Simply because....

Birth stories are such an amazing thing to read about.... and if you've been around awhile you've probably already read this, maybe even twice!

Without further ado.....

(sorry its so long)

Today, 3 years ago, It was a Saturday and we didnt have much on our agenda. We were having a get together with all the Roses around lunch time and then after that. we HAD to go to town so Nat could get fitted for a tux for a wedding he was in. He had put it off way to long. We had talked about not going to the family get together and just going to town but Sharon REALLY wanted us to go for some odd reason so we just went ahead and went.

So we get to the cabin and walk in (we walked in with Nats mom, dad, and brother and his brothers famiy) and we hear SURPRISE!! What?? surprise ..who in the heck would need a surprise party right now... thats weird.. oh well....

WAIT!! there is baby stuff everywhere, there is a baby cake, baby gifts... this is a surprise for us!! I was soooooo surprised.. I am a pretty sneaky person and it is very hard to surprise me but they got me! So after I realized this party was for Us and our baby, I was rather relieved because my other shower was not till Aug 2 (i think) and I was quite nervous cuz we had absolutely nothing ready for this baby and I was due Aug. 12. So we did the shower thing, played a few games, ate cake, and opened gifts... and hallelujah!! We got a crib, dresser and changing table set. We were sooo happy! We got lots of other great stuff but that was one thing that we desperately needed and I was so relieved.

We left and headed for town and hurried back so we could get all of our goodies set up and ready. Nat went in "the babies room" (as we called it, cuz remember, we didnt know what we were having) and shut the door and informed me not to come in till he said. So I stayed out and kinda cleaned and straightened up, there was stuff EVERYWHERE. Our house was a disaster just from all the goodies everywhere and kinda startin to get stuff ready to go the hospital. I had sat down and made a list of stuff I would need to pack and stuff Nat would need and of course, all the stuff for the baby for the hospital.... after all, I still had pretty much 4 weeks to go. But I planned to pack it all up the next day (sunday) We had also planned to go to church on Sunday and then go to the hospital to register so that when I actually did go into labor, I didnt have to sit and register everything while in labor.

This is what the babies room looked like at this point

Around 11:30 pm, Nat finally comes out and tells me to close my eyes and come in the room. ....

It looked so wonderful!!

and I pretty much looked like this...

humongous... swollen and swollen and not so wonderful...

So we eventually head to bed, house still a crazy mess. We had a small argument about whether or not we would go to church the next day (I know, I know). Nat was very tired and wanted to sleep in. I on the other hand wanted to go to church. We settled with if we wake up in time to go we will go, if not , we would just stay home and head to town later to register at the hospital.

....2:00 in the mornin, were sleepin and I am rudly awakened by a strange feeling. I was wetting the bed!! So I sat up and tried to hold it so I could make it to the bathroom but I couldnt hold it in... Im thinkin ok... what is my problem this is so weird. So I run to the bathroom and I think that I am peeing all over the place, at this point it was gushing out and I am thinking that my bladder exploded and Im gonna die. Once I get to the bathroom and fluid does not stop flowing Im like OMG... what if my water broke?? No way. I still had 4 weeks.. Im not even ready!! At this point, I am standing on a towel trying to figure out how to walk back to the bedroom to wake Nat up without making a horrible mess. I stayed on the towel and kinda slid walked my way to the bedroom. Here is how our conversation went:

Me: Nathaniel.

Nat: *snoring away*

Me: Babe... I need you to wake up...... NATHANIEL!!!

Nat: huh??

Me. I think my water broke (looking back now I laugh at the fact that I said I THOUGHT my water broke)

Nat: huh??

Me: I THINK MY WATER BROKE... CAN YOU WAKE UP AND HELP ME???

Nat: huh..

At this point I walk back to the bathroom a little frustrated and eventually back to try to wake him again

Me: (yelling) BABE. MY WATER BROKE. I NEED YOU TO WAKE UP SO WE CAN GET READY AND HEAD TO THE HOSPITAL

Nat sits up and stares at me with a look on his face like why on earth are you waking me up???

Nat: I told you I didnt want to go to church. Why are you waking me up?

Me: MY WATER BROKE. I DONT WANNA GO TO CHURCH. I WANNA GO TO THE HOSPITAL

Nat sits there staring at me with a blank stare for about 2 more minutes I then inform him that he needs to wake up and hear what I am saying.

Nat: (20 minutes later... not even kidding) Your water broke???

Me: YES!! I NEED YOU TO GET UP AND GET OUR STUFF PACKED CUZ I CANT MOVE OFF THIS TOWEL.

