My baby's Daddy

Okay, I have to brag. I married the sweetest man and the BEST Daddy for my kids. I just found this video on the camera and had to share it with you:

When I married Chris Carpenter I knew I was in love with him, but I never knew what kind of Daddy he would be. He was always funny, so I knew he would be a fun dad, but how would he discipline? How protective would he be? Would he be patient? After we had been married a year and a half, I started getting "the itch." He wasn't ready. He said there were too many things he wasn't ready to give up. But, after a while he "gave in". When the time came, I got to tell him the good news with a little camo.

And then on June 3, 2003 when Chloe Grace was born, his heart exploded.

He loved his baby girl.

Though the hunting slowed down a little, we still had our date nights and we still had our NAPS! But then, I was ready for #2. Chris said he wasn't ready. He didn't think he could love another one as much as he loved Chloe. There wasn't room in our little house for another and he wasn't ready to lose more time outdoors. But, after we moved into the bigger house...guess what!

Cameron Elise was born on October 18, 2006
This time, Chris Carpenter was telling ME that we needed another one right away. He had so much love for his two girls that surely we needed more! (Obviously, he didn't just spend 9 months very uncomfortable, give birth or deal with the breast feeding every 3 hours of the day and night!)

And here we are today. With a family of 5!

Can you believe it? We can't. But, what I do know is that no matter the craziness, lack of sleep or frustration, we LOVE our kids. And the love I see in Chris for his kids makes me adore him even more! He is a better Daddy than I could have imagined.

A Little Love from Oklahoma

Grammie came in from Oklahoma exhausted, but she lit up when

she held her new grandson!

Devin was too sweet with his new cousin!!

Ohhh, the things they will do when Koda gets older!

Look Who's Got Postpartum......

Chris has lost it ladies and gentlemen...but in a good way. God knew what He was doing when He gave this man to me! He keeps me laughing even when I am sleep deprived, engorged and moody!

Koda's Story

Every birth has a story...and well, mine have been pretty boring, until now.

Saturday night I realized I hadn't slept in 3 nights, so I would take an Ambien to get some rest. I started having some regular contractions, but I had them the night before and they went away. I fell asleep at 10, only to be awaken by CONTRACTIONS at 11:00. I woke up Chris and said we are going to the hospital! Sweet Julie had told me that day that she would come stay with the girls if it happened that night, so Julie came to the rescue and we were off.

You have to realize that I have had two inductions. With Chloe, I was having contractions but I was only dilated at a 2. So, they broke my water and gave me pitocin.

Cami was also induced at 41 weeks...and then I was only dilated at a 3.

When I got to the hospital room I was at a 6-7! And well, I now KNEW what a contraction felt like!


Chris even filmed me going through one. I think it is funny, but please don't watch or judge if you think this is TMI!

I finally got an epidural, but after many contractions we found out that there was a "kink" in it and it only numbed my legs!!!!!! They asked if I wanted to go ahead and go natural or have the guy pull out the epidural and get a whole new one. After have two episiotomys, I said, let's go for number two! Praise the Lord at a 9, I felt nothing! It was time to push!

Did I forget to mention that this whole time I felt like I was "under the influence" due to the Ambien? I remember talking to the nurse and my vison was crossing....in the middle of pushing I would close my eyes and have trouble opening them!

Of course on a Saturday night at 11:45p.m. my beloved Dr. Scott was not on call, but Dr. Rupe did a great job with me!

After about 20 minutes he was here! At 3:51a.m. (actually 2:51, but it was daylight savings time) Koda arrived with lots of black hair and a nose just like Cami's! He was 8lbs 14oz, so I was happy I took the second epidural.

But as soon as we were ready to go to sleep, it was 6:00 a.m., so here came all the nurses to take blood and check stats.

Here are some fun pictures of these two days in the hospital. Yes, I am writing this here. I don't see "time to kill" on my blog in my near future!

Fun with Dr. Seuss

This week, all the first graders were asked to dress up as a character in their favorite book. Chloe had a hard time with this one. (If you know the drama we go through to get dressed each morning just for school, you can imagine the drama of a dress up day!) So, she settled on being one of the girls in Purplicious who thought pink was out and black was in!

But Julie and I were definately not ashamed to get crazy!

And what is Thing 1 and Thing 2 without The Cat in the Hat! Jamie looked awesome!

It seems the teachers were definately more excited then the kiddos to dress up.

The best part of the day was having a doctor's appointmet right after school! I would forget about my blue hair and then the double takes would happen. At least Koda waited so his birth would not be tainted with a blue haired Momma!

Happy Birthday Jackson!

I only have 4 more hours until midnight, but today is March 2nd and it is my friend Jackson's birthday. As I was thinking about his birthday, I remembered one of the years we celebrated with him and wanted to share:

Little Hunter Man at age 3


He had already stolen Chloe's heart!
and had many adoring fans!

Happy Birthday Jackson! The Carpenters LOVE you!

More Blessings

Today the Carpenters were blessed again from friends and family at our church. We started out eatting wonderful food and visiting at the church's Garden Room.Then Betty got to the games! I LOVE games! The first one was to guess what candy bar had been melted in a diaper. You would think for all the showers I have been to that I would have done this one...but I hadn'tMindy tried to tutor Rita on the various candy bars while Rita enjoyed that fact that Mindy could throw up at any moment!Having 8 children between them, Heather and Tonya were sure that they could win this one!Sorry Crystal for the bad shot, but I love how you are telling Pamela what to look for in the DIAPER!

You know me...I had to act like I was giving it a taste test!

Congratulations CRYSTAL for getting all 5 poopy diapers right!After the memory game (which Elmira won) I got to open the sweetest gifts! You can't beat Pamela and Teresa's mongrammed gifts!How cute is this?

Then Tonya had to go and make me cry with her sweet card and SCRAPBOOK PAGES!!!!

Thank you so much ladies for all your love, friendship and blessing me in so many ways!