Deveroux's Blessing

Three short weeks after Dev was born we were able to bless him at church. My parents were able to come up (hence the reason he was blessed so soon after he was born) and we had close family and a few friends in Dev's blessing circle.
 
Sean gave Dev a beautiful short and sweet blessing. I of course cried. Dev did so great the whole time. He was swaddled in one of Grandma Bowman's white blankets and he even wore the outfit Sean was blessed in when he was a wee babe. It was very sweet. Dev slept the whole time and didn't even make a peep. He was amazing and so was his daddy. I'm so grateful for the worthy men in our lives to help Sean bless our sweet little boy!!!

We took pictures a few hours after Dev was blessed (totally dropping the ball on the second child lol) so we got to dress him in his cute little blessing outfit again :)

My Handsome Son

Here are Dev's newborn (at 4 weeks) pictures. I'm absolutely smitten by this little boy :)

One month

Whew! I can't believe it's already been a month! My babies are growing up too fast.

Hannah is doing really well with baby brother. She wasn't quite sure of him at first but now she loves to be by him, give him kisses, and poke him. We have to watch her closely because she doesn't quite understand "soft" yet. She gets emotional when baby brother cries. It's really sweet. She's such a great big sister ( big sister! I can't believe I'm saying that! I have 2 kids!) . She loves being outside. Thank goodness for the warmer weather. I think she'd go stir crazy if it was a blizzard outside.
At her 18 month check up she weighed 28 lbs, is 34 inches long and her head is 19 inches. She's still in the 90's for her percentile. Maybe we'll have a future volleyball player ;) overall my baby girl is amazing and I lover her to pieces. She's so sweet and loud, cuddly and busy, and beautiful. She loves to play in dirt, loves pizza, spaghetti, lasagna, and donuts ( thanks to her father) and a recent joy in her life is tapioca pudding. She loves to color ( and eat the crayons) loves sidewalk chalk, and jibber jabbers to her own language. It'll be sad when she actually starts talking in sentences and loses her jabber.

Deveroux is doing awesome. He's gained a whopping 3 lbs in a month and is the cutest ever. He pees on everything ( little boys man...) eats really well, and sleeps for longer increments than Hannah ever did as a baby, he has beautiful blue eyes and coos when he sleeps. He still has orange hair (shocker I know) and loves loves loves to cuddle. He loves looking at shadows and lights. He spits up alot more than Hannah ever did but I don't mind it. He loves his mommy and isn't quite sure of his daddy just yet. But overall he is thriving and we love him to pieces. At his 2 weeks check up he weighed 9.8 lbs, 21 inches long and 15 in for his head. He's growing too fast! We just love him to pieces and are so glad he's in our family. I don't remember what it was like without him.

Sean and I are doing great. Sean's as busy as ever with work and more work. He recently got called as 1st counselor in the Elders Quorum. He's now that much busier, poor guy! When he got called to be in the presidency one of the counselors in the stake presidency asked if there was any reason why he wouldn't be worthy to accept the calling and I said " absolutely not! I don't know of a better, more worthy and perfect man." The cousnelor starting tearing up and I lost it. He and I started crying. It was actually quite a neat experience. Sean probably thought we were crazy. I really do have such an amazing husband. I don't know where or what I'd be without him. He's such a great father to our children and an anazing husband and best friend to me. He inspires me, helps me, keeps me safe, and I'm still completely head over heals smitten by this man. Cheers to you handsome man!!

So. That's us so far, stay tuned for more!!

Deveroux Karl Bowman

He's here! He's here! Our son finally arrived on March 2, 2014 and we are so in love.

The Story:

I'd been having weekly appointments in my final weeks of pregnancy and at 36 weeks I was dilated to a 2 and 70% effaced. by 37 weeks I was at a 3 and 75% effaced. Then at 38 weeks I was dilated to a 4 and 80% effaced. Things were progressing quickly so my mom flew up early to help out with Hannah and to be here when I finally went into labor. This pregnancy has been so different from my little Hannah's pregnancy. I didn't expect Hannah to come so early (she was 10 days early) and I was SO sick with her. With my little boy I wasn't nearly as sick but I had sciatica nerves problems and I was so ready to be done being pregnant way before. I remember thinking at 29 weeks and almost crying thinking "I still have 11 weeks to go". Hannah also set the bar pretty high considering she was early so I expected and wanted this little boy to come early as well.

At 37 weeks I had been having consistent contractions that would wake me up because they were so painful at night. I called the midwives and they said to head up to labor and delivery just to make sure I wasn't truly in labor. So, Saturday morning I made my way to the hospital to get checked and of course my contractions stopped. I got checked and was monitored and everything was fine, I wasn't in labor.

