Easter

I was really excited for Easter this year because my mom was going to be with us. Holidays are already fun but when you can have family in town during them its an extra bonus! My mom packed a whole tote full of stuff for us for Easter and flew it here haha She is crazy but I was thankful that I didn't have to worry about getting everything for Easter while planning for a new baby to come. That Saturday we went to the ward Easter party. I was pretty bummed that it was raining and had to be moved to the church but Jackson still had fun running around with his bff Soren.

Jackson ready to go to the Easter party

Decorating Eggs with Oma. Those eggs didn't last very long.. Jackson kept thinking they were plastic and throwing them

Jackson and Soren! You can never get them to look at the camera

Finding Easter eggs

His forced smile! 

That night we had friends over to dye eggs. Jackson loved drawing on the eggs and then picking what color to dye them.

Ross thought it would be a good idea to add extra vinegar to the mix but it only made things worse! When we got the eggs out all the color would just wipe right off lol 

Coles Easter egg

Some of the finished eggs

Our Easter baskets

Jackson was so excited to get his buzz lightyear

We had our own little Easter eggs hunt that morning with way to many eggs for just Jackson to find

Cole his Easter basket

 Dad helping Jackson find the eggs

Jackson Easter was more like Christmas this year. He got way to much in his basket but thats what happens when Oma comes in to visit.

Cole's birth story

*Don't feel like you need to read this long post. I just want it on here so I have it when I make our blog into a book*

Cole was very nice to us and didn't come before Ross took his boards test but he also didn't want to come anytime after the test either! Every time I would go to the doctors I would hear the same thing "you are getting softer" the nice way of my doctor telling me that I was not dilated or effaced at all. With my mom already having her flight ticket bought I decided to be induced on my due date so when I got home from the hospital she would fly in the next day and be able to help me longer while I was home. (If I was to do it over again I would wait tell my mom flew in and then be induced. It was so stressful for me to get Jackson set up with babysitters and figure out a schedule for him while I was at the hospital. I also didn't like being at the hospital alone for that long of a time.) Anyway, since I wasn't dilated at all my doctor had me go in the night before and have a cervidil placed. I had that with Jackson and knew it was going to be a long night with little to no sleep and my night didn't disappoint :) I got all hooked up to the NST and to my surprise I was already contracting about every ten minutes but still only a 1 and 30% effaced. Ross stayed with me for a little while and then went home so we didn't have to get anyone to stay the night with Jackson. Ross would text often to see how I was doing and to have me send him a picture of the NST screen so he could see how strong my contractions were lol That night my contractons were there just enough that they would hurt and keep me up or wake me up if I happened to fall asleep. Around 3am with my contractions getting closer and a little stronger I had had enough and asked the nurse for some pain medicine. If it was during the day and I had some sleep in me I wouldn't have gotten any medicine but I wanted to sleep for a little bit and I knew that the medicine they would give me would knock me out for a good two hours . I figured a little sleep would be good before I started into the next day! The medicine did its job and I woke up around 530-6am to stronger contractons. Ross got to the hospital around 8 and I was starting to hurt more and more but we were waiting on my doctor to get there to check me and brake my water before I could get a epidural. She showed up around 9:30 and I was ready for her to be there. My contractions were about every four minutes apart and I was hurting and WANTED that epidural! She told me I was at 5-6 and 50% effaced and I asked for my epidural right then! They told me that I needed to get two bags of fluid in me before they could give me the epidural and that would take about 20 minutes (lie). I wasn't thrilled about this but what could I do.. So I sat there with Ross while my contractions got harder and harder. By the time the anesthesiologist came I was practically crying during every contractions they hurt so bad! They sent Ross out of the room and told him to come back in 20-30 min because they are stupid here and wont let anyone be in the room while the give the epidural. They had me sit up and sit on the side of the bed and start to clean the area and a contraction comes and I tell them how bad it hurts and I feel a lot of pressure. They kinda just blew me off and told me to breath.. another contraction came, this one felt like I sitting on something and I needed to push! I told them again how I was feeling and again they told me to just breath! Next contraction was they same feeling but harder again our same conversation happened but after they told me to breath I was like no really I need to push and laid back because the pressure was so strong. The nurse finally check me then and was like "um, yeah there's a head" after that my room exploded with craziness!People were running around doing all sorts of things.  My first thought.. " oh sh** I'm not getting a epidural and I'm going to have to this naturally"  and then it was getting Ross back in the room! The nurse ran down to the waiting room where Ross was suppose to be and found no Ross!! (Ross decided to take a little walk because other people were in the room lol) She came back and tells me the good new and I reach for my phone to call him only to remember I gave it to Ross so he could respond to text for me!!! So we grab the hospital phone to call him.. No worries our phone numbers are out of state and the hospital only calls locally.. by this time I was coming to grips that Ross might miss the delivery! Finally, a kind nurse pulled out her phone and called him. Ross said he almost didn't answer it! I'm so thankful he did! He said he answered the phone and the nurse just said "your wife is about to deliver you need to come as soon as you can" Ross  "oh crap" Random people in the hall "baby is coming" Ross "yeah" and Ross started running back to the room. Everything happened so fast, in less then 5 minutes they had everything set up, five nurses were in my room and my doctor. As soon as Ross walked in the room we started pushing. Three or Four pushes later at 10:34am our screaming little Cole was here! I hate delivering but love it at the same time. Its the most amazing feeling seeing your baby for the first time and being able to hold them and know that they are okay.

