Welcoming Alexander

July 27, 2009 we welcomed the newest little addition to our family. Alexander Clark Winfree was born at 13:13:13 (military time) and weighed a whopping 5 lbs. 14 oz. He was 18 1/2 inches long and just plain cute. The doctor had estimated his due date to be August 23, so according to that estimate he was born 4 weeks early. It all began Sunday, July 26 when Chris and I had to give talks in church. It was so terrifying it caused me to go into labor....no, it didn't really, but we did have to speak the day before. I was feeling fine, maybe a little tired, but I was totally not expecting to go into labor the next day. I woke up at 5:00 a.m. with the first of my intense contractions. I had a scheduled dr. appt. that day for 9:00, so I figured I would just wait it out until then and see what he thought. When I showed up to the appointment, I mentioned to the doctor that I'd been having contractions all morning long so he hooked me up to the monitor to check out the frequency and the intensity. At that point I was dialated to a 2 1/2 and I was about 80% effaced. The contractions were coming every five minutes. He told me it could be false labor, but from the look on my face during each contraction he said he figured he'd probably see me later that day. I went home and had Chris drive my neice home (she'd been babysitting my kids) and I mentioned that maybe he should take the boys to my sisters house, just in case. He hadn't been gone a minute when all of a sudden my contractions hit full force. I was SO glad that the boys were gone. Chris couldn't get home soon enough. By the time he got back, I was to the point that I couldn't even walk. He had to carry me out to the van because it felt like I was having one long continuous contraction that wouldn't ever end. At the hospital they checked me in and told me I was 100% effaced and dialated to a 6. Keep in mind this all happened within an hour of the doctor's visit. They gave me an epidural (thank goodness!) and not too much later, we had a beautiful, healthy, baby boy. Enjoy the pictures!

This is post-epidural and pre-baby :) See how relaxed I look? That was not the same face a couple minutes earlier.

Day 1

First bath--You might notice that he's being bathed in a regular sink, instead of how they usually do it. This is because he was born early, they put me in a room close to the NICU, just in case. So they don't have the same amenities as normal maternity rooms.

The happy parents!

Day 2

Day 3-Ready to go home

First bath at home. You can see how much he loved it! He immediately stopped crying as soon as we wrapped him up in a towel. He was just freezing.

1 week old.

We've had a lot of fun having this new little guy around!

July already!

March

Here we are brainwashing our child. Go cougars!

We visited Valley of Fire again this year. It was a quick overnighter, but we had fun hiking and camping. Here's my cute boys:

Caleb and Chris mastering the elephant's trunk at Elephant Rock. They freeclimbed all the way to the top.

Do these two even look like brothers? I think they're handsome!

April

For Easter this year we had extra family in town so it was extra fun! The Easter Bunny visited that morning, and then we had an Easter egg hunt in the backyard after church.

May

Caleb graduated from Kindergarten. His class put on a really cute program. They sang songs and also had a little play from the story The Billy Goats Gruff. Caleb was one of the trolls. He did so well! It was a really a lot of fun watching him act out his part and really get into it.

This is Caleb and his teacher Mrs. M.

I wanted to show you a clip of the Billy Goats Gruff play, but my computer was having trouble downloading anymore video clips. It's a little long, but worth the watch! Caleb's voice is the one you can hear the loudest over the other trolls. Maybe I'll be able to get it on sometime later (if I get to it...knowing me!)

Here's another clip of a song he sang. It's a short clip because my batteries were running out on the camera, so I got short clips here and there. It was such a great performance, there was a choreographed dance and everything. He's got such great rhythm!

In May we also had Matt's 2nd birthday. This is Matt in his new Superman pajamas and holding his new bat and ball.

His construction birthday cake, made by me:

Aah...this is the life!

June

June had two major events. The first was Caleb's birthday. He was excited to get breakfast in bed:

Chris and I made Caleb this Phineas and Ferb cake. He loves Phineas and Ferb. It was pretty funny having both of us create it at the same time. We ended up cutting out the pieces of cake we didn't need and leaving the rest in the pan to design. Caleb liked it!

Blowing out the candles.
The second thing June brought was a move! We just got our first house and we are totally excited. I don't have pictures of it yet, but maybe sometime soon. We had a yard sale after we got settled and Caleb set up a little lemonade stand. He got bored of it rather quickly and his cousin took over until he later realized it was hot and people were willing to pay for it. He made his own sign that he posted on one of our moving boxes he was using as a table. It was pretty cute.

July

Well, so far all we've done is 4th of July celebrations. We headed to Chris's sister's baby blessing for the weekend. While we were there we visited the beach and got to hang out and visit with his family. We had a great time!

Since I seem to have a talent for posting infrequently, all you readers out there get to view a conglomeration of photos and events over the last two months. Where to begin...

Christmas 2008

Christmas this year was with Chris's family, although we got to spend time with both families, which was a real treat!

