Berkley Paige Pattison

So... Rachel here... we have a baby!  She's sweet and adorable and PERFECT! At my appointment last week, we decided to go ahead and schedule to be induced Tuesday May 1st.  Nothing was wrong medically, but Bryan was scheduled to be out of town (2 hours away)... which made me EXTREMELY nervous... and I was OVER being pregnant. :)  After scheduling the induction, I felt really weird... not physically, but I felt weird choosing the baby's birthday for her... to the point where I almost called to cancel.  

Luckily I didn't have to worry for long because my water broke Sunday afternoon, and baby Berkley was here bright and early (3:22 am) Monday morning. :)  This was after my water broke... my last belly shots.

 

We're here... ready to have a baby!  My water broke (the trickle effect... just once it would have been fun to have a gusher like on t.v... tmi?) at 3:15 pm, we got to the hospital at 5:30... I was still not having contractions... hence the smile on my face. :)  Pitocin was started at 9:15, epidural was ordered and in place by 11:30... conveniently wore off at 2:30 am while I was laboring at 8.5 cm.  Dude... those later contractions are NO JOKE!  Luckily I was doped back up in time to push!

Here she is... Berkley Paige Pattison... 7lbs 20 oz of baby cuteness.  She was born with her cord wrapped tightly around her neck, so it took her a bit to pink up and even longer to cry... but all turned out just fine, and we're quite smitten.

 Meeting her big sisters and Grandma and Grandaddy.

 Reese was SUPER excited... Emma Grace... not so much. :)

 We came home a day early because... SERIOUSLY... we've done this before, and the girls needed just a little bit of normalcy.  Berkley had her first ped appointment yesterday for a weight/jaundice check.  She was down 6oz, but my milk came in yesterday right after we got home from the appt, so she's been marathon nursing ever since.  We go back in tomorrow morning for a weight check, and I have no doubt wee bug has gained 45 lbs because all she's been doing is eating and pooping. :)

 The new norm consists of me acting as Berkley's personal assistant and slave, and Bryan acting as Reese and Emma Grace's personal chauffeur and all over monkey boy.  Good times. :)  We both could use a shower, and a good nap... and a beer, but all in all... we're still kicking and madly in love with our three girls.

This calls for a celebration!

Rachel here.  I've always said that no matter how many kids Bryan and I chose to have, I always wanted something to celebrate them before they arrived.  Never had to be a shower with oodles of gifts and ridiculous games.  I just wanted to have something, with pictures and memories, to remember the "calm before the storm".  I wanted each of my children to know how excited people were to have them enter the world. 

My dear friend Laura, who constantly goes above and beyond the call of duty, offered to throw together a barbecue to celebrate the arrival of Baby Boo AND celebrate the Spring Football Game... all in one... she's awesome like that. :)  The result... a really lovely, LOW KEY (THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU), rainy (game was canceled), awesome barbecue with some of our dearest friends.  Just what the doctor ordered.

We'll begin with the typical shower aspect of this shindig first...

  

 

 

 Enter crazy antics in the rain...

 

Cue ADORABLE minis wearing $20 winter VT coats purchased by mommies who just wanted out of the house with all said minis running around. :)

 Moral of the story... we have AMAZING friends in our lives.            

Maternity shots... take 1

Our attempt at a maternity shoot. HA! Actually I think they turned out really sweet. Daddy shot the pix, and Mommy tried her hand at editing. We're having a large group of our closest friends together next weekend, and Meredith may shoot a couple of Mommy and Daddy... of course if Baby Boo doesn't come before then!

Running track

Rachel here. I'm a pretty fast runner. Well not currently... you know... being ABOUT TO POP with a child and all. But... I am a pretty fast runner. I don't always like to run, but I can run if it comes down to it. This is how Bryan and I are currently living our lives. Constantly feeling like we're running, as fast as we can, until we see that hurdle, and then attempting to clear it... and continue running... WITHOUT slowing down of course. We've always been that way. If we're going to do something, we're going to do it, and it's going to be on our terms. Hence this whole "let's talk about putting the house on the market, set a date to do that, decide to get pregnant with our 3rd because we're not willing to put our family plans on hold for a mediocre market, begin housing projects while Bryan is out of town for nearly 3 months and only home on the weekends, get the house finished, find a realtor, and get that bad boy on the market... oh and THEN if we're lucky enough sell the house, have a healthy baby, rent a house, break ground, and be in our brand new dream home by Christmas. One hurdle after the other... Here's an update on our track meet thus far. :)

