New Year!

Today marked the start of my 11th year of teaching! Jack started 2nd grade at Leverett and Nolan started a new daycare. It was a great day overall!

Nolan loves his new school which in turn makes me love his new school. He struggled with his school last school and cried every day I dropped him off. Every. Day. Spider monkey and all...it was terrible. After two days at his new school he was walking in on his own and waving good-bye! Huge progress!

He is in the 2-3 year old room. Nolan loves Spider-Man, Superman, and Ninja Turtles right now. He is a funny boy who loves to make people laugh and make silly faces. He is a little bit of a Jekyll and Hyde because when I'm not around he is an angel child and listens without crying or whining and the moment I come in the tears flow. No one can figure it out. 

Jack is so excited about 2nd grade and told his teacher during open house that his favorite subject is math. He definitely didn't get that from me. He is an inquisitive boy and his new favorite show is 20/20 because he loves to hear other people's stories. That he does take after me!! He is smart, funny and a nice kid and I hope he has a great year!

Nolan

So, I'm terrible with keeping this post up and I've decided that I'm going to use it as a reminder of all the funny things my crazy kids do or say. First up...Nolan Hinkson. He is a crazy 2 1/2 year old and is totally giving me hell this summer! 

When I have to do lawn work and it's just Nolan and I then I usually have him watch Turtles to keep him still. He has never been the type of kid to dig out food/paint/, etc. and make giant messes. Well, I spoke too soon...I was out mowing and Nolan said he wanted to come outside. He goes inside to grab his shoes and takes longer than anticipated so I go inside. He comes out with white powder like material all over him. Back story here...we had french toast that morning and he LOVED the powdered sugar. So, low and behold he decided he needed more on what little he had left on his plate. He got the powdered sugar off the counter and dumped some more on his plate and then continued dumping more on the floor, the dog food bowl, and all over the floor when he couldn't get the bag back on the counter. 

I came in upset with the giant mess and started to get on to him and asking him what happened and all he could say was "I don't know." I brought him over to the bag and pointed at it and said Look, what did you do? His response "Oh no! What happened?!" After I cleaned up the mess I had to laugh it off because he was so shocked at the mess and had no clue what had happened. Crazy kid. 

On the road and posting about it!

The Hinksons are on our last family vacation for the summer. 😥 We are heading to Dallas for 5 days and then our friends Kristin and Dan and their two kids are visiting from Nebraska. I'm so excited to see them! 

This is how the kiddos handle the trip and us too. We are down to one DVD player so it gets touchy sometimes! 

I will post more later now that I can update from my phone! So excited!

Now or never....

Well, I'm back for those who follow....crickets.  Yes.  Anyway, I really want to keep a journal of some type to document how our life is going and our feelings and all that and this seems to be the only way.  I see the last time I was on here was when I went back to maternity leave so I'll catch up quickly.

Nolan is now 15 months old and was the perfect baby for the first year..haha!  I swear there is colic for older babies because he has it.  I think a little bit can be attributed to the fact that he got almost all of his teeth over Christmas break and that we probably have a little bit of a communication issue going on.  He is one stubborn and hard headed child...I know, I don't know who he could have gotten that from.  Anyway, we are plugging along with him and trying to teach him how to talk really fast.

He did have his first bang up job the other day.  I have always said that the fact that this kid does not listen when I say "no" that he is going to get himself in trouble.  Well, I was right in the bad way... We were outside and I was doing yard work and the boys were playing in the back of JR's truck.  Jack had gotten out and Nolan stayed in and was just exploring the cab.  All the sudden I look up and he is climbing on the tire cover and as I'm yelling "no" and "stop" he, of course, doesn't listen and continues to head dive over the side.  He landed on his head on the concrete driveway and I about flipped out!  Luckily, I am pretty calm in those kind of situations and I got him and put ice packs in the appropriate places and gave him ice water because he had bitten his tongue as well, twice.  I watched for symptoms of a head injury and he was sleepy but only took a short nap.  The next day he woke up with a bounce in his step like nothing happened.

