Last week of Maternity Leave

2/8/2010, today is the last day of my maternity leave and I have to say that it has gone by way to fast. I am dreading the fact that I have to go back to work tomorrow. I must say though that the last 5 days or so have been crazy. Thursday I had a date day with The Tader, we went to the Children's Museum in Iowa City and then out for Pizza (for the 3rd day in a row). That night we decided to put him in his big boy bed and he did AWESOME. Stayed in his bed the entire night. On Saturday he took a nap in his big boy bed for the first time and that was a little more rough than the previous nights. After 30 minutes of him playing I went in and told him to go to bed, 5 minutes later he was screaming because his "socky" fell off.....Fell off, yeah right! Once the infamous "socky" was back on he started screaming "it's broken, it's broken...Mommy, it's broken". When I entered his room I noticed that his curtains and rods were laying on his floor. I told him that he did not have to go to bed and that he could read books on his bed but that he could NOT GET OFF THE BIG BOY BED!! 10 minutes later I heard "books fell off the big boy bed, books fell of the big boy bed". Yes, his dragon book fell off and he wanted Tom to pick it up. At least the kid listened and did not get out of his bed!








The entire weekend was just as crazy. Slade seemed to have rolled all his terrible two's up into a weekend affair. He was completely clingy to me and wouldn't listen to either me or Tom. He had about 300 time outs and shed a lot of tears. Poor Chase sat there the whole time, silent and perfect as can be. I think that she was wondering what we were doing to her brother and thought.."if I just be quiet they won't beat me too". She was a little neglected because we had to spend so much time tending to Mr. Whiny Pants. At times I think she thought we forgot she was there. Poor girl was probably wanted to say "Hey guys, pooped my pants over here...Hello!" But she was too scared to cry. I know that she was starving half the time but thought "I can hold out a little longer, I'm chubby, I will just wait until Mom is done pulling out her hair".

Finally, today was my last day of maternity leave and I was going to take the two kids to day care and have a nice relaxing day. Yeah, right! I got in a car accident first thing in the morning. I was taking the kids to day care and slide on the ice right into another car. It was just a fender bender but I am sure will cost us some money!

Stats

The kids had their doctors appt. last week and here is the break down.

Chase 2 months
Height 23" (75%)
Weight 11# 14 oz (75%)
Head 40cm (75%)

Slade
Height 35 3/4" (80%)
Weight 31 # 3.5 oz (80%
Head 51 cm (95%)

Can you say big kids!

4:30am Wake up call

Okay, it is 4:30 in the morning and I can't sleep, I have been up since 2am. The sad thing is that Chase has been sleeping through the night pretty regularly since about 4 weeks old. My whole family is asleep and I am thinking about waking someone up so that it is not so boring. Instead, I will use the time to catch up on my blogging.

Here are a few pictures of Chase and a sweet video of Slade reading his animal book to Chase.

Chase has been doing really well, she is a happy baby most of the time, we had a rough patch were she was not sleeping during the day but now that I am actually feeding her enough food, she is taking naps like a champ. She smiles more than any baby I know and seems to love playing with her big brother. She still has a whole head full of hair and I am hoping that she doesn't lose it. She turns 9 weeks old today and has her 2 month appointment on Tuesday. She sleeps from about 8:30pm to 6:30am and has been doing that for about 5 weeks. Prior to that she was getting up only once.

Slade loves his little sister, he want to be around her as much as possible and is constantly giving her snotty kisses, poor girl needs a bath every night to wipe off all the snot that Slade has left behind. Slade is growing up so fast and will now actually have a full conversation with you. He is still obsessed with Dragons and Dinosaurs and roars every chance he gets. He also enjoys calling everyone (especially Grandma Bobbi) "stinky boy". his new favorite song is "Shake your booty" and he loves to be naked guy!

1/3/08-1/3/10

Slade had his second birthday on 1/3/09. It is great to see how big he is getting and all the new things he is doing but I still remember his first days of life. He was such a cuddly little boy and that still has not changed. I remember the first day he spent out of the NICU and in the same hospital room with us, it was the BCS Championship game on 1/7/09 and LSU beat Ohio St. Probably the only BCS winner I will remember. It was such a great night and I think Slade stayed awake for the whole game, too bad Ohio St didn't win. I think of that night every year the BCS Championship game comes around.

Slade's Birthday was wonderful, he had most of his family in town but we did miss the Gustafsons who were in Michigan and Uncle Karl who was serving our country in Iraq.


Here are a few pictures of Slade's big day and thank everyone for helping his celebrate his terrible two's!

He was so excited for the cake.


The cake turned every one's mouth blue






Dragon Cake

I thought I would also share pictures of Slade when he was born


Slade in the NICU...Look at the hairy arms


The first night Slade stayed in our room


Going home


First Day Slade was home

Christmas 2009

Chase's first Christmas went really well. The hoodlums from South Carolina came home to visit for the holidays. Slade had a blast with his cousins and could not stop talking about "Walka" even after they left. It was nice to finally have some excitement in our lives for a few days. We even partied like rock stars on New Years Eve. Danyel, Rick, Sue, Tom and I toasted to the new year with a little champagne......At 8:39pm!!! Of course we were all in bed before the ball fell. The Harris' stayed in a hotel on the 23rd and we all got to enjoy the amenities. Here are a few pictures of the kids swimming at the hotel.

Walker and Ryan are little fishes.

Ryan and Chase got a long really well. I think Ryan wanted to take her home to SC.

We spent Christmas Eve with the Hajek's. Slade was able to visit Santa Claus for the first time as he handed out presents to the kids at my parent's house. Slade was a little unsure of him at first but warmed up after "Papa" befriended Santa. His favorite present from Santa was a Diego sticker book. He also received his Christmas outfit and a Hotwheel car set from Grandma and Grandpa. The Harris' got him a better batter baseball set. Thank you everyone for the gifts. Chase of course received a clothes from Grandma and Grandpa as well as from the Harris'. The best present from Danyel was a set of burp clothes and bibs that spelled out Chases name. Thank you all.

On the 28th of December we went to the Dahm Christmas. Chase was able to meet her great-grandparents, aunt and uncle Bryce and Marla and cousin Jasen for the first time. Slade received a "BIG Dragon" from Aunt Sue and Uncle Karl, Dragons and a "BIG Truck" named Rocky from Grandma and Grandpa, another "BIG Truck" from Marla, Bryce and Jasen, Books from his Great Grandparents. Thank you all for the gifts. Chase received clothes from Sue and Karl - each shirts says something about Mommy on it, so of course I love them. Clothes and a Rattle from Grandma and Grandpa, a towel with "Chase" and a star that plays music and flashes lights from Bryce, Marla and Jasen. Thank you everyone!



Here is Slade helping Great-Grandma open her gifts.

For those of you who did not receive my Christmas Card....Sorry and here is a picture of it. It came in the form of a Birth Announcement/Christmas Card.

Announcing Chase Marie

It has been too long since I have last posted but we have been very busy. First we had a little baby girl, Chase Marie on 11/23/09. She weighed in a 8lbs 2oz and was 21 inches long.....It was nice to have a small baby for a change. I still had a C-section and all went well. No NICU experience this time and Tom and I felt a little less stressed out giving birth to a health baby. Here are a few pictures of Chase's first few days of life.














I love this picture. The hat was way too big.



There are no pictures of Slade from the hospital b/c due to the H1N1 Virus they were not allowing anyone under the age of 18 in the hospital but here is a picture of Slade welcoming baby Chase



We arrived home on Thanksgiving Day and Slade was very happy to see his little sister.