Lydia is Waving!

(Sorry it's sideways!)

Lydia is Crawling

Look at our little girl go!

Caed's First Day of Preschool!

Aww, our little boy is really growing up! Today was his first day of preschool!
We went to the open house to meet his teacher and learn his way around the classroom last Thursday. And then today was the big day!

Caed loves Sid the Science Kid and that's has been his closest understanding of preschool until today, so we spent some time talking this morning about how Sid goes to school without his mommy and daddy, and all the fun things that he gets to do while in school. But when it was time to head to the van and go, Caed became a little apprehensive.

Caed did a good job once we got into the preschool suite. He washed his hands as instructed, held on to me a bit and then traced his name on his little name card and put his backpack in his cubbie. He got real excited when we pulled out his green blanket and was looking around for someone to show it off to :).

He slowly made his way to the table with some other boys to work on a play dough activity and he seemed to be in the groove at that point. A hug and a kiss later, that was not the case. He immediately clung to me again and pleaded with me not to leave. So I hung around a bit longer. His teacher, Ms. Sara, showed him the picture schedule of the day and showed him when I would be returning, and then slowly made his way back to the table to continue his play dough activity. In a moment of concentration, I took my cue and headed for Lydia's stroller and then the door. Caed looked up for a moment and darted for me. The look of sheer terror was all over his face! I felt terrible. (This has happened at church before, but that was in an environment he was familiar with and comfortable in, so I wasn't too concerned.) But I stayed strong and tear-free and continued through the door and out into the lobby. (That's when I teared up a bit!) I could hear him cry and call for me! I hung out in the lobby for a little bit to make sure he was going to be ok, and thankfully, within a minute or two I didn't hear him any more.

Lydia and I headed back to pick him up at 1:30pm and I could hardly get him to leave! He was certainly excited to see us, but continued to talk about the fun activities he had done and didn't want to leave. Great job, buddy! You'll be back again on Thursday.

Where have the days gone?

I can't believe it! Lydia will be 2 months old tomorrow! Time sure flies ... especially with kid #2.

We've been working on Lydia's nap routine over the past 2.5 weeks, so maybe that's where our time has gone. We haven't done too much during the day since we've been trying to teach her to take naps in her crib (5 a day). Some days have been very successful, others ... not so much. And even though those days are pretty trying ... lots of crying ... I'm realizing that it's such a joy to have 2 kids in the house! Caedmon is really doing a great job as a big brother and adjusting to not having as much of my time. But there's just something about having done this once before and knowing that there's something more going on in the house than just crying and nap attempts ... there's always the chance to play trains with Caed downstairs or run around outside with him as he kicks the soccer ball is very freeing. (Yes, Caed is kicking the soccer ball these days, and shouts, "GOAL," every time he kicks it into the goal. Very cute!)

Regardless though if the naps are happening or not, Lydia is an all-round sweet girl. The naps will come. Sleeping through the night will come (she gave us a sneak peek for 4 nights in a row!) But bottom line, I am so thankful that she's my little girl! And as her gas and dream smiles are transforming into purposeful recognitions that she enjoys being with us, I can see into the heart of this sweet little girl even more clearly.

Here are a few pictures of the past couple of weeks and a video of her new-found skills:

Lydia with her Grandpa














Enjoying Time with Grandma Helen


















Caed Finishing Out a Fun Day at Marbles
with Grandma & Grandpa


















Getting a Little Daddy Time














A Successful Nap!














Posing On Her Playmat














New-Found Skills:

The Pierces Come For a Visit

We were so excited to have Brad's sister and her family come visit us last weekend during their trip to Raleigh for Ryan's swim meet final. (This was his first year swimming competitively outside of summer swimming and he already made it to the finals! Great job, buddy!)

Scott and Michelle spent most of Saturday at Ryan's swim meet and Madison hung around with us ... a choice that Caed was very excited about! Madison is 12 and is so good with Caed ... and Caed absolutely adores Madison ... so it was great for us all. Then, we all hit up El Rodeo and Crema for dinner and dessert to enjoy some time all together. Here are some pictures and a video from our time together:

Getting Out and About and Other Fun Stuff

Well, we've been slowly getting acclaimed to having an additional child around the house and at week 4.5 I think we're doing pretty well. We've been enjoying meals that our community group and other friends have been bringing us for several weeks and are working through some of our frozen meals now, so not having to cook full dinners (and having leftovers for lunch) has been extremely helpful in this transition. (Thanks all!)

