Rylan's Arrival

She's finally here! I say that like she was weeks over due, but she was actually 19 days earlier than scheduled - Thank God! I don't know how much longer I could have lasted in all of this hot, humid weather. Even though she was a bit early, she was a healthy 6lbs 11oz and 20.25 inches long.

The labor and delivery were relatively uneventful. My water broke sometime in the early am on the 17th and I called the hospital around 5:30am to let them know and see when I should come in. They told me to take my time and wait for contractions to start and strengthen, but not wait too long since I had a history (with Brenden) of quick labors - I was in labor at the hospital for about an hour and then he was out in less than 2 pushes. Chris and I went to the hospital around 10am after getting the boys situated with my brother - BIG THANKS to him for watching them all day! Once at the hospital they confirmed my water had broken and got us moved from triage to labor and delivery. I let the doctor's know that I wanted my epidural then and not to wait, Brenden came so fast that I wasn't able to get an epidural in time and that was NOT going to happen again. I probably could have gone a while longer without the epidural because my contractions never really got going on their own, but I'm still glad I got it early. Because I wasn't making any progress, stuck at 4 cm for a few hours, we decided to start pitocin to speed things up. I had had pitocin with Jake to regulate my contractions so I didn't hesitate at all to get it started. Once they got me hooked up everything got going and got going fast. Within 2-4 hours I was at 10cm and ready to push and about ten minutes later Rylan was out.

Now for me, its what happened the night before that makes me smile and where the real story of Rylan's birth will be told. There are two parts, the first involves Jake. Over the past month or so we've been telling the boys about their birth stories. We told Jake that he was so excited and ready to come out that he poked a hole in his water sac with his super sharp nails - the kid was all scratched up on his face in the first days from his nails. Since hearing this story Jake started talking to Rylan in my belly and telling her she should "punch a hole in that water bag". Well, on Monday night at bedtime Jake went a little farther in his talk with Rylan. As he was about to tell her once again to punch a whole he stopped and you could see the wheels spinning in his head. He had realized that she might not know how to make a fist and proceeded to tell her how so she could do it right and have it work. He also told her that he loved her and really wanted her to come out. It was really cute to watch this all happen. The next morning when he got up I told him that she had listened to him and that my water had broke and she would be out to meet all of us later that day. The look on Jake's face when I told him that Rylan had listened was priceless. He was so surprised and SO PROUD!

The next part of the story involves Chris. Chris and I had been toying with the idea of painting the kitchen for a while. Since redoing the master bathroom, Chris seemed a little extra motivated to get moving on it and to do it himself. Before I knew it, we had a color almost picked and Chris was getting all of the supplies. Chris spent Sunday taping the kitchen, then Monday we picked a color and he got the paint and began priming and by Monday night he was putting on the first coat of Paint. We had the kitchen all taken apart and Chris wouldn't let me help at all. He continued to work and had gotten the first coat on and everything cleaned and ready to go for the second coat by 12:30am. It was going great, the paint looked good and the boys and I were planning to be at the pool in the morning for practice so Chris could finish the job. Then of course my water broke in the middle of night! You know if he hadn't started painting that night there's no way my water would have broken. He even asked me while he was painting if I was going to go into labor that night and I joked that I wouldn't and thus I probably would. I like to believe that Chris' nesting instincts kicked in and he knew on some level what was going to go down the next day. Needless to say, the kitchen did not get finished on Tuesday, but since everything went fine in delivery and Rylan was healthy, he was able to finish the job on Wednesday before we all came home from the hospital! What a nice welcome home for us:-)

So here we are now on Rylan's 5th day of life and everyone is doing well. We are all enjoying the new addition to the family, the new look in our kitchen, and the fun stories of how Rylan was born. Below are some pictures of Rylan from the hospital and her first days at home and of course a before and after shot of the kitchen, ENJOY!

Before: After:

Rylan and Family:

Jumping and Diving

I took both of the boys to the pool this afternoon since it was about 90 degrees with about the same humidity. It felt great to get in the pool! After a busy afternoon with the boys, it was a great way to end the day and I got not one, but two surprises from my boys.

First, Brenden asked me if I would go to the shallow end and catch him. Brenden has been reluctant to leave the the area of the pool where he is able to touch and where he wanted to go was definitely over his head. I of course quickly said yes and was so pleased to see some of his comfort in the water coming back. After jumping to me at least 10 times, we then went down to the deep end for him to jump to me! I was only able to catch him once. I think he would have tried a few more times, but its kind of hard for me to tread water and catch a 3 year old while 8 1/2 months pregnant. He definitely had fun jumping to me and it was so good to see him smiling and being playful in the water again.