Today I'm 36 weeks 5 days pregnant. Still. By the grace of the baby gods. :) I had my 36 wk appointment last Thursday for my Strep test. Bryan is preparing to finish up some out of town work, so he'll be in and out for the next 3 weeks. Yep... just in time for my due date... how quaint. ;) He requested the midwife check me, so he could pretend to assess the situation and his plan of action. I explained to him that I could be 27 cm dilated and not have a baby for 5 more years, OR I could be sealed up mega tight and have a baby by breakfast. He wanted me checked. This is where I say... "why don't we have you checked?! Do YOU know what's it's like to have a hand elbow deep in your fanciness?" But I digress. So the update on my "status"... as of last Thursday... 2 cm dilated, 50% effaced, cervix is making it's way down and forward, but the baby's head is still at -3. Midwife predicts DEFINITELY early, but when??? Who knows?! Until then I return to nights of waking up 26 times to pee and attempting to roll myself over while my husband continues to sleep on the couch. HUZZAH! Next appointment... Friday April 20th. Up 28 lbs and addicted to milk.
Run run run. Second hurdle. JUUUUUUUUUUUUUMP! From the last time I posted about house shenanigans... I don't even know when... we settled on our agent. Our choices were between the young cocky guy with all the ideas who wanted to price us where we thought we should be and charge us 6%... and then there was the older guy been doing it forever who wanted to price us slightly higher and work for 5%. The commission is what got us. #1 was not willing to go down to 5% because he uses the extra funds as an incentive to pull in buying agents to look at his properties. He pays them the higher commission if they get their clients to buy his homes... so OUR money is being used to build HIS portfolio and rewarding HIS clients... while we are left in the dust. Needless to say we chose the 5% guy. Split the different of the listing prices, and were on the market. We knew when it came down to it, all we really needed was the MLS listing... the rest of it was going to be in our hands. Make the house look amazing, stage it well, keep it clean, have great pictures taken, and cross our fingers. We had a sign in the yard Wednesday morning around 1130 am, had our first showing at 2 pm, and had an offer by bedtime! After haggling with the buyers for what seemed like years (2 days)... we had a contract... signed, sealed, and delivered yesterday morning by 830 am. We had a total of 3 showings... 2 of which were the buyer. Now assuming the home inspection goes well, we'll close around June 8th. House sold before baby arrives... check! Next hurdle... find a rental for the next 7ish months. Friday we went and spoke to our builders who said if all panned out with the offer, we could be in our new house for Christmas!Doing homeschool preschool around here has been DIFFICULT. Most of our project materials are in storage, and I have about as much time and energy pulling things together as can be expected from an 8.5 month pregnant woman attempting to sell her home. SO we've been outside EVERY SINGLE DAY playing, and yesterday Reese started her Lowe's classes with Daddy. She built some kind of Plinko style game, got herself a cute little apron, and earned her first badge. It's hilarious and I love it! She and Bryan then went to Home Depot to return some supplies and came home with another apron, another project (her little plant there), and full bellies... they apparently ate their weight in free hotdogs. HA! EG and I went to the HOKIE store and bought some new flair for the new car and some cookies from the local bakery. Saturdays should be pretty entertaining from here on out.Oh and Reese got a haircut. :) This picture looks like she did it herself and it is EXTREMELY uneven, but I promise it's not nearly as jacked up as it appears.Next up... this afternoon we attempt maternity style photos in the backyard. Subjects: my gut, my girls, maybe one of the husband... with the husband as the photographer. Stay tuned. :)

Well hello there!

Hi diddly ho there! We're still here... still alive... still pregnant... still busy. :) Here's last week in a nutshell. We played outside... A LOT.We did SOME schooling... NOT a lot. :)I turned 29 for the 3rd year in a row, so we indulged in cake and fruit...We bought a new car to house our growing brood. Used 2012 Chevy Traverse baby... I heart it.
I turned 35 weeks today. 5 more to go... I'm hoping for 3 more to go... but healthy is all I truly care about.Bryan re-carpeted the stairs, weeded and mulched,
and resealed the driveway.
I shopped. :) (For the record... I've been told to lay down and take it easy. I do what I can around here, which is mostly keeping things cleaned and organized. Not supposed to be doing everything I WAS doing a couple of weeks ago. I'm trying REALLY hard, but I'm finding it hard seeing projects that need to be done and knowing that I physically can't do them.)We cleaned out the garage and moved much of the contents to our storage unit.We also met with realtors... many times... with many questions, and we've finally chosen one to work with. With just a few little minor projects left to cross off the list, we should be listed soon!!!! :)