Thank goodness for....

MOTHERS!!!

Mothers are so wonderful, and I am so grateful for both mine and Lance's mom for all they did to help with Kaeson.  My mom made arrangements a while back to be here to help with the baby, but she planned to be here when I was due.  Since Kaeson decided to join our family two weeks early, we weren't sure what to do.  So Linda was so wonderful to fly out here last minute and help me until my mom could come.  We are so blessed to have such great family.  I have loved having them here, and I appreciate all their help so much!  Parker had a ball with them. My mom just left this morning, and we already miss her!  Thanks!!!   

Our Little Papoose

Here are a few pictures from the past week of our adorable little guy.  I am continually amazed at how much hair he has.  A few people have told me all his hair makes him look like a little papoose indian baby.  Every day I expect it to get lighter, because Parker's got lighter and lighter every time we washed it, but so far, Kaeson's has stayed pretty black.

I was trying to stir him awake to make him eat some more, so I decided to set him in the boppy and he just curled up into a little ball.  He looked so cute!  I also love it because you get to see how thick his hair is in the back.  
Life doesn't get any better than cuddling with a sleeping newborn!
Being reverent in his sleep.

Family Pictures

Here are a few more pictures from the hospital, and some updates on the how we are all doing.

Parker is the proudest big brother you've ever seen.  Lance brought him to the hospital Friday morning, and the second he walked in the door, he was beaming with excitement.  I had bought him a few little dollar store toys and wrapped them up as a gift from Kaeson, so he was excited to come to the hospital and open his present.  I think it really helped him to start off on a positive note with the baby.

He loves  to kiss him and hold him and he is so soft and sweet with him.  He stands right beside him and calls him sweetheart.  It's so cute.  I hope he continues to love him so much. 
I think we have officially decided he has more hair than Parker did.  At this point, I am thinking it will also be darker, but it's still hard to tell.  Look at all that hair!!!!

This is his truck that Kaeson gave Parker, and he played with it constantly for two days in the hospital.  Whenever Kaeson started crying in the hospital, Parker would say, "don't cry baby Kaeson," and then give him his truck to make him feel better.
How cute are they?!!!!
Our newest family picture.  Kaeson is a bit hidden, but it's the best we could do using the timer on the camera
My boys!

Announcing....

Kaeson Will Anderson.  

He was born on Thursday, August 28, at 7:38 pm.  He came two weeks early and weighed 7 lbs 9oz, and was 20 inches long.  He is of course one of the two cutest babies ever born!!!  He has tons of black hair--we haven't decided yet if he has more than Parker had or not. I don't have any pictures on here that show how much hair he has, so I will add one later. He is healthy and perfect in every way. 

My Story... for any who are interested. 

I had a doctor's appointment Monday and I was dilated to a four, so I thought I should be going into labor any day.  I started having quite a few contractions, but nothing regular or really strong--just enough to keep me up all night!  On Wednesday night, after being up with contractions for about an hour and a half, I woke Lance up and we headed to the hospital.  AT that point I was dilated to 5, but the contractions weren't regular enough and there wasn't enough progress, so back home we went.

I had had enough not sleeping and not knowing what to look for as far as contractions, so Thursday morning, we went to the doctor and she decided to admit us since I was so dilated.  They gave me some pitocin to give me an extra little push, and broke my water. She broke my water at about 4:30, by 5:30 I had an epidural, but was still only dilated to 5. At a little after 7, they checked me again and said I was ready to start pushing.  

I started pushing at 7:31, I think I pushed through 3 contractions, and by 7:38, he was here.  I couldn't believe--and still can't believe how fast and easy it all was compared to Parker's delivery.  I was so blessed!!!  I also had no idea after having Parker how pain free an epidural could really make you!  Wow!  I felt NOTHING!  

 

I have recovered really well and am feeling great.  We were released from the hospital early this afternoon and we are all glad to be home.  

More updates to follow.....

White Coat Ceremony

On Saturday, Lance was honored with his white coat ceremony, where he got his white coat.  It is a tradition at University of Louisville to give the students their white coats in this ceremony. Lance is now supposed to wear his white coat to class each day.  I'm not sure why they do it now when they have just started, but that is the tradition here.

 The U of L Dental Class of 2012.  Let's play where's Lance.  Can anyone find him?
He's so cute!

The fam.  Here is my shocking red hair.  I am hoping it fades soon!
Lance and his classmates, Jerrel and Matt.