I hit 38 weeks and was so miserable poor Sean, Hannah, and my mom probably didn't want to be around me much. This little boy had been measuring big since day one. He's quite the big boy :) When I hit march 1st, I was 10 days away from my due date and was sure he'd be coming that day just like his big sister came 10 days early. But, low and behold, he wasn't ready. Saturday I was so ornery and wasn't feeling well at all. I remember we went out to eat for my moms birthday and walked around for a while to tired Hannah out. We came home did all the nightly routines to get Hannah ready for bed and finally went to bed ourselves. At 11:45 that night I woke up to the worst stomach cramps and was on the toilet pretty much every 10 minutes till 2 am. By then I'd been having consistent contractions every 5-6 minutes apart. I didn't think I was in labor because my water broke with Hannah so I knew I was in labor. I decided to call the midwives anyway and let them know what was going on. Leeann told me to come in anyway and get checked to be sure. My mom took me to the hospital so that Sean could stay with Hannah in case she woke up in the middle of the night. We got to the hospital around 3 and got checked. I was dilated to a 5 and 85% effaced. Leeann decided to keep me and get started to have a baby since I was dilating. By the time they got me in to a room and situated, the checked me again and I was dilated to a 6. So I got an epidural and kept on dilating. I was strep B positive so they started my penicillin. (worst medicine ever). After my epidural I slowed down so Leeann broke my water and everything started escalating. My mom went home and switch Sean so he could be there for the birth. The second dose of penicillin nearly killed me. My arm was on fire and thought I was going to die. My epidural was only working on my left side and I could feel pretty much everything on my right side. The epidural guy had to come in twice to give me more numbing stuff. by 9:30 am Leeann said I was ready to start pushing. She got everything ready, and after 6 pushes, my baby boy was born! He arrived at 9:34 am, and was and is absolutely beautiful. I cried the minute I saw him. I couldn't believe he was mine. I got to hold him skin to skin and it was amazing. Worth everything minute of pain and sleeplessness. They took him to get weighed and all that fun stuff. I started feeling horrible pain in my hand/arm again from the penicillin. I swear, it was worse than labor! I finally screamed to get my IV taken out and they did. instant relief let me tell you!

They weighed the little man and he was 8.14 lbs and 20.5 inches long and absolutely perfect. I was totally shocked with his hair color. It's almost blonde!! He has light hair and light eyes. We were going to name hims either Shane or Jared, but he came out and didn't look like either. We had heard the name Deveroux before we knew we were having a boy and didn't think much of it. Sean and I were sitting in the hospital room trying to figure out a name for this little guy and I just blurted out Deveroux. Sean smiled and so did I so did I. We had a name for our little guy!!! Deveroux (dev-er-oh) is an old family name from Sean's Dads side of the family.

We then were taken to our room where we stayed for 24 hours and were able to come home the following day. I am so grateful my mom was here to help throughout the whole thing and that Sean was there with us as well. Hannah is doing awesome with little Deveroux. She gives him kisses and loves to touch his head. When she sees him in the mornings she points to him and says "baby!" it's super cute. I was worried about her but she's doing awesome.  I can't believe we're a family of 4!!

A mothers work is never done

As I sit here at 5 in the morning holding my almost 17 month old who for the most part sleeps through the night now unless she's teething ( which she is) or pees through her diaper, wakes up and decides it's time to play, or.... Let's face it the list could go on... I quietly reflect on how beautiful she is. I realize that after almost 17 months if sleepless nights, rocking her to sleep, feeding her, changing her, and quietly tiptoeing out if her room not to wake her that a mothers work is never done. We are on call 24/7. There's no vacation days or holidays. We are always there for these little ones.

When she goes down at night, usually around 8:30, I feel like that's when I accomplish the most. I finally get to the laundry that's been sitting in the dryer all day, I finally sweep and mop the floor from splatters spaghetti, crumbled crackers, and who knows what else. I get to pick up all the  Tupperware strewn across the house ( yes she loves to play in the Tupperware drawer), I vacuum the tv room of yet more crumbs of crackers and what not ( how can someone so little make such a mess!) and finally when it's all done I get to sit down and who knows, watch a show, read a book, have a bowl of ice cream? And yet I'm too exhausted to do any of those things and so crawl into bed only to start over in a few hours. The question that lingers in my mind at the wee hours of the morning while holding my precious firecracker of a child is this, " is it worth it?" And my answer... YES. Every minute of it. I wouldn't change being a mother and having this little lady in my life for a second. Worth. Every. Minute. So.... I'm giving a shout out to you mothers who do it all. Bless your beautiful soul! And just remember, there's at least one mother out there doing the same thing :)

29 weeks

For Christmas I really wanted to do a 3D ultrasound for the little man. We did it with Hannah and it was so cool! So Sean finally gave in and we were able to see the little man at 29 weeks. He's so cute! I think he looks just like Sean :)

Christmas

Christmas was fabulous this time of year. Even though I missed home terribly I was lucky enough to spend it here with Sean's family. It was SO much fun!

Our festivities started on the Sunday before Christmas. We all went up to Sean's uncle Nate's house. It was great. We had fabulous food, great conversation, and a fun white elephant gift exchange. We really enjoyed ourselves and Hannah had a blast.

Christmas eve we gathered at Sean's parents house. We had an AMAZING Mexican dinner with mole, tamales, enchiladas, tacos and tons more. It was all SO good. I actually made my Mom's famous 7 layer bean dip and surprised myself. It was actually really really good! I also made my mom's english toffee that she makes every year at Christmas time. I'd like to start/keep these traditions for my family and continue with more traditions Sean and I will make. After dinner we gathered around for some great music and some great stories read by Grandpa Momberger and Papa Bowman. It was great!

Christmas morning we stayed here at home with our little family and opened presents here. Sean got me a breadmaker! I've wanted a breadmaker for the longest time and he got me such a great one. It makes REALLY good bread! I've made 3 loaves already and they've been devoured immediately. Best present ever :) Sean got a new phone, some tools, and lots of candy and clothes :) The best was little Hannah. She was AWESOME! We got her a cute little airplane thingy that she can sit on and steer around that she absolutely LOVES. She wouldn't get off the thing and better yet she could care less about the gifts Santa brought her. She's such a character :)

We then went and had breakfast at Sean's parents, came home got ready for the day and then headed back over to Sean's parents for Christmas dinner and presents. Hannah got the cutest little vacuum and blocks from the grandparents and grandma Bowman made the sweetest little blankets for the little man who's coming in March.

Overall it was such a great Christmas with family. We loved being together especially having Sean home these past two weeks. It's been so fun.