updates

Cole is great!! He is a hungry guy and eats every 2-3 hours. I haven't minded feeding him so often just because he is a pro at nursing. I was very worried about how long it would take for him to catch on but he knows just what to do. He will even nurse in bed. Thank you Cole!! I can sleep and nurse and that makes me happy. He is just too sweet and of course loves to be held but also will lay in the bassinett or crib or swing and just be content. I love to just hold him. Mia loves to hold him and tries to get away as much as she can with walking around with him. He is little enough, she is big enough just not as careful as I would like. Today she was holding him then laid him in a laundry basket with a pillow for him to lay on then put him on the baby bean bag bed then held him again. She is so eager to "play house" with him. It really is quiet cute but I have to keep on top of her playing. I love to listen to her talk to him. She currently likes the little bit of extra responsibility. I am sure it will get old but until then I am going to take advantage of her willingness to help. I try and give lots of praise to both kids when they help out.Jack likes Cole more and more and even wanted to hold him today. It was very cute. He likes to kiss Cole on the head. He is adjusting, as we all are, but if he takes even a 5 minute nap he is up until 9 or 10 and I am so done by then. Yesterday we ran to Walmart and in he fell asleep in the 10 minutes it takes to drive home. Colin got him out of the car and wanted him to wake up, got him out of the car, stood him up and then laid down in the driveway and fell back to sleep. How I wanted a picture but we didn't get one. If he would just stay in his room and even play I would be fine but he is out of his room and bugging Mia and into things. Today he fell asleep on the way to church, lucky Colin, and we ended up just closing his door. He cried for a while but eventually fell asleep. It would be great if he wouldn't wake up at 6:30am. I hate getting up before 7am.Colin has been busy, busy, busy helping me out. I think he may be a little happy to go to work tomorrow. Unfortunatly he will be on call so wish me luck. Last night he hung the curtains in the living room and the big picture frame I wrote about on my blog. Our pictures are not in it but it still looks nice above the mantle.Me, well, I am tired but am doing pretty well. I do have a headache that seems to be hanging around a bit too long and sometimes I just have to lay down. I think it is a combination of fatigue and hormones. I do get some relief with lots of water so I have been trying that. I was worried that it was a spinal headache from the GREAT epidural I had but it is a bit inconsistent with those symptoms. The Motrin combined with Tylenol seem to help. I do feel a bit overwhelmed but that comes with the territory. The swelling in my hands and feet are going down and I can now bend. That makes me very happy!! I am feeling pretty good overall. We have lots of help with meals from church. Thank you everyone! While Colin went to church I gave Cole a little bath. It was nice to have the time with just him. I fed him and we watched to olympics, well, we actually slept through them. I got to sleep for about 2 hours and even though that headache was still there I felt a bit better.Cole has a weight check on Tuesday and we will see what they say about his peeps. The OB, not my own, was nervous about doing the circumcision becasue his is pretty small. We might wait a few weeks and just take him to the pediatric urologist. I love our insurance! I can take him and not worry. Thank you Colin!Well, Cole wants to eat, again and it is almost 11pm. Here are a few pictures. More will be coming.

Baby Cole is Here

Cole Wright Croshaw is finally here. We managed to get completely moved out of our rental and into the house about 2 hours before we went to the hospital. They started the Pitocin at about 12:00, and by 5:30 or 6:00 there had been no progress. So the doctor broke Lori's water and by about 7:40 she was a 10. She pushed through 3 contractions and at 7:50 he was born. These are the first of the pictures. I'm sure many more are to come. Hopefully we can add some video tomorrow too. Lori will come home tomorrow. Thanks for everyone who helped us out with the move and while we were at the hospital.

I will call him....Mini Jack

Cole is finally here. He was born at 7:50 this morning. Lori pushed through 3 contractions and out he came. He is 6#10oz and 19.5 inches. Both he and Lori are doing great. He's very alert and hasn't done much crying compared to the other 2. We're still at the hospital so pictures will have to wait until later today. I'm sure there will be plenty to come.

He going to be here sooner than later!

