Luke's birthday and more cute pics

Yes, Luke is really 3! I can't believe it. He is an amazing kid.

Here are more cute pictures of my kids from September and October.

The rest of the summer

Summer was filled with fun adventures with family. We went to see the Potomoc Nationals Minor league baseball game with Aunt Marian. We also went to Frying Pan Park farm and Reston Zoo with Kaleb and Aunt Patty. In July we honored the one year anniversary of my grandfather's death by visiting him at Arlington National Cemetary.

As always, we enjoyed going to the lake house at Smith Mountain Lake. A lot of the Haights were there. We loved seeing everyone and playing. Luke had fun with all the cousins, but had a blast with Megan. Luke tried to go on the tube with me, but the boat started pulling us under the water and Luke fell off the tube. It is actually a really funny video that Il'l have to post sometime (yes, his fater kept filming the whole time).

Ok, so I couldn't resist. Here are a few more pictures to go with the ones I just posted. These are May and June's best pics. Don't I have the cutest kids?

A few picture updates

Since I haven't updated since Cailyn was born here are a few pictures, with the promise of more to come. We had a wonderful summer. I thoroughly enjoyed being home with my 2 kiddos and we had a lot of fun. Now it's October and we're back into the swing of our crazy lives with work, school, and trying to still fit in a bit of play. Cailyn is growing so fast and is already crawling and pulling herself to standing. Luke is a wonderful big brother who likes to sing songs to Cailyn and generally shares his toys. They are both a joy and Mike and I are so happy with our family!

Cailyn

Announcing the arrival of Cailyn Rae!

It was a busy Monday morning. My classroom had been moved out to the trailers because my school is being renovated. I wanted to get in early to start doing a little unpacking and to make sure the basic things I would need to teach were available. I arrived at school about 6:50. I bustled around all morning. I was probably doing a little more than I should have (you know me) but I was trying not to do too much. Around 7:30, I felt a realy contraction, more than I had felt over the past few weeks, even when I was on bed rest. I didn't think too much about it though, since I was doing a lot of moving around. I thought I would just try to take it easy for the rest of the day. Then, around 8:00 I felt another one and again at 8:30, but by then it was time to pick up my students and bring them into their new classroom.

The contraction at 8:45 was a little harder and I had to sit down for that one...and the one at 9:00. I mentioned to Frank, the special ed. teacher who is in my class with me, that I may not make it through the day. He asked if he should call the office, but I said that I thought I would be fine as long as I didn't move around too much. (I know, you're laughing at me right now.)

Well, at 9:20, I looked at the clock and realized that I had been having a contraction about every 5 minutes since 9:00. Hmmm....I told Frank that he should go and call the office. My assistant principal, Melissa, came down, and we went into the extra room in the trailer. I was calling the doctor, while Melissa called Mike. The contractions were coming fast and furious at this point and it was hard to even talk. I couldn't get a hold of my doctor, so I called the advice nurse. She did get a hold of the doctor. I was registered at a hospital close to where we live, which would have taken about 1/2 hour to get to from my work. The doctor told me to go to the hospital that was 5 minutes down the road. I didn't care at this point, so I said fine, as long as Mike got the message to go to the right hospital.

Melissa drove me to the hospital and we got there about 9:55. I was filling out paperwork and having more contractions, while the people in the lobby were looking a little nervous. Mike arrived at 10:05 and we went up the elevator to the second registration desk. While at that desk I had two more contractions and the nurse's eyes (as well as the two pregnant ladies sitting there) began to grow larger. They didn't have a room available right then so they took me to a curtained off area. I was already 9 cm dilated! They practically threw me onto a gurney and rushed me down the hall. As we were going down the hall the doctor asked, "Do you want an epidural...you won't have time." Darn.

It was probably around 10:30 at this point. We got into the delivery room. The nurses were flying around the room trying to get everything set up. However, before they got a fetal monitor or an IV on, the doctor told me to start pushing. About 3 contractions later, it was 10:50 and we had a beautiful baby girl. All I could say was, "That was fast!"

Stay Tuned!

I have now at least completed 2009 (though it looks like those 3 collages aren't linked correctly and you can't make them bigger, but I'll work on fixing that). Make sure to scroll down and see all of the updates. Hopefully, sooner rather than later, I will get caught up on January and February. A few of the quick sneak peeks include 2 more record-breaking snow storms...in one week, 3 weeks of bed rest, and lots of cute pictures of Luke. Of course, this baby girl may come any day, so no promises about the sooner part. Stay tuned!

December

In December, we had a huge snow storm. It cancelled the last 3 days of school before winter break. It stranded Colin and Marian in Utah for 2 extra days. It was a lot of fun to play in!

It was great to have lots of family in town. All brothers and sisters were here and we had a lot of fun seeing all of our traditional Christmas sights. Of course, Christmas was wonderful. We had Christmas Eve with the Doughertys and Christmas Day with the Garces. Luke did better sitting on Sant's lap, but it still wasn't all that fun. Everything else about Christmas, he loved! He knew most of the Christmas carols and songs and would sing them over and over. He told everyone "Merry Christmas!" and pointed out every house that had Christmas lights. Opening presents was a big hit, too!

Trip to the National Zoo in November

We had lots of fun at the zoo! Now for a question for all of you out there. How do you put multiple collages in a post and keep the words that I wrote on it? Is there a better program for collages out there that is a little easier to use and edit?

October Catch-up

Okay, so it's been a little busy around here, going back to school, pregnancy, work, etc. so I have not been very good about updating. I'm trying to learn how to use Picasa a little, so hopefully this will all work.

October was a fun month. Brett and his family came to stay with our parents for the fall while he did a rotation at Ft. Belvoir. Luke really loved playing with his cousing Alex. They raked leaves, jumped on the trampoline, went to the park, and did a lot of other fun things. Mike and I took a trip to Syracuse to see our good friends, Andrew and Michelle. I also had my 30th birthday! Halloween was fun with cousin firefighters. Luke loved saying "Trick or treat."