Ezra at Two Months

Ezra is now a big two month old! He weighs 12 lbs and 11 oz (60th percentile) and 23 and 1/2 inches (80th percentile). 

• Got his two month shots on Christmas Eve, poor guy, and took it like a champ!! 
• He loves, loves, loves being sang to! 
• Starting to enjoy having books read to him. He pretty much hated it up until last week, but now he sits contently and looks at the pictures, while we read stories to him and Anni. I was worried he wouldn't like books, because Anniston loved them from the night we brought her home.
• Figured out how to rock himself in his little rocking chair, which is adorable to watch. 
• Has become so smiley lately.
• He still has colic and is usually fussiest from 5pm to 11pm. This little guy is a night owl like his daddy, and it's killing me, because I definitely am not! 
• Is so long!! He's already mostly wearing 6 month clothes! He's definitely lacking yummy rolls like his sister, but he makes up for it in height. 
• His favorite activity is still nursing.  

Oh Christmas Tree.

We bought our first ever Christmas tree as a family! Ever since Anniston was born, we've lived with my parents, so we've never had to buy a christmas tree. And before we had Anni, we only ever bought one Christmas tree, the first year Gabe and I were married. Now that we are finally living on our own again and can no longer bum off my parents tree, we decided to get our own. The whole experience was much more rewarding since Anniston is now old enough to comprehend what a christmas tree is, and she's now so full of opinions. She actually picked our tree out, and she was extremely proud of herself. When the nice young man asked for a name for the Christmas tree she selected, she happily said, 'Anniston!' We are all feeling super festive now! The Christmas tree is, however, the only Christmas decoration in our whole place, besides another miniature Christmas tree on the dining room table. I'm calling it good though, since we are only going on week three in our new house, and our new state. We hope you all have a wonderful end of 2015. Merry Christmas from the Lawrence's!

Ezra Boston Lawrence's B-Day ( FYI this is a super long post)

        At my 36 week prego check with little Ezra, my OB informed me that I was already 2 cm dilated and 80 percent effaced. She asked if I was having contractions and I informed her that I was, pretty consistently. She was in shock and told me that she didn't think she would see me the following week for my appointment. She also advised me to stop my daily walk, because she didn't want that to cause me to go into labor any earlier. This same conversation pretty much happened every single week for me up until I was 39 weeks, when I forced my OB to give me an induction date. I was having contractions everyday, but they were so inconsistent. As soon as I felt like it was time to go to Labor and Delivery (because my contractions were strong and consistent), they would stop. I actually went into L & D and was sent home 4 times before actually having little Ezra, which was extremely embarrassing to say the least.

       By my 39 week appointment, I was 6 cm dilated and my OB was astounded that I was still pregnant. She advised me to go into L&D if I had contractions consistently for more than 30 min. She also stripped my membrane, in hopes that it would finally push me into active labor. 12 hours later, I started to have consistent contractions for 2 hours, so I finally convinced Gabe that this time it was the real deal, and we wouldn't be sent home AGAIN.

       We got to L&D at 5am on Saturday morning. The nurse started me on pitocin right away, which I thought was odd, because I thought procedure was to break your water in hopes of progressing naturally first. I'm not a nurse, so I just went with it. After 5 hours, my contractions were no longer consistent, and I hadn't dilated any further. I was so frustrated! I asked the nurse if we could try breaking my water, but she said, "No, we want to wait until your contractions are consistent," which still made no sense to us, but again, we just went with it. Gabe and I weren't the biggest fans of that particular nurse, but everyone else was great!

       Once the doctor came in to talk to me about maybe having to have a c-section if my contractions didn't become consistent, I asked if we could try breaking my water. The doctor agreed that it was a good idea. She was actually surprised that hadn't already been done. Thirty minutes after they broke my water, I started to feel a lot of pressure. I asked the nurse (yes, that same nurse) when they would check me again, because I was feeling a lot of pressure. She said not for another 2 hours. After trying to convince her that I needed to be checked sooner, I finally had to tell her that I felt like I really really needed to push. This finally got her attention, so she checked me right away. I was at a 10, and she could see Ezra's head already. She quickly got the doctor back to our room, and I only had to push for 10 min and our little man came out screaming his little heart out.

