Is this Heaven or am I still on Earth??

I feel myself floating through every single day and I don't even know what is going on! I am truly walking on clouds all of the time and not seeing any signs of a storm. (knock on wood) My only sadness is that I have not blogged about it!! Oh well that is the only moment I will give to that because my life is sooooo happy! I know you are all vomiting in your mouths right about now but there is nothing else to be said, it is what it is. :)

I have to just start of with the fact that I have THE BEST baby on the planet! I am not sure if Ty was just such an extra demanding baby or maybe I am just used to this parenting thing but seriously Jax has been an angel. I could do nothing else all day except to just sit and play with him! He is always so willing to give me the biggest grins and loves to laugh at anything I, or especially big brother, do. He is just so busy figuring out life and what things are. Especially how to get them in his mouth at any cost! He is scooting everywhere and will get up on his knees and rock but no crawling yet thank goodness. I love to watch as he experiences everything for the first time. :) He and Ty play sooooo well together, they just occupy each other all day long so I have more time to myself than ever before. Ty is the best big brother and helps me so much. He is in such a fun age right now. He talks my ear off all day long and if I happen to be talking to someone else he will grab my chin and make me look at him so I don't miss one single word! I know I said this in my last post but I am saying it all the time, I couldn't be happier!

My little thumb sucker! He just makes me smile. :)

Ok enough making you all sick. ;) This summer has been my best one yet. We spent so much time playing with water in our backyard, drawing with lots of sidewalk chalk, riding bikes around our circle, taking walks to our park, and that was just in our neighborhood! We did so many fun outings as well, two awesome camping trips in our new tent trailer; trips to the zoo, lagoon, and seven peaks; fishing trips with grandpa on his boat and lots of playing with cousins. I would definitely say that we have been running our heads off! I am soooo sad that summer is coming to an end and that we are probably going to be slowing down quite a bit. However Fall is my FAVORITE time of year and so I will not be let down to much. ;)

The icing on this overwhelming cake though, would have to be our most recent adventure. We were so fortunate to have an awesome family vacation to California and to DISNEYLAND!! I will spare you the ravings of how amazing it was but lets just say that it was without a doubt our best family vacation to date. It had something of all my favorite things on earth. A little sand, a little ocean, a little tide pools, a little family, a little Ruby's Diner, a little Holbrook house, and a lot of the happiest place on earth! I have not met many people who truly appreciate Disney as much as myself so when we decided to go with Joe's family I could not have been happier! I was so lucky to marry into a family of Disneyland fanatics.

This is about half of us on Heimlich's chew chew train. We had such a great time being in such a big group with all the cousins and running around trying to get it all in. I could spend six months here and never get enough!

Meeting Lightening McQueen and Mator! Ty doesn't look like it here but he was in heaven! He did not want to talk to any of the characters but every time he saw one he would get all excited. (As long as they did not get close to him) Now when someone asks him who he saw at Disneyland he says Mickey Mouse and Daisy Duck! :)

This is more like the face we got the whole time we were there. :) He loved all the kid rides and even went on Thunder Mountain Railroad! After that we had to clarify which train we were going on, the slow train or the fast train, because he did not want the fast train again! :) He was soooo good the whole time and Jax did amazing! He never cried the whole time we were there.

We spent a couple days at the beach of course because my babies are going to have to love the ocean as much as their momma. That is not an option! We spent one day at Huntington walking on the pier and boogie boarding in the water. It was a perfect day! Then we spent one night at Newport and Joe jumped in the water with my nephew in their clothes in the pitch dark!! :) And then this pic was at a beautiful beach called Little Corona where they had great tide pools. There were thousands of little crabs all over in them and Joe was feeding them to the enenomes. (sp?) I thought Ty would be freaked by the crabs but he was pretty enamored with the whole thing.

This is Ty with his cousins in "Bugs Land" I LOVE how he is holding Faisal's hand! He could not have had a better time being with all the kids. :) I feel terrible because we spent a few days at my sisters house and did not take one picture! Ty also had a blast getting to know her kids and when we pulled into our hotel on the way home he screamed and cried that he wanted to go back to Aunt Shelly's house! We LOVED spending time at their house and are so glad that we got to squeeze some time in with them. We love the Holbrooks!

So needless to say we had a great trip and an incredible summer. I am so grateful for all the wonderful friends and family in my life. We are so blessed! I hope everyone else had just as awesome of a summer and that Fall is going to be great too! Thank you everyone for everything that you add to our life. It would not be the same without you!

Happy is what happens when your dreams come true...

