We celebratedJaxon's first birthday with a party at home surrounded by family and friends. Hard to believe that our Jax is a year old. Jaxon seemed to enjoy his birthday, and Brooke enjoys anyone's birthday so she had a great time too. I jokingly asked Brooke and Chase driving home from school one afternoon what type of birthday party Jax should have. Brooke replied that he should have a truck party. I thought that was a great idea so away I went planning with dump trucks.
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| Birthday Invitation |
I make it a point to make my kids their own birthday cake for their first birthday. This year I used the invitation as my template and then went from there. I then decided to make Jaxon a shirt that would match his cake. October kind of became a sewing month with Halloween costumes :)
Jaxon loved his cake! I was actually able to get the black icing out of the shirt :)
Brooke enjoyed the festivities as well!
Everyone enjoyed Jaxon's gifts . . . Buzz Lightyear and Lightning McQueen Powered Toys!
I haven't actually documented Jaxon's birth in writing anywhere so here goes. Jaxon was actually due on October 20, but because I am a scheduled C-section, he was set to come on October 14. I wish that I would have had him sooner. It seemed as if I spent the last two weeks thinking I was in labor. I even made a trip to labor and delivery on the Wednesday before only to be told that I was not in labor and to go home. Apparently actually going into labor really hurts because all they told me is that I would know if I was in labor.
My pregnancy with Jaxon seemed to have more bumps in the road than the others. I had a bleed at 13 weeks that scared me half to death, but it turned out I had a subchorionic hemorrhage which was resolved by our 20 week sonogram. At 32 weeks, they discovered that Jaxon had was missing a vessel in his umbilical cord. That meant we got sonograms at every visit for the rest of the pregnancy to make sure Jax was growing adequately. That was kind of funny because Jaxon measured large my entire pregnancy, and I kept telling Kyle and Dr. Nivens that he was a big baby. They both just kind of smiled as if I had no idea what I was talking about :)
We showed up for our drive-thru baby (Kyle's term) on October 14 at 5:00 am for a scheduled 7:00 am C-section. We got bumped due to an emergency C-section so we did not go in until around 8:15 am. We were happy to be bumped because with Brooke I am sure we bumped someone else considering she was an emergency C-section. At 8:48 am, Jaxon Kyle Howard entered the world at 9 pounds and 21 inches long. My first words (after expressing my joy at hearing his sweet cries) were "I told you guys he was big."
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| First Picture with Daddy |
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| Daddy showing off his new boy and letting everyone know what we named him. |
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| Big sister getting her hands on her new brother. I think she likes him! |
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| This is one of my favorites. She was sooo excited to have a new brother, and the look on her face says it all. |
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| Headed home with our sweet and handsome little boy. He looks like he is a month old. |
Home we went with our new bundle of joy, and I felt great. Little did we know that we were about to go on a three week roller coaster ride. At about a week after Jax's birth, my blood pressure skyrocketed getting as high as 195/105. We spent an entire afternoon in an urgent care getting every test known to man ran to make sure I wasn't throwing a blood clot. I was diagnosed with post-partum pre-eclampsia and was sent home on strict orders to rest. They told me I couldn't even empty the dishwasher. Kyle was the enforcer making sure I kept myself in a chair or on the couch, and he took over duties at home while also trying to work. I must say he did an outstanding job. After about 3 weeks, my blood pressure had pretty much returned to normal, and we were up and running again. I'm not sure how we would have made it without lots of help from family and so many brought us meals which made things so much easier. Jaxon was just perfect . . . he was a happy camper as long as he was fed and got to sleep. My kind of newborn!
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| Brooke giving Jax a bottle while Mom was being checked out at the hospital. Such a good big sister! |
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| Love these boys! |
