Our kids

Our darling kids. Too cute to not post.

Miles loves posing for pictures with his baby Sis (as he calls her).

Miles - 25 months, Sam - 6 months

6 months old

Samantha turned 6 months old today! Happy half birthday my little darling! How fast time goes. She is such an active baby. She is constantly moving around and so close to crawling. Sometimes I think she is going to crawl before she sits! She has all the pieces of crawling just doesn't get up on her knees. She is also close to sitting on her own. She can do it for a while balanced on her arms.

Her favorite activity in addition to wiggling and making noise, is watch everything, especially her brother. You can just see her taking it all in. She puts up a fight if you try to take a toy away from her and is starting to eye Miles toys.

Here are her latest stats:

• Weight: ~ 15 lbs. (will get official details at doc appt)
• Height: TBD
• Health: Wonderful. She is very lean and tall.
• Behavior: Such a good, easy going baby. She rarely cries. Loves smiling at everyone. Has a soft spot for her dad. :)

Tot Cooperative Started

My vision of starting a Toddler Cooperative has finally come to fruition! We had our first get together this past week. It was a bit chaotic with a bunch of toddlers and babies, but what fun! The goal was to create a environment for toddlers to play and learn with others where they focused on all the skills they need for life. There are so many of these groups out there that you can pay for but why not do it ourselves where we can include our Christian faith?

This coming week we are learning about God's creation of the earth, numbers 1-7, and having a nature hike! Thanks ladies for making this happen.

Few of the Kids After Snacktime

Photoshop Class Finished

If anyone has been out to my blog lately (even without any new posts) you would have noticed the pictures were missing. Sorry about that... I was taking a photoshop class and needed to make all my picasa web albums private. I didn't think about the fact it would affect my blog. They are all back now.

The even better news is I have completed my online photoshop class after 6 weeks of work. I passed the exam and got a certificate of completion. Photoshop is an amazing tool! I feel so much smart in picture and graphic editing! I would recommend the class to anyone. Here is one example of how I changed a photo:

Original

Changed

(changed background to white and improved the coloring)

Family Portraits

We did family photos this year on both sides of the family. Here are some of the whole group.

My Family

Four Generations

My husband's Family

Us

My Favorite Guys

2 months Old

Samantha is now two months old. Can you believe it! How fast those first few months go. We headed to her two month old check-up last week while Miles had a blast at Helen's. She passed with flying colors. However she got her first shoot and wow, she did NOT like that! I remember Miles not even crying but boy was she aghast, letting out multiple loud cries and shocked looks. I can see this shot thing is going to be tough.

Here are her latest stats:

• Height: 22 inches
• Weight: 10 lbs
• Health: Perfect!
• Behavior: She smiles at us, holds up her head, turns and looks at you, gives you different facial expressions and coo's a tons!

Dedication of Kids

We dedicated both kids at church a few weeks ago at the parent-child dedication. We really believe that they are a gift from God and wanted to express our commitment to raising them up as followers of Christ. We hope they love God as much as we do and live out lives with strong moral values and a heart for others.

Here we are up front during the dedication.

Family at the occasion.

Geoff, Miles & I after the event. Samantha was asleep in the car seat.

Today's Naps

Ahh naptime. After an hour of attempted napping the house if finally quiet.

Miles insisted on not napping. He was so tired I just couldn't let him out of his room to run around. Instead I kept checking on him and putting him back in bed. Luckily I looked under the door before opening it! He finally fell asleep next to the door on the floor. Exhaustion finally won. Here's a picture form under the door. He's been there asleep for almost three hours!

Samantha sleeping without the need of a pacifier. She finds her hand and thumb instead! She has learned to love sleeping on her tummy for naps too. What an adorable girl. I love how peaceful they look sleeping. When she is tired she goes to bed on her own no problem. When she is not tired (or overtired) she gives us quite the fight. :)

The Adjustment to two Kids

I've made it a month and a half with two kids. Only 2 weeks at it alone during the days. Whew. Luckily the madness has slowed down. The sleeping is starting to come a little more often. The fatigue is lifting. And I am loving it. For a while I wasn't sure I would. But did I say, I am loving it. Motherhood is a wonderful thing. I think it has helped I started having a night out, coaching a women's training program. By the end of the evening I am missing the family so much and can't wait to see everyones smiling faces in the morning.

Yes there are days I'd rather be sitting in a office chair. Like the times when everyone thinks naps are optional and get overtired. But most days I realized I am the happiest person in the world and wouldn't want to be doing anything else. I love having the ability to be intimately involved in my children's lives.

Thanks Geoff for supporting me and the kids. Love you and everything you do for me and us.

P.S.
Samantha slept her first full night at 6 weeks old! 8 hours in a row. Too bad Miles woke me up in the middle of the night because he had fallen out of his bed! Poor guy. It was his fourth night in his big boy room, with a twin mattress on the floor and no railings. I guess you just have to learn some things the hard way! Besides falling out, he loves his new bed and the ability to get in and out of it on his own.

Us Together

It isn't quite our Anniversary but we headed out to Middleburg this past weekend to where we got married. It was so nice. We walked around with the kiddos and took a photo where we do every year in case we didn't make it back. So here is our early three year anniversary picture. :) We tried to include the kids in the background for one of them.