If I had to choose one passion in my life, the thing I enjoy the very most in the world, it would undoubtedly be music. It has been a major part of my life and I have not been able to live without it since I was two. Although I do not like to perform anymore, in the privacy of my own home you will find me belting out tunes at the top of my lungs. Sometimes I feel very sorry for my neighbors, and not to mention my poor family. ;) There is nothing that can lift my spirits or calm me down from a stressed out rage more than being in my bathroom singing. Musicals in particular are a favorite for me because they give you characters and stories to relate to through the music. When I was seven my parents took me to see the Phantom of the Opera in San Francisco. I had the CD for months before and would listen to nothing else. I dug my fingernails into my moms arm the entire performance and when we left I felt like I truely was Christine. In fact I insisted that I was going to change my name and that everyone should call me that from then on. Luckily it didn't stick. ;) But I love how for just that moment you can be whoever you want to be and experience anything.

Lately I feel like my whole life is one big compilation of all the music I have stored away and that I am singing my way through it, like some lucky movie star. I have been a little consumed with a particular album lately so if this post is a little "Wicked" you will have to forgive me. ;) I seriously feel so blessed lately. Having two kids has filled a huge hole I didn't even know was there. I cannot believe how it has completed me. I couldn't be happier... And not like Glinda, I feel like this all came at very little cost to me. I never really wanted kids. I was scared and liked my life the way it was, and so when Ty was born I was very overwhelmed and had some large adjustments to make. This time around I feel like it has been a breeze (aside from recovery and sickness of course)! But really the adjustment has been zero. From the second little Jax was brought into my life two kids just fit. Sure it is a little more hectic but it gives me so much more purpose as a mother. I think I could have about 10 more! ;)

I mean seriously how can you not smile when you see this darling little angel?! And he was only an hour old here. He is such a perfect little baby and has such a sweet temperment.

My two precious babes and their first looks at each other. From the very first second they have had nothing but love, not an ounce of jealousy. How did I get so lucky?

My three boys. :) This is pretty much my favorite picture in the whole wide world! Man I love having boys! It may be dirty and chaotic but it is the sweetest thing ever and I wouldn't trade it for anything!

He loves being a big brother. I could not have gotten a sweeter boy first. He is so tender and just wants to help ALL the time! He gets so concerned when his little brother cries and will not go anywhere without him. They're already best friends.

Our first family photo. This picture seriously just makes me rejoicify! I feel soooo incredibly blessed! This past Mothers Day I was faced with several trials for other people and my heart just ached for them. I came home that night and looked at my life and wondered why things are so good for us right now. I know we each have times of good and times of hardship and that the bad times are what make us appreciate the good. So heres to appreciating my life, for the good and the bad, cause while we are in the good now I could be trying to sing the world away in my bathroom tomorrow. For now I am enjoying singing my way through happily. I am so grateful for my wonderful hubby and for the great Mothers Day he gave me. I would not be a Mom if it weren't for him! So kiss me goodbye I'm defying gravity!

Birth story in pictures...

So my sister in law has been taking a TON of pictures of us lately! I am sure she is just sick of it but I TOTALLY appreciate it! She is sooo great! So... She does this thing called a birth story with all sorts of pics at the hospital. She put them in a slide show at the link below. The program made them a little grainy but you can still see what a great job she did. Plus you get a whole ton of me and Joe and Jax! :) Enjoy!

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.kizoa.com%2Fslideshow%2Fd1557372k3406267o1%2Fa-birth-story&h=ed7ab

Introducing baby

Jaxton Emery Seely

I am finally recovering from all of the chaos of the last two months and I need to blog about it before I forget that it even happened. Man the time has flown! It is crazy how when you are pregnant you think that it is never going to end and that you will always remember how it feels to carry such precious cargo. Right about now I am sort of wishing that was the case. :) But just as soon as the baby is here it feels like this has always been your life and you never experienced any of it, almost like a dream. I am in a little bit of a dream world all the time right now. I can't remember not having my sweet little addition in our family, and at the same time the adjustment is so different and surreal. I supposed getting 3 hours of sleep every night doesn't help the situation much either. ;) This tiny guy has given me a run for my money! He was five weeks yesterday and has not had one good night yet! I think Ty was probably the same but I didn't have a crazy two year old running me ragged then.

I hate how pregnancy is such an awesome and magical time and yet you are to miserable to even know it! I had a pretty decent pregnancy, much better than with Ty, but even still you just want to be done 100% of the time. You dont realize how fun it is to have everyone constantly asking about the baby and all the obnoxious "advice" is actually kind of enjoyable. The ultra sounds, awful doctors appointments and feeling the baby kick (even if it does wake you every night). Everything is all about you for 10 months! I have to put this all down so that I remember next time that it really is one of the most exciting times of life, miserable or not. :) I feel so grateful that I get to be a woman and experience it!

