Welcoming Greyson Alma Johnson

Greyson was due January 13th.  My mom decided to come one week early and stay for two weeks.  We planned it this way hoping she would be on time for the delivery of the baby and be able to stay a while. Our hope was I wouldn't go into labor before she got here (she was planning on being in the delivery room this time) or that I wouldn't be too late that she wouldn't have any time to spend with the new baby (my dr. said she wouldn't induce until I was a week late). She got here in the afternoon of the 7th, patted my belly, and said, "Ok, baby you can come now."   He must have listened to Grandma because I was up most of the night with some hard contractions.  Finally, around 5:00 I woke my mom up and had Justin call his Dad to come stay with the boys and we headed to the hospital.  

Once we started driving there I started thinking we were going in a little prematurely, as the contractions seemed to slow down.  Luckily, my Dr. got there and new I wanted my mom to be there so badly with me that she went ahead and admitted me.  After a few hours and the contractions not being very consistent she started me on PIT.  

Of course, once on Pitocin, the contractions come one hard and strong.  After a coupe of hours I was ready for the epidural!  I love that drug.  I was finally able to take a nap and relax for a while while I slowly progressed.
(Random story about the Epidural:  I don't know if it was nerves or what, but when they were getting ready to do the epidural I broke down in tears.  I couldn't help the tears from coming and I couldn't explain why I was crying.  After everyone helped soothe me and tell me everything was ok, -- The nurse said, "Don't cry." and then quickly said, "Well, I mean your in labor, you can do whatever you want..." hahaha-- they gave me the shot. Almost immediately afterwords I felt sick to my stomach and threw up.)  

After a very long day at the hospital (thanks to Justin and my mom for sticking it out with me), Greyson decided to make his debut around 5:00 pm. 

My mom got to cut the cord, and Daddy got to hold him first.  He weighed 6lbs7oz and the nurses commented about his "strawberry" hair right away.   

Between Bill (Ala Grandpa) and Uncle Jordan --who was home from college-- they took care of the older boys at home for us.  (Donna was sick)

Funny story about that.  Because we left in the middle of the night, the boys didn't know we were going to be gone and they didn't know Grandpa was going to be there.  I guess Bill was sleeping on the couch when Jackson woke up.  Bill heard Jackson crying upstairs and he found him in the corner of our room.  He was crying and saying he saw a real monkey in the house and he wanted to go find it.  They searched around for a while, but Bill honestly didn't know what he was talking about.  After talking to Jackson, we realized that Jackson must have gone down and seen Grandpa asleep on the couch and for some reason really thought he was a monkey!  

Later in the evening after things settled down and we got put in our recovery room, Uncle Jordan brought the boys up to meet their new baby brother.  

Our Family of FIVE!

Day two:  

I don't like being at the hospital and wanted to get everything done as soon as possible.  Justin went home and spent most of the day taking care of the other boys.  My mom came up and helped me get ready to go home.  

The baby had to be there for at least 24 hours before they could discharge him, and once we hit that 24 hours we were out of there!  The boys had decorated when we got home with banners welcoming him home!

Christmas Festivities 2012

We had such a fun time decorating our new house for Christmas.  It felt so cozy!  We even got an amazing deal on a new beautiful Christmas Tree.  (Yes, poor Jackson still looked so beat up from the collision with Norah!)

Playing the Nativity at the Church Christmas Party.

Decorating Cookies

Christmas Eve Jammies

Justin's amazing gift to the boys was this homemade football field in the basement.  He spent so much time making this perfect for the boys.  We got some scrap carpet and he literally hand painted it all green, measured the lines out, made templates, and painted them in as well.  He made the field goal from PVC pipe and stuffed and hung a laundry bag as a tackle dummy.  It was so fun to see Jackson's face when we took him down stairs on Christmas morning.  He has loved it and I love Justin for doing this for his boys!  It was all his idea and he pulled it off amazingly.    

Christmas Morning fun!

Visiting Santa

Justin turns the big 3-0!

I'm totally lame and didn't do any big thirtieth celebration for him.  But we did have the fam over for cake and ice-cream.  

Poor Jackson got his first real awful looking injury while playing with cousin Norah that night.  They completely ran into each other and smacked heads.  She must have a hard head because he got a ginormous bump on the forehead and two black eyes.  I felt like a bad mom sending him to school like that and was a bit worried I CPS would show up any day at my doorstep.  It broke my heart to look at him! (this picture was taken about a week after the incident)  

Galena Half Marathon

Justin completed his 5th half marathon. He signed up to race in the Galena, IL marathon and met up with his brother Jeremy and his wife, Morgan.  It happened to be the weekend my parents were coming to visit and I thought it would be fun to take them to Galena.  I had been once when Justin and I were first married and just loved the little town.  It's an old mining city with a lot of great history.  

