just a little update

ah, the joys of motherhood. we've all heard that one right? and you know, whoever said it first, they're right. putting all of the tiredness, the impatience (on my part), the obsessive urge to clean up the messes, and the feeling of unpredictability aside, motherhood is a joy.

i love that i get to stay home with these little faces during the day. sure, they keep me busy, busy, busy, but at the end of the day i can say it's worth it.

i attempted to find a new place for tanner to sit. i thought he would enjoy the new scenery. it must have been a little too early for this toy because he mainly just put his head to the side as if he was refusing to look at the toys.

this is tanner's look. he is often found with a binky in his mouth and a concerned look on his face. and can you see how this poor kid is suffering through some major baby acne?

as for katelyn, i am trying to do a fun little craft with her everyday. it's my attempt to spend some quality time with her plus give her something new to do besides playing with her usual toys.

this days craft was a nature crown. we began our adventure outside collecting leaves, flowers and pieces of grass. i had to monitor what katelyn collected. for some reason she was most attracted to all of the dead leaves.

after we completed the craft i decided to take some pictures of us together with her new masterpiece. don't look too close at the pictures. my mirror is extremely dirty. i did say my kids keep me busy, right? not as much time for cleaning these days.

my wonderful mother

when we had tanner my mom was able to fly in for two weeks to help us out and make the transition from one kid to two. and help us out she did. it was so wonderful to have her here. not only because she was so helpful, but also because living in wisconsin i don't get to see her as often.
while she was here she cooked our meals, did multiple loads of laundry, cleaned our house, ran our errands and most importantly she took care of and entertained katelyn the whole time! she even got up with katelyn way too early so i could sleep in.
i think the transition would have been very difficult for katelyn without my mother. she made sure that katelyn was well loved and had plenty of attention so that i could take care of and get used to the baby.
i was so sad to see my mom go. it made me wish she lived just a little closer so we could visit more often. thanks again mom. you really are a wonderful mother!
now if i could just get my dad to visit...

the labor story

before tanner came, i told him i had two stipulations for him. first stipulation: i didn't want him coming after his due date. second stipulation: i didn't want him coming in the middle of the night. my due date, september 18th came and went with no signs of tanner coming, so i was left hoping that he wouldn't come in the middle of the night. i was being selfish and thinking of myself. i really didn't want to lose all that sleep, but...
sunday evening we were going about our normal sunday activities of eating dinner, playing games, talking, etc. throughout these different activities i began to feel some light contractions. i let tyler and my mom know that i was having contractions, but told them (and myself as well) not to get their hopes up. i knew tyler was really hoping the baby would come that night or even the next morning. if the baby came within that time period then tyler could compeletly miss his test he had the next mornig without having to make it up. but the contractions weren't that bad and were spaced far apart. with katelyn once the first contraction hit, they didn't stop, so i was expecting that same experience again. bedtime came and i was still having regular contractions that were still far apart, so i told tyler that i might be waking him later on in the night. i was able to get a couple hours of sleep before i was woken up by a really painful contraction. i decided to go downstairs to see what would happen. it got to the point where the contractions were getting more painful and were close enough for me that i wanted to get to the hospital. i went back upstairs and woke tyler up and had him call the hospital to see if they would take me. my contractions were not 3-5 minutes apart at that point, so i wasn't sure if they would let me come. the hospital said that because it was my second child, i could come and they would get me all set up, so off we went. we got to the hospital at about 4:00 a.m.
the hospital was great. they got me a wheelchair as soon as i walked in, put me right in a room with a very nice nurse and checked me out to see how dilated i was. i was between a 3-4, so they said i would definitely be staying and asked when i wanted my epidural. i don't consider myself a baby, but i'm not in love with painful contractions, so i said that i wanted my epidural as soon as possible. i think i waited an hour before he was able to come. i felt like i was handling the contractions well, but was very relieved that he was there. as soon as he hooked me up the medicine started working. it was wonderful! i can't say enough how much i love epidurals.
i slept for a little bit, relaxed and watched t.v., talked with tyler and my nurses and waited for my doctor to show up. my doctor was just finishing up at another hospital, so she was able to drive right over to help deliver tanner. dr. janz checked me and said i was at a 7, then broke my water, checked me again and said i was at a 9 and ready to push. when she broke my water meconium came out with it, so they paged nurses from the nicu. my room was full of about 10 people all waiting for our baby to come.
when it was time to push, i pushed for two contractions and little tanner was there at 9:26 a.m.! it was a wonderful moment experiencing that again. both tyler and i felt the spirit when tanner arrived. we couldn't help but get emotional seeing this little person for the first time. he was such a sweet, handsome spirit right from the start.
the nicu nurses took him and cleaned him out. he cried and cried the whole time and didn't stop! we joked that this wasn't a good sign. eventually he calmed down and we were able to hold him. it was so neat to hold a newborn again. so sweet and innocent and ready to be taken care of.
we spent the next two days in the hopsital. i was very anxious this time to get home. i was ready to be in my own house with my family. i especially wanted to get home to see katelyn. i missed her tremendously while i was in the hospital.
now we are home with tanner and are enjoying (mostly) every minute.

