Welcome Miss Tiegan!

On Wednesday, December 17th at 8:11 PM we welcomed our third precious Johnson baby, Tiegan Marie into our family!

After a relatively tough pregnancy and a history of large babies with big shoulders, the doctors suggested induction and we decided to induce at 39 weeks.  I was really hoping to go into labor naturally this time around but when the time came, we knew this was probably the best decision for us.  I was given a window of time to wait for a phone call that morning and the time came and went.  I spoke with the charge nurse and she said I was next on the list but it could be awhile later or even the next day.  At that point, I had resigned to mentally preparing to be pregnant for one more day - Jed was off of work anyway, Wyatt needed a hair cut and we could just enjoy the day together.  Shortly after this mental shift, I got the phone call to head in.  So, back to plan A we went.  We packed the kids up, dropped them off and got checked in at the hospital at about 11:30 AM.

The last (and one of the only) belly shot(s)!

I think I mentioned this before with Wyatt's birth day but I feel like with your first baby, things are somewhat scary because you don't know what you're in for but with subsequent babies, you know exactly what you're in for and that in itself is a little unnerving.  Thankfully you also know the joy of the ending and that is what pushes you through the not so fun stuff... like nearly passing out while getting the IV and the epidural.  There were also the mental distractions of my own expectations (I thought things would go a bit faster than they did) and the fact that I was away from my big kids for so long (they were in FABULOUS hands but I still missed them of course).  

Everything went relatively well until the very end.  I was stuck at 8 cm for quite awhile before reaching 10.  Once I did, 3, yes only 3 pushes later, we had ourselves another sweet baby girl!  

She weighed in at 9 lbs even (my "smallest" baby yet :) and was 21.5 in long.  Therein lies one of the reasons I'm thankful we chose to induce when we did.  In addition to size, the umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck twice and Jed was unable to cut the cord.  You just never know what could happen in situations like that.  So thankful the Lord was protecting her.

What you can't see in these first few pictures is her beautiful dark thick hair!  What a fun surprise!  I have actually hoped with each baby that they would be born with lots of dark hair but didn't get my wish until now.  Third time's the charm!

This guy.  He is the best support through labor and delivery - extra encouraging, knows just when to lighten the mood and really good at fetching popsicles!  I love this picture.  He looks so proud and I do believe you can see a little tear twinkle in his eye! :)

It is so amazing to look at your new baby.  All of those distractions and worries melt away in light of their perfection and sweetness.

A bit about her name...  we threw around TONS of names this time around once we knew she was a she.  Some of them I really liked and Jed was just okay with... others, Jed liked and I didn't love.  We made the mistake of sharing a few of our ideas with Lainey and she was absolutely adamant about what her name should be, even spilling the beans (very proudly) to a few of my mom friends.  Toward the end, as was the same with the other kids, we found the name Tiegan.  Jed actually found it and loved it.  Jed is a man of few preferences and doesn't get overly excited about much.  Since he loved the name so much, I thought it would be nice to go with it.  I liked it before she was born and I love it now.  We are totally aware that she'll be spelling and pronouncing it for people the rest of her life, that was my hang up :)  Her middle name is Marie, which is my middle name and a family name from my mom's side of the family.

Our big kids ended up staying overnight with some wonderful friends so Jed stayed with me pretty late before heading home.  It's funny with your third baby... with #1 I never let him leave my sight let alone go home to sleep but I figured my nearly 6'2'' husband would appreciate a night in our own bed and be much more rested and helpful with the kids if he didn't have to sleep on that little pull out sofa.  So Tiegan and I got to snuggle and get to know each other a little bit.  She did a fabulous job of nursing right away after birth and has continued to do well each feeding.

She got her first bath the next morning and I couldn't wait to see what that hair was going to do once it was clean!

Sweet girl,  Wild hair.

Jed picked the kids up the next morning, took them home to eat and get dressed and then brought them to meet their new sister!  I was so excited they were able to visit - I was afraid of cold and flu season ruining our plans but they didn't!

And this picture pretty much sums up Lainey's feelings about Tiegan.  She totally adores her and has had a hard time leaving her side.

Wyatt was rather pleased as well.  He is so proud to be a big brother!

OH MY GOODNESS, I HAVE 3 KIDS!!!!

Tiegan got her big sister and brother some fun play sets with a story, figurines and a play mat.  Big hit, well done Tiegan!