Jack is doing fantastic.  He turned 6 on March 5th and I still can't get it in my head that he is a 6 year old!  We just finished up his first season of basketball and are going to begin baseball next week! JR and I both like baseball the best and can't wait to see how he does with coach pitched baseball.  He is picking up on JR and I's sarcastic humor and has become quite the little smarty pants.  We are teaching him when it is appropriate and not to be a smart mouth. 

That is enough catch-up for now.  I will post pics and such later!

Nolan's first bath!

Nolan actually enjoyed his first bath unlike his brother. The only time he cried was when I put the lotion on him at the end.

His awesome pout that he does when he gets mad or is beginning to get upset.

Nolan's first few weeks!

We borrowed some hats from Uncle David and Aunt Jillian and took a nice shot! You can see he is enjoying this.


Him in the swing looking so serious. He was a week old.


Just hanging out...what babies at this age do best.

Nolan's Birth!

Nolan's birth story is completely unlike Jack's story. I went in to see another doctor, other than my own, the day before Thanksgiving. Nolan's due date was supposed to be Thanksgiving day but the office was not open on that day so I was to be seen the day before. This doctor examined me and realized I was still at a 2 and about 20% effaced. She said it was tricky to pick induction dates since there was a holiday and the weekend coming up so she asked if I had any ideas. I asked for that day and she easily agreed. She said "ok, that is fine, go on upstairs to L&D." JR was at work, I still had Jack and I had not brought our hospital bag with us. I asked if I could have an hour or so and she agreed.

I called JR at work and told him we were going to have a baby that day and to get home! I then proceeded to call the rest of my family and tell them to make their way to Fayetteville. We got Jack squared away with our friend Logan, which Jack was more excited about going with him then getting a little brother, and headed to the hospital. We got there around 1:00pm and were thinking this baby was going to come faster than Jack....no such luck. I did get an epidural for this child as well and man it took big time! The delivery of it was even better than the first time as well! I started feeling the effects right away and got worried at one point that I might be getting too much medicine because I couldn't even move my legs or butt to move around. It was obviously helpful during delivery! Afterwards though I wasn't able to fully feel my legs until around 3:30am. The first time I got up and tried to stand I nearly fell over. Thankfully I had a nice bright yellow hospital bracelet that I said FALL RISK.

I slowly progressed all day and took full advantage of the free popsicles as you can see! At about 9:00pm the nurse wanted to check me one last time before the doctor went to the sleep room. I had just sent my dad and brother's family to eat since I thought it was going to be a lot longer. The nurse said "well I think you're ready, I'll call the doctor." Everybody started getting the room ready and warming up the baby warmer. The nurse wanted to make sure I remembered how to push so we tried one and she stopped me at count 4 because the baby was coming! The doctor arrived and got her scrubs on and we started pushing at 9:21pm and he was born after two pushes at 9:25pm. I couldn't believe how much easier it was this time around. The baby nurse had to run and get the medicine she forgot for Nolan and she didn't even make it back in time! He was born on November 23rd at 9:25pm weighing 8lbs 9ozs and 21 1/4 in. long. We were so happy to finally meet him!

Flowers sent to me by JR's work.

Me enjoying popsicles and being pumped full of fluids and my epidural.

....and he's here!!


First pic with big brother the next day! Jack was so excited to finally see him!

Baby #2

Well, I'm going to try again to keep this up. I feel bad that I did pretty well with it during Jack's childhood and I would like Nolan to have the same thing when he grows up. I'm not promising a ton of posts but hopefully something worth while!

The first thing I'm going to start with are all the belly shots I took during my second pregnancy. I wish I would have done this with Jack because all I have from his pregnancy are a bunch of random shots and I don't know how far along I am in any of them. So, here we go....


23 weeks!

27 weeks!

29 weeks!

30 weeks!

33 weeks!

34 weeks!

38 weeks and having to conduct on this day! I called this my Johnny Cash outfit.

38 weeks as well! Jack took this picture which explains its great angle! Turns out this was the last week I took pictures. Oh well...you get the idea...I was huge!