Dalton Rees

 I can't believe that it's been 6 days since this little guy was born and I'm just barely blogging about him. It's been a little difficult finding the time, but he's way too precious to wait any longer to share him with the blogging world. Today was my due date, and I'm so glad that he's already here!

Just before my C-Section

Ready to pop!

Dalton Rees 

8 lbs. 11 oz. 19 1/2 inches long

(No wonder I felt so huge and could barely move!)

No sense covering up that head of his with a hat when he's got this much hair

The nurse fauxhawked his hair when they bathed him....so cute.

It felt so long before I got to finally hold him....

Just soaking up my brand new baby boy

 Addie meeting her baby brother

Addie was so excited to meet her brother and hold him

(and yes, yes my daughter is wearing a pink tutu skirt to the hospital, no surprise there :) 

hey it matched her big sister shirt)

Dalton meeting his grandparents, aunts and great grandparents

 Papa Steve

Grammy and grandpa Rees

Grammy Dawn

Aunt Ashy

Aunt Whitty

Grandpa Randy and Grandma Tammie

Great Grammy Lynette 

Gramp

Daddy got some snuggles in too

Addie was so cute about Dalton. She demanded to wear her big sister shirt and tutu again one of the days they came to visit. She just wanted to hold him. She was excited about it. She still likes to hold him and give him kisses. I wish the lighting was better in these pictures, because they're pretty dang precious.

All ready to come home!

We came home Saturday night and life has been turned upside down in a wonderfully exhausting way.

I've got more pictures and thoughts to share, so I'll post again soon. We're so grateful to have a healthy, sweet baby boy in our home. We all are in love with him and thank Heavenly Father for sending us such a precious little one. Welcome to the world and to our little family baby Dalton!

320

320...that's how many diapers I have in Dalton's closet. There is a stack of folded blankets and freshly washed clothes hung up. His changing table is full of onesies, pants and jammies, most of them have been washed more than once because I couldn't remember which ones I'd washed so I rewashed them all. It's also stocked with baby socks, burp clothes, receiving blankets and diapers.

My house is clean (thanks to my mom's help, love her!). Laundry is all caught up on. My fridge and freezer are stocked. The car seat is properly installed in my car. I have my diaper bag all packed full of things for Dalton for the hospital. I have my hospital bag packed other than the things I'll need to throw in that morning. I have a bag packed for Addie so she can sleepover at Grammy Dawn's house Wednesday night. Long story short: I'm prepared. We're all prepared. There is really not much left to do.

Oh, well I guess we still have ONE thing to do. HAVE A BABY! In like, you know 42ish hours. When I say I'm prepared I feel like that is a lie. I AM prepared as far as having everything cleaned, organized, and ready to bring our baby home. When it comes to having TWO children instead of one, recovering from a C-Section again, going through the sleepless newborn nights and the baby blues and the unknown of how Addie will adjust, I feel completely unprepared. I know there is no avoiding it. I don't think anyone is ever truly prepared for parenthood. I thought I would feel more ready this time, but somehow I feel less ready. You'd think having done this once before I'd have it all together better than I do.

As unprepared as I feel to have our lives changed forever once again, I am SO happy and excited that I get to meet my baby boy on Wednesday night! Addison has been the best thing to ever happen to our lives and I know that we will feel the same way about Dalton. I can't wait to hold my baby and soak up all that sweet newborn goodness.

Some Addie Time

Well, we're down to the final countdown here for baby Dalton to arrive...we're talking less than 48 hours here people. In between all the baby preparations, I've been trying to focus as much time and attention on Addie as possible.

I don't generally celebrate St. Patrick's Day other than wearing green. This year, however, I forgot to consider the fact that my child now goes to preschool....thus we ended up doing a little more than usual this year. Addie's "homework" was to bring a painted green box to preschool that they'd then decorate there.

She loved painting the box....that I then evened out, because I'm OCD like that. 

Finding that the leprechaun left her some treats even though we didn't catch him...

 he even turned our pancake batter green!

Addie had a green feast at school. All of the kids brought a green food to share and she had a lot of fun.

 Her preschool does the funnest things. I love hearing all her stories about it each day. 

 Last Addie-Daddy-Mommy Outing before baby brother 

We decided that we wanted to go out and have a fun evening with Addie before her little world is altered.

We went to In-N-Out for some dinner then to Boondocks for some fun.

Boondocks was fun for Addie. She played some little kid arcade games, played in their big Kiddie Cove and even dared to do a daddy-sized game that was more like a ride.

 She was all excited when it started

 and then the whole thing started to shake and move and it made her pretty nervous

 so...she ended up on her daddy's lap for the rest of the ride :)

 She also loved playing rollerball....almost a cross between bowling and ski-ball. 

Oh and Jed rocked on the "sledgehammer" which was a kiddie sized whack-a-mole game.