We had a few visitors in the afternoon while Jed took the kids home for naps and then returned to join us for a fabulous hospital dinner and then we had a few more visitors.  That evening and the next morning, I got to do more of this... I really enjoyed the peace and quiet of the hospital stay.  I knew when I got home, things would be a little crazy so I tried to soak it all in!

And then it was time to go home!  We dressed our newest little lady and headed out!

Look at that hair!  That bow!

We are so thankful and so excited about our sweet new baby!  Life as a family of 5 is sure to be MORE... more challenging but much more sweet.  More bodies to clothe and mouths to feed but more joy to share together!  Looking forward to this next season of life!

May Days

Well, June is nearly over and here I am catching up and blogging about May.  I suppose my excuse is a good one and is no surprise to any of you that read this blog since I know all of you in real life, but it's share worthy anyway...

SO instead of blogging, I've been napping.  And going to bed at an embarassingly early time.  We are due on Christmas Eve and we're all very excited!  Well, Wyatt has no clue, but Lainey, Jed and I are thrilled!

Back to what we were up to during the month of May...

I didn't really struggle with morning sickness but afternoon/evening sickness, which was not fun, but I think God was giving me grace because He knows I have two energetic kiddos who need to get out and about in the mornings.  Thankfully, most days we all take lovely afternoon naps and then when I'm really feeling my worst, my knight and shining armor comes home, helps with the kids and usually makes dinner.  I'm looking forward to feeling more normal to provide food for my family and give the poor guy a decent meal and a break!

My little monkey!  She's gotten so good at climbing at the play grounds.

Picnics have become our new favorite way to eat lunch.  As long as I can get a few things packed before we head out any given morning, it is great.  They eat whatever I pack, I don't have to "clean up" lunch and then if they pass out on the way home from where ever, I can just throw them in bed when we get here.

I cannot get enough of this sweet little man.

Lainey's been working at riding her bike!

This was a genius idea I had one day.  We got to play in the water AND did something productive!  All of my years of car wash fundraisers in high school for the dance team really paid off.

Wyatt is usually more interested in climbing on benches and picnic tables when we're at a park.

We eat popsicles pretty much every night.  Sometimes in the bath tub, which saves me from having to pretreat their clothes before they go in the wash.

Our church did another Mission to the City over Memorial Day weekend where people served dozens of other churches, ministries and individuals throughout Des Moines.  Lainey tagged along with Jed quite a bit throughout the weekend.  I'm thankful he was willing to swap car seats in and out of our cars a bunch of times and even pull Lainey in the bike trailer, just to allow them to spend some time serving together.

She was a great help and loved canvassing neighborhoods and inviting people to church and hanging these door hangers!

May was great!  Can't believe how fast it went - felt like it took forever for the weather to really warm up but we loved enjoying those warm May days!

14 months and other randoms...

It's been awhile since I blogged ... please forgive me but things have been a bit crazy around here and they are about to get even crazier (and sweeter too) I'm sure...!

Lainey turned 14 months old the other day, which in it of itself isn't super exciting but the 12th still comes and goes and I get to reflect on what she's learning and how she's changing from month to month.  She is certainly keeping me on my toes!  She's still loving things like dogs (her real dog, stuffed animals, dogs in books, dogs outside, etc.), her milk cup, her Daddy, bath time and more.  She's also acquired a new word... the word "no!"  This makes things oh so very interesting.  The girl knows what she wants and what she doesn't want.  For example, up until last week Lainey enjoyed a half sandwich... ham, turkey or peanut butter... every once in awhile for lunch or dinner.  All of the sudden, she'd no longer touch them, like she was scared of bread or something.  It was so odd.  The last few days, we've discovered she's gotten really good with eating utensils so today at lunch I made her a peanut butter sandwich, cut it up into little pieces and gave her a fork.  She went to town!  I have a feeling this isn't the last preference we'll discover and over come during the toddler years!

Some other random 14 month old happenings...

 She also loves to eat snacks right out of the box.  She looked so adorable and so guilty eating these animal crackers, I couldn't help but snap a few pics.  (That and her Auntie Em had been hounding me for some new Lainey pics :)

Another little fall excursion...

My view these days of my 2 kids

 I'm love, love, LOVING her curls in the back of her cute little head.

We went to Book Babies again today and played in the play area for awhile afterward.  This girl really has no fear and took off for the empty reading room after awhile and found the fancy library lady's chair.

Daddy had Lainey giggling pretty hard tonight.  Apparently, the word "Bam!" is hilarious.