With Ty I went over my due date and didn't try anything to "self induce" my labor. I just patiently waited until they induced me in the hospital. I was miserable but I am not sure if I was nervous for the labor or what but I didn't feel much like rushing it. If I had known what was coming I probably would have postponed it even longer! ;) It was 26 hours in the hospital and 3 LONG hours of pushing before he finally came. So needless to say I had no idea what to expect this time around, but I had hopes for a much better experience... In the last month of my pregnancy I was soooo antsy I just wanted him here! I tried several ways of "self inducing" my labor but I was nervous to do anything extreme. My due date was February 9th and at my doctors appointment on Jan. 24th she told me I was dialated to 5 centimeters and my cervix was 80% effaced, he was head down and right where he needed to be. I was extatic I just knew I was going to have him that day! Ha! I wish we really could see the future. I had contractions the rest of the day and the whole next day. By the time I woke up on Wed. the 26th I just knew that I had to be more dialated and decided to go in to the hospital to see if they would keep me.

We arrived at the hospital, bags and everything at 9:30 AM. They put us in a small room and when the nurse checked me I was still at a 5! I could not believe it. All those contractions and two days and still NO change?? But something had changed...She couldn't feel the baby's head and decided to get an ultrasound. The ultrasound proved what she had thought. He had turned completely breach! This is not very common because that close to the end they are so large that it is not very easy for them to move around, especially all the way around. So they decided not to send me home because if I did progress past a 5 he could come very quickly and I might not make it to a hospital. Well since I did not want to deliver a breach baby by myself at home we agreed to be induced that day. They got us all checked in and hooked up to all the moniters, and then they tried to turn him. I had heard alot of scary things about this and so I was pretty nervous. My doctor got on one side of my belly and the nurse on the other and they both grabbed one side of baby and just pushed him around. It is amazing how hard they can push on your belly and not have it hurt the baby. Next time around I will not be so worried about kids jumping on me. It was VERY painful for me though and I was so glad when it was over and they were successful!

They took an ultrasound to make sure he was where they wanted him and another problem... He was head down but there was something between his head and the outside world. His cord! If the cord gets delivered before the baby he will die because he will loose the only source of oxygen he has. Lucky for us my water had not broken yet so we decided to wait and see if he could move around it. They put some restraints on both sides of my belly to make it harder for him to flip back the way he was and started the pitocin. After waiting awhile they were able to get the cord out of the way and so I got my epidural and it appeared that we were on our way for a normal delivery. As the contractions increased he started to loose oxygen and was having heart decels. They said that the cord was being pinched with the contractions so they stopped the pitocin and watched us very closely. I finally got dialated to a 7 and they decided to break my water. I didn't realize at the time how nervous they were about it. They all came into the room in their operating gear and started a very slow leak to see how he handled it. Things seemed to be going fine and then all of a sudden my doctor was up yelling we need to get to the OR now and they were wheeling me out of the room and throwing clothes at Joe. We were literally running down the hallways running into walls and knocking stuff of my bed. I was terrified! His heart had stopped.

They pumped me full of meds and got me strapped to the operating table and she said his heart had started. So we decided to wait and see what happened. I was really scared of a c-section and I didn't want to be bound to that for the rest of my kids. So we all sat in the OR waiting... Finally after a little over an hour there was no change. Still at a 7... He was sitting really high up from all the turning fiasco and did not appear to be dropping anytime soon. So now came decision time. I seriously have the best doctor on the planet. I trust her as much as I trust myself. So she says to me "how are you feeling? Do you think you can hold up for awhile because this is probably going to be a long process, just like with Ty, and with all the problems we dont know how it will turn out." I just wasn't sure, I felt completely stressed and exhausted, plus they had numbed me for a ceserean and so I was really nervous about trying to push when I could not feel anything from my chest down. She reasured me that she would sit with me as long as it took for whatever I decided to do. So after a few minutes of thinking it over I decided to let them just take him now instead of waiting and doing the same thing at two in the morning. Had I known what I was getting into I might have opted to wait. ;)


They set everything up and got him out at 5:59 PM and at 7lbs 6oz. I hated the whole thing and have delt with a lot of things from it that have surprised me. I dont know anyone who has had babies both ways except my mother and her's were 26+ years ago. Everyone else I know has had one or the other and told me that c-sections were no big deal so I wasn't to worried. Well I am not sure if I am just a baby or if everyones bodies just handle these things differently but let me tell you I will not opt for this one again unless there is no other choice! I know that VBAC's are not all that successful but I am sure hoping I will be one of the lucky ones. So enough complaining, we have a beautiful baby boy who is healthy and that is ALL that matters! :)

So if any of you have made it this far I totally applaud you! :) This was mostly for me to record my experience so that I can relive it because it only comes a few times in a lifetime. I have lots and lots of pictures from maternity to labor to newborn. However they were mostly taken by other people so as soon as I get some I will put them on. I still think pics are the best part of blogging so I am sorry! The ones on here my sweet sister inlaw took for me but they have her logo on them because she has just posted them on the intenet. She runs an AWESOME business and if any of you ever need pictures done you should contact her because she is great! Here is her website... http://www.clarissastaggphotography.com/ I hope she doesn't mind that I am posting my teaser pics on here before I have my CD I just cant wait! :) And as soon as I get more pics I will post I promise!