Summer Fun

Get your coffee and sit back and be ready for an overload of pictures. I figured I would play catch up by just cramming about, oh 3 months of pictures into one post and call it "summer". Good call, right?

I have to say that this summer the boys became obsessed with wearing their swim trunks and swim shirts.  It didn't matter if we were taking the pool out or not. Ty is STILL wearing them around the house now as well. Kinda funny since Myles is obsessed with wearing jeans and long sleeves every chance he can. One of my "guilty Mom moments" this summer was that the kids and I did not go to the public pool once this summer. Between my distain for the dirtiness of a public pool, being pregnant, and the idea of chasing THREE kids who don't swim well around a pool with 100 other kids I just couldn't make myself do it. Luckily they are young enough that they are still unaware of what they are missing out on! May not be able to pull it off next summer, but it really saved my sanity this summer.

My worker man building something big I am sure.

FOR REAL people this boy has a hoarding problem......I am not even joking.

We started out the trip to Minnesota with a bang. Papa and Nana got a new camper this summer and we made sure to break it in and sleep in it as many times as we could.

Nothing beats time with cousins for a sleepover.

And of course out sweet Mikey got to join in the fun this summer!!! Myles loves his so much he let him play with his blanket!!!! That is big time love!!

No farm visit is complete without some major tractor time. Natalie is showing the big boys how it's done. 

LOVE that she can be in a girlie tutu one minute and then digging it up in the sandbox the next. MY KIND OF GIRL!!!!!

Love the cheesy smile stage!!

A little photo shoot before church since we were all cleaned up for once.

We can't get her to eat much of anything but it turns out she LOVES raisin bran of all things.....

Fun day of playing at the park. Look at those red cheeks.

          

We took the kids to one of the state parks for the day. It ended up being a pretty big fail as there was really nothing to do there AND Nat and Myles ended up with poison ivy out of the deal. EPIC FAIL!!

Spending some time on the "new" couches that Nana and Mommy made. Really they couldn't care less about the couch as long as they have their Nana!!

Before our First Haircut!

One big event this summer was Natalie's first haircut!! She has reached the mullet stage and we can't have that. I kept putting it off because I didn't want it to be too short but figured it was time to even it up. Little did I know it actually HELPS the hair grow to get it cut. It has taken off since we got it cut!! Lesson Learned!

Easiest way to get her to sit still.....CANDY!! Look how proud she is!

No summer would be complete without a trip to the zoo. We had an ABSOLUTE blast at the Louisville Zoo. PLUS they have a water park!! animals AND water fun!! AWESOME!

Natalie was charming the boys at the water park. She had a little following.

I was so proud of Ty at the water park. It was out of his comfort zone to try something new with that many people around and he did it and LOVED it. SOOOO excited for him.

They were having so much fun that they forgot to fight. :-)

Myles decided he needed a little make up....Bet you are wondering were he got the pink eye shadow from.....

Wait for it..............

YEP....I turn around for 2 seconds and this is where his creativity takes him.

Of course, Monkey See, Monkey Do...

Turns out he likes fish. A lot!!! Nat was so excited. Who knew!

Thanks to my sweet friend Jen, we went downtown to take part in a pie contest. Lots of people baked pies and then the public got to eat them for FREE!!! So each kiddo got a piece of pie AND some ice cream. Oh my word it was AMAZING. It was a lot of work trying to hall all the kids down town, but the pie did not disappoint and some times you have to just suck it up and have fun with it. We sure did. (Did I mention that Natalie soaked through her diaper AND jeans and I changed her IN LINE to get the pie. Mama was not getting out of the line and going to the back!!)

Tessa Margaret Mitchell

After 9 long months of anticipation we are THRILLED to announce that our family has grown once again with the addition of our beautiful Tessa Margaret. I wish I could say that I loved the entire pregnancy, but I'm pretty sure God would strike me down for lying.:-) I will say that every single second of the pregnancy was worth it to add such a sweet little lady to our crazy family.

Here we're taking our last "family of 5" picture before heading to the hospital. We ended up being induced yet again and I'm so happy we were since she was already right at 8lbs!! I was so happy that we were able to have my parents here to take care of the kids while we were at the hospital as well. I'm pretty sure the kids were so excited about having Nana and Papa here that they totally didn't miss us a bit!