Things I learned from this delivery:
-It wasn't just a fluke when I was having Jackson that once I hit 4cm I dilated to a ten with in a hour. Next time I will be prepared!
- Don't have anymore babies in Mississippi where they make your husband leave the room while they give the epidural.
- Keep your phone on you at all times
- Your contractions hurt much more then the actual pushing part with no  epidural
- Not getting an epidural is WAY over rated! I would much rather have a itchy face and be numb for a couple hours then pushing and feeling yourself tear and then feeling the doctor stitch you up!

First time with Cole

Our little guy

Cole and Dr. Thompson

Ross holding Cole for the first time

Jackson meeting Cole for the first time

First family picture

Introducing Mr. Cole

Cole Bennett Chatwin was born March 26th at 10:34 am! He was 7lb 6oz and 21in long. 

We couldn't be more in love with this little guy! 

Jackson is starting to warm up to his little brother. When we brought Cole home from the hospital we walked into the house and set the car seat on the floor and shut the door and Jackson fell to the floor crying and kept saying something over and over. We were so confused and didn't know what he was saying or crying about. We kept asking him if he wanted to go outside, did he forget something in the car, everything was no but he kept saying that same thing. Finally I noticed that he was pointing to the carrier and realized that he was saying no cole, no cole haha I asked him if he didn't wan't Cole to be here and he shook his head yes!! Jackson's first reality check.. being told that Cole was indeed was his little brother and he wasn't going anywhere!

A little catch up

I'm trying to do a quick catch up before I get into our little Cole's birth! I love March and the NCCA basketball tournament. This year was more low key then most years. I really didn't keep up with the brackets or watch any games it was kinda weird! I started to follow it more towards the end because Jackson was in first! This year I printed off pictures of the mascot's and had Jackson pick what one he liked more! He liked it for a little bit and then lost interest in picking the teams so we had to just ask him bird or bear and he would say one and thats who we would choose to win the game. Don't mind Ross' face in the picture! Jackson for a few games took his gun and shot the picture he liked.  Jackson ended up taking a close 2nd

 

Jackson and I also went one last time to the zoo with just the two of us. They had just opened the stingray bay and it was only $2 for the both of us to go in and touch the stingrays so we did. Jackson wasn't so sure about touching them but loved watching them swim. I made him touch one and he freaked out and that was the end of the stingrays lol

After Ross finished taking his first boards test a group of us went to go bowling to celebrate it being over but when we got to the alle Fedex had rented the whole thing out! I felt so bad because Jackson was so so excited to go bowling for the first time. We had to tell him it was broken and we would come back and play when they fixed it so he would settle down. So we kept our promise and went another day that week. It was so fun to see how excited Jackson would get every time it was his turn. He actually did really well to.

