Blog Resurrection

I have been thinking for awhile about getting back into blogging. I mean what else do I have to do, right? Not to mention, being the mom of 4 boys, blogging material is not exactly hard to come by. Anyway, the thought of getting my thoughts out there has been appealing for some time. I spend so much time doing things for others I often feel that I need some sort of outlet, some mode of getting my thoughts and feelings out of my head and off of my chest.

I think this time around I am going to take a little bit of a different approach and stray off of the path that I had previously paved. Yes, there will still be pictures of and stories about my awesomely adorable bouncing bundles of joy but there will also be things about me, some and/or most quite possibly pretty candid. Some things may not always be pretty and/or entirely appropriate, but I kind of live by the thought that, "if you don't like it, scroll on" ;)

I spend my free time doing a lot of DIY and repurposing - it's kind of a hobby. Lately, I have really gotten into machine embroidery. I have been thinking about starting a business with it but haven't quite gotten my act together as far as well...getting it together. I have done a few things for friends but that is about where it ends, for now :)

My life, to sum it up, is full of kid herding (which is often feels like the old adage 'herding cats'), kid running, kid bathing, diaper changing, spit-up cleaning, laundry folding, food preparing, teaching, house keeping...I think you get the point. I mean, it is not exactly glamorous in a diamonds and pearls kind of way, but in the end it is glamorous to me and entirely worth it.

Mother's Day, 2015

*Disclaimer* - I LOVE being a mom, it is the single most rewarding thing in the world, and yes, my kids are awesome! In case you forget this in the posts that are to follow, please refer back to this statement. Ultimately this is my belief regardless of how hard the days, hours, and minutes can be.

I mean look at these little faces, how can you not be totally wrapped up in their awesomeness ;-)

Elf Bond

He's back! Elf Bond has finally made his season debut. This year he came with a list of rules - I wonder if the Gillam boys will be able follow them? I will set the over/under at 5 for Connor and 15 for Cooper!

Please ignore the shadow, it finally dawned on me to start blogging from my phone as most of my pics are on here anyway! 

Happy Birthday Connor!

Well it is that time of the year again where my oldest little guy turns a year older. I am already dreading next years birthday and having a pre-teen, I am definitely not old enough for that.

Following our birthday tradition, we let him decide what he wanted to do for dinner. This year, straying from his usual choice of Red Lobster, he chose Fitz's. We love Fitz's soda around here so we were thrilled to try out the restaurant. The food was pretty good and the floats were AMAZING, just as we expected! Connor's birthday float was one of the biggest and coolest I have ever seen.

Happy 9th Birthday Connor-Bug!!

Baby Cruz is here!

Our sweet baby is finally here!! He is so stinking precious we can hardly stand it!

Cruz Beckett Gillam, 8 lbs 6 oz., 21 in long

Given all of the issues we had during our pregnancy, I guess it is not exactly surprising that Cruz's entrance into this world was just as colorful!

We went in for our induction on Friday night/Saturday morning at midnight, a week before our due date. We were a little concerned about inducing a week early because Big Brother Cooper was induced a week early and let's just say we went home with our baby but not in our arms. We had to wait another week and go through another induction to finally get him here. So, we were scared that the induction might not work but we were willing to give it a shot due to me being so uncomfortably swollen and confined to the house with preeclampsia.

This induction was completely different from my previous two. The nurses started the Pitocin at around 0115, my water broke spontaneously at 0230 and I got my epidural at around 0330. Everything went pretty well for the next couple of hours until around 0530 and his heart rate started dropping with every contraction, this was ok at first because when the contraction was over, it would recover. However, that only lasted about an hour. My OB was called in at about 0630 at which point I was dilated to a 7 and the house OB noticed that he was sunny side up, so she tried turning him with no luck. Not long after my OB got there his heart rate stopped bouncing back and was back and forth from 40-70 bpm which is extremely low for a baby (usually around 130ish for those of you who don't already know.)

At this point, the decision was made to go ahead and start pushing even though I was only dilated to a 7 because we needed to get him out and my OB thought she could get him around what cervix was left. I pushed through a few contractions with not much luck so they tried using the vacuum which did not work either. At this point his heart rate was staying mostly in the 40's so they had to get him out fast. This part was extremely scary because my OB, the house OB and all of the nursing staff were all frantically running around and literally running me to the OR. After we got into the OR he was delivered extremely quickly at 0744 and was perfect in every way, our prayers were answered. Everything happened so quickly that Brad didn't get to be in the room when Cruz was born, which was disappointing, but we had a healthy baby so that's all that mattered. 

Unfortunately, shortly thereafter I had a bad reaction to the extra anesthesia and became extremely nauseous, had a horrific headache, and was uncontrollably shaking. This lasted for about 3 hours and was one of the hardest things I have ever gone through. At some point, I finally fell asleep and when I woke up, I felt way better and was able to hold my precious baby for the first time.

More Cruz drama...To be continued...

I will write another blog about Cruz's first 24 hours in another blog to try to keep this particular one from getting ridiculously long ;-)

"Our" Boys of Summer

Summer baseball is finally over, just in time for baby #3 to make his appearance! This was Cooper's first season of baseball and with anything Cooper related, he made it his own. He did pretty well hitting, it didn't hurt that Daddy co-coached the team and made sure each "Coach's pitch" was to Cooper's liking. Fielding, well, that is another story. Let's just say sometimes playing in the dirt was more fun than waiting for a grounder!

Connor did really well, he is his team's catcher. For those of you who know how much Connor takes after his Dad, you will not be too surprised by this! He did an awesome job and is already looking forward to playing "major league" rules in the Fall!

 Coop played catcher a couple of times and decided he would rather be a pitcher ;-)

Pre-K Graduation!

Kindergarten is right around the corner for our little Cooper. To celebrate this milestone, Cooper's school held a Pre-K graduation, enough to make this Mommy cry!

Accepting his diploma!

Happy Birthday Cooper!

My baby is 5! I can hardly believe he will be starting kindergarten in the fall...tear! His day was totally planned out by him. He wanted to do lunch at Chick-fil-A, have an ice cream cake for his birthday cake, and he wanted Daddy to pick out his birthday dinner and he wanted it to be a surprise. So we did just that.

My 5-year-old lunch date!

Daddy decided to surprise Cooper with a birthday hibachi dinner. 

Happy Easter!

Playing a little blog catch-up seems to be my new favorite blog game. We enjoy looking back at past blogs so I thought I would just add some highlights from the past few months.

We decided to stay home for Easter this year as I had to work the Saturday before, I feel lucky that I got to spend the holiday with my babies! We had a great day, the night before we colored Easter eggs...

The next morning the Easter Bunny came and the boys got to hunt for candy and Easter eggs.

The Easter Bunny must have been excited for the upcoming baseball season because he brought the boys some new baseball gear. That afternoon, they decided to try out their new stuff!

It's....a....

We were trying to think of a clever way to tell the boys the sex of the baby so we decided on cupcakes. I haven't exactly been Martha Stewart lately so this seemed like the easiest way to creatively tell them.

It's a...

BOY!!! As if we had any doubts ;-)

Cooper was pretty excited because he wanted a boy, Connor, not so much...he wanted a girl :-(

Baby Bump -- 20 wks!

Our Little Basketball Player!

Connor decided to give basketball a try this winter and did pretty well. We were a little worried because most of the kids on his team had played before, but he held his own.

The league even had little cheerleaders that did cheers during halftime! 

We might just have a little basketball player on our hands!