In his proven fashion, little mister doesn't let us forget his presence too often.  After a really, really busy weekend a week and a half ago. I went to bed Sunday night extremely uncomfortable but figured I was just exhausted from the busy-ness. Long story short, I was just shy of 35 weeks and I woke up in the middle of the night with lots of contractions, called the Dr, went to the hospital at 4 am (huge thank you to Kelli Rolfes for coming over in the middle of the night and taking such great care of Lainey [and Simon]), contracted for about 6 hours, was given a shot to calm the contractions and never progressed past 2-3 cm dilated, got sent home, contractions came back, went back to the hospital and got sent home again.  At that point, I think my body was so exhausted from only sleeping for 2 hours that it just gave up and decided not to have a baby.  Which I was very thankful for for several reasons -- the baby may have needed some help since he would have been so early, I was not really ready around the house, the Dr on call that day was not one of my favorites, etc.  I've been having contractions the past 2 weeks but nothing near as consistent or strong as that day.  So we're just waiting, as patiently as possible for the real thing!

The one positive thing about that whole experience was getting another glimpse of our boy in another ultrasound and even seeing him in 3D!  Apparently, I am very good at growing very large babies and according to the ultrasound tech, he is measuring 2 weeks ahead and was estimated that day at already being 6 lb 12 oz.  Holy.  Moly.

Another reason I haven't taken pictures or blogged in the past few weeks is that I got hit with the flu a few days after that whole early labor fiasco.  Yeah.  Awesome.  I have never felt so sick in my entire life.  Thankfully, the worst of it passed quickly and I only felt moderately icky for a few days after.  Also, my extra great husband was able to take a day and a half off of work because I was completely unable to function.  Due to my severe headache and fever, I not only had a follow up visit to the OB after everything from Monday on Wednesday, but Thursday went back to the doctor since the flu can be extra hard on very pregnant women and they wanted to make sure the babe was doing okay.  Phew.

Needless to say, my goal this week has been to not rack up any more medical bills and so far, I've been successful.

October days are passing quickly and I guess little man could really come any time, and as uncomfortable as I am and as physically ready as I am for him to arrive, I am also trying to cherish and soak up my last few days with my big girl and enjoy my family of 3.  I know life will never quite be the same once he arrives, which we're REALLY looking forward to but also I know realistically, it will be quite the transition for us all.  So very thankful for God blessing our family in so many ways, especially  with health and LIFE!

Sleepy girl

Today was a funny day around here.  I had a doctor appointment this morning (more on that below) so I asked my friend Carla if she wouldn't mind having Lainey over to play with her kiddos for a little while so I could go to my appointment alone.  Lainey woke up a little early this morning so I was a bit concerned that she'd be a little cranky when I dropped her off, since it would have been about the time I'd be putting her down for her morning nap.  Thankfully, Lainey barely noticed when I left and had the time of her life playing with Kaisa and JJ.  She seriously could have cared less when I came back quite a while later too!  I don't leave Lainey very often so I was very thankful she had so much fun with her little friends.  By the time we got home it was mid morning and I decided not to try and put her down for a nap, but rather keep her busy until her normal afternoon nap time.  During lunch, she was really zoning out while eating her turkey wrap, grapes and crackers... and then this happened...

HOW CUTE IS THAT?!?  Seriously one of the cutest things ever.  I had secretly been hoping that this would happen one day because I think it's so funny when kids fall asleep in their high chair.  Poor thing.  She still ate every bite on her plate even while falling asleep in between.

Lainey took an okay nap, definitely not long enough to make up for both though, so we had a bit of a long afternoon.  We always look forward to 5pm and especially did today!  Jed has been taking Lainey for a ride in her new push car (THANK YOU GRANDMA AND GRANDPA!!!) every day when he gets home while I finish getting dinner ready and pick up the house.  A little while later,  I peeked out the window to see this coming down the sidewalk...

HA!  Jed said she fell asleep around the block the next street over.  SO FUNNY!  I'm thankful she is an easy go-to-sleep-er and that she doesn't fight it and meltdown instead.  Needless to say, Lainey went to bed a little early tonight! :)

Lainey sure keeps me busy but it's getting hard to forget that there's another little one on the way as the weeks pass and my belly grows and grows...  I am 28 weeks now!  Welcome 3rd trimester! Wahoo!  I can't believe I'm that far along already.  Heartbeat was good and strong and I'm measuring right on track.  For awhile I was feeling like maybe little mister was a tad bit of a lazy baby ... he wasn't moving nearly as much as his big sister did but that has definitely changed in the past few weeks - what a wiggle worm!  I can tell he's growing and testing out all of his limbs.   We're also busy narrowing down names... I am finding boy names much harder than girl names!  We're getting so excited to welcome him into our family.  November still seems so far away to me but as the weather is changing and gets cooler and cooler (LOVE IT), I know August is almost over and fall is right around the corner!