Things during the day while Brad has been at work have been going pretty smoothly. I took Caed and Lydia on our first outing without Brad about 2 weeks ago and after that trip, I felt much more confident in my ability to handle both kids by myself. On that trip we went to the mall with the double jogging stroller and were able to have lunch and run a few errands. I even made it into the dressing room at H&M to try on a few shirts! (I was very impressed with myself!) And our big stroller just fits into the handicap dressing room! Lydia slept the entire time and Caed did pretty well too (minus a small incident of tugging Lydia's ear from the other side of the stroller).

In addition to this trip, running simple errands, going to the park, etc. have become a regular part of our weekly schedule now and it certainly helps make life feel normal again, which I am very thankful for!

The morning has been the toughest part of the day to juggle, but I'm thankful that Brad has been able to go in a little late to work on some mornings to help get things moving. It's tough when so many things have to happen at the same time ... nursing Lydia first thing, changing Caed's diaper and helping him get dressed, getting him breakfast and actually eating myself ... needless to say, I'm very thankful that Brad is able to be so flexible with work and help out with all of this stuff!

At week 3, we were able to give Lydia her first full-fledged bath and nervously, we decided to do it while Caed was bathing too. Caed had his designated side of the tub and Lydia had her's (and Brad and I were right there in case of a problem) ... so it worked out pretty well, and Caed really enjoyed taking a bath with his sister.
And then two days ago, I decided to get Lydia's activity mat out, not knowing if she was really ready for it yet or not, but it turns out that she really enjoys it! She tracks the toys with her eyes as I move them and moves her arms and legs really well as she lays down and looks at everything. (She's growing so quickly!) It's wild that we can have "planned" activities for her now (well, one activity, but that's a big step :). And as you can see from the picture below, Caed enjoys playing with Lydia on the activity mat too.

Lydia's First Week

I can't believe it, Lydia turned a week old yesterday! We've been home from the hospital since Tuesday afternoon and everything has been going pretty well. My mom was with us Sunday to Sunday to care for Caed while we were in the hospital and to help us with odds and ends around the house once we got home. (Thanks Mom!) It was really nice to have her around.

Lydia has been sleeping and eating really well so far and that's made it a bit easier to get into some semblance of a schedule thus far! (It's amazing how sleep and a schedule for mom, me, makes things so much better.) If you remember, this was not our experience with Caed, so we're certainly welcoming these new circumstances! Thanks for all your prayers! God has definitely been gracious to us! Please pray that this would continue!

One of the things we're doing during our time in the day is washing Lydia's hair not long before she goes to bed. Sounds silly, but a pediatrician nurse in the hospital said that washing a newborn's hair every day for the first two weeks of life drastically reduces the chance for cradle cap. So, we're trying it. (Caed had cradle cap for a while, so if we can do anything to prevent little Lydia from having the same, we're going to try.) I love to wash her hair and surprisingly she seems to enjoy it too. What a sweet little girl! As her hair gets wet, her dark hair curls right up and is cute as can be. It looks like she just got out of the salon ... he he he.

Caed is certainly enjoying his little sister too. At first, he was a little disappointed when he found out that Lydia was not going to be able to play with him or talk to him. But he's real gentle with her, for the most part, and loves to say, "Hi, Lydia, hi," and hold her with mommy and daddy's help on the couch. (A nice tip he got from his new I'm a Big Brother Now book.)

And Now There's Four!

We're so excited to announce the birth of our little girl, Lydia Courtney Hodgson. I know that we haven't mentioned her or even any details of my pregnancy on the blog ... life with a two-year-old and all the many things that we've been doing these days have definitely kept me away ... but we're excited to share it all right now.