The Kids

Can you resign after 1 1/2 days on the job?

So can you resign after 1 1/2 days on the job by yourself? I am finally alone with the two kids after my parents leaving yesterday morning and the thought of resigning has crossed my mind (although I would never do it). I have dealt with more poop in a 1 1/2 day period then I thought possible.

Let's see... yesterday. If it wasn't enough to have a dog with the runs, I had a newborn with a major diaper explosion. During the diaper explosion I was on a call with her in my lap. By the time I was off the phone there was a mess everywhere. Lets just say an emergency bath was required and a change of clothes for BOTH of us. At the same time this was occurring the timer in the kitchen went off. So full on mess and baby in hand I dashed down the stairs to ensure I didn't burn dinner. By the end of it I have a toddler on my leg whining for attention, a baby crying and me trying to quickly wash an outfit out and clean up after a dog.

Today... new day, same thing. Dog makes a mess on the carpet, baby has an explosion while holding her. Plus two emergency feeds. (Don't know what an emergency feed is? Read on.) One while I was attempting to make an omelet for me and Miles. Baby crying, omelet in progress with hungry toddler in high chair. Which do you deal with? The second while walking back home with hungry toddler and baby. Solution...who knew you could breastfeed a baby in a carrier while cooking or walking.

Well that is only the start of the challenges these last two days but I must use my limited quite time to get some work done. The big question is what will tomorrow look like...

Samantha Photo Album

Here is a link to some photos from Samantha's Birth and then of us all after.

Samantha's Birth Photo Album

Samantha's Birth Story

Samantha Lee Beaty came into the world on Friday, March 12th at 6:22am. God truly had his hand around this baby and delivery and we are so blessed with her presence.

Our birth story starts out on a walk the day before. Geoff, Miles & I were out for a walk Thursday evening but decided to head back early. Good thing! Right after turning around I felt a gush. Uh, oh, my water broke. What do you do in this situation? I couldn’t think of anything but to quickly waddle back home. The whole walk back I was laughing with Geoff trying to convince him it was indeed true. By the time we got home I felt like someone dumped a bucked of water on me from the waste down. Luckily no one else would have noticed!

We weren’t expecting this scenario. No contractions were happening that made me think labor was starting. So what do you do next? Lots of different advice from heading right to the hospital to staying at home until labor gets going. So we sought some advice from my sister (her water broke for all three kids) and our Bradley Birthing instructor.

Both gave us some good advice and we felt reassured that labor was likely to start in the next 24 hours. This baby was going to be early. The due date was 5 days away. By 8pm that evening my mother-in-law was there in case we needed to head to the hospital. I had just gotten up from a nap, and some easy contractions had started. I was starting to get excited. This might be the real thing. But no fast progress so at 10pm, with bags packed, we all headed to bed to either sleep until the morning or wait until something more happened.

Something more did happened. I never got to sleep and by 11pm the tough contracts were starting. I was definitely in first stage labor. I was getting the uncontrollable shakes and hard long contractions. I woke Geoff up and he jumped right into coaching: timing my contractions, getting me water, and helping me stay relaxed. Thanks to Geoff we ended up doing a good amount of work at home. This is the recommended approach for a natural Bradley birth. Especially since I had to use an external monitor at the hospital due to attempting a VBAC (vaginal delivery after a prior c-section).

By 3am contracts were very hard and we were headed to the hospital. All I wanted at this point was to be done. When I arrived at the hospital I was 5cm dilated, and 90% effaced. Yah! I labored for another tough hour while they filled out paper work. Finally I was given the okay to get into the tub. What a relief! It reduced the pain a notch. With each contraction I was getting a severe backache and strong surges of pain send down my round ligaments towards my knees. I can remember telling myself with each one “This is only pain, pain with a purpose. Stay relaxed.”

Turns out the two things I was most concerned about having to use, those things that lead you towards an unplanned c-section, didn’t work. Both the external monitor and an IV drip were not working properly. Throughout the whole bath time the nurse kept holding the wireless monitor and adjust it. After an hour in the tub she needed me to get out to get some better statistics on the baby.

After exiting the tub the nurse asked if I had any urge to push. I did and quickly got the green light. We were on to the next stage and baby was in good condition. The next half hour of pushing flew by and before we knew it we our baby was born. Geoff surprisingly announced, “It is a girl!” as both were thinking boy. Before I new it they laid her on my chest only seconds after her birth while Geoff cut the umbilical cord. What a precious moment I was so thankful to be un-medicated for. I stared at this wonderful child that God created.

What an amazing experience! I would never change it for the world. We stayed in the hospital for one night then headed home on Saturday to be together as a whole family with Miles. All and all it took around 13 hours from water breaking to birth, with only 7 hours of hard work and no medication.

Samantha Lee Beaty’s Statistics

• Sex: Girl
• Date: March 12th, 2010 at 6:22am
• Weight: 7 pounds, 9.9 ounces
• Height: 19 inches
• Delivery: I was able to have a successful natural un-medicated VBAC (vaginal delivery after a prior c-section) delivery!