Our Newest Addition

Alexis Diane Beckstead was born April 28th, 2010 at 11:49pm. She was 6lb 12.3oz and was 21 inches long.

My labor was induced the morning of the 28th. It progressed fairly slowly, and by 8:00pm that evening I was only a 5 and barely 50% effaced. It appeared that my attempt at a VBAC was going to be unsuccessful. My doctor was great though and let me keep trying. She wasn't super optimistic but gave me more time and thankfully she did. At 10:00 they came in to check me and I was at a 10 and her head was in the birth canal. I pushed for almost two hours and our sweet little baby Alexis was born. She came out with a dark head of curly hair. The brown hair surprised us all. We thought we would have a blonde or another red head.

As soon as I started to push Grandma Peggy and Grandpa Malcolm pulled Brooklyn out of bed and made the trek back to the hospital to meet baby Alexis. My mom got to the room just before she arrived and was able to witness the birth. Brooklyn was very tired but so excited to meet her new sister.

Mommy, Alexis and Daddy spent the next two days in the hospital and they let us go home at 6:00 on Friday evening (April 30th).

Since then we have all been adjusting to life as a family of four. We have been blessed to have the help of wonderful family; my mom and Malcolm, and my fabulous cousin
Angie and her daughter Chloe. Alexis is a super sweet baby and is really quite good. She sleeps a lot, like most newborns, loves her paci, and only sleeps at night if she is being held.

Lexie will be three weeks old tomorrow and I find myself already wondering where the three weeks have gone. She is already getting so big and filling out and we are enjoying every minute of it.

Our first family of four picture.

Going home!!

First Bath

Overheard...

This is what I overheard tonight while Brooklyn was playing with a friend.

"... I'm excited, its just that it feels like its never gonna come out! Do you know what I'm saying?" (This was in reference to the baby.)

Yes! I know what she is saying.

Moving... again

We have been of course crazy busy the past month. It seems like life will never slow down, but we are happy and most of the crazy has been good crazy.

We finally moved into our house! Yay! We love it and are almost done unpacking. We have made quite a few trips to goodwill as our house has more usable rooms and space, but much less storage space. We have also had crazy construction going on at the same time. The day after we moved, thankfully before most of our stuff was here, we had our sewage back up in our downstairs bathroom. Apparently the power company had drilled through our sewage line. Two weeks later, we almost have a full functioning bathroom again and all is new and replaced in the bathroom and the den. It actually created quite a bit of water damage, but the builder has been great and done everything they can to get it fixed. Thanks to some help from my dad we were able to paint all the bedrooms and the toy room, hang up all the ceiling fans and blinds in the first few days. It has been crazy, but good. Things are definitely not finished but are not as a hectic of pace as the first few weeks. We love our new neighborhood and have already met all of our neighbors. We have never done this in the past. Everyone is super friendly and their are lots of kids playing. Just the type of neighborhood we were looking for.

We are also anxiously awaiting the arrival of baby Alexis. She is due in two weeks and I have been dilated to 1cm for the past two. We are finally starting to feel ready for this baby now that we are mostly unpacked and have clothes and a place for her to sleep. Brooklyn can't wait to meet her baby sister and see what she looks like. She also keeps telling me she can't wait for my little tummy to come back. I am quite huge and there is just no room for her to snuggle me anymore. My feet have also started to swell again. I still don't think they are anywhere near as bad as I was with Brooklyn, but I can't wear any of my shoes except flip flops.

Brooklyn is loving having her things back and having tons of space to play in.

Brad's new job is good and he has started to get really busy again.

We are enjoying Florida and all it has to offer. The humidity is definitely something to get used to though. I will post about how much we like Florida again after our first Summer... hurricanes, scary crazy thunderstorms, etc. For those of you that know me, I am terrified of severe weather. It will either drive me to the loony bin or make me stronger. Lets hope for the later. We also live right on a lake and their is supposedly a 3 ft alligator that takes his residence there, but have yet to have an up close sighting. We do have whooping cranes in our backyard everyday though. They come up to our backdoor and peck at their reflection all the time.

That's about it and I will post pictures later. We really haven't done much but house, house, house lately.

Spiders...

This morning I was pretending to catch a fish with Brooklyn and was making small screamlike noises of excitement.

Brooklyn response was, "Mommy, its not a spider!"

I have had a few uncomfortable experiences with spiders/bugs lately and they have all resulted in an involuntary scream. What can you do? She made us laugh so hard this morning.

Celebrating 4

It seems that every year Brooklyn's birthday is not a day, but a multi-day event. It is never really planned this way, but we always get carried away.

**Brooklyn's birthday this year started out with a party at Grandma Peggy's and Grandpa Malcolm's in Las Vegas with family. We had a cute little party for my brother Mike and Brooklyn. Mike's birthday was the 25th of Feb and hers is the 2nd of March.

