Thanksgiving 2013

 We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year. My biggest fear was that I would be in the hospital, eating less than ideal hospital food for my Thanksgiving dinner. I said over and over how bad I did NOT wan't to be in the hospital on Thanksgiving Day. Luckily, Taylor was a good little boy and came a week and a half before! Spencer and Suzy hosted and our day was spent eating WAY too much, and chatting with the best of friends. We have been blessed with such wonderful friends, half of which will be moving this summer. I'm already having a pity party for myself just thinking about them moving!

 We have so much to be thankful for right now. I feel like we have been extra blessed this past year, and the number one thing on my thankful list for 2013 is little Taylor boy. I spent many nights in tears, waiting and praying to Heavenly Father to send us another baby. I know there is a reason that we went through what we did, and that the timing is just right, but it was a hard lesson while we were in the middle of it. I'm not sure we learned what we needed to learn, but either way, we are beyond grateful to have this little baby here with us now. There is something so special about newborn babies. Every time I look at Taylor I am in awe at how sweet and innocent they are. I literally could sit and stare at him all day. For some reason with Taylor, I feel something extra special about him. I really wanted to have a girl when we first got pregnant, but now after just a few short weeks, I could not imagine our life without him. He is definitely something to be thankful for!

Taylor Baird

Tomorrow will be the three week mark since I woke up early in the morning, knowing that I was going to have this baby. The night before we had gone to the adult session of District Conference and I started having some contractions, but they were on average 10-15 minutes apart. Nothing close enough to get my hopes up. We went out to dinner after and either they stopped, or I just wasn't paying enough attention to notice them. So we came home and went to bed. The next morning, I woke up at 5:40am, with a very distinct feeling that today was the day. I hopped in the shower and had 5 contractions in the 15 minutes that I was in there. They were now 2-3 minutes apart and pretty uncomfortable. I woke Justin up and told him that if he wanted to shower, he better hurry because we need to head to the hospital! I threw some stuff together in a bag (not sure why I hadn't packed a bag yet!) and called my friend Hollie to come over while the kids were still sleeping. By the time we got to the hospital, my contractions were getting more painful but a little farther apart. I started to worry that they were going to send me home and tell me that it was false labor. But when they checked me, I was almost at a 5 and they admitted me with no problems. Yay! I had been dreading the unknown of when to go to the hospital, or my water breaking somewhere embarrassing, or thinking I was in labor and having the hospital send me home. I had been induced with my other two boys, but they won't induce you here until you are between 41 and 42 weeks! That sounds dreadful. So once I was actually in my hospital room and my epidural was on it's way, I had a huge sense of relief and gratitude that everything up to that point had gone so smooth. I was extremely surprised that he was coming 6 days early though! Excited beyond belief that my pregnancy was about to be over, but super surprised that it was going to end almost a week early. Justin and I kept saying to each other that we couldn't believe it was actually happening and that we were really going to see our baby! It didn't feel real and didn't really sink in until after he was born.

We got to the hospital at 7am. I got my epidural by 9. They broke my water at about 12:45, and by 1:45, they were getting ready for his arrival. I pushed for a total of 7 minutes, through 3 contractions and he was here by 2pm! He got tangled in his cord on his way out and was bright blue, which scared us half to death, but luckily he was fine and pinked up after a few minutes. Right away, we could tell that he looked a little bigger than our other two. Especially Anderson. He already looked a little chunky! Imagine if I would have had him at 42 weeks, instead of 39 weeks.

Welcome Taylor!

Born on Sunday, November 17 at 2pm.

8 lbs and 21 inches long.

He was perfect. 10 fingers, 10 toes and the cutest little puffy face we'd seen.

Look at that chunky face!

The boys were pretty excited to come and see him. Anderson kept saying, "Oh you cute little baby Taylor!" "Look at his teeny toes and his teeny fingers!" When they were getting ready to leave Justin told Jack to come and give his brother a kiss before they left. Jack looked at him rather surprised and said, "Dad, I just met him!" Obviously you don't kiss people that you hardly know. :) 

The hospital stay was good and the doctor and nurses were awesome. Plus we had a great view of the ocean out our window.

