Chase is 3!!!

Chase turned 3 on the 8th but we celebrated yesterday. We had a few friends over for swimming, pizza and cake. Chase wasn't too into swimming because he wanted to get the rest of the party started!

Grandma and Grandpa were a huge help with getting food ready, picking up pizza, etc!

Grateful for a few friends that could come over last minute.

Someone sees cupcakes!

Chase was singing along "Happy Birthday to you.."

Opening presents with the help of friends!

Thank you grandpa and grandma for the remote control car!

Me and my birthday boy!

Chase, we love you so much and you bring us so much joy! We love watching you play with your cars and trains for hours on end. You are very social and love playing with your friends. While we have to remind you to say please, your thank yous are abundant! You mastered your tricycle and are almost potty trained! We love hearing you recite your verses and talking about how Jesus died on the cross for our sins. We hope to cultivate in you a love for the church (even though now when I ask what we do there you say "play cars") and others. We hope our discpline of you is firm but loving and always points you back to the cross and a need for a Savior. Even though you are not too interested in Jacob now we know you will be a great big brother and eventually become best buds. We are excited to see what this year brings for our big three year old!!



Brothers

Planes, trains and VROOM VROOM noise.

Life is so much fun with boys!

Except when trying to get a picture to put on the back of the birth announcement. I finally gave up and figured I would just post the pictures here. I got a couple close ones but not one that was print worthy. 

Chase didn't want to hold Jacob so I tried this pose first.

Chase is so sweet when he gives Jacob a kiss. Which is definitely on his terms not mine!

Chase finally let me put Jacob next to him (after a lot of bribing).

I almost used this picture but the more I looked at it I couldn't handle Chase's giraffe neck!

Not looking at the camera...

Once I started getting feet in the picture I gave up!

I love my boys though!!!

Family Picture

Here's our attempt at a family picture after church on Sunday. When we get one I really like I plan on changing the picture at the top of the blog.

We had Jacob's two week appointment yesterday and he was up to 9 lbs. 12 oz. He also grew an inch and is at 23 inches which is the 98% percentile. We are all still doing well and gearing up for the grandparent exchange this weekend. My mom is leaving and Brad's parents are coming into town. We are so grateful for all the help!

The Star!

It's been a busy 2 weeks keeping up with a toddler and newborn and yes grandmom is still here to help. I am not thinking about when I am left alone. But anyways, here are some more pictures of the star of my blog!  I love this bib! I mentioned it in a previous post and my brother and sister-in-law sent it in the mail! By the way we are super excited for Chase and Jacob to have a new cousin!!

Chase and mommy set up the playmat and Chase had to try it out!

We are so grateful for grandmoms help!!!

I tried my hand at a little photoshoot the other day. Complete fail as you can see! Thankfully a neighbor came over to save the day! Look for birth annoucements coming soon!

The Birth Story

Let me just say thank you so much to everyone who prayed he would come on his own! It is sooo much easier than being induced. I was so sure that I would have to be induced yesterday I signed up to bring food for a church outreach, told Brad to let scheduling know it would be Wednesday, didn't have the baby room completely set up, etc. My mom had me walking 2 miles a day, bouncing on an exercise ball and telling us to do other things that are supposed to bring on labor (wink, wink). Well it worked! Friday night we went to see Soul Surfer for date night. I was pretty uncomfortable going to bed that night (as I had been the past couple nights) and I noticed by 1am that I might be having some minor contractions. I walked around the house, sat on the ball but they kept coming. I finally woke Brad up at 2:30am telling him that I was pretty uncomfortable and we started timing. They were about 2 to 3 minutes apart. We timed for a while, went on a walk outside and installed the carseat. We called and they were on the fence about whether we should come in so we decided to wait another hour or so. I took a bath and finished packing our bags and then we headed in around 5am. I was so paranoid that we would be sent home that we left the bags and stuff in the car when we checked in. But as we were checking in my contractions must have seemed real to them and I got wheeled up to L&D and hooked up to everything. When she finally checked me and I was about a 5cm I was so relieved to know that we were staying. I asked for the epidural and it took forever for the guy to get there - that was the hardest part of the labor. The doctor broke my water at one point and by 8:30am I was fully dilated. But the doctor said that the head was still pretty high and since I was on the epidural asked if I wanted to see if the contractions would push his head lower so he would be easier to push out. He implied he would check back in a couple hours. Well I took a nap, we looked at baby names again, played tetris etc. Finally around 11am I was getting hungry (epidurals are amazing) so I started asking when the doctor was going to come back to see if I could start pushing. With Chase they let the epidural wear off because they wanted me to be able to feel how I was pushing because I guess I was doing it wrong so I wanted to have time for that. It took forever for the doctor to come back (around 1pm - I was getting a little annoyed). He told the nurse to go ahead and let me start pushing to see what happens. After one push the nurse said to hold up because this baby was coming! They got the doctor back and they got everything ready. At the next contraction - 2 pushes got the head out and on the 3rd push he was out! I couldn't feel a thing and there he was! They put him on my chest right away before taking him away to clean him up. I was amazed it was that easy! The recovery has been so much easier too! I could even say the day after he as born that we want more kids. I think it took forever to say that after Chase!

