||Liv Turns Two||

My sweet sweet Olivia Jade,

It doesn't even seem possible to be writing about your second birthday. You have grown into the most beautiful little girl and are no longer looking like a baby. Which breaks my mama heart terribly. You are the most lovable little thing I've ever seen. You constantly say "hiiii!" and give kisses! You have had a little bit of a rough time since your baby sissy arrived but you love her nonetheless. You always give her kisses and say "I kiss hahahaha I kiss!" It has killed me having to watch you learn to play on your own and not need so much attention from us. You still demand attention at times but for the most part you are a great big sister. Your vocabulary keeps growing but you there's still a lot of it that we just don't understand. Your jabbering has started to turn into more real words you will be going to town and we'll hear "papa", "taytay" randomly. They're easily your favorite people right now. You love them so much and get so excited when they show up and emotional when they leave. You are their pride and joy for sure. They got you your little red jeep for your birthday and you LOVE it! You want to go driving as soon as daddy gets home everyday. You love to talk about papa riding in airplanes and you absolutely love to pray. Still and it's the sweetest thing. You've started doing it on your own and we can hear you thanking God for mama, daddy, sissy, Nova, papa, taytay, etc. and then you scream AMEN! Seriously the cutest!

You have gotten more particular about your routines for sure. Like your bedtime routine, you love the both closet doors to be wide open, the fan off, and the door shut. You tell us every night as we lay you down. You've started to love Rio, Frozen, and Elmo. You request those more than anything else right now. You are the roughest/slightly meanest two year old girl I know. Your daddy has played so rough with you since you were tiny that now you definitely know how to hold your own. You still love to dance and you make sure everyone else dances right along with you. You are so fun to be around and you play so hard. Uncle B and Aunt Bailey got you a cute little table and chairs for your birthday and you will sit and play at it all day long. You still have to be challenged though. You still love to dump and pour things out. You sit in the bathtub forever just pouring water back and forth into bottles. I'm ready for that phase to end because you've warped our living room tables from pouring so much. You get so bored during the day and we can tell you're aching for kid interaction. You get all giddy and excited when you see your friends at church and get to play with them. I'm getting you some educational toys and activities to get you ready for Pre-k3 that you'll start next year.

You are wearing 5t clothes and size 10 shoes. You're still our BIG girl. You weigh 36.6 lbs and are 3 feet 1 inch tall. Size 6 diapers but we're hitting the potty training hard while I'm still off work. My goal is to have you completely potty trained by the time I go back. You love shoes! There's no denying you are your daddy's child especially when it comes to shoes. Every time you get a new pair you have to wear them all day everyday for at least a week and you constantly ask for them. So cute! You love to wear mama's tshirts with your fro. You love to drink milk, orange juice, gatorade, and Sprite. You have a freak out if we make you drink water which we've been trying to do more now. You love to eat popcorn, blueberries, pickles, grilled cheese, homemade mac & cheese, chicken nuggets, and hamburger meat by itself. Your appetite is slowly starting to pick back up thank goodness.

New words/phrases: mine, let's go, in there, home, a whole bunch, remote, no home, i break, no, that mine, mean, face, talk, her feet, nasty, elmo, oh mess, move. You love to tell Nova to "shhhh" and when Havyn cries you will tear up and tell her "Havyn hush!" You attempt to sing your ABC's and you love to wear your flip flops everywhere you go. Your absolute favorite shoes of all time were your red rain boots which you've grown out of now and you most definitely not happy about. Cue Christmas gift! We love getting to watch you grow and learn everyday, sweet girl. You love like no one else and you are our most treasured gift. We love you so so much!!

||Havyn Quinn's Birth Story||

I'm so behind on this post as Havyn is a 5 weeks old now. Oops, life! Okay so we had my induction date set for almost 3 weeks and I made a point to get everything ready and spend as much time with Olivia as I could before then. Everything was going as planned and then the night before we checked into the hospital, Olivia caught the dang stomach bug. I had just finished cleaning the house and was getting ready to take my shower and head on to bed as we had to get up early. Then the next thing I knew vomit! Everywhere! As many of you know I have a serious phobia of throwing up. Like I can make myself have a panic attack if I think about it too much. So as usual, I started freaking out thinking I was going to be puking during my entire labor and delivery but the Lord came through and didn't allow me to catch it. Thank goodness. So as you can see a very stressful, sleepless night going into "labor" day. This put a damper on things because my mom was supposed to go to the hospital with us but instead she had to stay home with a sick little Liv.

Bradley and I left our house around 5:20am the next morning and checked in a little before 6am. It was actually nice because the hospital was quiet, minimum staff and patients and it just gave me an overall peaceful feeling. A little before 8am my doctor came in to check me and I was still at 4cm. I immediately asked when I could get my epidural even though the only pain I was experiencing at that point was irregular back contractions. The nurses had to keep increasing my pitocin because labor kept stalling. She was very comfortable in there and was not ready to come out! Around 830am my doctor came back and broke my water. He was confident that it probably wouldn't be long before I was ready to start pushing. During this time, it was just Bradley and I in my room and the occasional check in from my nurse. It was honestly so nice. We had time to reflect on becoming parents to two baby girls and just talk and rest. This time was just so much more relaxing and low key. I guess because we knew what to expect and we love my doctor so much that we literally weren't worried about anything.

Around 1045am the anesthesiologist came in for my epidural. He had a student with him and I was totally cool with him explaining everything to her. It was a teaching moment and I am all about that. My blood pressure was a little low so he had to administer my epidural very slowly and as he was explaining to the student why he was doing that, it totally freaked me out haha! But I didn't say anything. At that point it was time for my catheter to be placed and I let the student do it. It's crazy how much more gentle a student is as they are just starting out than seasoned nurses and doctors haha! I continued to labor more regularly and when my doctor came back to check me at 1130am, I was already at 8cm and a -1. He said we'd have a baby within the hour. Before the nurses got the room ready, we had a little bit more alone time and I am currently obsessed with the song Humble by Kendrick Lamar so Bradley had to play it to get my mind right. By the time he came back around 1210pm I was fully dilated and ready to push! Our doctor is such a nut and seriously takes the nerves and worries out of the experience. As he was getting dressed he was hopping around my room calling himself the gyno-man which made all of us crack up! They got me situated and it was time to push. Bradley was a great cheerleader and he even watched the majority of it this time. I pushed twice and her little head was out with SO much black hair. The minute her head came out everyone gasped at how much hair she had! One more half push and she was out, screaming her little head off which she still does haha! A perfectly healthy baby weighing in a 7 lbs. 9 oz. 19 1/2 inches long born at 12:38pm.

We had a full two hours of skin to skin time and she nursed like a champ. Once she was finished nursing Bradley got a little skin to skin time with her as well before they came in to give her a bath. This time around was just so much easier in so many different ways and I'm so thankful for that. I was starting to get super nervous about it all again because my recovery with Liv was so awful! It was uneventful to say the least in the most perfect way. We are now parents to two beautiful baby girls and we are SO blessed!