His race was first thing in the morning, and started at the ski resort.  

He did great considering all three of the runners said this was the hardest course they have ever done!  

After the race, we had lunch at happy joes and then toured the town.  We decided the best way to really see and hear the history was to do the trolley tour.  We had a good time and I think my parents enjoyed it!

My THREE year old!

This year we didn't celebrate Jonah's birthday until the next day for one big reason... my parents were coming to visit!!  We did decorate the morning of his birthday when he woke up, but told him we would do a party and presents the next day.  He was totally fine with it. 

I LOVE this picture of our little family party.  Jonah loved his batman cake and was so happy to have everyone he loves there.  (that smile says it all!)

Singing to him he was so excited looking around at everyone!  

And of course he was excited about this as well! :)

All about Jonah:

1- Jonah was decided to potty train himself about a week before he turned 3.  We had attempted at about 2 1/2 for a week with no success, so we decided to wait awhile longer.  At the beginning of October after much "persuasion" from Justin I decided to take the plunge.  He did okay for about 2 days but lo and behold he ended up getting sick with a yucky nasty cold/cough and started to go downhill.  I still kept it up for about a week and then realized that it wasn't working because he wasn't feeling good (poor guy!).  I put him back in diapers for about 2 weeks.  Once he got back in diapers he kept telling us that he needed to poop before he would poop in his diaper and we kept taking him to the toilet to do his duty.  He rarely pooped in his diapers that whole two weeks.  He was feeling much better and so we decided to try underwear again and he basically got it down in a day all on his own.  I was so thrilled!  

2- LOVES Diego and Dora.  He was at a friends house putting together a Diego puzzle.  It had a pictures of animals and he was naming all of them "This is a sloth.  This is a green-eyed tree frog.  This is a humpback whale."  I had never heard him do that before and it cracked me up that he was describing them with such details.

3-  Isn't quite in love with sports as his brother.  We signed him up for a little basketball class through the park district and he didn't really love it.  I think most of it was because he is so little and he got discouraged because he couldn't make baskets and doesn't know how to dribble very well.  I asked him if he wanted to try soccer and he just said, "Not now."  We are fine with that, but we do want to explore around and try things out to see what his interests are.

4- He likes his scooter, plasma car, and bike a lot.  He is really starting to love doing puzzles and enjoys coloring and drawing.  He has known all his colors for a long time, but has a really hard time with his letters.

He also seems to have more of an imagination than Jackson does.  He plays with his "guys" and things better than Jackson does.

5- Is my sweet-aholic.  He LOVES treats and sugar.  It's kind of a battle to keep him away from them during the day.  He is more picky with his eating than Jackson and doesn't eat big meals at all.  He's still a little tiny guy and I love his littleness!!  

6- He's loveable and happy and a joy to be around. He loves to be with someone and doesn't play too independently on his own, unless someone is at least in the room with him.  He gives the best hugs and kisses and says "I love you so much" a lot.  He's just a sweet heart and this momma can't get enough of the boy! 

Halloween 2012

I wasn't as gung-hoe as I normally am for Halloween this year.  My decorations were lacking, I didn't come up with any creative costumes, Justin and I didn't even dress up, and I didn't want the headache of carving pumpkins with kids that really can't carve yet.    

LUCKILY, Jonah and Jackson have an awesome grandma who sent a Halloween package with a pumpkin decorating sticker book.  We did bust those out for FHE one night.  

This was the first year that they really picked what they wanted to be.  Jackson wanted Spiderman and because Jonah didn't want to be left out of the super hero theme he wanted to be Batman.  It made it pretty easy on me. 

Jackson had a Halloween party at preschool and was able to wear his costume to school.  Here are some of the kids in his class.  

He goes to school with three kids from Church so we had to get a group picture of them.  

Jackson LOVED trick or treating this year so much.  He would go and go and go all night if we would have let him.  Jonah was done after we made the rounds around our little block.  We did get in the car and drive a little ways down the neighborhood for more and Jonah really didn't want to.  He went to maybe half of the doors, but otherwise just wanted Justin to hold him.  He said, "I've got lots of Candy" and wanted to get back in the car.  Once we got down the road a ways I had Justin run back and get the car.  When he picked us up Jonah just looked at him and said in a relieved voice, "Thanks Daddy!!"  Jackson on the other hand had a melt down because he wanted to keep going.  :)