Mike picked out a princess cake just for Brooklyn. We decorated with Princess Tiana and green for Mardi Gras. Everyone got a hat or silly ears and we all had a great time.

Here are a few pics from the night.




Somehow I didn't get one of the two birthday kids together, but oh well.

**Her birthday itself started with "4" pancakes, dress up she had bought with money from Grandma Peggy and Grandpa Malcolm, and a vanity for her new bedroom. We then got her dressed in her "4" shirt and hit the mall. She had birthday money to spend and she knew exactly what she wanted - the green Tiana dress up from Princess and the Frog. We picked out her dress up and some lipgloss from the Disney store and then grabbed some lunch together. Afterwards we picked up her Tinkerbell cake and headed home to have some quiet time with a movie. Daddy got off work early and we headed to Sonny's Bar B Que for her birthday dinner (her choice, but they do have killer mac n cheese). After Sonny's we had some cake and played together as a family for awhile. It was a great day and she kept saying all day how she "couldn't believe I am 4!"


**The birthday celebration ended this past weekend at Disneyworld Magic Kingdom. When we told Brooklyn we were moving to Florida we promised her we would take her to Disneyworld for her birthday and we were not about to renege on that promise. We had a fun-filled two day trip to the Magic Kingdom where she had an incredible time. We met princesses (dined with them too) and fairies, enjoyed lots of shows including Belle's Story Time three times (I think this was encouraged by daddy a little though), rode every ride she wanted to and some multiple times. Peter Pan's flight had to be her all time favorite ride, but she also LOVED Goofy's Barnstormer Rollercoaster. She couldn't wait to go again and again with her "Prince Daddy." It was a great time as a family and it helped us remember the benefits of being so far away from all those we love.




Happy Birthday Goose! We love you!

My Baby is Four

(Brooklyn the morning of her birthday with her new Tiana wedding dress up already on getting ready to eat her "4" pancake.)

I can't believe that my baby Brooklyn is not only no longer a baby, but four years old. She is such a joy to us and everyone she is around. She has such a bright and bubbly personality and has an incredible imagination. Brooklyn is rarely "Brooklyn," she is always some other character from a movie or book and we must play along.

Here are my favorite things about Brooklyn right now.
1. She loves sharing.
2. Her imagination is constantly running.
3. She is my big girl, but still has to start the day with snuggles in my bed.
4. She loves learning. She is always asking questions and asking for more learning time.
5. She loves princess or fairy anything. She truly is our little princess and we love to spoil her and help her feel every bit that princess.
6. She is definitely a girly girl. She loves to have her nails painted, hair done, put on makeup, shop and anything else girly.
7. She loves her daddy/daughter dates. She is always thinking of what she wants to do on her next daddy/daughter date. Her daddy loves her so much and I am so glad he started taking her on dates so long ago.
8. Her daddy is her prince. No matter what movie/game/story she is acting out her daddy is her prince. It always ends with her marrying her daddy. They pretend to get married and have a dance. Most days are not complete without a wedding with daddy.
9. She loves artwork. We have been living in an apartment for the past 2 and 1/2 months waiting for our house to be done and she has filled her walls and ours with her artwork. She will spend hours coloring, drawing or creating something. It is definitely one of her favorite things. I think she will have some disappointment leaving the apartment because we have allowed her to decorate it and that will no longer be the case in the house.
10. She is hilarious! I love this girl. She always gives us a reason to laugh with some crazy story or silly behavior. She has been spending the last few weeks trying to come up with something funny to make her Grandma Beckstead laugh so she will feel better. They are definitely random, but it is funny to watch her try.
11. She is incredibly loving. Brooklyn loves so much and we couldn't be happier. She can't wait for her baby sister to come. She keeps talking about how much she will help me and how much fun it will be to play with her. She also keeps coming up with names for her and her favorite right now is "Elegant."
12. She loves to dance and sing. No matter where she goes she is always dancing and singing. Everytime I am not around whoever is watching her always comments on her dancing and singing. It is definitely one of her favorite things and our days would not be the same without her sweet voice and twirling around the room.
13. She has a mind of her own and she uses it. Brooklyn always knows what she wants. She rarely changes her mind and is determined to see something through. She loves to play with other kids, but if they don't want to play her game or if she isn't interested in what they are doing she entertains herself. I hope this quality continues through those tough preteen/teen years.

We love you Brooklyn! I am so glad you had a birthday so we could all remember that special day you joined our family and how much we love you. We are truly blessed to have you as part of our lives and I thank Heavenly Father every night for the treasure that you are. Happy Birthday princess!

Alexis???

So right now we are thinking this baby is Alexis, but will probably call her Lexie. What do you think?