Day at the Zoo

On Wednesday we took Parker to the zoo.  It was a perfect day for a trip to the zoo.  The weather was pretty pleasant.  We got rained on for a few minutes, but for the most part, the clouds just kept the sun away and kept us from getting too hot.  Parker had a great time!  He is at an age where he appreciated the zoo a lot more than Six Flags.  When we got back in the car at the end of the day, he cried and begged to go to the zoo more.  I may have to get a season pass so we can go more often.  He loved it.Me and Parker riding on the train.  Of course, he loved the train ride!

This lady sat down right next to us, started eating her salad, and the gorilla came and sat right in front of her and just watched her eat.  It was so cool to watch.  She would show him the salad before each bite, and occasionally she would touch her hand up to the glass and the gorilla would put his hand right up to her.  It was like watching a professional gorilla whisperer.  I was way impressed, and seeing them interact so humanly was way fun. I wish the camera would have captured the gorilla better, cause you can't see him at all.  As you can see, Parker really like watching it.  He just stood right there the whole time staring at them.

On my last post, I said Parker isn't a normal kid and doesn't like slides, so Wednesday he decided to make a liar out of me and he went down this slide over and over and over again, every time saying, "go again!"  So maybe now he is going to be more normal! Of course, one of his favorite things all day was the playground at the zoo!  
They had  this cool little place where you could feed these birds and they fly right up and land on you to eat the food.  We refused to spend $1.50 on a cup of food, so it was hard to get the birds to come to us, but finally one of the workers brought one over.  I was surprised at how cool Parker thought it was.  He just giggled the whole time that the bird was biting him.


Here he is at the petting zoo.  I was also a little surprised at how well he did with all these animals.  He looks a little scared in this picture, but I promise he wasn't, that's just the face the camera caught.  He really liked petting them all.

He is watching the baby monkeys playing, and he started acting like a monkey himself.

He would have stayed here all day and watched this train go around.  He asked like ten more times that day if we could go see the "baby train" again.

Six Flags

Lance has a break from school for this week before his fall classes start, so we decided to take advantage, and  took Parker to Six Flags here in Louisville.  We had a great day.  He never really smiled or got excited on any of the rides, so it was hard to tell if he was even having that much fun, but as soon as each ride was over, he would say he had fun.  He just never shows a lot of excitement.  We spent the whole day there, and we were all pretty tired by the time we left.  Parker didn't have a nap, which is something he has only done one other time.  On the way home, he was so tired, his head kept bobbing up and down and as hard as he tried, he couldn't keep his eyes open, but he was a great trooper all day.

This was right after a Looney Tunes show for kids.  I thought he might be kind of scared of the characters, but he really like them as long as they kept a little distance.


This was the only ride he was a little unsure about.  We kept trying to get him to raise his hands like the other kids, but this was all he would do.  
He liked it as long as it was going up, but every time it would make the quick jolt downward, he was a little nervous!  I was really proud of him though, because you could tell it really scared him, but he tried so hard to be brave.  He fought really hard not to cry.  After he got off, he kept telling us he liked it, but every time we asked if he wanted to ride it again, he would say, "No, I'm too big."  But he insisted that he liked it!  
Lance was a trooper and rode all the rides that Parker couldn't ride or didn't want to ride by himself.  He looks cute so big in all these little rides.  Because I am pregnant, they wouldn't allow me on any of the rides, not even the little harmless kids' rides.  Pretty dumb, but it meant Lance had to do it all.
He loved the big trucks!  This was the first ride he got off of and immediately asked if he could go again, so he did ride this one a couple times.  He didn't like driving it though. I kept telling him to hold the steering wheel and drive, but he was insistent that he lean back on his arms like this, and he sat that way the whole way around.
He also loved the cars.  He wanted to ride this one by himself, but the cars whipped around the corner really fast, and we didn't think he would like it by himself.  It would have thrown him all around the car if Lance hadn't been there for him to fall against on every corner.
The Looney Tunes characters greeted us right inside the gate, but Parker didn't want to stand by him alone just yet.
Me and Wile E. coyote.  It was a little creepy having his giant hand all over my belly! He asked me to consider naming my baby Wile E. Coyote, and I told him we would think about it.  I've made huge progress allowing my belly to be in front of the camera so late in pregnancy!  Texie, aren't you proud?!!


We put our camera away when we went to the water park, so we don't have any pics of the swimming part of our day.  He went down some of the kids slides, even though he didn't really like them.  He's a strange kid who doesn't even really like regular slides, so I wasn't surprised that he didn't love the water slides. We wanted to have Lance take him down some of the big slides, but you have to be big enough to go alone, or not at all.  He absolutely loved the lazy river that you go around on tubes.  He would have stayed there lounging on the tube with me all day if we let him.