To begin, I was very blessed to have a very carefree pregnancy. Everything seemed to go very smoothly, and Lydia and I maintained our health well till the end. At times, I even forgot that I was pregnant -- minus my growing belly and the little wiggle worm inside -- but it was a great 9 months for me, and for that I'm truly grateful! At the beginning of the pregnancy, even though it was completely planned, I was quite apprehensive about my ability to welcome and care for a second child. My emotions got the best of me on some days and I felt as if I was going to miss out on my special time with Caed. (We've only been home for a few days now, so I can't say how reality has really played out yet, but God has given me a new perspective and I know that welcoming Lydia into our family will only bring more joy to us and into Caed's life. It might cause me to be more creative with my time to do some of the things I've always done with Caed, but that's all part of parenting, right?)

I hit 40 weeks on my due date Saturday, the 22nd. And it's amazing that I made it that long based on what the doctors were saying at 36 weeks. All speculations were that Lydia was going to come early, but as time went on, that was proven to not be the case. Lydia came at 40 weeks and 1 day! But based on the quickness of her arrival on the 23rd, I think she really wanted to be punctual and was trying to make up for the extra few hours past 40 weeks that had passed.

It's amazing though. Over the past month, we had soooo many things on our house to-do list and we weren't sure if we'd be able to get them all done before Lydia's arrival. Thankfully, we finished them ALL, even though we only had 8 hours to spare. In the last month, we replaced our old dining room table, purchased and put together new bookshelf storage in the dining room, built and painted bookshelves (all Brad!) in the kitchen book nook, re-organized the mud room and purchased a chest freezer for food storage (just arrived last night!), had a friend build closets in Caed's new room, caulked and painted those closets, moved Caed into his new room and set up Caed's old room into Lydia's new nursery. And we can't forget all of the cleaning and grocery shopping that took place in between those projects to get our house together before "D" day. (Talk about nesting!!!)

As the days to my due date grew closer, Brad said a few times how it would be nice if my labor began at 6am, so we'd have the whole day ahead of us and a whole night of sleep behind us to get us through the day. Well, the Lord certainly heard that comment and made it happen!

Lydia's Birth Story
After finishing up our to-do list and going to bed about 11:30 Saturday night (my due date), we were semi-anticipating that labor would begin sometime the next day (that's how it went down with Caed). I slept pretty well that night (unlike the night before that was bombarded by irregular contractions) -- I only had to get up for regular bathroom breaks and a 5:30am "Mommy I need my B (Caed's fond term for his paci) call". And just as I settled back into bed after tucking Caed in, regular contractions started. I had just finished timing my 4th or 5th contraction, coming at about 6 minutes apart, and then suddenly, my water broke. Fairly calmly, I leaned over to Brad and told him that my water had just broke and we began to make our way out of bed and think through what needed to happen. (I was pretty sure at this point that we should make our way to the hospital pretty quickly ... my water didn't break with Caed, so this was new for me. But for some reason, we didn't move that quickly.) I did call my doctor, but after two tries, I never received a call back. I tried to get myself together while I attempted to tell Brad everything that we needed to be doing. One of which was to tell mom that labor was starting and have her come over immediately. Yet, the urgency of the matter was still not there and we still continued to take our time. But within a very short time, my contractions quickened from 6 minutes apart to 4 minutes apart to 2 minutes apart and fewer and much, much stronger! When I finally made it downstairs, my mom had just arrived and Brad quickly began to load the car. It was 6:55am. While I waited, I tried to eat some banana with peanut butter to make sure that I had something in my stomach, but that wasn't too successful. Eating and contractions don't go too well together! (I realized this as I leaned on the couch to support myself during a contraction and suddenly felt that Lydia would be making her appearance soon!!) That's when we scrambled out of the house into 19 degree weather (felt good to a woman experiencing contractions) and began to make our 5-minute commute (without much speeding) to the hospital.

