Summer Fun!

Embracing the spirit of summer, we enjoyed a lovely morning/afternoon splashing and picnicing in the yard today. Aaron surprised Clara with a very cool little pool complete with slide, waterfall and dinosaurs! We filled it up, had a blast, worked up an appetite and had a nice little picinc, and all before naptime.

"Ooooh, that's cold Daddy!"

Clara helped give Colton his first sponge bath; still waiting for that cord to fall off. She loved washing his hair!

All clean and looking handsome

Well, that's about it for now. My parents head back up north tomorrow and it'll be time for the four of us to sit back and enjoy the ride that is our new family!

...And Colton Makes Four!

Phew! That went by fast! Nine months of waiting to add to our family and anticipating the surprise of "what's it gonna be" flew by in what seems a heartbeat. It seems like it went by almost as quickly as the 3 1/2 hours that it took to arrive at the hospital, be admitted, and barely get the epidural working before it was time to start pushing, and out came Colton! We are so excited to have this perfect little man in our family. I don't think Aaron has stopped smiling; he's so thrilled to have a son.

We came home on Wednesday afternoon after a nice 48 hour stay at the hospital. My parents had arrived on Monday evening and had been helping out with Miss Clara. We are taking one day, sometimes one hour at a time! Adjusting to our new life will be interesting and challenging at times I'm sure, but ultimately wonderful!

Here's a slide show for you guys to enjoy of our little man and his big sis!




Thanks for all the love and support over the past months and day from all of you! We truly appreciate it. xoxoxox

Its a boy!!!! Colton William Barrett. 6 lbs 11 oz. 19 1/4 inches. Born at 1:26pm. May 17, 2010

Baby Is Coming!

It's happening! I'm in labor! Regular contractions every 10-15 minutes and they are getting stronger as they get closer together. As of my appointment on Friday I was nearly fully effaced and already dilated a bit. This is so different than with Clara. With her, my water broke before I was having any significant contractions and we headed to the hospital at that point. Now I'm sitting here at nearly midnight, blogging, because I can't sleep, but things aren't bad enough to go to the hospital quite yet. I'm wondering...when do we decide to go? I'm sure my body will let me know. If I ever get to sleep tonight and wake up with contractions closer together I guess we'll do it then. I just don't know! I'd hate to go now and be stuck in an uncomfortable hospital bed for longer than necessary. Our bags are packed whenever we do. The contractions aren't bad enough that I can't breath my way through them with mild/moderate discomfort. But don't be fooled, as soon as we do get there I'm calling for an epidural as soon as they'll give it to me! We'll keep you posted, one way or the other!

Watch Our Garden Grow!

Call me goofy, but I thought it may be fun to do a regular "segment" on watching our garden grow. I mostly think it'll be fun to document it and be able to show it to Clara so she can get into the whole gardening thing. I won't bore you guys with regular posts about it, but I will put a little slideshow on the blog and take weekly (or so) pics of our vegetable garden and Clara's sunflower garden. You'd have to check the actual blog site for the progress if you'd like. We'll see if we are successful at supplying our own veggies this summer or if the whole things gets over-watered by all the rain we've been having or eaten up by the animals before I can put cages over the plants!

The first picture of our garden from this past Thursday, 05/13/10.

And Clara's sunflowers from the same day.

Happy Mother's Day 2010!

We hope all you mom's out there enjoyed your day! Whether you were pampered, did something active and fun, or just relaxed , we hope you had a marvelous day.

My day today was very nice. The plan had been for Aaron to wake up with Clara and let me sleep in. But the little munchkin was quite in bed until 9:00! By then I was wide awake so the three of us all got up and had a nice breakfast together. We don't usually get to do that because Aaron is up so early for work and on the weekends we take turns sleeping in. Naturally, we treated ourselves to Clara's favorite breakfast, waffles and eggs. After breakfast we played and chilled in the basement watching Clara's favorite show of the moment, Dora. Clara and I both napped while Aaron worked outside. The weather this weekend was perfect and we have been working in the yard digging gardens and planting flowers. After naptime, we planted our vegetable garden. Aaron worked very hard this weekend digging up weeds, putting down top soil, and tilling the little space I had picked for a garden. It was a lot of work and I couldn't be happier! Now all I need is a little luck and we'll have nice, fresh vegetables this summer.

The evening was topped off by a sweet snuggle time with my big girl and carry-out for dinner with dessert from DQ!

In typical Clara fashion, she keeps us smiling and laughing with her crazy little personality and goofy moments. Here a few recent pics of our girl being her silly-self.

Lookin' good Miss Hollywood!

Out for a drive, pull up for a little snack, and play a little masterpiece on the piano!

On the Baby front, we are getting ready and getting anxious. Swings, bouncy seats, car seats, etc are all cleaned and put together. Laundry is getting done and we are getting the house all ready for Baby's arrival. Clara is very excited...we think! She keeps talking to Baby and saying things like "you come out soon!" We can only hope she's as excited when Baby actually comes home as she is now talking about it. As of our doctor's appointment last Friday there is no progress toward delivery, but I'm having real contractions daily. We'll be sure to keep you posted.

Until next time. xoxoxox