I had my appointment today and my doctor will be inducing me this week. We go to the hospital Wed night and Cole will be here sometime Thursday. I can't wait!!
We are almost all moved in and almost all unpacked. There are always more things to do when I look around but we are getting them done. Thank goodness for the nesting instinct or I would be at a loss. Thanks so much to Colin's brother, Matt and Crystal and Valerie. It was so great to have someone pack up my kitchen, watch my kids and move the heavy things.
We have some more trips to make so off we go.

Anyone have a good idea for teaching a 4 1/2 year old to NOT BE SO SASSY? I have really had it with the "talk". I have tried time out, soap, yelling and nothing seems to be working. I am loosing my mind!! I would love a good solution. HELP!

And were in...

We closed on our house today. I can't believe it actually came together. Colin loaded and unloaded a few loads of stuff, I cleaned the kitchen, Colin cleaned up the basement. It wasn't dirty just spider webs and dust. The kids got out their sleeping bags we took over and made a tent to play in. Before we knew it it was after 8 and the kids really needed to go to bed. They didn't get out of bed one time. I will make a trip or two over with some very light loads and do some more cleaning. The fridge will be delivered tomorrow afternoon. They called today to say the range wouldn't be there until next week. I am not sure why we even bothered making sure that we purchased them last week in order to have them delivered tomorrow. Ahh, human error. I never do that!
Dana, your early induction for Lilia gives me hope. I just can't believe how miserable I am. I can't even let the poor kids sit on my lap. I really wouldn't feel that bad if my feet didn't always ache.
Sorry about the last post. That was mean and I didn't do it to trick anyone, just tell about Colin.

I think my water broke

I called Colin at work tonight, about 11pm because I needed to email some pictures to our insurance company. I couldn't find the email address nor the card it was written on, by him, so I called. Since we have been talking about how great it would be to have the baby next week I wanted to be tricky. When he answered I calmly said, "I think, I think my water broke." Of course he said, "REALLY!" I had to say, "No, not really." He said it was not funny. I laughed pretty hard though. He wasn't mad and I told him that if it made him feel any better I wet myself a bit because I was laughing so hard. Any pregnant woman knows this is not uncommon especially this late in pregnancy right? I am still laughing a bit, thankfully not wetting though. Ahhh, I just LOVE being pregnant. I promised I would never do that again. Now, if my water broke tonight he wouldn't belive me would he?

Let's Dance!

Finally, I took my kids to Legacy Village, an upscale outdoor mall, where I love to walk around and window shop, on Friday night to the free concert. I was a bit dubious when we arrived and the cover band was playing Sheryl Crow, one of my favorite artists, and it was awful. We, my friend and I, set up camp and let the kids go. It got pretty busy and poor Jack was very tired but all in all we had a great time, husbands were at work or studying. We had all "had it" by the time we left. My favorite are the videos of the kids dancing like crazy.

I love a good deal!!

But who doesn't!! I just happened to stumble upon a few that have really made my day. I just decided to go to JoAnn's the other day, I can't remember what for even, and walked by their curtain rod asile. They had some GREAT curtain rods on clearance. I bought a few that I was hoping would work in our house. They were very pretty and good quality. I bought 6 rods, some matching for about $75. I measured the windows a few days after, when we could get into the house, and realized that only about half would work. That was okay though. I took some back and was still able to buy 2 more that would. The living room window is 124 inches wide so we will need a BIG one but we found one at Lowe's we really like. Not on sale though. My favorite deal of the day is a picture frame that is 3 feet 5 inches by 2 feet 11 inches. I saw it the other day and thought it would look great above the mantle. It was normally $100 and I was going to splurge, use my 40% off coupon, and get it for $60. When we got it to the front of the store I saw a crack in the glass on the lower right hand corner. I was so dissapointed because it was the last one they had and I have really wanted something similar to this for a long time. I, of course, was going to ask for a discount or if they could replace the glass. The clerk said she "could not sell it to me unless she marked it down 75%! The words, "I will take it" flew out of my mouth. I think she was surprised. I can get a new piece of glass cut and even if it costs $30 I will still be getting it for less than what I would have gotten it with just the coupon. Can you believe it? I got it for $25!! I am just so excited about it!! I can print most all of the pictures myself except the 8x10 and they aren't expensive. I just have to pick out what pictures I will want to put into it. That will take some time. I will post the finished product when it becomes finished. I am looking forward to new pictures of the kids with Cole. Well anyway, I am sure I have bored some of you to death!

