and then my Dr. arrived. I was having severe back labor at this point and was super bummed because I knew Grayson was probably in the wrong position just like Levi had been. That resulted in an exhausting labor and 2 1/2 hours of pushing. We decided to get some Fentanol and try a bunch of different position to try and get him to flip around. The good news was he hadn't dropped yet, so there was room for him to turn. At around 9 I was exhausted and more than ready for my epidural. Taylor was so sweet and talked me through sitting so still while they gave it to me. After the epidural, I continued trying different positions until the epidural started pooling on one side and the contractions were becoming painful again. Taylor had just left the room for a minute when my water broke and they checked me and I had quickly progressed to a 9. I sat up because I felt really nauseous and the nurse came running back in because Grayson's heart had dramatically dropped and she jokingly said, "he probably dropped didn't like you sitting on his head." They checked me again and were surprised to find that Grayson had dropped completely in a matter of minutes and we were ready to push. I remember feeling like, OK, now the work begins. We took one practice push and Grayson was crowning. 2 contraction later he was born. It was by far the messiest birth of the 3. The cord was wrapped around Grayson's neck so they had to quickly cut it. When they did it was so highly pressurized that it sprayed blood all over me. Then when he was born he decided it would be a great time to go to the bathroom, again all over himself and me. That was quickly cleaned up, and I got to snuggle this little guy we have been waiting so long to meet.

Time to Push!

Last picture with a big ol' belly!

Welcome Grayson!

Taylor and I were both in shock that the birth could go so easily.

He is such a cute little old man:)

Katie finally getting to meet her brother. When she woke up and Grandma was at her house she ran to her closet and got her big sis shirt on.

She loves her brother so much.

Our 3 kiddos!

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Pagosa

Taylor's parents generously gave us their time-share to use in Pagosa Springs last weekend. 2 sets of people we were supposed to go with ended up not being able to join us, so it was just the four of us. We haven't had that kind of extended time together as a family for quite some time. We ended up having a great time even though we did miss getting to spend some time with friends. The 5 hour drive went way better than we expected. Good attitudes and cheerful hearts. Probably partly due to the candy and movies playing:) We drove up on dry rodes and woke to several inches of snow. By the end of Saturday we probably had around 6-7 inches. It was perfect snow for sledding and snowman making!

Sledding down the hill right outside our condo. Levi and Katie both went down by themselves and loved it.

Seriously one of my all-time favorite pictures ever. Could they be any cuter. She is such a Daddy's girl.

Levi maxed out on sledding and instead contented himsself with smashing all the snow off the bushes.

Snowman building. Taylor is quite the proficient snowman builder (I should have known he would be.) However, the downside to perfectly packed snow spheres is that it is almost impossible to push rocks into the face. After probably 20 minutes they got this far and we called it good.

Swimming in the pool. I even got in my suit and went in for a little. And, no, those pictures did not make the blog cut. Taylor isn't choking Levi, just helping him float on his back like Katie.

Little freezing boy. He was so absorbed in watching a guy swim laps that he wouldn't look at me.

Very excited that she is brave enough to jump in the pool!

We made cookies and watched The Wizard of Oz. That's a pretty good belly shot for you all!

The kids were so excited about the pull-out bed with a great shelf for jumping off of. Somehow we made it through the weekend with no injuries.

Only 4 weeks 3 days until baby is due! Seems like a long time to keep feeling so worn out and such a short time till we are holding this sweet boy!

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Halloween!

Halloween was really fun this year. We spread out some of our activities and were able to see lots of friends and family. Here are the lit pumpkins.

Mickey Mouse

Katie's

My monogram Martha Stewart copycat

Taylor carved this angry birds pumpkin for work. He lost the competition to a Justin Bieber pumpkin. They did win the office decorating competition though. They all had angry birds costumes and had a real interactive game you could play.

Our little pilot. We only spent $10 on Halloween costumes this year. Levi's costume was the cheapest because all I needed was paint for the airplane we made him.

We met up with all the cousins before we headed out to trick or treat. We only were together for about 2 houses and then the big kids went off to get candy at a much faster pace.

Rapunzel and the Aviator, with cousin Ethan in the back.

A better shot at the airplane we made.

Daddy protecting the kiddos from the scary houses. One house had a giant moving skeleton and it moved right when Levi got up to the door. He threw down his candy and ran, literally shaking, back to Daddy.

Meg, Toby, Levi and Katie.