Just fun....

So that brings us up to date!  Goes to show how awful I have been about taking pictures!  Am getting better though, I promise...

Sweet Brooks is now 4 months old.  We weighed him today and he is 22 lbs 7 oz and is still growing like a weed.  He is sleeping 9-11 hours a night and napping for about an hour each time.  SO ready to get back to longer naps.  He is SUCH a sweetheart and is super laid back and takes it all in stride.  The time change has about killed us and I have yet to push him past 6:30 for a bedtime.  But it works.  We get up early anyway so he is usually up by around 7:30.  He still hates the car so that is the hardest component of all.  

The older two are loving the new house.  They play SO well together and truly love one another.  Bo is so lovey and SUCH a boy at the same time.  Abby Kate is an amazing big sister and has such amazing problem solving skills at such a young age.  We truly are so so blessed!  

More Thanksgiving!

We then got to celebrate with my side of the family and had a ball as well!  Tried to get pics for Mom's Christmas card and as you can see, did not get one with all kids looking and smiling.  Oh well, this is our stage of life now!  But we do have a ton of fun together!!  And will soon be adding another boy to the brood!  In case you didn't know, Hal and Ash are expecting another boy at the first of February.  Abby Kate and Liv will be the treasured girls of the crew.  SO fun!

Thanksgiving in O-Town

Bo helping Neannie with the dishes.  Isn't he going to make some girl SO SO happy?!

Promise I'm not trying to be a gangster...just try to leave out identifying details from this blog.  We had SO much fun with Daddy's family over Thanksgiving.  We were sad Daddy had to work but had a ball at Neannie and Pop's as always!  We were on the tail end of Daddy working 10 straight days of 12 hour shifts and we had just moved so it was SO nice to be there and be loved on!  We ADORE our fam!

First Lost Tooth

So at the first sight of a loose tooth, I truly became so aware of how quickly my baby was growing up!  I still cannot believe she lost her first tooth!  She was so brave and daily worked on getting that thing looser so her Daddy could pull it with a string :)  That part in and of itself was hysterical.  Bobby insisted we had to do it that way and the silly string kept slipping off her tooth.  It took 10 times before it finally came out!  But she literally did not even flinch when he pulled it.  SUCH a fun celebration!  And when she got $5 under her pillow, she told everyone it was $50.  Made us seem like super big rewarders!  

The before pic...

First sight of herself in the mirror!

Kindergarten!

 Okay so I am just going to jump right in and pretend it hasn't been half a year since I last posted.  I am super ashamed of myself and am going to try to get this updated for both my kiddos and my own sake.  LOVE looking back and they do too so here goes trying to update!
Our sweet Abby Kate started Kindergarten this year.  We decided to homeschool her this year and it has proven to be such a precious decision.  I cannot tell you how much we have all loved it!  Yes, it was super hard in the beginning with 2 young boys needed attention and interrupting but we got in a groove and started doing our "sit down" learning time during naps and we both have LOVED getting one on one time with each other.  I make hot cookies and we pour big cold glasses of milk in "big girl" cups and we jump right in.  I love our curriculum and she has started reading and writing lower case (already knew upper case from last year).  We are doing Saxon math and am amazed at our girl's brain for numbers.  She has shown that from an early age but I had to jump ahead to the April lessons in August just to get to something she didn't already know.  Amazing.  It is SO SO SO not my strength so I am truly amazed by it!  I love that our sit down time is short but effective and our other time throughout the day is spent "hands-on" learning.  This is so fun and Bo loves to join in.  I included a few pics of projects we have done.  Rainbow rice and mentos in diet coke were two of her favorites!  I love how the whole family can participate in learning and how it has continued to keep our kiddos the best of friends.  She LOVES school and so do I!  SO proud of my sweetheart and her desire to learn and am SO humbled to get to be a part of this every day!

Brooks!

FINALLY, to the newest addition to our family!  Sweet Brooks Haylor.  Sorry for so many pics.  I really don't have time right now to sit down and chunk them into several posts.  So they are all together!  The first are of the sweet diaper shower our precious friends Debbie and Whitney threw us at church.  It was SUCH a sweet time and the details were PRECIOUS!  We really had a BALL!  The rest are obviously from his birthday!  What a DAY!
We were told to check into the hospital anywhere between midnight and 6 am.  We debated as when to go but decided to try to get a good nights sleep and get there around 5:30.  Neither of us slept well at all so we got there about 5.  They started my IV (which took 3 tries OUCH!) and ordered my epidural.  I was already dilated to a 4 and 80% effaced so we thought it would go super fast.  I got my epidural about 6:30 and I knew something wasn't right from the beginning.  I started feeling super nauseous and light headed and my nurse took my blood pressure which was 90 over 23.  She immediately had me roll to my side and it got better quickly.  However the second I rolled to my back, it started again.  My legs never got numb like they had with my other epidurals but I couldn't feel my contractions so I was told not to worry.  My doc checked me at 7:30 and was going to break my water but his head still wasn't engaged so they started me on pitocin and he said he would be back at lunch.  Everything was fine until about 11 and I started feeling really weird.  My pain was intense and they attempted to up my epidural and get it further south.  However, sadly, it never worked.  My water broke and the pain really began.  Though my contractions weren't felt in my stomach, I did feel everything once I got to an 8.  I transitioned quickly and once the pushing began, I knew my worst nightmare had come true!  I was feeling IT ALL!  I felt SO unprepared and super emotional (I get that way when I'm scared) and Bobby joked later that I was just whiny.  I felt like a maniac.  I always have prided myself on having a high pain tolerance but it was the worst pain I have ever felt in my life.  And it felt like it would never end.  I only pushed for about 15 minutes but he just felt stuck the whole time.  Once he was out, we knew why.  He was born face up and was 9 lbs 15 oz!  The nurses were guessing 12 lbs so I am so glad they were wrong.  He was 22.5 inches long and a GREAT eater from the get go :)  Abby Kate and Bo are CRAZY about him and we have had a BALL becoming a family of 5!  We are so deeply thankful for you precious Brooks and praise God for adding you to us!