tan the man

tanner is now one and a half weeks old today. we love this little man and couldn't be happier with him. he has such a nice temperment and seems quite mellow so far.

he is getting well aqaunted with lots of noise around our house. katelyn is doing a good job of breaking him in. she loves to be around him and always asks to hold him, and is constantly showering him with kisses. we do have to keep an eye on her when she's around him because she doesn't quite understand what it means to be soft with him.

we've experienced what it's like changing a baby boys diaper. you really have to be careful doing that.

we already have him on an eating and sleeping routine which makes it easier for me during the day/night because i know what to expect from him.

it's kind of fun doing this the second time around. i feel like we actually know what we are doing and know what to expect. naturally there are challenges that come with a new baby and even more challenges that come with having two kids, but it's all worth it. like i said, we love this little guy.

today we had a chance to snap some shots of tanner. it was a little more tricky than i realized to take shots of a sleeping newborn, but here he is at 1 1/2 weeks.

please don't judge my editing job-i still have some things to fix!

he's here...

tanner dale hedin

born monday, september 21, 2009 at 9:26 a.m.
weighing 7 lbs 4 oz
20 1/4 in



we are so happy to finally have tanner join our family. we will update with more details and pictures later!

boerner botanical gardens

my friend marissa and i have been planning this trip since the beginning of the summer, and we finally made it to the boerner botanical gardens. it really was a dream-like experience. so beautiful and very picturesque. especially for somebody who wanted a different scene besides the backyard to practice using her camera. plus i can't deny that i was secretly loving all of the walking we were doing. just giving baby an extra push, that's all.

for katelyn it was a place to run around with her friend, eliza, to explore and not get in any trouble. oh how i love outings like that.

there were flowers everywhere. we hit the gardens at the end of the season, so i know we missed out on some really pretty flowers. but, the garden was no disappointment, even at this time of year.

weekend visit with family-part two

ah, the windy city. while emily and andy were here we drove down to this crazy, expensive city (can you tell i'm not a city girl) to check out some of the fun it had to offer. it actually turned out to be one of our best visits so far. i think it was because we had emily's husband, wes, with us who really knows his way around the city so, a) we didn't get lost and b) he knew where the cheapest parking was.

this time we decided to check out this awesome street:



it really is magnificent. there are plenty of free things to see and do while taking a stroll down the sidewalk.

we didn't make it very far without seeing a number of street performers out trying to make some extra money. they really are quite entertaining. i could have spent the majority of the day just watching some of these talented people perform.



the statue guy. he was my favorite performer...at first. that is until we saw him again on our walk back. he was counting a wad of money with a cigarette in his mouth. i'm really not judgemental. he just didn't seem as appealing anymore.

one of our first stops was to the big chicago bean. it really is a fascinating piece of art. i had a lot of fun walking around taking tons of pictures of all of the different perspectives. and katelyn, well, she just had fun looking at herself. she was enthralled with her reflection.







we also stopped at some water fountains nearby the bean. if i had realized these fountains were there, i would have come more prepared because this is where katelyn could have spent all of her time. maybe next summer. thanks emily for walking around with her!






these fountains had large pictures of peoples faces on them. they mainly just stared, but they would blink every once and a while. i think we were there long enough to see two or three different faces.

we also had the chance to stop by the lego store and the hersheys store. i had been wanting to stop into these two places all day, but they were hard to find. luckily we found them right before we decided to head back to eat.



katelyn loved this lego guy. she kept smiling at him and touching him like he was a real person.



steven spielburg

they had so many different things built out of legos. some of them were huge! you have to have a lot of patience (or a real love for legos) to be able to build some of those things.



you can't go into the hersheys store without taking a picture of the giant candy bar.

we ended our day in chicago at the rainforest cafe where wes and emily treated us to a delicious dinner. it was the perfect place to take katelyn. she was entertained the whole time-especially because we got to sit right next to a huge fish tank.

it was tons of fun having some family to hang out with. thanks for the great day in chicago and for the whole weekend.