Matthew's present from Santa Claus, a little bike, has been a great gift! He rides it everywhere, and especially enjoys going down hills at top speeds. Telling him it's time to go in while he's out riding his bike usually ends up in him protesting and I have to carry him in with one arm and his bike with my other arm. At least I know he liked his gift!

The boys both loved sledding and it was so much fun watching Caleb hold on so tight to Matthew when they were going down together. Caleb is such a great big brother!

This is what happens when Mom forgets to put her baby down for a nap!

Matthew started singing songs, which is such a delight!

Caleb lost his first two teeth, both on the same day--January 31. After pulling the first one that morning, he wasn't so sure he wanted me to pull the other. It took a lot of persuasion. We took it out that night before bed. I think it's cute. But don't tell him that...boys aren't cute. I also think the teeny tiny teeth marks he makes in his apples now that his teeth are gone are really cute. Caleb's favorite food is apples, and he's not letting his missing teeth slow him down one bit.

Other news from the family includes all of our injuries as well. Earlier last month Matthew climbed on top of a chair and tipped it over backwards. After limping for 9 days I finally took him in to get his foot x-rayed, as I was concerned it might be broken! Good news, no fracture. The doctor told me to wait three or four more days and if he was still limping, they would x-ray is leg. Luckily, two days later he started walking normally again. He must have really hurt his foot to have been limping that long!

Last Tuesday Chris went in for surgery. He had a deviated septum, which the doctor straightened (he has had this surgery before--apparently his cartilege has "memory" and it grew back--let's hope it forgets this next time around). They also cleaned out the windows to his sinuses, as they were small and made it hard for him to breathe. While they were in there they also removed a cyst. We are waiting for the biopsy on that. The frustrating thing about this surgery is nothing is absolute. His septum could grow back. The cyst might grow back as the hole where it was heals. This surgery may make his sinus headaches go away. Argh! I'm just hoping for the best in each of these scenarios.

The other not-so-fun thing was that while Chris was going in for surgery Caleb was playing at a friend's house, and swung right into his bunk bed. It chipped and loosened one of his baby teeth. He needed to go to the dentist, and I couldn't take him because I was in with Chris. Luckily my sister lives nearby and she helped out. Needless to say the day was extremely exhausting for me, both physically and emotionally. I turned the lights out at 8 o'clock that night and went to bed.

Chris seems to be doing better every day, and I think he will head back to work on Tuesday.

Chris's basketball season was 19-1, so he had great success! Now that the season is over, you'd think I'd see him more frequently, but it's on to softball. We stay busy, that's for sure.

All the goings on...

A quick little update on the past month...

This is Caleb on his first bike jump ever.

My house all decorated for Christmas...

A clip from Caleb's kindergarten Christmas program. Way cute!

We've enjoyed our mild weather down here. It's cold in the mornings, but we still reach around 60 most afternoons. It's beautiful! Here's Caleb and Matt playing in one of our huge leaf piles.

Merry Christmas!

Our Spooky Halloween

This year for our cotumes we went scary, because Caleb said he wanted to be a skeleton. I made the boys' costumes this year and I had so much fun making them, especially since I thought they turned out so well. Trick or Treating was fun, but I'm not so sure Matthew quite got the concept. At some houses he would stick both his hands in the candy bucket and grab what he could to put in his own. But then at other houses he'd take his own candy out of his bucket and put it in the candy giver's bucket. It was pretty cute. Matthew also happened to kick a cactus and get a few thorns in his big toe and then five minutes later he grabbed someone else's barrell cactus and got a few thorns in his finger!

Here's our pictures:

Matthew as a Mummy

Caleb as a skeleton

Chris and I as Frankenstein and his bride

(Sorry for poor picture quality!) I also decided to do something fun this year for dinner, so I made a really gross feast.

This is my bloody spider meatloaf

Witch's fingers and slime

Apples and mud (with worms)

Blood Clot Punch

Caleb thought the dinner was a lot of fun and really gross looking, so that made it all the more enjoyable!

I also got to see Caleb march in his first school Halloween parade on Friday.

What a fun weekend!

Washington, D.C.

Chris and I have been going non-stop since school started, so I haven't had time to update! One thing we were able to do is travel to Washington, D.C. for a quick weekend trip. We pretty much saw everything in a day and a half! It was practically free so we couldn't turn it down. Here's a few pics from the trip:

Behind the White House

The Capitol

Vietnam Memorial

World War II Memorial

And, just because they're cute . . . here's a picture of my two boys!

First Day of Kindergarten

Caleb is all grown up! On Thursday he began his first day of Kindergarten. He is such a big boy. He insisted on riding the bus instead of having me drive him on the first day, and when I asked if he wanted me to follow him in the car he said, "Mo-o-o-om, I'll be okay!" Lucky for me the school was offering a Boohoo (or yahoo!) breakfast for parents of Kindergarteners, so I got to drive over to the school anyway and make sure he made it off the bus and into his class. Two days down, 179 to go. This is a picture of Caleb coming off the bus his first day of school.