Brayden and Goliath

Brayden learned about David and Goliath a few weeks ago at church.  His teachers are so great to help the kids learn and visualize just how big Goliath was.  (9 ft, 9 inches to be exact!)

Preston is 4

I can't believe this boy is already 4.  He brings so much life and laughter to our family.  Preston is very passionate.  He is either all or nothing.  You definitely know how Preston feels at any given time. 

As I said in Logan's birthday post, I am going to recount each of the boys' actual birth days this year to have record of it.  My memory has already faded a lot, but I will always remember the days each of my children were born very vividly.

I don't really know quite where to begin with Preston's birth story.  I thought I was in labor and was sent home from the hospital twice.  I felt like a total idiot.  I had already had two kids, it wasn't like I didn't know what labor felt like and was just overreacting to each little pain.  I thought Preston would never come.  Brayden and Logan were both born 3 days early, so that's what I expected with Preston, until I started having contractions two weeks early.  Then all I could think about getting the baby out of my belly and into my arms.

The last time I was sent home from the hospital was on a Sunday morning.  I was told to go home and get some rest.  Ya right!  Even if I could get comfortable enough to sleep, how was I supposed to sleep with all the emotions I had going on in my head?  We still went to church and did our normal Sunday stuff.  On Monday morning we had a few errands to run.  At one store I just ran in to return something while Chris waited in the car with the boys.  When I was walking to the register, I got a contraction so bad I had to stop walking, bend over a little and breathe.  It hurt bad!  But then that was it.  For four hours.....

At 2 pm I started having very painful contractions, but they were still about 10-15 minutes apart.  We were playing video games and I just stopped when necessary to breathe and whine.  Chris asked a few times if I thought we needed to go to the hospital, but I refused to go to the hospital just to be sent home again, so I was determined to tough it out as long as possible to make sure it was really labor.  At about 4 or so, I suggested maybe we should go for a walk to see if the contractions would really get going or not.  And boy oh boy, did they!  We walked about half a block before my contractions were coming every 1-2 minutes.  I must've been such a sight to see, waddling down the street about 20 feet behind Chris and the boys and stopping every minute or two to breathe.  I don't know how, but we made it home from the walk and my contractions were still coming hard and close together.  My mom was going to be the one watching the boys, so we called her and she came over by about 5:30.  When we got to the hospital about 6, they admitted me almost right away after just a few minutes of observation because they could tell I was definitely in a lot of pain and in "real" labor.  I couldn't even put on the hospital gown without stopping every minute to get through a contraction. 

Once I got upstairs to my L/D room, they started me right away on the IV for my epidural.  If having two kids had taught me anything, it was that I definitely wanted an epidural again!  I'm not a tough mama.  There was kind of a scary moment with the epidural.  If you've never had one, they always tell you all the risks and you have to sign this waiver saying you won't sue them if you become paralyzed or something.  Kind of scary stuff, but it's the lesser of two evils at that point!  Well, when the anesthesiologist was putting my epidural in, my legs started stinging really bad and I had a metal-y taste in my mouth.  I just remember saying "ow, ow, ow" and he said "what, a contraction or the epidural?"  I told him that my legs were hurting really bad and so he took it out and started over.  The second time it went in just fine, praise God.  We spent the next 4 or so hours just watching TV and discussing middle names (Chris still hadn't chosen the middle name, which was stressing me out big time!).  I think Chris had dinner in there somewhere too.  Right about 11 pm I started feeling the need to push, so the doctors came in and got everything ready.  I remember having a student doctor that kept coming in to check on me throughout and I only saw the "real" doctor when it was time to deliver.  When I had already been pushing a few times, I remember the "real" doctor telling the student doctor to turn Preston around on my next contraction so he was face down, and he was born about 3 minutes after that.  I pushed for about 20 minutes total and Preston Carter Rozelle was born at 11:31 pm. 

 (And for those who were wondering, Sawyer was the other middle name we were deciding between.)



Proud big brother Brayden



Proud big brother Logan

Happy birthday Preston, hope your next year of life is fantastic for you!

At the park

A few days ago, we went to the park with my mom, grandma, sister and niece.  Brayden was at basketball camp, so he couldn't come.  It was a fun time!  I only got pictures of the playground, but they also had fun riding the train, playing in the little river, eating lunch, running around and going to the petting zoo. 

Water table

Since Ashten had her ear surgery in May, she isn't allowed to go swimming for a month.  And she isn't allowed to go in any natural bodies of water till the tubes are gone, so no rivers, oceans, lakes, etc.  That'll be a tough one if we go camping, otherwise, hopefully not too hard to avoid. 

Anyway, we've still gotta do something on these hot days when the temps are in the 90's.  So I get out the water table and let her go to town.  There's no chance her ears will get water in them, but she still gets the coooling effect of being all wet. 

Breakfast buddies

Ashten loves to sit with Chris at breakfast and "help" read the paper.  Good thing she's cute, I don't think Chris would tolerate just anyone sitting on his lap, eating his cereal and messing up his paper every morning.

Fire muster

Last weekend, we took the kids to the Fire Muster.  I don't really know what a "muster" is, but there were a lot of different kinds of fire trucks and booths with free stuff and stuff like that.  The boys had a lot of fun, but I think their favorite part was definitely getting a free stuffed animal!  They were giving out stuffed animals by the ambulance and  then you pretended like your animal was hurt and took care of it.  My camera died about halfway through, but at least I got pictures of them on the fire trucks!

Bakugan battles

The boys are really into Bakugan lately.  They know all the "lingo" and have fun battling each other. 

Summer Boredom Jar

We were probably not even 8 hours into summer vacation (give or take 7 hours!) and I was hearing "mom, I'm borrrred!!!"  My response?  "GO OUTSIDE AND PLAY!!!"  Well that worked for maybe 3 days and then I heard "mom, I'm borrrrred and going outside is boring too!"  You'd think they enjoy the break from doing something everyday and getting to do whatever they want whenever they want, but apparently, not so much.

Enter the Summer Boredom Jar (DUM, DUM, DUM....).  (And before you get the idea that I'm super creative and a fun mom like that, let me tell you that I got the idea and adapted it from here).  Actually making the jar was a fun activity in itself.  I asked the boys for fun ideas of things they could do around the house over the summer.  Then I printed them out and put Brayden and Logan to work cutting them into strips.  Then we put all the paper in a jar.  Brayden suggested using a bandana so that the person choosing couldn't see what they were picking.  He also suggested taping a baggie to the side so we could put the activities we already did in there and not repeat them.  Good additions I thought!

So after the jar was complete, they immediately wanted to pick an activity out to do.  The first one they picked was "Lemonade Stand".  I was thinking, oh man, just more work for me!  But they were determined and it actually turned out to be really fun.  The boys made and decorated a sign and brought out the table and chairs to the curb.  We actually did Kool-aid because that's what we had and we just did it for free because I didn't have any change and didn't want to have to be right there monitoring that each person got their change.  However, even though they had a "free kool-aid" stand, they made more than $7!!  People are just generous when they see cute kids out with a little lemonade stand. 

I think our first Summer Boredom Jar activity was a success.  Logan even said "this is more fun than playing Mario Kart on the Wii!!!!"  And that's saying a lot for him!

Discovering the sandbox

Ashten found out we had a sandbox last week, and now she can crawl in and out by herself and loves to squish it in her toes.

Monkey on a swing

He's got quite the acrobatic moves....maybe we should get him in gymnastics or something?