Being induced with Natalie really was a simple process and I was able to sleep for quite a while and get rested up. For whatever reason, even though it was the same process, being induced with Tessa was not as pain free. I was uncomfortable from the very beginning and was not able to get any rest early on. Contractions started out slowly and after about 6 hours we went from contractions being 10 minutes apart to 2 minutes apart. It was at this point that I woke Nat up and asked him to help me work through them while I waited for the beloved epidural. At this point it was 6:45 a.m. which was shift change. To make a long story short, it took over an hour to get the epidural and in that time the contractions went to one minute apart AND my OB decided to break my water!!! This mama was in some pain like I have never felt before. When the dr was finally able to give me the epidural Nat was HAPPY to leave the room. :-) After the epidural finally kicked in I was able to take my first good nap and it was AMAZING!!! Seriously, A M A Z I N G!!! It was the best nap I had taken in 9 months. I was DROOLING when they work me up an hour later. You know those kinds of naps. :-) We got checked and were at an 8 and not making progress so the nurse told me to move to my left side and we would wait it out. 30 minutes later she checked me and was shocked because it was go time! By the time my Dr got there and we were ready to push we pushed for 10 seconds. LITERALLY, 10 seconds, and we had our sweet baby girl! I think that was my reward for the painful labor. As the nurse handed Tessa to me she said, "Wow, look at that dark hair!!" I couldn't even process what she was saying because all my kids were bald or had very little hair. Turns out the nurse was right! 

Could not be more thrilled at this moment!!!

Tessa Margaret Mitchell

September 26th, 2013

7lbs 15 oz

9:46 am

Just shy of 8 lbs!!! Plenty big, if you ask me.

Officially the daddy of 2 little girls!!

Right after Tessa was born I got to call my Grandma and ask her permission to give Tessa her name as Tessa's middle name. My middle name is Margaret as well so I was pretty excited to name her after Grams. The funny thing was that Grams said, "Oh that's a lovely idea!! We can call her Peggy!!" Peg is what grams goes by and I just giggled and figured she can call her whatever she wants. At 93 years old, she gets that right.

I was so excited/nervous to see how the kids would react to Tessa and I'm pretty sure there have been few babies born who got as much love from their siblings as Tessa. This has been one of the greatest surprises to Tessa's arrival. The kids have been nothing but loving to her and so helpful!!

Snuggling with Nana and Natalie.

It was so wonderful to have mom and dad with us when Tessa was born!! The timing was perfect since dad wasn't in the field yet. I know he still could have been doing a million other things on the farm to get ready for harvest, but I sure loved having him there to meet Tessa and love on the older ones while I was at the hospital.

The first of MANY family pictures!! I can still remember how insanely happy I was at this moment to have all of our little ones with us.

Love This Man!!!

24 hours in the hospital was enough for us. Heading home to the craziness!!! Wouldn't have it any other way!!

One AWESOME surprise, and I'm RARELY surprised, was that my sweet Adrienne was in Lexington the weekend Tessa born and came to see us!!! I could not have been more excited! Seriously look at how I'm awkwardly hugging her and not letting her go. Love my Adrienne and miss her so much!!!

The Mitchell Girls!!

Ty is so in love with his "buddy". He woke up before the rest of the house and came downstairs when I was just finishing feeding her and asked if he could hold her. I told him he could and figured it would last for about 1 minute. I kept asking him if he wanted me to take her and he kept saying no. I was SO ready to go back to sleep since I'd been up most of the night, but couldn't take her away from him so I turned on a cartoon and my sweet boy held her for 35 minutes!!!!! It was so fun to have that special time with them both even it was the wee hours of the morning!! I totally cherish it and would skip sleep any day for those memories.

Natalie loves to sing to Tessa. It is so sweet and I look forward to sharing this video with the girls when they are older. As much as it terrifies me to have 2 girls, I love that they will have each other a best friends.

Getting lots of good snuggle time!

 

Words cannot express what it meant to have my mom here for TWO FULL weeks!! Yes, she stayed with us and somehow managed to keep her sanity. Pretty sure we would have been overcome by the laundry and dishes if she had not been here. It was so wonderful to know that no matter how busy/tired I was trying to adjust to a newborn the kids had their Nana the entire time. We Love our Nana time!!

Ty keeps asking me if we get to keep Tessa and it makes me smile because I LOVE telling him that she is ours forever and ever!!! I just have NO IDEA why we have been blessed like this!!! God is Good!!