ten days.

well, our little kiddie is 10 days old now. it feels like he's been around forever, how can he only be 10 days old?? 

greysen is an amazing baby. like for reals amazing. we thought we had it pretty easy with zak, but this one is 10 times easier than him. he's much more mellow, which is a good thing, the world doesn't need two crazy lowry siblings. 

he sleeps in four hour increments, almost to the dot. lucky for us  me since the husband doesn't have the goods. the first couple days of two hours was going to kill me. 

he never cries. ever. unless it's to wake mom up to tell her to feed him. he will sit for hours in between feedings, just hanging out and staring at the world, just like his brother did, except with less noise. and then he'll go to sleep. in the swing, car seat, bed, anywhere. which is also unlike his brother, who would only sleep in his crib from day one. 

speaking of his brother, he looks just like him, except less fat. dad has a hard time distinguishing between the two of them in this picture. 

{zak is on top, greysen's on the bottom}

zak is still an amazing big brother. i think it stresses him out when he cries, so he will tell me "mom, baby greysen is hungry" or that he needs to take a break in his bed because he's whining. both of which crack me up. 

 {mom loves her ergo. best investment ever. so comfy. and awesome. go buy it. do it. you won't be disappointed.}

{don't you like how he's awake in a majority of this pictures? and when he is awake, he just hangs out. i love it.}

we absolutely love having him in our family, i don't know what we did before we had him. zak is going to grandma and grandpa's in canada for the week, so i will be toddler-less and not know what to do with all my free time. cuddle baby greysen and sleep. that's what i'll do. 

the greysen story.

here we go. the baby story. stay away if TMI bothers you. i gotta remember for next time, before i forget because my child is just so so cute. 

greysen allister lowry 

7/18/2012 @ 4:45am 

7 lb 11 oz 20.5 in

let's just say it did not go as planned. i was a little skeptical about delivering in california, because i knew they were a lot less thrilled about doping me up with medication like they did so fabulously in utah. my suspicions proved correct unfortunately. i was due last friday, and then my ob decided to be so gracious and give me the choice to be induced monday night at ten, or the next friday night. monday, duh. just like last time, i was dilated to a big fat zero, and had no contractions on my non stress test, so he was not coming on his own again. 

we went in monday night and they told me they were going to give me some pills up there to soften my cervix and make me dilate. every four hours. well, those did absolutely nothing. except make me not sleep in an uncomfortable bed for 16 hours, hooked up to the monitors for no reason. so that puts us at tuesday mid-afternoon. the doctor came in and said he was going to basically shove a balloon up there and inflate it with water to manually open the cervix. that is a pleasant feeling, let me tell you. tuesday evening rolls around and he decided to start my petocin because the balloon was guaranteed to work so we would have a baby no later than sometime on wednesday. 

the lovely hour of 2:00 am rolls around on wednesday and my water finally broke. and i started having deathly contractions pretty quick after that. according to the hospital, they won't give you an epidural until you're about at 4 cm since labor takes so long, but because that balloon was still up me, the nurses wouldn't measure me. i asked for the drugs and the nurse politely said "your contractions are really mild and short, so we should wait". as i was going to punch her in her face. so i had to sit there and die through each contraction every two minutes, lasting for thirty seconds. i asked/yelled for the drugs again, about 45 minutes later and they again, said no because i was not very far along. and my stupid contractions were not showing up on the monitor, so basically it looked like i was whining about nothing. 

finally, i got up to go pee in between dying, and the balloon fell out, so they called the anesthesiologist to give me the epidural, because after it falls out you should be at a 4 at least. as he is putting the needle in, they ask me to lie down on my side, and i immediately feel like he is going to come out right this second and i needed to push. so i'm yelling at the nurses saying he's coming right now, {i really was very pleasant by this time} and they finally call the doctor in and the nurse finally measures me and lo and behold, i'm at a 10! {i'm super pissed at her by this point because i know the drugs aren't going to work} so they call him again, and tell him he needs to come right now, and he runs in, puts a gown on, tells me to push twice and lo and behold the baby is here! at 4:45, almost three hours after my water broke and 30 hours after being admitted to the hospital. i don't want to say it was terrible.... but it was. it is going to take me a while to recover from the nurses totally not listening/believing me and making me feel like i was going to die, so yes i'm still whining about it. i have no idea why people purposely decide to give birth naturally. more power to you, but i will never choose to do that having experienced both. 

