Life with 3 littles

My dad left the day after we brought Sage home from the hospital. My mom took him to the airport and Chris was at work, so I got my first taste of being a mom of 3...on my own. Good thing it was only for 3 hours.  And I'm pretty sure they watched TV the whole time. 

My mom stayed for a week more and we couldn't have done it without her. Chris didn't have any days off (he probably could have made it work, but he had patients scheduled and it would have messed up the whole office's schedule) and I was dealing with lots of nursing issues and a baby who spits up CONSTANTLY. (That's another story...). I'll spare the men in the room on the details. 

It was just so nice to know that someone was waking up with the boys and taking care of them until I emerged from my room each day. She kept the hampers and kitchen sink empty, played with the boys, cooked meals, made Target runs for pacifiers, dealt with a potty training 3 year old who is stubborn as can be, and kept me sane while my postpartum hormones were going crazy. Too bad Alaska is so far because it'd be lovely to have Grandma pop in again. 

And she still looks like she's no older than 30. 

Since she left, Chris has been my hero. I can't imagine raising kids alone. He does SO MUCH to help out and although I've had stressful moments, having 3 kids hasn't been as bad as I thought it was going to be.  But that is because he is totally picking up the slack and allowing me to focus on Sage. And he's not just turning on the TV either - he reads to them, plays games, takes them to those nasty play places that I'm too mean to take them to, makes them healthy food, makes the effort to get them outside, does art projects with them, etc, etc. I'm pretty certain he'd be a better stay-at-home parent than me. 

Here's a picture overload of the last month with Sage around - she turns one month tomorrow! 

1 day old!

All of their robots - love Clark's face in this one! 

We find toys in the most random places...

When's the last time you had a cashier with no pants on?? 

Preschool Christmas program - Clark was pretty sick that night so he sat down on stage most of the show. And his wiseman costume kept slipping off. Poor guy. 

She is one of those "cuter in person" babies. I swear. :) But she does make some pretty goofy faces!

The sun about to come up over the mountains at noon!  Glad we are now gaining some daylight!

Sage is born!

I went to bed on Friday night (Nov 28th) and was starting to get discouraged that my dad wasn't going to get to see the baby and that I was still pregnant.  I got my hopes up for having another early baby but I was starting to envision being 41 weeks pregnant and it could have brought me to tears. 

But around 4 a.m. I felt my water break while I was lying in bed. That never happened with the boys so it was a new experience for me.  I woke Chris up and we got ready to head to the hospital.  I didn't really want to go because I didn't feel like I was in labor. Nothing was happening.  But they told us to come in anyway to reduce risk of infection. After a few hours in the hospital, I was having very few contractions and not progressing at all.  They gave me some Pitocin to get things going. That stuff is NO JOKE. Once my contractions picked up the baby came pretty quickly. Thank goodness for medication is all I have to say. I'm pretty sure they overdosed me...but I'll forgive them :) 

Sage Christine was born at 2:26 p.m. on November 29th at 38.5 weeks - she weighed 7 pounds, 10 ounces and was 20 1/4 inches long.  She has dark hair and a perfectly shaped little grapefruit- sized head :) 

And now....for the ever so lovely hospital pictures in a poorly lit room, taken on a iPhone. 

Right before leaving for the hospital - I have worn this nasty shirt to all of our children's births. Can't stop now!

Well at least I have my eyes open...

Sage is the tie breaker - 2 grandsons, 2 granddaughters now. 

Getting ready to go home...24 hours and we were out of there!

Waiting on Baby

We spent most of November prepping for the baby to come and trying to find things to do indoors.  There wasn't any snow to play in and I was too lazy to take the boys outside. 

We get pretty awesome sunrises and sunsets almost everyday.  This is probably around 11 AM :)

Clark ran a 3K with Chris and won first place for the "5 and Under" age group - we think he might have been the only one in that age group. :) 

He sits down almost anywhere in the stores to read books.

Grandma and Grandpa Choate came to visit the week of Thanksgiving.  The plan was to come for Thanksgiving and then my dad would leave to go back to work and my mom would stay until the baby came. We thought there was a chance that he could be here for the baby's birth because Isaac came early, but there was no guarantee. I wasn't feeling like doing much, so we hung around the house for the most part. We showed them around town, prepared a Thanksgiving dinner (minus the turkey), celebrated Isaac's birthday, and got a Christmas tree. The highlight of their stay was probably sleeping on air mattresses and having the hot water heater break for 2 days. We got pretty creative with bathing strategies. I almost hugged the repair guy when he fixed it! 

Sorry Mom, but this picture is pretty good. 

Isaac turned 3 on Thanksgiving Day. I was having a few contractions and we were trying to prep a semi-normal Thanksgiving meal, so his birthday was a little under-celebrated.  But he still had fun!

3 candles stuck inside some pie - I'm an awesome party planner.

What he requested for his birthday treat was purple popsicles. Easy enough!

This is about the only Alaskan adventure that we took my parents on. It consisted of taking a drive. Pretty thrilling, I know.  But they got a great view of our valley!

In all my glory the day before I gave birth...

We got the tree up just in time because the baby came the next day! And my dad got to meet her! Perfect timing!