I loved the hospital experience here too. So much different than a military hospital. The nursery took the baby at night, except for feedings, so I could actually get some sleep and they were just more relaxed about stuff. I also liked having my own room for recovery. Ok, that wasn't exactly Lakenheath's fault - the rooms were under construction when Chase was born.

Things are going good at home. So thankful grandmom is here. I am usually out and about with just Chase so it can be hard keeping him busy here at home. It is good I guess to just have some slower days. He might have to get used to that! I have enjoyed looking back at the blog to see Chase when he was just born. I think Jacob looks a little more like my side but comparing baby pictures I think you can definitely tell they are brothers.

Jacob

Chase

These were the best pictures I could find to compare. We actually haven't taken many pictures since we got home. Poor second child!

We are Home!

Thank you so much for all your comments on facebook and here. Thank you for rejoicing with us! We are home now for the hospital gearing up for the first night - wish us luck! I hope to get the birth story written down soon for anyone interested but for now I better head to bed. Here are a couple more pictures from the hospital and coming home.

Me and my two boys. We had Chase give Jacob a toy and Jacob "gave" Chase some new Cars from the new movie coming out. Chase and Daddy are very excited to see it!

Watching TV. Hard to keep a 2 year old busy in a small hospital room!

Our sweet Jacob wide awake.

I love how he is looking up at Brad in this one.

Chase was okay to hold Jacob for about 2 seconds!

Leaving the hospital. We had a great experience there and loved all the nurses!

Chase excited to have us home. If you can't tell he is jumping up and down here!

Chase showing me his big brother shirt.

Wagner contemplating licking him or committing suicide :) It will be a while, Wagner, before he terrorizes you like Chase does!

Daddy and his boys!

Welcome Baby Jacob!!

At 1317 on June 11, 2011 we welcomed Jacob Dale Caywood into this world!  (As with Chase, dad is making the post so please disregard all typos and organizational errors!)  Janell did amazing and we praise God that he came on his own without having to be induced like Chase was.  Both mom and baby are doing great and we hope to take him home from the hospital on Monday.  Here are a few pictures from Jacob's first day.  Thank you everyone for your thoughts and prayers!

Mom (Mum for our British friends) and Jacob just after he arrived

The official stats.  He measured in at 22 inches long as well!

Chase giving his little brother a kiss after they met for the 1st time!

Grandmom has been here to help and a huge blessing!  Thank you so much Sandy for taking care of Chase and helping us out through everything.

Our family

I'm sure Janell will have more to add soon.  Thanks again to everyone, we are very blessed with wonderful friends and family!

Baby Shower

Over Memorial Day weekend a couple friends from England got together to throw me a shower. It was fun to get to catch up and nice that my mom was able to make it as well since they were coming down for the weekend. 

The food was delicious. Chicken salad on fresh croissants, fresh fruit, peanut butter m&m's!

Opening a few gifts. Most girls went in on getting me my last big item I wanted - an ergo baby carrier! Everyone I know that has one loves it so I am so excited to try it. I think it will come in handy when I am chasing a toddler around as well!

4 of us are pregnant in this picture! Thanks Julie so much for hosting and coordinating the gift! I am so blessed!

The shower was at 38 weeks and I finally got Brad to take some pregnancy pictures so this one is at 39 weeks. I posted it on facebook so I am sure most have seen it.



We are slowly getting settled. My parents and brother and Tiana came down over Memorial day to help us get a lot of little projects done on the house.  I intend to do some before and after pictures - hopefully that post is coming soon. Our stuff got here last Saturday so we are slowly organizing and my mom came in yesterday to help us get the house ready and let me rest a bit before the baby comes. We are also getting settled in a church which is a huge blessing. They even coordinated to bring us meals while we didn't have our kitchen stuff.

In baby news - I had a doctors appointment yesterday and he went ahead and put me on the books for an induction next week. I am going to go back to the doctors on Monday to check again. If we feel he will come on his own we might push the induction back but I feel pretty comfortable going forward with it. I am pretty uncomfortable and feel just like I did with Chase -that he will never come on his own!!  My mom is putting me in her baby boot camp hoping he will come this weekend.