Nat got a big grin on his face then went into freak out mode (which I had already been in) Gets outta bed throws his clothes on and yells to me "Are you sure your water broke" " Ya Im pretty sure... either that or my bladder exploded" At this point we are both so super excited and freaking out. I am standing in the bathroom on this towel, packing a few toiletries for us and yelling at Nat what to pack. He is running back and forth from our room to the babies room to the dryer to the babies room as I am thinking of stuff yelling it to him. That is teamwork!! :) I will have everyone know that he packed everything we needed!! He did a great job!

ok so Im in full blown labor. Water is broke, contractions have started and are getting stronger and closer and it does not feel pleasant. Nat grabbed all of our bags and grabbed the car seat throws it all in the car and comes back in to help me out the door and into the car. An hour after my water broke, we were on our way to the hospital. Nat drove 90-100 MPH all the way to and through town. Ran a few stop sigs and red lights. In the mean time, he is timing my contractions and letting me squeeze the blood outta his hand and in between contractions, I am trying to call my mom and let her know it was time and then we called his mom to tell her we were on our way to the hospital (she works in the Nursery at shannon and just so happened to be working that night) We get to the hospital (I am STILL leaking fluids at this point) and we still have to go by registration. That took an eternity.

Finally get up to L & D and get in a room and I am already 4 cm. YA! That was quick and easy.. gimme an epidural and I'll have this baby out in no time!

....Uh sorry... your baby is breech... we'll have to do a c section. So im thinkin ok. Thats fine. Just please give me some medicine. An hour and a half passes as they get stuff ready and get the Dr ready to go. At one time the Dr. comes in and tells me what I can expect and what he will be doing. Then the Anesthesiologist comes in and tells me all that he is gonna do and I can tell you NOTHING as to what they told me. I remember at one point telling my mom I thought she was stupid for doing this 5 times all natural.

Finally, at about 4 somethin I guess (I really have no earthly idea... thats a guess) they come in and wheel me back. Give me that spinal and man... the world was a wonderful place! I layed there and my mind is going a million miles an hour. I remember laying there thinking. I am sooo tired and Its 4 In the morning and this baby is coming. I am going to start this out being super tired and stay super tired cuz newborns dont sleep, I had a little moment of sadness. Then Nat came in so excited and so nervous and he sat there by me. I was shaking like a leaf (just a symptom of the spinal I heard) and I couldnt stop. He was very worried about me and the anesthesiologist told him that I was ok. and that it was normal. After that, I just remember a bunch of pulling and I felt like I was movin all over the place.

Then I heard it. That first cry. mmmh that is the best sound on the face of the earth. I thought to myself... that is my baby! I couldnt believe it! IT was here... oh ya... it... what is it??

So I asked Nat if it was a boy or a girl and he just watched everything they did to her and totally ignored my question. Some time passed and Im like waiting for someone to say ITS A BOY... or ITS A GIRL! Then Finally like 8 hours later the anesthesiologist leaned over and told me it was a girl. He had heard me ask Nat. I later learned that Nat wanted to bring her over to me and tell me it was a girl as I got to see her for the first time.

There she was. 6lb. 1 oz. 18 in long. Born at 5:01 in the mornin. Oh she was so beautiful. Then they took her away and Nat left with her and I was all alone. Finally They wheeled me back to a room and I got to hold her for the first time. She was so peaceful and beautiful and best of all, she was mine. She was goin home with me and was gonna be my daughter forever. We stayed in the hospital for 5 days with her cuz she had jaundice. I was dis- charged 2 days after she was born so at one point, we left her in the nursery and went shopping. Yes, 4 days after I had a c- section, I was at target. But we needed a few things for when we got home and I really wanted to get out of that hospital room. I walked around with such pride. I had a baby. My lifetime dream has come true! I look back now and I love the feeling that I felt while in the hospital and walking around target. What a great memory!

Now, she is 3 years old and she is the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to us. This time with her has been the most wonderful years of our lives. From our battle with brestfeeding, and then our battle with formulas and vomiting, it seemed like it would never end. Then the fact that she was so terribly tongue tied. Ill never forget the day we got her tongue clipped. It was the most terrifying horrible day of my life. Then there was the flu, ear infections, RSV, pneumonia, torticollis. Then the small milestones like sitting up and crawling and waving, seeing her smile for the first time, and hearing her coos for the first time, feeding her baby food, then feeding her real food. Seeing how much she enjoys food. Starting to pull up and take steps around the couch To the fun memories we will always have with our little girl. Our trips to Austin, our trip to the zoo, swimming with her for the first time, Our trip to Abilene, Our trip to New Mexico.... uhh I could go on forever, but I wont cuz Im sure Its plenty long enough.

We love you Madelynn!

Happy Birthday!

Cant wait to see you grow up into a beautiful little girl!