He dominated and put a high score on the game and got Addie some tickets :) 

Lol....poor other small children...they'll never get close to that score.

It was fun to play with my two favorite people before I add a third to that favorite list. Jed and I were both exhausted before we even started the evening, (something about me not sleeping at night and Jed working 10-18 hour days the past two weeks, twice literally ALL night) but we're both glad that we took the time and played with our little Addison while she's still the baby of our family.

March Madness

It's been a pretty crazy month...yet has also seemed long already at the same time. The days are long with Jed pulling out all the stops to get his Plutonium jobs done before baby Dalton's arrival. So Jed is busy and not home much, I am feeling quite large and uncomfortable and not sleeping much, and Addie, well she's just as busy as ever doing what she does and being sweet and helpful to me.

Loving Preschool Days

Addie got to wear pajamas the day they focused on letter "P". She thought that was pretty cool. 

They also had a dental hygienist come and talk to them about teeth.

She loved that she got her own mask. She told me all about why we have to brush our teeth afterwards. I love that she's starting to really love it and tell me what she learns and stories each day about preschool. She also has a habit of selling out her preschool friends to me. Makes me laugh. She'll get in the car and say "Rachel said can't at preschool today. We don't say can't at preschool. We say I can try" or

"Ava didn't want to clean up today so she cried" 

A warm enough day for the park! 

I've been trying to go and do some fun things with Addie this weekend while Jed worked and before I'm not able to do much for awhile. We played at the park Thursday and then wandered the Princess aisle at Target and had a pizza picnic at home and watched "Hairspray". Today we had a full day of a birthday breakfast for Papa Steve and Uncle Blake then went to "Tangled" at the Kaysville Theater...which by the way, I may never attend again. Loved that we got to see it again but they don't let you buy tickets ahead of time, you just have to show up early....like 30-45 minutes early. I wasn't prepared for this to mean standing outside, while raining for part of that time. Oh well, it was fun and I love doing things like that with her. We also went to my nephew Evan's first birthday party....Addie crashed in the car on the ride home and I collapsed onto the couch and don't plan to move the rest the night :)

She also is getting excited about her baby brother coming, as we all are. She has been such a great little helper to me lately and I think she'll love being a helpful big sister, maybe "too" helpful sometimes :)

Papa Steve always teases her that her brother is in the oven and she gets very offended and upset by this statement...lol she is such a literal kid. She had quite the serious conversation the other day with him the other day about it and told him "The baby is NOT in the oven. The baby is in mommy's belly and the oven is at her house. I don't want to hear you say that ever again." and she meant it! He teased her an hour later about it and she put her little finger up all mommy-bossy like and said, "um, do you remember what I said?"

Needless to say both Papa and Grammy both were almost in tears laughing at her. 

Addie and Grammy agreed that next time he says that he will go to time out.

Baby Boy.....oh we can't wait for his arrival. Well, I can a little since there are a few things left to do, but if I could have him tomorrow I'd pull an all-nighter to get it all done! He's coming in 11 days, so we don't have too long to wait now.....

and don't worry, he'll be well accessorized as well :)

As for me.....well I'm looking like I'm 38 weeks pregnant.

Well, maybe bigger ;)

This was my happy place last Saturday...I helped my mom throw a baby shower and she got me an alligator jaw before it started. Dang it was good lol. I needed that extra sugar to cope with being called huge repeatedly at the shower...oh as well as miserable looking. Ah well, what do you do right?

Speaking of food....

Our Best Bites book launch and cooking demo

I was so excited to see, meet and watch Sara and Kate from ourbestbites.com cook up some delicious food in a gorgeous demo kitchen at Orsen Gygi. I got to go down with a couple of my foodie friends, Megan and Carlee. We were stoked when Megan won 2 tickets and even more so when after Sara and Kate read our tweets on twitter offered me a ticket too! I felt quite special  :)

Sara and Kate were very cute and fun in the kitchen. I loved that they seemed just like me and my friends cooking, not all technical and pro-chef like. Don't  be fooled though, their recipes are AWESOME. I seriously use their recipes for at least 70% of the meals I make, maybe more.

We got to taste their yummy concoctions....and LOVED this one!

Sorry, it doesn't look pretty but OH MY GOSH...SO GOOD.

Peanut Butter Cup Cheesecakes

We even got hooked up with the secret recipe. Saweet!

We got to meet them and have our cookbooks signed! 

(Yes we're nerds because we thought this was SO cool- and sorry the pictures aren't good. I forgot my camera so they're all from my phone. Plus a stranger took this one and didn't get how to use it)

Oh, and if I didn't eat enough there, Megan also brought me some delicious donuts from Beyond Glazed.

This was followed by a meeting of our Culinary Club....where again, we ate some more. It was quite the foodie day. Loved it and loved having one last girls' day/night before I become home bound for awhile :) Thanks Megan and Carlee and Our Best Bites!