this cap was their attempt to sterilize me? i'm pretty sure they put it on as i was pushing. so it was very effective.

but, after all that waiting/hurting/yelling we finally have a fantastic baby. thank goodness, he was a whole pound smaller than zak was, but he is just as good as his brother was. the doctor had to wake him up when he came out because he was still sleeping, no joke. he spends his time sleeping {much more than his brother did during the day at least, the night time, we still need to work on}, eating and being loved on by his brother. 

speaking of him, zakary is a fantastic big brother. he loves to check on him, and try and entertain him, and he cannot wait until greysen is big enough to play trains and trucks with him. he has been nothing but loving and helpful with him, and its fantastic. i'm excited for the two of them to be able to play together in the future. 

 we left the hospital thursday morning, and i have been feeling quite good actually. it might have to do with having no drugs left in my system, but i don't really feel as exhausted or as in as much pain as i remember last time. so i guess, that's a plus, or it could be that we've done this before so i knew what to expect and our kid was much smaller? i don't know, but i'm surprised at how well i'm doing. we will see how things go when my mom and mother in law leave in a couple of weeks and i'm supposed to entertain two of them by myself. but until then, i will enjoy cuddling both the big kid and the baby and relaxing. =) 

big kid brudda.

i figure that before our next big adventure, we should talk about our cute first born's antics before we get too wrapped up in entertaining two of them and forget to write them all down.

he is cracking us up on a daily basis. there are some days when i might be close to locking him in his room forever, but the majority of the time he says something hilarious almost every time he opens his mouth. a few of my favorites include: 

"whatchu doing there mom? mom whatchu doing? mom, mom, mom whatchu doing there mom?" 

"no singing mom. no thank you mom. no singing please" - only music approved by him may be sung outloud. 

"i look so handsome mom. so so handsome"- every time he gets dressed. 

"mom, cereal is too squishy. i need a new bowl"- shredded wheat is the devil. 

"i need some milky milk milk mom. i need some milky milk right now"

"kittyyyyyyy, whatchu doing up there? come down here right now! no being bad." 

"i being so reverent reverent mom." 

"wake up mommy! i wanna come outta room!"- every day during naptime when mom's still sleeping. 

"i so so hungry mom. i need in n out"- who's kid is that? 

"i have germies on my fingers mom"

those are just the ones off the top of my head, he has a ton of hilarious things he says everyday. he is an amazing talker, and never shuts up. it makes me wonder what he did the first two years of his life. no wonder he was/is so loud ALL the time. 

he is so excited to go to the hospital to "pick up baby greysen". we haven't told him much up until this last month, but this month we have been asking him about the baby and he is very stoked to be a "big kid brudda". however, greysen will not be his little brother, he will only be the big kid brudda. very specific. 

he wants to share everything with the baby. if you didn't know, "bubble" is his dog he is obsessed with. he's on the right. we needed to find "greysen's bubble" too. which was impossible because none of the ones we offered big brother were satisfactory, due to the fact they didn't have a tail he could shove up his nose or a rattle that makes noise in him. but super mom found the dog on the left on some random ebay-like website and he is very excited to give it to him in the hospital. 

he is seriously obsessed with trains. i'm pretty sure that 95% of his daily conversation revolves around trains, crossings, going to see the trains, tunnels, crossing the crossings, needing to see the trains again, faster-faster trains, all-aboard trains {two different types of trains we have yet to determine which is which}, chuggington etc. etc. 

he has loved doing boy things with dad recently. with dad having a whole month off, they have been camping, swimming, lighting fireworks, going to the park, and doing all sorts of things mom doesn't really want to do. it's been so great for them to be able to spend time together before his whole world changes. 

 he is so independent. it's about time we have another one that needs me, because he can do everything by himself. including opening the fridge and getting out what he wants to drink. nothing is safe now. 

he loves his underwear. he is an excellent potty trainee. we haven't had any accidents out and about or at home in the last few weeks. just his diaper for nap time and bed time and he's good to go. 

he has gotten better than his "terrible two's" we were at a few months ago, thank goodness. we love being his parents 95% of the time, and can't wait to see him be a big brother in a few days! =)

by the way, i'm getting induced monday at 10 pm! woohoo!

alone.

