The Best Whirlwind

The last few days have been a crazy, glorious, amazing, blessing of a BLUR.

After Wednesday's totally freaked out post, Justin and I went out to dinner for a belated anniversary date once he finished jury duty, as Lizzy was spending the night at my parents' house. At that point, my head was in a totally different world, and I probably wasn't the best dinner company. We came home, and I had a bit of a meltdown, and then we fell asleep watching The Big Bang Theory, which is one of our newest loves! It was kind of a sucky five year anniversary date considering that I spent a good portion of it crying (ugh), but was also probably exactly what I needed at the moment!

I woke up about midnight mumbling something about how I HAD to plug in my dead cell phone in case my sister-in-law Renee went into labor. I think Justin thought I was insane because her due date is the 26th of this month. Then after I plugged it in, I pretty much didn't sleep the whole night, worrying about the dermatologist appointment on Monday. Which is silly, because it's not like I'll actually know anything on Monday anyway. I should be worrying about two weeks from Monday...but I digress. About 4am, we got a call that Renee was at the hospital and her water broken earlier that night (!)--my other sister-in-law Kelsey was at their house with the kiddos, but that she'd probably drop them at my house in the morning if that was okay. Of course it was, and I definitely didn't sleep much after that :)

The kiddos came over to my house in the morning, and then we headed to my parents' house to pick up Lizzy, and I figured we'd just hang out there and swim until we heard something. Payton and Logan were SO excited.

My sister asked us to come visit her at work, and the kiddos were THRILLED that she got them celebratory smoothies.

 Then later, we had giant pizza slices at my favorite pizza place in the whole wide world. Seriously, I want it again right now. I may have opened Pandora's Box by going there while pregnant, because now it's the only thing I want to eat. 

After that, we went swimming. They all did great. Lizzy was jumping in to the pool of the side of the ledge (jumping to me, but me letting her go under water briefly and then come back up). Payton is usually a little hesitant swimming and likes to use floaties, but before long she had those suckers off, and was putting her face in the water and practicing swimming across the pool (she did great!). Logan also took his floaties off and practiced swimming without them. It was a ton of fun. There are few things that make me happier than swimming with kiddos. 

We swam for several hours, and then Lizzy started to get really fussy, and so we piled in the car to head home. Within probably 5 miles, all 3 were out like a light. They all slept the 40 minutes home or so. Once home, we watched a quick episode of Dora, and then got ready to head to Justin's softball game, which was conveniently located just around the corner from the hospital. I continued to try not to call and text Ryan and Renee every 5 minutes to see how things were going :)

Our friend Pam is the master tooth puller. At the game, Payton asked her to see if one of her teeth was ready. It was :) Payton was thrilled that she lost a tooth the same day as she was gaining a little sister. Just in the last few minutes of the softball game (about 8:00pm) we got a call that their sweet baby sister had been born. Justin was still playing, but the kiddos were so excited I thought they might cry, so we made a plan for me to take the kids to the hospital right then, and Justin would meet us there after the game. 

{I wish I could toss up some "real" photos on here, but I have forgotten my camera card at home no less than 4 times in the last couple of weeks, and I'm just not taking any chances on that today!}

And we got to meet their beautiful "little" sister, who weighed 9 pounds 2oz, even two weeks early!!! As of last night, they hadn't quite picked a name, but I can't wait to see what they come up with! We didn't stay too long because it was late and Renee had been in labor for like 20 hours, and I'm sure she could not WAIT to get some sleep! Payton cried big time when we left, because she wanted to stay with her sister forever. It was the sweetest thing ever. 

We promised to come back in the morning when they wake up (you better believe we will, because I need to take 1,000,000 more photos, and I haven't actually held and snuggled her yet!)  It has been an awesomely exhausting couple of days. And you know what? I am so thankful for every minute of it, because not only has it been so much fun, but it has also left me nary a minute to dwell or stress about that stinking mole the dermatologist is removing on Monday. And that's a pretty amazing blessing in and of itself. But to not think of it because of a new little niece who has all of our hearts? Even better. And to think that in like FOUR MONTHS it'll be me having another little one? Amazing. 

The best whirlwind of all.