The boys came back right before we were ready to leave the hospital. They have been so funny during the whole pregnancy asking all sorts of questions that I wasn't quite ready to answer. Jack was only 2 when Anderson was born and he wasn't old enough to care how the baby comes out and all of those awesome questions that I'm not really good at answering. I was nursing Taylor under a blanket and Jack naturally wanted to know what I was doing and why he couldn't see Taylor at the moment. After I explained it to him, he looked at me with an awkward face and said, "That is SO....weird!" I got a good laugh. Then a couple days later, I had just finished pumping and Jack looked at the bottles and asked where I got the milk from. I explained yet again and he said, "That's even weirder than him eating from your chest!" You know what? You're right bud....it is a little weird!

Even though I look super scary in these pictures, they are our first pictures as a family of 5. Crazy! 

Here he is, ready to go home! Chunky face and all.

Our first week with him home was so relaxing. Justin was home with me, we had dinner brought to us, and our kids were invited to one place after another with all of our wonderful friends. Even though I felt like I sat in a chair feeding Taylor for a week straight, I loved every minute of it. They change so fast and I wanted to soak up every second of this teeny baby that would be changing almost daily. They grow up too fast!! Tomorrow he will be three weeks old and I want to cry my eyes out. Where have the past three weeks gone?! Before I know it he will be big like his brothers and be in to all kinds of trouble. I told him that he has to stop growing, but he won't listen. So in the mean time, I will be loving every minute I have while he's still little. 

Halloween

This year for Halloween, the boys went back and forth for months trying to decide what to be. Jack eventually settled on a bat, and Anderson wanted to wear the pumpkin costume that he wore last year. Easy enough for me! I cut a piece of black fabric and pinned it to Jack's black shirt for the wings. I found the glasses at the BX and the ears at the 100 yen store. I think it cost me a total of $8. Justin and I did not dress up this year. My 9 month pregnant belly put a damper on that. It was a little rainy that night, but luckily they made it around our neighborhood before it started dumping down. We have the perfect trick-or-treating neighborhood. This year they let a big group of Japanese people on base to trick-or-treat and it was hilarious to hear them say it. "Twick oh tweat!" It's always fun when the moms want to take a picture with you and their kids too. I love the Japanese!

Fukuoka and Sasebo

We took a weekend trip up to mainland Japan to visit the other branch in our church district. We are in a military district which includes all of Okinawa and a small branch up in Sasebo. Justin works with the youth in the district and we came out to visit them and hold a big activity and fireside. We flew in to Fukuoka, where we stayed the night. 

We stopped at our hotel room to change before heading to the Fukuoka temple and immediately cracked up when we walked in the room. This picture does not do it justice, but our rooms were miniature! Everything in Japan is made smaller, even the hotel rooms! 

After the hotel, we walked a few blocks to the Fukuoka LDS temple. It was beautiful! I love going to different temples and this was our first time seeing a temple in Japan. 

The next day we took the hour and a half bus ride to Sasebo. Sasebo is a very small Navy base in a beautiful part of Japan. 

I could have stayed at this view point all day.

The last part of our trip was in Nagasaki, where they dropped the atomic bomb in WWII. It was a very sobering place to visit. I really enjoy learning about history, but couldn't help leaving there with a sad feeling inside for all of the terrible things that happened in the war.

These were caves that they would hide in while under attack.

This spot right here is exactly where the bomb landed. They had before and after ariel shots that were unreal. 

After Nagasaki, we went back to Sasebo for the activity and fireside. The branch there is really small so there aren't very many youth. They are a tight knit group and have amazing testimonies of the gospel. It made me hope that my boys are as strong in the gospel when they are teenagers. I spent a lot of time asking one of the moms how they did it and suggestions that she has. We came home with some good goals for our family!