i have spent this past week in isolation, and it has been UH-MAZING. levi and zak are back down in fresno to finish swimming lessons and i opted to stay home due to 1. me being fierce in the heat and 2. wanting some alone time before the baby comes. i'll be honest and say that i really haven't been too sad so far {i know, terrible wife and mom}, except for when we're face timing. it's only really at night time, that i would like to talk to someone other than the tv when i'm watching 15 episodes of the big bang theory, but i have gotten so much done during the day, that i would never get to do with zak around. i do miss his cute little face entertaining me all the time though. but in any case, this is what my week has consisted of: 

i have pretty much organized every single area of our house {nesting what?}. and it's been awesome. our somewhat pantry drives me nuts when i walk into it, so the $12 i spent in the dollar store has made a HUGE difference to it. 

i also decided to label zak's toys so that when people decide to be awesome and help put things away they go in the right bucket without me being anile, dumping them all out and putting them in the right buckets when they leave. 

when we made greysen's room, we moved all of our office stuff into our room and it has been a disaster. for some reason our room is the least worked on one in the house because no one ever sees it, so i fixed it, since i will be spending quite a bit of time lying in bed in a few weeks. 

and along with organizing it, i spent a few bucks at ross {i have a love hate relationship with that store. home decor, sometimes love-- clothes, hate}, and made it a little more homey. bought new sheets, {650 thread count, LOVE} and a vase, to spice up our boring room since it had nothing in it before.

i also added to greysen's collage since it was bothering me with only the four frames in it. i like this a million times better. 

and as i was walking through target, these train decals caught my eye. for the boy OBSESSED with trains, he is totally going to think it is the best thing ever that they are on his wall. {mom will be so much more awesome when he gets home}

i also spent one morning at the spa with a groupon. it was a lovely way to relax with a good friend, and now my feet look so much better. 

i also hosted my book club on wednesday and cooked for the first time all week. fantastic book by the way. highly recommend. 

i got two non stress tests- we do them twice a week now because we have two weeks left! hollllaaa!

i washed, folded and put away all baby clothes. and realized that because we lived someplace hot, most of zak's little baby clothes are summer clothes, which are totally not working for this place. sooo that means i'm off to find at least a sweat shirt for him to wear. darn. 

  

i also bought a fabulous hospital bag {levi's duffle bags just weren't doing it for me} and packed it. this is a significant improvement from last time seeing as i didn't even have a bag, i just made levi go home and get things 900 times. i'm so prepared now. 

between all this and general cleaning, i feel like i am now ready for people to stay at our house over the next month, and somewhat ready for a little person to occupy the room i've been slaving over for months. let's do this dude. 

fres-burg.

the family and i went on one final trip before the big arrival day {technically less than one month!} down to the fabulous fresno. it was great, but i was definitely ready to come home. my pregnant self can't handle anything above 80 degrees. and it was definitely hotter than that. 

we started off the trip with visiting my cousins for a fantastic four year old birthday party. quite a few of my extended family on my dad's side {he has ten siblings!} still live in fresno, so it's always a treat to see them all. 

 myself, and two of my cousins, due in july, august and then september. 

isaac had a pretty sweet party, complete with a bounce house, bouncy slide, snow cone machine and a thomas cake that zak kept trying to steal. 

the reason we went down to fresno was to take the beast to his first set of swim lessons at jan thomas swim school. they're a pretty big deal in fresno, both my brother and i took lessons from them as well as most of my extended family, so the man could be no exception. he was loving it. kind of. he loved the thought of being there, and always wanted to go see holly, his super cool swim teacher, but he was not stoked as soon as he saw her. 

mom bribed him with a dinosaur popsicle to not cry during his lessons, which worked marvelously. he did so much better after he decided not to be stubborn and whine/cry the whole time simply because he felt he had to. 

this is his final result after the first week. i'm pretty impressed with him. their goal is not to teach them strokes because they're so little, but safety swimming. so by the time he's finished, he will be able to jump in, swim, roll over on his back to breathe and get back out of the pool. he and levi go back for their second set of lessons at the end of this month. 

i don't know how to make this video bigger, but you really can't see him when it's this tiny. 

 the rest of the time, we spent in the pool because it was too hot to do anything else. we are not hot weather people, that is for sure. 

my pregnant self cannot handle the heat, if this picture is any indication. seriously gross. words cannot describe how stoked i was to come home, take a shower and put on my warm, comfy sweats. too bad it's 85 degrees here too. i miss the fog and freezing cold. one more month. 

the big reveal.

i know. you've been waiting in anticipation for what the room would FINALLY look like. it's understandable, because i feel that way too. but it is FINALLY done. minus finding the changing pad cover, boppy, and another box of clothes somewhere in the garage/shed, i think we're ready. 

