Christmas Fun and School Party

Henry and I did a lot of baking getting ready for Christmas. He had his first lick of the beaters making red velvet cookies. I think he enjoyed it! Instead of decorating a gingerbread house, I found a rice krispie train decorating kit at Michaels. We both enjoyed making and eating it!

Henry's class Christmas party was really cute. The kids all ate a special snack at the table together and worked on a craft. They had lots of Happy Birthday Jesus food and afterwards made a star ornament to take home. Jeff was able to come and Henry loved us both being there. His teacher gave each parent a black and white silhouette of their child, and an ornament with their hand print made of clay. So special!

Christmas at Leslie's

This year my sister Leslie graciously opened her new home in Lancaster, SC for my family's Christmas. We celebrated a couple of weeks early which was great! Henry and Tilly had a blast playing together, and even got to go outside to feed the chickens and ride the tractor-not your everyday Christmas activities! The adults had a white elephant exchange which is always very entertaining with my family. Jeff and I ended up with really nice gifts, but had fun laughing at others. Henry and Tilly got electric four wheelers, Henry's being Lightning McQueen so of course it was a hit! The food was great, and we all had a wonderful time! Thanks for being a great host and hostess Leslie and Jamie!

Riding the tractor

Feeding the chickens with uncle Jamie

Grandma Alma and Clay

Mommy with her big boy

Henry and Tilly

Sweet Clay

Clay with Santa (My Dad)

Henry with Santa

Tilly

Santa's Helper

Thanksgiving

So much to be thankful for this year!
Henry had a Thanksgiving feast at school where all of the kids 2-5 ate together in the fellowship hall. Each class wore different costumes; pilgrims, Indians, and even turkeys! Henry's class dressed up as Indians. They wore painted vests, headbands, and beaded necklaces. They even had Indian names. Henry's was Soaring Eagle. All of the tables were decorated and the kids were fed a "kid-friendly" Thanksgiving lunch. It was precious!

We had three Thanksgivings this year. One with my family at my mom's, one at Jeff's grandmama's, and one at Jeff's parents. Lots of Thanksgivings equal lots and lots of food! Everyone was able to meet Clay, and we had fun showing him off. It was a nice time with family, and we are so thankful to live so close to everyone.

Henry and his cousin, Carter




Clay and his cousin, Madison

Clay and Memonie


Clay and Granmama

Sweet Baby Clay

I went in for a checkup at 39 weeks hoping they would say I was ready or feel sorry for me and induce. I kept getting the same thing; you look great, everything is perfect. I was really worried the baby could be running out of fluid (Henry did this), or that he was just going to be huge. They wanted me to wait one more week because I was only a cm dialated. I agreed to wait, if they did an ultrasound to make me feel a little better. Well, fluid was great, but he was already measuring 8.9 which was Henry's birth weight. They said it could be off a pound either way and assured me he wasn't going to be much bigger than Henry. So home I went. I went back the day after my due date and an induction was scheduled for the next morning.

We got to the hospital at 5 am and the pitocin started flowing at around 6. Everything was going great. I was moving right along, got an epidural, and expected a much easier, faster birth. Not quite. Like Henry, this baby was sitting very high and was not moving down. After an hour and a half, they thought I might have to have an emergency C-section. In the next thirty minutes I managed to muster up enough strength to have this sweet little boy. The nurses were immediately betting his weight and most were around 10 pounds! Sure enough he weighed in at 9lbs. 12.5 oz. A lot bigger than we had expected! Jeff said he looked so much bigger than the other babies in the nursery that he was getting a lot of attention. We are so happy to have another healthy baby boy!
Henry loves his little brother, and seems to be adjusting well to sharing the spotlight. I can't wait to watch them interact more and more.

From the Beginning

Thanks to my sweet sister I was able to get all of my pictures downloaded. I'm going to start with Halloween. Bare with me. Surprise, Surprise Henry wanted to be a baseball player. We got off easy not having to buy a costume, borrowing gear from our cousins who played this year. We ended up with a really cute baseball player! Henry had a party at school that another mom and myself were responsible for. It was a hit and the kids had a great time!
That night we went trick-or-treating with our cousins. Henry stayed in the wagon most of the time and was content eating the first lollipop he got. After that he cared less about going door to door. I think we walked for 2 hours that night, and Clay did not budge!


Go Redsox!

Henry's class

Ready to eat



The Gang

This is how Henry spent most of his Halloween!

Update

So sorry for not introducing our little man yet! It has been one thing after the other. Missing camera cord to missing camera! I promise he will have a special post as soon as Jeff comes home with the cord.

We have had a rather rough last couple of weeks. It all started when Clay started projectile vomiting. I wasn't too worried because Henry did this too, but Clay kept getting gradually worse, to the point where he wasn't keeping anything down. I took him to the doctor expecting them to diagnose him with reflux but he immediately told me about something called Pyloric Stenosis when I mentioned Clay's symptoms. We then had to go to the hospital to get an ultrasound of his stomach to see if this was the cause. The Pyloric is a valve made of muscles connecting the stomach to the intestines. We found out after the ultrasound that Clay's pyloric muscle was too thick and was pushing the food in his stomach immediately back up. We had to go to Columbia that same day for a procedure to open up that muscle so he would be able to digest his food. All of this being said it was super scary especially seeing your little one hooked up to an IV and knowing he was going to have be put under for the surgery, but it was fast, with just a little incision and he is healing well. We still have to measure what he eats and slowly work him up to what he wants to, but he seems to be doing well considering.

Pictures to come... Starting with Halloween! Promise before Christmas!