A little hospital visit

**Feel free not to read this post. I'm writing it down so I have a record of it. I found that it was nice to go back and read my post about preterm labor with Jackson and see everything that went on.** A few days before Valentines day my lower back started to hurt but I didn't think much about it. I've had more pains and aches this pregnancy and I just figured that it had been a really long week with Ross going to school, studying for boards and the having his boards review class all weekend that made me sore. On Tuesday evening my back started to get worse so I put heat on it and took some medicine but they didn't do anything to help me. I had a really rough night and I work up that next morning and it was still there. I started to think back when I went into preterm labor with Jackson and it was feeling the same way.. I honestly tried to fight it saying it wasn't as bad, and I went into preterm because I went mini golfing with Tyler :) I told Ross that morning before he left to school that I thought it could be the same that I would wait and see how it felt that day and when he got back if I still felt the same I would go get it checked. Ross left and a few hours later I started having some front cramping so I called my doctor to see what they thought and they told me to go straight to hospital. I knew they were going to say that but you always hope for the best. I called Ross told him he needed come home so I could go to the hospital. Jackson was down for his nap and has had a cough so I told Ross to stay home with him that I was ok to go alone! He wasn't happy but I thought it would be quick. When I got to the hospital they set me up in this ghetto room thats like an ER room where there are like five other girls in there and just curtains separating us. Maybe I'm just stuck up growing up it Utah where I got my own room but I just thought it was weird. The nurse was getting all of my information and if there was a crazy in there they would have everything to ruin my life, name, bday, ss and address. I was thinking do you want my bank account number too so these people can take all my money while stealing my identity! Then she ask all my medical history do you have ads, herpes, chlamydia etc haha I just laughed and was glad I wasn't a whore and could happily say no to all of them. Anyway they hooked me up to the NST and I saw right off the great news.. Contraction!! I was having them every two to three minutes just like I did with Jackson. I was so bugged! I don't know why my body doesn't like the baby anymore and goes into pretrem around this time in my pregnancy. So they monitored me for hours and they weren't stopping so they gave me a shot to stop them. It made me super gittery but it worked and the contractions stopped! The doctor came in asked if I had family around to take care of me I said no, he then asked if I had any help and I said yes I had Ross and some friends that were there. He just sat there for awhile and then said I'm not going to put you on bed rest but you can't do anything haha I think if I would have had family around I would be on bed rest but I'm just taking it easy now! Ross has gone Nazi on me and I feel like I'm on house arrest! He hasn't let me do anything and gets mad every time I get up.. I had been thinking how sweet he was caring about me until I was doing something and he told be to sit down that I can't have this baby for another month because he has to take his boards and he can't have me go crazy with a new baby and a two year old when he needs to study!! I asked if thats the only reason he is doing all of this and he didn't hesitate and said YES haha So he really doesn't care about my well being but passing his test!! I can't say that I blame him though! It's been a week since I went to the hospital and I've been really sore questioning if I was having contraction or not.I figured it wasn't because when I would take some medicine and ross would rub my back and it would feel a little better. I'm guessing that my nerve and muscles are just sore or swollen from the contraction. Today I feel much better though and can walk without much pain!

Valentines Day!..

This whole month I have been planning a fun day and a nice dinner at home for our family for Valentines Day.. Kids make holidays so much fun and I was really excited for Jackson to do the activities and help make dinner. I wanted to make the dinner a surprise for Ross so I had planned to go to the store the day before.. Sounds like a good plan right!? It was until my lower back started to really hurt the day before Valentines and I spent most the day in the hospital with contractions every two to three minutes. (Story to come later) So all my plans were ruined and I couldn't even go to the store to pick everything up. So Valentines day went much like this.. Ross let me sleep in and when I woke up he fixed me pink heart shaped pancakes and then took Jackson to the zoo while I sat around the house not being able to do anything. We then cooked what we had in the house for dinner and I made the desert I had planned and that was about it! Sadly I didn't even get ready that day.. Ross was really sweet to take Jackson to the zoo and was happy with the dinner I made so I didn't feel like the day was a total bust of a holiday! Here are a few pictures I took with my phone that day. Ross and Jackson went to the store and Jackson picked out this rose for me! He was so cute and happy to give it to me.

Ice storm

This ice storm happened a couple weeks ago but we got a terabyte for Christmas and I still dont know how to upload picture onto my computer now that it has changed.. Ross showed me again tonight but I still don't think I could do it by myself! ANYWAY here's a little post of the ice storm we had. One of the days it happened I wasn't planning on it and needed to go to the store to pick some stuff up for dinner. When Ross and I went out to go to the store our car was fully iced over with a nice sheet of ice.. After finally getting the doors open and Jackson in the car ready to go we shut the back door and it just flew right back open. It the short time that we had opened the door to hurry and get Jackson in our door had frozen open. We had to sit there holding the door shut while the heater was on full blast trying to get the door to unfreeze and lock shut!! It was such a pain! Other then that and a scary drive to the store I thought the storms made outside look so pretty.