All he wants for Christmas…

D’s been working on his two front bottom teeth for a few months. He lost them both within 10 minutes of each other.

 

I think I was more excited than he was. Seems like such a big milestone for my little Dominic!

 

Then mom and dad had to decide how we are going to play this tooth fairy stuff. Once you start handing out money for teeth, there’s a precedence set. We went with $1 per tooth in quarters—is that the going rate?? And the tooth fairy even left a note. Luckily, Dominic doesn’t care enough to notice that the tooth fairy has the same handwriting as dad does…

And now I have two baby teeth sitting on my desk (which Dominic also hasn’t noticed). They’ve been there for a few weeks and I have no idea what to do with them. Do I save them? Throw them away? Sell them? And, in related news, his new adult teeth are coming in crazy crooked. Thanks to Obamacare, though, Dominic is required to have dental coverage. Hopefully that will help us with the inevitable braces for our little man.

All the Babies

Everyone has been asking who Lucy looks like, so I thought I’d pull out baby photos to see.

What do you think?

Lucy

The boys in order of birth.

Halloweens Past

 

Halloween 2007

Halloween 2008

Halloween 2009

Halloween 2010

Halloween 2011

Halloween 2012

Halloween 2013

Leo is 3!

Welp, Leo. You’re Three! I remember bringing you home from the hospital three years ago. Things were pretty chaotic back then (still are, but not to the same degree), but you were a pretty good baby and there would be times I would forget you were even part of our family. No longer! We can’t forget you are here now! You have lots to say and love keeping up with your big brothers. You all get along quite well now and you’ll even join in games of UNO or Go Fish. You LOVE TV (waaaayyy too much!) and being read to. Since Lucy has been born, it seems you’ve grown up a few years. Your vocabulary has expanded and you frequently quote your favorite TV shows and movies for us. You have a stubborn streak, which gets you into trouble at times. I’m quite sure you’ve spent more time in time-out than any of your other brothers. Hopefully that stubbornness will serve you well! As of late, you’ve been showing us how big of a boy you are by getting up at 5:15 every morning and being perfectly happy all day. You love sleeping with your crucifix, because “God takes care of the monsters” and you remind us every morning that you slept with Jesus. For your birthday, all you wanted to do was go to Leap ‘n’ Learn at the YMCA. We love you, Big Boy!

Leo at 1 week.

Leo at 1 Year.

Leo at 2 years.

Leo at 3 years.

 

Here’s a bit about what’s on your mind as a three year old. First and foremost….Mac ‘n’ Cheese!

1. What is your favorite color? Red

2. What is your favorite toy? My boo yah toy—it has wheels on it… (no idea)

3. What is your favorite fruit? Mashed Potatoes

4. What is your favorite tv show?

5. What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch?

6. What is your favorite outfit? Pajama party

7. What is your favorite game? Racing ta da starting line

8. What is your favorite snack? Mac ‘n’ cheese

9. What is your favorite animal? Elephant book

10. What is your favorite song? Moon, moon, moon, Twinkle Little Star and ABC’s

11. What is your favorite book? The Elephant one

12. Who is your best friend? Mommy

13. What is your favorite cereal? Froot Loops

14. What is your favorite thing to do outside? Go in the swing set

15. What is your favorite drink? Water

16. What is your favorite holiday? Getting a snack. I love Christmas.

17. What do you like to take to bed with you at night? My water, Jesus---he takes care of monsters, and my yellow blanket

18. What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? Mac ‘n’ Cheese

19. What do you want for dinner on your birthday? Mac ‘n’ Cheese

20. What do you want to be when you grow up? A Three Years Old Kid

Three super heros, a monkey and a baby

Halloween, not surprisingly, got lost in the shuffle of new baby around here. No carving pumpkins this year. Luckily, our kiddos are young enough they don’t know that is the quintessential part of Halloween… But a very sweet friend of ours brought the kids Mr. Potato Head parts for pumpkins and that seemed to suffice.

 

We dropped by the office to show off our costumes. Can you spot Lucy in the picture?? And Patrick insisted on putting candy or his hands in front of his face in almost every picture.

Patrick has been obsessed with monkeys for about a year now, so we rigged up a homemade costume for him. Dominic was Iron Man (because our friends already had that costume to loan us), Jackson was a ninja (although I’m pretty sure his costume was a Power Ranger…whatev) And Leo was Clark Kent/Superman. Oh…and Lucy was a super cute baby.

We went to a local church where they had free everything! Hayrack rides, pony rides, bounce houses, a cake walk, games, photo booth. It was a blast! Of course, I forgot my camera for that awesomeness….

Then we came home and joined back up with Lucy and Luke (who had stayed home to snuggle) and did a few houses on our block.

Lucy and I love this Moby wrap. She’ll sleep in it for hours at a time!

Our block was pretty quiet, which meant that everywhere we went, people told the kiddos to “take a handful!” of candy. And Patrick later told us, “When they say, ‘take a handful,’ that means to take as many as you can!” Makes sense to me… So, we are still working on the candy in our house and will probably be for a while.

We had such a fun night…and paid for it for a few days after. Ah well, it was worth it!!

One week with Lucy and the “Yes” mom

We’ve survived the first week with this little beauty. I might even say we’ve almost thrived. After 5 kiddos, I’m starting to hit my stride, I guess. This has been my easiest recovery yet (knock on wood). I’m feeling really good, all things considered and just enjoying Lucy more than I feel like I’ve ever really been able to enjoy a newborn. Lucy is the best sleeper of any of the kiddos thus far and I haven’t even had a crazy, stupid tired day yet. She rarely gets fussy and is content to just be held all day or sleep in her swing. It HAS been different having a girl. She’s just so easy to love! Luke and I love to hold her. Last night she actually slept in her bassinet and I kind of missed snuggling her all night long.

Tried to get a few pictures, but she was not having it.

 

 

The good news for the rest of the littles in this house is that mom lets them do pretty much whatever they can dream of. Two packs of teddy grahams before breakfast? Sure! TV all morning? Why not! Watch the movie Cars two times before lunch? Ok! My kiddos have eaten nothing but junk since Lucy was born and I’m ok with that. We’re in survival mode for the time being.

Today, they asked if they could paint on the kitchen floor and I happily obliged. It kept them busy for 45 minutes and the mop provided an easy cleanup. Actually, painting on the kitchen floor is a way better idea than on the dining room table with the carpet underneath.

 

And this sweet, little lady just slept through the whole thing.

 

The kiddos have really been enjoying Lucy. They often call her Lizzie (friends of ours have a baby Lizzie) but after day 5 or so, they’ve mostly been calling her by the right name. Dominic and Jackson especially want to hold her all the time. Dominic could sit with her for 20 minutes just snuggling. Even Leo has been adjusting fairly well. He does struggle when I’m nursing Lucy and can’t hold him or get him snacks at that exact moment. There have been more meltdowns than normal, but I’m sure that will pass after a bit.

 

Earlier today, Jackson mistook my still bulging belly for a pregnant belly.

J: Mom, are you having another baby?

Me: No…at least not right now

J: Are you going to have another baby sometime?

Me: Maybe….mom and dad have to talk to Jesus about that a little before we decide. It won’t be for a little while if we do.

Tears start welling in his eyes….

Me: Do you not want another baby?

J: No…because then we’d have to get a new car and I like the car we have.

 

First world problems….

 

And we’ve been enjoying being flooded with generosity by our friends in the community. Lucy’s wardrobe is growing rapidly (I melt every time she gets a new outfit—all the pink, cupcakes, tutus, headbands!! I guess I’m more of a girly girl than I thought) and we have three meals a week coming until Thanksgiving. Between those and the freezer meals some friends and I prepared, we should be good to go until almost Christmas!  We feel so incredibly blessed and humbled by the charity of our friends and family.

In the Deaver Household

Here’s some recent funnies and happenings in our home.

• “Can you wrestle me?” comes out of Leo’s mouth about a dozen times a day. 11 of those times it’s directed at Luke and the other time at me (Mom doesn’t do wrestling, though). Sometimes it’s the first thing he says to Luke when he wakes up in the morning.
• Reading and LOTS of reading. Dominic is becoming a pretty good little independent reader. He especially loves our kids Bible. Can’t believe he’s reading!
• D has 2 loose teeth, which leaves Luke and I trying to decide how we deal with the whole tooth fairy thing…
• Football! We’ve developed a ritual for our football Saturdays. The kiddos get their sleeping bags and pillow mats and lay on the floor. The three big kids will watch almost the whole game while Leo just crawls all over Luke. Then, Luke and I try to answer question after question after question. “What’s that yellow line?” “What’s a touchback?” “What color are we wearing?”
• More football! We’re into touch football right now. Every night after dinner, Luke takes the kiddos outside to play. They take turns being on Luke’s team and huddle up to make “trick plays.” Turns out every play is a trick play.
• Jackson’s athletic ability continues to surprise us. Since he was 6 months old, he’s loved to play with balls. He still has a great little arm and impressive coordination for a 4 year old. He’s usually happiest when he’s playing soccer, baseball, football, basketball or just playing catch.
• Leo now says “Ah-right” about a hundred times a day. Cute. And we are always thankful when he is being compliant.
• Leo has an unexplained fear of monsters all of the sudden. Last night, he was petrified when I put him to bed, telling me, “I don’t want the monsters to get in!” So, I checked under the bed, in the closet, etc, but he was still scared. So I got the Holy Water and sprinkled his room and brought him a crucifix to sleep with. He wanted it right next to his head in his bed. Today at nap time, he asked for the crucifix again and said, “God takes care of the monsters.”
• Patrick loves to tell stories in his loudest voice possible. And listening to him talk is sometimes like listening to Elmer Fudd. It can take a good 2 minutes to describe something that happened in 10 seconds. He has the sweetest lisp, too.
• Dominic has this crazy attention to detail and the ability to retain almost any information. Today, I found a picture he’d drawn with BTN written on the top. When I asked him what that meant, he told me, “Big Ten Network” and there was a giant red helmet drawn below it.

Welcome, Lucy!

Welp, at long last (at least to me!), she’s here!! We are so happy and thankful for this new little blessing in our lives!!

Here’s a bit about her birth story:

 

On Monday, October 14, (at a little over 38 weeks) my doc in Holdrege said I was about 3 cm and ready to be induced. We scheduled the induction for Thursday morning. I spent the next three days packing, cleaning and mentally preparing for our new little one. Wednesday, we left Jackson with our dear friends, the McQuillans and Dominic went home from school with Jake and Jena (who are also anxiously awaiting a little one—thanks to him/her for staying put a few days!). Patrick and Leo came with us and stayed with my parents. Luke and I had a last hoorah at the Macaroni Grill and talked about how we’d be meeting our newest baby soooo soon!

We stayed at my grandmas and tossed and turned the night away. I woke up every half hour just willing it to be 4:30 already so we could head to the hospital!

We checked in at 5:00 and got started right away on an IV. Lucy’s heart rate wasn’t really responding as well as they wanted her to, so the c-section word started getting tossed around a bit. After a few hours, the dr. and nurses decided to give it a go and they started me on Pitocin.

 

Here’s me…I was much more excited than I let on…

From 7 to 8, I was on the Pitocin, but not much was happening. At 8, the doctor came in and broke my water. He told us, “If you’re not in some serious pain in the next hour or two, we’ll probably have to just take her.” I was a little anxious that this whole VBAC thing would work, but still hopeful that my body would start doing its thing. Within an hour I was getting some pretty good contractions and called for my epidural. I had already progressed to about 5 cm and things were moving great. Lucy’s heart rate started having more variables and looking better, too. We had a great anesthesiologist who we discovered was also Catholic, so we chatted about who the saint of the Day was while he shoved pokey things in my back. I can’t even tell you how many times in the last 3 days I have thanked God for modern medicine. How could I ever have survived 100 years ago? The epidural was a dream—it worked perfectly, so I could still feel what was going on, but no pain, really. At about 9:30 or so, I was at 7 cm and it must have been 10 minutes or less when I suddenly felt lots of pressure. I told the nurse, who checked me and exclaimed, “We’re having a baby!” Four or five nurses sprang into action, turning on the baby warmer, getting the bed ready, pulling down the light and calling Dr. K. Doc is pretty aloof most of the time, but when they called him down he said, “Really? Great!!” All the nurses were surprised that he actually showed a small amount of emotion.

Dr. K was down in about 5 minutes and I pushed through 2 contractions (THIS I could feel, but I could handle 5 minutes of pain) and she was here! She was born at 9:52. It all happened SO fast! She started squealing right away. Doc asked Luke if he wanted to cut the umbilical cord and he, speechlessly, took the scissors and cut. For about 10 minutes after all our babies have been born, Luke doesn’t say a single word, over taken by the enormity of what he just witnessed. They plopped her on my chest and Luke and I just admired how beautiful this tiny girl was and is!

We stayed in the labor and delivery room for about 2 hours. Lucy nursed for about an hour and we spent the rest of the time just admiring her and being thankful.

She weighed in at 5 lbs. 13 oz, 18 1/4 inches, small as predicted.

 

We’ve had lots of visitors. Fr. Buhman was the first one to come, followed by my grandma and later, mom and dad brought up Leo and Patrick. Leo was pretty excited about the new baby. He loved to touch her head and asked, “Can I pet her?” Patrick was a little more apprehensive, but after being in the room for 30 minutes or so, he was ready to look at her and seemed to warm up to the idea of a new Lucy.

 

We also had the Guenthers (twice!), Emily, Beth, Lizzy and Chris, Grandma and Grandpa Deaver and Jim Jansen, who brought a super cute “huskercatholic” onesie for little Lucy—should fit during baseball season. GBR. We’ve already been flooded with pink and purple clothes!

 

Lucy has been a joy. After sleeping quite a bit in the first 18 hours of her life, she cluster fed most of the day yesterday, making for one very tired and sore momma. Today she’s been slowing down, though and Luke and I got 2 good stretches of sleep last night. We love her little expressions and her pretty dark blonde hair. Neither of us can believe that she is a little girl and she’s OURS!

We took advantage of the extra help and stayed 2 nights. At this point (Saturday morning) we are just ready to get home and be a family (not to mention the fact that I haven’t felt fresh air in over 42 hours).

Much more could be said, but Lucy is ready to eat again. Welcome to our family, Lucy Gianna! We are so happy, thankful and blessed to have you in our lives!

Baby’s comin’

Yesterday started as a normal day and ended with Luke and I surprised and thankful to not be bringing a baby home!

 

Baby’s been measuring small all along, presumably because s/he is a Deaver, but it’s been a small concern. Last week, baby was measuring especially small (almost 3 weeks behind), so Dr. ordered a non-stress test. Monday morning, the test was showing that baby seemed to be, in fact, stressed, so we were sent immediately to Lincoln (where our other Dr. is. This story is getting confusing….stay with me!) Luke and I frantically packed bags, made phone calls to find places for the boys and basically prepared as if we were going to have a baby…just in case.

We got right in to see the Dr. and had an ultrasound. Fluids looked good, heart rate looked good, fetal movement was good. The only thing needed was to see baby take a “practice breath.” The tech watched baby for about 10 minutes and didn’t see anything. She told us, “It looks like maybe baby is just ready to come out—you are probably looking at a c-section today.” We weren’t too terribly stressed about it as baby is over 36 weeks and would probably fair relatively well once delivered. Luke went out to tell my parents, who were waiting in the waiting room with Leo. As soon as Luke walked out, the tech saw what she was looking for-a “practice breath”-and called the Dr. right in. Doc said all signs indicate that baby is doing well and it would probably be more risky to deliver. We’re going back on Friday to check on baby again, and, I’m hopeful we’ll schedule our induction for next week sometime! In the meantime, I’m trying to take it easy…..kind of….

Yesterday was good to help me realize how much I WON’T care if my bathrooms are clean or floors vacuumed when we head to meet baby! It was good to put some things into perspective and has helped me chill a bit (at least for today.) It was a crazy, emotional, whirlwind of a day!

 

 

Can’t wait to meet you, baby!

When I grow up…

Miss Jena (Aunt Jena) had someone take pictures of the boys for preschool with a sign that said what they wanted to be when they grow up.

Jackson: I want to be a police-cop
Patrick: I want to be a maditioner.
Katie (who was taking the pictures): Hmmm…..????
Patrick: You know, I want to pull stuff out of hats!

The. Best. Birthday. Ever.

 

No, seriously, it was….

 

It all started on the Friday before my birthday (the 6th). I was watching TV in the basement when I heard what I thought was Leo roaming around long after bedtime. I got up to go check on him and was greeted by Beth and Emily at the bottom of the stairs! The two of them had already turned 30 and we’d done big hoorahs for both of them. I hadn’t heard anything from them about my birthday, so I assumed they’d forgotten—they were just being super sneaky   Emily reminded me a few times that if I knew they were coming, I’d drill them to know what we were doing—you know, since I’m such a control freak. True, too true…

 

They told me to be ready to leave the house at 8:15 on Saturday morning with no further instructions. We headed to Kearney and I was surprised with an amazing and relaxing hour (!) pregnancy massage followed by a pedicure—not just a pedicure, but the “Deluxe Spa” pedicure. Little did I know, the best was yet to come! I chose lunch at Old Chicago and the girls brought this huge bag in.

As we waited for our meals, I dug into the bag and started open individually wrapped presents—30 of them!!! Each had something to do with the year 1983. Gifts ranged from pictures of Michael Jackson doing the moonwalk to a gift certificate to McDonalds (the chicken nugget was rolled out in 1983) The grand finale was a scrapbook with pictures of the 3 of us and 30 things Beth and Emily love about me. It had this super hormonal mama crying in the middle of Old Chicago. I loved every bit of it!

After lunch, we stopped by the Kearney sign and attempted to take a picture with my timer. First attempt involved me waddling 50 yards in flip flops while Beth and Emily cheered me on to beat the timer. No luck.

 

Second attempt went better for our resident runner, Emily.  Oh….and the ride there and back we listened to the 30 best songs from 1983. Super great playlist.

 

But wait, there’s more. Of course we had popcorn and M & M’s that night (with football instead of a movie). And the next morning, Luke and I went to Mass alone while the ladies stayed with the kiddos. When we got home, the house was immaculate, there was brunch on the table, the kiddos had helped make a birthday cake and all four boys had made cards for me!

I have THEE best friends in the whole world!! Thanks a million, girls. I’ll treasure those memories my whole life!!

 

The day of my b-day was packed with trucking littles around and I squeezed in a Holy Hour, thanks to a generous friend who watched the boys.

 

The following weekend was more celebrating. Luke threw me a kind-of-surprise birthday party. He planned it and invited all our friends and told me about it on Tuesday. This man knows me (see previous mention of me being a control freak). I had a great time helping buy food and drinks, helping clean the house and getting ready for the shin-dig. We had a full backyard. It was great to have all kinds of little people running around and all the adults able to spend some time together! Big thanks to all those who came and celebrated!! It was another great night.

 

 

After 9 days of celebrating (more or less), I was ready to just be thirty. So far, so good. I think I’ll take to thirty just fine.