Thank you God for blessing us with a perfect, healthy little girl. May she grow up and love you with all of her heart and seek you all the days of her life! Bless her.

Answered prayers.

Welp, as I've stated before, were leaving for 8 days to go on a cruise all alone! I am so, so, so, so, SO excited to spend A LOT of alone time with my honey. But.... at the same time I'll be leaving behind 3 pretty large chunks of my heart and soul, and although its a much needed/wanted/welcomed break for the both of us, I've still had to come to some pretty serious terms about leaving them for more than a week.... while we go out of the country. So I've turned to the only One who will give me the strength to do such a thing.... and as silly as this may sound, I feel like He threw a pretty hard week at us so we would be more than ready to go.

So, obviously, its been a bad week....... and strangely, I'm a bit thankful cuz I feel like I'm more than ready to head out for some mama and daddy time.

Nat's still goin hard at working sun up to sun down... and then some. The girls have been fighting constantly and have just been so unpleasant to be around. We've had a nasty yucky 24 hour virus hit us x4... and I think were finally over it. I feel like we haven't had one ounce of joy or happiness in our home this week!

.... I'd say the most exciting thing about our week would be the little somethin somethin that showed up in our back yard today.... The dogs were going BIZERK-O outside, I mean CRAZY!... they'll bark if a car drives up, or if they see a little something... but this was a deep down nasty growly bark that I heard all the way in the living room. I immediately knew something was out there that absolutely shouldn't be!! My first thought was a rattlesnake... then they kept going nuts so then I thought coyote! I was out there trying to see what they were barking at, staying close to the back door just in case it was something that might wanna eat me.... and then out walks a big white COW!

We saw a couple days ago that the cows had trampled the fence over and had come over to our pasture, which we didn't mind, except for the fact that there's no cattle guard or gate to stop them from going out our front entrance, down to the highway... but they're not our cows... so, whadya do?? This 1 little white cow has always steered closer to our house... and today she made the leap to our front yard and found Nat's lush green grass.... luckily Nat was close to the house so I called him to come home and, being the Hero that he is for me all the time, he got bessy back to her other cow buddies.

...and 4 seconds after she was re-united with her cow buddies (which was really sweet BTW... she moo-ed, they moo-ed... she moo-ed, they moo-ed, they all ran to her and had this sweet little reunion) she was back in our front yard eating the grass again... and my hero was gone back to work so I rounded up my 3 lil buckeroo's and we hopped in the suburban and ran her back over to her home... then it got dark and I haven't been out to see if she came back or not.

The End.

Watch out world

I'm pretty sure I'm the LAST person on the planet to get a smart phone.... not only did I get a smart phone, but I got an iPhone! Ya, I'm pretty cool now! :)

No, not really... I was never really to hip on the whole smart phone thing... I never really thought I needed one.... and I still don't need one but its fun anyways! My other phone was slowly but surely losing its life. So.... I for sure wanted to get something more reliable before we go on our cruise.... and I'm really enjoying it!

ANYWAYS....

My honey, baby love, sugar lips, baby daddy, lover boy turned another year older.... it was kinda stinky cuz he worked alllll day long. Like from sun up to waaaay past sun down! He did get to come home around 9 and eat his birthday dinner and some birthday cake before he went back out to work!... and I hate to say that we haven't seen him much since then! He's been so busy. Seems like with his job, when it rains, it POURS.... and POURS.... and POURS some more! I feel bad for him.... We all get the brunt of his excessive working and it takes us a bit to recover from daddy's crazy work schedule when it gets like this.

Oh look at me.... spilling a little part of my guts at the given moment when I should be saying good, happy things about the birthday boy.

I think he had a good evening when he was home. I just love him to pieces and I'm soooo grateful that he was born 24 years ago and he grew up to the great man he is today.... and that he wanted to marry me and be with me forever! I'm just thankful for him PERIOD!

... don't you just love my gift bag of choice?!?!

We only own baby and wedding gift bags in our house.

think it would have been wise of me to use a wedding/lovey gift bag??

that would be to simple for me.

...and cake balls.... ooooh cake balls. Oh lordy me, cake balls. I love them.... and I quite possibly made them more for myself than for my honey. Is that bad?!?! In all honesty, I just knew he would love the cake so much more!

and add another point for me on surprising him! I know, I say it every holiday, every birthday, every fathers day... but he's boring, and he doesn't LOVE anything so he's hard to buy anything for!