forgive my iPhone pictures. i'm far too lazy to go and get my real camera, only to have to upload them onto my computer. apple created a sweet thing with photo stream, that's all i have to say. 

i think i did pretty good with my $100 budget. it was tricky i will have to say. i repainted/reused a lot of what we already had, hence why i needed to add another color, because we have nothing orange. but i love the combination of the orange and blue, so it's really worked out quite nicely.

 the lamp in the photo below we bought from ikea for $20, my crayon art supplies were bought from michael's for $7 and my pom pom's totaled about $8

but this is the room when you walk in. i need to fix the blue pom pom, now that i'm looking at this picture. it looks a little deflated. 

i also need to get another set of curtains for the window because these ones have grommets and just barely cover the windows when extended. i absolutely love them though, bought them from walmart.com for a mere $12 a piece. ahhhh i miss that place. 

 greysen's name cost me $25 total, the letters were $2 a piece and spray paint was $6. The orange frames were originally black, bought from ikea for $3 a piece and painted orange. we had the sheets and the bumper pads, so those were easy peasy. 

because i love pennant flags so much, i needed to make one for his room. and with my coupons and such it only cost me $7 at joann's. score. spray painted the clock next to the closet too with the left over metallic i had, so that was free as well. 

this wall's a little bare right now, due to not having the ability to hang shelving or anything, so i did my best with some printables. we had the frames already, and the paint, so i repainted them and i found the printables online and printed them off, so that was basically free too. 

i think they're so cute. i kind of want to add some more frames, because i like lots, but at the moment i probably won't. maybe when i get bored in the upcoming weeks.

 i think i went a little over budget by about $15 or so, i didn't actually add all of it up though, but i like it a lot. as we go on, i think i'll add more things, like the orange rug i really wanted, and some more things to put on the wall, but my dental school allowance isn't allowing for it at the moment. 

in any case, i like to come in and sit in it right now because it's so cute and peaceful. pretty soon it won't be quite as peaceful but it'll be even cuter with a baby in it. =) 

.

this post is a culmination of random things since i have nothing exciting to write about. 

1. we went to levi's first ever major league baseball game this past weekend. yankees vs. the oakland a's. it was a lot of fun, we sat very close, ate surprisingly delicious nachos and saw the fireworks. josh and my father came down for the weekend and partied hard with us. 

2. zak is 95% potty trained. he hasn't had an accident while we're out yet, and has figured out how to hold it. it's pretty awesome. he only wears diapers at nighttime and nap time now. he's amazing.

3. i have had a gross desire to cook recently. probably because i want something delicious and don't know what it is, so i just make stuff. and i'm bored. so far this week, we've made zucchini muffins, taquitos, crepes, peanut butter brownie cups, and orange julius smoothies. ask my husband if i've made dinner very frequently though, and that answer is probably not looking as good. 

4. i have a very very intense desire to go shopping now. probably because i hate all my clothes, but i cannot wait until i'm not pregnant. actually, i might buy these non pregnant clothes and just wear them unbuttoned anyways because i love them so much. 

 the ones i actually want are more minty, but the picture on the h&m website wouldn't save. 

going along with this shopping dilemma, i have been having an incredibly hard time getting dressed recently. i will blame it on again, hating my clothes, potty training inside for a week, and the crappy cold we live in. you know it's a bad sign when your kid says "mommy put clothes on and go to zoo!" when i ask him if he wants to go to the zoo tomorrow. {not that i walk around naked, that'd be weird}

5. my friend due three weeks before me is in labor right now. i never thought i'd be jealous of a person giving birth, but i totally wish i could be done now too. six more weeks. six more weeks. six more weeks. 

6. as of next monday, levi is officially finished his first year of dental school. we're 1/3 of the way done!!!

7. being pregnant with a two year old is tough. thank goodness levi is home these last weeks to help my off set my crazy mom-ness. 

8. i kind of hate these boots. we got them as hand me downs and they were hidden in his closet, but somehow he found them. not only are they literally double the size of his feet, he insists on wearing them all the time. and i just give in because i'm too lazy to fight him on it. 

9. sometimes i'm amazed at my child. he just asked if we could go to ikea and buy more choo choo trains for him to play with. not only did we buy those over a month ago, i'm surprised he knows where we went to buy them. he's impressive. 

10. i need something delicious to eat right now. if only i knew what it was that i needed to satisfy me.