When we arrived at Patient Registration, Brad ran in to get a wheelchair for me and it didn't seem like any hospital staff understood the urgency of what was happening. The lady behind the check-in counter proceeded to ask me for my license and insurance info and took her time. Then, the woman who came to take me to triage pushed me as slow as molasses! I asked, between contractions, if she could speed up a bit, and she responded with a "no, because her shift was already suppose to be over and she was tired!" I apologized for her "inconvenient" situation and just prayed that I would make it to triage without having a baby! Once in triage, the nurse asked me a few questions, but didn't have time to do any necessary paperwork or even run normal stats on me or the baby. My doctor came in, checked me out and said, "I'll be right back, I need to get my scrubs on ... we'll be delivering a baby any moment!" I was then transferred to another bed that they pushed down the hall to Labor and Delivery and before I knew it, everything was all set up for baby Lydia to arrive. I couldn't believe everything had happened so quickly! This wasn't quite what I had in mind. (I had a 14-hour labor with Caed, with lovely drugs and an epidural to help with any pain.) This time, there was no time for any of that. I asked at one point as Lydia was making her arrival if there was anything they could give me, and it was almost a joke, because obviously they couldn't ... oh my!

I'm not one to go into all the lovely details of her birth, but I will tell you that Brad said that if there were any first-time moms in the rooms around me, they were probably second-guessing any decisions they thought they'd made and were trying to leave labor and delivery! Ha! But regardless, I made it through (thank you, Lord!) and Lydia was born at 7:44am. (Only 44 minutes after we left our house!) Brad and I said afterward that it felt like we just went through the drive-thru and now have a baby ... it all happened so quickly! I'm very thankful for the quickness of it all and that Lydia wasn't born in our house, car or any where in between! And most importantly, we're thankful for our beautiful, healthy, new daughter, who was born at 8 pounds, 12 ounces and 22 inches, who has lots of dark, brown hair, long fingers and toes, and beautiful, long eye lashes (all of our initial observations about her :).

What's in a name?
Many of you know that it took us quite a while to decide on baby girl's name. Lydia was a name that I liked way before I was pregnant. Baby names are always something I think about from time to time, especially before this pregnancy because we knew that if we ever had a baby girl, we'd like her middle name to be "Courtney" to add a 5th generation of Courtney to our family. (The name alternates from first name to middle name every other generation.) And anytime we talked about that, we knew that we wanted to use a first name with it that had 3 syllables to go before it. One day last spring as I was reading through Acts, I came to the story of Lydia in Acts 16 and thought how neat it was that this woman, who was a seller of purple cloth, and was a worshiper of God (but hadn't heard the message of Jesus yet) welcomed the message of Paul and Silas about Jesus as she did and believed instantly, and how she then proceeded to invite them into her home to care for them on their church planting journey through her region.

As we talked about names once we knew that baby #2 was a girl, Lydia was always a name that we came back to, but it just took us up until a few weeks before she arrived to decide on it. So, Lydia Courtney Hodgson it is! And one neat thing about it is that Brad noticed that John Piper sent out a tweet early Sunday morning (the day Lydia was born) that read like this, "O Lord, let there be ten thousand Lydias today! Acts 16:14." Piper sent out his tweet at 6am that morning and my contractions started promptly at 5:55am. How providential and funny! John Piper, now you only need to pray for 9,999 Lydias.

Pictures

A picture with Dr. Harden














Our family of 4 (well, 6 if you include Monkey & Elmo)














Caed and GG during their first visit with Lydia














All ready to go home!

Camping with the Boys

One of Caed's buddies had a birthday camp out at his grandparents' farm this past weekend and about 5 little boys (ages 2-3) and their daddies, including Caed and Brad, enjoyed a fun-filled night and day on the farm!

This was Caed's first camp out, so we starting prepping him early in the week as we had him watch Elmo goes Camping and had him try out his sleeping bag during naptime and bedtime on his bed. At first, he wasn't too keen on the idea of sleeping in a bag, but once his Elmo and Monkey tried it out and hid in the bottom, he warmed up to the idea pretty quickly. Plus, he even got to use his uncle Mark's Thermarest and tent so that was pretty cool for him. (He'd point to the mat and with a smile on his face say, "Uncle Mark." Thanks, Mark.)

When Friday rolled around, all Caed could talk about was going camping. Errands and everything else for the day were a bit tough because Caed thought he should be going camping. But thankfully, we made it through the day, and when 5pm hit and Brad got home from work, we woke Caed up from his nap and he was already to go. Backpack packed, complete with Elmo, Monkey, blanket and all.