Bible Study Babies Part 2

I'm SO thrilled to write the part 2 post that accompanies this post back from the beginning of August. When part 1 was written on August 1st, we were 3 very pregnant girls ... I was 11 days away from delivering and Amber and Bo were about a month out. We knew we had 1 baby girl and 2 surprises on the way. Amber was getting ready to be a mommy of 2 and Bo and I had no idea what we were in for with our firsts! I love, love, LOVE how the Lord worked all of this out - for the three of us to experience pregnancy together for so many months, sharing and encouraging one another in the joys and struggles, and then for each of us to be blessed with a sweet, healthy baby GIRL!

The BEFORE:
(It's amazing to me that all of our bumps look pretty similar in size but the babies that came out of them were NOT. From left to right, their birth weights were 7lb 6 oz, 9 lb 4 oz and 9 lb 15 oz.)

And AFTER:Bo and Penelope, myself and Lainey, and Amber and Mia

(As you can see, Lainey is a giant. She is the oldest of the 3 so I suppose that makes sense. In fact, at Lainey's 2 month well baby check up [she was actually 2 and a half months but whatever] she came in weighing 13 lb 6 oz, 90th percentile and is 24 and 3/4 in long, which is actually off the charts. We've got a healthy girl on our hands!)

These 3 are destined to be great friends... whether they like it or not! :)

Beginnings and endings...and stuff in the middle

There has been so much happening in the life of the Johnson's ...

• Jed started his new job on May 2nd and has really been enjoying it. He has enjoyed getting to spend more time with his friend Nate, checking out West Des Moines during is whole HOUR long lunch and getting used to his new duties. He is really kept busy and is learning a lot!
• The last few weeks of school are always wild and crazy for me with report cards, meetings, YCamp, etc. but this year was especially busy as I had to do all of that, in addition to packing up my classroom and saying lots of goodbyes. It was an emotionally draining week but the Lord has been so faithful through it all and Jed has been so great and supportive. He keeps reminding me that my new job will be way better and I get to be the boss. :) We had a really busy weekend and start to the week so my classroom is currently sitting in the porch and it looks like this... ha!
• During the last week of school, I had my students make "affirmation cards" - at the DTC, in many different Bible studies I've been in, we've done "affirmation circles" where we sit in a circle and each take a turn affirming one another one by one. It's always so encouraging and a special time. I started with having the kiddos brainstorm and make a list of positive comments, compliments and nice things they could say about one another... I did this so they didn't write "You're nice," on every single person's card. A few of the comments made me laugh and a few of them were so genuine and thoughtful ... I am thankful that the Lord gave me this class to "end" with - they were really, really wonderful.
  
  
  
• The beginning of summer meant the beginning of Mission to the City with the DTC - a 5 day "mission trip" to Des Moines designed to reach out to our own city in a unique way. I wasn't able to participate last year because it was during the last week of school and this year, I wasn't able to do quite everything the rest of the group did due to being very pregnant, but it was a really encouraging week. Plus, there are actually 2 other pregnant gals in my Bible study so we were able to do a lot of the meal prep and cookie making together. I am so thankful to be a part of a church whose mission is to really love people, believers and unbelievers, at all costs and lay down their lives for one another. Some of the highlights of our group's week was volunteering with Operation Christmas Child packing boxes and organizing materials, organizing books for a book sale at Iowa Right to Life and doing yard work and having a Memorial Day bbq for the gals at Ruth Harbor. We also made A LOT of cookies ... A LOT.. for a free concert we're hosting on Friday night at the DTC featuring Aaron Gillespie. This is what Jed did the moment he got home this afternoon from weeding at the Easter Seals camp...
• The end of spring and beginning of summer mean my favorite flowers are in bloom... PEONIES! I feel like they didn't bloom as well as they did last year in my yard - I think I need to split them but I don't know how to do that or when... advice? They are so pretty and they smell so good!
• A new week means more changes and a bigger belly! We had another appointment this week and all is well with baby Johnson! The doctor said I am measuring right on track and everything looked great. I will start going back every 2 weeks now ... that must mean the end is getting closer... Here is what I'm looking like these days. (Oh, and what Jed looks like too... in case you were wondering! :)