        Throughout my pregnancy, I had been trying to convince my OB and all the doctors I interacted with at Labor and Delivery that Ezra was going to be big like his sister. Everyone told me they really didn't think so, even my ultrasound showed him only measuring to be about 7 pounds. Well, as soon as he came out, all of the nurses and the doctor were like "Wahoo, he's huge, we've got to weigh him right away!" Ha. He weighed 9 lb 12 oz, exactly the same as his sister.

       Once he was weighed, and we finally got him to calm down, Gabe and I got to spend a good hour just enjoying meeting our son. We discussed how he didn't look just like Anni and Gabe, which was a very big surprise. We also spoke about how much Anni was going to love him and how perfect he was. My pregnancy with Ezra was really rough compared to my pregnancy with Anniston, but the delivery was a cake walk compared to mine with Anni, and I'm so thankful for that and our healthy baby boy!

One month old Ezra

Ezra has officially been a part of our family for a month now. Just like with Anniston, it's crazy for me to think back to a time when we didn't have this sweet little guy in our lives.  It's been quite an adventure learning how to balance two kids, and I'm very much still in the processes of figuring it all out. It's a new adventure for our family that we are all very excited and happy to continue on. 

• Weighs 11 pounds and is 22 and 1/2 inches long.
• Strongly dislikes being put in his carseat!
• Can already roll on his side. 
• Thinks he should be held 24/7 and lets you know this very loudly if you try to put him down.
• Has colic! He might even be able to rival his sisters colic, but we shall see in the coming months. It's funny, because Gabe and I really thought Ezra was going to be an easy baby, you know, with Anniston being so difficult and all. Isn't that how it's supposed to work? If your first kid is difficult, your second will be easy and vice versa.  Oh well, at least he is super sweet when he isn't crying...and I guess when he is too. :) 
• Thinks pacifiers are some kind of torturing device. We've pretty much given up on that one. 
• Is a huge fan of breastfeeding, which is the complete opposite of his sister.
• His favorite room to be in is the kitchen. He's mesmerized by all of the the bright lights. 
• Loves when his daddy sings to him.  No matter how fussy he is, he cannot resist falling asleep to his dad singing, especially when it's Jack Johnson. 

Another Year Another Trip to The Pumpkin Patch

Anniston was almost convinced we had found The Great Pumpkin!

This years trip to the pumpkin patch was quite a toasty event, with it being 100 degrees out. The heat mixed with me being 9 months prego, in addition to my belly being the size of a very large pumpkin, was a tad bit unpleasant compared to our trip last year. But the kids, they had a great time! We had talked about going to a bigger pumpkin patch this year, since the kids were older, but I'm so very thankful we didn't. I love our little pumpkin patch that's only 5 minutes away. There aren't a lot of people, so it's usually just us and a couple of other families. Anniston was especially excited to go to the pumpkin patch this year, because we had recently rented the book, 'It's the Great Pumpkin,' by Charlie Brown. She requested that we read that book to her every night for a week straight. I think she was a little disappointed that we didnt spend the night in the pumpkin patch. Ha. Logan had decided the best technique for picking out a pumpkin was to throw each one like a bowling ball and see how far they went. Anniston, on the other hand, was extremely picky in her pumpkin choosing. She would carry one around for a while to get a feel for it, we assumed that was the pumpkin she wanted, but once Gabe or I would ask her if that's the pumpkin, she would say, 'Umm, no.' She was very fond of the white pumpkins though. The funny thing was that the kids never officially picked out their pumpkins. So being the cheap, awesome parents we are, we decided to just buy their pumpkins at Sprouts, where they were half the price. With our move to Arizona coming up in a month, this trip made me a little sad. We won't be going to the same pumpkin patch with the Straight family next year. I guess I'll just have to come back to this post next year to reminisce. 

A Brief Trip to AZ

Here are a few glimpses from our short trip to Arizona this weekend. We tried to fit in a few fun activities, so all of our time wasn't spent looking at rental properties and apartments. Even though the sun was blazing, it was nice to get away and spend some time, just the three of us. The only negative is that Anniston has completely regressed in her potty training, pooping on the hotel floor being the absolute low point. But hey, I'm sure it's going to be a really funny story someday! Some of the highlights of our trip were getting gas for $2.29 per gallon, Cafe Rio, hanging out with some old friends, Italian sodas and the Mesa Temple!