Next, Jake came over to me while I was taking a break and asked if I would catch him off the diving board! All summer he has been telling me he would, but always saying he would do it next time. Apparently today was next time. The first time he jumped I was out in the middle of the diving well to make him feel more comfortable. He jumped right in and didn't need any help from me. He proceeded to jump at least 10 more times with me on the side watching. He was so excited and had so much fun that even asked Chris after we got home if we could go back so he could show him.

I was able to get a few of the jumps on video, enjoy!

Arizona Part 2 - The Kids and Mana

So while I was in Arizona to coach, the kids were there to spend some quality time with their Mana - my mom. Needless to say, the kids, Jake especially, had been looking forward to this trip for quite some time. And when the day came to jump on a plane and fly to Arizona the kids were ready to go and on some of their best behavior!

Most days I only got to see the boys when they woke up and before they went to bed. At first the boys were fine with this, but after a few days I think they started to actually miss me a little. They spent probably close to 90% of their time awake in the pool at my mom's. The other 10% they went to see Toy Story 3, came to the pool to visit me, and played in the house because of Monsoons. Because I wasn't around for much, I'll let the pictures do the talking:

The boys had a blast. They both got lots of practice swimming and my mom was able to get her fill and then some. With Rylan coming soon we're not sure when we'll be able to make it back so I'm glad they got a good, long trip!

Arizona Part 1 - Coaching

As some of you may know, I just returned home from a 10 day trip to Arizona. The purpose of the trip was primarily for me to be able to attend JO and Age Group Nationals for Diving. The meet was being held at the University of Arizona where I went to school and was being hosted by my old coach Michelle Mitchell.

I was a little nervous to be going out to Arizona and especially for so long seeing that I was about 34 weeks pregnant when I left. Luckily my body seemed to hold up just fine and there were no signs of early labor. Of the 10 days in Arizona, 9 were spent at the pool coaching, at least 6 of those days were 12+ hour days, and all of them were in 90-100 degree heat. So it is pretty amazing that my body was able to hold up the entire trip, although by day 9 it sure felt like it was ready to give out and I was more than ready to return home on day 10.

To give you an idea of what I was doing I will take you through a typical day. Most days I needed to be at the pool around 7am, some days a little earlier and some a little later. My mom's house is about a 30-40 minute drive so I was usually up around 5:30am. When I arrived at the pool I would coach our divers for about an hour, 30 minutes dry land and 30 minutes in the water. At 8:30am those divers in the first events would have a warmup and I'd do some more coaching. Events started at 9am and went all day. I would spend the rest of the day going back and forth between coaching and judging, and sometimes both at once. Once the days events were over I would help coach an evening practice for those divers in the next days events, this usually ended around 8pm and I would hopefully be home by 9pm. Of course there were a couple of days where I was able to leave after prelims because we didn't have any divers in finals, but I think I would have rather had the divers make finals and have to stay the whole day.

Overall it was a very good experience. I got a LOT of judging experience and I got to watch some of the best coaches in the country in action. It was also great to see all the best age group divers in the country and see how our divers compared. I'm hoping to use all that I saw and learned to help evaluate my coaching in order make our divers better in the future. Also, some of our divers didn't dive as well as they had hoped to and I'm hoping that being at this meet I will be able to better prepare them for future meets.

Here are a couple of lovely pictures my mom snapped of me at the pool - 35 weeks pregnant!

New Bath/Shower

Well you might think with Jake, Brenden, and me gone for 10 days it was all laying around and play for Chris. If you thought Chris had a week and a half of nothing to do, you would be wrong. The last few days of our trip, Chris was home with his brother-in-law Todd doing some much needed work on our master bathroom.

When we were looking for a new house three years ago I desperately wanted one with a bathroom that had a big soaking tub. For those of you who don't know, I LOVE MY BATHS! I take at least one bath a week and during pregnancy its usually closer to 3-4 per week. Well, in our house search we found a great house that had almost everything we wanted, but sadly not a good master bathroom. So for the past 3 years I have been taking baths in our small, non-impressive, bath/shower stall. I have managed to get by and we tried doing a full remodel of the bathroom, but $25-30,000 was a bit out of our price range. So over the past few months Chris has been gathering the pieces, fixtures, whirlpool tub, tile, etc., to be able to remodel the bath/shower portion of the bathroom. With both me and the boys gone for so long it looked like the perfect opportunity to get the job done.

Chris and Todd worked on the Bathroom for 2-3 days and it came out beautifully! I couldn't be happier with the results. The tile work looks great, the tub works wonderfully, the fixtures are beautiful, and most importantly, I can finally lay back and relax with plenty of room for my whole body to enjoy a long soak in the tub! The only down side to all of this is that now the improvements needed for the rest of the bathroom are bit more glaring, but I've already ordered new cabinet hardware and plan to get some paint swatches to help with that!

Here are pictures of before and after:

Before:

After: