Welcome, Maddie!

Well, I'm not exactly kicking this blogging thing in the butt, am I? I knew I'd start out slow, but... oh, well. I guess you just do what you can, right? To tell the truth, I came up with this great blogging plan. I would get up a couple hours before the girls a couple time a week and, bam- instant blogging time. What I didn't consider was #1: I. Am. Tired. And it's not so easy to drag this tired body out of bed! #2: Even after I do drag my tired self out of bed- I have things to do! Like, around-the-house, not-so-glamorous, mommy-type things. So, the getting up early thing is happening, it's just not producing the multitude of posts I had/have in my head. But, I'll just keep trying:)

I cannot possibly go any further with this blog without addressing the huge change and blessing that our family received this year- the addition of our beautiful daughter, Madelyn Mae. Madelyn, or Maddie, as she is mostly known, is approaching 5 months old, and I cannot even stand it. She is so completely adorable and yet, she is way too old! Time is flying, as cliche as that is, and I just need to get something down in writing before all these memories begin to escape me. I like to think that won't happen, but I know it will!

Our last picture at home as a family of three. We had a planned induction, so we took Katelyn to stay with Lolo and Lola the night before.

Katelyn, giving one last hug to Mama and "baby sister," as Maddie was known before she came into the world.

Last belly shot before leaving for the hospital. Did I mention that we had a scheduled induction? Oh, and that it was scheduled for 4AM? Yeah, that part wasn't so awesome. I believe this picture was taken around 3AM, right before we left for the hospital. I got about zero sleep that night. Well, maybe an hour, but really- does that even count?

In our room, induction under way.

I've struggled with how much to mention here about that day, because I want to be accurate, but I also want to try to remember only the good things. So, I will just say this- everything turned out well, and we ended up with a beautiful, healthy baby girl at the end of the day. But, we were not without a fairly significant bump in the road. A bump caused by what can only be described as a huge medication error (to our nursing/medical friends- think, pitocin bolus instead of fluid bolus. Not good.) It was a scary part of our day, and we came out bewildered, stunned, but most of all- grateful. Grateful that, despite a possibly life-altering error, we ended up delivering a perfectly healthy baby, and our family was completed.

Oh, and here I am, grateful for a popsicle!

There she is!

Madelyn Mae O'Flanagan

Born February 5, 2013

3:57PM

7 pounds, 11 ounces; 19 inches

Welcome to the world, sweet angel:)

OK, I hate this picture of myself, but I have to include two of our favorite people! Our amazing OB, Dr. Bashour, who delivered both of our daughters. This man even came in from home when Katelyn was born- delivering her at 3:09 in the morning! Not sure about everywhere else, but around here that is pretty much unheard of. You usually get whoever is on call if your baby is born outside of the normal 7a-7p hospital hours. And, equally amazing- we had the same nurse for the birth of both of our girls! Stacey was sooo great during my labor with Katelyn, and we were thrilled when we found out she was coming in at 7a on the day we were induced. Especially after all the craziness that ensued before her shift started, we were so happy to have Stacey come in to take over. She provided just the reassuring presence that we needed.

Maddie Mae, making her presence known!

Big girl! 

Truly, I know that Maddie wasn't a "big baby." But she was bigger than 6lb Katelyn! This is what Dr. Bashour kept reminding me during my 30 minutes of pushing;) Now, I know that I should not complain about 30 minutes. It's nothing compared to what some women go through, and for that I am so, so grateful. But, after so many months of hearing "Oh, the second one usually just pops right out!" I wasn't expecting to push for almost exactly as long as I did with K. 

Well-worth all the work:)

Eskimo kisses for Daddy

Look at those cheeks!

We had an ultrasound done around 36 weeks, and in the 3D images, we could detect some cheeks on our girl:) We were so excited to see them in person, and, of course, to smother them in kisses. Haven't stopped, to this day!

So much love:)

Meeting Grandma!

Meeting Uncle Nathan

Love at first sight:)

Katelyn was so excited to meet her baby sister!

Checking out the tiny baby toes

Meeting Lolo...

...and Lola

Getting in some Daddy-time. That and some iPad time;)

Opening her gift from baby Maddie- a travel Aquadoodle. So thoughtful, our Maddie:)

First kisses

"What's up with the crying, Mama?"

Meeting Grandpa

Family of four!

Heart = Melted

Another Daddy's Girl!

Getting ready to go home!

Funny how things change from one baby to the next. When Katelyn was born, we were in absolutely no hurry to go home. No joke, if they had let us stay a week, we would have. The hospital was so great, the staff was so nice and, let's face it- we were so scared! This time, though, we were ready to get the heck out! We just wanted to get home, have both of our girls under one roof and get started being a family of four.

No matter how smart you pack, you always end up with so. much. stuff!

Aahh! Two carseats! 

And, just because I am so certain this was my last pregnant-belly picture...

We are so, so grateful to have Madelyn as a part of this family. We are in awe of the blessing of our girls in our lives, and they are a constant reminder of God's goodness.

Hopefully it won't be another month before I share a little more of what our family has been up to!

Friday Five

I'm gonna try something. I have no idea if this will last, and I can only imagine that it will at least transform over time. But I want to try a Friday Five. The idea is to list five things that have happened throughout the week, or maybe just five things that are on my mind. Because I've realized that, while I do take a ton of pictures (just ask my kids!), not everything that is worth remembering revolves around pictures. Now, we're not talking about mind-blowing stuff here. Most likely, this will be a "five things my kids did" kind of list, and that might not be very interesting to anyone other than me and the hubs. But I want to give it a shot, because it's a place to put the everyday, random stuff that would otherwise be forgotten.

1. Maddie moved up to size 3 diapers this week. See, what did I tell you? Not mind blowing. And yet, my baby is fifteen weeks old, wearing size 3 diapers, and I don't know where the time is going. She is getting so big, and entering that super fun age where she's really checking out everything around her. She is so sweet and alert, and I could literally gobble her up every single day.

2. In other Maddie-related news, her sleeping is horrible these days! Sorry, Maddie, but it's true. And it's mind boggling, because she was doing soooo well. We're talking, sleeping for up to 10 hours at night, awesome, super baby sleep. Brian and I were looking back on our days with Katelyn and saying, Thank goodness we didn't know what we were missing! Well, we know now, and we want it back! To be fair, we had been in total denial about how old Maddie was, and were still treating her like a newborn. Letting her fall asleep wherever and whenever, and I hadn't even picked up a sleep training book since Katelyn was an infant. So, it seems that maybe we were a little late in the game getting focused on her sleep, and maybe these are just some adjustment/growing pains. Let's hope so, because this Mama is tired, and will be going back to work in two weeks, which means Daddy will be dealing with all of Maddie's middle-of-the-night antics two nights a week. But let's not even talk about that.

3. Brian and I started watching Season 5 of Mad Men last night. To sum up our TV situation in this house- we don't have cable and we don't have satellite. We gave it up years ago when Brian went to anesthesia school, and we have not gone back since. So, when it comes to shows, if they're not on network television or Netflix, we don't watch them. And, while that may sound crazy to many people, believe me, we are not lacking in television watching around here. In fact, other than the summertime, our evenings are pretty much booked with our "shows." That's what we do to unwind together, and we love it. Sitting around with a glass of wine (or two) and a new episode of Scandal or Revenge... it doesn't get much better than that. And, yes, those shows are the definition of guilty pleasure. Don't judge.

Anyway, summer is here, and our evening docket has cleared up quite a bit, so now we're diving back into Mad Men on Netflix. We're excited to catch up on what old Don Draper is up to- he may just be one of the most flawed characters that you'll ever love to cheer for even though you're pretty sure he's going to mess everything up. And, oh my goodness, do those people drink and smoke a lot. Yikes. It leaves us saying, Do you remember when you used to be able to smoke in restaurants? Yuck. 

4. We watched one of Katelyn's friends for a few hours the other day, and took everyone to McDonald's for dinner. Hold the applause, please. Anyway, we had all three girls, ranging from 3 months to 5 years. And it was confirmed that we will not have three children. But then later that night we were loving on Maddie, and we thought OK, maybe three. But probably not. Cuz that is hard. My hat is off to all the parents of more than two children. Well, my hat is off to all parents, really, because it's hard no matter how many you have. But more than two, I don't know about that.

5. Katelyn used the word "actually" in a sentence this week, and it just reminded us that she is not a baby anymore. Brian asked her what his brother's name was. She said, "Actually, you have two brothers. You have Uncle Jimmy and you have Uncle Timmy." So, not only does she understand family relationships but she knows how to use adverbs in context. My question is, how does the Mensa thing work? Do we contact them, or will they find us? Just saying;)

OK, that's it for this week. No idea if there will be another installment next week, but that would be nice! Oh, and let's face it, I can't do a post without pictures. So, here are some randoms from the week. Random pics with a random post. Seems fitting.

Our azaleas. They never seem to bloom long enough, but they're so darn pretty!

One of my Mother's Day gifts- a new water feature for the back yard. It's so petite and cute, I just love it:)

Katelyn was picking buttercups. And she looks so big. Sigh.

Speaking of big, look at Maddie! I feel like I blinked and she turned into a real baby, not just an itty bitty infant. And she's losing her hair. Check out the mohawk action she's sporting. Nice.

She found her toes! Please ignore the loaded diaper, she just got up from the night and I had to catch a pic of her grabbing her toes before I could change it. Such is the life of my children. Sorry, girls:)

 Part of K's morning routine. Cup of milk, show on TV.

{2012 Flashback} Katelyn's 2nd Birthday Party

I've been really struggling with how to handle the zillions of pictures that I missed out on (read: dropped the ball) sharing and journaling about. I really want to blog in real-time so that I don't continue to be behind, but I also don't want to forget all the things that happened in the past year, or just skip over them. So, I think I'm going to post things as they happen (or try to!) and also try to fill in here and there with flashback posts. I figure I'll start with the big stuff, birthdays, holidays and all that. Then I'll try to add more random day-to-day stuff if I can. Honestly, I don't want to set goals that are too hard to attain, because I already know how easy it can be to get overwhelmed. I'm going to do the best I can, and just remember that my goal is to have this blog serve as a sort of family scrapbook, to preserve memories for generations to come. Well, that might be taking it a little far. The way technology is going these days, who knows what will exist down the road?

So, for the first 2012 flashback... Katelyn's 2nd Birthday party. We did a Rainbow theme, because at the time coloring was just about her favorite thing in the world. Well, it's still a favorite, pretty much only overshadowed by playing outside these days. It was definitely as smaller scale party than her first, but still a pretty good bash! When it comes to party planning, I get so many ideas in my head, and I really have to force myself to take it down a notch. Well, that and the whole time/money constraint thing. Yeah, maybe that's the bigger factor;)

Katelyn had a blast pre-partying with the beach balls we had for the yard. She made up her own game. We'll call it "1,2,3, Wheeee!" I'll let you guess how it was played:)

This year, I played it smart and had most of the party catered. Thank you, Emidio's! The food was delish, and it cut down on the amount of work I had to do by an immeasurable amount.

I had pictures from Katelyn's second year on the rainbow ribbons over the windows. Even though we're not doing the "growth chair" thing anymore, there were still plenty of pics to show how much she changed over the year. And the name sign in the corner? All Brian. One of our neighbors works for Budweiser, and he's always giving us fun promotional stuff. I believe this started out as a Corona sign. Brian painted the whole thing and stenciled on our names. At the time, Baby Maddie was just a teeny-tiny nug, so we left her spot TBD. It has since been added. Guess I'm not the only one in the house who knows how to get crafty;)

Personalized coloring pages and crayons on the tables. I had the coloring pages made on Etsy. I love Etsy! You can find almost anything on there, and so much of it is personalized and/or unique.

I tried to stick with the Rainbow theme for the desserts. Rainbow fruit, Funfetti cupcakes and Fruity Pebbles rainbow treats. Yum!

Simple party favors for the kiddos. Rainbow pails from the Dollar Spot at Target (love me some Target) filled with a coloring page, crayons and some playdough.

Birthday fun with Grandma:)

We decided to go for it and buy a bounce house. With the price of renting, we figured we could justify the cost of buying if we used it more than twice. We've used it more than twice;) Including setting it up in the garage over the winter so K could bounce with her little girlfriend. This thing is awesome:)

Coloring fun with the Iannini girls

The Plotts came up all the way from Dennison. We were so happy to have them there!

Mr. Eric, Mr. John and Grandpa

Uncle Nathan, Lola and Daddy

Blowing bubbles. Or, at least, trying:)

(Cup)Cake Time!

Someone got a little shy during Happy Birthday singing!

But she knew what to do with the candles:)

Our family of three, with one on the way!

Coloring fun

Good-bye hugs for the boys

Auntie Megan and Uncle Doug. You can't even tell Megs is seven months pregnant. 

Try not to hate her;)

Some of our favorite playmates, the Clearys!

Wyatt and Ripley

Baby Bishop. Love that hair!

Checking out her pics

Good-bye kisses for Olivia...

...and Mayne:)

Love this one. Don't worry Mayne. Someday the tides will turn and she'll be clinging on to you.

Enjoying a juice box treat:)

The aftermath. Tired mommy and fired-up baby. Can I still call her a baby? Cuz I do.

She'll always be my baby.

Can't believe I'm now a mom who says that.

Happy Birthday to my first baby.

OK, one flashback down, 500 to go. Let's not talk about the fact that we're now about 2 months away from her 3rd birthday. I can't even wrap my brain around that one!