We close on the house tomorrow afternoon. I can't believe it all came together!! Well, I guess we have a day left before it's final. We had our doubts at the beginning of the week. My current house is a idsaster!! I am just trying to "keep up" with the laundry and pack things here and there. We are going to take some loads over tomorrow evening. The kids are acting out a bit but I just can't imagine the uncertainty they may be feeling.

The doctor did not check me on Monday, I really didn't want him to. Colin checked me last night, the joys of having a doctor in the house, and he said I was dilated maybe 1 1/2-2cm and my cervix was soft. It actually wasn't so joyous. I really, really am hoping, but am also doubting, that when he checks me on Monday I will be 3 cm and 70% and maybe I can convince him to enduce me on the 7th, maybe 8th since that is Colin's b-day. Colin has that weekend off but not the next one. Also, our friends would still be in town to help us out. I know however, that I could call anyone from church and they would help if they could. The joys of being LDS! Cole would be about 9 days early. That's not too early. Ahhh, to have my belly room back. I just can't wait!!! I will post Monday's results. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Joining the ranks.

Since we found out that we will be here in Cleveland for 3 more years we decided it was time to join the ranks and become a homeowner. I think it is time as we have been married for 8 years now. I feel like such a grown-up now. It took a little convincing for Colin but I managed to convince him that it would be a good idea. We began looking earlier in the month and looked at about 10 houses. The market is so much in our favor but some homes we looked at needed so much updating and attention that I just think we would be biting off much more than we could chew. I think that being tired and so pregnant actually helped me be more realistic. Out of the homes we looked at we found one we liked with an updated/ newer kitchen, carpet (oh, how we have missed carpet), a media room wired for surround sound and a flat panel (we can dream right), and part of the basement is finished for a playroom. The walls are all dark, real wood paneling so we will be painting. We will be downsizing a few hundred square feet but we have a lot of unused space currently. We will certainly miss having a master bath! The kitchen needs a new color of paint to keep me happy, as well as the dining room and the celings. I have ideas to paint the kids' rooms. We will want to update the bathroom in a year or two and we really want to fence the yard next spring/summer. Colin took some pictures with his phone and even though they are a bit fuzzy you get the idea.

Front Yard/ view from street
Back Yard/ view from side road

Kitchen, it is very terra cotta in color. I really

have the pregnancy glow in this picuture

don't I?

Living Room

Dining room/ view from living room

the yellow room in the back is the media room

This will be Cole's room

Jack and Mia's room

Full bathroom upstairs. Needs a make-over

but that little boy is sure perfect!

Our room which is painted a green color that I

really like

Ah, the playroom with some fantasic wood paneling

just dying to be painted! We get to keep the

couch. Nice eh?

Today we went and picked out a range and fridge which was quite fun. Colin found a steal on a lawn mower and a trimmer/edger. We close next week and are looking forward to family coming to town to help us out with our move. Thank you Matt, Crystal, and Valerie. If you are free Saturday the 2nd we would love to see anyone else here too. Let's pray the baby doesn't come too early. I need to get unpacked before he gets here but man, I am getting so tired of being pregnant!!

Baby Update

Well I wish I had some exciting baby news to blog about but my appointment only proved that the baby is head down which I already knew. My doctor said he would be around 7 pounds. I will be surprised if he is much more than that. Thankfully I just have small babies! Over the next few weeks I hope I dilate then he will enduce me about August 14th. He will check me again in 2 weeks but I will see him weekly. I am certainly hoping that in two weeks I am at least a 3 and somewhat effaced like I was with Jack. Time will tell.