I'm not too sure of all the details of the weekend, remember this was a guys-only trip, but I know that Friday evening consisted of roasting hotdogs and I'm sure trying to wrangle the boys into their tents for bed. Caed apparently did very well. Brad tried to lie down with him at first, but he didn't want to have anything to do with it, so Brad left him alone in the tent and after a few minutes, he was out like a light .... it was after 10pm, so I'm sure he was exhausted, but pretty impressive for his first night in a tent.
From what I can gather, the boys did most of their camping-related activities the next day, including roasting marshmallows, eating pop tarts, swiss cake rolls, cupcakes, etc. (no wonder they had soooo much energy to play), visited the goats, sheep and horses, fished (Caed waded up to his knees in the lake w/ his crocs and pants on :) and even had a hayride, thanks to Mr. Jay!

Interesting story about the hayride: Apparently as they were getting started and were heading uphill away from the lake, the trailer hitch on the tractor came loose and the trailer started rolling backward toward the lake. From what I can gather, they were still a ways off from the lake, but everyone got a bit nervous and Brad and Caed were the first ones to jump off the trailer and one of the dads even had to pass his kid off to another on the ground for fear of hitting the lake. Several boys were pretty upset over the event, and even though Caed was never really in harms way, once he saw the other boys crying, he started as well. (What a fun scene that must have been!)
Anyway, that's the story that I picked up from Caed's first camping trip. I'm sure there are many more stories and details I left out. After all, I was home ALONE and had the opportunity to grab dinner with a friend and go OUT to see a movie, so I was certainly not there to enjoy the fun. But I think that was the basic gist of the adventure.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Caed has grown very fond of reading alone in his room lately and it's the sweetest thing. He talks through what's happening on each page as if he's reading it and continues along. (I remember doing this when I was a kid.)

One of his favorite books right now is The Very Hungry Caterpillar, so as he was reading it this morning I thought I'd try to catch him as he was "reading" and capture it on video for you to enjoy.

The batteries died 2 pages from the end and I unfortunately missed the part where he says, "Big Fat Caterpillar" and "Beautiful Butterfly." I'll try to capture this again sometime, but thought you'd enjoy regardless.

Caed's 2nd Birthday

My baby boy turned 2 August 25. How time flies! We've been so busy since then that I haven't had the chance to blog about it. But now that our schedule is winding down for the moment, here's a brief recap of his special week in pictures.














Birthday Morning w/ Special Dinosaur Pancake



















Caed in his birthday garb: NC State
Wolfpack t-shirt, Fire Truck PJs, and
Red, Converse One Stars















Mesmerized by his new train set!


Aslan-zilla taking over train city!



















Gazing at his long-awaited lemon-cupcakes.
(He actually blew the candle out all by himself!)



















Caed enjoying his yummy lemon cupcake!

Our Zoo Trip

Brad, GG and I took Caed to the zoo for the first time yesterday. It was in the high 80s, low 90s most of the day and despite a little more walking that we weren't planning to do, we had a GREAT time, and Caed was running non-stop from exhibit to exhibit all day. Caed is still talking about the zebra, giraffe and alligators that he saw. Here are some fun pictures and video of the day:














Caed getting a higher view of the chimpanzees from daddy's shoulders.















Caed watching the baby baboons wrestle and attempting to give them a high-five.















Ready for take-off dad?















Look at what just hatched?















GG and Caed during our picnic lunch.















The three of us while watching the bison roam.


Caed (& GG's) elephant impression.



Chomp, chomp, chomp

4th of July Weekend Fun!

July 4th weekend was jam-packed with fun activities: Mason's 2nd Birthday Party, Progress on our Deck, and a 4th of July Cookout on our Friend's Farm. Caed was battling that chest-congestion-cold-thing that has been floating around, but thankfully he was in good enough spirits to enjoy all the fun. Here are some pictures from the weekend:














Funny thing: Beginning last Tuesday, Caed grew so excited about Mason's party that he'd yell in excitement in the backseat of the car saying, "Mason party, Mason party ... hooray!" He was so excited to celebrate with his buddy!















Some friends of ours recently moved out to a farm in Creedmoor and we've had the luxury of enjoying some time out there with them. They have horses, sheep, goats, a cat with a crooked tail, named Bolt, and lots of fun toys and places for Caed to explore.