He had mentioned a long time ago that he wanted some of those Vibram 5 finger shoes. I wasn't so sure he would love them but I went with it anyways... and he really does love them!!! and they'll be perfect for the cruise... where he was having a hard time coming to terms with not being able to wear his boots.

and another pretty exciting thing for him is that he got a new work truck. Like a brand spankin new 2011 truck! You tend to feel pretty dang blessed for someone to drive up in your driveway with a new truck and hands you the keys for you to do anything you want/need to do with it other than work. Its so much roomier than his other truck so the kids' car seats fit so much better and they have so much more leg space. I had to laugh when we were checkin it out and Nathaniel got so excited that his new truck had car seat latches. :) Like seriously, who gets excited that his work truck has latches. Mmm... another reason I love him.

Happy Birthday Baby Love!!

Go bubba, Go!

His determination is paying off!!

Looky, looky.

Blogging twice today! Here I was hurriedly trying to finish up the post about Stetson cuz I didn't know when I would have the time to sit down again...

...and....

Nat's out working, I'm finished with my stuff I needed to finish up for the Birthday boy and I gotta tell you all about our new obsession.

Well.... mine and Madelynn's anyway.

Nat and I have talked and talked and talked about getting a pool and we decided we would wait and see if we could get one on sale after summers over.... but we just couldn't resist!!!

and I'm oh so glad!! I just LOVE to swim. I would probably stay in a pool all day if I could!

Stetson is not a huge fan as if yet.... BUT all the times we've tried to let him swim, its been nap time. So I'm thinking he'll love it when he's not tired.

and Payton... well she HATES it! She is extremely unsure and panicky... If something's not sturdy, and she has no control over it she goes into freak out mode. I think it will be a lot easier when Nat and I can get in with her and 1 of us can focus solely on her.

Miss Priss is a WATER BUG if I ever seen one! She could seriously stay in the pool all day with me! She does fantastic with her floaties on.... but she is still so so without them on.

Its here

Well, actually its here and passed... and the countdown starts a tickin!

My little dude turned 11 months!!

I feel like we've been going a million miles an hour and I don't even know whats gone on in our life cuz its all a blur!

and there's not much sign of it slowin down!! Guess thats how our summer is gonna be...

and I'm OK with that!!!

I've been busy, busy, busy with planning, buying, doing, making, baking cuz were fixin to kick it in high gear!!! Tomorrow starts our month and a half long Rose Birthday celebration.... and were merely less than 2 weeks away from going on our cruise! I feel like my head is spinning... and our bank account is spinning even faster! Blach.... 4 birthdays, 1 BIG Birthday Party and 1 loooong cruise.

Guess this is why I've been a bad blogger/picture taker lately??

Anyways.... back to the fact of the matter.

All I can report for the little mister is:

-He is O-fficially off formula! (Wahooo!!!) and on cow's milk.

-He is about 2 seconds away from being a full time walker. I know I've said it before, but I have never in my life seen someone with such determination! Half his problem is he thinks he needs to get a running start right off the bat. Its hilarious cuz he like literally runs a few steps and just crashes... then he's up again, trying it all over again!

-He still eats like there is no tomorrow... and I've not quite figured out a good way to deal with this. The second he takes his last bite of food on his tray he is screaming and growling for more food... and if you've ever been fortunate enough to hear his poor, starving cries for food.... you'll know its rather un pleasant. Therefore eating out is embarrassing.

-Has 4 teeth... and If I had to take a wild guess by his fussiness and poop... there are some more on the way in! Haven't checked yet tho.

-I love, love, love him... and he's still the cutest little baby boy I ever saw!

.... oh and he LOVES me too. :)

Sweet summertime.

Hello?!?! Can it just be summer for-e-ver??? My whole entire family with nothing to do all summer.... I'll take it! My sisters came and stayed with us for 8 days.... this was after my parents came and visited for a few days. I'm gonna have a big 'ol reality check when August rolls around. Me and the kids headed to TX for Jedd's 2nd birthday and we had a really good time!

Although I really missed the man in my life.

Its always nice to escape reality and have some of moms good cooking and have help everywhere I turn. The girls stayed back with their nana and papa for a couple days and I know they're having a blast! They really didn't care that I was walking out the door and gonna drive 4 hours away from them. Me, on the other hand... well lets just say i've gotten used to living 4 hours away from help and grandparents... so I've gotten used to having my babies around me 24/7... so I'm not used to leaving them for any amount of time.

Oh well, good practice for the cruise.... when I'll leave them for 8 days...... 16 days till I walk out the door and leave them for 8 days.

I can do this.

I can do this.

I can do this.

I'm sure everyone is sick of me talking about leaving my kids for 8 days... and I'm sure my poor in-laws will get sick of me talking about missing my kids those 8 days.

I just love them so dearly.

Hope everyone had a great 4th of July!! I got the privilege of trying to watch fireworks while I drove home. Ever tried to watch fireworks while you drive??? I wouldn't advise it.