Caed loved this little playhouse. He would run in and out of it and stand at each window and call out to us.



















He also found this neat little lawn mower that he pushed around all over the place. I think this is a neat shot of him mowing in the shadow of the flag on the 4th of July.

Caed's First Movie-Going Experience

The cinema up at North Hills just began their free summer kids flick series today with the showing of Doogle and we decided to take part.

Up until about a month ago, Caed wouldn't even watch TV for more than a minute at a time, so the thought of taking him to a movie was completely ridiculous. However, within the last month, he's developed a strong liking for his GeoTrax train movie and can sit down on the couch for about 20-minute intervals to enjoy some trains. "Fix track," he says often, and "All board!"

Before we left the house, I stocked my purse with a few granola bars, a bag of Gold Fish, a cup of water and a diet coke for me ... thinking that these snacks would suffice until we returned home for lunch. Well, Caed did make it about 40 minutes into the movie, but that was with the distraction of 2 granola bars, water and several helpings of Gold Fish. He sat enjoyably at several minute intervals and stood in front of me, occasionally trying to get the kid's attention in front of us. He enjoyed verbally identifying all the animals and making the corresponding sounds. (It was a kids' movie specifically designated for kids ... 10am ... so I wasn't concerned about stopping him ... even though the mom to my right gave us a few hard looks.)

Overall, I think it was a positive experience. Heck, the movie was free so there's no better time to get your kid acquainted with the movie-going experience than during times like these. We'll probably try some other movies throughout the season and see how it goes.

Latest Pictures

Caed's first try with playdough. (The figures above were examples that mommy made, but Caed enjoyed making the snake and caterpillar slither around the table.)














Caed playing with his friend Adeline














A quick shot of Caed, Brad and Mason before Brad headed off for work and the boys ventured outside to 'work' in the mud.














Caed's first venture of the season in his turtle pool. What a difference a year makes in his interest in the pool. Last year he just stood on the side splashing or dabbled in the pool for a few minutes. Now, he loves to fill his buckets up and dump them all over himself and water all the plants around the pool. (thanks for the help bud!)

Caed's Getting Big

I just realized yesterday that I'm not very good at taking pictures or keeping track of Caed's milestones any more. He's getting big, fast ... in fact, Brad and I think he's grown and hit some big development milestones just within the past week, so I thought I'd try to take some random footage to share with you.


Other fun things that are not on the video include:

• He runs fast! "Fast," he says, as he moves his arms back and forth by his side.
• He counts to 15 pretty well with some assistance. About a month ago, he seemed to have a fear of walking down the stairs with us ... he always wanted to be carried. So, I decided to make a game of it, and we started to count as we went down the stairs. Can you guess how many stairs we have? If you said, 15, you're right. So now every time we go up and down the stairs, we count to 15 and when we hit that number, Caed exclaims "Woo hoo!" It's hilarious when we say 15 out of that context ... he stills says, "Woo hoo!"
• He uses his spoon and fork pretty well now. He'd rather pick up his banana and Cheerios with his hands, in the milk, during breakfast, but most other meals he does pretty well.
• He loves to be outside. He runs around with his wagon and gardening tools. He collects rocks and transfers them from the ground to the wagon to his car and so forth as he yells ROCK. He's a busy guy. He loves to visit our neighbors and help them garden too!
• Saying "hello" is a fun thing for him. He says hello, as many other folks do on our street, but he has definitely perfected the straight-armed wave that he sees so often from frequent passerbies.
• He LOVES Trader Joe's cinnamon alphabet cookies, and thankfully a love for the actually letters has developed as well. "B" is his favorite letter ... he even points it out on signs, but recently has come to like and recall other letters as well. Pretty impressive for a 20-month-old!
• Just this week, he's figured out how to use his frog puppet and say it's name too. We're trying to be careful how we teach him to enunciate this word because it seems to roll off his tongue as "foc" .... "FFFRRROOGGG" is what we're saying now to try to reinforce the correct pronunciation :).
  

Pictures From Raleigh Easter

Caed showing Mason his spoils (1 egg)



















Brad "helping" Caed climb a tree















What a big boy!